Children of the Year

Not only Greta Thunberg but you also are TIME magazine's 2019 "Person of the Year."  Children have the means of communication to meet the challenges of reducing and eliminating global threats of climate change, migration, and gun and nuclear weapon destruction by terrorists and nation states at home and abroad.

     Inaction no longer satisfies indigenous peoples confronting destruction of the Amazon forest in Brazil, democracy activists in Hong Kong, or religious orders of nuns offering proposals at the Vatican and stockholder meetings in New York.

     Just as Greta Thunberg did, children can paint a slogan for change on a sign and hold it up in front of the adults in the media, legislatures, banks, and corporations that have the power to act now. And young people have the numbers and time to keep the pressure on from now into the future.

     For other thoughts on the impact children have, see the earlier post, "Youth and Social Media Fuel Democracy."

Beware the New Normal

In the US, a wealthy, powerful and privileged plutocracy has defined a new normal that fails normal people, according to an article by Anand Giridharadas in TIME magazine (December 2-9, 2019), His observations apply equally to the elite hyperwealthy who govern in many countries throughout the world. Those who Giridharadas calls plutes know how to mask their influence by using the following tactics real normal people need to recognize and reject.

They:

• Emphasize job creation, when they expect tax breaks where they locate a new business, contribute to climate change, or disregard environmental and worker safety laws. 
• Benefit from ongoing corruption involved in constructing a sports arena that provides a day of entertainment for fans.
• Offset massive returns from investments of questionable social value, such as production of sugary soda drinks, by making some do-good investments and philanthropic contributions.
• Learn to describe their fear of losing wealth to taxes as harmful to those who benefit from their philanthropy and research to develop new products and drugs.
• Win elections by posing as the ones who are providing the food supplied by humanitarian organizations.
• Prefer paying fines, even major ones, to making actual reforms of harmful and unfair practices.
• Hire public relations' experts to brand harmful and unfair practices with deceptive labels and descriptions that sound like public services.
• Blame poverty on the victims of government policies or people who just don't like to work.

Whatever a person's religion or lack of religion, the Christmas season offers a reminder that it takes a god to be a savior. The world is too complicated for a wealthy individual to govern alone; it takes an administration. Fair elections enable lucky voters to choose between a one-person administration dedicated to maintaining a wealthy elite or an administration with a president, cabinet, congress, and courts devoted to the rule of law and institutions that serve the public interest.

No Time To Be Stupid

China's leader, Mr. Xi Jinping, asserts every country's government is legitimate, even one like his that censors everything a person sees and says and uses facial recognition technology to monitor the activities of every citizen. There are numerous ramifications of acknowledging despotic governments that ignore human rights and theocratic governments that require all people to follow the same religious beliefs and practices deserve the same respect and fealty as governments founded on democratic principles.

     Take the example of neurotechnologies capable of inserting electrodes into a brain to temporarily reduce the time it takes to memorize multiplication tables, a football playbook, or the codes and plans of a military enemy. Invasion into a brain also has other effects. Blood leakage into a brain's compartments from such an insert eventually reduces normal cell activities, such as memory and thinking. The impact on one brain function also can "cross talk" to impact other brain functions, such as the moral ability to discern right from wrong.

     Some scientists devote themselves to technologies that enhance the individual, commercial, and military applications of human individuals, robots, and drones. Other humans use technology to binge-watch shows, socialize on smartphones, or order lipstick and mascara. Around the world, everyone has a stake in supporting governments devoted to: 1) promoting technologies that are good for society and 2) impeding the development and controlling the use of technologies that injure humans.

Holiday Gifts Come From Away

Investigate presents that help others and the world.

• SERRV (serrv.org/category/gifts)
• UNICEF (market.unicefusa.org)
• Heifer (heifer.org/marketplace)
• World Wildlife Fund (gifts.worldwildlife.org)
• National Wildlife Federation (shopnwf.org)
• kiva micro loans (kiva.org)
• Samaritan's Purse (samaritanspurse.org/operation-christmas-child)
• Arbor Day Foundation (shop.arborday.org)

Cost Out A Better Future

Democratic candidate for U.S. President, Andrew Yang, proposes sending every person over 18 years of age a government check for $1000 each month. Why? Human beings need food, shelter, and clothing every month. Yet, automation is expected to eliminate more and more of the ways people now earn the funds needed to provide these necessities, while corporations accumulate greater wealth by replacing employees with machines.

     Already, Yang notes, big tech companies, such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google, grow rich by packaging and selling the private information millions and billions of individuals supply free of charge.

     Technological changes require changes in other sectors of human life. When work requires manipulating information on a computer, the physical strength of men is unnecessary. Childcare is still necessary, but how it is provided and by whom need not be confined to unpaid natural mothers.

     Not only childcare, but $1000-a-month paychecks also would provide compensation for those whose time creates an enjoyable community life: the shoppers and clerks who get to know each other, community leaders who organize groups and boycotts to solve problems, gardeners who share crops with neighbors and plant flowers to beautify walking paths, visitors who watch sports with the homebound, families who attend religious services together, friends and relatives who celebrate birthdays with homemade cakes, cards, and presents, and those who write "Thank you" notes.

     Those dissatisfied with $1000 a month will innovate. Designs can be sleeker. Drugs can cure more. Experts can develop more effective teaching methods. Constitutions, standards, and collective agreements can harness, not only the temporary impulses of a mob, but also the independent actions of robots and AI. Dives can go deeper. Spacecraft can go farther. Games can be more fun.

     $1000 a month is a small price to pay for a better world.

   

Understanding Medical Practices

If you ever received a consent form mere hours or minutes before a hospital procedure, you can imagine how confused the mother was when she received a form asking her to agree to let one of her unborn twins participate in Dr. He Jiankui's gene-editing experiment. Relying on information learned from Dr. Michael Deem, his U.S. Ph.D. mentor, Dr. He used the CRISPR-Cas9 technique to disable the gene that enables HIV to enter a cell by attaching itself to a protein.

     Medical professionals cannot be expected to write informed consent forms lay people can understand. Communication experts in the countries where forms are used need to choose the best ways to translate modern medical research and procedures and to pilot test forms before they are used.

     Since drugs produced in one country are used and sold at different prices throughout the world, they have the potential to be weaponized by overpricing them for, or withholding them from, enemy countries.

     Other practices also require attention. Some countries and companies offer financial rewards for stealing intellectual property.
The FBI is investigating Yu Zhou for making millions by forming a company based on a discovery he made while using U.S. government grants and performing research owned by Ohio's National Children;s Hospital while he worked in a lab there for ten years.

     In a major example of "ethics dumping," the practice of performing a medical procedure in another country that is banned at home, China's health ministry prevented Italian neurosurgeon, Dr. Sergio Canavero, from attaching the head of a paralyzed patient to the body of a deceased donor in China.

     When a doctor suggests a child take a prescribed drug or undergo a procedure, does the child's parent or guardian truly understand the side effects and alternatives? Modern medicine is not only costly; it is complicated. Busy adults often lack time to obtain a second opinion, ask a pharmacist if there is a lower cost generic, analyze internet opinions, or subscribe to and read a newsletter from a medical research center. At the very least, a relationship with a child's doctor and specialists needs to feel comfortable enough to ask questions and follow-up questions to make answers clear. As soon as children are old enough, involve
them in the questioning. They want to know if a needle or the dentist will hurt and how long they will be in the hospital or have to wear a cast or braces.

      Teachers, scouting groups, boys and girls clubs, etc. might look for opportunities to assign reports on subjects, such as gene editing, bioethics, using drones to deliver drugs in Africa, hair growth products, vaccines, and vaping. Also, see if the Red Cross, nursing organizations, emergency medical services, local hospitals, or other medical associations have outreach programs that provide speakers and tours.

     Students always ask how what they are supposed to learn is relevant. Everywhere in the world learning about health is relevant.

Foreign Policy Need Not Be "Foreign":

Every year the Foreign Policy Association identifies the areas of the world that need our attention and prepares information to help us understand and discuss these issues. The association has prepared materials on the following for 2020:

• Climate change
• India and Pakistan conflict
• Red Sea security
• Modern slavery and human trafficking 
• U.S. relations with the Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador)
• China's Road to Latin America
• U.S. relations with the Philippines
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data

To find out how to obtain these materials and how to start a foreign policy discussion group, go to fpa.org/great_decisions.