STREAMING: Henry Kissinger: How Biden should handle China | The Economist

The uploaded video can be viewed farther down. For your interest ahead of time, here are interesting reads from earlier posts on this blog via Niall Ferguson:

1 20 September 2018

What would be the impact on history of self-learning machines — machines that acquired knowledge by processes particular to themselves, and applied that knowledge to ends for which there may be no category of human understanding? 

How the Enlightenment Ends Philosophically, intellectually — in every way — human society is unprepared for the rise of artificial intelligence

Photo: Edmon De Haro

By Henry A. Kissinger

Would these machines learn to communicate with one another? How would choices be made among emerging options? Was it possible that human history might go the way of the Incas, faced with a Spanish culture incomprehensible and even awe-inspiring to them? Were we at the edge of a new phase of human history?

Aware of my lack of technical competence in this field, I organized a number of informal dialogues on the subject, with the advice and cooperation of acquaintances in technology and the humanities. These discussions have caused my concerns to grow . . .

> . . Inundated via social media with the opinions of multitudes, users are diverted from introspection; in truth many technophiles use the internet to avoid the solitude they dread. All of these pressures weaken the fortitude required to develop and sustain convictions that can be implemented only by traveling a lonely road, which is the essence of creativity.

The impact of internet technology on politics is particularly pronounced. The ability to target micro-groups has broken up the previous consensus on priorities by permitting a focus on specialized purposes or grievances. Political leaders, overwhelmed by niche pressures, are deprived of time to think or reflect on context, contracting the space available for them to develop vision.

> The digital world’s emphasis on speed inhibits reflection

> its incentive empowers the radical over the thoughtful

> its values are shaped by subgroup consensus, not by introspection.

For all its achievements, it runs the risk of turning on itself as its impositions overwhelm its conveniences. . .

READ MORE > https://medium.com/the-atlantic

2

Networks and Hierarchies in the Trump Era: An Interview with Niall Ferguson

By Davis Richardson • 01/15/18 11:00am

"From the World Economic Forum to the annual Bilderberg Summit, Niall Ferguson buzzes through powerful networks. A senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, Ferguson launched into the academic stratosphere by analyzing empires and the powerbrokers who build them, advocating for Western hegemony even as the United States entered the Iraq War. His subjects include the Rothschild Family and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger—who selected the Scottish academic as his authorized biographer while providing unmitigated access to his private letters sealed in the Library of Congress. . .

 

 

In writing about history’s titans, Ferguson became one in his own right: Time Magazine named him one of the most 100 influential people in 2004, while Republican Senator John McCain hired him as an advisor during his 2008 U.S. presidential campaign.
In the Trump era, Ferguson has brandished his intellectual credentials by putting the seismic shifts caused by global networks and social media into historical context. . . "

To understand the extent in which Facebook and Google have altered our political system, reporter Davis Richardson called up Ferguson to discuss disinformation campaigns, networks and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the President.

READ MORE of the interview transcript answering these questions:

Link > The Observer

Observer:

• What can the history of networks and hierarchies teach us about how technology is changing them?
• Do networks and hierarchies work harmoniously or is there an inherent conflict between one another?
• You say that these companies in Silicon Valley are decentralized, but it seems they’re very consolidated regarding capital and the concentration of data.Does social media reinforce power structures throughout history? It’s reminiscent of Marx’s philosophy that the bourgeoisie is never fixed and subject to renewal
• How did networks become so polarized through technology?
• Kissinger likened cyberspace to Thomas Hobbes’ ‘State of Nature.’ Although social networks have centralized the powers of the state, such as with U.S. and Chinese surveillance, they’ve also brought about massive instability. . . . What are some of the challenges that we’re going to have to deal with in such a paradoxical system?
• Although Trump framed himself as a political outsider, he was ingratiated with elite networks. . . What did his election signify in the context of networks and hierarchies?
• Has the world power dynamic shifted back into spheres of influence, multipolar structure reminiscent of Otto Von Bismarck’s Europe?

3 The global network has become dangerously unstable
By Niall Ferguson   February 20, 2017
Source: The Boston Globe
The world today is like a giant network on the verge of a cataclysmic outage.  Far from spreading truth and love, the network excels at disseminating lies and hate, because those are the things we nasty, fallen human beings like to click on.

The president of the United States tweets that his own intelligence agencies are illegally leaking classified information to The New York Times about his campaign’s communications with the Russian government, but he insists that it’s all “fake news.” (Read that again, slowly.)

You cannot understand the world today without understanding how it has changed as a result of new information technology. This has become a truism. The question is, how has it changed? The answer is that technology has enormously empowered networks of all kinds relative to traditional hierarchical power structures.
The reality is that the global network has become a dangerously unstable structure. Far from promoting equality, the network does the opposite, by allowing hyperconnected “superhubs” to emerge.

Far from spreading truth and love, the network excels at disseminating lies and hate, because those are the things we nasty, fallen human beings like to click on. If Zuckerberg seriously intends to turn Facebook into the vanguard of liberal world government, then he is on a fast track to joining George Soros at the top of Steve Bannon’s Most Hated list.

Niall Ferguson’s new book, “The Square and the Tower: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Networks,’’ will be published early next year.

 

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