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| 1 |
ID:
115863
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| 2 |
ID:
151942
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| 3 |
ID:
129243
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2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The fabric of civilization is being rewoven around us. The very nature of life, work, and society is changing so profoundly that we are approaching a moment at which our old ways of thinking about the structures that sustain us may be seen as obsolete. This happens periodically throughout history -- think of the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. Such eras often produce turmoil or upheaval, until leaders emerge who are able to help shape a new order for a new age.
The question today is whether our leaders are up to the challenge. Given their lack of grounding in the world's most pressing scientific and technological issues, I fear many, if not most, are not. Formerly disenfranchised populations are increasingly connecting to telecom, Internet, and other services. For instance, mobile-phone penetration was estimated to have surpassed 80 percent in Africa in the first quarter of 2013, according to figures published in 2012 by ABI Research. What's more, it is growing faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world. And though smartphone penetration in Africa is just 20 percent -- pretty near global levels -- it is expected to explode in the next few years.
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| 4 |
ID:
115876
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| 5 |
ID:
110977
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2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The sales revenues of the world's largest company, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., are higher than the GDPs of all but 25 countries. At 2.1 million, its employees outnumber the populations of almost 100 nations. The world's largest investment manager, a low-profile New York company named BlackRock, manages $3.5 trillion in assets -- greater than the national reserves of any country on the planet. In 2010, a private philanthropic organization, the $33.5 billion-endowed Gates Foundation, distributed more money for causes worldwide than the World Health Organization had in its annual budget.
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| 6 |
ID:
060455
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| Publication |
Mar-Apr 2005.
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| 7 |
ID:
090536
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Greening the world will certainly eliminate some of the most serious risks we face, but it will aslo create new ones. A move to electric cars, for example, could set off a competition for lithium another limited, geographically concentrated resource. The sheer amout of water needed to create some kinds of alternative energy could suck certain region dry, upping the odds of resource based conflict.
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| 8 |
ID:
118077
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| 9 |
ID:
137973
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Once upon a time, no term evoked modernity like “the Atomic Age.” It contained the promise of harnessing the power of the atom for good and for ill. Unleashing the secrets of the atom was what separated the world’s most advanced and powerful nations from the rest. This Damoclean era was ushered in 70 years ago, on July 16, 1945, with the Trinity nuclear test in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert. The name translates to “Dead Man’s Journey” — fitting, because the detonation triggered a nuclear arms race that made palpable the dark threat of planetary Armageddon. As is the case with others who grew up in the 1960s, some of my most acute, enduring memories are of a childhood shaped by nuclear fears. I was 6 years old during the Cuban missile crisis and remember going to bed at night unsettled by the air-raid drills we rehearsed at school and by the worry I saw in my parents eyes as they watched the evening news.
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| 10 |
ID:
150410
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| 11 |
ID:
150419
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| 12 |
ID:
134231
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A top diplomat from one of America's most dependable Middle Eastern allies said to me in July of this year, "but you no longer know how to act like one."
He was reflecting on America's position in the world almost halfway into President Barack Obama's second term. Fresh in his mind was the extraordinary string of errors (schizophrenic Egypt policy, bipolar Syria policy), missteps (zero Libya post-intervention strategy, alienation of allies in the Middle East and elsewhere), scandals (spying on Americans, spying on friends), halfway measures (pinprick sanctions against Russia, lecture series to Central Americans on the border crisis), unfulfilled promises (Cairo speech, pivot to Asia), and outright policy failures (the double-down then get-out approach in Afghanistan, the shortsighted Iraq exit strategy).
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| 13 |
ID:
136347
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National constitutions are supposed to enshrine fundamental rights for everyone — and for generations. Such documents are also products of moments in time and reflect perceptions of life in those moments. That’s why the best of them, like the U.S. Constitution, contain the seeds of their own reinvention. Indeed, the secret to a sustainable constitution is that it both captures what is enduring and anticipates the need to change.
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| 14 |
ID:
118412
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| 15 |
ID:
087944
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| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
IN THE early months of the Obama presidency, the national-security debate has focused heavily on two areas: personality and process. To many, the third vital component-policy-had largely been addressed and in broad terms resolved during the presidential campaign-Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran. Yet thus far, the personality discussion has been simultaneously overblown and misdirected, the process discussion has been largely technical and misguided, and the policy discussion has failed to address the most important concerns confronting the United States. In short, after the worst eight years in modern U.S. foreign-policy history, we may be setting the stage for potentially even-bigger mistakes to come.
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