Articles on PR for People

Toward a Universal Basic Needs Guarantee

Toward a Universal Basic Needs Guarantee... Otherwise “the right to life” is meaningless, and so are all those other human rights! Our basic needs are a prerequisite – the material foundation for our moral principles. 


Plato Meets Artificial Intelligence

Only very recently have some of the leaders in the development of artificial intelligence begun to think about the ethical and political implications, and about Plato’s dilemma – how do we control the controllers?  And who will decide?


Shareholder Capitalism vs. Stakeholder Capitalism

Shareholder Capitalism vs. Stakeholder Capitalism: two radically different models of capitalism are locked in an historic debate over the future course – and the soul – of liberal societies.  We all have a stake in the outcome. 


Plato’s Dilemma: It Haunts Us Still

A dysfunctional government can be a matter of life-and-death, and these days they are all too common.  We should follow Plato’s sage advice. Plato’s diagnosis of the many dysfunctional kinds of government, and their root causes, still rings true, and so does his ultimate prescription. 


Toward an Ecological Way of Death

Toward an Ecological Way of Death...Our traditional funeral practices are ecologically unsound and wasteful. We can do much better.


The Climate Refugee Crisis

It’s a life-and-death threat, and it’s going to get much worse.  What can we do? There is in fact a deadly nexus of influences at work that could multiply the estimated number of refugees. This is a unique moment in the history of life on Earth, and in our own history as a species.  We must make a collective choice whether to live or die.


Re-learning How to Play Global Chess: What Would Winston Churchill Do?

There is a potentially effective international response to the rise of China as a superpower, but it will require a twenty-first century Winston Churchill with vision.  In the next decade, China is likely to challenge the United States in many ways.  Winston Churchill understood the crucial value of cooperation against a common foe.  A twenty-first century Winston Churchill, with a keen eye on the global chess board, might see the proposed “Global Government Initiative” as an opportunity to create a new political alliance.


“Sustainable Development”: How’s It Going?

The U.N.’s original definition of the term has been corrupted, and the current U.N. iteration (in a set of 17 Development Goals) is an overreach.  Either way it’s failing.   What is to be done? This currently fashionable concept first arose in the 1980s.  A U.N. report stressed that it should be about basic needs.  Our current emphasis on “growth” and increased “wealth” is unsustainable. I believe we must return to the original 1987 U.N. definition, which focused on our basic needs, and make it a global priority going forward.

 


Is There a Future for Hope?

Is There a Future for Hope? Pessimism about the future is on the rise, and there is much reason to be pessimistic. Is our species doomed?  Beware of self-fulfilling prophesies.