|
|
|
IN THIS ISSUE Pulling back from a nuclear Armageddon Who’s investing where? I will do anything for love
|
|
|
|
Good
morning,
This
is the year of elections, so it might be worth our time to reflect on the
connection between media, politics and propaganda. In his book, The Crisis
of Democratic Capitalism, Martin Wolf, a respected economic commentator,
offers some food for thought. He writes:
“An
important aspect of the new media derives from the fundamental economics of
information in the new age: collecting information remains costly, but
dissemination is costless. In the old days, it was possible to finance
information collection by bundling news with advertising or by state subsidy of
some kind, as with the BBC and similar entities. But the new technologies have
unbundled news gathering from advertising, with the ads shifting to the
technology platforms, which take little responsibility for verifying the
information they publish. In the US, “digital ad revenue has grown
exponentially, but a majority goes to Facebook and Google rather than to
publishers.” Thus, half of all display advertising revenue in 2018 went to
Facebook (40 percent) and Google (12 percent). Meanwhile, advertising revenue
of newspapers has continued to fall. The result is a collapse “of the economics
of news gathering.
The
main exception is when the quality of the product and the economic status of
the audience make paywalls work. But paywalls have the inevitable consequence
of limiting access to high-quality and verified information. This is precisely
the sort of news Trump called “fake,” by which he meant true and inconvenient.
In the UK, The Guardian is trying to sustain itself with voluntary
contributions.
But,
overall, given the substantial costs of generating and publishing accurate
information and the difficulty of getting paid for it nowadays, the net effect
of the information revolution has been ubiquitous, and costless dissemination
of noninformation, disinformation, propaganda, and lunatic conspiracy theories.
One
way of thinking about the new social media is that they have made it far easier
to spread “rumour” (what the Romans called “fama”) than before. It is, as a
result, also far easier than ever before for the unqualified and unprincipled
to influence public opinion. The results are both widespread cynicism about
anything one is told, especially by figures of authority, as well as the
emergence of passionate adherents of particular opinions in corners of the
internet. Yet some things have not changed: it is still possible for political
leaders to disseminate their propaganda effectively...
Yascha
Mounk, a thoughtful observer, argues, “Over recent years, it has been the
populists who have exploited the new technology most effectively to undermine
the basic elements of liberal democracy. Unfettered by the constraints of the
old media system they have been willing and able to say anything it takes to
get elected—to lie, to obfuscate, and to incite hatred against their fellow
citizens.”
Have
a great day!
|
|
|
|
|
Pulling back from a nuclear Armageddon
|
|
|
At
10 AM EST on January 23, keep your eyes peeled on the Doomsday Clock. That’s
when the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists will set the Doomsday Clock again for
2024.
The
Doomsday Clock
is a design that warns the public about how close we are to destroying our
world with dangerous technologies of our own making. Each year, the Clock is
set by the Bulletin’s Science
and Security Board, a group of internationally
recognized experts on nuclear risk, climate change, disruptive technologies,
and biosecurity.
In
2022, it was set at 100 seconds to midnight. In 2023, with the threat of a
nuclear war, spurred on by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it was set closer to
midnight at 90 seconds. Midnight symbolises the end of humanity in a global
nuclear war.
In
December last year, as part of a special year end series Events that Shaped
Our World in 2023, Sundeep Waslekar, president of the Strategic Foresight
Group and the author of A World Without War, had responded to a
question that we asked him: Is the world increasingly becoming a dangerous
place to live?
As
part of his impactful work in global peace, water and security, Waslekar keeps
close tabs on the big developments in geopolitics, climate change and security
worldwide, among other things.
Waslekar
wrote: “The existential threat to human civilization stems from the growing
nexus between artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and biotechnology.
Artificial intelligence enables hypersonic missiles to determine their own
trajectory, making them invisible to radars; it also empowers underwater
unmanned vehicles carrying nuclear warheads. A deadly combination of AI and
cyber-technology can manipulate nuclear early warning systems and trigger
accidental nuclear war.”
Now,
will the world’s leading scientists, who form the Bulletin’s Scientific Board,
decide to move the clock forward to 60 seconds or freeze it at 90 seconds? Part
of the assessment is likely to be linked to the Biden-Xi detente in San
Francisco—and whether they follow through on their promises.
Also,
the continuing conflict in Gaza which is expanding across the Middle East
continues to be a major faultline.
Waslekar
will be speaking about these themes and more at the Founding Fuel Masterclass
on The World in 2024 on January 19.
If
you haven’t registered yet, now is the time to do so. Grab the opportunity to
learn from Waslekar and our panel of some of the finest minds in the world.
By
registering, you will also get access to reflections on the masterclass from
four esteemed members of our community:
- Anuradha
Rao, Former Deputy Managing Director (Strategy and Digital Banking),
State Bank of India
- T N
Hari, Co-Founder Artha School of Entrepreneurship, Author, Angel
Investor, Business Coach
- David
Judson, Writer, Forecaster, Advisory Board Member (data.world, Best
Partners, Global Foresight)
- Vivek
Y Kelkar, Co-founder, The Cosmopolitan Globalist, Researcher,
Journalist, Strategy Consultant
To
join, register here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The
stock markets are up and the consensus appears to be that India’s growth
numbers look decent even as data from other parts of the world look stunted.
But Vivek Kaul, writing in Deccan Herald, isn’t impressed.
“While
the media went to town talking up the 7.3% overall economic growth, there was
barely a mention of consumption growing at its slowest pace in 21 years,” he
writes.
“In
fact, if we look at consumption growth from the end of 2018-19 to the end of
2023-24, it averages 4.5% per year. Compare that with the average consumption
growth of 7.2% per year in the five years from 2013-14 to 2018-19, which tells
us that a significant portion of the population is still struggling with the
after-effects of demonetisation and the pandemic.
So,
what is driving economic growth? Investments. In fact, investments are expected
to make up nearly 48% of the increase in the size of the economy from the end
of 2022-23 to the end of 2023-24. If we look at data over a 5-year period from
the end of 2018-19 to the end of 2023-24, investments make up for nearly 46% of
the increase in the size of the economy.
Typically,
investments create jobs, jobs pay people, and people then go out and spend that
money. But that dynamic isn’t playing out in full force. It could be because
investments are happening in capital-intensive sectors, which aren’t large job
creators.
In
a recent research note, the Bank of Baroda’s Economics Research Department has
a possible explanation. The note looks at investment intentions for April to
December 2023. The services sector accounts for 49% of the investment
intentions. Of which, transport services contribute 94% because airlines are
placing orders for new airplanes.”
|
|
|
|
I will do anything for love
|
|
|
|
|
Show us some love?
Move us out of your promotions and into your inbox. So that you don’t miss any edition. Help Founding Fuel grow. Forward this to three of your smartest friends and tell them they can sign up by clicking the button below. Missed an edition? Read the archives.
|
|
|
FOLLOW US AND ENGAGE WITH US
|
|
|
Warm regards,
Team Founding Fuel
|
|
|
Copyright © 2022 Founding Fuel Publishing Pvt Ltd, All rights reserved.
|
|
|
|
|