Monday 1 May 2017

The Daily Trump



You couldn't make this stuff up - Donald Trump is the US president won the US election - Truth is stranger than fiction.

I've done a daily Google of Trump since he won the election - it keeps me amused in the mornings - there's never been a dull moment - there is always something "interesting to read" but I have to pinch myself that this is not a TV drama ... this is reality TV.

Donald Trump is a case study in trading places and being there leadership - it shows anyone can be a leader and by occupying a leadership position you can say whatever you like and people will think you know what you are talking about. Trump recognises being there ... "when you’re a star … you can do anything" ...   he could shoot someone and still not lose voters (assuming it wasn't one of his voters he shot) - he can read random words (he often seems to) and people will interpret them as wise.

Whether we like it or not Trump has written himself into history ... it is the story of our age. Trump becoming US president marks the beginning of the information revolution - a time of unprecedented change ... stress, uncertainty and potentially chaos. The industrial revolution is going rusty - its workers are finding themselves displaced and disposed by the forces of the information revolution but what can they do ... who can represent them. Trump played the rust workers for his own ends - this story is all about those who have power and how they use the information revolution to serve themselves - lies, fake news its all part of the game.

With Web 2.0 and social media I really thought things could be different - I thought the earth was flat and people would be able to connect and share - that truth would out but what we see with the election of Trump is that the old ways are amplified with information technology ... life goes on and the new boss is the same as the old boss ... or in the case of Trump ... a lot worse.

Trump was a tipping point from the industrial era to the hot air and false promise of the information age ... this is just the beginning ... how this all works out we will have to see .... 

"Will we solve the crises of next hundred years? asked Krulwich. “Yes, if we are honest and smart,” said Wilson. “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.” Until we understand ourselves, concluded the Pulitzer-prize winning author of On Human Nature, “until we answer those huge questions of philosophy that the philosophers abandoned a couple of generations ago—Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?—rationally,” we’re on very thin ground.."

~ E. O. Wilson ... An Intellectual Entente 










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