Gasoline-backed currency in Zimbabwe
by Vinay Gupta • August 15, 2008 • The Global Picture • 0 Comments
http://www.independent.org/blog/?p=156 Nothing unexpected, but confirmed sightings.
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The Bucky-Gandhi Design Institution
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The Global Picture
Children as pension-providers in China
by Vinay Gupta • August 15, 2008 • The Global Picture • 0 Comments
Parents go to such lengths in part because Chinese culture has always emphasized success, but also for a more pressing reason: Traditionally, children support their parents in old age. With only one child to carry the load, parents’ fortunes are tied to their child’s, and they push (and pamper) the little ones accordingly. “In China, [...]
Read more →Why do nations exist?
by Vinay Gupta • August 11, 2008 • The Global Picture • 0 Comments
If we follow Augustine, however, the history of Europe’s political failures is not only the history of misguided ideas, but of misplaced love. The nations of Europe rebelled against their foster-mother the Church, and abjured their loyalty to the People of God, that is, the common Christian congregation to which all the tribes of Europe [...]
Read more →Bitter Fruit, or speaking my mind on poverty and politics
by Vinay Gupta • August 9, 2008 • The Global Picture • 0 Comments
We work the land we can never own Someday we’ll reap what we have sown I don’t look east I don’t look west I don’t understand their accent If it’s not soldiers it’s foreign debt But they haven’t won this one yet Soon from the fields will come fire To cleanse the lies from all [...]
Read more →Ecologically-minded right wing Hindu gurus on the march
by Vinay Gupta • August 8, 2008 • The Global Picture • 0 Comments
A coalition of gurus has issued an ultimatum to India’s fragile Government: purify the chronically polluted Ganges, the river revered by Hindus, or face protests and political ruin. Ganga Raksha Manch, a newly formed alliance of celebrity holy men, is demanding urgent action to cleanse the holy waterway, which has become a noxious cocktail of [...]
Read more →Global Survival Mapping
by Vinay Gupta • August 7, 2008 • The Global Picture • 0 Comments
The next thing I want to see done, and alas this is going to take a government’s backing, is global survival mapping. Here’s what that looks like. For each square mile of the earth’s surface, I want to know seven things. * what’s the 50 year trend in death by violence and are there immanent [...]
Read more →The fight for land – Brazil and farmland
by Vinay Gupta • August 6, 2008 • The Global Picture • 0 Comments
eep in the northernmost reaches of the Amazon jungle, a land conflict between rice farmers and a handful of Indian tribes has turned so violent that the country’s Supreme Court warns it could escalate into civil war. The court is expected to decide in August if the government can keep evicting rice farmers from a [...]
Read more →The age of cheap solar energy – now, to be precise.
by Vinay Gupta • July 26, 2008 • The Global Picture • 8 Comments
Energy is about to become absurdly cheap at least during daylight hours in sunny areas of the planet. http://nanosolar.com is retailing panels (maybe a gigawatt a year) for $1 per watt. Their production cost is 30 cents per watt of panel capacity. Konarka claims 10 cents per watt production costs (confirmed here) and are expecting [...]
Read more →Open Innovation… bang bang bang bang bang
by Vinay Gupta • July 24, 2008 • The Global Picture • 1 Comment
There’s just no way around it – patent is broken. I’m writing up a set of docs right now, and it’s clear that trying to tease apart what might have been patented before by other people, what’s common knowledge, and what’s potentially material for a patent pool is just impossible. It’s a question that, in [...]
Read more →We just hit critical mass
by Vinay Gupta • July 23, 2008 • The Global Picture • 1 Comment
I can’t put it into words, but something happened today, stepped over some kind of threshold, hit critical mass. Now it goes boom, this thing we’ve been building – a perspective, a view on life, a housing technology, a science of infrastructure… a plan to fix the world, which is not broken. If you never [...]
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