Stephan: Americans, perhaps because 64 per cent of us have never been out of the country, believe that the American quality of life is the best in the world. It is the lie we tell ourselves over and over, and few dare say it isn't so. But SR is dedicated to presenting the actual facts. If we cannot tell ourselves the truth we cannot make the changes so desperately called for.
Germans are living the best life, but the French and Danish are not so far behind.
For the sixth year in a row, Germany gained the top spot in the Quality of Nationality Index (QNI), a ranking of nationalities based on the levels of freedom and quality of life citizens enjoy. The study was conducted by law professor Dimitry Kochenov and published by UK-based international immigration consultants Henley & Partners, who also produces an annual ranking of the world’s most powerful passports.
Critical elements. (The Henley & Partners – Kochenov Quality of Nationality Index)More than a simple nation brand perception index, the QNI posits to be the world’s only objective measure of nationality. Researchers mine data from the World Bank, the International Air Transport Association, the Institute for Economics and Peace to judge the opportunities and limitations based on an individual’s nationality. Each country garners an aggregate score based on their […]
Stephan: "The United States faces a choice between manageable warming and unmanageable catastrophe, according to a leaked draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies," this article states. I can't make it clearer than that, so I will just quote it.
Time has run out.
The United States faces a choice between manageable warming and unmanageable catastrophe, according to a leaked draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies.
The report’s “higher emissions” scenario projects a devastating 8°F to 10°F warming over the interior of this country–and, unimaginably, upwards of 18°F over in the Arctic–by 2071 to 2100. In that case, global sea levels could rise as much as 8 feet, inundating every major coastal city in this country and around the world.
The report was published by the New York Times, which noted that it “directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited.”
The draft, a special science section of the Congressionally-mandated quadrennial National Climate Assessment (NCA), has been given to Trump’s political appointees for review. It was reportedly leaked to the media out of concern that the report may be censored or watered down by the administration the way other climate documents have been.
The NCA is the definitive statement of current and future […]
Stephan: I spent two decades of my life running academic archaeological expeditions guided by remote viewing under very close scrutiny by many people. There is only one way to do something like that.
You have to first work out all of the ways the experiment is flawed, and then correct it. I did that by asking people who hated my work to go over the protocol I was about to use, asking them to tell me where it was flawed, and making the corrections they suggested. I was happy to do it.
What makes nonlocal perception work has very little to do with blindness, randomness, all the things deniers use to say this can't possibly be true, because it just can't possibly be true. I took that away. It was a kind of threatcasting, and it taught me a very big lesson: Preparation is essential for success. And as you see in the previous stories in today's edition, we are not prepared.
In the strongest terms possible I urge everyone who reads this to sit down and give serious attention to what you can do to increase wellbeing. You will not go wrong by committing to the Quotidian Choice. But whatever you choose, please choose and do it.
Credit: Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photos by Thinkstock.
Harriet Downs had it all: a great job, a loving husband, and two beautiful children. She was an up-and-coming programmer at Goldman Sachs for the company’s A.I. trading bots, on the fast track to management. She; her husband, Steve; and the kids had just moved into a beautiful new house in Sevenoaks. Life was good.
Then one day, on the train into London, a man with the lion tattoo on his neck stopped her and showed her a video. The video. She recognized the people on the screen. One of them was her. She remembered the terrible mistake she had made that night. Too much to drink. Too much stress at work. It was never going to happen again. But somehow the man had gotten the video, knew everything about her life, her habits, her family, her work. And he wanted something. It was just a simple piece of code that needed to be inserted into the bots at […]
Stephan: Capitalism as currently structured is a literally killing us. Just consider America's wealth inequity. It must be changed, and it can be changed. We know what works. Increasing wellbeing must be the first priority, not profit. Capitalism must be subject to wellbeing, and it actually isn't that hard to figure out which option is more compassionate life-affirming and fostering of wellbeing
When have we humans ever accepted the idea that change for the better is a thing of the past? Credit: Ket4up/iStock
These are fast-changing times. Old certainties are collapsing around us and people are scrambling for new ways of being in the world. As we pointed out in a recent article, 51% of young people in the United States no longer support the system of capitalism. And a solid 55% of Americans of all ages believe that capitalism is fundamentally unfair.
But question capitalism in public and you’re likely to get some angry responses. People immediately assume that you want to see socialism or communism instead. They tell you to go and live in Venezuela, the current flogging-horse for socialism, or they hit you with dreary images of Soviet Russia with all its violence, dysfunction, and grey conformity. They don’t consider that you might want something beyond caricatures and old dogmas.
These old ‘isms’ lurk in the shadows of any discussion on capitalism. The cyber-punk author William Gibson has a term for this effect:
Stephan: Here are my own views on the White Supremacy Trend which is the main driver of the Great Schism Trend tearing the United States apart. I think White Supremacy is one of the most dangerous trends currently pulsing through America.
White supremacy rally CreditL Salon
When I look at trends what I care about is objectively verifiable data; unfiltered by religious or political considerations. And one of the major trends I have followed and have been actively involved in has been racial equality. What I care about and what I write about when I speak about race is the presence or absence of wellbeing both individually, and socially. Not only is it a matter of fairness, history shows racial equality correlates strongly with social wellbeing. Not only is it a matter of fairness, history shows racial equality is crucial to social wellbeing. This issue has been one of the major threads of my life. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the Civil Rights movement; in the 1970s, as the Special Assistant to Admiral Elmo Zumalt, I was part of the small group that changed the American military from the elitist conscription model of all previous 20th century wars, into an all-volunteer meritocracy in which gender, race, and religion were not […]
Germans are living the best life, but the French and Danish are not so far behind.
The United States faces a choice between manageable warming and unmanageable catastrophe, according to a 
