#*disaster meaning the loss of technology will be crippling to humanity | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

janzenv · 1 year ago

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Peachtree City: Tired of IT Headaches? We Can Help You Sleep Better at Night.

Does your heart skip a beat every time your computer screen freezes? Are you constantly worried about hackers, data breaches, and the endless stream of IT issues that seem to plague your business? If so, you're not alone. Many Peachtree City businesses struggle with technology woes, but it doesn't have to be a never-ending battle. With a local IT partner, you can finally get the restful sleep you deserve.

The High Cost of IT Woes

Imagine this: It's the middle of a busy workday, and suddenly your point-of-sale system crashes. Customers are lined up, employees are frustrated, and you're losing money by the minute. Sound familiar?

IT problems aren't just inconvenient – they can have a devastating impact on your bottom line. Lost productivity, missed deadlines, unhappy customers, and even legal liabilities are just a few of the potential consequences. Not to mention the stress and sleepless nights that come with constant worrying about technology.

The Local Advantage: Why Peachtree City Businesses Thrive with Local IT

Local IT providers are like a trusty neighbor – always there when you need them. They offer a level of personalized service and support that you simply won't find with larger, out-of-town companies.

Rapid Response That Feels Like Magic: When your network crashes or a virus attacks, you need help fast. A local IT team can be on-site in a matter of hours (or even minutes!), minimizing downtime and getting your business back on track. No more waiting days for a technician to fly in from another state.

Tailored Solutions, Not Cookie-Cutter Fixes: Local IT providers take the time to understand your unique business needs, challenges, and goals. They'll create a customized IT strategy that fits your budget and aligns with your long-term vision. Whether you're a small retail shop or a large manufacturing plant, they'll find the right solutions for you.

Proactive Support That Prevents Problems (and Gray Hairs): The best IT companies don't just fix problems, they prevent them. With regular maintenance, system monitoring, and proactive security measures, a local IT provider can keep your technology running smoothly and protect you from cyber threats. That means fewer headaches, less downtime, and more peace of mind for you.

Clear Communication, No Jargon: Local IT professionals speak your language – both literally and figuratively. They can explain complex technical issues in plain English, answer your questions patiently, and make sure you understand your options. No more confusion or frustration.

Investing in the Community: When you choose a local IT provider, you're not just supporting your own business – you're supporting the entire Peachtree City community. Local businesses are the backbone of our economy, and by working together, we can all thrive.

IT Challenges We Can Tackle (and Help You Sleep Through)

Network Nightmares: Slow internet speeds, dropped connections, and unreliable Wi-Fi are more than just annoying – they can cripple your productivity. We can design and implement a robust network that keeps your business running smoothly.

Cybersecurity Concerns: Hackers and malware are relentless, but we can help you fight back. With comprehensive security solutions like firewalls, antivirus software, and employee training, we can protect your data and systems from threats.

Data Loss Disasters: Hardware failures, human error, and natural disasters can all lead to data loss. But with a reliable backup and disaster recovery plan in place, you can rest assured that your data is safe.

Technology Upgrades That Won't Break the Bank: Keeping up with the latest technology can be expensive and time-consuming. We can help you plan and execute upgrades strategically, so you get the most out of your investment without breaking the bank.

Ready for a Good Night's Sleep?

If IT problems are keeping you up at night, it's time to call in the experts. A local IT provider can take the stress out of technology and help you sleep soundly, knowing that your systems are secure, efficient, and optimized for success.

#cybersecurity #managed it services #newnan #peachtreecity #managedserviceprovider

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arcticdementor · 4 years ago

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[This is the fourteenth of many finalists in the book review contest. It’s not by me - it’s by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I’ll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you’ve read all of them, I’ll ask you to vote for your favorite, so remember which ones you liked. If you like reading these reviews, check out point 3 here for a way you can help move the contest forward by reading lots more of them - SA]

What went wrong in the 1970s? Since then, growth and productivity have slowed, average wages are stagnant, visible progress in the world of "atoms" has practically stopped - the Great Stagnation. About the only thing that has gone well are computers. How is it that we went from the typewriter to the smartphone, but we're still using practically the same cars and airplanes?

"Where is my Flying Car?", by J. Storrs Hall, is an attempt to answer that question. His answer is: the Great Stagnation was caused by energy usage flatlining, which was caused by our failure to switch to nuclear energy, which was caused by excessive regulation, which was caused by "green fundamentalism".

…

Before reading this book, I thought flying cars were just technologically infeasible, because flying takes too much energy. But Hall says we can and have built them ever since the 1930s. They got interrupted by the Great Depression (people were too poor to buy private airplanes), then WWII (airplanes were directed towards the war effort, not the market), then regulation mostly killed the private aviation industry. But technical feasibility was never the problem.

Hall spends a huge fraction of the book on pretty detailed technical discussion of flying cars. For example: the key technical issue is takeoff and landing, and there is a tough tradeoff between convenient takeoff/landing and airspeed (and cost, and ease of operation). It’s interesting reading. But let’s return to the larger issue of nuclear power.

Nuclear power started off well; “the cost of nuclear plants was decreasing by about 25% for each doubling of capacity in the 50s and 60s”. Then, in 1977, Jimmy Carter established the Department of Energy. Costs immediately skyrocketed, and never came back down. It’s hard to briefly convey the regulatory issues because it’s death by a thousand cuts.

…

Why is regulation so crippling? The public is wrongly terrified of nuclear energy, but they shouldn’t be. Radiation killed 0 people at Fukishima; the radiophobic evacuation killed >1000 (“Some 1600 of the evacuees died from causes ranging from privation in refugee camps (notably loss of access to health care) to suicide”), and the tsunami/earthquake killed >10000. Hall quotes an estimate from the Guardian that Chernobyl - by far the most serious nuclear disaster - killed “approximately” 43 people.

Why are people so terrified? Hall says we were a victim of our own success from World War II. Before the War, America was an individualistic nation. Then came the Depression, the New Deal, and most of all the War. America won the war with a “completely centralized bureaucratic government structure” - and it was a huge success. And for a while, that worked: the generation forged in the war had a “cooperative “same boat” spirit” that “[made] the centralized corporate structures work.” But then it didn’t. Hall blames the hippies:

“The Baby Boomers—my generation—split into two cultures which, as far as I can see, not only didn’t agree on values but which fundamentally couldn’t even understand each other. Ask any Boomer what was the greatest, most pivotal event of 1969. Half of us will say the Apollo 11 moon landing. The other half will say Woodstock. Both sets, hearing the other’s opinion, will emit an honestly uncomprehending “Huh!?!?” From the Fifties to the Seventies, the average American followed the lifecycle of Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt from conformity and cooperation to non-conformist rebellion in a search for personal meaning. The corporate state worked with the cooperating, self-sacrificing Greatest Generation. It didn’t work so well with Aquarians.”

His theory, basically, is that the next generation - the Baby Boomers - got spoiled. Automation had come into its own, and people didn’t need to struggle for survival anymore. America was on top of the world, and there weren’t enough real challenges to work on. But people need challenges. So they made some up.

Hall says the most damaging strain, still common today, is “green fundamentalism”, the idea that human agency over nature is fundamentally bad. An early example is Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which got DDT banned on the grounds that it was causing cancer; in reality the cancer increase was from smoking, and from technology improving living conditions (the healthier you are, the more likely you’ll survive long enough to get killed by cancer). “The Green religion has essentially superceded Christianity as the default religion of western civilization, especially in academic circles”. Hall is dismissive of climate change, citing an estimate that it will cost only a few percentage of GDP by 2100 even in the worst case. (This is something that always confused me; there’s such a big gap between quantitative economic estimates of climate change and qualitative ones. My impression is the quantitative ones are way too optimistic. Hall does not agree with me). Anyway, he says, climate change is all the more reason to embrace clean nuclear power and flying cars (highways use a lot of land; if flying cars replaced highways, that land could be returned to nature).

The upshot is there is strong intellectual skepticism about increasing energy usage. As government has taken much more centralized power, “we have let complacent nay-sayers metamorphose from pundits uttering ‘It can’t be done’ predictions a century ago, into bureaucrats uttering ‘It won’t be done’ prescriptions today.” As a result, “a lot of inventiveness and engineering resources got shifted from doing new things, and doing things better, to doing the same old things, usually not as well, but using less energy.” Our machines use less energy, but they don’t work any better. Is single-mindedly improving efficiency really the best use of our time? And anyway, the efficiency gains - while real - are basically on the same trendline as they were before all this regulation. The difference is that we used to have efficiency *and* more energy every year; now all we get is efficiency. The twin tragedies are that so many talented people went into activism instead of engineering, and that the activism was so often opposed to progress.

…

Hall blames public funding for science. Not just for nanotech, but for actually hurting progress in general. (I’ve never heard anyone before say government-funded science was bad for science!) “[The] great innovations that made the major quality-of-life improvements came largely before 1960: refrigerators, freezers, vacuum cleaners, gas and electric stoves, and washing machines; indoor plumbing, detergent, and deodorants; electric lights; cars, trucks, and buses; tractors and combines; fertilizer; air travel, containerized freight, the vacuum tube and the transistor; the telegraph, telephone, phonograph, movies, radio, and television—and they were all developed privately.” “A survey and analysis performed by the OECD in 2005 found, to their surprise, that while private R&D had a positive 0.26 correlation with economic growth, government funded R&D had a negative 0.37 correlation!” “Centralized funding of an intellectual elite makes it easier for cadres, cliques, and the politically skilled to gain control of a field, and they by their nature are resistant to new, outside, non-Ptolemaic ideas.” This is what happened to nanotech; there was a huge amount of buzz, culminating in $500 million dollars of funding under Clinton in 1990. This huge prize kicked off an academic civil war, and the fledgling field of nanotech lost hard to the more established field of material science. Material science rebranded as “nanotech”, trashed the reputation of actual nanotech (to make sure they won the competition for the grant money), and took all the funding for themselves. Nanotech never recovered.

Flying cars didn’t have the same issues; they were being developed privately. But regulation doomed them. Harold Pitcairn was almost successful in developing a flying car, but then in World War II the government nationalized his helicopter patents (they promised to give them back after the war, but reneged) and he spent the rest of his life in court. He won, 17 years after his death. Bruce Hallock had a promising design, but he sold a plane to a missionary group in Peru and was arrested as an “arms trafficker”. Robert Fulton had a successful prototype, “however, Fulton’s financial backers had become discouraged with the seemingly endless expense of meeting government production standards, and they withdrew their support.” Molt Taylor “was actually in serious negotiations with Ford as late as 1975 to have the Aerocar mass-produced. The monkeywrench was thrown into the negotiations by the FAA and the DOT. Taylor already had an airworthiness certificate for the Aerocar, granted by the CAA (predecessor of the FAA) after a delay of 7 years from its first flight. He claims that the agencies turned thumbs down on the Aerocar ‘because everybody would have one, and we couldn’t handle the [air] traffic.’ Airplane regulation has only gotten stricter: “The entire F.A.R. / A.I.M., which every airman is responsible for knowing, is 1085 pages long. At least it was in 2013; a new one comes out every year.” So in the end, we have none of these technologies. No flying cars, even though they were prototyped almost a hundred years ago. Some nuclear energy, but crippled, aged, feared, and hated. 3D printing, but no nanotech. No level 5. Because the state needs legibility, and progress is not legible. The bureaucratic incentives are to calcify. If no one does anything new, no one will do anything wrong.

…

The book is 550 pages long, so there’s a lot I didn’t cover. I thought the political/social analysis was its weakest aspect, basically a strongly worded but conventional version of the libertarian case against regulation, although I appreciated the detailed examples of how regulation harmed flying cars and nanotechnology (And I’ll admit I haven’t heard the libertarian case against funding science before!). I’m more convinced than ever that not embracing nuclear power was one of humanity’s worst mistakes (partially because I’m more afraid of climate change than Hall is). I found the book most valuable as a statement of “definite optimism” - a concrete vision of attainable yet extraordinary technological progress. I recommend it on that basis.

#read the whole thing #book review #where's my flying car?#j storrs hall #substack

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theguineapig3 · 7 years ago

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Tales Whump Week Day 3: Self-Destruction

“The Zoonosis Protocol”

Tales of Symphonia Words: 2087 Characters: Lloyd Irving, Kratos Aurion

A casual conversation between Lloyd and Kratos turns unexpectedly sour when Lloyd asks a seemingly innocent question and Kratos gives a much less innocent answer. Why were the human ranches programmed with a self-destruct sequence anyway? What did they think they’d need to destroy?

It was a hot day- too hot for combat practice in Lloyd’s opinion, but Kratos had said something about “being prepared to fight in adverse conditions,” so Lloyd had followed his father out into the forest with his swords anyway. They had sparred over and over, Kratos making adjustments to Lloyd’s technique along the way, but it only took an hour for the heat to overcome them. Lloyd felt like he was about to collapse, and Kratos didn't look much better.

They settled down for a rest in the shade, and Kratos handed Lloyd one of the canteens of water he’d brought with them. Lloyd gratefully accepted it and downed it in a few quick swigs, ignoring Kratos’ warnings about drinking too fast. As he handed the canteen back, he thought back to some of the conversations they’d had recently. Kratos had been much more open about things since the worlds were at peace, answering Lloyd’s questions about his mother, about Noishe, about Mithos and the Kharlan War, and even about Cruxis and the Desians. A visit with Genis and Raine the other day had reminded Lloyd of a question that had been nagging at the back of his mind for awhile, and he figured this was as good a time as any to ask it.

“I've been thinking… why is it that the Desians programmed self-destruct sequences into their ranch systems? Seems a little convenient for us, don't you think?”

It was, as far as Lloyd knew, an ignorant question. Perhaps Kratos would even find it funny, maybe laugh it off. Those silly Desians and their easily-destroyed ranches, making it too simple for the good guys to cripple their infrastructure and save the day, right? That silly Lloyd, questioning something he ought to just appreciate, right? Kratos would give him an amused scolding and they could continue their lesson in high spirits.

But Kratos didn't laugh. He didn't even smile.

“What brought this question about?” Kratos asked, turning his whole body to face Lloyd. “Did Professor Raine say something to you yesterday?”

“No, it's not that,” Lloyd replied, shaking his head. “But when I was walking back from the village, I passed by the remains of the Iselia Ranch, and… I thought about the fact that it’s really the only one left intact now, since the others were destroyed or flooded. I guess I started thinking- hey! That sure was great that we were able to destroy them with their own technology! And it seemed a little odd to me. So I figured you would be the one to ask.”

There was a moment of silence as Kratos stared at Lloyd, as though examining him. Lloyd somehow felt as though he was being tested, as though Kratos was unsure how serious his question was and was scrutinizing him for any sign that he might be joking.

“Wh-what's with that look? Is it such a stupid question?” Lloyd leaned in closer. “I was just curious, is all-”

Kratos held up a hand to cut him off. “No, you have a right to be curious. It's not a stupid question, really. The ranches weren't originally constructed with self-destruct mechanisms. They were added to the plans later, around 1800 years ago.”

“Huh? Why’d they add them?”

“It was Mithos’… Lord Yggdrasil’s idea,” Kratos began, his voice hesitant. “It was part of a contingency program he put in after a major disaster killed a large number of people both in and outside of one of the ranches at the time.”

Lloyd was surprised, but also intrigued by the story. He sat up straighter and reached for the canteen again as he listened. “But how is a self-destruct system supposed to prevent a disaster?” he asked before taking another big gulp of water. “Like, it could really hurt people if they were stuck inside when it was activated.”

“Actually, that was the point. The systems were designed with the intention to kill everyone and everything inside the ranch.”

Lloyd froze, his stomach churning. It might've been from drinking the water too fast, but he suddenly felt like he was going to throw up. He made sure the lid on the canteen was secure and slowly pushed it away from him.

“I… don't understand… why would they… how does that help? You said it was a plan to prevent deaths, right? Then-”

“It’s complicated,” Kratos answered, cutting him off again. “The focus of the ranches was always the development of exspheres, but as part of that goal, there have always been other activities. Around two-thousand years ago, Cruxis began studies into the genetic component of exsphere host compatibility. As you’re aware, the better suited the host, the stronger the exsphere can develop before being removed. They successfully identified certain genes which predisposed humans to being better exsphere hosts. However, their… breeding programs… proved too costly and time-consuming to justify the benefits.”

Lloyd felt his chest tighten and his fists clench at the words “breeding programs.” Kratos seemed disgusted to even say it, and Lloyd didn't blame him. The way Desians had treated humans was despicable, as though they were nothing but livestock to be used and disposed of. Kratos continued, but the story didn't get any lighter.

“Instead of selective breeding, they began working on a more direct approach using horizontal gene transfer. This uses independent genetic materials known as replicons to introduce new genes into host cells. The most efficient replicons for gene delivery are viruses, but it can be dangerous to use pathogenic viruses as vectors without properly deleting the genome needed for viral replication-” Kratos stopped himself as he noticed Lloyd’s eyes starting to glaze over. “-er, in more simple terms, they were using viruses to ‘infect’ human cells with the genes they wanted.”

“Okay, I kinda get it…” Lloyd murmured. “But don't viruses make people sick?”

“They can. That was what led to the disaster at the old Palmacosta ranch.” Kratos closed his eyes and sighed. “I wasn't involved, so I’m not completely sure what happened. All I know is that, through some mistake- or potentially through intentional sabotage, given how careful the researchers were- several human test subjects in the ranch were exposed to a dangerous pathogenic form of one of the viruses.”

“And ‘pathogenic’ means…”

“Infectious. Makes people sick.”

“Ah, I see.”

There was a pause, and Kratos seemed to be considering what to say next. The sunshine overhead was slowly obscured by a cloud, darkening the forest around them. The cooler air was a relief, but the change in the atmosphere made Lloyd nervous in a way that he couldn't quite identify.

Once Kratos continued, his voice had taken on a more detached tone, almost professional in the way he pronounced the words. Lloyd had caught onto the subtle changes in Kratos’ voice now, noticing the different way he pronounced things when he was relaxed. There was the slightest hint of an unfamiliar accent, something different from anything Lloyd had ever heard in his travels. Lloyd figured it was a remnant of some long-dead dialect from Kratos’ ancient hometown, but it disappeared completely when Kratos was serious.

That, of course, was most of the time, but it had become less and less dominant when Lloyd and Kratos were alone together. Hearing it again so suddenly caught Lloyd off-guard.

“Humans, elves, and half-elves are all the same species, much as some of them want to believe otherwise. Their physiology is somewhat different, but in general, any pathogen that can infect humans can infect elves and half-elves with no trouble. Despite this, the Desians didn't believe- didn't want to believe- that they could contract or even carry diseases of… inferior beings. They took no precautions to protect themselves from the virus as it began to kill humans at the ranch. They didn't think twice about sending messengers to other ranches or sending representatives to the nearby towns for replacement supplies. By the time the first Desian began to display symptoms, they had exposed hundreds of others, and those hundreds had then exposed thousands more. The epidemic lasted years and claimed tens of thousands of lives, both half-elf and human. Besides the emotional toll on everyone involved, the loss of both researchers and test subjects was a severe setback to Cruxis’ operations, and Lord Yggdrasil put measures in place to ensure it never happened again. He banned the use of potentially pathogenic vectors in genetic testing, set out new decontamination and quarantine protocols for test subjects, and had self-destruct mechanisms installed in all the ranches in order to eliminate a potential future outbreak.”

Lloyd fidgeted with his hands uncomfortably, processing the information. “I-I never heard that side of the story before. We learned about it in history class, the so-called Red Plague that killed a third of Sylvarant’s population almost two-thousand years ago. They say the official name was Red Plague because early symptoms involved coughing up blood, but supposedly it was called the Desian Plague in some circles because they believed it was caused by the Desians as an attack on humanity. Professor Raine said that was just a myth, though, because, bad as the Desians were, they didn't have any control over human diseases. I… can’t believe it was true after all.”

“Well, it wasn't true that it was an intentional attack on humanity,” Kratos replied. “Whatever it was, accident or sabotage, it hurt Cruxis as well. So much so that future Desians who worked in ranches were prepared to give their lives should another outbreak occur. Lord Yggdrasil- Mithos- gave the program a horrible, horrible name too… the ‘Zoonosis Protocol.”

Lloyd’s eyes widened. “That is a horrible name. What the hell is a zoonosis? Like, he could've at least used a shorter word that normal people understand-”

“A zoonosis refers to a disease that can be transferred between animals and people,” Kratos interrupted. “He was, in no uncertain terms, calling humans animals.”

Lloyd went silent. He could physically feel the color draining from his face and turned his head away so that Kratos wouldn't see how sick he looked. Once it was clear Lloyd wasn't going to say anything, Kratos continued, his voice changing back to its casual tone yet again.

“That was the first time I realized how far gone Mithos was. It was clear before, but I didn't notice it or didn't want to notice it. But when he blatantly referred to humans as animals, I couldn't deny it any longer. The Mithos I had once known, the one who wanted to find a way for everyone in the world to live at peace with one another, was gone. He was now someone who was prioritizing revenge over everything else, someone who had let his hatred take over. That was the moment I felt like… like I'd truly lost him.”

The cloud that had been sitting in front of the sun finally passed, and the forest was once again bathed in sunlight. The ground where Lloyd and Kratos were sitting was lit up with patches of light filtering in from the trees above, and Kratos seemed to be focusing his attention on those rather than on his son. Lloyd looked back at him and scooted closer.

“If you knew so long ago, then why did you stay with Cruxis? Why did you keep working for Yggdrasil?”

“Because I didn't have anything else,” Kratos answered, still not looking up. “I didn't have any family other than Mithos. I might've ‘lost’ him, but as long as I didn't let go, I still had something to do, something to live for.”

Lloyd was silent again, but he moved even closer and slipped his arm around Kratos’ elbow so that their arms were linked together. Kratos turned to look at him in surprise, and Lloyd offered a smile.

“Well, you have something to live for now, right?”

The statement elicited a rare smile from Kratos. “Yes, I do,” he answered, “and he’s managed to chat away a lot of his practice time.”

“Wh- hey! That's not-” Lloyd pried himself away, holding his hands up in defense. Kratos just laughed and pulled himself to his feet.

“Raine warned me you were particularly good at this technique, asking time-wasting questions to get out of her lectures.”

“I-I didn't do this on purpose! I was really curious! And anyway, you were the one who talked forever!”

“Yes, I should've been more wary. Now pick up your swords; we have more practice to do before it gets dark.”

“Aw, but Kratos…”

#taleswhumpweek #tales of symphonia #my fanfiction #theguineapig3

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moodboardinthecloud · 5 years ago

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“PANDEMICS: LESSONS LOOKING BACK FROM 2050” BY FRITJOF CAPRA AND HAZEL HENDERSON

https://www.ethicalmarkets.com/pandemics-lessons-looking-back-from-2050/

“Ethical Markets is happy to bring you this latest co-authored article “Pandemics: Lessons Looking Back From 2050″ by Hazel Henderson and our esteemed Advisory Board member Fritjof Capra. We hope for your feedback and feel free to circulate this to your networks.

~Hazel Henderson, Editor”

“PANDEMICS — LESSONS LOOKING BACK FROM 2050”

Fritjof Capra and Hazel Henderson

Imagine, it is the year 2050 and we are looking back to the origin and evolution of the coronavirus pandemic over the last three decades. Extrapolating from recent events, we offer the following scenario for such a view from the future.

As we move into the second half of our twenty-first century, we can finally make sense of the origin and impact of the coronavirus that struck the world in 2020 from an evolutionary systemic perspective. Today, in 2050, looking back on the past 40 turbulent years on our home planet, it seems obvious that the Earth had taken charge of teaching our human family. Our planet taught us the primacy of understanding of our situation in terms of whole systems, identified by some far-sighted thinkers as far back as the mid-nineteenth century. This widening human awareness revealed how the planet actually functions, its living biosphere systemically powered by the daily flow of photons from our mother star, the Sun.

Eventually, this expanded awareness overcame the cognitive limitations and incorrect assumptions and ideologies that had created the crises of the twentieth century. False theories of human development and progress , measured myopically by prices and money-based metrics, such as GDP, culminated in rising social and environmental losses: pollution of air, water and land; destruction of biological diversity; loss of ecosystem services, all exacerbated by global heating, rising sea levels, and massive climate disruptions.

These myopic policies had also driven social breakdowns, inequality, poverty, mental and physical illness, addiction, loss of trust in institutions — including media, academia, and science itself — as well as loss of community solidarity. They had also led to the pandemics of the 21st century, SARS, MERS, AIDS, influenza, and the various coronaviruses that emerged back in 2020.

During the last decades of the 20th century, humanity had exceeded the Earth’s carrying capacity. The human family had grown to 7.6 billion by 2020 and had continued its obsession with economic, corporate, and technological growth that had caused the rising existential crises threating humanity’s very survival. By driving this excessive growth with fossil fuels, humans had heated the atmosphere to such an extent that the United Nations (UN) climate science consortium, IPCC noted in its 2020 update that humanity had only ten years left to turn this crisis situation around.

As far back as 2000, all the means were already at hand: we had the know-how, and had designed efficient renewable technologies and circular economic systems, based on nature’s ecological principles. By 2000, patriarchal societies were losing control over their female populations, due to the forces of urbanization and education. Women themselves had begun to take control of their bodies and fertility rates began to tumble even before the turn of the twenty-first century. Widespread revolts against the top-down narrow economic model of globalization and its male-dominated elites led to disruptions of the unsustainable paths of development driven by fossil fuels, nuclear power, militarism, profit, greed, and egocentric leadership.

Military budgets which had starved health and education needs for human development, gradually shifted from tanks and battleships to less expensive, less violent information warfare. By the early 21st century, international competition for power focused more on social propaganda, persuasion technologies, infiltration and control of the global internet.

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic‘s priorities in medical facilities competed with victims in emergency rooms, whether those wounded by gun violence or patients with other life threatening conditions. In 2019, the nationwide US movement of schoolchildren had joined with the medical profession in challenging gun violence as a public health crisis. Strict gun laws gradually followed, along with rejection of gun manufacturers in pension funds’ assets crippling the gun lobby and, in many countries, guns were purchased back by governments from gun owners and destroyed, as Australia had done in the 20th century. This greatly reduced global arms sales, together with international laws requiring expensive annual licenses and insurance, while global taxation reduced the wasteful arms races of previous centuries. Conflicts between nations are now largely governed by international treaties and transparency. Now in 2050, conflicts rarely involve military means, shifting to internet propaganda, spying and cyber warfare.

By 2020, these revolts exhibited all the fault lines in human societies: from racism and ignorance, conspiracy theories, xenophobia and scapegoating of “the other“ to various cognitive biases — technological determinism, theory-induced blindness, and the fatal, widespread misunderstanding that confused money with actual wealth. Money, as we all know today, was a useful invention: all currencies are simply social protocols (physical or virtual tokens of trust), operating on social platforms with network effects, their prices fluctuating to the extent that their various users trust and use them. Yet, countries and elites all over the world became enthralled with money and with gambling in the “global financial casino,” further encouraging the seven deadly sins over traditional values of cooperation, sharing, mutual aid, and the Golden Rule.

Scientists and environmental activists had warned of the dire consequences of these unsustainable societies and retrogressive value systems for decades, but until the 2020 pandemic corporate and political leaders, and other elites, stubbornly resisted these warnings. Previously unable to break their intoxication with financial profits and political power, their own citizens forced the re-focus on the well-being and survival of humanity and the community of life. Incumbent fossilized industries fought to retain their tax breaks and subsidies in all countries as gas and oil prices collapsed. But they were less able to buy political favors and support of their privileges. It took the global reactions of millions of young people, “grassroots globalists,“ and indigenous peoples, who understood the systemic processes of our planet Gaia — a self-organizing, self-regulating biosphere which for billions of years had managed all planetary evolution without interference from cognitively-challenged humans.

In the first years of our twenty-first century, Gaia responded in an unexpected way, as it had so often during the long history of evolution. Humans’ clear-cutting large areas of tropical rainforests and massive intrusions into other ecosystems around the world, had fragmented these self-regulating ecosystems and fractured the web of life. One of the many consequences of these destructive actions was that some viruses, which had lived in symbiosis with certain animal species, jumped from those species to others and to humans, where they were highly toxic or deadly. People in many countries and regions, marginalized by the narrow profit-oriented economic globalization, assuaged their hunger by seeking “bush meat“ in these newly exposed wild areas , killing monkeys, civets, pangolins, rodents and bats, as additional protein sources . These wild species, carrying a variety of viruses were also sold live in “wet markets,” further exposing ever more urban populations to these new viruses.

Back in the 1960s, for example, an obscure virus jumped from a rare species of monkeys killed as “bush meat” and eaten by humans in West Africa. From there it spread to the United States where it was identified as the HIV virus and caused the AIDS epidemic. Over four decades, they caused the deaths of an estimated 39 million people worldwide, about half a percent of the world population. Four decades later, the impact of the coronavirus was swift and dramatic. In 2020, the virus jumped from a species of bats to humans in China, and from there it rapidly spread around the world, decimating world population by an estimated 50 million in just one decade.

From the vantage point of our year 2050, we can look back at the sequence of these viruses: SARS, MERS, and the global impact of the various coronavirus mutations which began back in 2020. Eventually such pandemics were stabilized, partly by the outright bans on “wet markets“ all over China in 2020 . Such bans spread to other countries and global markets, cutting the trading of wild animals and reducing vectors, along with better public health systems, preventive care and the development of effective vaccines and drugs.

The basic lessons for humans in our tragic 50 years of self-inflicted global crises — the afflictions of pandemics , flooded cities, burned forestlands, droughts and other increasingly violent climate disasters — were simple, many based on the discoveries of Charles Darwin and other biologists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:

We humans are one species with very little variation in our basic DNA.

We evolved with other species in the planet’s biosphere by natural selection, responding to changes and stresses in our various habitats and environments.

We are a global species, having migrated out of the African continent to all others, competing with other species, causing various extinctions.

Our planetary colonization and success, in this Anthropocene Age of our twenty-first century, was largely due to our abilities to bond, cooperate, share and evolve in ever larger populations and organizations.

Humanity grew from roving bands of nomads to live in settled agricultural villages, to towns, and the mega-cities of the twentieth century, where over 50% of our populations lived. Until the climate crises and those of the pandemics in the first years of our 21st century, all forecasts predicted that these mega-cities would keep growing and that human populations would reach 10 billion by today, in 2050.

Now we know why human populations topped out at the 7.6 billion in 2030, as expected in the most hopeful scenario of the IPCC, as well as in the global urban surveys by social scientists documenting the decline of fertility in Empty Planet (2019). The newly aware “grassroots globalists”, the armies of school children, global environmentalists and empowered women joined with green, more ethical investors and entrepreneurs in localizing markets. Millions were served by microgrid cooperatives, powered by renewable electricity, adding to the world’s cooperative enterprises, which even by 2012 employed more people worldwide than all the for-profit companies combined. They no longer used the false money metrics of GDP, but in 2015 switched to steering their societies by the UN’s SDGs, their 17 goals of sustainability and restoration of all ecosystems and human health.

These new social goals and metrics all focused on cooperation, sharing and knowledge-richer forms of human development, using renewable resources and maximizing efficiency. This long term sustainability, equitably distributed, benefits all members of the human family within the tolerance of other species in our living biosphere. Competition and creativity flourish with good ideas driving out less useful ones, along with science-based ethical standards and deepening information in self-reliant and more connected societies at all levels from local to global.

When the coronavirus struck in 2020, the human responses were at first chaotic and insufficient, but soon became increasingly coherent and even dramatically different. Global trade shrunk to only transporting rare goods, shifting to trading information. Instead of shipping cakes, cookies and biscuits around the planet, we shipped their recipes, and all the other recipes for creating plant-based foods and beverages; and locally we installed green technologies: solar, wind, geothermal energy sources, LED lighting, electric vehicles, boats, and even aircraft.

Fossil fuel reserves stayed safely in the ground, as carbon was seen as a resource, much too precious to burn. The excess CO2 in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning was captured by organic soil bacteria, deep-rooted plants, billions of newly planted trees, and in the widespread re-balancing of the human food systems based on agro-chemical industrial agribusiness, advertising and global trading of a few monocultured crops. This over-dependence on fossil fuels, pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics in animal-raised meat diets, all were based on the planet’s dwindling freshwater and proved unsustainable. Today, in 2050, our global foods are produced locally, including many more overlooked indigenous and wild crops, saltwater agriculture and all the other salt-loving (halophyte) food plants whose complete proteins are healthier for human diets.

Mass tourism, and travel in general, decreased radically, along with air traffic and phased-out fossil fuel use. Communities around the world stabilized in small- to medium-sized population centers, which became largely self-reliant with local and regional production of food and energy. Fossil-fuel use virtually disappeared, as already by 2020 it could no longer compete with rapidly developing renewable energy resources and corresponding new technologies and upcycling of all formerly-wasted resources into our circular economies of today.

Because of the danger of infections in mass gatherings, sweat shops, large chain stores, as well as sports events and entertainment in large arenas gradually disappeared. Democratic politics became more rational, since demagogues could no longer assemble thousands in large rallies to hear them. Their empty promises were also curbed in social media, as these profit-making monopolies were broken up by 2025 and now in 2050 are regulated as public utilities serving the public good in all countries.

The global-casino financial markets collapsed, and economic activities shifted back from the financial sector to credit unions and public banks in our cooperative sectors of today. The manufacture of goods and our service-based economies revived traditional barter and informal voluntary sectors, local currencies, as well as numerous non-monetary transactions that had developed during the height of the pandemics. As a consequence of wide-spread decentralization and the growth of self-reliant communities, our economies of today in 2050, have become regenerative rather than extractive, and the poverty gaps and inequality of the money-obsessed, exploitive models have largely disappeared.

The pandemic of 2020, which crashed global markets, finally upended the ideologies of money and market fundamentalism. Central banks’ tools no longer worked, so “helicopter money “and direct cash payments to needy families, such as pioneered by Brazil, became the only means of maintaining purchasing power to smooth orderly economic transitions to sustainable societies. This shifted US and European politicians to creating new money and these stimulus policies replaced “austerity“ and were rapidly invested in all the renewable resource infrastructure in their respective Green New Deal plans.

When the coronavirus spread to domestic animals, cattle, and other ruminants, sheep and goats, some of these animals became carriers of the disease without themselves showing any symptoms. Consequently, the slaughter and consumption of animals dropped dramatically around the world. Pasturing and factory-raising of animals had added almost 15% of annual global greenhouse gases. Big meat producing multinational corporations became shorted by savvy investors as the next group of “ stranded assets”, along with fossil fuel companies Some switched entirely to plant-based foods with numerous meat, fish, and cheese analogs. Beef became very expensive and rare, and cows were usually owned by families, as traditionally, on small farms for local milk, cheese, and meat, along with eggs from their chickens.

After the pandemics subsided, and expensive, vaccines had been developed, global travel was allowed only with the vaccination certificates of today, used mainly by traders and wealthy people. The majority of the world’s populations now prefer the pleasures of community and online meetings and communicating, along with traveling locally by public transport, electric cars, and by the solar and wind powered sailboats we all enjoy today. As a consequence, air pollution has decreased dramatically in all major cities around the world.

With the growth of self-reliant communities, so-called “urban villages” have sprung up in many cities — re-designed neighborhoods that display high-density structures combined with ample common green spaces. These areas boast significant energy savings and a healthy, safe, and community-oriented environment with drastically reduced levels of pollution.

Today’s eco-cities include food grown in high rise buildings with solar rooftops, vegetable gardens, and electric public transport, after automobiles were largely banned from urban streets in 2030. These streets were reclaimed by pedestrians, cyclists and people on scooters browsing in smaller local stores, craft galleries and farmer’s markets. Solar electric vehicles for inter-town use often charge and discharge their batteries at night to balance electricity in single-family houses. Free-standing solar-powered vehicle re-charger units are available in all areas, reducing use of fossil-based electricity from obsolete centralized utilities, many of which went bankrupt by 2030.

After all the dramatic changes we enjoy today, we realize that our lives are now less stressful, healthier, and more satisfying, and our communities plan for the long-term future. To assure the sustainability of our new ways of life, we realize that restoring ecosystems around the world is crucial, so that viruses dangerous to humans are confined again to other animal species where they do no harm. To restore ecosystems worldwide, our global shift to organic, regenerative agriculture flourished, along with plant-based foods, beverages and all the saltwater -grown foods and kelp dishes we enjoy. The billions of trees which we planted around the world after 2020, along with the agricultural improvements gradually restored ecosystems.

As a consequence of all these changes, the global climate has finally stabilized, with today’s CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere returning to the safe level of 350 parts per million. Higher sea levels will remain for a century and many cities now flourish on safer, higher ground. Climate catastrophes are now rare, while many weather events still continue to disrupt our lives, just as they had in previous centuries. The multiple global crises and pandemics, due to our earlier ignorance of planetary processes and feedback loops, had widespread tragic consequences for individuals and communities. Yet, we humans have learned many painful lessons. Today, looking back from 2050, we realize that the Earth is our wisest teacher, and its terrible lessons may have saved humanity and large parts of our shared planetary community of life from extinction.

************

Fritjof Capra, Ph.D., physicist and systems theorist, is the author of several international bestsellers, including The Tao of Physics (1975) and The Web of Life (1996). He is coauthor, with Pier Luigi Luisi, of the multidisciplinary textbook, The Systems View of Life. Capra’s online course (www.capracourse.net) is based on his textbook.

Hazel Henderson, D.Sc.Hon., FRSA, futurist, systems and science-policy analyst, is author of “The Politics of the Solar Age” (1981, 1986) and other books, including “Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age” (2014). Henderson is CEO of Ethical Markets Media Certified B. Corporation, USA (www.ethicalmarkets.com), publishers of the Green Transition Scoreboard ®, and the forthcoming textbook and global TV series “Transforming Finance.”

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csrgood · 5 years ago

Text

“Pandemics — Lessons Looking Back From 2050”

From the vantage point of our year 2050, we can look back at the sequence of theses viruses: SARS, MERS, and the global impact of the various coronavirus mutations which began back in 2020. Eventually such pandemics were stabilized, partly by the outright bans on “wet markets“ all over China in 2020 . Such bans spread to other countries and global markets, cutting the trading of wild animals and reducing vectors, along with better public health systems, preventive care and the development of effective vaccines and drugs.

We humans are one species with very little variation in our basic DNA.

We evolved with other species in the planet’s biosphere by natural selection, responding to changes and stresses in our various habitats and environments.

We are a global species, having migrated out of the African continent to all others, competing with other species, causing various extinctions.

************

source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/44073--Pandemics-Lessons-Looking-Back-From-2050-?tracking_source=rss

#CSR #corporate social responsibility #social good #philanthropy #employee engagement #workplace givi

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jascookex-blog · 8 years ago

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Colonial Government

Colonial Government in the Thirteen Colonies

My Introduction

Government by definition is “the governing body of a nation, or community.” Although that is a very good description to grasp the idea fully we must know what governing means at its core. To govern would mean to “conduct the policy, actions, and affairs of (a state, organization, or people). Politics described simply by my old Political scientist professor is “who gets what, when, and how.”(Poulard) This description is my personal favorite when it comes to understanding what happened here in The United States of America. One must grip the importance of this simple concept to fully understand why the colonists weren’t the biggest fan of their King 3000 miles across the Atlantic.

The New World was a place where your wildest dreams could come true. To the powerful leaders of the European nations, The New World was an opportunity to pump up their reputation as a leader of their people, to be a knowledgeable presider of their nation. It was a chance to become the European super power, to improve the quality of life among the civilians of one’s nation, and the possibilities for new raw resource, new found wealth, power, the possibility for new found knowledges, and new technologies to bring back to the motherland.

The first European nation to step foot amongst the New World for exploitation was Spain, the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus was sent to sail for India in 1492. The Spanish Monarchs King Ferdinand, and Queen Isabel had rejected Cristopher’s hearings in 1491 to venture in search of a new trade route; However when Christopher had threatened to speak to the King of France about his expedition, King Ferdinand had changed his mind about commissioning Christopher Columbus. So on April 17th, 1492 the two Spanish monarchs signed a formal agreement with Columbus granting the explorer ten percent of all profits made from the voyage. The Monarchs were thinking rationally, they had just lost a lot of resources conquering the Moorish Kingdom of Grenada. Christopher Columbus was in charge of three Spanish ships, The Santa Maria, The Pinta, and the Nina. This expedition is vital to know because it is the first step in European settlement, and colonization of the Americas.

On Christopher Columbus’s second voyage to the Caribbean in 1493 he had established the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Americas, he named the settlement Isabella. After finding a lot of gold the Spanish over ran the island of Hispaniola, and spread to Puerto Rico in 1508, to Jamaica in 1509, and to Cuba in 1511. When Columbus originally landed in Cuba he had thought he had arrived in China. Half way through the 1500’s many natives of Central, and South America had died off from war, enslavement, or disease. By the year 1550 The Spanish had domination over the West Indies, and Central America. They were the wealthiest nation in the world due to the discovery of the new found wealth, however it wouldn’t be long until the rest of Europe wanted to tip the scales in their favor.

The year was 1585, and Spain was still the most powerful country in the world. The country was an empire, ruling territories all over the world, the country also had incomparable amounts of wealth from the new world, which other countries did not have access too yet. King Philip the 2nd was preparing the largest fleet ever to be built in the history of the world, for one of the most historic showdowns in all of history. King Philip intended on capturing England with his infamous Spanish armada. May 1588, A fleet of 130 Spanish ships filled with invaders were to be pushed upon the coast of England, he had hoped that his troops would over run the English. When the Spanish ships had reached the English Channel the weather had turned for the worst, and most of the men in the Spanish ships did not make it back home. Spanish ships stood no chance against the weather and the new English ships that were defending the Island.

The Queen was victorious, against all odds her and her people had defeated the most powerful navy in the world. The defeat of the Spanish Armada had crippled the Spanish economy causing mass crisis throughout the nation. King Philip the second had spent 10 million ducats on the Armada which had its consequences on the countries poor. In 1596 the crown of Spain had declared bankruptcy. This is so important to know, because now the English could colonize the New World.

The English Colonization of North America

The year is now 1606 and England is relatively poor compared to their neighboring nations. The virgin Queen Elizabeth the 1st had passed away in 1603, and the crown of England was passed by vote of Cecil, and council to the King of Scotland, King James the 1st who had already been King for 35 years. On April 10th, 1606 King James issued the first Virginia charter which made The Virginia Company. The Charter was proprietary, and gave land grants to two competing English investment companies to invest in the new world. It was called the joint-stock company ventures, this made it possible to fund these expensive voyages to Virginia. The joint-stock company would sell stocks to investors to raise money for the venture into Virginia. The investors knew that the investment had little risk as far as their lives were concerned, they knew the startup costs would be huge, and the investor’s biggest risk of loss would have been if the colonies failed.

As far as the King was concerned The Virginia Charter was an attempt to stop Spanish expansion in The Americas, while acquiring wealth for the motherland Britain. The Virginia Charter had potential to give the British their first Empire colony in North America. The crossings of the Atlantic were dangerous, and many of the colonists heading to the New World were desperate for new wealth, new lives, or as servants whom would work for 3 to 7 years in return for land. The colonists heading to Virginia knew they could die at sea, and everything could be lost, but they still went. The leaders in most cases were the second or third sons of noble families in search of their own land.

The Plymouth Company wanted the lands in the north of the area, and The London Company wanted the lands south of the area (The companies were named after the cities the investors based in the area). The first attempt to colonize Virginia by The Plymouth Company was a disaster, and the English ship “The Richard” was captured by the Spanish in August 1607. The Plymouth Company also had a second venture with two ships “The Gift of God”, and “The Mary and John”, these ships brought 45 colonists and created the Popham colony in Maine. After the leader of the colony had found out he had inherited some money in London, he left the colony, taking all 45 of the colonists with him.

The London Company succeeded in creating the first permanent English settlement in North America. In December 1606 three English ships brought 104 colonists to Virginia to assemble Jamestown. The town was founded on May 24th, 1607, the town was in a strategic location. It was on a peninsula giving it easy access to vessels, it also gave access inland through the James River. At first the colonists struggled due to the harsh conditions in the new world. Geographically they were faced with swampy land that harbored malaria, and dysentery. The colonists were unfamiliar to the resources that nature had provided for them, and were often faced with hostility when it came to the Natives. Many Colonists were gentleman and were not used to doing hard labor, some didn’t want to help. The English were struggling to stay alive, they had finally birthed a colony, and established their foothold in North America, but would the colony succeed?

Colonial Government

Humans or as I prefer, Homo Sapiens are animals in nature, and just like animals in the wild, the Jamestown colonists were struggling to survive. A period of time during this struggle is referred to as “the starving times”, when colonists had become so desperate they had to eat their dead peers. After nine months in Jamestown there were only 38 colonists alive out of the original 105. In January 1608, 100 more Englishman arrive to Jamestown with supplies. John Smith is elected president of the Jamestown governing council, and implies the policy that everyone must work. In many respects John Smith saved the Jamestown colony from failure, and by making a policy he governed the colonists.

In 1619 Britain had acquired 13 colonies in the last decade. They were called The New England colonies, Colonies were governed by the King and parliament in England. All of the policies and laws imposed over the colonists came from the English government across the Atlantic. Even though the state was governed by the King, the colonists were given certain rights to ensure their cooperation, and loyalty to the King. One of these rights gave the Virginian males the right to be appointed by vote of Virginian landowners to be in the Virginian House of Burgesses. To qualify you must be a male, and also own land. The House would meet up once a year to improve the state of Virginia, and quality of life for its residents.

The House of Burgesses along with the British appointed governor of the state could decide how the colonists would be taxed. The House of Burgesses was a stepping stone towards democratic government in the Colonies, however their power was not sovereign. The King needed more money to pay for the French Indian war, his idea, tax the colonists. Although the House of Burgesses did not agree, they were powerless when the English made the tax a law. The House of Burgesses attempted to persuade colonists into not paying the Kings taxes, but were dissolved as a group entirely by the English appointed Virginia Governor.

The New England Confederation was formed in 1643, uniting the Massachusetts Bay colony, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. Representatives from the colonies met in Boston and wrote a Constitution binding the Colonies as “The United Colonies of New England,” they did this to improve mutual safety and welfare of the Colonies. The Representatives coordinated defenses in case of attacks, and often debated where boundaries started and ended. After Massachusetts declined a war with the Dutch, the Confederation would slowly decline until it is dissolved in 1684 when the King went back on his Massachusetts charter.

Other Legislatures were formed over the colonies, and all of them were democratic. The people could vote in who they wanted to represent them, but their powers were limited. The Legislature could not go against English law, their bills had to be passed by the Kings governors, and then passed by the King himself after approved by both The Legislature, and Governor. The only Colonies except to the bills going to the King were the self-governing Charter Colonies of Connecticut, Maryland, and Rhode Island.

The thirst for sovereign governing of their own Colonies, had started to manipulate the destiny of New England. Another Union was created in Albany, New York. The congress was called The Albany Congress, and occurred between June 19 to July 11 in 1754. The congress wanted a unification of seven colonies- Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. The motivation of the unification was for security, and defense from the French in North America. Although the delegates were picked by the colonists, the British were still watching every political decision being made by the colonists. When the Albany Plan of Union was given to the King for approval, he denied the plan due to the power it took from him.

The English were completely in control of the government implemented in the colonies, and different laws were implemented in different places. Royal Colonies were ruled directly by the King. The governments were appointed by him, and the policies often exploited the colonists for the Kings gain. The Proprietary Colonies were self-interest colonies who owned their own institutions of government, however their governors would report everything political back to the King. The last was a Charter Colony, these were granted during the joint-stock company and were created when the King James had issued the charters in 1607 .Even though some governments were self-governing, and The Colonies were still ruled by the King and British Parliament.

After the French and Indian War in 1754 the King implemented a higher tax on the colonies to pay for the war. The colonies were restricted by the King, they had no free trade and fell victim to a one sided mercantile system. Next came the Stamp act congress of 1765 which occurred in New York City in 1765, it lasted from October 7th to October 25th. Representatives from nine out of thirteen colonies got together in an attempt to protest against new British taxation, specifically the stamp act. The stamp act taxed colonists on ;newspapers, legal documents, commercial documents, liquor licenses, calendars, almanacs, certificates, diplomas, contracts, wills, bills of sale, and licenses of all sorts.

The Stamp act affected every colonist, it taxed domestic goods, and made it more expensive to succeed. The tax was direct from the King, with no approval from the colonists. The stamp act was reinforced with penalties, violators were often tried without a jury present. The assembly wrote the “Declaration of rights and grievances of the colonists.” A document that stated that the colonists should be treated as equals to the citizens of Britain, that only local governments could tax the Colonies, that they would not pay taxes they had not consented to, and last but not least , to have a jury present during trial. When the “Declaration of rights and grievances of the colonists” were read by parliament, and the King, they were swiftly rejected. A year later in 1766 Parliament took away the Stamp act.

Only a year later in 1767 the British had passed The Townshend acts. The Townshend acts taxed paint, lead, tea, glass, and paper. This infuriated many of the colonists because the King had taxed them directly again without consent. George Washington wrote a consultation named “The Virginia Resolves.” The consultation expresses Washington’s view that colonies could only be taxed by their own appointed legislature. By 1769 every colony except for New Hampshire was boycotting British goods.

The Intolerable acts infuriate the colonies, and end up pushing them to their breaking point. In my next Making history one can only imagine the legendary tale that is to come.

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