[T]he state never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength.

Don’t become a well-rounded person. Well rounded people are smooth and dull. Become a thoroughly spiky person. Grow spikes from every angle. Stick in their throats like a pufferfish. If you want to woo the muse of the odd, don’t read Shakespeare. Read Webster’s revenge plays. Don’t read Homer and Aristotle. Read Herodotus where he’s off talking about Egyptian women having public sex with goats. […] You didn’t come here from nowhere. There are reasons why you’re here. Learn those reasons. Learn about the stuff that was buried because it was too experimental or embarrassing or inexplicable or uncomfortable or dangerous.

The post-political information society does not operate on the basis of obedience and conformity to dogma. It is based on individual thinking; scientific know-how; quick exchange of facts around feedback networks; high-tech ingenuity; and practical, frontline creativity. The society of the future no longer grudgingly tolerates a few open-minded innovators. The cybernetic society is totally dependent on a large pool of such people, communicating at light speed within and without geographical boundaries. Electrified thoughts invite fast feedback, creating new global societies that require a higher level of electronic know-how, psychological sophistication and open-minded intelligence.

If distinguished from hypermodernity, supermodernity is a step beyond the ontological emptiness of postmodernism and relies upon a view of plausible truths. Where modernism focused upon the creation of great truths (or what Lyotard called “master narratives” or “metanarratives”), postmodernity is intent upon their destruction (deconstruction). In contrast supermodernity does not concern itself with the creation or identification of truth value. Instead, information that is useful is selected from the superabundant sources of new media. Postmodernity and deconstruction have made the creation of truths an impossible construction. Supermodernity acts amid the chatter and excess of signification in order to escape the nihilistic tautology of postmodernity. The Internet search and the construction of interconnected blogs are excellent metaphors for the action of the supermodern subject. Related Authors are Terry Eagleton After Theory, and Marc Auge Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity.

That state of deprivation though, is of course, the condition that many of those rioting endure as their unbending reality. No education, a weakened family unit, no money and no way of getting any. JD Sports is probably easier to desecrate if you can’t afford what’s in there and the few poorly paid jobs there are taken. Amidst the bleakness of this social landscape, squinting all the while in the glare of a culture that radiates ultra-violet consumerism and infra-red celebrity. That daily, hourly, incessantly enforces the egregious, deceitful message that you are what you wear, what you drive, what you watch and what you watch it on, in livid, neon pixels. The only light in their lives comes from these luminous corporate messages. No wonder they have their fucking hoods up.

Do not seek fame. Do not make plans. Do not be absorbed by activities. Do not think that you know. Be aware of all that is and dwell in the infinite. Wander where there is no path. Be all that heaven gave you, but act as though you have received nothing. Be empty, that is all.

There may actually be a “demographic bonus” in a dwindling population, according to experts. “As the size of the actual labor force grows, fewer people depend on it. This is not yet the case in Japan, which faces an increasingly onerous demographic debt,” says Toru Suzuki of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.

The population patterns in most countries in the region are such that, in a matter of years, the size of the labor forces in those places will shrink and the number of people depending on them such as retirees and children will balloon.

Suzuki, however, adds that the demographic factor doesn’t have an immediate effect on an economy. “Demography works in the background of the economic trajectory,” he says.

In China the family-planning policy that encourages most families to have a single child has been successful but created other problems, the most significant being a relatively older population. Almost half of its people are over the age of 40. This means that at some point in the near future the workforce may be too small to support everybody.

Analysts and forecasters fear dangers will arise if the trend continues. For now, however, there appears to be progress in a number of areas – if progress is defined as healthier populations who are living longer.

…

“Nobody is really prepared for these demographic shifts. One challenge created by an older population is the cost of healthcare. As you become older you are less able to look after yourself,” says Thomas Abraham, director of the public health communication program at Hong Kong University. “In terms of public health, the question is whether increases in population are met with greater access to health services,” he adds.

In the next 15 years, global fertility may drop to the replacement rate – the point at which populations stay flat. Workforces across the continent will likely begin to drop, and, as a result, people in Asia may work longer.

This will lead to a higher retirement age. Working to the age of 70 is a likely prospect for the current labor force, according to Deutsche Bank.

…

According to WHO statistics, people now earn more and have easier access to healthcare, education, clean drinking water and vaccinations. More people across Asia now receive vaccines. Measles vaccination rates are 95 percent in the Western Pacific region and 76 percent in Southeast Asia, up from 85 percent and 58 percent in 2000 respectively.

These developments have a direct effect on the lifestyles of people in the region who are living longer and healthier lives. And in turn, these also have a positive effect on economies because healthier and more educated people are more productive.The irony, however, lies in the fact that healthy and longer lifespans presage a potential disaster. The indications are quite clear, even from affluent Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

William Gibson famously observed that the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed. The flip side of that observation is that the near future is just like the present, with added nuggets of weirdness embedded in it. About 90% of the near future (10-20 years out) *is* here today: the buildings, the cars, the clothing. This is because we don’t junk our entire fleet of automobiles every time a new model appears — change is incremental, and old stuff hangs around. In addition to the 90% that’s familiar, there will be another 9% that is new but not unexpected — cheaper, flatter TV screens, better cancer treatments, bigger airliners, cars with extra cup-holders. These are the things that are trivially predictable. Finally, if you go more than 5 years out, about 1% of the world will be utterly, incomprehensibly alien and unexpected. To a time traveller from 1994 to 2004, that would have been the internet (which suddenly detonated, and went from being a techie/academic/corporate nerd thing into a ubiquitous communications medium), or mobile phones (expensive yuppie business tool to ubiquitous pocket lint).

Whosoever lays their hands on another to govern them is a tyrant and a usurper, and I declare them my enemy.