The world faces an air pollution ‘pandemic’ (▻https://www.escardio.o...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/10535489
The world faces an air pollution ‘pandemic’ | #air #health #lifeexpectancy #pollution
The world faces an air pollution ‘pandemic’ (▻https://www.escardio.o...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/10535489
The world faces an air pollution ‘pandemic’ | #air #health #lifeexpectancy #pollution
Peeling back the layers on the role of private security companies in Africa
Private military and security companies have been regular fixtures in conflicts across the globe. For Africa, these corporations became increasingly visible with their role in civil wars in Angola and Sierra Leone.
More recently, reports in 2015 indicated the Nigerian government contracted a number of companies to aid in counterinsurgency efforts targeting #Boko_Haram.
And a Russian contractor, the #Wagner_Group, has been actively involved in Sudan and the Central African Republic. Its involvement has included signing contracts that grant it access to potential diamond and gold deposits. Such agreements have been typical of private military and security companies, particularly in Africa. This was the case with Executive Outcomes’ deal with Sierra Leone’s government in the early 1990s.
But understanding when and why these corporations are able to deliver effective services to clients has remained an elusive task.
What are they?
Private military and security companies are defined as legal entities that provide clients with a wide array of military and security services. This includes combat-oriented tasks, military or security training, logistical support and armed security and guarding. It can also include weapons procurement and installation.
As a multibillion dollar industry, the list of companies is continually growing, as is demand for their services. In late 2018, the US Department of Defense reported nearly 50,000 contractors working under the auspices of such companies. Over 28,000 were in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.
Beyond the obvious role of combat support, these companies have also been increasingly used in services as diverse as anti-poaching efforts and combating maritime piracy.
Civil war role
For many governments, private military and security companies can become an attractive resource. This is particularly true in cases where the capacity of national armed forces is low and the government faces strong threats.
But, how well do they perform?
One recent investigation argued that contracting private military and security companies during wartime can actually increase military effectiveness – and with it, the intensity of conflict. Other scholars have explored their impact on the duration of conflicts. This research has suggested that conflicts in which higher numbers of these companies are contracted by a government are likely to be shorter than those with few or none.
The rationale here is that a more competitive market incentivises the companies to perform better so they can win more contracts.
Our recent assessment of private military activity, along with work from academics Deborah Avant and Kara Kingma Neu, questions this logic.
We set out to try and understand how these companies interact. We also wanted to know the effect of these interactions.
Competition or complementary?
Private military and security companies frequently do compete over contracts. But we also found that once they were contracted they often collaborated. This was especially likely when a task was very big or when specialised services were needed.
Observing and evaluating the delivery of specific services is difficult. Some research has compounded this difficulty by assessing effectiveness with generic measures such as conflict duration rather than whether the terms of the contract were met.
It’s difficult accessing the terms of specific contracts because all the entities involved are private companies. This means that identifying how well they’re meeting the requirements of a specified contract is often unknown. This is a huge challenge for researchers who rely primarily on quantitative assessments to explore these dynamics.
We also drew attention to how quantitative analyses, in the absence of in-depth investigation, could lead scholars to miss important dynamics in how these companies influence conflicts.
Exploring the evidence
We looked at Sierra Leone’s civil war, which began in 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front invaded the country from neighbouring #Liberia.
Our analysis shows that at no time during the conflict were rival private military and security companies operating simultaneously in the country. For example, the #Gurkha_Security_Guards was contracted in early 1994. But it quickly exited when rebels ambushed and killed their leader. After the company had left, Executive Outcomes was contracted to thwart the #Revolutionary_United_Front threat. In the data, presence in the same year is inaccurately treated as competition.
We also found that when multiple groups were contracted simultaneously, their repertoire of services didn’t overlap. In other words, they weren’t competing with one another because their services were complementary. From our perspective this increased their ability to execute their mission effectively.
For instance, #Executive_Outcomes owned and operated a number of subsidiaries, including groups like #LifeGuard_Management and #Ibis_Air. It used these groups to carry out specialised services such as mine security and air transport. These were pivotal in providing Executive Outcomes the best opportunity to regain territory from the Revolutionary United Front while training the Sierra Leone military.
But the simultaneous presence of each of the companies is not indicative of competition.
We also found that although hiring the companies shifted the balance of power in the government’s favour by 1996, the conflict wouldn’t end completely until 2002.
Our qualitative assessment highlighted that, instead of the companies helping to bring the conflict to an end, the same data could actually indicate that they simply managed its intensity.
This analysis underscores the need to really come to grips with the concept of effectiveness of private military and security companies. It also suggests that more work needs to be done on uncovering insights on contract terms and conditions, however aspirational a task.
Conclusions
We are not suggesting that private military and security companies should be avoided. They have proven to be useful alternatives for organisations such as the #UN and the #World_Food_Programme. Rather, our analysis points to the need to fully understand the intricacies of their interactions – not only with the entities that contract them, but with one another.
This is particularly important in Africa. Foreign investment by both Russia and China is likely to see an increase in private military and security companies hired to protect their investments.
This might increase security in the region. But depending on the terms of the contracts and the clients these organisations are accountable to, it may not be in the best interests of the states where they operate.
In addition, a more complete understanding of the roles undertaken by private military and security companies during conflict is necessary to fully understand their effects on conflict dynamics, including duration.
Recent work has moved in this direction with event datasets like the Private Security Event Database. This provides information on where these companies operate, their clients and the services they provide. Though real time information on contracts and events is likely to prove difficult to get, using historical datasets like this can increase our understanding of their influence.
For governments, the expanding list of services in an increasingly globalised market allows for greater opportunity to fill real or perceived gaps in security. In certain cases, private military and security companies may be used to insulate a regime from collapse.
Regardless of the reasons, the interactions between the companies and the influence they have on conflict and stability will continue to be important.
▻https://theconversation.com/peeling-back-the-layers-on-the-role-of-private-security-companies-i
#privatisation #armées #milices #guerres #guerres_civiles #Angola #Sierra_Léone #contractors #Afrique #Russie #FAO #Chine
ping @albertocampiphoto
In 2015 our team produced 50 Feet from Syria - focused on the civilian impact of the Syrian conflict. This was the first of a triad of films focused on one of the great humanitarian crises of our time – the plight of refugees in a global and interconnected world.
In a political environment increasingly hostile to immigrants and refugees, documenting the real-life plight of those fleeing war and oppression is more vital and important than ever.
LIFEBOAT bears witness to refugees desperate enough to risk their lives in rubber boats leaving Libya in the middle of the night, despite a high probability of drowning. With few resources but certain that civil society must intervene, volunteers from a German non-profit risk the waves of the Mediterranean to pluck refugees from sinking rafts.
In a real-life context with dire consequences, LIFEBOAT puts a human face on one of the world’s greatest contemporary, global crises and provides a spark of hope surrounding how civil society can intervene in the refugee crisis in a meaningful way.
#Exit
#Karen_Winther est passée d’un extrême à l’autre : membre d’un groupe de la gauche radicale à l’adolescence, elle a ensuite viré de bord pour rejoindre la mouvance néonazie. Après avoir définitivement rompu avec l’extrémisme, la réalisatrice norvégienne, encore hantée par son passé violent, est allée à la rencontre de personnes du monde entier qui, après avoir connu une « déradicalisation » similaire, ont souhaité témoigner de leur parcours. En Floride, Angela, ex-membre de l’organisation d’extrême droite Aryan Nations, passée par la case prison, s’engage aujourd’hui pour prévenir ces dérives. Manuel, l’un des anciens visages du mouvement néonazi allemand, vit aujourd’hui reclus pour sa propre sécurité. Quant au Français David, hier aspirant djihadiste de l’État islamique, il a quitté la mouvance après sa sortie de prison. Comment ces personnes d’horizons divers ont-elles réussi à tourner la page ? Un documentaire intimiste qui met en lumière les racines de leurs engagements, mais aussi les soutiens et les perspectives qui les ont aidées à s’en détourner.
#David_Vallat, ex-djihadiste :
« On pense que la violence, l’usage de la #violence peut changer les choses, mais à partir du moment où vous l’utilisez c’est la violence qui vous change parce vous changez le regard sur le monde »
#film #documentaire #extrême_droite #néo-nazis #haine #Ingo_Hasselbach #témoignage #honte #peur #Tore_Bjørg (chercheur sur la police) #djihadisme #GIA #groupe_islamiste_armé #Exit (association) #idéologie #vide #Life_after_hate (association) #colère #viol #traumatisme #pardon #culpabilité #radicalisation
U.S. Life Expectancy Drops for Third Year in a Row, Reflecting Risi...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/9310111
U.S. Life Expectancy Drops for Third Year in a Row, Reflecting Rising Drug Overdoses, Suicides | #expectancy #life #overdose #suicide #US
“Jersey is being terrorised by 100-strong gangs of feral chickens waking up locals and chasing joggers”
“It is believed the chickens were once pets which were abandoned, before rapidly breeding. They now roam the British island in 100-strong groups.”
▻https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/jersey-terrorised-feral-chickens-cull-complaints
I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected (h...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/9135461
I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected
HN Discussion: ▻https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20059589 Posted by pseudolus (karma: 27130) Post stats: Points: 143 - Comments: 136 - 2019-05-31T10:11:48Z
#HackerNews #but #didnt #expected #gifted #grew #life #out #the #turn #way HackerNewsBot debug: Calculated post rank: 140 - Loop: 95 - Rank min: 100 - Author rank: 87
Filler material – Forthright Magazine
▻http://forthright.net/2019/05/12/filler-material
The classic method for creating a garden planter is to use three elements; a “thriller” (something eye-catching), a “spiller” (something to trail gracefully out of the container, and a “filler” (taking up space among the other two types of plants, and filling the gaps.) That filler plant fills up space while the other two elements get all the attention, even though they may be a smaller part of the composite arrangement.
Authentic #collaboration In Tech Starts with the Right People
▻https://hackernoon.com/authentic-collaboration-in-tech-starts-with-the-right-people-6c173514990
By Samantha Radocchia, co-founder and CMO of ChronicledThe most difficult part of building a company is bringing people together as a team.Traditionally, creating a collaborative, supportive team is viewed as something that can’t be forced. It’s widely recognized as a process that takes time and effort from everyone involved.But, as startup culture has grown and the role of founders has become ever more glamorized, a new method of company creation has popped up-venture production studios. Essentially, these studios bring together “founders” to start a company for a specific purpose.Think of it as manufacturing a company.While it’s possible to find success through that system, it’s also a very inorganic and impersonal way to build a company-and isn’t very good at fostering authentic (...)
#life #authentic-collaboration #entrepreneurship #life-lessons
3 Women Changing The Way the World Thinks About Product Design
▻https://hackernoon.com/3-women-changing-the-way-the-world-thinks-about-product-design-b40fc3802
These entrepreneurs are nailing category design.By Christopher Lochhead, podcaster, best selling author, and 3X Silicon Valley CMOMost of us can’t go a single hour without reaching for our iPhones.But nobody even knew why they needed an iPhone until Steve Jobs told them. And he did it by creating a brand-new category: a touch-enabled “smartphone” that can connects to the internet and doubles as a media player.Rather than simply solving the problem of, “What should a phone be capable of?” Jobs redesigned the problem by showing us, then conditioning us, to equate smartphones with his product. He owned this niche. Today, it’s still the standard against which all other smartphones are measured — with over 1 billion iPhones sold and counting.To build lasting brands and products, legendary companies (...)
The Quantum Computer: Annihilator of Contemporary #blockchain Technology
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-quantum-computer-annihilator-of-contemporary-blockchain-technology-4
With the popularity of cryptocurrencies on the rise, specialists in the area worry about how, when it comes about, quantum computers will threaten blockchain technology, which at the moment still lacks reliable data security.Photo by Pawel Janiak on UnsplashLooming ThreatsQuantum computers are our future, not just with #cryptocurrency but in all areas of life, though the fear that they could — in the realm where they are seen as being of most use at the moment — crack the cryptography which blockchains use for security.The threat is a real one.However, some scientists believe the only way to counter this is to use quantum blockchains as a wall against the threat.A simple case of ‘like for like’.Like Sheep in the BrainSource: Wooden Poster — Do Androids Dream of Electric SheepMy whole interest in (...)
The Programmable Self
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-programmable-self-e816dc005f9b?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4
Why there’s always somewhere better to be“It’s hot. It’s loud. Goddamn this mariachi band to hell!” I thought to myself while waiting on the New York City subway platform.My mind sought separation from my body. They couldn’t stand to be together. And so I put on my headphones and scrolled through Instagram until, gradually, my consciousness was taken somewhere else — somewhere better.New Yorkers love Instagram. I love tacos and thought my drawings might too.I sometimes wonder, if you live in New York City, but 95% of the time you are on Instagram — are you ever really in New York City?Sure the body is in New York, but that magic alchemy of human sensation that infuses you with awareness, and empathy, is overridden by #technology. The present is programmed, with my consent, by whoever writes the app (...)
The impulse to focus on your weaknesses is a vestigial remain of an outmoded era in our evolution
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-impulse-to-focus-on-your-weaknesses-is-a-vestigial-remain-of-an-outm
Nir’s Note: This guest post is by Auren Hoffman, the CEO of LiveRamp in San Francisco. This essay is a bit different from the normal…Continue reading on Hacker Noon »
The ever-growing list of #marketing rules I live, work and market by.
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-ever-growing-list-of-marketing-rules-i-live-work-and-market-by-683af
I’ve been running Honey Copy for a couple of years now. Perhaps, a little less. That’s me, up above, on a bike.Just kidding. I am part Asian, though.Anyway, living and working with Honey Copy has been lovely. Together, we’ve written words for some pretty incredible brands and just recently launched our very first product. It’s a copywriting guide called, “How to write words that sell like a Florida Snow Cone Vendor on the hottest day of the year.”I’m not entirely sure why I am saying “together” and “we” and “our”… it’s really just me but I view Honey Copy as a living breathing organism like a beautiful bumblebee.Naturally, running and growing my creative #writing #business has come with tons of marketing lessons… many that have been learned in the form of mistakes and heavy-handed knocks. Below, I’ve (...)
Sean Lourdes Shares a Vital Hack for #success in Life and #business
▻https://hackernoon.com/sean-lourdes-shares-a-vital-hack-for-success-in-life-and-business-35054b
Behind every successful business is a solid strategy. Every year, companies invest collective hundreds of millions of dollars in professionals who they hope would give them the best strategies for their businesses. They do this because they know that in the predominantly capitalist society of today, brands that don’t compete well die off fast.For Sean Lourdes, a business that starts out without a solid blueprint reduces its chances of thriving in the markets to near zero. In his words “Launching a business without drafting an effective strategy for its survival is similar to going to battle with a fierce enemy without defining techniques for assault”. And Sean is not alone. In the book “The Art of the Deal”, real estate billionaire and United States president, Donald Trump, gave insights on (...)
Brian Solis’s New Book Premiered at #sxsw. Here’s Why It Should Be On Your Spring Reading List
▻https://hackernoon.com/brian-soliss-new-book-premiered-at-sxsw-here-s-why-it-should-be-on-your-
Photo Credit: Brian SolisSXSW was packed with tech, long lines, inclusivity and patriarchy smashing. But one of the most life affirming takeaways, indeed one of the conference’s most surprisingly mindful experiences, came from an unlikely source.Brian Solis made his name as a digital anthropologist and futurist; he’s widely credited with shaping many market trends from the rise of Web 2.0 to startup acceleration to experience design to digital transformation and corporate innovatoin. But recently his career has evolved into something still more insightful than the sum of his research.From Business Tech to HumanityIn previous years at Southby, Solis has spoken about experience innovation, why Silicon Valley is such a mess and how we all got hooked like little lab rats on social media. This (...)
Why it Took Me Over 1 Million Views on Medium to Realise the Value of Short Form Content
▻https://hackernoon.com/why-it-took-me-over-1-million-views-on-medium-to-realise-the-value-of-sh
Why it Took Over 1 Million Views on Medium for me to Realise the Value of Short Form ContentIf you’ve ever found any value from anything I have ever written on Medium, I would preface this article with a request to follow me on Twitter @Chris_herdI’ve migrated much of my interactions there because I‘ve grown increasingly wary of Medium as a platform for discussion and the advance of ideas and topic that I support, believe and get behind.I really don’t understand where this needless adversarial criticality has emerged from or why it’s a necessary component of any discussion online. Each word written isn’t a challenge to your ego, it is an invitation to share knowledge and join in with a conversation the writer is trying to cultivate with their audience. That was my idealistic view, to begin (...)
Why Satoshi Nakamoto could be #god ?
▻https://hackernoon.com/why-satoshi-nakamoto-could-be-god-4ae1dfc19979?source=rss----3a8144eabfe
Why Satoshi Nakamoto could be God ?Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.-Albert EinsteinBlockchain could be more universal than The Theory of General Relativity. In fact it could be the solution to the #life’s biggest unanswered question as to How Life works, why does the universe behave the way it does.While Albert Einstein explains that all motion must be defined relative to a frame of reference and that space and time are relative, rather than absolute concepts. Einstein’s theory explains the how and the what but not the why ?I have always been intrigued by the Hindu Philosophy of Trimuti which explains that the universe is largely the result of three different cosmic forces , the creator represented by the deity Brahma, the preserver represented by the deity Krishna , and the (...)
The daily #life of a person working in #blockchain, #crypto and DLT
▻https://hackernoon.com/https-medium-com-adilharis-the-daily-life-of-a-person-working-in-blockch
The Daily Life of a Person Working in Blockchain, Crypto and DLT8 am — Wake up — Check CoinMarketCap — Everything in red — “I should buy today”9 am — Start writing technical document for a client’s groundbreaking, earth-shattering, never-before, highly centralized crypto-exchange9:15 am — Complete one paragraph — People around start talking about Ripple and XRP — Join conversation — Argue until victory is achieved.10:30 am — Get back to writing — EOS price starts crashing — Time to buy — Open Binance app — Everything in red — “Not yet” — Close Binance app — Start writing again.11:00 am — Finished writing one page — Boss calls in for a meeting — Requirement changed! — Client wants decentralized fish token marketplace — Throws away all the work.11:15 am — Need to research about fish tokens — Search on Google — Open CoinDesk article (...)
Life Imitates Art Imitates the Algorithm
▻https://hackernoon.com/life-imitates-art-imitates-the-algorithm-d495637a41?source=rss----3a8144
Thoughts on Decentralization and what a Centralized Future Might HoldA History of CentralizationThe internet is like a country broken into several kingdoms. It started as a large pool of tribes and rag-tag communities, but a few parties realized what was being generated by these figurative villages. At which point they either intentionally or unintentionally took control of that resource: data.It’s happened throughout history, the larger and more organized communities realized they could gain resources and power by acquiring new territories. So they did. History is a bloody tapestry of conquests, crusades, and wars fought over whatever the flavor of the century was in terms of resources. Land, silk, salt, gold, there’re plenty of reasons to pillage. The same thing has been happening over (...)
#algorithm-life #algorithms #algorithm-art #art-imitates-algorithm #life-imitates-algorithm
The Big Picture — and Aligning Priorities
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-big-picture-and-aligning-priorities-d9bfc97bfb89?source=rss----3a814
The Big Picture — and Aligning PrioritiesI know this is straight from The Department of Belaboring The Obvious, but yes, the Big Picture matters. It matters regardless of where you are in the organization, it matters regardless of what your job is, and it matters regardless of what your responsibility is./via ▻https://www.monkeyuser.com/2018/priorities/Think of this from the perspective of Aligning Priorities. The thing is, we’ve all got our own priorities. In an ideal world, all our priorities align harmoniously, and exist seamlessly within the global priorities of the company, but, well, this is not that world. The reality is that, everybody is one step away from fizzing off in some random direction like some kind of bottle-rocket gone horribly wrong. And that is at the best of (...)
#software-engineering #life-lessons-101 #management-lessons #aligning-priorities #context-matters
From Employee to Bootstrapper
▻https://hackernoon.com/from-employee-to-bootstrapper-941f061f207f?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---
How I Prepared my Finances Before BootstrappingEarlier this month I left my cushy developer job at Amazon to #work for myself. I am 35, living in Seattle with my wife and two small kids, ages 2 and 4. I’m starting this quest for an independent #lifestyle with no #business and household income yet, and my target is to cover my family’s expenses from my new work before I run out of savings.SavingsDue to extraordinary luck and being in the right place at the right time, I managed to save a good amount of money in the last 5 years. My net worth was negative in 2013, but it now stands at around $1.4M, with $1M in liquid assets and the rest in home equity. That entire $1M, minus a small amount, is at stake in this venture. In fact, I’ve already mentally written it all off.On my savings balance I’ve (...)
Only Intrinsic #motivation Lasts
▻https://hackernoon.com/only-intrinsic-motivation-lasts-92c0497cf97c?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3-
Why I Quit a $500K job at Amazon to #work for myselfLast week I left my cushy job at Amazon after 8 years. Despite getting rewarded repeatedly with promotions, compensation, recognition, and praise, I wasn’t motivated enough to do another year.I spent my entire time in AWS building tools for developers. I liked that field so much that I would have been satisfied working in it for the rest of my life.I joined Amazon as an entry level developer. Within 3.5 years I had been promoted twice to a senior engineer, and I was practically guaranteed another promotion to principal engineer this year if I had stayed. My potential at the company was high, I was told.My esteem within the company grew along the years and I was regarded an expert and a leader in my field. People looked up to me and (...)
Elon Musk is not reading articles online about how to become Elon Musk
▻https://hackernoon.com/elon-musk-is-not-reading-articles-online-about-how-to-become-elon-musk-d
If you Google ‘How to become Elon Musk’, you will come across thousands of articles that address that question in one way or another. Either they are answers on Quora to that specific question itself, or they are indirect answers to that question with titles ranging from ‘10 ways to think like Elon Musk’ (Forbes) to ‘8 things that Elon Musk does before 8am’ (Medium).You can substitute Elon Musk with any successful entrepreneur, author, sports person, actor, CEO, musician, politician, nobel laureate and you will see similar results.The Internet is full of literature on how to do things like, how to think like and how to become any of these successful people.The Internet is full of this literature because it attracts clicks.People love short cuts. They want to learn how to become successful in (...)
#life-lessons #progress #success #elon-musk #self-improvement
Dear #cryptocurrency Investors — All BAD Things Must Come To An End
▻https://hackernoon.com/dear-cryptocurrency-investors-all-bad-things-must-come-to-an-end-aa836ce
Dear Cryptocurrency Investors — All BAD Things Must Come To An EndI remember back in the 1990s when any company that had a dot-com associated with its name had their stock sore to new all-time highs. Valuations were absurd, but it made no difference, people were buying just off hype and the possibilities of what the adoption of the internet could bring to society.However, the hype could not last forever, in March of 2000 I was working on the equity options floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange, when out of nowhere the tech boom unexpectedly came to an end.An unprecedented amount of dot-com companies had burned through all their money and stocks started to plummet.Suddenly, internet companies had nowhere to run, anyone and everyone with a dot-com after their name had their stock sink to (...)