News Headlines I Want to Read

Published on Mar 2, 2015 (updated Aug 28, 2022), filed under politics. (Share this post, e.g. on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)

This post is partially outdated.

A brainstorming with assumptions and implications.

• Human Rights Charter Honored by All Countries
• Five Eyes Spying Program Shut Down, Multiple Arrests over Rights Infringements
• [US Politicians] Return Peace Nobel Prizes, Say “Will Work Hard to Earn It”
• Guantánamo Torturers Sentenced, Former Detainees Awarded Record Damages
• Israel with Concessions to Palestine, Parties “Willing to Accept Period of Unrest” to Achieve Permanent Peace
• No More Nukes! Last Nuclear Weapon Dismantled
• The Death Penalty is Dead
• “Citizens in Uniform”: Police Violence at a Low, New Wave of Mutual Respect
• Low Crime, High Happiness: The Rebirth of Trust and Faith
• Long-Term Thinking, Values, Transparency: How Our Leaders Built Strong Trust
• Spying, Torture, Killing: A Look Back at Criminal Statesmanship
• Conflicts of Interest: Where Did They Go?
• Money and Politics: Last Country to Make it Criminal Offense for Corporations to Lobby
• All Central Banks Under Government Control, Harsh Sanctions Imposed on Speculation
• Interest and Compound Interest Abolished
• “No More Debt” Program to Curb Financial Choking, Going Beyond Axing of Old Financial System
• World Economies Shrinking, Experts: “Healthy Development”
• “We Had Wasted 50% of Our Food”: How Undernourishment Became History
• World’s Energy 90% Solar and Wind—Experts Say “5 Years” to Be Fully Green
• Global Warming: International Unity with “Remarkable Effects”
• “Spectacle Sports are Out”: How Athletes Came to Earn Terrestrial Wages
• Vegetarianism and Veganism at new 80% Record High; More Slaughters to Turn into Farmers
• Last Zoo to Close 2019, Follow Closing of Aquariums
• How Animals Got to Live Free and Well Among Humans
• Global Literacy Rate Reaches 99%
• Education Spending now at 40% of Public Expense—“New Era of Human Development”
• The Right to Copy: How a Nation’s Wealth Came with Education and Intellectual Liberty
• Health: Philosophers and Scientists to Find Holistic Approach
• Helpful Disease: How We Learned to Live with Maladies
• Cure to AIDS, Cancer: Breakthrough “When We Saw Patients as People and Looked at Their Thinking”
• Researchers Present Unified Reality Model, Acknowledge Mental Powers
• “Why Did We Ever Reward Anti-Social Behavior”: On the Decline of Competition and the Rise of Cooperation
• The Family: How the Almost-Dead Institution Rose Again and Rebuilt our Societies
• New Record Low in “Selfies,” Youth Finding Confidence in Family and Education
• Loving Technology: How Humanity Found an Ally—and Itself
• “Military-Industrial What?” How an Industry Perished over the Longing to Work Together
• World Peace! Last Countries to End all War Activities, Sign Peace Treaties

I’m not sure I’m a particularly good writer of microcontent, and yet it feels liberating to envision us succeed. That shouldn’t come as a surprise: Utopias give us more guidance than dystopias. And dystopias already crept into our reality and threaten to strangle us. I believe we need more utopias. Amazing ones.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you use every day (like Google) and companies you’ve never heard of, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also with respect to politics and philosophy. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my experiences and perspectives. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, but do be critical.)