Archive for November, 2011

Published November 29th, 2011 by Future Atlas

Values: Attitudes toward Gay Rights

NYT-Barnett_gayrights_map

Thomas Barnett noted this map in a recent New York Times story, overlaying it with the boundaries based on his core-gap theory.

A few comments:

  • Gay rights are a strong indicator of values progression, as theorized by Ronald Inglehart; “postmodern” societies tend to have strong gay rights.
  • Barnett supposes a causal connection between global connectedness and acceptance of gays. I suspect the connections are secondary, with connectedness driving prosperity, which boosts the kind of societal security which breeds acceptance of nonconformity.
  • This gay right map illustrates a broader pattern: religiosity generally varies inversely with morality at a societal level, if by morality one means how well people are treated. This is likely not a direct link, but more that poverty drives both intolerance and fervent religiosity (per Inglehart).

Image: New York Times / Thomas PM Barnett
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| Post in Human rights, Values | 2 Comments

Published November 21st, 2011 by Future Atlas

Toward UAV Journalism

MIGs_expertinfantry_FlickrAnother step toward journalistic use of unmanned aerial vehicles: Polish media have been using mini-helicopters to cover protests.

As I’ve said before, it is highly likely that UAV journalism will expand to include sustained, sometimes-live coverage of otherwise inaccessible news, such as massacres in the Congolese jungle.

Facilitating conditions are likely to include:

  • situations with no one in charge — Somalia or eastern Congo, for instance, where there is only nominal government authority
  • places where great powers are sympathetic — even if a government objects to “illegal” use of UAVs within its borders, if powers such as the US disapprove of a regime, media organization are likely to get away with their use; the Libyan uprising is an example

It is also simply unclear how adept even great-power militaries will be at finding and destroying small, stealthy, cheap UAVs.

Some of the same issues apply to use of UAVs for human rights work.

Militaries and their governments need to devise policies for how they are going to interact with this kind of coverage; it will not be easy to prevent, and taking action against such private UAVs may have legal consequences, in addition to public relations repercussions.
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Image courtesy expertinfantry (Flickr)

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| Post in Media, Technology | 0 Comments