SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
The Global Peace Map. (Photo: Unify.org)
We Need Technology for World Peace --Not World Destruction
Fire is technology. We can use it to warm our food and our home or to burn down our neighborhood. It's all a matter of how we choose to use - or abuse - resources.
Sep 07, 2014
Fire is technology. We can use it to warm our food and our home or to burn down our neighborhood. It's all a matter of how we choose to use - or abuse - resources. The Pentagon recently agreed to honor contracts with a lifetime cost of roughly $1.5 trillion for the F-35 Lighting Joint Strike Fighter program, despite numerous technical concerns, for the purpose of destroying or dominating our enemies du jour --and the planet, and our economy, alongside them. At the same time, and for a fraction of that amount, a civilian digital technology recently launched with the purpose of connecting people around the world for the sake of creating and nurturing peace: The Global Peace Map.
The Global Peace Map, powered by Unify in collaboration with many other organizations and individuals, is an embeddable platform that connects peacemakers and positive peace (unarmed, nonviolent) events around the world. The map automatically adjusts to your time zone and allows you to zoom and scroll across the planet to see all the different places in which people are calling or demonstrating for peace in our war-weary world.
This emergent technological dream has been created through contributions of intelligence and funds from many peace organizations and individuals. Anyone with Internet access is empowered to populate the map by creating a local event for the International Day of Peace, this Sept. 21, 2014. This globally crowd-sourced, unified and interactive tool for peace is unprecedented technology designed and used for good, constructive change--and expressing the growing will of civil society everywhere for peace.
The United Nations has declared the theme of this year's International Day of Peace, also the 30th anniversary of the General Assembly's declaration of the day's intention, as the "Right of Peoples to Peace." The UN has recognized that peace is a prerequisite of realizing human rights around the world, and it is within our potential as human beings to build positive peace. The Global Map is one way technology is helping us harness this potential. Social media is, as well. Participants of local events on Sept. 21, 2014 are encouraged to take pictures and share them to social media networks with the hashtag #PeaceDay. There is also a Facebook Event Page for a globally synchronized meditation with already more than 20,000 participants.
If you are reading this online, then you are engaging with some of the most complex technology in the history of the planet: the Internet. You are literally reading light as it is interpreted through complex networks and computer chips to relay ideas and feelings around the world. All of the technology in the world of humans was born from within us and is a reflection of our potential. Will we use it as the fire to keep us warm or will we let it burn down all that we cherish in this life?
And so it begins...
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Fire is technology. We can use it to warm our food and our home or to burn down our neighborhood. It's all a matter of how we choose to use - or abuse - resources. The Pentagon recently agreed to honor contracts with a lifetime cost of roughly $1.5 trillion for the F-35 Lighting Joint Strike Fighter program, despite numerous technical concerns, for the purpose of destroying or dominating our enemies du jour --and the planet, and our economy, alongside them. At the same time, and for a fraction of that amount, a civilian digital technology recently launched with the purpose of connecting people around the world for the sake of creating and nurturing peace: The Global Peace Map.
The Global Peace Map, powered by Unify in collaboration with many other organizations and individuals, is an embeddable platform that connects peacemakers and positive peace (unarmed, nonviolent) events around the world. The map automatically adjusts to your time zone and allows you to zoom and scroll across the planet to see all the different places in which people are calling or demonstrating for peace in our war-weary world.
This emergent technological dream has been created through contributions of intelligence and funds from many peace organizations and individuals. Anyone with Internet access is empowered to populate the map by creating a local event for the International Day of Peace, this Sept. 21, 2014. This globally crowd-sourced, unified and interactive tool for peace is unprecedented technology designed and used for good, constructive change--and expressing the growing will of civil society everywhere for peace.
The United Nations has declared the theme of this year's International Day of Peace, also the 30th anniversary of the General Assembly's declaration of the day's intention, as the "Right of Peoples to Peace." The UN has recognized that peace is a prerequisite of realizing human rights around the world, and it is within our potential as human beings to build positive peace. The Global Map is one way technology is helping us harness this potential. Social media is, as well. Participants of local events on Sept. 21, 2014 are encouraged to take pictures and share them to social media networks with the hashtag #PeaceDay. There is also a Facebook Event Page for a globally synchronized meditation with already more than 20,000 participants.
If you are reading this online, then you are engaging with some of the most complex technology in the history of the planet: the Internet. You are literally reading light as it is interpreted through complex networks and computer chips to relay ideas and feelings around the world. All of the technology in the world of humans was born from within us and is a reflection of our potential. Will we use it as the fire to keep us warm or will we let it burn down all that we cherish in this life?
Fire is technology. We can use it to warm our food and our home or to burn down our neighborhood. It's all a matter of how we choose to use - or abuse - resources. The Pentagon recently agreed to honor contracts with a lifetime cost of roughly $1.5 trillion for the F-35 Lighting Joint Strike Fighter program, despite numerous technical concerns, for the purpose of destroying or dominating our enemies du jour --and the planet, and our economy, alongside them. At the same time, and for a fraction of that amount, a civilian digital technology recently launched with the purpose of connecting people around the world for the sake of creating and nurturing peace: The Global Peace Map.
The Global Peace Map, powered by Unify in collaboration with many other organizations and individuals, is an embeddable platform that connects peacemakers and positive peace (unarmed, nonviolent) events around the world. The map automatically adjusts to your time zone and allows you to zoom and scroll across the planet to see all the different places in which people are calling or demonstrating for peace in our war-weary world.
This emergent technological dream has been created through contributions of intelligence and funds from many peace organizations and individuals. Anyone with Internet access is empowered to populate the map by creating a local event for the International Day of Peace, this Sept. 21, 2014. This globally crowd-sourced, unified and interactive tool for peace is unprecedented technology designed and used for good, constructive change--and expressing the growing will of civil society everywhere for peace.
The United Nations has declared the theme of this year's International Day of Peace, also the 30th anniversary of the General Assembly's declaration of the day's intention, as the "Right of Peoples to Peace." The UN has recognized that peace is a prerequisite of realizing human rights around the world, and it is within our potential as human beings to build positive peace. The Global Map is one way technology is helping us harness this potential. Social media is, as well. Participants of local events on Sept. 21, 2014 are encouraged to take pictures and share them to social media networks with the hashtag #PeaceDay. There is also a Facebook Event Page for a globally synchronized meditation with already more than 20,000 participants.
If you are reading this online, then you are engaging with some of the most complex technology in the history of the planet: the Internet. You are literally reading light as it is interpreted through complex networks and computer chips to relay ideas and feelings around the world. All of the technology in the world of humans was born from within us and is a reflection of our potential. Will we use it as the fire to keep us warm or will we let it burn down all that we cherish in this life?
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.