The recent news of finding a dog graveyard that is 2,000 years old.
Before going on to today’s post, can I just remind you kind folks that as of today, and for the rest of this week, we have family guests staying with us here in Oregon.
Grandson Morten responding to his mother, Maija, taking a picture of him and Marius, as they wait to board the aircraft for San Francisco yesterday morning.
Thus from tomorrow until the end of the coming weekend my posts will be a preponderance of republications of previous posts. Plus my attention to you dear readers will be less than you are accustomed to.
Now on to today’s post that was kindly sent to me by Chris Gomez. Thanks Chris.
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2,000-Year-Old Dog Graveyard Discovered in Siberia
By Tom Metcalfe, Live Science Contributor | July 15, 2016
Archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric dog graveyard at a 2,000-year-old village near the Arctic Circle in Russia’s Siberia. Credit: University of Alberta/Robert Losey
The carefully buried remains of five dogs were recently found in a 2,000-year-old doggy graveyard near the Arctic Circle in Siberia, according to archaeologists.
This discovery at the Ust-Polui archaeological site, in Salekhard, Russia, reveals close relationships between the region’s people and their animal “best friends” two millennia B.C. The dogs likely served as pets, workers and sources of food — and possibly as sacrificial offerings in religious ceremonies, the researchers said.
“The role of dogs at Ust-Polui is really complex and variable,” Robert Losey, an archaeologist at the University of Alberta in Canada, wrote in an email to Live Science from Salekhard, where he is carrying out fieldwork at Ust-Polui. [See photos of the prehistoric dog graveyard in Siberia]
“The most striking thing is that the dog remains are really abundant compared to all other sites in the Arctic — there are over 115 dogs represented at the site,” Losey said. “Typically, sites have only a few dog remains — 10 at most.”
Working dogs
The dogs were likely involved in various tasks in the ancient Arctic village, including pulling sleds, he said. The remains of two sleds, as well as a carved bone knife handle thought to depict a sled dog in a harness, have been found at the site.
“Some [dogs] were probably also used in hunting, for reindeer and birds, the remains of which were both abundant at the site,” Losey said.
Parts of a reindeer harness had also been found at Ust-Polui, he added, and dogs may have been used to herd reindeer, as is still done today by some communities in the region.
But despite evidence that the dogs worked with people and other animals, it was also clear that many of the dogs at Ust-Polui had been butchered and probably eaten, Losey said. Many of the dog bones had cut marks on them, and were found scattered around the site in the same way as the bones of other food animals, such as deer and birds, he said.
Some of the dog consumption may have been related to sacrifices or rituals, or even feasting, Losey noted. In fact, “at one place in the site, the heads of 15 dogs were piled together, all with their brain cases broken open in the same manner,” he said.
He added that the sacrificing of dogs was well documented among indigenous people in this region of Siberia, “and is done to appease spirits, or to ensure community health, and so on.”
Prehistoric pets
But though it might have been a dog’s life for most of the canine population of Ust-Polui, a few top dogs seem to have enjoyed special treatment, the archaeologists said. [10 Things You Didn’t Know About Dogs]
Of the more than 115 dogs that archaeologists identified among the animal bones at Ust-Polui, the remains of just five dogs were found carefully buried in a group near one edge of the site, Losey said.
This separation likely indicates close bonds between some people and some dogs in the ancient village, he said.
Each of the prehistoric doggy graves contained the entire dog skeleton, laid on its side in a shallow pit, similar to three human burials at the site, and they showed no signs of butchery or of being intentionally killed, the researchers found.
“The only thing that distinguishes them from the human burials is their location. No other animals at Ust-Polui were treated like this,” Losey said.
Ancient friendship
Losey started working with the dog remains from Ust-Polui three years ago, as part of his work studying the ancient relationships between people and dogs in the world’s northern regions.
In 2013 in the journal PLOS ONE, Losey published the results of his research into dog burials, dated to around 8,000 years ago, from archaeological sites in the Lake Baikal region of Siberia.
Some of the dogs from Lake Baikal were buried with decorated collars and what appeared to be grave goods, such as pottery jars and wooden spoons.
Losey said the differences between the two sites showed how people’s relationships with dogs varied among cultures over the estimated 15,000 years since dogs evolved from wolves.
“At Baikal, we have no evidence of dog consumption or sacrifice at all, and many of the dogs there are from carefully made burials,” Losey said.
Although tests on the dog remains at both sites suggested they would have been similar to Siberian huskies, the dogs at Ust-Polui were much smaller, with most weighing less than 50 lbs. (22 kilograms) and standing only 1.6 feet (0.5 meters) tall at the shoulder, Losey said.
What a long and intensely beautiful relationship. I’m bound to reinforce how that relationship is so powerful all these thousands of years later by republishing one of the photographs from yesterday’s picture parade:
Winner of the Man’s Best Friend category (Photo: Fiona Sami/Dog Photographer of the Year Competition)
Apologies, going straight into this republication of an article that appeared on the Care2 blogsite back in June. Didn’t get to sit down in front of my computer until 4pm.
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7 Totally Normal (But Kind of Weird) Dog Behaviors
It’s not surprising that our beloved canine companions’ behavior is sometimes confusing to us. After all, it’s not like they can tell us why they do certain things! But is your pooch’s behavior normal, or a sign of something more troubling?
And, for that matter, are common dog behaviors totally fine, or something we should be working to stop? Oftentimes, the answer is the former. Read on to discover some of the strangest dog behaviors that are actually totally normal.
1. Barking at Mirrors
If you show a human baby a mirror, they don’t always recognize themselves— young infants lack the self-awareness needed to do that — and dog babies are no exception. Most of the time, dogs grow out of it as they age, losing interest in their own reflections. Dogs are much less affected by visual events than humans, relying far more on their sense of smell to gather information. Since the dog in the mirror doesn’t have its own smell, most dogs tend to lose interest pretty quickly.
2. Being Scared of Thunderstorms
Dogs have far more sensitive hearing than humans, so it’s understandable that the loud noises accompanying storms don’t exactly delight our canine companions. But there may actually be more behind this fear — some scientists believe that dogs can actually detect changes in barometric pressure leading up to a storm. Thunderstorms can send even the best-behaved dogs into anxious fits, and unfortunately, it can be difficult to break even the healthiest dog of this habit. There are strategies to cope, however, such as providing a safe place for dogs to go during storms or dressing them in snug-fitting shirts that function similarly to swaddling a baby.
3. Eating Poop
Though it’s certainly not appetizing to us humans, many dogs eat poop. Eating feces is actually a fairly typical behavior for canine mothers, because it cleans the area where they are caring for their puppies. Some evidence also suggests that dogs eat feces when they’re lacking in certain nutrients. Eating poop can even be a way to get your attention and alleviate anxiety. This is not exactly a GOOD behavior for dogs, however, and solutions for it are mostly simple. Supervision and simple commands like “Leave it” and “Come” are often enough to curb most dogs’ fecal fascination, and vitamin and enzyme supplementation can work for dogs whose diets are missing nutrients.
4. Spinning Around in Circles
Plenty of dogs spin around and around for what seems like forever. Some breeds, including bull terriers in particular, are especially susceptible to this behavior. While this is often normal dog behavior, it can also be a sign of stress or anxiety. Whatever the reason your pooch spins in circles, this behavior should be nipped in the bud. The best way to do that? Well, get them moving and thinking. Take them on walks. Give them toys that stimulate their mind. If that still doesn’t work, you might need a dog behavior expertto intervene.
5. Separation Anxiety.
Many dogs experience separation anxiety — they just love you THAT much! Often, this is a result of changes in routines, moving, household membership changes or after moving in with a new family. It’s totally normal, but, unsurprisingly, it isn’t the best behavior for your pet’s mental health. The key to breaking your pooch of this behavior is to identify how big of a problem it is before you go about fixing it. Click here for detailed ways to help break this habit.
6. Hating Other Dogs.
Dogs who weren’t socialized at an early age around fellow canines will understandably have some aggression towards unknown dogs. Conversely, some dogs that have been socialized around other dogs seem to pick and choose which dogs they like. Why is that? Well, dogs aren’t all that different than humans in that regard — sometimes we just don’t like certain people. Dogs perceive a massive amount of information through scent, and two dogs may find something off-putting about each other’s smells. Dogs may also be overprotective of their owners or have something in their history that makes them especially distrustful of certain other kinds of dogs. Avoiding another dog at the park isn’t much cause for concern, but if your dog is consistently aggressive, it’s time to consult a veterinary behaviorist.
7. Having Sensitive Spots.
Some dogs have areas where they just don’t like to be touched. There can be several reasons for this — everything from a recent injury to poor socialization as a puppy — but, often, this is simply because, well, dogs just don’t like to be touched in certain spots. Think about it this way: plenty of humans don’t want to be patted on the butt by people they don’t know. In fact, most don’t! This can be perfectly innocuous — or it can be a sign of trouble. Dogs that demonstrate overly aggressive behavior regardless of where they’re touched may be in need of a behavior expert. You can read more about this here.
A couple of weeks ago, back on the 14th, I posted a warning about leaving dogs in cars if there was the slightest risk of the car being left in the sun.
I feel no embarrassment whatsoever to repeat that warning. This time by republishing an item that was published on Monday on Care2 Causes.
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Firefighters Rescue Dogs Baking Alive in 160 Degree Car
In yet another outrageous case of neglect, three Sacramento, Calif., dogs were found baking alive inside a car that had reached 160 degrees Fahrenheit (71 C).
A Sacramento Fire Department crew circled the vehicle parked at a shopping mall. Using a thermometer designed to detect the car’s internal temperature, the crew quickly determined that the dogs weren’t just hot, they were literally cooking.
The dog seen here panting on the car’s dashboard was immediately taken from the vehicle, and the other two were removed by Animal Control because they were exhibiting aggressive behavior.
This is not the first time that firefighters in Sacramento have had to rescue dogs from a hot car. In fact, they filmed one such rescue last summer.
If you see a dog in a hot car, please take action. Remember, one phone call may not be enough. Wait and see it through to be sure authorities arrive.
Photo Credit: Sacramento Fire Department
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The original article includes a video that is on Facebook that I seem unable to include within this post. But please go here and view it for yourself. (It will require you to log in to your Facebook account.)
Also, please share the information on this post and the one on the 14th as far and wide as you can.
I was working outside all day yesterday and only sat down to think about today’s post after 5pm. Plus our evening meal was going to be served at 6pm.
So as I have previously done in these situations I decided to repost what was published here on Learning from Dogs one year ago to the day.
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Part One of a stunningly interesting essay from Professor Marc Bekoff.
As a newbie yet-to-be published author I am technically at the stage of having a completed draft that Jeannie and a close friend are proof-reading. Then after corrections, it is going to be released to some ‘beta’ readers who will give me some early feedback. (Too scary to even think of just now!)
OK, with that admission out of the way, let me move on to my ‘draft’ chapter on play; in Part Four of the book. In researching what is known about the way that dogs play and what lessons there are for us humans, I came across an essay by Marc Bekoff, Ph.D. Marc is Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His essay had been published in May on the website of Psychology Today. It was incredibly interesting and full of material for the book!
Within a few minutes of me sending Professor Bekoff an email requesting permission to include quotations in my ‘draft’ chapter, he had responded in the affirmative. I had also sought his permission to publish the essay here on Learning from Dogs. Again, a very quick, positive reply.
Thus with Marc Bekoff’s generous permission, here is his essay in full. (I’ve taken the decision to split this long essay into two parts.)
Finally, Professor Bekoff includes numerous ‘html’ links within his essay to other materials. I’ve cheated by saving quite some time adding those links but have underlined the linked phrase in question, apart from the very early chapters that do have ‘html’ links. Please go to the site of the original essay to explore further those links.
Marc Bekoff and friend.
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Butts and Noses: Secrets and Lessons from Dog Parks (Part One)
Dog parks are gold mines of information about the behavior of dogs and humans
I love going to dog parks. So, too, do dogs and their people. Dog parks are a fascinating recent and growing cultural phenomenon. Indeed, I go rather often to what I call my field sites, for that’s what they are, to study play behavior and other aspects of dog behavior including urination and marking patterns, greeting patterns, social interactions including how and why dogs enter, become part of, and leave short-term and long-term groups, and social relationships. I also study human-dog interactions and when I study how humans and dogs interact I also learn a lot about the humans. For example, I often hear how happy people are that their dogs are free to run here and there or free to be dogs when they’re at the dog park. Often, they say this while they’re constantly calling them back to them even when the dog is simply sniffing here or there or looking for a friend. They also call them to break up play when they think it’s gotten out of hand. You call this free?
Two works to which I often go when thinking about social dynamics at dog parks are Matthew Gilbert’s book titled Off the Leash: A Year at the Dog Park and Sonoma State University’s Patrick Jackson‘s essay called “Situated Activities in a Dog Park: Identity and Conflict in Human-Animal Space.” Linda Case writes about Dr. Jackson’s study and she is not a fan of dog parks because she feels they’re not safe and because “Dog park people frequently behave badly by not being responsible dog owners and by being inconsiderate and uncaring towards other people and their dogs.” We really need empirical studies on the safety issue. After having spent countless hours at dog parks I’ve never entertained drawing this conclusion, but there aren’t any detailed data on this topic of which I’m aware. However, on occasion, but hardly regularly, I’ve marveled at just how inconsiderate a very few people can be. But, as part of the gossip network among the other people, I often hear that a given person behaves like this even in non-dog park situations. On a few ocassions I’ve had a rather inconsiderate person ask me why their dog has bad manners and rather than get involved I call attention to some interesting dog-dog interactions.
Most people realize that “dogs are in” and countless scientific and popular essays (see also New Directions in Canine Behavior, Julie Hecht’s “Dog Spies,” and essays written for Psychology Today by writers including Mark Derr, Stanley Coren, Jessica Pierce, and yours truly) and books have been published in the past decade or so about these fascinating mammals. The bottom line is that a plethora of detailed data — and the database is rapidly increasing — clearly show that dogs are thinking, clever, and feeling sentient beings, and viewing them as sort of robotic machines is incredibly misleading and academically corrupt (please see this essay). This does not mean that they are “doggy Einsteins,” however, ample data from numerous different research groups around the world clearly show that dogs are rather complex and incredibly interesting mammals who deserve a good deal of further study. Perhaps even René Descartes would consider changing his views on nonhuman animals (animals) as unfeeling machines given the enormous amount of empirical evidence on sentience in animals.
Why do dogs do this and that? Canine confidential
“Why do dogs do this and that?” The purpose of this short essay, that can be conceived as a field guide to the extremely interesting and largely unknown world of the fascinating dogs with whom we share our lives, is to provide some lessons in dog behavior from observations and questions arising from visits to various dog parks, especially around Boulder, Colorado where I live. I see myself as “a naturalist in a dog park” and aim to show here, via a series of questions, what we know and don’t know about many different aspects of dog behavior. Dogs are often called social catalysts – icebreakers or lubricants — for social interactions with other dogs and they often open the door for pretty frank and wide-ranging conversations among familiar and unfamiliar humans. It always amazes me how dogs free up humans to talk about things they might be more reluctant to share in other venues including what they really think about their human “BFF’s — best friends forever” — and the infamous “3 p’s,” namely, pee, poop, and puke. Often when I get home and look at my notes I view them as “canine confidential.” So, what follows is a sampler of many “why” questions, including why dogs hump, why they sniff butts, genitals, and ears, why they play, and why they organize themselves the ways they do. There are also many “what” questions such as “What do they know?”, “What are they thinking?”, and “What are they feeling?” in different contexts. The list of questions is endless and I’m sure those that follow can easily mutate in many, many more.
People who are lucky enough to share their world with a dog often think they know it all. And, while they do know a good deal about what their canine buddy is thinking and feeling and what they want and need, there really are large gaps in the scientific database. As I mentioned above, there are numerous anecdotes about why dogs do this or that, and, taken together, they form their own pool of data. However, while the claim that “the plural of anecdote is data” applies in some cases, many mysteries still loom in what we actually know about the world of dogs.
Furthermore, often there is no single “right” answer to a question — even some of the most commonly asked queries — and that’s just fine. Dogs compose a highly variable group of mammals — I often say “the dog” doesn’t really exist — so it’s not surprising that just when we think we have a solid handle on what they’re thinking and feeling and why they do what they’re doing an exception or three arises. Surely, the early experience of individual dogs influences their later behavior. So, while we know a lot, people are often amazed by how little we know and that hard and fast answers can’t be given to some common questions.
Visiting dog parks can be wonderful educational experiences. Visits, some lasting hours on end each and every day, can be myth breakers and icebreakers, and also provide information about why dogs are doing this or that. People are always asking questions about why their dog is doing something and really want to know what we know. They also freely offer advice to other people about why their dog is doing something and how they can treat various problems such as shyness, aggressiveness, and why dogs ignore what their human is asking them to do. And, as I wrote above, dogs also are icebreakers – “social catalysts” the academics call them — and get people to talk with one another and to talk about things.
The questions below range from interests about basic dog behavior such as why do dogs stick their noses where they do, and why they play, bark, pee, eat turds, and roll on their back, to more lofty questions about whether dogs have a theory of mind and whether they know what they look like and if they know who they are. A good number of questions deal with dogs’ butts and noses, hence the title of this brief essay (motivated, of course, by the famous rock group, Guns N’ Roses). Butts and noses — including other “private parts” – figure into a number of the questions below. We all know dogs put their noses in places where we couldn’t imagine there would be anything of interest, and also place their active snouts, often on their first introduction, to other dogs and humans, in places that make us rather uneasy. We don’t greet friends or strangers by immediately licking their mouth or with a genital sniff or slurp. There also are many general questions that don’t center on anatomical features that figure largely in the world of the dog. I’ll answer each question briefly with what we know from various types of research, with some stories where they’re available, and note where we really need more information. It’s entirely possible that I have missed a given study (or studies) and I apologize for the oversights and look forward to hearing from readers.
While we know a lot about dogs, there are holes in the database, so the future is chock full of exciting research. Readers will discover that what we often take to be the gospel about dog behavior frequently isn’t all that well supported by published empirical research or even detailed observations. While good stories are interesting and can serve to stimulate more “controlled” research, in and of themselves they don’t constitute “data” as do detailed and more focused studies (I’ll suggest below that studies in dog parks may be more “ecologically relevant” than studies in laboratories and help to settle on-going debates among different research groups). In some ways, then, this essay is sort of a myth-buster and a fun way not only to learn about dogs but also to stimulate further research about dogs and dogs and humans. So, here we go.
(See the concluding part tomorrow.)
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Clearly in this last year the book was published!
For readers who haven’t read Mark Bekoff’s essay before I will repost the concluding part tomorrow.
The final pictures from the PetSmart Pet Adoption Event.
Back on the 29th May when I published the first set of pictures from this event I wrote in that post:
I wrote about this last Tuesday under the heading of Helping Hands and warned you that today and next Sunday would be picture parades of that event.
At that time I had not cottoned on to the fact that the next Sunday, i.e. a week ago, the picture parade would be devoted to Pharaoh’s birthday.
So here we are with that next set of pictures from the PetSmart Adoption Event. Again, I wrote first about this under the heading of Helping Hands. For those that didn’t read that post here is how it opened:
The PetSmart Pet Adoption Event.
Over the days of the 13th to 15th May, in other words roughly a week-and-a-half ago, a number of pet adoption charities in Northern California and Southern Oregon came together courtesy of PetSmart in Medford, Oregon to find new homes for unadopted dogs and cats.
I came to hear about this from an email sent to me by Tammy Moore of the organisation Shelter Friends. Tammy also c.c.’d her email to Tana Mason who is Fundraising Coordinator for the charity. Tammy’s email was an invite for me, and Jean, to attend the event on the Saturday as the author of my book.
The first Picture Parade of these photographs was presented here.
Here is that final set of photographs.
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… and closing the set with the evidence that new homes were found for many dogs and cats.
Among the many impressive qualities of the dog is one that we humans must envy so much at times.
I’m not speaking of a dog’s ability to seek out food or, at the other end of things, the dog’s way of keeping it’s backside clean! 😉 No, I’m referring to the way a dog lives in the present. Presumably unworried as to what the future might mean.
We humans, however, as hard as we try to be rooted in the ‘here and now’ also depend on assessing the future and determining the best way to respond to that uncertainty. I’m sure that assessing and managing risk is one of the ways that have made us such a successful species.
In terms of voicing these uncertain times I really was drawn to a comment from ‘John D’ over on Richard Murphy’s Tax Research UK blogsite. I’m going to republish that comment in full before moving on to the central theme of today’s post: Into the Future.
John D says: June 10 2016 at 4:58 pm
Paul, I share your apprehension. I believe ‘the world’ has entered a cycle of almost unprecedented uncertainty. So many issues. So few solutions being articulated in the mainstream. However, shift happens and Richard is right to say that there is always opportunity for change. Gramsci, an underrated theorist, summed it up in his ‘Prison Notebooks'(1929-35) writing: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
The stranglehold Neo-liberalism has exercised on orthodox economics for the past 40 years is difficult to understand but, given that its major protoganists have held all the aces, it’s not really surprising. Under Reagan there was a major ‘re-education’ programme in the Universities where any heterodox economic teaching was eliminated from the ‘Economics 101’ curriculum. Acording to Richard Wolff an entire generation of students graduated from the major universities without ever having studied Marx in any context.
The good news is nothing lasts forever. The seeds of change have already been sown and will eventually blossom, possibly in unexpected locations. Sadly, as Ivan says, there has been irretrievable damage to lives and livelihoods in the US, UK and many EU countries. Michael Hudson recently spelled out its negative effects – http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/07/the-wages-of-neoliberalism-poverty-exile-and-early-death.
Like many, I don’t think radical change will come about until enough people are hurting enough. Maybe a real property crash will be a wake-up call. However, in or out of the EU isn’t going to trigger a change in the economic agenda any time soon. Personally I believe that a vote for Brexit (ominously a possibilty) will set-back any fundamental reforms, especially in the UK. But I don’t want to open up that can of worms again here!
The perennial question is ‘what to do?’. And the answer is always the same: ‘do something, anything, to nurture the seeds into saplings’. Every little helps! It’s going to be a rough ride, not without some collateral damage in terms of still more unnecessary deaths. Usually I’m not as optimistic as Richard but because it’s Friday afternoon and the sun is shining I feel the beginning of the end is within our grasp. I so hope so. Back to Gramsci – the immediate worry is what will fill the intervening vacuum. Happy weekend!
The seeds of change have already been sown and will eventually blossom, possibly in unexpected locations.
The perfect introduction to an email that Dan Gomez sent me on Thursday.
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Below is a summary by Udo Gollub of the findings at a recent futurist conference in Germany. This’s – they predict – is how the world will operate in 10 to 20 years time.
For those of us who are about to amble into the sunset on our Zimmer frames, this is simply interesting. We inhabited a world where people used cosy concepts like pension, nest egg, job security, promotion in the work place and other reassuring socio economic terms.
For those who are in mid career or are only entering the world of (non) work now, this makes for scary/exciting reading – depending on how ready you are to change in mid air — if it is at all possible.
And for the generation still in their nappies … well, it is a matter of how parents prepare them for an unimaginable world when they enter the world of ‘work’ in 20 years time.
GERT CLAASSEN Hermanus Into the future
By Udo Gollub at Messe Berlin, Germany
I just went to the Singularity University summit. Here are the key points I gathered.
Rise and Fall. In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they were bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years – and most people don’t see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?
Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore’s law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became superior and mainstream in only a few short years. This will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, self-driving and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs. Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Exponential Age. Software and operating platforms will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
Uber is just a software tool. They don’t own any cars, but they are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties.
Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don’t get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice, (so far for more or less basic stuff), within seconds. With 90% accuracy, compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you are studying law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer generalist lawyers in the future; only specialists will be needed. ‘Watson’ already helps nurses diagnose cancer, four times more accurately than doctors. Facebook now has pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. By 2030, computers will have become ‘more intelligent’ than humans.
Cars: In 2018 the first self driving cars will be offered to the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don’t want to own a car anymore. You will call a car on your phone; it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive whilst driving. Our kids will never get a driver’s licence and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for our future needs. We can transform former parking spaces into parks. At present,1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 kms. With autonomous driving, that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.
Electric cars will become mainstream around and after 2020. Cities will be cleaner and much less noisy because all cars will run on electricity, which will become much cheaper.
Most traditional car companies may become bankrupt by tacking the evolutionary approach and just building better cars; while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will take the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi. They are terrified of Tesla.
Insurance companies will have massive trouble, because without accidents, the insurance will become 100 times cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.
Real estate values based on proximities to work-places, schools, etc. will change, because if you can work effectively from anywhere or be productive while you commute, people will move out of cities to live in a more rural surroundings.
Solar energy production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but only now is having a big impact. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that almost all coal mining companies will be out of business by 2025.
Water for all: With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don’t have scarce water in most places; we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if everyone can have as much clean water as they want, for virtually no cost.
Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year – a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and your breath. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any diseases. It will be cheap, so in a few years, everyone on this planet will have access to world class, low cost, medicine. 3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from 18,000$ to 400$ within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started printing 3D shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D-printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to need in the past.
At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they have already 3D-printed a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D-printed.
Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to enter, ask yourself: “in the future, do you think we will have that?” And if the answer is yes, then work on how you can make that happen sooner. If it doesn’t work via your phone, forget the idea. And any idea that was designed for success in the 20th century is probably doomed to fail in the 21st century.
Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear that there will be enough new jobs in such a short time.
Agriculture: There will be a 100$ agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their fields instead of working in them all day. Aeroponics will need much less water. The first veal produced in a petri dish is now available. It will be cheaper than cow-produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces are used for rearing cattle. Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore. There are several start-ups which will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labelled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).
Apps: There is already an app called “moodies” which can tell the mood you are in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where we know whether the participants are telling the truth and when not!
Currencies: Many currencies will be abandoned. Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the future default reserve currency.
Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span was 79 years, now it is 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than a one-year increase per year. So we all might live for a long, long time, probably way beyond 100.
Education: The cheapest smartphones already sell at 10$ in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smartphone. That means everyone will have much the same access to world class education. Every child can use Khan Academy for everything he needs to learn at schools in First World countries. Further afield, the software has been launched in Indonesia and will be released in Arabic, Swahili and Chinese this summer. The English app will be offered free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half-a-year.
Only way to follow the weekend’s ‘doggy’ pictures.
I selected the following not only because it applies to me and so many others, I don’t doubt, but also because I was working outside until late afternoon and frankly neither had the time nor the energy to be very creative on my own account.
But before moving on this recent Care2 article, I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to you all for all the ‘Likes’ and Comments this last weekend – Pharaoh’s weekend.
It may be difficult for a dog lover to understand how anyone can dislike dogs. Those ears! Those kisses! But plenty of people don’t like dogs and even fear them.
However, for some people, all it takes is one pup to change their mind. And often, those who once held a deep dislike for dogs are the people who become the biggest doggie devotees!
The Things We Do for Love
Halli Webb, who owns an advertising firm in Columbus, Ohio, was wary around dogs from a young age. “I grew up in an uber-spotless house where no pets were allowed,” she says. “I had no idea how to be around dogs, how to take care of them and was generally afraid of them. I hated when I walked into a house and could smell a dog.”
As an adult, Webb says dogs just weren’t “on her radar” for many years. That is, until she had her daughter. “Emma worked on me from the time she could speak,” Webb recalls with a laugh. “She loved every dog that walked by; even if it was horrible looking, it was a cute doggie to her.”
Webb’s daughter was relentless and finally, Webb and her husband gave in. That’s when Shirley, a Cockapoo, entered their lives. The family fell in love with the little dog and now can’t imagine life without her.
Webb’s friends laugh about her newfound love for dogs. One friend in particular had been trying to convince Webb for years to get a dog. “Now, she can’t stop teasing me about not being a dog person. Especially when she sees Shirley on my lap, in my coat, in her little car seat or dressed with all her bling!”
Webb doesn’t mind. The teasing is well worth the joy that Shirley brings to their family.
A Great Package Deal
“From early childhood until adulthood, I would literally cross a street or walk down alternate blocks to avoid a dog,” says Barbara Warner, an author in New York City. “I got in the habit of saying I was allergic to them, just to avoid having to be near one. I was that afraid,” she explains.
But one day, a man she was dating brought his new dog over to her house and asked if Warner could watch him. “He handed me what looked like a Happy Meal box. I opened it, and a little head popped out, yawned and put his head on my shoulder. Maternal instinct took over. That was my Fritzky.”
Warner ended up marrying the man she was dating and, of course Fritzky was part of the package and in her life to stay. Although, Warner jokes, Fritzky outlasted the marriage, living until he was 13.
After Fritzky passed away, Warner thought her love for dogs might have died with him. But then she met Vinny, a friend’s 150-pound Rottweiler, during a photo shoot for her new book. At first, Warner froze up when she saw Vinny, wondering if her old fear had resurfaced. “He sniffed me from my feet to the top of my head… then he turned around and sat on my foot!” Warner was smitten.
“Fritz was like my child. He opened my eyes and helped me overcome an irrational fear, and Vinny just confirmed that big or little, fluffy or sleek, my love and admiration of these creatures is definitely in my soul.”
I Took a Chance on Love
Allergies and asthma kept Crystal Brown-Tatum from having a dog as a child, and so she avoided dogs as much as possible. “When I went over to friends’ homes with dogs, I would either ask them to put the dog away or never interact with the dog,” she remembers.
Brown-Tatum, who owns a PR firm in Dallas, was content to keep dogs at a distance until she met a 10-week-old Bichon Frise puppy named Cotton. A woman in her building needed to rehome the dog, and something told Brown-Tatum to give the dog a chance.
Cotton helped bring Brown-Tatum and her teenage daughter closer together and stayed by Brown-Tatum’s side during her battle with breast cancer. After Cotton died, Brown-Tatum continued to adopt Bichons.
Today, Brown-Tatum is well known for her love of dogs. She volunteers at her local shelter and has even worked for a pet food company. “I can’t imagine my life without a dog and it’s all because Cotton showed me unconditional love.”
My Family Thinks I’m Crazy
Kayla Pickrell, a stationery designer in Lexington, Ky. was also scared of dogs. Her fear stemmed from being bitten by a neighborhood dog when she was young. “My entire life, I was terrified of dogs. It didn’t matter the size, age, breed, etc., I was just terrified.”
But when Pickrell was 20, her boyfriend introduced her to his Great Dane puppy. While she was still scared, she discovered that as the puppy grew, he followed her lead; he knew her habits and her rules. “But, (he) still wanted to be friends with me. I grew to love the dog and got my own puppy one year later.”
Pickrell’s dog Odin cemented her love for dogs. “Not only do I love him, but every dog,” she says. “I’m that weird person at the dog park who will literally play and cuddle with every dog.” Pickrell says her family is still shocked at the change in her behavior and finds it hard to believe she has a dog of her own now.
But, Pickrell now knows the love between a dog and a person is indescribable. “Truly, it is hard to put into words the love that I have for both my dog and others,” she says.
While bad experiences with dogs, or even a lack of experience with dogs, can make someone wary or disinterested in the canine kind, dog lovers know that all it takes is one special dog to change one’s life forever.
By Caroline Golon | Vetstreet.com
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I can’t underestimate how in my case that one special dog, Pharaoh, changed my life and was one of the magical ingredients that led me to meeting Jean and now having a life with ten special dogs and one very, very special lady.
The extreme importance of engaging in the fight for better societies.
I must warn you that today’s post is nothing about dogs. Unless, as with me, you see dogs as well as being the most gorgeous of creatures as being critically important metaphors for what societies need now! Or as I present elsewhere in this place:
Because of this closeness between dogs and man, we (as in man!) have the ability to observe the way they live. Now I’m sure that scientists would cringe with the idea that the way that a dog lives his life sets an example for us humans, well cringe in the scientific sense. But man seems to be at one of those defining stages in mankind’s evolution where the forces bearing down on the species homo sapiens have the potential to cause very great harm. If the example of dogs can provide a beacon of hope, an incentive to change at a deep cultural level, then the quicker we ‘get the message’, the better it will be.
value and cherish the ‘present’ in a way that humans can only dream of achieving
are, by eons of time, a more successful species than man.
So what’s this all leading up to!
Regular followers of this place (and you are always appreciated – never forget that) will know that previously I have mentioned Professor Richard Murphy. I have been following and reading his blog Tax Research UK for some time.
Many of the good Professor’s posts are specific to what is going on in the UK and, inevitably, Europe and the EU referendum.
But on the wider horizon these seem to be such terrible times. Here’s a comment I left to another of Richard’s posts that opened with the sentence, I am so bored by the EU referendum campaign.
My comment being:
It’s coming up to 5:30 am here in Southern Oregon and, as per usual, I have dipped into the latest postings from Tax Research. Part of me, a large part of me, is sickened by what seems to be going on in this world with the EU referendum and the US Presidential election being the two most glaringly terrible examples. But this old Brit (London-born in 1944) has this sense that the way that Richard and so many of his supporters can now ‘shout’ out the truth will, in the end, deliver a better future. Indeed, my own blog post today is called The Power of Open Opinions.
So keep on banging your truthful drum, Richard!
However, last Tuesday Richard published a post that seemed to speak to me, and presumably countless others, about the dilemma as to whether to be active in speaking up about what is right or wrong, or to just huddle up with one of your dogs on a nice (oversized) dog bed!
In my estimation that post from Richard should be widely circulated and it is republished in full now with Richard’s kind permission.
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To engage or not; that is the question
Posted on7:57 am May 31 2016
It would seem I have touched a raw nerve for some regular commentators by suggesting that I welcome the IMF article, recently published, that appeared to recognise the failure of neoliberalism to tackle inequality and the inappropriateness of much of the austerity agenda.
It now seems that this article has attracted a vicious backlash from the FT, which clearly sees it as touching on neoliberal heresy. In that case to suggest, as some do, that this article is inconsequential is, in my opinion, wrong. If nothing else, it has revealed the true opinion of the FT, and the sharp divide between its editorial stance and the opinion of its lead economic columnist, Martin Wolf.
It is also safe to assume that if this has been the response outside the organisation then the debate within it has been at least as heated, and all this on an article which says it can find merit in some parts of the neoliberal agenda.
Why come back to the issue then? I think there are three good reasons for doing so.
First, how to respond to such an article from such an organisation opens up one of the more difficult questions in campaigning, which is whether to engage or not with those organisations that you criticise? It is not possible to be a tax justice campaigner and to not have been critical of the IMF and its approach over the last few decades. I have been of the IMF, the World Bank and, of course, of the Washington Consensus that they have promoted. But, a long time ago I decided that the only viable way in which I could help deliver tax justice was by engaging with those people and organisations whose opinions I wished to change.
Over the years I’ve been criticised for this, and been told that the policy would undermine my chances of success. So, variously, I was told that it was a mistake to serve on George Osborne’s General Anti-Abuse Rule committee. Likewise, engaging with the OECD BEPS process was described as a mistake by some because the terms of engagement were clearly biased against developing countries. Others have also suggested that it was a mistake not to object to Jeremy Corbyn using some of my policy ideas. I suspect some would also criticise the fact that I went to the World Bank last week and there were definitely those who suggested that I should not accept an appointment at City University, precisely because it has got links to the City of London. As for the Fair Tax Mark; some say that is a sell out.
In all cases I disagree. It is my job to create ideas that might effect change. My purpose for doing so is, I hope clear: my aim is to create a more genuinely prosperous, more equal, more democratic, more accountable, more sustainable, more tolerant and so more enjoyable world in which we might live. More is an important word in that sentence: it could be prefaced with ‘much’ in many cases but I do not think we will ever create utopia. I want better because I doubt that the best I believe possible is actually achievable within the necessary compromises that human society requires, not just now but ever.
That, then, brings me to my second point. I am not seeking a revolution, but an evolution. I respect those who wish to be perpetual outsiders because they believe that the only way forward is to sweep away all that is in their path to create an entirely new society, but their’s is not a path I would ever choose. There is good reason for that: I believe that the cost of such change is too high, and the uncertainty of the outcome too great for any such risk to be taken. The chance that what we have will be replaced by tyranny is also too significant to justify this approach, in my opinion.
But, perhaps, most of all, and thirdly, I believe that the power of an idea at the right time is sufficiently strong to ensure that such a revolutionary approach is wholly unnecessary. I stress, I am not claiming that my ideas are in this category; I am suggesting that ideas can be. Neoliberalism arose because it was an idea in the right place at the right time, even if I fundamentally disagree with the prescription that it offered. The post-war consensus was similarly created in this way.
I regret that as yet we have not reached a point where a similar replacement idea has been sufficiently developed to capture, unambiguously, the common political narrative. Discussion of sustainability is become mainstream, but not in reality commonplace. Disquiet with austerity is deep-rooted, but has not yet displaced the obsession with balanced budgets. Debate on inequality in its many egregious forms is taking place, but is not yet reversing trends. Some political developments now arising are deeply antagonistic to democracy. But, and I stress the point, the fact that all these things are happening is, in itself, indication that something really important is going on and that we may, in my opinion, be reaching a point where real change is possible.
I stress, in the context the IMF article is, in my opinion important even though it is not as radical as that which many people would wish to read. But that is how change takes place: very few of us are really capable of embracing giant leaps. Most of us have to, inevitably, partake in incremental steps on the way to a bigger goal.
I accept, and embrace that fact, which I perceive to be a reality. That is not to say there is no place for the campaigner who demands, with reason, more radical change. Whilst I see many of the attractions of being a ‘no compromiser’ that is not the path I have chosen to follow, even with tax havens (as my Plan B for Jersey made clear). If the choice is between a pitchfork and a pen, then I choose the pen, believing that at the end of the day this is the way to create real change. But as a result I also choose to engage, without apology.
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We must never forget that the pen is mightier than the sword! And we must never stop engaging!
I wrote about this last Tuesday under the heading of Helping Hands and warned you that today and next Sunday would be picture parades of that event. For those that didn’t get to read that post here is how it opened:
The PetSmart Pet Adoption Event.
Over the days of the 13th to 15th May, in other words roughly a week-and-a-half ago, a number of pet adoption charities in Northern California and Southern Oregon came together courtesy of PetSmart in Medford, Oregon to find new homes for unadopted dogs and cats.
I came to hear about this from an email sent to me by Tammy Moore of the organisation Shelter Friends. Tammy also c.c.’d her email to Tana Mason who is Fundraising Coordinator for the charity. Tammy’s email was an invite for me, and Jean, to attend the event on the Saturday as the author of my book.
So, more pictures from the day (and my apologies for not noting names and details of each picture).
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Do hope you can handle a further selection of these event photographs in a week’s time! My motivation is to give everyone concerned a bit of a special focus for they did so well.
Over the days of the 13th to 15th May, in other words roughly a week-and-a-half ago, a number of pet adoption charities in Northern California and Southern Oregon came together courtesy of PetSmart in Medford, Oregon to find new homes for unadopted dogs and cats.
I came to hear about this from an email sent to me by Tammy Moore of the organisation Shelter Friends. Tammy also c.c.’d her email to Tana Mason who is Fundraising Coordinator for the charity. Tammy’s email was an invite for me, and Jean, to attend the event on the Saturday as the author of my book.
(I would have written about the event before now but many of you will recall that was the weekend when my internet connection was down for a number of days.)
Anyway, that Saturday started off rather damp and grey but all the pet charities had previously been set up for the Friday.
But soon Jean and I had our own stand all ready for the opening time for the event and we were very grateful for being offered a table position just inside the main entrance door.
People soon started arriving and all were very friendly.
I shall continue with the photographs of the day over the next two picture parades.
But let me leave you with the results of all the fine people involved, both volunteers and the great staff at PetSmart.
In the words of Tana in answer to my question of how many animals were found homes:
I have the total for all three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday: 9 puppies, 9 dogs and 14 cats!
I am not sure if this is a complete list of all the shelters that attended but certainly the following wonderful charities did:
Shelter Friends, Grants Pass, OR
Friends of Animals, Brookings, OR
Goliath Mountain Rescue, Yreka, CA
Rescue Ranch, Yreka, CA
Curry County Animal Shelter, Gold Beach, OR
Learning from Dogs 