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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 4-Aug-2010
4-Aug-10 News -- Kashmir violence spirals upward

Web Log - August, 2010

4-Aug-10 News -- Kashmir violence spirals upward

China's real estate bubble appears to be bursting

Kashmir violence may be spiraling out of control

Five more people were killed on Monday, when government forces fired on protestors, totaling 43 deaths since June 11, according to the Kashmir Observer. A government-ordered curfew is being ignored, as thousands of protestors are filling the streets, according to the article.

The violence appears to be spiraling out of control, with even Kashmiri separatist leaders appealing for calm, according to Reuters.

Kashmir is at the heart of the disagreements between Pakistan and India, and the site of the bloodiest part of the war between Muslims and Hindus that followed Partition, the 1947 partitioning of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan. Generational Dynamics predicts that this war will be re-fought soon.

Past uprisings in Kashmir have appeared to be spiraling out of control, but they settled down after a few days. However, as India and Kashmir go deeper into a generational Crisis era, it becomes increasingly likely that an uncontrolled riot will spread to a larger war.

Rioting kills dozens in Karachi, Pakistan

The number of those killed in rioting in Karachi, Pakistan, and Sindh province rose to 53 on Tuesday, as gunmen have carried out numerous attacks, according to The Hindu. The attacks were triggered by the murder of Raza Haider, a leader of the MQM political party.

As far as I can tell, this violence is politically based, rather than ethnically based. In fact, an acquaintance of mine who was born in Karachi tells me that it's the "Karachi Mafia" that's doing all the killing.

If that's true, then the current violence in Karachi is most similar to the Chicago gang wars of the 1930s, led by Al Capone.

Five people killed in clash on Israel - Lebanon border

Five people were killed in a firefight on the border between Lebanon and Israel, according to the BBC.

This was the worst violence since the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbollah. However, Tuesday's firefight appeared to be a brief skirmish between the Lebanese army and the Israeli army, and is not expect to spiral into anything more serious.

China's real estate bubble may be bursting

Megalomania is in full swing in China's booming economy, according to an analysis of China's real estate bubble in Spiegel.

A property fair in Jinan, China <font size=-2>(Source: Spiegel)</font>

A property fair in Jinan, China (Source: Spiegel)

A month ago, we quoted Kenneth Rogoff as predicting that China's property market was collapsing. (See "7-Jul-10 News -- Rogoff: China's property market near 'collapse.'"

Since then, real estate prices in 70 large Chinese cities declined over the previous month for the first time in 1.5 years, according to the Spiegel article. Xu Shaoshi, China's minister of land and resources, is quoted as saying that the real estate market could undergo a "total correction" in the third quarter.

At the same time, Reuters reports that there is widespread discontent over property seizures by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) élite, who then use the land to build large real estate complexes with borrowed money. China has a record of tens of thousands of "mass incidents" every year, and the practice of land seizures is one of the leading causes.

I've often said that, as bad as the American economy is, China's is even worse. China has a long history of massive rebellions against the political élite, the last one being Mao Zedong's Communist revolution that ran from 1934-1949. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, a new one will be coming soon.

NASA's Spirit Rover on Mars seems to be gone forever

Nasa's Spirit Rover has been roaming the surface of Mars since January 2004. However, this past winter, Spirit's wheel got stuck in a hole from which it could not free itself, and so Spirit could not travel to a place where it could get maximum sunlight. Apparently, Rover is gone for good, according to Discover Magazine.

However, Nasa is inappropriately showing little sensitivity to poor the lost Spirit Rover, according to Physics Central. Nasa is already moving on to the next project and the next rover.

To stir up a little sympathy, the article references an xkcd comic strip that captures the moment:

The end for Spirit Rover <font size=-2>(Source: xkcd)</font>

The end for Spirit Rover (Source: xkcd)

Desktop speech recognition software becoming more accurate

A significant challenge for the development of super-intelligent computers is speech recognition -- giving the computer the ability to listen to a speaker and translate the voice sounds into the corresponding text. (See "29-Jun-10 News -- Speech recognition brings Singularity closer.")

A new version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Windows from Nuance Communications Inc. offers exceptionally high accuracy, according to a review by David Pogue in the NY Times

Once in a previous life I served as Technology Editor for CFO Magazine, and I had occasion to review a number of speech recognition programs. They all claimed to have something like 98% accuracy. That sounds pretty good until you realize that it means that it gets a word wrong every two or three lines, which ends up being quite annoying.

So I was interested to read that Pogue was able to dictate a 1,300 word column, and the software achieved 100% accuracy.

As I've said many times, the reason that artificial intelligence (AI) technology keeps improving is not because the algorithms are improving (although Pogue says that Dragon's algorithms have some improvements), but because computers are getting more and more powerful. When you utter a phrase like "the book," the software compares your voice against a large library of sounds. The more powerful the computer, the more comparisons it can make quickly. By 2020, desktop computers or their descendants should have no difficulty at all understanding spoken sentences in English or any other language.

Thousands of cameras watch streets in northwest China

A year ago, ethnic fighting between Han Chinese and Muslim Uighur populations ended up killing at least 197 people in the city of Urumqi in Xinjang province.

Now, there are 47,000 cameras scanning streets and intersections in Urumqi, and by the end of the year there will be 60,000. Experts are predicting that China will have 15 million surveillance cameras by 2014, according to the NY Times

These camera systems use technologies that border on artificial intelligence. Video software can read license plates, and cameras can take pictures of people inside autos. Facial recognition software is being used increasingly.

Additional links

What will happen to human beings when the Singularity occurs and computers do all the work, leaving human beings nothing to do? Web site reader Nigel Strange has written a short story exploring what happens when a planet is composed of entirely of over-educated unemployed migrant slaves. Plastic Children

PKK militants bombed a train in East Turkey. Although the train was carrying cargo and passengers, there were no casualties. Press TV

Escalating hostilities between Turkish forces and PKK Kurds are threatening US policy in Iraq, which calls for a unified government when U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq. World Politics Review

A year ago, Iranian soldiers arrested three American hikers in Iraq near the Iran border, and accused them of espionage. Why are they still holding them hostage? Because Iran has a history of using hostages to make political statements. Duh. CS Monitor

In a sharp reversal of an earlier decision, Israel has agreed to cooperate with the United Nations probe of the Gaza flotilla incident that killed nine Turkish citizens. Israel hopes to improve relations with Turkey again. Jewish Telegraphic Agency

To stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in North Korea, the U.S. is planning to choke off the international network of companies and banks that largely fund its nuclear weapons program and the lifestyles of its elite. Washington Post

Speaking in France, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari says that the war against Taliban is "being lost." BBC

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is positioning himself to reclaim the presidency of Russia in 2012. LA Times

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 4-Aug-10 News -- Kashmir violence spirals upward thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (4-Aug-2010) Permanent Link
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