One Humor
Three Opinions
Engagement with groups such as the Taliban is not without moral and political hazards. No one knows if Taliban 2.0 will be a return to the 1990s or something more moderate. They may possibly not even know themselves. But we have a moral debt to the people of Afghanistan, and the only way the international community can help them is to use any leverage we have left with the Taliban to push for an inclusive process in Afghanistan. This should include the protection of the rights of minorities and women and the establishment of a representative and accountable government.
It will require an international consensus on the steps the Taliban have to take, and a monitoring mechanism to make sure they actually do so. It is in our self-interest to do this: because if Afghanistan does collapse into civil war again, we in Europe will feel the impact in terms of refugees, drugs, and terrorism on our streets.
Source: The lesson we failed to learn from 9/11: peace is impossible if we don’t talk to our enemies.
Our minds are constantly trying to make sense of our world, forming judgments and opinions about every situation, event, and interaction. As a result, most of our judgments and opinions often get affected by our core belief system.
However, there is no denying that everything begins with a simple thought and that thought has the capacity to attract similar ones until your mind is filled with the cluster of thoughts — making a pattern of thinking so that it ends up forming a habit, which in turn gets applied to many different situations as a default setting.
Source: How To Positively Reshape Your Core Belief System
NYU law professor Richard Epstein has argued that these internet behemoths need to be understood as public utilities or common carriers. Just as a railroad can’t refuse to transport a person because they believe the Earth is flat, or a phone company can’t drop a call if the person is talking about Pizzagate, neither should online monopolies have the power to do so.Â
When every single major tech company is making the exact same decision over who to deplatform and what to ban, doesn’t that seem like the behavior of a cartel?
Why should a handful of billionaires have the power to decide that some Americans’ speech rights are more sacred than others?Â
Source: What Should Be Done to Curb Big Tech?
Two Thoughts
See you soon
Piyush Kamal
Ex-IRS, Economist, and a Published Author who loves to play at the intersection of Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, and philosophy.
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