By Victor C. Ariole
The philosophy behind the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is a call to action for a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous future for all, encompassing economic, social and environment dimensions… leaving no one behind… E. Cerin and UNO
Elon Musk seems to embark on creating a future that is homo-satient oriented so as to eclipse homosapiens. That means further exploitation and mismanagement of planetary resources to have more robots and lesshumans on earth. He is interested in keeping and spending money for space exploration suitable for homo-satients. Quite good but not essential.United Nations enunciated SDG seems to be uncomfortable with the Musk’s approach hence one of its 17 goals states: Reduced Inequalities, and better life on land that is sustainable by the respect of biodiversity and not the respect of robots or degrading humans to robots or degrading humans to homosatient level so as to adapt to space life beyond life on land. Unless the vision is: Planning for space life as alternative to life on land, in the event of human extinction on land.
Listening to Jeffrey Sachs as PalkiSharma put him on a hot seat to define where President Trump is taking USA to with his tariff war, and as Sachs acknowledges that it is a great moment to tell 600 million Hindus clinged to Palkishow what they should never agree to, if India really wants to take the sixth seat in the United Nations’ Security Council: “neverbe a friend of USA against China”.
For Jeffrey Sachs, USA is just alone in countering what 192 countries stood for in the United Nations’ Assembly – The 17 SDGS; and India as the most populous, and awaited second economic power, come 2030, must not embark in any trade-off that could slow its progress. Fighting China so as to be friend of USA could make it impossible. Aligning with the UN SDG is the right way and it is better for the most leading human groupings like India as it relates well with bio-diversity, aka respect for Transhumanism. In effect transhumanism tailored to using efficiently bio-diversity resources and responsible technological approach to enhance human capability and potentially overcome aging and possibly death; not necessarily as people like Musk or Yuval see it, claiming gods themselves.
Power to monopolise trade and impose tariff on tradable items makes inclusivity and responsible usage of human and natural resources impossible, and World Trade Organisation (WTO) or USA congress as emphasised by Sachs who are bestowed with such powers must wake up to their responsibilities and save the world from being trumped into anarchy or object of deal making between USA and the rest of the world. According to Sachs it amounts to allowing one person to decide the fate of over 8 billion people on earth.
USA has made great sacrifice to keep the world at peace since the World War II, and it is not to be wished away with a deal making process that has marginal goal of wipping away USA trade deficit recorded for over 20 years, that is about $2 trillion.Quite insignificant. Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz sees it as weak thinking to believe that trade deficit recorded by USA is an unfair treatment by other countries. USA is like a Giant Spider with widely stretched cobwebs and has created a world of quantum entanglement that it cannot just allow to slip off its hands; and as proposed by intelligent people in USA, trade and tariffs are not superior to service industry for a USA that is the guardian land and dashboard center of the wealth of the planet – human and biodiversity wise. Relating to quantum entanglement in metaphorical terms, USA as a dashboard corner could know what humans are feeling as regards bio-diversity usage and how inclusive it projects by “keeping demand for products in every corner of the planet very high” while respecting SDGs as well as shifting its industrial productions to poor countries toenhance infrastructural factories in poor countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America for “Decent work and Economic Growth”, another SDG, which is what the poor countries aspire to for now, and in turn as it is done now with almost all the different human groups present in USA, investing and holding USA bonds as well as paying highly for what is known as finance services, insurance services and real estate acquisition (fire). This is the integration expectations of a great USA as proposed in Techno Feudalism of YanisVaroufakis. And it agrees with Chris Hughes proposal of seeking out how to help poor countries to feel the impact of Great USA by reaching out to them with outsourced industrial activities as he did in Kenya. For Chris, it can only be in USA where being leveraged by technological infrastructure, sourced from different part of the world and coupled in USA as cloud Technology center, make people like him overnight billionaires.
Imposing tariffs on trades to assuage USA fiscal position is like they say in Africa “carrying elephant on your head and still using your toes to pick ants.”
Some countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are still having their citizens feeling the heat of poverty like bending very low to “pick ants” for survival that trade agreements like AGOA – African Growth and Opportunity Act – must not be trumped with high tariff.
It is trumpeted that Africa is a marginal continent and needed to wake up relying on its known abundant resources; and it cannot happen if tariff is imposed on it. Africa failed in reaching the goal of MDG – Millennium Development Goals. And it is obviously going to fail in reaching the SDG by what the most powerful like USA, Russia and China are doing to its environment and resources in continuation of what its colonial masters – United Kingdom, France, Spain and Portuguese had done to it for over 500 years.
Leaving no one behind as the SDG proposes must see the USA as leading in the front with its assets and military bases spread in all the continents, and could intervene if need be by using force to initiate wipping off its fiscal deficit if it so wishes. Afterall, the gold reserve of the Germans are with the USA and it is retained with force, and they are demanding to have them back which is not going to be possible with over trillion dollars of USA assets in Germany just like it is in South Korea as USA stands as shield against North Korea’shanging invasion.
Governance efficiency in USA is beyond USA. It is governance efficiency of the world run by USA. USAID, CIA, Education Department are helping to keep the world under the scrutiny of USA. The DOGE – Department of Government Efficiency – of Elon Musk must read wide on what USA has attracted for itself in the chessboard of the planetary game and know that thinking humanistic is better than thinking robotic. And as Jeffrey Sachs mentioned in the PalkiSherma show, there is no way a heavily populated India like the rest of the world could lead their lives by what 325 million people in USA intend to impose on them. Somehow it happens. So, tariff and trade war, Tea Party governance approach demean USA; a better strategy should be adopted.
• ARIOLE, Ph.D, Professor of French and Francophone Studies University of Lagos