The Future Knowledge Compendium

Thriving in the 21^st Century

Humans have a unique capability to both understand their situation in the world and to envision and act to realise their aspirations in the emerging world. And most of us would welcome knowing how we can become ever more skilful at both understanding, and shaping the future of, our emerging world, so that we can thrive in it. The 21^st century is very different from the 20^th century. Globalisation, the greatest economic prosperity uplifting machine humanity has ever invented, and mass education, are combining to sweep humanity into an emerging interdependent global village. It is creating a global educated middle class that will number 5 billion in 2030.

In this emerging world, a world where our future prosperity will be increasingly based on metaphysical wealth, on what we know, 20^th century nation-first, competitive, win/lose, mindsets and agendas can no longer work. These now yesteryear mindsets will instead undermine our best endeavours, including making our future ever more climate and pandemic safe.

Humanity is now beginning to learn that it now has no option but to adopt planet-first, collaborative, win/win values and mindsets, if it wishes to shape our emerging global village so that it can become liveable for all: ever more prosperous, harmonious, inclusive, sustainable, healthy, and secure. Meeting these challenges successfully will require that humanity innovates for itself a new future knowledge curriculum so that it can economically thrive in a sustainable and humane manner.

Peter Ellyard has asked the question: what would be the contents of such a curriculum? In The Future Knowledge Compendium: A Curriculum for Thriving in the 21^st Century, he has sought to answer this question.

Sheeny Shadow Narratives

Quantum computers are on the doorstep and artificial intelligence has already entered our living rooms. Research breakthroughs determine the latest company’s stock values. Reasonable investment volumes and financial funding frameworks are in place. This signals that profitable applications are within sight and the pace of development is increasing rapidly.Corporate business and governments are powerful drivers, offering personalized products for users, entertainment for followers and safety for all. Global communication is at our fingertips. Intuitive robots act in tandem with factory workers, artists, and scientists.But services “for free” come at a price. Revolutionary technologies will soon disrupt markets and shake up societies. Individuals will pay with a loss of privacy and personal autonomy. Intuitive algorithms will challenge artistic creativity. Unlimited computing power will call art and science into question. We have no clue yet how a mesh of quantum computers (QC) and swarms of artificial intelligence (AI) will fundamentally change art and science.Yet we mostly ignore a debate on our cohabitation with novel technologies. Could artists resist the domestication by intelligent robots? Just now artists and scientists erratically meander to escape the inevitable. Are we ready to enter an informed public discourse? We experiment with burning answers in our encounter with cold machines.

Mundane Insurance

Manufacturing industries are a common knowledge as are the likes of the motor car, television, foodstuffs and electrical goods that exist around us every day and are forcefully advertised. Banking too but it is only true to a lesser degree regarding insurance because if canvasing the average person in the street about insurance they would think only about their life insurance, health insurance, motor cover, house and contents, pet plan insurance and so on. Put like that, it is all very wearisome and therefore hardly a subject worth writing about, or is it? That was certainly the author’s impression of insurance even up to the point of moving into the financial sector from manufacturing industry.

Pursuing the subject a step further, hazarding a guess, if those very same people were quizzed regarding the types of people they imagined are employed in insurance they would probably describe their insurance broker or simply a voice at an insurance call centre. This account therefore will, in all probability, dispel the notion that all insurance dealings are routine and in the main, predictable as did an international group of young insurance delegates at a Middle East seminar, many of whom were totally unaware that the insurance industry’s activities were so diverse.

Life of Brain

This book is about everything that goes on in your conscious experience: sensations, perceptions, feelings, thoughts, imagination, plans, expectations. It’s also about your conscious experience of self, the sense that there is a YOU behind everything, a YOU that is having all these experiences, a YOU that seems to control all those activities of the mind.Some of the questions it explores:- What is conscious experience?- How did it evolve?- Why did it evolve?- How does it develop in the young child?- What can we do with it?- Why might it cause us problems?- Why is it still a mystery?This book is NOT about the neurological landscape and its functions studied by the neuroscientist armed with the latest fMRI technology (which incidentally measures brain activity indirectly through the flow of blood in response to different tasks). You don’t have to know brain anatomy, you don’t have to tell your hippocampus from your hypothalamus.This book will be of interest to YOU if you have ever wondered about the nature of conscious experience and the workings of your own consciousness. It may well tell you more about YOU than any other book you have ever read.Students of psychology, philosophy and evolution will find it of particular relevance to their areas of inquiry.

Indigenous Knowledge on Traditional Upland Rice Farming in Sierra Leone

“Learning can be acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various facets of them.” (Phillip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield).

Indigenous Knowledge in Traditional Upland Rice Farming is a result of living and studying the rice farmers in the southern region of Sierra Leone, West Africa, over years of extension and rural development work. It is a result of years of effort trying to unearth how farmers generate and share information from their knowledge which remained unknown to professionals who attempt intervention projects aimed at addressing the constraints the farmers faced.

These ventures often fail to get the desired results with a waste of time and resources due to the lack of knowledge and understanding on the underpinning knowledge in a system they want to correct. It gives an insight into this farming system in a way that can be applicable to other farming systems in the country and elsewhere around the world. Fortunately, the information collected into this book was done before the rebel war in Sierra Leone, which claimed the lives of the majority of the seasoned and knowledgeable farmers. There is currently a drive by the government of Sierra Leone to encourage entrepreneurship in agribusiness around the country to improve agriculture and food production, in order to alleviate the problem of food shortages in the country.

This book offers an opportunity for those with the capital to grasp the fundamental principles underlying the practices in the farming system, the major source of food production in the country, as an insurance for their capital investments. This book can be translated into the local languages for the adult education of young farmers in the country who have not had the opportunity to have learned from their parents and older farmers through the method of oral traditional learning, as a result of the decade of rebel war which may have claimed their lives.

In Demand, in Command

A comprehensive, insightful and practical guide to transforming your customer value and costs of service. Great, you're in demand! You have a brilliant product, excellent services, and competitive pricing. But that only gets you a seat at the table. If you really want to stay ahead of the game and be in command of a modern, always-connected world, you need a winning digital customer experience strategy. In Demand, in Command is essential to anyone that considers the growth, allegiance, and advocacy of customers at lower operating costs as paramount. Increasingly, there is a need to stand out from the crowd and not be easily imitated by others. This book gives you immediate access to shrewd, insightful and comprehensible advice on customer strategy, digital optimisation and organisational transformation. Packed with thought-leading expertise, proven 'how to' techniques, and real-life experiences, it enables you to accelerate improvements in your customer insight, service performance, business margins and competitiveness. In Demand, in Command is as much about the people and processes that drive your desired business growth, as it is about digital technologies. Put simply - if you sell to, or serve the public in any shape or form, this book is a must for you.

If You Only Had Time

This book isn’t about what you produce for your boss or your client, it’s about how you pilot yourself through your career, pick your way through the challenges that come your way and squeeze the most out of the chances you get to learn and develop.

Spending time (and money) with the right executive coach could be the best investment you’d ever make. Maybe that doesn’t fit into your programme today. But if you could be sitting with your coach right now, here’s what you’d be likely to learn.

Home and Away

Home and Away – A Civil Engineering Odyssey draws on the author’s long career as an engineer responsible for many projects around the world. In the memoir he highlights some of those projects with descriptions of the design processes and the construction methods used to bring the works to successful completion, keeping technical detail to the minimum needed for the reader’s understanding of the projects. Personal reminiscences of his travels complement descriptions of life as an engineer.

Developments in analysis of structures during the author’s working life have enabled all manner of structures to be designed to display elegance of form in a natural way without unnecessary embellishment. Practising engineers understand the satisfaction to be found in designing such engineering works and seeing them built as they envisaged. It is hoped the author’s enthusiasm for his work as expressed in the memoir may inspire others to become the civil engineers of the future.

Evolution: The Pattern

The origin of life is the fusion of two slightly different halves: fusion-fission, fusion-fission, fusion-fission… the rhythm of Life. In the beginning of all beginnings, an energetic proton and neutral neutron had fused into one whole. On planet Earth, the fusion took monumental proportions until the mating ritual has reached the highest conceivable degree. Love has a power to create life but also has a power to destroy it if its integrity is violated. Psychopath-men attack women, psychopath-women attack own children while breast, prostate and colorectal carcinomas are responsible for more than 20% human deaths whose incidence in great apes is less than 2%. Are humans on the decline? To find out this we have to unravel the mystery of the origin of life. Only if the sequence of the events in the story of life is correct, a pattern will emerge.

Ecocide

How‘Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll’in ancient Athens enteredChristianity.How Plato’s mental bias wrecksour ecology and our mental health.In this remarkable and well researched book, Dr John Wilson, a down-to-earth psychiatrist, breaks new ground. He shows how classical Greek civilization, still the foundation of Western culture, splits our minds from our bodies. Splitting us also from physical health, from mental health, and from our natural environment. In this sixth ‘Mass Extinction Event’, Plato’s legacy is now becoming fatal.

Caring for the Elderly and Those with Dementia

With over 10 years’ experience working as a carer for elderly people, B. Mack decided to write this book to share her knowledge. She has cared mainly for elderly people who were diagnosed with dementia.  

This book contains useful information that will help families, friends and caregivers to deal with their loved ones who may be going through various stages of dementia, from early stages to end stage dementia. With the help of this book you can set up a good environment for them, communicate effectively with them, learn their behavioural patterns, help navigate through changes in appetite and cope with behavioural changes. The useful tips and tried methods will help equip you when faced with challenging times like end-of-life care, dealing with abuse and so much more.

For those who are torn between nursing homes, rest homes or in-home care, there are some advantages and disadvantages listed that you need to take into consideration to help you make informed decisions.  

The coping methods suggested here come from the author’s own experience. Now they might be helpful to someone else too.

Big Brain Revolution

Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) changing the world? Is AI updating the human brain? Can AI help to solve complex problems baffling scientists and politicians? The answer is yes. This book offers unique insights into the consequences of mixing psychology with technology. It takes you on a journey of discovery, stripping AI and the human brain back to basics. It's not academic, keeps knowledge simple and questions if humans can be manipulated by machines. Big data is already monitoring human movements. So imagine future powers of information gathering on an even bigger scale - including brain waves, emotions and inner thoughts. AI could personalise messages back to the brain and update love, desires and our destiny. Now is the time to be curious and to question. We must not hesitate. History will not forgive us. This is our common purpose. Our mission is to bequeath ethical AI advancements to the next generation. Humility tells us how working together is the secret sauce to guide AI to help mankind. It must help untangle collective problems such as climate change - bigger than the individual. This book is for everyone. So read it, pass it on and discuss how AI is impacting your brain and our futures.