Through the lens of history, Trump’s legacy will be more of a blotch than a Maga masterpiece; The Guardian, December 28, 2025

Simon Tisdall, The Guardian; Through the lens of history, Trump’s legacy will be more of a blotch than a Maga masterpiece

"Revolutions are overrated, intrinsically unpredictable and typically followed by counter-revolutions. True turning points in history are actually quite rare – and difficult to spot. Even rarer are genuinely world-changing leaders. Donald Trump presents a case study.

The way Trump tells it, he’s Alexander, Charlemagne, George Washington, Napoleon and Mahatma Gandhi all rolled into one. Yet after a decade at the top of US politics, solid achievements are few. His peacemaking flounders, his economic and trade tariff policies falter, his personal approval rating tumbles. Towering ego, ignorance, vulgarity and bottomless narcissism are Trump’s only exceptional traits.

Right now, the global and domestic upheavals triggered by Trump and Maga seem transformational. They are symbolised by the new US national security strategy – an authoritarian, anti-European, transatlantic alliance-rupturing charter. On all sides the cry is heard: “The old order perishes. Chaos looms!” Yet looked at in the round, the Trumpian moment is fleeting. Trump, 79, has three years remaining in power, at most. Even if a loyalist wins in 2028 – a huge “if” – no heir can match his monstrous appeal. His Maga coalition is fracturing.

It’s claimed Trump has permanently changed how Americans view the world. But they said that about 1930s America First isolationism, and that didn’t last, either. Time will show the Trump era to be less turning point, more freakish aberration – a sort of Prohibition for populists. In history’s bigger picture, Trump is a blotch, an unsightly smear on the canvas.

At an unsettling moment in world affairs when the tectonic plates are shifting (to recycle another melodramatic cliche), it’s important to stay grounded, to maintain perspective. As 2026 trepidatiously creeps through the door, nursing hangovers from the tumultuous year just ending, try counting the continuities and bridges rather than dwelling on earthquakes and chasms.

Given a free choice (which is the whole point), democracy, for all its flaws, continues to be the preferred system of governance worldwide. Divisive hard-right and neo-fascist parties remain, mostly, on the fringe; they do not rule. Authoritarian leaders such as Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu have no recognised successors, not least because they fear usurpers. When they go – and it won’t be long – successor governments may opt for reform, as was the case post-Stalin and post-Mao.

Most countries still support the UN and respect international law. Music, film, theatre and the arts continue, overall, to connect and bind the peoples of the world, as does sport, the great global leveller. Religious faith, broadly defined, acts as a timeless, superhuman unifying force, despite the distortions of extremists. And the quest for knowledge and understanding, pursued through schools, universities, scholarship, historical research, books, scientific inquiry and technological innovation, inexorably advances with each new generation.

If one is allowed a wish for 2026, it’s that there be no great geopolitical turning points, no epic spasms or watersheds (with possible exceptions for Putin’s defeat and Trump’s resignation). Most people, given the option, would surely prefer to live their lives peacefully, striving to improve their lot and that of others, free from importunate, lying politicians, divisive dogmas, shaming bigotry, competing great power hegemonies and renewed conflicts.

Que no haya novedad – let no new thing arise, as the old, wistful Spanish saying has it. For a still hopeful, vibrant world haunted by fear of another cold (or hot) war, it would be a gift and a blessing."

Countries Consider A.I.’s Dangers and Benefits at U.N.; The New York Times, September 25, 2025

  Steve Lohr, The New York Times; Countries Consider A.I.’s Dangers and Benefits at U.N.

"The United Nations on Thursday announced a plan to establish itself as the leading global forum to guide the path and pace of artificial intelligence, a major foray into the raging debate over the future of the rapidly changing technology.

As part of its General Assembly this week, the organization said it was implementing a “global dialogue on artificial intelligence governance,” to assemble ideas and best practices on A.I. governance. The U.N. also said it would form a 40-member panel of scientific experts to synthesize and analyze the research on A.I. risks and opportunities, in the vein of previous similar efforts by the body on climate change and nuclear policy.

To begin the initiative, dozens of U.N. member nations — and a few tech companies, academics and nonprofits — spent a portion of Thursday summarizing their hopes and concerns about A.I."

Act now on AI before it’s too late, says UNESCO’s AI lead; Fast Company, February 6, 2024

 CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER, Fast Company; Act now on AI before it’s too late, says UNESCO’s AI lead

"Starting today, delegates are gathering in Slovenia at the second Global Forum on the Ethics of AI, organized by UNESCO, the United Nations’ educational, scientific, and cultural arm. The meeting is aimed at broadening the conversation around AI risks and the need to consider AI’s impacts beyond those discussed by first-world countries and business leaders.

Ahead of the conference, Gabriela Ramos, assistant director-general for social and human sciences at UNESCO, spoke with Fast Company...

Countries want to learn from each other. Ethics have become very important. Now there’s not a single conversation I go to that is not at some point referring to ethics—which was not the case one year ago...

Tech companies have previously said they can regulate themselves. Do you think they can with AI?

Let me just ask you something: Which sector has been regulating itself in life? Give me a break."

The U.N. plan to improve the world by 2030 is failing. Does that make it a failure?; NPR, September 21, 2023

 Michael Igoe, NPR; The U.N. plan to improve the world by 2030 is failing. Does that make it a failure?

"What if you made a self-improvement plan and failed to meet your goals.

Imagine that in a moment of unusual optimism and resolve, you decided that the only way you were ever going to be the healthy, happy and productive person you want to be was by writing down a detailed list of goals and committing to accomplish them in the next 15 years.

Now imagine that eight years later, more than halfway through your 15-year life improvement plan, not only are you way off track when it comes to accomplishing most of what you committed to, but in some cases you've even slid backward. Maybe you faced an unexpected illness. Maybe you suffered a crushing breakup. Maybe you got some bad financial advice. Maybe you just didn't try hard enough.

What would you conclude? Were your goals a waste of time or would you be even worse off today without them? Should you scrap your detailed plan or double down and try to make up for lost time?

That's about where 193 world leaders at the United Nations in New York find themselves this week as they take stock of the sobering state of the Sustainable Development Goals at their halfway point along the road to 2030...

In other words, maybe the only thing worse than failing to achieve the SDGs would be failing to ask how we once believed they might be possible."

U.S.-China Feud Ensnares Obscure UN Intellectual Property Agency; Bloomberg, February 16, 2020

Nick Wadhams, Bloomberg; U.S.-China Feud Ensnares Obscure UN Intellectual Property Agency

"“The race for WIPO leadership has become the moment the U.S. woke up to the fact China is eating our lunch in the multilateral system and that great-power competition will be fought out in many theaters, including UN agencies,” said Daniel Runde, the director of the Project on Prosperity and Development at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “WIPO may seem obscure, but it’s a standard-maker and holds hundreds of billions of our trade secrets in its digital vaults.”"

Professor Tells UN, Governments Of Coming “Tsunami” Of Data And Artificial Intelligence; Intellectual Property Watch, February 21, 2018

William New, Intellectual Property Watch; Professor Tells UN, Governments Of Coming “Tsunami” Of Data And Artificial Intelligence

"[Prof. Shmuel (Mooly) Eden of the University of Haifa, Israel] said this fourth revolution in human history is made up of four factors. First, computing power is at levels that were unimaginable. This power is what makes artificial intelligence now possible. The smartphone in your hand has 1,000 times the components of the first rocket to the moon, he said, which led to a chorus of “wows” from the audience.

Second is big data. Every time you speak on the phone or go on the internet, someone records it, he said. The amount of data is unlimited. Eden said he would be surprised if we use 2 percent of the data we generate, but in the future “we will.”

Third is artificial intelligence (AI). No one could analyse all of that data, so AI came into play.

Fourth is robots. He noted that they don’t always look like human forms. Most robots are just software doing some function...

 Eden ended by quoting a hero of his, former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who told him: “Technology without ethics is evil. Ethics without technology is poverty. That’s why we have to combine the two.”

Eden challenged the governments, the UN and all others to think about how to address this rapid change and come up with ideas.

He challenged the governments, the UN and all others to think about how to address this rapid change and come up with ideas. Exponentially."