The human-focused startups of the hellfire
The future of technology and disaster response Part 4: Training, mental health and crowdsourcing
Disasters may not always be man-made, but they are always responded to by humans. There’s a whole panoply of skills and professions required today to respond to even the tiniest emergency, and that doesn’t even include the needs during pre-disaster planning and post-disaster recovery. It’s not a very remunerative industry for most and the mental health effects from stress can linger for decades, but the mission at the core of this work to help people in the time of their greatest need is what continues to attract many to partake in this never-ending battle anyway.
Our inability to truly conspire is why so many people are struggling today.
Illustration by Kelsey Niziolek
.
“It’s as natural as breathing” is a cliché because, when all is going well, nothing else is more effortless than inhaling and exhaling, something we do approximately twenty thousand times a day. Typically, most of us don’t think much about it. We breathe as we sleep, breathe as we eat, breathe as we move, and breathe as we talk. But that changed in 2020. We worried about our lungs and gasped for air. A novel illness sickened millions and tanked the global economy, thousands ingested tear gas protesting police violence, and cities were smothered by plumes of dark, noxious smoke from nearby forest fires.
Daily Times
April 20, 2021
It seems that all those lobbyists – Afghans, Americans, Pakistanis and Indians – whose livelihoods are tied to anti-Pakistan postulations – find it difficult to stomach President Joe Biden’s plan to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by September 11 “to end the forever war.” A slew of print, electronic and social media posts would suggest that, despite the extremely calibrated decision by the Biden Administration – which also resonates Pakistan’s position on the lingering conflict (support for a responsible withdrawal accompanied by quest for an inclusive Afghan-led peace formula), these disguised lobbyists are totally brushing aside the conclusions that the administration drew based on information from multiple source.
Timothy H. Edgar
Timothy H. Edgar is a senior fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute and serves as director of graduate studies for Brown’s M.Sc. in Cybersecurity program. He served as director for privacy and civil liberties for the National Security Staff in the Obama White House, and is the author of “Beyond Snowden: Privacy, Mass Surveillance and the Struggle to Reform the NSA.”
Articles written by Timothy H. Edgar
Afghan War Has Claimed 241,000 Lives, Report Finds
SYNDICATED 3 hours ago A study released Friday estimates the two-decade-long war in Afghanistan has killed 241,000 people, including Americans, and cost the United States $2.26 trillion to date. The Costs of War Project, housed at Brown University’s Watson Institute and Boston University’s Pardee Center, noted in its report that the financial cost included both Afghan operations and those in neighboring Pakistan. President Joe Biden announced on.