Month: January 2011

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Journal: Get America Working–A Conversation Part II

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Corporations, Cultural Intelligence, Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy

Original Post with William Drayton, Alexandere Carpenter, and Robert Steele:  Journal: Get America Working–A Conversation

Part II–Alexander Carpenter (AC), the Founding Fathers, and Modern Seers

Journal: Get America Working-A Conversation

If you do nothing else, please consider reviewing the many contributions by Tom Atlee via the first line in Part IV: Related Recommended Reading,

Atlee at Phi Beta Iota

AC: And add this from Charles Hugh Smith to the list:

Charles Hugh Smith America's Job-Creation Machinery Is Hollowed Out

Dave Cohen on Job Prospects in the Bubble Economy, looking for a technological driver:

And this for those still trying to believe in the “enlightenment model,” some lowest-common-denominator and somewhat overstated evolutionary psychology:

Ian Charles, Conscious Robots: How We Make a Decision

And add this about computer gaming:

How Videogames Are Changing the Economy

Continue reading “Journal: Get America Working–A Conversation Part II”

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Journal: Afghanistan as a Failure of Imagination

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Corruption, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Military, Officers Call, Policy, Reform, Strategy, Threats
Who, Me?

Flawed projects prove costly for Afghanistan, U.S.

Contractor leaves Afghan police stations half-complete

Phi Beta Iota: Our political, policy, and military leaders simply do not know what they do not know.  Assuming–desiring–that they have the best of intentions–the reality is that they are not receiving the intelligence (decision-support) that they require to make intelligent decisions.  In both Iraq and Afghanistan, because there was political will, trillions have been wasted on “security” instead of sustenance.  Haiti, because there were no political will, was a microcosm–20,000 troops with a huge logistics tail when what was really needed were CAB 21 Peace Jumpers able to call in a Reverse TPFID….  Advanced Cyber/IO starts with imagination & intelligence.

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Secrecy News Headlines

Uncategorized

**     SECRECY AND CLASSIFICATION — TWO DIVERGING DOMAINS

Highly recommended look at Russian and US government convergence on a very large fiction: that information, which has been classified, and is in fact “open source” before or after being bureaucratically “classified,” remains “secret.”

**     LEAKS TO AIPAC SAID TO BE “COMMON”

Useful insights into the US citizens who routinely commit treason and related high crimes and misdemeanors–many of the very senior officials who have dual Israeli-US citizens and whom a gutless counterintellligence system fails to catch, confront, and convict.

**     DEEPWATER HORIZON: THE FATE OF THE OIL, MORE FROM CRS

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Journal: American Decline in Zero-Sum World?

Advanced Cyber/IO, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), International Aid, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Key Players, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Policies, Reform, Strategy, Threats
DefDog Recommends...

“We've Heard All This About American Decline Before.”

This time it's different. It's certainly true that America has been through cycles of declinism in the past. Campaigning for the presidency in 1960, John F. Kennedy complained, “American strength relative to that of the Soviet Union has been slipping, and communism has been advancing steadily in every area of the world.” Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One was published in 1979, heralding a decade of steadily rising paranoia about Japanese manufacturing techniques and trade policies.

In the end, of course, the Soviet and Japanese threats to American supremacy proved chimerical. So Americans can be forgiven if they greet talk of a new challenge from China as just another case of the boy who cried wolf. But a frequently overlooked fact about that fable is that the boy was eventually proved right. The wolf did arrive — and China is the wolf.

Read full article….

Gideon Rachman is chief foreign-affairs commentator for the Financial Times and author of Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of Anxiety.

Phi Beta Iota: The problem with the “status quo” actors and thinkers–however good their intentions–is that they simply do not know what they do not know.  The world can indeed be zero-sum.  It can also be non-zero sum, a case made by Robert Wright and summarized in Review: Nonzero–The Logic of Human Destiny.  We know how to do this and want to do this.  Those in power do not know how to do this and do not want to do this.  Therein lies the challenge–all it takes is ONE leader–Cynthia McKinney comes to mind–willing to stand up, demand Electoral Reform (1 Page, 9 Points), and the rest will be history–a very good history of the Second American Republic, how it came to its senses, and created a prosperous world at peace through intelligence as design.  Now THAT is Advanced Cyber/IO!

See Also:

Graphic: Intelligence Maturity Scale

Review: Evolutionary Activism by Tom Atlee

Review: Ideas and Integrities–A Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure

Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today

Reference: Electoral Reform (Huffington Post Version)

Reference: Electoral Reform–1 Page 9 Points 2.2 (Document Only)

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Journal: Eradicating Poverty One Micro-Job at a Time

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Geospatial, Historic Contributions, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), International Aid, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Key Players, Maps, Methods & Process, microfinancing, Open Government, Policies, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Reform, Research resources, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

Working for change: Samasource redefines international aid

December 10, 2010

On Need to Know, we do a lot of reporting about the world’s problems. But we’re premiering a new series about people coming up with creative solutions — it’s called “Agents of Change.”

Click on title to read short intro and option to view video….

9 minutes — summary

Social entrepreneur challenging conventional wisdom

Samasource–microwork (small digital tasks that can be done on an inexpensive computers).

Building 21st Century assembly line that can break down massive tasks (e.g. updating addresses for Google maps, or translating emergency messages from Creole to English).  Won contracts with Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft.

15% premium for socially-conscious companies, AND competitive on cost, quality, and turnaround time.

Small scale digital tasks did not exist before.

Transforming lives, especially women, young men, and refugees.  $5 a day is very much better than local norms, and buys an active English-speaking brain with hands able to do quality work.

IMPORTANT:  Developing world is out-pacing USA and West generally in extending Internet infrastructure to the poor–centers created, humans come in, also doing viewing (Gorgon Stare, take note!), creating logs of store videos on shopper buying habits, anything that can be noticed and logged by a human–$5 a day.

Phi Beta Iota: We could not, in a million years, have found a better “off-set” to the USAF Gorgon Stare program.  This micro-tasking, combining human brains and hands with Internet access, is one of  the most profoundly intelligent and socio-economically useful ideas we have seen in our lifetimes (there are 800 of us here).  BRAVO.