Certain types of life science research involving “high consequence pathogens and toxins” would be subject to new review and risk mitigation procedures which might include classification of the research or termination of the funding, according to a U.S. government policy issued yesterday by the National Institutes of Health.
The policy applies to research involving 15 specified biological agents and toxins which “pose the greatest risks of deliberate misuse with most significant potential for mass casualties or devastating effects to the economy, critical infrastructure or public confidence.”
Research that increases the lethality or transmissibility of the agent or toxin, or otherwise enhances its harmful consequences, will be subject to the new review procedures.
Based on the outcome of the review, a risk mitigation plan may be developed. If less restrictive measures were deemed inadequate, the new policy would allow for national security classification of the research or termination of government funding.
Phi Beta Iota: Nice but inadequate. The government is paying lip service to this necessary precautionary principle. If they were really serious, such a policy would encompass all agricultural and industrial processes without exception.
As the global economy collapses and increasing numbers recognize that no one is addressing our common problems with intelligence and integrity, it seems like a good time to quickly survey the state of the World Brain /Global Game. Here are a few headlines with short comments.
The Network of Global Agenda Councils, launched by the World Economic Forum three years ago, comprises more than 1,000 thought leaders who meet at least four times a year – three times in virtual meetings and once during the annual Summit on the Global Agenda in the United Arab Emirates, arguably the biggest intellectual brainstorming in the world.
RS: This is the World Economic Forum / 1% “front” version of the World Brain. There is a great deal that can be harvested from this endeavor, but it lacks a strategic analytic model, a commitment to open source data access and other fundamentals of the M4IS2 process. It is inherently elitist. Of interest is the fact that all of its community lists have been blanked out
RS: Eugene Garfield with the Institute of Scientific Information (now Thompson Reuters), and then Dick Klavans with Maps of Science, have done more than any other to actually create a structure for identifying strengths, gaps, and emergent possibilities in the World Brain on the basis of published formal knowledge. One of my most prized possessions is the internal massive PDF file (shown here as a snapshot) that allows for drilling down all the way to each and every sub-discipline. Here are two of the seminal works:
RS: Using techniques developed by Garfield and Klavans (much of this done prior to computing advances, by hand), Thompson Reuters now offers a service that can show, by country, region, university, or discipline, where the strengths and weaknesses are on the basis of citation analysis. One example for the USA is shown here to the side. This remains severely deficient for two reasons: first, the persistence of inbred citation cabals; and second, the extremely poor coverage of languages other than English, French, and German. There is a third deficiency beyond that of citation analytics, and that has to do with the identification of unpublished experts of various kinds–I am especially interested in the indigenous experts and the oral historical knowledge they have inherited from prior generations. Finally, there is a fourth deficiency yet to be addressed that will eventually turn citation analytics on its head: most research is isolated from both a strategic analytic model and true cost economics. When these two are eventually factored in, I believe there will be a revolutionary shift in interest away from Western citation cabals and toward those in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey, among others.
RS: To the best of my knowledge, and having failed to get Jeff Bezos to think of Amazon as the World Brain is gestation (including reviewers and readers down to the zip code level of specificity), no one, anywhere, is actually putting together a strategic analytic model, global true cost data, and a global grid of published and unpublished experts in all languages. Some of the Earth Science networks have the right idea, but are missing some big pieces.
EarthGame™ is a massively multiplayer online strategic design and planning real-world “game.” It is also a set of tools for recognizing, defining and solving global and local problems onboard Spaceship Earth. It combines the vast and growing wealth of global data available on the web with sophisticate data visualization techniques, embeds these within a powerful strategic planning and design methodology, and places all this into a gaming context.
RS: Medard Gabel, co-creator with Buckminster Fuller of the analog World Game, remains the only person I know of (i.e. in the English language) who is serious about creating the Global Game. Earth Intelligence Network (EIN) funded his definition of the preliminary staffing and cost, as well as the trademarking (in his name) of EarthGame. I have approached one massive multi-player game firm about joining with Wolfam Alpha and EarthGame, but they were not interested. Below is the high-level summary he created for EIN.
RS: I am aware of the World Game as managed by the Buckminster Fuller Institute and commercialized by OSEarth. Neither of these has the mind-set, depth, or breadth that Medard and I have envisioned together. The Global Economics Game has some laudable aspects to it, but accepts so many false assumptions about true cost and corruption and the way the world actually works that it would need a considerable make-over–never-the-less, it is a most impressive endeavor and not to be over-looked.
Click on Image to Enlarge
RS: The whole point of the Global Game is to connect all human minds with all information in all languages — and embedded open source everything tools — so that every person can play themselves, fully informed in a timely fashion, on every issue from local to global. I myself am actively in search of a major university interested in creating a School of Future-Oriented Hybrid Governance with a Center for M4IS2, a World Brain Institute, the Global Game (with Medard Gabel), and a prototype Center for Public Intelligence — all committed to open source software, hardware, spectrum, and OpenBTS as the hand-held standard.
Here are some especially good observations from this article:
“… a certain class of people – sociopaths – are now fully in control of major American institutions. Their beliefs and attitudes are insinuated throughout the economic, political, intellectual and psychological/spiritual fabric of the US. What does this mean to the individual? It depends on your character. Are you the kind of person who supports “my country right or wrong,” as did most Germans in the 1930s and 1940s, or the kind who dodges the duty to be a helpmate to murderers? The type of passenger who goes down with the ship or the type who puts on his vest and looks for a life boat? The type of individual who supports the merchants who offer the fairest deal or the type who is gulled by splashy TV commercials?”
1. U.S. ‘Info Ops' Programs Dubious, Costly
2. Conference Expects Slow Transition to Laser Weapons
3. US Army Warns About The Risks Of Geotagging
4. The 2006 “Divorce” of US Army Reserve and Active Component Psychological Operations Units – A Re-Examination
5. Cyber Snoopers Target NATO Commander in Facebook Attack
6. China, U.S. Chase Air-to-Air Cyberweapon
7. BBC Persian Service Suffers Sophisticated Cyber Attack
8. More Satellites Means More SATCOM Gridlock
9. Historic Cyber Unit Begins Daily Action
10. Syria E-Mail Hack Points to New Level Of “Information War”
11. Three Little Pigs As Exposed by News and Social Media
12. Tweeting the Taliban: Social Media's Role in 21st Century Propaganda
13. Fort Campbell's 101st Combat Aviation Brigade uses Electronic Warfare to help Soldiers on the Ground
14. Russia Considering Cyber-Security Command
15. Cybersecurity, Marine Corps Style
16. The Coming Cyberwar with Iran?
17. China's Twitter War
18. Cyber and Drone Attacks May Change Warfare More Than the Machine Gun
19. Giant Telco Banned Due To Cyber Attack Concerns
20. SecAF: Cyberspace is an Air Force priority
21. Taliban Offers Online Questions and Answers
22. Should US Worry About North Korea's Cyber Attack Capability?
23. ‘Every Major Company in The U.S. Has Been Hacked By China': Cyber-Espionage Warning From U.S Security Chief Who Warned Of 9/11
Opening Statement for Senate Armed Services Subcommittee
on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
Michael A. Sheehan
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict
March 27, 2012
