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Robert David STEELE Vivas has committed himself to being intelligence officer to the public, and to the five billion poor in particular, for the balance of his life.

Below are some definitions that matter, as of 1 August 2009 [this is a work in progress, will try to complete it soon, and then future definitions will be separate postings]

BRAIN: Only a living creature can have a brain, an organic or biological device that has over billions of years evolved to its present state.  The following quotation from James Bamford is instructive; it is the final sentence of his book, BODY OF SECRETS: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Intelligence Agency (page 613)

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE (CI): Collective Intelligence overcomes groupthink and individual cognitive biases by leveraging a process of consensus decision-making that respects–even demands–diversity of inputs and perspetives.  At its best it can be a society of the human mind, achieving conscious evolution as a species.  CI is a return to the precepts ofthe Founding Fathers, and in particular Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.  The industrial era, characterized by Lionel Tiger as “The Manufacture of Evil,” separated the public from both information and elite decision-making, while still taking public money.  Bureaucracy fostered secrecy, and secrecy fostered pathology. Collective intelligence restores the power of the people over their commonwealth, and neutralizes the power of vested interests that manipulate information to concentrate wealth.  NOTE:  a fuller definition that draws on Robert Steele's many publications can be found at WordIQ, which tends to be more balanced than Wikipedia.  Colloquial terms, each a book title, include Smart Mobs, Groundswell, Here Comes Everybody, Army of Davids, Wikinomics, and Wealth of Networks.

DATA: The raw direct human observation or articulation, raw image, raw signal, raw signature, or in machine terms, the lowest possible element of information that can be isolated in and of itself with its own provenance.

DATA MINING: The direct exploitation of information already in-hand, or procured for a specific investigation i.e. generally internally-generated and oriented.   Often mis-represented as Business Intelligence.  See also Knowledge Management.  At its best, Data Mining is a huge fraud buster, detecting patterns of import-export tax avoidance, money laundering, and insurance fraud.

DECISION-SUPPORT: The conversion of information, which costs money, into intelligence, which makes money–or achieves other goals, public, and private, of specific interest to a specific individual or body making a decision of import. See also  Intelligence.  An alternative for those organizations such as the United Nations that have long been abused by the confusion of secret sources & methods with the world “Intelligence.”

EARTH INTELLIGENCE (EARTHINT): Earth Intelligence, the subject of a new book (the second book to be published by the Earth Intelligence Network, the first was on Collective Intelligence) is defined by its outcome, the creation of a prosperous world at peace.  We have adopted Buckminster Fuller's objectives as our own.

Continue reading “Definitions: The Basics”