Category: Collective Intelligence

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Kickstart the Freedom Box–Micro-Giving Rocks!

07 Other Atrocities, About the Idea, Augmented Reality, Autonomous Internet, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Key Players, Peace Intelligence
Click Here to See & Be

As of today, 29 February 2011:

806

Backers

$73,599

pledged of $60,000 goal

18

days to go

Phi Beta Iota: Along with OpenBTS, SolarOne, VECTOR, and “Buy This Satellite,” Freedom Box joins the vanguard of the global revolution.  “Connected, We Are One.”  [Connexum Sumus Unum–scholarly check welcomed].  Please give as generously as you can, this is the non-violent equivalent of Bunker Hill in the global war against corruption and the many attrocities associated with repression of diversity and dissent.

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TAKE INITIATIVE–Design the World, Don’t Edit It…

11 Society, About the Idea, Advanced Cyber/IO, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence

Seth Godin Home

Who will say go?

Here's a little-spoken truth learned via crowdsourcing:

Most people don't believe they are capable of initiative.

Initiating a project, a blog, a wikipedia article, a family journey. Initiating something even when you're not putatitively in charge.

At the same time, almost all people believe they are capable of editing, giving feedback or merely criticizing.

So finding people to fix your typos is easy.

A few people are vandals, happy to anonymously attack or add graffiti or useless noise.

If your project depends on individuals to step up and say, “This is what I believe, here is my plan, here is my original thought, here is my tribe,” then you need to expect that most people will see that offer and decline to take it.

Most of the edits on Wikipedia are tiny. Most of the tweets among the billions that go by are reactions or possibly responses, not initiatives. Q&A sites flourish because everyone knows how to ask a question, and many feel empowered to answer it, if it's specific enough. Little tiny steps, not intellectual leaps or risks.

I have a controversial belief about this: I don't think the problem has much to do with the innate ability to initiate. I think it has to do with believing that it's possible and acceptable for you to do it. We've only had these doors open wide for a decade or so, and most people have been brainwashed into believing that their job is to copyedit the world, not to design it. [Emphasis Added.]

There's a huge shortage… a shortage of people who will say go.

Continue reading “TAKE INITIATIVE–Design the World, Don't Edit It…”

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WikiLeaks Nails Saudi Royals–March Protests Planned

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Media
Who, Me?

Wikileaks Goes After The Saudi Royal Family

Gus Lubin | Feb. 28, 2011, 6:28 AM

Business Insider

Wikileaks just released a motherload of info on the taboo subject of Saudi Arabian royal rents.

The 1996 cable — entitled “Saudi Royal Wealth: Where do they get all that money?” — describes legal and illegal ways that royals grab money, according to Reuters.

For legal ways, there's the monthly allowance given to thousands of princes and princesses. This ranged from $800 a month for “the lowliest member of the most remote branch of the family” to $270,000 a month for sons of Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud.

For illegal ways, schemes include skimming $10 billion yearly from off-budget projects related to defense and infrastructure. One Saudi prince complained: “One million barrels per day” go entirely to “five or six princes.”

It's nothing to start a revolution over, but the sheer scale of payments might anger the Saudi people. The big concessionary social-welfare package offered last week was worth only $37 billion. Big anti-government protests are scheduled for later in March.

See 11 Countries That Could Be The Next Egypt >

Phi Beta Iota: The cable is also valuable in demonstrating that the US Government  (regardless of party in power) chose to sell our soul for Saudi crude.

See Also:

Review: Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude

The Saudi Royals Are Traitors To Islam

Continue reading “WikiLeaks Nails Saudi Royals–March Protests Planned”

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Public Intelligence Mind-Set

About the Idea, Analysis, Collective Intelligence, IO Multinational
Seth Godin Home

The simple two-step process

Step one: Open all doors. Learn a little about a lot. Consider as many options as possible, then add more.

Step two: Relentlessly dismiss, prune and eliminate. Choose. Ship.

The problem most people run into is that they mix the steps and confuse them. During step one, they aren't open enough, aren't willing enough to consider the impossible. And then, in step two, fear of shipping kicks in and they stay open too long, hold on to too many options and hesitate.

Simple doesn't always mean easy.

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Bahraini Freedom Contagion Rattles Saudi Arabia

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Recommends....

Weekend Edition February 25 – 26, 2011

A Jittery GCC: Bahrain and the “Freedom Contagion”

By RANNIE AMIRI, Counterpunch

“Saudi Arabia did not build a causeway to Bahrain just so that Saudis could party on weekends. It was designed for moments like this, for keeping Bahrain under control.”

– Dr. Toby Jones, expert on Saudi Arabia at Rutgers University

If Saudi Arabia was rattled by the fall of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, they will be in convulsions should Bahrain’s monarchy collapse. By all indications, the five other member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) (Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) will go to all lengths to prevent it.

The Arab world’s “freedom contagion” is rapidly spreading. Bahrain’s revolt is being spearheaded by the country’s poor, disenfranchised Shia Muslim majority. Although Mubarak was deposed by a nation of 80 million, unrest in the tiny island kingdom of only 530,000 citizens poses a greater ostensible threat to the GCC, particularly Saudi Arabia and its own sizable, restive Shia minority.

See Also:

REVOLUTION 2.0 Awakening 2012

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NIGHTWATCH Essay: Youth, Democracy, & the West

Advanced Cyber/IO, Autonomous Internet, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Peace Intelligence

NightWatch Essay: Some time ago, David Goldman, purporting to channel Oswald Spengler for Asia Times Online, wrote a farsighted essay [And Spengler is…] that anticipated, predicted and warned that modern impulses in the youth of the Middle East would rise up against conservative institutions to assert a modern definition of being Arab, Berber, Turk, Persian as well as Muslim. He identified the cohorts under 25 as the driving force in these pan-regional impulses.

The events that began in December 2010 in Tunisia seem to have validated parts of Goldman's prophecy. He foresaw the struggle as one between modern educated youth and the conservative, sclerotic Islamic clerisy of mullahs and ayatollahs. In the essay, Spengler did not anticipate an intermediate phase in which the cohorts of modernization battled the stodgy pan Arab socialist authoritarian strong men.

Few prophets live long enough to see even part of their vision come to pass, as has Goldman's in 2011. However, the youth that started the pro-democracy movement lack the experience and shrewdness to plan well. Still, they have spoken the language of human rights, individual worth and elected, accountable government. The words should have been a rallying call to the Western democracies.

Those states that have the maturity and wisdom to help guide the Arab pro-democracy movement are the great western democracies, who else. But, the great democracies in North America and Europe have dithered. President Reagan's beacon on a hill has not shined its light on the Arabs.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Essay: Youth, Democracy, & the West”

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