This is “the debate.”
2013-02-00 Roughhead on Cutting Army Saving Navy
Stephen E. Arnold: As Different Types of Thinkers Emerge Collaboration Is Key
Advanced Cyber/IO, Collective Intelligence
As Different Types of Thinkers Emerge Collaboration Is Key
June 21, 2013
The article titled How an Entirely New, Autistic Way of Thinking Powers Silicon Valley on Wired discusses the possibility of a new way of thinking. “Pattern thinkers”, those who think in patterns, whether consciously or unconsciously, are separated from “picture thinkers”, who are more aware of aesthetics. The article cites such famous examples from history as Van Gogh, whose paintings of the stormy night sky matches the formula later discovered for turbulence in liquid and Jackson Pollock, whose abstract painting style involved flinging streaks of paint onto massive canvases which were later found to be coherent fractal patterns. The article explains,
“Michael Shermer, a psychologist, historian of science, and professional skeptic – he founded Skepticmagazine — called this property of the human mind patternicity. He defined patternicity as “the tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and meaningless data.” …The three kinds of minds — visual, verbal, pattern thinkers — naturally complement one another. When I recall collaborations in which I’ve successfully participated, I can see how different kinds of thinkers worked together to create a product that was greater than the sum of its parts.”
The article argues that it is finding the balance of these three types that has made for the great innovations, such as Pixar– and the lack of balance that has spelled out disaster for other projects, (the article cites the IPhone 4 antennae). We are not sure if this is a positive or a negative approach.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 21, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
NIGHTWATCH: Middle Class Youth Turn Violent — Government Remains Corrupt and Ignorant
01 Brazil, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government
Brazil: The demonstrations are starting to turn violent. The day after the government revoked the transportation fare increases the demonstrations swelled again and engaged in more aggressive clashes with police.
President Dilma Rousseff decided to call off a visit to Japan that was planned for next week. The forthcoming visit by Pope Francis might also have to be rescheduled if the demonstrations continue.
In Rio de Janeiro riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at groups of masked young men trying to approach the City Hall late on Thursday. At least 29 people were reported to be injured in the clashes.
Some reports suggest about 300,000 people were taking part in an anti-government rally in the city. One news service reported more than 800,000 people participated in demonstrations in the major Brazilian cities
Comment: The polling agency, Datafolha, published its findings from a poll of the demonstrators in Sao Paulo yesterday. More than half of the demonstrators are under 25. Seventy-seven percent have higher education. Eighty-four percent back no political party, suggesting they do not vote.
The dominant issue for more than half was the fare increase which has been withdrawn. Corruption, a better transportation system, against all politicians and against violence and repression were distant other issues.
What the poll and anecdotal reports indicate is that the beneficiaries of Brazilian prosperity are protesting. The poll found no poor or disadvantaged people and few unemployed among the protestors. Brazil has low unemployment even for workers under age 25. The protestors have no organization or leadership. They gather by cell-phone notification. Expect the demonstrations to expand this weekend and become more violent.
Jean Lievens: Social Media Killing Peer-to-Peer
Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, IO Impotency
A major impact of the commercialization of the Internet has been the undermining of its peer-to-peer architecture. As Capital must always control the circulation of value in order to appropriate surplus, its champions view peer networks as a threat. The Web, although it sits on top of the Internet, is not a peer-to-peer technology but rather a client-server system where the interactions of the users are controlled and mediated by that site's operators.
With such centralization and control, the operators are in the position of capturing the value created by the users of these sites by way of selling this audience of users as a commodity to publishers of marketing and propaganda.
More importantly, the Capitalist-financed operators of such sites, can sell the data of the users, which often includes significant personal and demographic details, raw data for biometrics and detailed relationship graphs, to those that want to use this data to study, manipulate or control these users. These private, centralized services can also silence and lock out any user from participating or act to prevent any type of usage that is contrary to their own interests.
The new “Social Web” has fundamentally replaced the peer-to-peer Internet, and remaining peer communications technology has become marginal or even contraband as participants on peer networks face increasing legal attack and active sabotage from groups representing the interests of Capital.
The Internet is dead. In order to evade the flying monkeys of capitalist control, peer communication can only abandon the Internet for the dark alleys of covert operations. Peer-to-peer is now driven offline and can only survive in clandestine cells.
deadSwap is an offline file sharing system where participants covertly pass a USB stick from one to another. The route of the USB memory stick and the identity of the other participants is not known by the users but controlled by local, independently operated SMS gateways that are kept as a carefully shared secret by their users.
Tom Atlee: Update on Co-Intelligence Work in Progress
Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
Dear friends,
As we ask for your support for our ongoing work, we want to share a few thoughts on the nature of that work.
We are coming to see co-intelligence as the capacity of life and all of us to consciously participate in dynamic, evolving wholeness – in ourselves, in our groups and communities, in the life of our world, and in the wondrous ongoing story of our universe.
There is real joy in such participation. There is also abundance, peace, justice, and sustainability… and deep meaning and wisdom.
The Co-intelligence Institute seeks to help co-intelligent participation become an indelible part of our cultures, our political and economic systems, and the ways we all think, feel, and live our lives.
Today's crises make it increasingly hard to live in the old ways. We are rapidly learning we can't be oblivious participants, acting as if we are separate from each other and the world, treating life as if it is there just to torment or serve us.
The newly obvious consequences of those behaviors and attitudes have inspired a global wave of evolutionary engagement – what Swami Beyondananda calls “the Great Upwising” – creating new and better ways to participate consciously and vibrantly in and with life, together.
Continue reading “Tom Atlee: Update on Co-Intelligence Work in Progress”
Jean Lievens: Michael Schmidt on The Internet & Ideology — war between the parasitic and productive classes
Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural IntelligenceAgainst the Nationalist Fragmentation of Cyberspace & Against “Astroturf Activism”
The Arab Spring redrew the battle-lines between over the control of information between the statist/capitalist elites and the popular classes – raising questions of increased restriction and surveillance, and of the limits of cyber-activism. In some ways this battle is often mischaracterised as being a narrow debate between cool intellectual property technocrats and wild-eyed free-use pirates, or as being a political dispute between authoritarian regimes and free speech activists, with no wider relevance to society. But it is clear that what is at stake is the global ideology (and exploitative practice) of corporatist enclosure versus that of the creative commons; in other words, it is more even than a universalist human rights concern, but is rather an asymmetrical war between the parasitic and productive classes over a terrain of power/wealth-generation known as the knowledge economy.
Mini-Me: Matt Drudge Was Right? Citizen Journalism a Pre-Cursor to Citizen Intelligence…
Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Crowd-Sourcing, Media
Huh?
Washington Post, June 6, 2013
Say the words “Matt Drudge” to any political junkie and you will get one of two responses.
Matt Drudge
The first will be strong disdain for Drudge’s eponymously-named news site and its tilt toward outrageous headlines and conservative viewpoints.
The second will be sheer awe for Drudge’s continued ability to pull in massive amounts of web traffic using a site that any teenager with an affinity for the Internet could make in under 15 minutes.
No one — and we mean no one — lacks an opinion when it comes to Drudge and the Drudge Report. The combination of the controversy surrounding Drudge and his legendary reclusiveness makes it difficult to have a conversation about his influence on the culture of web journalism that doesn’t devolve into a shouting match within seconds.
But, Drudge did — and does — have an impact. So, it’s worth going back 15 years this week to a speech Drudge gave at the National Press Club in which he outlined his vision of the future of journalism.
. . . . . . . .
It’s hard to argue that the vision Drudge had for the news business is what the news business has, in large part, become. It’s worth watching his whole speech, which is below, not only for his remarks but for the obvious and not-at-all-disguised disdain that Doug Harbrecht, the president of the Press Club at the time, has for Drudge.
