Cultural Intelligence – Page 865 – Public Intelligence Blog

The great part about starting out small, simple, and a little cheesy is that it can only get better from there. Using that logic, my friends and I have launched a wiki called Miiu (pronounced me-you). Miiu is a visual wiki. Essentially, a catalogue of things (products, tools, etc.) and places (homes, businesses, gov't buildings, etc.).

The Resilient Community Wiki

To start off, our goal is to do what lots of people have asked me to create: a wiki that catalogues everything related to resilient communities. We'd like to create a visual catelogue of the things (from DIY solar stills to an inventory of homes, farms, businesses in your community) that will be useful in the development of resilient communities.

JOURNAL: Lulzsec as an Open Source Insurgency

Lulzsec has some claims to being an open source insurgency. It operated as a foco by generating a plausible promise: its hacks were high profile and successful, proving that it's possible to successfully attack/damage all big organizations despite the billions they spend on computer security. This promise has also generated copycats/clones around the world. Finally, it is now disbanding (forgoing any formal leadership role). If they can disband in a way that lets them escape unscathed, that only adds to the promise. Quote from their website:

“For the past 50 days we've been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could. We hope, wish, even beg, that the movement manifests itself into a revolution that can continue on without us. The support we've gathered for it in such a short space of time is truly overwhelming, and not to mention humbling. Please don't stop. Together, united, we can stomp down our common oppressors and imbue ourselves with the power and freedom we deserve.”

2011/06/27

Snapshots of the US Government–Really…

10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Law Enforcement

TSA diaper screening of 95-year-old draws angry reader reactions: ‘Home of the free?'

Texas lawmakers revive TSA anti-groping measure

TSA's Diaper Grope Sparks More Criticism of Feds

A Florida group is calling on state lawmakers to enact a law “against state-sponsored perversion and oppression” in the wake of an aggressive TSA patdown of a diapered 95-year-old woman at Northwest Florida Regional Airport.

Phi Beta Iota: This is real simple. State by state, nullify the TSA and administer security as a state function. If the federal government does not like that, secede from the Union. TSA is not blocking flights from Europe or anywhere else that are fortunate in not having to put up with what passes for security in the USA.

Among The Costs Of War: $20B In Air Conditioning

June 25, 2011

The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion.

That's more than NASA's budget. It's more than BP has paid so far for damage during the Gulf oil spill. It's what the G-8 has pledged to help foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.

Phi Beta Iota: It is always helpful to remember Medard Gabel's graphic on the cost of peace versus war. For what we have spent on the military-industrial-intelligence complex these past ten years, never mind the legalized fraud of Wall Street, we could have eradicated the ten high-level threats to humanity. The US Government lacks both intelligence and integrity. Good people trapped in a very bad system–we need to set them free. An nation's best defense is an educated citizenry that pursues a foreign policy of peace and commerce with truth and trust as core value and core outcome.

2011/06/262011/06/27

Trending: Torture and Toxic Army Leaders

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Intelligence (government), Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

General Patraeus, one of the four generals featured in the book, The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army is easily one of the best and brightest of our generation. I was surprised to read about his opening the door to torture.

Worst-case scenario

NY Daily News, Saturday, June 25th 2011

And on the other end–concerns rising within the US Army about “toxic leaders.” Too many of them, perhaps greater in proportion at higher ranks.

Army Survey Raises Worries Over Damage Caused By ‘Toxic' Leaders

Washington Post, June 26, 2011

Phi Beta Iota: We asked Col Stu Herrington, USA (Ret), Army counterintelligence officer/interrogator with successful interrogation experience in three wars, what he thought of the matter of General Patraeus opening the door on torture, and here is what he thinks–we have to concur.

Continue reading “Trending: Torture and Toxic Army Leaders”

2011/06/25

Van Jones Ascendant: Rebuild the Dream

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Methods & Process, Policies, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)

VAN JONES:

We are not broke.

Taxing the super-rich will not kill the economy.

Most patriotic thing we can do is NOT taking down the US Government.

All three of those are big lies.

Let's rebuild the dream.

In the coming weeks, people all across the country will come together for American Dream house meetings. Let's talk about what a new American Dream looks like and commit to stand together to make it happen.

Find an American Dream house meeting near you. We want YOU to be part of this movement, from the very beginning.

Rebuild the Dream

2011/06/242011/06/24

A Case for NOT Reducing Federal Debt?

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, True Cost

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends...

Can the US Have an Expansionary Fiscal Contraction?

All … the attached essay was written by Simon Johnson, Ronald Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan School of Management; Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics; and co-founder of Baseline Scenario. Johnson used to be Chief Economist of IMF and is, IMO, one of the sanest voices in economics. It summarizes his recent testimony to the Joint Economic Commitee of Congress. The question is — Should we reduce federal debt to slow the build up of private debt? He lays out 4 reasons why such a contractionary fiscal policy will create even worse problems.

Debt Burden 1929-2010 — Click on Image to Enlarge

His penultimate paragraph places the real issue — who is going to pay for the liquidation of the private bubble (see chart below, which I compiled from Fed. Reserve data) into context (the red typing is mine to clarify the ambiguity in his double use of debt). Also, I urge you to read his testimony (you can download it from the link indicated below) — it is more detailed and he has a brief discussion about how the cost of the financial meltdown (looming private debt liquidations — particularly the bubbles of debt in the financial and household sectors — which Fig 2 shows has not really begun to bite) are being shifted to the middle class. Note, the rise in the light gray area in Figure 1 is the spike in federal debt that has taken place since the meltdown.

Chuck

The Baseline Scenario

What happened to the global economy and what we can do about it

Could The US Have An “Expansionary Fiscal Contraction”?

By Simon Johnson. My full written testimony to Tuesday’s hearing of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress is available here.

The US has a large budget deficit and a debt-to-GDP ratio that, in most projections, continues to rise over time. Some House and Senate Republicans are arguing strongly that this situation calls for large and immediate cuts to government spending, for example as part of any agreement to increase the federal government’s debt ceiling.

The Joint Economic Committee of Congress held a hearing on Tuesday to discuss whether such spending cuts would be “contractionary” or “expansionary” for the economy in the short-run. My assessment, after participating as a witness at the hearing, is that large immediate spending cuts would tend to slow the economy (a webcast of the hearing is here).

Read full posting….

2011/06/24

Digital Currency for Environmental Sustainability

03 Economy, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Gift Intelligence, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth

Ven: A Digital Currency Designed for Environmental Sustainability

Hub Culture is a global collaboration network with over 25,000+ members distributed across 110 countries. Their stated mission to expand collective consciousness is driven by the blend of online workspaces for knowledge sharing with offline Pavilions for meeting and connecting – all powered by their digital currency, Ven. Below is an interview with Hub Culture’s Founding Director, Stan Stalnaker.

What compelled you to create Ven?

For us it was a matter of practicality – with a global, diverse community, we found that no single currency could offer a single pricing structure for global inventory in Hub Culture. Our members needed a global wallet – as simple to use in Rio as Shanghai. As a social network, we thought linking this system to the social profile of our users would help them share and create value. We needed a simple, transparent way for our members to exchange value and favors, and the answer was Ven. It has been a learning experience for us. The currency has evolved and grown since its debut in the summer of 2007, and we have discovered ways to make it more useful for our members and the planet at large.

You’ve said Ven can be thought of as ‘green money’? Why?

Today Ven is the only digital currency to be priced from a basket of currencies, commodities and carbon futures. These components give the Ven advantages of other currencies: the basket encourages price stability on a forward basis, and the link to commodities grounds value in hard assets. The introduction of carbon to the basket is helping us think about how money can serve better social purposes – in this case to support and stimulate demand for carbon credits and social impact development, driving offsets for every transaction used with Ven. This is how the idea of ‘green money’ developed with Ven – because its carbon linkages are able to play a role in this area. I really like the idea that Ven is green, social and efficient, with a mission to improve the lives of its users and the communities that use it.

Read full interview….

2011/06/242011/06/24

Changing the World Takes All Kinds…

Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics

Dear friends:

What is the relationship between transforming ourselves and transforming the world?

In my previous essay, I described seven forms of leverage for deep transformation. When I wrote it, I was thinking of social transformation. The seven forms of leverage, in increasing potency, were:

1. Ameliorate the pain
2. Slow the damage.
3. Create alternatives.
4. Catalyze connections.
5. Understand the big picture.
6. Change the story.
7. Transform the systems.

Hearing this list, a close colleague was surprised that I did not include personal transformation. His view comes close to two related views held by many transformational agents: (1) Social change cannot be adequate without serious efforts by change agents to transform themselves and (2) transformation of individual consciousness is a (if not the) primary driver of systemic transformation.

I agree that both these dynamics are important and helpful, but I consider neither essential for social transformation. Nor do I see them as distinct forms of transformational leverage.

Continue reading “Changing the World Takes All Kinds…”

Category: Cultural Intelligence

Resiliency Wiki & Open Source Insurgency