Category: Collaboration Zones

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Yoda: Dynamic Causation vs. Systemic Causation

Earth Intelligence
Got Crowd? BE the Force!

With them, force is.

STARTING POINT:  Tom Atlee: Systemic Causation & Sandy

IDEN A:  I like the distinction between direct causation and systemic causation.  However, I would prefer a general conception of causation.  I would say that ideas about causes assume a stable world.  We assume that what happened in the past will happen in the future.  But if the world is changing (i.e., global warming, sea level rise), causation changes (i.e., frequency or severity of storms).  To plan for the future requires knowing how the world is changing, which is difficult when our actions are changing the world.  We will live in a world we have not experienced previously.  We can imagine how change will proceed, but we can be certain that we will not be 100% correct.  I very much agree with Tom's emphasis on the importance of language and, in this case, systems thinking.

IDEN B:  It sounds like we must be master mariners in a great sea, understanding the theory of change, knowing that it can change at difference paces across different functions, and always being sensitive to the implications of weather patterns, recognizing there is only so much we can do BUT also recognizing that the more prepared we are the easier our path…..building smaller homes that are hurricane proof, having self-contained water and energy systems, etcetera.

Continue reading “Yoda: Dynamic Causation vs. Systemic Causation”

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Anthony Judge: Multiverse through Poetic Musing

04 Education, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence
Anthony Judge

Being a Poem in the Making Engendering a Multiverse through Musing

Summary

Contents:
Insights from the crisis of science and belief
Questionably exclusive framing of multiverse by science
Imaginative engagement with multiverse through poetry
Poetic insights into becoming a poem and being one
Transcending both scientific and poetic comprehension of multiverse
Explanation vs. Inplanation: multiversal embodiment through the Ouroboros

It has an annex which develops the arguments of Rupert Sheldrake's presentation in the form of:

Knowledge Processes Neglected by Science:  insights from the crisis of science and belief

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Rickard Falkvinge: Italian Prime Minister Goes to Jail Despite Owning 6 of 7 Primary Media Channels in Italy

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
Rickard Falkvinge

Berlusconi Convicted: What We Learn from Political Media Contamination

Against all odds, former Italian prime minister Berlusconi was recently sentenced to one year in prison. This followed a long process where an Italian referendum had to be held to revoke his legal immunity, in order to indict him in the first place. We can learn a lot about the dangers of politically controlled media from how Berlusconi tried to defeat this referendum.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  The headline does not reflect the real story:  DESPITE “mainstream” media contamination, over 50% of the public participated in a vote on whether the Prime Minister's immunity should be revoked, and over 50% of those participating voted in favor of revoking his participation.  What this really means is that alternative media has a greater reach than mainstream media and that the public may be illiterate, but it is not stupid and it does have values it can enforce when given the opportunity to do so.

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GI Wilson: Maps for Post-Sandy Recovery – Good, Bad, & Ugly – Comment by Robert Steele

Earth Intelligence, Geospatial, IO Mapping
Col GI Wilson, USMC (Ret)

We always have a map problem…I know you have known this for yrs and yrs and been the single voice in the map wilderness calling out….I wonder who got all those old Soviet maps after the fall…..we have never solved this problem…we just think we have. yes…No…?

After Sandy, Intelligence Agencies Scramble To Feed Maps, Data To Rescuers

Colin Clark

AOL Government, 30 October 2012

Click on Image to Enlarge

As FEMA, firemen, police and the National Guard wade into the devastation visited upon us by Hurricane Sandy, many of them are using maps and other information made available to them by intelligence agencies.

While intelligence analysts and their technical specialists usually spend their time targeting bad guys and helping troops plan to get them, some of them have gotten the rare and welcome chance to help their own countrymen at home several times since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans.

The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency provides most of the support to civil authorities during disasters. It takes photos, infrared and other data from satellites and airplanes and builds them into remarkably detailed and accurate maps.

Read full article.

Continue reading “GI Wilson: Maps for Post-Sandy Recovery – Good, Bad, & Ugly – Comment by Robert Steele”

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Chuck Spinney: Mike Lofgren on How Democracies Die (Loss of Integrity)

Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence
Chuck Spinney

Below is an outstanding essay by my close friend and colleague Mike Lofgren.

By Mike Lofgren,

Truthout | Thursday, 25 October 2012 10:19

“Picture a country at the height of its international power and prestige. It has military forces stationed around the globe. It is an intellectual leader….” It's not the one you're thinking of.

Picture a country at the height of its international power and prestige. It has military forces stationed around the globe. It is an intellectual leader. Its citizens are pleased to insist that the national idea, their country's way of life, is a beacon of enlightenment and human rights for the rest of the world. Indeed, they are wont to harp on the notion that the country embodies the very concept of Western Civilization.

But beneath the façade of greatness there is creeping rot. The rich (who are accustomed to getting their way in all things) corrupt the system and buy the people's representatives in this venerable democracy. The country lurches towards political polarization and, predictably, the machinery of orderly governance becomes gridlocked. The politicians of the right, who take every opportunity to bellow for increased spending on the military, refuse to raise the revenues to pay for it. Why?

Because the wealthy citizens who happen to own these representatives refuse to pay a single cent in additional income taxes. Their class solidarity as alleged “‘job creators”‘ who are owed unconditional deference outweighs their loyalty to the nation at large. They successfully demand that even the crushing expense of a long war should be paid for by loans from abroad (the interest payments on which merely add to the expense) rather than by direct taxes from those citizens best able to afford them. Naturally, a growing share of the population develops a visceral sense that the system is rigged.

There is worse to come. There gradually coalesces a bitterly reactionary political alliance between the plutocratic rich; a retrograde religious Right seeking to roll back the secular state; hidebound militarists; and the species of glib, pseudo-intellectual malcontents who are drawn to political extremism like iron filings to a magnet. They all seek a purported restoration of a country that never existed: a pious, socially harmonious nation where everybody else knows their place. The political groupings of the center and left, on the other hand, are dithering, irresolute, and have not the courage of their own alleged convictions.

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Mike Lofgren on How Democracies Die (Loss of Integrity)”

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Paul Craig Roberts: Virtual Recovery, Bond Bubble, Inflation at 9%, Collapse Potential of Dollar

03 Economy, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government
Paul Craig Roberts

The Virtual Recovery

October 29, 2012

Since mid-2009 the US has been enjoying a virtual recovery courtesy of a rigged inflation measure that understates inflation. The financial Presstitutes spoon out the government’s propaganda that prices are rising less than 2%. But anyone who purchases food, fuel, medical care or anything else knows that low inflation is no more real that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction or Gadhafi’s alleged attacks on Libyan protesters or Iran’s nuclear weapons. Everything is a lie to serve the power-brokers.

During the Clinton administration, Republican economists pushed through a change in the way the CPI is measured in order to save money by depriving Social Security retirees of their cost-of-living adjustment. Previously, the CPI measured the change in the cost of a constant standard of living. The new measure assumes that consumers adjust to price increases by lowering their standard of living by substituting lower quality, lower priced items. If the price, for example, of New York strip steak goes up, consumers are assumed to substitute the lower quality round steak. In other words, the new measure of inflation keeps inflation down by reflecting a lowered standard of living.

Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com), who closely follows the collecting and reporting of official US economic statistics, reports that consumer inflation, as measured by the 1990 official government methodology has been running at about 5%. If the 1980 official methodology for measuring the CPI is used, John Williams reports that the current rate of US inflation is about 9%.

Read full article.

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