Economics of Happiness: Going Local

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, 12 Water, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Gift Intelligence, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence, Reform

the Economics of Happiness

A film by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick & John Page

‘Going local' is a powerful strategy to help repair our fractured world – our ecosystems, our societies and our selves. Far from the old institutions of power, people are starting to forge a very different future…

FeaturingVandana Shiva, Bill McKibben, David Korten, Michael Shuman, Juliet Schor, Richard Heinberg, Rob Hopkins, Andrew Simms, Zac Goldsmith, Samdhong Rinpoche

Film Trailer & Web Site

See Also:

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FuturICT Living Earth Simulator; EarthGame / Whole Earth Strategic Analytic Model

04 Education, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Geospatial, Gift Intelligence, History, info-graphics/data-visualization, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Reform, Technologies, Tools, True Cost
go to the website

Today, we know more about the universe than about our society. It's time to use the power of information to explore social and economic life on Earth and discover options for a sustainable future. Together, we can manage the challenges of the 21st century, combining the best of all knowledge.

The FuturICT Knowledge Accelerator is a previously unseen multidisciplinary international scientific endeavour with focus on techno-socio-economic-environmental systems. The three main achievements of the FuturICT flagship will be the establishment of

  1. a Living Earth Simulator (global-scale simulation of techno-socio-economic systems),
  2. Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, scarcity of resources, emerging risks and conflicts, epidemics, etc.), and
  3. an Innovation Accelerator (identifying innovations early on, evaluating them across disciplines and supporting co-creation projects between different scientific disciplines, business, and governance).

Comment: This is not a new idea but has expanded to a great extent. The 2004/2005 proposal “Re-configuring the Global Organisms' Operating System Through Mobile Democracy” mentions a whole earth simulation of knowledge layers + mobile connectivity to access & add to systems so that more people are involved in the shaping of our world. The Earth Intelligence Network in connection with Medard Gabel has been advocating an EarthGame + a strategic analytic model to jump-start a prosperous world @peace.

Below was posted at the Games for Change forum on the subject:

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Journal: Strategies & Technologies Russian Analyst on Chinese Stealth “Demonstrator”

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 06 Russia, 10 Security, Analysis, Intelligence (government), Military, Peace Intelligence, Technologies, YouTube

China jet upstages US defence chief visit
Sydney Morning Herald

VIDEO: Stealth Race: China test flies Chengdu J-20 ‘Black Eagle'

Key point: It's a demonstrator, not a production model.  China is years from getting to production model.

VISIT: Centre for Analysis of Strategies & Technologies (CAST)

Minor league open source on plasma stealth:

Secret revealed: China’s 4th-generation fighter plane will use the plasma stealth technology

Mo, J. J., S. B. Liu, and N. C. Yuan, “Study on basic theory for plasma stealth,Modern Radar, Vol. 22, No. 3, 9–12, 2002 (in. Chinese)

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Evolution and Social Change I

03 Environmental Degradation, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Strategy

Prior Conversations Leading Up to This One:

Journal: Get America Working–A Conversation Part II

Journal: Get America Working–A Conversation Part III

Journal: Get America Working-A Conversation Part IV Enter usfruct (husbandry of the planet) and Spiritual Ecology

Tom Atlee:

Dear Alexander,

I'm afraid I don't have much useful to offer to Robert's initiative at this time.  But I wanted to briefly note, for you and others, that evolutionary science writer Connie Barlow and former fundamentalist evangelical Christian minister Michael Dowd offer another, complementary, angle on evolution and religion (including their own thoughts on the relevance of evolutionary psychology) at Thank God for Evolution and The Great Story.

Michael is translating Christian theology into terms not only consistent with but expressive of a sacred understanding of science-based evolution.  (He half jokes that he is a CreaTHEist, while Connie is a CreAtheist!)  He is currently doing some remarkable interviews with luminaries in the field of Evolutionary Christianity.  At the very least, their work should provide you with some additional juicy quotes…

Review: Thank God for Evolution–How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World

Review: Earthspirit–A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological Christianity

Continue reading “Evolution and Social Change I”

Journal: Get America Working-A Conversation Part IV Enter usfruct (husbandry of the planet) and Spiritual Ecology

02 Diplomacy, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), Peace Intelligence, Threats

Harrison Owen:

Well said. And I rather suspect that the core of the matter is deeper than Culture – and that would be an extended conversation. But it is certainly not about rule change and redesign, I think.

Alexander Carpenter:

Right on, as your imminent study of evolutionary psychology will confirm. I reckon we don't have time for evolutions in our Pleistocene genome to catch up to (and get ahead of) our impact on the planet, so we're just gonna hafta run what we brung. That means cultural engineering and we already have been shown how to do it by the Oligarchy. What's it gonna take to shift the values-balance from hegemonistic concentration at any cost to something closer to sustainability? But then, that's a whole ‘nother conversation barely touched-on in the message below…

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Journal: Will Pakistan Implode Because of US in AF?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Military, Peace Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Chuck Spinney Sounds Off

Pakistan will implode if the US does not leave Afghanistan

The continuing US presence in Afghanistan fuels extremism in neighbouring Pakistan

Imran Khan The Observer, Sunday 9 January 2011

The assassination of Salmaan Taseer has shown only too clearly the growing extremism in Pakistan, the radicalisation of its society and the polarisation that is taking hold. This is not just between the religious and the secular, but also the polarisation that the “war on terror” has caused between the various religious sects.

Read rest of article Chuck Spinney is commenting on…

Is the Global War in Terror Creating More Problems than it is Solving?

Chuck Spinney

The late historian Chalmers JOHNSON popularized the term “blowback” to describe the unintended grand-strategic consequences resulting from interventionist foreign policies and military actions.  The term blowback dates to the CIA's internal history of the US’s 1953 Iranian coup that threw out the Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh (a progressive social reformer who wanted to nationalize the oil industry among other things) and replaced him with the tyrannical American puppet Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi.  No one can doubt that contemporary problems with Iran today are rooted in resentments dating back to the 1953 coup.

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Journal: Israel Demands Bribes for Access to Gaza

08 Wild Cards, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

WikiLeaks: Israel charged bribes for Gaza access

By JOSEF FEDERMAN

The Associated Press Thursday, January 6, 2011; 7:29 AM

JERUSALEM — A U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks on Thursday quoted American officials as saying a key Israeli cargo crossing for goods entering the Gaza Strip was rife with corruption.

The June 14, 2006, cable, published Thursday by Norway's Aftenposten daily, says major American companies told U.S. diplomats they were forced to pay hefty bribes to get goods into Gaza. It was unclear whether the practice still continues.

Read full article…

See Also:

Review: Deliver Us from Evil–Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict