Civil Society – Page 170 – Public Intelligence Blog

Brown Alumni Magazine – Friending Your Child

“In November 2009, boyd traveled to New York City to deliver what she expected to be a major address at the Web 2.0 Expo, one of the year’s most important gatherings of Internet professionals. Her topic was what she terms “living in the stream,” or how not to drown in the flood of information that comes at us all the time. Teens, she believes, are especially good at this. The most web-savvy of them manage to stay open to all the digital stuff without having to process everything. They take what they can handle and remain untroubled that much may elude their grasp. It’s a kind of cyber-Zen. “The goal is . . . to be peripherally aware of information as it flows by, grabbing it at the right moment, when it is most relevant and valuable, entertaining or insightful,” she said at the Expo. “It is about a sense of alignment, of being aligned with information.” She talked about the high some Twitter users get “feeling as though they are living and breathing with the world around them, peripherally aware and in tune, adding content to the stream and grabbing it when appropriate.””

Continue reading “Howard Rheingold: Your Child Will Be Fine – They Live in the Stream…”

2012/04/112012/04/11

Mini-Me: Debunking Civil War Myths – About Control and Money, Not Freedom – Time for Secession Again, But From All Four Corners?

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, History, IO Impotency, Military, Officers Call

Huh?

Debunking Civil War Myths – Long Proven Wrong

The Victors Write the War History, but Should Their Lies be Immortal?

[Veterans Today Editors Note: I was 46 before I learned that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave anywhere ….Jim W. Dean]

… by Steve Scroggins

The most persistent and pernicious Big Lie regarding the so-called “Civil War”— more properly called the “War to Prevent Southern Independence”— is this:

Noble and saintly yankees fought the war to abolish slavery; evil Confederates fought to preserve it.

The historical record incontrovertibly refutes this Big Lie and yet it lives on, repeated incessantly by many who know better, and by many, many more who accept without challenge what they were taught in government schools.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Debunking Civil War Myths – About Control and Money, Not Freedom – Time for Secession Again, But From All Four Corners?”

2012/04/112012/04/11

Amitai Etzioni: USG Suffering Multiple Realism Deficiency Disorder (MRDD)

Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

The World America Didn't Make

Amitai Etzioni

The National Interest, March 21, 2012

Robert Kagan’s book, The World America Made, is refocusing the debate on whether the United States is declining as a global power—and speculation about whether other powers will step in to assume the responsibility for sustaining a liberal, rule-based international order. Kagan is known as a brilliant conservative observer, and even President Obama is reported to be reading this tour de force of U.S. foreign policy.Most of the debate about the book is centered on the question of whether the United States is indeed declining and if China is ready to buy into the liberal order. But more attention should be dedicated to the question of whether there is such an order in the first place. Continue reading “Amitai Etzioni: USG Suffering Multiple Realism Deficiency Disorder (MRDD)”

2012/04/092012/04/09

Patrick Meier: Does the Humanitarian Industry Have a Future in The Digital Age?

Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Geospatial, Gift Intelligence, Government, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), International Aid, IO Impotency, Methods & Process, microfinancing, Mobile, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, Threats

Does the Humanitarian Industry Have a Future in The Digital Age?

I recently had the distinct honor of being on the opening plenary of the 2012 Skoll World Forum in Oxford. The panel, “Innovation in Times of Flux: Opportunities on the Heels of Crisis” was moderated by Judith Rodin, CEO of the Rockefeller Foundation. I've spent the past six years creating linkages between the humanitarian space and technology community, so the conversations we began during the panel prompted me to think more deeply about innovation in the humanitarian space. Clearly, humanitarian crises have catalyzed a number of important innovations in recent years. At the same time, however, these crises extend the cracks that ultimately reveal the inadequacies of existing humanita-rian organizations, particularly those resistant to change; and “any organization that is not changing is a battle-field monument” (While 1992).

These cracks, or gaps, are increasingly filled by disaster-affected communities themselves thanks in part to the rapid commercialization of communication technology. Question is: will the multi-billion dollar humanitarian industry change rapidly enough to avoid being left in the dustbin of history?

Crises often reveal that “existing routines are inadequate or even counter-productive [since] response will necessarily operate beyond the boundary of planned and resourced capabilities” (Leonard and Howitt 2007). More formally, “the ‘symmetry-breaking' effects of disasters undermine linearly designed and centralized administrative activities” (Corbacioglu 2006). This may explain why “increasing attention is now paid to the capacity of disaster-affected communities to ‘bounce back' or to recover with little or no external assistance following a disaster” (Manyena 2006).

Continue reading “Patrick Meier: Does the Humanitarian Industry Have a Future in The Digital Age?”

2012/04/062012/04/06

Josh Kilbourn: 51 Months of Recession – Report Card

03 Economy, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Media

51 Months After The Start Of The Recession, Here Is The Report Card

Tyler Durden

ZeroHedge, 04/06/2012

Recovery? What Recovery? 4 years after central banks have progressively injected over $7 trillion in liquidity into the global markets (and thus, by Fed logic, the economy), and who knows how many trillion in fiscal aid has been misallocated, to halt the Second Great Depression which officially started in December 2007, the US “recovery” is the weakest in modern US history! How many more trillions will have to be printed (and monetized) before the central planners realize that fighting mean reversion by using debt to defeat recore debt, just doesnt't work? Our guess – lots.

Incidentally, the US has now generated 3 million jobs since the trough of the recession in September 2010, until which point it had previously lost 8 million. Unfortunately, since the real labor force has grown by 4.6 million over the same period, or at the conventionally accepeted 90,000 labor pool entrants per month for 51 months, despite what the BLS may say, because America is after all growing, this means that the Obama administration has created a negative 1.6 million jobs net of demographics, which in turn have cost the US a modest $5.1 trillion in new debt, or an even modest $3.1 million in debt for every job lost.

Chart 1 – the current “recovery” in the context of all previous ones:

Chart 2 – Min, Max and Average… and now

Chart 3 – in bar chart format

Chart 4 – There is good news: 16 quarters after the start of the recession, US output has turned positive. Just barely.

Phi Beta Iota: What is one to do when the government, with the full complicity of the two parties that monopolize power through various illegitimate means, the full complicity of the five major media corporations whose “mouthpieces” bury their intelligence along with their integrity, all lie to the public? Have we really become a nation of idiot sheep? At what point is the government impeachable for lies to the public?

Journal: Reflections on Integrity UPDATED + Integrity RECAP

2012/04/012012/04/01

Marcus Aurelius: Your Garbage Man is Watching You – Do Not Yawn

Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Law Enforcement

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius

Sounds like good idea as long as everybody knows the rules of game.

Garbage Collectors Around the U.S. Trained to Report Suspicious Activity

Public Intelligence

Several newspapers in southern Florida are reporting that trash collectors are receiving training from their employer Waste Management to work with local law enforcement to report crimes and other suspicious activities. The training is part of a program called Waste Watch that is designed to leverage the fact that “drivers are familiar with their routes and are in the same neighborhoods every day” which “puts them in the unique position to spot unusual activity and anything out of the ordinary.” Press releases from Waste Management describe the program as a way of opening “channels of communication with the authorities to help keep them informed and alert of what’s happening in their city’s streets and alleys.”

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Your Garbage Man is Watching You – Do Not Yawn”

2012/03/30