As the global economy collapses and increasing numbers recognize that no one is addressing our common problems with intelligence and integrity, it seems like a good time to quickly survey the state of the World Brain /Global Game. Here are a few headlines with short comments.
2011-07-07 Complex Global Issues Explored in the World Brain Trust’s Annual Reports
The Network of Global Agenda Councils, launched by the World Economic Forum three years ago, comprises more than 1,000 thought leaders who meet at least four times a year – three times in virtual meetings and once during the annual Summit on the Global Agenda in the United Arab Emirates, arguably the biggest intellectual brainstorming in the world.
RS: This is the World Economic Forum / 1% “front” version of the World Brain. There is a great deal that can be harvested from this endeavor, but it lacks a strategic analytic model, a commitment to open source data access and other fundamentals of the M4IS2 process. It is inherently elitist. Of interest is the fact that all of its community lists have been blanked out
1964-10-06 Towards the World Brain – Eugene Garfield
RS: Eugene Garfield with the Institute of Scientific Information (now Thompson Reuters), and then Dick Klavans with Maps of Science, have done more than any other to actually create a structure for identifying strengths, gaps, and emergent possibilities in the World Brain on the basis of published formal knowledge. One of my most prized possessions is the internal massive PDF file (shown here as a snapshot) that allows for drilling down all the way to each and every sub-discipline. Here are two of the seminal works:
2009 Mapping the Backbone of Science – Klavans Boyack
2005 Mapping the Backbone of Science – Boyack Klavans Borner
RS: Using techniques developed by Garfield and Klavans (much of this done prior to computing advances, by hand), Thompson Reuters now offers a service that can show, by country, region, university, or discipline, where the strengths and weaknesses are on the basis of citation analysis. One example for the USA is shown here to the side. This remains severely deficient for two reasons: first, the persistence of inbred citation cabals; and second, the extremely poor coverage of languages other than English, French, and German. There is a third deficiency beyond that of citation analytics, and that has to do with the identification of unpublished experts of various kinds–I am especially interested in the indigenous experts and the oral historical knowledge they have inherited from prior generations. Finally, there is a fourth deficiency yet to be addressed that will eventually turn citation analytics on its head: most research is isolated from both a strategic analytic model and true cost economics. When these two are eventually factored in, I believe there will be a revolutionary shift in interest away from Western citation cabals and toward those in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey, among others.
RS: To the best of my knowledge, and having failed to get Jeff Bezos to think of Amazon as the World Brain is gestation (including reviewers and readers down to the zip code level of specificity), no one, anywhere, is actually putting together a strategic analytic model, global true cost data, and a global grid of published and unpublished experts in all languages. Some of the Earth Science networks have the right idea, but are missing some big pieces.
2012-03-29 EarthGame
EarthGame™ is a massively multiplayer online strategic design and planning real-world “game.” It is also a set of tools for recognizing, defining and solving global and local problems onboard Spaceship Earth. It combines the vast and growing wealth of global data available on the web with sophisticate data visualization techniques, embeds these within a powerful strategic planning and design methodology, and places all this into a gaming context.
RS: Medard Gabel, co-creator with Buckminster Fuller of the analog World Game, remains the only person I know of (i.e. in the English language) who is serious about creating the Global Game. Earth Intelligence Network (EIN) funded his definition of the preliminary staffing and cost, as well as the trademarking (in his name) of EarthGame. I have approached one massive multi-player game firm about joining with Wolfam Alpha and EarthGame, but they were not interested. Below is the high-level summary he created for EIN.
2012-03-29 EarthGame 1.0 Version 3.3-1
RS: I am aware of the World Game as managed by the Buckminster Fuller Institute and commercialized by OSEarth. Neither of these has the mind-set, depth, or breadth that Medard and I have envisioned together. The Global Economics Game has some laudable aspects to it, but accepts so many false assumptions about true cost and corruption and the way the world actually works that it would need a considerable make-over–never-the-less, it is a most impressive endeavor and not to be over-looked.
RS: The whole point of the Global Game is to connect all human minds with all information in all languages — and embedded open source everything tools — so that every person can play themselves, fully informed in a timely fashion, on every issue from local to global. I myself am actively in search of a major university interested in creating a School of Future-Oriented Hybrid Governance with a Center for M4IS2, a World Brain Institute, the Global Game (with Medard Gabel), and a prototype Center for Public Intelligence — all committed to open source software, hardware, spectrum, and OpenBTS as the hand-held standard.
See Also:
THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust (2012)
INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability (2010)
COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace (2008)
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest (2006)
INFORMATION OPERATIONS: All Information, All Languages, All the Time (2006)
THE NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political (2002)
