Communities of Practice – Page 663 – Public Intelligence Blog

2014/05/082014/05/08

Berto Jongman: General Stanley McChrystal — Stop Classifying Information, Start Sharing Information – The Military Case

Secrecy as part of the existing DNA — and a major cancer.

When General Stanley McChrystal started fighting al Qaeda in 2003, information and secrets were the lifeblood of his operations. But as the unconventional battle waged on, he began to think that the culture of keeping important information classified was misguided and actually counterproductive. In a short but powerful talk McChrystal makes the case for actively sharing knowledge.

QUOTE: “In a tightly coupled world, it's hard to predict who will need what information.”

QUOTE: “Change from ‘who needs to know' to ‘who doesn't know.'”

QUOTE: “Information is only of value if you give it to people who have the ability to do something with it.”

VIDEO (6:44)

Interactive transcript (1 language)

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: General Stanley McChrystal — Stop Classifying Information, Start Sharing Information – The Military Case”

2014/05/082014/05/08

Tom Atlee: “Dark Google,” privacy and power

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, IO Impotency

As the information age and big data colonize everything in life – expanding now into reality itself – we face an erosion not only of privacy but of choice. Even as we think we have greater choice and power, really important choices and power are being subtly stolen from us by folks who don't want us to know or do anything about it. We need to take back our lives while we still can.

“Dark Google”, privacy and power

Dear friends,

Sir Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes told us that “Knowledge is power.” We need to integrate their insight with Sir John Acton's observation that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

In this runaway Information Age we need to realize that one-way concentrations of knowledge power are dangerous when they are not answerable, not responsive to oversight and feedback. The article below, “Dark Google”, makes this point powerfully regarding Google and the NSA. The author, Harvard's Shoshana Zuboff, is eminently qualified to issue this warning.

Continue reading “Tom Atlee: “Dark Google,” privacy and power”

2014/05/08

SchwartzReport: War

03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence

The War on Drugs has always been a charade, a flashy story to get the rubes riled up, whose real purpose was to justify increased law enforcement budgets, prison budgets, judiciary budgets, and inflated corporate profits for all the technology this bogus war involves. It has been a disaster at every level of social policy, albeit ever so profitable.

Group of Nobel Prize Winners Warns: The ‘War on Drugs’ has Failed
Agence France-Presse (France)/The Raw Story

The global ‘war on drugs” has been a catastrophic failure and world leaders must rethink their approach, a group including five Nobel Prize-winning economists, Britain’s deputy prime minister and a former U.S. secretary of state said Tuesday.

An academic report published by the London School of Economics (LSE) called ‘Ending the Drug Wars” pointed to violence in Afghanistan, Latin America and other regions as evidence of the need for a new approach.

2014/05/072014/05/07

Yoda: Food Start-Ups Go After True Cost Reductions — Huge, Huge, Huge…

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 07 Health, 11 Society, Commerce, Ethics

Right thing, doing finally.

The Next Startup Craze: Food 2.0

Silicon Valley investors and startups are trying to improve our food. Do they bring anything to the table?

By Ted Greenwald
MIT Technology Review
May 7, 2014

EXTRACT:

Hampton Creek Foods and other startups have big dreams of restructuring the food supply so that it uses less land, water, energy, and other resources. In doing so, they are taking on corporate giants such as ConAgra, General Mills, and Kraft that spend billions on research and technology development.

Such ambitions have run up against considerable challenges in industries such as clean tech. But those involved in the new food binge might prefer a different example. Hampton Creek’s CEO, Josh Tetrick, wants to do to the $60 billion egg industry what Apple did to the CD business. “If we were starting from scratch, would we get eggs from birds crammed into cages so small they can’t flap their wings, shitting all over each other, eating antibiotic-laden soy and corn to get them to lay 283 eggs per year?” asks the strapping former West Virginia University linebacker. While an egg farm uses large amounts of water and burns 39 calories of energy for every calorie of food produced, Tetrick says he can make plant-based versions on a fraction of the water and only two calories of energy per calorie of food — free of cholesterol, saturated fat, allergens, avian flu, and cruelty to animals. For half the price of an egg.

Read full article.

2014/05/072014/05/07

Jean Lievens: Indigenous Economy & Ethical Work in Ecuador

Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

Indigenous Economy & Ethical Work in Ecuador – Dissertation Reviews

From dissertationreviews.org – May 6, 10:43 AM

Drawing on a range of personal experiences and ethnographic fieldwork conducted over a number of years, Kristine Latta’s Merchant Moralities is a detailed and sympathetic account of the moral predicaments faced by Otavalo’s indigenous comerciantes/merchants. Working with Otavaleño communities, indigenous leaders, family members and friends, Latta explores life as it unfolds in and around the town itself, in family homes in the community of Peguche, and also on travels within the United States. Through careful descriptions, we learn of the particular transformations and vulnerabilities that these entrepreneurs face, as they engage in the decidedly transnational textile and tourism industries. These transformations coincide with actions elsewhere associated with a revalorization of indigeneity – both in localised spaces and particular cultural practices, and also more broadly on the national political stage. What can the distinct moral experiences of Otavalo’s merchants tell us more broadly about the dynamics of cultural change, the recalibration of tradition, and the complexities of contemporary indigenous experience? Focusing on people’s responses to shifts in priorities and contested commitments, we see how merchants articulate their own entrepreneurial values as personalised expressions of indigeneity, and do so amidst the novel opportunities and conspicuous disparities that their livelihoods create.

2014/05/072014/05/07

Berto Jongman: New Movement “Reset the Net” Fights NSA’s Mass Surveillance — Google and Twitter NOT Joining the Movement

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Commerce, Ethics

New Movement Aims to ‘Reset the Net’ Against Mass Surveillance

By Kim Zetter
WIRED
05.06.14

A coalition of nearly two-dozen tech companies and civil liberties groups is launching a new fight against mass internet surveillance, hoping to battle the NSA in much the same way online campaigners pushed back on bad piracy legislation in 2012.

The new coalition, organized by Fight for the Future, is planning a Reset the Net day of action on June 5, the anniversary of the date the first Edward Snowden story broke detailing the government’s PRISM program, based on documents leaked by the former NSA contractor.

“Government spies have a weakness: they can hack anybody, but they can’t hack everybody,” the organizers behind the Reset the Net movement say in their video (above). “Folks like the NSA depend on collecting insecure data from tapped fiber. They depend on our mistakes, mistakes we can fix.”

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: New Movement “Reset the Net” Fights NSA's Mass Surveillance — Google and Twitter NOT Joining the Movement”

2014/05/072014/05/07

Berto Jongman: Rise in Global Political Violence Challenges Supply Chains — True Cost of Predatory Capitalism Becomes Visible

Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Peace Intelligence

Example of true cost: corruption plus public abuse = political violence = cost to predatory capitalism.

Rise in global political violence challenges supply chains

Supply Management, 7 May 2014 | Will Green

Levels of conflict and political violence have increased in 48 countries over the past six months and created “significant challenges to supply chains”, according to a report.

Maplecroft’s biannual Conflict and Political Violence Index showed Ukraine moved 52 places to become the 35^th most at risk country following its uprising and the threat of Russian intervention, while 16 countries are rated as “extreme risk”.

These include the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Libya, while Syria remains the country with the highest levels of conflict and political violence.

Many key growth markets feature in the “high” and “extreme” risk categories, including Colombia (11), Nigeria (15), Philippines (17), India (18), Bangladesh (21), Thailand (23), China (25), Indonesia (29) and Turkey (31).

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Rise in Global Political Violence Challenges Supply Chains — True Cost of Predatory Capitalism Becomes Visible”