The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
HOW RECOGNISING THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS COULD REVOLUTIONISE THE ROLE OF THE STATE
Edited by Graeme Cooke and Rich Muir
Featuring Lead Essays by Geoff Mulgan and Marc Stears
Institute for Public Policy Research (UK), November 2012
click here for the pdf file (64 pages)
Comment, Links, and Table of Contents Below
Continue reading “Michel Basuwens: The Relational State – The Human Factor”
Hacking Society: It's Time To Measure The Unmeasurable
from the value-and-benefit dept
I was lucky enough to attend a small gathering of great thinkers put together by Union Square Ventures earlier this week for an event they called Hacking Society — which was designed to be a one day open conversation on the economics and power of networks, and how to use that as a force for good, in solving economic and social challenges. There were lots of great thoughts that came out of the event (which was live streamed over the web for people to listen in and participate via Twitter — as many did). It would be impossible to sum up all of the great points in a single blog post, so I'm just going to discuss briefly the larger themes that hit me and helped to connect a few disparate ideas in my own mind.
Continue reading “Michel Beauwens: Hacking Society: It's Time To Measure The Unmeasurable”
Anonymous takes down over 550 Israeli sites, wipes databases, leaks email addresses and passwords
When the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) this week began taking military action in the Gaza strip against Hamas (as the IDF announced on Twitter), Anonymous declared its own war as part of #OpIsrael. Among the casualties are thousands of email addresses and passwords, hundreds of Israeli web sites, government-owned as well as privately owned pages, as well as databases belonging to the Bank of Jerusalem and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Using Nondominion to Evolve from Local to Global Commons
Abstract
“This paper explores a possible new local-to-global system for the equitable governance of the “common pool resources.” As normally understood, the “Commons” refers to resources that are owned or shared among communities. Such resources (forests, fisheries, etc.) when located within national boundaries are subject to that country’s laws. Areas beyond national jurisdiction, including the high-seas, Antarctica, the ocean sea-bed, outer space and the Earth’s environment, are known as “Common Heritage of Mankind” (CHM) and subject to Public International Law (PIL). The object and subject of traditional PIL is the nation-state. However, since the 1972 Conference for the Human Environment, individuals and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) have been legally recognized under PIL as having direct responsibility for protection of the global environment, by working for transparency and accountability in its management. With this opening for direct participation by individuals and NGOs in working for sustainable management of the global Commons, it may be now feasible to extend the precedents identified by Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom for successful economic governance of local common pool resources to wider CHM areas.
A recently developed legal concept – nondominium – offers a framework for recognizing user rights toward this end. Combining Ostrom’s principles with this new approach for shared use of the Commons promises to give a more solid legal grounding for the 5 “As” (Architecture, Adaptiveness, Accountability, Allocation and Access) in the governance of the global commons for the benefit of humanity.”
To be Part of the Future You Have to Hack It
Alan Moore
Huffington Post, 6 August 2012
Embracing an ambiguous world
In 2006 IBM produced a report called ‘The enterprise of the future'. The survey of CEOs revealed that 8 out of 10 CEOs saw significant change ahead and yet the gap between expected levels of change plus the ability to manage it had tripled. Why? I would argue these leaders did not have the means to see an unfolding story, that we are decoupling from a linear industrial society and so were unable to embrace, nor articulate the emergence of new organisational structures, legal frameworks, new production and design processes, not the underlying societal trend that sought greater mutualism, opportunity, freedom, diversity, and empowerment, that were in direct contrast to the increasing unfairness and monoculture of a wholly consumer orientated society.
In this non-linear world, companies and organisations premised upon the old orthodoxies, linear, industrial-scale models must think and embrace the unthinkable and work out how they innovate to survive. Whether we survey the political, media, engineering, NGO, educational or healthcare landscape we can identify an increasing sophistication in how we are responding to the challenges of living in a more complex world. At the same time, there is the ever-increasing acceleration of the collapse of the old ways of command and control. Every work of art, said Wassily Kandinsky, is a child of its time.
And so to learn new ways of doing these things we have to hack the future.
Continue reading “Michel Bauwens: Alan Moore on Hacking the Future”
Huh?
The future of the USA – 2012-2016: An insolvent and ungovernable United States (first part)
Thus, according to LEAP/E2020, the 2012 election year, which opens against the backdrop of economic and social depression, complete paralysis of the federal system (3), strong rejection of the traditional two-party system and a growing questioning of the relevance of the Constitution, inaugurates a crucial period in the history of the United States. Over the next four years, the country will be subjected to political, economic, financial and social upheaval such as it has not known since the end of the Civil War which, by an accident of history, started exactly 150 years ago in 1861. During this period, the US will be simultaneously insolvent and ungovernable, turning that which was the “flagship” of the world in recent decades into a “drunken boat”.
To make the complexity of the current process understandable, our team has chosen to organize its anticipations around three key areas:
1. US institutional deadlock and the break-up of the traditional two-party system
2. The unstoppable spiral of recession/depression/inflation
3. The breakdown of the US socio-political fabric
Below the line: the other two parts of the series.
Continue reading “Mini-Me: REPLAY Future of the USA in 3 Parts”
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Tip of the Hat to Alexander Howard at Google+.
