Category: Advanced Cyber/IO

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NATO BOOK: Internet-Based Intelligence in Public Health Emergencies

Advanced Cyber/IO, Communications, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Information Operations, Intelligence (Public)
Online Order Page
Online Order Page

Internet‐Based Intelligence in Public Health Emergencies

Early Detection and Response in Disease Outbreak Crises

Editors Mordini, E., Green, M.  Pub. date March 2013  Pages 160  Binding softcover
Volume 105 of NATO Science for Peace and Security Series – E: Human and Societal Dynamics
ISBN 978-1-61499-174-8
Subject Computer & Communication Sciences, Security & Terrorism, Social Sciences

Momentous social events result from the sum of micro-level changes in daily individual life, and by observing and fusing publicly available data, such as web searches and other internet traffic, it is possible to anticipate events such as disease outbreaks. However, this ability is not without risks, and public concern about the possible consequences of improper use of this technology cannot be ignored. Opportunities for open discussion and democratic scrutiny are required

This book has its origins in the workshop Internet-Based Intelligence for Public Health Emergencies and Disease Outbreak: Technical, Medical, and Regulatory Issues, held in Haifa, Israel, in March 2011. The workshop was attended by 28 invited delegates from nine countries, representing various disciplines such as public health, ethics, sociology, informatics, policy-making, intelligence and security, and was supported by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme. Its starting point was the 2009 outbreak of swine flu in Mexico. The book includes both scientific contributions presented during the meeting and some additional articles that were submitted later.

Interactions between public health and information and communication technologies are destined to be of great importance in the future. This book is a contribution to the ongoing dialogue between scholars and practitioners, which will be essential to public acceptance and safety as we rely more and more on the internet for predicting trends, decision-making and communication with the public.

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Bojan Radej: Complex Society in the Radical Middle

Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence
Bojan Radej
Bojan Radej

Complex Society in the Radical Middle

Long Abstract – English

Complex Society in Radical Middle (December 2012), Bojan Radej*, Mojca Golobič**, Mirna Macur***. University of Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty, Department for Landscape Planning, 240 pp.

EXTRACT

Society is complex because it is composed of irreconcilable constituents. As a consequence, every important social issue is evaluated conflictingly as being both horizontally incommensurable (among interest groups) and vertically incommensurable (micro – macro). Social incommensurability (Munda) as a category concerns incompatible but legitimate social claims. When different principles of social primacy are applied, no objective basis exists for rational choice between alternatives (Wacquant). This raises concern for the possibility of holistic evaluation of complex social matters. Because of an aggregation problem (Scriven; Virtanen Uusikylä) our ability to reach wide social consensus on the content and process of social transformation is critically undermined. Hence it appears that increased complexity leads to the disintegration of contemporary societies.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

We are of the opposite opinion! By definition, holistic evaluation of incommensurable social issue is not achievable in a direct way. An indirect approach is needed – such as in a mesoscopic perspective. Its core theoretical background derives from mathematics (Pythagorean Hipassus) and philosophy of science (Kuhn) because of their elaboration of incommensurability concept, complexity theory with the concept of meso (Prigogine, Wallerstein, Leontief, Dopfer, Easterling, Kok, and Rotmans), and theory of social integration (Giddens, Bourdieu and Wallerstein) in sociology.

The major characteristic of meso evaluation is its capacity for addressing incommensurable oppositions in intersectional way. “Intersectional” means through overlaps between oppositions which take place only in non-essential instances that are only marginally important to the corresponding agents who pursue incommensurable claims. For example, social-economy is an overlap between conventional economic and social policies as two incommensurable components of sustainable welfare.

. . . . . . . . . .

Complex society in the meso

The five methodological studies have been accomplished with the aim to illustrate difficulties in holistic evaluation of complex social matters. The main findings: it appears that trend of social disintegration is not a result of increasing social complexity but only of oversimplified approaches (micro or macro) to evaluation of socially complex concerns. For eliminating oversimplification, a meso frame is proposed. In meso frame, social totality does not emerge from commensurable elementary parts piled up together but from partial and incommensurable wholes, which remain separated and as such cannot directly coalesce toward ever higher unity. Instead, these partial wholes sometimes compete and sometimes cooperate for more holistic characterization of social good and for more integral strategies for achieving it. Hence, social totality can be emphasised only indirectly, preliminarily, in an open way and educationally.

Read full abstract with notes.

Continue reading “Bojan Radej: Complex Society in the Radical Middle”

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John Maguire: John Taylor Gatto on 14 Educational Principles of the Elites

04 Education, 11 Society, Academia, Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

John Taylor Gatto, former school-teacher, outspoken reformer, and  author of Underground History of American Education, on what the Public Education System is neglecting to teach the majority of kids and why we continue to churn out generations of impotent and docile consumers.  THE POINT:  Taught in the elite private schools, NOT taught in the public schools.

01.  Understand human nature.

02.  Have a strong experience with the active literacies (writing and public speaking).

03.  Insight into the major institutional forms and how to pit them against one another.

04.  Repeated exercises in forms of good manners and politeness  —  civility as foundation.

05.  Independent work.  Teacher is NOT the primary learning channel.

06.  Energetic physical sports are required means of learning grace and handling pain.

07.  Complete theory of access to any workplace or person.

08.  Responsibility as an utterly essential part of the curriculum outside the classroom.

09.  Arrive at a personal code of standards for production, behavior, and morality.

10.  Familiarity with master creations across all of the arts — be at ease with the arts.

11.  Power of accurate observation and recording.  Drawing is a way to sharpen perception.

12.  Ability to deal with challenges of all sorts –Gatto's personal favorite.

13.  Habit of caution in reasoning to conclusions.

14.  Constant development and testing of judgment of discriminate value.


Also see
Various audio/video of John Taylor Gatto

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Berto Jongman: Peace Intelligence Proposal, Comment by Robert Steele

Advanced Cyber/IO, Ethics
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Where Are the Peace-Intelligence Professionals?

By Doron Pely

Foreign Policy in Focus, February 22, 2013

Here’s an amazing fact: None of the world’s vaunted intelligence organizations boast a single “Peace Intelligence” division. Defense and offense are two major strategic aspects of each country’s governance, and national intelligence organizations expand enormous resources to produce and disseminate intelligence aimed at improving each country’s defensive and offensive postures.

Our political masters keep telling us that making and maintaining peace is one of their top strategic goals. Why then do we invest nothing at all at collecting, studying, assessing and exploiting peace-related intelligence?

It just doesn’t make sense.

Theoretically, politicians, decision makers, and other consumers of intelligence reports should strive to get the broadest possible analysis and recommendations. Incorporating high-quality, peace-related intelligence into the daily briefing portfolio of any governing and executing body will achieve just that.

Yet we are told that political and operational decision makers encourage the intelligence producers to come up with impoverished binary (Go/No Go) operational products. In the new Israeli documentary The Gatekeepers, six former heads of Israel’s internal intelligence services say exactly that (and much more).

I am not talking about intelligence organizations’ obsession with studying real or imagined peace movements because they view such movements as potentially subversive, destabilizing, or lawless. What I am suggesting is exactly the opposite – the creation of dedicated “peace intelligence” departments that will try to determine to what extent peace action in “target” countries constitutes an opportunity, not a threat.

Here is a proposal for a “Peace Intelligence” division that will improve the work of any intelligence organization. It would consist of several sections.

Read full article.

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Eagle: Big Lies, Small Minds — An Explanation

Advanced Cyber/IO, Ethics
300 Million Talons...
300 Million Talons…

IDEN A:  How the devil does the big lie survive in the face of so much  contrary evidence?

IDEN B:  In the recent movie about FDR (Bill Murray), FDR tells the King of England that people want to believe their view of the world, not to have their views be disturbed by reality.  We have made some progress.  The public seems to be getting used to politicians having affairs.  Some people can handle conspiracy theories (e.g., the movie JFK), but my sister and her husband say that if JFK was killed by a conspiracy, the world would fall into chaos.  Nothing could be believed.  There is a fear of conceptual instability.  It seems that small lies can be refuted, but big lies ….  not so easily.  Perhaps truth needs to be dispensed in small doses.  Too much overwhelms people.  And everyone has a different tolerance for information that disconfirms their present conceptions.  What to do?  Well, one answer is to not challenge the big lie.  I suspect this is where the media are.  Why risk loosing access to news sources and giving one's competitors an advantage?

IDEN C:  Another way of looking at this is place-related.  It may be that the truth — and the ability to discern, appreciate, and leverage the truth — has to be a bottom-up campaign, one town hall, one neighborhood, at a time.  Trying to transform an entire nation or government in the face of very well-funded resistance is futile — tilting at windmills.  Find one village, and help it shine….the spike theory of change.

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Yoda: Yahoo! Internet Fellowship at Georgetown School of Diplomacy ($55K, AY 2013-2014)

Advanced Cyber/IO
Got Crowd? BE the Force!
Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Be the Force!

The Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC is now accepting applications for the position of 2013-2014 Yahoo! Fellow in Residence. The fellowship is supported by the Yahoo! International Values, Communications Technology, and Global Internet Fellowship Fund, which was established in 2007-08 at the School of Foreign Services (SFS) at Georgetown University with the help of a $1 million gift from Yahoo! Inc. Every year, the fund supports one fellow attached to the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD) and two junior fellows from the MSFS graduate program at SFS to do research on how international values apply to the development and use of new communications technologies. Additional information can be found on the Institute's website using the following links: