Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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Berto Jongman: Robert Reich on Inequality [EXPENSIVE!]

Commerce, Corruption, Government
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

If You Want to Know What’s Happened to Our Democracy, Follow the Richest .01 Percent

If you want to know what’s happened to the American economy, follow the money. That will lead you to the richest .01 percent. And if you want to know what’s happened to our democracy, follow the richest .01 percent. They’ll lead you to the politicians who have been selling our democracy.

Phi Beta Iota: Concentrated wealth is expensive at multiple levels, but particularly so in relation to externalized diseconomies associated with poverty, disease, and environmental degradation. Concentrated wealth is rooted in dishonesty among the few (particularly the two-party political tyranny) combined with ignorance and apathy among the many. There is a simple solution: a mass uprising with a non-violent strike demanding Electoral Reform (all eleven points).

See Also:

Electoral Reform @ We the People Reform Coalition

Graphic: Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today

Robert Reich @ Bill Moyers

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Michel Bauwens: P2P Future Scenarios

Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence
Michel Bauwens
Michel Bauwens

Four scenarios for the inevitable P2P Future

P2P and networked technologies are here to stay, are expanding, and will become the dominant technological format. Yet, that doesn’t mean at all that the future is a foregone conclusion. Around these technologies we will see political and social struggles that will involve ownership and governance (control), and also their mobilization by social forces having their own worldviews, interests and agenda.

To distinguish various futures, I have produced a impromptu four quadrant structure according to two axes:

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Stewart Brand: Kevin Kelly on Holos Rising

Cultural Intelligence
Stewart Brand
Stewart Brand

When Kevin Kelly looked up the definition of ?superorganism? on Wikipedia, he found this: ?A collection of agents which can act in concert to produce phenomena governed by the collective.? The source cited was Kevin Kelly, in his 01994 book, Out of Control. His 02014 perspective is that humanity has come to dwell in a superorganism of our own making on which our lives now depend.

The technological numbers keep powering up and connecting with each other. Their aggregate is becoming formidible, rich with emergent behavior, and yet it is still so new to us that it remains unnamed and scarcely considered.

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Sepp Hasslberger: Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life

Earth Intelligence
Sepp Hasslberger
Sepp Hasslberger

Water is so important yet so little researched … but here is some progress and it promises to revolutionise our understanding of biological processes. 

The book, Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life builds on the central role of water for biology. It provides evidence that much of the water in the cell is very near to one or another hydrophilic surface and therefore ordered, and that cell behavior can be properly understood only if this feature is properly taken into account.

Amazon Page
Amazon Page

It goes on to show that seemingly complex behaviors of the cell can be understood in simple terms once a proper understanding of water and surfaces is achieved.

While the book is an award-winning best seller, it has aroused controversy because it questions some long-held basic features of cell function such as membrane channels and pumps. This steps on many scientific toes.

Many others have praised the insights obtained from building on a foundation of first principles (see book website above). One prominent reviewer from Harvard University opines that the book is “a 305 page preface to the future of cell biology.”

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Worth a Look: Local Community Bill of Rights

Ethics, Government

Local Bill of Rights and Responsibilities

This Local Bill of Rights and Responsibilities Template forks and extends the CELDF's Community Bill of Rights Template (.pdf). The Bill is an innovative legal framework to empower local governance, over one hundred municipal campaigns within the United States and been credited for stopping hydrofracking in several cities and been spread as far as Europe by Occupy Law in the UK.

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Clausewitz: I Said War With (mit) Other Means, NOT War By Other Means

Ethics, Government, Military

clausewitz croppedEverything You Know About Clausewitz Is Wrong

A botched translation of Clausewitz has had an enduring impact on our thinking on warfare.

James Holmes, The Diplomat, 12 November 2014

Specifically, Paret and Howard entitle Book One, Chapter One, Section 24 (page 87 if you have your copy handy) “War Is Merely the Continuation of Policy by Other Means.” That’s how they render “Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln” into English. Properly translated, however, the title reads “War Is a Mere Continuation of Policy with Other Means.” “With,” not “by.” There is zero ambiguity in the German. The translators, or perhaps their publisher, flub this one.

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