Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1687 – Public Intelligence Blog

Potent hope dances with passive hope and spectatorism

Optimism and pessimism are kind of like spectator sports: things are getting better – or – things are getting worse. Passive hope is wishing or believing things will turn out ok. Potent hope, in contrast, is active, intentional, and grounded in the positive potential we can observe in people and the world. When we have potent hope, we don’t claim to know what will happen, but we do claim good reason to take action and find rich meaning in our lives. This post concludes with more than two dozen inspiring quotes about potent hope.

Dear friends,

Given the number of discouraging trends in the world, it is easy to feel hopeless and pessimistic. So I want to take a few moments to look at these very human feelings – optimism and pessimism, hope and hopelessness.

Continue reading “Tom Atlee: Potent hope dances with passive hope and spectatorism”

2013/12/232013/12/23

Neal Rauhauser: SImmering Maghreb

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

The Simmering Maghreb Starting in Tunisia with the self immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi in late December of 2010, Arab Spring spread like wildfire, bowling over four governments and straining all their neighbors. Three years have passed and a wave of weapons from Libya, coupled with fighters from all over, have destabilized the ring of nations adjacent to those which have already revolted.

Click on Image to Watch — Click on Image to Enlarge

Read full post (two more maps).

2013/12/232014/07/01

Hamilton Bean: The Paradox of Open Source: An Interview with Douglas J. Naquin with Letter from Robert Steele

Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government, IO Impotency, Peace Intelligence

The Paradox of Open Source: An Interview with Douglas J. Naquin

Click above to buy the article (encouraged).

International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence

Volume 27, Issue 1, 2014

PDF (16 Pages): Bean Interview of Naquin Clean

Letter from Robert Steele

PDF (3 Pages): IJIC Steele on Bean-Naquin As Published

Full Text of Letter Below the Fold

Continue reading “Hamilton Bean: The Paradox of Open Source: An Interview with Douglas J. Naquin with Letter from Robert Steele”

2013/12/232013/12/29

Steve Aftergood: Orgs ask DNI to Preserve Access to World News Connection — Comment on OSC in AF by Robert Steele

Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Impotency

ORGS ASK DNI TO PRESERVE ACCESS TO WORLD NEWS CONNECTION

More than a dozen professional societies and public interest groups wrote to the Director of National Intelligence last week to ask him to preserve public access to foreign news reports gathered, translated and published by the Open Source Center and marketed to subscribers through the NTIS World News Connection.

The CIA, which manages the Open Source Center for the intelligence community, intends to terminate public access to the World News Connection at the end of this month. (CIA Halts Public Access to Open Source Service, Secrecy News, October 8.)

Among other things, the groups said that this move is inconsistent with the President's Open Government National Action Plan.

Continue reading “Steve Aftergood: Orgs ask DNI to Preserve Access to World News Connection — Comment on OSC in AF by Robert Steele”

2013/12/232013/12/23

Berto Jongman: John Mearsheimer on Power

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

John Mearsheimer on Power as the Currency of International Relations, Disciplining US Foreign Policy, and Being an Independent Variable

Structural realism has lost ground to other theories of International Relations since the end of the Cold War, but not with John Mearsheimer. In today’s Theory Talk he explains why he has stuck with it, despite its obvious problems.

Prepared by: Peer Schouten for Theory Talks

QUESTIONS:

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2013/12/232013/12/23

Jean Lievens: The War on Knowledge — The Year Hacktivists and the Government Went to War

Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government

The Year Hacktivists And The Government Went To War

Gerry Smith

Huffington Post, 20 December 2013

Peter Ludlow, a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, wrote in The Nation that the prosecution of hacktivists was part of “a war on knowledge” that extends beyond hackers to include Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, who exposed government secrets. Manning is serving a 35-year sentence for Espionage Act violations. Snowden, in Russia on temporary asylum, has been charged with espionage and theft of government property.

“Taken together, the lesson appears to be that computer hacking for social causes and computer hacking aimed at exposing the secrets of governing elites will not be tolerated,” Ludlow wrote.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Jean Lievens: The War on Knowledge — The Year Hacktivists and the Government Went to War”

2013/12/232013/12/23

Stephen E. Arnold: Big Data Falls Down…Way Down…

Commerce, Idiocy, IO Impotency

Big Data Fans: The Nitty Gritty

Love talking about Big Data? I recommend doing a bit of reading. I found “What I Learned from 2 Years of Data Sciencing” refreshing. Quotes I noted were:

With reference to Big Data projects where the author worked: “None of these projects gained traction within the company and became abandoned.”
With reference to the work required: “Much of the efforts spent for those projects were in getting the right data into the right shape.”
“Little did I know that we’ll be cleaning and shaping data for most of my second year at uSwitch.”
“In practice, I was just cleaning and shaping data.”
“Figuring out the right work to do is one of the most difficult tasks for a data science team. It doesn’t help with the fact that the data science role is so vague.”
“Figuring out where to devote our time and effort is not as easy as it sounds.”
“Unless someone or something can act on the data, results can only satisfy intellectual curiosity. A business can’t survive on funding people to carry out academic studies forever.”
“If cleaning vast amount of data, being clueless as to what to do, and debating with colleagues sound like a challenge that you want to take on, I know a company in London that’s looking for a data scientist!”

Is there a message about the nuts and bolts of data? Is analytics repeating the sins of the first enterprise search vendors? It is so much easier to sell sizzle than focus on the basics like figuring out what’s important and getting valid data. Let’s just take the easy path seems to be one risk for analytics cheerleaders.

Stephen E Arnold, December 22, 2013

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Big Data Falls Down…Way Down…”