Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 2067 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/01/252013/01/25

Berto Jongman: Recommended Book — Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World

Rate Your Leadship Skills for the Future – Free Self-Assessment

•    Grounded in the most recent ten-year forecast by the prestigious Institute for the Future
•    Identifies the new skills needed to thrive in the next decade
•    Provides tools, examples, and advice to help develop your expertise in each of the ten future skills

Some leadership skills are enduring. But to be successful in the future, leaders also need an emerging set of skills uniquely suited to dealing with the challenges of the threshold decade we are entering. Today’s businesses and organizations are operating in a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Though they already seemed stressed to the breaking point, Johansen reminds us that we are also more connected than ever before in our history, but we must fully realize the benefits of that connectivity. In the next decade, leaders will not just see the future—they will make it! But they will not be able to do it alone.

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Bob Johansen was president and CEO of the Institute for the Future from 1996 to 2004 and is now the IFTF Distinguished Fellow, as well as serving on its board. Bob has worked for more than 30 years as a forecaster, exploring the human side of new technologies. He has a deep interest in the future of religion and its impact on business, society, and individuals. Bob works mainly with senior corporate executives across a wide range of industries. Bob is a frequent keynote speaker. He has taught both graduate and undergraduate courses. He is the author of six books, including Upsizing the Individual in the Downsized Organization with novelist Rob Swigart, a guide for organizations undergoing technological change and reengineering, and GlobalWork with Mary O'Hara-Devereaux, a guide to managing global, cross-cultural teams. A social scientist with an interdisciplinary background, Bob holds a BS degree from the University of Illinois, where he also played varsity basketball, and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University. Bob also has a divinity school degree from what is now called Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, where he studied comparative religions.

2013/01/24

Rickard Falkvinge: Scream Out for Integrity Lost

Communities of Practice, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

Abandon Integrity, All Ye that Gain Power?

Activism – Andrew “K`Tetch” Norton: If we had any doubt of the reason we need to be extra vigilant in our work, this month has provided them in spades. But there is one thing that ties everything together, and that is the matter of integrity, and accountability. Through all the issues, those that take the lead are never held to account. Often, ironically, they do these acts while trying to hold others to account, in some sort of twisted egotistical irony powertrip.

I could have posted this Friday, but I didn’t. Saturday was an option too, but I wanted to wait. Above all I felt a need to slowly think about things, before acting, or saying. Many have let their emotions speak, but while they’re good for the short-term, we need a long term look.

The past week or two has been a turbulent one for many like me. The success of the one-year anniversary since SOPA/PIPA was overshadowed by the tragic (and preventable) suicide of Aaron Swartz, and the launch of Mega on the one-year anniversary of the raid (pretty much to the minute)

Then, through it all the irony of the Martin Luther King speech about freedom, being locked down. To cap it, the one man going to be imprisoned for the waterboarding, is the one who alerted the public, and not one who conducted it.

It’s a conflicting and emotional time in many ways, as many of the issues we pirates are passionate about are hitting landmark points all in a week. And overshadowing it all is Aaron, and his tragic final decision.

I was invited on a Huffington Post Live panel Friday night to discuss some of these issues. With me was Tim Lee (ArsTechnica), Trevor Timm (EFF), and Holmes Wilson (Fight for the Future). I don’t think I did that well, but judge for yourself.

It was actually quite an interesting spread too, you had the tech press, legal, activist, and me with the political aspects. I doubt they could have got a better spread if they’d wanted.

But from the talk there, and the pre-show banter, I took away one thing. We all care about this, and we all want the situation to improve. Sure we’re all young men, but we’ve looked at the situation out there, and see massive problems. We’re all intelligent and hardworking (well, those three are, I wouldn’t say that about myself, because I know it’s not true) and could easily making a shedload of money in any private concern of our choosing. Instead we choose to do this.

Continue reading “Rickard Falkvinge: Scream Out for Integrity Lost”

2013/01/24

Worth a Look: Information Ethics

Advanced Cyber/IO, Ethics

The Field

Contributions to the field can be submitted for publication in the: International Review of Information Ethics (IRIE)

This presentation is divided into three chapters:

1. Foundations

Introduction
1.1 Information Ethics as Applied Ethics
1.2 Information Ethics as a Descriptive and Emancipatory Theory
1.3 Ethics for Information Specialists

See:

A brief history of information ethics by Thomas Froehlich.

Computer and Information Ethics by Terrell Bynum.

We draw a distinction between:

Morals: customs and traditions
Ethics: critical reflection on morals
Law: norms formally approved by state power or international political bodies.

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Information Ethics”

2013/01/242013/01/24

Koko: Idiot Humans – Creating Mutant Viruses? Eugenics Play?

02 Infectious Disease, 07 Health, Commerce, Corruption

Deadly GM flu research that could ‘wipe out significant portion of humanity' set to restart

Flu experts overturn self-imposed ban on creating mutant firms of the H5N1 bird flu virus
They claim the risky research is needed to prepare in case it naturally mutates to human transmissible form
But leading experts condemn decision to restart research into genetically modified versions of the virus
Humans can only currently catch H5N1 from infected birds, but when they do it is usually fatal

By Damien Gayle

MailOnline, 24 January 2013

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: “Who benefits?” The “precautionary principle” is well established, and anyone who violates it generally has come combination of moral disengagement and financial corruption attendant to their decision. The “good guys club” that includes Bill Gates and Warren Buffet is known to have a eugenics agenda. Could it be that these researchers have been offered a financial incentive of such proportions as to overcome their intellectual appreciation for the risks? As with nuclear proliferation, and small arms proliferation, the weakness of human ethics is the weak link — once created, such viruses will inevitably be “leaked.” This is a good time for the public to ask: what is government doing on this issue that is or is not in the public interest?

2013/01/24

SchwartzReport: Catholic Leaders Morally Disengaged and Complicit in Sex Abuse Cover-Ups for Decades

06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption

Another Catholic Sex Abuse Cover-up
MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS, Staff Writer – Salon

This story just never stops, and finally one is forced to conclude that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy (as distinct from the living community of believers) is simply degenerate and corrupt. So many thousands upon thousands of children have been molested worldwide by this organization's priesthood that I, for one, can no longer keep track of an accurate number, except that it is very large, and the damage very great. I don't understand! how a Catholic family can be comfortable leaving their child with a priest and, I guess, because Catholic families are leaving the church in droves, the families can't either.

. . . . . . . . .

What’s astonishing now, in light of a continuing deluge of new information, isn’t that the local Catholic Church administration would put protecting its own ahead of considering the nightmare it was perpetuating for the victims – that’s pretty much a given. It isn’t even the lack of reporting to authorities – after all, churches weren’t legally required to do so then as they are now. It’s the apparent total lack of empathy that had to exist to describe a relationship between a priest and a 12-year-old child in terms of ‘surrogate father but also sex partner.”

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: This is a triple information pathology. The Catholic Church is enabling, concealing, and perpetuating atrocities against children. The government at multiple levels is willfully refraining from law enforcement against the Church. And finally, the media is failing to do investigative journalism.

2013/01/24

SchwartzReport: US FDA Complicit in Poisoning of Food

07 Health

US Allows Chemicals in Food That Are Illegal Elsewhere
Monica Eng – Chicago Tribune

Here is more on the failings of our food system, and further proof of the negative effects corporate lobbying has on your personal health.

CHICAGO — When Gatorade fan Sarah Kavanagh learned that her favorite drink contains an emulsifier banned in other countries over health concerns, she was taken aback.

“I was shocked that they'd put their consumers at risk like that and that the FDA would allow something like that to be put in products,” said the Mississippi 15-year-old, who launched a petition in November asking Gatorade to remove the ingredient, called brominated vegetable oil, or BVO.

The petition, which has attracted more than 200,000 supporters on Change.org, notes that the ingredient shares an element — bromine — with some flame retardants used in furniture and plastics. Some studies on BVO indicate it can build up in fatty tissues and cause reproductive and behavioral problems in rodents.

Read full article.

2013/01/232013/01/30

US Jewish Leaders Apologize for USS Liberty, Promise Not to Meddle in US Foreign Policy Anymore (UPDATED with New LBJ Cover Story That Exonerates Zionists?)

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Offbeat Fun, Officers Call

UPDATED 30 Jan 2013: Mini-Me: LBJ Behind USS Liberty? Re-Evaluating What Can Be Known

Jewish Leaders Meet Obama, Apologize for USS Liberty

BNN Senior Producer Karl Reich, 23 January 2013

Washington (BNN) – Leaders of several major American Jewish organizations met today with President Barack Obama and his national security team, offering abject apologies for the Israeli covert attack on the USS Liberty that left 34 Killed in Action (KIA), and 171 Wounded in Action (WIA).

For over 30 years the US Government has been a co-conspirator with Israel and its Zionist supporters in the US, whose campaign contributions to US Senators and Representatives were always accompanied by a note, “Forget about the USS Liberty — it was just business.”

The participants refused to discuss the specifics of the meeting. The groups at the hour-long session included the Anti-Defamation League, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations and the American Jewish Committee.

Continue reading “US Jewish Leaders Apologize for USS Liberty, Promise Not to Meddle in US Foreign Policy Anymore (UPDATED with New LBJ Cover Story That Exonerates Zionists?)”