Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 2556 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/05/06

Oil, Food, Middle Class Down = Long Emergency

01 Brazil, 02 China, 03 Economy, 03 India, 04 Indonesia, 05 Energy, 06 Family, 06 Russia, 07 Venezuela, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, IO Sense-Making

D2 SCENARIO

I gave a little talk at a financial conference (Casey Research) that included the following very simple economic scenario:

Oil prices are going up (inexorably). China + Peak Oil + Financial diversification. Oil doesn't stop going up until GDP goes down. It's an inexorable force until then.
The US middle class is broken. A hollow husk unable to withstand the slightest gust. Regardless, it's the ultimate source of demand for the global economy. It's an immovable barrier.
When oil hits ~$150 a barrel the impact occurs between inexorable force and immovable barrier. The combo of higher prices at the pump and for everything else (food and other essentials) starts to crush middle class budgets and force defaults. The economy shrinks until the price of oil goes down enough to be affordable again (for those still left in the middle class).

We keep repeat the pattern above until we're in the second depression (D2). Long term low demand.

Phi Beta Iota: This is precisely why the BRICS (now including South Africa) and a new coalition, perhaps led by Cuba and Venezuela since Chile is refusing to lead, should focus on the immediate challenge of creating infinite free renewable energy–the foundation for global non-zero advances. Such a strategy would be inherently ethical, legal, citizen-centered, and non-violent as well as non-intrusive on any conceivable concept of sovereignty or indigenous privilege.

2011/05/05

Open-Source Cloud Revolution Takes Shape

Advanced Cyber/IO, Autonomous Internet, Collective Intelligence

Into The Great Wide Open: The Open-Source Cloud Revolution Takes Shape

By Andrew R Hickey, CRN

May 04, 2011 4:00 PM ET

The cloud is opening up as more open-source alternatives to proprietary players emerge.

While open source itself is nothing new — and doesn't need grand promotion — open source in the cloud is taking a fresh approach to the cloud model, and it's a space that has potential to shape the future of the cloud.

Currently, there are a handful of big-name, open-source cloud players out there: Eucalyptus, Cloud.com, and Open Nebula among them. Perhaps the most attention-getting open-source cloud is OpenStack, a joint open-source project between cloud player Rackspace and NASA that provides a full-cloud stack. And just last month, VMware pulled the curtain off of its Cloud Foundry open source platform-as-a-service project.

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2011/05/052012/05/18

Bin Laden Show 00: DNA Testing Fraud

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call

Bert Laden was buried at sea within 24 hours of being gunned down in what was probably a CIA safehouse set up with help from Blackwater. Claims by the White House and CIA that DNA confirmation of his identity are bogus.

DNA tests take 3-10 days to run and are not something that can be done in flight or at sea.

Continue reading “Bin Laden Show 00: DNA Testing Fraud”

2011/05/05

Transformational Pivot in the Internet’s Nature

Advanced Cyber/IO, IO Mapping

5 May

Uber and Intersect usher in a transformational pivot in assumptions

Uber is a cool new car service that Jenna Wortham recently wrote about in this article for The New York Times. Intersect is an equivalently cool new site that for all practical purposes is the opposite of Twitter that is all based on location and what is happening in a specific location at a particular time so it becomes a chronology of everything that happens at that location. Their web site does a better job of describing it than I do.

So what? And what do these two totally different companies have in common?

I’ll get there, but it reminds me of something my friend Tom, who is an executive at Microsoft, was telling me a couple of years ago about modern phone technology (in this case the design of Windows Phone 7). He pointed out something pretty obvious, but at the same time prettty incredible. Historically with computer technology the size of the screen of the device software was written for was known and fixed. Also, things like “up” and “down” were fixed. Now with mobile devices like phones and tablets, we expect to turn the device upside down and have it turn the screen around for us, and if we want to change the amount of information in the screen, we are now able to pinch in and pinch out and slide – and we expect that. That has been trasformational for mobile devices.

Back to Uber and Intersect.

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2011/05/05

Blackwater’s New Ethics Chief: John Ashcroft

Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government

The consortium in charge of restructuring the world’s most infamous private-security firm just added a new chief in charge of keeping the company on the straight and narrow. Yes, John Ashcroft, the former U.S. attorney general, is now an “independent director” of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater.

Ashcroft will head Xe’s new “subcommittee on governance,” its backers announced early Wednesday in a statement. The subcommittee is designed to “maximize governance, compliance and accountability” and “promote the
highest degrees of ethics and professionalism within the private-security industry.”

Full Story

Phi Beta Iota: We don't make this stuff up.

2011/05/05

Echo Chambers and Filter Bubbles

Blog Wisdom, Cultural Intelligence

Filter bubbles

by jonl

This talk by Eli Pariser reminds me of discussions with David Weinberger about online echo chambers. I recall that this came up as social technology became part of the political process in ~2004. I’ve been concerned that the polarization we’re seeing in the U.S. and elsewhere is exacerbated if not caused by our tendency to pay all of our attention where we agree, and none of it where we’re challenged by opposing or new ideas.

Watch the video [9:05]

2011/05/05

Jon Lebkowsky: Technology, politics, & balance

Blog Wisdom, Cultural Intelligence

Technology, politics, and balance

by jonl

When Mitch Ratcliffe and I published Extreme Democracy in 2005, the question came up whether the discussion of politics and social technology was technoutopian. Without getting into the specifics of the book (which included diverse articles, some more positive than others about the potential role of what we now call social media in our political life), I can say that I rejected the “technoutopian” label as a rather shallow dismissal of a complex question: does a technology that gives everyone the potential to have more of a voice bring us closer to a democratic ideal? Or does it turn up the noise and overwhelm the signal? Or could it do both?

Continue reading “Jon Lebkowsky: Technology, politics, & balance”