“Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants” but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.” – President John F. Kennedy's “The President And The Press” Address Before The American Newspaper Publishers Association; Waldorf-Astoria Hotel – April 27, 1961
Worth a Look: Cathedral vs. Bazaar (structure-design & public outcomes)
Communities of Practice, Videos/Movies/Documentaries, Worth A LookThe world is assembled along the lines of certain logics. Human organisations are also outcomes of such logics.
Some organisations are assembled following the logic of the “cathedral”. Other organisations are assembled following the logic of the “bazaar”.
Cathedrals are organised as military-inspired command hierarchies. Superior humans give orders, which must be executed by subordinate humans. Bazaars are self-organising, based on voluntary co-operation among humans. Like molecules in a chemical reaction, humans join wherever their efforts are needed.
Cathedrals separate consumption from production. Consumers are not to understand or modify the products they consume. Bazaars allow humans to be both consumers and producers. Consumers are encouraged to create new products out of the products they consume.
Cathedrals cannot emerge unless the free spread of knowledge is prohibited. The underlying knowledge of products or production must be locked, and not released in public. Bazaars cannot emerge unless the locking in of knowledge is prohibited. The underlying knowledge of products or production must be kept public.
These two logics have always existed, yet humans have debated them only since the late 1990s. Computers, specifically software programming, has served as a laboratory for this discussion.
“Cathedrals” and “bazaars” have led humans to interpret their social history in new way. During the past couple of centuries, cathedrals have expanded, at the expense of bazaars.
However, programmers have proven that the bazaars can be more effective and creative than cathedrals. Other humans are now exploring how to use this same logic generically, in non-computer contexts.
In the face of such experiments, humans can hope for a 21st century civilisation assembled in novel ways, less dominated by the hierarchies of the past.
See Also:
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Worth a Look: Photosynth
Worth A Look
Photosynth takes your photos, mashes them together and recreates a 3D scene out of them that anyone can view and move around in.
(Many photo compilations are online to explore)
How Neocon Central Worked for Muammar Qadhafi
02 Diplomacy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government
Laura Rozen, Politico, 21 February 2011
As several Libyan diplomats Monday denounced their country’s four-decade ruler Col. Muammar Qadhafi for unleashing the army against anti-government protesters, U.S. consultancies that have worked to burnish Libya’s and Qadhafi’s U.S. image were laying low.
Several consulting, law and lobbying firms have moved in to advise the Libyan government and energy interests since U.S. sanctions were lifted on Libya in 2004, some of which have since canceled their contracts, according to Justice Department records.
Fahmy Hudome International canceled its contract with the Libyan government in 2007. The Livingston Group canceled its $360,000-per-year lobbying contract with the Libyan government as well as one with an associated Qadhafi charity in September 2009, following the hero’s welcome Libyan leaders gave for the convicted Lockerbie bomber upon his release in August 2009 from a Scottish prison on humanitarian grounds. Justice Department records indicate the law firm White & Case LLP has been registered since 2008 to represent Libya regarding a litigation matter.
One of the more unlikely figures to have advised a firm which has worked to burnish Libya's image and grow its economy is not registered with the Justice Department. Prominent neoconservative Richard Perle, the former Reagan-era Defense Department official and George W. Bush-era chairman of the Defense Policy Board, traveled to Libya twice in 2006 to meet with Qadhafi, and afterward briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on his visits, according to documents released by a Libyan opposition group in 2009.
Perle traveled to Libya as a paid adviser to the Monitor Group, a prestigious Boston-based consulting firm with close ties to leading professors at the Harvard Business School. The firm named Perle a senior adviser in 2006.
The Monitor Group described Perle’s travel to Libya and the recruitment of several other prominent thinkers and former officials to burnish Libya’s and Qadhafi’s image in a series of documents obtained and released by a Libyan opposition group, the National Conference of the Libyan Opposition, in 2009.
Phi Beta Iota: In fairness to the Neocons, there is no real difference between the two parties that vie for control of the public purse to favor private ends. US Government support for dictators, criminal gangs, and selected terrorist groups has always been “bi-partisan” and completely devoid of any public benefit.
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Diversity in Wholeness: “We were made different to complete each other…”
Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence
Dear friends,
Two remarkable presentations of our common humanity and shared predicament showed up in my email today. One is one of the most beautiful and intense videos I've ever seen and the other is a glimpse of the global spirit infusing the current uprisings in very diverse nations.
Blessings on our shared Journey…
Coheartedly,
Tom
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1. The Human Planet … A spectacular video trailer of the BBC's ONE
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=2HiUMlOz4UQ&vq=large
Its fast-paced images of the archetypal energies and challenges of human life on Earth are riveting!
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2. From Cairo to Madison: Hope and Solidarity are Alive
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/21-11
by Medea Benjamin
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And a closing word for U.S.Americans, from Ralph Nader:
“In a country that has so many problems it doesn't deserve and so many solutions that it doesn't apply; all things are possible when people begin looking at themselves for the necessary power to produce a just society.”
______________________________
Tom Atlee, The Co-Intelligence Institute, POB 493, Eugene, OR 97440
http://www.co-intelligence.org / http://tom-atlee.posterous.com
Read THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY – http://www.taoofdemocracy.com and
REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM – http://evolutionaryactivism.com
Please support our work. Your donations are fully tax-deductible.
http://www.co-intelligence.org / http://tom-atlee.posterous.com
Read THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY – http://www.taoofdemocracy.com and
REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM – http://evolutionaryactivism.com
Please support our work. Your donations are fully tax-deductible.
Phi Beta Iota: Tom Atlee is the sole seer and charitable cause that we actively promote. His soul and mind are a precious global treasure like no other we have encountered. Please do donate, with $20 to $50 as the recommended range. His Donate Page.
Asymmetrical Giving, Social Contracts, & the Internet
Gift Intelligence
INTERNET-ENABLED ASYMMETRICAL GIVING
A flip side: the asymmetrical gift
Yesterday I bummed you out with a riff about favors becoming impossible to fulfill. Worth a thought: the alternative, the good news that comes with the bad, is the massive asymmetric gift.
A gift is not a favor, because no recompense is implied or expected. A gift is just from me to you, that’s it.
The internet makes it easy to give gifts to large numbers of people at very very low cost. Editing a wikipedia article, for example, is a gift for the ages, one that might be seen by a million people over three years.
This leads to a new clause in the social contract. In this environment, we expect that civilized participants will give. Just because. Because they can. Because the gift makes all of it work better.
While mass favors have to fade (too easy to ask for, too unfair at scale), mass gifts show up to change the equation. Gifts are easy to scale, now, the more generous, the better. For all of us.
Below the Line: Asymmetrical Mass Favor Asking, the Bad
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Who’s Who in Collective Intelligence: Aaron Huslage
Alpha E-H, Collective Intelligence, Cyber-Intelligence
Aaron Huslage has been hacking on Internet technologies since 1987.
Aaron has been a thought leader in the Internet industry since 1993. His greatest talent lies in communicating highly technical information to those who aren't highly technical.
He constantly researches new and emerging technologies and the latest system management techniques with an emphasis on very large-scale, low-cost, simple mobile, wireless and public interest communications.
Aaron is a member of the organizing committee for O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony Conference. He is intimately familiar with Sun Microsystems offerings, and heavily committed to the concept of Open Everything including OpenBTS.
He has managed large server farms for Microsoft, Major League Baseball and has consulted with some of the largest companies on the Internet. He founded Aidphone Disaster Relief, supported Amsoft Identity Systems (Equals.com), and has been engaged with Red Hat Software, IBM Global Services, and Collective Technologies, among others.
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