The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
“Nothing” is the most common response.
Do nothing until you do know the answer. Study and practice and wait for approval and then do something.
Which is fine (for a surgeon) but what happens most of the time? Most of the time there's something that needs to be done where the answer is unknowable until you do it…
That's what we're waiting for you to do.
Signature strikes target groups of men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren't always known. The bulk of CIA's drone strikes are signature strikes. Wall Street Journal.
Drones are changing the dynamics of warfare in very scary ways. They make oppression much easier (and cost-effective).
To recap: Drones are extremely cost effective vs. ground/air assets (particularly in that with drones, operators aren't put at risk). They also enable extremely centralized command and control (as in: operations can be micro-manged in Washington, down to the decision to kill). In sum, a small number of people in Washington DC can control/operate a vast 24×7 killing field for very few $$.
Here's how they are changing warfare:
What's Next?
It's a pretty slippery slope from here. The simple answer is that US practice we see at work in Pakistan will eventually become common place in Mexico, Central America, and Northern Africa. However, the more interesting answer is how it gets applied to US internal security when the US/global economy crumps into depression, the US government goes bankrupt, and the current system loses much of its remaining legitimacy. In that scenario:
QUOTE: The Summum Bonum (Highest Good) of Social Capitalism
Summum Bonum = Latin for the highest good.
The tranformation of Capitalism from an ancillary activity (as opposed to the activities of monarchs) into an engine of material and technological bounty was through the (likely accidental) introduction of an ethical/moral substrate. This ethical substrate enabled a rate of cummulative progress that went far, far beyond what was possible with a traditional Capitalism that was limited to the motivational capacity of ethically unbounded greed (i.e. the ideal type being the speculator, trader, or mercantile adventurer).
With that in mind, here's something to think about from the founder of the extremely innovative and amazingly efficient Khan Academy:
Question: Are you interested in turning this into a business? Maybe with some VC funding?
Answer: I've been approached several times, but it just didn't feel right. When I'm 80, I want to feel that I helped give access to a world-class education to billions of students around the world. Sounds a lot better than starting a business that educates some subset of the developed world that can pay $19.95/month and eventually selling it to some text book company or something. I already have a beautiful wife, a hilarious son, two hondas and a decent house. What else does a man need? With that said, if you are a social venture capitalist and are looking to deploy capital with the highest possible social return per dollar invested, we should talk. I think you'll find that there is no more measurable, scalable and high impact way to educate the world.
Some random items of interest:
Study. Scientists finally realized the US electrical grid is too much of a patchwork to collapse with a small disruptive event. As in: the US grid doesn't have a single systempunkt. Not sure that matters much to global guerrillas. Why? Basically, an attack on a high level electrical systempunkt still works well regionally (as in 50-70 m people).
Greece fires its generals.
Anonymous cancels Operation Cartel. This entire thing was hilarious.
Interesting to see how much participation Occupy Oakland gets in its ‘general strike' today. Posters. Oakland's dynamics evolved the movement faster than what we've seen nationally. (as in: Police get violent with the movement, including some petty thuggery. Community pushback forces the mayor to back down and vacillate. Police confused….)
Open letter from Oakland PD
Horizontal gene transfer happens over much greater distances with greater frequency than expected.
Congress declares war on the Internet. Inevitable as the economy goes into perpetual reverse.
Coffee and Power. Another microwork startup.
Illicit cigarette sales on the rise. If you need to act like a criminal to smoke, why not be one?
Stuxnet blowback. It's very cool how the US/Israeli gov'ts demonstrated (with its use against Iran) the plausible promise of building cyber weapons that can damage, disrupt, or explode factories. They've set the bar, it's up to the global community of hackers and tinkerers to bring it to the next level. (The same is going to be true with military drones — particularly the small/cheap/smart ones).
Facebook builds new data center in Sweden, where no warrant is needed to intercept internet traffic.
Congress' net worth increased by at least 25% in the last two years.
Recommended. Long and thoughtful.
By Michael Albert
I have yet to see my nearest large occupation, Boston, or the precursor of all U.S. occupations, Wall Street. Instead, I have been on the road for the past six weeks in Thesselonika and Athens Greece; Istanbul and Diyarbikar Turkey; Lexington, Kentucky; London, England; Dublin, Ireland; and in Barcelona, Madrid, and Valencia Spain.
In all these places, I talked with diverse individuals at many meetings and popular assemblies. I met people involved in occupations, as well as audiences assembled by my hosts to hear about participatory economics. Beyond addressing assigned topics, my own priority was to learn about local movements. I repeatedly asked what folks struggling for many months wished to say to other folks first embarking on similar paths.
EXTRACT:
Another factor that was initially exciting but later became tedious, was seeking consensus. At first it was novel. It implied trust, which felt good. It implied shared intentions, which felt inspiring. But after awhile, seeking consensus became tortured, a time waster, and its reason for being the only decision making approach became steadily less compelling.
Random Communications from an Evolutionary Edge
Much has been said about the Occupy movement's lack of demands and vision. Some say it will have no impact unless it makes demands and organizes to make sure those demands are met.
Others respond that the People should just take charge of their democracy rather than petitioning official powers-that-be to do this and that. Still others say that any list of demands – any effort to focus OWS more narrowly and explicitly – could weaken the movement because Occupy Together is a broadly inclusive initiative that's about (a) changing whole systems and/or (b) creating microcosms of a better society in the occupation zones and/or (c) stimulating transformational conversations out in society at large and/or (d) passionately building and forcefully demonstrating the Power of the People to resist illegitimate, corrupt authority.
Others note that the disturbing lack of demands spreads OWS' surprising impact through a “blank slate effect” – OWS becomes a mystery or a mirror into which diverse individuals and groups project their various desires, hopes, frustrations, and agendas. Furthermore, that mystery helps by enhancing the movement's uncommon anarchic power that makes it so hard for authorities and others to figure out how to control, undermine or use it. Others insist that a shared vision – articulating what the 99% actually want – would be much more powerful than focusing on a laundry list of demands that many 99%ers might well disagree with. Simultaneously, many Occupiers are chronically frustrated with all this talk and want Action!! Their more thoughtful colleagues reply that pulling so many diverse people together in consensus requires taking the time to hear each other and generate collective wisdom.
Democratizing ICT for Development with DIY Innovation and Open Data
I haven’t had the space recently to think through some of these questions or reflect about how the work I’ve been doing with Ushahidi fits (or doesn’t) within the traditional development paradigm—a paradigm which many at the confer-ence characterized as #fail. Some think that perhaps technology can help change this paradigm, hence the burst of energy around the ICT for Development (ICT4D) field. That said, it is worth remembering that the motivations driving this shift are more important than any one technology. For example, recall the principles behind the genesis of the Ushahidi platform: Democratizing information flows and access; promoting Open Data and Do it Yourself (DIY) Innovation with free, highly hackable (i.e., open source) technology; letting go of control.
