David Brin on Plausibility & Paranoia

Analysis, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
David Brin

Thursday, May 05, 2011

Seven Rules of Plausibility by Roy Latham

Rule 1. Don’t call the theory ridiculous

Rule 2. Don’t casually accept factual premises that are offered.

Rule 3. Consider the relevance of the expertise of a claimed expert

Rule 4. Consider Claims One-by-One

Rule 5. Keep a Running Tally of the Number of Conspirators

Rule 6. Acknowledge Valid Points

Rule 7. Ask for Direct Evidence of Conspiracy

Read full discussion of all seven rules….

See Also (by David Brin):

Conspiracies and Wishful Thinking (2010/12/06)

WHEN IS A CONSPIRACY THEORY NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY? (2005)

Paranoia has many roots and levels

As one who nurses a few conspiracy theories of his own — but only ones that fit the Seven Secret Rules of Plausibility 😉 — I actually find most of the run-of-the-mill-kneejerk stories, concocted by modern loonies (not only on the far right, but also plenty on the far-left and even far-out) to be just plain dumb. They are nearly always based on several self-flattering premises:

Continue reading “David Brin on Plausibility & Paranoia”

Regional Metamorphosis & Social Architecture

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Open Government, Policies, Serious Games, Standards, Strategy, Technologies, Tools

May 10th: Let the Infinite Games Begin!

svii

At our April 6 SVII gathering Bill Veltrop, co-founder of the Monterey Institute for Social Architecture (MISA), introduced Regional Metamorphosis as a pragmatic strategy for accelerating our movement into an Age of Conscious Evolution. Jesse Clark and colleagues then produced a video that does a great job of capturing the intent and spirit of that evening.

At the conclusion of the April 6 gathering Howard asserted that Silicon Valley had what it takes to be a leader in a regional metamorphosis movement. Howard invited us to explore this possibility together at a May 10th gathering at Serena Software from 4-7 PM.

Questions for you:

  1. Are you a GRIP, a game ready infinite player? Check your “symptoms” against this profile. http://www.theinfinitegames.org/e02/02.php
  1. Does the idea of playing a key role in bootstrapping a Silicon Valley regional metamorphosis initiative intrigue you? Below are some of the key roles we see needed if we are to turn this large idea into a global movement:

TEN MOST WANTED EVOLUTIONARIES

  • Angel Investors
  • Multimedia Story-tellers
  • Transformational Leaders
  • Champions of Generative Initiative
  • Leader for a Center for Regional Metamorphosis
  • Bridge-Builders from Academia
  • Online Collaboration Web Weavers
  • Developmental Mavens
  • Providers of Generative Services
  • Regional Conveners
  1. Are you willing to join with other interested GRIPs at Serena Software from 4-7 on Tuesday, May 10? At this gathering we will be —
  • Getting to know who we are — what each of us cares about, and could bring to this emerging infinite game
  • Diving more deeply into the ideas presented on April 6
  • Exploring for the best approach to getting traction in Silicon Valley — and beyond

Requests

  • If you plan to attend, please register here.
  • Register for May 10th: Let the infinite games begin! in Redwood City, CA  on Eventbrite
  • The address is:
    Serena Software Inc
    1900 Seaport Boulevard,
    Redwood City, CA
  • If you can’t attend but are definitely interested, or if you have any questions, please contact Bill@MISA.ws or call at 831-462-1992
  • If you’ve a friend/colleague GRIP who is a good fit, please invite him/her to join us.
  • If you attended our April 6th gathering, you may find it helpful to refresh your memory with this video, http://vimeo.com/22894801
  • If you were not at the April 6th event it’s important that you invest the time to watch the video. The May 10th gathering will build on our April 6 work together.

Tip of the Hat to David Alan and Mark Roest.

From the Pentagon? More Education, Fewer Guns?

03 Economy, 04 Education, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Ethics, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Strategy, Threats

An excellent read from credible sources in the vein of Phi Beta Iota articulated reforms.  Oh, and by the way, surprisingly this was written (in part, this is a two-author article) by a fellow naval intelligence professional (and more surprising is the fact it comes from a senior navy intelligence officer …. not something I would have expected, given how wed to cold-war ideals most of the senior leadership is…

Now Playing

The Pentagon’s ‘Mr. Y’ And National Security

Direct download: Mp3 (podcast)

The Pentagon’s ‘Mr. Y’ And National Security

Two Special Assistants to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen say (unofficially) it’s time, strategically, to spend more on education and less on guns. We’ll hear them out.

See Also:

Continue reading “From the Pentagon? More Education, Fewer Guns?”

Simultaneous Policy: Two Interviews

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Augmented Reality, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), Key Players, Methods & Process, Open Government, Policies, Real Time, Reform, Serious Games, Strategy, Threats, Tools

1. Simpol – John Bunzl – Interview Part One (April 15, 2009)

 

Click on Image to View
See Simpol's Founder, John Bunzl, explain Simpol on Youtube, Part 1.   (about 5 minutes)

2. Simpol – John Bunzl – Interview Part Two (April 15, 2009)

 

Click on Image to View
See Simpol's Founder, John Bunzl, explain Simpol on Youtube, Part 2.   (about 5 minutes)

Journal: Cheery Waves Flags How Supercomputers Alter Science

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Augmented Reality, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Geospatial, History, info-graphics/data-visualization, IO Mapping, IO Sense-Making, Key Players, Maps, Methods & Process, Mobile, Policies, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Real Time, Research resources, Serious Games, Standards, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools, True Cost, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Cheery Waves Recommends....

Digging Deeper, Seeing Farther: Supercomputers Alter Science

By JOHN MARKOFF

New York Times, April 25, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO — Inside a darkened theater a viewer floats in a redwood forest displayed with Imax-like clarity on a cavernous overhead screen.

The hovering sensation gives way to vertigo as the camera dives deeper into the forest, approaches a branch of a giant redwood tree, and then plunges first into a single leaf and then into an individual cell. Inside the cell the scene is evocative of the 1966 science fiction movie “Fantastic Voyage,” in which Lilliputian humans in a minuscule capsule take a medical journey through a human body.

There is an important difference — “Life: A Cosmic Journey,” a multimedia presentation now showing at the new Morrison Planetarium here at the California Academy of Sciences, relies not just on computer animation techniques, but on a wealth of digitized scientific data as well.

Read balance of article….

Comment and Seven Graphics Below the Line…

Continue reading “Journal: Cheery Waves Flags How Supercomputers Alter Science”

Participatory (Crowd-Sourced) Futures Planning

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Augmented Reality, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), IO Mapping, Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Open Government, Policies, Real Time, Reform, Serious Games, Strategy, Threats, Tools
Venessa Miemis

whether talking about a intelligent knowledge infrastructure, robert's global brain, or suresh's project matching for climate change initiatives, this article seemed useful.

Noah Raford
Large-scale participatory futures systems

Futurescaper is an online tool for making sense of the drivers, trends and forces that will shape the future.  As a user interface system, it is horrible.  As a tool for analyzing and understanding complex systems, it works pretty well.  Several people asked me about this after my last post, so here is some more detail.

Following the logic of collective intelligence (as part of my my PhD), I broke up the the scenario thinking process into discrete chunks, came up with a system for analyzing and relating them together, and then distilled them into key outputs for helping the scenario development process:  1) Emergent Thematic Maps  2) Revealing Hidden Connections  3) Drilling Down

Read full post.

See Also by Noah Radford:

The Three Systems, an Overview

The first system is called “Futurescaper” and was developed in partnership with the International Futures Forum (IFF), Tony Hodgson and my friend Nathan Koren.  This was piloted on a project for the UK Government, exploring secondary and tertiary impacts of climate change.

The second system is called “SenseMaker Scenarios.”  This uses a customized version of Cognitive Edge’s SenseMaker Suite to aggregate micro-stories about the future into themes and patterns for scenario generation.  This was done with Dave Snowden and Wendy Schultz, and was unveiled at the 2010 RAHS conference in Singapore.

The third system is called “FogCatcher”, and was developed with Anab Jain and Jon Ardern from Superflux.  This was based on a modified version of Jerome C. Glenn’s futures wheel, combined with a “hot or not” style cross-impact analysis engine.  As before, this approach benefited greatly from previous conversations with my colleagues above, but also from others such as Andrew Curry of the Futures Company, Emile Hooge of Nova7, Indy Johar of 00:/research, Vinay Gupta and others.

All three projects are still in continuous development and available for experimental project use.

Read more about the three systems.

Reference: Dr. Joseph Tainter, Seven YouTube Segments on “Why Societies Collapse and What It Means to Us”

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, InfoOps (IO), IO Impotency, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Policies, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Real Time, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Serious Games, Strategy, Threats, YouTube
Dr. Joseph Tainter

Utah State University. Professor in the Department of Environment & Society, (Social conflict in environmental issues, human responses to climate change and environmental degradation, human uses of energy and resources).

“We Need An Adult Conversation–Our Political System is Dysfunctional”

See Also:

Review: The Collapse of Complex Societies

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Positive)

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Negative)

Wikipedia Joseph Tainter

FEATURED (2010):

Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter (1 of 7)

Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter (2 of 7)

Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter (3 of 7)

Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter (4 of 7)

Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter (5 of 7) (Conclusions)

Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter (6 of 7) (Q&A)

Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter (7 of 7) (Q&A)

Tip of the Hat to newculture at YouTube for gifted uploads.

Found and recommended by Contributing Editor Lucius.

Phi Beta Iota: There are no challenges that cannot be addressed with a combination of collective intelligence and individual integrity.  Infinite free energy, and the eradication of waste across all industries, are immediately achievable if (big if) the public will reengage in its own governance.

See Also:

M4IS2