Phi Beta Iota: The Hill is letting us down when it fails to provide context. This “debate” over tax cuts is either criminal insanity or insanely criminal. As long as the federal government is BORROWING one trillion dollars a year “in our name,” any discussion that does not begin with “stop borrowing” is unconstitutional, illegitimate, and grounds for the impeachment of every member now serving in the Senate and the House, including Ron Paul if he does not bring this basic fact forward in public.
“Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.”
—George Eliot
We're losing! Here's a playbook, see especially the focus on new metrics that have more meaning.
The essay below is an updated and edited version of a post I wrote here a few years ago, I'm Human, I'm American and I'm Addicted to Oil. Richard Douthwaite, Irish economist and activist, (and a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute), invited me to contribute it as a chapter in the just released book Fleeing Vesuvius, which is a collection of articles generally addressing “how can we bring the world out of the mess it finds itself in”? My article dealt with the evolutionary underpinnings of our aggregate behavior – neural habituation to increasingly available stimuli, and our evolved penchant to compete for status given the environmental cues of our day. And how, after we make it through the likely upcoming currency/claims bottleneck, we would be wise to adhere to an evolutionary perspective in considering a future (more) sustainable society.
Click here for the table of contents from Fleeing Vesuvius, followed by my article.
Phi Beta Iota: Will and Ariel Durant, in Lessons of History, state that the only real revolution is in the mind of man. We strongly believe that strategic analytics is the next revolution, and that strategic analytics will make possible transparency, truth, and truth leading to compassionate non-zero evolution–a world that works for all.
NUUK, Greenland — The eight Arctic nations pledged Thursday to create international protocols to prevent and clean up offshore oil spills in areas of the region that are becoming increasingly accessible to exploration because of a changing climate.
The Arctic Council — the United States, Russia, Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden — said the protocols would be modeled on a separate agreement signed here in Nuuk on Thursday to coordinate search-and-rescue operations over 13 million square miles of ocean.
Phi Beta Iota: This is potentially world-changing, but pedestrian at this time. Legal and logistics arrangements institutionalize old ways of doing things–slow, expensive, often inappropriate ways. Much more exciting would be for the nations to agree to create an Arctic M4IS2 Centre, perhaps based in Copenhagen or in Oslo, with an emphasis on sustainable energy and climate change to begin with, but rapidly filling out to provide holistic analytics across all threats and helpful to the harmonization of spending across all policies. Such a center could be innovative from the first day if it includes all eight tribes of intelligence in its organizational and outreach schema, creating a model for both the United Nations and for each of the continental political organizations.
Humanity and technology continue to co-evolve at an ever increasing pace, leaving traditional institutions (and mindsets) calcified and out of date. A new paradigm is emerging, where everything is increasingly connected and the nature of collaboration, business and work are all being reshaped. In turn, our ideas about society, culture, geographic boundaries and governance are being forced to adapt to a new reality.
While some fear the loss of control associated with these shifts, others are exhilarated by the new forms of connectivity and commerce that they imply. Transactions and interactions are growing faster and more frictionless, giving birth to what I call a “superfluid” economy.
Business will not return to usual. So let's discuss 4 key concepts to help us better understand the shifts that are underway:
1. Quantifying and mapping everything
2. Everyone has access to the internet
3. Self-organizing expands
4. Peer-to-peer exchange changes the future of money
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.
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
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.
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.
Last Saturday's issue of Barron's ran a cover story on the deficit and their own take on how to address it. In contrast to the recent recommendations from President Obama and the House Republicans, defense was actually “on the table,” not “at” it. In the absence of any adult thinking on the deficit since the Deficit Commission in December, Barron's addresses a void that remains vast and empty in Congress and the Executive branch. The article puts on the table a defense recommendation — which I urged to them — that goes significantly deeper than even the Deficit Commission's — in truth fuzzy — recommendation on “security” spending.
Almost immediately, Forbes published at its website a related piece on defense spending and The Pentagon Labyrinth that contains some interesting private sector views on how the public might be beginning to perceive the current size of the defense budget and condition of our armed forces: note the references to “defense entitlement,” “defense bubble,” and “parade ground military.” It would seem that the paradigm is changing, at least outside Washington DC. (If you think that the recent killing of bin Laden proves the “parade ground” moniker wrong, I urge you to read the introduction essay in The Pentagon Labyrinth: “Why Is This Handbook Necessay?“.
Grow Up, Guys!
By GENE EPSTEIN
Barron's Cover SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 2011
While the President and GOP sling mud at each other, the debt crisis is growing. Barron's offers some tough-but necessary-ways to alleviate it.
Phi Beta Iota: It is possible to eliminate the deficit by making Medicare prices honest and stopping the borrowing of money for corporate pork that feeds political pork. It is possible to eliminate personal income taxes by adopting the Automated Payment Transaction (APT) Tax, which actually produces a great deal more revenue which is desperately needed to bail out the equally irresponsible state governments and pension funds (both government and corporate). America is hosed. It is not possible to “reset” until Washington can combine intelligence and integrity, and that may require a public revolt on both taxes and the fraudulent corrupt Electoral System that keeps the two-party tyranny in a position to continue looting the Commonwealth.
The essay below is an updated and edited version of a post I wrote here a few years ago, 
