KENT C. MYERS is a strategic management consultant to the U.S. government.
He has worked with many intelligence, military, and other
federal clients. He has a Ph.D. in Social Systems Sciences, Wharton School. Research interests include resilience strategy, inter-organizational networks and alignment, and environmental scanning.
Since 2006 he has conducted varied strategy and research tasks for the Office of Director of National Intelligence.
Stuart Anspach Umpleby (born March 5, 1944) is an American cybernetician and a professor in the Department of Management and Director of the Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning in the School of Business at the George Washington University.
He is a past president of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC). In 2007 Stuart Umpleby was awarded The Wiener Gold Medal of the American Society for Cybernetics for outstanding lifelong contributions to both cybernetics and the ASC. In 2010 he was elected an Academician in the International Academy of Systems and Cybernetic Sciences, an honor society created by the International Federation for Systems Research.
Among several other major interests, he has been a pioneering explorer of the potential for academic globalization. See especially:
Phi Beta Iota: We are deeply inpressed by this individual, who crosses harnesses Collective Intelligence to achieve Commercial Value in both Cultural and Earth contexts. His idea is infinitely scalable, infinitely valuable, and applicable to every single product and service on the planet, ultimately to included planned giving at the item level.
Phi Beta Iota: Conventional minds cannot handle the esoteric, in part because they have been dumbed down by really rotten educational systems that emphasize rote learning, and in part by social conventions that reward loyalty to idiocy over self-discovery and “branching.” We are seeing a convergence in “revelations” as more individuals achieve “hacker-like” open minds despite the Paradigms of Failure. Today we bring together three stories: Deep Secrets; UN use of climate change to achieve World Government “functionality (an oxymoron); and the M-Fund in Japan.
This Article offers a new way of thinking and talking about government secrecy. In the vast literature on the topic, little attention has been paid to the structure of government secrets, as distinct from their substance or function. Yet these secrets differ systematically depending on how many people know of their existence, what sorts of people know, how much they know, and how soon they know. When a small group of similarly situated officials conceals from outsiders the fact that it is concealing something, the result is a deep secret. When members of the general public understand they are being denied particular items of information, the result is a shallow secret. Every act of state secrecy can be located on a continuum ranging between these two poles. [Emphasis added. Click on logo for rest of abstract and Keywords.]
Phi Beta Iota: Government is broken. Ron Paul has that exactly right. It is broken for two reasons: first because over time those spending the money have grown distant from those providing the money, the individual taxpayers, AND from reality. The second reason it is broken is because knowledge itself has become fragmented, and “systems thinking” has fallen by the wayside.
Below are three quotes from a tremendous reference of lasting value to every citizen and policymaker.
ONE: Reformations and transformations are not the same thing. Reformations are concerned with changing the means systems employ to pursue their objectives. Transformations involve changes in the objectives they pursue.
TWO: The righter we do the wrong thing, the wronger we become. When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger. When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter. Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. This is very significant because almost every problem confronting our society is a result of the fact that our public policy makers are doing the wrong things and are trying to do them righter.
Review
Constantly committed to truth and honesty [this work] demonstrates his ability to grasp the real issues and to take into account the views and concerns of men of good will from all nations and all cultures. –Admiral Pierre Lacoste, French Navy (Retired), Former Director of Foreign Intelligence (DGSE)
Robert Steele goes well beyond the original visions of the best of Directors of Central Intelligence, and has crafted a brilliant, sensible, and honorable future for the intelligence profession. –Major General Oleg Kalugin, KGB (Retired), Elected Deputy to the Russian Parliament.
Robert Steele is unusual for an American….he is clearly internationalist in his orientation. He has written a book that can bring us together in facing our greatest enemies: ignorance, poverty, and mistrust. –Rear Admiral Hamit Gulemere Aybars, Turkish Navy (Retired)
Arnie Donahue was until the mid-1990's the ONLY Federal Government employee to hold ALL of the top Codeword accesses for the simple reason that he was in charge of the C4I Branch in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and “no lookee no payee.” An honest citizen, he has since 1992 been one of the foremost champions for Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), and the budget director for the Earth Intelligence Network (EIN) endeavor to create a free World Brain and EarthGame. Click above to read his 1992 presentation to the first International Conference on Naitonal Security and National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions. Click below to see all references to this pioneer.
