5 Star – Page 55 – Public Intelligence Blog

2012/02/182012/02/18

Review: The Information Diet – A Case for Conscious Consumption

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Communications, Consciousness & Social IQ, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Survival & Sustainment, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Clay Johnson

5.0 out of 5 stars Gift Book, Gift Idea, Gift Economy, Get a Grip,February 18, 2012

I received a copy of this book as a gift, and gladly so since the top review at this time is unfairly dismissive while also confessing that the reviewer only read the first third of the book (but evidently not the preface (first page) that states plainly (first sentence, actually), “The things we know about food have a lot to teach us about how to have a healthy relationship with information.”

Having just reviewed The Telescreen: An Empirical Study of the Destruction and Despiritualization of Consciousness, and so many other books here at Amazon, I easily connect the point in last night's reading: that food, medicine, education, and the media are all “co-conspirators” in dumbing down a human population whose brains started out as enormous pools of potential creativity, to this book. The information — and the food and the medicine and the tabloid garbage we are ingesting — is killing us.

What the first reviewer completely misses is that this is the first manifesto, beyond The Age of Missing Information, to actually focus on how out of control our relationship is to the world of information. As a lifetime professional in these matters I can state clearly that not only are governments substituting ideology for intelligence and corruption for integrity, but so are all the other communities of information (academia, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, and non-government / non-profit. We live in a totally corrupt world where — right now — banking families (Rothschild et al) own the banks and the banks own the two-party tyrannies (or the outright dictators) that own government, and they own the the corporations, with the 99% being expendable fodder for 1% theft from the commonwealth. This book is a cry from the heart, and an eloquent one at that.

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2012/02/172012/02/18

Review: The Telescreen – An Empirical and Philosophical Study of the Destruction of Consciousness in America

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Communications, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Public), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Jeffrey Grupp

5.0 out of 5 stars You need a brain to read this book; if you have one, the book will scare you,February 17, 2012

I have been keeping in touch with “alternative” sources for some time, ever since I realized in about 1988 that neither the US secret intelligence world nor the US media were at all reliable — they are each very good at what they choose to do, but that does not include the public interest.

The author refers very often to his 2007 book, Corporatism: The Secret Government of the New World Order, to the point that I do recommend that be bought and read before this book.

I am hugely impressed by this author. He does detailed, meticulously documented research and the presentation is excellent. I especially like footnotes I can see while reading the body instead of endnotes.

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2012/02/122012/02/12

Review: Intelligence – From Secrets to Policy 5th Edition

5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Mark Lowenthal

5.0 out of 5 stars The only primer available in English, February 12, 2012

I am an intelligence professional and I know both the author and the subject of this book intimately. Dr. Lowenthal's book represents the *only* available “primer” on intelligence that can be understood by Presidents, Congressmen, the media, and the public.

Dr. Lowenthal's book focuses on the U.S. Intelligence Community itself–the good, the bad, and the ugly. He is strongest on analysis and the politics of intelligence, somewhat weaker on collection and counterintelligence covert action. There is no other book that meets the need for this particular primer, and so I recommend it with enthusiasm.

If you do not like the book, you definitely should not consider a career in intelligence.

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2012/02/102012/02/10

Review: Too Big to Know – Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Public Administration, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

David Weinberger

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple Enough to Shake the Most Obtuse Leaders, February 10, 2012

First the disclosures. I asked for a copy of this book to review, David Weinberger being one of my heroes and I being unemployed at this time. They gave it to me and now that I have read it, I will be donating it to the Oakton, VA public library.

Second, the subtitle. The subtitle of the book captures the entire field perfectly, and richly merits emphasis: “Rethinking knowledge now that the facts aren't the facts, experts are everywhere, and the smartest person in the room is the room.” This is the final nail in the coffin of secret intelligence communities and companies devoted to proprietary software. There is nothing intelligent — nor substantively valuable — about “closed” environments if ones purpose is to optimize both the allocation of resources and outcomes beneficial to the public.

Third, the historical context. Many people have been focused on the changing role of knowledge coming into the 21st century, and I list just five of the books below to make the point that in the context of all else, this book says it better, more easily graspable for the non-digital leaders struggling to decide where to go next –this book is highly relevant to the 1950's mind-set leaders of all eight tribes of intelligence: academic, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, and non-governmental / non-profit.

The exemplar: The exemplary performer in the age of productivity
Radical Man: The Process of Psycho-Social Development
The Knowledge Executive
Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era
Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century

Summarizing the book concisely: everything we do now with hierarchical organization, hoarded information, restricted accesses, and isolation from the full range of external sources and methods, is wrong for the times.

Here are the five recommendations the author discusses in his last chapter, every single one of them poorly addressed by most organizations, and especially those that are highly bureaucraticized:

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2012/02/10

Worth a Look: Liars and Outliers – Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive (Bruce Schneier)

5 Star, Information Society, Worth A Look

How does society function when you can't trust everyone?

When we think about trust, we naturally think about personal relationships or bank vaults. That's too narrow. Trust is much broader, and much more important. Nothing in society works without trust. It's the foundation of communities, commerce, democracy—everything.

In this insightful and entertaining book, Schneier weaves together ideas from across the social and biological sciences to explain how society induces trust. He shows how trust works and fails in social settings, communities, organizations, countries, and the world.

In today's hyper-connected society, understanding the mechanisms of trust is as important as understanding electricity was a century ago. Issues of trust and security are critical to solving problems as diverse as corporate responsibility, global warming, and our moribund political system. After reading Liars and Outliers, you'll think about social problems, large and small, differently.

AUTHOR BIO

BRUCE SCHNEIER is an internationally renowned security technologist who studies the human side of security. He is the author of eleven books; and hundreds of articles, essays, and academic papers. He has testified before Congress, is a frequent guest on television and radio, and is regularly quoted in the press. His blog and monthly newsletter at www.schneier.com reach over devoted 250,000 devoted readers world-wide.

“The closest thing the security industry has to a rock star.”
—The Register

Phi Beta Iota: Brother Schneier is not normally associated with coercion as a solution, and he is plain wrong to advance this thesis in the book. Transparency, and an educated public that embraces the truth for the right reasons, is how you achieve scalable trust.

Robert Garigue at Phi Beta Iota

Robert David Steele, THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth, & Trust (Evolver Editions, 5 June 2012)

2012/02/052016/05/19

Review: Leverage – How Cheap Money Will Destroy the World

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Karl Denninger
STRONG FIVE – Original, Award-Winning, Major Contribution, February 5, 2012

On the very last page of the book I learn that the author received the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award for Grassroots Journalism, for his coverage of the 2008 market meltdown. This confirms my own already formed very high estimation of the author and his work. In fact, although I normally do links at the end of the review, let me open with some other books that are world-class and within which I place this work as comparable:

The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History
SAVAGE CAPITALISM AND THE MYTH OF DEMOCRACY: Latin America in the Third Millennium
Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (New in Paper)

Here is the author's three-line conclusion to the longer chapter that ends the book (my own notes in parenthesis):

01 Federal and state governments KNEW what was going on, and are COMPLICIT. (This introduces me to the reality of “control fraud,” where the government commits impeachable acts that are not sanctioned; I also learn in this book that when Congress passes laws it does not include sanctions for failure by the GOVERNMENT to uphold those laws.)

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2012/02/01

Review: Ecological Economics – Principles and Applications (Second Edition)

5 Star, Complexity & Resilience, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Science & Politics of Science, Survival & Sustainment, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

cover ecological economics new — Amazon Page

Herman Daly

5.0 out of 5 stars Nobel Level Foundation for Resilience & Sustainability, February 1, 2012

Dr. Herman E. Daly may well be a future Nobel Prize winner …he is especially well-regarded in Norway and Sweden, where he has received prizes one step short of the Nobel. He is the author, co-author, or primary contributing editor of many books that fully integrate the disciplines of economics and ecology. I bought the three most recent for the purpose of selecting one to give out at my annual Global Information Forum. I ended up choosing For The Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future, in part because it is available in paperback and is not a more expensive “trade” publication; and in part because it is strong in laying out specific ecological policy areas in the context of a strong theological or ethical perspective. More on that in its own review.

Of the three books (the third one that I reviewed is Valuing the Earth: Economics, Ecology, Ethics) this, the text-book, is assuredly the most up-to-date and the most detailed. If you are buying only one book for yourself, this is the one that I recommend, because these are important issues and a detailed understanding is required with the level of detail that this book provided. It should, ideally, be read with “Valuing the Earth” first (see my separate review of that book, from the 1970s updated with 1990s material and new contributions), then “For the Common Good”, and finally the text book as a capstone. But if you buy only one, buy this one.

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