Review: The Bhagavad Gita–A Walkthrough for Westerners

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Religion & Politics of Religion, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page
5.0 out of 5 stars Speak the Truth, Lose the Anger, Be Part of the Whole
February 10, 2010
Jack Hawley

It took me fifty years to recognize the deficiencies of the command and control or top down elite-dominated model of governance, and to discover the spiritual and practical integrity of collective intelligence, openness, appreciative inquirty, deliberative public dilaog, and so on. It's taken another seven years to discover detachment from outcome, and that in turn set the stage for what I find to be the absolute essence of this book: speaking truth to power is half the battle, losing the anger is the other half. Harder to do than it sounds, this Westernized version of the Bhagavad Gita does help.

Here are the two paragraphs I pulled from page 129 and then 147 for intelligence (decision-support) professionals:

“Those who transcend the gunas are in essence watchers, beyond the worldly. Although constantly aware of the inevitable cycle of birth, disease, senility, grief, and so forth, they dwell above it all, and merely witness it.

My personal take on the above is that sacred dispassion is a prerequisite for both spirtual vision and professional integrity.

“Always tell the truth, Arjuna, and present it in as pleasant a way as possible. If you cannot do that, remain silent. If something absolutely needs to be said, you must uphold the truth, but find a way to do it that is gentle and obliging.”

Talk about one's life flashing past–A for truth, F for gentle. Something to work on in my last 20 years.
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Review: The Global Mind – The Ultimate Information Process

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design
Amazon Page

Hans Swegen

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary Book, January 23, 2010
By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)

This book is available immediately from WHSmith. I recommend it without reservation, it is in my top dozen books on the World Brain – Global Brain -Global Mind – Collective Intellgence reading area.

Amazon seems to be deleting a lot of reviews from top reviewers, which I find quite annoying. Indeed, Amazon has become so unreliable, on top of being unresponsive to years of requests for simple changes (e.g. being able to access all reviews by a specific reviewer against a specific search such as “World Brain” that I finally created Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, where you can access all reviews in each each of 98 reading categories, all leading back to Amazon, but not dependent on Amazon.

This book is extraordinary in that is directly connects information to DNA and makes an absolutely fascinating case for how every single atom on the planet is an information element, and all of the atoms in the whole are the Global Mind.

There are no notes, and normally this would set me off, but I found the personal reflections of this author so utterly extraordinary that I can not find fault on this point.

Other books I recommend along with this one:
World Brain (Essay Index Reprint Series)
Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Emerging Worldwide Electronic University: Information Age Global Higher Education (Praeger Studi)
The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
The Tao of Democracy: Using co-intelligence to create a world that works for all
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

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Review: Global Mind

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Education (General), Education (Universities), Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks)
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary Book

January 23, 2010

Hans Swegan

This book is available immediately from WHSmith. I recommend it without reservation, it is in my top dozen books on the World Brain – Global Brain -Global Mind – Collective Intellgence reading area.

Amazon seems to be deleting a lot of reviews from top reviewers, which I find quite annoying. Indeed, Amazon has become so unreliable, on top of being unresponsive to years of requests for simple changes (e.g. being able to access all reviews by a specific reviewer against a specific search such as “World Brain” that I finally created Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, where you can access all reviews in each each of 98 reading categories, all leading back to Amazon, but not dependent on Amazon.

This book is extraordinary in that is directly connects information to DNA and makes an absolutely fascinating case for how every single atom on the planet is an information element, and all of the atoms in the whole are the Global Mind.

There are no notes, and normally this would set me off, but I found the personal reflections of this author so utterly extraordinary that I can not find fault on this point.

Other books I recommend along with this one:
Continue reading “Review: Global Mind”

Review: The Empathetic Civilization–the Race to Global Consciousness in a World of Crisis

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Future, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars HUGE Book, Deep Look From One Perspective

January 14, 2010

Jeremy Rifkin

This is a society-changing piece of work.

This is a magnum opus from a very specific point of view that overlooks both major consciousness figures and major biosphere figures. Herman Daly gets one note, Tom Atlee, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Steve McIntosh are not in this book. Buckminster Fuller, Paul Hawken, the Meadows, E. O. Wilson on Consilience, J. F Rischard on HIGH NOON, etcetera, are not in this book. My review begins after the Table of Contents, which the publisher failed to provide using standard Amazon tools for publishers.

Table of Contents

I The Hidden Paradox of Human History

HOMO EMPATHICUS

2 The New View of Human Nature
3 A Sentient Interpretation of Biological Evolution
4 Becoming Human
5 Rethinking the Meaning of the Human Journey

EMPATHY AND CIVILIZATION

6 The Ancient Theological Brain and Patriarchal Economy
7 Cosmopolitan Rome and the Rise of Urban Christianity
8 The Soft Industrial Revolution of the Late Medieval era and the Birth of Humanism
9 Ideological Thinking in a Modern Market Economy
10 Psychological Consciousness in a postmodern Existential world

THE AGE OF EMPATHY

11 The Climb to Global Peak Empathy
12 The Planetary Entropic Abyss
13 The Emerging Era of Distributed Capitalism
14 The Theatrical Self in an Improvisational Society
15 Biosphere Consciousness in a Climax Economy

– – – – – – – –

If this book is reprinted, it should be single-spaced. The massive bulk (675 pages) is pretentious and not necessary, especially for those of us that read when traveling, and for students having to carry books around. As noted earlier the author leaves out a great deal and I will offer ten links below (and over 300 links at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog where I have posted “Worth a Look: Book Review Lists”). This review focuses on the righteous theme the author has pursued across multiple literatures.

The book's bottom line is well summarized in the jacket flaps and comes at the very end as the author aspires for a combination of biosphere consciousness and distributed capitalism, the latter made possible by a combination of backyard energy and global information and communications technologies (ICT). Early in the book the author discusses how the wealthy dominated water power in the Medieval Period, but the poor were able to use windmills anywhere–this makes an impression on me as it did on the author.

The author has a story to tell and as I go through the book I am constantly reminded of books and points not in this book, but I abandoned my first draft of my review because it focused too much on work by others and not enough on the enormous task this author has taken on. In a nutshell, the author believes that the same revolutions in energy and communications that lead to a growth in human consciousness also lead to a commensurate crisis in earth or biosphere viability. In today's era the potential crisis (widely anticipated in the 1970's and deliberately ignored by the White House and the Senate for selfish corrupt reasons) is playing a forcing function, potentially catalyzing the rethinking of philosophy, economics, and our social models.

There are three negatives to this book that for any other author or theme would have dropped the book to a four, but I feel a five is still warranted for both the heroic personal effort of the author, and the importance of the theme.

#1. There is no appreciation that I can see of the fact that we are returning to the wisdom of the indigenous cultures that we have genocided since 1941, not only in the USA but in Australia, Africa, and elsewhere. This is not new wisdom that the author is bringing to bear, but old wisdom that is being rediscovered.

#2. The author fell prey to the Climate Change manipulation of data and hyperbole as well as nine documented errors in the British law suit against Al Gore, who has been asked to return his Academy Award. I won't belabor this now that the fraud of Climate Change has been adequately exposed, I will just say this: the UN High Level Panel on Threats, Challenge, and Change is the more honest and substantive endeavor, and Environmental Degradation, #3 of 10 after Poverty and Infectious Disease, is properly ranked. Climate Change is less than 10% of that, and within Climate Change carbon emissions are 10% at most, and much less important than sulfur or mercury. Carbon trades are fraud–a form of phantom wealth engineered by Maurice Strong and shilled by Al Gore, with the International Panel on Climate Change director–a railway engineer, not a scientist–happily lining his pockets by making the science fit. Learn more at the ClimateGate Rolling Update at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog.

#3. This is a book for the one billion rich, and it does not really address the five billion poor, and so I felt a continuing sense of annoyance as I read, recognizing this as a “salon” work for funders and the well-off, rather than a grass roots books focused on bottom-up social change. For that, see the books I list below.

Having disclosed those three “nits,” I am hugely positive on this book and its theme. The author observes that historians tend to document the negatives–the wars and the conflicts–and gloss over the periods of peace and prosperity and I buy into that. We don't do enough to isolate and extend the “good news.”

Here are other fly-leaf notes:

+ Empathy is rooted in selfhood, enables dialog that in turn allows reconciliation.

+ Today transparency and cooperation are displacing secrecy and competition.

+ Importance of touch, of reversing the isolation of the individual as a cog in the machine.

+ Herding of humans began in 4000 BC with hydraulic civilizations, not with the Industrial Revolution as some have suggested

+ Energy advances appear to stimulate changes in communications (including computing and intelligence)

+ Mothers and mothering matter, root of selfhood and stability that enables exploring and innovation

+ Darwin's later work looked at empathy among animals and between different species

+ Faith and emotion are an important part of “humanity” and of “intelligence”

+ Religions are NOT inherently empathetic, tend to both focus on the other worldly and to exclude those not of the same religion

+ The author does well as a single individual researcher but there is a lot in this book that is simplistic for lack of access to deeper works by others

+ Soil salinity has collapsed civilizations before ours including the Romans

+ Nice discussion of the Gnostics who felt that the real sin of man was in not understanding self and the human potential for divinity (Barbara Marx Hubbard and Buckminster Fuller have focused on this in more recent times)

+ Medieval Period ran out of wood the way we are running out of oil

+ Interesting discussion of print as a facilitator for both individuality and the scientific method

+ Light discussion of schools, not connected with the broader literature on pedagogy and mass instruction.

+ Energy changes impact on space and time perceptions. Electricity and Morse code took global communications and connectivity to a whole new level

+ Child development runs throughout this book in an interesting manner

+ Disconcerting notes include English as the universal language (Chinese over-taking fast followed by Hindi); everyone is a tourist (this would be news to the five billion poor); no more aliens, decline of religion (not from where I sit).

+ Author is excessively dependent on Climate Change as a stimulus, I totally agree with the author's sense of urgency, but all ClimateGate has done is set science back in the public esteem by at least a decade.

+ The author provides an engaging discussion of the coming 3rd Industrial Revolution in which we will further embrace new indices of immaterial wealth and move from property to access and from co-optation to cooperation.

+ The book closes with a discussion of how social skills are changing and now half theater and half authentic, which may not be as odd as it sounds, as individuals must master both deep multi-cultural empathy and the ability to project open authenticity despite violent disagreement with “the other.”

This book is absolutely worth buying and reading–it would be better if it were single spaced and much less bulky. I hope the paperback version goes to single space; there is no justification for doubling the bulk of this content.

Ten links as allowed by Amazon:
Reflections on Evolutionary Activism: Essays, poems and prayers from an emerging field of sacred social change
Radical Man
Social Change 2.0: A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World
The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Human Goodness
Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential
Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century
Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

See all my other reviews relevant to this specific books and its focus at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, but specifically the “good news” books visible throughĀ  Worth a Look: Book Review Lists.

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Review: Evolutionary Activism by Tom Atlee

6 Star Top 10%, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Future, History, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Extra-Terrestrial), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Leadership, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Priorities, Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Coming Soon
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NOW AVAILABLE AT AMAZON FOR $15

THIS IS A ‘MUST BUY” FOR ANYONE WHO CARES…

Tom Atlee, author ofĀ  The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All has been moved at this particular point in time to present to all of us with an extraordinary collection of short stories and paired poems that develope a very important new theme, that of Evolutionary Activism.

There is no other person who has had more influence on the activities of Robert Steele and the various endeavors of OSS.Net, Inc. and its multinational conferences (1992-2006) as well as the follow-on Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 Public Charity pioneering the modern World Brain with embedded Global Game.

The bottom line: intelligence professionals (and politicians and policy professionals, but one thing at a time) should stop trying to produce answers and instead focus on producing a process that connects all stakeholders with both one another and with all of the relevant information including especially historical, cultural, and anticipatory information.

Below, honoring Tom and his gifted integration of science, spirtuality, and sacredness, is our blurb offered for the dust jacket, and our review.Ā  There is also a link to our rough Word Table, a device we use for the most serious books of import to the future of civilization.

I cannot do this inspiring book justice. I see it as a manifesto, a handbook–a gift of love and truth like no other. Tom Atlee, one of a handful of pioneers in the collective intelligence arena, offers all of us a launch point for what he calls evolutionary activism–thought and action that result in conscious evolution of both the individual and society. He stresses that the many tipping point crises that now threaten us (most of our own making) are in fact the perfect environment for calling us out to be creative, innovative, and adaptive. He points to three evolutionary dynamics guidance: the integration of diversity; a constant alignment with reality; and the harmonization of self-interest with the wellbeing of the whole. A marvelous tour of the emerging evolutionary activist landscape. — Robert Steele, CEO Earth Intelligence Network, #1 Amazon non-fiction reviewer

Full Review (and below the review, the Word Table):

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Review: The Living Universe

5 Star, Communications, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Economics, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Extra-Terrestrial), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks)
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars Evolutionary Activism Takes On New Life

December 6, 2009

Duane Elgin

I was led to this book by Tom Atlee, whose earlier book, The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All completely redirected my thinking in positive directions, and whose new book on Reflections on Evolutionary Activism (soon on Amazon, now at the Public Intelligence Blog) pointed me toward this book as well as Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution and other books on cultural evolution.

In the face of the almost complete collapse of the post-World War II political, economic, and social paradigms (see my free chapter on Paradigms of Failure at the Public Intelligence Blog or within Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography), I feel POSITIVE, and this book and the many human minds and hearts this book represents are the reason I am confident that Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential and Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution are on the immediate horizon.

Paul Hawkin's captures the spirit of WHY this book on the Living Universe matters–his most recent book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming is the tip of the iceberg.

The greatest value for me of this book is that it is a superb overview of many different concepts from both science and the world of religion–this is a sense-making book not a simple book.

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Review: Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Communications, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, History, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond 6 Stars–And a Seventh for Accessible Pricing

December 5, 2009
Peter A. Corning
I could spend a lifetime reading and re-reading this book, and each of the cited sources, and not waste the time at all. This is one of the most extraordinary works I have encountered, and while I cannot do it justice, I will summarize it. Four other books that join this one in framing my third and last stage of life:
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Revised and Updated 5th Anniversary Edition: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits

Bottom line: Humanity can evolve, must evolve, and the Whole Earth, Co-Evolution concepts that Stewart Brand and others pioneered (not mentioned here), that indigenous people's everywhere have understood for centuries, are a natural path for us all. We *can* create a prosperous world at peace.

Short version of the book: Synergy is cool again, synergy and self-organization complement each other and are distinct; bioeconomics is hugely important and supports the premise that the whole is larger than the sum of the parts and that interactions and exchanges can and should be done for the whole, “beyond selfishness,” cybernetics rules, information is the space between, and ethics is both a form of cybernetics and a cultural adaptation that helps the whole evolve and persist.

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