Intelligence (Public) – Page 50 – Public Intelligence Blog

2000/05/292009/12/04

Review: World Brain

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Future, History, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Extra-Terrestrial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Misinformation & Propaganda, Philosophy, Strategy

Updated Edition is Even Better,

May 29, 2000

H. G. Wells

First published in 1938, a modern edition is vastly improved by the addition of a critical introduction by Alan Mayne. Very much focused on how a world-brain might alter national policy-making, how Public Opinion or an “Open Conspiracy” might restore common sense and popular control to arenas previously reserved for an elite. The information functionality of the World Brain easily anticipated the world wide web as it might evolve over the next 20-30 years: comprehensive, up to date, distributed, classification scheme, dynamic, indexes, summaries and surveys, freely available and easily accessible. We have a long way to go, but the framework is there. The communication functions of the world brain would include a highly effective information retrieval system, selective dissemination of information, efficient communication facilities, effective presentation, popular education, public and individual awareness for all issues, and facilitate social networking between organizations, groups, and individuals. The world brain is the “virtual intelligence community” qua noosphere. This is one of the fundamental references for anyone thinking about the future of politics, economics, or social systems.

2000/04/172009/12/04

Review: Out of Control–The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Extra-Terrestrial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Co-Evolution of Man and Machine,

April 17, 2000

Kevin Kelly

Kevin has produced what I regard as one of the top five books of this decade. A very tough read but worth the effort. I had not understood the entire theory of co-evolution developed by Stewart Brand and represented in the Co-Evolution Quarterly and The Whole Earth until I read this book. Kevin introduces the concept of the “hive mind”, addresses how biological systems handle complexity, moves over into industrial ecology and network economics, and concludes with many inspiring reflections on the convergence of biological and technical systems. He was easily a decade if not two ahead of his time.

2000/04/082009/11/01

Review: Who Owns Information?–From Privacy To Public Access

5 Star, Information Society, Intelligence (Public)

A Real Benchmark–The Post Office Owns Your Name,

April 8, 2000

Anne Wells Branscomb

This is a unique book by a very respected scholar. It methodically goes, chapter by chapter, over who owns your name and address (the U.S. Postal Service does), your telephone number, your medical history, your image, your electronic messages, video entertainment, religious information, computer software, and government information. The answers are not always obvious. A real benchmark.

2000/04/082009/11/01

Review: The exemplar–The exemplary performer in the age of productivity

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Leadership

Productivity Primer–One of Five Basic Books for InfoAge,

April 8, 2000

Robert R Carkhuff

This book had a profound influence on me, helping me to understand that the functions fulfilled by an employee dealing with “things” are completely distinct from the functions fulfilled by an employee dealing with “ideas”, and that completely different educational, training, management, and compensation models are needed for the new “Gold Collar” worker. From this book I realized that virtually everything we are doing in U.S. education and U.S. personnel management and training today is way off the mark and at least a decade if not two or three decades behind where we could be in human productivity management.

2000/04/072009/11/01

Review: Power/Knowledge–Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Information Society, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Tough Read, Worth the Trouble,

April 7, 2000

Michel Foucault

Some serious food for thought here. Not only is the power to define madness, criminality, and sexuality addressed, but also the active use of criminals, and sex, to suppress and subjugate the populace. Somewhat more difficult to wade through but similar to Norman Cousins, it helped provoke my thinking on how top-down unilateral command based on secrets is inevitably going to give way to bottom-up multicultural decision-making by the people based on open sources evenly shared across networks. This is really very heavy stuff, and it helps call into question the “rationality” of both the Washington-based national security policymaking process, and the “rationality” of spending $30 billion a year on secrets in contrast to what that $30 billion a year might buy in terms of openly-available insights and overt information peacekeeping.

2000/04/072009/11/01

Review: Collective Intelligence–Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks)

Personal, Social, and Knowledge Space,

April 7, 2000

Pierre Levy

This dude is a heavy hitter, and it says a lot that this one made it over the water from the French original. Clearly a modern day successor to Jacques Ellul (The Technological Society) and before him Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Levy begins with the premise that the prosperity of any nation or other entity depends on their ability to navigate the knowledge space, and the corollary proposition that the knowledge space will displace the spaces of the (natural) earth, (political) territory, or (economic) commodity. He is acutely conscious of the evil of power, and hopes that collective intelligence will negate such power. He ends with a warning regarding our construction of the ultimate labyrinth, cyberspace, where we must refine the architecture in support of freedom, or lose control of cyberspace to power and the evil that power brings with it.

2000/04/072009/11/08

Review: Powershift–Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Economics, Education (General), Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks)

One of Five Really Core Books on Information Age,

April 7, 2000

Alvin Toffler

Alvin augments our vocabulary with terms like “info-warrior”, “eco-spasm”, “super-symbolic economy” and “powershift.” He examines the relationship between violence, wealth, and knowledge and concludes that an entirely new system of wealth creation is emerging, as well as entirely new approach to information dissemination that places most of our command and control, communications, computing, and intelligence (C4I) investment in the dump heap with the Edsels of the past. He anticipates both the emergence of information wars at all levels, and the demise of bureaucracy. He cautions us about the emerging power of the “Global Gladiators”-religions, corporations, and terrorists (nice little mix) and concludes that in order for nations to maintain their strategic edge, an effective intelligence apparatus will be a necessity and will “boom” in the 21st Century, with the privatization of intelligence being its most prominent break from the past.