Public Intelligence Blog – Page 1320 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

2016/09/262016/09/25

Berto Jongman: Nicolas Kayser-Bril – “Truth is a Niche Market” – Publishers Have No Interest in the Truth

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This essay was written for the Retreat Conference 2016 organized at Athens, Greece, on September 24^th, 2016.

Data-driven journalism in the post-truth public sphere

The novelty of the 2010’s is the disdain of public figures for the truth. Michael Gove, quoted above, justified lying not by producing an excuse immediatly as Machiavelli advised, but by insulting people who said the truth. Not only is truth considered unimportant, it is clearly marked as a value defended by the “other”: it is an undesirable value.

Publishers and, with them, most journalists, do not work to serve the truth. They serve three possible and not mutually exclusive objectives: cater to the interests of a donor (which can be a public institution, a private one or an oligarch), sell attention to advertisers or sell content to customers. None of these objectives necessitate the production of factual truths. Let us look at these three objectives in details.

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2016/09/252016/09/25

Gareth Porter: Syria is Not About Saudi Pipeline

Peace Intelligence

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The War Against the Assad Regime Is Not a “Pipeline War”

If it's not a pipeline war, why is the US intervening in Syria? The US decision to support Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in their ill-conceived plan to overthrow the Assad regime was primarily a function of the primordial interest of the US permanent war state in its regional alliances. The three Sunni allies control US access to the key US military bases in the region, and the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department and the Obama White House were all concerned, above all, with protecting the existing arrangements for the US military posture in the region.

2016/09/252016/09/25

Joe Brewer: The Connective Intelligence of Life

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The Connective Intelligence of Life

Try to find a boundary anywhere in the system and you’ll quickly realize that no actual boundaries exist, everything is interconnected. How can this insight be applied to the convergence of global crises humanity is now confronting? First off, we can name the confusion around “issues” that claim global warming to be separate from violence against women; wealth inequality separate from extreme opulence; police brutality separate from systems of marginalization and oppression; and so on. All of these things are connected. Yet our minds are conditioned to treat them as separate entities.

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2016/09/252016/09/25

Stephen E. Arnold: Palantir Attacks US Army, Geosparsing, DoD Buries In-Q-Tel, Digital Currencies Neither Anonymous nor Reliable

IO Impotency

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A Congressman Seems to Support Palantir Gotham for US Army Personnel: I was disappointed that a reference to the F 35 was not included. From my vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, the F 35 program is a more spectacular display of procurement goofs.

Geoparsing Is More Magical Than We Think: The article acts as a promo piece for the GeoDoc application, however, it does delve into the details into how geoparsing works and its benefits.

Improvements in News and Military Technology Coming: DoD looks out the windshield of innovation and In-Q-Tel looks at the world via a rear view mirror.

Digital Currencies: Anonymity and Trust Not Working at Peak Efficiency: Other major issue with Bitcoin is that it is unregulated. It can lose its entire value in a single day.

2016/09/252016/09/25

Antequinus: David Quinn on Saving Civilization

Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

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Ishmael author Daniel Quinn: Saving the World, Moving Beyond Civilization

If the world is saved, it will not be by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all. No matter how many new laws you pass we’re not going to survive here if we go on clinging to the medieval belief that humans belong to an order of being that is separate from and superior to the rest of the living community. All the laws and programs in the world won’t do it if that false belief remains in place.

Video below the fold.

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2016/09/242016/09/22

Yoda: Riot Not Slack (Open Source Tool Integration)

Advanced Cyber/IO, IO Impotency

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Would you buy a C4I system from the same people that built the F-35 and the USS Gerald Ford? Of course you would. That's why you are dysfunctional.

Riot (formerly known as Vector while it was running in Beta) is a new UK-borne app. It’s aiming to bring conversations and productivity tools together, across different apps, and providing the ability to tweak and host your own version by being open source, while also being secure. Riot is built on Matrix, an open standard for decentralized persistent communication. Riot lets teams share data and collaborate on projects across different communication apps and third party tools. It uses Matrix to bridge to external networks such as Slack, IRC, Twitter and Gitter.

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2016/09/242016/09/22

Nik Peachey: Expertise.tv Webinar Tool

IO Tools

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Useful free platform for anyone who wants to share or sell their expertise through live webinars.

Expertise.tv is one option to consider. A practice account is free forever and provides unlimited webinars and unlimited attendees, webinar recording and storage, simple video content creation, private rehearsal options, and screen sharing for hosts. This free option would be ideal for Elsa, Amel, and Robert to practice with but would demand a time commitment. Enhanced service levels from Expertise.tv are available at $25, $95, and $195 a month, adding what appears to be very useful business development and marketing functionality including automated lead generation, PowerPoint and PDF presentation tools, email and text reminders, calendar booking including individual one-hour coaching engagements, live audience analytics, payments management, and 24/7 support options. Expertise.tv is optimized for leveraging Facebook as a lead generator and amplifier of offered content.