Patrick Meier: Big Data, Disaster Resilience and Lord of the Rings

Data, Resilience
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Patrick Meier
Patrick Meier

Big Data, Disaster Resilience and Lord of the Rings

The Shire is a local community of Hobbits seemingly disconnected from the systemic changes taking place in Middle Earth. They are a quiet, self-sufficient community with high levels of social capital. Hobbits are not interested in “Big Data”; their world is populated by “Small Data” and gentle action. This doesn’t stop the “Eye of Sauron” from sensing this small harmless hamlet, however. During Gandalf’s visit, the Hobbits learn that all is not well in the world outside the Shire. The changing climate, deforestation and land degradation is wholly unnatural and ultimately threatens their own way of life.

. . . . .

There’s been push-back of late against Big Data, with many promoting the notion of Small Data. “For many problems and questions, small data in itself is enough” (1). Yes, for specific problems: locally disconnected problems. But we live in an increasingly interdependent and connected world with coupled systems that run the risk of experiencing synchronous failure and collapse. Our sensors cannot be purely local since the resilience of our communities is no longer mostly place-based. This is where the rings come in.

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Andrew Garfield: War and T/Error: The U.S. Counter-propaganda Failure in Iraq

Cultural Intelligence, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency
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andrew garfield
Andrew Garfield

Middle East Quarterly (Fall 2007) pp. 23-32.

by Andrew Garfield

Defeat of the insurgency and terrorism in Iraq requires not only a military approach but also a political component. Although the “surge” may stabilize parts of Iraq and reduce the level of violence while the additional troops remain in place, long-term stability requires a more holistic approach.

Frank Kitson, a retired British military officer whose writings influenced British operations in Northern Ireland, argues that the “main characteristic that distinguishes campaigns of insurgency from other forms of war is that they are primarily concerned with the struggle for men’s minds.”[1] To defeat the insurgency, coalition forces must persuade the Iraqi population to reject extremism and deny safe haven to those fighting the new Iraqi political order. This will require dialogue, inducements, and the proportionate use of force to win the battle for “hearts and minds.”

Effective engagement with key segments of the Iraqi population requires, in turn, a comprehensive information operations campaign. To date, it is this component that is most lacking in coalition strategy. The coalition has failed to counter enemy propaganda either by responding rapidly with effective counter messages or by proactively challenging the messages, methods, and ideology that the insurgents and extremists promote and exploit.

While terminology may vary—some officials refer to information operations as strategic communications, influence operations, psychological operations, perception management, or just propaganda—the intent to influence the hearts and minds of target audiences through the effective use of information remains constant.

In Iraq, while the coalition fumbles its information operations, the insurgents and militia groups are adept at releasing timely messages to undermine support for the Iraqi government and bolster their own perceived potency. They are quick to exploit coalition failures and excesses; they respond rapidly to defend their own actions, often by shifting blame to the authorities; and they hijack coalition successes to argue that change only occurs as a result of their violence. The slow speed of the U.S. military’s clearance process—typically it takes three to five days to approve even a simple information operations product such as a leaflet or billboard—creates an information vacuum that Iraqis fill with conspiracy theories and gossip often reflecting the exaggerations or outright lies of insurgents and extremists.

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Berto Jongman: Worth a Look — Modern Catastrophism

Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Extraterrestial Intelligence
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Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

A registered educational charity. Registered under the Charities Act, 1960 – registration no. 286264. 



       The oldest and most up-to-date Society

      for information and research

      into cosmic catastrophes

      and ancient chronology revision

Visit home page, many links, index since 1960.

The Society's PRINCIPAL  OBJECT is ‘to advance  the education  of the public and, through the combined use of historical and contemporary evidence of all kinds, to promote a multidisciplinary approach to, and specialised research into, scientific and scholarly problems inherent in the uniformitarian theoriesin astronomy and history,  and thus to promote active consideration by scientists, scholars and students of alternatives to those theories.'  One of the Society's  furtherances of its ‘Principal Object' is ‘to promote co-operation between workers in specialised fields of learning in the belief that isolated study is sterile'.

The SIS is a UK-based, non-profit-making organisation with a worldwide membership, which includes laymen and academics alike. With its publications, Chronology & Catastrophism Review and Chronology & Catastrophism Workshop, plus residential weekend conferences and general speaker meetings, it brings together people from a wide-ranging spectrum of backgrounds and beliefs. The Society also:
 

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4th Media: US/Israel, Britain, France Reach Consensus on Syria Invasion with their Arab Allies

03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence
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4th media croppedThe US/Israel, Britain, France and Their Arab Puppets Reach “Consensus” on Syria Invasion

Western and Arab military leaders have reached a “consensus” on military intervention in Syria over accusations that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons, a Jordanian security official told German news agency, DPA.

“It was decided that should the international community be forced to act in Syria, the most responsible and sustainable response would be limited missile strikes,” the official said on condition of anonymity on Tuesday following a meeting held in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

The military leaders led by Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey agreed to prepare for the strike as early as this week, the official added.

Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman said UK armed forces are devising contingency plans for military action against the Arab country over the alleged use of chemical weapons.

The UK has been reportedly sending warplanes and military transporters to its airbase in Cyprus, situated near Syria.

US defense officials also say several navy destroyers have been deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean to be used against Syria upon an order of President Barack Obama.

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Berto Jongman: Not Just the NSA: Data Brokers Amass Detailed Profiles on Everyone Online

07 Other Atrocities, Commerce, Corruption
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Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

This month, a strongly worded Washington Post op-ed by Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill calling for transparency in the business practices of the online data broker industry provoked a heated response.

While the ACLU and other privacy advocates have long had their suspicions about how and why data brokers were tracking individuals, as the commissioner stated in her op-ed:

It took the NSA revelations to make concrete what this exchange means: that firms, governments or individuals, without our knowledge or consent, can amass large amounts of private information about people to use for purposes we don’t expect or understand.

Clearly displeased with the link to the NSA scandal, Linda Woolley—CEO and president of the Direct Marketing Association—fired back with an open letter to the commissioner. In the letter Woolley attacks the commissioner, claiming she disregards the benefits of data collection and unfairly demonizes the entire industry. But the commissioner is right to focus on the data broker industry’s troubling practices.

Interestingly, that massive, secret databases of individuals are being created and sold is not the issue under debate. That’s a simple and open matter of fact. For example:

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Berto Jongman: US View on Al Qaeda and Training of Syrian Rebels

Civil Society, Commerce, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence
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Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

U.S.: Al Qaeda-linked Group Behind Benghazi Attack Trains Jihadists for Syrian Rebel Groups

Ansar al-Sharia running training camps in Benghazi and Darnah

U.S. intelligence agencies earlier this month uncovered new evidence that al Qaeda-linked terrorists in Benghazi are training foreign jihadists to fight with Syria’s Islamist rebels, according to U.S. officials.

Ansar al-Sharia, the al Qaeda-affiliated militia that U.S. officials say orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound and a CIA facility in Benghazi, is running several training camps for jihadists in Benghazi and nearby Darnah, another port city further east, said officials who discussed some details of the camps on condition of anonymity.

The officials said the terror training camps have been in operation since at least May and are part of a network that funnels foreign fighters to Syrian rebel groups, including the Al-Nusra Front, the most organized of the Islamist rebel groups fighting the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus.

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Max Manwaring: Translating Lessons Learned in Colombia and Other Wars Among the People: Confronting the Spectrum of 21st Century Conflict

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
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Dr. Col Max Manwaring
Dr. Col Max Manwaring

Translating Lessons Learned in Colombia and Other Wars Among the People: Confronting the Spectrum of 21st Century Conflict

Translating Lessons Learned in Colombia and Other Wars Among the People: Confronting the Spectrum of 21st Century Conflict

Small Wars Journal, 27 August 2013

Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless global war on terror—but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.  In many cases, this will involve partnerships with other countries…we must help countries modernize economies, upgrade education, and encourage entrepreneurship—because American leadership has always been elevated by our ability to connect with peoples’ hopes, and not simply their fears.

– President Barack Obama, Speech at the National Defense University, 23 May 2013

When we think about the possibilities of conflict, we Americans tend to invent for ourselves a comfortable U.S.-centric vision with an enemy who looks and acts more or less as we do, and a situation in which the fighting is done by conventional military units.  We must recognize, however, that in protecting our interests and confronting a hegemonic adversary today, the situation has changed.  That change is illustrated in different ways, ranging from the identity of the enemy to the very nature of conflict.  General Rupert Smith, (UK, Ret.) reminds us that,  “War as cognitively known to most non-combatants, war as a battle in a field between men and machinery, war as a massive deciding event in a dispute in international affairs, such war no longer exists…The old paradigm was that of interstate industrial war.  The new one is the paradigm of war amongst peoples.”[[1]] 21st Century reality, then, depicts an ambiguous, complex, and dangerous global security arena.  Some of the issues that emerge from an examination of the contemporary conflict arena are briefly outlined in subsequent parts of this article, and are outlined as follows:

Full article with notes below the line — Manwaring is one of America's greatest thinkers on this topic.

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