The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Bottom line: for one third of what we spend on war, we can eradicate all ten high level threats to humanity.
Here is a more recent graphic from Medard Gabel:
We keep wondering: ‘Why do they hate us?'
Well, maybe some people are mad because we are doing things
that we would regard as unjustified and heinous acts of war
if anyone dared to do them to us.
— Stephen M. Walt in Foreign Policy magazine
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money
on military defense than on programs of social uplift
is approaching spiritual doom.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
As noted in Empathy Note #1, we live in a world where smaller and smaller groups have access to more and more destructive capability. This technology-driven danger presents us with an odd transformational imperative in which proactive love, trust and caring for each other have become more practical – I repeat: practical – than our usual strategies for self-protection.
Self-protection at the national level usually goes by two names: “defense” and “security”. Unfortunately, those two words have often been used as PR cover for policies that looks more like empire – the use of military, diplomatic, and economic force (informed by surveillance and supported by educational and cultural dominance) to make sure that other peoples do what the power center wants them to do.
Continue reading “Tom Atlee: Real Security From Empathy Not Empire”
Somaliaās al-Shabaab Has AĀ Coup
Six months ago I wrote Clearing Somalia Of al-Shabaab. Today I was reading Will Somali Islamist Purge Strengthen al-Shabaab? and I see they have not updated their map of who controls what since then, even though the situation is clearly changing.
Read full post with two graphics.
Phi Beta Iota:Ā We consider Somalia and Yemen to be two perfect candidates for any coalition that wishes to wage peace instead of war.Ā Bury them in solar power, desalinated water, hydroponic agriculture, and free celluar and Internet access.Ā Then get out of the way as they create wealth and with wealth, legitimacy and stability.
See Also:
How Can Any Company Ever Trust Microsoft Again?
Irrespective of the details of the current revelations about US spying being provided by Edward Snowden in the Guardian, there is already a huge collateral benefit. On the one hand, the US government is falling over itself to deny some of the allegations by offering its own version of the story. That for the first time gives us official details about programmes that before we only knew through leaks and rumours, if at all. Moreover, the unseemly haste and constantly-shifting story from the US authorities is confirmation, if anyone still needed it, that what Snowden is revealing is important – you don't kick up such a fuss over nothing.
Read full article with detailed indictments of Microsoft's betrayal of commercial and public trust.
NOTE: 2 years ago.Ā At TED@MotorCity, Lisa Gansky, author of “The Mesh,” talks about a future of business that's about sharing all kinds of stuff, either via smart and tech-enabled rental or, more boldly, peer-to-peer. Examples across industries — from music to cars — show how close we are to this meshy future.
Comment by zasounotsukushi: Information company, not car company – I agree that's what I see for the future. But Zipcar has left some communities feeling abandoned, and didn't do what they needed to make the consumer feel listened to. On top of that, I think there's way more to collaborative consumption than how they were going about it. I like the final point – we need transparency and need to share failures. People need to stop picturing a shiny and happy picture of a connected society, cynicism needs to be built in.
Comment by D.S. Wellhauser: Another faux-intellectual re-packaging/re-marketing old ideas with some pseudo-new ideas…TED is Dead.
When will government health departments start paying attention?
Vaccines Do Irreparable Harm: Study from Poland
A new scientific review from Poland discusses irreparable harm done by vaccines.
This review addresses the issue in terms of adverse effects, immune system effects, neurological symptoms following vaccination, and a history of vaccines demonstrating little benefit. It centers mostly on studies not often referenced in the western world, providing fresh and broad-ranging information.
An honest reading of the study can leave little doubt that harm done may be extensive and often permanent.
Read full article detailing adverse effects.
Continue reading “Sepp Hasslberger: Vaccines do Irreparable Harm + Vaccine Harm RECAP”
Unmasking organised crime networks with data
Military software engineers have developed a program that can predict the social structures of street gangs. Philip Ball explains how it could help fight crime.
One of the big challenges in fighting organised crime is precisely that it is organised. It is run a bit like a business, with chains of command and responsibility, different specialised ādepartmentsā, recruitment initiatives and opportunities for collaboration and trade. Their structures often make crime syndicates and gangs more able to evade attempts by law enforcers to disrupt their activities.
Thatās why police forces are keen to discover how these organisations are arranged ā to map the networks that link individual members. While gang structures are typically fluid and informal compared to most legitimate businesses, they are far from random. In fact, violent street gangs seem to be set up along similar lines to insurgent groups that stage armed resistance to political authority, such as guerrilla forces in areas of civil war. These kinds of organisations tend to be composed of affiliated cells, each with its own leader.
For this reason, some law-enforcement agencies are hoping to learn from military research. A team at the West Point Military Academy in the US state of New York has just released details of a software package it has developed to aid intelligence gathering by police dealing with street gangs. The program, called Orca (Organization, Relationship, and Contact Analyzer), can use real-world data acquired from arrests and the questioning of suspected gang members to deduce the network structure of a gang.
