So, I've been working with the incomparable Sam Arbesman to write up some thoughts on the concept of “fractional scholarship.” Basically, the idea is that there are a lot of people out there who have the expertise and the interest to contribute to scholarly research, but for whom, for whatever reason, the seventy-hour-a-week academic lifestyle just doesn't work. We need to develop mechanisms that will allow people to participate in research at ten, twenty, or thirty hours a week, and to get paid for doing it.
Obviously, someone working only ten hours a week would get paid a lot less than a university professor, which is part of what makes this such a powerful model. Keep in mind that a typical university professor probably does not spend much more that ten hours a week actually doing research anyway, what with all the personnel-management and bureaucratic tasks that take up so much of their time.
Basically, all the people out there (and there are tens of thousands of them) who got a PhD, but then dropped out of academia (e.g., to have kids) represent a vast underutilized intellectual resource that is trading well below its actual value. Tapping in to that resource is one of the things that we hope to do with the Ronin Institute.
Check out the full white paper at the Kauffman Foundation website, here. [Also Below]
We need to reformulate political power. We need to do it now and we need to focus on it as central to our work on every issue, every vision, every outrage and hope.
Our goal in reformulating political power must be to move from governance that primarily serves the short term profit of the few to governance that primarily serves quality of life for all – including future generations.
In order to achieve this, we need to reformulate political power in at least five ways. All five reformulations need to synergize and support each other if we are to meet our goal. If we fail to reformulate any one of these forms of power, we risk undermining the others and falling far short of our goal.
Here is a quick outline – a draft summary, really – of a possible integrated vision of power reformulation:
Only a few weeks ago, most western observers had written off Mohamed Morsi, the new President of Egypt and a moderate member of the Muslim Brotherhood, as a stooge who would dance to the tune of the military rulers of the Egyptian deep state. That view is rapidly changing. Morsi quickly consolidated power by forcing “deep-state” generals to retire (with dignity) and replacing them military leaders of a more reformist nature and less likely to lapdogs of the US and Israel. Thus Morsi seems to have out maneuvered the deep state apparat in a similar but even quicker way than Prime Minister Recep Erdogan did in Turkey. Also, like Erdogan in Turkey, he is flexing his nation’s regional diplomatic muscle in independent and sometimes surprising ways. Big things may be happening in Egypt and the Middle East, especially in the area of foreign policy, as only a few writers have noted (see for example, Esam Al-Almin, Patrick Seale, editorialin Al-Arahm). Attached is another analysis in this vein: Immanuel Wallerstein, describes why he thinks Morsi might be on the cutting edge of profound changes shaping the Middle East. If Wallerstein is correct in his sense that the focus of regional geopolitics is about to shift back to the Palestinian Question, the US is will be caught flatfooted again and may be again on the wrong side of history, while Israel’s isolation is likely to increase.
If we analyze the geopolitics of the Middle East, what should be the principal focus? There is little agreement on an answer, and yet it is the key question.
The Israeli government has been sedulously and constantly trying to make the focus be Iran. This has been considered by most observers as an effort to divert attention from Israel's unwillingness to pursue serious negotiations with the Palestinians.
In any case, this Israeli effort has failed, spectacularly. Netanyahu has been unable to get the U.S. government to commit to supporting an Israeli raid on Iran. And Iran's ability to gather most of the non-Western world — including Pakistan, India, China, Palestine, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon — to the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran underlines the political impossibility of the Israeli wish to concentrate attention on Iran.
For the past year, the center of attention has become Syria, not Iran, even if there is a link between the two. It has been primarily Saudi Arabia and Qatar that have struggled, with considerable success, to make Syria the focus of attention. Some observers feel this has been an effort to divert attention from Saudi Arabia's internal problems and anti-Shi'a oppression in the Gulf states, especially Bahrain.
This Syria-focus however is about to come to an end, for two reasons.
(1) Little to disagree with here; (2) I remember author's name from my first years in current job; (3) there seem to be multiple reserve studies/actions ongoing now; (4) there is a major effort ongoing to reduce the number of Reserve/National Guard soldiers brought on active duty for “Active Duty of Operational Support.”
Phi Beta Iota: The article below is well-intentioned but ignorant. The infantry, 4% of the force, takes 80% of the casualties and gets 1% of the budget. There is plenty of money for a properly sized well-equipped, trained, and organized force including a National Guard optimized for domestic disorder and disaster and once in a lifetime deployment. What General Flynn is about to discover is that DIA and USDI civilians expect him to drink the kool-aid and “go along” with pathologically dysfunctional intelligence, policy, acquisition, and operations processes that are not just inadequate and ineffective, but also unaffordable. The “design” potential of intelligence with integrity has been absent from the US Intelligence Community for over 50 years now. The time has come to restore that potential….in an election year, this might be exactly what is needed, not just for DoD, but across Whole of Government. Afterthought: 18 veteran suicides a day – day after day after day. Has this been analyzed (e.g. breakdown by MOS and NG vs Active vs Reserve)?
These Days, Reservists Are Just Soldiers Who Get Laid Off Between Deployments
By Maj. Gen. Michael Symanski (US Army, ret.), Best Defense department of reserve affairs
The Army will add more time to the National Guard and Reserve training year, so let's be candid about what the “operational” reserve military forces really are: A method to avoid the cost of a full-time military of adequate size. The reserve force, which was our strategic capital banked for a once-in-a-career national military emergency, has been cashed in because our expensive regular force has been too small to wage a protracted war. We no longer have citizen soldiers; we have professional soldiers who are laid off between deployments overseas.
Digital education is today where digital music was in 2001. The digital music revolution started unintended when peer-to-peer file service “Napster” started by Sean Parker & Shawn Fanning in 1999 controversially morphed into a digital music sharing service.
It became mainstream with the highly successful launches of the Apple iPod & iTunes in 2001 and now services like Spotify are taking it to next level by integrating it to our increasingly digital lifestyle. As is the case of all life-changing trends, an unintended start changed the whole experience of buying and consuming music.
I enjoy being part of the generation caught in between a massive revolution (Digital Immigrants – Digital Natives). It is fascinating to see how technology is becoming so pervasive that it is re-disrupting cultures all over again. As in the case of digital music, the most fundamental driving force to this change is the Internet. The Internet has fundamentally boosted our ability to access and share knowledge.
The Internet has allowed us to re-imagine everything from reading a book to digesting the news to taking notes. Quite fittingly, the next big trend is going to be the disruption of education.
There’s been a long-time joke in education: if Rip Van Winkle woke up today, he’d be puzzled by just about every aspect of modern life–from planes to tablets –but he’d feel right at home in many classrooms. Now that’s starting to change in a big way.
Education has two challenges: access and effectiveness. It all started relatively quietly with Bill Gates’ favorite teacher Salman Khan’s YouTube channel, followed by highly successful “A.I. Class” experiment of Stanford University where over 160,000 enrolled from 190 countries. Here are a few other disruptive things happening right now that will changed education as we know it.
MOOCs
At the forefront we have Udacity, EdX, and Coursera (the “Big Three?”) that work with leading American universities to offer free online courses known as Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOC’s. Just in matter of months they have reached two million registered students from roughly over 200 countries. Students in MOOC’s typically watch short video lectures, complete automatically graded tests or assignments, and use online communities to work through concepts they don’t understand. MOOC’s mission is to make the world’s best academic programs accessible to masses for free.
Online Degrees
Led by 2tor, known to be most-funded education startup, there are hosts of private technology companies are on the mission of taking campuses online. They work with physical campuses to convert the courses offered in digital format so that they can be delivered online. They offer to reduce the cost of education and make the universities universally accessible.
Social Learning
Led by Edmodo, Schoology and Lore this is the most active space. The idea here is to apply modern social web technology to enhance effectiveness and management of in campus delivery of education. Most of these products have seen very large-scale adoption in the recent past and some of these are on the way to emerge as the integral part of formal education.
To me these initiatives will drive in some very fundamental change in the education. In addition to these there is a lot more happening, which I shall cover in subsequent articles. The fact is the Web’s infrastructure is built, the platforms have emerged, everyone is connected on social networks and open education resources are available everywhere; we now need to connect the dots and create a meaningful digital learning ecosystem in a way that augurs well with the digital life style of today’s learner.
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