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Theophillis Goodyear: Experts, Wisdom, and the Public

Knowledge
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Theophillis Goodyear

I'm a talented nobody. I don't even have an associates degree. And it's been my experience that some of the the most educated people tend to underestimate the importance of educating the general public.

Professionals tend to see the public as people to be managed by professionals. They see them as people who are sick, and themselves as doctors dispensing medicine.

The public doesn't have time to read all the books. They need things condensed. They have bright minds that are sponges for wisdom, but the wisdom never reaches them. A lengthy booklist won't help them, no matter how many good books are on the list. It's a tough problem, but I have one solution.

Wisdom quotes.

Can you ask all the people you know, who are copacetic with Collective Wisdom and Open Source, to collect their favorite wisdom quotes from the books they've read? Then you can post them to phi beta iota. That's almost an archaic method compared to open source technology, but it's a reliable and kitchen-tested recipe!

Wisdom quotes are like data visualization. They condense complex perspectives into readily graspable concepts.

One of my favorites, at the moment, is: In a room full of intelligent people, the smartest person in the room is the room.

Verbosity is the enemy of spreading the word about anything. Verbosity slows the information cycle—-Open Source Everything included. Someone needs to collect wisdom quotes from your field to condense all the main ideas.

The great unwashed masses are far smarter than most people realize. They're just lacking in important feedback! Wisdom quotes, widely circulated, accelerate the flow of information.

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Marcus Aurelius: Venezuela Gearing Up to Repel US Invasion – Cover for Action for Cuba Invading US?

Ethics, Government, Military, Politics
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Marcus Aurelius

Somehow, this sounds somewhat Noriega-esque.   Hugo's G-army, the territorial militias, could be a reprise of the pre-JUST CAUSE Panamanian ding-bats.) 

Venezuela plans a million strong ‘guerrilla army' against US invasion

Venezuela is training a “guerrilla army” aiming to be a million strong by 2013 to fight off a possible US invasion, an opposition MP has said.

“Plan Sucre” – apparently crafted with input from close ally and fellow US foe Cuba – covers the legal, logistical and other angles necessary to “transform a professional army into a guerrilla army,” Representative Maria Corina Machado told El Universal newspaper.

The former presidential candidate said she had obtained a copy of the plan, printed by an institution affiliated with the national army.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Venezuela Gearing Up to Repel US Invasion – Cover for Action for Cuba Invading US?”

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SmartPlanet: Bill Gates is Shit Hot — Really!

Knowledge, SmartPlanet
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Next-gen toilets that could change the world

| August 16, 2012,

Flush toilets get the job done. They also require a network of piped water, sewer and electrical connections, the kind of vast infrastructure developing nations don’t have, and likely won’t, for years.

That translates into a potentially lethal situation for the 2.5 billion people in the world who don’t have access to modern sanitation. Last year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, a competition aimed at developing a new generation of Johns, crappers and loos that can capture and process human waste and turn it into useful resources, such as energy and water.

The end goal is to improve sanitation in a world where 1.5 million children die every year due to diarrhea caused by food and water tainted with fecal matter.

The competitors could design just about whatever kind of toilet they wanted. The toilets just had to be affordable and able to operate without traditional modern infrastructure such as piped water, sewer or electrical connections. The Gates Foundation brought in 50 gallons of fake feces made from soybeans and rice for the demonstrations, which were held this week in Seattle.

And the winners are …

The California Institute of Technology earned the $100,000 first prize for designing a solar-powered toilet (pictured below) that generates hydrogen and electricity.

The toilet uses a solar panel to power an electrochemical reactor. The reactor breaks down water and human waste into fertilizer to be used for agriculture, and hydrogen, which can be stored in hydrogen fuel cells as energy. The treated water can be reused to flush the toilet or for irrigation.

Loughborough University in the UK won the $60,000 second prize for a toilet that produces biological charcoal, minerals and clean water. The University of Toronto won the third-place prize of $40,000 for a toilet the sanitizes feces and urine and recovers resources and clean water.

Eawag, or the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, and EOOS received a $40,000 special recognition prize for their design of a toilet user interface.(See photo to the right).

The toilet challenge isn’t over. The Gates Foundation has awarded grants to four universities to develop the 2.0 toilets for the next round of the challenge.

Read full article with more photos.

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SmartPlanet: How Brain Deals with Waste

Advanced Cyber/IO, Knowledge
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A dirty mind – scientists discover how your brain deals with waste

| August 15, 2012,

Every day, as you move about in the world, your brain is chugging along with you. Just like any other engineer, or organ, as it works, millions of neurons firing and guiding you around, the brain builds up waste products. But for a long time it wasn’t clear where that waste went. Now, scientists think they know the answer.

They’re calling the draining pipes the “the glymphatic system” – after the glial cells that control it and the lymphatic system that it resembles. The system works like a series of pipes to funnel waste away from the brain. A new paper in Science Translational Medicine describes the system as they observed it in mice.

Researchers knew about a slower system to remove waste. A fluid called the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) moves through the brain and carries away waste through diffusion. But this new system works much faster. Senior author on the paper Maiken Nedergaard describes how the system works in the press release:

“It’s as if the brain has two garbage haulers – a slow one that we’ve known about, and a fast one that we’ve just met,” said Nedergaard. “Given the high rate of metabolism in the brain, and its exquisite sensitivity, it’s not surprising that its mechanisms to rid itself of waste are more specialized and extensive than previously realized.”

But how was there an entire structure for draining in the brain, without us knowing about it? The press release explains:

Read full post.

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Tom Atlee: Conflict and How Gifts of Conversation Can Help

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
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Tom Atlee

Conflict and the varied gifts of powerful conversation

The power of conversation is real but not total.

People sometimes take an oversimplified perspective of the power of dialogue, deliberation, and choice-creating to deal with tensions between people. EIther they think “just talk” can't do much to resolve serious conflicts or they think talking can resolve any and every conflict. I think both perspectives fail to appreciate the specific gifts powerful conversation brings to the table in times of conflict.

I'll share here how I think about these potential gifts. It is important to keep in mind that they all depend on the choice and quality of the conversational processes used.

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