Review: The Living Universe

5 Star, Communications, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Economics, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Extra-Terrestrial), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks)
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Amazon Page
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars Evolutionary Activism Takes On New Life

December 6, 2009

Duane Elgin

I was led to this book by Tom Atlee, whose earlier book, The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All completely redirected my thinking in positive directions, and whose new book on Reflections on Evolutionary Activism (soon on Amazon, now at the Public Intelligence Blog) pointed me toward this book as well as Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution and other books on cultural evolution.

In the face of the almost complete collapse of the post-World War II political, economic, and social paradigms (see my free chapter on Paradigms of Failure at the Public Intelligence Blog or within Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography), I feel POSITIVE, and this book and the many human minds and hearts this book represents are the reason I am confident that Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential and Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution are on the immediate horizon.

Paul Hawkin's captures the spirit of WHY this book on the Living Universe matters–his most recent book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming is the tip of the iceberg.

The greatest value for me of this book is that it is a superb overview of many different concepts from both science and the world of religion–this is a sense-making book not a simple book.

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Journal: The Cost of Being Black

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence
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THE COST OF BEING BLACK

White Americans have long resisted the idea of reparations to the descendants of slaves.We examine the psychological basis of such resistance, primarily testing the possibility that resistance may be a function of Whites’ perception of the ongoing cost of being Black. White participants (n = 958) across twelve independent samples (varying in age, student status, and geographic location) were asked variations of the question: How much should you be paid to continue to live the remainder of your life as a Black person? Participants generally required low median amounts, less than $10,000, to make the race change, whereas they requested high amounts, $1,000,000, to give up television.

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Journal: Withdrawal? We Don’t Need No Stinking Withdrawal…

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Government
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Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

Clinton And Gates: No Deadline On Afghan Withdrawal — We Swear!

Chuck Spinney Sends….

In today's cameos [summary attached below] on the Sunday talk show circuit, Defense Secretary Gates (no doubt the Surge's wily deus ex machina) and Secretary of State Clinton (Gates' transparent accomplice) stated again that there is no deadline for a withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.  This proves again, as if any more proof were needed after their appearances before Congress last week, the whole Surge-and-Withdrawal Strategy enunciated by President Obama in his West Point speech last Tuesday was a Bait-and-Switch Strategy to sucker the anti-war base of the Democratic Party, while locking in the long-term budgetary benefits of the Long War on Terror for the cash-bloated MICC.  Which begs the question: Is Mr. Obama the real decision maker or an empty suit carrying the water for an emergent National Security Regency chaired by Secretary Gates, with Secretary, CJCS Admiral Mullen, and General McChrystal as the senior voting members?  Unfortunately, the postmortem purporting to analyze Obama's “decision” process in today's New York Times does little to clarify this important question.

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Journal: Surveillance State Expands Part II

IO Secrets, Uncategorized
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Telecomm Spy Manuals
Telecomm Spy Manuals

Phi Beta Iota: To be good at intelligence (decision-support) it is important to have a sense of balance between secret and open sources; between collection and processing; and between unilateral and multinational anaysis.  The welcome acknowledgement by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) that we spend $75 billion a year on secret intelligence and covert action, combined with the recent release of most of the U.S. telecommunications spy manuals now posted at Cryptome, suggest that we are out of balance.  We still don't balance between secret and open source collection; we still don't have all-source processing; we still don't do multinational engagement with any depth or breadth; and we still don't provide decision-support to 95% of the federal, state, and local government clients and customers with serious needs.

See also:

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Search: Counterintelligence & Capitalism

Uncategorized
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Great search!  We've been thinking recently about writing a piece on Strategic Counterintelligence that begins with Sun Tzu's guidance to “know oneself.”  Your search is encouraging.  It boils down to one word: INTEGRITY.  The problem emerges when we fail to invest in education (as opposed to rote Weapons of Mass Instruction), this ultimate produces a cheating culture in which the political parties are running on empty, Congress feels it can be in breach of trust, and the White House is easy to hijack by a combination of Wall Street-Trilateral Commission and neo-conservatives or neo-liberals partisans.

States fail for two reasons:

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Journal: ClimateGate Sunday 6 Dec 09

Earth Intelligence
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Phi Beta Iota: The media is being deliberately stupid. IPCC is not “the UN.” The UN Secretary General has opened an investigation and is accutely aware of both the crisis this fraud represents, and the opportunity for revisiting the Brahimi Report recommendations.

Climategate controversy has echoes of Watergate, UN says

The e-mails, which were sent over a 15-year period ending on November 12, first appeared on websites run by sceptics on November 17.

Full Report  Online
Full Report Online

Climategate: Caught Green-Handed !

Written by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley. Cold facts about the hot topic of global temperature change after the climategate scandal.  The table of contents from the SPPI Report:
The Whistle Blows For Truth
Revealed: The Abject Corruption Of Climate Science
The Nature ‘trick' To ‘hide The Decline' In Temperatures
Breaking The Broken Code: Dissecting The Dodgy Data
Mainstream Media Are Silent, But The Internet Roars
Freedom Of Information? What Freedom?
Why The Truth About Temperature Matters
Terrestrial Vs. Satellite Temperature Records
More Official Dishonesty About Global Temperature
A Nation Tampers With Its Temperature Record
Lying Even To Children
Al Gore's Temperature-Related Falsehoods
What Is To Be Done?
Essential Readings

The Trick is Still a Trick
The Trick is Still a Trick

Sects, lies and climate-gate – Facts will not alter Obama policy

In the wake of the release of evidence proving that global warming studies have been falsified, and investigations into other global warming researchers believed to have also altered data, President Obama is still determined to commit the USA to regulations that will drastically increase the cost of doing business.

Letter from Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) to President Obama:  Although details have not been made available, recent statements by Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern indicate that negotiators may be intending to commit the United States to a nationwide emission reduction program. As you well know from your time in the Senate, only specific legislation agreed upon in the Congress, or a treaty ratified by the Senate, could actually create such a commitment on behalf of our country.

Review (Guest): Adam Smith in Beijing–Lineages of the Twenty-First Century

4 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Resilience, Country/Regional, Economics, Future, History, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
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Amazon Page

REVIEW (Guest) by By Malvin

Historical perspective on China's ascent,
December 19, 2007

Giovanni Arrighi

“Adam Smith in Beijing” by Giovanni Arrighi delivers a sophisticated history and analysis of the rise of the Asian economy. Displaying a deep knowledge of world history including novel insights into the works of Adam Smith and Karl Marx, Mr. Arrighi helps us understand why China's ascent has arrived at the moment when the dream of a single world capitalist state as conceived and championed by the U.S. has failed. Impeccably researched and cogently written, this accessible book succeeds in providing historical perspective on how China has come to be a key player on the world stage.