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ICANN: Response to John Gilmore from Joe Sims |
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| Topic: Society |
11:13 pm EDT, Jul 5, 2002 |
Joe Sims has responded to criticism from John Gilmore, on Dave Farber's Interesting People-mailing list. Sims states that Gilmore "doesn't have a clue about most of what he is talking about, and thus his views are basically worthless." Sims writes: "Since John Gilmore chooses to use my name in his imaginary history of how we got to where we are, I thought it would be appropriate to lay out the real facts. ... Perhaps Gilmore once had something to offer of value, but that does not include either political science or history. ... [Gilmore's] greedy lawyer canard ... simply reveals [his] lack of understanding of the law business. ICANN: Response to John Gilmore from Joe Sims |
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Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think and Communicate |
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| Topic: Society |
8:52 pm EDT, Jul 5, 2002 |
In _The Selfish Gene_, Richard Dawkins sought to describe cultural evolution in biological terms with the newly coined term "meme." Here, Cambridge anthropologist Robert Aunger theorizes on the nature of this so-called "thought gene." In doing so, Aunger coins a term of his own, "neuromemetics," proposing that memes are in fact self-replicating electrical charges in the nodes of our brains. The author explains that the shift in perspective from Dawkins's purely social memetics to a memetics working at the intercellular level is akin to sociobiology's view of social behavior as a genetic trait subject to evolution. This is an ambitious book on a par with Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine. Unlike the handful of pop-culture treatments out there, Aunger steers clear of the popular image of the meme as a VD-like brain parasite passed by word of mouth. That said, this book is that rare hybrid of crossover science writing that carries enough intellectual punch to warrant thoughtful peer review, and yet should appeal to those ambitious general readers who are in the market for a megadose of mind candy. This rocks! 400 pages of serious thought about memetics. Amazon offers up the book's introduction for your review. Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think and Communicate |
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Interview with Alan Kay in the Journal of the Center for Business Innovation |
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| Topic: Society |
9:31 pm EDT, Jun 28, 2002 |
From Cap Gemini Ernst and Young, this publication might be compared to the Harvard Business Review. Here's a soundbite about the center: The Center for Business Innovation is a source of new knowledge and insights for management. We exist to discover and develop innovations in strategy, organization, and technology that deliver high value to business. Our work, performed in collaboration with leading thinkers in business, academe, and other research organizations, fuels development of new strategic consulting services, and is communicated broadly to general business audiences. On the subject of "connected innovation", the current issue of their journal includes, among other things, an interview with Alan Kay. Alan Kay is one of the most influential computer scientists of the modern era. His contributions, among many others, include the concept of the personal computer. We sat down with him to discuss his take on how innovations happen. In brief, Alan Kay rocks. Interview with Alan Kay in the Journal of the Center for Business Innovation |
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The PLO and Its Factions [PDF] |
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| Topic: Society |
11:08 pm EDT, Jun 27, 2002 |
Here's a primer on the PLO from a specialist at the Congressional Research Service. Identifies the major players involved and provides a paragraph or two on each of them. Summary: During the current Palestinian uprising, several Palestinian factions apparently linked in varying degrees to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) have used violence in an effort to force Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territory. There is a debate over the degree to which PLO Chairman and Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat is willing and able to prevent anti-Israel violence by these factions. The PLO and Its Factions [PDF] |
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Dark Fiber, by Geert Lovink | The MIT Press |
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| Topic: Society |
8:45 pm EDT, Jun 26, 2002 |
According to media critic Geert Lovink, the Internet is being closed off by corporations and governments intent on creating a business and information environment free of dissent. Calling himself a radical media pragmatist, Lovink envisions an Internet culture that goes beyond the engineering culture that spawned it ... In Dark Fiber, Lovink combines aesthetic and ethical concerns and issues of navigation and usability without ever losing sight of the cultural and economic agendas of those who control hardware, software, content, design, and delivery. He examines the unwarranted faith of the cyber-libertarians in the ability of market forces to create a decentralized, accessible communication system. He studies the inner dynamics of hackers' groups, Internet activists, and artists, seeking to understand the social laws of online life. Topics include ... sustainable social networks, mailing list culture, and collaborative text filtering. Howard Rheingold says, "Geert Lovink taught me how to think critically about technology, and I always turn to him for thoughtful and humane analysis." Mark Dery says, "Geert Lovink is the Linus Torvalds of open-source theory. Where he leads, I follow." Others say, "Lovink is our major thinker about ... the social design of technology." ... "Lovink is an inventor of new innovative forms of net-based discourse ... I think of Lovink as a network of distributed sensors." This book will be available in September. Dark Fiber, by Geert Lovink | The MIT Press |
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| Topic: Society |
6:40 am EDT, Jun 12, 2002 |
There's been much talk in the past few weeks about failures to connect the dots to find a pattern that might have alerted us to the terrorist plot of Sept. 11. Recently I visited a dot in a more fearsome pattern configuring the virtual certainty of mass terror involving nuclear, chemical or biological weapons if the international coalition does not extend its efforts from hunting al Qaeda-like cells to locking up the ingredients of mass destruction. The dot I visited was at Mayak, east of the Ural Mountains in Asian Russia. There, a huge concrete sarcophagus rises from the landscape. Its purpose is to entomb some 20,000 nuclear bombs' worth of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. Ashton Carter on protecting former Soviet nukes. Throw the Net Worldwide |
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Linked: The New Science of Networks, by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi |
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| Topic: Society |
9:37 pm EDT, Jun 9, 2002 |
This book has a simple message: think networks. It is about how networks emerge, what they look like, and how they evolve. It aims to develop a web-based view of nature, society, and technology, providing a unified framework to better understand issues ranging from the vulnerability of the Internet to the spread of diseases. Networks are present everywhere. All we need is an eye for them ... We will see the challenges doctors face when they attempt to cure a disease by focusing on a single molecule or gene, disregarding the complex interconnected nature of the living matter. We will see that hackers are not alone in attacking networks: we all play Goliath, firing shots at a fragile ecological network that, without further support, could soon replicate our worst nightmares by turning us into an isolated group of species ... Linked is meant to be an eye-opening trip that challenges you to walk across disciplines by stepping out of the box of reductionism. It is an invitation to explore link by link the next scientific revolution: the new science of networks. You can read the first chapter of this book [in PDF format] at http://www.nd.edu/~networks/linked/chap1.pdf Linked: The New Science of Networks, by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi |
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Too Much Information, Not Enough Knowledge |
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| Topic: Society |
9:34 pm EDT, Jun 9, 2002 |
Missed opportunities haunt us. On Sept. 11, information was everywhere. ... Was there another way? A system or technology to alert the victims to the opportunities for escape and to guide them away from the dead ends? A way to turn that ad hoc information network into a real public safety system? From intelligence agencies to business leaders to copier repairmen, the critical issue is no longer getting information, but getting the right information to the right people at the right time. And that turns out to be one of the hardest tasks around. ... When organizations are structured more like the Internet, with its multiple routes for information, and less like a top-down fiefdom, information flows more freely and efficiently. ... So far, no chips-and-code solution can match the capabilities of the prepared mind -- what John Seely Brown wrote about in the book "The Social Life of Information." When people connect, he says, they can connect the dots. Too Much Information, Not Enough Knowledge |
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Why the U.S. Will Always Be Rich |
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| Topic: Society |
6:31 am EDT, Jun 9, 2002 |
No nation on earth has ever tried as hard, and failed as utterly, in its efforts not to become rich as America has. From the start our great leaders have tried to steer us away from the pitfalls of great wealth. Almost all of our great thinkers and writers have joined the cause. Great wealth leads to decadence and complacency, and hence to corruption and decay. And yet when it comes to leading the simple life, we are utter failures. The average household in America now pulls in about $42,000 a year. The average household headed by someone with a college degree makes $71,400 a year. A professional degree pushes average household income to more than $100,000. If you are, say, a member of one of those college-grad households with a family income of around $75,000, you probably make more than 95 percent of the people on this planet. You are richer than 99.9 percent of the human beings who have ever lived. You are stinking rich. David Brooks, senior editor at The Weekly Standard, in the Sunday New York Times magazine. Why the U.S. Will Always Be Rich |
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Global Networks, Linked Cities | edited by Saskia Sassen |
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| Topic: Society |
11:31 pm EDT, Jun 6, 2002 |
In her pioneering book The Global City, Saskia Sassen argued that certain cities in the postindustrial world have become central nodes in the new service economy, strategic sites for the acceleration of capital and information flows as well as spaces of increasing socio-economic polarization. One effect has been that such cities have gained in importance and power relative to nation-states. In this new collection of essays, Sassen and a distinguished group of contributors expand on the author's earlier work in a number of important ways, focusing on two key issues. First, they look at how information flows have bound global cities together in networks, creating a global city web whose constituent cities become "global" through the networks they participate in. Second, they investigate emerging global cities in the developing world -- Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Beirut, the Dubai-Iran corridor, and Buenos Aires. They show how these globalizing zones are not only replicating many features of the top tier of global cities, but are also generating new socio-economic patterns as well. These new patterns of development promise to lead to significant changes in the structure of the global economy, as more and more cities worldwide are integrated into globalization's circuitry. Global Networks, Linked Cities | edited by Saskia Sassen |
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