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 Tuesday, April 1, 2003
Thoughtful pieces on emergent democracy. Via the emergent democracy channel, two excellent recent items:
- A UK civil servant's thoughts on how to influence politics through collectively developing coherent, articulate positions that have popular support.
- New Harvard blogger Jim Moore's wonderful paper The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head. Here's a choice quote on the newfound power of the individual within the global social movement:
"The shared, collective mind of the second superpower is made up of many individual human minds?your mind and my mind?together we create the movement. In traditional democracy our minds don?t matter much?what matters are the minds of those with power of position, and the minds of those that staff and lobby them. In the emergent democracy of the second superpower, each of our minds matters a lot. For example, any one of us can launch an idea. Any one of us can write a blog, send out an email, create a list. Not every idea will take hold in the big mind of the second superpower?but the one that eventually catches fire is started by an individual. And in the peer-oriented world of the second superpower, many more of us have the opportunity to craft submissions, and take a shot." (emphasis mine)
In a complex world it makes sense to use the intelligence of many more people to reach decisions - if only we can craft a process that effectively allows all of us to think together. I don't think we're there yet, but things are moving fast in many directions at the same time. [Seb's Open Research]
The idea of a second superpower is very intriguing and one that I find very attractive. The devil will be in the details (i.e. can a second superpower balance the first superpower? Or will it get pulled in 1000 different directiosn at once?) 4:44:39 PM 
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The February issue of the American Society for Cel .... The February issue of the American Society for Cell Biology Newsletter has two important articles on open-access publishing: (1) Gary Ward, The Crisis in Scientific Communication: A View from the Trenches and (2) Suzanne Pfeffer, The ASCB's Commitment to Free Access Publishing. Quoting Ward: "[N]o publisher of which I am aware has provided credible evidence demonstrating that [free] access to its content after a reasonable delay would be financially damaging....[S]cientists need to ac- knowledge that a fundamental conflict of interest exists when copyright ownership of the scientific literature is held by parties whose primary interest is profit, rather than dissemination of scientific knowledge." Quoting Pfeffer, the President of the ASCB: "[T]he [ASCB] Council determined at its May 2002 meeting that any renegotiated agreement with publishers to offer their journals to the ASCB membership must include free electronic access within six months after publication....Join me in supporting free access to content within a short time after journal publication. Our tax dollars and private foundations pay for the research; we give our hearts and souls to science, and we should not be doubly taxed by unreasonable and mounting subscription costs for either our labs or our libraries." [FOS News]
Some very important words. Scientific publsihing is in for a huge change. The tidal wave is starting to pile up and will come crashing down, altering the terrain forever. Only the adaptable will survive. 3:23:26 PM
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I got an email yesterday with the following story:When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by George Bush.
He answered by saying that, "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return."
It became very quiet in the room. Great story. But whenever I get anything like this I always check, usually at The Urban Legands site. Sure enough, they have the scoop on this story.
As so often turns out with a great story, reality is quite different. In this case, reality is actually much more interesting and displays why I have a tremendous amount of respect for Powell.
The big conference was the World Economic Forum at Davos in January and you can read the entire transcript of his speech and the Q/A afterwards.
It was a former Archbishop who asked a question and it was not whether we were empire building in Iraq. It was a somewhat convoluted question dealing with the proper use of soft or hard power, when to use each and how we should. He was worried that the US may be relying too much on hard power instead of soft power.
Powell then gave an incredibly eloquent answer, expressing the views of most Americans. Simply, We do not like to use hard power. We prefer soft but if hard is the only way, we will not shirk from using it. Read his response. It is much better than this short synopsis.
I do not disagree with this. I think many people worldwide would agree that hard, military power has to be used. The disagreement comes deciding what point must be reached before hard power needs to be used. My favorite quote from his repsonse is this: I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.
So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world. After he finishes this, there is loud applause. Not a silent room. A lot of people agree with him. Then he next speaks the part that was quoted in the story, although there is substantial editting to make it more powerful and, in fact, more miltaristic and disrepectful of the audience. His real words are just as important and heartfelt but they do not have the hard edge that is present in the story.We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we've done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works. Not as pretty as the story. Powell's answer to this one question was interrupted twice by applause. His entire speech was interrupted 8 times. The audience treated him with respect, as he did the audience. The first question was put to him by the Secretary General of Amnesty International. The one following was by a businessman. Both asked very good questions in a respectful fashion. Powell answered both with the same measure of respect, never dismissive in his response. He showed a strong sense of humility and a sharp sense of history.
The truth is SOOO much more complex and interesting than the skewed message in the email. If you want to get tears in your eyes, read the answer to the last question. The moderator asked Powell how 9/11 had affected him personally.
This man is someone I would trust with my country. My major worry has been that his views have become more marginalized in the Administration over the past year, if not longer. There are strong neoconservative views opposing his moderate ones. When several advisors wanted to go after Saddam within days of 9/11, not because Iraq was involved but because it fit their strategic views, Powell more than anyone else forced the focus back to Osama.
If Powell can avoid the long knives and forge a strong political career separate from Bush, he could have a huge effect on the future course of America. At least in my (not so humble) opinion.
How his career will play out is not knowable but here is one person's opinion. 2:59:46 PM
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Journalists at war beat the DoD home with news. For hardened broadcast journalists, the shift to digital, lightweight gear is quite a transition. To edit and feed a story from Iraq, crews connect their minicams into laptop computers with a firewire cable, and then edit their pieces with software available at almost any computer supply store. They compress the files, sometimes using Windows Media or Real Networks, and transit it over a satellite phone. Newsrooms receive the clip, decompress it and transfer it to a video server, making it available to just about anyone with a desktop computer. [Smart Mobs]
These technologies will only grow more powerful in the next few years as everyone starts to really use them in adaptable and creative ways. It will also become even more important to identify appropriate filters for the huge amount of information. Those people and organizations that can help create knowledge from the torrent of information will be much more successful. Those that can not will use everything in their power to negate the advantage of nimbleness these new approaches provide. I believe that eventually they will fail. It is only a matter of time. 10:11:42 AM
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