® National Security Policy Survey of the Literature INFORMATION Robert David Steele OSS CEO [email protected] Updated 19 August 2002
Mar 27, 2015
®
National Security Policy Survey of the Literature
INFORMATION
Robert David SteeleOSS CEO
Updated 19 August 2002
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Plan of the Brief
• You have 150 books in the lecture handout.
• Will only cover 50 or so of them now.
• Complete text reviews for over 350 books are at OSS.Net, at Amazon, and in the red and green books
• Information• Intelligence• Emerging Threats• Strategy & Structure• Blowback, Dissent &
International Relations• US Politics, Leadership
& the Future of Life
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Relevant Readings onInformation
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Bloom on Biology of Intelligence
• When conformity enforcers silence diversity generators the group is committing mass suicide
• Language and culture kill half our brain cells
• Internal processing more vital than external collection
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H. G. Wells on World Brain
• World Brain is alive and using the Internet
• Public intelligence and public education will change the way we make policy, conduct operations
• Biggest change is going to social--who we talk to and why (more diversity).
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Swegen on Global Mind
• DNA carries information in the 2033 nucleotides that comprise molecule
• Mind & matter, energy & ecology all come together to form a global mind that reaches outward from Earth.
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Levy on Collective Intelligence
• National prosperity depends on ability to navigate knowledge space
• Power is pathological and can only be balanced and overcome by collective intelligence.
• Cyberspace needs rules or freedom will be lost there.
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Harman on Global MindChange
• Scientific “objectivity” and primacy of economic institutions have corrupted our thinking and set stage for massive upheavals around the world.
• Value-based decision-making is vital to the future of our world.
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Saul on Pathology of Reason
• Secrecy is pathological, undermines public confidence
• Intelligence is about disseminated knowledge, not about secrets
• Western thinking has been corrupted by its focus on industrial processes in isolation from culture.
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Shattuck on Forbidden Knowledge
• Knowing too much too fast can be dangerous
• There are things we should not know or be exposed to
• Neither of these premises supports secrecy
• Secrecy undermines the ability of people to self-govern and self-defend
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Wilson on Unity of Knowledge• All knowledge is related
and interactive--science without the humanities is mis-guided dangerous science
• Knowledge and education must be universally distributed within the public, not held back by selected policymakers
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McKibben on Missing Information
• Information is not a substitute for “being there”
• Television killed history--media only acknowledges reality for which film exists (last 40 years vice 4000)
• One day of human observation is vastly more valuable than one day of electronic noise.
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McKenna on Real-Time
• Forget about trying to predict or impose a future
• Instead, cast a very wide net of intimate probes for early warning of what your clients need
• Then be able to collect, process, and deliver in real-time, over and over again
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Evans & Wurster on New Values
• Knowing who knows and knowing how to find what you need to know will be more important than knowing anything specific
• Must deconstruct organizations away from production orientation and toward customer orientation
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Davenport & Beck on Attention
• 1) Global Coverage for AWARENESS
• 2) Surge target-local focus for ATTENTION
• 3) Domestic political focus for ACTION
• 10 seconds for scanning, 3 minutes for attention: new standard for products
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Kelly on the Hive Mind
• Biological systems are much more competent than automated systems when it comes to handling complexity and generating options
• We are decades behind in understanding how to make our machines smart
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Strassmann on Productivity
• Information productivity can be measured
• Most information technology initiatives provide a negative return on investment
• Managers have abdicated their responsibilities and allowed technicians to create “out of control” systems
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Stoll on Snake Oil
• Internet is imposing a cultural change, impacting on human relations
• Internet brings with us considerable costs and undocumented dangers
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Dertouzos on Human Needs
• Software has faults by default, is not human-centered
• Should get to one device and on-the-fly changes in function
• Microsoft and other legacy winners are the obstacle to reform
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Denning on Storytelling
• Technical data inadequate• Complex visions best
illustrated by stories• Allows audience to fill in
the gaps and become stakeholders
• World Bank earns more by sharing knowledge than it does by lending money
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Toffler on PowerShift
• Information is power• New C4I is distributed,
not owned by State• Bureaucracy is dead• Non-state actors have
more information, more power, than state--and they are faster at using it