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National Security Policy Survey of the Literature

INFORMATION

Robert David SteeleOSS CEO

bear@oss.net

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