Footnotes

As social media and technologies continue to disseminate and evolve, making it easier for everyone to connect with everyone else, to communicate and collaborate in ways we’ve only started to anticipate, swarm intelligence may become the norm rather than the exception. As that happens, the best leader may find themselves turning for advice to the true experts in self-organization–not the ones in the boardroom, but those in the grass, in the air, in the lakes, and in the woods.

via Guest Insights: Smart swarms: The power of self-organization – Peter Miller.

Although the reflex still exists to evoke fear of these positions in political campaigning, neither pro- nor anti-state positions are meaningful in themselves. We have seen the devastating social problems that resulted from the idea that there is no such thing as society, under Thatcher, and under Blair and Brown we have learned that no amount of money can guarantee improvements in outcomes on complex issues like child poverty, education and health if we stick to simplistic notions of public service provision based on targets, top-down control and process-over-people methods.We badly need new ideas and new approaches, especially since the gulf between rising demands on public services and available funding to meet them is growing ever wider. More than anything, we need approaches that go with the grain of human behaviour and motivation, and which understand that society is comprised of inter-related complex systems, rather than reductionist management control methods.

via Social networks and the connective tissue of a Big Society :: Blog :: Headshift.

Harnessing the power of the collective crowdsourcing for social change is a thread woven throughout Cognitive Surplus, and its viability requires two of Shirky’s assertions to be accurate.

First, that our default state as a species is to create and share and collaborate, and we are just now moving back toward normalcy, aided by the vast increase in content creation and sharing mechanisms. Second, that making collaboration more convenient will inexorably cause it to become more commonplace.

Shirky makes a great case for it to be so, citing LOLCats as an example of widespread human collaboration and creation – albeit devoid of the type of society-enhancing mission and outcomes he hopes is the eventual result of this movement.

via Cognitive Surplus – Use Social Connectivity to Change the World | Book Reviews | Social Media Consulting – Convince & Convert.

…the egregore is not in total control… as the action of the social or corporate body is determined through the action of its parts, the individuals. These are intelligences that are emergent properties of the complex system that compose their bodies, and the individual people within these social or corporate bodies are not in control because they are constrained by the system in which they are embedded. As we augment our biology with cyborg technologies, we will further adapt our behaviors to the larger networks in which we are embedded, while gaining more control over our own internal networks with comprise our physical presence.

via The Art of Memetics – Ownership and Self in Networked Spaces.

While First Wave Feminism focused on suffrage, and Second Wave Feminism focused on getting women ahead in the workplace, many of the more recent fractured feminist movements have continued to ignore the importance of play and leisure in everyday lives. This all-work-and-no-play focus has ricocheted to future feminisms: none have successfully reclaimed leisure and play.

How to Play a Feminist – by Shira Chess.

It’s the fast-growing social network and attracts far less attention than its far smaller rivals such as Twitter. And it is the users, not the site, who grab chunks of content to link to.

via Facebook: friend or foe? | Media | The Guardian.

The killing of Americans through anthrax letters isn’t itself a useful end to the terrorists. Instead, the terrorists perceive that the communication of horror — not disease — through the country, along with the polarization of overseas opinion accomplished through viral marketing, will eventually lead to the adoption of their policy goals.

To counter propaganda spread in this way, we should consider using viral marketing in response.

Sophisticated Infrastructure and Experience

Casual Western observers of the frequent Middle Eastern terrorist bombings might not be familiar with the normal procedures for terrorist groups exploiting terrorist acts. The standard protocol works in this order:

1. A specific threat is made, giving a policy desire and a target.
2. The terrorism act is committed, in America for example.
3. A fake or noninvolved terrorist organization temporarily takes credit for the act.
4. Careful assessments are made of the public’s reaction to the act, both in America and in terrorist constituent countries in the Middle East.
5. A grass-roots, viral propaganda campaign is launched to frame the issue behind the terrorism.
6. Once public opinion swings to blame America for the act — even if it was an act overtly against America — the real terrorist organization takes credit for the act. Often the first group taking credit will then withdraw its initial statement.

In this fashion, the terrorist group gets the most propaganda value out of its act. If the public reacts negatively to the act, the real terrorists stand aside. Only once the viral marketing campaign kicks in and reaction swings against the US, do the terrorists take explicit credit.

via Countering Viral Marketing – ClickZ.

Have you used an online persona to accomplish self-transformation? I’m doing research for my hypersigil project currently thinking it will take the form of a free e-book, and then be extended into something else from there, and I’m looking for personal stories from people who have attempted to use online personas to make changes in their lives. Whether that meant taking up another gender identity in IRC or Second Life before taking transgenderism in real life, or crafting a different professional identity to make a career change, or using social media to get out of a rut in life, I’m interested in talking to you.

I especially want to talk to you if you’ve tried and failed.

via Wanted: people who have used an online persona for self-transformation | Technoccult.

She gives 5 tips, here’s the first 3…

1. Don’t follow just for numbers – Twitter is your chance to really get to know real people. The numbers may be worthless if you cannot connect and inspire others.

2. They are not mere avatars – They are human beings that live and breath. Twitter is full of real people that you can communicate and share with 140 characters at a time.

3. Be Yourself – Don’t be pretentious. People will recognize that you are being that way. Just be who you are in real life. If they see that you are genuine, people will warm up to you.

via Can You Have Real Friends on Twitter? | Bit Rebels.

A new study suggests that humanity’s sense of fair play and kindness towards strangers is determined by culture, not genetics. Speculation: the finding may be directly related to the rise of religion in human history, as well as more complex economies.

via Whence Altruism? | MetaFilter.

The Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) is an Open Source project based at Tufts University. The VUE project is focused on creating flexible tools for managing and integrating digital resources in support of teaching, learning and research. VUE provides a flexible visual environment for structuring, presenting, and sharing digital information.

via Visual Understanding Environment.

Gambling for salary?

The day before receiving the paycheck, each employee is required to roll a dice. A portion of their salary for the month is then multiplied by the value he/she rolls.

Travelling office

Every year for about 2-3 months, the company rents out an office in places such as Hawaii and Italy and have their employees work there. The company believes that changing the environment will nourish fresh creativity.

via A Whimsical Company: Kayac Inc. – TokyoVenture.

Memetics met with academic opposition from socio-biologists including Edward O. Wilson, and Dawkins himself expressed concern about memetics becoming an empirical science of culture. Dennett and others developed slightly different interpretations of memes from Dawkins, and the academic world has consequently been slow to adopt the new science.

Memetic Engineering developed from diverse influences, including cutting edge physics of consciousness and memetics research, chaos theory, semiotics, culture jamming, military information warfare, and the viral texts of iconoclasts William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard, and Genesis P-Orridge. It draws upon Third Culture sciences and conceptual worldviews for Social Engineering, Values Systems Alignment, and Culture Jamming purposes.

via disinformation | memetic engineering.

Seeds of AI at Google — how the internet is shaping intelligence and learning and, in turn, the role of human culture in natural selection

via Director of Research at Google and AI genius | MetaFilter.

The agent changes by learning something new, the information changes by the knowledge the agent already had. Therefore, a meme reaching an agent, will be transmitted in a changed form. Thus, cultural evolution is Lamarckian: characteristics acquired during the lifetime of the meme’s carrier can be transmitted to later carriers selectively, depending on their fitness. Natural selection will pick out the memes who survive this transmission process relatively unchanged. Therefore, the fittest memes, such as certain songs, religious beliefs, scientific laws, or brand names, will have a stable, recognizable identity.

via Memetics in Marketing: Memes Pose As The Most Effective Tool In Brand Communication.

Twitter / Home

His ideas of the mneme based on the Greek goddess, Mneme, the muse of memory were developed upon early in the 20th century. The mneme represented the memory of an external-to-internal experience. The resulting “mnemic trace” or “engram” would be revived when an element resembling a component of the original complex of stimuli was encountered.

via Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.