Transparency + Government
Jon Udell is covering some preliminary steps to government transparency from the ground up: technologically empowered groups utilizing open software to compile and manipulate data.
All the government has to do is release the information in standardized form.
On AACS
J. Alex Halderman explains why the the AACS encryption scheme is destined to collapse. Basically, disruptive innovators are too fast and on target. (They’re inside the industry OODA loop.)
Tigerhawk Does Not Understand Warfare
Tigerhawk offers a compelling read, but then moves into a flawed understanding of what should come next. The core of this misunderstanding is that he does not understand superempowered individuals and, as a result, warfare. This embracing of nationalism is indicative of those lacking a framework.
As individuals are progressively empowered, which is to say progressively accentuated as humans, large scale collective movements – like nationalism – die. This is the divergent nature of multiple empowered decision cycles. This is what is termed “a sapping of national will”. The only way to force the millions of decision cycles into one, once residual nationalism dissipates, is to become a police state.
Instead, as described in Brave New War, a better option is to scale down the amount of decision cycles involved. Let warfare, as it has for hundreds of years, define the state.
Empowerment is inversely proportional to the size of the collective. It is time our state structures reflected that.
On The Insurgent Advantage
Nice overview of Brave New War by David Brooks. Link is for full article.
Plenty of basic overview quotes, but my favorite:
He’s collected his thoughts in a fast, thought-sparking book, “Brave New War” that, astonishingly, has received only one print review — distributed by U.P.I. — in the month since it’s been published.
Given that the book is selling – #214 on Amazon – this is indicative of how bottom-up this evolution is. Snazzy.
Kris Alexander + John Robb
Wired’s Danger Room has a short interview. Tidbit:
Smaller countries do better. Dubai. Singapore. They are better able to enact good policy. Microstates tend to do great. Big states are too large and present an obstacle.