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Basically echoes your points:
    http://www.alpharubicon.com/prepinfo/themainmessage.htm
""If You Leave Home Without A Place To Go, You Are a Refugee". 'Bug Out Bags' and 'Heading For The Hills To Live Off The Land' are popular ideas that don't work... We have Many articles about Why it doesn't work, but forget "Hunting and trapping and 'living in Remote Areas'". There is no such thing as "Remote areas" in the Lower 48 states... Africa, Asia, the Steps of Russia, etc, are Truly remote areas, and they were Always hit by waves of smallpox and other plagues carried only by humans! Nothing in the Lower 48 is "really remote", it's a false sense of security if that's what you are depending on. "Living in the Country in a small self-sustaining community is better".. but it's not the "End all Answer". It's better than living in the city.. but it's not a protection by itself, it simply gives you an edge If You Prepare Further. Remember, when city people get scared, they blindly "Head for the country".. right to where You are living. Is the cost of living in the country worth the little added extra protection? Only you can decide that.. personally I simply prefer Not living in crowded places, but at the same time, I know my little country town may Fill Up with people fleeing the cities, and I have prepared for that. "

LIving in the Adirondacks, myself. :-) But that is mostly as land was cheap (no one likes biting blackfiles and lots of snow and ice) and my wife likes living around forest.

But what will where I live be like with a million people from NYC coming here as a horde and shooting each other? The deer will also probably last about a week, if that... Then what?

See also, to echo your point:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110706_mcr_evolution.shtml

Better to work towards a world where our infrastructure is resilient and our security focus is on being intrinsic and mutual.
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation

See: http://lifeboat.com/ex/main

Or some ideas I was working towards over two decades ago:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/princeton-graduate-school-plans.html
"Self-replicating habitats could be built in space, underwater, underground, in the desert, or elsewhere. A habitat would consist of many square miles of enclosed land used for living, farming, and recreation. Examples of such enclosures are a cluster of kilometer high geodesic domes in the desert, a collection of hundred meter diameter spheres underwater, and a ten kilometer diameter dough nut-shaped O'Neill habitat rotating in space. The land area inside the habitat would have tall trees, and grassy fields. It would be designed explicitly to seem extremely open and natural to the thousands of people living inside. Each habitat would have its own power plant, running from solar, nuclear, or ocean-thermal energy. Each habitat would have attached manufacturing facilities for processing raw materials into finished goods. The raw materials would come from the area immediately surrounding the habitat, like the sea floor, the desert sands, or asteroids in space. Each manufacturing facility would have all the equipment needed to replicate itself and the attached habitat.
    Why do I want to build these habitats? Most people would agree there is at least a one percent chance the human race will wipe itself out within the next century through a nuclear or biological war. The issue isn't even necessarily about our politicians making mistakes. The fallibility of the Soviet missile command computer technicians is what worries me most. Like anyone else familiar with computers, I know how easy it is to make a mistake with one. Beyond accidental warfare, expanding populations and industrial pollution threaten our lives just as much. I feel that even if there is only a one percent chance of ecological disaster over the next century, I want to do my best to ensure human survival in that case.
    Most people do not think about these issues, or if they do, rapidly dismiss the problems as too large and impossible to do anything significant about. I feel I have an alternative to apathy or despair. Some habitats in space or underwater would probably survive a nuclear war. Unlike bomb shelters, they would provide an intact technological and cultural base from which to regrow our civilization. If there is not a war, they would still serve the useful function of providing more living space for expanding populations. Being a closed environmental system, they would also make people focus on recycling industrial pollution back into raw materials, leading to safer industries and a cleaner environment. "

"You're right that Bill doesn't yet seem to understand or address the root of the problem, but the real problem is coming from parents that don't care. Their children are the most in danger of getting a poor education. They are also the children most likely to become involved with crime, get pregnant, do drugs and generally have a poor shot at getting ahead in life. If you want to fix the system, you need to change the parents or the children's environment, ie food, shelter and guidance."

The real problem is compulsory education was designed in Prussia in the 18th century to dumb down children,and then adopted int he USA later, and when you give such schools more money, they only does that dumbing-down job better; see NYS teacher of the year John Taylor Gatto:
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
    http://the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
    http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
    http://thewaronkids.com/

Why not just give the money to the parents?
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html

And if they can't be trusted with the money, what does that say about the school systems that raised the last generation?

New York State spends about US$20K per child per year on public school. For a family with two kids, that's approaching the median household income in the country. How many parents would be better parents if they did not have to work and had more time for their children and civic responsibilities? In what I propose (just give the money to the parents), parents could afford to send their children to any private school if they did not want to homeschool themselves. So, that addresses your point about changing the home environment and the parent's circumstances.

A better, more general idea is a basic income of US$2000 per person per month in the entire country (essentially social security and medicare for all from birth).
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html

That said, schools are full of caring adults -- but the system generally grinds them down and limits their options... So, this proposal would ultimately be better for school teachers and administrators, too.

"You're right that Bill doesn't yet seem to understand or address the root of the problem, but the real problem is coming from parents that don't care. Their children are the most in danger of getting a poor education. They are also the children most likely to become involved with crime, get pregnant, do drugs and generally have a poor shot at getting ahead in life. If you want to fix the system, you need to change the parents or the children's environment, ie food, shelter and guidance."

The real problem is compulsory education was designed in Prussia in the 18th century to dumb down children,and then adopted int he USA later, and when you give such schools more money, they only does that dumbing-down job better; see NYS teacher of the year John Taylor Gatto:
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
    http://the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
    http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
    http://thewaronkids.com/

Why not just give the money to the parents?
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html

And if they can't be trusted with the money, what does that say about the school systems that raised the last generation?

New York State spends about US$20K per child per year on public school. For a family with two kids, that's approaching the median household income in the country. How many parents would be better parents if they did not have to work and had more time for their children and civic responsibilities? In what I propose (just give the money to the parents), parents could afford to send their children to any private school if they did not want to homeschool themselves. So, that addresses your point about changing the home environment and the parent's circumstances.

A better, more general idea is a basic income of US$2000 per person per month in the entire country (essentially social security and medicare for all from birth).
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html

That said, schools are full of caring adults -- but the system generally grinds them down and limits their options... So, this proposal would ultimately be better for school teachers and administrators, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Norris
"William Charles Norris (July 14, 1911 near Red Cloud, Nebraska -- August 21, 2006) was the pioneering CEO of Control Data Corporation, at one time one of the most powerful and respected computer companies in the world. He is famous for taking on IBM in a head-on fight and winning, as well as being a social activist who used Control Data's expansion in the late 1960s to bring jobs and training to inner-cities and disadvantaged communities. ...
    Another CDC project that Norris championed was the PLATO system, an online teaching and instruction system developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The university developed most of the system on a CDC-1604 machine driving graphics terminals of their own design. In 1974 they reached an agreement with CDC to allow CDC to sell PLATO in exchange for free machines on which to run it. PLATO was released in 1975, but saw almost no use due to its high costs and complex maintenance. In the end PLATO did see some use as an employee training tool in large companies, but was never a success in the original education market."

I corresponded with him for a time around 1991. He sent me a copy of his biography (by James C. Worthy):
http://www.amazon.com/William-C-Norris-Portrait-Maverick/dp/0887300871

He also sent me copies of his essays for CDC publications. I wanted to make them available in OC'd digital form but never quite got approval for that. Here are several of them put up by others though:
http://www.cbi.umn.edu/hostedpublications/NorrisOnTechnology/index.html

A relevant one from there (on education):
http://www.cbi.umn.edu/hostedpublications/NorrisOnTechnology/Norris_2-Education.pdf
"Another problem is pricing. The present method of financing most formal education with tax dollars, contributions, and tuition at lower than cost inhibits improvements in quality, productivity, and availability. It also restricts options that could otherwise be available and maintains the inequality in educational opportunity that results from uneven district-to-district financial resources."

Although I go beyond that here: :-)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html

I met my wife around then so things dropped off, but I had hoped maybe I could have been an intern for free with his foundation to help with advanced manufacturing (or something) or somehow worked with him and learned from him.

William C. Norris was an amazing person. He really is a great role model in many ways, and I'm glad I had the chance to read his biography and correspond with him. I sent him a small donation back then (just a struggling grad student at the time) and he said he used it to take a disadvantaged person to lunch. What a guy! :-)
    http://reddwarf.wikia.com/wiki/Ace_Rimmer

This calamity shows Mother Nature can still really kick ass...

And that's why we should cooperate more globally and not worry so much about fighting each other with all the advanced technology we have been creating. While this tragedy is horrible, just horrible, something like an asteroid strike on the Earth, a supervolcano eruption like in Yellostone, or a massive plague could kill billions. So, this should be a warning to our global society that we should cooperate more to prepare together for what Mother Nature can still dish out at random times.

See also:
http://lifeboat.com/ex/main

And by me:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

Like with Hurricane Katrina where the USA lost a city, this event will be a test of the Japanese character. The good news is, you can see in Japan aspects of what a healthy society looks like (unlike the USA during Katrina or before). Japan prepared a lot for this (good building codes, to begin with). Their leadership has responded immediately. People are helping each other. News is being posted right away through their advanced social networks. (Many individuals wanted to help with Katrina, and were turned back, and parts of the New Orleans area descended into violence and fear...) You can be sure, as a society, Japan will come through this even stronger and healthier and better prepared for the next event. I wish I could say stuff like that about the USA these days? I don't know, even as I have a lot of faith in US individuals in a crisis. But in the USA, government is painted as the enemy. We don't know what good government would feel like anymore, sadly -- government that is accountable, or plans well, or prioritizes human needs over short-term profits to a few.

With that said, more money put into solar energy research in Japan is probably a good idea... And if you are going to have nuclear power plants, designs like Hyperion power might make more sense (ignoring how you still need reprocessing facilities that might be at earthquake risk). That plant design was 40 years old. This book explains why old nuclear power plant designs are riskier:
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter10.html
"The nuclear power plants in service today were conceptually designed and developed during the 1960s. At that time, it was deemed necessary to achieve maximum efficiency and minimum cost in order to compete successfully with coal- or oil-burning plants. The latter were priced at 15% of their present cost and used fuel that was very cheap by current standards. In order to maximize efficiencies in the nuclear plants, temperatures, pressures, and power densities were pushed up to their highest practical limits. Safety features were exemplary for that era, and even for current safety practices in other industries. But they were not up to present-day demands for super-super safety in the nuclear industry.
As the public became more concerned with nuclear safety, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission required that new safety equipment and procedures be added on, in the process discussed in Chapter 9 as "regulatory ratcheting." The amount of labor and materials for these add-ons exceeded that for the plant as originally conceived. With this added complexity, the plants became difficult and expensive to construct, operate, and maintain. Moreover, the level of safety was still limited by the original conceptual design.
By the early 1980s it became apparent that a new conceptual design of nuclear reactors was called for. The cost of electricity from coal- and oil-burning plants had escalated to the point where their competition did not require maximum efficiency from nuclear plants. Furthermore, the added efficiency achieved by pushing temp

http://www.pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html
"An Open Letter to All Grantmakers and Donors On Copyright And Patent Policy In a Post-Scarcity Society (From around 2001) ... Foundations, other grantmaking agencies handling public tax-exempt dollars, and charitable donors need to consider the implications for their grantmaking or donation policies if they use a now obsolete charitable model of subsidizing proprietary publishing and proprietary research. In order to improve the effectiveness and collaborativeness of the non-profit sector overall, it is suggested these grantmaking organizations and donors move to requiring grantees to make any resulting copyrighted digital materials freely available on the internet, including free licenses granting the right for others to make and redistribute new derivative works without further permission. It is also suggested patents resulting from charitably subsidized research research also be made freely available for general use. The alternative of allowing charitable dollars to result in proprietary copyrights and proprietary patents is corrupting the non-profit sector as it results in a conflict of interest between a non-profit's primary mission of helping humanity through freely sharing knowledge (made possible at little cost by the internet) and a desire to maximize short term revenues through charging licensing fees for access to patents and copyrights. In essence, with the change of publishing and communication economics made possible by the wide spread use of the internet, tax-exempt non-profits have become, perhaps unwittingly, caught up in a new form of "self-dealing", and it is up to donors and grantmakers (and eventually lawmakers) to prevent this by requiring free licensing of results as a condition of their grants and donations. "

I wish I could go there though, but I'm a poor open source developer... :-) It does say something about virtual participation, so maybe I can try that. Virtual is cheaper and also avoids the strip scans and/or groping required to go to CA from NY these days via "aeronautics" technology.

It is unfortunate that more people don't take the implications of abundance made possible by NASA-type technology more seriously (see also Julian Simon), or we might be able to get full body scans when we want them at the doctor's office and also not get them at airports when we don't want them (like when we are no longer worried that people hate us because we support their oppressors because everyoen is afraid there is not enough stuff or energy to go around...) See also, thanks to space age technology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity

Or 21st century enlightenment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
http://johncr8on.com/projects/21st-century-institutions/

See also the late James P. Hogan's Voyage From Yesteryear:
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary

I guess no amount of fancy technology by itself can transcend irony or stupidity:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

Here are some heterodox economic solutions for our society to embrance as it transitions to greater material abundance by the sort of positive future-oriented thinking NASA does (or did?):

http://www.pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html
"An Open Letter to All Grantmakers and Donors On Copyright And Patent Policy In a Post-Scarcity Society (From around 2001) ... Foundations, other grantmaking agencies handling public tax-exempt dollars, and charitable donors need to consider the implications for their grantmaking or donation policies if they use a now obsolete charitable model of subsidizing proprietary publishing and proprietary research. In order to improve the effectiveness and collaborativeness of the non-profit sector overall, it is suggested these grantmaking organizations and donors move to requiring grantees to make any resulting copyrighted digital materials freely available on the internet, including free licenses granting the right for others to make and redistribute new derivative works without further permission. It is also suggested patents resulting from charitably subsidized research research also be made freely available for general use. The alternative of allowing charitable dollars to result in proprietary copyrights and proprietary patents is corrupting the non-profit sector as it results in a conflict of interest between a non-profit's primary mission of helping humanity through freely sharing knowledge (made possible at little cost by the internet) and a desire to maximize short term revenues through charging licensing fees for access to patents and copyrights. In essence, with the change of publishing and communication economics made possible by the wide spread use of the internet, tax-exempt non-profits have become, perhaps unwittingly, caught up in a new form of "self-dealing", and it is up to donors and grantmakers (and eventually lawmakers) to prevent this by requiring free licensing of results as a condition of their grants and donations. "

I wish I could go there though, but I'm a poor open source developer... :-) It does say something about virtual participation, so maybe I can try that. Virtual is cheaper and also avoids the strip scans and/or groping required to go to CA from NY these days via "aeronautics" technology.

It is unfortunate that more people don't take the implications of abundance made possible by NASA-type technology more seriously (see also Julian Simon), or we might be able to get full body scans when we want them at the doctor's office and also not get them at airports when we don't want them (like when we are no longer worried that people hate us because we support their oppressors because everyoen is afraid there is not enough stuff or energy to go around...) See also, thanks to space age technology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity

Or 21st century enlightenment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
http://johncr8on.com/projects/21st-century-institutions/

See also the late James P. Hogan's Voyage From Yesteryear:
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary

I guess no amount of fancy technology by itself can transcend irony or stupidity:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

Here are some heterodox economic solutions for our society to embrance as it transitions to greater material abundance by the sort of positive future-oriented thinking NASA does (or did?):

"As a consequence these MPAA/RIAA lobbyists go to him claiming that they are loosing billions and millions of jobs in an industry that "can't" be off-shored--nothing like American movies and music."

My prediction/satire from 2002 sent to the US DOJ: :-)
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/microslaw.html
"My fellow Americans. There has been some recent talk of free law by the General Public Lawyers (the GPL) who we all know hold un-American views. I speak to you today from the Oval Office in the White House to assure you how much better off you are now that all law is proprietary. The value of proprietary law should be obvious. Software is essentially just a form of law governing how computers operate, and all software and media content has long been privatized to great economic success. Economic analysts have proven conclusively that if we hadn't passed laws banning all free software like GNU/Linux and OpenOffice after our economy began its current recession, which started, how many times must I remind everyone, only coincidentally with the shutdown of Napster, that we would be in far worse shape then we are today. RIAA has confidently assured me that if independent artists were allowed to release works without using their compensation system and royalty rates, music CD sales would be even lower than their recent inexplicably low levels. The MPAA has also detailed how historically the movie industry was nearly destroyed in the 1980s by the VCR until that too was banned and all so called fair use exemptions eliminated. So clearly, these successes with software, content, and hardware indicate the value of a similar approach to law. ..."

Better solutions:
    http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation

http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
"Look again at the seven lessons of schoolteaching: confusion, class assignment, dulled responses, emotional and intellectual dependency, conditional self-esteem, surveillance -- all of these things are good training for permanent underclasses, people derived forever of finding the center of their own special genius. And in later years it became the training shaken loose from even its own original logic -- to regulate the poor; since the 1920s the growth of the school bureaucracy and the less visible growth of a horde of industries that profit from schooling just exactly as it is, has enlarged this institution's original grasp to where it began to seize the sons and daughters of the middle classes."

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit? ... Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there."

So, yes, give schools more money and they will do this even better:
    http://www.thewaronkids.com/

I suggest just give the money as a basic income to the parents instead...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
"New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children, teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school administrators :-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot programs to see how it works out."

"This is asinine."

But sadly, true. For a related example:
"Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance" by Mike Moore
http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-War-Folly-Space-Dominance/dp/1598130188
"Moore warns of the dire consequences of the U.S. drive toward the military dominance of space. Twilight War is an indispensable resource for anyone looking to get smart on a possible new cold war in space. Wide-ranging research and an elegant writing style make for an easy tutorial. This is a marvelous book." (Joseph Cirincione, vice president for national security, Center for American Progress)"

Or;
http://www.cfr.org/united-states/toward-american-space-dominance/p12179
"The Pentagon has avoided specifics about the report, but soon afterward the Bush administration released an unclassified version of its new U.S. National Space Policy, which goes far beyond previous policies in asserting America’s right to respond forcefully to such threats. Bill Martel, a space policy expert at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, tells CFR.org in this podcast that the new space policy “sounds like a precursor to the weaponization of space.” Supporters readily concede the point. “Space supremacy is now the official policy of the U.S. government,” writes Michael Goldfarb in the Weekly Standard."

Thanks for your other comments. Personally, I would not like to be president. :-) I feel sorry in general for politicians etc.

As I quoted Alfie Kohn here from "No Contest: The Case Against Competition":
http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html#Moving_beyond_competitiveness_towards_cooperation_at_PU
"If competitiveness is inherently compensatory, if it is an effort to prove oneself and stave off feelings of worthlessness, it follows that the healthier the individual (in the sense of having a more solid, unconditional sense of self-esteem), the less need there is to compete. ... I do not want to shy away from the incendiary implications of all of this. To suggest in effect that many of our heroes (entrepreneurs and athletes, movie stars and politicians) may be motivated by low self-esteem, to argue that our "state religion" is a sign of psychological ill-health -- this will not sit well with many people.(Page 103)"

That said, one can learn a lot by playing games and being challenged. So, how to interpret all that in daily life for the rest of us is open to question. Also, it is compounded by this fact:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/07/health/la-he-mean-girls-20110208
"Faris and a colleague studied the relationships among 3,722 middle and high school students over the course of an academic year and found that the teenagers' propensity toward aggression rose along with their social status. Aggressive behavior peaked when students hit the 98th percentile for popularity, suggesting that they were working hard to claw their way to the very top. However, those who were in the top 2% of a school's social hierarchy generally didn't harass their fellow students. At that point, they may have had little left to gain by being mean, and picking on others only made them seem insecure, Faris said."

I agree with you on reflectiveness, and thanks for saying that in such an interesting way about quality. In any case though, if I take credit for anything, it is mostly reading and learning about the ideas of many, many others who have gone before me (including people like Leon Shenandoah).

We need better tools for community-powered reflectiveness IMHO, as I su

Thanks for the insights in this (as well as your other two recent replies).

Still, without denying the truths in what you wrote, there remains the issue of arms races and of one player dashing the game to the ground. That is the "finite" vs. "infinite" game aspect.

See also:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_game
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_gameplay
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_board_game
    http://familypastimes.com/
    http://www.learningherbs.com/wildcraft.html

From:
        http://www.share-international.org/archives/cooperation/co_nocontest.htm
"Kohn defines competition as any situation where one person's success is dependent upon another's failure. Put another way, in competition two or more parties are pursuing a goal that cannot be attained by all. He calls this 'mutually exclusive goal attainment' (MEGA).
    Kohn goes on to define two distinct types of competition. In 'structural competition' MEGA is an explicit, defining element in the nature of the interaction. For instance in a game of tennis there can be only one winner. The same is true of beauty contests, presidential elections, and wars. Everyone knows they are out to beat the others though the rules of engagement may vary considerably between events.
    Intentional competition' is a state of mind, an individual's competitiveness or his proclivity for besting others. Anyone can go to a party determined to establish him or herself as the most intelligent, the most attractive, etc. Similarly, in school, the work place, and on teams people can try to beat others whether or not anyone is formally keeping score and declaring winners and losers.
    One place where competition cannot exist, according to Kohn, is within oneself. Such striving to better one's own standing is an individual, not interactive matter; it does not involve MEGA. Of course some people cannot imagine pushing themselves without the possibility of 'winning' or the threat of 'losing', but this by no means implies that all motivation is dependent upon competitive frameworks. Throughout history countless large and small accomplishments have been achieved simply out of an individual's desire to do better without any thought of beating others. Such striving for mastery cannot be confused with competition."

In any case, if you and an "opponent" play Go mainly to increase your mastery of the game and ideas like balance (as you obviously have) and to find joy in cooperating together to do so, then I guess one might say you are playing a cooperative infinite game, even through the finite competitive mechanism of Go? :-)

Anyway, thanks again for the very informative analysis of current US defense posture from the perspective of an experienced Go player.

As I say here:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Still, we must accept that there is nothing wrong with wanting some security. The issue is how we go about it in a non-ironic way that works for everyone."

Call that having an "efficient" war machine, if you want. :-)

I agree with you about Go, but ultimately we need to move past the irony of using tools of abundance to fight over artificial scarcity in the real world, like the irony of using nuclear weapons to fight over oil fields, or using military robots to force people to work like industrial robots, etc...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

So, ironically, cutting science and feeding the war machine out of fears about scarcity would just make the problem of this irony worse...

Type 2 diabates in most cases is curable within a week by superior diet. You don't have to look far to find lots of evidence for that.

Here are two videos by Dr. Fuhrman on that:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46_GInjBeQU
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiR9VcuVWw

But you can find many peopel who say similar things about type 2 diabete. Type 1 also benefits from such a diet, but you'd still need some insulin, but with less complications.

The other two I don't know much about. But I can believe diet effects them.

Dr. Fuhrman is involved with a non-profit to do clinical research on nutrition:
    https://www.nutritionalresearch.org/

Here is a study he was involved with that suggests his dietary approach is more effective than gastric bypass surgey for weight loss:
    http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/high_nutrient_diet_and_weight_loss.aspx

Dr. Fuhrman is a great hero of medicine. There just is not much money in preventing or curing disease. And, sadly, most people just say the same things you do. It's hard to get people to change their diet, and our society offers little support for that. Here is part of why that is true:
    http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

Anyway, I'd readily agree the field of alternative medicine has frauds in it, but I'd say the same thing of areas of mainstream medicine too. The Flexner Report from 100 years ago was part of what made US medicine become so messed up:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report

I collected lots of links here about how and why mainstream medical research has gone wrong:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html

Just one example for there, from Marcia Angell:
        http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jan/15/drug-companies-doctorsa-story-of-corruption/
        "The problems I've discussed are not limited to psychiatry, although they reach their most florid form there. Similar conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine."

"I get that you read a book..."

Wrote a (free, online) book, actually. :-)
        http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
And other stuff, example:
    http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/AchievingAStarTrekSociety.html

But many others have said similar things before, from Albert Einstein to James P. Hogan. Although Einstein also said nuclear weapons did not create a new problem as much as make an old one much worse.

While I did repeat a general theme, it was JASON specific here. I actually sent a longer essay on this topic of abundance ideology to someone involved with JASON a couple of weeks ago, and developed that mythological issue in some detail. :-) No response to that... So I could not resist a chance to make that point here as summary, too, assuming JASON types or their associates/students might read this.

Are you saying this point on rethinking society so it works better for everyone and avoids self-destructive ironies does not relate to exactly the fundamental problem of technology allowing us to soon create an internet archive where anyone with a grudge can create a designer plague (given the spread of cheap DIY Bio)? The benefits and risks are presumably very different depending on what social structure exists around the archives. See also my suggestion here:
    "Getting to 100 social-technical points"
    http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/a7abadb8867dae79

So, it seems to me you are taking some solutions off the table? Why are we willing to imagine that the advance of technology will soon produce a situation where a teenager can download a file from the internet, mess with it in their computer, print out something with a DNA sequencer, and wipe out the human race with a designer plague (same as teens make compuetr viruses), but then it is sci-fi, off-topic, or out of bounds to think we might actually upgrade our social technology to help teenagers and others not be so alienated or competitive or violence-prone? Many pre-scarcity cultures don't have as many alienated teens and young adults, so alternatives are possible.

Sure, there are a lot of complex things that need to be considered. But, we'll never get to the point of working out the details if we miss the big picture.

I'm not saying you don't have some valid points (and frankly I'd rather someone else put in the time to raise these issues). But as I see it, so much slashdot discussions these days are about adding technological epicycles on epicycles, and I'm trying to get people to consider a different model involving more fundamental conceptual change.

One thing I disagree with though -- we are not living in a post-scarcity society, though. The problem is we are living in a scarcity-paradigm society with post-scarcity capable technology -- sort of like handling blinding-power-level laser pointers to a room full of five year olds wound up on sugar and trained by their teachers to hate each other.

So, what are your alternative solutions?

Then I spent part of the afternoon, along with some others, watching the video replays of it and the unfolding tragedy in a conference room by Hans Moravec's Mobile Robot Lab, all the time hoping it was just a misunderstanding, and the astronauts were all right or something.

One of the hopes of some at the Robotics Institute was that robots could do more of the space exploration more safely, including preparing the way for humans. Was that really a quarter century ago? :-) Well, the robots are finally starting to be here:
http://www.willowgarage.com/pages/pr2/overview
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/high-speed-robot-hand-demonstrates-dexterity-and-skillful-manipulation
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

Or in some cases, even come and gone, sadly:
http://www.ri.cmu.edu/research_center_detail.html?type=publications&center_id=7&menu_id=262
"Space Robotics Initiative (SRI)
This center is no longer active."

Always wanted to work there and make Hewey, Dewey, and Louie from Silent Running, and the space habitat biospheres they maintain. :-) But that was not exactly their focus.
http://www.pdfernhout.net/princeton-graduate-school-plans.html

That Challenger tragedy was doubly sad with a school teacher on board, considering all the school kids who had been encouraged to watch it. I can wonder if that was part of the further collapse of the US space program?

Still, as much as such tragedies are awful, I later wrote that a big problem with the US space program is that not enough people are taking risks and dying from the consequences. If you think of how many people have died in ocean voyages in the early day of sailing, an active space program seriously oriented to extending human life into the cosmos should be willing to accept hundreds or thousands of deaths a year by astronauts taking calculated and reasonable risks (as in, a 80% chance of success).

The obsession with perfection and zero risk by NASA ultimately seems to have grounded the US space program. That, and an acceptance of overly complicated designs. If astronauts are willing to accept a 20% chance of disaster so they can fly more often (or at all), I say let them. If current astronauts don't want those odds, find new astronauts.

I'm not saying take foolish risks, or 99% risks of death, or risks not worth risking death for. I'm just saying, we probably could be launching 100X as many cheaper rockets and having a lot more success, and having thousands of people going into space every year, if we accepted more causalties (on the order of 20% of launches failing like this shuttle did 25 years ago). Obviously, such a program should be voluntary and people should understand the risks as best as they can. Ideally, over time, the risks would be reduced by better engineering to that of the current risks for air travel in commercial aircraft. But it is just too early to have that expectation.

Besides, and maybe I should not say this, but TV ratings would go up for the space program if NASA did not go out of its way to make everything look so boring with astronauts who have been training for years because there are so few launches and they are so expensive. The most interesting thing I ever saw on NASA TV was when that NASA astronaut lost her bag of tools while fiddling with a grease gun. :-)
http://www.space.com/6131-astronaut-laments

Thanks. What's really problematical for me is that links to individual posts no longer work right. I just sent some feedback about that.

----

To: feedback@slashdot.org
CC: Rob Malda
Subject: Problem viewing nested posts with new slashdot

With the new slashdot, using FireFox 3.6.13, a click to something like
this link (a reply to something I wrote):
      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1964112&cid=35004816
no longer opens the message itself (just the top parent, and I have to
drill down to the message). This makes using the emails slashdot sends
out to look at posts difficult.

If I have fsdn.com blocked with NoScript, I can't even drill down to the
message (it goes back to the top). If both slashdot.org and fsdn.com are
blocked, there seems no way to navigate to a specific child post a link
is intended to go to.

I had been using slashdot posts as a sort of blog, and it was important
to me that I could give out URLs and assume people could click on them
to get to them. Now that seems broken? This in turn has broken probably
hundreds (even thousands) of references to posts I've made to slashdot
on other sites. I hope this get fixed.

IHMO, the conceptual design mistake here was probably in assuming that
people only use slashdot for active discussions, not to post material
for future reference, or not to link to parts of previous discussions
later, both of which eventually drive more traffic to the slashdot site
and make slashdot more valuable as a publishing platform.

I'm not going to abandon slashdot entirely over this (I've been using it
for more than a decade), but it suddenly has dropped enormously in value
to me as far as my interest in participating on it. And years of
previous work elsewhere is now broken.

In any case, requiring people to have JavaScript enabled to be able to
view an old post just seems like a dumb idea, sorry. If this was done
intentionally, well, I guess it's some sort of weird feature I do not
understand, maybe to drive ad revenue or something?

Anyway, thanks for running such a great site in the past. Hopefully this
is just a bug, not a feature, and it will get fixed eventually.

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
====
The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies
of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html [pdfernhout.net]
"... Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land? ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. "

Which at least one person told me they are getting sick of hearing, but remains true nonetheless. :-) Now if more people else would just take up discussing this irony at every opportunity, I could move on to other things. :-)

Let's say we can travel reliably to the moon (like with solar-powered laser launchers, but made easier perhaps by cold fusion?). If so, we can build space habitats using lunar resources to house trillions of humans, as Gerard K. O'Neill outlined. Example:
        http://space.mike-combs.com/

So, while one can imagine there might be future conflicts over resources in space in hundreds or thousands of years, any Earthly conflict over resources (like oil or land) quickly would become pretty meaningless in such an abundant future.

So, focusing on the military value of the Moon and space travel (in the way people normally talk about it) is just ironic. It's like two dehydrated people crawling out of the desert to the shore of a great freshwater lake and then using the last of their strength to try to drown each other in the lake because they are afraid there is not enough water to take one drink. It's actually more than ironic -- I mainly phrase it that way to be polite. :-)

Even without using the Moon, there is enough to go around on Earth though. Some examples:
            http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html#A_taste_of_Post-Scarcity

Security is a great thing -- we just need to go about it in enlightened non-ironic ways, like by focusing mainly on intrinsic security and mutual security instead of focusing mainly on extrinsic security and unilateral security.

==
I also posted this comment elsewhere to this story but is not showing up well with the new Slashdot format which seems to collapse subsequent posts under low ranked parents:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1966606&cid=35008680

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html [pdfernhout.net]
"... Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land? ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. "

Which at least one person told me they are getting sick of hearing, but remains true nonetheless. :-) Now if more people else would just take up discussing this irony at every opportunity, I could move on to other things. :-)

Let's say we can travel reliably to the moon (like with solar-powered laser launchers, but made easier perhaps by cold fusion?). If so, we can build space habitats using lunar resources to house trillions of humans, as Gerard K. O'Neill outlined. Example:
        http://space.mike-combs.com/

So, while one can imagine there might be future conflicts over resources in space in hundreds or thousands of years, any Earthly conflict over resources (like oil or land) quickly would become pretty meaningless in such an abundant future.

So, focusing on the military value of the Moon and space travel (in the way people normally talk about it) is just ironic. It's like two dehydrated people crawling out of the desert to the shore of a great freshwater lake and then using the last of their strength to try to drown each other in the lake because they are afraid there is not enough water to take one drink. It's actually more than ironic -- I mainly phrase it that way to be polite. :-)

Even without using the Moon, there is enough to go around on Earth though. Some examples:
            http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html#A_taste_of_Post-Scarcity

Security is a great thing -- we just need to go about it in enlightened non-ironic ways, like by focusing mainly on intrinsic security and mutual security instead of focusing mainly on extrinsic security and unilateral security.

==
I also posted this comment elsewhere to this story but is not showing up well with the new Slashdot format which seems to collapse subsequent posts under low ranked parents:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1966606&cid=35008680

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"... Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land? ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. "

Which at least one person told me they are getting sick of hearing, but remains true nonetheless. :-) Now if more people else would just take up discussing this irony at every opportunity, I could move on to other things. :-)

Let's say we can travel reliably to the moon (like with solar-powered laser launchers, but made easier perhaps by cold fusion?). If so, we can build space habitats using lunar resources to house trillions of humans, as Gerard K. O'Neill outlined. Example:
    http://space.mike-combs.com/

So, while one can imagine there might be future conflicts over resources in space in hundreds or thousands of years, any Earthly conflict over resources (like oil or land) quickly would become pretty meaningless in such an abundant future.

So, focusing on the military value of the Moon and space travel (in the way people normally talk about it) is just ironic. It's like two dehydrated people crawling out of the desert to the shore of a great freshwater lake and then using the last of their strength to try to drown each other in the lake because they are afraid there is not enough water to take one drink. It's actually more than ironic -- I mainly phrase it that way to be polite. :-)

Even without using the Moon, there is enough to go around on Earth though. Some examples:
      http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html#A_taste_of_Post-Scarcity

Security is a great thing -- we just need to go about it in enlightened non-ironic ways, like by focusing mainly on intrinsic security and mutual security instead of focusing mainly on extrinsic security and unilateral security.

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"... Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land? ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. "

Which at least one person told me they are getting sick of hearing, but remains true nonetheless. :-) Now if more people else would just take up discussing this irony at every opportunity, I could move on to other things. :-)

Let's say we can travel reliably to the moon (like with solar-powered laser launchers, but made easier perhaps by cold fusion?). If so, we can build space habitats using lunar resources to house trillions of humans, as Gerard K. O'Neill outlined. Example:
    http://space.mike-combs.com/

So, while one can imagine there might be future conflicts over resources in space in hundreds or thousands of years, any Earthly conflict over resources (like oil or land) quickly would become pretty meaningless in such an abundant future.

So, focusing on the military value of the Moon and space travel (in the way people normally talk about it) is just ironic. It's like two dehydrated people crawling out of the desert to the shore of a great freshwater lake and then using the last of their strength to try to drown each other in the lake because they are afraid there is not enough water to take one drink. It's actually more than ironic -- I mainly phrase it that way to be polite. :-)

Even without using the Moon, there is enough to go around on Earth though. Some examples:
      http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html#A_taste_of_Post-Scarcity

Security is a great thing -- we just need to go about it in enlightened non-ironic ways, like by focusing mainly on intrinsic security and mutual security instead of focusing mainly on extrinsic security and unilateral security.

http://www.pdfernhout.net/microslaw.html

Transcript of April 1, 2016 MicroSlaw Presidential Speech (Before final editing prior to release under standard U.S. Government for-fee licensing under 2011 Fee Requirements Law)

My fellow Americans. There has been some recent talk of free law by the General Public Lawyers (the GPL) who we all know hold un-American views. I speak to you today from the Oval Office in the White House to assure you how much better off you are now that all law is proprietary. The value of proprietary law should be obvious. Software is essentially just a form of law governing how computers operate, and all software and media content has long been privatized to great economic success. Economic analysts have proven conclusively that if we hadn't passed laws banning all free software like GNU/Linux and OpenOffice after our economy began its current recession, which started, how many times must I remind everyone, only coincidentally with the shutdown of Napster, that we would be in far worse shape then we are today. RIAA has confidently assured me that if independent artists were allowed to release works without using their compensation system and royalty rates, music CD sales would be even lower than their recent inexplicably low levels. The MPAA has also detailed how historically the movie industry was nearly destroyed in the 1980s by the VCR until that too was banned and all so called fair use exemptions eliminated. So clearly, these successes with software, content, and hardware indicate the value of a similar approach to law.

There are many reasons for the value of proprietary law. You all know them since you have been taught them in school since kindergarten as part of your standardized education. They are reflected in our most fundamental beliefs, such as sharing denies the delight of payment and cookies can only be brought into the classroom if you bring enough to sell to everyone. But you are always free to eat them all yourself of course! [audience chuckles knowingly]. But I think it important to repeat such fundamental truths now as they form the core of all we hold dear in this great land.

First off, we all know our current set of laws requires a micropayment each time a U.S. law is discussed, referenced, or applied by any person anywhere in the world. This financial incentive has produced a large amount of new law over the last decade. This body of law is all based on a core legal code owned by that fine example of American corporate capitalism at its best, the MicroSlaw Corporation.

MicroSlaw's core code defines a legal operating standard or OS we can all rely on. While I know some GPL supporters may be painting a rosy view of free law to the general public, it is obvious that any so called free alternative to MicroSlaw's legal code fails at the start because it would require great costs for learning about new so-called free laws, plus additional costs to switch all legal forms and court procedures to the new so called free standard. So free laws are really more expensive, especially as we are talking here about free as in cost, not free as in freedom.

In any case, why would you want to pay public servants like those old time -- what were they called? -- Senators? Representatives? -- around $145K a year out of public funds just to make free laws? Laws are made far more efficiently, inexpensively and, I assure you, justly, by large corporations like MicroSlaw. Such organizations need the motivation of micropayments for application, discussion or reference of their laws to stay competitive. MicroSlaw needs to know who discusses what law and when they do so, each and every time, so they can charge fairly for their services and thus retain their financial freedom to innovate. And America is all about financial freedom, right! [Audience applause].

And why should your hard earned tax dollars go to pay public citizens to sit on juries and render open justice when things could be done so much more quic

You're welcome. Thanks for the comment. It's been said: "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

On that theme of consciousness raising and helping work towards a new vision for a 21st century society, here is something I wrote in 2009:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/eff0aa5033106bb5

These are the ones I consider important and listed there and in a followup:
* limited demand invalidates classical macroeconomics relating to employment;
* the basic income guarantee and its history, as one of multiple ways to address the exponential increase in technological capacity and job loss;
* the issue of post-scarcity technology wielded to create artificial scarcities;
* the potential of 3D printing if it follows the growth of 2D printing and continues to improve; and
* how our social values may affect the nature of any Technological Singularity, and how the Singularity is a mirror.
* how the cost of computing dropping towards zero makes all prices drop towards zero.

I made a hokey short Youtube video myself, but obviously I'm not great artist/entertainer. :-)
"The Richest Man in the World: A parable about structural unemployment and a basic income "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA

I put that under CC-BY-ND because my voice is on that (and I did feel comfortable thinking about my voice remixed), but people should feel free to use the text or images or storyline under CC-BY-SA (though I'm sure any experienced artist or scriptwriter would rapidly leave almost all of that behind and make something way better).

Here is another parable I wrote recently, about the USA's future:
"Burdened by Bags of Sand"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/burdened-by-bags-of-sand.html

And another item:
"A post-scarcity "Downfall" parody remix of the bunker scene"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/32e8fc32c89c96bd

So, yes, I'd agree, some young entertainers could make a huge difference running with these sorts of ideas and making funny videos, songs, drawings, and so on about them.

Here is a one minute item that I found inspiring and relates to these themes:
http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf

More stuff like that that gets people thinking about a basic income and robotics might be useful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
Here are some videos linked there, but they are a bit dry:
http://basicincome.iovialis.org/e00.html

Here is a video on a gift economy, but again, it could be more exciting:
"Gift Economy: Refuting the Market Logic "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy4hFVcl6Vo

Zeitgeist, profiling the Venus Project in sequels, is another example. But the Venus Project and resource-based planning is just one option (a basic income, a gift economy, and local subsistence with 3D printing and solar panels and organic gardening are others that can all interact with it). So, we could use catch things that are broader. But Zeitgeist was a good start. We need short, funny stuff. Maybe there are even grants for that kind of stuff for the right people?
http://www.casefoundation.org/topics/social-media-for-good/videos

Computer games are another line of approach.

Some things have improved, some things have gotten worse. It's hard to say, overall, that most people in the USA are much happier than the Haudenosaunee (Iroqois) were 500 years ago, even living a bit longer perhaps on average. Are those alive now in the USA much happier or more physically fit than the Arawak in Haiti who Columbus and his successors wiped out?

See, for example:
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html
"Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:
"They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned... . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europe of the Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus."

So, sure, we have fancy laptops and the internet, and that is great. But do most of us have real families, real communities, and meaningful work anymore?

See also:
http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm

We can't go back to those days and keep our big populations. But we can at least honor the memory of what was good about those times, and try to bring that goodness into the 21st century. Some people are trying:
http://www.blessedunrest.com/

Overall, I think Eric Schmidt was trying, too. I'm sort of sorry now I made fun of him and Knol here:
http://groups.google.com/group/openvirgle/msg/5bd385feed4127d7
"""
Gold Leader: Pardon me for asking, sir, but what good are semantic wikis and desktops going to be against Virgle?
General Dodonna: Well, the Empire doesn't consider a small cgi script on a shared server or desktop to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense.
-----
Commander #1: We've analyzed their attack on Knol, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your Golden Parachute standing by?
Governor Schmidt: Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.
"""

Still, if he had listened to the points I was trying to make about Google and Post-Scarcity, maybe he would have had more success?
http://www.pdfernhout.net/a-rant-on-financial-obesity-and-Project-Virgle.html
"This is an email I posted to the Project Virgle email list. Project Virgle was an April Fool's joke by Google and Virgin, which many did not see as that funny. ... Essentially, by focusing on "profit" (and so Empire to defend that profit and related "ownership" and "equity") this is the kind of deadly farce of the bubble of Empire that Google and Virgin are (in jest) proposing bringing to Mars. It's just the "uns

... already does that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5YftEAbmMQ

We need to move beyond the irony of militarizing the tools of abundance from scarcity fears:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

... those thinking in terms of scarcity: http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. I discuss that at length here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html

There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all.

So, while in the past, we had "nothing to fear but fear itself", the thing to fear these days is ironcially ... irony. :-) "

... those thinking in terms of scarcity: http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. I discuss that at length here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html

There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all.

So, while in the past, we had "nothing to fear but fear itself", the thing to fear these days is ironcially ... irony. :-) "

http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html
"Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case"
based on someone else's demand. Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change. ... So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process. ..."

A larger elaboration on that theme:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

"While we like to think of ourselves as the protectors of the earth, the reality is humans are without a doubt the most evil of all species."

By chance, this morning I read something I had jotted down almost thirty years ago, related to something Mother Theresa said. Essentially, she said, if she was so good it was because she could see the evil inside herself so clearly and she was doing what she could to make up for it. :-)

Even if we lose the battle someday over good and evil in ourselves or our society, we can at least do what we can now to prepare for that future with good deeds done today (where of course, people don't completely agree about what "good" is -- part of the problem).

Still, I'd think a shark or a lion probably gets some pleasure out of killing, and an elephant probably gets pleasure from eating plants (which are killed in the process), and plants shade each other and bacteria may crowd or eat each other, and all have feedback systems related to those behaviors. The issue of "evil" in relation to living is in that sense is fundamental to this universe, and ultimately a deep issue for thought and understanding as part of the mystery we are part of, as I suggest here:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/a-rant-on-financial-obesity-and-Project-Virgle.html
"... I agree with the sentiment of the Einstein quote [That we should approach the universe with compassion], but that sentiment itself is only part of a larger difficult-to-easily-resolve situation. It become more the Yin/Yang or Meshwork/Hierarchy situation I see when I look out my home office window into a forest. On the surface it is a lovely scene of trees as part of a forest. Still, I try to see *both* the peaceful majesty of the trees and how these large trees are brutally shading out of existence saplings which are would-be competitors (even shading out their own children). Yet, even as big trees shade out some of their own children, they also put massive resources into creating a next generation, one of which will indeed likely someday replace them when they fall. I try to remember there is both an unseen silent chemical war going on out there where plants produce defense compounds they secrete in the soil to inhibit the growth of other plant species (or insects or fungi) as a vile act of territoriality and often expansionism, and yet also the result is a good spacing of biomass to near optimally convert sunlight to living matter and resist and recover from wind and ice damage. I try to recall that there is the most brutal of competition between species of plants and animals and fungi and so on over water, nutrients (including from eating other creatures), sunlight, and space, while at the same time each bacterial colony or multicellular organism (like a large Pine tree) is a marvel of cooperation towards some implicitly shared purpose. I see the awesome result of both simplicity and complexity in the organizational structure of all these organisms and their DNA, RNA, and so on, adapted so well in most cases to the current state of such a complex web of being. Yet I can only guess the tiniest fraction of what suffering that selective shaping through variation and selection must have entailed for untold numbers of creatures over billions of years. To be truthful, I can actually *really* see none of that right now as it is dark outside this early near Winter Solstice time (and an icy rain is falling) beyond perhaps a silhouette outline, so I must remember and imagine it, perhaps as Einstein suggests as an "optical delusion of [my] consciousness". :-) "

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Military [or police] robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?"

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit?"

Alternatives: http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/robots-jobs-and-our-assumptions/#comment-392

Code Monkey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Wy7gRGgeA
Brought some tears to my eyes for the truths there about submission to authority to earn a living -- even, and especially, when you are a good developer...

How to build a world that works for everyone, even would-be code monkeys:
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery#Four_long(2D)term_heterodox_alternatives

That's what I've been doing with my "spare" time instead of building the "The Future Soon" and perfecting a warrior robot race: :-)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDiDK_yBCw0

On creating and using killer robots, btw:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
   

Thanks for the reply, and it is great that these things are being discussed. What did your discussions have to say about using some combination of a basic income (expanding social security and medicare for all), a gift economy (expanding Debian GNU/Linux, Wikipedia, Apache, and blogging), localism (expanding 3D printing, local currencies, and local gardening), and democratic resource-based planning (using subsidies, taxes, and investments to deal with externalities and build infrastructure), to realize a post-scarcity economy?

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://basicincome.iovialis.org/e00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy4hFVcl6Vo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Localism_(politics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3d_printing
http://www.remineralize.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentrally_planned_economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Synthetic (by me):
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery#Four_long(2D)term_heterodox_alternatives

From a few hundred years ago:
http://www.marcinequenzer.com/creation.htm#The%20Field%20of%20Plenty
"When the cornucopia was brought to the Pilgrims, the Iroquois People sought to assist these Boat People in destroying their fear of scarcity. The Native understanding is that there is always enough for everyone when abundance is shared and when gratitude is given back to the Original Source. The trick was to explain the concept of the Field of Plenty with few mutually understood words or signs. The misunderstanding that sprang from this lack of common language robbed those who came to Turtle Island of a beautiful teaching."

Also from a little later:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch
"At potlatch gatherings, a family or hereditary leader hosts guests in their family's house and holds a feast for their guests. The main purpose of the potlatch is the re-distribution and reciprocity of wealth. ... The potlatch was a cultural practice much studied by ethnographers. Sponsors of a potlatch give away many useful items such as food, blankets, worked ornamental mediums of exchange called "coppers", and many other various items. In return, they earned prestige. ... Potlatching was made illegal in Canada in 1885[8] and the United States in the late nineteenth century, largely at the urging of missionaries and government agents who considered it "a worse than useless custom" that was seen as wasteful, unproductive, and contrary to "civilized" values.[9]"

If it takes laws and the force of arms to suppress gift giving in the USA in the past, what does that suggest about "human nature"? Also, consider how much force of arms and courts and fines and other penalties (including imprisonment) it is taking recently to suppress sharing of music and information on the internet (whether RIAA lawsuits or the firing or imprisonment of people contributing to Wikileaks). Human nature is a complex thing. Also, if you look at a count

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead? "

http://www.righthealth.com/topic/vitamin_d_may_reduce_risk_of_pancreatic_cancer/overview/healthology20
http://www.vitamindwiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Iodine+-+how+much+is+needed+July+2010
http://www.lmreview.com/articles/view/iodine-the-next-vitamin-d-part-I/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiR9VcuVWw

The above links are on how others may be able to help prevent such cancers to some extent, especially us indoor techy types who may not be that into good nutrition or sunshine.

Just before Star Wars came out, I had developed my own R2-D2 shaped robot, inspired in part by a commercial cylindrical vacuum with a dome top my family had. My family had given that vacuum my oldest sister when they got a new one, and I had to ask her for it (and she was nice enough to give it to me) and I took out the motor and extended it with a big can (from tar for basement tiles IIRC) in the middle between the base and the dome top. My father (who worked around a machine shop) machined a gripping claw for it and helped with some of the other mechanical aspects like brackets for the two drive motors on either side of it. I did the electronics and some of the mechanical stuff plus the overall design. It won first prize in the Long Island Junior Science Congress (around 1977). I called it a "radioactive material transporter", as I had seen robots at Brookhaven National Labs that did that. I have some pictures of that version somewhere (and it was in local papers). One version had an arm in the front with a gripper and an arm in the back with an electromagnet (I kept changing it around a bit). I used strings with motors and pulleys to pull the arms up and down. The strings would jam now and then.

After Star Wars came out, I had to keep telling people, no, it wasn't inspired by Star Wars. I wondered for a time if Grant McCune might have seen a picture of my robot, but essentially they were both being built at the same time (me for a seventh grade science class starting in 1976, him in California for the movies). There is a picture of a later version on my site, but that one was from after Star Wars had come out (and it only has one arm in the front). See:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/

That one was influenced a bit by Star Wars, as I had put in a modified Radio Shack circuit that was a light-sensitive theramin-like device that let it make squealing noises in various pitches. I think the wheel mechanism there were the same ones I used on the original, as were other parts (stuff was so hard to come by, I cannibalized one project to make the next). They had a rubber band around the big wheels and a drive motor with a pully -- the stretch in the rubber band seemed essential to making it work -- O rings would not work. The wheels came from inline skates my father had made based on "road skates" in Holland. This was before inline skates became a big thing in the USA -- so maybe I cost my Dad a fortune? I remember him deciding I could have the wheels from his prototype with an odd sort of look (a tough choice I see now, as a parent myself, in hindsight that he had to make -- help his son's dream or push forward on his own dream?) The salad bowl on the top in that later version was a gift by that same sister to my parents, and I had kind of taken it over (I wish now we'd all eaten more veggies -- see Dr. Joel Fuhrman -- that sister since died for heart disease and other issues perhaps related to vitamin D deficiency and diet too). The frame for that one was a rolling bar bought by my father at my request for it (although we did use it for a short time as a rolling bar for a party my mother gave before it became de

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. I discuss that at length here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all."

See also:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html#On_dealing_with_the_social_hurricane_of_the_CIA

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. I discuss that at length here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all."

See also:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html#On_dealing_with_the_social_hurricane_of_the_CIA

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. I discuss that at length here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all."

See also:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html#On_dealing_with_the_social_hurricane_of_the_CIA

A book I wrote: http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html
"Post-Scarcity Princeton, or, Reading between the lines of PAW for prospective Princeton students, or, the Health Risks of Heart Disease"

From there:

The fundamental issue considered in this essay is how an emerging post-scarcity society affects the mythology by which Princeton University defines its "brand", both as an educational institution and as an alumni community. ...

Consider a prospective Princeton student evaluating whether an elite education at Princeton is a good investment of four years of her or his youth -- as well as a the direct expenses and indirect opportunity cost of lost wages. How should such a person evaluate the Princeton University "brand" these days, given, say, Donald Rumsfeld '54 as a PU poster boy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Rumsfeld
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poster_child
"Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A809-2004Nov20.html
And also, how should a bright student interested in a future of independent intellectual effort see a PU investment in relation to perhaps a future PhD and professorship if they stay on the academic track all the way? Is it worth it? Should they really sacrifice, say, creating their own personalized "brand" on their own in the internet age from day one, as opposed to trying to build a life under the Princeton "brand" and so perhaps follow in Donald Rumsfeld's footsteps?

Here is an analogous example of someone choosing to pass up working at Apple to continue developing their own personal brand:
"Why I passed up the chance to work at Apple"
http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/000809.html
A visitor comment from that web site:

Apple has nothing on Cameron Moll. Sure, Apple is a wonderful brand. But where Apple is in the business of design, Cameron strikes me as one in the business of the art of design, and that may appear to be a subtle difference at first glance. But it isn't. ... You have built a brand for and of yourself, and I personally admire your accomplishment. I believe you describe an important self-discovery: you value the Cameron Moll brand more than you value the mighty Apple brand.

By coincidence (if such really exist? :-), such a prospective student need look no further that the current (May 14, 2008) issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly (Cover story: "The new rules of financial aid"):
http://www.princeton.edu/paw/archive_new/PAW07-08/13-0514/table_of_contents.html
to understand how the "Princeton University" brand may need to be rethought in a collaborative GNU/Linux & Wikipedia internet age. Is it still advisable to align oneself with the historic Princeton University brand in an emerging post-scarcity society? Or, to be fair, to align one's personal brand with how that historic PU brand is now seen by the public, acknowledging there is always a lot going on at Princeton in different directions? I'd also suggest there are more alumni than just me who have stopped buying PU-related automobile window stickers (see below for more on that).

That choice of self-branding versus main-stream branding in the internet age is related to the idea of "post-scarcity". I will define that better later, but for now, let's just imagine a future where beer everywhere in t

http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm
"Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but demand concrete experimentation."

Compartmentalization can lead to lots of secrecy ("need to know"). Secrecy helps some things, but it also makes it easier for snakes to hide inside something, or for people to be unable to "connect the dots". I heard about one sociology professor who said, studying movies, that the "good guys" always win because they have better communications than the "bad guys". There are endless books about how organizations can improve their internal communications for greater effectiveness. Also, consider that analysis is about putting things into compartments, but synthesis is about putting things together, and both are important for creative problem solving, and the needs of our society seem to be shifting towards creative synthesis:
"RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

What good is a "secure" organization if it can't perform its primary function (whatever that is) very well?

There are always tradeoffs of security vs. effectiveness/useability. See:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/security_vs_usa.html
Which links to this:
http://jnd.org/dn.mss/when_security_gets_in_the_way.html
"The numerous incidents of defeating security measures prompts my cynical slogan: The more secure you make something, the less secure it becomes. Why? Because when security gets in the way, sensible, well-meaning, dedicated people develop hacks and workarounds that defeat the security. Hence the prevalence of doors propped open by bricks and wastebaskets, of passwords pasted on the fronts of monitors or hidden under the keyboard or in the drawer, of home keys hidden under the mat or above the doorframe or under fake rocks that can be purchased for this purpose. We are being sent a mixed message: on the one hand, we are continually forced to use arbitrary security procedures. On the other hand, even the professionals ignore many of them. How is the ordinary person to know which ones matter and which don't?"

One might expect people at the NSA to be quite a bit more disciplined and trained than average, but certainly this point holds for other organizations.

And about another three letter agency (quoting from Wikipedia) apparently struggling with compartmentalization:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html
"All of this has the effect of making it hard for DI analysts to interact even with the classified outside world. The CIA view is that there are risks to connecting CIA systems even to classified systems elsewhere. Mitigating those risks sends implicit messages to analysts: that technology is a threat, not a benefit; that the CIA does not put a high priority on analysts using IT easily or creatively; and, worst of all, that data outside the CIA’s own network are secondary to the intelligence mission."

And links on open alternatives for most of any nation's intelligence needs:
http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/76207-8319
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/2846ca1b6bee64e1
http://www.phibetaiota.net/abou

... for intrinsic/mutual security: http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. I discuss that at length here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
    There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. "

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. I discuss that at length here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
    There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. "

Thank you for your willingness to risk everything for your nation.

Still, would it not be better if our nation adopted a defense posture that focused on intrinic and mutual security? Maybe then we would not need to have so many "secrets". Is security by obscurity really such a good thing, whether in cryptography or on the ground soldiering?

From what I suggest here:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

===

The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream.

We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety")
http://www.beyondintractability.org/audio/morton_deutsch/?nid=2430
and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

There are lots of alternatives I helped organize here for helping transcend an economy based around militarism and artificial scarcity:
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery

Still, we must accept that there is nothing wrong with wanting some security. The issue is how we go about it in a non-ironic way that works for everyone. The people serving the USA in uniform are some of the most idealistic, brave, and altruistic people around; they just unfortunately are often misled for reasons of profit and power that Major General Butler outlined very clearly in "War is a Racket" decades ago. We need to build a better world where our trusting young people (and the people who give them orders) have more options for helping build a world that works for everyone than "war play". We need to build a better world where some of our most hopeful and trusting citizens are not coming home with PTSD as shattered people (or worse, coming home in body bags) because they were asked to kill and die for an unrecognized irony of using the tools of abundance to create artificial scarcity.

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"Written by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, Retired
CHAPTER ONE: WAR IS A RACKET

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. ..."

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Great poem.

Is a racket why the people "on the other side" "need killing"?

Part of how things got this bad:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/7a.htm

See also, on the irony of it all:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

From: http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?

Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?

Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?

These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious. Here is some dark humor I wrote on the topic: A post-scarcity "Downfall" parody remix of the bunker scene. See also a little ironic story I wrote on trying to talk the USA out of collective suicide because it feels "Burdened by Bags of Sand". Or this YouTube video I put together: The Richest Man in the World: A parable about structural unemployment and a basic income.

Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. ...

There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ...

We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety")
http://www.beyondintractability.org/audio/morton_deutsch/?nid=2430
and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

Great point.
Related section of "Human Resources": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-4Hv9pDicA

Solutions (my suggestions building mostly on what others have said):
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery#Four_long(2D)term_heterodox_alternatives
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html#On_dealing_with_the_social_hurricane_of_the_CIA
http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/76207-8319

Great point.
Related section of "Human Resources": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-4Hv9pDicA

Solutions (my suggestions building mostly on what others have said):
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery#Four_long(2D)term_heterodox_alternatives
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html#On_dealing_with_the_social_hurricane_of_the_CIA
http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/76207-8319

probably number in the tens of millions between health care, advertising, and agriculture.
Consider how easily deaths are preventable by good diet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiR9VcuVWw
And then look at what is subsidized:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/debunking-diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

Sector by sector one could go through the US economy and look at the suffering and deaths caused by corporate-friendly profit-oriented social policies (mercury poisoning anyone?). It may well add up to fifty million US Americans killed at least twenty to thirty years early. It's just someone dying in a car accident from lack of sensible land use policies, or someone dying from cancer from industrial toxins, or someone dying from heart disease from eating too much subsidized meat and processed wheat is not normally seen in the USA as a victim of government policy shaped by corporate interests. But they are just as dead as if someone had shot them. And it is not a good rebuttal to say other countries do as bad in other ways when the USA could have done a lot better with all its advantages...

What about the millions of people in the US prison system? What about the tens of millions who seek out illegal drugs to escape for a time from the USA?

And the risk still remains that we will all perish in a nuclear war or bioengineered plague, driven by a competitive war racket.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html#On_dealing_with_the_social_hurricane_of_the_CIA

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all."