I got curious enough to go out to the performer’s (Dale Allen) website. Quickly seeing tour schedule I wondered where this show was currently performed. It did not take long to discover that I’d just missed, not only a local performance on March 25, but a hyper-local performance, here, at our own Howard County Community College.

That made me very sad.

Having spent a fair amount of time thinking about and taking action aimed at “creating community”, specifically geared toward regenerating the strength of our feminine nature, I am reminded of how much change will be required before this kind show not only gets wide publicity, but its message becomes integrated into the very fabric of our community, itself.

To have watched this live, you would have to be at your computer at the time it was recorded. Next time. This time you’ll have to use your imagination.

Second, if you are into technology the content of the video is from AT&T with an up-close look at their new browser, Pogo – which is built on top of Mozilla ware. For those not into technology content, here’s another “live streaming” video of Gary Vaynerchuk has he presents his review of three DeLoach wines…it’s pretty good.

Technology change curve is exponential, and as I understand it we’ve hit the mid point of the curve and the changes we will experience over short time spans will be even more noticeable than we’ve experienced in the recent past.

Now for the story (which can be found in its entirety at http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html

The Singularity Is Near

To appreciate the nature and significance of the coming “singularity,” it is important to ponder the nature of exponential growth. Toward this end, I am fond of telling the tale of the inventor of chess and his patron, the emperor of China. In response to the emperor’s offer of a reward for his new beloved game, the inventor asked for a single grain of rice on the first square, two on the second square, four on the third, and so on. The Emperor quickly granted this seemingly benign and humble request. One version of the story has the emperor going bankrupt as the 63 doublings ultimately totaled 18 million trillion grains of rice. At ten grains of rice per square inch, this requires rice fields covering twice the surface area of the Earth, oceans included. Another version of the story has the inventor losing his head.

It should be pointed out that as the emperor and the inventor went through the first half of the chess board, things were fairly uneventful. The inventor was given spoonfuls of rice, then bowls of rice, then barrels. By the end of the first half of the chess board, the inventor had accumulated one large field’s worth (4 billion grains), and the emperor did start to take notice. It was as they progressed through the second half of the chessboard that the situation quickly deteriorated. Incidentally, with regard to the doublings of computation, that’s about where we stand now–there have been slightly more than 32 doublings of performance since the first programmable computers were invented during World War II.

This is the nature of exponential growth. Although technology grows in the exponential domain, we humans live in a linear world. So technological trends are not noticed as small levels of technological power are doubled. Then seemingly out of nowhere, a technology explodes into view. For example, when the Internet went from 20,000 to 80,000 nodes over a two year period during the 1980s, this progress remained hidden from the general public. A decade later, when it went from 20 million to 80 million nodes in the same amount of time, the impact was rather conspicuous.

As exponential growth continues to accelerate into the first half of the twenty-first century, it will appear to explode into infinity, at least from the limited and linear perspective of contemporary humans. The progress will ultimately become so fast that it will rupture our ability to follow it. It will literally get out of our control. The illusion that we have our hand “on the plug,” will be dispelled.

Can the pace of technological progress continue to speed up indefinitely? Is there not a point where humans are unable to think fast enough to keep up with it? With regard to unenhanced humans, clearly so. But what would a thousand scientists, each a thousand times more intelligent than human scientists today, and each operating a thousand times faster than contemporary humans (because the information processing in their primarily nonbiological brains is faster) accomplish? One year would be like a millennium. What would they come up with?

Well, for one thing, they would come up with technology to become even more intelligent (because their intelligence is no longer of fixed capacity). They would change their own thought processes to think even faster. When the scientists evolve to be a million times more intelligent and operate a million times faster, then an hour would result in a century of progress (in today’s terms).

This, then, is the Singularity. The Singularity is technological change so rapid and so profound that it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. Some would say that we cannot comprehend the Singularity, at least with our current level of understanding, and that it is impossible, therefore, to look past its “event horizon” and make sense of what lies beyond.

It’s 2 minutes of what’s possible using music and media as a medium of connection.

Now, I don’t know how many times I watched this clip before I heard Ryan Seacrest announce it was Chris Cornell’s version of Billie Jean. Huh? Ok, so I’m more removed from the music scene than most…after all I am watching American Idol! But it sent me in search of Mr. Chris Cornell…and I loved what I found.

This, to me, is a great example of “creating from.” Here is an extremely popular song known by a significant percentage of the population, re-arranged by a significantly unknown musician and blown out of the water on significantly popular television show. This creating from each other re-vitalized, renewed a cultural stronghold and gave two careers a huge boost, and most likely significant royalties to MJ (Michael Jackson) and his folks, while touching the masses in new and exciting ways. I am INSPIRED.

It raises all the boats!

So far I haven’t seen it. I, for one, am tired of the rhetoric. Will anyone out there direct their investment dollars toward more complex thinking and away from policy makers and stock buys?

4:44 minutes long.

In case you are wondering, this video is by the same guy who did this amazing production!

I invite all to read this column by David Brooks. I would like to know whether you think there is any GT-Systemic (Yellow) thinking in Obama. If not, what is the pattern that Brooks has recognized?

Here is my response, I added some generational theory to the mix:

I also think it is important to mention the idea of visionary leadership, particularly since Obama keeps calling for VISION. Based on my understanding of generational theory, explicitly that of Strauss and Howe, Obama is part of the 13er generation (GenX). As we collectively head into what Strauss and Howe call a Fourth Turning (20 years of secular crisis and upheaval— an outer driven era) it is the Boomer generation that as they transition from leadership (midlife) to elderhood are called to also mature from moralizing causes to visionary leadership. And as the 13ers transition from rising adulthood to leadership (midlife) they are called forth to mature out of personal survival mode and bring pragmatic leadership to the constellation of generational life-cycles and meta-seasonal turnings. Strauss and Howe point out that historically, when we have had Idealist generations( which is the archetype generation born in Boomers) in prominent leadership positions, like the presidency, it’s been a less than optimal positioning (it creates misalignment) to deal with the conditions of a Fourth Turning. The Reactive generation (the archetype of the current 13er generation) is much better suited for these roles: roles of generals.

It will be the 13er generation (GenX) that Boomers “might be see as the rough-hewn tools needed to achieve lofty Boom visions” (which we haven’t seen yet), “and in return, 13ers might see in Boomers the leadership without which they might never find larger purpose in their own lives.” Perhaps we’ll have to wait another 4 years for this dynamic, however.

It is my considered opinion, that if we do a vmemetic analysis of the current generation cohorts, we would find a considerable density of warm colors in the 13ers with dominate orange and emerging yellow, contrasted with heavy cool colors in the Boom generation with a dense center of gravity in BLUE.

I suspect that we are seeing emerging yellow in Obama, and given the intensity of the prevailing and rapidly changing conditions the next president will navigate, if Obama wins, he’ll have to develop a lot more of it. What will be interesting to see is how the current US institutional infrastructure will respond; is there is enough yellow in anybody to get results atop that mess. Here’s where the scenario for a major breakdown of systems and relationships inside The Beltway looks optimistic to me.

The question is sorting through the billions of videos being loaded that are available to watch. This one was well worth the 8 minutes of my life I gave to watch, and I am supporting the development of a filter by blogging about it to help others make their own sorting distinctions.

This is a fascinating view into the world of other species as a pride of lions meet a pack of buffalo, intruded on by a couple of crocodiles in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

The financial crisis is out of the gates.

I’m learning as much as I can, without getting sucked in. Relying primarily on the preparation I’ve doing for the last 10 years to see me and those I influence through what lies ahead.

For your enjoyment, I offer the best I’ve found under the category of intellectual presentation of the situation here. Dr. David Martin is a great story teller while weaving complex economic factors together.

And the best comic presentation…while still delivering information here! (Thanks, Jordan for bringing it my attention. It literally made my day!)

Onward Oh!

I decided to watch SiCKO, with the assumption I would be typically uninspired. Not the case. The first 10 minutes or so excepted, I found the perspective described in this movie to be, limited yes, but highly enlightening. Why, I wondered? I think it has to do with my particular buy-in to the American cultural story that our healthcare is the best in the world. I have excepted that story without much examination.

Understanding the healthcare issues are very complex. And there is more to the story than what is described in this movie. But approaching America’s healthcare issues with an assumption that our healthcare system is the best in the world is a critical error. Mr. Moore takes on the experience of every day, hmmmm, let me call it middle mainstream citizens. These are the folks that are dependent on the healthcare system for healthcare. They do not have excess resources to buy healthcare wherever and whenever they chose. The experiences of these Americans, as compared to citizen of Canada, Europe, Cuba and even Guantaomo Bay, describe anything but the best healthcare systems in the world.

I am fully aware of the major outcry about our “best healthcare system in the world” is that so many Americans do not have insurance. Let me be clear. SiCKO is NOT the story of people whom do not have healthcare, it’s stories of people that do have healthcare!

It’s stories like, an industrial worker whom accidentally cut off two fingers while working, having to decide whether to have is ring finger sown on for $50,000 or his middle finger for $12,000, but not both. And that is just the beginning.
All in all, two definite thumbs up! And a reality check of cultural assumptions, of my cultural assumptions is on the table.