Graphs and Networks
Interesting exploration of more human centric graphs, to map data, Knowledge Graphs.
Invitation - Chaordic Commons
An invitation to participate
in forming a self-organizing, self-governing global community
dedicated to developing, disseminating and implementing
new concepts of organization
that result in more equitable sharing of power and wealth,
improved health, and greater compatibility
with the human spirit and biosphere.
-- The Chaordic Commons
Non-violence
“The underlying philosophy of non-violence is that the people have more power than their government, but must connect with each other in order to mobilize that power.”
--Kusum Singh: Mass Communication without Mass Media: Gandhi’s message to a violent world
The Net of Indra
The Net of Indra is a profound and subtle metaphor for the structure of reality. Imagine a vast net; at each crossing point there is a jewel; each jewel is perfectly clear and reflects all the other jewels in the net, the way two mirrors placed opposite each other will reflect an image ad infinitum. The jewels in this metaphor stand for an individual being, or an individual consciousness, or a cell, or an atom, or a crystal. Every jewel is intimately connected with all other jewels in the universe, and a change in one jewel means a change, however slight, in every other jewel.
-- Stephen Mitchell, The Enlightened Mind.
This is the Jewel of Indra, the network as I envisage it. I believe that by creating and activating the structure, the most amazing things will happen. Once someone who believed they were disempowered suddenly becomes empowered, the energy that will be released will be so incredible we need just step back and let it do its work.
Network
Decide to network
Use every letter you write
Every conversation you have
Every meeting you attend
To express your fundamental beliefs and dreams
Affirm to others the vision of the world you want
Network through thought
Network through action
Network through love
Network through the spirit
You are the center of the world
You are a free, immensely powerful source
of life and goodness
Affirm it
Spread it
Radiate it
Think day and night about it
And you will see a miracle happen:
the greatness of your own life.
In a world of big powers, media, and monopolies
But of six billion individuals
Networking is the new freedom
the new democracy
a new form of happiness.
-- Robert Muller
Robert Muller is the former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and is now Chancellor, UN University for Peace, Costa Rica. He wrote the poem for Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps in honour of their book, Networking: The First Report and Directory.
{NOTE: After reading a through his ideas, there are some that are excellent. His ability to think in global terms, analysing many of the large scale issues that need to be dealt with, is commendable. To that end, it was be beneficial to us all if these ideas were to be implemented. However I question his uncompromising support for a form of World Government based upon the current political and economic framework. The Government could turn out to be even more distant from the average person, the citizens. It could become another form of the present government, only perhaps larger and more bureaucratic and politicized, and even more unaccountable. How tedious the process of change or agreement or action would be? How distant, how unaccountable would that body be in the end, to the average person. And once set in motion, how incredibly difficult it would be to change any direction.}
Oecumene
The ecumene (US spelling) or oecumene (UK spelling; Greek: οἰκουμένη, translit. oikouménē, lit. "inhabited") is an ancient Greek term for the known, the inhabited, or the habitable world. In Greek antiquity, it referred to the portions of the world known to Hellenic geographers, subdivided into three continents (Africa, Europe, and Asia). Under the Roman Empire, it came to refer to civilization itself, as well as the secular and religious imperial administration. In present usage, it is most often used in the context of "ecumenical" and describes the Christian Church as a unified whole, or the unified modern world civilization
{NOTE: This was interesting to me because of the innate idea of being civilised vs. uncivilised arose in Roman Times. Before that it meant simply inhabited. It reminds me of the evolution of the word _goy_ in Hebrew. It originally referred to a non-Jewish person. Nowadays, it is used pejoratively.}