Last year I wrote that this pandemic has become a crisis in network leadership because understanding what domain of complexity we are dealing with is now an essential requirement for decision-makers. At its outbreak the pandemic was chaotic and required immediate action. Developing vaccines went from complex to complicated. Dealing with people and how various groups… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Democracy
an understanding of my confusion
Not only is there a lot of junk online — Sturgeon’s Law states that 90% of everything is crap — but there are active measures against our democracies to promote propaganda and disinformation. It’s not just the Russian troll factories either, but organizations like those funded by the Koch brothers in the USA. • Hillsdale… Read more »
we have met the enemy
A long time ago — pre-pandemic and pre-9/11 — I was flying on a commercial passenger aircraft. The flight was over-booked and as I was wearing my Army uniform, I was offered to sit in the jump seat, just behind the pilots. Yes, these things happened in the ‘before times’. It was a short flight… Read more »
“a profound failure of ethical action”
Jon Parsons has researched the ethical implications of the pandemic since it was declared by the WHO. I initially thought that the pandemic, while obviously a serious crisis and heralding an era of disruption, was an opportunity for positive change, a moment people would step up, come together, and enact values of collective care …… Read more »
sensemaking networks
Where have you been getting your news about the pandemic or the invasion of Ukraine? Mainstream media? Twitter? And of course some of what I end up reading through Twitter originates with traditional news outlets like the Times or CNN. But Twitter is simply faster than any other medium at picking up the shifting momentum… Read more »
hold the centre
A recent conversation on Twitter between Peter Radcliffe and Chris Corrigan highlighted the need for a political centre that does not polarize those on the edges. “A fundamental Canadian flaw is that the 70% of us who are in the political middle have been raised to be too polite to publicly call the 15% on… Read more »
we need less professing and more doing
I mentioned in decision-making and trustworthiness that the roles of Professors, Stewards, and Experts are not as trusted as Doers, Connectors, and Catalysts. The role of Professor is ranked as the least trusted. During this pandemic the mainstream media, public health agencies, and governments have predominantly used the least trusted roles — Professors & Experts… Read more »
getting to a new normal
The global pandemic has been a wake up call and an opportunity. It has shocked our market economy and society. Over the past two decades we have seen many experiments and movements toward a more equitable, sustainable way of living on this planet. We have made the rules for how we are governed and how… Read more »
the balance between emotion and logic in the digital age
The recent research report — the rise and fall of rationality in language — shows a significant shift to emotion in the published public discourse during the 1980s, after 130 years of predominately logic and reason. After the year 1850, the use of sentiment-laden words in Google Books declined systematically, while the use of words… Read more »
algorithmic amplification
What is the impact of constant misinformation on consumer social media? Dave Troy discusses the effects in a long Twitter thread: “Disinformation is the operational end of a process designed to break down society and radicalize it into cultish forms. This process leads people away from truth. We can’t address this process by distributing truth;… Read more »
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