zenpundit.com

Kind of a part “theory”, part “futurism” post as my introduction to CTLab readers:

Visualcy and the Human Terrain

As a result of public education, the rise of mass-media and commercial advertising, Western nations and Japan, some earlier but all by mid-20th century, became relatively homogenized in the processing of information as well as having a dominant vital “consensus” on cultural and political values with postwar Japan probably being the most extreme example. The range between elite and mass opinion naturally narrowed as more citizens shared similar outlooks and the same sources of information, as did the avenues for acceptable dissent. A characteristic of modern society examined at length by thinkers as diverse as Ortega y Gasset, Edward Bernays, Marshall McLuhan and Alvin Toffler.

….Interestingly enough, despite complaints by American conservatives regarding the political bias of news outlets like al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, these organizations are packaging news in the familiar “Pulitzerian frame” in which mass media have been structuring information for over a century. Effectively, habituating their audience to a Western style (if not content) of thinking and information processing, with all of the advantages and shortcomings in terms of speed and superficiality that we associate with television news broadcasting. This phenomena, along with streaming internet video content like Youtube and – very, very, soon, mass-based Web 2.0 video social networks – will overlay the aforementioned complexity in regard to the range of education and literacy.

Read the whole thing here.

Top Billing! Lexington Green – Abu Musab al-Suri: Theorist of Modern Jihad

A superb post with wonderful links on the theorist of Islamist terrorism, al-Suri who is that movement’s John Arquilla, William Lind and Louis Beam rolled into one. He probably would have made a fine blogger had he not also been – well – a sociopathic nihilist.

Shane Deichman – Dreaming 5GW –  GW Theory Cast Too high

Recently, TDAXP began a reification of the GW theories that Shane joins in, rejecting linearity, sequence or manifestations of GW as descriptive of a strategic level conflict. I’ve never been comfortable with interpreting GW as a linear, historical, theory with ironclad universal predictive qualities ( “Everywhere there is the decline of the State”). I’ve always preferred it as a taxonomy that, as a strategic theory that like “Deterrence”, has useful applications in analysis and scenario planning.

As I have never felt the need to defend the 4GW school as revealed scripture, I see no urgent need to junk the 4GW terminology in favor of a new set of neologisms either. That said, read Shane’s post anyway.

Thomas P.M. Barnett – “The Inevitable Alliance“

The Sino-American geopolitical security relationship is transitional and symbiotic.

Steve DeAngelis – Looking towards the Future with Ray Kurzweil

An excellent review of Kurweillian futurism.

Whirledview – The Foreign Service and the Military and  The Odoms: Father and Son ( both by PHK )

Two posts with subjects of great interest to readers here.

Art Hutchinson – Butterflies for Dummies

Some support for the argument of Nassim Nicholas Taleb in The Black Swan.

William Lind – On War #262: Pyrrhic Victory

A nice commentary on the challenges of 2GW during the First World War and the costs of mechanistic, attritional, warfare.

Complexity and Social Networks Blog – .NetMap

Cool!  And possibly revealing!

That’s it!