I was thinking about a reverse Facebook, an unFacebook . The key difference is that this is not a social network that is populated by willing participants, but populated with people by information gatherers.

For example, I meet you, and unbeknownst to you, I add you to my unFacebook. I meet another person and add them. Later I find out that you and he are business partners. I then “friend” you to him on my unFacebook. I give access to this database to all the people in my organization and send them out with iPhones and a handy little app that they can use to snap facial photos, grab a GPS point for last location, and fill in some quick details about subjects. Sometimes my people use their iPhones to show photos of subjects to other people to verify names or aliases, corroborate last known locations, and make links with other subjects in the database. Multiple aliases could be resolved through face recognition software. Multiple spellings could be resolved through morphological analysis. Personal details, links, and geolocation data can all be captured on the go in a very simple and familiar system (everybody knows how to use Facebook). As these bits of disparate information come into my UnFacebook, I use this data for an advanced type of link analysis, or scalable social network analysis (SSNA). It seems to me that a system like this would be handy for soldiers fighting an insurgency.

I would assume that law enforcement organizations have something like this that has been the result of a long evolution of link analysis technology. Doing a little research I found a list of tools used by the NSA in James Bamford’s The Shadow Factory (pp. 149): PatternTracer, Agility, AMHAS, Anchory, ArcView, Fastscope, Hightide, Hombase, Intelink, Octave math, Document Management Center, Dishfire, CREST, Pinwale, COASTLINE, SNACKS, Cadence, Gamut, Mainway, Marina, Osis, Puzzlecube, Surrey, Tuningfork, Xkeyscore, and Unified Tasking Tool. This is simply a list of tools used by the NSA. I could not find out what many of these did. That may be because they are specific to the NSA, or historical with no trace left on the net. ArcView is the only social network analysis tool I could confirm. Pinwale is data-mining software, which can be used for SSNA. But this is beside the point.

The military has its own needs and different ways of collecting intel than domestic law enforcement agencies, or even the NSA. With all the COIN work Western militaries have been conducting in the past decade, a flexible, automated, unFacebook-style link analysis application could be a benefit. Such an application probably exists, and if anyone has some information on it, please share. If not, this is a potential market for an enterprising startup. Please contact me if you would like to collaborate. ;)

The human mind has increased in sophistication by evolving to the demands of survival over tens of thousands of years. Yet the big brains we have now retain many of the elements and processes of our pre-neolithic ancestors. Examples include Dunbar’s number, the way people reflexively crouch when they hear gunshots, and evolutionary explanations for altruism. Topics such as these are covered in the field of study known as evolutionary psychology.

Jamais Cascio’s article in The Atlantic argues that we no longer have to wait for evolution to augment our intelligence. Cascio’s article is about tackling the big issues: “Pandemics. Global warming. Food shortages. No more fossil fuels.” Issues like climate change obviously affect the livelihood of every human being, but are notoriously difficult to bring about the required action necessary for a solution. Cascio writes:

… as good as our brains have become at planning ahead, we’re still biased toward looking for near-term, simple threats. Subtle, long-term risks, particularly those involving complex, global processes, remain devilishly hard for us to manage.

This reminded me of a concept in international relations theory: securitization. I have introduced the concept before. As put forth by Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Japp de Wilde in Security: A New Framework for Analysis, security is defined as survival in the face of existential threats. Issues that are considered to be existential threats constitute an emergency and justify the use of special measures. The process by which an issue is elevated to the level of an existential threat is called “securitization.” However, as the definition of security widens to environmental, economic, societal and political sectors, the sense of existential threat tends to wane.

Buzan et al. show that environmental security is difficult to securitize. Their perspective is constructivist — purely sociocultural. Cascio, on the other hand, argues the same point from an evolutionary perspective. This prompts me to ask the questions: How does our evolutionary psychology influence our concepts of security, strategic planning and military thinking in general? What sort of prehistoric bias do we retain today that blinds us to more nuanced solutions to security problems?

Note that I am not talking about examining evolutionary psychology and the act of warfare. Hoplology does a fine job of that. I am more interested in our mental capacities for long-term strategic planning and sense of security. I think this is a viable field and would be grateful if anyone has any material on this and would be willing to share in the comments.

Last summer I had an idea for a book: a compendium of popular words or phrases used in the media that encapsulate complex concepts not well understood. In other words, a digest of intellectual slang.

Success in today’s marketplace of ideas seems to be based on whoever can condense their broad-based, interdisciplinary and world-changing concept into the tiniest catchphrase: a kind of argotic arms race. Unfortunately, these terms — regardless of the value they bear in their specific fields — are often used irresponsibly in a more general setting. Such usage not only confuses the issue, but is usually a signal of lazy thinking.

My book would gather around one hundred of these ideas from the last one hundred years, potentially through a discourse analysis of popular media outlets such as Time or The Atlantic. Some criteria for the terms could be the following:

• the term cannot be self-explanatory
• the term must appear in regular media (not academic journals etc)
• the term must be influential/popular

Below are some examples to describe the types of terms I am looking for:

• tragedy of the commons
• the long tail
• climate crisis
• intelligent design
• the long war
• mutual assured destruction

I would survey a random selection of the population to find the terms most widely known yet misunderstood. The survey results would be plotted on a graph from which the final terms would be selected. The entire methodology would be published as an appendix to the book.

Each idea would encompass a two page spread, include a photo of the originator of the term (if known), a 500 word explanation of the core points of the concept and its historical significance, and a list of resources for those interested in learning more. The ideas would be organized into chapters based on field of inquiry (politics, economics, philosophy, science etc).

The original Dictionary of Modern Ideas proposal napkin

Rather than a reference work the Dicitonary of Modern Ideas would be more of a coffee table book. It would have an attractive graphic design pleasurable to the eye, while being stimulating to the brain. The book would target two types of readers: 1) regular citizens who desire a deeper understanding of opaque terms often used in public discourse, and 2) the intellectually curious who want a tour of the ideas of our time.

This book idea has potentially already been published. If any of our commenters know, please let me know in the comments. If it hasn’t, maybe one day I will have to put it together.

I get my best thinking done while taking a shower. There is just something about the calming white noise of the water falling, obscuring my hearing and vision, that allows me to retreat into my thoughts undistracted. Unfortunately this state of meditation lasts just a few short minutes each day. This time is precious. I feel the need to increase my shower time. But how can I do so without wasting gallons of water and turning into a prune each day? Read the rest of this entry »