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 24 Jun 2007 @ 23:17
The prototype Global Assembly Dialog is set to begin in late July 2007 using a web rating technology to vote on messages written by the participants. Please join us. Your part will be to write a message and to read and rate messages written by others. The highest rated messages will be distributed back to everyone by email. The goal is to go global with massive numbers so that the "elected" messages truly represent the entire human race.
The Dialog is sponsored by the Unity-and-Diversity World Council. See udcworld.org/global. Co-sponsors wanted. Contact UDC's Rev Leland Stewart at udcworld1ATyahoo.com or Roger Eaton at rogereatonATearthlink.net.
At this point we have about 4000 email addresses, which will likely equate to between 400 and 800 active members. Once we hit critical mass, estimated at 10,000 active members, we should be able to zoom to planetary size in three or four years. Please join us as we build a world that works for everyone.
We are betting that democracy on a global scale is the solution to the ever more obvious shortcomings of the nation-state system. We love our nations, but we have to rise up to the global level to solve global problems. Unifying mankind, if we do it right, will mark the beginning of a golden age – and it is in our reach.
We have two plans to bring the online GA Dialog down to earth so it will have its effect. First, as we recruit groups and networks for the Dialog, we will be asking them to add a mention of Dialog results to their local agendas and to provide representatives to an annual in-person Global Assembly meeting. The annual Global Assembly meeting is expected to evolve into a global institution that sits permanently, something like the U.N. General Assembly, but organized bottom up from groups and networks rather than top-down from the nations. Second, we have high hopes for a Nonviolent Service Arm (NVSA) of the Dialog as described below. More >
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 24 Jun 2007 @ 17:20
• Unity-and-Diversity Council (UDC) converges on Temescal Canyon, CA.
• Final parameters for an "online think-tank" (Global Assembly Dialog) completed
• Executive session establishes strategic vision for UDC and Global Assembly rollout
Contact:
Rev. Leland Stewart, (310) 391-5735 Email: udcworld1@yahoo.com
Rebecca Tobias, (310) 916-8888 Email: Rebecca@RaoulWallenbergInstitute.org More >
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 26 May 2007 @ 19:26
There is an up and coming online community called Wiser Earth. Wiser Earth is a creation of Paul Hawken's Natural Capital Institute. The WE software is based on MySQL and open source php. Hawken has just come out with an important new book: "Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming."
Here is the blurb: "WiserEarth serves the people who are transforming the world. It is an open source, community-editable international directory and networking forum that maps, links and empowers the largest movement in the world – the hundreds of thousands of organizations within civil society that address social justice, poverty, and the environment."
Check it out and join up! More >
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 18 Mar 2007 @ 23:19
Before continuing with this article, please be sure
to read about the Eaton Model
of Collective Communication.
The technology we will be using for the Global
Assembly Dialog is called InterMix Group Dialog Software. A single
instance of the software, refered to as an InterMix hub,
runs on a windows platform with SQL server as the database. It uses
dot-net technology, written in C#. More >
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 25 Jan 2007 @ 16:18
Hmm - the Ted Talks site has many sensible thought provoking lectures available in both video and audio formats. Here is one that I can recommend.
"Author Robert Wright argues that history has an arrow: That humans have continued to evolve -- if not biologically, than culturally and technologically -- toward greater complexity and intelligence. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 19:54)"
Watch Online Download Audio
Wright's view is that we are in danger of not making the leap to a global civilization, possibly leading to a global collapse. Seems sound to me! He also believes that for our own self interest, people everywhere have good reason to promote a world that works for everyone (tho he does not use that phrase). And he calls for the launching of a moral revolution, saying that a "major round of moral progress" is in order. Indeed! Thank you Robert Wright! More >
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 30 Dec 2006 @ 17:53
The dialog software though delayed again, is advancing well and we will get there. Meanwhile I am using the time to start up a Nonviolent Service Arm for the Global Assembly. If we have even the beginning of the NSA (;-) in place when the dialog kicks off, I think we can improve our chances in a couple of ways. The NSA will originally be composed of autonomous local taskforces connected via the internet. The purpose of the local NSA taskforces will be to support the Global Assembly through nonviolent action based on GA advisories - more on the advisories below. Each local taskforce will have a secretary whose responsibility will be to coordinate with the other taskforce secretaries and to respond as a group via the dialog software to the Global Assembly. See also the Wedding of Humanity and Nonviolence article. More >
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 19 Nov 2006 @ 15:45
Text of a report that was delivered to the UDC World Council on November 18, 2006. Also, an excellent development from that meeting, Lyle J. Noorlun has subscribed his contact list of 900 that he has gathered from his website, worldpeaceflag.org, nearly doubling our current list of participants. Plans are coming together, and it appears we will be off to a good start. The Interfaith flag displayed to the right is the Fourth of Ten Peace flags from the World Peace Flag site. Information is posted on the site to submit your design for the next World Peace Flag. More >
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 12 Oct 2006 @ 15:49
The following article is by Rev Stewart, key sponsor of the upcoming Unity-and-Diversity Global Assembly dialog. He is a kind hearted man and a thinker, as you can see from his words. His Unity-and-Diversity World Council website is worth a look.
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RECONCILIATION: A Celebration of Our Common Humanity - by Rev Leland Stewart
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath ... and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.
--Christianity (Ephesians 4:31), Science and Spirituality, p. 140
Religions are many, but the Spirit of Life is One. Religion in our time must therefore embrace diversity and in the midst of that diversity create unity, a sense of the wholeness of all things. Let us be reconciled to one another and live in harmony. More >
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 1 Oct 2006 @ 18:24
The MAYA Information Commons is a major project with global application from MAYA Design, a design consultancy and technology research lab spun out of Carnegie-Mellon University. Here is MAYA's Josh Knauer speaking on the Info Commons at the O'Reilly Where 2.0 conference. More >
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 24 Sep 2006 @ 22:12
The Global Assembly positively encourages the participation of "fringe" groups with eccentric or even unpopular points of view. We seek the widest possible range of thought and opinion coming into the Dialog. As long as no one group dominates, the inclusion of the kooky idea can only enrich the process. Who knows, under some circumstance, sometime, some oddball message might kick off a train of thought that takes us where we need to go. The Dialog will operate as a collective mind for humanity, and, just as for an individual, it is important to keep that mind open. More >
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 17 Sep 2006 @ 20:44
Googling these two phrases, we find the former occurs 369 thousand times and the latter 598 thousand times. For non-hairsplitters, they can be taken as meaning the same thing: a living vibrant togetherness that thrives in that middle ground between uniformity and fragmentation. More >
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 11 Aug 2006 @ 05:13
Our Unity-and-Diversity Global Assembly Dialog will begin in September. By now readers of these pages will know the outline of the Global Assembly process. We will start with two or three networks, each with some 150 to 750 email addresses. The online dialog will alternate between “unity” and “diversity” rounds where in the unity rounds, all the participants together will write and rate each other's messages to select one message representing all the participants, and in the diversity rounds each network will in like fashion select its own message in parallel. The intent is to bring in more and more networks until we are truly representative of humanity, all the while debating best practices for growth and action. More >
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 20 Jul 2006 @ 15:01
Global Democracy & Sustainability literacy learning:
Why they must go hand-in-hand by Eric Schneider
Eric, this is a wonderful article, chock full of enthusiasm and sensible ideas. I applaud your ideas and sentiments, and am impressed by the !Positive News and Youth Views! Ezine at http://www.pnyv.org where you are a member of the Founding and Creative Board. I must add your latest at http://pnyv.org/literacies and how to trigger a new conference culture! Yes! More >
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 16 Jul 2006 @ 18:38
The Lovers of Democracy have a thoughtful website, well worth a look for those interested in the deeper meanings of dialog. Among the articles there I particularly recommend one from 2001 entitled "DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS: WHAT FOR?" by Hernán López-Garay, a professor at the Centro de Investigaciones en Sistemologia Interpretativa, Universidad de Los Andes, Meridia, Venezuela. More >
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 15 Jul 2006 @ 16:05
Dear Friends,
The plan is to build a Unity-and-Diversity Global Assembly from the bottom up, using the internet and a process of voting on messages to involve the hundreds of millions of people who realize that humanity must adopt a global perspective if we and the earth are to thrive. Instead of electing candidates to a global assembly, a hugely expensive undertaking, we will elect messages to represent us in both our unity and our diversity. More >
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 14 Jul 2006 @ 02:12
Heiner, your "Dialogues and Conversations" article has put my head in a swirl! It almost makes me feel that if we can actually understand something, anything, that something must therefore be simplistic and not representative of reality. Conversely, since I don't fully understand your article, it really might be on the right track!!! But, kidding aside, it is well to be reminded that things are more complicated than they seem, and multiply that by 7 when dealing with global issues. More >
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 11 Jul 2006 @ 15:12
The world is experiencing a tremendous surge towards human unity. Necessity drives us and we are pulled by a vision of a friendly world that has its act together and does the smart thing. But we have a big hurdle to get over, and that is figuring out how to make "unity and diversity" really work. This is what Josep L.I. Ortega is addressing in his congenial "Statement for Unity of Action", which also, by the way, provides us an excellent map of the movement for world citizenship and democratic global governance. His main point is that the various trends within that movement need to support each other and unite on an agenda in an umbrella organization. Only in this way can the movement achieve the numbers and credibility it needs to succeed. More >
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 24 Jun 2006 @ 00:22
Dear Friends, Our topic is "Organizing a Unity-and-Diversity Global Assembly from the Bottom Up." That means the real thing, a powerhouse Global Assembly to put the world on a better path. Can we possibly succeed? In preparing this talk, I was reminded of Shel Silverstein's cartoon of two raggedy men chained hand and foot, hanging from a wall. One turns to the other and says, “Now, here's my plan.” That's me to you - I have a plan. My aim today is to convince you that those two guys did get down off that wall. More >
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 25 May 2005 @ 01:31
The Los Angeles Jewish-Muslim Email Dialogue on Human Rights has just concluded most wonderfully. Both the individual messages and the development through the five rounds of the dialogue are very impressive from the "Oneness that underlies all reality" of the first message to a specific five point agenda for Southern California of the last. See groupdialog.org/humanrights/results.htm to view the dialogue results. More >
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 17 Oct 2004 @ 22:59
Sepp Hasselberger has alerted me to an important article on Robin Good's site: The Network Second Layer: RSS Newsmastering. The article discusses the use of rss to create portal websites for particular interests.
This second layer of the internet notion is akin to the annotated web idea laid out in a previous article. More >
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 25 Sep 2004 @ 21:35
We are making good progress on the programming for the Jewish / Muslim email dialogue.
For the best writeup yet of the Voice of Humanity vision, see the earlier article entitled "A New Heaven".
The New Visions for Culture and Society Committee of the Threshold Foundation has offered a $50,000 grant "to proactively address societal awareness of mass extinction and our responsibility in creating and reversing it." The current mass extinction is very serious, with projections of loss of 50 percent of all species by 2100 at the current rate. I have applied for the grant with the following LOI (Letter of Inquiry): More >
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 14 Aug 2004 @ 10:12
Work continues, slowly, on developing the specs for the Voice of Humanity Network. Meanwhile in an important side development, a prototype collective email dialog program is being assembled using Python and MySQL. Time frame is to have it ready by January for a possible Jewish / Muslim Interfaith Dialogue. Focusing on the Middle East, this dialogue will use collective communication to build consensus in a non-confrontational way. Each of these three terms needs a short explanation. More >
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 6 Jun 2004 @ 14:48
On the web now at the InterMix home page -- click on the specifications link there. Having failed to get myself off the dime and actually coding, I have had to outsource InterMix development to India. No kidding. The Indian programmer will be using these specs. Comments welcome. More >
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 22 May 2004 @ 20:47
Danny Hillis of Thinking Machines fame has published an article on the Edge about his latest venture, "Aristotle" (The Knowledge Web). His idea is to combine an authoring tool, a peer to peer network and a specialized browser to enlist us all in the building of an all encompassing knowledge database for humanity to be accessed through our own personalized artificial intellgence (AI) tutor, which he calls "Aristotle". More >
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 17 May 2004 @ 19:41
InterMix will use Chandler for a front end. At least that is the plan at this point. So as a first order of business, I decided to adapt the Chandler UUID for InterMix, thinking that having the same format would make the meshing of the two programs easier. The UUID is a Universally Unique IDentifier and is used as a key for all Chandler repository items. More >
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 29 Apr 2004 @ 19:30
Ben Hyde, in his Ascription is an anathema to any enthusiasm blog has posted some congenial musings about links as online currency, ala google. He quotes John Seely Brown:Notice, also, that blogs can suddenly reach a critical mass that then forces something out into the open, into public consciousness. You might think of it as an analogy to the subconscious vs. the conscious. Yes! And then he adds value to Brown, saying (among other things):The image that John's little narrative creates is that ideas are attempting to emerge from the soil and that various authors on the net are kicking up the dirt trying to set them free. That the link's role is to be a spade in the soil. It doesn't serve the site, or the author, or the status economy. It serves the desperate attempt of the ideas to escape. Lovely. More >
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 24 Apr 2004 @ 13:07
Nova Spivack has an important new article sharpening up some of his previous comments at New Version of My "Metaweb" Graph -- The Future of the Net.
Danny Ayers has responded at Nova's Metaweb and Machine Consciousness. In Danny's article, if I read it aright, he takes issue with Nova's notion of "structures that provide virtual higher-order cognition and self-awareness to the network". In my view, which I think accords more with Danny's, Nova is speculating. Self-awareness and higher-order cognition may arise from basic structures plus scale instead of from structures built on structures as Nova seems to be thinking. More >
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 31 Mar 2004 @ 22:34
From Nova Spivack's article, The Metaweb: The Global Mind Just Got Smarter: "Now the important question here is: at what point can we say that a bunch of parts becomes a new whole in its own right? At what point can we speak of "the superorganism" as an entity? The crucial boundary is called a "metasystem transition" which is a transition from one order of organization to a higher order of organization. ... We are in the process of evolving the Metaweb -- the beginnings of our species' superorganism. " More >
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 18 Mar 2004 @ 12:32
Click here for presentation. Tomorrow I'm off to Washington DC for the PyCON 2004 Python Conference and Chandler Sprint. The sprint will be my baptism for both Python and Chandler -- I am rather going in at the deep end, so wish me luck! Mitch Kapor -- see previous article -- will be giving a key note speech. This will be my chance to meet Mitch, and I am hopeful he will give me some serious face time, so on good advice I have prepared by developing this Open Office presentation as a guide. There is also a pdf version. More >
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 11 Mar 2004 @ 19:05
Testing Darryl's tres cool TRAFFIC.zodeca.com tracking software, I discovered some percolation on the subject of web annotation.
Casey has an excellent article about the history of annotation on the web, citing articles about a 1999 product called "Third Voice" that used browser plugins to allow web annotation, with mixed to poor results. More >
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