Seeds of Change - Heiner Benking's Blog - quergeist.info
Welcome to the NewsLog or Blog of Heiner Benking. A kaleidoscope of insights and impulses collected first in the DaZiBao (Rio) process Seeds of Change Viewsletter of the Club of Budapest since 1995, continually updated ever since. Now available for broader distribution and comments in this blog - enjoy, and come again !
24 Oct 2015 @ 21:38
thilling days the last 4 weeks and even more so the last week "celebrating" 70 years United Nations and 70 years UNESCO in 4 weeks
[link]
ceck also the UN COMMONS : [link] http://berlinergazette.de/spanische-huertas-und-freie-strassen-commons/
maybe see some "impressions" how talking, dining, and wining connect as well: https://www.flickr.com/photos/berlinergazette/albums/72157656391907159/page2
I am dead after a week oth 70t celebrations an already looking into entrepreneurship tomoorw...
But let me share some links and complete more later...
check: #UN70 and #UNdiscovered
When I revisit MOTHER PELICAN *** I wonder if we can negotionete and make alife "commons". [link]
4 Oct 2015 @ 14:06
The GeoBerlin 2015 [link] is kicked-off today at FU-Berlin by the GeoUnion [link] and other partners/sponsors. The pre-event is celebrating a figure which is one of my "unknown heros": Alfred Wegener [link] I cite this for onlookers not from the GEO-family so they can digest what he achieved, how extraordinary and different he was:
"Exactly 100 years ago the most outstanding German Geoscientist Alfred Wegener published the first edition of his seminal book “Die Enstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane” (“The Origin of Continents and Oceans”). Today we all know that his seminal hypothesis was only accepted once the pieces of the “plate tectonics” puzzle were put together in the 1960’s. Wegener was 50 years ahead of his time. We should never forget that Wegener was a metereologist and astronomist. He pursued his research on the thermodynamcis of the atmosphere and impact craters with as much energy as his development of “continental drift”.
In our meeting Dynamic Earth – from Alfred Wegener to today and beyond we will review how Wegener‘s findings evolved into to modern Earth system science including its impact on climate and the Earth surface, and how this system affects our daily life: where humans live, what risks we are exposed to, where we find our resources. .... "
Besider Carl Ritter **** Alfred Wegener was one who followed his scientific vigor and intuition, despite all the eminences and egos in science not only those days....
So lets check out the REVOLUION OF GEOSCIENCES !!
I strongly recommend the book of Franz Wuketis: [link] "Outsiders in Science: Pioneers, Trailblazers, Reformers" unfortunately on in in German: Gegen den Strom schwimmen - ein Buch über eigensinnige, mutige, selbstbewusste, hartnäckige Forscher, die als Amateure oder ... [link] who covers such uncompromising, leading, visionary thinkers which were not years, but decades ahead of their times.
I worked 24 years ago with the founding president of the Alfred Wegener Foundation, Friedrich Strauch on exhibitions, fairs, international halls and a profile of the foundation. All recorded, see the Geotechnica opening in 1991, the 2 hall the foundation managed "Local and Global Change" [link] and Members of the Foundation hall with the exhibition introducing the AWS: [link] but unfortunately the foundation did not survive and tansferred into something quite different, the GeoUnion - Alfred Wegener Stiftung, unfortunately even the GeoTechnica as "the marketplace" of the Earth did not survive.... and I "lost" years of work and investing into such a great venture. Check the websites, no comments as you see how little of the wide courageous intentions and visions of its founding president survived.
Geo Künstler und Geo Juristen ! A great opening lecture by Celâl Şengör https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cel%C3%A2l_%C5%9Eeng%C3%B6r a plea for another science, with intuition and creativity.... MANY THANKS - check it out !
__
The Geographers met last week and Geologists start today. Flatlanders and Deeplanders? Not really ay more. They all use 2D and 3D and there is some progress the last 100 or 200 years. I will come back to this issue in the next days as the Geologists are mcuh more technology driven, multi-D, visualization, modelling,..... all the stuff I was so excited about in the 80ies..... - but now it is "standard" and we have to cope with the Challenges applying such "new tools". Check the programme of GeoBerlin 2015 [link] I am thinking back to the Geotechnica 1991 and the LOCAL AND GLOBAL CHANGE exhibition: [link] - In retrospect it is interesting to remember how much enthusiasm we had those days ... - But the times were not right and even the Alfred Wegener Foundation transformed itself unfortunately... CHECK asks and objectives as part of a profile of the Alfred Wegener Foundation: AWS Aufgaben und Ziele: [link]
3 Oct 2015 @ 04:39
Today Germany celebrates the Union of East of West. This week was full of reflections and memories about the times those days and today is National Holiday. The Reichstag Parlamentary Assembly and the discussion in the lobby were interesting, but nothing is new and in my view we have missed the momentum and have not build on the Enthusiasm we had 20+years ago. I decided not to join the Parlamentarian Part and Culture pure events, but reflect what went wrong and why!
Some of us were "drunken" and "high", Gorbachev and many others repeated "The New Thinking" has arrived, but I was worried about how that new/non dualistic, unifying thinking can last and get into our minds and actions. I mentioned this to Gorbachev when he introduced his new book: DAS NEUE DENKEN with us in Frankfurt, but he could nor get me. The danger is this polit-talk with "Plastik Words" (Pörksen), I tried to highlight the Challenges when giving a keynote at "Jugend Forscht" in Leipzig ***** or and an essays for a book with Rita Süßmuth and Ossip Flechtheim called "playful thinking" https://www.academia.edu/1832457/Spielerisch_querdenken_und_dar%C3%BCber_reden_lernen_-_Ein_Entwicklungsbericht_%C3%BCber_DenkWerkst%C3%A4tten_mit_Kindern - but it was taken out of the book the very last minute ! I will give this to Rita on Monday...
So why has the "New Thinking" been lost on the way? Why the process of the "RUNDE TISCH" Roundtable assembling Betroffene and Beteiligte to the Table. Uhlmann ****
Why has anything progressive and "avant-garde" like the GLOBAL CHANGE exhibition been "forgotten", why do we always start anew without basing on pragmatic, solid, experienced, ... Old Thinking and project and morph it with possible New Thinking and "Turns". Why have shared "Robust Paths to Global Stability" - see the Challenges [link], have they been read? / understood!?
We celebrated 25 years GLOBAL CHANGE exhibition exactly on May 30th, also in front of the German Chancellery (see WUNDERKAMMER revisited in this blog) but the people from those days are "not in office" any more.
Some, like Rudolf Seiters [link] are now heading the RED CROSS - or the later Culture StateMinister Bernd Neuman [link] who supported our LOCAL AND GLOBAL CHANGE 1991 [link], and last not least Klaus Töpfer who was also with us at the INTERNATIONAL CORNER Geotechnica and LOCAL AND GLOBAL CHANGE, ...they all remembeed well when I met them laterm, where we were in German about coping with GLOBAL CHANGE chellenges towards embodied, coherent "thinking" - but the drive has been lost and we still do the conventional thinking...
In a Nutshell I see that there was with all the needed "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" "coping with the past" that we forgot that there is a much wider HISTORY and we should not only clear the bad stuff, but widen our Views, Including Positions, Perspectives, Frames, Values,... This was my contribution here last Friday at the Digitaler Salon: Virtual Past [link] of the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) and there I mentioned the "Digital Peters" GYC 2011 in Geneva with the EARTH FOCUS FOUNDATION. Have a look: [link]
I hear Gürtler, *** and *** now on PHOENIX television and become very concerned... It is about TRUST, COMMON SENSE, AGGRESSION mentally and physically.... When you revisit Baker, Falin, Gorbachev with Raiza, Kohl, Genscher, ... and "lawyers think" which can be very dangerous as we can see..... Genscher remembers Raiza being aware of the Trust Gorbachev gave as a credit - expecting returns ! Gerbachevs NEW THINKING was also NEW ACTING in a progressive, peaceful way !
So again how can we get our thinks and acts together peacefully..
I reference about clan-think and groupthink in MOTHER PELICANs Okt 1st edition with the title: The Human Family in the Anthropocene and there the picture and the editorial essay with focus on ON FINANCE & TECHNOCRACY: [link] Highly recommended !!
Former President von Weizsäcker made the link between being United to Share !!
Or present President Gauck: made the Link between "Zusammenhang und Zusammenhalt" - I citation I used here in 1999 in Culture of Refusal: saying No !! - [link] and was used by Friedrich Fichte !! see him here on slide 4: [link] in a presentation where Ritter is in the center, and the Humboldts, Schleiermacher, Fichte, Hegel, Hufeland, ... around him !
Possibilities Limmited - Values not to be negotiated
"Possibilities/Resources exhausted"!
Notes:
Union of Concerned Scientist ***** poster !! in the GLOBAL CHANGE exhibition and get very CONCERNED ***** I add here the GOOGLE search as GOOGLE and in particular GOOGLE MAPS is immensely part of the problem mentioned here **** check in-betweener.org *********** and Franfurt Bookfair and and ******
1 Oct 2015 @ 22:08
What a deep loss and so many positive deep resonnance !
Two brothers passed away, and now!? Where do we go from here?
one was David Macbryde - [link] http://vun.org/english/index.html
the other Mokhtar Yahyaoui
David was for me a master-hub, a virtual, powerful, but for most "invisible, nice, sweet, focussed and humane. I called him yesterday a "back-stage" submarine, helpful and with focus "in the deep". His project VIRTUAL UNITED NATIONS will continue living long after him ! [link]
The other was the Tunisian judge Mokhtar Yahyaoui. He died a week ago, September 22 and so his family has lost a very special father, husband, friend, uncle, ....
see more here: [link] We had Mokhtar here in Berlin right after the "Spring" and indeed he was a very special brother and friend and I hope some "SEEDS" were shared back and forth over the Mediterranean.... [link] see also the ANNA-LINDH-SALON [link] and other events we did for him at media, academies, foundations, ministries, clubs, ... [link] also when he came again years later...
A Nightmare for me to loose 2 brothers in one week - I see them very close, they have only met briefly - but I will add here soon more on their common urges and work, publicly and wisely in the background. David also masterminded vun.org and I hope some youth will pick up on this - maybe for the UNs 70th celebrations.....
That is why I visited "in-between" on the 30th in Berlin and at the end in Schwanewerder the PUBLIXPHERE youth gathering: https://publixphere.net/i/publixphere-de/milestone/382 Highly recommended to revisit the programm, on-line presences and their programme and scope. I was thinking abut an interview with Linnea, their manager, but unfortunately....
but this was not the last event and it has some momentum, when you see ONE europe and some other activities. I felt these Young Europeans might be interested not only VUN (abvove) but what was done about such collaborative sharing "islands" and concepts from the past with some future. Publixphere is about "Liquid", when I prefer "Living" Democracy",[link] but this is difference which can make a difference. Maybe you like YouTube in the high days of OCCUPY "on the matter" at Brandenburg Gate, SPEAKERS CORNER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzx5wXvAjbc more recently Sharing and Gifting and Stammtisch 3.0: [link]
The participants of Publixphere in Schwanewerder are ready for the next steps towards "informed decisions", and what we call "multi-track diplomacy and peacemaking" check 21stCenturyAgora[link] eager to see what can be made possible... at BRANDENBURG Gate we had before me GORDEN ASH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9fLDDFk580 about WALLS falling and rising: check this out !!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9fLDDFk580 I mention it in my YouTube above !!
28 Sep 2015 @ 03:53
The COMMONS ACTION ALLIANCE/CLUSTER published the interview with Amina Muhammed, this article to provide some answers on how to handle challenges around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as mentioned by Amina.
NYC as I learned was the WORLD HUB last weekend. So let us peruse and get going towards "root causes" and "common frames of references":
See this article as a pre-release for the October 1st. (check the text without links below at [MORE]
Viewing Trees and Woods:
Connecting Dots, Links, Sectors, and Frames
Heiner Benking and Rob Wheeler
October 2015
This article is about ways to outline and represent the SDG goals and ways to communicate and achieve them (click to view the banner)
Links to more information: 2000-2015 MDGs, 2015-2030 SDGs, FOCUS AREAS
This article proposes a critically important perspective on the Environmental Situation of the world as seen from a distance. It could be perhaps considered as a macroscopic interpretation of the “Global Problematique” [1] as it has been studied now for more than 50 years. The article will revisit past approaches, earlier and present mindsets, and presentation and representation formats; and then suggests that a broader, deeper and more systemic, global [2] approach is both feasible and very much needed.
When one sets about to agree on goals like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to be able to discuss directions and priorities for implementing them is a necessary step. There is no doubt about it. The world community has struggled for the past 15 years to tackle the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and now is “starting afresh” once again unfortunately, instead of settling on sound and lasting concerted actions.
The first answers for the reasons we are starting over again would include that not all stakeholders were challenged by the MDGs, for example there were no ambitious goals for the “developed world”, too many things had been left out before, the statistical base is not sound enough for the next efforts and decades, or that there is no coherent map, only arbitrary agreement in long international negotiations without sound attempts to make sure that “blind spots” are identified and avoided.
Example of such systemic - built in - errors are collected in links of the article below: [More]
26 Sep 2015 @ 21:56
today was FUTURE READY NOW ! check a few days back here: [link] Interesting day, unique, we will continue tomorrow for a brunch - check details ! .- call !?
25 Sep 2015 @ 21:20
Early Stage Researchers Colloquium 2015 and Welcome to the future… I take as an exception the original text from the website. Goto the original and go deep ! The themes and participants is exceptional and I really enjoy some great exchanges besides....
Yesterday and Today was the annual colloquium wishes to gather early stage researchers (Ph.D. candidates and post-docs) from all disciplines in order to drive forward the discussion on topics in the field of Internet research. The colloquium provides a stage for new perspectives on current issues of Internet and society.
[link] @HIIG_BERLIN
and
GIKII - Welcome to the future… The future doesn’t look exactly as we imagined, only a handful of us get to live in space, there are no hoverboards and flying cars, and no jetpack in sight. Disappointment abounds.
But look closely and the future is more interesting than we imagined. You can talk to your computer, and there is a good chance that it will understand you and act on it. A modern pocket calculator has more power than the Apollo 11 computer system. You can talk to your family on video anywhere in the world. Phones are ubiquitous; moreover, they have become true multimedia mini-computers that allow you to make your content available to anyone instantaneously. There are robots in our houses and skies. You can have reasonably affordable portable tablet devices that put to shame anything depicted in Star Trek. You can affordably print designs downloaded from the Internet. And things are just starting to get interesting. We are about to get true virtual and augmented reality, and holograms!
But not everything is nice, with the advances we have fears of Artificial Intelligence wiping out humanity, serious privacy concerns, the fear of economic meltdown and environmental disaster.
Information is where the future lives, and Gikii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GikII is the annual conference that thrives in the information world. Since the first edition in 2006, Gikii has been at the forefront of thinking about legal issues well ahead of the curve. We tackled 3D printing before the mainstream. We dissected augmented reality, robots and drones before they were cool. We are the geek lawyers who mash-up popular culture, technology and law. [link] Just have a look at the sessions to see how "far-out" and "out-of-the-box" these young people are. I find it very challenging and frightening - but I wonder who out-there in the "real world" can get what the sessions below are about: The State of the Art (Future Law) - The Inevitable Failure of Future Law? Emerging Legal Issues in Recent Transatlantic Science Fiction - Digital Golems and Peer-to-Peer Law - Holograms and the law: a multidimensional issue - The Colour of Magic (IP) - Life on other Worlds: Creators and Copyright - The Player of Games (Privacy) - Security and Privacy for the Internet of Things – Not - Live Long and Prosper (Miscellaneous) - The Use of Weapons (Regulation) - Excession (Artificial Intelligence)
Well, "besides" was in the Maritim the celebration of 40 years of the BVMW. What a high level gathering!! of pragmatic and responsible people ! I was very fortunate to sit with an old collegue: Peter Mencke-Glückert[link] Fore me he is one of the foremost people in the world around ENVIRONMENT - PEACE _ JUSTICE - ENTREPRENEURSHIP and ECONOMY - ADMINISTRATION - ETHICS - INTERNATIONAL ...
24 Sep 2015 @ 18:48
WORK IN PROGRESS - STAY TUNED The World Forum for Ethics and Business - a registered public interest foundation (“fondation d’utilité publique" in Belgium. The mandate of the Forum includes all manners of pursuing and establishing the indispensable ethical foundations of business in a globalized world.
High Level, VIPs, Celebrities and Vanities, Sportspeople, Trainer, Media- and Businesspeople, Politicians,... what a gathering tonight !
For me Ethics with Space and Time Horizons is central and so it is very challenging talking in one space with:
* Athletes, Trainers about tactics and strategies, resources, frames/fields, and timelines, and Schiedsrichter, ....******
* With Business people you can also talk about scales, proportions, and consequences and watchdogs... und Wächterräte.
* Polititians ***
SDG NYC .. Mother Merkel and the MEDIA-POLITICS nexus...
Quite different categorirs, languages, mindsets,... but in the depth also very close ! and so there was lots to share.... till very late !!! Stay on.
So what is the difference in time of the Refugees and the VOLKSWAGEN MALAISE....
Such issues and leverage points are very dear to me, so have been the participants. The "regimes" are very much floating in the air these days, and so is anyone speaking "in the air", "shifting sands", and "shallow waters" ....
in the air, on lands and (high) seas ***
I shared much about Yehezkel Drors New Leadership book: Avant-Garde POLITICIAN - Leaders for a New Epoche without EarthLiteracy!? and we discussed not only Jonas, Plessner, Tagore and Happiness (sukkha and dukkha) "ETHICS and INFLICTION OF SUFFERING (panetics), and the COMMONS ALLIANCE new effort hitting today the streets at the UN in New York at the SDG gathering, ....
And "to lead, to follow, or get out of the way", rules, plain level fields in many dimensions, on various interactive levels - and how such GLocal Realms should be used for a responsible strategy along and and across scales.
Stay tuned, as this fits nicely into this blog the next and following fortnight....
Collegues, this is the second time in 400 blog entries that I make a pre-announcement, partially as we might also like to hang-out before or after Saturday. Some friends wanted to come and their might be still a seat available at Philip Horvaths event on Saturday.
A GLOBAL COMMUNITY OF FUTURE-READY LEADERS meeting next weekend in Berlin !
Here are some objectives:
* Deconstruct old mental models, so that they can see the present clearly and open to a future of possibility.
* Feel empowered to create the future.
* Integrate information from disparate sources so that they can stay on top of what is important.
* Practice using a scalable innovation process, not just a new thinking tool for managing rapid evolution.
* Confidence to lead their team in creating a new future, now.
* Connection to a global community of powerful peers.
Let us see who is available for a kick-off or polish on Saturday evening or Sunday. We do it normally as a brunch in the Casalot. check: Anna-Lindh-Salon
This is Heiner Benking's News Log, a private-public diary presenting events, symposia and happenings in Berlin and elsewhere - my farings, foci, issues and concerns.
PLEASE CONSIDER THIS PERSONAL BLOG an ARTISTIC and PERFORMATIVE MEDIA INTERVENTION !
The Log links to my work and interests and presents issues and special concern of maybe a very small group of "concerned, engaged generalist" - a Global Interest Group (GIG). This needs to be seen in contrast to the ubiquitous Specialized Interest Groups (SIGs), the "scientific" approach to organize subject areas and specialization and standardization and harmonization! of means, nomenclatures, and modes of thinking. My favorite stories in the WHOLENESS SEMINAR include:
BELA BANATHY: "GENESIS
OF GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY" and "IVAN HAVEL: Longing for Unified Knowledge" where a "specialist" runs into the founding session of the early foundations General Systems, mumbling "this is not my field" or where Ivan M. Havel expresses his search for other kinds of knowledge.
As a starter I also recommend to check my MINDPRINT site, where we add the need for HANDPRINTS and MINDPRINTS, as FOOTPRINTS are good to visualize and communicate numbers, densities or consumption per area, but are not sufficient to negotiate and "harmonize" across domains and communicate gains in different cultures, technologies, times,... in short: incompatible but relevant information and our work on dialog, peace, policy-making, and multi-modal, faceted issues and consequences.
What am I? This is a "well-packed" question for which I have not the or a single answer. Some called me an in-betweener, go-getter, facilitator, hub, marvel-hero, trim-tab, bricoleur, bricoleers??? - career designeer, .... Some even "hank" which I disliked or Story which I liked very much !!
I have no single answer as I feel we need to walk the talk and sing and dance Life ! in spectra and fields in multiple embodied spaces.
To nebulous an answer? I am sorry but I do not go for overclaims and oversimplifications, under-complex and over-simplistic approaches with clan-think mindsets about real issues in clear contexts!
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24 Oct 2015 @ 21:38
4 Oct 2015 @ 14:06
3 Oct 2015 @ 04:39
1 Oct 2015 @ 22:08
28 Sep 2015 @ 03:53
26 Sep 2015 @ 21:56
25 Sep 2015 @ 21:20
24 Sep 2015 @ 18:48
23 Sep 2015 @ 07:43