Wags tail.

In the garden of my being, a handful of magic, a little dirt, some water and loving intent to be sustained through the seasons. Repeat. And it was said, altruism is not businesslike. And it failed. But not because it was short-sighted.

How so?

No, no … because it was not "well-managed." With management, marketing and money we can make more … management, marketing and money and keep doing so until we are caught. Which won't happen until after we retire, far away from the mess we made. The cleanup is for the lesser, altruistic folks.

Can sarcasm be compassionate? Some say no, that the end of sarcasm justifies the means to get there. "Lock and load, but church on Sunday. Get rid of the 'bad guys', and there will be more for me."

We humans, we are trouble makers. He is right. So we have to think. The only faith should be in our capacity (regardless of its source) to make things better together. Methods that morph through awareness, who would argue against? And, perhaps most importantly, why?

Our job is to fulfill the great dictator who is unable to speak directly. Fortunately I speak for him (not her or, worse yet, it). You must have faith that I alone, among us, interpret his intent correctly. 

"We've got enough, let the machine take a bite or two and we can watch what happens."

"Have you no mercy?", she said with that 'is the puppy Ok?' look in her eyes.

"Its a machine."

"But it - is - our - machine. Can I drive?", she smiled.

My Friend

There's more?

That was a time when science and technology had grown like a noxious weed, starving out the complex and courteous wisdom of the sentient. The salutes and mind numbing rituals and their systematic destruction providing a diversion for anxious souls.

Understanding nature as objects and creating things without reverence was the new call of the wild. A crazy voracious predator so hyped up on its own importance that it could destroy anything in its path and often did.

Who pressed the self-destruct button? No matter, because the conventional wisdom morphed from 'they did' to 'we did'. As if to reject the crack cocaine 'notion' that more is better until something breaks.

Did burning the remnants of the old provide the energy to take down the new? It is an old story now. And still being told, I've heard. We see it in a sky no longer pure. When the noise abates, a distant tune instills hope. Turn it up.

In A Dream

Tear down this monument to reason. How is it reasonable that so many suffer needlessly? Wake up. We will not allow any more self-serving denial in the name of consistency, tradition and loyalty. At long last, have you no shame sir?

Why should a life expire? Perhaps to make way for the better in the form of the new. We have come to that promised fork in the road. You know, the one where we can continue on the path of selective attention and be oblivious to the terrifying truth that this truly is a great design and ego will have to adjust to the idea of a 'lifetime'.

Ok, why did he leave it there? What about the other path(s). Ahh… the emergent ones. The paths we choose to make rather than the one, by default, that is chosen for us. Courage, you scare me. The backyard I know, it is safe … if a bit boring.

So, ride captain ride on your crystal ship. The magic carpet exits are on your right. Please wait until will come to a complete stop before disembarking.

Virtual War

Clever ploy. They are attempting to flood the entire machine by auto-generation of content that mimics legitimate aggregation sites? Perhaps to discredit enemies of an agenda? Just graffiti?

Well, the list could go on and on. The behavior has a common thread? It seems to be working against productive use of free communications. Who might be threatened by such?

The profile familiar, especially in time of war. And what constitutes war in a time of unprecedented connectivity? A monster of the collective's instinct as modeled in the machine? War is unfriendly activity. Friends are in lieu of war. War often has been and continues to be profitable. Friends, especially when organized can impede that form of profit.

"if this line of thinking has merit, the compassionate response is what?"

"The response is moot until we discover who and their intent.", she answered almost automatically. The chain usually began with an identifiable party whose intention could be just about anything. The anonymous opponent is no dummy.

Sentinel

Just when search engine manipulation and steganography networks had been used to buy time in a global economic shift the concept of the subtle hybrid got its start as well. Then, a critical mass were shouting - it became the new noise. The profound meaning had been, for awhile, masked by the uniqueness of a loudest voice. But they had come to a point where there were many - loud - voices.

But just as the dog has incredibly nuanced hearing, it too has a very loud voice. The transmitter and receiver confined to the beautifully designed head. Between the words, within a fraction of a second a remarkable instrument for detecting danger is enabled. Interpretation of the faint signals, almost instantaneous.

And those who saw their power slip away were, and are, far more about the bark than the space between the words. The subtle hybrid listens though. The technical notes he understood for they were a bridge of high order: "Dynamic and adaptive filters increasing the Q. The pristine dynamic range per-frequency bit depth - large. Hi speed logging, in case a better tune in time is possible."

"This ping design is that?"

"Or something like it.", she said knowing another layer or two was needed to match the cognitive impedances.

9826 ID - ACK

"That was a long time ago. Some of the wide pipes were in but mostly used for one-to-one voice, a little broadcast. Not much else. At least not that we know of at this point."

"Yes, but it was clear even then that a robust backbone would be more than a huge low risk-high return major capital investment. The satellite and the Pacfic fiber were the hints. Those things don't just happen in an environment where there is so much competing for the same dollars. The classified military projects to the private sector may be where to look next. Some of it is bound to be accessible through the FOIA."

Not much reason to go back into technological ancient history besides avoiding the advent of obfuscation becoming the norm. The good old days, a mere generation ago, when circumventing secrecy was the way in. His 'deficiency' was at a peak in those years. Many crucial clues he just did not notice. Others … his speculation ran rampant. So much was happening and an active mind seeking relief from the paranoia would, on occasion grab onto a piece and spook the nemesis.

Enough reminiscing, would it make sense to travel there now? So used to virtual intelligence gathering, especially in the last year, he wondered what it would be like to be in the field again. He was hesitant to broach the idea with the team out of fear that it would set in motion having to deal with memories just becoming gentle on his mind. While he was candid with friends about his precarious past, it was at a safe distance. Was this too near too fast?

"so those conversations …"

"Yes", he interrupted, "find out who he was talking to and you will know the major transactions leading up to the Manzanita disclosure."

Emergent Method Class

Mistaken attribution, what does it mean in this context? At first he just assumed that when it was said, it meant that somebody had erroneously attributed the insight. But could it not also mean that the assertion was not a declaration at all, merely speculation? The collateral effects may be the most significant. That would be a reasonable case for intentional ambiguity.

And so it went, the discovery that stimulating a robust discussion of what appeared to be anomalies resulted in seeing context with a different light. The illumination revealing the impact of subtle tidal effects on primitive reactions. Zen … or not … Zen.

Attraction based on something complex in common rather than simple in common. How could it work and still take advantage of cutting-edge scaling? Indirection and abstraction, a special class that built upon higher level invariant objects shared by many.

He had to admit, these ramblings were where he lost most of those trying to stay up-to-speed on the team's work. The interview regime looked to be the breakthrough he sought. Asymmetrical interactivity forced developing the foundation for communicating in an imaginary field.

The longer the structured ambiguity could be sustained, the better the synthesis could perform. Lectures, broadcasting, campuses a whole host of formats about to be retired because of the quantum leap in sensory extension.

"If and when she accepts the invitation, we can expect the usual resistance from those who don't yet understand. And that is what we need to understand better?"

"Yes, that is essentially it.", she answered knowing there would be more questions.

Organic

Channeling a strong emotion is a powerful tool. Its wake can end up in a groove. Great if the groove leads somewhere useful. And when that is not the case? The Blank Check Problem tends to have the second outcome. Why? Because not enough is learned in avoiding or recovering from mistakes.

When the simple Emotion X is repeated over and over, its natural resonance results in a low impedance path, a groove. Because of the repetition X soon dominates its environment. The echoes of the canyon serve to refine and deepen the groove. Emotion Y is complex, nuanced, dynamic and heuristic. Its natural resonance is diversity. Forever changing, the wake distributes widely and accumulates slowly in many directions.

X is inherently short term, effective now but short lived. Not particularly precise and potentially dangerous. Y is naturally organic. It respects robust variations. It is not in a hurry, nor does it need to be. It lives in harmony with its context and those who inhabit the context.

History is bloated with examples of 'studies' that led to a landscape of strip mining or clear-cut like grooves. Specialization too often leads to a tunnel vision that re-inforces errors of isolation. And seeing that way, a destructive arrogance that denies the whole and brings down not only the discipline but the ecosystem on which it depends.

The wise man who talks of the Inner Door and keeping it open, knows. When many gateways to relevance are open, life thrives.

Who ... or what?

" … blown my cover …"

This snippet alarming to say the least. Though flagged as 'must see now' its brevity particularly noteworthy. Since it was generated behind the cloak, there was no explicit attribution. The organic growth phase context, the classification recognized immediatelly as urgent. Related past experiences had the common element of a threatened anonymous party. No such alert appeared this time. He noted such, grasping his chin as if to cue the soup.

His gut was telling him this was preemptively significant to the task at hand. The sophisticated trust enhancement mechanism just deployed, riskier than they had hoped? When she first expressed misgivings they were about midway through the installation, the working prototype had just come out of the sand box. A footnote reflecting such was quickly added to the log at that time.

He reached for the switch cover, flipped it open realizing what it meant to interrupt at this point. This anomalous procedure invoked mostly on hunches that were perceived as critical.

Perimeter Breach

"A mole then?"

"Looks like it."

Normally not in his purview, he wondered just how he should regard this discovery. Since mission launch, it was understood that spy-related methods would be part of the landscape and that his becoming expert in such methods would be a diversion.

This was different though. A decades old plant meant that whoever might be behind the person of interest was privy to the deep implications of cognition artifact autonomy when it was first considered by their sponsors.

The Telemark communique notwithstanding, this was an area where it might be appropriate for him to step outside his 'job description'. The interview schedule would have to be stretched a bit. The seeming malaise had a root after all.

"Do they know, we know?"

"I don't think so."