1. To engage the Disinfonaut community at an earlier stage of the creative process than is commonly available.
2. To inform the Disinfonaut community of the practicalities involved in creating Disinformation.com and related projects.
3. To de-mystify the creative process, which is essentially practical.
4. To support the Disinfonaut community, and provide feedback.

Private Aims:

1. To encourage Disinformation.com's editor and staff to recount their experiences.
2. To provide Disinformation's editor with a pointed stick.
3. To expose Disinformation's editor to public accountability.

Note: These aims are adaptations of those devised by Robert Fripp for Discipline Global Mobile diaries.

Sunday, 12 January 2003

11:57. I've started a LiveJournal page that will focus on my foresight studies work at the Australian Foresight Institute.

Wednesday, 18 December 2002

22:19. Post Human writes:

"What is your "attitude" towards Temple of Set nowadays? How do view T/S in the context of "general esotericism", Western-based neo-religions and principles such as offered in Transhumanist and Extropian thinking?"

My exploration of Setian metaphysics and philosophical systems was useful to understand personal influences and antinomian practices. However affiliation is not something I would proselytize for others to have. Unfolding events since September 2002 have focused on the role of protocol and the "balance of power" in the administrative system. While these events may have had psychohistorical and realpolitik dimensions, they could also be evaluated by the non-initiatory perspectives of corporate governance and organizational psychology. Two key theories I've mentioned to Setians who have contacted me are Ichak Adizes' lifecycle model (the "Founder's Trap") and Barry Oshry's Power Lab ("Tops", "Middles" and "Bottoms").

The Temple of Set demanded a rational and modernist framework for noetic experience. It surveyed and reformulated specific practices from certain traditions with a psychecentric emphasis. Because of their goals of harmonization with the objective universe, it evaluated and rejected the majority of "general esoteric" and Western-based neo-religions as "pre/post" developmental fallacies or useful socially constructed fictions. The Order of the Trapezoid and Order of Leviathan have explored aspects of Extropian and Transhumanist thinking, including Hans Moravec's "mind-uploading" scenario, nanotechnology, cyborgs and cybernetic systems, and genomics. I saw some of this research, and discussions about its relationship to the Setian's psychecentric viewpoint, but don't know what its current hypotheses are.

14:01. Allegos writes:

"You can always tell it's a slow news day when Alex Burns turns Disinfo.com into a recruiting site for the Setians. Thanks for disclosing your membership this time."

My past Temple of Set affiliation (June 1996 to April 1998) has been noted at the end of Disinfo.com's "Temple of Set" dossier since 30 May 2001, and was known by regular Disinfo.com readers before then. It's standard journalism practice to disclose any organizational affiliations and allow readers to judge the information for themselves. Disinformation's editorial team makes the effort to update older material in a "just-in-time" fashion where resources and time permit. Our journalistic approach emphasizes a "multiperspectival" viewpoint. While I may be documenting past research and affiliations, this hardly makes Disinfo.com, as you have alleged, to be a recruiting site for the Temple of Set, or any other organization, for that matter.

On that note, I'm very much looking forward to the April 2003 release of Douglas Rushkoff's new book Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism (New York: Crown Publishers, 2003). Rushkoff's thoughts on how Open Source structures can lead to greater transparency in organizations and regenerate traditions will have applications in many other religious and spiritual traditions as well.

Friday, 15 November 2002

01:14. This morning I finished a foresight essay on the collapse of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management. You can download a PDF copy. This is the "short" version because I used only a fraction of the material I found (the "longer" version will be out before year's end). A gripping and very readable book on LTCM is Roger Lowenstein's When Genius Failed (New York: Random House, 2001). Some unused references worth checking out include Myron Scholes' Nobel Prize for Economics statement, Jeffrey Frankel's astute Brookings Institute briefing on the 'international financial architecture', an Institute For Fiscal Studies paper on uncertainty and investments, and the Government Accounting Office's report. Is there a pattern here? Thought for Disinfonauts: why fool around with Enochian when you can learn about derivatives and risk management (just as esoteric) and achieve world domination?

Thursday, 14 November 2002

06:22. Check out a BBC radio profile of three key environmental thinkers. My latest foresight piece has been a comparison of Mark Daniell's book World of Risk (2000) and Ulrich Beck's World Risk Society (1999). Daniell is a Bain & Co consultant involved in Asian-oriented corporate change, while Beck is a major figure in European sociology and Green political debates. You can download a PDF copy of my review.

Monday, 11 November 2002

04:15. Thanks to a suggestion by Kath Williamson, and invitations from Ben Eltham and Rachel O'Reilly, I'm doing two sessions at the first "Straight Out of Brisbane" festival. The press release touts me as a "conspiracy theorist", though in the post-X-Files/9-11 world, I go by the moniker of "freelance writer" or "strategic foresight analyst". Both sessions are free, so if you're visiting BrisVegas, drop on by and say hi.

Futures Studies & Conspiracies: The War on Terror
(Ben Eltham, Mitchell Porter, Alex Burns)
Friday, 2-4pm, Nov 22
Monastery Nightclub
621 Ann St (on the corner of Ann and Marshall Sts)
Brisbane

"What people in history believe in affects history. Debate about the War on Terror has also been a battle between different theories ("Bush Knew" vs "Iraq Did It") and paradigms ("It's All About Oil" vs "Islam Is The Problem"). Are there choices beyond state-sponsored terror versus geopolitical poker? We'll discuss these concrete theories/issues, progress to a more general discussion of the relationship between futures and conspiracies, and talk about the concept of critical futures studies."

Documenting the Fringes
(Jason Woodwood, Anna Poletti, Alex Burns)
Sunday, 4-6pm, Nov 24
Visible Ink boardroom
139 Constance St
The Valley (Brisbane)

"What are the ethical considerations, responsibilities and tensions encountered by academics and mediamakers who specialise in the coverage, documentation, and criticism of fringe cultures, and marginal cultural 'products'. What do they see their role to be?"

Wednesday, 30 October 2002

00:49. I've been ill for weeks with the flu and been working on postgrad-related projects. Adrian Slywotzky has been one of my favorite business strategists for several years, especially his book Profit Patterns. He is often compared to Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, authors of Competing For The Future, yet to his credit, Slywotzky championed Dell instead of Enron. So I wrote a brief essay on Slywotzky's concept of Strategic Anticipation as a primer in "pragmatic foresight".

Another major project I've been working on for several years has been correlating research into human values systems (notably the Spiral Dynamics® system) and their representation in film scenes and sequences. I've already mentioned a PowerPoint presentation I gave as part of a postgraduate seminar on "integral futures frameworks". I've spent the past few months logging DVD clips and tracking the interest in 'DIY' DVD commentaries. I'm releasing a draft discussion paper that also considers the dead-ends of dystopian imagery futurology films. The most useful sections for people will probably be the "field guide" (pp. 10-17), the summary of the eight key "deep values systems" in SD (p. 18), the Film Scanning process (p. 19), four key film cycles (pp. 20-21), and a psychohistorical case study (pp. 22-24).

Finally, several years ago I made an oblique reference to 'Holonic Editing' in an April Fool's prank. I gave a quick PowerPoint presentation recently (18 October 2002) to Australian Foresight Institute students about this, as a foretaste of a more indepth paper to be finished in November 2002. Some of this material was also discussed at TINA 2002 sessions on editorial philosophies and how to cultivate alternative sources.

Thursday, 26 September 2002

21:23. Ex-Suck columnist Heather Havrilesky has some great lines in this interview about Web fame and the Zen of Blogging. The big news of today is Christopher Hitchens' decision to leave The Nation. Alexander Cockburn and Edward Herman comment on Hitechens' career. The new Google News continues to have fallout for op-ed columnists and editors. While David Bowie celebrates Ziggy Stardust, New Scientist contemplates Life on Venus. Joe Klein has also written a great Al Gore critique.

Wednesday, 25 September 2002

23:58. Al Gore's "cowboy politics" speech has been praised for its posse rhetoric (a policy dimension echoed in a recent book by Ziauddin Sardar). One defense against this critique of antiwar sentiments is to blend critique with pragmatic action (a nod to Critical Realism). Articles of personal interest: a great piece on "DIY DVD commentaries" (just in time for another mammoth postgrad essay); a Marilyn Manson interview; a great dialogue between novelist Michael Ondaatje and film editor Walter Murch; and a useful analysis of the new Google News service. Agent-based tools, such as this initiative, are part of the Holonic Editing methodology I've been working on.

Monday, 23 September 2002

11:56. Media Watch tonight 'outed' Rosemary Herceg, cofounder of the firm Pophouse and a former Business Review Weekly columnist on futures and innovation issues. Herceg has been in the Australian press lately, so read the following interviews and transcripts, and decide for yourself about Herceg's futures work: The Bulletin lunch interview, MSN Small Business chat, 4 Corners interview and AFR Boss forum transcript. For the next week, you can watch the Media Watch segment as 56k and broadband versions or read the transcript. Below is my letter to Media Watch and Business Review Weekly managing editor Neil Shoebridge:

A couple of comments about Media Watch's 'outing' of Rosemary Herceg:

1. The 'surfing'/'wave' metaphor, popular in dotcom-era Silicon Alley/Valley, can be traced to Jim Dator ("tsunamis of change"), Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Dator first used the metaphor in the early 1970s and it was consequently picked up by futures consultants, and the business press.

2. The term "futurist" was popularized by the US-based World Future Society although it is now in professional disrepute, and often equated with John Naisbitt, "Future Shock", trends-tracking and that pesky Black Monolith. The 1998 and 1999 "Organizational Futures" session (World Futures Society's Professional Members Forum) found a shift from quantitative to qualitative methods, and the displacement of "futurist" by terms like "strategic foresight analyst" and "ideation leader" (source: "Futurists on the 'Inside': The State of the Practive of Organizational Futurists", Andy Hines and Louise Trudeau, "Futures Research Quarterly", Vol. 15 No. 4, Winter 1999, pp. 27-36).

Two alternate viewpoints to the WFS are the World Futures Studies Foundation, which has a global/multicultural outlook, and the Association of Professional Futurists. The Australian Foresight Institute is spearheading professional training with a focus on critical/epistemological futures and pragmatic application (using methods that go beyond Herceg and Pophouse's generic trends-tracking, scenarios and youth ethnography techniques).

Regrettably Herceq's "photographic memory" defence only reinforces the negative stereotype of the business "futurist" as unethical and ungrounded in serious disciplines/research. It's a pity, despite witty writing and savvy graphics, that Media Watch didn't seek a response from these organisations (thus also reinforcing the negative stereotype).

3. The "Fast Company" issue and feature article on "deviance" drew on specific work by futurist Watts Wacker. "Deviance" as nicke marketing strategy was profiled in the early 1990s by US-based writer Douglas Rushkoff, but has now jettisoned the countercultural/techno-utopian ideals that Rushkoff and others have chronicled. Herceg's articles highlight how some business writers (notably with a marketing/public relations background) have appropriated "deviant" rhetoric: Tom Peters cites Saul Alinksy's union campaigns as an example of organizing groups, ETrade used "market socialist" imagery during the 1995-2000 dotcom bubble, and Francis Fukuyama appropriated Jacques Derrida's deconstruction as a term describing the boundaryless/virtual organization. More examples can be found in Thomas Frank's witty "One Market Under God" (Sydney: Random House, 2002). The problem is deeper than plagiarism: journalists and media analysts can show 'knowledgeable ignorance' about sources, or "blind spots" about the ideological assumptions in their worldview.

In closing, MediaWatch did a nice critique and Mr. Shoebridge reaffirmed Fairfax Holding's ethics guidelines when he terminated Herceg as "BRW" columnist. Professional practitioners and "stars in the future field in Australia" need more than a list of blue-chip clients and a Macromedia Flash web site. As with journalists, they need indepth knowledge of their field's history and command of tools. Most importantly, they need ethical guidelines and professional accreditation. Regrettably, a ten-year attempt by WFSF president and AFI foundation professor Richard Slaughter to introduce ethical guidelines, similar to journalist and medical ethicist standards, has met with resistance from some practitioners.

Sincerely,

Alex Burns
Editor-at-Large, Disinformation
Postgraduate student, Australian Foresight Institute

18:13. Two San Francisco Gate articles of interest: a bitchy critique of Project Censored and how much should journalists be blamed for the 1995-2000 dotcom bubble? What about the dangers of personal Web logs? Australian media mavens also check out Four Corners and Media Watch every Monday night.

Friday, 20 September 2002

09:36. The Integral Institute, founded by Ken Wilber, has launched its site. I'm part of the Integral Politics team.

Wednesday, 11 September 2002

17:52. Susan Helf kindly forwarded me some details about a forthcoming public seminar by Washington University on the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization's on-going talks:

The UW Research Center for International Economics is organizing a workshop on "WTO and World Trade, IV: The Doha Round of Trade Talks" to be held on the campus on September 28, 2002. The workshop is being sponsored by the UW International Studies Program, the Global Business Center at the UW Business School, and hosted by the Economics Department.

Seven papers will be presented, addressing various issues about the WTO, the Doha round of trade talks, and world trade. Presenters include Robert Baldwin (Wisconsin-Madison), Arvind Panagariya (Maryland), Judith Thornon (UW), and Kar-yiu Wong (UW). Some of the papers are non-technical and very educational.

For more details and program (to be added soon), please visit here or contact Professor Kar-yiu Wong of Economics. Baldwin and Panagariya's papers are available at the web site for download.

Both faculty and students are welcome to participate. If interested, please inform Pei-Cheng Liao. (Lunch will be provided.)

17:39. The annual This Is Not Art festival in Newcastle (Australia) is on again between October 2 to 8. The Australian Financial Review once called TINA "the best New Economy party in the country." Here are details of several sessions I'll be taking part in:

A Close Up on the Roving Retina
Fri Oct 4, 13:00 to 15:00
Location - Hunter Room, City Hall
"For those not relying on press-releases and syndicated news stories, how do journalists scope the "objective" environment for "newsworthy material"?"

Does Anyone Know A Liberal Voter?
Thu Oct 3, 18:00 to 20:00
Location - Festival Club, PAN building
"How can young Australian writers subvert the current Australian and international political climate? Are there ways for us to express our disapproval, for us to empower others and to think for ourselves? Is it our "duty" as writers to speak up, or is paying the bills more important?"

Editorial Philosophy/(s)
Sun Oct 6, 14:00 to 16:00
Location - Hunter Room, City Hall
"For non-fiction publications containing multiple perspectives, commentaries and methods of analysis - what is the difference between conceptual success and editorial schizophrenia? Do editors steer their publication towards their own holistic vision of what they think it can be? Or is steering not a good thing to do?"

Info-Psychology & Film Scanning
Mon Oct 7, 13:00 to 14:30
Location - Festival Club, PAN building
"This session explores the psychology of activists in the Digital Age: the specters of dystopic thinking, unhealthy group dynamics and sociological propaganda. DVD film clips will 'dramatize' this research."

19:53. The Lexus/IF Awards are on again. This year, the Dark Prince of the Sydney zine scene, Leon Wild ("The Ninth Night" and "Zothique"), teamed up with short film director/animal rights activist Danielle Akayan (a member of the Australian Screen Editor's Guild), to make Life, "an account of the protagonist's journey down the pathway of injustice and incarceration." Akayan was also a finalist in the 2002 Metromedia/Kaliedoscope Awards. Register now and vote for Akayan's film!

Monday, 9 September 2002

17:38. An updated bio and some more Adobe Acrobat versions of past material: Smashing The Control Images, my Startup.com review, Viewer Discretion Is Advised, Futures Studies, Civilization III and two views of Rupert Murdoch.

17:47. Noam Chomsky once told me that newspapers like the Australian Financial Review and The Wall Street Journal were better guides to what was really going on than The National Enquirer. So it was interesting to check out Stanford University's business showcase archives (highlights include Jeffrey Immelt, Donna Dubinsky, Steve Ballmer and Thomas Middelhoff) and Knowledge@Wharton. The interviews hint at the mental models of today's CEOs, who have hopefully read Chun Wei Choo's seminal work on scanning the external environment.

Friday, 6 September 2002

14:22. A printable copy of my Dotcom Deathwatch article is now available for download.

Friday, 23 August 2002

14:34. Monday this week I gave a postgrad seminar at the Australian Foresight Institute on the Graves and Wilber methodologies. The PowerPoint presentation I used can now be downloaded.

Monday, 8 July 2002

09:30. From today's newsletter:

"The present period of culture is, in the whole process of perfecting humanity, an empty and abortive interval."
— G.I. Gurdjieff, Meetings with Remarkable Men

Gurdjieff's synthesis may have preceded the Frankfurt School's scathing critique of the post-war "culture" industry, but it resonates especially with the post-9/11 environment, the face-off between Western modernity and fundamentalist Islam. Samuel P. Huntington's macropolitical "Clash of Civilizations" script has the same function, Gurdjieff might contend, that Freudian psychoanalysis and Mesmerist hypnosis had in the late 19th century: a palatable ideology to explain the cultural, geopolitical and psychological dimensions of radical discontinuities. Gurdjieff's student John Godolphin Bennett contended in his last book The Masters of Wisdom (reissued by Bennett Books) that these insights could be traced to a 13th century school of Muslim mystics (the Khwajagan) that gave birth to the influential Naqshbandi Order. Gurdjieff's insights also occurred during the Russian Revolution and just after the Turkish-Armenian genocide. When we step back and see the macro-view, these historical patterns become evident. Individual efforts become swamped by mass shifts in the environment (but may lead to self-awakening; what William S. Burroughs alluded to when he said: "Some may get through the Gate in Time"). However, the concerted actions of a focused and self-awake network of people, may, over a long period of time, create the prospects for an evolutionary upshift in human emergence. By facing the realities of Death within us and those around us, we may begin to bridge the "empty and aborted interval" and discover the regenerative effects of Self-creation.

Monday, 10 June 2002

20:30. Legendary agitprop spoken word artist Paul Krassner is doing a tour. Check out his battle with FOX lawyers over the introduction to his new album Irony Lives. The tour dates are:

June 10: Small World Books on Venice boardwalk, 6-8 pm. Midnight, KPFK.

June 11: Borders in Westwood, 7:30

June 12: Midnight Special in Santa Monica, 7:30

Ben Praccus of Newcastle's Octapod is working on two intriguing projects: Mythography and Christianarchy.

June 19: Booksmith on Haight St. in San Francisco, 7 pm

June 20: KPFA radio at noon; Black Oak Books in Berkeley, 7:30

July 9: City Lights in San Francisco, 7 pm

July 10: Powells in Portland, Oregon, 7:30

July 12: Perform stand-up satire at The Artichoke in Portland, 8 pm

July 13: Perform stand-up satire at The Old Church in Portland, 8 pm

July 14: Speak at Oregon Country Fair in Eugene, Oregon

Monday, 1 April 2002

16:30. Probably the most anticipated event in recent Australian radio history: Silverchair will play two live sets on Triple J and take questions (at 1900 hrs AEST), to celebrate the worldwide release of Diorama. The new album was produced by David Bottrill. Silverchair were discovered by Triple J, recorded their first album Frogstomp (1995) when the band members' average age was fifteen. They reframed the inevitable comparison with Pearl Jam and went on to conquer the world with Freak Show (1997) and Neon Ballroom (1999).

Thursday, 21 March 2002

20:00. I'm doing an "Anticipatory Global Democracy" workshop at 11:00 AM with Jose Ramos at the Melbourne Social Forum (Saturday, 23 March 2002) in Carlton's Trades Hall building. The keynote speaker will be Z Magazine founder Michael Albert, who will talk about Participatory Economics. Jose and I have been influenced by Robert Jungk and Elise Boulding's development of visioning workshops. Our workshop will help participants to reframe disempowered feelings into empowered outcomes and find the systemic connections between different movements and social activists. Thanks to Friends of the Earth (Melbourne) for hosting details.

Sunday, December 23, 2001

18:50. Some further site tune-ups while benchmarking various Depeche Mode and Garbage multimedia interviews. I'm ploughing through The Guru Guide to the Knowledge Economy, which is basically a glorified quotes/summary chart collection from 150 e-commerce books released between 1997-2000.

22:18. Some details on an old school friend who played in the band "Iambic Pentameter". What did ever happen to Dokken and Billy Sheehan?

Couldn't get enough live jazz in Caf¨¦ Elles last month? Jazz buffs will be pleased to know that thanks to a joint effort between the Australian Consulate General in Guangzhou and Caf¡§¦ Elles, Nick Freer will bringing his special brand of jazz to Guangzhou. A well-established jazz guitarist based in Melbourne, and still in his mid 20's, Freer has toured Europe in the Marinucci Trio, studied in New York with Pat Martino & Barry Finnery (70-80s Brecker Bros), worked with Andrew Gander and most recently been leading his own trio "The Freer Trio". This is a one-off show of his band now called "Freer & Liberators" and not to be missed. RMB 60 including a free drink.

Friday, December 21, 2001

23:36. Early morning meeting with politics faculty professor Robin Jeffrey about my Gurdjieff (Peace Studies) essay and marks. Because I was doing SD training, in post-WTC NYC and at TINA 2001, I didn't meet class attendence requirements. Further commentary on the essay to come. Robin suggested to me that my NYC trip was something that would not be forgotten in a hurry. He's right--it was an "experience of place" that changed me.

I later had an e-mail exchange with Howard Bloom, discussing why the FBI had questioned the bands Anthrax and Megadeth (it's strange that music from ten years ago comes back to haunt you). I also noticed today that a recent Kreator album, Past Life Trauama, features the Enneagram on its cover artwork. I spent the day working on today's Gates of Janus review, and reading Paul D. Miller's (DJ Spooky) proposal to relaunch 21.C magazine.

Thursday, December 20, 2001

14:36. Early afternoon research into white light therapy and resetting the amygdalan memory system.

Russ Kick and our sassy designer Leen al-Bassam are laying out the sequel to You Are Being Lied To.

Wednesday, December 19, 2001

23:07. This morning I stared into the mirror and asked myself why, after flashbacks to this time last year, how I could still 'edit' this site. Then I spent two hours looking at Harvard Business School videos to brush up on boss-employee communication skills.

Sean Healy's MC Hawking interview made me laugh, although I'm always 'worried' that this material will get shotdown by some Disinfonauts as a drop in quality (blame the Australian heat).

Relationship rescript note #2: she preferred Madonna's "Material Girl", I favored The Police's "Spirits In The Material World." It's difficult to get caught by the past image of a person that continues to bleed into the present (only later did I discover that Attachment theory helps to explain how "stacking" problems can sabotage relationships). Hell, I should have taken Richard's advice and just moved to New York City. This heat leaves me dehydrated.

Tuesday, December 18, 2001

11:54. How to rescript the symbolic end of a relationship (three years & eight months later): I thought it was Tristan und Isolde, but the past few weeks have actually been more like Carmen (not Carmen Sandiego).

Morning calls and discussion with Gary Baddeley and tech wizard Lee Hoffman about our e-mail transition. Baddeley gave me some timely advice about some personal circumstances.

I've been reading Ian Brady's book Gates of Janus recently, courtesy of Adam Parfrey. So far, the strongest aspect of the book has been Brady's opening: the kind of nihilistic critique of contemporary society one would expect from a colleague of Hannibal. Will someone "option" this, like other recent Parfrey titles? Who knows, but at least Voluptous Panic would have been a "contender" for a Weimar-era Cinema Studies class.

Tuesday, December 4, 2001

10:59. Last night I caught up with Ben Praccus of the Octapod Collective. We sat at the Punter's Club in Melbourne: I saw a heavy prog-rock outfit and, when Ben arrived with some friends, a das schutezenfest bluegrass band. If you've been on the Church of Virus lists, you'll have encountered Ben's antipodean wisdom. I'm also honing some material for the Fibreculture Conference, later this week.

Monday, December 3, 2001

13:47. All Things Must Pass. Six weeks ago, during my brief sojourn in post-WTC NYC, Richard, Gary, and myself were discussing our favorite music, which ranged from Macy Gray to Miles Davis. Richard and I agreed on something: the remastered All Things Must Pass by George Harrison was a masterpiece.

It saddens me to read of Harrison's death: many had hoped for a part-Beatles reformation at the NYC tribute concerts recently. 1 (2000) had sold extremely well. A group of Melbourne musicians had dubbed themselves "The Quarrymen" and performed a Beatles album live every year (I saw them play the entire White Album, with thanks to Terry Carty).

In recent years, Harrison had been coaxed by friend Eric Clapton, into touring again. I never did see him play, and I'll wonder what might have been. Harrison was attacked in an early Jeff Godwin screed (The Devil's Disciples: The Truth About Rock Music) for his exploration of Hindu religion and meditative practices, but I feel Harrison discovered something crucial: to "get along" in the 21st century, we need to appreciate cultural and religious diversity, and to actively honor that in Others.

The same weekend, Elton John announced that his most recent album would be his last. Perhaps not the demographic for a Disinfo audience, but if you read Steve Albini's article on what actually happens to bands in recording contracts, a scathing piece that has achieved legendary status within the industry, you'll understand why.

How do we deal with death, and with the lost spark of creativity? By being present and striving to remain unattached (not unaffected). Harrison gave a lot to the world. I hope you can look past the Beatles mythology and learn from Harrison's example: apply his insights and inspiration in your own creative endeavours.

Thursday, November 1, 2001

10:34. Sean Healy recently created a subvertisement called "Osama Viagra" for Australia's recent T\LT Festival. Scientists may have finally solved the Tunguska Blast mystery. P2P academia has been launched. Some disturbing patriotism: buy-a-bomb-to-drop-on-Afghanistan fundraisers. Allix Thi Van sent me details of his intriguing site (use Altavista Babelfish to translate), featuring very original analyses about media, marketing, and popculture. Check it out.

In his book Futures for the Third Millennium: Enabling the Forward View (St. Leonards: Prospect Media, 1999: 367), futures studies researcher Richard Slaughter includes a section that could be a Disinfo mission statement:

Positive dissent is an intelligent, caring response to the prospect of a world lurching toward a future that no sane person can contemplate with equanimity. It is a positive attempt to draw attention to the implications of the dysfunctions now embedded in our social, economic and technical systems. It is most certainly not a call to revolution but, rather, to participation and far-sighted, deep design in every area of our lives and work. It is critique, design, vision. It is access to unofficial knowledge. It is engagement with 'the other' and in-depth exploration of non-standard scenarios, visions and outlooks. It is epistemological play in the fields of culture and time.

During a recent SD training seminar, Natasha Todorovic suggested I look at editing as "facilitating human emergence." This morning I had my first session with a friend, using some NLP and Transactional Analysis techniques during our conversation. We worked on two negative meta-beliefs: that she had "failed at everything", and that she needed to "get off her ass and get a 'real' job." In the first, she had made a series of mistakes over the past two years, and was steadily gaining insight into the deep patterns that were causing her to misread the environment. She wasn't her behavior or beliefs (people are more than that), but this meta-belief was reducing her to that. They focused on several key incidents that had arisen because of chance events. And they 'mind-read' her goals and opinions, but never talked with her. In the second, she had endured the collapse of several companies, and produced some great work, but the quality and specific context of the work wasn't appreciated by the people who were criticizing her. They expected her to succeed quickly, whereas the average period to establish a career and 'succeed' (no criteria was specified other than money) in her industry could take six to nine years. She knew that the industry was changing, and that she needed to do in-depth research over many different areas, and then synthesize the results; she needed mentor support to keep her on-track. She also had a different sense of time: an adjustable 10-year plan compared to their 2-year short-term view. 'Blame trap' problems were partly created because people were making 'negative comparisons' to where they were at similar stages of life. The problems she faced and the times she lived in were different: she had to live her own life, not fulfill their expectations. Hopefully, we opened a space for her to move into and grow.

Wednesday, October 31, 2001

20:48. This MTV memo is another indicator that the Entertainment Economy is falling apart. Richard Metzger joked to me, while I was in New York City recently, that if you want to work in NYC television, it's either Viacom or the major networks. After the 1989 Teamster's Union strike, most production houses moved to Los Angeles. Shehamforash to that.

Tuesday, October 30, 2001

11.02. Last night I chatted for several hours at Hawthorn's Universal Caf?/a> with Peter Hayward and Dr. Joe Voros. Much like Rene Daumal's A Night of Serious Drinking, the conversation was wide-ranging, intense, and consciously self-exploratory, ranging from Joe's 'tour of duty' with a little-known company called Netscape, to his work that applies integral consciousness and strategic foresight to 21st century businesses. Peter and Joe invested some time in explaining to me how the Stafford Beer model of operations research and systems management worked.

Joe is a natural storyteller with some fascinating experiences about facilitating human emergence and self-growth. He told me a story about a teacher of his who was interested in exploring Sufism, and made an agreement with a Sufi Master that he would obey their orders. One night, Joe's teacher was awoken at 3 AM by a telephone call:

"So, you really want to study Sufism?"
"Yes."
"OK, go outside to your front lawn, then dig a ditch four feet by three feet wide, 2 feet deep. Then, once you've finished, fill it in."
"What the #$@%? Why?"

The point of this exercise, Joe observed, was to get past the wrong question of the intellect asking "Why?" and 'shock' the student into a wider self-awareness.

Peter also told me how Chilean president Salvador Allende hired Stafford Beer to redesign the country's civil service along the lines of cybernetic information systems. During their conversations, Beer asked Allende who the person was who guided the country's identity. "The people," replied Allende with conviction, which made a strong impression on him. CIA operatives complained that it took much longer to topple Allende's government than they had anticipated, because the civil service was now a self-organizing system.

Monday, October 29, 2001

9:23. Ashley Crawford recently interviewed Douglas Rushkoff. I also liked this piece on systems to predict civil wars.

Friday, October 26, 2001

10:58. Has post-WTC editing of films gone too far? Check out Harry Lyrico's Homeless in Hollywood comic diary. This makes me really mad.

15:13. Either late yesterday or earlier this morning, someone stole a black bag containing a grey NEC laptop from Latrobe University's PEMSO. The laptop contains research and writings, and was due to be fixed because of a dead battery/floppy drive. Please either hand it back to the Union Contact office or contact me. No questions asked, reward offered.

Thursday, October 25, 2001

9:18. Robert Lock has written an interesting piece on Slashdot's subscription scheme. Journalism professor Conrad Fink offers an incisive op-ed piece about the War on Terrorism's censorship of the press. The real lies came from politicians. And then there's the Hypermedia hazard to deal with.

Wednesday, October 24, 2001

12:32. Robert Fripp has offered a free MP3 download ("Refraction") from his Soundscapes performance at the World Financial Center on 1 December 2000. Definately one to check out. I also enjoyed this Plastic.com piece on non-mainstream media, thanks to the people who mentioned us.

Tuesday, October 23, 2001

11:02. Check out some electronic back-issues of the Futures journal. My friend Kylie Purr has written about the impact of the early 1980s mini-cycle of nuclear war films.

Monday, October 22, 2001

21:02. This afternoon I went to Melbourne's Theosophical Society library to hunt down some rare Gurdjieff books for a peace studies essay. I ran into an old Rabelais colleague. After reading various forums on the weekend, I found myself self-questioning links and references as I was writing today's Foresight Principle review. Negative feedback can destroy creativity. Some interesting links: the BBC is resurrecting Phillip Zimbardo's infamous Stanford Prison Experiment for Reality-TV. I saw a documentary of Zimbardo's experiment last year, including archival footage and recent interviews with the participants. It's a pity that the BBC executives probably didn't read Erich Fromm's rebuttal of Zimbardo's experiment in his book The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973). Sid Meier has spoken about the upcoming game Civilization III.

Friday, October 19, 2001

18:32. I'm being interviewed by Vladimir Cunha for a Brazilian magazine, about 9/11 and Disinfo. Meanwhile, Rooster_93 writes:

I used to LOOOOOVE this site. Every day I'd go to it and see what new article or interview with RAW or Kenneth Anger. Then search the archives and learn about something new. Now, it's one of the most boring sites on the web. I think it finally hit me when I read that horendous article on DJ spooky...which sounded like it was written by...DJ spooky.

I used to love reading the discussion forums when the authors did more than gripe about what we were like in 1997. I love Kenneth Anger and RAW too, but hate nostalgia (we had arranged to interview RAW for the 38th annual National UFO Convention, before it was cancelled). Subcultures change and people move on.

now everytime I come to this site one of the four featured articles is a link to the disinfo book. One is an archived video interview and the other two are saturated with shamless name dropping, filled with as many hyperlinks as can fit on a page and use vocabulary that could bore noam chomsky.

Hosting the site, writing articles, and editing streaming video costs money, so the frontpage link to You Are Being Lied To stays (post-crash Web sites need revenue to survive). The DJ Spooky article was overblown to some people, but it reflected its author's enthusiasm (whenever you discover a new way of looking at things, don't you get excited?). I plead guilty to having a boring vocabulary: I'm trying to create a way to track disinformation and information ecologies.

too bad...so sad.

It's a pity you haven't visited the site over the past few weeks, as we've posted an average of three new stories a day, plus other material.

and they never reposted the philip farber interview. that sucks ass.

This is an example of a comment that is ignorant about business realities and passes judgment on us. When big bad ol' Pseudo collapsed, we got the tapes from the cable television version (broadcast in NYC and LA). They needed to be re-edited and re-digitized for the latest streaming video servers. At the moment, we have other projects that are a priority. We have to be tight with costs, and hosting video archives are expensive (our archives are kindly hosted by the awesome Incunabula team). It's not the way that we would like it, but it's the way for now that it has to be if Disinfo is going to survive. We're friends with Phil Farber and hope to repost his interview sometime in the future.

Tuesday, October 17, 2001

2:32 PM. It's anti-PC but darkly funny: embrace Operation Enduring Freedom because "it's time to get your war on." Hammond Guthrie sent me some lyrics about red hair and terrorism--is there music as well? A Murdoch paper was caught in a covert assignment--trying to purchase biological weapons on the Internet. And a great piece on the CueCat as the Internet's dumbest invention. New Republic columnist Andrew Sullivan has written an interesting critique of the New Left: note his comments about the First Amendment and the sliding of politics' tectonic plates.

Tuesday, October 9, 2001

4:52 PM. After returning to Melbourne by overnight train, I discovered that . . . Melbourne finally has its first Starbucks cafe . . . and Rollins Band is playing La Trobe University tomorrow. It's always interesting to see how people react before a Henry Rollins gig. People who love his spoken word material tend to hate his band's music.

Wednesday, October 3, 2001

2:12 PM. I'm in Newcastle, recovering from the This Is Not Art Festival and my recent trip to post-WTC New York City (read here about the Union Square peace protests). Alternet's Cecil L. Bothwell III has written an interesting piece on 9/11 and media crazes. After his Monday announcement, David Talbot is in PR flak mode about Salon. Do yourself a favor today: visit Indymedia's Satellite TV News instead.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

9:38 AM. Bill Clinton spent 10 hours in Melbourne yesterday. Kiwi dub may be the Pacific's dope soundtrack for summer. Nat Hentoff has written a great piece on the Orwellian reinterpretation of "free-speech radio" at WBAI and the Pacifica network.

5:29 PM. Check out Preston Peet's latest column for New York Waste. Also, a review of Disinfo from June 1997.

9:32 PM. I hate having the flu, which makes staring at computer screens painful. Hello, four-hour paracetamol cycles. Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian has posted some insights into the recording sessions for John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars soundtrack.

Monday, September 10, 2001

2:24 PM. McKenzie Wark has written "R Is For Refuge", about the Tampa incident. Wark's "Hacker's Manifesto 2.0" is also worth checking out.

8:31 PM. Sara Aronson forwarded me a link to Neil Gaiman interviewing Lou Reed.

8:45 PM. High Times has a report on the deaths of Tom Crosslin and Roland Rohm, owners of Rainbow Farm Compound. Crosslin was killed by two FBI agents, Rohm by Michigan state police, after a stand-off.

Tuesday, August 27, 2001

1:26 PM. I'm working on a chapter for the planned sequel to our book You Are Being Lied To, focusing on the systems dynamics of the Dotcom Crash and afterwards. I spent the weekend reading Casey Kaitt and Stephen Weiss's Digital Hustlers (New York: Regan Books, 2001), which has been panned by Silicon Alley insiders, though I found some interviewee comments useful. I'll be looking at several other cycles, including the 1967-1973 period in New Hollywood, and how the spreadsheet changed 1980s corporate culture. This really is the magic for the 21st century.

2:31 PM. Disinfo Contributing Editor Sara Aronson has relaunched her Transubstantiation Media site.

Tuesday, August 21, 2001

10:06 AM. In his book Gandhi and Group Conflict (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1974), Arnie Naess outlined the following Satyagraha propositions (pp. 60-84):

1. The aim in group struggle is to act in a way conducive to long-term, universal, maximal reduction of violence.

2. The character of the means used determines the character of the results.

3. A constructive program -- positive peacebuilding work should be a part of every campaign.

4. One should engage in positive struggle in favour of human beings and certain values; that is, fight antagonisms, not antagonists.

5. All human beings have long-term interests in common.

6. Violence is invited from opponents if they are humiliated or provoked.

7. A violent attitude on the part of would-be satyagrahis (advocates of satyagraha) is less likely if they have made clear to themselves the essential elements of their case and the purpose of the struggle.

8. The better opponents understand the satyagrahi's position and conduct, the less likely they are to resort to violence. Secrecy should therefore be avoided.

9. The essential interests which opponents have in common should be clearly formulated and cooperation established on that basis.

10. Personal contact with the opponent should be sought.

11. Opponents should not be judged harder than the self.

12. Opponents should be trusted.

13. The property of opponents should not be destroyed.

14. An unwillingness to compromise on non-essentials decreases the likelihood of converting the opponent.

15. The conversion of an opponent is furthered by personal sincerity.

16. The best way to convince an opponent of your sincerity is to make sacrifices for the cause.

17. A position of weakness in an opponent should not be exploited. Satyagraha is concerned with morality over and above 'winning'.

Thanks to Dr. Thomas Weber for bringing this list to my attention.

3:50 PM. The Australian site Crikey has posted a list of 85 culturally significant martyrs and suicides. Here's a few quick additions:

Arthur Koestler (1905-1983). Political activist, philosopher and novelist (Darkness at Noon). Broke with Jean-Paul Sartre over communism, explored parapsychology, and debated the merits of psilocybin with Aldous Huxley. Koestler died of a drug overdose in 1983, when faced with incurable Parkinson's disease. Cultural significance: has kept the Theosophical Society and second-hand book-stores in business.

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963). American novelist and poet, famous for The Bell Jar (1963), that drew on her breakdowns and Robert Lowell's "confessional" writing style. While at Cambridge University, she met and married the poet Ted Hughes. Her suicide in 1963 established her posthumous reputation and has inspired legions of 'tortured' English Lit grads and introspective poets.

Ian Curtis (1956-1980). Fronted Joy Division, the legendary British New Wave band, whose most well-known song was 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' (1980). Curtis hanged himself on the eve of the band's break-through American tour, and the remaining members formed New Order. Role-model for Nine Inch Nails and the Goth subculture.

George Eastman (1854-1932). US industrialist and philanthropist who developed dry film plates and flexible film. After making the first commercially available photographic film in 1885, Eastman introduced the Kodak camera in 1888, and a photographic empire was born.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). From Kilimanjaro to Cuba, his exploits created a literary icon, and his death created a mythic rebel.

Tuesday, August 7, 2001

11:35 AM. Kudos to David Jay Vincent for pointing out this Sydney Morning Herald review (August 4, 2001) of us and conspiracy Web sites:

Definitely the most cerebral site of an otherwise manic bunch, Disinformation is a melting pot of findings from global thinktanks, universities and philosophers, including Michel Foucault. The site promotes a number of intellectual debates, among these that the media industry has been engineering human consciousness in the Western world since World War II. It also discusses the "suppression" of the findings of Timothy Leary's research into the link between LSD use and quantum physics. For those who aren't afraid of wearing their paranoia on their sleeve, disinfo.com is also flogging this subtle little number - a black T-shirt with "The CIA traffics drugs" emblazoned across the front. Alternative mantras include "You are being lied to" and "Everything you know is wrong".

3:58 PM. I wanted to prod Douglas Rushkoff for writing Playing the Future after seeing this article on kids becoming marketing shills in the plaground. Also check out an intriguing piece that news form determines how you intrepret individual stories.

4:58 PM. The intrepid Sean Healy dropped me a note that Techgnosis scribe Erik Davis will be in Sydney (Australia), speaking at 10:45-11:30 AM on August 18 at the Space Odysseys: Sensation and Immersion exhibition (Domain Theatre, Lower Level 3, Art Gallery of New South Wales). Telephone +61 (02) 9225 1878 Fax +61 (02) 9221 6234. Cost: A$80 full A$70 AGS members A$50 conc (includes GST), including lunch and weekend exhibition pass.

5:25 PM. Richard Metzger has got me into a renewed scriptwriting frenzy. Here's an exchange between Anna Hamilton Phelan and William Froug in the latter's book The New Screenwriter Looks at the New Screenwriter (Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1991):

Phelan: Write it and try to get your mind to say, "I'm going to write this and then I'm going to put it in a drawer and nobody's ever going to see it." If you can get your head in that place, you'll free up such great stuff that's in your subconscious mind. It will be so wonderful if you can do that. Write it like you're going to give it to nobody. You're going to put it in a drawer. That's hard to do, because we're raised to do x, y, z in class to get a grade. We’re raised for the outcome.

Froug: That's the best advice I’ve ever heard.

Phelan: No attachment to outcome. I don't know where I ever heard it, but I put it down on a little piece of paper, and I had it framed. I have it right in front of me. When I get bogged down I say, "No attachment to outcome. Don't worry about what's going to happen to this. Just write the next word."

Froug: Great. If you think about the money, you're lost.

Phelan: Finished.

As Richard says, "lust after results will ruin you everytime!"

Monday, August 6, 2001

9:06 AM. Could Hollywood be "greylisting" its older scriptwriters? (check out Inzide.com and Drew's Script-o-Rama). Russell Crowe's band, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, played a surprise gig at the Australian Online Music Awards.

9:24 AM. R. Worrell writes:

Are you deliberately ignoring the rise of ultra-right political skullduggery and manipulative corporate coverups or does it just seem that way?

The US/ is drifting into far-right totalitarianism (conspiracy material par excellence) and you're fiddling about with quasi- mystical stuff. I would have thought that the demise of the world's first "democracy" would be more newsworthy...

In fact, since the 2000 election coup debacle, I haven't seen a whiff of concern over the demise of democratic elections in the US, the sleazy conflicts of interest or the continually escalating McCarthyesque smear tactics of the far[t] right.

Too hot to handle?

Unpopular with sponsors?

As much as I appreciate your highly erudite writing on other topics, I am becoming disenchanted by your avoidance of the biggest conspiracy of all: the shakedown [after only 200 years] of what's left of American democracy.

Still hoping...

R. Worrell

PS Yes the Supremes MUST be impeached.....

"We must crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to bid defiance to the laws of our country."

"The patronage of public office should no longer be confided to one who uses it for active opposition to the National Will"

"The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder."

-- Thomas Jefferson, ca.1800

Here's my reply:

Thanks for your note. Regarding your queries:

1. We're an independent company, and have never censored our editorial content due to outside pressure. We've been very up-front about any content deals, such as with EA's Majestic: The Game.

2. We cover Bush issues in my Daily DubyaWatch blogger, which draws on sources from the whole political spectrum. I've intentionally made this different from other sites, such as NewsMax, Salon, Alternet.org or The Nation. Although Disinfo was perceived to be part of the X-Files/Y2K cycle (late 1990s), we've always been more broader than a conspiracy site (see our press section). We also stess that personal development is an 'integral' part of political activism. Some of these may be 'quasi-mystical' to you, others are very practical (what language we use, which political tradition or social philosophy we draw on, how we frame issues, why we feel the need to create enemies or groupthink).

3. Since I'm Australian, I have a different perspective on Florida 2000 than many Americans: it didn't surprise me, and was not the "loss of democracy" that has 'radicalized' many Americans (more like final confirmation of how representational democracy can become corrupted by vested interests). International observers do not acribe to the Manifest Destiny or patriotism that is an integral part of American domestic politics. This detachment also means that we're less likely to evoke terms like "totalitarianism" or "police state", even when the balance of power shifts. This rhetoric proved to be very effective in the late 1990s ('Pre-Millennium Tension') but, in my opinion, can obscure the complexities of current events and the ongoing search for new solutions. This does not mean that these issues are trivial, just that I see them differently to others. Similar shifts have occurred in UK and European elections, and in the 1998 Australian election that led to the introduction of a Goods & Services Tax. If someone wants to write a compelling and well-argued/written piece on the issues that you've raised, I'm happy to publish it. My personal focus is for people to understand why values change and how institutions work: it's less exciting as "editorial copy", yet it will be a tool for effective reform.

4. In their respective books, lawyers Vincent Bugliosi and Alan Dershowitz explain that impeaching Scalia and the other Supreme Court Justices is unlikely to happen. A more realistic option might be a Citizen's Tribunal, a model that Russ Kick has advocated for a Tribunal on the War on Drugs. Such a tribunal would not have legal powers, but would give people a space to vent their anger and raise their concerns, and possibly generate media coverage, which would create pressure for reform and greater public accountability.

Thanks for your e-mail and thoughts.

8:51 PM. Here's my reply to Christopher Donovan's last e-mail:

Your first e-mail about Mickey Z's article went to a separate e-mail address, I missed it, my apologies. This clears up some things:

1. Mickey Z's article is clearly an advocacy piece. Although his viewpoint has become dominant in a Politically Correct society (aiming for a 'Melting Pot' and 'Multicultural' ideal), this doesn't mean that people understand the scientific research (genetics, archaeology, linguistics etc), and how this is manipulated for sociopolitical ends. Herrnstein and Murray's book The Bell Curve is the most notorious example, arguing that the IQ of parents is more important than their socioeconomic status (yet obscuring the history of Alfred Binet's tests, their culture-bound nature, and innovations in the study of acquired learning). Robert Anton Wilson has contended that many people are still living with cognitive filters from the Dark Ages. If we're going to explore taboo issues, we need to do so with care and precision beyond this advocacy piece. We have a countercultural aesthetic, yet will judge contrarian views on their evidence and logical merits, not simply because they are 'radical' or 'non-mainstream' (and misses the crucial distinction between 'surface' aesthetics, 'hidden' ideologies and 'deep' values: on some things, we may be mainstream, not because we are dogmatic, but because there is sensible and overwhelming evidence for our conclusions). Attacking someone as holding a "leftist wet dream" when scientists including Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforzca, Jared Diamond, Paul Ehrlich and Howard Bloom have backed up Zezima's points with credible evidence, suggests that you have an ideological axe to grind. Individual articles and authors will annoy people, but that isn't a sign that Disinfo has failed as a whole. We get these accusations every-time we print something that the respondent does not personally agree with. So much for getting into other head-spaces.

2. Zezima's point was that the psychosocial definition of race (based on group-identity and skin pigmentation), which has dominated sociopolitical debates, is misunderstood. My training is in biopsychosocial systems development, which acknowledges that there are some biological constraints on our behavior and growth, but is wary of trait-based psychology or strict typologies. Some psychologists and behavioral geneticists exalt the 'bio' and 'social systems' approach at the expense of 'integrating' it with the 'psychosocial' aspects. This creates 'category-errors.' The debate here is beyond "presenting the other view", because there's a spectrum (depending on what evidence you select, and to what ends you point your arguments towards). Humans share about 98.6% of the same genetic make-up with chimpanzees, and the Great Ape Project is exploring this further. What makes Homo sapiens sapiens different to chimpanzees is our potential for self-awareness and cultural evolution. Ruth Hubbard's quote may be in relation to the argument, from genetic anthropology, that if we were to wipe-out a part of the human race, our genetic variation (inherited biological figures) would still remain pretty constant (around 75%). Even though common-sense would tell us that there's a huge difference between 75% and 95% genetic variation, genetic anthropology shows otherwise.

From Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Francesco Cavalli-Sforza's book The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1995): "the level of constancy [biological features that do not change over time, or between groups and generations] is not high enough to support the current definition of race. Distinguishing race is a complex matter." Elsewhere (p. 237), Cavalli-Sforza examines another definition of race: "A group of people united by common origins, who to some extent are similar genetically, in terms of inherited biological features. They may also have conserved cultural identity and share traditions, language, and political unity, or may have lost any or all of these." Zezima's key argument, which Cavalli-Sforza elucidates, is that there are no 'pure' races because of genetic variation (polymorphism) and because cultural evolution (memetics) is different to genetic evolution, or even genetic constraints/determinants on lifespan development. This distinction between genetic and memetic evolution was a key part of Dr. Don Beck's strategy to reframe South African society out of the apartheid structure.

3. You write: "Anti-racism has become a mainstream dogma of a nature that your site pretends to be expose, but instead reinforces." I'm not a scientist, but I'll take the guidance of Cavalli-Sforza, Ehrlich, Diamond and Bloom, thank-you. "MickeyZ's attempt to deny opposing scientific views as "racist" and tar anyone who questions anti-racist dogma smacks of the same kind of thought control." You have a point here, and I suggested to Zezima that he heed Ken Wilber's warnings about 'Boomeritis' (having a post-conventional moral stance that becomes rigid and narcissistic), and maybe Popperian falsifiability is relevant. However, since many people misunderstand how the scientific method actually works, and how to critically assess research data, it's wise to stick with the scientific consensus. Where contrarian research is presented intelligently, with appreciation of its sociopolitical implications, we'll certainly explore it. We have to be aware of it first, and keeping track of different cultural and scientific trends can be difficult. The French ruling is part of a Continental law tradition that upholds the safety of minority groups and the civil 'social contract', with a narrower definition of individual political speech than the US. That's your cultural frame-work, the French would argue the matter differently.

4. "I'm basing my criticism on your own stated goals and suggesting that you either change your content to match your goals or change your goals to match your content. If the process is on-going that's good news, I'm glad to hear it." To reiterate my earlier e-mails: yes, the process is ongoing, and its determinants include the individual writer's 'voice' and political stance, the cogency of their arguments, the evidence and language used, and what knowledge I draw on. My eventual goal is for Disinfo writers to have an applied knowledge of E-Prime, Neuro-linguistic Programming and values-systems theory. Our site is not 'inconsistent' or 'logically flawed', but this is a very high standard to meet, and there will be some variance on a day-to-day basis. The great thing about Web content is that is open-ended and can always be expanded or revised. We strive to reach our stated goal every-day.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Friday, August 3, 2001

9:38 AM. Christopher Donovan writes:

The information you present is coated with such a sickening veneer of leftist bias that I can't take it seriously. Drop the act and just admit your prejudices for what they are instead of making a weak statement that you take both sides of any given story into account. You can only string the carrot in front of the kiddies for so long until they encounter an actual life experience, hopelessly complicating the right=bad / left=good binary brainwashing you push. You claim to have open minds but you fail to back that statement up. Is it so terrible to stand up for what you really represent and drop the facade?

My reply:

You apparently didn't read the ongoing editorial discussions in my daily "Welcome to the Machine" blogger, or the relevant dossiers on social judgment theorist Muzafer Sherif and the Expanded Spiral Dynamics Bibliography. Our editorial team has been upfront with their personal "progressive" politics, including the need to "transcend and include" such terms.

We've published material from diverse political viewpoints and will continue to do so in the future. Our claim to "open minds" is backed up by our content; I suggest you look at "Trip Reset" and the "Personal Mutations" articles as examples.

Your letter is filled with presumptumptions and prejudicial judgments, representing an excellent example of "information . . . coated with such a sickening veneer of . . . bias."

Christopher Donovan then replied:

I've been over your website and I have no doubt that you are proud of your token efforts. In the balance your site pretends to unmask "the real thing" while only presenting yet another layer of biased information. I'm sure you have all the necessary disclaimers in place.

"Your letter is filled with presumptumptions and prejudicial judgments"

Of course, I never tried to represent myself as a source of objective or balanced truth. The difference is that I am honest while DISINFO (apt title) is not. The charge I make is that in general DISINFO in no ways represents a complete presentation, that "both sides of the story" are not honestly pursued. I don't think this is wrong of you, of course. I simply think the way DISINFO routinely smugly pretends to have the inside line on "the real thing" is severely undermined by its own bias. You live in a glass house and cast stones, in other words. As you solicited comments from readers, I sent you one. I'm not really interested in your boastful attempts to justify yourself. Indeed, "I AM BEING LIED TO".

C.Donovan
"enemy of the people"

My reply:

Ken Wilber's emergent "integral philosophy" and Herbert Gans' "multiperspectival" journalism model both deal with your concerns about "objectivity" (being a half-step along from the mainstream and "only presenting another layer of biased information"). Wilber and Gans stressed that while a "complete presentation" may never be possible in actuality, editors and journalists should strive for inclusive viewpoints, and be open to discussion and public feedback (ie. we are aware of "living in a glass house": this is unavoidable, something long recognized by editors and cognitive scientists). We've put those "accountability" measures in place, and I'm in the process of embedding Wilber, Gans and others' insights into our still-evolving editorial framework. How is this an example of "not honestly pursuing" our publicly stated values and vision? And what would a "balanced truth" resemble to you?

"Complete presentations" are also reliant on information sources available (we're always updating older material), and the personal opinions of each writer. As for Disinfo "routinely smugly pretends to have the inside line on 'the real thing'": unless you mean our aesthetics and imagery (which our content also critiques), the only time I've explicitly made this claim was about a positioning paper for President George Bush, which was shown to me by Dr. Don Edward Beck (who anticipated the recent "Communities of Character" announcement). I stand by those comments and my reasons for respecting Dr. Beck's confidentiality request. How is this seriousness a "boastful attempt to justify" ourselves?

Of course, judgments about our "effectiveness" or "token" nature rely on what perceptual baggage each reader brings with them. Your e-mails suggest to me that you hold a viewpoint that you feel is not being discussed. You are not being totally honest: it's far easier to j'accuse me of hypocrisy than to try the practices I've outlined. Your dismissal of any real dialogue ("I'm sure that you have all the necessary disclaimers in place" and "I'm not really interested in your boastful attempts to justify yourself") reveals that and evades any personal responsibility for backing up your statements. Your cynicism is understandable.

No-one forces you to visit Disinformation. Perhaps it's time for you to move on to somewhere else.

Christopher Donovan then replied:

I agree, in concept, with what you say you are striving for. I disagree that the content of your website reflects what you say. I am as aware as you are of the etherial quality of "objectivity" - you are using it here as a means to hide. Your site is far more removed from any good-faith effort to approach objectivity than it pretends. As evidence, I could site many articles, but the example I just sent is a pretty typical one. The article I talked about presents something as "objective truth" when the very sources Mr. Z uses to "prove" his claim in fact refutes it.

This is alarming, because in essence Mr. Z is simply regurgitating lies that are quite status quo and in no way "outre" as your site's aesthetics suggest. This is a problem common to many other articles on your site.

My particular point of view is irrelevant because I am not the one with the website pretending to be more open-minded than it really is. You are correct, however, my particular viewpoint is not represented on your site very well. Again, you solicited feedback, and here it is. Sorry if it is not to your liking, but not everyone is going to accept your conceits without question. The left certainly has no claim of ownership over, or immunity from, Nietzschean perspectivism.

What, to me, is a balanced truth? Conflict, as in hire some writers who are as right-wing as your current ones are left-wing. Writers as hellbent on exposing the "liberal" media bias as your current ones are of exposing "corporate" media bias.

Obviously I don't have to read your website, we both know this, the only purpose you must have for suggesting that I stop is that it would solve the little problem I've raised. Courageous. If I am cynical as to the prospects of "real dialog" it is because of my experience and the value I attach to my spare time.

C.Donovan
"enemy of the people"

My reply:

I'm not using "objectivity" as a means to hide at all: what I am saying is that my understanding may not be yet conveyed throughout all our pieces, or be shared by other writers. This is a matter of ongoing "inner" personal and professional development. If you want an avowedly right-wing or conservative site that exposes "liberal media bias", I suggest you try NewsMax.com, WorldNetDaily.com or FreeRepublic.com. I have included perspectives from these sites, and have been willing to publish material by their authors. As Russ Kick notes in his introduction to You Are Being Lied To, we have less conservative or right-wing views than we want, because some authors reject the opportunity. It's not for want of trying, and our goal is to transcend these descriptions.

You failed to mention Mickey Z's article in your past e-mail, and you also failed to provide evidence that "disputed" his claims (I'll often link to contrarian Web material to provoke debate). As I wrote previously, "objectivity" relies on the individual author's viewpoint, especially when they are arguing for a specific view (cf. Preston Peet's commentary on the "War on Drugs" or Nick Mamatas' critique of globalization). I did point out some criticism of Mickey Z's language, when discussing his piece: to paraphrase Ken Wilber, pluralistic egalitarianism and pluralistic relativism rejects value rankings, hierarchies, anything that resembles authoritarian structures, and "attacks" anyone who holds "unconscionable views" (particularly on gender and race issues), even when the critic had previously held those views and then discarded them. This "problem" is a developmental/values one, and can be discerned within all political viewpoints. Wilber also critiqued "personal narcissism", something evident in both our e-mails.

Mickey Z's "viewpoint" forcefully re-states some issues about race and gender politics in America that may need to be restated, regardless of our "outre" aesthetics. People understand these aesthetics in different ways. Tying us to the aesthetics ("surface values") without considering the issues ("hidden" and "deep" values) imposes an "ideological rigidity", even when it is a viewpoint that you privately hold. Your comment that our "site is far more removed from any good-faith effort to approach objectivity than it pretends" suggests that you are comparing us to some other site, an ideal, or your own interpretation of what we "should" (categorical imperative) look like. Conflict, as Muzafer Sherif and the Harvard Negotiation Project have both pointed out, usually leads to an "excluded middle". I have used this by linking to different viewpoints in articles; the onus of debating these views is on the reader. There are also other techniques.

When did I claim that your viewpoint was "irrelevant" or that your viewpoint was "in the minority"? I have clarified some editorial issues for you. My ongoing "Welcome to the Machine" correspondence reveals that these issues are represented by Disinformation's audience (whatever their political views), and that I take these allegations very seriously. Nietzsche advocated an "asperspectival view" (using a diamond metaphor) that transcended the left-right political paradigm, not a "Nietzschean perspectivism" that the New Left "has ownership over" (the same point could be made for the New Right's abuse of Darwinian "natural selection" evolutionary theory).

You write: "Obviously I don't have to read your website, we both know this . . ." Obviously? I know this? "The only purpose you must have . . ." Only? Must have? "For suggesting that I stop is that it would solve the little problem I've raised. Courageous." Why invoke the "moral high-ground"? Our minds delete, distort and nominalize information (Neuro-linguistic Programming), especially when we "mind-read" others. Put yourself in my shoes, go back and re-read your final two paragraphs. I've replied, and offered references, to our ongoing solution about your "little problem".

If your "experience" and "time" means that you decline to study that information, that's your prerogative. I've clarified our editorial stance about your "little problem". I also pointed out that, since we "pretend to be more open-minded" and are "far removed rom any good-faith effort", you're free to look elsewhere. And I can be free from the Sisyphean burden of "disproving" your cynicism.

Christopher Donovan then replied:

I do appreciate the time you have spent answering my comments. Despite my combative tone and our obvious differences in values and perspectives I've learned from our exchange. I am not telling you to make your site "avowedly right-wing", I merely suggested that if you want your site to live up to what is written in your "about" section you should have a better representation of the "other side of the story", and I suggested one way you could do that (hire some writers that are biased in the other direction). I am not trying to swing your site one way or the other, I am only comparing it to your own statements and pointing out the disparity.

I sent you an email with the subject line "example" that talked about MickeyZ's article and what he has left out, didn't you get it? All I was pointing out was the fact that Mr. Zzz attempts to present race as "biologically meaningless" as an undeniable scientific fact, when that is not at all the case - the link he provides to an article by C. Loring Brace is actually part of a larger presentation by NOVA online that DOES present the other side of the argument. It is a joint-piece including George Gill that shows just how divided scientific opinion is on the matter. For MickeyZ to pretend that this is not the case is very biased, which is what we are talking about in the first place. Forensic scientists know that race very much does have a biological basis, if it didn't, they would not be able to accurately discern the race of a body simply by examining its bone structure. Mr.Z points out that all humans share 75% (actually it's more like 99%) of the same genes. What he fails to mention is that we also share 95% of our genes with Chimpanzees. Obviously, 5% or even .01% makes an enourmous difference. Mr.Z only presents one side of the argument, ignores the other, and pretends that he is presenting "undeniable scientific truth". This is at odds with the