Cadmus

Content Summary

Inside this Issue

SEED-IDEAS
Expanding Network of Networks
O. Giarini, H. Gurgulino de Souza, G. Jacobs, W. Nagan, I. Šlaus & A. Zucconi

The Coming Revolution in Education
A. Zucconi & G. Jacobs

ARTICLES
Transition to a New Society
Ivo Šlaus

New Paradigm: The Necessity and the Opportunity
Garry Jacobs
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Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee (both MIT Center for Digital Business).

NY: W. W. Norton, Jan 2014, 306p, $26.95. (www.secondmachineage.com)

On the surface, this is a very important book about present and future technologies, jobs, and growing inequality. It is clearly written, plausible, and well-documented. Although oriented to American audiences, it has global import in our globalizing age. It is not directly about security and sustainability (neither term is in the index), although the book could illuminate both concerns, as technology continues its inexorable advance, for better and worse. Read More

We can have no security without sustainability. And we can have no sustainability without security. Both security and sustainability are broad and expanding areas of policy concern.

Increasingly, they are overlapping, and it is valuable that they should be seen as such.  Many recent books suggest the expansion and overlap of these concerns.  Some of the more noteworthy are highlighted below.  Read More

Oxford Martin Commission. Oxford UK: University of Oxford, Oxford Martin School, Oct 2013, 85p. (download for free at www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk).

1. Background
James Martin (1933-2013) was the respected author or co-author of more than a hundred books, including The Computerized Society(Prentice-Hall, 1970), The Wired Society (Prentice-Hall, 1977), and The Meaning of the 21st Century: A Vital Blueprint for Ensuring Our Future(Riverhead/Penguin, 2006). In 2005, he founded the James Martin 21st Century School at the University of Oxford, re-named in 2010 as the Oxford Martin School, which currently supports over 30 research teams and over 300 scholars across the University, addressing “some of the biggest questions that concern our future.” Martin was elected as a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science in 2007. Read More

Where is humanity headed? What are the major problems that must be addressed, and what should be done?

Recent Book of the Month (BOM) selections for Global Foresight Books, especially for 2013, have focused on these important questions. Now is the time for a brief summary and preliminary analysis—a rough mapping-of their similarities and differences. Reviews of virtually all of the books summarized here have appeared in recent issues of CADMUS, Eruditio,and Op-Ed.However, to readily see them all together, it is best to go to www.GlobalForesightBooks.org and click on Book of the Month. Better still, open up the GFB UpdateNewsletter (3:5/6, 2013), which repeats this essay, along with linkages to all books cited. Read More

Abstract
We acknowledge the inadequacy of the ancient model to develop the wealth of nations and the recognition that both economics and ecology are the best possible ways to manage world and human resources to achieve a better wealth of nations. The rebuilding of economics and of a credible strategy for increasing the wealth and well-being of nations is today at the center of the problem of providing a sound basis for the legitimacy and credibility of public institutions and governments. If the dichotomy between traditional economic goals and new ecological and environmental requirements for sustainable development will not credibly combine, the political consensus and the legitimacy of governments at the local, national, and international levels will have a tendency to produce on the new liberalizing world disaggregation effects that could be as extensive as those witnessed in former Marxist countries. Read More

Abstract
The history of World War I is reviewed, starting with a discussion of the development of nationalist movements in Europe. It is pointed out that the global disaster started with a seemingly small operation by Austria, which escalated uncontrollably into an all-destroying conflagration. A striking feature of the war was that none of the people who started it had any idea of what it would be like. Technology had changed the character of war, but old patterns of thought remained in place. We also examine the roots of the war in industrial and colonial competition, and in an arms race. Finally, parallels with current events, and the important lessons for today’s world are discussed. Read More

Abstract
A new paradigm in human development must be founded upon a new paradigm in education. A human-centered educational system is needed whose aim is the fullest development of the capacities of each individual. Today humanity is on the cusp of a major transition in education, our most powerful instrument for conscious social evolution. Quality education can now be made universally accessible and affordable. Equally important, future education must be made relevant to the rapidly changing needs of society, the increasingly sophisticated demands of the labor market, the growing shortage of attitudes and skills need to promote entrepreneurship and full employment, the values needed for social harmony and problem solving, and the individuality needed for leadership, independent thinking and creativity. The coming revolution in education spurred by the breakthrough in online learning has made all of these goals achievable. New technology can facilitate a shift from the drudgery of passive knowledge transfer and memorization to the exhilaration of active learning that fosters curiosity, discovery and original thinking. It can also help break down the intellectual boundaries between disciplines, making possible a more comprehensive, transdisciplinary, integrated approach to knowledge. A revolution in higher education is upon us.
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Editors Note

The Double Helix of Learning and Work by Orio Giarini and Mircea Malitza is a report to the Club of Rome first published by UNESCO in 2003. It advances fundamental paradigm-changing ideas in the field of education. Drawing inspiration from the double helix structure of DNA, the authors seek to strengthen the relationship between education and employment in order to bring ‘The Knowledge Society’ within reach. This article is an abridged version of the second chapter of the report. Successive chapters will be carried in subsequent issues of Cadmus. Read More

Abstract
There is currently significant dissatisfaction with conventional economic theory. The unreliability of conventional theory as a predictor of future economic possibilities of catastrophes emphasizes the need for a new paradigm of political economy. This paper provides a capsule of some of the important limitations and consequences of the “old” paradigm. It proposes the necessary elements of a new paradigm and it seeks to locate the new paradigm of political economy in terms of its global reach. This requires a richer contextual approach, with the tools of contextual mapping. It has as well a focus on the global process of effective power and the emerging rule of law based constitutive processes. This is a key to the role of decision and the architecture of decision-making in political economy. We conclude with the global to local implications of the Vicos Experiment in Peru. Finally, we stress the wider lens of focus to identify the real and not the illusory generation of value. The implications here facilitate real global democratization. Read More