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Computers will soon be able to simulate the functioning of a human brain. In a near future, artificial superintelligence could become vastly more intellectually capable and versatile than humans. But could machines ever truly experience the whole range of human feelings and emotions, or are there technical limitations ?

In a few decades, intelligent and sentient humanoid robots will wander the streets alongside humans, work with humans, socialize with humans, and perhaps one day will be considered individuals in their own right. Research in artificial intelligence (AI) suggests that intelligent machines will eventually be able to see, hear, smell, sense, move, think, create and speak at least as well as humans. They will feel emotions of their own and probably one day also become self-aware.

There may not be any reason per se to want sentient robots to experience exactly all the emotions and feelings of a human being, but it may be interesting to explore the fundamental differences in the way humans and robots can sense, perceive and behave. Tiny genetic variations between people can result in major discrepancies in the way each of us thinks, feels and experience the world. If we appear so diverse despite the fact that all humans are in average 99.5% identical genetically, even across racial groups, how could we possibly expect sentient robots to feel the exact same way as biological humans ? There could be striking similarities between us and robots, but also drastic divergences on some levels. This is what we will investigate below.

MERE COMPUTER OR MULTI-SENSORY ROBOT ?

Computers are undergoing a profound mutation at the moment. Neuromorphic chips have been designed on the way the human brain works, modelling the massively parallel neurological processeses using artificial neural networks. This will enable computers to process sensory information like vision and audition much more like animals do. Considerable research is currently devoted to create a functional computer simulation of the whole human brain. The Human Brain Project is aiming to achieve this for 2016. Does that mean that computers will finally experience feelings and emotions like us ? Surely if an AI can simulate a whole human brain, then it becomes a sort of virtual human, doesn’t it ? Not quite. Here is why.

There is an important distinction to be made from the onset between an AI residing solely inside a computer with no sensor at all, and an AI that is equipped with a robotic body and sensors. A computer alone would have a range of emotions far more limited as it wouldn’t be able to physically interact with its environment. The more sensory feedback a machine could receive, the wide the range of feelings and emotions it will be able to experience. But, as we will see, there will always be fundamental differences between the type of sensory feedback that a biological body and a machine can receive.

Here is an illustration of how limited an AI is emotionally without a sensory body of its own. In animals, fear, anxiety or phobias are evolutionary defense mechanisms aimed at raising our vigilence in the face of danger. That is because our bodies work with biochemical signals involving hormones and neurostransmitters sent by the brain to prompt a physical action when our senses perceive danger. Computers don’t work that way. Without sensors feeding them information about their environment, computers wouldn’t be able to react emotionally.

Even if a computer could remotely control machines like robots (e.g. through the Internet) that are endowed with sensory perception, the computer itself wouldn’t necessarily care if the robot (a discrete entity) is harmed or destroyed, since it would have no physical consequence on the AI itself. An AI could fear for its own well-being and existence, but how is it supposed to know that it is in danger of being damaged or destroyed ? It would be the same as a person who is blind, deaf and whose somatosensory cortex has been destroyed. Without feeling anything about the outside world, how could it perceive danger ? That problem disappear once the AI is given at least one sense, like a camera to see what is happening around itself. Now if someone comes toward the computer with a big hammer, it will be able to fear for its existence !

WHAT CAN MACHINES FEEL ?

In theory, any neural process can be reproduced digitally in a computer, even though the brain is mostly analog. This is hardly a concern, as Ray Kurzweil explained in his book How to Create a Mind. However it does not always make sense to try to replicate everything a human being feel in a machine.

While sensory feelings like heat, cold or pain could easily be felt from the environment if the machine is equipped with the appropriate sensors, this is not the case for other physiological feelings like thirst, hunger, and sleepiness. These feelings alert us of the state of our body and are normally triggered by hormones such as vasopressin, ghrelin, or melatonin. Since machines do not have a digestive system nor hormones, it would be downright nonsensical to try to emulate such feelings.

Emotions do not arise for no reason. They are either a reaction to an external stimulus, or a spontaneous expression of an internal thought process. For example, we can be happy or joyful because we received a present, got a promotion or won the lottery. These are external causes that trigger the emotions inside our brain. The same emotion can be achieved as the result of an internal thought process. If I manage to find a solution to a complicated mathematical problem, that could make me happy too, even if nobody asked me to solve it and it does not have any concrete application in my life. It is a purely intellectual problem with no external cause, but solving it confers satisfaction. The emotion could be said to have arisen spontaneously from an internalized thought process in the neocortex. In other words, solving the problem in the neocortex causes the emotion in another part of the brain.

An intelligent computer could also prompt some emotions based on its own thought processes, just like the joy or satisfaction experienced by solving a mathematical problem. In fact, as long as it is allowed to communicate with the outside world, there is no major obstacle to computers feeling true emotions of its own like joy, sadness, surprise, disappointment, fear, anger, or resentment, among others. These are all emotions that can be produced by interactions through language (e.g. reading, online chatting) with no need for physiological feedback.

Now let’s think about how and why humans experience a sense of well being and peace of mind, two emotions far more complex than joy or anger. Both occur when our physiological needs are met, when we are well fed, rested, feel safe, don’t feel sick, and are on the right track to pass on our genes and keep our offspring secure. These are compound emotions that require other basic emotions as well as physiological factors. A machine without physiological needs cannot get sick and that does not need to worry about passing on its genes to posterity, and therefore will have no reason to feel that complex emotion of ‘well being’ the way humans do. For a machine well being may exist but in a much more simplified form.

Just like machines cannot reasonably feel hunger because they do not eat, replicating emotions on machines with no biological body, no hormones, and no physiological needs can be tricky. This is the case with social emotions like attachment, sexual emotions like love, and emotions originating from evolutionary mechanisms set in the (epi)genome. This is what we will explore in more detail below.

FEELINGS ROOTED IN THE SENSES AND THE VAGUS NERVE

What really distinguishes intelligent machines from humans and animals is that the former do not have a biological body. This is essentially why they could not experience the same range of feelings and emotions as we do, since many of them inform us about the state of our biological body.

An intelligent robot with sensors could easily see, hear, detect smells, feel an object’s texture, shape and consistency, feel pleasure and pain, heat and cold, and the like. But what about the sense of taste ? Or the effects of alcohol on the mind ? Since machines do not eat, drink and digest, they wouldn’t be able to experience these things. A robot designed to socialize with humans would be unable to understand and share the feelings of gastronomical pleasure or inebriety with humans. They could have a theoretical knowledge of it, but not a first-hand knowledge from an actually felt experience.

But the biggest obstacle to simulating physical feelings in a machine comes from the vagus nerve, which controls such varied things as digestion, ‘gut feelings’, heart rate and sweating. When we are scared or disgusted, we feel it in our guts. When we are in love we feel butterflies in our stomach. That’s because of the way our nervous system is designed. Quite a few emotions are felt through the vagus nerve connecting the brain to the heart and digestive system, so that our body can prepare to court a mate, fight an enemy or escape in the face of danger, by shutting down digestion, raising adrenaline and increasing heart rate. Feeling disgusted can help us vomit something that we have swallowed and shouldn’t have.

Strong emotions can affect our microbiome, the trillions of gut bacteria that help us digest food and that secrete 90% of the serotonin and 50% of the dopamine used by our brain. The thousands of species of bacteria living in our intestines can vary quickly based on our diet, but it has been demonstrated that even emotions like stress, anxiety, depression and love can strongly affect the composition of our microbiome. This is very important because of the essential role that gut bacteria play in maintaining our brain functions. The relationship between gut and brain works both ways. The presence or absence of some gut bacteria has been linked to autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder and several other psychological conditions. What we eat actually influence the way the think too, by changing our gut flora, and therefore also the production of neurotransmitters. Even our intuition is linked to the vagus nerve, hence the expression ‘gut feeling’.

Without a digestive system, a vagus nerve and a microbiome, robots would miss a big part of our emotional and psychological experience. Our nutrition and microbiome influence our brain far more than most people suspect. They are one of the reasons why our emotions and behaviour are so variable over time (in addition to maturity; see below).

SICKNESS, FATIGUE, SLEEP AND DREAMS

Another key difference between machines and humans (or animals) is that our emotions and thoughts can be severely affected by our health, physical condition and fatigue. Irritability is often an expression of mental or physical exhaustion caused by a lack of sleep or nutrients, or by a situation that puts excessive stress on mental faculties and increases our need for sleep and nutrients. We could argue that computers may overheat if used too intensively, and may also need to rest. That is not entirely true if the hardware is properly designed with an super-efficient cooling system, and a steady power supply. New types of nanochips may not produce enough heat to have any heating problem at all.

Most importantly machines don’t feel sick. I don’t mean just being weakened by a disease or feeling pain, but actually feeling sick, such as indigestion, nausea (motion sickness, sea sickness), or feeling under the weather before tangible symptoms appear. These aren’t enviable feelings of course, but the point is that machines cannot experience them without a biological body and an immune system.

When tired or sick, not only do we need to rest to recover our mental faculties and stabilize our emotions, we also need to dream. Dreams are used to clear our short-term memory cache (in the hippocampus), to replete neurotransmitters, to consolidate memories (by myelinating synapses during REM sleep), and to let go of the day’s emotions by letting our neurons firing up freely. Dreams also allow a different kind of thinking free of cultural or professional taboos that increase our creativity. This is why we often come up with great ideas or solutions to our problems during our sleep, and notably during the lucid dreaming phase.

Computers cannot dream and wouldn’t need to because they aren’t biological brains with neurostransmitters, stressed out neurons and synapses that need to get myelinated. Without dreams, an AI would nevertheless loose an essential component of feeling like a biological human.

EMOTIONS ROOTED IN SEXUALITY

Being in love is an emotion that brings a male and a female individual (save for some exceptions) of the same species together in order to reproduce and raise one’s offspring until they grow up. Sexual love is caused by hormomes, but is not merely the product of hormonal changes in our brain. It involves changes in the biochemistry of our whole body and can even lead to important physiological effects (e.g. on morphology) and long-term behavioural changes. Clearly sexual love is not ‘just an emotion’ and is not purely a neurological process either. Replicating the neurological expression of love in an AI would simulate the whole emotion of love, but only one of its facets.

Apart from the issue of reproducing the physiological expresion of love in a machine, there is also the question of causation. There is a huge difference between an artificially implanted/simulated emotion and one that is capable of arising by itself from environmental causes. People can fall in love for a number of reasons, such as physical attraction and mental attraction (shared interests, values, tastes, etc.), but one of the most important in the animal world is genetic compatibility with the prospective mate. Individuals who possess very different immune systems (HLA genes), for instance, tend to be more strongly attracted to each other and feel more ‘chemistry’. We could imagine that a robot with a sense of beauty and values could appreciate the looks and morals of another robot or a human being and even feel attracted (platonically). Yet a machine couldn’t experience the ‘chemistry’ of sexual love because it lacks hormones, genes and other biochemical markers required for sexual reproduction. In other words, robots could have friends but not lovers, and that make sense.

A substantial part of the range of human emotions and behaviours is anchored in sexuality. Jealousy is another good example. Jealousy is intricatedly linked to love. It is the fear of losing one’s loved one to a sexual rival. It is an innate emotion whose only purpose is to maximize our chances of passing our genes through sexual reproduction by warding off competitors. Why would a machine, which does not need to reproduce sexually, need to feel that ?

One could wonder what difference it makes whether a robot can feel love or not. They don’t need to reproduce sexually, so who cares ? If we need intelligent robots to work with humans in society, for example by helping to take care of the young, the sick and the elderly, they could still function as social individuals without feeling sexual love, wouldn’t they ? In fact you may not want a humanoid robot to become a sexual predator, especially if working with kids ! Not so fast. Without a basic human emotion like love, an AI simply cannot think, plan, prioritize and behave the same way as humans do. Their way of thinking, planning and prioritizing would rely on completely different motivations. For example, young human adults spend considerable time and energy searching for a suitable mate in order to reproduce.

A robot endowed with an AI of equal or greater than human intelligence, lacking the need for sexual reproduction would behave, plan and prioritize its existence very differently than humans. That is not necessarily a bad thing, for a lot of conflicts in human society are caused by sex. But it also means that it could become harder for humans to predict the behaviour and motivation of autonomous robots, which could be a problem once they become more intelligent than us in a few decades. The bottom line is that by lacking just one essential human emotion (let alone many), intelligent robots could have very divergent behaviours, priorities and morals from humans. It could be different in a good way, but we can’t know that for sure at present since they haven’t been built yet.

TEMPERAMENT AND SOCIABILITY

Humans are social animals. They typically, though not always (e.g. some types of autism), seek to belong to a group, make friends, share feelings and experiences with others, gossip, seek approval or respect from others, and so on. Interestingly, a person’s sociability depends on a variety of factors not found in machines, including gender, age, level of confidence, health, well being, genetic predispositions, and hormonal variations.

We could program an AI to mimick a certain type of human sociability, but it wouldn’t naturally evolve over time with experience and environmental factors (food, heat, diseases, endocrine disruptors, microbiome). Knowledge can be learned but not spontaneous reactions to environmental factors.

Humans tend to be more sociable when the weather is hot and sunny, when they drink alcohol and when they are in good health. A machine has no need to react like that, unless once again we intentionally program it to resemble humans. But even then it couldn’t feel everything we feel as it doesn’t eat, doesn’t have gut bacteria, doesn’t get sick, and doesn’t have sex.

MATERNAL WARMTH AND FEELING OF SAFETY IN MAMMALS

Humans, like all mammals, have an innate need for maternal warmth in childhood. An experiment was conducted with newborn mice taken away from their biological mother. The mice were placed in a cage with two dummy mothers. One of them was warm, fluffy and cosy, but did not have milk. The other one was hard, cold and uncosy but provided milk. The baby mice consistently chose the cosy one, demonstrating that the need for comfort and safety trumps nutrition in infant mammals. Likewise, humans deprived of maternal (or paternal) warmth and care as babies almost always experience psychological problems growing up.

In addition to childhood care, humans also need the feeling of safety and cosiness provided by the shelter of one’s home throughout life. Not all animals are like that. Even as hunter-gatherers or pastoralist nomads, all Homo sapiens need a shelter, be it a tent, a hut or a cave.

How could we expect that kind of reaction and behaviour in a machine that does not need to grow from babyhood to adulthood, cannot know what it is to have parents or siblings, nor need to feel reassured by maternal warmth, and do not have a biological compulsion to seek a shelter ? Without those feelings, it is extremely doubtful that a machine could ever truly understand and empathize completely with humans.

These limitations mean that it may be useless to try to create intelligent, sentient and self-aware robots that truly think, feel and behave like humans. Reproducing our intellect, language, and senses (except taste) are the easy part. Then comes consciousness, which is harder but still feasible. But since our emotions and feelings are so deeply rooted in our biological body and its interaction with its environment, the only way to reproduce them would be to reproduce a biological body for the AI. In other words, we are not talking about a creating a machine anymore, but genetically engineering a new life being, or using neural implants for existing humans.

MACHINES DON’T MATURE

The way human experience emotions evolves dramatically from birth to adulthood. Children are typically hyperactive and excitable and are prone to making rash decisions on impulse. They cry easily and have difficulties containing and controlling their emotions and feelings. As we mature, we learn more or les successfully to master our emotions. Actually controlling one’s emotions gets easier over time because with age the number of neurons in the brain decreases and emotions get blunter and vital impulses weaker.

The expression of one’s emotions is heavily regulated by culture and taboos. That’s why speakers of Romance languages will generally express their feelings and affection more freely than, say, Japanese or Finnish people. Would intelligent robots also follow one specific human culture, or create a culture on their own ?

Sex hormones also influence the way we feel and express emotions. Male testosterone makes people less prone to emotional display, more rational and cold, but also more aggressive. Female estrogens increase empathy, affection and maternal instincts of protection and care. A good example of the role of biology on emotions is the way women’s hormonal cycles (and the resulting menstruations) affect their emotions. One of the reasons that children process emotions differently than adults is that have lower sex hormomes. As people age, hormonal levels decrease (not just sex hormones), making us more mellow.

Machines don’t mature emotionally, do not go through puberty, do not have hormonal cycles, nor undergo hormonal change based on their age, diet and environment. Artificial intelligence could learn from experience and mature intellectually, but not mature emotionally like a child becoming an adult. This is a vital difference that shouldn’t be underestimated. Program an AI to have the emotional maturity of a 5-year old and it will never grow up. Children (especially boys) cannot really understand the reason for their parents’ anxiety toward them until they grow up and have children of their own, because they lack the maturity and sexual hormones associated with parenthood.

We could always run a software emulating changes in AI maturity over time, but they would not be the result of experiences and interactions with the environment. It may not be useful to create robots that mature like us, but the argument debated here is whether machines could ever feel exactly like us or not. This argument is not purely rhetorical. Some transhumanists wish to be able one day to upload their mind onto a computer and transfer our consciouness (which may not be possible for a number of reasons). Assuming that it becomes possible, what if a child or teenager decides to upload his or her mind and lead a new robotic existence ? One obvious problem is that this person would never fulfill his/her potential for emotional maturity.

The loss of our biological body would also deprive us of our capacity to experience feelings and emotions bound to our physiology. We may be able to keep those already stored in our memory, but we may never dream, enjoy food, or fall in love again.

SUMMARY & CONCLUSION

What emotions could machines experience ?

Even though many human emotions are beyond the range of machines due to their non-biological nature, some emotions could very well be felt by an artificial intelligence. These include, among others:

  • Joy, satisfaction, contentment
  • Disappointment, sadness
  • Surprise
  • Fear, anger, resentment
  • Friendship
  • Appreciation for beauty, art, values, morals, etc.

What emotions and feelings would machines not be able to experience ?

The following emotions and feelings could not be wholly or faithfully experienced by an AI, even with a sensing robotic body, beyond mere implanted simulation.

  • Hunger, thirst, drunkenness, gastronomical enjoyment
  • Various feelings of sickness, such as nausea, indigestion, motion sickness, sea sickness, etc.
  • Sexual love, attachment, jealousy
  • Maternal/paternal instincts towards one’s own offspring
  • Fatigue, sleepiness, irritability
  • Dreams and associated creativity

In addition, machine emotions would run up against the following issues that would prevent them to feel and experience the world truly like humans.

  • Machines wouldn’t mature emotionally with age.
  • Machines don’t grow up and don’t go through puberty to pass from a relatively asexual childhood stage to a sexual adult stage
  • Machines cannot fall in love (+ associated emotions, behaviours and motivations) as they aren’t sexual beings
  • Being asexual, machines are genderless and therefore lack associated behaviour and emotions caused by male and female hormones.
  • Machines wouldn’t experience gut feelings (fear, love, intuition).
  • Machine emotions, intellect, psychology and sociability couldn’t vary with nutrition and microbiome, hormonal changes, or environmental factors like the weather.

It is not completely impossible to bypass these obstacles, but that would require to create a humanoid machine that not only possess human-like intellectual faculties, but also an artificial body that can eat and digest and with a digestive system connected to the central microprocessor in the same way as our vagus nerve is connected to our brain. That robot would also need a gender and a capacity to have sex and feel attracted to other humanoid robots or humans based on a predefined programming that serves as an alternative to a biological genome to create a sense of ‘sexual chemistry’ when matched with an individual with a compatible “genome”. It would necessitate artificial hormones to regulate its hunger, thirst, sexual appetite, homeostasis, and so on.

Although we lack the technology and in-depth knowledge of the human body to consider such an ambitious project any time soon, it could eventually become possible one day. One could wonder whether such a magnificent machine could still be called a machine, or simply an artificially made life being. I personally don’t think it should be called a machine at that point.

———

This article was originally published on Life 2.0.

- @ClubOfINFO — TransEvolution: The Coming Age of Human Deconstruction (2014) is an alarmist book by Daniel Estulin, a commentator on the secretive Bilderberg Group who is well-liked by many – in particular on conspiracy theorist forums. Essentially, this should be regarded as conspiracy theory material. My refutations of it are too many to cram into this review, so I will mainly focus on what the book itself says.

Daniel Estulin connects disparate events and sources to depict an elaborate conspiracy. The main starting claim of the book is a link between the 2005 Bilderberg Conference and the 2006 document Strategic Trends 2007–2036 prepared by the British government (p. 1–12). Estulin claims that the latter report’s predictions betray “Promethean” plans that represent “designs by the Bilderberg Group”.
The book makes the allegation that the economic pressure on the world today “is being done on purpose, absolutely on purpose. The reason is because our current corporate empire knows that “progress of humanity” means their imminent demise”. The “powers-that-be” destroy nation-states to maintain power, and “this is by design” (p. 13). Estulin decries international money flows and globalization, and promotes “physical economy” instead. To make a long story short, he describes the apparatus of globalization, integration, etc. as a clash between the nation-state and global oligarchy and frames this as a classic battle between good and evil respectively (p. 13–35). “The ideas of a nation-state republic and progress” are intrinsically connected (p. 34), Estulin argues, putting forward his preference for the old Jacobin ideological script of the Nineteenth Century rather than modern discourses on integration and communication.
In his preference for the nation-state, Estulin attacks the WTO’s record on free trade, and makes criticisms that are provisionally valid. However, he confuses the tendency for weaker nations to be exploited through free trade with a conspiracy against the nation-state. The WTO’s commitment to what it calls free trade, a commitment to “One World, One Market”, reflects “anti-nation-state intent”, Estulin argues (p. 37–38).
Although they attach too much agency to global “elites”, Estulin’s description of the way international trade on agriculture has been manipulated to disadvantage poor nations and advantage rich nations (p. 38–49) agrees with already powerful sociology theories of “free trade imperialism” and the larger humanitarian message of the alter-globalization movement. Estulin quotes William Engdahl’s The Seeds of Destruction at length to argue against the destructive local impacts of global agribusiness (p. 47–53).
Estulin interprets the spread of the pharmaceuticals industry as evidence of the elite seeking a docile and controlled population, “massive drugging of the population”, “controlled chaos”, and even goes as far as to say that GMOs will be poisoning everyone on the planet and finally kill 3 billion people indiscriminately (p. 63–68). More puzzlingly than what has already been specified, Estulin blames the Club of Rome thesis itself (which predicted the depletion of resources leading to economic collapse) for making an enemy of humanity and submitting a plan for no less than the deliberate depopulation of the Earth (p. 17–20).
Synthetic biology is not spared from criticism by Estulin. He immediately labels it as “founded on the ambition that one day it will be possible to design and manufacture a human being” (p. 69). For the record, nowhere in the field of synthetic biology has anyone actually advocated manufacturing human beings, and nor does such an ambition coincide with the conspiracy theory about depopulating the Earth. Estulin further confuses science with pseudoscience, stating “genetics, as defined by the Rockefeller Foundation, would constitute the new face of eugenics” (p. 71). “Ultimately,” Estulin writes, “this is about taking control of nature, redesigning it and rebuilding it to serve the whims of the controlling elite” (p. 72).
In further arguments against the perceived “elite”, Estulin demonizes space exploration, saying “the elite are planning, at least, a limited exodus from the Planet Earth. Why? What do they know that we don’t? Nuclear wars? Nanowars? Bacteriological wars?” (p. 123) Chapter 4, although titled “space exploration”, is dedicated to explaining the deadly potential of future security and defense technologies when used by regimes against their own people (p. 115–156).
Then, we get to transhumanism (only in the last chapter.) The chapter alleges that the US government thought up a transhumanist agenda in 2001 as a strategic military contingency – in particular the Russian 2045 Movement. According to Estulin, the transhumanist conspiracy in its present form comes from a conference, “The Age of Transitions” (p. 159–161). Using little more than the few links between political or business figures and transhumanism as evidence, he alleges that transhumanism is “steered by the elite” and that “we, the people, have not been invited” (p. 161–162).
The movie Avatar (2010) by James Cameron (mistakenly named as David Cameron in Estulin’s book), is connected by Estulin with the 2045 movement’s enthusiasm for humans becoming “avatars” by means of being uploaded as digital beings (p. 162–164). Further, the movie Prometheus (2012) by Ridley Scott reflects the “future plans of the elite” according to Estulin (p. 165–170). However, he does not analyze either movie, and fails to note that Peter Weyland (the “elite”) in the movie is actually a vile character and his search for life-extension is a product of his greed and vanity (this is not exactly a glamorization of the search for life extension). If anything, Prometheus joins a long tradition of literature and film that encourages people not to trust transhumanism and life extension and to fear where such movements could lead.
Exaggerated connections and resemblances between disparate conferences, such as the US government and Russian longevity enthusiasts, are put forward as evidence of a conspiracy (p. 170). Then, we get to Estulin’s real complaint against transhumanism:

“Many people have trouble understanding what the true transhumanism movement is about, and why it’s so evil. After all, it’s just about improving our quality of life, right? Or is transhumanism about social control on a gigantic scale?” (p. 172–173)

Estulin also asserts:

“Transhumanism fills people’s hopes and minds with dreams of becoming superhuman, but the fact of the matter is that the true goal is the removal of that pesky, human free will itself.” (p. 186)

Estulin (and Engdahl’s) belief in a eugenic “depopulation” agenda (p. 57), as hideous as the crimes of Nazism, in Monsanto’s work is an example of a conspiracy theory appealing to irrational fears. Both of these writers are confusing corporate greed and monopolistic priorities with actual wicked and genocidal intent, and assigning motives that do not exist. They are confusing structural evils in the world system with actions by evil men gathered in dark rooms. Estulin also conveniently misses out the fact that the indiscriminate poisoning of all life by changing the DNA of every living thing would also threaten the conspirators and their own families. I guess we must assume that the conspirators are also a suicide cult, of the same breed as Jim Jones’ “People’s Temple”.
At the end of the book’s tirade about synthetic biology being a ticket for the elite to control all life, Estulin reverts back to a question very prominent in mainstream fora: “can we trust the major corporations with the right thing?” (p. 74). The answer from almost everyone would be No – but not for any of the reasons Estulin has put forward. We can’t trust the major corporations, because their only interest is endless profit in the near term, and such profit is maximized by their ability to monopolize and detain real progress. Monsanto and other agri-giants are only vainly forestalling and trying to contain the real technium for their own greed – there is nothing radical about them.
One thing I find ever entertaining about conspiracy theories is the tendency to get their ideas from Hollywood movies, while at the same time refuting the movies as an example of brainwashing and propaganda. Apparently, despite all their warnings to people not to be influenced by media, conspiracy theorists are incapable of noticing how impressionable and easily pressured they themselves are.
The book even attacks Darwinian evolution and natural selection, seeing a sinister agenda in them (p. 179–180), which adds to the book’s already deep anti-science message. He connects the theory of evolution with the destructive idea of social Darwinism, and with transhumanism in turn (p. 190–191). The elite plan to “bring society down to the level of beast” by encouraging such social Darwinism, Estulin alleges (p. 211–219).
Bizarre speculated connections between Malthusian theories, Darwin, the British Empire, eugenics and ultimately transhumanism (p. 174–178) do not take note of the fact that transhumanists and technoprogressives are the one camp in the world most opposed to Malthusianism. Technoprogressives are the camp with the most faith in the idea that the entire world can be fed and sustained. No-one has more faith in the infinite resources of humanity and the ability to meet everyone’s needs than the technoprogressives.
Perhaps reflecting the book’s confusion, Chapter 1 is dedicated to asserting that the “elite” will reduce everyone to a primitive and chaotic setting, whereas Chapter 2 onwards alleges that the plan is a high-tech dystopia. These two polar opposite conspiracies do not coincide in any way, as do the paradoxical claims that transhuman technologies are never going to be seen by the world’s poor, yet are also going to be forced on the whole of humanity.
The coverage of transhumanism and understanding of it in this book is not positive (to put it politely). It fails to take account of transhumanism’s real basis as a movement exploring emerging trends to change humanity for the better. Instead, it simply exaggerates marginal influences by futurism, popular science and technology enthusiasm on governments and business elites as representing a global conspiracy.
A more informative theory about the relationship of the “elite” towards transhumanism would instead explore the habit of ignorant opposition by Neoconservatives, warmongers, and the mainstream media towards international peace, development, science, education, web freedom, and ultimately transhumanism.

By Harry J. Bentham — More articles by Harry J. Bentham

 Originally published on 20 May 2014 at h+ Magazine

We have nothing to fear from exponential technological change, which will deliver humanity from statism and oligarchy. Send us your email address to get more ClubOfINFO articles delivered for free.

transcendence
I recently saw the film Transcendence with a close friend. If you can get beyond Johnny Depp’s siliconised mugging of Marlon Brando and Rebecca Hall’s waddling through corridors of quantum computers, Transcendence provides much to think about. Even though Christopher Nolan of Inception fame was involved in the film’s production, the pyrotechnics are relatively subdued – at least by today’s standards. While this fact alone seems to have disappointed some viewers, it nevertheless enables you to focus on the dialogue and plot. The film is never boring, even though nothing about it is particularly brilliant. However, the film stays with you, and that’s a good sign. Mark Kermode at the Guardian was one of the few reviewers who did the film justice.

The main character, played by Depp, is ‘Will Caster’ (aka Ray Kurzweil, but perhaps also an allusion to Hans Castorp in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain). Caster is an artificial intelligence researcher based at Berkeley who, with his wife Evelyn Caster (played by Hall), are trying to devise an algorithm capable of integrating all of earth’s knowledge to solve all of its its problems. (Caster calls this ‘transcendence’ but admits in the film that he means ‘singularity’.) They are part of a network of researchers doing similar things. Although British actors like Hall and the key colleague Paul Bettany (sporting a strange Euro-English accent) are main players in this film, the film itself appears to transpire entirely within the borders of the United States. This is a bit curious, since a running assumption of the film is that if you suspect a malevolent consciousness uploaded to the internet, then you should shut the whole thing down. But in this film at least, ‘the whole thing’ is limited to American cyberspace.

Before turning to two more general issues concerning the film, which I believe may have led both critics and viewers to leave unsatisfied, let me draw attention to a couple of nice touches. First, the leader of the ‘Revolutionary Independence from Technology’ (RIFT), whose actions propel the film’s plot, explains that she used to be an advanced AI researcher who defected upon witnessing the endless screams of a Rhesus monkey while its entire brain was being digitally uploaded. Once I suspended my disbelief in the occurrence of such an event, I appreciate it as a clever plot device for showing how one might quickly convert from being radically pro- to anti-AI, perhaps presaging future real-world targets for animal rights activists. Second, I liked the way in which quantum computing was highlighted and represented in the film. Again, what we see is entirely speculative, yet it highlights the promise that one day it may be possible to read nature as pure information that can be assembled according to need to produce what one wants, thereby rendering our nanotechnology capacities virtually limitless. 3D printing may be seen as a toy version of this dream.

Now on to the two more general issues, which viewers might find as faults, but I think are better treated as what the Greeks called aporias (i.e. open questions):

(1) I think this film is best understood as taking place in an alternative future projected from when, say, Ray Kurzweil first proposed ‘the age of spiritual machines’ (i.e. 1999). This is not the future as projected in, say, Spielberg’s Minority Report, in which the world has become so ‘Jobs-ified’, that everything is touch screen-based. In fact, the one moment where a screen is very openly touched proves inconclusive (i.e. when, just after the upload, Evelyn impulsively responds to Will being on the other side of the interface). This is still a world very much governed by keyboards (hence the symbolic opening shot where a keyboard is used as a doorstop in the cyber-meltdown world). Even the World Wide Web doesn’t seem to have the prominence one might expect in a film where computer screens are featured so heavily. Why is this the case? Perhaps because the script had been kicking around for a while (which is true). This may also explain why in Evelyn’s pep talk to funders includes a line about Einstein saying something ‘nearly fifty years ago’. (Einstein died in 1955.) Or, for that matter, why the FBI agent (played by Irish actor Cillian Murphy) looks like something out of a 1970s TV detective series, the on-site military commander looks like George C. Scott and the great quantum computing mecca is located in a town that looks frozen in the 1950s. Perhaps we are seeing here the dawn of ‘steampunk’ for the late 20th century.

(2) The film contains heavy Christian motifs, mainly surrounding Paul Bettany’s character, Max Waters, who turns out to be the only survivor of the core research team involved in uploading consciousness. He wears a cross around his neck, which pops up at several points in the film. Moreover, once Max is abducted by RIFT, he learns that his writings querying whether digital uploading enhances or obliterates humanity have been unwittingly inspirational. Max and Will can be contrasted in terms of where they stand in relation to the classic Faustian bargain: Max refuses what Will accepts (quite explicitly, in response to the person who turns out to be his assassin). At stake is whether our biblically privileged status as creatures entitles us to take the next step to outright deification, which in this case means merging with the source of all knowledge on the internet. To underscore the biblical dimension of dilemma, toward the end of the film, Max confronts Evelyn (Eve?) with the realization that she was the one who nudged Will toward this crisis. Yet, the film’s overall verdict on his Faustian fall is decidedly mixed. Once uploaded, Will does no permanent damage, despite the viewer’s expectations. On the contrary, like Jesus, he manages to cure the ill, and even when battling with the amassed powers of the US government and RIFT, he ends up not killing anyone. However, the viewer is led to think that Will 2.0 may have overstepped the line when he revealed his ability to monitor Evelyn’s thoughts. So the real transgression appears to lie in the violation of privacy. (The Snowdenistas would be pleased!) But the film leaves the future quite open, as what the viewer sees in the opening and final scenes looks more like the result of an extended blackout (and hints are given that some places have already begun the restore their ICT infrastructure) than anything resembling irreversible damage to life as we know it. One can read this as either a warning shot to greater damage ahead if we go down the ‘transcendence’ route, or that such a route might be worth pursuing if we get manage to sort out the ‘people issues’. Given that Max ends the film by eulogising Will and Evelyn’s attempts to benefit humanity, I read the film as cautiously optimistic about the prospects for ‘transcendence’, where the film’s plot is taken as offering a simulated trial run.

My own final judgement is that this film would be very good for classroom use to raise the entire range of issues surrounding what I have called ‘Humanity 2.0’.

White Swan Update by Andres Agostini at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan

018

This House’s “Bioconcrete” Turns Every Drop Of Rain Into Drinking Water http://www.fastcoexist.com/3030070/this-house-uses-bioconcre…king-water

Google Skunk Works May Tackle Energy and Agriculture http://www.21stcentech.com/google-skunk-works-tackle-agriculture/

Semi-synthetic bug extends ‘life’s alphabet’ http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27329583

But What Would the End of Humanity Mean for Me? http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/but-what-d…me/361931/

Molecular high-speed origami: Researchers elucidate important mechanism of protein folding http://phys.org/news/2014-05-molecular-high-speed-origam…rtant.html

Only 2% Of People Can Actually Multitask — This Test Will Tell You If You Are One Of Them http://www.businessinsider.com/multitasker-test-tells-you-if…z31I9DitM6

As AI Advances into ‘Deep Learning,’ are Robot Butlers on the Horizon? http://www.livescience.com/45482-robot-butlers-deep-learning.html

Scientists create new lifeform with added DNA base pair http://www.kurzweilai.net/scientists-create-new-lifeform-wit…-base-pair

GaitTrack app makes cellphone a medical monitor for heart and lung patients http://www.kurzweilai.net/gaittrack-app-makes-cellphone-a-me…g-patients

The White Swan Treatise at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan

Jason Dorrier — Singularity Hub


While traditional sports only grudgingly accept technological augmentation, the 2016 Cybathlon, a kind of hybrid between the XPRIZE and Olympics, embraces it with both robotic arms. Disabled competitors (or pilots) will compete using assistance devices like powered exoskeletons, robotic prostheses, and brain-control interfaces.

We’ve chronicled the continuous evolution of such technologies over the years, but they’re still largely out of reach for most folks.

Read more

The White Swan’s Beyond Eureka and Sputnik Moments! [TREATISE EXCERPT] By Mr. Andres Agostini at www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini

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The White Swan's Beyond Eureka and Sputnik Moments: How To Fundamentally Cope With Corporate Litmus Tests and With The Permanent Impact of the Dramatic Highly Improbable And Succeed and Prevail Through Transformative and Integrative Risk Management! [TREATISE EXCERPT]. By © Copyright 2013, 2014 Mr. Andres Agostini — All Rights Reserved Worldwide — « www.linkedin.com/in/andresagostini AND www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini » — The Lifeboat Foundation Global Chief Consulting Officer and Partner, Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador —

(An Independent, Solemn, Most-Thorough and Copyrighted Answer. Independence, solemnity, thoroughness, completeness, detail, granularity of details, accuracy and rigor, hereunder, will be then redefined by several orders of nonlinear magnitude and without a fail).

[TREATISE EXCERPT].

To Nora, my mother, who rendered me with the definitiveness to seek the thoughts and seek the forethoughts to outsmart any impending demand and other developments. To Francisco, my father: No one who has taught me better. There is no one I regard most highly. It is my greatest fortune to be his son. He endowed me with the Agostini family's charter, “…Study and, when grown up, you will neither be the tyrants' toy, nor the passions' servile slave…” I never enjoyed a “...Mom...”, but considerably enjoyed a gargantuan courageous Mother, Father, Grandparents and Forbears.

The White Swan was born as a 288-word question below was made in all earnest and fairness to the author.

WHAT IS A WHITE SWAN, COUNTERMEASSURING THE BLACK SWAN?

WHITE SWAN — PRAISE:

By (U.S.A.'s) The Evacuated Tube Transport Technologies (www.Et3.com) Founder and CEO Daryl Oster:

“... Mr. Andres Agostini possesses a clarity and complexity of thought that is rarely encountered. He is without a doubt one of the most brilliant persons I have had the pleasure to interact with. He is capable of understanding, and describing the forest, the trees, the leaves, the cells, and beyond (and with equal exactitude in several languages)...”

By Washington D.C. Metro Area (Industry and Military)'s Deputy Director, National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office (NMIO), Most Honorable Captain Jose Nieves at http://linkd.in/1mXSBMX :

“ … Mr. Agostini has a broad intellectual background and technological understanding providing him the ability to see issues from a very different perspective than most people, thus allowing him to see alternate futures, confront challenges head on, and solve complex problems through methodical and sequential processes. Mr. Agostini’s White Swan Book addresses the very issue of alternatives to current interdisciplinary approach. The understanding of alternative futures is critical to the success of organizations. Further, Mr. Agostini’s deep understanding of alternative futures and technological progression is a most necessary skill in our nation’s military and intelligence community’s ability to predict and solve future threats and see future opportunities to exploit. Separately, Mr. Agostini’s focus on Transformative And Integrative Risk Management to prevent technological surprise was, is, and will remain relevant into the future ...”

By Canadian Space Agency's Dr. Narasimha Bhashyam DSc. (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) at http://linkd.in/1mXSBMX :

“... Agostini's book White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management presents a refreshingly path-breaking novel approach in the highly complex area of risk management which often overwhelms senior management in policy and strategy formulations … the presentation is in well integrated problem-solving interdisciplinary approach makes it a Manual For Optimal Risk Management in very challenging operational environment … THE BOOK WILL BE VERY USEFUL AND HANDY SPECIALLY FOR THOSE HANDLING PROJECTS IN SPACE AND AERONAUTICS … I will very warmly recommend this book to all Practicing Managers and Teachers in Management may like to use this Book For Course In Risk Management ...”

By Canada's Mr. Michael Pastien at http://lnkd.in/Q8mDi9 :

"… Mr. Andres Agostini is a singularly persistent proactive think tank futurist, and a multidimensional polymath management genius with an unbridled whirlwind enthusiasm for rich deep complex savant visionary thought and action! He is acutely perceptive of an individual's overall strengths, with an avid shrewdness for quickly encapsulating this into wondrous eloquent words!..."

By U.S.A.'s Dr. David Burkart, PhD. at http://lnkd.in/bkYhb_s :

"...I know Andres Agostini to be one of the most astute and informed advisers to government and private sector businesses and NGO's working today. He has a huge knowledge base and an impressive number of contacts and sources. ... His positive outlook, energetic enthusiasm and unfailing courtesy and respect for others is inspirational and motivational. His forecasting skills and foresight advice are wisely sought by many in high places and appreciated by all those who benefit from his generosity .... Andres is a rare example of a true polymath in this day of specialization. His incisive intellect is well balanced by his social skills and personal integrity. I can recommend him without reservation for any organization that is in need of expert counsel at the highest level..."

By U.S.A.'s Austin, Texas Area's Mr. Steve Pearson (CEO of The Pearson Strategy Group) at http://linkd.in/1wJT0HR :

“ … The White Swan is very interesting, Andres! Thank you for putting so much thought into this subject for the benefit of all. Preparing for the future isn't just looking into a crystal ball, it involves using many existing and varying resources. This also includes the involvement of experienced and knowledgeable people looking for trends and comparisons that can be extrapolated and used to define future directions while minimizing risk. Organizations should quickly transform their processes to accommodate for this with the only variable being how heavily their resources are invested according to the amount of risk involved and resources available. In general, most organizations are likely underestimate their level of risk and it is highly recommended that they consult with Mr. Agostini, an expert in his field ...”

By Dr. Ram Tripathi, Ph.D., PMP at http://lnkd.in/bJ9ftWE :

"... I have enthusiastically written this recommendation for Andres and his book. Andres is a professional, theoretical researcher, scholar, and a connoisseur and practitioner of practical management consulting with a combination of mind-boggling skills and ample lines of professional practices who one can truly depend on. He brings thorough rigor to all aspects of risk analyzes and strategy projects, as a researcher, consultant, manager and strategist. Andres is also into advanced futurism, foresight research and scenario planning. In his career, he has worked with more than two (2) dozen global institutions, spanning multiple industries to make impeccable business impact in the final results. Andres’ solid and diverse competencies in strategy development and his personal integrity make him a trusted 'go to' person to get things done, and I recommend him highly. Last but not the least, I am glad to be connected with him offline and with his professional network in LinkedIn..."

By Ms. Brenda Hume, RN, BSN Solutions Provider at http://lnkd.in/bbvenrM :

"… Andres is near perfect in his on-point, relentless drive to be a solution provider. He sees what most cannot. He anticipates scenarios light-years ahead of others, in turn ensuring clients are turbo boosted ahead of their nearest competitors. He combines a kindred spirit with a laser point intellect, interacting with people of all backgrounds and education levels. He's a rare find in forecasting, adapting, and implementing concepts at a level most can only imagine to reach in their lifetime. Andres will take your business from average to superb in a flash..."

By U.S.A.' Mr. Farzad Khandan at http://lnkd.in/bavyPX5 :

"… Mr. Andres Agostini is a profound thinker and famous strategist. His ability to synthesize global challenges with deep passion for the future of mankind makes him a unique source to address global problems. Besides, through his sharp and broad vision, he is a trustworthy partner to solve your Risk Management problem. Anyway, I enjoyed working with him and recommend him to everyone who seeks a reliable and thoughtful foresight adviser or a strategic management coach ..."

By Italy's Dr. Claudio Mantovani M.D. at http://lnkd.in/bADrwQz :

"...Mr. Andres Agostini is a Professional of Great Value. Mr. Andres is a certainty and secured success. Andres is a great person, serious, reliable, competent and very capable..."

By U.S.A.'s Management and Corporate Strategy Consultant Mr. William Hultquist at ttp://lnkd.in/djuW5vD :

“... Mr. Andres Agostini is one of the most honorable and pervasive clever thinkers I have ever had the pleasure to know and work with. Through his thirty-three-plus years of commitment to the science of Transformative And Integrative Risk Management he has become one of the pioneers in this fledgling field of predictive science. Being a pioneer and thought leader requires enormous self confidence and dedication. Andres Agostini has prepared himself for his auspiciously spectacular career with diligent studies of the truth and meaning behind major shifts and technological changes in the world’s consciousness infrastructure [….] The deeper one travels in understanding an issue or trend, the clearer the interpretive ability of the observer becomes, however, this is easier said than done. I believe Mr. Agostini is capable of delivering his interpretive predictions because of his unfailing commitment to his own brand of rugged personal individualism. In other words, he is relentless in his professional pursuit of the truth in all matters and does not allow others’ perceptions to sway his resolve. Therefore, his findings and conclusions have the potential to provide unique substantive solutions and outcomes on the lives of individuals, organizations, communities and countries [….] The White Swan initiative demonstrates that unpredictability occurs as a consequence of not having considered issues beyond what the superficial mind reports to us. Mr. Agostini through his years of relentless research and analysis at mind-boggling levels of detail in scientific, economic and societal involvement exercises profound knowledge and wisdom in penetrating the causative issues behind events and thereby being able to extrapolate likely scenarios from the data [….] Major corporations, organizations, governments and their leaders consult with Mr. Agostini because of his no nonsense view of trends. You can count on receiving his absolute uncompromising opinion on the issues you are concerned with and you and your company can take them to the bank ...”

By U.S.A.'s Mr. Glenn Alpert at http://linkd.in/1kYIW8K :

“ ...'... The future belongs not to those who possess a crystal ball, but those willing to challenge the biases and prejudices of the ‘establishment ….' ….Not very many people want to challenge the establishment out of fear or ridicule. Unfortunately, new technologies and new philosophies are not created from older ways of thinking …. To speak about Mr. Agostini's concept of the White Swan Treatise — These methods allow for an organization to plan for optimal futures, rather than leave events to chance. Mr. Agostini is an expert in the domain of Scientific Futuring, and can provide thought leadership and solutions for real-world problems that organizations face in this area … Mr. Andres Agostini has a breadth and depth of expertise that is rarely matched. His insight and advice to us as a 1.5 year old company has been invaluable, and has led us in the right direction with our strategic management decisions with excellent results. I would highly recommend Mr. Agostini's consulting service to other start-ups and new companies, as well as more established ones ...”

By U.S.A.'s Mr. Joel Elveson at http://linkd.in/1gTBH2l :

“ … Mr. Andres Agostini's brilliance is well documented …. In the field of insurance, risk management, etc. Mr. Agostini combines critical thinking with multiple areas of experience using a variety of platforms. His ethics are beyond question. Mr. Agostini provides solutions to problems others would not even begin to tackle …. Andres Agostini is one of the brightest minds I have ever encountered. Mr. Agostini possesses a dearth of expertise and experience in numerous fields. There is no task or endeavor that Mr. Agostini cannot successfully undertake and complete with ease. I would highly recommend that in the numerous areas that Mr. Agostini has worked in that his expertise be fully utilized. His thought processes are far superior to anybody I have ever met or that you will ever meet. Thank you ...”

By Montreal's Mr. Claude Emond, BEng, MEng, MBA, rmc, CD at http://linkd.in/1u5aMmL :

“... Mr. Agostini makes very clearly his point about the need to have better alternatives to current «insurance-based risk management» approaches, these failing lamentably to provide organizations with proactive, agile plans to face current and future opportunities and threats to continue to thrive and achieve long term sustainability. He also offers, with his White Swan metaphor, the path to better forecasting and pro-activity: his Transformative and Integrative Risk Management interdisciplinary methodology. This methodology being the fruit of real time applications and demonstrated successes on many very complex organizational environments, I am confident that it can help any organization face the current turbulent times and its future evolutions with more certainty and agility in the face of permanent change. I particularly liked his rendering and interpretation of the Deng Xiaoping’s quote: ' … It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice …', because in our particular turbulent times, the white cat (swan) will be the one that can catch the mice. Transformative and Integrative Risk Management is a real interdisciplinary systems approach, ensuring a better, more complete (if not always completely omniscient), look at all future possibilities and resulting in better organizational actions in the present, and superior agile plans for the future …. I am privileged to have had the chance to read this abstract of Mr. Agostini coming book and I am looking forward to the unabridged version. I am also confident that the organizations that will use his Transformative and Integrative Risk Management interdisciplinary methodology will continue to lead their fields of activities, remain sustainable and prosper for a long time to come. I am also sure that the organizations experimenting difficulties right now have a better chance to find the path to renewed organizational health and prosperity using the proactive approaches inherent to Transformative and Integrative Risk Management ...”

By Copenhagen Area, Denmark's Mr. Benny Mortensen http://linkd.in/1nEmDZp :

" ... Mr. Andres Agostini had once Again proved, that his intellectual knowledge are above most people through The White Swan theory. Compared to the Black Swan, this comes around all the multi-plausible observations known into Risk Management. Although it's much more complex it's gonna be an indispensable tool for both current and upcoming Managers and Leaders to succeed in the future. As an upcoming Leader I'm really looking forward to follow and use theories by Mr. Andres Agostini ..."

By U.K.'s Dr. Ann Shaw M.D. At http://goo.gl/gS7a3A :

"… I am in awe of Andres for many reasons since 2008. Not only am I impressed with his business and management practical approach, vast knowledge and professionalism in current high-tech and concerning future technologies and risk management, but as a unique and very valuable human being .… With extensive work based on over 30 years of corporate experience, Andres has completed his current book, 'The White Swan'. He has managed to incorporate his wealth of knowledge and experience to address the threats and opportunities and benefits so that incumbents gain augmented insight about what greatly impacts the practices by change managers, leaders, educators, researchers, scholars, entrepreneurs, advanced students and responsible citizens, aiming to make a difference for a better yet challenging world …. With minuteness, he explores deep reflections, initiatives, notions and ideas that may have been long ignored, under-estimated and misunderstood. The White Swan is an interesting, deep and comprehensive exploration that allows the reader to freely come to his/her own conclusions. He has a dynamic and deep mind, and is gifted with a true art of discernment and expression for all he feels…”

By U.S.A.'s Dr. Diane M. Rousseau LHD, Ph.D at http://linkd.in/1pI5Stp :

“... It is a pleasure to write about Mr. Andres Agostini; meeting him almost two years ago, following his extensive work and seeing the depth, breadth, insights and high quality of his writings, his innate ability to think creatively, express complex ideas simply, and, his sincere dedication to making a difference [….] In Science and Technology, in integration of Consciousness, expanding the Scientific view point to include "out of the box thinking" for practical application which is needed for humanities expansion, survival and sustaining knowledge, Mr. Andres clearly writes for the benefit of all life on the planet [….] As a process of his lucid White Swan book ( ASIN: B00KMY0DLK), Andres has sent me a gracious invite to take part in the initiative of Concurrent Coordinated Convergent Systems Thinking (CCCST): Articulated under Intelligence Augmentation and Amplification (IAA), underpinned at ASIN: B00KNL02ZE, in order to improve the intellect and teaching abilities of some of our students, teachers and professors [….] I recommend Mr. Andres Agostini highly, as a Colleague and Friend, a prolific writer with acumen and a keen eye to expand for the greater good all subjects he approaches, it is an honor to know him ...”

By São Paulo, Brazil's Ms. Giselle Cury at http://linkd.in/1nEmGV8 :

“... An exceptional source of deep insight into the contemporary intricacies of an organization, a delightful invitation to dip into the author’s multifaceted analysis of such wonderful, although complex entity. The absorption of Mr. Andres Agostini’s 'White Swan' concepts is not only highly recommended, but also a condition sine qua non for organizations around the world to be on top of their businesses. Simply fantastic! ...”

By Mr. Tony Di Rico at http://linkd.in/1wK2pzc :

".... I have known Mr. Andres Agostini for nearly 9 years now and found him to be a wonderful person to work with. Andres’ willingness to be of assistance, along with his many senior connections, makes him a great executive for anyone to know. He has connected me with several mutually beneficial individuals. His broad experience allows him to speak about many topics from a unique perspective. I highly recommend the White Swan Book and Mr. Agostini and suggest you contact him to see what he has to offer ..."

By U.S.A.'s Tampa's Mr. Dan Aduito at http://linkd.in/1jIGOgH :

“ … Andres Agostini is always willing to lend his wisdom and support to those of us who may not be scientists however I see Mr. Agostini as a bridge and interpreter of the sciences to the multitude of other specialists in business, commerce and industry …. A rare man with the capacity to draw all who come near, closer to the leading edges of scientific analysis and predictability based upon fact as opposed to conjecture and pontification …. I consider it an honor to call Mr. Agostini my friend and translator of cosmic relationships of all matter ...”

By U.S.A.'s Mr. Bob Smith at http://linkd.in/RRlf6J :

“... I find the writings associated with White Swan to be delightfully thought-provoking and offer a smart and insightful juxtaposition to the Black Swan concept. It provides balance in the flow of the topic and brings a rich new set of useful distinction to consider …. I think this will offer elements to a full and complete range of thinking that holds two ends of the same line of thinking. The Swans become bookends to an elegant body of thinking and consideration on how to '...be ...' in the midst of the two influences [….] I enjoy the additional thinking that Andres has brought forward and I appreciate the visit to the fundamentals of thinking in so many areas that affect the true productivity of business and the impact on people and results ...”

By U.S.A.'s Mr. Dana Hall at http://goo.gl/AoI11F :

“… Much like his knowledge-seeking forebears, Andres maintains an unconventional view of the conventional world around him. The combination of his intellect and perspective serve him well as an engaging intellectual, coach and consultant. His White Swan book is completely educational and fascinating, as he is able to connect vast amounts of information into something truly meaningful…. Andres is not at all an intellectual snob, though by all rights he could be. On the contrary, he is very giving through sharing his ideas and knowledge, and in helping his fellow men (and women) working to better themselves. I find Andres to be a kind and warm human being while maintaining his strong professional leadership and mentoring style. He offers a unique blend of qualities and attributes that are rare indeed, and I highly recommend him ..."

By U.S.A.'s Mr. Jay H. Peters at http://linkd.in/T2HoAj :

" ... I find Mr. Andres Agostini's work in connection with the White Swan to reflect his uncompromising facility with intuitive thinking followed up with his extraordinary ability to describe in words any subject matter which crosses his path. His descriptive writing alone places him in a category where few people can tread. I look forward to a future comprising both his enlightened attitude and his no nonsense approach to problem evaluation and solution. I can highly recommend him for any position that his wordsmithing and people skills may benefit ..."

By U.S.A.'s Ms. Tamara Beck at http://linkd.in/1n0wRQq :

“...Andres, as always, the White Swan is a very thorough and insightful view of things as they are and are going to be! ...”

By U.S.A.'s Mr. Edward Andron, ACom, ARM, RAM, CNE, NYU Fellow at http://linkd.in/1rw2ZR0 :

"...I have known Andres for approximately two years and found him to be an outstanding intellectual [….] White Swan seeks answers to the most complex and confounding problems in many industries and always finds an answer [….] Andres is engaging, insightful, and creative [….] He is quite literally a walking encyclopedia and veritable cornucopia of wisdom on any subject or any industry [….] I highly recommend him to White Swan, any think tank, corporation, or governmental agency looking for a sage whose prescient wisdom is both accurate and ahead of his time [….] He is an incalculable asset, but more importantly, a great human being I am proud to call my friend! ..."

By U.S.A.'s Greater Los Angeles Area's Mr. Terry Tucker: http://goo.gl/mKq04r :

“... Mr. Agostini provides a valuable look, and, provides valuable contributions to 'Red Teaming' and decision analysis planning. Modern Strategy and White Swans are also about the social dynamics, which many analysts neglect. Andres covers this nicely ...”

By France's Dr. Valérie Morignat PhD at http://lnkd.in/QeMmMx :

"… I have met Andres Agostini through his extensive activities as a Futurist. Andres is one of those rare thinkers who naturally serves as an inspiring mentor for the field. With an impressive background as a Business innovator, a Tech-Analyst and a Consultant in Foresight Research, Andres Agostini exhibits strong visionary skills and a great sense of network building. These qualities most notably translate in his ability to inspire others, to nurture an impressive field of personal competencies and to develop groundbreaking innovative projects. His holistic approach makes Mr. Agostini a highly valuable individual I warmly recommend..."

By U.S.A.'s Mr. Robert Bonner http://goo.gl/qRW8Kd

“… I have had the distinct pleasure of working with Andres in his capacity as an adviser, consultant, strategist, professional futurologist and project leader since 2009. He is truly a polymath with an uncanny ability to think both creatively and strategically while solving complex managerial problems. Andres brings a high degree of elegance and robustness to his business acumen. He has helped me understand the impact of megatrends and forces on my core business and has aided me in building my capacity take 'the long view.' Without a doubt, his ability to forecast the upsides/downsides of business opportunities rests on his mastery of trends in seemingly disparate fields of science, technology, medicine, economics and business. His engagements are of a consistently high quality. And his ability to lead projects and teams has been both meticulous and visionary. He is the consummate professional. I recommend his work, vision, and leadership without reservation…”

By U.S.A.'s Mr. John Lucic at http://linkd.in/1m3tR2h :

“ … Mr. Agostini has proven to be one of the most qualified and ethics driven business consultants I have recommended to our clients. He truly cares for success of his clients and is an asset to any business that would choose to utilize his expertise. Good luck on your White Swan project ...”

By U.S.A.'s Ms. Sonny Cardinal at http://linkd.in/1wO5IoY :

" ... White Swan's Transformative and Integrative Risk Management is a tremendously comprehensive prospecting tool that I will be sure to reference in the future. Great work! …"

By Berlin's Mr. Steffen D. Bieser at http://linkd.in/U5IjAM :

“... There are too many superstitions in the world of trade, commerce and management. People embrace too many half truths. This is wrong and it does not help to understand a complicated world. The White Swan unmasks a large number of global lies. There was about time for its author to tell it better ...”

By Mexico's Ms. Orenda Urbano-Hernández at http://linkd.in/U5IjAM :

“... The sequence of your work in White Swan seems like the chronicle of the different layers of organizational systems. It express the natural course of events and generates the idea that by comprehending these processes human possess tools of assertiveness to generate intuitive approach to solve challenges or to manufacture an intelligent and generous reality ...”

By Iran's Industrial Engineer Ms. Pegah Nikzat at http://linkd.in/1m3uh8V :

“ … As a Futurist and Industrial Engineer I am greatly involved with many disciplines, techniques, research and reading. The White Swan treatise, by Mr. Andres Agostini, is correct and a technological breakthrough and scientific discovery in itself, coming forward in the most expected and needed moment. Mr. Agostini’s unprecedented abilities to coalesce Scientific Futuring with Transformative and Integrative Risk Management is a methodological novelty hugely embraced by the international community of Industrial Engineers. As he states, White Swan is not only about holding and futilely entertaining abstracts notions that do not have an instrumental and decisive practical application is enhancing corporation’s astute choice-making process. From this point onward I will be requesting my clients and customers to seriously study the White Swan as I am definitively considering forthcoming mutually-beneficial teaming arrangement with Mr. Agostini toward joint professional consulting services ...”

By South Africa's Mr. Anton van den Berg at http://linkd.in/1oKqt2U :

“... As always, Mr. Andres Agostini cuts to the heart of the matter. The abundance of experience and knowledge required to achieve a break-through thought like this is staggering. I am glad that my life allowed me to experience this brilliant minds and exceptional thoughts that it produced. I’m grateful that he is able to articulate his thoughts in a way that we can absorb it. Thank you Andres!!!! ...”

By India's Civil Engineer Mr. GramaKeshava Ananthram at http://linkd.in/U5IEn5 :

“...White Swan; yes White Swan! In Sanskrit‚ we have an adage-HAMSA KSHEERA NYAYAM — meaning Swan and the Milk Example! What does this mean? It is believed that Swan accepts milk portion only from out of the mixture of Milk and Water! [….] I am honored to compare this Vedic Analogy with Andres Agostini's WHITE SWAN — I do know whether Andres kept this Vedic term. While titling his Great foreseeing of the Future! Needless to say that Andres is a foreseer; DRASHTARA! He illumines the present science and technology and eighteens the future Metascale heights, yet he says that he does know what could be in 2045! The universe is a legendary verse and I must admit with my limited knowledge of the past to future, the evolution is the greatest revolution in all aspects; known becomes non existent and unknown becomes the most adored and preferred tool of the present tool for affluence in scientific and technological fast tracks! I admire Andres at every meticulous step in his narration citing and acknowledging his indebtedness to his peers! My knowledge of Science and technology is limited to appreciation of the facts of the future ! I am no match to Andres Agostini’s knowledge, but have the firm belief that Andres Agostini’s forethoughts of the future are the as true as Sun and Moon! [….] It is a prevailed I casually came across this page and must say I am a gainer in knowledge! __[....]__ There is ignorance in knowledge and so too knowledge in ignorance because the more one learns; much more he/she feels more he/she must learn! [….] People like Mr. Andres Agostini are always sought after to educate the thirsty for knowledge of the futuristic developments! ...”

By U.S.A.'s Ms. Annie (xiao xuan) Liu at http://on.fb.me/1m26O81 :

“... In the U.S. and China there is a great fervor about Mr. Andres Agostini's White Swan. I love this amazing read and how Andres explains every difficult thing with nice definitions and real examples. I also love the unprecedented level of candor by the White Swan. I find interesting that this book is about telling the truth and to sugar-coat difficult realities while giving easy ideas about how to fix challenges and complications. I am into teaching people how to be successful in their professional and personal lives. As a process of that I will have my folks consider the White Swan because it is a great tool to make Success happen ..."

By Israel's Mr. Nachum Katz at http://goo.gl/qMykEK :

“ … I greatly enjoyed this read, and found it very helpful and eye opening …. Most of all I find the remarks about preparing to the future and making it happen based on changing ideas, thoughts, concepts, preparing a new vision that pushes us all forward, based on the past ...”

By Israel's Mr. Zamir Tribelsky at http://goo.gl/eiqWlE :

“…I know Mr. Andres Agostini for several years and had numerous privileged opportunities to exchange intelligently charged views on vast number of subjects ranging from advancement of physics and human resource science and technology management, to sophisticated nuances of advanced photochemistry… In contradistinction to interactions I experienced with a wide and highly qualified team of world class scientists, consultants, engineers and management specialists in wide myriad of complementing fields and diversified disciplines, Mr. Andres Agostini is indeed a diamond in a heap of pearls…”

By Mr. Anton van den Berg at http://goo.gl/RBLJZQ :

“…From my experience he is an extraordinary person, doing everything he can to make a difference. (A good example of this is his White Swan Book) The passion with which he addresses moral, ethical and goodness issues are the things that moves me…If you want someone who understands, cares and is genuine in both execution and intent – this is your man…I recommend both Andy and his book (Futuretronium Book) to everybody that is willing to listen, learn and grow..."

By Japan's Mr. Richard Posner at http://goo.gl/M0vCpM :

"...Andres Agostini is nothing short of remarkable in intellect, in wisdom, and in putting ideas into action in an integrated, humane-centered fashion… Andy is a man whom you can trust with your life and business. His word or promise is set in stone..."

By Romania's Mr. Tzarul Nocolai at http://goo.gl/p5bRp9 :

"...The unconventional way of thinking and hard work through research and experiment seem to become extremely soon a common way of life. When I met Mr. Andres Agostini my deja vu was that we travel endlessly in a multiverse changing a lot of causes of unwanted effects. Having natural qualities like knowledge, intuition, altruism, patience, kindness, selfless commitment to wipe the wounds of an agonizing society of the challenge, Mr. Agostini is a modern apologist of the of Golden Age of Athens…”

By U.S.A.'s Mr. David Anthony Johanson at http://lnkd.in/bRriaKU :

"… For me, words fall short in their ability to convey Andres Agostini's massive intellectual capacities, productive visionary output and perhaps most importantly — his integrity as a compassionate individual .... It is in Andres’ positive actions, which illuminates what he represents — a tireless creative problem-solver with practical solutions to complex issues, that is supported by his solid commitment to see projects all the way through .... Andres Agostini is a total dynamo for inspiring others with his generous content of knowledge and ideas, which he regularly shares through multiple communication channels (the White Swan Book). Not only does Andres share critical information on a full spectrum of visionary technologies, but he shares the most valuable assets of them all — his time and compassion in helping others to make the World a better place .... I consider myself very fortunate to have Andres share his compassionate wisdom with me, which further motivates my efforts to share knowledge and solutions to help inspire positive action....Without any reservations, I enthusiastically recommend Andres Agostini’s creative solutions, leadership and compassionate positive actions towards any current or future challenging endeavors..."

By U.S.A.'s Ms. Harmony Collins at http://lnkd.in/b2bFTnE

"… Mr. Andres Agostini is proactive partner is all his endeavors. Andres is a hard-driving individual determined to see a project brought to a successful conclusion....Andres demands perfection of himself and leads by example. It is his 'Do not take «no» for an answer' attitude that propels him to higher and higher levels of success. Andres may be a conservative business man; however, he knows that there are times to be a risk averter or a risk avoider....In his field, Andres harnesses change to drive challenge through an organization. As a trend setter, Andres knows how to handle business as it becomes more risk mature and can take an enterprise-wide view at times....I have full confidence that if there is a problem, Andres will know how to address it..."

By U.K.'s Mr. David Shaw at http://lnkd.in/ba6xX-K :

"...Andres is a multi-disciplined professional with incredible energy and enthusiasm. We've communicated through the INTJ Masterminds LinkedIn group and his insights into a wide range of issues is very thought provoking .... His work into what the future holds is broad and deep and I keep an eye on the wide range of articles that he produces … The white swan is a great read ..."

By U.S.A.'s Mr. Alejandro Core at http://lnkd.in/bYk5kEK :

"… Hereby, I strongly recommend the white swan writing and Mr. Andres Agostini – who is an enthusiastic and original thinker on Futuristic Matters, including Futures Studies, Foresight Research and Scenario Planning....Mr. Andres Agostini has passion for and understanding of the links among technology trends and historical facts, human behaviors, sustainability management and decision making are wonderful examples of the characteristics that are needed to accelerate smart decision making in global corporations, businesses and government..."

By U.S.A.'s Mr. Prabhu Krishna at http://lnkd.in/bVwKBER :

"… I know Mr. Andres Agostini, as an educational mentor and I am grateful for his efforts in helping me out to be a better person. I got an opportunity to interact and discuss with him about various intuitive topics and he always amazes me each and every time. His knowledge in different fields often awestruck me....Personally he has helped me out in various methodologies in improving my adaption over the cultural differences and understanding my weakness and strengths of my personality. He is been such a wonderful open minded person to whom you can discuss any kind of topics at any point of time. I am indebted for getting a adviser like him..."

By U.S.A.'s Mrs. Sherry Hall at http://goo.gl/ZuVlXY :

"… It is rare that one encounters a Subject Matters Expert (SMsE) who so adeptly transcends disciplines and defies traditional definition. Through highly intellectually and stimulating exchanges with Andy, I have found him to be an SMsE in virtually, and practically, many areas including business management, global commerce, technology, science, innovation and forward-thinking initiatives .… With his insightful views, thoughtful approach and genuine interest in others, Andy has served as an inspiring mentor and coach. He has caused me to pause for deep reflection and ask a truly meaningful 'What if?'. I have no doubt his subtle, yet effective style, will propel me to the next level of professional development and stellar delivery of my 'personal best'…For any organization seeking an exceptional and truly remarkable resource, I highly recommend Andy. For anyone wishing a glimpse into 'what may be', I recommend exploration of Andy’s theorem about future studies and strategic planning..."

By U.S.A.'s Mr. Dana Hall at http://goo.gl/AoI11F :

“…Much like his knowledge-seeking forebears, Andres maintains an unconventional view of the conventional world around him. The combination of his intellect and perspective serve him well as an engaging intellectual, coach and consultant. His White Swan book is completely educational and fascinating, as he is able to connect vast amounts of information into something truly meaningful…. Andres is not at all an intellectual snob, though by all rights he could be. On the contrary, he is very giving through sharing his ideas and knowledge, and in helping his fellow men (and women) working to better themselves. I find Andres to be a kind and warm human being while maintaining his strong professional leadership and mentoring style. He offers a unique blend of qualities and attributes that are rare indeed, and I highly recommend him..."

By U.K.'s Dr. Ian C. Hale, PhD. at http://lnkd.in/dvheBBc :

"...It is a great pleasure to have this white swan opportunity to give the highest possible recommendation for Mr. Agostini's wide range of ability and smarts. His professionalism, integrity and drive also mark him out as a major figure .... He is second to none with his vast knowledge and extensive experience in several areas of management including White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management and Business Optimization in general. Mr. Agostini is an outright genius and uncanny polymath and a fine, clear writer, communicator and multi-linguist ..."

By U.S.A.'s Mrs. Peggy Leyva Conley. At http://lnkd.in/dTwc_WD :

"… Andres Agostini, Is a World Leader as an Analytical Manager and Strategic Consultant who has worked in various sectors consisting of applying his vast knowledge, and skills. This includes Fortune 100 Companies who have hired him as an Adviser, Planner and Futurist who can shed his foresight to help determine where a Company should be driven to become Successful in the marketplace. As a Professional he is highly valuable when researching and using strategic plans to Educate Corporations how to become prosperous..."

U.S.A.'s Mrs. Joanne Victoria at http://goo.gl/veCHsC

"… I am candidly in puzzlement of Andres Agostini for many reasons. He is mental acuity, acumen and infinite enthusiasm and energy [….] Andres is such an accomplished executive and professional into advanced technology, management, business and leadership matters. He thinks deeply and quickly ? while operating (multi-tasking) in systemic and systematic mode ?, through a panoramic perspective [….] Andres’ talents qualify him as a Renaissance Man with a strong commitment towards professional futurology, futures studies, foresight research, scenario planning [….] He designed and developed his own proprietary methodology (beyond insurance) in 2005, Transformative and Integrative Risk Management [….] Andres solves instrumental puzzles daily. If you ask for help or a piece of advice, he will readily be there for you. He is personable, kind and an unconditional gentleman. He certainly observes ethics and timeliness in all rigors ..."

By U.K.'s Mr. Martyn Green at http://goo.gl/NPeBYS

" … It gives me great pleasure to recommend Andres as a person with the highest values and integrity that I have come across in a long time, he truly is a man with a great vision and purpose in life and I am glad to be able to say that I am now ...!..."

By U.S.A.'s Mr. Kim William Gordon at http://goo.gl/x9qX9A

"… Mr. Andres Agostini is a polished professional who has my highest recommendations. It is a rare privilege to work with a visionary person of such caliber. His knowledge, wisdom and his ethics, as well as his compassion and empathy make him a superb addition to any team, at any level ..."

By Japan's Mr. Akinori Koyama at http://goo.gl/uqxctU

"… He is great and smart. I cannot do it like him ..."

END OF THE WHITE SWAN PRAISE.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

A Quick Message from India:

An Indian Civil Engineer and Mystic argues and as per own account,

“... In Sanskrit the Vedantic Sages call Andres «... a DRASHTARA ...» and as such he is set out to re-channelize the R&D&I effort's direction and pathway by applied scientists in dire straits, thus re-illuminating them in the unaccounted-for dynamic driving forces in order for scientists to return to the right path ...”

An Vedantic Yogi also called Andres, some years ago, “... Auspiciousness ...”

He is a Sanskrit Scholar and the reader can see him at www.White-Swan-Vedantic-Yogi.blogspot.com I can also introduce the reader to him any time soon.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Let us define countermeasuring:

“ … Countermeasuring is the ing-form of countermeasure, in order to indicate a preemptive action taken to oppose, neutralize, or retaliate against some other action and as an opposing, offsetting, or retaliatory measure ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

WHITE SWAN — FOREWORDS:

FOREWORD # 1 of #3:

“... You may have heard of the '...black swan...' concept. Now there is the White Swan Treatise, a name for an '...interdisciplinary methodology...' of '...Transformative and Integrative Risk Management...' This is offered by Mr. Andres Agostini and his work is a creative approach that can help organizations large and small prepare for the future. Of course the future has risks — and opportunities — because of it's intrinsic property of uncertainty and unpredictability. To best mitigate the downside risks and leverage the upside opportunities, flexible thinking is required. FOR EXAMPLE, IT IS USEFUL TO VIEW PROBLEMS FROM MULTIPLE DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW. THIS TASK IS BOTH IMPORTANT AND NONTRIVIAL. TO MAKE IT HAPPEN, AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH IS IMPORTANT. The hope is to manage the multiple uncertainties (risks and opportunities) by integrating an array of insights and resources. A successful result can indeed be transformative. Thank you Mr. Agostini for contributing this methodology with its pathway to! Ward solutions of originality and significance [….] It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to work with Andres Agostini on a technology foresight related project. Mr. Agostini is a great source of stimulating and interesting ideas. His high energy level makes working with him an efficient way to leverage activities. Andres is invaluable in providing an international dimension to the project which would otherwise be unavailable. I absolutely recommend Andres Agostini as a colleague and project team partner! ...” — By Professor Daniel , PhD. — The MIT and University of Texas at Austin's Most Honorable and Respected Alumnus. — The University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Professor, and The Author of “...The Human Race to the Future: What Could Happen — and What to Do ...”

WHITE SWAN — FOREWORD #2 of #3:

“ ... Often ignored is the future of mankind as we move through our daily lives. Until you meet Andres Agostini an accomplished author, thinker and strategist. When you browse through the cosmos called his profile you are engaged in a myriad of accomplishments both in his writing and published works but also his accomplishments and impressive list of the companies he has served. He is a thinker and one that makes sense __[....]__ His relationships are top notch and I have had the pleasure to be offered an introduction. Which has developed into a new relationship and one of both intellectual value but of commonality __[....]__ If you are looking for the intellectual promise you will not be disappointed in fact you will be impressed. Hi vast intellect in multiple topics is a trait of a visionary. And I believe that Andres is just that __[....]__ To sum up if your future is in need of clarification and need a well established and respected individual who follows through on his intentions then this is your man. A person of integrity, a future thinker and an accomplished author. I trust you will find his engagement as satisfying as I do ...”

Foreword #2 By Canada's Most Honorable Prof. Peter Jarmics, EdD. at http://linkd.in/1iFwd6K :

WHITE SWAN — FOREWORD #3 of #3:

“ … Andres Agostini is a very generous person and in the treatise he just wrote «The White Swan». He shares with us very important knowledge and insights about a future already there at our door steps. The White Swan is much more than a book, in reality. It is a very complete and sincere «conversation» with his author, on a very complex subject: Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM) — what it is, why it is important, how it works and how it can benefit immediately, in a sustainable manner, all kind of organizations and their stakeholders [….] The scope of the usable knowledge the White Swan puts forward is just flabbergasting: so broad, so diverse, looking at and including so many perspectives, so many angles, so many considerations. You are guaranteed to learn many new things about the present, the future, the uncertain, the unexpected, risks, opportunities and the fabric of factual reality. It will make you question your own current perceptions of what is reality, of how the future is already present in the «here and now» and of how you can take advantage of current and emerging changes [….] What is also surprising is the time it took the author to collect his thoughts and write this amazing book [….] Andres, already living today by emerging future trends yet understood by most of us, discloses at the end of the book that he used a not-yet-publicized proprietary method of Intelligence Augmentation and Amplification (IAA), articulated under his Concurrent Coordinated Convergent Systems Thinking (CCCST) — underpinned the Intelligence Augmentation and Amplification (IAA) — , based on natural and legal biological means, in his «sprint» to write the White Swan. He told me that IAA is already an integrated feature of his own systems thinking and management approach. I bet major future-oriented players, like NASA, Google, Apple, Amazon and progressive universities are already looking very seriously at IAA, and would be interested by Andres’ integration of IAA in his own creative process. For one, I want Andres to tell me much more about it very soon; I, too, am in need of some «natural enhancement» to face energetically all the intellectual challenges before me [….] The White Swan «conversation» started a while ago with a seemingly straight forward question to the author about the future of management in the face of continuous change. This question is one asked by all managers who seek a new path towards optimal management, a path that cannot be found without finding also the path towards optimal risk management through Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM), the main subject of «The White Swan» [….] The White Swan is all but an easy read. It neither gives an easy answer, nor offers a simple recipe presented in an easy to understand point form. The answer Andres' White Swan provides needs the support of many new words, with many new definitions and concepts [….] because the answer needed is about finding a path that has not yet been traveled by most of us. This answer cannot be found in our past actions, previous expressions and earlier ways of thinking. The White Swan is about reinventing ourselves and the way we manage [….] In order to give yourself a chance to reinvent yourselves and your organization, you will have to stick to what Andres will say in the White Swan book: whatever he says, whatever personal style he uses in doing so, and whatever challenges it will present to you in your search for simple answers. Simple answers really do not exist in the face of complexity and constant change. Be patient and take the time to listen to Andres and his unique way of telling a story. Reading the White Swan is a complete awakening and learning experience. So, keep your prevention and questions till the last page, because it is possible he will have addressed most, if not all of them, by the end of the volume. It is exactly what it has done for me [….] This book is about the future, one where we thrive and prosper. This treatise shows us the way to create sustainable success and prosperity for our organizations and ourselves. As said William Gibson: « … The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed … ». And the future IS in this treatise and in Andres’ words ...”

By Mr. Claude Emond, BEng, MEng, MBA, rmc, CD, PMP

END OF FOREWORDS.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

WHITE SWAN — PREFACE

To a great extent, the White Swan is about beforehand coping with a pervasive rate of change.

And change is enable by the advent of exponential science and the respective technologies.

And as the scientific and technological progression is the result of new applied knowledge.

As humans have an embedded ability to naturally think linearly, the scientific and technological progression are increasingly nonlinearly.

I am certain that by carefully reading and examining the following citations the reader will understand that this time around change has different properties.

I will give and give you again and again a quick sample of what I exactly mean by a most-exponential growth in scientific and technological development.

Please see the following:

“... BEGINNING WITH THE AMOUNT OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE KNOWN WORLD AT THE TIME OF CHRIST, STUDIES HAVE ESTIMATED THAT THE FIRST DOUBLING OF THAT KNOWLEDGE TOOK PLACE ABOUT 1700 A.D. THE SECOND DOUBLING OCCURRED AROUND THE YEAR 1900. IT IS ESTIMATED TODAY THAT THE WORLD'S KNOWLEDGE BASE WILL DOUBLE AGAIN BY 2010 AND AGAIN AFTER THAT BY 2013 ...”

AND TO UNDERPIN THE PRECEDING PARAGRAPH, LET US ALSO CONSIDER THE WORDS OF BILL GATES:

On Mar 24, 1999 Microsoft Chairman, and today's smartest and wealthiest person, gave, in hard writing (ISBN: 978-0446525688), a pervasive forewarning that 96.357% of the people, with their intrinsically and un-salvageably linear and unprepared minds, utterly ignored.

This is the verbatim forewarning:

“ … We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years [2001] and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten [2011] ...” — Bill Gates. Brackets by the Author.

Thereby, let us continue with the White Swan Preface.

New applied knowledge, new science and new technologies are going to change (“...creatively-disrupt...”) it all (along with omnipresent trade and automation) right now, including every industry in the marketplace.

And subsequently, every industry's manager and hence management beginning time immemorial.

To give the reader a meaningful view on the proceeding, Stanford University, by way of example, observes,

“...The ubiquity and variability of organizations means there is ample room for complexity and confusion in the organizational challenges we regularly face ..."

AS WE ALL DISTINGUISH THAT NOVEL KNOWLEDGE IS SIGNIFICANTLY AND DIRECTLY AFFECTING THE MANAGEMENT PROFESSION, PLEASE SEE THEN HEREBY WHAT IS EXACTLY HAPPENING TO SCIENTIFIC PROGRESSION AND TECHNOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE TODAY:

(The White Swan POV will resume thereafter).

BEGINNING OF THE CITATION:

1.-) “...HUMAN KNOWLEDGE IS DOUBLING EVERY TEN YEARS [AS PER THE 1998 STANDARDS]...” [226]

2.-) “...COMPUTER POWER IS DOUBLING EVERY EIGHTEEN MONTHS. THE INTERNET IS DOUBLING EVERY YEAR. THE NUMBER OF DNA SEQUENCES WE CAN ANALYZE IS DOUBLING EVERY TWO YEARS..." [226]

3.-) “... BEGINNING WITH THE AMOUNT OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE KNOWN WORLD AT THE TIME OF CHRIST, STUDIES HAVE ESTIMATED THAT THE FIRST DOUBLING OF THAT KNOWLEDGE TOOK PLACE ABOUT 1700 A.D. THE SECOND DOUBLING OCCURRED AROUND THE YEAR 1900. IT IS ESTIMATED TODAY THAT THE WORLD'S KNOWLEDGE BASE WILL DOUBLE AGAIN BY 2010 AND AGAIN AFTER THAT BY 2013 ...” [226]

4.- ) “...KNOWLEDGE IS DOUBLING BY EVERY FOURTEEN MONTHS...” [226]

5.-) “...MORE THAN THE DOUBLING OF COMPUTATIONAL POWER [IS TAKING PLACE] EVERY YEAR...” [226]

6.-) “...The flattening of the world is going to be hugely disruptive to both traditional and developed societies. The weak will fall further behind faster. The traditional will feel the force of modernization much more profoundly. The new will get turned into old quicker. The developed will be challenged by the underdeveloped much more profoundly. I worry, because so much political stability is built on economic stability, and economic stability is not going to be a feature of the flat world. Add it all up and you can see that the disruptions and going to come faster and harder. No one is immune — not me, not you, not Microsoft. WE ARE ENTERING AN ERA OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION ON STEROIDS. Dealing with flatism is going to be a challenge of a whole new dimension even if your country has a strategy. But if you don’t have a strategy at all, well, again, you’ve warned...” [226]

7.-) “...By the end of the twentieth century, science had reached the end of an era, unlocking the secrets of the atom, unraveling the molecule of life, and creating the electronic computer. With these three fundamental discoveries, triggered by the quantum revolution, the DNA revolution, and the computer revolution, the basic laws of matter, life, and computation were, in the main, finally solved [….] That epic phase of science is now drawing to a close; one era is ending and another is only beginning [….] The next era of science promises to be an even deeper, more thoroughgoing, more penetrating one than the last [….] Clearly, we are on the threshold of yet another revolution. HUMAN KNOWLEDGE IS DOUBLING EVERY TEN YEARS [AS PER THE 1998 STANDARDS]. In the past decade, more scientific knowledge has been created than in all of human history. COMPUTER POWER IS DOUBLING EVERY EIGHTEEN MONTHS. THE INTERNET IS DOUBLING EVERY YEAR. THE NUMBER OF DNA SEQUENCES WE CAN ANALYZE IS DOUBLING EVERY TWO YEARS ...” Brackets are of the author.

And 7.-) above continues here:

“... Almost daily, the headlines herald new advances in computers, telecommunications, biotechnology, and space exploration. In the wake of this technological upheaval, entire industries and lifestyles are being overturned, only to give rise to entirely new ones. But these rapid, bewildering changes are not just quantitative. They mark the birth pangs of a new era [….] FROM NOW TO THE YEAR 2020, SCIENTISTS FORESEE AN EXPLOSION IN SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY SUCH AS THE WORLD HAS NEVER SEEN BEFORE. IN TWO KEY TECHNOLOGIES, COMPUTER POWER AND THE DNA SEQUENCING, WE WILL SEE ENTIRE INDUSTRIES RISE AND FALL ON THE BASIS OF BREATHTAKING SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES. SINCE THE 1950S, THE POWER OF OUR COMPUTERS HAS ADVANCED BY A FACTOR OF ROUGHLY TEN BILLION. IN FACT, BECAUSE BOTH COMPUTER POWER AND DNA SEQUENCING DOUBLE ROUGHLY EVERY TWO YEARS, ONE CAN COMPUTE THE ROUGH TIME FRAME OVER WHICH MANY SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGHS WILL TAKE PLACE ... "

And 7.-) above continues here:

“ ... BY 2020, MICROPROCESSORS WILL LIKELY BE AS A CHEAP AND PLENTIFUL AS SCRAP PAPER, SCATTERED BY THE MILLIONS INTO ENVIRONMENT, ALLOWING US TO PLACE INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS EVERYWHERE. THIS WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING AROUND US, INCLUDING THE NATURE OF COMMERCE, THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, AND THE WAY WE COMMUNICATE, WORK, PLAY, AND LIVE … ” [226]

8.-) “... The knowledge revolution is taking place in small, sharply defined areas. One company generates more U.S. patents than 139 countries do together … This [revolution] generates new EMPIRES and new ghettos [….] It slams into existing systems and destroys them while creating new systems. Countries and individuals can either surf new and powerful waves of change — or try to stop them and get crushed ...” [226]

9.-) “... Nanotechnologies are broad concept, it’s simply refers to technology where the key features in measuring the small number of nanometers. A NANOMETER IS THE DIAMETER OF FIVE CARBON ATOMS SO IT’S VERY CLOSE TO THE MOLECULAR LEVEL AND WE ALREADY HAVE NEW MATERIALS AND DEVICES THAT HAD BEEN MANUFACTURED AT THE NANOSCALE. IN FACT, CHIPS TODAY, THE KEY FEATURES ARE 50 OR 60 NANOMETERS SO THAT IS ALREADY NANOTECHNOLOGY. The true promise of nanotechnology is that ultimately we’ll be able to create devices that are manufactured at the molecular level by putting together, molecular fragments in new combinations so, I can send you an information file and a desktop nanofactory will assemble molecules according to the definition in the file and create a physical objects so I can e-mail you a pair of trousers or a module to build housing or a solar panel and WE’LL BE ABLE TO CREATE JUST ABOUT ANYTHING WE NEED IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD FROM INFORMATION FILES WITH VERY INEXPENSIVE INPUT MATERIALS. You can… I mean, just a few years ago if I wanted to send you a movie or a book or a recorded album, I would send you a FedEx package, now I can e-mail you an attachment and you can create a movie or a book from that ...”

And 9.-) above continues here:

“ … On the future, I’ll be able to e-mail you a blouse or a meal. So, that’s the promise of nanotechnology. Another promise is to be able to create devices that are size of blood cells and by the way biology is an example of nanotechnology, the key features of biology are at the molecular level. SO, THAT’S ACTUALLY THE EXISTENCE PROOF THAT NANOTECHNOLOGY IS FEASIBLE BUT BIOLOGY IS BASED ON LIMITED SIDE OF MATERIALS. EVERYTHING IS BUILT OUT OF PROTEINS AND THAT’S A LIMITED CLASS OF SUBSTANCES. WITH NANOTECHNOLOGY WE CAN CREATE THINGS THAT ARE FAR MORE DURABLE AND FAR MORE POWERFUL. One scientist designed a robotic red blood cell it’s a thousand times more powerful than the biological version so, if you were to replace a portion of your biological red blood cells with this respirocytes the robotic versions. You could do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath or sit at the bottom of your pool for 4 hours ...”

And 9.-) above continues here:

“ … If I were to say someday you’ll have millions or even billions of these nanobots, nano-robots, blood cell size devices going through your body and keeping you healthy from inside, I might think well, that sounds awfully futuristic. I’d point out this already in 50 experiments in animals of doing exactly that with the first generation of nano engineered blood cell size devices. One scientist cured type-1 diabetes in rats with the blood cell size device. Seven nanometer pores let’s insulin out in the controlled fashion. At MIT, there’s a blood cell size device that can detect and destroy cancer cells in the bloodstream. These are early experiments but KEEP IN MIND THAT BECAUSE OF THE EXPONENTIAL PROGRESSION OF THIS TECHNOLOGY, THESE TECHNOLOGIES WILL BE A BILLION TIMES MORE POWERFUL IN 25 YEARS AND YOU GET SOME IDEA WHAT WILL BE FEASIBLE ...” [226]

BEFORE GOING AHEAD TO CITATION “10.-)”, LET US CONSIDER THIS CITATION ON TECHNOLOGY:

“ … Kevin Kelly, for instance, convincingly portrays technology as a partner in human evolution. In his book What Technology Want [ISBN: 978-0143120179], he makes the case that technology is emerging as the 'seventh kingdom of life on Earth' — along with plants, insects, fungi, and so on … KELLY ALSO HOLDS THAT TECHNOLOGY'S GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT IS INEVITABLE, EVEN DESIRABLE. YES, CERTAIN TECHNOLOGIES CREATE PROBLEMS, but that just opens the opportunity for yet another technology to mitigate the bad. Isn't that just and endless loop of negative and positive outcomes, in which humanity is eventually frayed beyond repair? Kelly disagrees: « … I DON'T THINK TECHNOLOGY IS NEUTRAL OR A WASH OF GOOD AND BAD EFFECTS. TO BE SURE IT DOES PRODUCE BOTH PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS, BUT THE CHIEF EFFECT IS THAT IT PRODUCES MORE POSSIBILITIES. MORE OPTIONS. MORE FREEDOM, ESSENTIALLY. THAT'S REALLY GOOD. THAT IS THE REASON WHY PEOPLE MOVE TO CITIES — FOR MORE CHOICES … » [….] Where it gets discomfiting, however, is when Kelly insists on technology's all-consuming nature. ' … It is an ever-elaborate tool that we wield and continually update to improve our world; and it is an ever-ripening superorganism, of which we are but a part, that is following a direction beyond our own making. Humans are both master and slave to the techium [his word for the technological universe], and our fate is to remain in this uncomfortable dual role …' [….] There is no way back, only through. Kelly admonishes us to '… align ourselves with the imperative of the technium …' because to do otherwise would be to ' … resist our second self …' [….] Humanity and technology — like humanity and the zombies — are ultimately indistinguishable. ' … The conflict that the technium triggers in our hearts is due to our refusal to accept our nature — the truth is that we are continuous with the machines we create … When we reject technology as a whole, it a brand of self-hatred …' [….] But isn't the acceptance of humanity as a component part of technology also a form of self-hatred? KELLY SEES A SINGLE THREAD OF SELF-GENERATION TYING TOGETHER THE COSMOS, THE BIOS, AND THE TECHNOS INTO ONE ACT OF CREATION. ' … HUMANS ARE NOT THE CULMINATION OF THIS TRAJECTORY BUT AN INTERMEDIARY, SMACK IN THE MIDDLE BETWEEN THE BORN AND THE MADE …' [….] WE MUST EITHER ACCEPT TECHNOLOGY AS OUR INEVITABLE OFFSPRING AND SUCCESSOR, OR ' … REJECT TECHNOLOGY AS A WHOLE …' [….] In Kelly's schema, there is no sustainable happy medium. Isn't there the possibility for a less dramatic, less apocalyptic middle ground? ...” [252] Brackets are of the Author.

NOW, LET US CONTINUE WITH CITATION NUMBER “10.-)”:

10.-) “...The world has profoundly changed [….] The challenges and complexity we face in our personal lives and relationships, in our families, in our professional lives, and in our organizations are of a different order of magnitude. In fact, many mark 1989 — the year we witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall — as the beginning of the Information Age, the birth of a new reality, a sea change of incredible significance — truly a new era — Being effective as individuals and organizations is no longer merely an option — survival in today’s world requires it. But, in order to thrive, innovate, excel, and lead in what Covey calls the new Knowledge Worker Age, we must build on and move beyond effectiveness [long-held assumptions, fallacies, falsehoods and flawed beliefs and faulty conventions]…Hence, accessing the higher levels of human genius and motivation in today’s new reality REQUIRES A SEA CHANGE IN THINKING: a new mind-sets, a new skill-set, a new tool-set — in short, a whole new habit...” [226] Brackets are of the author.

11.-) “... All the notions we thought solid, all the values of civilized life, all that made for stability in international relations, all that made for regularity in the economy … in a word, all that tended happily to limit the uncertainty of the morrow, all that gave nations and individuals some confidence in the morrow … all this seems badly compromised. I have consulted all augurs I could find, of every species, and I have heard only vague words, contradictory prophecies, curiously feeble assurances. Never has humanity combined so much power with so much disorder, so much anxiety with so many playthings, so much knowledge with so much uncertainty ...” [226]

TO UNDERPIN THE UPDATED MOTION BY “...11.-)...” ABOVE, PLEASE ALSO NOTE THE ENSUING, WITH THE UTTER PURPOSE TO UNDERSTAND OUR CURRENT TIME AND OUR REAL WORLD:

“ ...It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair ...” — Charles Dickens (1798)

12.-) “ ... It’s not the case that there are only a fixed number of positions, and if old people don’t die off, there’s no room for young people to come up with new ideas, because we’re constantly expanding knowledge [….] Knowledge is growing exponentially. It’s doubling approximately every year [….] The problem is I can’t get on the phone with you in the future and say, ' … Well, I’ve done it, I have lived forever [….] This idea of creating a whole virtual body with nanobots, that’s more like a 2050 scenario. But by the 2030s we’ll be putting millions of nanobots inside our bodies to augment our immune system, to basically wipe out disease. One scientist cured Type I diabetes in rats with a blood-cell-size device already ...” [226]

12.-) here continues:

“... By 2029, computers will have emotional intelligence and be convincing as people. This implies that these are people with volition just like you and I, not just games that you turn on or off. Is it my father? You could argue that it’s a simulation. But it’s not something you can play with. You don’t want to bring someone back who might be very depressed because the world is very different than they expect and the people they know aren’t around …. It’s not us versus them. We’ve created these tools to overcome our limitations, and we’ve integrated with them already [….] A.I. today is not in three or four dark federal intelligence agencies; it’s in billions of mobile devices around the world [….] Early in this decade [2020s], humanity will have the requisite hardware to emulate human intelligence within a $1000 personal computer, followed shortly by effective software models of human intelligence toward the middle of the decade: this will be enabled through the continuing exponential growth of brain-scanning technology, which is doubling in bandwidth, temporal and spatial resolution every year, and will be greatly amplified with nanotechnology, allowing us to have a detailed understanding of all the regions of the human brain and to aid in developing human-level machine intelligence by the end of this decade …. Computers less than 100 m in size will be possible ...” Brackets are of the author. [226]

WHAT IS THE BRAIN? LET US OFFER TWO (2) LUCID QUOTATIONS TO THIS END:

“ ... The human brain, then, is the most complicated of matter (matter: something that has mass and exists as a solid, liquid, gas, or plasma, stemming from the Universe as a whole) that we know …” By Isaac Asimov

“ ...The brain is a world consisting of a number of unexplored continents and great stretches of unknown territory ...” By Santiago Ramon y Cajal

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

13.- ) “...The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden, its wildness lies in wait ... " [220] [226]

14.-) “... We believe that the goal is not to predict the future, but to imagine a future made possible by changes in technology, life style, work style, regulation, global geopolitics, and the like. And there are as many viable futures as there as imaginative firms that can understand deeply the dynamics at work right now which hold opportunities to become the author of the new. FOR THE FUTURE IS NOT WHAT WILL HAPPEN; THE FUTURE IS WHAT IS HAPPENING. The present and the future don’t about each other, neatly divided between the five-year plan and the great unknown beyond. Rather they are intertwined. Every company is in the process of becoming — of becoming an anachronism irrelevant to the future, or of becoming the harbinger of the future ...” [226]

Let us, by the way, define Dynamics now:

“... Dynamics is a branch of mechanics that deals with forces and their relation primarily to the motion but sometimes also to the equilibrium of bodies …. an underlying cause of change or growth …. a pattern or process of change, growth, or activity '… population dynamics ...' ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

14.- ) continues:

“... The long-term is not something that happens someday; it is what every company is building or forfeiting [….] Only those who can imagine and preemptively create the future will be around to enjoy it … Creating a compelling view of tomorrow’s opportunities and moving preemptively to secure the future are tasks for neither dilettantes nor the merely intellectual curious … Other companies, the laggards, were more interested in protecting the past than in creating the future … We believe, and will argue strongly, that a company must not only get to the future first, it must get there for less [….] And re-engineering charge is simply the penalty that a company must pay for not having anticipated the future [….] If senior executives don’t have reasonably detailed answers to the ‘future’ set of questions, and if the answers they do have are not substantially different from the ‘today’ answers, there is little chance their companies will remain market leaders [….] For much of the 1980s, IBM had been driving toward the future while looking out the rear-view mirror [….] Too often, profound thinking about the future and how to shape it occurs only when present success has been substantially eroded [….] Creating the future is more challenging than playing catch up, in that you have to create your own road map [….] The goal is not simply to benchmark a competitor’s products and processes and imitate its methods, but to develop an independent point of view about tomorrow’s opportunities and how to exploit them ...” [226]

14.-) continues:

“ … Path-breaking is a lot more rewarding than benchmarking. One doesn’t get to the future first by letting someone else blaze the trail [….] Passengers will get to the future, but their fate will not be in their own hands. Theirs profits from the future will be modest at best. Those who drive industry revolution — companies that have a clear, permeated view of where they want tom take their industry and are capable of orchestrating resources inside and outside the company to get there first — will be handsomely rewarded… The future is not an extrapolation of the past. New industrial structures will supersede old industrial structures [….] Opportunities that at first blush seem evolutionary will prove to be revolutionary [….] A commitment substantial enough to beget the perseverance required to create the future must be based on something more than a hunch [….] But to create the future, a company must first be able to forget some of its past … ‘The future was predictable, but hardly anyone predicted it’ ...” [87]. [226]

15.-) “... The future belongs not to those who possess a crystal ball, but those willing to challenge the biases and prejudices of the ‘establishment.’ The future belongs more to the unorthodox than it does to the prognosticators […and/or predictioneers ...], more to the movement than to the starry-eyed …. The problem with the future is that is different …. If you are unable to think differently, the Future will always arrive as a [strategic or geostrategic Sputnik Moment] surprise ...”

15.-) continues:

“ … Each revolution in art was based on a re-conception of reality. It wasn’t the canvas, the pigments, or the brushes that changed, but how the artist perceived the world. In the same sense, it’s not the tools that distinguish industry revolutionaries from hummed, not the information technology they harness, not the process they use, not their facilities. Instead, is their ability to escape the stranglehold of the familiar ...” [28]. Brackets are of the author.

16.- ) “... A primary theme in Alvin Toffler’s best selling book Future Shock is that society’s rate of change is increasing. Everything around us — including ourselves — is rapidly changing. NOTHING IS STABLE, PERMANENT, CONSTANT, OR FIXED. Neither is risk. It is an indigenous element in the volatility of life. If anything, risk expands at a greater rate than the societal rate of change — due to its roots in uncertainty and ignorance of consequences, which multiply during mercurial instability ... " [226]

(COMMENTARY TO '16.- )' « ... Change is hard, failure is much harder, and would you rather be sick or would you rather be dead? ... » By Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen Ph.D.).

17.-) “... We can anticipate volcanic dislocations, twists and reversals, not merely in our social structure, but also in our hierarchy of values and in the way individuals perceive and conceive reality. SUCH MASSIVE CHANGES, COMING WITH INCREASING VELOCITY, WILL DISORIENT, BEWILDER, AND CRUSH MANY PEOPLE [….] Even the most educated people today operate on the assumption that society is relatively static. At best they attempt to plan by making simple straight-lines projects of present-day trends. THE RESULT IS UNREADINESS TO MEET THE FUTURE WHEN IT ARRIVES. IN SHORT, FUTURE SHOCK ...” (Source: http://bit.ly/1r8tTNG)

18.-) “ … Professors from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Oxford University and Sussex University agree that ROBOTS WILL STEAL ABOUT 50 PERCENT OF ALL JOBS ROUND THE WORLD IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE AS WE ENTER A SECOND AGE OF MACHINERY [….] '… Before the industrial revolution, it was pretty boring from an economist's point of view, but since the evolution of machines during this time, societies have become more efficient and wealthier," said Erik Brynjolfsson, director at MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy [….] ...'We are now in the second machine age where robots take on mental, as well as physical work, which does encroach on a vast number of jobs," he added. '… Robots now substitute jobs, not just complement them from previous times …' … Mariana Mazzucato, the RM Philliips professor in the economics of innovation, science policy research unit at Sussex University, said the government and private investment are to blame. ….'.... Whether we talk about the changes in innovation or the relationship between robots affecting society, it all comes down to investment ….' He added, '… China, for instance, is investing $1.7 trillion in new [robotic] generation technology...'...” [236]

19.-) "... ' … THE FUTURE WILL BE FAR MORE SURPRISING THAN MOST OBSERVERS REALIZE: FEW HAVE TRULY INTERNALIZED THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE FACT THAT THE RATE OF CHANGE ITSELF IS ACCELERATING...', as per By Ray Kurzweil, ' … THE LAW OF ACCELERATING RETURNS ….' __[....]__ It’s only one man talking, making projections about the future of technology and not coincidentally the future of the human race. Yet many of Ray Kurzweil’s predictions have hit the mark. In 2009, he analyzed 108 of them and found 89 entirely correct and another 13 'essentially' correct. 'Another 3 are partially correct, 2 look like they are about 10 years off, and 1, which was tongue in cheek anyway, was just wrong,' he added. If he [Ray Kurzweil] can maintain this rate of success, many of his other predictions will happen within the lifetime of most people alive today. And almost no one is prepared for them [….] Author, inventor, successful entrepreneur, futurist, and currently head of Google’s engineering department, Kurzweil is enthusiastic about the technology explosion that’s coming. Here are a few predictions he’s made over the years: In THE AGE OF INTELLIGENT MACHINES (1990) he said that by the early 2000s computers would be transcribing speech into computer text, telephone calls would be routinely screened by intelligent answering machines, AND CLASSROOMS WOULD BE DOMINATED BY COMPUTERS. He also said by 2020 there would be a world government, though I suspect he’s backed off from that view [….] In THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES (1999) he predicted that by 2009 most books would be read on screens rather than paper, people would be giving commands to computers by voice, and they would use small wearable computers to monitor body functions and get directions for navigation [….] Some of the milder predictions in THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR (2005) include $1,000 computers having the memory space of one human brain (10 T.B. or 1013 bits) by 2018, the application of nano computers (called nanobots) to medical diagnosis and treatment in the 2020s, and the development of a computer sophisticated enough to pass a stringent version of the Turing test — A COMPUTER SMART ENOUGH TO FOOL A HUMAN INTERROGATOR INTO THINKING IT WAS HUMAN — no later than 2029 __[....]__ Soon after that, we can expect a rupture of reality called the Singularity __[....]__ THE TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY [….] In Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), the Technological Singularity refers to an impending event generated by entities with greater than human intelligence. From Kurzweil’s perspective, '...the Singularity has many faces. It represents the nearly vertical phase of exponential growth that occurs when the rate is so extreme that technology appears to be expanding at infinite speed ... WE WILL BECOME VASTLY SMARTER AS WE MERGE WITH OUR TECHNOLOGY ...' __[....]__ And by 'merge' he means (from The Singularity is Near): Biology has inherent limitations. For example, every living organism must be built from proteins that are folded from one-dimensional strings of amino acids. Protein-based mechanisms are lacking in strength and speed. We will be able to reengineer all of the organs and systems in our biological bodies and brains to be vastly more capable __[....]__ The Singularity, in other words, involves Intelligence Amplification (IA) in humans. WE WILL, ON A VOLUNTARY BASIS, BECOME INFUSED WITH NANOBOTS: '...ROBOTS DESIGNED AT THE MOLECULAR LEVEL, MEASURED IN MICRONS...' NANOBOTS WILL HAVE MULTIPLE ROLES WITHIN THE BODY, INCLUDING HEALTH MAINTENANCE AND THEIR ABILITY TO VASTLY EXTEND HUMAN INTELLIGENCE [...] ONCE NONBIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE GETS A FOOTHOLD IN THE HUMAN BRAIN (THIS HAS ALREADY STARTED WITH COMPUTERIZED NEURAL IMPLANTS), THE MACHINE INTELLIGENCE IN OUR BRAINS WILL GROW EXPONENTIALLY (AS IT HAS BEEN DOING ALL ALONG), AT LEAST DOUBLING IN POWER EACH YEAR. In contrast, biological intelligence is effectively of fixed capacity __[....]__ As molecular nanotechnology involves the manipulation of matter on atomic or molecular levels, it will be possible to infuse everything on planet earth with nonbiological intelligence. POTENTIALLY, THE WHOLE UNIVERSE COULD BE SATURATED WITH INTELLIGENCE __[....]__ WHAT WILL THE POST-SINGULARITY WORLD LOOK LIKE? __[....]__ Most of the intelligence of our civilization will ultimately be nonbiological. BY THE END OF THIS CENTURY, IT WILL BE TRILLIONS OF TRILLIONS OF TIMES MORE POWERFUL THAN HUMAN INTELLIGENCE. However, to address often-expressed concerns, this does not imply the end of biological intelligence, even if it is thrown from its perch of evolutionary superiority. Even the nonbiological forms will be derived from biological design. Our civilization will remain human— indeed, in many ways it will be more exemplary of what we regard as human than it is today __[....]__ THE TREND TELLS THE STORY __[....]__ Life arrives roughly 3.7 billion years ago in the form of biogenic graphite followed by the appearance of cells two billion years later. As we move from there biological evolution picks up speed, as does human technology. Viewing the linear plot, everything seems to happen in one day. Though the time span from the introduction of the personal computer to the World Wide Web took 14 years (from the MITS Altair 8800 in 1975 to Tim Berners-Lee’s proposal in March, 1989), it happened almost instantaneously in the overall picture. The second chart lays it out for us dramatically. Exponential forces are very seductive, he says. Until we get far enough along on the curve, they seem linear. Once we’re past the “knee” the trend starts to become clear. Or it should __[....]__ Mother Jones ran an article a year ago that illustrates how deceptive exponential trends can be. Imagine if Lake Michigan were drained in 1940, and your task was to fill it by doubling the amount of water you add every 18 months, beginning with one ounce. So, after 18 months you add two ounces, 18 months later you add four ounces, and so on. Coincidentally, as you were adding your first ounce to the dry lake, the first programmable computer in fact made its debut __[....]__ You continue. By 1960 you’ve added 150 gallons. By 1970, 16,000 gallons. You’re getting nowhere. Even if you stay with it to 2010, all you can see is a bit of water here and there. In the 47 18-month periods that have passed since 1940, you’ve added about 140.7 trillion ounces of Eighteen months served as the time interval because it corresponds to Moore’s Law (Intel’s David House modifiedMoore’s 2-year estimate in the 1970s, saying computer performance would double every 18 months. As of 2003, it was doubling every 20 months.) As Kurzweil notes, We’ve moved from computers with a trillionth of the power of a human brain to computers with a billionth of the power. Then a millionth. And now a thousandth. Along the way, computers progressed from ballistics to accounting to word processing to speech recognition, and none of that really seemed like progress toward artificial intelligence __[....]__ The truth is that all this represents more progress toward true AI than most of us realize. We’ve just been limited by the fact that computers still aren’t quite muscular enough to finish the job. That’s changing rapidly, though __[....]__ Even as AI progresses, the achievements are often discounted. In THE AGE OF INTELLIGENT MACHINES (1990) Kurzweil predicted a computer would beat the world chess champion by 1998. While musing about this prediction in January, 2011 he said, '… I also predicted that when that happened we would either think better of computer intelligence, worse of human thinking, or worse of chess, and that if history was a guide, we would downgrade chess. [IBM’s] Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997, and indeed we were immediately treated to rationalizations that chess was not really exemplary of human thinking after all … ' __[....]__ At Google, Kurzweil’s ambition is to do more than train a computer to read Wikipedia. '... We want [computers] to read everything on the web and every page of every book, then be able to engage an intelligent dialogue with the user to be able to answer their questions ..." __[....]__ When Kurzweil says '… everything on the web, ...' he means everything — including '… every email you’ve ever written, every document, every idle thought you’ve ever tapped into a search-engine box...' ...” [237]

20.-) “ … At this year's TEDx event in Grand Rapids, Jason Sosa (an Artificial-Intelligence Expert) spoke about the coming transhuman era. The video clearly presents what the future may bring, and how the children of today will accept technology merging with their bodies as totally natural [….] Sosa reviews how technology evolves to bring about results that were not initially anticipated. The development of the cellular network has led to mobile computing, and the internet has led to cat videos. Like other transhumanists, he finds that the pace of technology will progress to a point to where biology will become the limiting factor [….] Augmenting our biology has already begun, as Sosa explains. Exponential development, made famous by Moore's Law has evolved technology to make it smaller, faster, cheaper and more powerful everyday [….] Sosa explains how his company's facial recognition software is part of this trend, and has many transhuman applications. Among these is '… for robots to develop a form of synthetic empathy; to understand human intent …' [….] Wearables are aslo discussed. '…. Further along the wearable continuum, will be things like embeddables,...' states Sosa, refering to sensors placed under the skin. Combined with the Internet of Things, we will increasingly be a part of the global computational paradigm. '… The real power comes when these devices being to talk to each other …' [….] '… If this wasn't good enough for you, Body 2.0 will include artificial eyes, with zoom capabilities and infrared sensors and night vision will be possible, …' Sosa continues. Prosthetic limbs will be more flexible and powerful than our biological ones. In the future, the blind will see, paralysis will be overcome and the deaf will hear [….] Memory implants and recording will also become possible, and according to the examples Sosa provides, we are already in the early stages. Reconstructing images in the brain has already been able to see how the brain processes YouTube videos. These technologies may progress to allow for mind uploading brain-to-brain interfaces and more. Sosa calls this the '… brain net …' Sosa expects there to be a backlash against transhumanism, even if great benefits can be achieved. '… But that all changes with the kids of today," says Sosa. The children today are "digital natives,...' born into a world that allows them to be immersed in computer technology. '… To them transhumanism will seem as natural as evolution, ...' he says [….] I’m obsessed with the symbiotic relationship between humans and technology. I love design, philosophy and user experience. I believe the world is entering into a hybrid reality; the merging of the virtual with the physical world, creating a digital nervous system for the planet. This concept is the focus of my work today. Over the last few years I’ve been inspired by the ideas of Ray Kurzweil, Michio Kaku, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke ...” [238]

21.-) “ … In the near term, Raymond Kurzweil's project at the company (Google) is developing artificial intelligence based on biologically inspired models of the neocortex to enhance functions such as search, answering questions, interacting with the user, and language translation [….] Kurzweil described how the brain is made up of a series of increasingly more abstract parts. The most abstract — which allows us to judge if something is good or bad, intelligent or unintelligent — is an area that has been difficult to replicate with a computer. '… My leap of faith is that an entity seems conscious, and seems to be having the subjective experiences it claims to be having, I'll believe its conscious …' [….] According to Kurzweil, humans will need to build computers that can build abstract consciousness from a more concrete level. Humans will program them to recognize patterns, and then from those patterns they will need to be smart enough to learn to understand more [….] People have a tendency to dismiss using artificial intelligence for specific applications like speech recognition, Kurzweil said, but he believes each new application is a part of the greater effort to develop A.I. [….] ' … I like the idea of crossing the river one stone to the next,...' Kurzweil said. '… We do get from here to there one step at a time …' [….] The goal is to understand natural language to communicate with the user as well as to understand the meaning of web documents and books. In the long term, Kurzweil believes it is only by extending our minds with our intelligent technology that we can overcome humanity's grand challenges [….] Comically at the end of the interview, with less than two minutes remaining, Mical asks the question, '… What is consciousness? What is free will? What is soul? ...' To which Kurzweil responds, ' … I always thought you had a sense of humor. One minute should be plenty for that …' [….] Kurzweil did make an attempt at the question however: '… Whether or not an entity has consciousness is not a scientific question because there is no falsifiable experiment that could be run to test if an entity is conscious. We assume that each other is conscious in the human experience...an A.I. could claim it is conscious, Eugene Goostman claimed he was conscious, but it wasn't very convincing...our whole moral system is based on consciousness, so you need a leap of faith. My leap of faith is that an entity seems conscious, and seems to be having the subjective experiences it claims to be having, I'll believe its conscious. I'll also make an objective prediction that most people will accept the consciousness of these entities …' ...” [239]

22.-) “ … ' ….Today there's no legislation regarding how much intelligence a machine can have, how interconnected it can be. If that continues, look at the exponential trend. We will reach the singularity in the timeframe most experts predict. FROM THAT POINT ON YOU'RE GOING TO SEE THAT THE TOP SPECIES WILL NO LONGER BE HUMANS, BUT MACHINES …' [….] These are the words of Louis Del Monte, physicist, entrepreneur, and author of '… The Artificial Intelligence Revolution …' [ISBN: 978-0988171824] Del Monte spoke to us over the phone about his thoughts surrounding artificial intelligence and the [technological] singularity, AN INDETERMINATE POINT IN THE FUTURE WHEN MACHINE INTELLIGENCE WILL OUTMATCH NOT ONLY YOUR OWN INTELLIGENCE, BUT THE WORLD'S COMBINED HUMAN INTELLIGENCE TOO [….] The average estimate for when this will happen is 2040, though Del Monte says it might be as late as 2045. Either way, it's a timeframe of within three decades. [….] '… It won't be the «Terminator» scenario, not a war,' said Del Monte. '… In the early part of the post-singularity world, one scenario is that the machines will seek to turn humans into cyborgs. This is nearly happening now, replacing faulty limbs with artificial parts. We'll see the machines as a useful tool. Productivity in business based on automation will be increased dramatically in various countries. IN CHINA [AUTOMATION-BASED PRODUCTIVITY] IT DOUBLED, JUST BASED ON GDP PER EMPLOYEE DUE TO USE OF MACHINES....' ….'...By the end of this century,...' he continued, '… most of the human race will have become cyborgs [part human, part tech or machine]. The allure will be immortality. Machines will make breakthroughs in medical technology, most of the human race will have more leisure time, and we'll think we've never had it better. The concern I'm raising is that the machines will view us as an unpredictable and dangerous species...'__[....]__ Del Monte believes machines will become self-conscious and have the capabilities to protect themselves. They 'might view us the same way we view harmful insects.' Humans are a species that '… is unstable, creates wars, has weapons to wipe out the world twice over, and makes computer viruses...' Hardly an appealing roommate [….] He wrote the book as 'a warning.' Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more capable, and we're adopting it as quickly as it appears. A pacemaker operation is '...quite routine,...' he said, but 'it uses sensors and AI to regulate your heart...' [….] A 2009 experiment showed that robots can develop the ability to lie to each other. Run at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne, Switzerland, the experiment had robots designed to cooperate in finding beneficial resources like energy and avoiding the hazardous ones. Shockingly, the robots learned to lie to each other in an attempt to hoard the beneficial resources for themselves [….] '… The implication is that they're also learning self-preservation,...' Del Monte told us ... '… Whether or not they're conscious is a moot point ...' ...” [241]

23.-) “ … The world is hitting its stride in technological advances, and futurists have been making wild-sounding bets on what we'll accomplish in the not-so-distant future [….] Futurist Ray Kurzweil, for example, believes that by 2040 artificial intelligence will be so good that humans will be fully immersed in virtual reality and that something called the [Technological] Singularity, when technology becomes so advanced that it changes the human race irreversibly, will occur [….] Kevin Kelly, who helped launch Wired in 1993, sat down for an hour-long video interview with John Brockman at Edge. KELLY BELIEVES THE NEXT 20 YEARS IN TECHNOLOGY WILL BE RADICAL. SO MUCH SO THAT HE BELIEVES OUR TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES WILL MAKE THE PREVIOUS 20 YEARS 'PALE' IN COMPARISON [….] ' … If we were sent back with a time machine, even 20 years, and reported to people what we have right now and describe what we were going to get in this device in our pocket — we'd have this free encyclopedia, and we'd have street maps to most of the cities of the world, and we'd have box scores in real time and stock quotes and weather reports, PDFs for every manual in the world ... You would simply be declared insane,....' Kelly said [….] '… But the next 20 years are going to make this last 20 years just pale,...' he continued. '… We're just at the beginning of the beginning of all these kind of changes. There's a sense that all the big things have happened, but relatively speaking, nothing big has happened yet...' [….] WHAT WILL THESE MIND-BLOWING CHANGES LOOK LIKE? HE MENTIONED A FEW THOUGHTS DURING THE INTERVIEW WITH BROCKMAN [….] ROBOTS ARE GOING TO MAKE LOTS OF THINGS [….] '… Certainly most of the things that are going to be produced are going to be made by robots and automation, but [humans] can modify them and we can change them, and we can be involved in the co-production of them to a degree that we couldn't in the industrial age, ….' Kelly says [….] ' …. That's sort of the promise of 3D printing and robotics and all these other high-tech material sciences is that it's going to become as malleable …' [….] Tracking and surveillance are only going to get more prevalent, but they may move toward '...coveillance...' so that we can control who's monitoring us and what they're monitoring [….] ' … It's going to be very, very difficult to prevent this thing that we're on all the time 24 hours, seven days a week, from tracking, because all the technologies — from sensors to quantification, digitization, communication, wireless connection — want to track, and so the internet is going to track, ….' says Kelly [….] '… We're going to track ourselves. We're going to track each other. Government and corporations are going to track us. We can't really get out of that. What we can try and do is civilize and make a convivial kind of tracking …' Kelly says the solution may be to let people see who's tracking them, what they're tracking, and give them the ability to correct trackings that are inaccurate. Right now, people just feel like they're being spied on, and they can't control who's watching them or what information is being surfaced [….] EVERYTHING REALLY WILL BE ABOUT '… BIG DATA...' [….] ' … We're in the period now where the huge dimensions of data and their variables in real time needed for capturing, moving, processing, enhancing, managing, and rearranging it, are becoming the fundamental elements for making wealth, ….' says Kelly [….] '… We used to rearrange atoms, now it's all about rearranging data. That is really what we’ll see in the next 10 years ... They're going to release data from language to make it machine-readable and recombine it in an infinite number of ways that we're not even thinking about …' [….] In the age of Google and Wikipedia, answers to endless questions are free. Kelly believes that asking good questions will become much more important in the future than finding one-off solutions [….] '… Every time we use science to try to answer a question, to give us some insight, invariably that insight or answer provokes two or three other new questions, ...' he says. '… While science is certainly increasing knowledge, it's actually increasing our ignorance even faster …' [….] ' … In a certain sense what becomes really valuable in a world running under Google's reign are great questions, and that means that for a long time humans will be better at than machines. Machines are for answers. Humans are for questions …' ...” [242].

24.-) “ … MICROSOFT COFOUNDER BILL GATES ISN’T GOING TO SUGARCOAT THINGS: THE INCREASING POWER OF AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGY IS GOING TO PUT A LOT OF PEOPLE OUT OF WORK. Business Insider reports that Gates gave a talk at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, DC this week and said that both governments and businesses need to start preparing for a future where lots of people will be put out of work by software and robots [….] ' … Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses… it’s progressing,...' Gates said. ' …. Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set… 20 years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower. I don’t think people have that in their mental model …' [….] As for what governments should do to prevent social unrest in the wake of mass unemployment, THE MICROSOFT COFOUNDER SAID THAT THEY SHOULD BASICALLY GET ON THEIR KNEES AND BEG BUSINESSES TO KEEP EMPLOYING HUMANS OVER ALGORITHMS. This means perhaps eliminating payroll and corporate income taxes while also not raising the minimum wage so that businesses will feel comfortable employing people at dirt-cheap wages instead of outsourcing their jobs to an iPad [….] AND IT’S NOT JUST '...LOW-SKILLED ...' WORK ...” [243]

25.-) “ … Imagine being present at the birth of a new industry. It is an industry based on groundbreaking new technologies, wherein a handful of well-established corporations sell highly specialized devices for business use and a fast-growing number of start-up companies produce innovative toys, gadgets for hobbyists and other interesting niche products. But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms. Projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare. In fact, for all the excitement and promise, no one can say with any certainty when—or even if—this industry will achieve critical mass. If it does, though, it may well change the world [….] Of course, the paragraph above could be a description of the computer industry during the mid-1970s, around the time that Paul Allen and I launched Microsoft. Back then, big, expensive mainframe computers ran the back-office operations for major companies, governmental departments and other institutions. Researchers at leading universities and industrial laboratories were creating the basic building blocks that would make the information age possible. Intel had just introduced the 8080 microprocessor, and Atari was selling the popular electronic game Pong. At homegrown computer clubs, enthusiasts struggled to figure out exactly what this new technology was good for [….] But what I really have in mind is something much more contemporary: the emergence of the robotics industry, which is developing in much the same way that the computer business did 30 years ago. Think of the manufacturing robots currently used on automobile assembly lines as the equivalent of yesterday's mainframes. The industry's niche products include robotic arms that perform surgery, surveillance robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan that dispose of roadside bombs, and domestic robots that vacuum the floor. Electronics companies have made robotic toys that can imitate people or dogs or dinosaurs, and hobbyists are anxious to get their hands on the latest version of the Lego robotics system [….] Meanwhile some of the world's best minds are trying to solve the toughest problems of robotics, such as visual recognition, navigation and machine learning. And they are succeeding. At the 2004 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge, a competition to produce the first robotic vehicle capable of navigating autonomously over a rugged 142-mile course through the Mojave Desert, the top competitor managed to travel just 7.4 miles before breaking down. In 2005, though, five vehicles covered the complete distance, and the race's winner did it at an average speed of 19.1 miles an hour. (In another intriguing parallel between the robotics and computer industries, DARPA also funded the work that led to the creation of Arpanet, the precursor to the Internet.) [….] What is more, the challenges facing the robotics industry are similar to those we tackled in computing three decades ago. Robotics companies have no standard operating software that could allow popular application programs to run in a variety of devices. The standardization of robotic processors and other hardware is limited, and very little of the programming code used in one machine can be applied to another. Whenever somebody wants to build a new robot, they usually have to start from square one. [….] Despite these difficulties, when I talk to people involved in robotics—from university researchers to entrepreneurs, hobbyists and high school students—the level of excitement and expectation reminds me so much of that time when Paul Allen and I looked at the convergence of new technologies and dreamed of the day when a computer would be on every desk and in every home. And as I look at the trends that are now starting to converge, I can envision a future in which robotic devices will become a nearly ubiquitous part of our day-to-day lives. I believe that technologies such as distributed computing, voice and visual recognition, and wireless broadband connectivity will open the door to a new generation of autonomous devices that enable computers to perform tasks in the physical world on our behalf. We may be on the verge of a new era, when the PC will get up off the desktop and allow us to see, hear, touch and manipulate objects in places where we are not physically present ...” [244]

26.-) “ … In 1930, when the world was '… suffering…from a bad attack of economic pessimism...', John Maynard Keynes wrote a broadly optimistic essay, '...Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren...'. It imagined a middle way between revolution and stagnation that would leave the said grandchildren a great deal richer than their grandparents. But the path was not without dangers [….] One of the worries Keynes admitted was a 'new disease': 'technological unemployment…due to our discovery of means of economizing the use of labor outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labor.' His readers might not have heard of the problem, he suggested—but they were certain to hear a lot more about it in the years to come [….] For the most part, they did not. Nowadays, the majority of economists confidently wave such worries away. By raising productivity, they argue, any automation which economizes on the use of labor will increase incomes. That will generate demand for new products and services, which will in turn create new jobs for displaced workers. To think otherwise has meant being tarred a Luddite—the name taken by 19th-century textile workers who smashed the machines taking their jobs [….] For much of the 20th century, those arguing that technology brought ever more jobs and prosperity looked to have the better of the debate. Real incomes in Britain scarcely doubled between the beginning of the common era and 1570. They then tripled from 1570 to 1875. And they more than tripled from 1875 to 1975. Industrialization did not end up eliminating the need for human workers. On the contrary, it created employment opportunities sufficient to soak up the 20th century’s exploding population. Keynes’s vision of everyone in the 2030s being a lot richer is largely achieved. His belief they would work just 15 hours or so a week has not come to pass [….] WHEN THE SLEEPER WAKES [….] Yet some now fear that a new era of automation enabled by ever more powerful and capable computers could work out differently. They start from the observation that, across the rich world, all is far from well in the world of work. The essence of what they see as a work crisis is that in rich countries the wages of the typical worker, adjusted for cost of living, are stagnant. In America the real wage has hardly budged over the past four decades. Even in places like Britain and Germany, where employment is touching new highs, wages have been flat for a decade. Recent research suggests that this is because substituting capital for labor through automation is increasingly attractive; as a result owners of capital have captured ever more of the world’s income since the 1980s, while the share going to labor has fallen [….] At the same time, even in relatively egalitarian places like Sweden, inequality among the employed has risen sharply, with the share going to the highest earners soaring. For those not in the elite, argues David Graeber, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, much of modern labor consists of stultifying 'bullshit jobs'—low- and mid-level screen-sitting that serves simply to occupy workers for whom the economy no longer has much use. Keeping them employed, Mr Graeber argues, is not an economic choice; it is something the ruling class does to keep control over the lives of others [….] Be that as it may, drudgery may soon enough give way to frank unemployment. There is already a long-term trend towards lower levels of employment in some rich countries. The proportion of American adults participating in the labor force recently hit its lowest level since 1978, and although some of that is due to the effects of aging, some is not. In a recent speech that was modeled in part on Keynes’s 'Possibilities', Larry Summers, a former American treasury secretary, looked at employment trends among American men between 25 and 54. In the 1960s only one in 20 of those men was not working. According to Mr Summers’s extrapolations, in ten years the number could be one in seven [….] This is one indication, Mr Summers says, that technical change is increasingly taking the form of 'capital that effectively substitutes for labor'. There may be a lot more for such capital to do in the near future. A 2013 paper by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, of the University of Oxford, argued that jobs are at high risk of being automated in 47% of the occupational categories into which work is customarily sorted. That includes accountancy, legal work, technical writing and a lot of other white-collar occupations [….] Answering the question of whether such automation could lead to prolonged pain for workers means taking a close look at past experience, theory and technological trends. The picture suggested by this evidence is a complex one. It is also more worrying than many economists and politicians have been prepared to admit [….] THE LATHE OF HEAVEN [….] Economists take the relationship between innovation and higher living standards for granted in part because they believe history justifies such a view. Industrialization clearly led to enormous rises in incomes and living standards over the long run. Yet the road to riches was rockier than is often appreciated [….] In 1500 an estimated 75% of the British labor force toiled in agriculture. By 1800 that figure had fallen to 35%. When the shift to manufacturing got under way during the 18th century it was overwhelmingly done at small scale, either within the home or in a small workshop; employment in a large factory was a rarity. By the end of the 19th century huge plants in massive industrial cities were the norm. The great shift was made possible by automation and steam engines [….] Industrial firms combined human labor with big, expensive capital equipment. To maximize the output of that costly machinery, factory owners reorganized the processes of production. Workers were given one or a few repetitive tasks, often making components of finished products rather than whole pieces. Bosses imposed a tight schedule and strict worker discipline to keep up the productive pace. The Industrial Revolution was not simply a matter of replacing muscle with steam; it was a matter of reshaping jobs themselves into the sort of precisely defined components that steam-driven machinery needed—cogs in a factory system [….] The way old jobs were done changed; new jobs were created. Joel Mokyr, an economic historian at Northwestern University in Illinois, argues that the more intricate machines, techniques and supply chains of the period all required careful tending. The workers who provided that care were well rewarded. As research by Lawrence Katz, of Harvard University, and Robert Margo, of Boston University, shows, employment in manufacturing 'hollowed out'. As employment grew for highly skilled workers and unskilled workers, craft workers lost out. This was the loss to which the Luddites, understandably if not effectively, took exception [….] With the low-skilled workers far more numerous, at least to begin with, the lot of the average worker during the early part of this great industrial and social upheaval was not a happy one. As Mr Mokyr notes, 'life did not improve all that much between 1750 and 1850.' For 60 years, from 1770 to 1830, growth in British wages, adjusted for inflation, was imperceptible because productivity growth was restricted to a few industries. Not until the late 19th century, when the gains had spread across the whole economy, did wages at last perform in line with productivity [….] Along with social reforms and new political movements that gave voice to the workers, this faster wage growth helped spread the benefits of industrialization across wider segments of the population. New investments in education provided a supply of workers for the more skilled jobs that were by then being created in ever greater numbers. This shift continued into the 20th century as post-secondary education became increasingly common [….] Claudia Goldin, an economist at Harvard University, and Mr Katz have written that workers were in a 'race between education and technology' during this period, and for the most part they won. Even so, it was not until the 'golden age' after the second world war that workers in the rich world secured real prosperity, and a large, property-owning middle class came to dominate politics. At the same time communism, a legacy of industrialization harsh early era, kept hundreds of millions of people around the world in poverty, and the effects of the imperialism driven by European industrialization continued to be felt by billions [….] The impacts of technological change take their time appearing. They also vary hugely from industry to industry. Although in many simple economic models technology pairs neatly with capital and labor to produce output, in practice technological changes do not affect all workers the same way. Some find that their skills are complementary to new technologies. Others find themselves out of work [….] Take computers. In the early 20th century a 'computer' was a worker, or a room of workers, doing mathematical calculations by hand, often with the end point of one person’s work the starting point for the next. The development of mechanical and electronic computing rendered these arrangements obsolete. But in time it greatly increased the productivity of those who used the new computers in their work [….] Many other technical innovations had similar effects. New machinery displaced handicraft producers across numerous industries, from textiles to metalworking. At the same time it enabled vastly more output per person than craft producers could ever manage [….] For a task to be replaced by a machine, it helps a great deal if, like the work of human computers, it is already highly routine. Hence the demise of production-line jobs and some sorts of book-keeping,
lost to the robot and the spreadsheet. Meanwhile work less easily broken down into a series of stereotyped tasks—whether rewarding, as the management of other workers and the teaching of toddlers can be, or more of a grind, like tidying and cleaning messy work places—has grown as a share of total employment __[....]__ But the 'race' aspect of technological change means that such workers cannot rest on their pay packets. Firms are constantly experimenting with new technologies and production processes. Experimentation with different techniques and business models requires flexibility, which is one critical advantage of a human worker. Yet over time, as best practices are worked out and then codified, it becomes easier to break production down into routine components, then automate those components as technology allows [….] If, that is, automation makes sense. As David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), points out in a 2013 paper, the mere fact that a job can be automated does not mean that it will be; relative costs also matter. When Nissan produces cars in Japan, he notes, it relies heavily on robots. At plants in India, by contrast, the firm relies more heavily on cheap local labor [….] Even when machine capabilities are rapidly improving, it can make sense instead to seek out ever cheaper supplies of increasingly skilled labor. Thus since the 1980s (a time when, in America, the trend towards post-secondary education leveled off) workers there and elsewhere have found themselves facing increased competition from both machines and cheap emerging-market workers [….] Such processes have steadily and relentlessly squeezed labor out of the manufacturing sector in most rich economies. The share of American employment in manufacturing has declined sharply since the 1950s, from almost 30% to less than 10%. At the same time, jobs in services soared, from less than 50% of employment to almost 70% (see chart 2). It was inevitable, therefore, that firms would start to apply the same experimentation and reorganization to service industries […..] A new wave of technological progress may dramatically accelerate this automation of brain-work. Evidence is mounting that rapid technological progress, which accounted for the long era of rapid productivity growth from the 19th century to the 1970s, is back. The sort of advances that allow people to put in their pocket a computer that is not only more powerful than any in the world 20 years ago, but also has far better software and far greater access to useful data, as well as to other people and machines, have implications for all sorts of work [….] The case for a highly disruptive period of economic growth is made by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, professors at MIT, in 'The Second Machine Age', a book to be published later this month. Like the first great era of industrialization, they argue, it should deliver enormous benefits—but not without a period of disorienting and uncomfortable change. Their argument rests on an under-appreciated aspect of the exponential growth in chip processing speed, memory capacity and other computer metrics: that the amount of progress computers will make in the next few years is always equal to the progress they have made since the very beginning. Mr Brynjolfsson and Mr McAfee reckon that the main bottleneck on innovation is the time it takes society to sort through the many combinations and permutations of new technologies and business models [….] A startling progression of inventions seems to bear their thesis out. Ten years ago technologically minded economists pointed to driving cars in traffic as the sort of human accomplishment that computers were highly unlikely to master. Now Google cars are rolling round California driver-free no one doubts such mastery is possible, though the speed at which fully self-driving cars will come to market remains hard to guess [….] Even after computers beat grandmasters at chess (once thought highly unlikely), nobody thought they could take on people at free-form games played in natural language. Then Watson, a pattern-recognizing supercomputer developed by IBM, bested the best human competitors in America’s popular and syntactically tricky general-knowledge quiz show 'Jeopardy!' Versions of Watson are being marketed to firms across a range of industries to help with all sorts of pattern-recognition problems. Its acumen will grow, and its costs fall, as firms learn to harness its abilities [….] The machines are not just cleverer, they also have access to far more data. The combination of big data and smart machines will take over some occupations wholesale; in others it will allow firms to do more with fewer workers. Text-mining programs will displace professional jobs in legal services. Biopsies will be analyzed more efficiently by image-processing software than lab technicians. Accountants may follow travel agents and tellers into the unemployment line as tax software improves. Machines are already turning basic sports results and financial data into good-enough news stories [….] Jobs that are not easily automated may still be transformed. New data-processing technology could break 'cognitive' jobs down into smaller and smaller tasks. As well as opening the way to eventual automation this could reduce the satisfaction from such work, just as the satisfaction of making things was reduced by deskilling and interchangeable parts in the 19th century. If such jobs persist, they may engage Mr Graeber’s 'bullshit' detector [….] Being newly able to do brain work will not stop computers from doing ever more formerly manual labor; it will make them better at it. The designers of the latest generation of industrial robots talk about their creations as helping workers rather than replacing them; but there is little doubt that the technology will be able to do a bit of both—probably more than a bit. A taxi driver will be a rarity in many places by the 2030s or 2040s. That sounds like bad news for journalists who rely on that most reliable source of local knowledge and prejudice—but will there be many journalists left to care? Will there be airline pilots? Or traffic cops? Or soldiers? [….] There will still be jobs. Even Mr Frey and Mr Osborne, whose research speaks of 47% of job categories being open to automation within two decades, accept that some jobs—especially those currently associated with high levels of education and high wages—will survive (see table). Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University and a much-read blogger, writes in his most recent book, 'Average is Over', that rich economies seem to be bifurcating into a small group of workers with skills highly complementary with machine intelligence, for whom he has high hopes, and the rest, for whom not so much [….] And although Mr Brynjolfsson and Mr McAfee rightly point out that developing the business models which make the best use of new technologies will involve trial and error and human flexibility, it is also the case that the second machine age will make such trial and error easier. It will be shockingly easy to launch a startup, bring a new product to market and sell to billions of global consumers (see our special report on startups). Those who create or invest in blockbuster ideas may earn unprecedented returns as a result [….] In a forthcoming book Thomas Piketty, an economist at the Paris School of Economics, argues along similar lines that America may be pioneering a hyper-unequal economic model in which a top 1% of capital-owners and 'supermanagers' grab a growing share of national income and accumulate an increasing concentration of national wealth. The rise of the middle-class—a 20th-century innovation—was a hugely important political and social development across the world. The squeezing out of that class could generate a more antagonistic, unstable and potentially dangerous politics __[....]__The potential for dramatic change is clear. A future of widespread technological unemployment is harder for many to accept. Every great period of innovation has produced its share of labor-market doomsayers, but technological progress has never previously failed to generate new employment opportunities [….] The productivity gains from future automation will be real, even if they mostly accrue to the owners of the machines. Some will be spent on goods and services—golf instructors, household help and so on—and most of the rest invested in firms that are seeking to expand and presumably hire more labor. Though inequality could soar in such a world, unemployment would not necessarily spike. The current doldrum in wages may, like that of the early industrial era, be a temporary matter, with the good times about to roll [….] These jobs may look distinctly different from those they replace. Just as past mechanization freed, or forced, workers into jobs requiring more cognitive dexterity, leaps in machine intelligence could create space for people to specialize in more emotive occupations, as yet unsuited to machines: a world of artists and therapists, love counselors and yoga instructors [….] Such emotional and relational work could be as critical to the future as metal-bashing was in the past, even if it gets little respect at first. Cultural norms change slowly. Manufacturing jobs are still often treated as 'better'—in some vague, non-pecuniary way—than paper-pushing is. To some 18th-century observers, working in the fields was inherently more noble than making gewgaws [….] But though growth in areas of the economy that are not easily automated provides jobs, it does not necessarily help real wages. Mr Summers points out that prices of things-made-of-widgets have fallen remarkably in past decades; America’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reckons that today you could get the equivalent of an early 1980s television
for a twentieth of its then price, were it not that no televisions that poor are still made. However, prices of things not made of widgets, most notably college education and health care, have shot up. If people lived on widgets alone— goods whose costs have fallen because of both globalization and technology—there would have been no pause in the increase of real wages. It is the increase in the prices of stuff that isn’t mechanized (whose supply is often under the control of the state and perhaps subject to fundamental scarcity) that means a pay packet goes no further than it used to [….] So technological progress squeezes some incomes in the short term before making everyone richer in the long term, and can drive up the costs of some things even more than it eventually increases earnings. As innovation continues, automation may bring down costs in some of those stubborn areas as well, though those dominated by scarcity—such as houses in desirable places—are likely to resist the trend, as may those where the state keeps market forces at bay. But if innovation does make health care or higher education cheaper, it will probably be at the cost of more jobs, and give rise to yet more concentration of income [….] Even if the long-term outlook is rosy, with the potential for greater wealth and lots of new jobs, it does not mean that policymakers should simply sit on their hands in the mean time. Adaptation to past waves of progress rested on political and policy responses. The most obvious are the massive improvements in educational attainment brought on first by the institution of universal secondary education and then by the rise of university attendance. Policies aimed at similar gains would now seem to be in order. But as Mr Cowen has pointed out, the gains of the 19th and 20th centuries will be hard to duplicate [….] Boosting the skills and earning power of the children of 19th-century farmers and laborers took little more than offering schools where they could learn to read, write and do algebra. Pushing a large proportion of college graduates to complete graduate work successfully will be harder and more expensive. Perhaps cheap and innovative online education will indeed make new attainment possible. But as Mr Cowen notes, such programs may tend to deliver big gains only for the most conscientious students [….] Another way in which previous adaptation is not necessarily a good guide to future employment is the existence of welfare. The alternative to joining the 19th-century industrial proletariat was malnourished deprivation. Today, because of measures introduced in response to, and to some extent on the proceeds of, industrialization, people in the developed world are provided with unemployment benefits, disability allowances and other forms of welfare. They are also much more likely than a bygone peasant to have savings. This means that the 'reservation wage'—the wage below which a worker will not accept a job—is now high in historical terms. If governments refuse to allow jobless workers to fall too far below the average standard of living, then this reservation wage will rise steadily, and ever more workers may find work unattractive. And the higher it rises, the greater the incentive to invest in capital that replaces labor [….] Everyone should be able to benefit from productivity gains—in that, Keynes was united with his successors. His worry about technological unemployment was mainly a worry about a 'temporary phase of maladjustment' as society and the economy adjusted to ever greater levels of productivity. So it could well prove. However, society may find itself sorely tested if, as seems possible, growth and innovation deliver handsome gains to the skilled, while the rest cling to dwindling employment opportunities at stagnant wages ...” [245]

27.-) “ … When Google spent $400 million earlier this year acquiring DeepMind, a London-based artificial intelligence company, the purchase garnered a lot of attention. But to researchers in the AI field, it was no surprise. The field of AI isn’t a new one, but it’s now become so hot that tech giants like Google and Facebook have been snapping up not only companies but also students and other experts trained and prepared to leverage the technology for business [….] There are three aspects about AI that could change the future of your business [….] The scale of information growth – driven by the pace of information change – has reached the point where humans simply cannot handle it without the aid of intelligent computers, said Dr. Jim Hendler, director of the Rensselaer Institute for Data Exploration and Application (IDEA), who leads the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute project to explore new uses and directions for AI technology [….] In the short term, AI will learn to do things like show us the social media posts we’ll find more interesting, but, in the longer term, machines with AI capabilities will offer users much more, said Dr. Yann LeCun, director of AI research at Facebook and the Silver professor of computer science at New York University. He offered scenarios including “vision systems that can drive your car, a vacuum cleaner robot that will recognize your furniture and if there’s dirt on the ground, an autonomous lawnmower that will mow your lawn and not take out your flowers.” Eventually, such technology could revolutionize industries such as ground maintenance, he said [….] AI technologies, such as neural networks, are beginning to turn the corner and become more usable. That’s how Google scientists built an AI system in 2012 that started to behave in the same way as a human web user—it began looking for cat videos on YouTube, without being given any information about how to identify one. When the scientists built a neural network of 16,000 computer processors with 1 billion connections and let it browse 10 million random YouTube thumbnails over three days, the system learned on its own to look for and recognize pictures of cats, writes Liat Clark in Wired UK. The ?New York Times reported that this neural network '…. performed far better than any previous effort by roughly doubling its accuracy in recognizing objects in a challenging list of 20,000 distinct items …' [….] Of course, 10 million videos is a lot of data—big data, that is. But that’s the level of information—in a variety of forms—that companies are working to analyze and process to make better-informed business decisions. Big tech companies such as Google and Facebook are focusing on AI research because they are the only businesses with the big data necessary to teach the AI systems, LeCun said [….] Previously, we taught machines which rules to follow. '… In the end, these rules were too easy to break,...' said Dr. Pedro Domingos, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. He blamed the failure on a '… knowledge acquisition bottleneck ….' [….] Now, with deep learning, machines themselves figure out which rules to follow based on data researchers feed them, Domingos said [….] Looking further into the future and across a wide range of industries, AI could be the missing link for the companies struggling to get their arms around big data [….] '….The natural convergence of AI and big data is a crucial emerging technology space,...' Hendler said. '…. Increasingly, big businesses will need the AI technology to overcome the challenges or handle the speed with which information is changing in the current business environment …' ….” [246]

28.-) “… 3D PRINTED ORGANS COME A STEP CLOSER … AUSTRALIAN AND US SCIENTISTS MAKE MAJOR MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGH IN PRINTING VASCULAR NETWORK … Researchers have overcome a major barrier to them being able to print entire 3D organs [….] For years, scientists have been able to 'print' types of human tissue using a 3D printer, but in a significant leap forward by US and Australian researchers they can now make that tissue survive on its own [….] Until now a major barrier to them moving from printing tiny sheets of tissue to entire 3D organs is that they hadn’t figured out how to develop the blood vessels that provide cells with nutrients and oxygen, and allow them to excrete waste [….] This essential process is called 'vascularisation' and is necessary if researchers are to ever prevent cells from dying so they can grow large, transplantable organs [….] But in a major medical breakthrough, researchers from Sydney and Harvard universities have managed to 3D bio-print capillaries, the tiny channels that allow vascularisation to take place so that cells can sustain themselves and survive [….] Using a high-tech 'bio-printer', the researchers fabricated tiny, interconnected fibres to serve as the mould for the artificial blood vessels [….] They then covered the 3D printed structure with a cell-rich protein-based material, which was solidified by shining light on it [….] Lastly they removed the bio-printed fibres to leave behind a network of tiny capillaries coated with human endothelial cells, which formed stable blood capillaries in less than a week [….]Biomedical engineer and a leader of the research, the University of Sydney’s Dr Luiz Bertassoni, said printing organs may still be a couple of decades away, but this was a 'great step' towards achieving that goal [….] 'We have shown that we can print these capillaries, we have shown they are functional, that they mature to form capillaries and that we can tailor make them to the sizes and structures we need,' he said [….] 'Tissue engineering to make simpler tissues has been a reality for a number of years and through what we have been able to achieve, we can start talking about larger, more complex tissues that are able to survive longer.' [….]While the bulk of the research was carried out at Harvard, Bertassoni said a lab had recently been established at the University of Sydney so his work could continue in Australia [….] Since the findings were published in the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry on Thursday, Bertassoni said he had been contacted by a few patients who wanted to know if the technology meant organs could now be 'printed' [….]He stressed that was not the case, but said what his team had found was 'game-changing' [….]'Thousands of people die each year due to a lack of organs for transplantation,' Bertassoni said [….] 'Many more are subjected to the surgical removal of tissues and organs due to cancer, or they're involved in accidents with large fractures and injuries [….] 'While printing organs may be a couple of decades away, I also wouldn’t be surprised if I was wrong about that because this type of engineering is moving so rapidly [….] ' …. I would so love to be wrong …' …” [247]

29.-) “ … Robot doctors, online lawyers and automated architects: the future of the professions? Advances in technology have long been recognized as a threat to manual labor. Now highly skilled, knowledge-based jobs that were once regarded as safe could be at risk. How will they adapt to the digital age? [….] TECHNOLOGY IS SET TO CHALLENGE TRADITIONALLY SAFE PROFESSIONS [….] Last year, reporters for the Associated Press attempted to figure out which jobs were being lost to new technology. They analyzed employment data from 20 countries and interviewed experts, software developers and CEOs. They found that almost all the jobs that had disappeared in the past four years were not low-skilled, low-paid roles, but fairly well-paid positions in traditionally middle-class careers. SOFTWARE WAS REPLACING ADMINISTRATORS AND TRAVEL AGENTS, BOOKKEEPERS AND SECRETARIES, AND AT ALARMING RATES [….] Economists and futurists know it's not all doom and gloom, but it is all change. Oxford academics Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A Osborne have predicted computerization could make nearly half of jobs redundant within 10 to 20 years. Office work and service roles, they wrote, were particularly at risk. But almost nothing is impervious to automation. It has swept through shop floors and factories, transformed businesses big and small, and is beginning to revolutionize the professions [….] Knowledge-based jobs were supposed to be safe career choices, the years of study it takes to become a lawyer, say, or an architect or accountant, in theory guaranteeing a lifetime of lucrative employment. That is no longer the case. Now even doctors face the looming threat of possible obsolescence. Expert radiologists are routinely outperformed by pattern-recognition software, diagnosticians by simple computer questionnaires. IN 2012, SILICON VALLEY INVESTOR VINOD KHOSLA PREDICTED THAT ALGORITHMS AND MACHINES WOULD REPLACE 80% OF DOCTORS WITHIN A GENERATION [….] In their much-debated book The Second Machine Age, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argued that we now face an intense period of creative destruction. 'Technological progress,' they warned, 'is going to leave behind some people, perhaps even a lot of people, as it races ahead … there's never been a worse time to be a worker with only 'ordinary' skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate.' [….] So where does that leave the professions, whose hard-won expertise is beginning to fall within the power of computers and artificial intelligence to emulate? The efficiency of computerization seems likely to spell the end of the job security past generations sought in such careers. For many, what were once extraordinary skillets will soon be rendered ordinary by the advance of the machines. WHAT WILL IT MEAN TO BE A PROFESSIONAL THEN? [….] 'We'll see what I call decomposition, the breaking down of professional work into its component parts,' says leading legal futurist professor Richard Susskind. Susskind's forthcoming book Beyond the Professions, co-authored with his son Daniel Susskind, examines the transformations already underway across the sectors that once offered jobs for life. HE PREDICTS A PROCESS NOT UNLIKE THE DIVISION OF LABOUR THAT WIPED OUT SKILLED ARTISANS AND CRAFTSMEN IN THE PAST: THE DISSOLUTION OF EXPERTISE INTO A DOZEN OR MORE STREAMLINED PROCESSES. [….] 'Some of these parts will still require expert trusted advisers acting in traditional ways,' he says. 'But many other parts will be standardized or systematized or made available with online service.' In a previous book Tomorrow's Lawyers, he predicts the creation of eight new legal roles at the intersection of software and law. Many of the job titles sound at home in IT companies: legal knowledge engineer, legal technologist, project manager, risk manager, process analyst [….] 'Many traditional lawyers will look at that and think: 'Yes, they might be jobs, but that's not what I went to law school for. And that's not what my parents' generation did as lawyers.'' That, says Susskind, is not his concern: whether we call these new positions lawyers or not, the legal sector will survive [….] 'What I often say is that the future of law is not Rumpole of the Bailey, and it's not John Grisham,' explains Susskind. 'It's not a version of what we have today slightly tweaked. It will be people working in the legal sector but offering legal services and legal help in new ways.' It may be the end of the profession as immortalized in courtroom dramas, but as software eats the old jobs it will have to create new ones too [….] 'Those professions that do not change will render themselves obsolete,' says Dr Frank Shaw, foresight director at the Centre for Future Studies. 'Those that are able to transform themselves – and I mean 'transform' – will thrive and prosper.' [….] No one knows for sure what the careers of the future will look like. BUT THE PEOPLE AT THE CUTTING EDGE ARE ALREADY WATCHING OLD JOBS DISAPPEAR – AND EXPERIMENTING WITH THE TECHNOLOGY THAT HAS BEGUN TO CREATE NEW ONES. HERE'S HOW THREE OF THE PROFESSIONS – MEDICINE, ARCHITECTURE AND THE LAW – COULD BE TRANSFORMED, ACCORDING TO THE PEOPLE HELPING TO REINVENT THEM [….] Five years ago, entrepreneur Charley Moore founded online legal services provider Rocket Lawyer. It now boasts 30 million users. Subscribers pay a monthly fee for instant access to pre-prepared documents and tutorials, as well as online legal advice from experts at participating firms. The work lawyers on the network do has already begun to resemble the streamlined, one-to-many roles Susskind predicted [….] Moore is optimistic about the revolution computerization has unleashed in his sector. 'I don't think of [software] as consuming the industry, as much as I think of it as supporting the industry. So with software, certainly there are mundane, routine tasks that will become more efficient, but by making those tasks more efficient, lawyers will be able to move up in the food chain and serve millions more legal transactions than they currently can.' [….] EVEN JUDGES, HE SAYS, WILL NEED TO MOVE ONLINE. 'I think we have to have virtual courts. Australia has been experimenting with them. New York has been experimenting with online parking ticket adjudication. I mean, give me a break, who the heck thinks you should have to go to some government building when you get a traffic ticket? It's incredibly inefficient.' [….] Such changes would mean fewer lawyers were needed to meet existing clients' needs. But there is an upside: as costs fall and lawyers serve more clients, small businesses and private individuals will suddenly be able to afford legal advice. This is the 'latent legal market', a disenfranchised horde of potential customers estimated to be worth as much as £27bn. 'There's really an unmet demand for legal services,' says Moore. [….] ‘The cloud means a one-man designer can access the same computing power as big multinationals.’ [….] Software firm Autodesk, founded in 1982, creates virtual design tools used by millions of architects and designers every day. Last year alone, the company produced revenues of $2.3bn. British vice president Pete Baxter is responsible for its architecture, engineering and construction operations in Europe, Asia and the Middle East [….] He believes architects have little to fear from artificial intelligence. 'Yes, you can automate. But what does a design look like that's fully automated and fully rationalized by a computer program? Probably not the most exciting piece of architecture you've ever seen.' [….] Technology won't destroy the profession, but it will, he says, democratize it. 'There's a paradigm shift now: the one-man architect working from home with a bright idea now has access to an infinite amount of computing power in the cloud. That means a one-man designer, a graduate designer, can get access to the same amount of computing power as these big multinational companies. So suddenly there's a different competitive landscape.' [….] Baxter is keen to highlight the many new opportunities software creates for the savvy architect. Collaboration across continents is growing ever easier, opening up projects all over the world. This, in turn, has paved the way for greater specialization: the expert in the most minute aspect of design can apply their insight in several countries in the space of a single working day. [….] 'The architectural profession absolutely will still exist,' he says. 'I think what's happening is we're getting a more collaborative approach. But ultimately somebody still makes the decision.' [….] MEDICINE 'WHERE THIS IS GOING IS THAT, EVENTUALLY, ROBOTS WILL END UP DOING SURGERIES ON THEIR OWN.’ [….] 'It's a matter of providing the computer with the data. Once it has the data, it's able to consider thousands or millions of times more parameters than a human can hold in their head.' We will still need medical professionals to guide us and provide the human touch – but doctors will have to accept that computers are better at parts of the job than they are [….] It's not just software and diagnosis, either: surgeons will have to make way for smarter machines. 'I think we're going to see the role of the physician changing significantly through the use of robotics.'... He cites the work of Silicon Valley firm Intuitive Surgical, which has created a 'surgical system' named Da Vinci, which an expert surgeon can control online from anywhere in the world. Just as in architecture, such developments will allow specialists to reach wider markets – but unlike with architecture there is no reason to assume they will stop there __[....]__ 'Eventually, where this is going,' says Diamandis, 'is that the robot will end up doing the surgeries on its own. I can imagine a day
in the future where the patient walks into the hospital and the patient needs, say, cardiac surgery, and the conversation goes something like this: '...NO, NO, NO, I DO NOT WANT THAT HUMAN TOUCHING ME. I WANT THE ROBOT THAT'S DONE IT 1,000 TIMES PERFECTLY.' [….] Yet, despite the large parts of the role that technology will take from them, he does not expect a collapse in our demand for doctors any time soon – largely because we already need so many more than we have. In the US alone, for example, experts predict a shortage of up to 91,500 physicians by 2020. 'And that's low compared to the rest of the world,' he says. 'Africa, which has 25% of the disease burden, has 1.3% of the health workers. There's no way to ever build enough medical schools or teach enough physicians for the demand that exists even today.' [….] 'It's about the economics...' The software and robots are already here – or well on their way – but this unmet demand will remain until the tech is not only more effective but cheaper than the equivalent doctor. 'I call this process the 'dematerialization of technology'. You used to buy a GPS, you used to buy a camera, you used to buy records. These things which were physical have dematerialized on to your phone, and de-monetised, becoming effectively free. And finally they democratize. Healthcare is undergoing the same process: dematerialization and democratization.' ...” [248]

30.-) “ … We’ve watched the rising interest in robotics for the past few years. It may have started with the birth of FIRST Robotics competitions, continued with the iRobot and the Roomba, and more recently with Google’s driverless cars. BUT IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS, THERE HAS BEEN A BIG CHANGE. SUDDENLY, EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT ROBOTS AND ROBOTICS [….] It might have been Jeff Bezos’ remark about using autonomous drones to deliver products by air. It’s a cool idea, though I think it’s farfetched, but that’s another story. Amazon Prime isn’t Amazon’s first venture into robotics: a year and a half ago, they bought Kiva Systems, which builds robots that Amazon uses in their massive warehouses. (Personally, I think package delivery by drone is unlikely for many, many reasons, but that’s another story, and certainly no reason for Amazon not to play with delivery in their labs.) [….] But what really lit the fire was Google’s acquisition of Boston Dynamics, a DARPA contractor that makes some of the most impressive mobile robots anywhere. It’s hard to watch their videos without falling in love with what their robots can do. Or becoming very scared. Or both. And, of course, Boston Dynamics isn’t a one-time buy. It’s the most recent in a series of eight robotics acquisitions, and I’d bet that it’s not the last in the series [….] GOOGLE IS CLEARLY DOING SOMETHING BIG, BUT WHAT? UNLIKE JEFF BEZOS, LARRY PAGE AND SERGEI BRIN HAVEN’T STARTED TALKING ABOUT DELIVERING PACKAGES WITH DRONES OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. Neither has Andy Rubin, who is running the new robotics division. The NSA probably knows, to Google’s chagrin, but we won’t until they’re ready to tell us. Google has launched a number of insanely ambitious 'moon shot' projects recently; I suspect this is another [….] WHATEVER IS COMING FROM GOOGLE, WE’LL CERTAINLY SEE EVEN GREATER INTEGRATION OF ROBOTS INTO EVERYDAY LIFE. THOSE ROBOTS WILL QUICKLY BECOME SO MUCH A PART OF OUR LIVES THAT WE’LL CEASE TO THINK OF THEM AS ROBOTS; THEY’LL JUST BE THE THINGS WE LIVE WITH. [….] At O’Reilly’s Foo Camp in 2012, Jason Huggins, creator of this Angry Birds-playing bot, remarked that robots are always part of the future. Little bits of that future break off and become part of the present, but when that happens, those bits cease to be 'robots.' In 1945, a modern dishwasher would have been a miracle, as exotic as the space-age appliances in The Jetsons. But now, it’s just a dishwasher, and we’re trying to think of ways to make it more intelligent and network-enabled. Dishwashers, refrigerators, vacuums, stoves: is the mythical Internet-enabled refrigerator that orders milk when you’re running low a robot? What about a voice controlled baking machine, where you walked up and told it what kind of bread you wanted? Will we think of these as robots? [….] I DOUBT IT. MUCH HAS BEEN MADE OF GOOGLE’S AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES. IMPRESSIVE AS THEY ARE, AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS ARE NOWHERE NEAR AS INTERESTING AS ASSISTIVE ROBOTS, ROBOTS THAT ASSIST HUMANS IN SOME DIFFICULT TASK. DRIVING AROUND TOWN IS ONE THING, BUT BMW ALREADY HAS AUTOMATIC PARALLEL PARKING. BUT DO WE CALL THESE 'ROBOTIC CARS'? What about anti-lock brakes and other forms of computer-assisted driving that have been around for years? A modern airliner essentially flies itself from one airport to another; but do we see a Boeing 777 as a 'robot'? We prefer not to, perhaps because we cherish the illusion that a human pilot is doing the flying. Robots are everywhere already; we’re just trained ourselves not to see them [….] We can get some more ideas about what the future holds by thinking about some of Google’s statements in other contexts. Last April, Slate reported that Google was obsessed with building the Star Trek computer. It’s a wonderful article that contains some real insight into the way Google thinks about technology. Search is all about context: it’s not about the two or three words you type into the browser, it’s about understanding what you’re looking for, understanding your language rather than an arcane query language. The Star Trek computer does that; it anticipates what Kirk wants and answers his questions, even if they’re ill-formed or ambiguous. Let’s assume that Google can build that kind of search engine. Once you have the Star Trek computer doing your searches, the next step is obvious: don’t just do a search, get me the stuff I want. Find me my keys. Put the groceries away. Water the plants. I don’t think robotic helpers like these are as far off as they seem; most of the technologies we need to build them already exist. And while it may take a supercomputer to recognize that a carton of eggs is a carton of eggs, that supercomputer is only an Internet connection away [….] But will we recognize these devices as robots once they’ve been around for a year or two? Or will they be 'the finder,' 'the unpacker,' 'the gardener,' while robots remain implausibly futuristic? The latter, I think. Garden variety text search, whether it’s Android or Siri, is an amazing application of artificial intelligence; but these days, it’s just something that phones do [….] I HAVE NO DOUBT THAT GOOGLE’S ROBOTICS TEAM IS WORKING ON SOMETHING AMAZING AND MIND-BLOWING. Should they succeed, and should that success become a product, though, whatever they do will almost certainly fade into the woodwork and become part of normal, everyday reality. AND ROBOTS WILL REMAIN FOREVER IN THE FUTURE ...” [249]

31.-) “ … Andy Marchese has a lot of fish tanks but no fish food — his fish prefer batteries and compressed air. On a recent Monday, Marchese conducted an out-of-water demonstration of Bubbles, a pool-green silicone fish that sways its tail as cavities on each side of its body alternately inflate, creating a perfect imitation of a carp. It is the first autonomous, self-contained robot made mostly of soft parts [….] Roboticists are prejudiced toward rigid structures, for which algorithms can be inherited from the well-established factory robot industry. Soft robots solve two huge problems with current robots, however. They don’t have to calculate their movements as precisely as hard robots, which rely on springs and joints, making them better for navigating uncontrolled environments like a house, disaster area, or hospital room. They’re naturally 'cage free,' meaning they can work shoulder-to-shoulder with humans. If a soft robot tips over or malfunctions, the danger is on par with being attacked by a pillow. The robot is also less prone to hurt itself [….] The Bubbles demonstration was a rare glimpse into MIT’s elite Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the lab that bred graduates who produced the World Wide Web and public key encryption. CSAIL is working on all kinds of robots, but a confluence of key technologies such as 3D printing has inspired scientists from biology, materials science, robotics, and other disciplines to work on a reinterpretation of the robot that looks looks less like C-3PO and more like, say, a squid [….] The field of soft robotics has attracted a rush of attention in the last year. Down the road at Harvard, multiple groups are working on soft robotic hands, jumping legs, exosuits, and quadrupeds that can do the limbo. At Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Soft Robotics Lab, researchers are building a snake. In San Francisco, a startup called Otherlab is building inflatable robots that can shake hands, walk, and carry riders. In Italy, a group of researchers built a robotic tentacle modeled after an octopus [….] Before the 1970s, car companies made cars safer by making them larger and heavier. Then along came the airbag: a lightweight safety device that folded up invisibly into the vehicle until it sensed a crash. Similar revolutions took place with body armor, bridges, and contact lenses, and these researchers believe something similar is happening with robots [….] '… It’s not a part of conventional robotics technologies,...' says Fumiya Iida, a professor of bio-inspired robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology-Zurich and a member of the IEEE committee on soft robotics. ' … They have to think completely differently, use different materials, different energy sources. Definitely this is the way we should go in the long run....' One of the most impressive rigid robots in the world right now is Boston Dynamics’ 300-pound humanoid Atlas. If Atlas wants to pick up a ball, it needs to sense and compute the precise distance between its digits and the ball and figure out exactly where to place its hand and how much pressure to apply. [….] Robots like Atlas ' … are doing a lot of thinking,...' says Barry Trimmer, PhD, a professor at Tufts and the editor of a new journal, Soft Robotics, which launched last month. '… There’s a lot of hesitancy. «Where do I put my foot next?» Animals just don't do that. We need to get away from the idea that you have to control every variable...' [….] By contrast, Harvard’s starfish-shaped soft gripper only needs to be told to inflate. As it’s pumped full of air, it conforms to the shape of an object until its '… fingers...' have enough pressure to lift it. Another example would be a human picking up a glass of water. We don’t have to compute the exact size and shape of the glass with our brains; our hand adapts to the object. Similarly, Bubbles doesn’t calculate the full length of its movement. '…. It doesn’t know where its tail is all the time...' [….] The effort and funding going into soft robotics is miniscule compared to what’s been invested in hard robots, says Saul Griffith, the founder of Otherlab, which recently spun out a soft robotics-focused startup called Pneubotics. [….] '… We are exceptionally early in soft robotics as a field,...' he says in an email. '… There is more hype than substance ... there are only maybe three or four interesting demonstrations of unique function and capacity. With those things said, the flexibility, potential low cost, and good match with human scale tasks makes soft robots very attractive …' [….] There are technological challenges as well. In addition to air and fluid pressure actuators, soft roboticists are experimenting with dielectric elastomers, elastic materials that expand and contract in response to electric voltage; shape-memory alloys, metal alloys that can be programmed to change shape at certain temperatures; and springs that respond to light. These approaches are still rudimentary, as are the control systems that operate the robots (in the case of many of Harvard’s soft robots, it’s simply a syringe of air attached to a tube) [….] ' … Soft robots could be used in space, medicine, and maybe one day, human wings …' [….] The field is so new, however, that no possibilities have yet been ruled out. Soft robotics technologies could theoretically be used in a wearable pair of human wings. More practically, soft robots could easily pack eggs or pick fruit — traditional hard robots, equipped with superhuman grips, are more likely to break yolks and inadvertently make applesauce. A mass of wormlike 'meshworm' robots could be filled with water and dropped over a disaster area, where they would crawl to survivors. A soft robotic sleeve could be worn to eliminate tremors or supplement strength lost with age. Soft robots could be used in space exploration, where weight is hugely important; in prosthetics, where they would provide comfort and lifelikeness; in the home, where they can help out around the house without trampling the dog; and in surgical robots, where operators have inspired a few lawsuits after puncturing patients’ insides [….] Trimmer even imagines a day when soft robots will be built with lab-grown muscle tissue powered by stores of fat. He believes robotics is truly at the beginning of a paradigm shift. 'If this is successful, there won’t really be a field of soft robotics,' he says. 'Robotics in general will incorporate all of that technology and that approach. There will be predominantly soft robots.' ...” [250]

32.-) “ … Automation and digitization are transforming the workplace. With this in mind, we asked The Experts: What jobs do you see robots moving into in the near future? DO YOU REMEMBER THOSE IMAGES OF JAPANESE CAR FACTORIES IN THE 1980S WITH ROBOTS MANNING THE PRODUCTION LINE? How futuristic they then seemed? Yet robots will increasingly encroach on the jobs that humans used to do. We already see robots replacing checkout staff in retail outlets. EXPECT WITHIN THE NEXT FEW YEARS TO SEE ROBOTS FOLDING CLOTHES AT BANANA REPUBLIC. IN HOSPITALS EXPECT SOON TO SEE ROBOTS READING X-RAYS WITH MORE ACCURACY THAN ANY HUMAN RADIOLOGIST [….] Google Chairman Eric Schmidt recently said that 'Robots will become omnipresent in our lives in a good way.' 'Omnipresent' I agree with. As for 'good,' I believe the picture is more nuanced. The takeover of machine by man will have associated costs [….] Implications for the labor force will be significant, and it won't just be blue-collar workers who will be replaced. A recent paper by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, of the University of Oxford, predicts that as much as 47% OF TOTAL U.S. EMPLOYMENT IS AT RISK FROM COMPUTERIZATION. JOBS LIKELY TO BE LOST INCLUDE NOT ONLY PRODUCTION LINE WORKERS BUT ALSO PARALEGALS, ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT STAFF, TELEMARKETERS AND A NUMBER OF OTHER WHITE-COLLAR OCCUPATIONS [….] EXPECT, TOO, A WHOLE HOST OF MACHINE-ASSOCIATED DANGERS TO EMERGE. WE'VE ALL BEEN IN TAXICABS WHERE THE DRIVER HAS TAKEN US ON A CIRCUITOUS ROUTE—BECAUSE HE WAS 'JUST FOLLOWING THE GPS.' OR THINK ABOUT HOW FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS MASSIVELY UNDERESTIMATED THEIR RISK PROFILES AT THE DAWN OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS BECAUSE THEY GAVE TOO MUCH ILL-CONSIDERED POWER TO A SINGLE FIGURE CHURNED OUT BY THEIR BANK'S COMPUTER—VALUE AT RISK [….] THE GRAVEST DANGER WE FACE WHEN WE HAND OVER OUR THINKING TO MACHINES ISN'T THAT THE MACHINES MALFUNCTION. IT IS THAT WE BECOME INCREASINGLY INCAPABLE OF THINKING OURSELVES [….] Historically, robots have been used primarily for assembly-line manufacturing or other tasks that involve routine, repetitive actions [….] IN THE FUTURE, WE EXPECT TO SEE ROBOTS MOVING INTO MORE NONROUTINE JOBS THAT REQUIRE HUMAN INTERACTION, PROBLEM SOLVING AND CREATIVITY. ALREADY WE ARE SEEING EVIDENCE OF THIS SHIFT—WHETHER IN CALL CENTERS, PARALEGAL ROLES OR ADVANCED MANUFACTURING. THIS HAS BEEN DRIVEN IN PART BY RAPID ADVANCES IN NATURAL-LANGUAGE PROCESSING AND MACHINE LEARNING [….] The economic value created by increased automation is significant. In the industrial space alone, we expect that robots could provide up to $1.2 trillion in value by 2025 through labor-saving productivity gains. In addition, robot applications in medicine (e.g., mobility aids and surgery), commercial services (e.g., retail and logistics) and personal services could create more than $3 trillion in value by 2025 through improvements in quality of life and time savings [….] THE MCKINSEY GLOBAL INSTITUTE ESTIMATES THAT THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF ADVANCED ROBOTICS IN MANUFACTURING—TO BE REALIZED THROUGH MASSIVE PRODUCTIVITY AND QUALITY GAINS—COULD REACH $1.2 TRILLION BY 2025. THAT'S A HUGE GAIN TO THE WORLD'S WELFARE BUT IT COMES WITH SOME DISQUIET. IT IMPLIES THAT AUTOMATION IS THREATENING THE EXISTENCE OF MORE MANUFACTURING OCCUPATIONS MUCH FASTER THAN MIGHT HAVE BEEN ANTICIPATED JUST A FEW YEARS AGO [….] The range of what can be automated is widening rapidly. The first robotics revolution—ushered by General Motors in the 1960s with robotic arms that stacked hot die-cast metal pieces—substituted capital for labor in the most dangerous, difficult and labor-intensive tasks. TODAY, WE'RE IN THE MIDST OF A SECOND ROBOTICS REVOLUTION. Thanks to the new field of 'machine learning,' second-generation robots no longer require step-by-step commands by a human. Workers with highly routinized tasks—such as industrial painters, machine setters, laminators, fabricators—are most at risk of replacement. Yet workers with 'middle' skills—those with mechanical, electrical or industrial credentials, as well as social perceptiveness and supervisory ability—complement automation and continue to be in high demand [….] What is coming now, though, is a much more disruptive third era of industrial automation. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, machine vision, sensors, 'big data' analytics, motors, and hydraulics, robots are becoming increasingly dexterous, smart and autonomous—not to mention cheap. Coming fast are robots that can take on more delicate tasks such as intricate electronics assembly, and work more easily for and with their human tenders. As a result, various machine operators, precision solderers, and electronic-equipment assemblers are all now at risk of replacement. ALL TOLD, MCKINSEY ESTIMATES ROBOTS WILL REPLACE 15% TO 25% OF INDUSTRIAL-WORKER TASKS WITHIN A DECADE. CLEARLY THE COMING WAVE OF AUTOMATION WILL FURTHER REDUCE AMERICA'S MANUFACTURING EMPLOYMENT PER UNIT OF OUTPUT [….] And yet, there could be benefits. For one, the ability of robots to drive costs down could encourage global companies to move some production back to the U.S., creating jobs. Otherwise, for some there will be job opportunities in minding, maintaining or improving the bots. On that score, an increasingly heard word of career advice will be: 'robotics!...' [….] HOW NEW ROBOTS ARE SMARTER THAN EVER [….] The term 'robot' usually brings visions of large automatons, assembly-line machines with sparks flying from welding torches, each with a specific task to perform and all synchronized in perfect harmony. And yes, this is the case in many factory environments. These robots are in many ways amazing in what they do and the precision at which they do it. They have formed the very basis of the re-engineered workplace of today. But just like the human labor they replaced, they themselves are being replaced by more intelligent, agile and adaptive robotic systems. These new robots can understand that with no item in their 'hand' they can't fulfill the function of, say, placing a nut on a blot, so the system then has to compensate, interact with the track, locate a blot, reinitiate at the track speed and then undertake the function. Adaptive robotics allows systems to be placed in a variety of new scenarios, including as aides to skilled assembly-line workers, physicians; and the frail or disabled members of our community [….] The service industry is ripe for automation; the Dalu Robot restaurant in Jinan Shandong, China says it is developing a robotic system to cook meals and then deliver the food to the customer's table; while Momentum Machines of California says it has created a 'smart restaurants' robotic system that not only takes the order but then can create 360 gourmet burgers an hour [….] Moving down the supply chain, Kiva, the robotics system acquired by Amazon for $775 million in 2012, provides 'innovative material handling technologies' that move the inventory around automated warehouses, removing the human element. It is possible that these systems will soon be integrated with autonomous delivery drones flying packages directly to our homes. Amazon may even be shipping products before you order it through the use of Artificial Intelligence 'software robots' that monitor your behavior, lifestyle, and even the inventory in your refrigerator through their 'dash' magic-wand hand-held bar code scanner. Shopping will never be the same [….] The premise voiced by automation advocates is that robotic systems will free us to do more innovative things and have more free time. Ironically, the same was said about robots and computers in the 1960s and 1970s but it hasn't yet worked out to be that way [….] Is your job high volume, well defined and repetitive—one that needs tight quality control and involves a lot of lifting and moving? If yes, you're likely in greater danger of being replaced by a robot. Robots won't replace workers in jobs that require imagination, creativity, empathy, solution making and a 'human touch.' But they will take on work that's dull, dirty, and dangerous [….] Every company wants to make a better, faster, cheaper car, phone, [insert your product here]. BUT DIGITIZING YOUR BUSINESS SMARTLY GOES WELL BEYOND JUST HAVING MACHINES MAKE THINGS THAT PEOPLE USED TO MAKE. RE-ENGINEERING YOUR MANUFACTURING THROUGH TECHNOLOGY ISN'T A BAD THING, BUT IT'S A TABLE-STAKES MOVE. MOST COMPANIES ARE GOING TO GET VALUE FROM APPLYING ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION TO MANUFACTURING. SO YOU CAN'T STOP THERE [….] The full 'art of the possible' isn't to simply to look at how robots or technology could improve your production line, but to look at your entire business without being blinded by legacy beliefs about how people, processes, technology, capabilities and culture all 'should' come together. Take the view of someone who's going to disrupt your business—and then design your digital strategy (and hire your robots) from there. This uses technology to fundamentally reimagine your business, not just re-engineer it. And if you do it well, you'll be rewarded with top-line revenue growth, higher multiples by the market, and ultimately a faster, more profitable business ...” [250]

33.-) “ … If every image made and every word written from the earliest stirring of civilization to the year 2003 were converted to digital information, the total would come to five exabytes. An exabyte is one quintillion bytes, or one billion gigabytes—or just think of it as the number one followed by 18 zeros. That's a lot of digital data, but it's nothing compared with what happened from 2003 through 2010: We created five exabytes of digital information every two days. Get ready for what's coming: By next year, we'll be producing five exabytes every 10 minutes. HOW MUCH INFORMATION IS THAT? THE TOTAL FOR 2010 OF 912 EXABYTES IS THE EQUIVALENT OF 18 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION CONTAINED IN ALL THE BOOKS EVER WRITTEN. THE WORLD IS NOT JUST CHANGING, AND THE CHANGE IS NOT JUST ACCELERATING; THE RATE OF THE ACCELERATION OF CHANGE IS ITSELF ACCELERATING ...” [254]

34.-) “ … Over the next eight years, three billion new individuals will be coming online, joining the global conversation, and contributing to the global economy. Their ideas—ideas we’ve never before had access to — will result in new discoveries, products, and inventions that will benefit us all ...” [254]

35.-) “ … [Through the perspective of 1970 and concerning the Rate of Change:] In the three short decades between now and the twenty-first century, millions of ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collision with the future. Citizens of the world's richest and most technologically advanced nations, many of them will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant demand for change that characterizes our time. For them, the future will have arrived too soon.This book is about change and how we adapt to it. It is about those who seem to thrive on change, who crest its waves joyfully, as well as those multitudes of others who resist it or seek flight from it. It is about our capacity to adapt. It is about the future and the shock that its arrival brings [….] The culture shock phenomenon accounts for much of the bewilderment, frustration, and disorientation that plagues Americans in their dealings with other societies. It causes a breakdown in communication, a misreading of reality, an inability to cope. Yet culture shock is relatively mild in comparison with the much more serious malady, future shock. Future shock is the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future. It may well be the most important disease of tomorrow [….] Take an individual out of his own culture and set him down suddenly in an environment sharply different from his own, with a different set of cues to react to—different conceptions of time, space, work, love, religion, sex, and everything else—then cut him off from any hope of retreat to a more familiar social landscape, and the dislocation he suffers is doubly severe. Moreover, if this new culture is itself in constant turmoil, and if—worse yet— its values are incessantly changing, the sense of disorientation will be still further intensified. Given few clues as to what kind of behavior is rational under the radically new circumstances, the victim may well become a hazard to himself and others [….] Now imagine not merely an individual but an entire society, an entire generation— including its weakest, least intelligent, and most irrational members—suddenly transported into this new world. The result is mass disorientation, future shock on a grand scale.This is the prospect that man now faces. Change is avalanching upon our heads and most people are grotesquely unprepared to cope with it [….] John Diebold, the American automation expert, warns that 'the effects of the technological revolution we are now living through will be deeper than any social change we have experienced before.' Sir Leon Bagrit, the British computer manufacturer, insists that automation by itself represents 'the greatest change in the whole history of mankind.' [….] Nor are the men of science and technology alone in these views. Sir Herbert Read, the philosopher of art, tells us that we are living through 'a revolution so fundamental that we must search many past centuries for a parallel. Possibly the only comparable change is the one that took place between the Old and the New Stone Age ...' And Kurt W. Marek, who under the name C. W. Ceram is best-known as the author of Gods, Graves and Scholars, observes that 'we, in the twentieth century, are concluding an era of mankind five thousand years in length ... We are not, as Spengler supposed, in the situation of Rome at the beginning of the Christian West, but in that of the year 3000 B.C. We open our eyes like prehistoric man, we see a world totally new.' [….] This startling statement can be illustrated in a number of ways. It has been observed, for example, that if the last 50,000 years of man's existence were divided into lifetimes of approximately sixty-two years each, there have been about 800 such lifetimes. Of these 800, fully 650 were spent in caves [….] Since then, one after another of the technologically advanced countries have moved in the same direction. Today, in those nations in which agriculture is down to the 15 percent level or below, white collars already outnumber blue in Sweden, Britain, Belgium, Canada, and the Netherlands. Ten thousand years for agriculture. A century or two for industrialism. And now, opening before us—super-industrialism [….] Indeed, not only do contemporary events radiate instantaneously—now we can be said to be feeling the impact of all past events in a new way. FOR THE PAST IS DOUBLING BACK ON US. WE ARE CAUGHT IN WHAT MIGHT BE CALLED A 'TIME SKIP.' [….] Whatever happened to some men in the past affects virtually all men today. This was not always true. In short, all history is catching up with us, and this very difference, paradoxically, underscores our break with the past. Thus the scope of change is fundamentally altered [….] But the final, qualitative difference between this and all previous lifetimes is the one most easily overlooked. For we have not merely extended the scope and scale of change, we have radically altered its pace. We have in our time released a totally new social force—a stream of change so accelerated that it influences our sense of time, revolutionizes the tempo of daily life, and affects the very way we 'feel' the world around us. We no longer 'feel' life as men did in the past. And this is the ultimate difference, the distinction that separates the truly contemporary man from all others. For this acceleration lies behind the impermanence—the transience—that penetrates and tinctures our consciousness, radically affecting the way we relate to other people, to things, to the entire universe of ideas, art and values [….] To understand what is happening to us as we move into the age of super-industrialism, we must analyze the processes of acceleration and confront the concept of transience. If acceleration is a new social force, transience is its psychological counterpart, and without an understanding of the role it plays in contemporary human behavior, all our theories of personality, all our psychology, must remain pre-modern. Psychology without the concept of transience cannot take account of precisely those phenomena that are peculiarly contemporary [….] By changing our relationship to the resources that surround us, by violently expanding the scope of change, and, most crucially, by accelerating its pace, we have broken irretrievably with the past. We have cut ourselves off from the old ways of thinking, of feeling, of adapting. We have set the stage for a completely new society and we are now racing toward it. And it is this that calls into question man's capacity for adaptation—how will he fare in this new society? Can he adapt to its imperatives? And if not, can he alter these imperatives? [….] Before even attempting to answer such questions, we must focus on the twin forces of acceleration and transience. We must learn how they alter the texture of existence, hammering our lives and psyches into new and unfamiliar shapes. We must understand how—and why—they confront us, for the first time, with the explosive potential of future shock [….] Many of us have a vague 'feeling' that things are moving faster. Doctors and executives alike complain that they cannot keep up with the latest developments in their fields. Hardly a meeting or conference takes place today without some ritualistic oratory about 'the challenge of change.' Among many there is an uneasy mood—a suspicion that change is out of control [….] Not everyone, however, shares this anxiety. Millions sleepwalk their way through their lives as if nothing had changed since the 1930's, and as if nothing ever will. Living in what is certainly one of the most exciting periods in human history, they attempt to withdraw from it, to block it out, as if it were possible to make it go away by ignoring it. They seek a 'separate peace,' a diplomatic immunity from change [….] Even among the young we find an incomprehension of change: students so ignorant of the past that they see nothing unusual about the present [….] The disturbing fact is that the vast majority of people, including educated and otherwise sophisticated people, find the idea of change so threatening that they attempt to deny its existence. Even many people who understand intellectually that change is accelerating, have not internalized that knowledge, do not take this critical social fact into account in planning their own personal lives [….] How do we know that change is accelerating? There is, after all, no absolute way to measure change. In the awesome complexity of the universe, even within any given society, a virtually infinite number of streams of change occur simultaneously. All 'things'—from the tiniest virus to the greatest galaxy—are, in reality, not things at all, but processes. There is no static point, no nirvana-like un-change, against which to measure change. Change is, therefore, necessarily relative [….] It is also uneven. If all processes occurred at the same speed, or even if they accelerated or decelerated in unison, it would be impossible to observe change. The future, however, invades the present at differing speeds. Thus it becomes possible to compare the speed of
different processes as they unfold. We know, for example, that compared with the biological evolution of the species, cultural and social evolution is extremely rapid. We know that some societies transform themselves technologically or economically more rapidly than others. We also know that different sectors within the same society exhibit different rates of change—the disparity that William Ogburn labeled 'cultural lag.' It is precisely the unevenness of change that makes it measurable [….] We need, however, a yardstick that makes it possible to compare highly diverse processes, and this yardstick is time. Without time, change has no meaning. And without change, time would stop. Time can be conceived as the intervals during which events occur. Just as money permits us to place a value on both apples and oranges, time permits us to compare unlike processes. When we say that it takes three years to build a dam, we are really saying it takes three times as long as it takes the earth to circle the sun or 31,000,000 times as long as it takes to sharpen a pencil. Time is the currency of exchange that makes it possible to compare the rates at which very different processes play themselves out [….] Given the unevenness of change and armed with this yardstick, we still face exhausting difficulties in measuring change. When we speak of the rate of change, we refer to the number of events crowded into an arbitrarily fixed interval of time. Thus we need to define the 'events.' We need to select our intervals with precision. We need to be careful about the conclusions we draw from the differences we observe. Moreover, in the measurement of change, we are today far more advanced with respect to physical processes than social processes. We know far better, for example, how to measure the rate at which blood flows through the body than the rate at which a rumor flows through society. Even with all these qualifications, however, there is widespread agreement, reaching from historians and archaeologists all across the spectrum to scientists, sociologists, economists and psychologists, that, many social processes are speeding up—strikingly, even spectacularly [….] Painting with the broadest of brush strokes, biologist Julian Huxley informs us that 'The tempo of human evolution during recorded history is at least 100,000 times as rapid as that of pre-human evolution.' Inventions or improvements of a magnitude that took perhaps 50,000 years to accomplish during the early Paleolithic era were, he says, 'run through in a mere millennium toward its close; and with the advent of settled civilization, the unit of change soon became reduced to the century.' The rate of change, accelerating throughout the past 5,000 years, has become, in his words, 'particularly noticeable during the past 300 years.' C. P. Snow, the novelist and scientist, also comments on the new visibility of change. 'Until this century ...' he writes, social change was 'so slow, that it would pass unnoticed in one person's lifetime. That is no longer so. The rate of change has increased so much that our imagination can't keep up.' Indeed, says social psychologist Warren Bennis, the throttle has been pushed so far forward in recent years that 'No exaggeration, no hyperbole, no outrage can realistically describe the extent and pace of change.... In fact, only the exaggerations appear to be true.' [….] What changes justify such super-charged language? Let us look at a few—change in the process by which man forms cities, for example. We are now undergoing the most extensive and rapid urbanization the world has ever seen. In 1850 only four cities on the face of the earth had a population of 1,000,000 or more. By 1900 the number had increased to nineteen. But by 1960, there were 141, and today world urban population is rocketing upward at a rate of 6.5 percent per year, according to Edgar de Vries and J. P. Thysse of the Institute of Social Science in The Hague. THIS SINGLE STARK STATISTIC MEANS A DOUBLING OF THE EARTH'S URBAN POPULATION WITHIN ELEVEN YEARS [….] One way to grasp the meaning of change on so phenomenal a scale is to imagine what would happen if all existing cities, instead of expanding, retained their present size. If this were so, in order to accommodate the new urban millions we would have to build a duplicate city for each of the hundreds that already dot the globe. A new Tokyo, a new Hamburg, a new Rome and Rangoon—and all within eleven years. (This explains why French urban planners are sketching subterranean cities—stores, museums, warehouses and factories to be built under the earth, and why a Japanese architect has blueprinted a city to be built on stiltsout over the ocean.) [….] The same accelerative tendency is instantly apparent in man's consumption of energy. Dr. Homi Bhabha, the late Indian atomic scientist who chaired the first International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, once analyzed this trend. 'To illustrate,' he said, 'let us use the letter 'Q' to stand for the energy derived from burning some 33,000 million tons of coal. In the eighteen and one half centuries after Christ, the total energy consumed averaged less than one half Q per century. But by 1850, the rate had risen to one Q per century. Today, the rate is about ten Q per century.' This means, roughly speaking, that half of all the energy consumed by man in the past 2,000 years has been consumed in the last one hundred [….] WHAT SUCH NUMBERS IMPLY IS NOTHING LESS REVOLUTIONARY THAN A DOUBLING OF THE TOTAL OUTPUT OF GOODS AND SERVICES IN THE ADVANCED SOCIETIES ABOUT EVERY FIFTEEN YEARS—AND THE DOUBLING TIMES ARE SHRINKING. This means, generally speaking, that the child reaching teen age in any of these societies is literally surrounded by twice as much of everything newly manmade as his parents were at the time he was an infant. It means that by the time today's teenager reaches age thirty, perhaps earlier, a second doubling will have occurred. WITHIN A SEVENTY-YEAR LIFETIME, PERHAPS FIVE SUCH DOUBLINGS WILL TAKE PLACE—MEANING, SINCE THE INCREASES ARE COMPOUNDED, THAT BY THE TIME THE INDIVIDUAL REACHES OLD AGE THE SOCIETY AROUND HIM WILL BE PRODUCING THIRTY-TWO TIMES AS MUCH AS WHEN HE WAS BORN [….] Such changes in the ratio between old and new have, as we shall show, an electric impact on the habits, beliefs, and self-image of millions. Never in previous history has this ratio been transformed so radically in so brief a flick of time [….] Behind such prodigious economic facts lies that great, growling engine of change— technology. This is not to say that technology is the only source of change in society. Social upheavals can be touched off by a change in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, by alterations in climate, by changes in fertility, and many other factors. Yet technology is indisputably a major force behind the accelerative thrust [….] To most people, the term technology conjures up images of smoky steel mills or clanking machines. Perhaps the classic symbol of technology is still the assembly line created by Henry Ford half a century ago and made into a potent social icon by Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. This symbol, however, has always been inadequate, indeed, misleading, for technology has always been more than factories and machines. The invention of the horse collar in the middle ages led to major changes in agricultural methods and was as much a technological advance as the invention of the Bessemer furnace centuries later. Moreover, technology includes techniques, as well as the machines that may or may not be necessary to apply them. It includes ways to make chemical reactions occur, ways to breed fish, plant forests, light theaters, count votes or teach history [….] The old symbols of technology are even more misleading today, when the most advanced technological processes are carried out far from assembly lines or open hearths. Indeed, in electronics, in space technology, in most of the new industries, relative silence and clean surroundings are characteristic—even sometimes essential. And the assembly line—the organization of armies of men to carry out simple repetitive functions—is an anachronism. It is time for our symbols of technology to change—to catch up with the quickening changes in technology, itself [….] This acceleration is frequently dramatized by a thumbnail account of the progress in transportation. It has been pointed out, for example, that in 6000 B.C. the fastest transportation available to man over long distances was the camel caravan, averaging eight miles per hour. It was not until about 1600 B.C. when the chariot was invented that the maximum speed was raised to roughly twenty miles per hour. So impressive was this invention, so difficult was it to exceed this speed limit, that nearly 3,500 years later, when the first mail coach began operating in England in 1784, it averaged a mere ten mph. The first steam locomotive, introduced in 1825, could muster a top speed of only thirteen mph, and the great sailing ships of the time labored along at less than half that speed. It was probably not until the 1880's that man, with the help of a more advanced steam locomotive, managed to reach a speed of one hundred mph. It took the human race millions of years to attain that record [….] It took only fifty-eight years, however, to quadruple the limit, so that by 1938 airborne man was cracking the 400-mph line. It took a mere twenty-year flick of time to double the limit again. And by the 1960's rocket planes approached speeds of 4000 mph, and men in space capsules were circling the earth at 18,000 mph. Plotted on a graph, the line representing progress in the past generation would leap vertically off the page [….] Whether we examine distances traveled, altitudes reached, minerals mined, or explosive power harnessed, the same accelerative
trend is obvious. The pattern, here and in a thousand other statistical series, is absolutely clear and unmistakable. Millennia or centuries go by, and then, in our own times, a sudden bursting of the limits, a fantastic spurt forward. The reason for this is that technology feeds on itself. Technology makes more technology possible, as we can see if we look for a moment at the process of innovation. Technological innovation consists of three stages, linked together into a self-reinforcing cycle. First, there is the creative, feasible idea. Second, its practical application. Third, its diffusion through society [….] The process is completed, the loop closed, when the diffusion of technology embodying the new idea, in turn, helps generate new creative ideas. Today there is evidence that the time between each of the steps in this cycle has been shortened. Thus it is not merely true, as frequently noted, that 90 percent of all the scientists who ever lived are now alive, and that new scientific discoveries are being made every day. These new ideas are put to work much more quickly than ever before. The time between original concept and practical use has been radically reduced. This is a striking difference between ourselves and our ancestors. Appollonius of Perga discovered conic sections, but it was 2000 years before they were applied to engineering problems. It was literally centuries between the time Paracelsus discovered that ether could be used as an anaesthetic and the time it began to be used for that purpose [….] Even in more recent times the same pattern of delay was present. In 1836 a machine was invented that mowed, threshed, tied straw into sheaves and poured grain into sacks. This machine was itself based on technology at least twenty years old at the time. Yet it was not until a century later, in the 1930's, that such a combine was actually marketed. The first English patent for a typewriter was issued in 1714. But a century and a half elapsed before typewriters became commercially available. A full century passed between the time Nicholas Appert discovered how to can food and the time canning became important in the food industry [….] Today such delays between idea and application are almost unthinkable. It is not that we are more eager or less lazy than our ancestors, but we have, with the passage of time, invented all sorts of social devices to hasten the process. Thus we find that the time between the first and second stages of the innovative cycle—between idea and application—has been cut radically. Frank Lynn, for example, in studying twenty major innovations, such as frozen food, antibiotics, integrated circuits and synthetic leather, found that since the beginning of this century more than sixty percent has been slashed from the average time needed for a major scientific discovery to be translated into a useful technological form. Today a vast and growing research and development industry is consciously working to reduce the lag still further [….] But if it takes less time to bring a new idea to the marketplace, it also takes less time for it to sweep through the society. Thus the interval between the second and third stages of the cycle—between application and diffusion—has likewise been sliced, and the pace of diffusion is rising with astonishing speed. This is borne out by the history of several familiar household appliances. Robert B. Young at the Stanford Research Institute has studied the span of time between the first commercial appearance of a new electrical appliance and the time the industry manufacturing it reaches peak production of the item [….] Young found that for a group of appliances introduced in the United States before 1920—including the vacuum cleaner, the electric range, and the refrigerator—the average span between introduction and peak production was thirty-four years. But for a group that appeared in the 1939-1959 period—including the electric frying pan, television, and washerdryer combination—the span was only eight years. The lag had shrunk by more than 76 percent. 'The post-war group,' Young declared, 'demonstrated vividly the rapidly accelerating nature of the modern cycle.' [….] The stepped-up pace of invention, exploitation, and diffusion, in turn, accelerates the whole cycle still further. For new machines or techniques are not merely a product, but a source, of fresh creative ideas [….] Each new machine or technique, in a sense, changes all existing machines and techniques, by permitting us to put them together into new combinations. The number of possible combinations rises exponentially as the number of new machines or techniques rises arithmetically. Indeed, each new combination may, itself, be regarded as a new supermachine [….] The computer, for example, made possible a sophisticated space effort. Linked with sensing devices, communications equipment, and power sources, the computer became part of a configuration that in aggregate forms a single new super-machine—a machine for reaching into and probing outer space. But for machines or techniques to be combined in new ways, they have to be altered, adapted, refined or otherwise changed. So that the very effort to integrate machines into super-machines compels us to make still further technological innovations [….] It is vital to understand, moreover, that technological innovation does not merely combine and recombine machines and techniques. Important new machines do more than suggest or compel changes in other machines—they suggest novel solutions to social, philosophical, even personal problems. They alter man's total intellectual environment—the way he thinks and looks at the world [….] We all learn from our environment, scanning it constantly—though perhaps unconsciously—for models to emulate. These models are not only other people. They are, increasingly, machines. By their presence, we are subtly conditioned to think along certain lines. It has been observed, for example, that the clock came along before the Newtonian image of the world as a great clock-like mechanism, a philosophical notion that has had the utmost impact on man's intellectual development. Implied in this image of the cosmos as a great clock were ideas about cause and effect and about the importance of external, as against internal, stimuli, that shape the everyday behavior of all of us today. The clock also affected our conception of time so that the idea that a day is divided into twenty-four equal segments of sixty minutes each has become almost literally a part of us [….] Recently, the computer has touched off a storm of fresh ideas about man as an interacting part of larger systems, about his physiology, the way he learns, the way he remembers, the way he makes decisions. Virtually every intellectual discipline from political science to family psychology has been hit by a wave of imaginative hypotheses triggered by the invention and diffusion of the computer—and its full impact has not yet struck. And so the innovative cycle, feeding on itself, speeds up. If technology, however, is to be regarded as a great engine, a mighty accelerator, then knowledge must be regarded as its fuel. And we thus come to the crux of the accelerative process in society, for the engine is being fed a richer and richer fuel every day [….] The rate at which man has been storing up useful knowledge about himself and the universe has been spiraling upward for 10,000 years. The rate took a sharp upward leap with the invention of writing, but even so it remained painfully slow over centuries of time. The next great leap forward in knowledge—acquisition did not occur until the invention of movable type in the fifteenth century by Gutenberg and others. Prior to 1500, by the most optimistic estimates, Europe was producing books at a rate of 1000 titles per year. This means, give or take a bit, that it would take a full century to produce a library of 100,000 titles. By 1950, four and a half centuries later, the rate had accelerated so sharply that Europe was producing 120,000 titles a year. What once took a century now took only ten months. By 1960, a single decade later, the rate had made another significant jump, so that a century's work could be completed in seven and a half months. And, by the mid-sixties, the output of books on a world scale, Europe included, approached the prodigious figure of 1000 titles per day [….] One can hardly argue that every book is a net gain for the advancement of knowledge. Nevertheless, we find that the accelerative curve in book publication does, in fact, crudely parallel the rate at which man discovered new knowledge. For example, prior to Gutenberg only 11 chemical elements were known. Antimony, the 12th, was discovered at about the time he was working on his invention. It was fully 200 years since the 11th, arsenic, had been discovered. Had the same rate of discovery continued, we would by now have added only two or three additional elements to the periodic table since Gutenberg. Instead, in the 450 years after his time, some seventy additional elements were discovered. And since 1900 we have been isolating the remaining elements not at a rate of one every two centuries, but of one every three years [….] Furthermore, there is reason to believe that the rate is still rising sharply. TODAY, FOR EXAMPLE, THE NUMBER OF SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES IS DOUBLING, like industrial production in the advanced countries, about every fifteen years, and according to biochemist Philip Siekevitz, 'what has been learned in the last three decades about the nature of living beings dwarfs in extent of knowledge any comparable period of scientific discovery in the history of mankind.' Today the United States government alone generates 100,000 reports each year, plus 450,000 articles, books and papers. On a worldwide basis, scientific and
technical literature mounts at a rate of some 60,000,000 pages a year [….] The computer burst upon the scene around 1950. With its unprecedented power for analysis and dissemination of extremely varied kinds of data in unbelievable quantities and at mind-staggering speeds, it has become a major force behind the latest acceleration in knowledge-acquisition. Combined with other increasingly powerful analytical tools for observing the invisible universe around us, it has raised the rate of knowledge-acquisition to dumbfounding speeds. Francis Bacon told us that 'Knowledge ... is power.' This can now be translated into contemporary terms. In our social setting, 'Knowledge is change'—and accelerating knowledge-acquisition, fueling the great engine of technology, means accelerating change [….] Discovery. Application. Impact. Discovery. We see here a chain reaction of change, a long, sharply rising curve of acceleration in human social development. This accelerative thrust has now reached a level at which it can no longer, by any stretch of the imagination, be regarded as 'normal.' The normal institutions of industrial society can no longer contain it, and its impact is shaking up all our social institutions. Acceleration is one of the most important and least understood of all social forces. This, however, is only half the story. For the speed-up of change is a psychological force as well. Although it has been almost totally ignored by psychology, the rising rate of change in the world around us disturbs our inner equilibrium, altering the very way in which we experience life. Acceleration without translates into acceleration within [….] This can be illustrated, though in a highly oversimplified fashion, if we think of an individual life as a great channel through which experience flows. This flow of experience consists—or is conceived of consisting—of innumerable 'situations.' Acceleration of change in the surrounding society drastically alters the flow of situations through this channel [….] There is no neat definition of a situation, yet we would find it impossible to cope with experience if we did not mentally cut it up into these manageable units. Moreover, while the boundary lines between situations may be indistinct, every situation has a certain 'wholeness' about it, a certain integration. Every situation also has certain identifiable components. These include 'things'—a physical setting of natural or man-made objects [….] Every situation occurs in a 'place'—a location or arena within which the action occurs. (It is not accidental that the Latin root 'situ' means place.) Every social situation also has, by definition, a cast of characters—people. Situations also involve a location in the organizational network of society and a context of ideas or information. Any situation can be analyzed in terms of these five components [….] But situations also involve a separate dimension which, because it cuts across all the others, is frequently overlooked. This is duration—the span of time over which the situation occurs. Two situations alike in all other respects are not the same at all if one lasts longer than another. For time enters into the mix in a crucial way, changing the meaning or content of situations. Just as the funeral march played at too high a speed becomes a merry tinkle of sounds, so a situation that is dragged out has a distinctly different flavor or meaning than one that strikes us in staccato fashion, erupting suddenly and subsiding as quickly [….] Here, then, is the first delicate point at which the accelerative thrust in the larger society crashes up against the ordinary daily experience of the contemporary individual. For the acceleration of change, as we shall show, shortens the duration of many situations. This not only drastically alters their 'flavor,' but hastens their passage through the experiential channel. Compared with life in a less rapidly changing society, more situations now flow through the channel in any given interval of time—and this implies profound changes in human psychology [….] For while we tend to focus on only one situation at a time, the increased rate at which situations flow past us vastly complicates the entire structure of life, multiplying the number of roles we must play and the number of choices we are forced to make. This, in turn, accounts for the choking sense of complexity about contemporary life [….] Moreover, the speeded-up flow-through of situations demands much more work from the complex focusing mechanisms by which we shift our attention from one situation to another. There is more switching back and forth, less time for extended, peaceful attention to one problem or situation at a time. This is what lies behind the vague feeling noted earlier that 'Things are moving faster.' They are. Around us. And through us [….] There is, however, still another, even more powerfully significant way in which the acceleration of change in society increases the difficulty of coping with life. This stems from the fantastic intrusion of novelty, newness into our existence. Each situation is unique. But situations often resemble one another. This, in fact, is what makes it possible to learn from experience. If each situation were wholly novel, without some resemblance to previously experienced situations, our ability to cope would be hopelessly crippled [….] The acceleration of change, however, radically alters the balance between novel and familiar situations. Rising rates of change thus compel us not merely to cope with a faster flow, but with more and more situations to which previous personal experience does not apply. And the psychological implications of this simple fact, which we shall explore later in this book, are nothing short of explosive [….] 'When things start changing outside, you are going to have a parallel change taking place inside,' says Christopher Wright of the Institute for the Study of Science in Human Affairs. The nature of these inner changes is so profound, however, that, as the accelerative thrust picks up speed, it will test our ability to live within the parameters that have until now defined man and society. In the words of psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, 'In our society at present, the 'natural course of events' is precisely that the rate of change should continue to accelerate up to the as-yet-unreached limits of human and institutional adaptability.' [….] To survive, to avert what we have termed future shock, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before. He must search out totally new ways to anchor himself, for all the old roots—religion, nation, community, family, or profession— are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust. Before he can do so, however, he must understand in greater detail how the effects of acceleration penetrate his personal life, creep into his behavior and alter the quality of existence. He must, in other words, understand transience ...” [255]

36.-) “ … On the evening of January 17, 1991, Chris was flying home from Los Angeles to Boston when the pilot announced that Operation Desert Storm had begun. He then broadcast the audio portion of CNN's report over the DC-10's entertainment system, so that the passengers could listen to a description by a reporter in Baghdad, relayed through Israel, transmitted worldwide, picked up by the airplane, and sent to their earphones. Given the importance of the event, what would you do? Within moments, Chris called his wife, Mary, in Boston to tell her the news. This all happened through an airborne-connected network that was far more powerful than anything that military pilots had in the Korean War, just 40 years earlier. How was this possible? By connecting everything to everything, in real time [….] In rapid succession the deregulation of telecommunications, the miniaturization of satellites, and the development of mobile technologies have made connection available to anyone, anytime, anyplace. Now, with the explosive takeoff of the Internet, we've entered the second half of the information economy, which uses the computer less for data crunching and more for connecting: people to people, machine to machine, product to service, network to network, organization to organization, and all the combinations thereof [….] In 1999, low-earth-orbiting satellites (LEOs) will bring these capabilities everywhere on the planet. By the year 2000 telecommunication networks in the United States will carry more electronic data than voice. More astonishing, voice will be less than 2 percent of the traffic by 2003. Think of telephones running on the Net, rather than the Net running on the phone system! The cost of global telecommunications will fall drastically, just as long-distance costs have done over the past 20 years. This massive increase in connection will change the way all business is conducted, turn current business and economic models on their heads, and take us ever deeper and faster into BLUR [….] Mobile phones, pagers, voice mail systems, bar code scanners, satellite phones, e-mail, global positioning satellites, and all the rest of the electronic gizmos that will connect us are just the visible part of the Connectivity story. Once these things connect with each other, their actions will trigger domino effects and change the way the economy behaves [….] The stock market crash of October 1987 was caused by computerized trends, none of which were linked explicitly. The damage was done by the interaction of independent investor instructions —- of connected network of trading programs. Similarly, the 1965 Northeast power blackout was the worst in history because of the connections shared by the utilities in the power grid. These connections translated an overload at one point in the system into a cascading failure through the grid. That's why the trading limits installed after the 1987 financial debacle are called 'circuit breakers.' […] These examples illustrate the importance of connection: A single automatic circuit breaker, a cruncher, has limited impact. Connect a thousand of them, and there's no telling how the system will behave. The first use of the financial circuit breaker, in October 1997, was in response to frenzied selling in markets in Asia earlier in the day, further evidence of the connectedness of the global system [….] The instant communication of the Gulf War is an amazing story about Connectivity, but a trivial one about Speed. News has always traveled fast. When we speak of Speed, we're talking about how the sheer velocity of business has increased over the last decade. Take, for example, the dramatic drop in the time between sending and receiving. Order a laptop from PC Connection at 2:00 a.m., receive it custom-configured at home ten hours later. Similarly, the time lapse is evaporating between producing and selling, and purchasing and delivering. In Tokyo, you can order your customized Toyota on Monday, and be driving it on Friday [….] Speed is the foreshortening of product life cycles from years to months or even weeks. And, Speed is the worldwide electronic network over which financial institutions transfer money at the rate of $41 billion a minute. For the individual, Speed is scores of messages a day, creating near continuous communication. Miss a day and your world moves on without you. Accelerated product life cycles and time-based competition have become part of the business lingo [….] These experiences change people's perceptions. We now expect real-time responsiveness, 24 hours of every day of the year. This premium placed on anytime, real-time responsiveness is just one example of the growing importance of intangible value [….] The intangible portion of the economy has grown quietly, altering how we see the world without calling too much attention to itself. It takes four forms. Services, which have dominated the economy for decades, are the most familiar. They include everything from hamburger flippers to brain surgeons. The second is Information, like the specialized knowledge in databases, the content of George Lucas' Star Wars empire, and the shadows cast by activities and transactions onto credit card bills and stock tickers. The third is the Service Componet of Products. Computer simulation services, on everything from automobiles and architecture to windows and wallpaper, commonly allow customers to try out different configurations before ordering the actual product. Fourth are Emotions, the trust and loyalty that people feel for a brand, the prestige conveyed by a label, that attraction exerted by a celebrity on the stage, scree, or playing field [….] DreamWorks SKG is a powerful expression of the value of Intangibles. Form with a mere $250 million, it was mobbed by eager investors who drove the market capitalization to $2 billion when the company, which had no studio and nothing in production, went public. The attraction was the intangible value of its founders: Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen, each of whom is a star in the entertainment business even though their faces are never on the screen. Intangibles are at work in the form of innovation, brands, trust, and relationships [….] Intangible value is growing much faster than the tangible. But in the connected economy, the increasing demand for Intangibles also brings with it some new economic wrinkles. Compare succotash and software. With succotash, two pounds cost twice as much as one pound. But with software, the second copy is pretty much free. Further, if we cook a pound of succotash, we eat it or you do. Software, however, can be duplicated again and again with no additional cost [….] Connectivity, Speed, and Intangibles are keeping all of us up nights, thinking about our future. To see where they will take us, focus on the constant of what an economy does [….] AN ECONOMY USES RESOURCES TO FULFILL DESIRES. The only constant is what economies do” again, they use resources to fulfill desires. Their means of doing so, however, have changed several times. Hunting-and-gathering economies lasted about one hundred thousand years before they gave way to agrarian economies, which endured 10,000 years. Their labor- and land-intensive approach was succeeded by the machines and factories of the Industrial Era (1760s-1950s), which spawned the growth of cities, mass production, pollution, labor unions, and the development of the banking system [….] After almost 200 years, the industrial era gave way to the computers of the information economy, which is already half over. The first four decades used the computed as a crunching tool, an industrial-style approach that included data processing and warehousing, bigger and faster machines, supercomputers, and other 'factories' to perform routine brain work [….] In this second half of the information era, which we call the BLUR economy, resources will fulfill desires by yet another set of arrangements. One will be that we leave behind the idea of stable solutions. Already, a successful business is neither at rest nor in focus at any given moment. The beginning, middle, and end of a product line are dissolving into each other as the orderly and familiar step-by-step progression of research, design, production, distribution, payment, and consumption disappear. Advance copies of the manufacturers' new models are being reviewed in magazines while the current model is still sold at a floating 'street' price, and the previous version is available at a discount. An annual model change blurs into a continuous one. Continuous upgrades that are downloaded electronically are replacing model years that require plants to close down. BUILT TO LAST NOW MEANS BUILT TO CHANGE ...” [256]

37.-) “ … HOW ROBOTS ARE GOING TO REPLACE YOU IN THE OFFICE [….] Face-to face meetings are important. According to Harvard Business Review, they help management teams root out negligence, increase productivity, provide a positive competitiveness, and deepen relationships with colleagues [….] So it's not surprising that Americans took 427 million business trips last year. According to the Global Business Travel Assn., the bill for all this traveling to provide face-to-face contact between clients and companies was $228 billion [….] Bloomberg Businessweek's Drake Bennet thinks there is a better, and cheaper, alternative to business travel: telepresence robots [….] Bennet reports that the worldwide market for telepresence robotics is expected to grow from $556.1 million in 2010 to $13.1 billion in 2016. Robots that can be controlled from any location could be responsible for everything from office security and surveillance to holding remote meetings and virtual collaboration [….] 'On snow days we'll have well over half the guys on VGos [robots],' says Tom Ryden, cofounder of robot-maker VGo Communications. 'They'll stop and chat with each other, robot to robot. You'll be walking down the hall and see two guys just chatting away, and they're both in some other location.' [….] Only a few robot models are currently available — and they are already in high demand. VGo Communications quickly sold out its first production run of 100. Another company, Anybots, currently has an order backlog of a month and a half ...” [257]

38.-) “ … KNOWLEDGE DOUBLING CURVE [….] Buckminster Fuller created the 'Knowledge Doubling Curve'; he noticed that until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years. Today things are not as simple as different types of knowledge have different rates of growth. For example, nanotechnology knowledge is doubling every two years and clinical knowledge every 18 months. But on average human knowledge is doubling every 13 months. According to IBM, the build out of the 'internet of things' will lead to the doubling of knowledge every 12 hours [….] HUMAN BRAIN INDEXING WILL CONSUME SEVERAL BILLION PETABYTES [….] In a recent lecture at Harvard University neuroscientist Jeff Lichtman, who is attempting to map the human brain, has calculated that several billion petabytes of data storage would be needed to index the entire human brain. The Internet is currently estimated to be 5 million terabytes (TB) of which Google has indexed roughly 200 TB or just .004% of its total size. The numbers involved are astounding especially when considering the size of the human brain and the number of neurons in it [….] LINEAR TO EXPONENTIAL GROWTH OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. A transition from the linear growth of human knowledge to the exponential growth of human knowledge has taken place.. According to researchers dealing with this information will necessitate the development of vastly more complex software, shareability, and artificial intelligence ...” [258]

39.-) “ .. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, IT TOOK ABOUT FIFTY YEARS TO DOUBLE THE WORLD'S KNOWLEDGE. TODAY, THE BASE OF KNOWLEDGE DOUBLES IN LESS THAN A YEAR. The digital age creates new opportunities to access information in ways that transform work and play. The emerging workforce does not need 'knowers' as much as it needs 'learners.' ...” [259]

40.-) “... This knowledge reorients the entire medical system, from one where patients are treated once they are sick to one where patients are treated for what they are likely to develop as a result of their genetic makeup. THE VOLUME OF MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE IS DOUBLING EVERY EIGHT YEARS, AND SIMILAR CHANGES ARE OCCURRING IN OTHER TRADES AND PROFESSIONS __[....]__ '… IF KNOWLEDGE IS DOUBLING EVERY EIGHT YEARS, NO SINGLE PERSON CAN KEEP UP WITH IT. That fosters greater fragmentation of skills, and thus greater competition in the marketplace for niche-oriented skills.' ...” [260]

41.-) “ ...As early as 1965, Intel cofounder Gordon Moore (1965) noted that the capability of COMPUTER CIRCUITS HAD DOUBLED EVERY YEAR SINCE THEIR INVENTION; his prediction that this trend would continue and have broader applications has become known as Moore’s Law. Buckminster Fuller, in his book Critical Path (1982), describes the '… knowledge-doubling curve, ...' explaining that new know ledge, WHICH HAD DOUBLED EVERY CENTURY UNTIL 1900, IS NOW ESTIMATED TO DOUBLE EVERY 18 MONTHS. AND THE PACE OF GROWTH IS INCREASING ...” [261]

42.-) “ … ONLINE INFORMATION DOUBLES EVERY 6 MONTHS … CORPORATE INFORMATION DOUBLES EVERY 18 MONTHS … SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION DOUBLES EVERY 5 YEARS BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION DOUBLES EVERY 5 YEARS … USEFUL GENETIC INFORMATION DOUBLES EVERY 18–24 MONTHS … THE SUM TOTAL OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE DOUBLES EVERY 2–3 YEARS (AND IS SOON EXPECTED TO DOUBLE EVERY YEAR) … PRINTED KNOWLEDGE DOUBLES EVERY 8 YEARS … TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE DOUBLES EVERY 3 YEARS … MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE DOUBLES EVERY 7 YEARS ...” [262]

43.-) “ … This will be challenging, especially with the RATE OF MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE DOUBLING EVERY THREE YEARS CURRENTLY AND PROJECTED TO BE DOUBLING EVERY 73 DAYS BY 2020 ...” [263]

44.-) “ …WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE RATE ACCELERATES TO A DOUBLING EVERY MONTH. THEN KNOWLEDGE WILL INCREASE BY 4096 TIMES EVERY YEAR ...” [264]

45.-) “ … Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. He’s talking about the so-called law that says the number of transistors that can be fit on a computer chip will DOUBLE EVERY TWO YEARS, RESULTING IN PERIODIC INCREASES IN COMPUTING POWER ...”

46.-) “ … So they will welcome a new analysis, by Jonathan Koomey of Stanford University and his colleagues, which seems to have uncovered a deeper law relating to the energy-efficiency of computers, dating back to the era of vacuum tubes. The researchers found that the electrical efficiency of computing has doubled every 1.6 years since the mid-1940s. ' … That means that for a fixed amount of computational power, the need for battery capacity will fall by half every 1.6 years,...' observes Dr Koomey. This trend, he says, '… bodes well for the continued explosive growth in mobile computing, sensors and controls....' Some researchers are already building devices that run on '… ambient ...' energy harvested from light, heat, vibration or TV transmitters. As the energy-efficiency of computing continues to improve, this approach will become more widespread. Dr Koomey's team published their results in IEEE Annals, an industry research journal. Inevitably, industry observers are already calling this new finding '… Koomey's law …' ...” [266]

47.-) “ … George Dyson has written that a Google engineer once said to him: '...We are not [digitally] scanning all those books [, including those available at http://books.google.com/ ,] to be read by people. WE ARE SCANNING THEM TO BE READ BY AN A.I....' ….” [268] Brackets of the Author.

48.-) “… The influential Silicon Valley institution [the Singularity University] preaches a story that goes like this: One day in the not-so-distant future, the Internet will suddenly coalesce into a superintelligent A.I., infinitely smarter than any of us individually and all of us combined; it will become alive in the blink of an eye, and take over the world before humans even realize what's happening ...” [268] Brackets of the Author.

49.-) “ … Marvin Minsky Ph.D. observed, '... Each billionaire with a heart problem should spend a billion dollars on an artificial heart. Research should be concentrated in a giant project, like the moon shot or Los Alamos. Fill a small city wit top scientists and engineers to make the first really good artificial hearts for some rich guys. Sure there are some interesting projects already going on … but small-scale efforts are taking much too much time. Spare no expense! Get it right! Once there's a single working model, the prices will collapse like they always do. Not long after that, everyone will benefit …'....” [268] Brackets of the Author.

50.-) “ … One of the great technological economic trends of our recent history has been that of 'Moore's law,' which states that the computational capacities (e.g. electronic component densities, electronic signal processing speed, etc.) of integrated circuits or 'chip,' have been doubling every year or two. This trend has remained valid since Gordon Moore, one of the founders of the Intel microprocessor manufacturing company, first formulated it in 1965. If you keep multiplying a number by 2 many times over, you will soon end up with a huge number. For examples, 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 … (ten times) equals 1024. If you do it 20 times you get 1048576, i.e. over a million. If you do it 30 30 times, you get a billion, by 40 times you get a trillion, etc. Moore's law has remained valid for the past four decades, so that the size of the doublings recently has become truly massive. I speak of 'massive Moore doublings.' […] Moore's law is a consequence of the shrinking of the size of electronic circuits on chips, so that the distance that electrons (the elementary particles whose flow in an electronic circuit is what constitutes the electrical current) have to travel between two electronic components, (for example two transistors), is reduced. According to Einstein, the fastest speed at which anything can move is the speed of light (about 300,000 kms/sec) and this is a constant of nature that electronic currents have to respect. If one shortens the distance between two electronic components, then an electronic signal between them (i.e. the flow of electrons between them) has less distance to travel, and hence takes less time to traverse the distance (at the constant speed of light) [….] A huge effort over the past few decades has been devoted by the chip manufacturing companies into making electronic circuits smaller, and hence denser, so that they function faster. The faster a microprocessor chip functions, the more economically attractive it is. If you are the CEO of a chip manufacturing company and your competitor down the road in California's 'Silicon Valley' brings a rival chip onto the market that is 30% faster than yours and six months ahead of you, then your company will probably go out of business. The market share of the rival company will increase significantly, because everyone wants a faster computer. Hence, for decades, electronic circuitry has become smaller and thus faster [….] How much longer can Moore's law remain valid? If it does so until 2020, then the size of the electronic components in mass memory chips will be such that it will be possible to store a single bit of information on a single atom. (A 'bit' is a 'binary digit,' a 0 or a 1, that computers use to represent numbers and symbols to perform their calculations.) So how many atoms (and hence how many store bits) are there in a human sized object, such as an apple? The answer is astonishing — a trillion trillion atoms (bits), i.e. a 1 followed by 24 zeros, or a million million million million [….] Are you beginning to get an inkling for why I believe that massively intelligent machines could become trillions of trillions of times smarter than we are later this century? [….] Not only is it likely that 21st century technology will be storing a bit of information on a single atom, it will be using a new kind of computing called 'quantum computing,' which is radically different from the garden variety of 'classical computing' that humanity used in the 20th century. The third chapter will attempt to give a brief outline of the principles of quantum computing since it is likely that that technology will form the basis of the computers of the near and longer term future. The essential feature of quantum computing can however be mentioned here. It is as follows. If one uses a string of N bits (called a 'register' in computer science, e.g. 001011101111010) in some form of computing operation (it doesn't matter for the moment what the operation is) it will take a certain amount of time using 'classical computing.' However in the same amount of time, using 'quantum computing' techniques, one can often perform 2N such operations. (2n means 2 multiplied by 2 multiplied by 2 … (N times). As N becomes large, 2n become astronomically large. The potential of quantum computing is thus hugely superior to classical computing. Since Moore's law is likely to take us to the atomic scale , where the laws of physics called 'quantum mechanics' need to be applied, humanity will be forced to compute quantum mechanically, hence the enormous theoretical and experimental effort in the past few years to understand and build 'quantum computers.' [….] Quantum computing still has many conceptual and practical problems that need to be solved before quantum computers are sold to the public. But progress is being made every month, so personally I believe that it is only a question of time before we have functional quantum computers [….] Now, start putting one bit per atom memory storage capacities together with quantum computing and the combination is truly explosive. 21st century computers could have potential computing capacities truly trillions of trillions of trillions …. of times above of current classical computing capacities [….] I hope you have followed me so far [….] At this point in the argument, you may be racing ahead of me a little and object that I seem to be assuming implicitly that massive memory capacities and astronomical computational capacities are sufficient to generate massively intelligent machines, and that nothing else is needed. I have been accused by some of colleagues of this, so let me state my personal opinion on this question [….] There are people (for example, Sir Roger Penrose, of black hole theory fame, and arch rival of the British cosmologist Stephen Hawking) who claim that there is more to producing an intelligent machine than just massive computational abilities. Penrose claims that consciousness would also be needed, and that new physics will be required to understand the nature and creation of artificial consciousness in machines [….] I am open to this rejection. Perhaps such critics are right. If so, then their objections do not change my basic thesis very much, perhaps causing a delay of several decades as the nature of consciousness is better understood. I feel that it is only a question of time before science understands how nature build us, i.e. I expect science will come to understand the 'embryogenic' process, used in building an embryo and then a baby, consisting of trillions of cells, from a single fertilized egg cell [….] We have the existence proof of ourselves, who are both intelligent and conscious, that it is possible for nature to assemble molecules in an appropriate way to build us. When a pregnant woman eats, some of the molecules in her food are rearranged, and then self assembled into a large molecular structure consisting of trillions of trillions of atoms that become her baby. The baby is a self-assembled collection of molecules that gets built to become a functional three-dimensional creature that is intelligent and conscious ...” [269]

51.-) “ … There are strong links between the development of computers and the emergence of A.I. However, the seeds of A.I. Were sown long before the development of modern computers. Philosophers such as Descartes considered animals in terms of their machine performance, and automatons were the precursors of the humanoid robots of today. But artificial beings can be traced back even further, to stories of the Prague Golem, or even further to Greek myths such as Pygmalion's Galatea [….] The strongest immediate roots probably date back to the work of McCulloch and Pitts, who, in 1943, described mathematical models (called perceptrons) of neurons in the brain (brain cells) based on a detailed analysis of the biological originals. They not indicated how neurons either fire or do not fire (are 'on' or 'off'), thereby operating in a switching binary fashion, but also showed how such neurons could learn and hence change their action with respect to time [….] Perhaps one of the greatest pioneers of the field was a British scientists, Alan Turing. In the 1950s (long before the computers of today appeared), Turing wrote a seminal paper in which he attempted to answer the question 'Can a machine think?' To even ask the question was, at the time, revolutionary, but to also come up with an applicable test (commonly known as the Turing Test) with which to answer the question was provocative in the extreme [….] It was shortly after this that Marvin Minsky and Dean Edmonds built what could be described as the first A.I. Computer, based on a network of the neuron models of McCulloch and Pitts. At the same time, Claude Shannon considered the possibility of a computer playing chess and the type of strategies needed in order to decide which move to make next. In 1956, at the instigation of John McCarthy, along with Minsky and Shannon, researchers came together at Dartmouth College in the U.S.A. For the first workshop celebrating the new field of A.I. It was here that many of the subsequent classical foundations of the subjects were first laid [….] THE MIDDLE AGES OF A.I. DEVELOPMENT. In the 1960s the most profound contribution to the field was arguably the General Problem Solver of Newell and Simon. This was a multipurpose program aimed at simulating, using a computer, some human problem-solving methods. Unfortunately the technique employed was not particular efficient, and because of the time taken and memory requirements to solve even relatively straightforward real problems, the project was abandoned [….] The other significant contribution of the 1960s was that of Lofti Zadeh, with the introduction of the idea of 'fuzzy' sets and systems — meaning that computers do not have to operate in a merely binary, logical format, but can also perform in a human-like, 'fuzzy' way [….] Other than these examples, the 1960s was perhaps a time of some foolhardy claims regarding the potential of A.I. To copy and even perhaps recreate the entire workings of the human brain within a very short space of time. An observation in hindsight is that trying to get a computer to operate in exactly the same way as a human brain was rather like trying to make an aeroplane fly in the same way as a bird. In the latter case one would miss out on the good characteristics of the aeroplane, and so it was that A.I. Research at this time missed out on much of the good points on offer from computers [….] Unfortunately (and quite surprisingly), some of the limited thinking from the 1960s persists today. Some present textbooks (some even under the guise of modern A.I.) still concentrate merely on the classical approach of trying to get a computer to copy human intelligence, without truly considering the extent and exciting possibilities of different types of A.I. — in terms of machines being intelligent in their own way, not merely copying human intelligence [….] In this period, considerable effort did go into making computers understand and converse in natural, human language, rather than their more direct machine code. This was partly driven by Turing's ideas of intelligence, but also partly by a desire for computers to more readily interface with the real world [….] One of the best English-speaking computer programs was Josepgh Weisenbaum's ELIZA. Indeed, this was the first of what have become known as 'Chatterbots.' Even at this relatively early stage, some of its conversations were sufficiently realistic that some users occasionally were fooled into thinking they were communicating with a human rather than a computer [….] In fact, ELIZA generally gave a canned response or simply repeated what had been said to it, merely rephrasing the response with a few basic rules of grammar. However, it was shown that such an action appeared to adequately copy, to some extent, some of the conversational activities of humans [….] THE DARK AGES OF A.I. RESEARCH. After the excitement of the 1960s, with substantial research funding and claims of what would shortly be achieved in terms of A.I. Replicating human intelligence, the 1970s proved to be something of a let down, and in many ways was a Dark Age for A.I. Some of the more optimistic claims of the 1960s raised expectations to an extremely high level, and when the promised results failed to be realized, much of the research funding for A.I. disappeared [….] At the same time the field of neural networks — computers copying the neural make-up of the brain — came to a halt almost overnight due to a scathing attack from Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert on the inability of perceptrons to generalize in order to deal with certain types of relatively simple problems [….] It must be realized, however, that in the 1970s the capabilities of computers and therefore A.I. programs were quite limited in comparison with those of today. Even the best of the programs could only deal with simple versions of the problems they were aimed at solving; indeed, all the programs at that time were, in some sense, 'toy' programs. [….] Researchers had in fact run into several fundamental limits that would not be overcome until much later. The main one of these was limited computing power. There was nowhere near enough speed or memory for really useful tasks — an example of this from the time was Ross Quillan's natural language machine, which had to get by with a total vocabulary of 20 words! [….] However, the main problem was that A.I. tasks, such as getting a computer to communicate in a natural language or to understand the content of a picture in anything like a human way, required a lot of information and a lot of processing power, even to operate at a very low, restricted level. General, everyday objects in an image can be difficult for computers to discern, and what humans regard as common-sense reasoning about words and objects actually requires a lot of background information […] If the technical difficulties faced in the 1970s were not enough, the field also became an acceptable topic of interest to philosophers. For example, John Searle came up with his Chinese room argument to show that a computer cannot be said to 'understand' the symbols with which it communicates. Further, he argued, because of this machine cannot necessarily be described as 'thinking' — as Turing had previously postulated — purely in terms of symbol manipulation [….] Although many practical researchers simply got on with their jobs and avoided the flak, several philosophers (such as Searle) gave the strong impression that the actual achievements of A.I. would always be severely limited. Minsky said, of these people: 'They misunderstand, and should be ignored.' As a result, a lot of infighting occurred, which took the focus away from technical developments, and towards philosophical arguments which (in hindsight) many now see to be red herrings [….] Almost standing alone at the time, John McCarthy considered that how the human brain operates and what humans do is not directly relevant for A.I. He felt that what were really needed were machines that could solve problems — not necessarily computers that think in exactly the same way people do. Minsky was critical of this, claiming that understanding objects and conversing, to be done well, required a computer to think like a person. An so the arguments went on [….] THE A.I. RENAISSANCE. The 1980s saw something of a revival in A.I. This was due to three factors [….] First, many researchers followed McCarthy's lead and continued to developed A.I. systems from a practical point of view. To put it simply, they just got on with it. This period saw the development of 'expert systems', which were designed to deal with a very specific domain of knowledge — hence somewhat avoiding the arguments on a lack of 'common sense'. Although initially piloted in the 1970s, it was in the 1980s that such systems began to be used for actual, practical applications in industry [….] Second, although the philosophical discussions (and arguments) continued, particularly as regards to whether or not a machine could possibly think in the same way as a human, they seemed to do so largely independently of the practical A.I. work that was occurring. The two schools simply proceed with their own thing, the A.I. developers realizing practical industrial solutions without necessarily claiming that computer should or could behave like humans [….] Third, the parallel development of robotics started to have a considerable influence on A.I. In this respect a new paradigm arose in the belief that to exhibit 'real' intelligence, a computer needs to have a body in order to perceive, move and survive in the world. Without suck skills, the arguments goes, how can a computer ever be expected to behave in the same way as a human? Without these abilities, how could a computer experience common sense? So, the advent of a cybernetic influence on A.I. put much more
emphasis on building A.I. from the bottom up, the sort of approach, in fact originally postulated by McCulloch and Pitts ...” [270]

52.-) “ ... According to Cisco systems, worldwide Internet traffic increased by a factor of twelve in just the five years between 2006 and 2011, reaching 23.9 exabytes per month. An exabyte is a ridiculous big number, the equivalent of more than two hundred thousand of Watson's entire database. However, even this is not enough to capture the magnitude of current and future digitization. technology research firm IDC estimates that there were 2.7 zettabytes, or 2.7 sextillion bytes, of digital data in the world in 2012, almost half as much again as existed in 2011. And this data won't just sit on disc drives; it'll also move around. cisco predicts that global Internet Protocol traffic will reach 1.3 zettabytes by 2016. That's over 250 billion DVDs of information __[....]__ As these figures make clear, digitization yields truly big data. In fact, if this kind of growth keeps up for much longer we're going to run out of metric system. when its set of prefixes was expanded in 1991 at the nineteenth general conference on weights and measures, the largest one was yotta, signifying one septillion, or 1024. We're only one prefix away from that in the 'zettabyte era.' ...” [272]

53.-) “ … At this very moment, the cure for HIV might be unfolding in an auditorium-size room where a 683,000-pound [310,455-kilo] computer is making remarkable calculations far beyond the abilities of the human mind. The Blue Waters supercomputer is able to make profound discoveries in a single second that would take a simple calculator 32 million years [….] In the case of the HIV project, the supercomputer’s speed allowed researchers to translate the findings from experiments into a simulated animation that provided a clear view of a precise chemical structure involving 64 million atoms — something scientists have long struggled to understand in their search for a cure [….] A surprising two-thirds of supercomputers now perform Big Data analysis as part of their workload, according to a 2013 study by International Data Corp., or IDC. As IDC analyst Steve Conway puts it, '… Few people would have imagined at the dawn of the supercomputer era that [these] systems would be used to help design products ranging from cars and airplanes to golf clubs ... much less to enable a company ... to detect online consumer fraud in near-real time. But that is the new wave of supercomputers.' ...” [273]

54.-) “ … WE’VE HAD A BAD DECADE OR TWO IN THE UNITED STATES, IF NOT AROUND THE WORLD, FULL of nasty surprises and shocks. First 9/11, then the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that did not work out the way we anticipated. In the 1990s we were told there could be no more financial crises, which was reassuring until the Great Recession happened in 2008. The impact of the financial crisis was worse in Europe, all the more as it was imported from America. The Arab Spring—though welcomed at first—was largely a surprise; no one anticipated that the Ben Ali or Mubarak regimes would fold so fast or that authoritarianism could come back so quickly in the case of Egypt. Equally, two big natural disasters—Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy—showed us just how vulnerable we are. And how much we have failed to heed the warnings about extreme weather. Finally, more recently, Russian aggression against Crimea seems to have come out of the blue, rattling our assumptions about Cold War divisions having been overcome. [….] Another way is to see shocks and surprises as the new normal. There are multiple reasons: globalization, greater interconnectedness, new extreme weather patterns, and dynamic new technologies that are reaching tipping points. There is more than enough evidence from what we feel in our daily lives that change is ever increasing, making the future seem more unpredictable [….] ALL OF US WILL NEED MORE THAN LUCK TO SUCCEED AND EXCEL IN THIS NEW, FASTER-PACED WORLD. I believe we are in a new era that we are only just beginning to understand. Unlike in the past, the United States doesn’t have much margin for error. We do have to be smarter [….] In truth the future doesn’t have to be bad. But it could be if we don’t watch out. We’re at one of those junctures in which it could go different ways. But many of us don’t seem to care, or maybe believe we can’t do anything about it. In my view, that’s not so. We have so many ways to ensure it does go in a direction that benefits us all [….] Which way is the Middle East headed? Will we live in a nuclear-proliferated world? What are the key threats facing the United States? Are we winning the global war on terrorism? I briefed Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama on them. They are used in strategic planning by the White House, State Department, Pentagon, and others. Within the intelligence community they are used to think about how to position intelligence operations for the future [….] WE CAN AND SHOULD PLAN FOR OUR FUTURE. I have grown more and more concerned that we Americans are not planning for the future. Part of that may be ignorance about the sheer magnitude of the developments unfolding. Never has humankind stood at the threshold of so much technological change, for example, where the ground is moving under our feet. As I’ll address in this work, human nature is being transformed. The old limitations—whether in mental or physical capabilities—are being lifted. For billions of people in the developing world, it is not a cliché to say that a new and more prosperous era is dawning that was unimaginable even two or three decades ago [….] As Americans, we should revel in those changes. The liberal world order we established after 1945 allowed other nations and societies to prosper and rise. Today’s more multipolar world is part of the US dream, and we should glory in it [….] Unfortunately, we seem to feel increasingly threatened by it. Multipolar was not a word in the official government lexicon until recently, and many in the Washington foreign policy establishment are still loath to acknowledge the less US-dominated order [….] We should not have had to argue about what was reality. We should have been proud and not threatened by it [….] The United States’ relative decline was another term I used that was highly controversial in the last two editions. Some US critics thought I was undercutting the United States by using it in an official government document. Ironically, senior Chinese officials puzzled over why it was used in an official document but concluded it showed that the United States was indeed so confident about itself that it could be open about its weaknesses. I don’t think relative decline represents a weakness, just a fact that the rest of the world is getting richer. But I think the Chinese are right that we have nothing to be embarrassed about. And the fact that we can be frank about ourselves gives the document an enormous amount of credibility in others’ eyes [….] It’s a shame we spend so much time on the decline issue because the world ahead offers so many opportunities for the United States. It’s still the case that much of the world—though not all—wants basic elements of our way of living—the traditional middle-class lifestyle that obviously involves materialism like cars and houses but also the freedoms that Americans have and the ability to plan for their children’s future. So much of the rest of the world until relatively recently could not hope for a better future for their children. If it happened, it was either by fluke or by birthright. The growth of the middle class—a big theme you’ll see—is tailor-made for America as it engages others in this more multipolar world [….] For me, while a lot about the trends is worth celebrating, there is justification for worry. You could say there’s a lot of TREACHEROUS DRIVING AHEAD AS WE NAVIGATE SLIPPERY PAVEMENT, DANGEROUS HAIRPIN TURNS, and a lot of sheer drops along the side of the road. Having our wits about us is key. THE PROBLEM IS THAT THERE ARE SO MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF DANGEROUS THREATS TO KEEP OUR EYES ON. It would be far easier if there were just a couple threats that we knew were definitely out there. A theme in the book is that individuals and small groups have the ability to do harm on a level formerly reserved for states. In government, we’ve had almost five centuries of experience—at least in the West—of navigating our way in the state-run international order. But this is a new world in which you have to worry about terrorists blowing up iconic buildings in Manhattan or Washington. The British in the heyday of the Empire also had their worries about Afghan jihadism, but it never threatened London. Irish terrorists did explode bombs in the imperial capital, but there was no hijacking of airplanes and ramming them into buildings, causing massive casualties. Sadly for the future, the kind of destruction witnessed on 9/11 is the tip of the iceberg of what terrorists, insurgents, and states can do [….] I can’t tell you how many times US government officials—particularly when they are frustrated by the nebulousness of terrorist or insurgent threats—have leaned back in their chairs and gazed out wistfully, murmuring t hat it was so much easier in t he Cold War. In t he Cold War, we knew who the enemy was (the Soviets and Communism) and what they wanted (world domination). And even when the liberation struggles were waged in Central America or Africa, at least we thought we knew who the real enemy was behind it all. We’re again seeing rising tensions with Russia over its aggression in Ukraine, but I don’t believe we’re going back to a bipolar world of two superpowers trying to stare down each other. Unfortunately, it’s going to be a lot messier if the world is both globalized at one level and also fragmented as multipolarity increases [….] We’ve gone from a black-and-white to a gray world, and at an intellectual level we know this change to be true. However, in our hearts we are still searching for that clean and simple explanation for the new era that is unfolding. We all want to be a latter-day George Kennan, who invented the concept of Soviet containment. It was a clean and concise concept that gave meaning and direction for all our actions in the Cold War [….] I wish it were that easy. The best definition I’ve found of the era that we’re in comes from the opening lines of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities—that entrancing and enduring novel about the French Revolution that began in 1789: ' … It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. . . . ; Dickens wrote that at a time of immense change when the outcome was not apparent. We’re in a similar period. Besides 1789, I would compare this time to other pivotal historic moments like 1815, 1919, 1945, or 1989, when existing political, social, and economic systems were upended. Either we take charge and direct the needed changes or change will take charge of us. Although profiled once in Foreign Policy as 'the Fatalist,' I am far from it [….] The whole purpose of this book is to help us shape the future. As an American, I think the stakes are particularly high for the country’s standing in the world and for ordinary Americans who want to maintain their quality of life, but the stakes are high for everyone, everywhere. The justifiable inclination after being at war for over a decade is that Americans want to turn to problems at home. And there are urgent challenges that have been ignored for too long. However, without staying engaged and shaping the global environment, there won’t be a bright future either. So we must do both, which won’t be easy [….] This volume seeks to forge a comprehensive look on the future. Too many books on the future deal just with one or two strands, providing a distorted view. Many play up the bleaker or scarier aspects, which is easy to do [….] It is important, though, to put all the changes into context, because what we are looking at is a systems change. Just as the French Revolution and advent of mass manufacturing portrayed by Dickens in his novels ushered in a new era of nationalism, class conflict, and budding democratic politics, we are witnessing profound structural changes that will lead to a wholly different world. Or, as an American Indian
proverb puts it, '… For new music, a new dance is needed …' [….] Yes, we are in for some big structural changes. And I do agree with science fiction writer William Gibson: '… The future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed ….' We often have difficulty understanding the future’s significance. The past won’t disappear, either; it will continue to exert an influence on how we approach the future. There will be choices we will need to make about the kind of future we want. And it is up to us to choose. Hopefully this book will help us all make the right choices ...” [273]

55.-) “ … Scenario thinking is about freedom. In Western societies, people are ostensibly free, but they feel constrained by the unpredictability of events. Every year, every decade, we’re surprised by social or technological upheavals that appear suddenly, surprisingly. HOW CAN PEOPLE, BUSINESSES, AND INSTITUTIONS PLAN FOR THE FUTURE WHEN THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT TOMORROW WILL BRING? IN THIS UNPREDICTABLE CONTEXT, FREEDOM IS THE ABILITY TO ACT BOTH WITH CONFIDENCE AND A FULL KNOWLEDGE OF UNCERTAINTY. [….] To act with confidence, one must be willing to look ahead and consider uncertainties: "What challenges could the world present me? How might others respond to my actions?" RATHER THAN ASKING SUCH QUESTIONS, TOO MANY PEOPLE REACT TO UNCERTAINTY WITH DENIAL. They take an unconsciously deterministic view of events. THEY TAKE IT FOR GRANTED THAT SOME THINGS JUST CAN’T AND WON’T HAPPEN; for example, "oil prices won’t collapse," or "the Cold War can’t ever end." Since they haven’t tried to foresee surprising events, they’re at a loss for ways to act when upheaval continues. THEY CREATE BLIND SPOTS FOR THEMSELVES. [….] Scenarios are a tool for helping us to take a long view in a world of great uncertainty. Scenarios are stories about the way the world might turn out tomorrow, stories that can help us recognize and adapt to changing aspects of our present environment. They form a method for articulating the different pathways that might exist for you tomorrow, and finding your appropriate movements down each of those possible paths. Scenario planning is about making choices today with an understanding of how they might turn out. [….] In this context the precise definition of 'scenario' is: a tool for ordering one’s perceptions about alternative future environments in which one’s decisions might be played out. Alternatively, scenarios can be regarded as a set of organized ways to dream effectively about our future. These stories are built around carefully constructed 'plots' that make the significant elements stand out boldly. This approach is more a disciplined way of thinking than a formal methodology. [….] I’ve used scenarios with some of the world’s largest businesses and government institutions, and I’ve used them in starting a small business and in making personal decisions about my diet and health. You could use scenarios to plan a business, to choose an education, to look for a job, to judge an investment, or even to contemplate marriage. [….] SCENARIOS CAN OFTEN HELP PEOPLE FORESEE DECISIONS—USUALLY DIFFICULT DECISIONS—THAT THEY WOULD OTHERWISE MISS OR DENY. [….] SCENARIOS ARE NOT PREDICTIONS. It’s simply not possible to predict the future with certainty. An old Arab proverb says that, '... he who predicts the future lies even if he tells the truth ....' Rather, scenarios are vehicles for helping people learn. Unlike traditional business forecasting or market research, they present alternative images; they don’t merely extrapolate the trends of the present. One common trend, for instance, is the U.S. birthrate. In the early 1970s, it hovered around 3 million births per year. Forecasters at the U.S. Census Bureau projected that this 'trend' would continue forever. Schools, which had been rushed into construction during the baby boom of the fifties and early sixties, were now closed down and sold. Policymakers did not consider that the birthrate might rise again suddenly. BUT A SCENARIO MIGHT HAVE CONSIDERED THE LIKELIHOOD THAT ORIGINAL BABY BOOM CHILDREN, REACHING THEIR LATE THIRTIES, WOULD SUDDENLY HAVE CHILDREN OF THEIR OWN. IN 1979, THE U.S. BIRTHRATE BEGAN TO RISE; IN 1990, IT WAS ALMOST BACK TO THE 4 MILLION OF THE FIFTIES. [….] OFTEN, MANAGERS PREFER THE ILLUSION OF CERTAINTY TO UNDERSTANDING RISKS AND REALITIES. IF THE FORECASTER FAILS IN HIS TASK, HOW CAN THE MANAGER BE BLAMED? BUT IN THE LONG RUN, THIS DENIAL OF UNCERTAINTY SETS THE STAGE FOR SURPRISES, SHATTERING THE MANAGER’S CONFIDENCE IN HER ABILITY TO LOOK AHEAD. Scenarios allow a manager to say, 'I am prepared for whatever happens.' It’s this ability to act with a knowledgeable sense of risk and reward that separates both the business executive and the wise individual from a bureaucrat or a gambler. [….] Scenarios first emerged following World War II, as a method for military planning. The U.S. Air Force tried to imagine what its opponents might do, and to prepare alternative strategies. In the 1960s, Herman Kahn, who had been part of the Air Force effort, REFINED SCENARIOS AS A TOOL FOR BUSINESS PROGNOSTICATION. He became America’s top futurist, predicting the inevitability of growth and prosperity. But scenarios reached a new dimension in the early 1970s, with the work of an amazing individual named Pierre Wack. In 1968, Wack was a planner in the London offices of Royal Dutch/Shell, the international oil enterprise, in a newly-formed department called Group Planning. [….] Pierre and other planners at Royal Dutch/Shell (notably his colleague Ted Newland) were looking for events that might affect the price of oil. It had been more or less steady since World War II. Oil was, in fact, seen as a strategic commodity; consuming nations would do what they could to keep the price low, since the prosperity of their economies depended on oil. But there were several significant events in the air. [….] First, the United States was beginning to exhaust its oil reserves. Meanwhile, American demand for oil was steadily rising. And the emerging Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was showing signs of flexing its political muscle. Most of these countries were Islamic, and they bitterly resented Western support of Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six-Day War. [….] Looking closely at the situation, Pierre and Ted realized that the Arabs could demand much higher prices for their oil. There was every reason that they would. The only uncertainty was when, though it seemed likely to happen before 1975, when old oil price agreements were due to be renegotiated. They wrote up two sets of scenarios—each a complete set of stories about the future, with tables of projected price figures. One story presented the conventional wisdom at Royal Dutch/Shell which went like this: somehow, the oil price would stay stable. In order for that to happen, a miracle would have to occur; new oil fields, for instance, might have to appear in non-Arab countries. The second scenario looked at the more plausible future—an oil-price crisis sparked by OPEC. Shell’s directors listened carefully as Pierre presented these two scenarios. The directors understood the implications: THEY REALIZED THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR BUSINESS DRASTICALLY. [….] Pierre waited for a change in behavior at Royal Dutch/Shell, but no change in behavior came. That’s when he developed his breakthrough: scenarios, as he later put it, should be 'more than water on a stone.' To be truly effective, they had to 'change our managers’ view of reality.' In this new type of scenario, there were no more simple tales of possible futures. Instead, PIERRE DESCRIBED THE FULL RAMIFICATIONS OF POSSIBLE OIL PRICE SHOCKS. He tried to make people feel those shocks. 'Prepare!' he told oil refiners and marketers. 'You are about to become a low-growth industry.' He warned the drillers and explorers who sought new oil to get ready for the possibility that OPEC countries would take over their oil fields. Most importantly, Pierre vividly pointed to the forces in the world, and what sorts of influences those forces had to have. He helped managers imagine the decisions they might have to make as a result. [….] And he was just in time. IN OCTOBER 1973, AFTER THE 'YOM KIPPUR' WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST, THERE WAS AN OIL PRICE SHOCK. THE 'ENERGY CRISIS' BURST UPON THE WORLD. Of the major oil companies, ONLY SHELL WAS PREPARED EMOTIONALLY FOR THE CHANGE. The company’s executives responded quickly. During the following years, Shell’s fortunes rose. From one of the weaker of the so-called 'Seven Sisters,' the seven largest global oil companies, it became one of the two largest (after Exxon) and, arguably, the most profitable. [….] TO OPERATE IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD, PEOPLE NEEDED TO BE ABLE TO REPERCEIVE, TO QUESTION THEIR ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS, SO THAT THEY COULD SEE THE WORLD MORE CLEARLY. The purpose of scenarios is to help you change your view of reality—to match it up more closely with reality as it is, and reality as it is going to be. [….] THE END RESULT, HOWEVER, IS NOT AN ACCURATE PICTURE OF TOMORROW, BUT BETTER DECISIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE. The planner and the executive are partners in taking a long view. Thus, while Pierre Wack’s seminal role is at the heart of this story, IT WAS THOUGHTFUL AND FARSIGHTED SHELL EXECUTIVES who offered him that role in the first place, provided him with the resources he needed, and paid him the compliment of listening to him and taking him seriously. [….] PIERRE WACK WAS NOT INTERESTED IN PREDICTING THE FUTURE. HIS GOAL WAS THE LIBERATION OF PEOPLE’S INSIGHTS. HIS METHODS WERE THE INSPIRATION FOR THE ART OF THE LONG VIEW. [….] AT SHELL, PIERRE HAD ALSO COME TO BELIEVE THAT IF YOU WANTED TO SEE THE FUTURE YOU COULD NOT GO TO CONVENTIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION. Everyone else would know them as well and thus you would have no unique advantage. YOU HAD TO SEEK OUT TRULY UNUSUAL PEOPLE WHO HAD THEIR FINGER ON THE PULSE OF CHANGE, WHO COULD SEE SIGNIFICANT BUT SURPRISING FORCES FOR CHANGE. THESE PEOPLE WOULD BE FOUND IN VERY DIFFERENT WALKS OF LIFE, ALL OVER THE WORLD. [….] I took the plunge as an entrepreneur starting, with a few friends, a new style of organization called Global Business Network, bringing together people from many different fields to help companies gain insight into the future. What follows is based upon what I learned along the way about how to take the long
view. [….] I know many people who are deeply pessimistic about the future; even people who are well known and financially secure, people with loving families, people who live in the wealthiest countries in the world. But I’m personally optimistic: I believe that a better political vision is emerging. [….] It sounds like science fiction, but I take the ideas of the growth hormone seriously because I have followed news about genetic engineering since the early 1980s. I do not say, even to myself, that such a hormone will exist. I am willing to admit only that it could—and that it would be wise to think about its ramifications in advance. The implications are profound. Population forecasts would be immediately made wrong; demographic projections depend on the birthrate and on average life spans (the death rate). If those assumptions are off by 30 percent, it could mean a population growth curve rising exponentially from previous projections. If the hormone extends the childbearing age for women, it could dramatically increase the birthrate as well. [….] I DON’T MEAN TO SUGGEST THAT YOU SPEND ALL YOUR WAKING HOURS CONSIDERING ARCANE POSSIBILITIES. THE TRICK IS FINDING THOSE POSSIBILITIES TO CONSIDER WHICH ARE SIGNIFICANT. [….] THIS INVASION BY ACTIVE KNOWLEDGE TENDS TO TRANSFORM MAN’S ENVIRONMENT AND MAN HIMSELF—to what extent, with what risks, what deviations from the basic conditions of existence and of the preservation of life we simply do not know. Life has become, in short, the object of an experiment of which we can say only one thing—that it tends to estrange us more and more from what we were, or what we think we are, and that it is leading us…we do not know, and can by no means imagine, where. [….] IN OTHER WORDS, NOT JUST OUR LIVELIHOODS, BUT OUR SOULS ARE ENDANGERED—UNLESS WE LEARN TO DISTINGUISH THE SIGNIFICANT ASPECTS OF THE FUTURE. [….] Scenarios deal with two worlds,' wrote Pierre Wack. 'The world of facts and the world of perceptions. They explore for facts but they aim at perceptions inside the heads of decision makers. Their purpose is to gather and transform information of strategic significance into fresh perceptions.' Pierre continued: 'This transformation process is not trivial—more often than not it does not happen. When it works, it is a creative experience that generates a heartfelt ‘Aha!’ from your managers and leads to strategic insights beyond the mind’s previous reach.' …” [274]

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

ON KNOWLEDGE DOUBLINGS BY HARD SCIENCE, HI-TECH AND EFFICIENCY:

Incidentally, every Scientific and Technological Progression available that is into a “ ...doubling ...” order of magnitude is synthesized here:

Doubling A: (# 1 of 12)

“... HUMAN KNOWLEDGE IS DOUBLING EVERY TEN YEARS [AS PER THE 1998 STANDARDS]. In the past decade, more scientific knowledge has been created than in all of human history ...” (http://bit.ly/1nOc5Xm ). Brackets are of the author. [226]

Doubling B: (# 2 of 12)

“... COMPUTER POWER IS DOUBLING EVERY EIGHTEEN MONTHS. THE INTERNET IS DOUBLING EVERY YEAR. THE NUMBER OF DNA SEQUENCES WE CAN ANALYZE IS DOUBLING EVERY TWO YEARS ...” (http://bit.ly/1gn4CdX ) [226]

Doubling C: (# 3 of 12)

“ … IN FACT, BECAUSE BOTH COMPUTER POWER AND DNA SEQUENCING DOUBLE ROUGHLY EVERY TWO YEARS, ONE CAN COMPUTE THE ROUGH TIME FRAME OVER WHICH MANY SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGHS WILL TAKE PLACE [….] BY 2020 ...” (http://bit.ly/1lZQ1Vc) [226]

Doubling D: (# 4 of 12)

“... SCIENTIFIC MANPOWER IS DOUBLING EVERY 12 YEARS IN A RATE OF GROWTH MORE THAN THREE TIMES THAT OF OUR POPULATION AS A WHOLE, DESPITE THAT, THE VAST STRETCHES OF THE UNKNOWN AND THE UNANSWERED AND THE UNFINISHED STILL FAR OUTSTRIP OUR COLLECTIVE COMPREHENSION ...” [80] (http://1.usa.gov/1eyRLTK). [226]

Doubling E: (# 5 of 12)

“ … THE FIRST DOUBLING OF THAT KNOWLEDGE TOOK PLACE ABOUT 1700 A.D. THE SECOND DOUBLING OCCURRED AROUND THE YEAR 1900. IT IS ESTIMATED TODAY THAT THE WORLD'S KNOWLEDGE BASE WILL DOUBLE AGAIN BY 2010 AND AGAIN AFTER THAT BY 2013 ...” [37] (http://bit.ly/1iptmkn). [226]

Doubling F: (# 6 of 12)

“... [THERE IS A] DOUBLING EVERY TWO YEARS [REGARDING THE TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT OF] SOLAR ENERGY BY APPLYING NANOTECHNOLOGY TO SOLAR PANELS ...” [177] (http://bit.ly/1jgckIJ). Brackets are of the author. [226]

Doubling G: (# 7 of 12)

“... NANO-GENETIC SEQUENCING DATA … IS DOUBLING EVERY YEAR...” [177] (http://slidesha.re/1f3MUH2). [226]

Doubling I: (# 8 of 12)

“... KNOWLEDGE IS DOUBLING BY EVERY FOURTEEN MONTHS ...” [177] (http://bit.ly/1dc8Zb4). [226]

Doubling J: (# 9 of 12)

“... MORE THAN THE DOUBLING OF COMPUTATIONAL POWER [IS TAKING PLACE] EVERY YEAR ...” [177] (http://bit.ly/1mn8Btl). Brackets are of the author. [226]

Doubling K: (# 10 of 12)

“... Like Moore’s Law for silicon electronics, which says that computers are growing exponentially smaller and more powerful every year, molecular systems developed with DNA nanotechnology have been doubling in size roughly every three years …,” says Professor Erik Winfree at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). [197] (http://bit.ly/1f3NEMq). [217] [226]

Doubling J: (# 11 of 12)

“ … ONCE NONBIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE GETS A FOOTHOLD IN THE HUMAN BRAIN (THIS HAS ALREADY STARTED WITH COMPUTERIZED NEURAL IMPLANTS), THE MACHINE INTELLIGENCE IN OUR BRAINS WILL GROW EXPONENTIALLY (AS IT HAS BEEN DOING ALL ALONG), AT LEAST DOUBLING IN POWER EACH YEAR ...” [237]

Doubling K: (# 12 of 12)

“ … IN CHINA [AUTOMATION-BASED PRODUCTIVITY] IT DOUBLED, JUST BASED ON GDP PER EMPLOYEE DUE TO USE OF MACHINES ...” [241]

END OF PREFACE CITATIONS.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

N.B.: In no way am I suggesting to be amused by these forceful technological innovations and changed changes above. These are only forces, beyond the material control of any single human, that are seriously observed and considered by me.

NOTWITHSTANDING, THE HUMAN RACE MUST DECIDE WHICH DETERMINATION TO MAKE ABOUT THOSE FORCES QUICKLY.

To the end above, Prof. Gary Hamel, Ph.D. argued, “... Denial is tragic. Delay is deadly ...”

And Albert Einstein determined, “... It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity … We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive ...”

And Dr. Aubrey de Grey PhD. establishes, “... To solve a very complicated problem, you generally need a fairly complicated [and complex] solution [in advance] ..." Brackets are of the author.

And to second Dr. Aubrey de Grey PhD., we now have,

“... Outdated mental models and assumptions keep us stuck in old patterns [….] Often we don't even realize it until it is too late ...” [233]

AND:

“ ... The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics and cynics …. We need people who can dream things that never were ...” — John F. Kennedy

Having indicated that:

The near and far-out futures will be based on the knowledge, science and technologies that exist today.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

QUESTION: IN CORPORATE SETTINGS, IS THERE AN OUTRIGHT COUNTERMEASSURING WHITE SWAN TO THE BLACK SWAN?

The White Swan Proven Idea (through omniscient-truthful evidences and real-world measurable and repeatable outcomes, acquired and audited by own corporations' applied managing scientists) — only concerning organizations of a rational-type structure such as corporations, start-ups by entrepreneurs, coalitions, consortia, joint ventures, governments, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, supranational organizations, armed forces, charities, not-for-profit corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, universities, various types of political organizations, semi-public-agencies, hybrid organizations (acting in public and private sectors), voluntary associations, unions, clubs and religious organizations — puts forward that, although and sometimes disproportionately high-profile, hard-to-predict, persistently threatening and disruptive, as well as rare events are mostly unpredictable, yet a visionary and savvy organization can, anyway, make unprecedented and auspicious early-on preparations to address huge potential disruptions and downside futures through (beforehand) « ...Transformative and Integrative Risk Management ...» interdisciplinary problem-solving and proactive decision-making methodology, also known as TAIRM. (That is: Feet-on-the-ground problem solving).

White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management interdisciplinary methodology is a fancy name for a manager's toolkit for continuously securing lucrative success.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

By “...corporate ...” and “...corporations...” the author means to state immeasurable large global for-lucre corporations whose outputted services and products are mostly manufactured tangibles.

A good brief example of what I do NOT mean are, for instance, Investment Banks or Stock-Market Traders and Stock-Market Brokers.

I am only interested in Fortune-7 Corporations. That is, Multizillion-dollar corporations (sic).

WHITE SWAN AND TRANSFORMATIVE AND INTEGRATIVE RISK MANAGEMENT ARE NEVER INTO:

(I.-) Divination,

(II.-) Soothsaying,

(III.-) Foretelling,

(IV.-) Predictioneering,

(V.-) Futurism,

(VI.-) Futurity,

(VII.-) Futilitarianism,

(VIII.-) Hunches-telling,

(IX.-) First-Guessing,

(X.-) Second-Guessing,
.
(XI.-) Fortunetelling,

(XII.-) Prophesying,

(XIII.-) Presaging,

(XIV.-) Premonition, and

XV.-) Visioneering.

AND TO THIS UTTER PURPOSE, LET US CONSIDER THIS QUOTATION:

“ … The time for peering into tea leaves or reading astrological charts should be long over. We should leave entertaining divinations to storefront psychics ...”

AND THIS QUOTATION TOO:

“ … Like kings of old dispensing with their astrologers, big business is sacking its economic soothsayers. Their stargazing proved entertaining and interesting — but not very useful ...” FORBES (Jan/21/1991)

CAN WE PREDICT THE FUTURE? I get the question all the time. Of course, the answer is no. No one has a crystal ball. But we can know enough about the future that we can plan and get ultimately prepared as we plan. There is a difference between prediction and foresight. Prediction is trying to divine the precise future—an impossible task. Foresight is understanding the factors or variables that can or may produce the future. Inevitably, foresight talks about alternative futures— because how we shape those trends can lead to different futures. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous saying that ' … plans are worthless, but planning is everything ...' is good advice here. Thinking systematically about the future—even if we can’t exactly foretell it—helps us prepare for it.

AND TO THIS END, LET US ADDITIONALLY CONSIDER:

“ … That it is possible for us to anticipate actions, to predict the future, and, by looking for ways to change incentives, to engineer the future across a stunning range of considerations that involve human decision making. That's not to say it's easy, or that it's a mere matter of anecdote and reflection there's hard science, theory, and some mind-bending arithmetic that come into play — but it is possible, and given what we've seen when humans in power run amok, whether in chateaus or boardrooms, it's preferable to letting the chips fall where they may or to saving our better ideas, regrets, and outrage for when they usually appear — that is, when they're too late __[....]__ It so happens I've been predicting future events for three decades, often in print before the fact, and mostly getting them right. Don't get me wrong — I'm no soothsayer and I have no patience for crystal ball gazers, astrologers, or even most pundits. In my world, science, not mumbo-jumbo, is the way to anticipate people's choices and their consequences for altering the future. I use game theory — we'll talk later about what that means — to do just that for the U.S. government, big corporations, and sometimes ordinary folks too. In fact, I have made hundreds, even thousands of predictions — a great many of them in print, ready to be scrutinized by any naysayer. There is nothing uncanny about my ability to predict. Anyone can learn to use scientific reasoning to do what I do ...” [235]

Back to the White Swan hardcore.

To this purpose and given to me by a Sephardi Hebrew, an Arab adage argues,

“... The one who foretells the future correctly, lies even if he is telling the truth ...”

WHITE SWAN AND TRANSFORMATIVE AND INTEGRATIVE RISK MANAGEMENT ARE ONLY INTO SCIENTIFIC FUTURING AND OTHER PROPRIETARY AMENITIES, BETTER EXPLAINED BELOW.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Transformative and Integrative Risk Management has been successfully utilized in a wide variety of applications: telecommunications, health care, criminal justice, offshore oil drilling, coal mining, commercial space, petrochemicals, environmental protection, mass transit, food processing, nuclear power, aviation, and terrorism control.

Important risks tackled: legal, technological, environmental, security, safety, cyber, political, or human.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

White Swan and Transformative and Integrative Risk Management interdisciplinary methodology enthusiastically exploits every aspect, facet and phase of negative and positive risks and downside and upside futures, to further and continuously outright sequester continuous and sustainable lucre and profitable ongoing growth, including the following defined amenities. With the sponsorship of Ancient Greek and Modern Greek, each amenity will be thereby numbered and/or lettered:

Alpha.- Serendipity.— Serendipity means a "fortuitous happenstance" and/or "pleasant surprise" and/or “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”. And also entails unexpected positive and beneficial accident(s) [….] And the art of finding something unintended [….] the common experience of observing unexpected, anomalous and strategic data and events, which are transformed into the instance and context to develop a new theory or to complement an existing theory [….] And the faculty of making fortunate Technological Breakthroughs and Scientific Discoveries And Innovation Developments by accident, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles and tangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits and planes [….] Unexpected Accidental Beneficial Discoveries in Science, Technology, Strategy, Business and Management ...”

Beta.- Pseudoserendipity.— Pseudoserendipity means PURPOSEFULLY CREATING the constant preconditions and conditions to seize "fortuitous happenstance" and/or "pleasant surprise" and/or “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”. And also entails unexpected positive and beneficial accident(s) [….] the art of finding something unintended [….] the common experience of observing unexpected, anomalous and strategic data and events, which are transformed into the instance and context to develop a new theory or to complement an existing theory [….] And the faculty of making fortunate Technological Breakthroughs and Scientific Discoveries And Innovation Developments by accident, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles and tangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits and planes [….] Somewhat Expected Accidental Beneficial Discoveries in Science, Technology, Strategy, Business and Management ...”

Gamma.- Randomness (Randomness means lack of pattern or predictability in events. Randomness suggests a non-order or non-coherence in a sequence of symbols or steps, such there is no intelligible pattern or combination, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Delta.- Pseudo-Randomness (Pseudo-Randomness means quasi-lacking of pattern or quasi-predictability in events. Pseudo-Randomness suggests a quasi-non-order or quasi-non-coherence in a sequence of symbols or steps, such there is no intelligible pattern or combination, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Epsilon.- Fuzzy Logic: (A form of algebra employing a range of values from "true" to "false" as it is used in proactive decision-making with imprecise data, as in artificial intelligence systems, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Zeta.- Pseudo-Fuzzy Logic: (A form of algebra employing a range of values from quasi-"true" to quasi-"false" as it is used in proactive decision-making with quasi-imprecise data, as in artificial intelligence systems, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Eta.- Fortuitousness (Unexpected and casually happening[s], as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Theta.- Pseudo-fortuitousness (quasi-unexpected and quasi-casually happening[s], as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Iota.- Recursiveness (pertaining to or using a rule or procedure that can be applied repeatedly, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Kappa.- Pseudo-recursiveness (quasi-pertaining to or using a rule or procedure that can be applied repeatedly, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Lambda.- Haphazardness (the quality of lacking any predictable order or plan, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Mu.- Pseudo-Haphazardness (the quality of quasi-lacking any predictable order or plan, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Nu.- Mishaps (an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon, causing an event to result one way rather than another, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Xi.- Pseudo-Mishaps (a quasi-unknown and quasi-unpredictable phenomenon, causing an event to result one way rather than another, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniversal: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

What is the White Swan Target?

In a nutshell:

(A.-) Most Advanced Management (chiefly by applied Scientific Method), and

(B.-) Most Exponential Dynamic Driving Forces.

And in achieving “A.-” and “B.-” above, again and again, thoroughness and completeness will be redefined by several nonlinear orders of geometrical magnitude.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

White Swan Dictionary:

White Swan has its own dictionary at the end of this work. And it can be also seen at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/dictionary

Who is the White Swan Audience?

1.- Mr. David Shaw,
2.- Drew,
3.- Andy,
4.- Pervasive Technologists and Scientists,
5.- Extremely radiant Corporation's Officers,
6.- Forcefully irradiant Management Practitioners, Business Owners and Serious Entrepreneurs,
7.- People who love K.I.S.S., “Keep It Scientific, Savant.” And that impiously reject K.I.S.S.: “Keep It Simple, Stupid”,
8.- Anyone who reads and studies, and
8.- Others.

If you don't like strongest and most subtle thinking, the White Swan is never for you.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

THE POWER OF GRANDIOSE IDEAS ….

Something that I relentlessly embrace at all times.

“...Google's Chief Engineer Officer Dr. Raymond Kurzweil's, with 19 doctoral degrees, relatives escaped the Holocaust '... BECAUSE THEY USED THEIR MINDS. THAT'S ACTUALLY THE PHILOSOPHY OF MY FAMILY …. THE POWER OF HUMAN IDEAS. I remember my grandfather coming back from his first return visit to Europe. I was seven and he told me he'd been given the opportunity to handle — with his own hands — original documents by LEONARDO DA VINCI. HE TALKED ABOUT IT IN VERY REVERENTIAL TERMS, LIKE THESE WERE SACRED DOCUMENTS. But they weren't handed down to us by God. They were created by a guy, a person. A SINGLE HUMAN HAD BEEN VERY INFLUENTIAL AND HAD CHANGED THE WORLD. THE MESSAGE WAS THAT HUMAN IDEAS CHANGED THE WORLD. AND THAT IS THE ONLY THING THAT COULD CHANGE THE WORLD ...” [231]

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

A NOTICE TO CORPORATIONS (I OF IV):

My White Swan Tranformative and Integrative Risk Management's Corporate Clients will NEVER get Sputnik Moments (sic.).

A NOTICE TO CORPORATIONS (II OF IV):

My White Swan Tranformative and Integrative Risk Management's Corporate Clients will get a spelled-out of the totality of their upcoming:

(A.-) Positive Risks,

(B.-) Negative Risks,

(C.-) Upside Futures,

(D.-) Downside Futures,

(E.-) Positive and Upside Dynamic Driving Forces,

(F.-) Negative and Downside Dynamic Driving Forces,

(G.-) Positive and Upside Counter-Dynamic Driving Forces, and

(H.-) Negative and Downside Counter-Dynamic Driving Forces.

Items A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H above will be infinitely up-exploited and outsmarted and superseded, in order to augment Corporation’s hyperbolic cash sequestration and its SUSTAINABILITY within SUCCESS and PREVAIL, regardless of the Uncharted Waters and Incognito Territories.

My amazing mother used to say, “...Andres, the one seeks it is the one who finds it...”

Incidentally:

DARPA has a nice adage:

“ ...If you are not failing frequently, you are not succeeding enough ...”

And it can be further clarified and enhanced by:

“ ...If you are not failing frequently [trough pervasive and forceful, yet well-directed error-and-trial real-life experiments to avoid the emergence of Black Swans], you are not succeeding enough [and, therefore, you are not securing the White Swan that will ascertain that your corporation stays lucrative, grows fiscally sound and thrives though any rogue swirl of change]...” Brackets are of the author.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

A NOTICE TO CORPORATIONS (III OF IV):

Corporate Chairpersons and CEOs MUST NEVER accept spoken interviews and presentations and other ORAL EXCHANGES, UNLESS and UNLESS alone, within the ensuing 24-hours, those Chairpersons and CEOs get a most solid, thorough, complete and well-written hard-copied material of spoken interviews and presentations and other ORAL EXCHANGES.

This is not done to capture the legally-binding “...trails...” of their verbal output, but to hold them morally and ethically responsible in everything communicated by executives to Chairpersons and CEOs.

This author is not going to elaborate in the sine qua non instrumentality in the bridged version. Doing it would take other unabridged tome.

Any serious Corporation it is so when everything spoken, including “...hello...”, is extremely documented, both digitally and physically.

I like talking but once the fundamentals HAVE BEEN FIRST dealt with in abundant writing.

I reject professionals, executives, Chairpersons and CEOs who are not into detailed writing.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

A NOTICE TO CORPORATIONS (IV OF IV):

Only my Corporate Clients and Customers will get, through White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management the following:

(1.-) Extremely-detailed Predictions for the Short-, Mid- and Long-Term.

(2.-) Most Robust and Detailed Operational Plans to Lucre and Profit from (1.-) above.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Transformative and Integrative Risk Management is a multifarious methodology.

The reader has been warned. This is a “...brute force...” and “ … subtle force ...” interdisciplinary problem-solving and proactive decision-making approach. (That is: Feet-on-the-ground problem solving).

Through thorough application of Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (the exact opposite of insurance-based risk unmanagement), White Swan can be hereunder explained abundantly.

Let us briefly define Eureka Moment and Sputnik Moment now:

“ … The Eureka Moment, also known as the '...Aha! Moment ...', refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept. The Eureka effect is named after the myth that the Greek polymath Archimedes, having discovered how to measure the volume of an irregular object, leaped out of a public bath, and ran home naked shouting 'eureka' (I found it) ...”

And:

“ … The Sputnik Moment is a point in time in which a country or a society or even a corporation, realizes that it needs to catch up with the apparent technological and scientific gap which exists between it and some other superpower and/or global competitors, increasing its investment efforts into education and innovative R&D&I ...”

And Litmus Test:

“... A critical indication of future success or failure ...”

Coming Back to the White Swan hardcore:

The author (a manager, consultant, researcher and strategist into beyond-insurance risk management and scientific futuring) has a sufficient tangible number of unimpeachable actual corporate cases, attained through 33-year-plus of in-the-field professional experience, of outright success fundamentally coping with disproportionately high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events.

Where are the real-world proven-track records?

What are four solid real-life examples whose the Author has risk-managed? I have many letterhead testimonials about those. See the ensuing:

World-class Petroleum Refineries whose risks I have managed are available at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-oil-refineries

World-class Oil and Gas Tankers (maritime vessels) whose risks I have managed are available at

Oil and Gas Tankers (maritime vessels) that has benefited from Mr. Andres Agostini’s White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management.

World-class Petroleum installations, equipments and hardware whose risks I have managed are available at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-petroleum-installations

Toyota and Mitsubishi Motors factories and installations whose risks I have managed are available at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-cars

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

A thing or two about the word: “...Experience...”

Experience (optimal and correct) Vs. “...Previous Experience...” (totally wrong). Check it out:

If you Google Previous Experience, you will get about: 5,120,000 results.

“...Previous Experience...” is outright flaw since Plain-Vanilla-Per-Se Experience is always ACHIEVED AND SEQUESTERED in the Past and not always exploited in the Present and Future.

Just, use “...Experience...” and never “...Previous Experience...”

The White Swan hardcore now starts:

THIS WORK ADDRESSES ORGANIZATIONAL SETTINGS (RATIONAL-TYPE ONES) ONLY, NEVER PROFESSIONAL OR PERSONAL ENVIRONMENTS AT ALL.

The White Swan hardcore now starts:

THE ZILLION-DOLLAR 288-WORD QUESTION:

On October 09, 2013 I was asked a simple yet actual intriguing question at the right time and place.

Without any direct or indirect intent, such a simple query gave birth to the White Swan.

And that query's momentum gained infinite more critical mass when San Diego University Mathematics Professor Vernor Vinge, PhD, suggested and reminded, via a placid e-mail, of the reading of the Black Swan, which I did. This email was received on February 23, 2014.

Critical Mass.— : “ … Sub-Critical Mass refers to an amount or level that IS SUFFICIENT for a specific result or new action to occur ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

ERGO:

A management consultant in Peterborough, United Kingdom presented this query to me, the commencing co-author. His name is Mr. David Shaw. [228].

SYNTHESIS:

Incidentally, questions and matters to be randomly addressed here include:

1.- What is change?
2.- What is management?
3.- What is change management?
4.- Why present-day age is now different?
5.- What is the historic perspective applied to current management?
6.- What is it meant by Dynamic Driving Forces?
7.- What is a risk, both positive and negative?
8.- What are futures, both upside and downside?
9.- What is risk management?
10.- What is risk unmanagement?
11.- What is a White Swan?
12.- What is a Eureka Moment?
13.- What is a Sputnik Moment?
14.- What is a leader and a manager?
15.- How does one define technology?
16.- What is insurance?
17.- What is beyond-insurance risk management?
17.- What is Transformative and Integrative Risk Management?
18.- What is scientific futuring?
19.- What is scenario-planning methodology?
20.- How Quality Assurance and Continuous Improvement Don't Equate to Risk Management?
21.- Practically, How do managers and entrepreneurs achieve sustainable success?
22.- What is non-theological applied omniscience?
23.- What is Organizational Integral Protection?
24.- Common Sense Versus Scientific Knowledge?
25.- Out-Of-The-Box Thinking versus Disruptional Creative Thinking (Meaning: The Strong-Sense Critico-Creative One)?
26.- What is the current and rampant progression of science and technology?
27.- Solving persistently grave organizational problems through Rocket Science?
28.- What is retrospection and what is prospection?
29.- Quantitative Analyzes Versus Qualitative Analyzes?
30.- How far can we get with algorithm-based calculations of risks and futures?
31.- What is strategy and its limitations?
32.- What are new management skills to be developed in the as-of-now future?
33.- What are problem-solving approaches for?
34.- What are adversarial truths and technical truths?
35.- The Technological Singularity Versus the Disruptional Singularity?
36.- How NASA, DARPA and Royal Dutch Shell are redefining management?
37.- What is Space-Age Risk Management?
38.- What are the name of the reputable organizations instituting all of the above?
39.-In the twentieth-one century, How managers must be, in order to succeed?
40.- What is Computronium?
41.- What is Techium?
42.- What is Multiverse?
43.- What is Omniverse?
44.- What is a Litmus Test?
45.- What and How to Study?
46.- Forthcoming as-per-now times will be?
47.- Plausabilities, as of today?
48.- The World's Most-Cherished and Most-Uncherished Black Swans that will never happen?
49.- White Swan Tranformative and Integrative Risk Management Problem-Solving Methodology Encompasses?
50.- A Quick Message from India.
51.- Oxford University's Faculty of Philosophy Professor Nick Bostrom on the Disruptional Singularity.
52.- What is the Chief Polymath Officer?
53.- Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Oracle defined both by Wikipedia and the White Swan?
54.- What did CEOs from ExxonMobil, Conoco, Chevron, Phillips Petroleum, Statoil (Scandinavia), Italy's ENI and Wilpro Energy Services (U.S.) tell Andres?
55.- A Little Actual Fun Story with World's #2 Petroleum Corp Chairman and CEO?
56.- Andres goes to the Massachusetts Board Room with the 90-Million-Dollar Chairman and CEO?
57.- U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush's (41st U.S. president) Ambassador and Andres Agostini?
58.- If you country is flooded with unemployment, poverty, public protests and a promissory future of outright failure? Why?
59.- IN WHAT ARE GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, IBM, APPLE AND MICROSOFT FOCUSING, IN ORDER TO REVERSE-ENGINEER THE HUMAN BIOLOGICAL MIND?
60.- The most serious scientific and noted establishment of the U.S. uses this language priority ...
61 .- What is the White Swan Target?
62.- Who is the White Swan Audience?
63.- THE POWER OF GRANDIOSE IDEAS ….
64.- Experience (optimal and correct) Vs. “...Previous Experience...” (totally wrong)?
65.- To see what Germany and China are doing about manufacturing ….
66.- E.Q.-Focused Nations (suboptimal) Versus I.Q.-Centric Countries (optimal)
67.- AN ACTUAL EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CEO AND THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CHIEF STRATEGIST!
68.- AS PER NOBEL PHYSICS PRIZE LAUREATE DR. STEPHEN HAWKING WARNS ….
69.- WHAT AND HOW TO STUDY TO CONQUER THE MILKY WAY?
70.- Pandora Versus Cassandra Predictions?
71.- «...What is a Quant...» AND «...What is a Qualt...»
72.- CAN WE PREDICT THE FUTURE?
73.- Praise.
74.- Foreword.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

David's question was then exactly,

“...Andres, from your work on the future which management skills need to be developed? Classically the management role is about planning, organizing, leading and controlling. With the changes coming in the future, what's your view on how this management mix needs to change and adapt? … "

Probably, and thanks to the preceding question, the interview or exchange has hereby grown into a copyrighted treatise.

A TREATISE, NOT A BOOK, BUT A BETA TREATISE, NOT AN ALPHA TREATISE YET.

A lady by the name of Lisa sent me an e-mail, indicating: “...You have given David a good academic lecture and scholarship …”

Now you have such a bridged volume.

Bridged volume does never equate to the unabridged treatise (A systematic, usually extensive licidly written discourse on a multi-fold subject matter expertises.), illustrated version, containing additional: facts, stats, conceptual drawings, mind-mappings, pictorials, graphics, tables, PERTs (Program Evaluation and Review Techniques), CPMs (Critical Path Method Techniques), SWOTs (A SWOT analysis — alternatively SWOT matrix — is a structured planning method used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats involved in a project or in a business venture), TOWS (threats, opportunities, weaknesses, and strengths) analysis, SOAR (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, results) analysis, sketches, cartoons, slides, pictures, photos, videos and other resources.

Current White Swan graphics are available at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-graphs

NOTA BENE:

You are extremely welcome to have access to my (i) Lifeboat Foundation Professional Profile and (ii) LinkedIn Professional Profile at:

(#16 of #16 ) .— https://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.andres.agostini

(#15 of #16 ) .— http://www.linkedin.com/in/andresagostini

(#14 of #16 ) .— http://www.amazon.com/author/agostini

(#13 of #16) .— Professional Biography ( B00KPFBM7U )

Andres Agostini's LinkedIn's Articles at http://linkd.in/1wY5g7H

(#12 of #16).— Curriculum Vitae at http://www.slideshare.net/andresagostini/curriculum-vitae-of-andres-agostini

(#11 of #16).— Skill and Specialties of Andres Agostini at http://www.slideshare.net/andresagostini/skill-and-specialties-of-andres-agostini

(#10 of #16).— Where are the real-world proven-track records of and by the White Swan Author? At https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/problems-solved-by-agostini

(#9 of #16).— Where are the real-world proven-track records? What are two solid real-life examples that the Author has risk-managed? I have many letterhead and digital testimonials about those. See the ensuing:

(#8 of #16).— World-class Petroleum Refineries whose risks the Author has managed are available at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-oil-refineries

(#7 of #16).— World-class Oil and Gas Tankers (maritime vessels) whose risks the Author has managed are available at

Oil and Gas Tankers (maritime vessels) that has benefited from Mr. Andres Agostini’s White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management.

(#6 of #16).— World-class Petroleum installations, equipments and hardware whose risks the Author has managed are available at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-petroleum-installations

(#5 of #16).— Toyota and Mitsubishi Motors factories and installations whose risks the Author has managed are available at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-cars

(#4 of #16).— Oil and Gas Tankers (maritime vessels) that has continuously benefited from White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management. https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-oil-gas-tankers

(#3 of #16).— Testimonials and References at http://amzn.to/1rwFRBL

(#2 of #16).— Professional Biography at http://amzn.to/1oXU1aS

(#1 of #16) .— 54 Testimonials Given To the Author at http://amzn.to/1oXU1aS

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

If this were a course, it would indeed rather be a “... crash course ...”

Some could correctly argue this is an intense treatise given with kindness. It is both intense and lucid.

Worry not, you are all set out to have lavish educational fun.

Incidentally:

This proprietary treatise may be reproduced for noncommercial purposes if it is copied in its entirety, including this notice.

Please recall, “...if it is copied in its entirety, including this notice...”

This exploration (reconnaissance) is the most thorough, deep and independent one.

Instantly, you have been warned. If a better one is available, don't dwell on Romanticism and go get it.

To exercise greater emphasis on some parts, I will use partial capitalization of words often.

In some U.S. audiences, capitalization is discouraged while in Canada, Germany, France, Switzerland and the entirety of the Western World is most encouraged.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

As David, a proto-Britton, formulated this interesting question to me and given that I want to claim my rights on the present comment and treatise, I will be using first-person language frequently.

David, any time the author use the words “...reader(s)...” or “...you...”, there must be understood the ensuing persons are conjointly included: a) The Reader, and b) David Shaw.

Accordingly, Jewish scholar and Rabbi Hillel concludes,

“... If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, than what am I? And if not now, when? ...”

Rabbis are wonderful intellectuals who deserve my greatest appreciation.

In solving problems rabbis will use sacred scriptures, philosophy, history and hard science. I don't belong to their creed but I will greatly support them at any time, any where.

Extensive quotations and citations will also be used. Massive insights by third parties and the author will be available.

Semantics and linguistics will be provided by Thomas Jeffersonian Lingua Franca, exclusively.

Has anyone told you and taught you about the outright Germanization of English?

Some neologisms (newly coined terms, words, or phrases) in English here are through the sponsorship of the Germanization-process of English.

Both in German and English and through the Germanization-process from two (2) to three (3) Indo-European words are coalesced together into a single one.

What is, by the way, an Indo-European Language?

Answer:

“ … The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects. There are about 439 languages and dialects, according to the 2009 Ethnologue estimate, about half (221) belonging to the Indo-Aryan subbranch. It includes most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the Indian Subcontinent, and was also predominant in ancient Anatolia. With written attestations appearing since the Bronze Age in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean Greek, the Indo-European family is significant to the field of historical linguistics as possessing the second-longest recorded history, after the Afro-Asiatic family …. INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES ARE SPOKEN BY ALMOST 3 BILLION NATIVE SPEAKERS, THE LARGEST NUMBER BY FAR FOR ANY RECOGNIZED LANGUAGE FAMILY. Of the 20 languages with many native speakers according to SIL Ethnologue, 12 are Indo-European: SPANISH, ENGLISH, HINDI, PORTUGUESE, BENGALI, RUSSIAN, GERMAN, PUNJABI, MARATHI, FRENCH, URDU, AND ITALIAN, ACCOUNTING FOR OVER 1.7 BILLION NATIVE SPEAKERS. Several disputed proposals link Indo-European to other major language families ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

By the way:

If you are on King's Road and the locals there start telling you, “...Sir, you are a smart cookie and we are in awe by what you know ...”

It is better for you to depart from ignorant envy by simpletons and go to the other side of the Atlantic, or better yet into Asia.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

QUESTION: Who, by the way, owns English? QUICK REPLY: Esperanto!

To second the motion, Baroness Thatcher argued, “ … You ain't seen nothing, yet ...”

Incidentally:

It is acknowledged an alleged King once expressed,

“... The size of a person's vocabulary is directly proportional with the scale and richness of his or her own innermost Cosmos ...”

There is a proprietary technique to make what this King observe happen.

And good works enlightens ideas and good ideas further enlightens good cohesive detailed plans and hence success.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

English Versus Englishes?

Ms. Edie Weiner observed something along these lines:

“ … In the U.S. we speak something foreign to us, called English, not American …. And we need to get ready as in the world there are several Englishes ...”

As in Germany they speak German. And in France they speak French. And in Italy they speak Italian. And in Portugal they speak Portuguese. In Spain they speak Spanish. In England they speak English.

In the U.S. they arguably speak American English, several dialects stemming from the British English language.

Whatever the language, we need to extend Bridges of “ … Golden Communications ...” to whatever speakers in the world, chiefly when the world is mired by misunderstanding and is also into insane and lethal violence.

Respecting and accepting everyone's language, we are all much better off if we all pull together the world's economy for the sake of everybody. Too many into abject poverty and unemployment.

I always suggest a peaceful and harmonic pathway, at all times.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Some shared wisdom pertaining to language enhancement came from Leonardo (greatly cherished by NASA and DARPA) and Napoleon (greatly cherished by gargantuan U.S. Forces and the Industrial-Military-Complex). The combined wisdom posits,

“...Ascertain, at all times, to always replace upgradable words and terms by ones than are even better ...”

By the way:

Napoleon's mother (first) language was not French but Italian. Most probably, his third language was English. He spoke French with a heavy accent and some difficulties, but his recondite letters to his generals are most lucid.

What is DARPA?

“... The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was established in 1958 to prevent strategic surprise from negatively impacting U.S. national security and create strategic surprise for U.S. adversaries by maintaining the technological superiority of the U.S. military …. To fulfill its mission, the Agency relies on diverse performers to apply multidisciplinary approaches to both advance knowledge through basic research and create innovative technologies that address current practical problems through applied research. DARPA’s scientific investigations span the gamut from laboratory efforts to the creation of full-scale technology demonstrations in the fields of biology, medicine, computer science, chemistry, physics, engineering, mathematics, material sciences, social sciences, neurosciences and more. As the DoD’s primary innovation engine, DARPA undertakes projects that are finite in duration but that create lasting revolutionary change ...” http://www.darpa.mil/our_work/

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Accordingly, the signatory might be, among other amenities and MEMES, Davincian and Bonapartian.

The author is never opinionated but ideanated.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

The author has done and always will be doing his “ … homework ...”

In no way this work is NEVER a substitute for doing your own reasoning, studying and researching.

Everyone should do his or her own homework by himself or herself. The author will not do anyone's homework.

My alleged “ … homework ...” is primarily done through learning theoretical, practical, empirical and factual lessons from direct practical and intimate execution of and intense involvement with management and also by massive, perpetual research engaged by my own self, for Life.

For instance:

Jiddu Krishnamurti observed on education and learning:

“... There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, FROM THE MOMENT YOU ARE BORN TO THE MOMENT YOU DIE, IS A PROCESS OF LEARNING ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

I relish developing own ideas, their detailed plans, theories and proto-theories and marshaled them into in-the-field problem solving. (That is: Feet-on-the-ground problem solving).

I will share my insight and experience as an adviser, studier, learner, thinker, researcher, strategist, practitioner and seminal speaker of forward-looking management both in theoretical and practical contexts.

Whatever I reflect here is a conscientious, empirical, factual, independent and solemn POV (Point of View).

“ …Solemnity is characterized or marked by seriousness or sincerity …. or profound …. earnest ….”

This POV addresses practical and structural solutions, not onerous quick fixes. Among other important themes, this POV also deals with process, content and context.

Partial solutions are inconsequential while total solutions are indispensable and, hence, the optimal pathway is hereby suggested.

THIS POV WILL BE COMMUNICATED UNAMBIGUOUSLY AND EMPHATICALLY.

SOME NOTIONS, CONCEPTS AND IDEAS WILL BE REITERATED OFTEN FOR THE SAKE OF GREATEST CLARITY.

The author NEVER does dogmas. Everyone else has the greatest right to having his / her own opinion(s) as well. No problem!

Conversely, if you want to access my intellectual manifesto, a summation is here:

With the purpose to remain authentic and genuine with my intellectual manifesto, I AM AGAINST:

1.- Ignorance.

2.- Sloppy, emotional thinking.

3.- Fashionable thinking.

4.- Within-style thinking.

5.- Ideal-based rational.

6.- Instant-gratification thought process.

7.- Non-Gestalt Thinking.

8.- Lumpen Thinking. (Lumpen is a nice word, extremely manipulated by Commies. Ergo, anything stemming from Commies I reject).

9.- Non-Crowd-Wisdom Thinking. (No one played Albert's violin and theories, nor Amadeus' piano, nor Howard's gigantic wooden aquatic-airplane or communication's satellites, nor Newton's unpublished prophecies, but them, and them alone, in in-companionship-ed solitude).

10.- Clustered Thinking.

11.- Silo Thinking.

12.- Charter Thinking.

13.- Standard Thinking.

14.- Informal Thinking.

15.- Undocumented Thinking.

16.- Laggards' Thinking.

17.- Bohemian Thinking.

18.- Hippie Thinking.

19.- “...Keep It Simple, Stupid...” (K.I.S.S.) Thinking.

20.- Short-term Thinking.

21.- Linear Thinking.

22.- Extra-Mile Thinking (We need several Extra-Leagues Thinking. A league is 3 miles or 4.8 kilometers).

23.- Single-mindedness Thinking (Against in-series thinking).

24.- Un-Orchestrated Thinking.

25.- Fragmented, Fragmentary Thinking.

26.- Futilitifulness Thinking. (Futilitifulness is the quality of conforming to maximum futility).

27.- Démodé Thinking.

28.- Typical Thinking.

29.- Passé Thinking.

30.- Within-Range Thinking.

31.- Chaku-Chaku Thinking.

32.- Spaghetti-like Thinking.

33.- Episodic Thinking.

34.- Management-fads Thinking.

35.- Leadership-focused Thinking.

36.- Popular Thinking.

37.- Crowded Thinking.

38.- Out-loud-Brainstoriming Thinking.

39.- Jumping-to-Conclusions Thinking.

40.- In-absentia Thinking.

41.- Misery-Likes-Company Thinking.

42.- Watercooler-Conversations Thinking.

43.- Subjective Thinking.

44.- Fictitious Thinking.

45.- Departing-from-Rationality Thinking

46.- Feeding-Frenzies Thinking.

47.- Tentative Thinking.

48.- Pointless Thinking.

49.- Out-of-the-point Thinking.

50.- Straight-backward Thinking.

51.- Glucose-depletion Thinking.

52.- Syllogistic Thinking.

53.- Slothful Thinking.

54.- Sketchy Thinking.

55.- Un-constellated Thinking.

56.- Associatively-Incoherent Thinking.

57.- Dissociatively-Coherent Thinking.

58.- Attenuated Thinking.

59.- Un-primed Thinking.

60.- Unobtrusive Thinking.

61.- Unfreely-Willed Thinking

62.- Unprovocative Thinking.

63.- Anti-Statistical Thinking.

64.- Mental-Economy Thinking.

65.- Uncritical Thinking.

66.- Premonitory Thinking.

67.- Spurious Thinking.

68.- Cumbersome Thinking.

69.- "Background-less Material" Thinking.

70.- "One-Sided Evidence" Thinking.

71.- Missing-Evidence Thinking.

72.- Inconfident Thinking.

73.- Information-Poor Thinking.

74.- Laborious-less Thinking.

75.- Evildoing Thinking.

76.- Superfluous Thinking.

77.- Dumbfounded Thinking.

78.- Reasoned Thinking.

79.- On-The-Shelf Thinking.

80.- Pathetic Thinking.

81.- In-Dire-Straits Thinking.

82.- Perceptual-less Thinking.

83.- Negligible Thinking.

84.- Infinitesimal Thinking.

85.- Decoherence-Seeking Thinking.

86.- Inept Thinking.

87.- Wobblier Thinking.

88.- Sampling-Luck Thinking.

89.- Discredited Thinking.

90.- Untrained-Eye Thinking.

91.- Anchoring-Effect Thinking.

92.-Exasperated Thinking.

93.- Pharaohnic Thinking.

94.- Populist Thinking.

95.- Insipid Thinking.

96.- Vulgar Thinking.

97.- Wrongheaded Thinking.

98.- Logical-Inconsistency Thinking.

99.- Demagogue Thinking.

100.- Neophyte Thinking.

101.- Demagogue Thinking.

102.- Authoritarian Thinking.

103.- Ill-prepared Thinking.

104.- Wrongheaded Thinking.

105.- Logical-Inconsistency Thinking.

106.- Earth-Shot Thinking.

107.- Past-oriented Thinking.

108.- Karmic Thinking.

109.- Decrepit Thinking.

110.- Stuck-on-Autopilot Thinking.

111.- Leisurely Thinking.

112.- Broken-Bladed thinking.

113.- Careless Thinking.

114.- Deteriorated Thinking.

115.- “Snail-Like Pace” Thinking.

116.- Legacy Thinking.

To further underpin the intellectual manifesto of the author, let us, anyway, understand this clearly:

“...My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others! ...” By Jointly by the Marquis de Sade and the Author.

Andres' Intellectual Manifesto is IN FAVOR OF:

#1 of #2.- “ … The noblest pleasure is to learn with the purpose of having the joy of understanding ...” - By Leonardo Da Vinci and the author.

#2 of #2.- “ … My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe [and specially the omniverse], why it is as it is and why it exists at all ….” By Stephen Hawking and the author.

AS PART OF MY INTELLECTUAL MANIFESTO, THERE ARE ALSO THINGS AND PEOPLE THAT I AM, AS WELL, AGAINST TO:

1.-) Knee-Jerk Conclusions

2.-) False Assumptions

3.-) Obsolete Notions

4.-) Wishy-Washy Predictions

5.-) Ivy-Garlanded Professors

6.-) NewsHour Intellectuals

7.-) Spurious Assessments

8.-) Conjured Futures

9.-) Out-Of-Thin-Air Plucked Predictions

10.-) Artistry

11.-) Sleight

12.-) Human Thought' And Decision's Myths

13.-) Educated Predictions

14.-) Big-Breaks-From-Past-Patterns

15.-) Past-Outcomes Projections

16.-) Freakonomics

17.-) Wishful Thinkings

18.-) Dull-Edge Science

19.-) Shortsighted Decisions

20.-) Tea-Leaves Peering Into

21.-) Hidden-Hand-Of-Market-Forces Prognosis

22.-) Careless Estimations

23.-) Wishy-Washy Trends Or Wishy-Washy Counter-Trends

24.-) Wrongheaded Choices.

END OF THE INTELLECTUAL MANIFESTO.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

YOU MUST, THE SOONEST AND AT ALL TIMES, INTERRELATE OR CORRELATE AND CONNECT THE DOTS OF EVERY ASPECT INCLUDED IN THIS INDEPENDENT POV, ON THE DOUBLES. IF THE READER CANNOT, HE OR SHE SHOULD GO ELSEWHERE. YOUR QUESTION IS ALSO YOUR PROBLEM ONLY: HOW DO I CONNECT THE DOTS? TRY YOUR OWN PATTERN RECOGNITION AND HIERARCHICAL THINKING!

Pattern recognition is the identification, by the reader, of patterns of speech. Hierarchical thinking is the way the human brain operates to discern and ponder.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Believe it or not, everything here, the totality of all, is — by far — unfailingly interrelated with everything else.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Everything the author will hereby share applies for large and small for-profit and nonprofit organizations (including start-ups), both in the U.S. and around the ever-expansive world.

By the way, it is really valued in dealing with the practice of management you, David, haven't divorce the practice from its leadership component.

BY KEEPING “ … MANAGEMENT ...” AND “ … LEADERSHIP … ” INDIVISIBLY INTEGRATED, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY JUDICIOUS.

Leadership without management is like a Mirage without a runway and control tower.

Leadership without management is like a fire without light.

There are many authors placing a huge divide between leadership and management when you cannot apply your leadership outside of a management context.

They are gravely mistaken. Management and leadership cannot be separated and they must always be exercised in a monolithic unison.

I will give you, as well, some primary view on the historic perspective I have found regarding current-day future-driven management, now.

I really believe the historic perspective is a sine qua non.

Notwithstanding, the past and the present are never a script for the future.

In Spanish there are two interesting words:

(I.-) “ … futurible ...” (from Latin futurib?lis)

(II.-) and “... futurable ...”

As a result:

“... Futurible ...” entails a conditioned future [scenario], which it is not to happen with certainty, but it will take place if a determined condition were firstly in place. Brackets are of the author.

And it is also observed:

Through other means, futurology is a discipline and a set of methodologies oriented to the prevision of the future.

Basically, it deals with imagining plausible future scenarios, known as “...futuribles ...”, and in occasions, in order to determine their likelihoods, with the express purpose of planning the necessary actions to avoid or accelerate their occurrence.

And also:

“ … Futurable …” consists of a desired future [scenario]. Brackets are of the author.

The White Swan hardcore continues:

And, for instance, Stuart A. Copans asserted,

“...Study the past if you would divine the future...”

And Edmund Burke pointed out,

“...You can never plan [retrospectively, that is a posteriori or ex post facto] the future by the past...” Brackets are of the author.

To set the stage properly, I will start with an enlightening quote by Albert Einstein.

“...The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created then...”

Or, it could be better noted:

“...The significant problems we face [today] cannot be solved [in the future] at the same level of [démodé] thinking we were at when we created then [in the fossilized past]...” Brackets are of the author.

Conversely:

What are the frequent problems and challenges (including: humanly-induced existential ones) which we frequently encounter in managing risks optimally?

For example and briefly:

1.- Corruption and Malfeasance.

2.- Radical ignorance.

3.- Learned ignorance.

4.- Dysfunctional knowledge.

5.- Unknowldege.

6.- Overspecialization and superspecialization.

7.- Usage of embedded-in-the-past notions and assumptions (obsoledge).

Obsoledge equates to obsolete knowledge as this term was coined by Alvin Toffler.

8.- Not thinking in series (not simultaneously).

9.- Dismissal of thinking of the entire Whole.

10.- Inability to learn to unlearn.

11.- Gray areas and biases.

12.- Lack of thorough and lucid practical definition and demarcation of the system to be addressed and its boundaries.

13.- Incomplete reasoning and thinking.

14.- Holding and incorporation of “ … cherished beliefs ...”

15.- Absence of open-mindedness. (Open-mindedness is receptiveness to new ideas).

16.- Excess of narrow-mindedness. (Narrow-mindedness is unresponsive to new ideas).

17.- Excess of un-reconnoiterable cues. (Un-reconnoiterable cues refers to un-explorable cues).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

OVERSPECIALIZATION AND SUPERSPECIALIZATION BEGET INCOMPLETE KNOWLEDGE AND FLAWED EXECUTION. AND HENCE THEY CREATE MANY BLIND SPOTS BEGET FOLLY BLACK SWANS.

Because through overspecialization and superspecialization, you are only dealing with Knowledge Depth, but also outright ruling out and precluding advanced Knowledge Breadth and Width.

By illustration:

SUPERSPECIALIZATION AND OVERSPECIALIZATION OUTRIGHT BEGET FRAGMENTED, FRAGMENTARY THINKING.

AND FRAGMENTED THINKING IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF CONVERGENT THINKING.

SUPERSPECIALIZATION AND OVERSPECIALIZATION ARE, HENCE, AGAINST CONVERGENT THINKING.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

One other aspect must now be considered is a primordial axiom, which it is instrumental and widely considered here.

That is, “...everything is somewhat related to everything else ...” IN FACT, SOME THINKERS INSIST ON THE FOLLOWING: “ ... Everything is deeply intermingled with everything else ...”

Any management endeavor must consider this maxim seriously at all times.

Please allow me some leeway to give some historic professional antecedents that will greatly prove useful in dealing with this work. Ensuing.

Before being interested in applied scientific futuring and beyond-insurance risk management, I was college doubled trained in and majored in “...General Insurance Management ...” and “...Insurance Careers ...” (U.S.).

The Beatles' song lyrics indicate, “... take a sad song and make it better...”

It can be better written by saying:

“... Take a sad song [Black Swan and its unmanaged perils] and make it better [into a White Swan, while lucratively exploiting its brought-under-control: (a) Negative Risks, (b) Positive Risks, (c) Upside Futures and (d) Downside Futures]...”

A prominent U.S. president seconded the motion by the Beatles:

Amazing JFK has a wondrous quotation, “... My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country ...”

And the White Swan of it argues:

“... My fellow Americans [and incumbent Corporate Chairpersons and CEOs, as well as serious Managers, in general], ask not what your country [and management systems] can do for you [, in order to advert black swans], ask [yes] what you [and your managerial: Scientific Futuring and Transformative and Integrative Risk Management] can do [with the ultimate end to make black swan cahsabale upon and with the ulterior purpose to seize grandest lucrative success and fiscally-sound, sustainable earnings] for your country [and corporation in urgent need for a White Swan practical perspective] ...”

And he also stated:

His Most Excellency and Honorable President John F. Kennedy’s speech on September 12, 1962 at Race University:

“...If this capsule history [, given to us by Gaia and, hence, Earth] of our progress [and scientific accomplishments towards leveraging our corporate pursuits in the direction of more lucrative legally-incorporated entities] teaches us anything [before the gloomy and spookier black swan outlook], it is that man [and the manager in her and him], in his quest [practical study and corporate training] for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred [, despite the most outlandish black swans]. The exploration of space [anyone pursuit by Fortune-7 Global Corporations into outright lucre] will go ahead, whether we join in it or not [ whether we like it not, by instituting White Swans], and it is one of the great adventures [and transformation of known inputs into desired outputs] of all time [that is, quarter by quarter, early on, beforehand], and no nation [and Prominent Global Corporation] which expects to be the leader and [executing manager] of other nations [and competing corporations] can expect to stay behind [mired by unmanaged black swans] in the [contentious] race for space [and the down-to-earth Corporation's lucrative targets, objectives and goals] [….] Well, space [and globalized marketplace mired by unpronounceable NEGATIVE RISKS AND DOWNSIDE FUTURES] is [and better said, are] there, and we're going [, and as per a corporate mandate to leverage the monolithic unison of all members in our TEAM and CREW into outright White Swans] to climb it [, conquer and prevail, as we ascertain that our White-Swan-ned Corporation is Global Player Number One, for Life!] …” [80] Brackets are of author.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

I also took serious university classes on (a) engineering (Venezuela) and (b) mechanical-engineering technology (Canada) and (c) electronic-engineering technology (Canada).

Andres has a Queen's University and Dawson College and Saint Lawrence College and Universidad Metropolitana Education and two Broward College Degrees.

In my evening and dawn daydreams I seem to be a lucky alumnus and professor at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Technology is also, at many times, synonymous with the term “ ...task …,” as it is argued by a Stanford University Professor.

This author's definition of Technology is:

“... Technology is instituted, in order to solve practical problems (both mild and complex ones, whether randomized, pseudo-randomized or not ) ? especially in industry, commerce, economy, science, technology, society, and politics (including geopolitics) ?, the methodical practical application of the scientific method, mathematical principles, practical sciences and material used to achieve a commercial or industrial objective and beyond, as well as to achieve practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems …. The profession of and or the work performed by any engineer ...”

To this purpose and furthering the present work:

“...From Nostradamus to Alvin Toffler, individuals and organizations have long been obsessed with trying to see the future. The goal is to somehow get advanced warning of ‘ ...what will be ...’...” [64]

In order to do the prior, it is important to institute advanced scenario planning. Through it, the reader will get White Swans only.

LET US SHARE THIS PLANNING QUOTATION:

Dwight D. Eisenhower’s sage advice indicates that “ … Plans are useless, but planning is everything ...” [267]

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

By Scenario Planning I mean a Methodology beyond that of Dr.Strangeloves (RAND Corporation' and Hudson Institute's Herman Khan) and Royal Dutch Shell's Pierre Wack and Peter Schwartz.

The actual practical effectiveness of scientifically-driven scenario planning can be considerably improved yet, as it done in Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (the exact opposite of insurance-based risk unmanagement).

Furthermore:

Objectives expressed in specific numbers (numerical data), to be accomplished through a detailed plan, can be called goals.

And goals expressed in unambiguous narrative (narrative data), to be accomplished through a detailed plan, can be called objectives.

Global corporations use both, integrally.

Hence:

Working with the second largest oil group in the world (Citgo's PDVSA, with 54,000 active employees and 210,000 eligible dependents. PDVSA is Citgo's parent company), that group wanted me to only institute beyond-insurance risk management as it is posited here.

What later became Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM).

Question: Who was Risk Management's Practitioner #1?

Once someone told me a spoken and loose account about the item above. Using my own words, I attempted to reconstruct the story here:

“...Moses allegedly wrote some 3,500 years ago a seemingly parable as per an unknown source in by which every new house must have a guard rail around the edge of the flat rooftop, in order to prevent anyone from falling off and precluding inhabitants from bringing guilt and liability to both the householders and neighbors ...” [226]. Brackets are of the author.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

You see, when these organizational executives (from PDVSA, Citgo, other worldwide petroleum corporations, Toyota, Mitsubishi Motors, TNT Delivery Express and other global corporations) were to incur in a loss (potential disruption), it did not suffice to them to have the indemnity payment from the insurance and reinsurance pool.

On February 01 1984 I officially started serious thinking about long-studied “...beyond-insurance risk management...”

And since then all the way throughout this date.

Conversely, insurance-based risk management is the old guard while beyond-insurance risk management is the vanguard. Some reasons for it will be offered here.

For illustration purposes and just using one narrow self-explanatory instance, please check out how insurance and reinsurance habitually opine and operate regarding the public at large, say, the following:

“... [Insurance underwriters have the] '...preference for insuring against probable small losses...' — at the expense of the less probable but larger impact ones ...” [227]. Brackets are of the author.

The entire account of the paragraph above is next:

“...However, [Dr. Paul] Slovic [, PhD. at http://bit.ly/1l697f0] and his colleagues found [at the University of the president of Decision Research], in insurance patterns, neglect of these highly improbable events in people's insurance purchases. The call is the '...preference for insuring against probable small losses...' — at the expense of the less probable but larger impact ones ...” Brackets are of the author. [227].

For illustrative purposes:

Let me start by telling the reader that Optimal Risk Management (the exact opposite of insurance-based risk unmanagement), at all times, equates to Optimal Per-Se Management.

Ergo and at the outset, allow me to offer a definition of Risk.

“... Risk is the quantitative or qualitative expression of possible loss considers both the probability an event will occur and the consequences of that event … and/or the likeliness of injury, harm, damage, disruption or loss multiplied by its potential magnitude ...”

A brief sample of what EASY Risk entails it is now offered:

A.-) Legal,
B.-) Technological,
C.-) Environmental,
D.-) Security,
E.-) Safety,
F.-) Political, and
G.-) Human.

AND. A brief sample of what GARGANTUAN Risk entails it is now offered:

1.- Academicians' and Scholars' Trickery.
2.- Bankruptcy.
3.- Competition.
4.- Currency Collapse.
5.- Disease.
6.- Earthquake.
7.- Energy Shortage.
8.- Existential Risks (and/or beyond Global Catastrophic Risks).
9.- Espionage (Industrial, Political and Geopolitical), including: cyberspionage.
10.- Explosion.
11.- Fire.
12.- Flood.
13.- Fraud.
14.- Geopolitical Conflict.
15.- Hurricane.
16.- Illegal Immigration.
17.- Incompetence.
18.- Malign mind-set(s).
19.- Managerial Malfeasance.
20.- Mediocrity.
21.- Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical War, Warfare.
22.- Oil-Drilling Spill.
23.- Political Chicanery.
24.- Political Reversal.
25.- Robbery.
26.- Scientific and Pseudo-Scientific Sophistry and Syllogism.
27.- Severe Weather.
28.- Terrorism (homegrown and foreign).
29.- Volcano and Super-volcano Eruption.
30.- Leaders' and Managers' and Scientists' lack of candor.
31.- Technological crises.
32.- Confrontation.
33.- Malevolence.
34.- Organizational Misdeeds.
35.- Workplace Violence.
36.- Human-made Disasters.
37.- Natural Disasters.
38.- Rumors.
39.- International Wars.
40.- Fragile States.
41.- Rogue States.
42.- Oil and Energy Insecurity.
43.- Economic Crisis.
44.- Financial-System Crisis.
45.- Global-Water Insecurity.
46.- Political and Geopolitical Instability.
47.- Rare-Earth Insecurity.
48.- Extreme-Environments Insecurity.
49.- Power Imbalances.
50.- Others.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

The brain is the biological hardware. The mind is the rotational and translational software. You can never have the software application without the hardware.

RISKS ARE ALSO:

(A.-) Unnecessary yet onerous problems, and

B.-) Sudden Disruptive Grave Expenses.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Accordingly, I will give you, likewise, a definition of Risk Management.

“...Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM) methodology, a most advanced beyond-insurance risk management systems, comprises of all activities and initiatives required to seize the optimum degree of risk (a) elimination, (b) mitigation, (c) modulation (d) isolation or (e) control within the constraints of ( i ) operational effectiveness, ( ii ) time, and ( iii ) cost, attained through the specific, systemic and systematic application of management, scientific, engineering and applied mathematical principles throughout all phases and facets of system operation, articulated under ( 1 ) Systems Approach, ( 2 ) Engineering, ( 3 ) Classical Risk Management and ( 4 ) Practical Non-Theological Omniscience...”

Let us address the word “ … system ...” (the entirety of the Whole).

Whether the boundaries of a designated system (ample conception) are porous or not, blurred or not, defined or not, fluid or not, the beyond-insurance risk manager must radically, structurally and continuously tackle the system optimally.

TAIRM exhaustively copes, early on (beforehand), with intended and unintended consequences within and beyond determinism and indeterminacy.

By “ … early on ...” it is meant:

“ … Before the beginning of a course of events, chiefly those events least expected and most dramatic with the lesser degree of expectation ...”

TAIRM is only instituted with the express purpose of solving complex problems in all practicality. (That is: Feet-on-the-ground problem solving).

Complication and complexity are never synonymous!

Here is why:

“ … Complication is a confused or intricate relationship of elements, parts and/or subsystems …. A condition, event, etc, that is confused …. A problem arising as a consequence of another problem …. Something that introduces, usually unexpectedly, a difficulty, problem, change, etc. …. A concurrent problem that aggravates the original problem …. It is a difficulty or confusion stemming from the concurrence and happening of diverse things ...”

And then:

“ … Complexity is the state or quality of being intricate …. Consists of interconnected or interwoven parts; composite …. Composed of two or more units …. Involved or intricate, as in structure …. A whole composed of interconnected or interwoven or interrelated parts …. It entails diverse elements ...”

This is significant:

Interrelationships and linkages are both subtle and discrete and those that are soft (mild and subtle) and dramatic (wild and explicit).

All of the preceding can, too, be both covert, overt and/or ignored.

And now:

For illustrative purposes, the Characteristics of the Systems Approach by Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (the exact opposite of insurance-based risk unmanagement) include (to be):

1) Methodical,

2) Objective,

3) Quantitative or Measurable,

4) Analytical,

5) Subsystem Interdependence,

6) Parallel Analysis of Elements (Orchestrated Analysis of Elements),

7) Inputs and Outputs in Clear Language and

8) Self-Containment / Closed Loop.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Ergo,

Important to note:

Many experts and even scientists, scholars and futurologists speak about empirical, factual management with the sole perspective of unimplemented theoretical notions (that is: with too many unanswered questions and unlearned lessons never realized, seized, defined or explained by their own selves).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

When dealing with an ample-conception of “...System...”, if you find there simplicity, it is because your thought process is flawed and incomplete. And the reader might as well not be understanding the underlying processes to the corresponding thought process.

And, for instance:

Complication and complexity are nonlinear (In S-Curves) blessings when you have endowed your mind with preparedness, in order to deal with and through them.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

BUT THE MATTER IS, HAVE THEY REALLY EXERCISED THE ACTUAL RESPONSIBILITY OF DIRECTLY MANAGING A LARGE, GLOBAL ENTERPRISE (ORGANIZATION) SUCCESSFULLY?

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE APPLIED EXPERIENCE IN THE FIELD THEY POSSES?

QUESTION: What PRECISELY have those scientists, scholars and futurologists directly manage in the practical theater of operations?

As a counter point, see some of the actual Corporate Problems solved by the Author at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/problems-solved-by-agostini

Allegedly:

“... Theater of Operation is hereby included to mean the four-dimensional coordinate system and beyond it, in which organization's physical (tangible) and non-physical (intangible) events are located ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

How, in the Omniverse (The totality of Alternate and Non-Alternate universes), can they speak with veritable fundamentals about practical management solutions?

The Omniverse's braingrandchild is Computronium (Computronium is a material hypothesized by Norman Margolus and Tommaso Toffoli of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to be used as “ … programmable matter, ...” a substrate for computer modeling of virtually any real object.).

And the The Omniverse's brainchild is the Multiverse (The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of infinite or finite possible universes (including the historical universe we consistently experience), together comprising everything that exists and can exist: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. The various universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

What are the accurate unfalsifiable particulars of their proven-track record audited by prominent external and independent non-theoretical scientific incumbents? Really?

QUESTION: In all truth, What are, point-blankly, their actual applied methodologies and their scientifically-audited paradigms?

Let's see an example of a large misconception.

A West-Coast so-called“...Global Futurist ...” states that organizations and people must have “...the capacity to adapt and learn now how to prepare for risks...”

According to him, How exactly does one institute his futuristic “...risk management...”?

Then, he suggests that by a) Risk Monitoring, b) Risk Analysis, c) Risk Sensing and d) Risk Management as they are a function of Strategic Risk Forecasting. Indeed!

What is the alleged walk-through to this futurist's flawed opinion?

This flawed “ … Mexican enchilada ...” by the above West-Coast “Futurist” is not a methodology and doesn't even embody a form of primitive risk management at all.

Why it is a messy enchilada?

As he frequently mentions and randomly and loosely elaborates pertaining to the terms “...risk...” and “ ...risk management ...” in overly-abundant ways, he outright fails to clearly define the following:

a.-) Risk Monitoring (What is his definition of Risk Monitoring),

b.-) Risk Analysis (What is his definition of Risk Analysis),

c.-) Risk Sensing, (What is his definition of Risk Sensing), and

d.-) Risk Management (What is his definition of Risk Management).

His presentation is available at http://lnkd.in/bV_Rp4s

There are many futurists (rather, futurologists) and other scientists addressing the “...risk management...” unrealized talk without having a direct, practical experience in administering risks through beyond-insurance risk management and TAIRM.

What precisely is the most accurate proven track record they posses in the theater of operations, not in the imagined “labs”, composed of computers?

People like West-Coast “ … futurist ...” are called, by Sir Martin Rees PhD., “ ... techno-forecasters ...” and he argues verbatim:

“ ...Techno-forecasters, their attitudes molded by the social and political environment of the West Coast of the United States, where so many such people are congregated, tend to envisage that changes proceed untrammeled, in a social system supportive of innovations and that consumerist motivations dominate other ideologies. These presumptions may be as unwarranted as it would have been to downplay the role of religion in international affairs, or to predict that sub-Saharan Africa would have advanced steadily since the 1970s rather than regressing further into destitution. Unpredictable social and political developments add extra dimensions of uncertainty. Indeed, a main theme of this book is that technical advances will in themselves render society more vulnerable to disruption. But even if disruption were no worse than it is today, these forecasts do little more than set the 'envelope' of what might be possible: the gap between what is technically possible and what will actually happen is going to widen. Some innovations just don't attract enough economic or social demand ...”

Where are the real-world proven-track records?

What are two solid real-life examples the Author has risk-managed? I have many letterhead testimonials about those. See the ensuing:

World-class Petroleum Refineries whose risks I have managed are available at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-oil-refineries

World-class Oil and Gas Tankers (maritime vessels) whose risks I have managed are available at

Oil and Gas Tankers (maritime vessels) that has benefited from Mr. Andres Agostini’s White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management.

World-class Petroleum installations, equipments and hardware whose risks I have managed are available at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-petroleum-installations

Toyota and Mitsubishi Motors factories and installations whose risks I have managed are available at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-cars

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

In my professional case, it is in place the management of the 75% of the risks by the assets and employees (and the eligible dependents of those employees) of huge industrial groups such as PDVSA (Citgo's parent corporation), Toyota, Mitsubishi Motors and many other global institutions discussed thereafter.

A little fun yet actual story:

Andres goes to the Massachusetts Board Room with the 90-Million-Dollar Chairman and CEO, a delightful actual story (1995).

Andres' executive presentation was destined to Mr. Stephen J. Lockwood, Founder, Chairman and CEO of LDG Management, later acquired by HCC Benefits at http://www.hcc.com/

Andres came in as the CORS CEO and Chairman.

The meeting was scheduled thanks to the assistance and attendance of Mr. Christopher Robinson (A Loyd’s of London Insurance Broker) and Mr. Manuel Samaniego (An Independent Reinsurance Broker).

I had the executive presentation well prepared and backed up in several formats.

One day before boarding my plane to meeting Steve, my two PCs began giving me a hard time.

Therefore, I bought the first new PC I could find with an unknown brand name.

I transferred the executive presentation to the new PC and was very worried as I want it to further streamline some slides and make those more appealing and factual.

The night before I had a nice little dinner with Chris and Manolo.

We had Massachusetts clam soups. Both of them asked me if I was ready.

I told them about my computer glitch and told them I needed the whole night and dawn to get those slides ready to go for the board-room meeting.

They were a tiny bit concerned but after my reassurance, they were at ease.

Next morning, the three of us had a nice breakfast and they could not believe everything was ready to go.

We left the hotel and headed for the head office of the company. We noticed a beautiful building of bluish crystals all over.

As I coincidence, I noticed that in front of HCC Benefits' LDG Management there was the office of Liberty Mutual headquarter office.

So we went straight to Steve's magnificent office suite. He had several outstanding diplomas behind his nice desktop.

Then he took us directly to the Conference Room.

As Steve was seated to the forefront to my right, Chris was at the far-out seating to my right and at the mid “far-out” was Manolo seating to my left.

I was standing and ready to make the presentation.

I started my presentation to Steve. Several years before, I have studied standards, metrics and approaches used by Health-care TPAs (Third-Party Administration), HMO (Health-Maintenance Organization), PPOs (Professional-Provider Organizations by clinics and hospitals) and a great variety of other U.S. standard acronyms were frequent parlance for Steve and Andres.

So, I began making the presentation to Steve, and hence Steve and I hit it off.

Steve became so enthusiastic he did not wait for the Q&A session and started to offer inputs frequently.

So the presentation became a relentless conversation.

All of the sudden, I heard a voice.

Manolo: “...Oh, I don't know why I am here for … I don't think you guys need me here at all ...”

Then, Steve and I continued with our great dialogue as we were having fun.

Then, again, I heard a voice.

Chris: “... Oh, Andres, I don't understand what you are saying … It does not make any sense to me ...”

Steve: “...I know exactly what he is talking about and cannot believe how well he understands our business...”

The dialogue continued for a long time until Steve invited us to a super nice business luncheon with his top executives.

His right hand was a most-gorgeous female executive.

At luncheon, we had a little exchange:

Steve: “...Andres, what do you need us for? ...”

Andres: “...Given the scale of what I am entertaining with major global players, I need additional institutional backing...”

Steve: “...Okay, I will go with some of my executives to meet you and some of your clients...”

By the end of the luncheon, Manolo and Chris said goodbye to Steve and me.

AND:

I had a little exchange:

Andres: “...Steve, I am not going anywhere as I took a long flight here. I am planning to spend a week with you, in order to better solve your queries before you go and meet my clients ...”

Steve: “...Andres, you are most welcome but I won't be available to you at all times … I will tell Nancy (his secretary) to setup a conference room with a secretary and phone lines for you ...”

Andres: “...Perfect [….] I need to send you some additional printed slides for your additional consideration through Nancy and we can regroup whenever it is possible ...”

Fast-forwarding the events, it came the last day, a Friday, and we had a very nice meeting. Steve told me the company's limo was ready to take me to the airport. He told me also he found the additional slides interesting and gave me some formats for me to fill out at a later day. He said four (4) of his executives and himself will go and meet with me and to talk to my clients.

To make a long story brief, Steve requested me, with great emphasis, that he wanted to meet with my three largest corporate clients only. I said yes.

Three huge clients was a meager number for me so I exposed him to sixteen (16) corporate clients and he was extremely happy and impressed.

Some months after his company was bought out and he got a cash check for US$ 90 million and retired, as we are, to this date, good friends.

Just a thought:

Steve, LDG Management Inc. President, wrote this letter to CORS Risk Management Services:

VERBATIM QUOTATION:

“...May 25, 1995

Mr. Andres Agostini
Chairman and CEO
CORS

“ … Dear Mr. Agostini: …. I want to thank you for your time and effort in our productive working sessions during the present month of May …. From the meetings, presentations and discussion, we realize the high level of professionalism and knowledge that CORS has on different modes of Medical Benefit Plans and Systems for major Corporations based in Venezuela …. We firmly intend to keep studying the possibility of working with your company. Therefore, we will be in communication with you and expect to visit you in Caracas to meet with some of your potential clients …. Please suggest to me an agenda for that official visit. I look forward to seeing you soon ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

How can one gauge the indefinite limits of such global petroleum, automotive and logistics corporations?

By a brief example:

These global corporations have their own private universities and R&D&I labs and other facilities.

A fantastic example of R&D&I labs are comprised by Xerox PARC. According to Wikipedia,

“ … Xerox PARC, is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California [….] Founded in 1970 as a division of Xerox Corporation [….] Xerox formed Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary in 2002 ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

The preceding lab have wondrous in-all-practicality frame of references in which to enforce uncanny operation-reality-checked challenges, problems, developments, standards, techniques, technical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, novel innovation developments, speed, benefits, opportunities, productivity, efficiencies and progress.

By way of example and as many others, GE has its own famous Crotonville corporate educational facility, buoyantly mentioned by Jack Welch and Jeffrey Immelt.

Crotonville's Provost is the CEO of this fully-integrated subsidiary company to GE.

Speaking of education:

The second-best teachers and professors are the strict and disciplinarian ones.

The best teachers and professors are the ones that frustrate your learning process, by default asking you to grasp your own perpetual education for Life.

Jim Rhon observed if you get a college degree you can make a decent living, but if you can be a rigorous autodidact (into self theoretical and practical learning), you can get wealthy.

If you want to get amazingly enlightened on education by the American Father of Outer-Space Conquest and Europe's Ultimate Emperor, please go to https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan-edu

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Citgo's PDVSA, believe or it not, had a living miniaturized microcosmic Earth, as of July of 1996.

I had the official visit of some leading U.S. executives considering entering a joint venture with my company (CORS) regarding this petroleum group when we got the invitation to see this tiny planet, used by PDVSA to measure actual ecological impacts by fossil-driven energy consumption.

These privately-held labs and educational organizations compete and sometime supersedes those amazing institutions by the prestigious Ivy-League universities.

First, there is the amazing plain-vanilla education you get at the Ivy-League universities.

Then there is the new-frontier-breaking executive and most-expensive technical, still practical education you get at your own corporation's privately-held in-company R&D&I-ed university.

Your company’s own university has marvelous labs and beautiful reality-checked theaters of operations.

To get enrolled to your company’s own university, first you have to be employed by it and show a great deal of already-seized experience.

The world’s SECOND strongest tech-leaning universities are those of the Ivy-League universities.

The world’s FIRST strongest tech-leaning universities are those of your own corporation's privately-held in-company R&D&I-ed university.

Coming back to the main point:

This long professional and practical experience extends in the fields of turnkey applied:

Management, corporate planning and risk management consultation, strategy and associated services with major organizations and corporations extends to more than thirty years and over books to his credit.

I have instituted all-encompassing beyond-insurance risk management (TAIRM) to more than a dozen of global institutions of unparallelled world-class reputation, hereunder.

Many of these institutions, including the World Bank, have issued letters of reference and testimonial of the services provided.

Whenever I speak hereby about how I practice “...risk management...”, I will only be referring to scientifically-driven beyond-insurance risk management and never ever be referring to financially-driven risk management.

In all and all, insurance is an expensive quick fix while Transformative and Integrative Risk Management and beyond-insurance risk management, in general, are a cost-effective cardinal solution.

TAIRM implements turnkey, essential beyond-insurance risk management solutions.

The word “...system...” is here used in its ample meaning and does not hereby refer to computer systems.

The definition of system — which I have researched, meditated and pondered about — is this:

“...System comprises the whole compounded of several parts, members elements, components and subsystems, a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole, an organized set of interrelated ideas or principles, a naturally occurring group of objects or phenomena, a condition of harmonious and orderly interaction, and an organized and coordinated method; a procedure. System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole or a set of elements (often called 'components') and dynamic relationships which are different from relationships of the set or its elements to other elements or sets. Systems unite and put together elements, components and subsystems toward the entire whole..."

Beyond Systems, Are there anything else to importantly consider? Yes, there are Metasystems. Here is the definition.

“ … Metasystem is a system about other systems, such as describing, generalizing, modeling, or analyzing the other system(s) …. Intelligent systems like the ones Yaskawa Electric uses to simulate Japan's Bullet Train through computerized modeling, or the system pyramid molding buildings into plastics, equipment, or the artificial intelligence aid American Express uses to capture customer service information ...”

And:

The definition of omniscience which I have researched, meditated and pondered about is this:

“... Applied non-theological omniscience consists of having total knowledge; knowing everything, having infinite knowledge, the current state of knowledge, the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known and actually knowing everything that can be known. Synonyms to omniscience include panshopy, polihistory and all-knowingness, including all human and nonhuman knowledge, also comprising of afterworld-and-after-life knowledge of and/or pertaining to: Recondite Knowledge, Theology and Hermeneutics ...”

THE PRECEDING ENTAILS THE OMNISCIENTIZATION OF EVERYTHING, TANGIBLE AND INTANGIBLE, IN ORDER TO LUCRATIVELY EXPLOIT EVERY DOWNSIDE RISK, DOWNSIDE FUTURE, UPSIDE RISK AND UPSIDE FUTURE.

Arbitrary demarcations of knowledge by scientists and pseudoscientists are a DIRECT function of overspecialization and superspecialization.

Subsequently, overspecialization and superspecialization by scientists and pseudoscientists ARE NEVER a function of applied non-theological omniscience application.

Mind-Mapping (ISBN: 978-0452273221) British Author, Mr. Tony Buzan, who has extensively worked with corporations such as prominent Boeing, argues knowledge is more like a Broth or Soup, WITHOUT the application of artificially-arbitrary constraints and boundaries by folly faulty hominids.

Lucius or Marcus Annaeus Seneca (54 BC – c. 39 AD) strongly counseled against superspecialization and overspecialization.

In such Broth or Soup by Tony Buzan and Seneca, there are not artificially-imposed limits, say, between Math and History, between Geography and Biology, between Hard Science and Soft Science, between Hard Tech and Low Tech, between Exactness-Driven Sciences and Social Sciences, between Theological Studies, as well as Hermeneutics, and Applied Quantum Mechanics, between Recondite and Hermetic yet Secretive Learning and Learning Acquired by Trial and Error...”

By way of example:

IN MOST SERIOUS GLOBAL CORPORATIONS, RANKING IN WORLD'S PLACE #1 OR #2, THERE ARE SOME TERMS WHICH STANDARD GUIDELINES OUTRIGHT REJECT AND PENALIZE:

Some, not all, of the terms are “... unlawful ...” within these corporations above in any written or verbal format, include:

(A.-) Et cetera.

(B.-) Etc.

(C.-) So forth.

(D.-) So on.

(E.-) Else.

(F.-) Et al.

(G.-) Approximate, Approximately.

(H.-) Circa.

(I.-) Stuff.

(J.-) Whatever.

(K.-) “...The like ...”

And by way of example:

WHAT IS CORPORATELY NEVER PERMITTED (Corporate Prohibition Number 1):

So, corporate employees CANNOT say: “ … Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. ...”

WHAT IS CORPORATELY PERMITTED (Corporate Allowance Number 1):

“...Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday ...”

WHAT IS CORPORATELY NEVER PERMITTED (Corporate Prohibition Number 2):

“... Elements, Components, Subsystems, so on ...”

WHAT IS CORPORATELY PERMITTED (Corporate Allowance Number 1):

“... Elements, Components, Subsystems and Systems ...”

You see, terms like “Et cetera.”, “Etc.”, “So forth.”, “So on” and “Et al.” beget immense and extremely onerous, yet most unnecessary, ambiguity, ambivalence, inaccuracy, complication and complexity.

Put simply, the greatly LACK precision and accuracy.

And lack of precision and accuracy begets huge expenses, disruptions and hazards.

By using those terms you can create the black swans of the folly and make a great office industrial installation blow up and kill many innocent lives, including that of those who have nothing to do with the corporation's core business, disrupting important company’s assets.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Using a differentiated language but focusing on the same connotation as the signatory below, Buzan strongly asserts the usage of the greatest extent (knowledge depth and knowledge width and breadth) and possible of available or even unavailable knowledge to solve problems and to make choices is most necessary and desirable, regardless of their tiny minuteness or the gargantuan cosmological scale.

TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE POINT BY BUZAN AND THE AUTHOR, LET US CREATE A DIALOGUE SIMULACRUM BY BART SIMPSON AND HOMER SIMPSON.

Bart: Dad, why do you say knowledge is a soup?

Homer: Son, because since time immemorial and before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, every type of knowledge was somewhat related to the other type. Tony does some nice chatting about it.

Bart: Dad, what is the Industrial Revolution? But in the process, don't dictate me an academic lecture and scholarship, please!

Homer: Son, the Industrial Revolution is Day #1 when humans decided to throw in the towel and to make inanimate apparatus to rule the entire human race, thus ruling out hominids.

Bart: Is that Day #1 for Home Personal Computers making?

Homer: For PC making and the ensuing bots!

Bart: What do you mean by bots?

Homer: Those anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic apparatus that stem from Swiss-clockwork manufacturing and some other naughty gadgets by Leo.

Bart: What do you mean by naughty gadgets by Leonardo? Is that the same Leo of the Priory of Sion?

Homer: Yes. Leo's automaton one, that, I guess, some architect or technologist have resembled and proved utility in that and so the tic-tact-toe thing went into inexhaustible infinity until its own destruction by tear and wear.

Bart: And what is the problem with building a tic-tact-toe thing, rumbling around?

Homer: My son, you are so naive. There is no problem with the tic-tact-toe thing rumbling around. The problem is that Siren Servers are planning to bestow such rumbling-around tic-tact-toe things with beyond-human-thinking capabilities. In the process, some rara avis and pigeons might become endangered species.

Bart: Dad, you must be jockeying! Are you, Dad, suggesting that real-world and present-day humans are entertaining the idea of enabling the worst nightmares predicted by Luddites and Proto-Luddites?

Homer: Well, Bart, the problem with you is that you haven't read the Singularity is Near. There is no problem because in that book it is cherished that by a bird's and a bee's type of transubstantiation thing humans and apparatus will become one single entity. And thus mortality will become an unfashionable thing of the past.

Bart: Dad, but some spooky reasons beyond my understanding Jaron says, like Gerald Celente, that we need to become Siren-Servers advert and be careful that home PCs don't stand-up and start flying and self-replicating and giving birth to upgraded tic-tac-toe devices.

Homer: Jaron, who?

Bart: That is, Jaron Lanier. He dearly harbors the serious notion of the Siren Servers (ISBN: 978-1451654974).

Homer: Bart, I don't know that gentleman? What is that silly subtle point you are trying to make with me? To the point, please!

Bart: The problem is that Jaron argues that the man with the outlandish public laughter, a bit out of public proportion and without grace and appalling gusto, is set out, through his Siren Servers' web-based store, to use rumbling-around tic-tact-toe and beyond-human-thinking capabilities things to do acrobatic-midair hovering, superseding watermelon-sized hovercrafts.

Homer: Son, if that is so anguishly true, I must declare you a shrewd, mordant brainchild. Why Caustic Monsieur Highest-Volume Laughter (ISBN: 978-1-4488-6914-5) would want those insane entities to do midair hovering?

Bart: Daddy, so that he can get his non-clouded-based products and cash-capturing to arrive on the customer's hands, delivering quamtumly-encrypted materials, without the snailed-paced best offices of and by FEDEX or UPS or DHL.

Homer: But Bart, when the gentleman in question met with Charlie, did he hint something about you in-point stuff?

Bart: Charlie, Charlie who?

Homer: Charlie Rose, the Bloomberg TV's journalist and nighttime interviewer, remember?

Bart: Yes, I do. But the Lanier guy says that the tic-tact-toe thing, beyond being smarter than a human device and hovering in the midair spatial plane, it is also going to be wirelessly connected in the temporal locus with the World-Wide Web and it is also going to be able to sequester wireless electricity, too.

Homer: Oh my God, son! Are you sure that you are NOT into the Scottish Rite?

Bart: Are you hinting me to be associated with the foundational architects of Washington D.C.?

Homer: Bart, are you suggesting that Mr. Laughter might as well be using Recondite and Hermetic Knowledge to make the tic-tac-toe a superrich-fortune-generating after-tax wealth, to out-compete Gates III and Buffett I?

Bart: You are close, Dad, but not close enough! Sure thing, Mr. Laughter will secure Recondite and Hermetic Knowledge. But, in order to be even more technical and prepared, he is additionally going to use Andy's practical idea on non-theological applied omniscience. Got it? He will, then, get his White Swan as his Swiss and Jersey Bankers will confirm his in-pocketed CASH. Thence, he will rule many Siren Servers!

Homer: What is the White Swan's non-theological applied omniscience?

Bart: An invention by DARPA and NASA, greatly propelled by Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard and Dr. Wernher von Braun. And before you ask, NASA is a spinoff by DARPA and DoD. And DARPA is where America's most sophisticated ground-breaking hotbed-ed scientists reside, research and provide.

Homer: What is a White Swan?

Bart: The beforehand destruction of corporation's MOST exponential risks and downside futures, transformed into insane richness and gold.

Homer: Do you think that these watermelon-sized wireless ubiquitous hovercrafts (quadrotor air vehicles) will get into reproducing their non-biological specie?

Bart: Well, Joel and Orson argue that they will make self-replicating and self-upgrading watermelon-sized wireless hovercrafts. They say that the air traffic will be so jammed by the un-biological thinking and mating (reproducing) creatures that jet number 1 won't be able to take off.

Homer: What Joel and Orson are those?

Bart: The one of the Radical Evolution (ISBN: 978-0767915038). Dad, where do you think these trends will take us to? Orson is a hell-of-American intellectual and movie director and maker that shocked TV viewers with the invasion of and by alien intelligences from the Omniverse's Recondite and Hermetic: Dark Energy and Dark Matter. To this end, Olson explains his case below.

Homer: I first must correct you. I agree with Andy. He does not like the oversimplified “trend” and “countertrend” words. He says that trend is like a head-shot of a frozen dynamic projected trajectory, only bestowed by the Dynamic Driving Forces. IF THE DISRUPTIONAL SINGULARITY WARRANTS IT ONLY, the Dynamic Driving Forces will, then, take us into Ray's Technological Singularity.

Bart: I am confused! What are those singularities about?

Homer: The techie one is about birthing non-biological and transbiological humans that supersede the computational reckoning by today's human brain. And making natural death an outright thing of the past. The Disruptional one is about human error, terror and flawness making waves in civilian and military spheres, including the imposition of the Cold War II by the express impious deeds of the Euro-Asian superpower as per the invite, not of the U.S., of the naive E.U. so-called “leaders.”

Bart: Can the self-replicating and self-upgrading watermelon-sized wireless hovercrafts carry improvised “x” devices?

Homer: I doubt it, Mr. Laughter has every White Swan calculated in detail. And White Swans hates every form of disruptions and are rara avis that destroy threats and risks. Unless his self-replicating and self-upgrading watermelon-sized wireless hovercrafts get hacked, which is, by the way, a huge perpetual possibility.

Bart: What can a White Swan do for the most prominent Seattle inhabitant?

Homer: Make his core-business EVEN infinitely super richer while securing a better laughter outpouring to the East Coast of the Atlantic.

Bart: Dad, how can we get on the boat on making wealth like him?

Homer: Through two quick ways. First, by doing smart entrepreneuring. Second, by doing the “...First...” through the White Swan.

Bart: Why is it necessary the White Swan?

Homer: First, in order not to get silly black swans. Second, in order to make your coped-with black swans into beautiful and lucrative White Swans through Transformative and Integrative Risk Management interdisciplinary problem-solving methodology. (That is: Feet-on-the-dynamic-ground problem solving).

Bart: And What is Transformative and Integrative Risk Management interdisciplinary problem-solving methodology?

Homer: Andy's interdisciplinary approach to Seize Success, Preclude black swans, the Disruptional Singularity and enable Ray's Technological Singularity.

Bart: How do you define success?

Homer: To this end, Andy says that Success is achieved in two simultaneous ways. FIRST, By securing all of your designated objectives and goals, despite competitors and governments and geopolitics. SECOND, By securing that, as you over-accomplish your designated objectives and goals, you give your competitors tons of Sputnik Moments.

Bart: Oh, I see. But what is that Rusky notion that I don't get?

Homer: Sputnik moments are when you are superseded by your competitors as they throw at you manipulated strategies and technological innovations to disrupt your business from competing. And if you are getting Sputnik moments is because you are doing, without consciousness, black swans only and are not responsive to the countermeassuring White Swan idea, early on, for Life.

Bart: Dad, that sounds a bit complicated.

Homer: Bart, for some things you are smart. And for others you are a fool. Competition between business enterprises are harsh actions by Frederick The Great and Emperor Napoleon I.

Bart: Dad, why are you teaching me world history? I hate that knowledge field.

Homer: Bart, if you don't learn history, you are set out to fail at entrepreneuring and else! You can have all the high tech you want but if you don't know how to do your strategy right and do right with your risks and futures, you are destined to be bankrupted.

Bart: Dad, Are all entrepreneurs and corporation CEOs and chairpersons so anti-shrewd?

Homer: 97% of them are! Those guys and gals think that by having tons of servers, nodes, cloud computing, and web-based mobile applications they will outsmart the competition and governments. Hence, they are immeasurably wrong!

Bart: Dad, so one needs to go further than having laptops, servers, kindles, e-readers, i-pads, i-phones and so forth? Are those the employment of what Andy and other call tangibles.

Homer: Yes, son. You gotta do your intangibles. Even tangibles are made up of intangibles. The world is ruled by intangibles. Stated simply, intangibles are Intellectual Capital. You see, not only corporations have Intellectual Capital but also sole proprietors as Andy and Ray. White Swan and Transformative and Integrative Risk Management are Intellectual Capitals, solely owned by Andy.

Bart: Is software contemplated within your Intellectual Capital definition?

Homer: Yes, software is an intangible and a portion in the mix of Intellectual Capital. And, for the sake of clarity, you can even have a systematized interdisciplinary methodology in place that does not need computerization or web-basing. You see, Bart, everything under Computronium's Sun (its own Star) is always, whether we know it or not, reckoning zillion zillion zillion calculations.

Bart: Is the biological mind a good example of a systematized hardware whose locus does not belong to W3?

Homer: Yes, it is. And you can also add that the bio-PC is systematic and yet, in many cases, not systemic.

Bart: And beyond patents and other copyrighted materials, What else is Intellectual Capital?

Homer: Two-fold question. FIRST, there is the knowledge base of the Corporation. SECOND, there is the knowledge base of each Corporation's employee beyond any property and/or effort by the Corporation.

Bart: Who owns Tony Buzan's Broth and Soup?

Homer: Well, Tony's soup has a primordial genesis in people and civilizations from: Classic Ancient Greeks, Classic Ancient Romans and Latins, Classic Ancient Aryans and Germanics, Classic Ancient Scandinavians and, for instance, Classic Ancient Egyptians and Classic Ancient Phoenicians. And the idea by all of them is that the totality of knowledge does not have clearly-human-made knowledge (system) demarcations (boundaries). And superspecialization and overspecialization are NEVER recommended, through millennia, by these Classic Ancient civilizations.

And to that end, I must admit that Andy's motion has been fully supported by Sir Francis Bacon (1561 –1626)when he writes verbatim,

“... Men have abandoned universality [of knowledge], or philosophia prima, which cannot but cease and stop all progression [pursued through arbitrarily established specialization and even super-specialization]. For no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level; neither is possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts [, both subtle and dramatic,] of any science if you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science [towards true non-theological omniscience] ...” Brackets of the Author.

Bart: And because of that by you is that Andy suggests to swiftly and thoroughly embrace the non-theological omniscience notion, just as DARPA, NASA, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell do since the early 1950s.

Homer: Bart, you are becoming most mordant and probably into the Illuminatis? Are you?

END OF THE EXCHANGE SIMULACRUM:

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Speaking of applied omniscience and by way of example:

Deng Xiaoping's quote, “ … It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice ...”

Paraphrasing the thought above, the reader gets:

“ … It doesn't matter whether the cat [problem-solving methodology] is black [insurance-based risk management] or white [beyond-insurance risk management], as long as it catches [terminates or, at least, optimally modulates] mice [hazards and any operational downside futures]...” Brackets are of the author.

Let us consider: «Universal Knowledge» vis-à-vis Omniscience:

“... In support of the liberal notion that the knowledges that constitute the university have no ‘use’ fail to ask what [John Henry] Newman mean by ‘universal knowledge.’ By ‘universal’ Newman did not mean that the knowledges that constitute liberal learning cannot be justified by their utility, but rather that all knowledge was interconnected because the ‘universe in its length and breadth is so intimately knit together.’ To be educated is not to be well read or to know a great deal about this or that subject. Rather, it is the only true enlargement of mind which is the power of viewing many things at once as one whole, of referring them severally to their true place in the universal system, or understanding their respective values, and determining their mutual dependence...” [95] Brackets are of the author.

And the preceding paragraph continues:

“... Thus is that form of Universal Knowledges sets up in the individual intellect, and constitutes its perfection. Possessed of this real illumination, the mind never views any part of the extended subject-matter of Knowledge without recollecting that it is but a part, or without the associations which spring from this recollection. It makes everything in some sort lead to everything else; it would communicate the image of the whole to every separate portion, till that whole becomes in imagination like a spirit, everywhere pervading and penetrating its component parts, and giving them one definite meaning [….] Philosophy, not theology, Newman believes to be the discipline that is distinct from all the sciences, that is, ‘in some sense’ philosophy is ‘ … a science of sciences … ’ ...” [95].

In this context, the term “...knowledge...” includes:

1.- Unknowldege.
2.- Non-unknowldege knowledge.
3.- Foreknowledge.
4.- Prescience.
5.- Omniscience.

What can applied knowledge do for speed, efficiency, productivity, progress and modernity?

Speaking of non-theological omniscience, Edward Teller argues, “...The science of today is the technology of tomorrow ...” [83]

Applied non-theological omniscience is lavishly applied by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and a myriad of world-class private contractors by both of these agencies, among many other institutions.

Applied non-theological omniscience has been under application in many industries since the early 1950s.

To illustrate the focus of the latter-day work, “...Management of Risk and Insurance...” does not ever equate to beyond-insurance risk management (the exact opposite of insurance-based risk unmanagement).

It is now important to assert that “...COSO Risk Management...” and “...Enterprise Risk Management...” are never beyond-insurance risk management.

“...Management of Captive Insurance Companies...” does not ever equate to beyond-insurance risk management.

“...' … Risk Management ...' (so-called) by Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers...” does not ever equate to beyond-insurance risk management.

Under the snail-paced of financial focus, institutional and corporate firms “...transfer risks...” (so called) to insurance and reinsurance companies (suboptimal or ineffectual choice).

Under the TAIRM focus, institutional and corporate firms manage risks optimally through the interdisciplinary systems approach with the applied omniscience perspective (optimal decision).

Coming to the core of the subject matter, thus receiving indemnity payments was observed as insidious mediocrity by this petroleum group above.

Let us not complicate things that are already complicated. The people who lie the most, are not psychopaths, but folks into outright and comfortable mediocrity (there are some with tertiary and tetratiary completed education).

The preceding folks have envisaged, as per the narrowed and convenient under-minds, a Cosmosvision in which no one should do the extra-mile effort.

And when someone else, willing to go for the extra-league effort, they argue, “... pal, sure thing, you are a smart cookie that does NOT warrant my relieving sleep as I am in awe and bewilderment by your mouth and keyboard … I hugely hate you because you have proven my Belief System wrong ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

These global corporations, for illustration purposes and when applying advanced scenario-planning methodology, don't only contemplate — say — the tree-scenario output but the totality of meaningful scenarios that can disrupt their operations gravely or grow their success significantly.

Sometimes they are, as well, called “...hazard scenarios ...”

Even mild discrete deviations or not are thoroughly studied in granularity of detail too, documented and continuously considered.

To the greatest degree possible by the respective prepared minds, they leave — within their materiel possibilities — little spatial and temporal dimensions for (a) fortuitousness (Fortuitousness is the quality of conforming to event that happens without thinking and that event while happens unexpected and casually). And (b) randomness (Randomness means lack of pattern or predictability in events) and (c) pseudorandomness (A pseudorandom process is a process that appears to be random but is not).

After all, one must realize that they are not a primarily financial system “player,” but an institutional incumbent mostly exercising organic ownership and profit of fixed and liquid assets.

Profit and lucre (monetary reward or gain; money.) are beyond indispensable. Without lucre NGOs will never be able to make charitable donations, governments would not be able to pay for unemployment insurance benefits.

Within my professional experience, I have found that lucre-centric billionaires have a huge humanitarian heart, enabling possibilities for the socially excluded (disfranchised ones), not within the realm of duty of them, but within the realm of duty of government incumbents.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Clearly, the financial aspects and those of their liquid assets were also important to them.

AS A WAY OF ILLUSTRATION:

If and when major currencies go South, don't expect, by way of example, to get any indemnity payment from insurance and reinsurance companies, regardless of the millionaire or billionaire cover you purchased.

And as strong financial players, don't expect insurance and reinsurance companies to be alive.

But, for example, when you need oil or gas or petrochemicals, you will need to pay for these ardent commodities, unless you want to get frozen.

And petroleum, gas and petrochemical companies will not go South because of the hugely manipulated crash of the global currencies and the so-called Financial System.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

The high-raking executives and applied scientists of most of these global institutions know that insurance and reinsurance companies have rampant speculative financial practices and ambitions as if they were investment banks, just to cite one example.

And, as a consequence, many of them displace (divert) the legally-stipulated “...premium reserves...” (financial provisions originally established to indemnify the covered losses to insureds and reinsureds) and in order to seize additional and unlawful gains out of those reserves.

All of the preceding without these parties actually getting in proactive and agile engagement of countermeasuring threats (including intractable threats).

These insurance and reinsurance companies do the prior by financially re-engineering the allocated portions of the premiums designated to pay for covered losses.

As many (not all) insurance and reinsurance companies doctor and manipulate the sacred premium reserves, they make extraordinary and illegitimate earnings while losing great solvency and their ultimate ability to indemnify duly covered losses.

Most insurance and reinsurance companies view themselves as enjoying first-order blood-related “...family relationships...” with banks, stock market firms and many other private “ … players ...” within the ever-speculative financial system.

Many (not all) insurance and reinsurance companies are financial predators.

For instance:

HOW DO MOST INSURANCE AND REINSURANCE COMPANIES ENHANCE THEIR MINDS?

Like Bernie Madoff, most (not all) insurance and reinsurance companies enjoy reading the following Amazon books:

(1.-) The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It (ISBN: 978-0307453389).

(2.-) Dark Pools: The Rise of the Machine Traders and the Rigging of the U.S. Stock Market (ISBN: 978-0307887184)

(3.-) Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt (ISBN: 978-0393244663).

(4.-) The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (ISBN: 978-0393338829).

(5.-) The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security (ISBN: 978-0764542800).

(6.-) Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking (ISBN: 978-0470639535).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

And when the global economy and financial system are even further brought down, What and where are the indemnity payments that the insured parties are going to come from the insurers? Most probably in some fat pockets hidden in relished fiscal paradises.

For serious industrial corporations, mired by intensive intellectual and fixed asset capitals and own operations, such global malfeasance is a like an abject financial-engineering “...glitch ...”.

Global corporations do not desire their corporate insurance policies to be subjected to outright wrongdoing and other ups and downs (whether systemic or not) by any “...agent..." (gambler) of the financial system, chiefly the insurance and reinsurance companies.

Financial systems become a so-called “ … systemic risk ...” by the expressed doctoring and gambling deeds of and by the primordial incumbents in such financial systems.

Consequently, management by insurance and reinsurance companies is NEVER beyond-insurance risk management.

Thus, it was insidious mediocrity because this petroleum group's executives strongly believed that these risks can be stopped before morphing into disruption potentials if a previous, early-on (beforehand) appropriate work was previously designed and in place.

The frequently cited White Swans are exploited by Royal Dutch Shell to facilitate one example quickly.

Like many governmental agencies and other prominent global corporations, Citgo's PDVSA did not tolerate a “...financial system...”-driven risk management option.

All of these institutions wanted a central and on-site (in-company) solution through systems interdisciplinary approach with the applied omniscience perspective, enabled by a reliable external turnkey consultant and strategist.

The applied omniscience notion is vastly and continuously used by agencies and corporations in the Military-Industrial Complex.

Yes, by law and in general, you still need “worker's compensation,” “directors and officers,” “kidnap and ransom,” “legal expenses,” “product liability” and “life insurance.”

BUT NOT IN PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCES AND ONLY IN ORGANIZATIONAL AND BUSINESS SETTINGS, “...Transformative and Integrative Risk Management...” (explained hereby) lucratively turns corporate and institutional insurance irrelevant and worthless.

The most sensible corporate and institutional risks — through TAIRM — can be optimally managed without insurance and reinsurance.

In the process, you are additionally making a huge saving by not paying exaggerated unearned and undeserved commissions and bonuses to insurance and reinsurance brokers. “...Brokers...” (“...sales reps...”) of what? Indeed!

Insurance or Insurance-Based Risk Unmanagement is the old guard while Transformative and Integrative Risk Management is the vanguard, today!

We are all professionally and managerially concerned about legalistic and litigious: regulations, frameworks, zeitgeists and Weltanschauungs.

But these are not the only perils requiring holistic countermeassuring in an all-out wars “...waged...” within the theaters of operations (including intractable threats).

If a corporation believes that Cyber or Cybersecurity Insurance will suffice, then one will know that the CEO is dysfunctional.

And Corporate or Personal Catastrophic Insurance is raising the ante in a bad gamble.

Conversely, Xerox' V.P., Mr. Brooks greatly articulates the point by stating:

“ … In 2013, more than 740 million private records were exposed, making it the worst year in terms of data breaches recorded. This year may be even worse. Two of the most visible data breaches were from retail operators Target and Neiman Marcus. The forensic case studies on these incidents are still being examined. In data breaches, there is no one size fits all solution for addressing causation and future mitigation. Data breaches come from insider threats, negligence in following security protocols, or, most often the case, from outside attacks. Each industry is also unique. A case in point is the energy industry. Of particular concern is that three-quarters of energy companies and utilities have experienced at least one data breach in the past 12 months according to a Ponemon Report. According to that same report, 'a mere 21% of global energy and utilities organizations feel that their existing controls are able to protect against exploits and attacks through smart grid and smart meter-connected systems.' The danger of cyber-attacks on the energy grid and transportation sectors requires more situational awareness and enactment of lessons learned. The implications of failure can be more damaging and potentially catastrophic compared to retail data breaches...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

And issues bestowed by violation of Governance, Compliance and Controls also required a much more holistic countermeassuring (including intractable threats).

By way of illustration, only managing issues concerning the abidance of: Sarbanes— Oxley Act, Patriot Act, Governance, Compliance, Controls and Intellectual Property is never ever “...beyond-insurance risk management...”

Nearly all lawyers and economists see “...risk management and insurance..." as a financial and legal approach.

My late father, my existing brother, sister and other close family members are litigation Jurisprudentiae Doctor. Consequently, through inner-most family reasons, I hold barristers very highly.

I intensely collaborate with a law office formed by 300 lawyers and we get along very well. I also work very closely with all sorts of disestablish and accomplished law-enforcement officials and lawyers specialized in criminology.

When pursuing with serious risk management, one must cooperate fluidly with lawyers, law-enforcement officials and criminologists.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Just about all accountants and chief compliant officers (CCOs) see “...risk management and insurance..." as a comptroller's methodology.

Most actuaries and statisticians see “...risk management and insurance..." as a statistical methodology. Both of them declared to be engaged with Stochastic Modeling, also known as the Monte Carlo method, to tinker parlance into sophisticated past-lathered “...historical records...” with the anumerical a posteriori perspective. (A posteriori or ex post facto).

Most auditors see “...risk management and insurance..." as a governance and compliance and intellectual property methodology.

To the highest degree possible, economists and financiers see “...risk management and insurance..." as a speculative and highly doctorable financial transaction.

Any financially-driven service at all is always extremely doctorable and immensely manipulable.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Most corporate planners see “...risk management and insurance..." as a strategy and planning approach.

Nearly all human resources managers see “...risk management and insurance..." as a psychological approach.

CIOs, CISOs and CTOs, I.T. managers and I.T. risk managers see “...risk management and insurance ...” as a computational methodology.

The fallaciously-called “...futurists, ...” that should instead be called — at all times — futurologists, are NEVER EVER risk managers, as they consider that risk management is a conundrum whose problem-solving is achieved through Sociology and/other soft “...Social Sciences ...”.

Almost all lawyers, economists, financiers, accountants, chief compliant officers (CCOs), business administrators, auditors, corporate planners, actuaries, human resources managers, CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, I.T. Managers, I.T. risk managers and futurists (or futurologists) are not sufficiently right because their focus and pursuit fail to consider the applied physicist' and engineer's all-rounded criteria.

The engineering-oriented mentality is best in any field of Hard Science and Soft Science, Low Tech and Hi Tech, including Social Sciences and History.

Beyond-insurance risk management and TAIRM comprehensively consider lawfulness (including intellectual properties), Sarbanes— Oxley Act, Patriot Act, governance, compliance, controls, business administration, accounting, auditing, statistics, actuarial sciences, corporate planning, human resources, economics and finance, I.T. and technology, as well.

As a by-product, TAIRM takes into serious consideration everything related to the speed, efficiency, productivity, innovation, productivity, progress, growth and seamless sustainability of the institutional clients.

Beyond-insurance risk management and TAIRM contemplate many, many other proprietary aspects not discussed here.

Virtually all lawyers, economists, financiers, business administrators, accountants, chief compliant officers (CCOs), auditors, corporate planners, actuaries, human resources managers, CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, I.T. Managers, I.T. risk managers and futurists (or futurologists) are NEVER into beyond-insurance risk management and TAIRM.

Beyond-insurance risk management and TAIRM are ultimately truth-seeking interdisciplinary methodologies through the systems cross-functional approach and with the applied omniscience perspective.

Many (not all): prominent scientists, academicians, scholars, linguists, polyglots, researchers, engineers, thought leaders, historians, philosophers, authors, CEOs, inventors, states-people, lawyers, economists, financiers, business administrators, accountants, chief compliant officers (CCOs), auditors, corporate planners, actuaries, human resources managers, CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, I.T. Managers, I.T. risk managers and futurists (or futurologists) seek accuracy — either directly or indirectly — in adversarial modes by going to court and “...resolving...” the loss (disruption potential) in over-legalistic and over-litigious “...boxing rings...” (that is, seeking contentious adversarial truths).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Law and complexity:

“...The law is recognizing the trend toward complexity of life and the inability of the average person to recognize and overcome risks associated with it … Whereas our forefathers could knowingly inspect the horseshoes a blacksmith nailed on their horses’ hoofs, the average person today cannot knowledgeably inspect a microwave oven or a car’s automatic transmission...” [226]

SUBSEQUENTLY, WHILE ADVERSARIAL TRUTH IS SUBOPTIMAL OR INEFFECTUAL AND EVEN LUDICROUS, TECHNICAL TRUTH IS OPTIMAL.

Casually, business administrators (managers) and many investors have a distinctive taste outsourcing and off-shoring.

But neither outsourcing nor off-shoring is beyond-insurance risk management.

Equally, neither process re-engineering, process overhauling, nor cost-cutting, nor continuous improvement is beyond-insurance risk management.

In addition, some major national economies are being currently ruined by previous massive outsourcing and off-shoring engagements.

Ruins have also been inflicted by un-walked talks and small chats about public education reform for the past forty years, chiefly in the pontificated yet immeasurably dysfunctional West.

Furthermore, TAIRM deeply examines the enterprise’s core business.

However, all honorable professionals hereby mentioned are clever and have outstanding contributions to make in society.

Not separately but jointly they have a partial role to play in beyond-insurance risk management.

And actual and advanced “...beyond-insurance risk management..." is just OPTIMAL PER SE MANAGEMENT.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

The oil group in question wanted to preemptively countermeasure every hazard and risk optimally (early on, that is: beforehand).

Subsequently, I expanded, revised, upgraded and enhanced greatly this practice and interdisciplinary approach, after twenty-one years of applied experience, and carefully designed, developed and created my proprietary methodology and professional, trade secret, “...Transformative and Integrative Risk Management..." (TAIRM) back in 2005 (continually updated and upgraded to date).

Simply stated, it is secret because it is proprietary.

AND BY WAY OF EXAMPLE:

Everyone should have his or her own proprietary:

(1.-) Algorithms,

(2.-) Software Applications,

(3.-) White Papers and Scholarly Articles,

(4.-) Books,

(5.-) Blogs,

(6.-) Methods,

(7.-) Creations, and

(8.-) Other assets as per his or her direct Intellectual Capital and Intellectual Effort.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

This own interdisciplinary approach (Transformative and Integrative Risk Management) I seamlessly coalesce with the scientific futuring perspective (skill, expertise).

My researched Scientific Futuring definition is this:

“... Scientific Futuring is in due place to incessantly develop a scientific method for studying the future. Scientific Futuring comprises: 1) An inductive process consisting of a number of accurate observations which have been consolidated, or generalized, into empirical laws or statements of underlying relationships between key variables, and 2) A deductive, intuitive process by which the scientific “investigator” places his observations into a larger system of thought, or theory based on fundamental axioms. Scientific Futuring is instituted with the purpose of seizing knowledge of effects through causes. This method of Scientific Futuring, made up of a process employing the classical scientific steps of induction and deduction, and reinforced by additional steps of contextualization and evolutionization, is a battle-plan for systemically and systematically study of tomorrow’s evolving world, today and tomorrow ...”

Hidden and ignored risks most authors fail to elaborate on:

There is a great risk for all sorts of business enterprises. Unfortunately, most practitioners of Risk Unmanagement (insurance and insurance-based risk management) and Risk Management (beyond-insurance risk management) — along with folks into planning and implementing Strategy —, fail to consider gravely and prevalently.

Those risks stem from the war-waging campaign presented and put forward by industry's and other industry's competitors.

BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, HOW WE CAN CONCISELY RELATE THE PRESENT WITH THE FUTURE?

Let us check this out:

(1.-) Today is the real-time future.

(2.-) Tomorrow is the TODAY'S FUTURE as it breaks in 24 hours.

(3.-) The day after tomorrow is TODAY'S FUTURE as it breaks in 48 hours.

(4.-) Next month is TODAY'S FUTURE as it breaks in 30 days.

(5.-) Next year is TODAY'S FUTURE as it breaks in 365 days.

(6.-) Next decade is TODAY'S FUTURE as it breaks in 3,650 days.

(7.-) Next century is TODAY'S FUTURE as it breaks in 36,500 days.

(8.-) Next millennium is TODAY'S FUTURE as it breaks in 360,500 days.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

As with any other risks, these hazards the manager most foresee, prepare for and get ready to exploit, transforming downsides into substantial upsides.

Extremely important subsequent addendum:

“...Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM) is also implemented, in order to prevent technological and other surprises to the savvy organization seeking this advice and service by TAIRM, but also to create disruptively technological surprises (managerial '...Sputnik Moments...') for the enterprise’s competitors...”

Under TAIRM '...Sputnik Moments...' and '...Eureka Moments …' are coalesced and hugely exploited for the sake of the core business' sustainable lucre.

In related manner:

This notion is better understood when the axiom: “... strategy is a function of a grander beyond-insurance risk management program and not the other way around...” is fully accepted and practiced.

In one line, Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM) is absolutely and recursively into:

(a) “ … Skunkworks … ,” (b) “ … Space-Age, ...” (c) “ … Wargaming … ”, (d) into-Perfectibility Technocratic, Plutocratic, Stratocratic, Meritocratic, Non-theocratic and (e) Omnimode, Methodological, Sequential and Dense Full-Orbited Management Blitzkrieging Problem-Solving Methodology that Transforms Black Swans (sub-optimal unmanagement) into Outright White Swans (optimal management). (That is: Feet-on-the-dynamic-ground problem solving).

A little definition:

“ ... Blitzkrieg is a German MEME for war-waging White Swan Corporate Strategy conducted against competitors and with great speed and force; specifically: a violent techno-surprise offensive by massed brick-and-mortar forces and through digitized ground and World-Wide Web forces in close beyond-perfection coordination ...”

Why do? “ ...Full-Orbited Management Blitzkrieging Problem-Solving Methodology that Transforms Black Swans (sub-optimal unmanagement) into Outright White Swans (optimal management)...”

Because:

“...They [, strong Fortune-7 Corporate CEOs, ] don’t have too many options other than to upgrade [their minds, methods, risk management, strategies, innovation, technologies and core businesses] to make sure they are efficient enough to compete. It is a game of survival [done with legitimacy, constructiveness, kindness and grace]...” Brackets are of the author.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Transformative and Integrative Risk Management interdisciplinary problem-solving methodology greatly turbo-charges: over-achieving thinkers and over-arching managers.

Ergo, as there are huge existential disruptions everywhere, nonlinearly (In S-Curves) increasingly so, and as it is observed by the Disruptional Singularity, there is no time for entertained discourses against the problem-solving auspiciousness by people with this wondrous cosmological personal traits of and/or concerning: a) Functionalized Autism and Asperger's syndrome, b) Huge Ego, and c) Gargantuan Self-Esteem.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Oxford University's Faculty of Philosophy Professor Nick Bostrom on the Disruptional Singularity:

“... Because of accelerating technological progress [, given the great advancement of hard sciences of exactness,], humankind may be rapidly [or better yet: with absolute guarantee] approaching a critical phase in its career. In addition to well-known [humanly induced] threats [, a multitude of black swans unmanaged,] such as nuclear holocaust, the prospects of radically transforming [and exponential] technologies like nanotech systems and machine intelligence present us with unprecedented opportunities [positive dangers and upside futures] and risks [negative dangers and downside futures]. Our future [right now, and the future of our children and grandchildren], and whether we will have a future at all [that is to mean: if we humans preemptively destroy black swans to preclude the Disruptional Singularity that precludes the Technological Singularity], may well be determined by how we deal [as we are 95% engaged in worshiping black swans] with these challenges [that have a huge outright potential for White Swan only if we get our acts together, beforehand]. In the case of radically transforming technologies, a better understanding of the transition dynamics from a human to a '...posthuman ...' [understating that posthuman is an euphemisms to (a) Transbiologicals and (b) Trans-exobiologicals] society is needed. Of particular [sine qua non] importance is to know [and execute] where the pitfalls [mostly: black swans permitted] are: the ways in which things [absence of will and intelligence to secure White Swans] could go terminally wrong [and, hence, bestowing Apocalypse]. While we have had long exposure to various personal, local, and endurable global hazards [given our lack of will to manage what we readily know], this paper analyzes a recently emerging category: that of existential risks [better embodied by the Disruptional Singularity]. These are threats [better known as black swans] that could cause our extinction or destroy the potential of Earth-originating intelligent life. Some of these threats are relatively well known while others, including some of the gravest, have gone almost unrecognized [the almost unrecognized are so only the philosophers, not true rocket scientists]. Existential risks have a cluster of features that make ordinary risk management ineffective. A final section of this paper discusses several ethical and policy implications. A clearer understanding [and, especially, management] of the threat [black swan] picture will enable us to formulate better [White Swan] strategies ...” Brackets are of the author.

AND IN ADDITION:

Question: A Counterpoint to the Technological Singularity?

Douglas Hofstadter, a professor of cognitive science at Indiana University, indicated about The Singularity is Near Book (ISBN: 978-0143037880),

“ … A very bizarre mixture of ideas that are solid and good with ideas that are crazy. It’s as if you took a lot of very good food and some dog excrement and blended it all up so that you can’t possibly figure out what’s good or bad ...”

AND FOR INSTANCE:

“... Technology is the savior for everything. That’s the point of this course. Technology is accelerating, everything is going to be good, technology is your friend … I think that’s a load of crap ...” By Dr. Jonathan White

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

That discourse can be entertained at a forthcoming Renaissance, not now. Going against this idea will be outrageously counterproductive to ascertain the non-annihilation of Earth's locals.

People who destroy, eternally beforehand, outrageous Black Swans, engaging into super-natural and preter-natural preparations for known and unknown Outliers, thus observing — in all practicality — the successful and prevailing White Swan and Transformative and Integrative Risk Management interdisciplinary problem-solving methodology, include:

(1.-) Sir Martin Rees PhD (cosmologist and astrophysicist), Astronomer Royal, Cambridge University Professor and former Royal Society President.

(2.-) Dr. Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. Formerly: Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.

(3.-) Prof. Nick Bostrom Ph.D. is a Swedish philosopher at St. Cross College, University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, the reversal test, and consequentialism. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics (2000). He is the founding director of both The Future of Humanity Institute and the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology as part of the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University.

(4.-) The US National Intelligence Council (NIC) __[....]__ The National Intelligence Council supports the Director of National Intelligence in his role as head of the Intelligence Community (IC) and is the IC’s center for long-term strategic analysis __[....]__ Since its establishment in 1979, the NIC has served as a bridge between the intelligence and policy communities, a source of deep substantive expertise on intelligence issues, and a facilitator of Intelligence Community collaboration and outreach __[....]__ The NIC’s National Intelligence Officers — drawn from government, academia, and the private sector—are the Intelligence Community’s senior experts on a range of regional and functional issues.

(5.-) U.S. Homeland Security's FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency).

(6.-) The CIA or any other U.S. Government agencies.

(7.-) Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International).

(8.-) GBN (Global Business Network).

(9.-) Royal Dutch Shell.

(10.-) British Doomsday Preppers.

(11.-) Canadian Doomsday Preppers.

(12.-) Australian Doomsday Preppers

(13.-) American Doomsday Preppers.

(14.-) Disruptional Singularity Book (ASIN: B00KQOEYLG).

(15.-) Scientific Prophets of Doom at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bUe2-7jjtY

White Swans are always getting prepared for Unknown and Known Outliers, and MOST FLUIDLY changing the theater of operation by permanently updating and upgrading the designated preparations.

In doing far-fetched yet verifiable by applied omniscience, say, most rigorous Emergency Preparedness, White Swan creatively and kindly, beforehand, leaves without any effect non-White Swan's anti-Christ preparations, characterized by so-called Stasis and Homeostasis. White Swan's Emergency Preparedness is into INSANELY FLUID impermanent preparations and overhauling and re-engineering of the targeted preparations.

The author's “...far-fetched ...” definition:

“ … Far-fetched is improbable in nature; unlikely. But given the emergent as-of-now nature of the Omniverse, far-fetched is omniversal nature's most probable and so probable to tectonically reform our cosmosvisions, in front and beyond our smartest observations, and other constellations believed indisputable by our folly human assumptions ...”

An example of a Far-fetched Theater of Operations ensues:

Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus' sentence, “...Si vis pacem, para bellum ...” has a non-Wikipedia interpretive translation:

“… If you want peace, make outlandish and far-fetched preparations to wage war ...”

Better stated yet:

“… If you want peace [and outright peaceful and constructive White Swans], make outlandish [and beforehand and without precedence] and far-fetched [omniscient] preparations to wage [and scientifically outsmart] war [, in order to preemptively land tons of continuous and sustained corporate sequestration of cash, thus rendering every type of black swan lucrative] ...” Brackets are of the author.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

As per the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language Dictionary, by omnimode is to say, “ … that embraces and consists of everything ...” [223]

While all countries in the Americas are about two-hundred (200) years old, the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language Dictionary (founded in 1713) is already three-hundred (300) years old.

The United States, for example, declared its independence on July 4, 1776, 63 years after the foundation and establishment of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language Dictionary. The Royal Academy of the Spanish Language Dictionary is articulated under the joint effort of Spain and 21 nations.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Hence, this is non-“...status quo...” management.

I greatly enjoy Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Every time I watch this movie and others, I make relentless notes.

Paraphrasing the smart script, I will assert, “... Do not scientifically audit the outputted intelligence of my concepts and outcomes, but the density of my reasoning and pragmatic dynamics in execution ...”

LDG Management's CEO, Mr. Walter (Nardi) Suydam has a great understating of this important term.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Transformative and Integrative Risk Management is into outright perfectionism, macro-management and micro-management.

When dealing with exponential unthinkable and thinkable threats posed to Corporation, the minutia-related detail can be a large devastating aftermath, expressed in loss of: human lives and other corporate assets.

For example, the tini-wini adversarial Cambrian discussion against “...micro-management...”, under outright Transformative and Integrative Risk Management is radically banned.

It is infinitely more lucrative the futile deliberations about the genders-identification possessed by Angels and Archangels.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

While I mentioned the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language Dictionary, my two most pivotal dictionaries are: The American Heritage (by 200-plus Canadian and American PhDs.) and The Oxford Dictionary.

In secondary and tertiary usage and within the Newtonian Lingua Franca, I also use 17 (seventeen) physical (brick-and-mortar) English dictionaries and many others that are in digital format.

Additionally, major language dictionaries of the West, including Latin, German, French, Castilian, Spanish and Portuguese are also observed.

It should never be expected for the author to write like a Tudor Family's Patrician Patriarch. However, it should be expected for the author to get the message across without a fail.

A little comment on Language Style and Grammar.

With the sole exception of the auspicious Basque language (Basque people insists that they are the primordial inhabitants, heirs and owners of Atlantis), every Indo-European Language (including English, German, French, Italian, Castilian and Spanish) has a marked propensity to be written as proper Latin Language.

As per most of them, they are the ONLY “...Chosen One(s) ...” People and Culture and the only of their own “...Promised Land...” Basque language is better known (exactly) as “... Euskara ...”

My Basque blood does NOT think, at all, that it is right to claim the Atlantis or anything else in any direct or indirect way. My family does not like myths unless they are within sacred scriptures and taken as such.

Speaking of Basque, the author has foreparents from: Corsica, France, Italy, Basque Region, Murcia (Spain) and England, among others.

Oddly enough:

The most serious scientific and noted establishment of the U.S. uses this language priority:

FIRST LANGUAGE.— English.
SECOND LANGUAGE.— German.
THIRD LANGUAGE.— Russian.
FOURTH LANGUAGE.— French.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

As well:

As per the persistent request of some amazing contacts, including a great female executive CEO and her male medical doctors, I have taken numerous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality tests. At the begging the results always came along indicating that I was a: INTJ (“...The Scientist” or … “...The Mastermind...”).

Then, through most profound and thorough analyzes, the tests results were in a bit of bewilderment as they were showing a personality that is about: 50% INFJ (the highly-principled Protector and Counselor) and 50% INTJ (above).

I take this as a fun story that makes a little bit of humor but I am most difficult to stereotype, box or label.

And also on the Baconian Lingua Franca:

Unlike the Castilian, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, the English and German languages are EXTREMELY MNEMONIC and BEYOND-EXCEEDINGLY CONTEXTUAL.

In such a way that when dealing with serious complications, complexities and uncertainties pertaining to hard science, hi tech and breakthrough techniques, the English and German languages are more than indispensable for these purposes.

Once you mastered the Latin Language and other Latin-based language(s) and when your primary concern is English, you will hit a limit.

In order to disrupt that threshold imposed to the English language, you must master the German language to further underpin your own English language ability.

When your primary language is German, then you must disrupt the literary embargo by outright embracing the Jeffersonian English.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

While others insist on timidly “...thinking outside the box...” (inconsequential), TAIRM focuses on strong-sense and critico-creative actionable womb-to-tomb epidemiological thinking and execution!

Not thinking out of the box BUT womb-to-tomb and yet epidemiological reasoning in the theater of operations.

TO UNDERPIN THE PRECEDING:

QUESTION: HOW CAN WE ILLUSTRATE MR. ANDRES AGOSTINI'S CONCURRENT COORDINATED CONVERGENT SYSTEMS THINKING (CCCST): ARTICULATED UNDER INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION AND AMPLIFICATION (IAA) VIA ASIN: B00KNL02ZE ANSWER: BY PAYING ATTENTION TO AN INSIDE INTERVIEW BY THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL HERE:

AN ACTUAL EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CEO AND THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WORLDWIDE CHIEF STRATEGIST!

Many world-class zillion-dollars corporations go to huge unknown distances to make a difference in sustaining and guaranteeing their For-Lucre Competitive Advantage. Shell, as many others are a good example of this, through many, many decades to date. I was fully trained and thoroughly indoctrinated by Shell to this end a long time ago while I keep always researching their latest canonical milestones.

Governments, governmental agencies, political bodies, universities (including those into strong R&D&I), as well as a myriad of other companies, supranationals and NGOs, DO NOT EVER ATTEMPT TO DO THIS. THEY THINK THAT SEEKING KNOWLEDGE THIS WAY IS A CLEAR SIGN OF INSANITY.

Nothing, and nothing at all, will preclude Shell and other Fortune-7 Corporations to seek out and seize boundaryless knowledge.

All of my assertions are backed by most-updated brick-and-mortar books. I can give you a general idea, but my time and researched findings are extremely expensive for me to tell you where to find those contents. The combined knowledge of my research is a part of an infinitely larger ongoing research effort by me. Through many, many years, these books and manuals and handbooks have been physically published but you did not found out then. But many publications were only found through proprietary literature only.

When you want to access proprietary literature, you handsomely pay for it. Otherwise, it is impossible to gain access to that.

Everything I have or have had, I capitalistically paid for CASH AND IN FULL. If you are a commie, this is not for you or any other forms of hippies and chronies.

FOR INSTANCE:

Star Trek's Captain told James T. Kirk: “... Jim, the problem with you is that you always proceed from false assumptions ... And being a Volcan and different from you, I have no ego to bruise ...”

LET US NOW GET BACK TO OUR REAL-LIFE EXCHANGE AS PER ROYAL DUTCH SHELL:

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Okay, How is the strategic planning going along for the forthcoming year? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...Very well, sir...We are introducing some novelties to our corporation-wide strategic planning, strategizing and strategic execution …!

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Can you give me some specifics? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...Well, sir, our most unconventional and heterodox thinking and strategizing have always gone to a far-fetched fringe, spurting twilight-zones mind-sets while ridiculing the minimal and precarious notion of so-called 'out-of-the-box' thinking … So, this year we have a roaster of out-of-this-world people to interview, in order to underpin our strategy and outsmart Exxon-Mobil and the like in the process. All of the interviews will be heavily documented for continuous close examination ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, I really like you rationale...Who is your first person to interview? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...Thank you. The first one will be a Maharishi, the so-called 'Great Seer' ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who is next in your list?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... Drashtara, Sanskrit for the Techno-Harbinger ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who is next in your list?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...The Awaken Ones ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who is next in your list?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... Auspiciousness, a female spiritual leader of great audiences in the East and West ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask her? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask her open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who is next in your list?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... A Catholic Bishop...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who is next in your list?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...A Tel-avid Rabbi ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who is next in your list?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... A Lama ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who is next in your list?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “ … An Ayatollah ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who is next in your list?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...A Witch...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask her? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask her open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who is next in your list?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...A Saucerer...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask her? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask her open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who is next in your list?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...You list is nice but a bit too conventional for my profitable ambitions. What are you exactly going to do about it to fundamentally solve your shortcomings? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...Sir, we are going to interview, as well, many other thought leaders, including many purposeful mentally-ill ponderers!...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Like whom? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...Sir, a Schizophrenic ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask her? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask her open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... One person undergoing Clinical Delusional Disorder ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... Someone into Clinical Hallucinations ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...Someone into Clinical Histrionic or Narcissistic ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask her? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask her open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... A Guru from India ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask her? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask her open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... A Yogi from India ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... An Oracle from the Tibet ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “...Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... A Kabbalah Mystic ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... A Brazilian Shaman ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... A Brazilian Witch...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask her? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask her open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...A Saucerer ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...A Savant...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...A Knowledgist ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... What will you ask him? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “...We will ask him open-ended questions without constraints of time: a) How do you see the world? b) What are humans missing? c) How can we make life better for all? d) If you were the U.N. Secretary General, What would you change in the civilization?...”

Royal Dutch Shell Worldwide CEO: “... Excellent, Who else? ...”

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Worldwide Strategist: “... Every Student proactive in most-recondite Ivy-League own on-site Secret Societies … Several Prostitutes and several Tarot-card Readers, Soothsayers, Divinators, Foretellers, Predictioneers, Futilitarians, Hunches-tellers, First-Guessers, Second-Guessers, Fortunetellers, Prophets, Presagers, Premonitionists, Dictators, Anarchists, among many other savants.

Now, you can understand why people of The Netherlands OUTSMART MOTHER NATURE and are so intelligent, shrewd and mordant, as well as victorious, ready to "kill" petroleum as source of energy and impose Energy "X".

Many, many zillion-dollars-corporations RELENTLESSLY exercise their Intellects and Strategies BY INCESSANTLY SEEKING OMNSICIENCE IN IGNORED FLANKS AND NOVEL QUADRANTS AND SPHERES. AND THROUGH THE PRECEDING, THEY MERIT AND DESERVE TO OUT-RULE THE WORLD, THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE.

NOTHING, AND NOTHING AT ALL, WILL PRECLUDE SHELL AND OTHER FORTUNE-7 CORPORATIONS TO SEEK OUT AND SEIZE BOUNDARYLESS KNOWLEDGE.

Back to the White Swan hardcore.

Incidentally, so-called “... Out-of-the-box ...” Thinking will never suffice because it is arithmetical and linear and a thinking mode mire in preterite times.

And hence:

“ … In a rapidly changing world, you can either drive change or become a victim of it, depending on how good you are at harnessing your own and others' creativity. Those who can do it well end up changing their industries — or even the world. Those who can't end up being overtaken by other people's creative tidal waves [….] What's the number one block to creativity? People's tendency to get stuck in outdated beliefs and assumptions — what we call mental 'boxes'. Getting stuck in an outdated mental box is easy because it is comfortable; it lulls you into a false sense of confidence, believing that what has worked in the past will continue to work in the future. But it won't, because change is inevitable ...” [233]

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

“...Transformative and Integrative Risk Management..." (TAIRM) is a methodology conceived of, designed, created and instituted, at all times and by any measure, independently.

To arrive to this point, massive intellectual and pecuniary own resources and efforts have ALREADY been invested.

“...Transformative and Integrative Risk Management...” (TAIRM) thoroughly deals with content, process and context, among many other considerations.

Also, some large enterprises as well as petroleum corporations (whose brand names are notoriously public) have a full-scope organization in place to deal with some hazards that are not too public in the every-day-person arena.

By way of illustration, this organization is sometimes termed as “...Integral Protection..." (I.P.)

For the sake of convenience, I will address “I.P.” meaning Integral Protection and not Intellectual Property.

Others call it “... Corporate Integrity ...”

I.P. is primarily a preemptively preventative function and responsibility of corporate (private) law enforcement, civil defense and corporate first responders (including own policemen, intelligentsia, counter-intelligentsia, medics, civil defense stewards, firefighters and other first respondents).

I.P. operates systemic and systematic countermeasuring of both external and internal threats (including intractable threats).

To illustrate this function and responsibility better, I.P. takes care of the tangible and intangible integrity of the operating building(s) and corresponding premises and other assets, including the personnel and in-situ contractors and allies.

If one employee is selling trade secrets or consuming illegal substances, I.P. is watching and acting upon.

I.P. does corporate intelligence, counterintelligence and operates on it.

To the express end of enforced I.P., Transformative and Integrative Risk Management is into hot-pursuit of post-hiring (of Andres' professional and intellectual services) into (a) Probing, (b) Omnimode Auditing and (c) Due Diligence.

As a result of that Andres found three most-senior Executives taking huge bribes from European firms. One was a Chartered Vice President with the first-name initial “P.” And the two other ones were Chartered Directors with the first-name initial “A” and “U”. Andres spoke about it to the worldwide chairman and officially reported the grave irregularity to the worldwide Chartered Comptroller.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

I.P. incumbents are, for example, also responsible for designing, developing and instituting corporate plans pertaining to emergency preparedness, emergency response, disaster recovery, business restoration (partial function), business continuity (partial function) and business sustainability (partial function) to give you a brief idea.

I.P. also supervises and controls road and air ambulances and other medical and non-medical road and air-borne evacuation systems.

I.P. is also responsible for preventive exercises and drills for massive evacuations in case of earthquakes, floods, storms, tornadoes, fires and riots, hurricanes, wildfires, blackouts, biological threats, industrial sabotages, epidemic, civil disorder, sabotage (insider or external threat), utility outage, theft (insider or external threat, vital information or material), piracy, cyber attacks and terrorism attacks, among other perils.

In dealing with Public-Sector I.P., Transformative and Integrative Risk Management is a magnificent tool to institute and embolden rigorous “... Law and Order ...”

When a worker gets gravely burned, he or she needs to be treated with extreme care, from the site of occurrence and evacuation through and to the most specialized medical center.

The standard evacuation vehicle is 95% of the cases is an expensive helicopter that is able to fly safely during nighttime, for example.

Transformative and Integrative Risk Management fully contemplates, tackles, advises and operates on pivotal enhancement of the corporate provisions by Integral Protection organizations (sometimes called “ … departments … ” and others “ … divisions … ”).

In such a fashion:

However, in extremely huge Fortune-100 global corporations that I have as turnkey consulting clients, they do not use the term " ...department [….] "

For instance, in all practicality they speak about (brief list):

1.- The Finance Organization,
2.- The Integral Protection Organization (also known as “... Corporate Integrity ...”),
3.- The Human Resources Organization,
4.- The Corporate Planning Organization,
5.- The Marketing Organization,
6.- The IT Organization,
7.- The Public Affairs Organization (by far, beyond: Corporate Communications),
8.- And others that are proprietary.

And they prefer to use the term "subsidiary companies" instead of "divisions".

By way of example, they have:

A.- The R&D&I subsidiary company,
B.- The telecommunication subsidiary companies (global oil companies have own telephony-beyond companies),
C.- The Internationalization [for globalization purposes] subsidiary company,
D.- The on-site corporate university subsidiary company (with its own private, savant Provost,
Researchers, PhD-ed Professors. The Provost is, clearly, the subsidiary-company's CEO and Chairman),
E.- The maritime subsidiary company,
F.- The industrial-medicine subsidiary company (in one corporation, there were a headcount of 300-plus consulting and operating medics. The CEO and Chairman is a M.D.),
G.- The "trader" subsidiary company,
H.- Others that are proprietary.

They even have, under the umbrella of the parent and holding company, subsidiary companies that can readily enter joint ventures, strategic alliances or coalitions or consortia with a multitude of competing or noncompeting corporations.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Have you ever seen an insurance or reinsurance company with these major risk-countermeasuring duties and services before an organizational client (including intractable threats)?

And only and partly because of that, insurance and reinsurance companies are, by far, outside of the realm of beyond-insurance risk management and TAIRM.

In White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management, there is a great of differentiated usage of Minimax.

Let us define it:

“... Minimax is a decision rule used in decision theory, game theory, statistics and philosophy for minimizing the possible loss for a worst case (maximum loss) scenario. Alternatively, it can be thought of as maximizing the minimum gain (maximin or MaxMin). Originally formulated for two-player zero-sum game theory, covering both the cases where players take alternate moves and those where they make simultaneous moves, it has also been extended to more complex games and to general decision making in the presence of uncertainty [….] In the theory of simultaneous games, a minimax strategy is a mixed strategy which is part of the solution to a zero-sum game. In zero-sum games, the minimax solution is the same as the Nash equilibrium ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

TAIRM, too, has vast managerial applications for law enforcement and counter-terrorism “ ...activities ...”

However, most incumbents of public office are in the backyard playing political “games” and don't possess neither a legitimate interest, nor an appropriate comprehension of techniques, technologies and methodologies, conducive to more stable “...national security...” doctrines and policies in actuality.

Contrariwise, some (not all) advanced exemplary democracies in the West, while arguing that they are protecting national security and their motherlands, are being turned into «de facto» Police States through many supercomputing hardware and software systems.

Many incumbents of public office don't even have a designated budget to act upon.

Additionally and by way of example, Asian presidents are techies and nerds that fluidly communicate on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math issues (that is, STEM careers). The now-coined STEM disciplines were a gargantuan recommendation frequently appearing in Napoleon Bonaparte's secretive letters.

In the mean time, the counterparts in the West are chiefly held hostage to law, sociology and economics, with an overwhelming powerless feeling in technologically advanced conversations, considerations and negotiations.

All of this about the heads of state here have been publicly substantiated by Bill Gates.

Let us get one word's clear-eyed concept:

The cradle-to-the-grave definition of technology that I can offer is this:

“... Technology is instituted in order to solve practical problems (both mild and complex ones, whether randomized, pseudo-randomized, serendipitous or pseudo-serendipitous or not) — especially in industry, commerce, economy, science, technology, society, religion, and politics (including geopolitics) —, the methodical practical application of the scientific method, mathematical principles, practical sciences and material used to achieve a commercial or industrial objective and beyond, as well as to achieve practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems …. The profession of and or the work performed by any engineer ...”

If you want a briefer definition, please see this: “ ... The methodical and systematic application of science, in order to solve practical problems …”

For example, Stanford University's own definition is: “...Technology is the means by which organizations accomplish work or render [known] inputs into [desirable] outputs …” Brackets are of the author.

The protagonist in assuring that known inputs are transformed into desirable outputs is throughput.

A little real-life account here:

U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush's (41st U.S. president) Ambassador and Andres Agostini?

Given the utter recommendation of PDVSA, Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez (1989 – 1993) asked me to reform the management practices by every public hospital in Venezuela. President Perez believed that in order to change management practices for business-like ones, it was better someone that was not a medic but a manager and management consultant.

To that end, he appointed me as: Presidential Blue Ribbon Committee Chairman. He ordered me to go and visit the Health Secretaries of the most important nations with a proven-track public system, including Canada and the United Kingdom.

That also gave me strong leeway to give him inputs and candor about some matters that, as per my opinion, were going wrong with the beyond-insurance risk management of fixed assets of the State-Owned Global Petroleum Corporation PDVSA. I cannot disclose that but he thanked me and acted upon it fairly quickly. Somewhat we became friendly as I was not involved with politics but technical matters.

While holding one of our private meetings, his private secretary suddenly came in:

President's Secretary: “...Mister President, the U.S. Ambassador is in the antechamber. And he says that he has an urgent message to give you ...”

President Perez: “...Send him in right away ...”

The U.S. Ambassador came in to the President's Official Office and:

U.S. Ambassador: “...Mr. President, President Bush wants you to know that the U.S. will be delivering a military campaign in Iraq. And he wanted you, sir, to know so in advance ...”

President Perez: “...Thank you, Mr. Ambassador, I understand that and thank for telling me ...”

Then President Perez and I spent some fifteen minutes thereafter as our meeting and life went on and back to normal. I could not believe that I was being a first-level eyewitness to some serious geopolitics.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

The reader must remember that when dealing with known inputs and desired outputs, the targeted throughputs must also be addressed in detail and advance.
Again, throughputs transform known inputs into desirable outputs.

Besides:

As the past and the present are NEVER a script for the future, retrospective analyzes and historic data (a posteriori data provided by actuaries and statisticians) are always being disrupted by the final trends and outcomes.

Why retrospective [a posteriori] analyzes don't work:

“...After-the-fact [retrospective and hence a posteriori] no longer works [….] Bring it back if you have any trouble with it, and I’ll fix it somehow,’ was the standard comment when you used to pick up a bicycle, automobile, food mixer, or lawn mower from the repair shop. And the repairman meant what he said. He was confident that if he had overlooked anything or made a mistake of any kind, he would get a second shot at fixing [….] The ‘second shot’ is a luxury that no longer exists in many businesses. You get only one chance — after that, you’ll be talking only with attorneys, insurance agents, or bankers ...”

And:

“ … Life used to be simple. You knew your customers on a first-name basis. Your product or service was a relatively simple one — understood by both you and your customer. Your name and reputation were sufficient to cover any error or oversight [….] But the world has become complex, too complex to allow such comfortable relationships. Consumer expectations are matching the complexities. Instantaneous news coverage of accidents and losses virtually precludes the private, out-of-sight settlement of risk effects that had previously allowed the after-the-fact resolution of risk to succeed ...”

And:

“ … The breadth in that old idea is rapidly being squeezed out — like the inevitable tightening of a boa constrictor around its victim [….] The price for public exposure of loss is high. Managers have begun to realize that risk must be examined formally and resolved beforehand rather than being settled after-the-fact. And they learn from others. It was the 1982 sinking of the offshore drilling rig Ocean Ranger that spurred EXXON top management to order a systematic evaluation of their offshore drilling risks … Even though EXXON does not own such rigs, it recognized that even conducting operations aboard them created risks that demanded before-the-fact identification, evaluation, and control ... " [226] Brackets are of the author.

Hence:

Please remember: “... THE FUTURE IS NOT AN ECHO OF THE PAST...”

So, instead of retrospective data [a posteriori], it is much more important prospective data [a priori, ex ante].

Besides:

DEFINING THE TERM “...RETROSPECTIVE...”

“ … Retrospective comprises something that is looking back on, contemplating, or directed to the past [….] looking or directed backward [….] Applying to or influencing the past; retroactive [….] looking or directed backwards, esp in time; characterized by retrospection …. applying to the past; retroactive [….] directed to the past; contemplative of past situations, events, etc. [….] looking or directed backward [….] review, revision, another look, reassessment, fresh look, second look, reconsideration, re-evaluation, re-examination [….] Considering a past event or development [….] Something that is chronologically presented pertaining to business tasks, with the utter object to show the trajectory of those business tasks ...”

AND ALSO:

DEFINING THE TERM “...PROSPECTIVE...”

“ … Prospective comprises something that is likely or expected to happen [….] that looks forward to the future [….] that it is anticipated or likely to happen [….] of or in the future [….] potential, likely, or expected [….] yet to be or coming [….] of or concerned with or related to the future Set of analyzes and studies developed, with the utter end of exploring or foretelling the future, regarding a determined subject matter ...”.

AS WELL:

DEFINING THE TERM “... A PRIORI ...”

“ … A Priori comprises that proceeds from a known or assumed cause to a necessarily related effect; deductive [….] Derived by or designating the process of reasoning without reference to particular facts or experience [….] Knowable without appeal to particular experience [….] Made before or without examination; not supported by factual study [….] relating to or involving deductive reasoning from a general principle to the expected facts or effects [….] to be true independently of or in advance of experience of the subject matter; requiring no evidence for its validation or support [….] existing in the mind independent of experience [….] conceived beforehand ...”

A synonym of A Priori is given by the term Ex Ante.

ALSO:

DEFINING THE TERM “... A POSTERIORI ...”

“ … A Posteriori indicates the demonstration that entails the ascendance of the effect to the cause, or the properties of the essence of something [….] After examining the matter that is dealt with [….] Derived by or designating the process of reasoning from facts or particulars to general principles or from effects to causes; inductive; empirical [….] Knowable from experience [….] relating to or involving inductive reasoning from particular facts or effects to a general principle [….] derived from or requiring evidence for its validation or support; empirical; open to revision [….] from particular instances to a general principle or law; based on observation or experiment [….] not existing in the mind prior to or apart from experience [….] the process of reasoning from effect to cause, based upon observation …”

A synonym to A Posteriori is entailed in the term Ex Post Facto.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Although I consider both (prospective and retrospective, as well as a priori and a posteriori), it is also more important to me qualitative analyzes than quantitative ones.

Plato observed, “ … A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers ...”

Alvin Toffler observed, “ … You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment ...”

What is the Definition of Qualitative Analysis? See it here:

“...Qualitative Analysis refers to the skills, technologies, applications and practices for continuous iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business, risk and futures planning. Qualitative Analysis focuses on developing new insights and understanding of sustainable business performance based on narrative data ...”

And, What is the Definition of Quantitative Analysis? See it here:

“ … Quantitative Analysis refers to the skills, technologies, applications and practices for continuous iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business, risk and futures planning. Quantitative Analysis focuses on developing new insights and understanding of sustainable business performance based on numerical data, narrative data, alphanumerical data and statistical methods ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Qualitative Analyzes are extremely importance because corporate stakeholders manage themselves throughout excessive subjectivity and bias, among other considerations.

TO BETTER UNDERPIN THE PRECEEDING, LET US CONSIDER:

«...What is a Quant...» AND «...What is a Qualt...»:

What is a Quant?

“ … A quant is brand of industrial scientist and engineers who applies mathematical model of uncertainty to financial and/or socioeconomic data and complex financial instruments. And a person who also studies the flaws and the limits of these models, understanding that there is a point of breakdown …. A quant has a combined background of applied mathematics, engineering and statistics. A quant spreads the usage of artificial intelligence in today’s markets …. Whether he or she acknowledges it or not, the quant is extremely AWARE of the many critical short-comings of many quantitative strategies (as he is never interested in qualitative analytics), such as their tendency to lead to crowded trades and their underestimation of the likelihood of chaotic, volatile moves in the markets …. Along with Central Bank chairpersons and world's finance ministers, quants are the first ones to “...elicit...” that the global economy is being “ ...affected...” by “ ...systemic risks...”, that systemic risk turbo-charged by several corrupted politicians, manipulative economists and beautiful quants that never understand what the tangible corporate theater of operations is [….] Industrial engineering, partly used by so-called Quants, is a branch of engineering dealing with the optimization of complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, materials, analysis and synthesis, as well as the mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering design to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems or processes. Its underlying concepts overlap considerably with certain business-oriented disciplines such as operations management. Black Swans are the brainchildren of quants ...”

And then:

What is a Qualt?

“...A qualt is brand of systems engineering who applies mathematical and ESPECIALLY non-mathematical models of uncertainty to financial and ESPECIALLY non-financial data and complex industrial operations. And a person who also studies the errors, the flaws and the limits of these qualitative models, understanding that there is a point of (i) inflection and (ii) Event horizon, in anything pursued by the for-lucre corporations …. A qualt has a combined background of advanced management, extreme project management (Agile) and systems engineering. A qualt spreads the usage of most-advanced business analytics and transformative and integrative risk management …. Whether he or she acknowledges it or not, the qualt is extremely AWARE of the many critical short-comings of many quantitative strategies and works hard at it advance to eliminate every form of downside through qualitative strategies …. For instance, qualts know that “...systemic risks ...” are direct brainchildren of (a) Ignorance, (b) Manipulation, (c) Greed and (d) Corruption [….] Systems engineering, hugely embraced by Qualts, is an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design and manage complex engineering projects over their life cycles. Issues such as reliability, logistics, coordination of different teams (requirements management), evaluation measurements, and other disciplines become more difficult when dealing with large or complex projects. Systems engineering deals with work-processes, optimization methods, and risk management tools in such projects. It overlaps technical and human-centered disciplines such as control engineering, industrial engineering, organizational studies, and project management. Systems Engineering ensures that all likely aspects of a project or system are considered, and integrated into a whole. White Swans are the brainchildren of Qualts ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

UNDER THE “...DISRUPTIONAL SINGULARITY,...” IT HAS BEEN POSITED THAT THE GRAVEST EXISTENTIAL PROBLEMS ARE THOSE OF THE PRESENT TIME, MOSTLY ENDOWED TO AND BY THE SPHERES OF INFLUENCE OF PUBLIC-OFFICE INCUMBENTS. AND IF THE DISRUPTIONAL SINGULARITY HAPPENS, THE TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY WILL NEVER HAPPEN. TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THIS, SEE THE ENSUING CITATION:

“ … By allowing the challenges of the 21st century to be hijacked by the apocalyptic storyline, we find ourselves awaiting a moment of clarity when the problems we must confront will become apparent to all — or when those challenges will magically disappear, like other failed prophecies about the end of the world. Yet the real challenges we must face are not future events that we imagine or dismiss through apocalyptic scenarios of collapse — they are existing [present-day and real-world] trends. THE EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT MUCH OF WHAT WE FEAR IN THE FUTURE — THE COLLAPSE OF THE ECONOMY, THE ARRIVAL OF PEAK OIL AND GLOBAL WARMING AND RESOURCES WARS — HAS ALREADY BEGUN. We can wait forever, while the world unravels before our very eyes, for an apocalypse that won't come ...” [253] Brackets of the Author.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

BUT IF THE DISRUPTIONAL SINGULARITY CONTINUES, WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR YOUR OPERATIONAL LOSSES? SEE THIS:

WHERE DOES YOUR COMPANY OR START-UP GET ITS OPERATIONAL LOSSES PAID FROM?

Many economists and former central bankers around the Globe intensely and continuously argue that major reserve currencies around the world are to fall. In the mean time, the global economy is in a most-appalling state with problems that are extremely structural and with a no quick solution at all.

That will entail that any insurance company around the world, as a structural member of the global financial system, will be bankrupted. And if your insurance company goes under, it will not be paying for your “covered claims.”

Do you really think that petroleum and automotive corporations, Google and Facebook and many others are going to stop doing business (their core businesses) because global insurance companies went under.

No, no, no, you will still need fuel to get your food cooked, your heater conditioning your wintertime, your TV and PC operating and you car running. Certainly, at the beginning they will have a bad time, for which they have prepared breathtakingly in advance.

Do you want your enterprise or start-up to go under because insurance companies went under? I don't think so.

You and your enterprise and with the assistance of a turnkey consultant can help your organization not to depend on insurance-mired risk unmanagement.

You can read The White Swan's Beyond Eureka and Sputnik Moments.: How To Fundamentally Cope With Corporate Litmus Tests and Succeed Through Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (ASIN: B00KMY0DLK) at Amazon or contact me.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Prospection comprises the a priori of-all-functions exploration of future possibilities based on current evidence. (Translated by the author). [222]

How does one defined Prospection?

“...Prospection is defined as the exploration of future likelihoods based on some present warnings …”

In all truth, when one is doing optimal translation, he or she is rather doing Optimal Interpretive Translation. And, by the same token, when one is doing Foreign-Language Interpretation, he or she is into Optimal Translated Interpretation.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Coming back to the point and believe it or not, I have met several actuaries that fully agree with my position.

They also insist that the retrospective analyzes [a posteriori] have been displaced by the prospective analyzes [a priori].

In today’s technologically-driven world, strategic trend evaluation cannot be done using only algorithms.

Xerox Vice President, Mr. Charles (Chuck) Brooks, has an invaluable point to make:

“ … We live in world of algorithms. The recent retail cyber breach at Target demonstrated that as consumers we are becoming more and more dependent upon digital commerce. Our banking accounts, credit cards, and financial daily activities are interconnected. We are all increasingly vulnerable from hackers, phishers, and malware proliferating across all commercial verticals. Identity management, authentication, and resilience will certainly be key focus areas to protect individual consumers as we move closer to the encompassing connectivity of almost every device we use in ' ...The Internet of Things …' ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Numerous nuances, gray-area meanings and fluxes must be fully considered via the biological mind, regardless.

You can transfer many thought experiments to your computer and still, given the amazing level and number of nuances and subtleties and gray areas and patterns (awaiting recognition) — as well as the covert and overt relationships facilitated by the preceding — by present-day and real-world dynamic complexities, you won't get the right output yet.

Arguably, at the hardcore of scientific futuring and transformative and integrative risk management, in place there is (1) A science, (2) An art, and (3) A practice.

Transformative and Integrative Risk Management methodology meets and exceeds the guidelines of SMS, ERM, COSO and ISO 31000.

Undoubtedly, once the human brain and body — including the human sensors — are inexhaustibly reverse-engineered and the new software templates are use in Strong Artificial Intelligence and Hard Quantum Supercomputing, the biological brain will then be superseded by several orders of magnitude.

Briefly, What is Artificial Intelligence?

“... Artificial Intelligence is the science of how to get machines to do the things they do in good movies ...” As per Dr. Astro Teller.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

To this utter and current purpose, Albert Einstein observes, “...Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts..."

Without perpetual womb-to-tomb Analytics, Diagnostics and Prognosis, Organizational Decision Making will be flawed!

I do take into account both. I also practice “... Analytics ...” and “...Diagnostics...” and have nascently become interested on what Cambridge University' and Royal Society's Sir Martin Rees, PhD. calls the “...Science of Complexity...”

I have a compiled definition for it.

“ … Complexity Science is the systematic study of the nature and behavior of the material and physical universe, based on observation, experiment, and measurement, and the formulation of laws to describe these facts in general terms, with the utter purpose of instituting the perusal of the phenomena which emerge from a collection of interacting objects … Complexity expresses a condition of numerous elements in a system and numerous forms of relationships among the elements … The use of the term complex is often confused with the term complicated. In today's systems, this is the difference between myriad connecting 'stovepipes' and effective 'integrated' solutions. This means that complex is the opposite of independent, while complicated is the opposite of simple …. While this has led some fields to come up with specific definitions of complexity, there is a more recent movement to regroup observations from different fields to study complexity in itself, whether it appears in anthills, human brains, or stock markets. One such interdisciplinary group of fields is relational order theories ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Once again, TAIRM is vastly more into qualitative analyzes than quantitative analyzes.

You see, every problem has an underlying mechanism.

Once you deeply comprehend how it operates, you can influence (via throughput) on the final outcomes (from known inputs to desired outputs) to your continuous advantage.

And every problem is a function of ignorance, sometimes a function of learned ignorance.

It can be logically argued that the term “...throughput...” has a Latin language equivalent by the term modus operandi.

Within my theater of operations and while focused at servicing corporate clients, I always do (i) analyzes and (ii) meta-analyzes.

THEREFORE:

Everything in the corporate theater of operations has an unfailing clear explication and corresponding White Swan plan to exploit it.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

To this end, GE's chairman and CEO Jack Welch PhD. also mentioned, “...To get to the guts of why things happen...”

Advanced mathematical models are partly useful if the narrative and alphanumerical data has been correctly translated into numerical data.

Pervasive Information and Computational Technology are crucial. Narrative data has an infinite graded plethora of nuances and angles and perspectives.

Likewise and getting back to the core of this work:

I have done extensive and expensive research globally throughout many places, institutions and years, from the U.S. marketplace, Lloyd's of London, Swiss RE, Tokio Marine Group, and way further beyond to make a lengthy story brief.

Once I went to a millenarian bookstore in the city of most-enthusiastic London where I purchased a large number of specialized books (about 45 titles) regarding Insurance and Risk Management. Those titles, enablers of hidden and covert knowledge, were not foundable in North American bookstores.

When my Bostonian ally asked me what I was trying to do as he got informed on my breathtaking literary acquisition trough my Londoner colleague, he posited a tiny question: “...Andres, what are you trying to do …?

The underlying background of the preceding episode came to me when my amazing father told me: “...Andres, whenever you find you cannot deal with a subject matter, do me a favor and buy and study an encyclopedia on it ...” I have and practice his suggestion abundantly, daily.

Dr. Agostini was a Juris Doctor, and a (an): Americanologist, Britologist, and Sovietologist.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

I found that phoned question most silly. He became concerned as he thought I was going to terminate him, in order to become focused on a different and more lucrative business enterprise, then ruling him out. My quick and accurate reply to him was: “ ...Coupe Cosmos ...” I got into that purchase, in order to underpin our alliance not to dismiss it.

The White Swan hardcore is returned:

I have also become directly knowledgeable (not “ … bookish, ...” or encyclopedic only but also factual, practical, empirical, and as per the educated-battlefield practicalities) of beyond-insurance risk management practices by many large, industrial enterprises and agencies such as NASA.

The NASA Projects: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo and the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (Minuteman intercontinental ballistic thermonuclear missile, ICBM) initiative, comprehending that he or she or it cannot take those to the local insurance and reinsurance underwriter, yet these enterprises managerial initiatives have been successfully instituted.

MANAGERS DON'T ONLY NEED TO STUDY THE IDEAS, PLANS AND METHODS THAT BEGET SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS, BUT ALSO THE IDEAS, PLANS AND METHODS THAT ASCERTAIN, AS WELL, PREVALENT AND TRANSIENT FAILURE.

Without any possibility of wrongness, Transformative and Integrative Risk Management always considers and contemplates every form of:

(1.-) Prevalent and Transient Failure.

(2.-) Prevalent and Transient Error.

(3.-) Prevalent and Transient Flawness. (Flawness is the quality of conforming to maximum error and failure).

(4.-) Prevalent and Transient Mistakenness. (Mistakenness is the quality of conforming to maximum mistake and an unintentional act, omission).

Points (1.-), (2.-), (3.-) and (4.-) above are a most studied and researched science (The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.) embedded into and for Transformative and Integrative Risk Management. By doing so, Unprecedented Corporate Success can be fruitfully sequestered and guaranteed.

By way of example:

In the aired script of the 1966 Star Trek TV Series, Canadian actor William Shatner says,

“ … Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before ...”

This can be better understood this way:

“ … Space [the real-verse's omniverse besieged by black swans]: the final frontier [and its ultimate present-day challenges in the fluid and perpetually impermanent atemporal and aspatial dimensions to outsmart those black swans of the folly-mired supine and impious ones with optimal White Swans]. These are the voyages [and enterprises and initiatives through the management explorations and reconnoiterings] of the starship Enterprise [that is, the flagship-ed corporation and, hence, with the express purpose of upper management to decisively seize most definitively and most sustainable and most profitable corporate after-tax profit, regardless of the increasingly explosive many-fold swirls of ever-changing change]. Its five-year mission [as per the provisions contemplated in the cohesive corporate business plan, indefatigably grounded on and as a sole function of Transformative and Integrative Risk Management interdisciplinary problem-solving methodology]: [in order] to explore strange [and extremely fuzzy, fuzzy as in Fuzzy Logic] new worlds [and, ergo, new Corporate Theaters of Operations around the Globe], to seek out [and accordingly continuously seize] new life [and new practical and pragmatical White Swan Paradigm Shifts] and new civilizations [and new global marketplaces], to boldly [and prudently yet in a better informed mode] go where no man [and female polymath executive] has gone before [, with the strategic purpose to ascertaining that his or her Corporation is the world's indisputable White Swan standard #1 or # 2]...” Brackets are of the author.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

IT IS BEYOND A SINE QUA NON TO CONSCIENTIOUSLY AND PROACTIVELY STUDY ALL SORTS AND MODES OF FAILURES, ON THE DOUBLES.

Every MANAGER must study theoretical, practical, empirical and factual failure, both his own and that of his competitors, within and beyond his industry.

And every outcome of Failure or Success should be seriously gauged through measurement-readings by Qualitative all-encompassing Analytics and Quantitative all-encompassing Analytics.

Embedded there is an over-learning and lucrative experience to capture.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Along with the perpetual study and lucrative application of error and flawness, there must also be the perpetual study and lucrative application of Phenomenon and Phenomena.

I will give you my definitions:

“... Singular Phenomenon and Plural Phenomena is and/or are An occurrence, circumstance, or fact that is perceptible and imperceptible by the senses …. An unusual, significant, or unaccountable fact or occurrence …. Physics: An observable and an unobservable event, yet documentable and reconnoiterable …. All phenomena that are artificial and not artificial …. consequence, effect, result, upshot, outcome, event, issue - a phenomenon that follows and is caused by some previous phenomenon; ' … the magnetic effect was greater when the rod was lengthwise...'; '...his decision had depressing consequences for business...'; '...he acted very wise after the event...' …. fortune, hazard, luck, chance - an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another; '…. bad luck [unmanagement of change and opportunity ] caused his downfall ….'...an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that leads to a favorable [White Swan] outcome …. a remarkable development development — a recent event that has some relevance for the present situation ...” Brackets are of the author.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

To further illustrate the above, the Military-Industrial Complex and companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, along with NASA — through their own methods — were pursuing their projects and programs without resorting to insurance and reinsurance companies at all.

I became knowledgeable with an in-all-truth polymath and an outright “...Rocket Scientist,..." a physicist, a systems engineer and a doctor of science, who was directly responsible for the reliability concerning: the NASA Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.

At NASA he was Dr. Wernher von Braun's right hand! I treasure all of his e-mails, letters, written testimonials, and other materials.

To the utmost enhancement of my fortune and management of chances, I have, for many years now, worked with the most daring, capricious and enlightened “ … largest institutional ...” clients (minds) that one can imagine ever.

They all were seeking managerial and industrial “...miracles...” only (sic).

The most daring, capricious and enlightened minds, in addition to many CEOs, Chairpersons, and high-ranking Executive Officers, include:

A.- Business Magnates.

B.- Mandataries.

C.- Tycoons.

D.- Majestics.

E.- Statesmen.

F.- Moguls.

G.- Rocket-Science Polymaths.

H.- A United States Senator.

I.- PhD-ed University Professor (U.S.).

Speaking of tycoons, I had a business relationship with one that was most interested on my application of Transformative and Integrative Risk Management, pertaining to Corporate-sponsored Perfective Medicine Services and Beyond-Insurance Health-Care Protection for Employees and Eligible Dependents. When the foremost incumbents of 10 Downing Street become really ill, they are sent to Mayo Clinic, including most honorable respected His Excellency Sir Anthony Eden.

Perfective Medicine Services through Transformative and Integrative Risk Management including the medical treatment of beneficiaries via Mayo Clinic and The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, citing two examples.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

As I was and am the CEO and Chairman of CORS Risk Management Services, he, the tycoon above, was a Director of the Board. I cannot offer you his name but I will say that he formerly owned a national TV network, a huge flotilla of jet aircrafts and powered vessels and he is, also, a co-owner of Fort Lauderdale's Executive Airport (FXE).

WHILE GIVING THEM THEIR OUTRIGHT MIRACLES, I HAVE EXPERIENCED DRAMATIC AUSPICIOUS OVER-LEARNING EXPERIENCES.

I once met a Scots executive who told me that beyond-insurance risk management methodology by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Royal Dutch/Shell Group was “...esoteric...” I still treasure his aesthetic e-mail.

LET US MAKE A STORY TO ILLUSTRATE FALLACIES, OBSOLEDGE AND NONLINEARITY WITH STAR TREK'S ADMIRAL KIRK AND CAPTAIN :

FIRST, THE EXCHANGE GOES LIKE THIS:

Star Trek's Captain told James T. Kirk: “... Jim, the problem with you is that you always proceed from false and obsolete assumptions ... And being a Vulcan and thus different from you, I have no ego to bruise ...”

SECOND, THE MOST-IMPROVED EXCHANGE GOES LIKE THIS:

Star Trek's First Office Spock told Captain James T. Kirk: “... Jim, the [ever-unresolved] problem with you is that you always proceed [, so firmly secured out of simpletonness of supine ignorance,] from false and obsolete assumptions [, as you believe that aging knowledge is permanent and fixed without first discomfirming your own 'armored' convictions against an extremely fluid and transmutating world and universe, whose an unimpeachable 'reserve currency' is ONLY marked by hyperbolic nonlinearlity and explosive impermanence] ... And being a Vulcan [, a person whose ethos and mind-set is most accustomed to the lucre of and by gorgeous paradoxes and wicked complexity and geometrical problem-solving and exponential decision-making,] and thus different from you [keep-it-simple-stupid type of fool], I have no ego to bruise [as, by the same token and accordingly, I find neither profit, nor utility at all in identifying or determining the genders of both Angels and Archangels ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

This so-called “ … esoteric … ” beyond-insurance risk management approach by DARPA, NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Shell, Dr. Strangeloves (RAND Corporation's Herman Khan) and a multitude of global corporations has been first instituted in many industries since the beginning of the 1950s.

For example:

Many "educated" people really think that science and technology is static. And once they have read a prominent book some ten years ago or so, they believe that they don't need to see updates, upgrades and disconfirming evidences.

What is disconfirming evidence?

“...Disconfirming Evidence establishes as invalid or untrue evidence ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

A competent lady wrote this:

“... Andres, the White Swan is impressive …. There you rendered every antique scientist and classic scholar obsolete and worthless ...” Not me but her observed: “antique and classic” notion, forgetting her outright falsehood and fallacy, perpetually changing.

You see, she doesn't want to buy and read new literature to disprove the apparent “... correctness ...” of her previous reading of obsolete books. And as she is comfortable with the past-laden literature, she lives in a present-day world that nonlinearly challenges every assumption by her.

Like this case, there are infinitely more that flagrantly make and make this existential error. This problem belongs to them only. So the fundamental solution.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

It has been in increasing utilization and betterment for about fifty-four years to this date.

What these institutions have successfully performed, transforming global civilizations and progress for Life, is un-apologetically and extremely uncomfortable for traditionalists whose ethos, cosmovisions and belief systems are fixed on the fossilized past and bonded to a myriad of obsolete assumptions, outdated notions and express falsehood utter fallacies.

Conversely:

Given the present-day and real-world challenges embedded in the personal cosmologies of managers, scientists and futurologists, a new cosmosvision must be re-engineered and overhauled, in order to replace it with an upgraded and updated version tackling the following:

A.- Beliefs (system of,),

B.- Ethos,

C.- Assumptions,

D.- Ideas,

E.- Conceptions,

F.- Concepts,

G.- Preconceptions,

H.- Understandings,

I.- Notions,

J.- Bias,

K.- Patterns of recurrence,

L.- Values,

M.- Practices,

N.- Subjectivity,

M.- Objectivity (thus, so called),

O.- Customs,

P.- Views,

Q.- Knowledge,

R.- Wisdom,

S.- Logic,

T.- Prejudice and non-prejudice,

U.- Unrecognizable Patterns.

The number of ignoramuses of supine ignorance in actual existence is a breathtaking self-inflicted global human-made error(s) and risk(s) for humankind to deal with.

Ignoramuses are frozen in the past and Michael Cibenko deals with them,

“... One problem with gazing too frequently into the past is that we may turn around to find the future has run out on us ...” [96]

Resistance to embracing new, yet proven knowledge is an absolute self-inflicted death sentence.

By fortune, Dr. Malcolm Knowles PhD. addresses ignoramuses of supine ignorance (also known as simpletons and follies into outright falsehood and fallacy):

“...The greatest danger for the survival of the present civilization is neither atomic war, nor environmental pollution, nor the exploitation of natural resources, and nor present crises. The underlying cause to all of the above is the acceleration of man’s obsolescence … The only hope seems to be an electroshock program to re-instill to the present adults the competencies required to function adequately under a mode of perpetual change. This is a profound need — the immeasurable challenge — that is presented by the modern society to adult education ... " [218]

Napoleon never believed in the term “...luck...”, but incessantly and profoundly managing “...chance...”. The author agrees fully.

Now, a question:

Is there any other angle to take into account when coping with forthcoming downside risks and downside futures while yet exploiting upside risks and upside futures?

The author hereby asserts that there are a multitude of fluid angles.

I will try a question:

What is an actual sample of dangerous and beneficial books and publications that some managers and risk managers are failing to consider when dealing with the rampant mutation and methamorphization of changed changes in contemporary organizational life today?

Do some per-se managers and risk managers realize that coping with all risks and futures is not anything else but securing sustained success by (i) entrepreneurs, (ii) business owners, (iii) public-sector leaders, (iv) non-governmental-organization stewards and (v) supranational incumbents.

Verify this verbatim sample:

1.- Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics ( ISBN: 978-0470089194 )

2.- Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen ( ISBN: 978-0609809983 )

3.- The Misbehavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence ( ISBN: 978-0465043576 )

4.- Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder ( ISBN: 978-1400067824 )

5.- The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't ( ISBN: 978-1594204111 )

6.- The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives ( ISBN: 978-0307275172 )

7.- The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us ( ISBN: 978-0307459664 )

8.- The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic ( ISBN: 978-0061995040 )

9.- Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy ( ISBN: 978-0691152639 )

10.- This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly ( ISBN: 978-0691152646 )

11.- The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 ( ISBN: 978-0393337808 )

12.- First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently ( ISBN: 978-0684852867 )

Returning to the White Swan hardcore:

QUESTION: Do we understand that there are many slow timescales and fast timescales, out of which we must fully aware at all times? REPLY: We have a marked tendency to not know this.

ON DIVERSE TIMESCALES, LET US EXAMINE THE FOLLOWING:

“ … Scientist Freeman Dyson attempted to clarify this for us when he came up with the concept of temporal diversity. As he came to realize, the survival of a species depends on adaptation and learning on six distinct timescales. On the shortest, most immediate scale, species must exist from year to year. The unit of survival for this year-to-year existence is the individual life form. Over decades, the unit of survival is the family, whose multiple generations last much longer than any single individual's life span. Over centuries, it's the tribe or nation. Over millennia, it is an entire culture. Over tens of millennia, it is the species itself, slowly evolving or surrendering to an evolved competitor. And over eons, the unit of survival is 'the whole web of life of our planet.' Human beings have endured as a result of our ability to adapt on all six scales of being and to balance the conflicting demands of each [….] This notion of temporal diversity offers a new way of understanding the particular characteristics of different timescales. While chronobiologists looked at the various natural cycles influencing the processes of life, proponents of temporal diversity are encouraging us to understand and distinguish between the different rates at which on different levels of existence change [….] He argues that we live in a world with multiple timescales, all moving simultaneously but at different speeds. It is called the order of civilization. Nature, or geological time, moves the slowest — like the skater in the middle of pinwheel. This is the rate at which glaciers carve out canyons or species evolve gills and wings — over eons. On the next level is culture, such as that of the Chinese or the Jews — which last millennia. On the next concentric ring comes governance — the rather long-lasting systems of monarchies and republics. The next level is infrastructure — the roads and utilities those governments build and rebuild. Faster yet is commerce that occurs through that infrastructure. And finally the outermost ring is that of fashion — the ever-changing styles and whims that keep the wheels of commerce fed [….] Where we get into trouble, however, is when we lose the ability to distinguish between the different scales of time and begin to subject one level of activity to the time constraints of another. For basketball players, it was subjecting their game schedule — a culture of sorts — to the more temporally abstract timing of contracts and union negotiations. For politicians, it is the attempt to act on the timescale of government while responding to polls conducted on the scale (and value system) of fashion. For companies, it is trying to create value on the timescale of infrastructure, while needing the investment requirements on the timescale of commerce. For the environment, it is fixing our focus on where to find the cheapest gallon of gasoline, with little awareness of the hundreds of thousands of years it took for the energy within it took to be accumulated and compressed. Or throwing a plastic bottle into the trash because the recycle bin is thirty seconds out of our way — even though the plastic will become part of the planet's landfill for hundreds of years until it decomposes into toxic chemicals for hundreds or thousands more [….] The solution is to expand our awareness of the larger, slower cycles. He is working to build a 10,000-year clock — a clock of the 'long now' that changes our orientation to time [….] Maintaining such a multiple awareness may be a worthy goal, but it's also a treacherous path — particularly for those of us living in the eternal present. It should be understood the way all activities, particularly in a Western culture, tend toward the faster layers of pacing on the periphery of the pinwheel. When time is money, everything tends to occur in the timescale of fashion ...” [234]

Back to the White Swan hardcore.

Conversely, a group of oil companies have requested from NASA's sustained advice on how to implement beyond-insurance risk management strategies and practices.

The official NASA Press Release is cited here and also available at http://lnkd.in/dkKZ4EF

EXACT QUOTATION BEGINS NOW:

“...NASA Johnson Space Center and Deloitte will enter into a strategic alliance offering advanced risk-management services to oil and gas companies. The Space Act Agreement commencement ceremony is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Central, Thursday, June 27[….] These capabilities include several operational risk-management approaches aimed at companies seeking to minimize the risk of catastrophic failures — the kinds of dramatic mishaps that, while highly unlikely, can occur in remote and harsh environments …. A core value of NASA is safety, which serves as a cornerstone of mission success. This collaboration will enforce NASA's constant attention to safety as a cornerstone upon which it operates as safely as possible ...”

And hereby it is continued:

“...Through this collaboration, NASA will gain knowledge to help prepare for future missions and to enhance current safety and risk mitigation technologies to address the dynamic, harsh, and remote requirements of emergent programs …. As part of the alliance, NASA and Deloitte will jointly offer a range of capabilities in the quickly evolving risk-sciences arena, such as 'risk modeling and simulation,' to help oil and gas companies eliminate blind spots in their decision making …. Using sophisticated risk-modeling and simulation tools and techniques can reduce uncertainties in engineering and operations at oil and gas companies — in much the same way NASA has done in its human spaceflight programs …. Included in the signing of the agreement are Johnson Deputy Center Director Steve Altemus, who will join veteran NASA astronaut and director of JSC's Safety and Mission Assurance office William "Bill" McArthur, Jr., Deloitte principal David Traylor and John England, vice chairman, Deloitte LLP, and leader of Deloitte's oil and gas practice …. Johnson Space Center is home to the International Space Station Program and the primary training facility for NASA's astronaut corps...”

END OF QUOTATION.

To further underpin the statements through this writing and countering dysfunctional illiteracy, I will share Peter Drucker's quote,

“...The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic...”

And also that of Dr. Stephen Covey,

“...Again, yesterday holds tomorrow hostage [….] Memory is past. It is finite. Vision is future. It is infinite. Vision is greater than history...”

And to second Dr. Covey, we have the ensuing,

“... Outdated mental models and assumptions keep us stuck in old patterns [….] Often we don't even realize it until it is too late ...” [233]

And that of Sir Francis Bacon,

“... He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator ...”

And that of London Business School Professor Gary Hamel, PhD.,

“...You cannot get to a new place with an old map...”

And that of Alvin Toffler, “[….] .The future always comes too fast and in the wrong order...”

By the way:

The second-best teachers and professors are the strict, disciplinarian ones. The best teachers and professors are the one that frustrate your learning process, by default asking you to proactively grasp the command of your own perpetual education for Life.

Jim Rhon observed that if you get a college degree you can make a decent living, but if you can be a rigorous autodidact (into self theoretical and practical learning), you can get wealthy.

And that of Brad Leithauser,

“...It reminds us that, in our accelerating, headlong era, the future presses so close upon us that those who ignore it inhabit not the present but the past ...”

And that of Robert Kennedy,

“...The future is not a privilege but a perpetual conquest...”

And that of Thomas Friedman,

“...People are always [and wrongfully] assuming that everything that is going to be invented must have been invented already. But it hasn’t...” THIS QUOTATION IS HUGELY IGNORED. Brackets are of the author.

Therefore:

ON THE FINAL ANALYSIS, WE MUST READILY ACCEPT FORCEFUL NOVEL REALITIES INSTANTANEOUSLY.

To the above end, Dee Hock, CEO Emeritus of Visa International, stated:

“...The problem is never how to get new innovative thoughts into your mind, BUT HOW TO GET OLD ONES OUT ...”

Reinforcing the preceding motions, Rosario M. Levins observes,

“...Mythical thought is not pre-scientific; rather it anticipates the future state of being a science in that its past movement and its present direction are always in the same sense ... " [219]

Before continuing with this opinion, I like to share my favorite quote by DARPA,

“...If you are not failing frequently, you are not succeeding enough...”

DARPA is into outright “ … pushing of the envelope...” finding and acquiring discomfirming lucrative evidence about well-established Physics Laws.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Besides several oil and other industrial corporations (such as Toyota, Mitsubishi Motors and TNT Express), I, too, have extensively performed full-scope risk management consulting services (“turnkey” solutions. I.e., primordial solutions and never quick fixes!) for organizations in industries such as automotive, industrial, health-care, logistics, insurance, telecommunications, employee benefits, government, and consultancy, among others.

Global organizations that utilize intensive tangible (fixed and liquid assets) and intangible (proprietary knowledge base, including trade secrets and copyrighted assets) capital usually operate preventive maintenance and corrective maintenance.

These corporations don't speculate with their owned assets as they don't speculate with the assets of their clients and customers.

Instead of speculating and doctoring their assets, these global corporations prefer to generate own technological breakthroughs and scientific discoveries and novel innovation developments and applied those to leverage their core business.

Through TAIRM those organizations also institute frequent and preemptive perfective maintenance, as preventive and corrective maintenance are more frequently implemented while documenting thoroughly the detailed findings of those maintenances and upgrading the troubleshooting of issues stemming from said findings.

Dealing with the heavy-duty industrial equipments found in car manufactures and full-scope petroleum corporations to cite two global examples, there is also a novel application of the “... perfective maintenance ...” concept.

Large organizations as those mentioned above have generally a large headcount. So they habitually have company-sponsored health-care benefit plans and systems.

By way of illustration:

(1.-) This signatory has taken proactive and instrumental part, for many years, in instituting the notion of “ … perfective medicine ...” through Transformative and Integrative Risk Management, as a direct way with the purpose of improving the health and well-being of eligible workers and the eligible dependents and also as a way to assure more overall cost-effectiveness and hence sustainability to this health-care plan and system.

(2.-) I also worked with the risks involved with large maritime fleets, chiefly those of major petroleum tankers (fleets of large marine vessels under the ownership and stewardship of petroleum groups). Andres directly managed the risks of ten (10) Oil and Gas Tankers during five and a half years.

On average each tanker can carry, in average, a payload of about 49,596 tons.

Oil and Gas Tankers (maritime vessels) that has continuously benefited from Mr. Andres Agostini's White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-oil-gas-tankers

(3.-) I have also worked with the risks of and by corporate fleets of private (i) jet-propelled planes and (ii) automobiles.

(4.-) I have also worked with the corporate risks of and by 1,200-plus gas stations.

(7.-) At a given time, I was simultaneously managing the corporate risks of three (3) separately owned, gigantic data rooms.

(8.-) At a given time, I was simultaneously managing the corporate risks of two (2) separately owned, gigantic petroleum refinery complex. Respectively, world's number 1 and number 3.

Oil Refineries that has continuously benefited from Mr. Andres Agostini’s White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management, including the risk management of the world’s number 1 and the world’s number 3 Oil Refineries. There is a sample of installations of these two refineries at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-oil-refineries

(9.-) At a given time, I was simultaneously managing the corporate risks of about two (2) or three (3) separately owned, petroleum refineries.

(10.-) At a given time, I was simultaneously managing the corporate fleet risks of about two (2) separately owned, petroleum and gas maritime tankers.

(11.-) At a given time, I was simultaneously managing the corporate set risks of about two (2) separately owned, ground and off-shore petroleum wells.

(12.-) Corporate fleets of vehicles and the collective vehicles of a corporation's employees can also be managed with beyond-insurance Transformative and Integrative Risk Management.

Additionally, Back to the White Swan hardcore:

As you know, Japanese corporations and institutions are into intensive Kaisen and Toyota Production System (TPS).

Regarding advanced quality assurance and continuous improvement, these approaches have been demonstrated indispensable.

However, Transformative and Integrative Risk Management fully entails, also, most-comprehensive Quality Assurance while Kaisen and TPS are being disproved as optimal methodologies with the 6-million car recall. In all and all, every Quality Assurance Deed (Action, Task) must necessary requires of Risk Management.

And for some reason, Japanese executives and scientists have unprecedented aversion both to Calculated Risks and Classic Risk Management, except for the two health-care systems for Toyota and Mitsubishi Motors through Transformative and Integrative Risk Management.

But their practitioners are always attempting to manage risks through said approaches without any success.

TPS is also known as “...Thinking People System...”

Toyota's CFO and the Production Director have their jaws dropped — while being observed by their own Chairman and CEO — when I carefully demonstrated to them the flaws of Kaisen and TPS in managing risks compared to the ample breadth and depth of scope and application by the “..Transformative and Integrative Risk Management...” (TAIRM).

Although they were in a major personal and technical bewilderment, they hired me (as Mitsubishi Motors did before) to institute the advanced risk management of a self-funded and self-administered health-care benefit program for some seven-hundred Toyota employees and their respective eligible dependents.

Both cases were turnkey undertakings.

TNT Express' engagement was the implementation of advanced risk management of a self-funded and self-administered health-care benefit program for some five-hundred TNT Express employees and their respective eligible dependents. It was a turnkey undertaking.

Regarding a nation's regional state, I implemented beyond-insurance risk management of a self-funded and self-administered and universal health-care benefit program for some 700,000 citizens (beneficiaries).

That was instituted in Portuguesa State, Venezuela by the sponsorship of the regional government, employers' organization (business-owners non-profit organizations) and Britanica de Seguros (a national insurance company. Britanica there is written with a single “n”).

Statistician Manuel SanMartin, Britanica de Seguros' CEO, told me, “...the problem with you is that you think too fast ...”

To him, I commented, “...the second problem with you is that you are not jealous but envious and that you are not listening up to our Chairman and Founder, Dr. Giovanni Di Masse ...”

Leonardo argues that “ ...joyless admiration equates to envy ...” Ask Gates III.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Then, I told Manuel:

“ … The first problem with you is that you haven't conceived and designed your own proprietary Intelligence Augmentation and Amplification (IAA) methodology as I did many years ago ...”

Then I crowned my closing remark concisely by saying, “...I think extremely slowly, light-speed, through several: warped and wormed passages, temporal and atemporal dimensions, spatial and aspatial dimensions...”

The signatory is, too, immeasurably into Intelligence Augmentation and Amplification (IAA) methodology.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Venezuela's petroleum reserves are greater than the combined petroleum reserves of Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

TAIRM has been extensively instituted — regarding numerous industrial and operational risks — in many petroleum joint ventures led by corporations such as Shell, Statoil, Exxon, Mobil, BP, Chevron, Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, Conoco, Italy's ENI and Wilpro Energy Services, among others.

ENI is an Italian multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Rome. It has operations in 79 countries, and is currently Italy's largest industrial company with a market capitalization of 68 billion euros, as of August 14, 2013.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

What did CEOs from ExxonMobil, Conoco, Chevron, Phillips Petroleum, Statoil (Scandinavia), Italy's ENI and Wilpro Energy Services (U.S.) tell Andres?

ExxonMobil (2001)

I once gave an executive presentation to ExxonMobil's CEO and other Board members. My presentation was about Transformative and Integrative Risk Management's Health-care Beyond-Insurance Turnkey Solution.

The CEO and other Board members were extremely accomplished executives and managers. Throughout the totality of the executive presentation, they never interrupted me by were nodding their heads meaning a positive acknowledgment.

Then, we had a nice Questions-and-Answers session thorough which we had a fruitful exchange. By the end of the meeting, the CEO argued:

ExxonMobil's CEO: “...Mr. Agostini, Can I ask you a question?...”

Andres: “...Yes, sir, any question at all...”

ExxonMobil's CEO: “...Are you a physicist...”

Andres: “...No, sir...”

ExxonMobil's CEO: “...Are you an engineer...”

Andres: “...No, sir...”

ExxonMobil's CEO: “...Are you an computer programmer...”

Andres: “...No, sir...”

ExxonMobil's CEO: “...Are you a medical doctor ...”

Andres: “...No, sir...”

ExxonMobil's CEO: “...Are you an economist...”

Andres: “...No, sir...”

ExxonMobil's CEO: “..Are you a psychiatrist...”

Andres: “...No, sir...”

ExxonMobil's CEO: “... Are you a lawyer...”

Andres: “...No, sir...”

ExxonMobil's CEO: “... Are you an anthropologist?...”

Andres: “...No, sir...”

ExxonMobil's CEO: “... Are you a CPA?...”

Andres: “...No, sir...”

ExxonMobil's CEO: “...Then, What are you?...”

Andres: “...The brief answer is: All of the above. The longer answer: I am only a person that is impossible to stereotype, label or box, into a tiny bit of practical thinking, pragmatic learning and corporate problem-solving ... and in great gratitude to accept your business, sir...”

And Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Let us consider:

Conoco, Chevron, Phillips Petroleum, Statoil, Italy's ENI and other global petroleum corporations (2001).

With their respective CEOs and Board Members, I had the exact executive presentation delivered to them.

Toward the end of such business presentations, they asked me the exact question by the ExxonMobil's CEO.

My replies to them was identical: “...Only a person that is impossible to stereotype, label or box, into a tiny bit of practical thinking and pragmatic learning..., in great gratitude to accept your business, sir...”

And Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Let us consider:

Wilpro Energy Services (2001)

I once gave an executive presentation to Wilpro Energy Services' CEO and other Board members. My presentation was about Transformative and Integrative Risk Management's Health-care Beyond-Insurance Turnkey Solution.

They asked valuable questions and the exchange was very fluid and respectful.

Then:

Wilpro Energy Services' CEO stood up and came forward and shook my hand and stated, “...Mr. Agostini, you are one of us ...”

Wilpro Energy Services' CEO were a bit amazed as I took with me:

(A.-) The hardware and software to render the services (real-life demo).

(B.-) Graphics, charts and flow-grams to better underpin the executive presentation.

(C.-) A real-life demo about how to medically evacuate “...burned...” people.

(D.-) Three air ambulances (helicopters) with embedded Intensive-Care Units.

(E.-) My Ops Medic and three Paramedics and Four Rescuing Personnel.

(F.-) Three (3) helicopter pilots and one (1) helicopter copilot.

To offer more reality, we flew there by choppers. Those choppers were provided by my strategic ally, consisting of two large Bell Ranger Helicopters and one super amazing double-turbine and four-rotators wings, manufactured by M.V. Augusta. The latter, a perfect one for SAFE medical evacuations during nighttime and to far-away landing destinations.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Global corporations are greatly into beyond-insurance risk management.

Other organizations that institute beyond-insurance methodologies include:

OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), IBM , Manitoba Government Air Services and Boeing, NTSB, U.S. Surgeon General, FAA, Sandia Corporation, NASA, The Upjohn Company, AMA, Merck & Company, and Litton Industries.

TAIRM seriously considers and utilizes, among many other systems, every Western and Eastern quality assurance methodologies (both from civilian and military spheres).

Nearly all of systems that TAIRM uses are available at http://tiny.cc/u14k5w or www.tairm-q.blogspot.com/

NEITHER KAISEN, NOR TPS, AND NOR ANY OTHER QUALITY ASSURANCE AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT SYSTEMS IN THE WORLD ARE A BEYOND-INSURANCE RISK MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGY IN THE TRADITION OF TAIRM.

In related manner, the U.S. Navy and the Los Alamos National Laboratory have extraordinary quality assurance methodologies.

I have applied beyond-insurance risk management for supranationals (for instance, the World Bank and World Health Organization), NGOs and national governments.

THEREFORE, I AM AND WILL ALSO BE A BEYOND-INSURANCE RISK MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT AND RESEARCHER AND STRATEGIST AND PRACTITIONER WITH AN EMPHATIC SCIENTIFIC-FUTURING PERSPECTIVE.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

If we are to succeed in the contemporary and forthcoming times, we MUST radically break with the past.

By what we just have seen above, all these dramatic changes and emerging forces bestow unprecedented, persistent and frontier-breaking new risks, challenges, problems, developments, speed, efficiencies, productivity, opportunities, benefits and progress.

To seize and exploit the upsides and to cope with the downsides optimally, there needs to be, as it has never been before in recorded manipulated history, a collective group of prepared-minded managers in place.

All these scientific and technological doubling of technical breakthroughs and scientific discoveries and novel innovation developments entail, as the casual observer is not paying detailed attention, that in the preceding process current knowledge and wisdom are becoming obsolete by the nanosecond, giving birth to new notions.

For instance, with the initial advent of NASA, it is argued that in its beginnings the agency added 10,000 new words to the hugely-cherished English language.

In a similar fashion, it is reasoned that Shakespeare, as well, added about 10,000 new words to our relished Anglicized Thomas Jefferson Lingua Franca.

As well:

EVERY NEW AND OLD “NORMAL” AND EVERY NEW AND OLD “ABNORMAL” ARE FULLY WITHING THOROUGH SCIENTIFIC NORMALCY!

THE READER IS WELCOME TO A NEW “...NORMAL...” AND A NEW “...ABNORMAL ... ":

In all verisimilitude, there are many new “...normals...” and “...abnormals...” (both entirely within every scientific normality) for EVERY MANAGER to fundamentally cope with, being the latter, incidentally, marshaled as well within (a) normality, (b) normalcy and (c) normalness (Normalness is the quality of conforming to maximum normal quality or normal condition).

THE WHITE SWAN HARDCORE POV HEREBY RESUMES NOW.

Churchill observed that we must get prepared when we cannot predict. Hence, we need to discern the dynamic driving forces (not so-called “...trends...”) reshaping the present and future and their impacts on our institutions, industries, organizations and professions TODAY.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

WHEN THE GLOBALIZATION HAS THE WORLD CIVILIZATION OVER-CONNECTED, WHAT WE MUST, AT ALL TIMES, DO EVERYWHERE? ANSWER: TRANSFORMATIVE AND INTEGRATIVE RISK MANAGEMENT! TO THIS PURPOSE, SEE THE ENSUING:

“ … Earth reached its maximum state of openness [through most-connected globalization], at least so far, on September 10, 2001. The next day, we learned how all this openness can be turned on its head, lending the explosive impact of jet liners and the population density of modern skyscrapers to a few guys armed with box cutters. THAT'S WHEN THE DREAM OF A CONNECTED WORLD REVEALED ITSELF RATHER AS THE NIGHTMARE OF A WORLD VULNERABLE TO NETWORK EFFECTS. Whether it's a congressman losing his job over an errant Tweet, a State Department humiliated by the release of its cache of cables on WikiLeaks, or a corporation whose progressive consumers just learned their phones were assembled in Chinese sweatshops, CONNECTEDNESS HAS TURNED EVERY GLITCH INTO A POTENTIALLY MORTAL BLOW, EVERY INTERACTOR INTO A POTENTIAL SLAYER [….] It may seem glib to equate a terrorist attack with a public relations snafu, but from the perspective of the institutions now under seemingly perpetual assault, it is the same challenge: how can they better respond to the crises emerging seemingly from anywhere and everywhere, all the time? How can they predict and avoid these crises in the first place? WHEN EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED TO EVERYTHING ELSE, WHERE DOES THIS PROCESS EVEN BEGIN? Any action from anywhere may be the game changer — the butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil that leads to a hurricane in China. And all of it happening at the the same time, BECAUSE CAUSE AND EFFECT SEEM TO HAVE MERGED INTO THE SAME MOMENT ...” [252] Brackets are of the Author.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

SPEAKING NOW OF DYNAMIC DRIVING FORCES, LET US PERUSE THIS DEFINITION:

“...Dynamic Driving Forces are forces outside the firm (external factors) that trigger the change of strategy in an organization. Industry conditions change because important forces (the most dominant ones that have the biggest influence on what kinds of changes will take place in the industry’s structure and competitive environment) are driving industry participants (competitors, customers, or suppliers) to alter their actions, and thus the driving forces in an industry are the major underlying causes of changing industry and competitive conditions. Driving forces analysis has two steps: identifying what the driving forces are and assessing the impact they will have on the industry [….] The Most Common Dynamic Driving Forces include: 1. The Internet and new e-commerce opportunities and threats it breeds in the industry; 2. Increasing globalization of the industry; 3. Changes in the long-run industry growth rate; 4. Changes in who buys the products and how they use it. 5. Product innovation; 6. Technological change; 7. Market innovation; 8. Entry or exit of major firms; 9. Diffusion of technical know-how across more companies and more countries; 10. Changes in cost and efficiency. 11. Growing buyer for preferences for differentiated products instead of a commodity product (or for a more standardized product instead of strongly differentiated products); 12. Regulatory influences and government policy changes; 13. Changing societal concerns, attitudes, and lifestyles; 14. Reductions in uncertainty and business risk [….] Other dynamic driving forces include geologic (geodesic), climatological, political, geopolitical, demographic, social, ethical, economic, technological, financial, legal and environmental forces, among others …”

Besides:

Every time we deal we dynamic driving forces, we should, by the way, contemplate the business-like notion of point of inflection.

Ergo, I will offer this definition:

BEGINNING:

“...Inflection point is a moment of dramatic change, especially in the development of a company, industry, or market ... And/or a time of significant change in a situation; a turning point … A moment of dramatic change, especially in the development of a company, industry, or market … A point on a chart that marks the beginning of a significant move, either up or down … An event that results in a significant change in the progress of a company, industry, sector, economy or geopolitical situation. An inflection point can be considered a turning point after which a dramatic change, with either positive or negative results, is expected to result. Companies, industries, sectors and economies are dynamic and constantly evolving. Inflection points are more significant than the small day-to-day progress that is made and the effects of the change are often well-known and widespread … Andy Grove, Intel's co-founder, described a strategic inflection point as '...an event that changes the way we think and act …' … What Intel's Grove calls '...strategic inflection point …, AA terms « ... Sputnik Moment inflection point … » ... Inflection points can be a result of action taken by a company, or through actions taken by another entity, that has a direct impact on the company. Regulatory changes, for instance, could lead to an inflection point for a corporation that was previously held back by regulatory compliance issues. Inflection points in technology include the advent of the Internet and smart phones. Politically, an inflection point can be illustrated by the fall of the Berlin Wall or the fall of Communism in Poland and other Eastern Bloc countries ...”

END.

The White Swan hardcore ensues:

This we, all managers in general, must observe daily without a fail and increasingly so.

In addition:

The “...increasingly so...” MUST be nonlinear (In S-Curves) and supremely exponential (that is: nonlinear, mathematically speaking. Do your research).

According to mathematics, nonlinear entails, “...not in a straight line...” (that is, that “...grows...” geometrically or exponentially. It grows, in Kurzweilian and mathematical parlance, in and through '...S-typed Curves...').

Our intuitions are outright linear while this contemporaneous world is ruthlessly nonlinear (In S-Curves). Non-linearity harbors most-loved Outliers.

And when people reject understanding and embracing non-linearity, they start getting black swans all over. But when they really understand non-linearity, they will get, with strong preparations, strong and plentiful White Swans.

Many have a major difficulty in underrating and practically coping with this notion.

Nonlinear (In S-Curves) events, happenings, changes and dynamic driving forces have asymmetrical consequences and ramifications beyond conception by the normal-mode of the linear intuitive human mind.

Asymmetries mean disproportionality (The state of being disproportional) that are only understood and coped with through nonlinear (In S-Curves) modes of thinking.

Stated simply, nonlinear growth equates to most unevenly explosive growth.

The White Swan hardcore continues:

By being future literate I don't mean to contemplate what is going to happen in the year 2045.

I am interested in the “now” locus and in the immediate-term future and in the medium-term future and in the long-term future and in the “ … all out ...”-term future.

When one is developing a cohesive business plan, Doesn't he / she need to envision a three- or five-year period?

Isn't the elaboration of a business plan a foremost (future-driven) minimal management responsibility and a skill?

I can offer a tsunami of unimpeachable brick-and-mortar and digital literature to assert that the term "now" is already besieged by futuristic forces as we speak.

Yes, they will greatly change the future even further and in unpredictable ways.

These futuristic forces are easily observed on the local newspapers too.

The “now” moment and the stemmed “continuum” are hijacked by surreptitiously aggressive future-focused dynamics.

“...Here and Now...” is, put simply, the endless entry point into the future.

As a result, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus commented,

“...Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present ...”

And as a consequence, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche indicated,

“...It’s our future that lays down the law of our today..."

NIETZSCHE IS HEREWITH SUGGESTING THAT THE PRESENT IS A FUNCTION OF THE FUTURE.

For instance, the workforce of managers and the respective management competitors will also be transformed beyond the reader's wildest dreams.

Competition right now is and will be a major confrontational issue (as in an “attrition war”).

By way of illustration, and in addition to the so-called “...talent war...,” the pervasive competition is today stemming from advanced robotics and computing and other forms of automation.

These three fields are under the ruthless tutelage of Strong Artificial Intelligence, including Strong Quantum Supercomputing!

When the human brain and body ? as well as other hominid sensors ? get reverse-engineered, Strong A.I. will never be out-competed against by the human thought.

By way of illustration and speaking of super intelligence:

Among the family of cephalopods, there are the amazing and extremely intelligent: (a) octopus, (b) squid and (c) cuttlefish. QUESTION: What do Spaniards do with them? They cook them and eat them, never finding intellectual and knowledge utility in them. On the contrary, the U.S. Navy scientifically researches their preternatural intelligence.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Strong Artificial Intelligence will be propelled on “steroids” by the defense ministries and intelligentsia and counter-intelligentsia incumbents of nearly all major nations, including those of the BRIC and CIVETS countries.

Another major factor to outstandingly consider is rampant globalization.

This dynamic driving force is incessantly changing the managerial landscape everywhere.

And the always-daring global economic crisis, a great universal threat yet, daily shocks us with its random “...behavior...” and continuous looming.

Many rosy futurologist call it “...the global downturn...” by way of exercising one “...desperately hopeful...” euphemism.

They only want to be the heralds of “...good news ... " without outright and fundamental coping with vast human-made existential errors and risks.

The global economic crisis couldn't be any graver around the entire planet. And one of the world's favorite reserve currency is running immense perils, too. When that one is fallen, others will be fallen as well.

Whatever is happening in the West, China and India are, at the moment and by way of example, drastically booming.

For example:

Dr. Henry Kissinger argues that out of twenty-two centuries China ruled in its region for twenty centuries (2,000 years) at least.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

As an important point to note, the Futurologist Gerald Celente advises,

“...If you don't attack the future [today], the future will attack you [in 24 hours]...”

And John Galsworthy argued,

“...If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one ... " Brackets are of the author.

Is there future clever? Who can we ask about it?

Patrick Dixon says, “...Take hold of the future or the future will take hold of you — be futurewise ...” [96]

In fact, if there is not a planetary calamity (what I warmly like to call the “caveat”) occurring (I hope this never happens), we are anyway currently beginning to eyewitness the dawn of a new civilization (requiring new managerial mind-sets, knowledge, skills and talents).

Some existential risks might preclude this new earthling civilization to further originate and develop.

That new civilization will be in place in the near future and there will be, among other “...beings... enhanced humans, bots and transbiologicals (biologicals who has transcend their own biology, paraphrasing Kurzweil).

Who and how?

“...Who will be man’s successor? To which the answer is: We are ourselves creating our own successors. Man will become to the machine what the horse and the dog are to man; the conclusion being that machines are, or are becoming, animate...” Samuel Butler's 1863 letter.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Exobiological, Trans-Exobiological and Omniversal Intelligence might, by some SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) accounts, be in place, too.

Let us give it a closer look to SETI.

In “...The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology...” (ISBN: 978-0143037880) book, Dr. Raymond Kurzweil, with 19 doctoral degrees and Singularity University's Chancellor and Google Chief Engineer Officer, argues that most extraterrestrial beings might, JUST MIGHT, exhibit a grayish look because they are the trans-exobiologicals stemming from [outer-space and infinitely beyond] advanced exobiological civilizations.

Trans-exobiologicals are exobiologicals who have transcended their own exobiology.

Having stated that and since the advent of his landmark book (I wish all fact-driven books were written like this canonical marvel), he has given many interviews and speeches about The Technological Singularity.

As a process of that, one day Ray ended up giving a seminal keynote to the upper management and scientists at SETI Institute. SETI, again, an American Organization, that stands for Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Conversely, the about one-hour talk was about the Technological Singularity and the Law of Accelerating Returns as it posited by Ray Kurzweil himself.

(In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is a perceived increase in the rate of technological «and sometimes social and cultural» progress throughout history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future. While many have suggested accelerating change, the popularity of this theory in modern times is closely associated with various advocates of the technological singularity, such as Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil.)

Towards the end of the keynote, one or two SETI scientists told Ray that, as per their own research, they were considering as a probable and plausible scenario to be that extraterrestrials' or, better yet, non-biological intelligence's domicile was within the immeasurable limits of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

The original and official YouTube video published by SETI is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6hU4lS9_kI

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

We must NOW get prepared for the worst-case scenario and expect an ever more intractable worst-case scenario.

To this notion, GBN’s CEO Eamonn Kelly explains,

“...We have globalized the economy and culture, but we have not yet globalized our sense of ourselves ...” [89]

Now, we must concentrate, as a laser-beam pointing precision, on the upsides by the Technological Singularity as well as the downsides by the Disruptional Singularity.

If managers understood and applied solemnity and decorum, among many things they would never have to study or get trained, say, on invaluable leadership and applied ethics, since solemnity encompasses it all.

Government, conflict and complexity. What role do governments play pertaining to these singularities?

“...Government policies are influential in the macroscopic risks that threaten our lives. As a society has been transferred from simple agrarianism to a complex technologically-driven living standard, competing special interests force the government to make compromises that inevitably create risks — even the risk of war ... " [226]

By way of illustration:

As we speak about disruptions, an unknown thinker pointed out,

" ...We are walking toward the edge of a cliff —blindfolded. Our ability to understand the potential for future abrupt changes in climate is limited by our lack of understanding of the processes that control them ..." [224]

TODAY, WANTING TO BE A TRUE MANAGER IS A GARGANTUAN AMBITION IF ACTUAL AND SUSTAINED SUCCESS IS A CLEAR OBJECTIVE AND GOAL.

NEW MANAGERIAL REVOLUTIONARIES ARE EXTREMELY MOBILIZED INTO PURPOSEFUL CAUSES.

THEY POSSES ACCESS TO AUSPICIOUS KNOWLEDGE IN GRAVELY IGNORED AND UNDISCOVERABLE FLANKS.

When I get hired by an institutional client, TAIRM deeply considers the “...human factor...” I am more interested in the human factor before than after the disruption.

Revising the Human Factor and Human Mistake, hominids are:

1.- “...Dumb...”, according to Ted Turner.

2.- “...Flawed...”, according to Dr. Henry Mintzberg.

3.- “...Unstable and unpredictable...”, according to NASA.

4.- “...Future illiterate...”, according to Alvin Toffler.

5.- “...Political animal...”, according to Aristotle.

6.- “... Man, incurable futurologist, is the only traditionalist animal ...”, according to Antonio Machado. Brackets are of the author.

7.- “ … Humans Are Weird …. Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people's actions ...”, according to Dr. Stephen Covey.

8.- “ … Humans are biological off-springs ...”, according to Alvin Toffler.

9.- According to London Business School Prof. Gary Hamel, PhD., humans are (or are into):

9.1.- “... animal husbandry …”

9.2.- “ … social creatures ...”

9.3.- “ … amazingly adaptable ...”

9.4.- “ … creative and humans can choose ...”

10.- “ ...individuals (human animals) will make mistakes ...”, according to Sir Martin Rees PhD. Parentheses are of the author.

11.- “ … human fallibility ...”, according to US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

12.- “... explanation-seeking animals ...”, according to Dr. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, PhD.

13.- “… We [, humans,] are dogma-prone from our mother's wombs...”, according to Simon Foucher at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Foucher

14.- “... Human stupidity...”, according to Wikipedia.

15.- [Into] Self-deception (clearly, by so-called humans), according to Wikipedia.

16.- “...Cognitive biases...” and/or “...emotional biases...” (clearly, by so-called humans), according to Wikipedia.

17.- “...Short-term thinking...” animal, according to Professor Daniel Berleant, Ph.D.

18.- “...Animal...” who brain is “...arithmetical...” and thus never nonlinear, according to Professor Daniel Berleant, Ph.D.

19.- The world is mostly filled with “crooked” humans (animals), according to Loss Prevention Guide for Retail Businesses (National Retail Federation) by Rudolph C. Kimiecik (Author)
ISBN-13: 978-0471076360.

20.- The human animal "is unstable, creates wars, has weapons to wipe out the world twice over, and makes computer viruses, …." according to Louis Del Monte, physicist, entrepreneur, and author of "The Artificial Intelligence Revolution.

21.- “... Timid, indecisive, narrow-minded men...” [animals], according to John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough.

Returning to the White Swan hardcore:

Insurance and reinsurance companies deal lightly with post-loss human factor. They say that this endeavor is not lucrative to their pockets.

TAIRM thoroughly considers post-mortem and ex-ante analyzes.

IN DEALING WITH THE “...HUMAN FACTOR...,” RISKS AND THE FUTURES AND MANY OTHER SIGNIFICANT FACTORS IN THE HANDS OF MANAGERS, TAIRM PREEMPTIVELY MAKE THE CLIENT UNDERGO ABUNDANT “...LITMUS TESTS...” ON SECOND ONE AND ONWARD, THAT IS, IN ORDER TO DULY AND IN ADVANCE PREPARE THE CLIENT’S ORGANIZATION TOWARDS ANY CHALLENGES, PROBLEMS, FUTURES, RISKS, PRINCIPLES, STANDARDS, PROCESSES, CONTENTS, CONTEXTS, PRACTICES, TOOLS, TECHNIQUES, DEVELOPMENTS, OPPORTUNITIES, BENEFITS, REWARDS, GROWTH AND PROGRESS.

ALL OF THE PRIOR OBSERVING THE IMMEDIATE TERM, THE MEDIUM TERM, THE LONG TERM AND THE FAR-OUT TERM.

There is an additional matter of considerable concern under the TAIRM's framework.

Thinkers and authors such as Drucker, Toffler, Covey and Bueno de Mezquita, among others, have energetically gone public about the critical importance of using words that address the unfailingly underlying meaning of targeted ideas.

To this end, please note this quotation:

Professor Bruce Bueno de Mezquita, Ph.D. warns, " ... Ordinary everyday language can be awfully vague and ambiguous [….] Words can have many meanings, so we must be careful to define ideas carefully [….] It's easy to make logical literary mistakes, and they can be hard to spot, which can often disguise or obscure the meaning of the thinking and actions of individuals....” (ISBN-13: 978-0812979770).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Underlying meaning has to do with the meaning of words and terms as per their actual roots.

For instance:

LET US BESTOW UPON OUR CORPORATIONS BLACK SWANS AS A SPINOFF OF AND BY LACK OF CORRECT AND COMPLETE COMMUNICATION?

“...Your letter tells me nothing. You will however have to be able to interrogate, in order to know the names of the regiments and the commanding general and a hundred things, all very important — the morale of the troops, the way in which they are fed, the strength of the different units, and what is known from conservations with the colonels and officers of the corps [….] I EXPECTED SEVERAL PAGES AND I GET ONLY TWO LINES. REDEEM ALL THAT BY WRITING ME IN GREAT DETAIL ...” (By Napoleon I's most existential warning to a plethora of CEOs and Chairperson requesting two-paragraph e-mails. In so doing, they existentially disrupt thoroughness and completeness. Thoroughness and Completeness are the quality of conforming to exhaustively complete and painstakingly accurate and careful).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

It is, as a result, indispensable to me (and TAIRM) avoiding the “ … illusion of meaning ...” and hence communicating through most unambiguous technical parlance and twenty-first-century business lingo. Whether one reader calls it unreadable jargon or not, this only indicates that she does not have the knowledge level to cope with this highly-sophisticated world.

UNAMBIGUOUS LINGO, IN THIS INSTANCES AND AT ALL TIMES THEREOF, IMPLIES TO TOTALLY AND PREEMPTIVELY AVOID AND BAN VAGUENESS AND INEXPLICITNESS, ALWAYS EMBRACING CLARITY AND LUCIDITY.

What are real-world examples of “...illusion of meaning...” To this end, Can we use the Wikipedia and White Swan definitions to better understand these illusions of meaning?

Hence:

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Oracle defined both by Wikipedia and the White Swan:

Google defined by Wikipedia:

Google is an American multinational corporation specializing in Internet-related services and products. These include search, cloud computing, software, and online advertising technologies. Most of its profits are derived from AdWords.

Google defined by the White Swan:

Google is an American multinational corporation, with worldwide reach, PRIMARILY SPECIALIZING in Artificial general intelligence (AGI. That is: A hypothetical artificial intelligence that demonstrates human-like intelligence — the intelligence of a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. ), with a SECONDARY SPECIALIZATION, under the strong tutelage of AGI, in Internet-related services and products. Most of its profits are derived from doing Strong Artificial Intelligence through Google Analytics …. AND: Google is already a neural network, a massive, distributed global beyond-human-thinking Artificial Brain.

Facebook defined by Wikipedia:

Facebook is an online social networking service.

Facebook defined by the White Swan:

Facebook is an American multinational corporation, with worldwide reach, PRIMARILY SPECIALIZING in Artificial general intelligence (AGI. That is: A hypothetical artificial intelligence that demonstrates human-like intelligence — the intelligence of a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. ), with a SECONDARY SPECIALIZATION, under the strong tutelage of AGI, in online social networking service. Most of its profits are derived from doing Strong Artificial Intelligence through Facebook Analytics.

Twitter defined by Wikipedia:

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read short 140-character text messages, called "tweets".

Twitter defined by the White Swan:

Twitter is an American multinational corporation, with worldwide reach, PRIMARILY SPECIALIZING in Artificial general intelligence (AGI. That is: A hypothetical artificial intelligence that demonstrates human-like intelligence — the intelligence of a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. ), with a SECONDARY SPECIALIZATION, under the strong tutelage of AGI, in online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read short 140-character text messages, called "tweets". Most of its profits are derived from doing Strong Artificial Intelligence through Twitter Analytics.

Microsoft defined by Wikipedia:

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer web browser. Its flagship hardware products are Xbox game console and the Microsoft Surface series of tablets. It is the world's largest software maker measured by revenues.

Microsoft defined by the White Swan:

Microsoft is an American multinational corporation, with worldwide reach, PRIMARILY SPECIALIZING in Artificial general intelligence (AGI. That is: A hypothetical artificial intelligence that demonstrates human-like intelligence — the intelligence of a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. ), with a SECONDARY SPECIALIZATION, under the strong tutelage of AGI, into: development, manufacturing, licensing, supporting and selling computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer web browser. Its flagship hardware products are Xbox game console and the Microsoft Surface series of tablets. It is the world's largest software maker measured by revenues. Most of its profits are derived from doing Strong Artificial Intelligence through Microsoft Analytics.

Oracle defined by Wikipedia:

Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing computer hardware systems and enterprise software products — particularly its own brands of database management systems.

Oracle defined by the White Swan:

Oracle is an American multinational corporation, with worldwide reach, PRIMARILY SPECIALIZING in Artificial general intelligence (AGI. That is: A hypothetical artificial intelligence that demonstrates human-like intelligence — the intelligence of a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. ), with a SECONDARY SPECIALIZATION, under the strong tutelage of AGI, into developing and marketing computer hardware systems and enterprise software products — particularly its own brands of database management systems. Most of its profits are derived from doing Strong Artificial Intelligence through Oracle Analytics.

If you don't get it yet, please allow me to elaborate:

The White Swan is about HUGE OPTIMAL MANAGEMENT. But we can do Optimal Management if we do NOT really the immeasurable large complication and gargantuan complexity of one of the most pervasive Dynamic Driving Forces.

As a result:

IN WHAT ARE GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, IBM, APPLE AND MICROSOFT FOCUSING, IN ORDER TO REVERSE-ENGINEER THE HUMAN BIOLOGICAL MIND?

Google, Facebook and other tech companies race to develop artificial intelligence.

CITATION BEGINS:

“ … The latest Silicon Valley arms race is a contest to build the best artificial brains. Facebook, Google and other leading tech companies are jockeying to hire top scientists in the field of artificial intelligence, while spending heavily ON A QUEST TO MAKE COMPUTERS THINK MORE LIKE PEOPLE …. They're not building humanoid robots — not yet, anyway. But a number of tech giants and startups are trying to build computer systems that understand what you want, perhaps before you knew you wanted it ….' It's important to position yourself in this market for the next decade,...' said Yann LeCunn, a leading New York University researcher hired to run Facebook's new A.I. division in December …. “... A LOT IS RIDING ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONTENT ANALYSIS, AND ON BEING SMARTER ABOUT HOW PEOPLE AND COMPUTERS INTERACT …' …. Artificial intelligence programs can already recognize images and translate human speech. TECH RESEARCHERS WANT TO BUILD SYSTEMS THAT CAN MATCH THE HUMAN BRAIN'S ABILITY TO HANDLE MORE COMPLEX CHALLENGES — to intuitively predict traffic conditions while steering automated cars or drones, for example, or to grasp the intent of written texts and spoken messages, so they can better anticipate what kind of information, including ads, their users want to see …. FACEBOOK HAS RECRUITED SEVERAL WELL-REGARDED A.I. SCIENTISTS, including one from Google, in recent months. GOOGLE HAS BEEN WORKING ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR SEVERAL YEARS, ENLISTING PROMINENT RESEARCHERS SUCH AS STANFORD'S ANDREW NG AND THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO'S GEOFFREY HINTON TO HELP BUILD COMPUTER SYSTEMS KNOWN AS '...NEURAL NETWORKS,...' WHICH ARE CAPABLE OF TEACHING THEMSELVES …. But in a sign it wants to do more, Google paid a reported $400 million in January to buy DeepMind, a British startup said to be working ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE for image recognition, e-commerce recommendations and video games. DeepMind had also drawn interest from Facebook. Last month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg invested personally in Vicarious, a Silicon Valley startup working on software that can recognize — and draw — images of animals or other things …. ' … In the last 18 months, every venture capital firm I know has made at least one investment ...' in ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, ROBOTICS or related sectors, said Raj Singh, CEO of Tempo AI, which makes a '… smart calendar …' mobile app that acts like a personal assistant. Tempo uses technology from SRI, the Menlo Park think tank that developed key elements of Apple's Siri and has spun off several artificial intelligence startups …. COMPETITION AMONG DIGITAL PERSONAL ASSISTANTS IS ESPECIALLY HEATED: While each works differently, Tempo is vying with Siri, Google Now and Microsoft's new Cortana. Through a series of upgrades, each has tried to outdo the others in providing reminders and anticipating questions by analyzing relevant data from users' calendars, contact lists and email [….] The ultimate goal is something closer to '… Samantha,...' the personable operating system voiced by actress Scarlett Johansson in the film '...Her,...' though it undoubtedly will be more businesslike [….] Right now, even Siri fans have voiced frustration with its limitations, including balky silences and nonresponsive answers. But there are signs Apple is working feverishly to improve it …. '…. Apple is hiring some of the most intelligent guys in this field, [….] ' said Abdel-Rahman Mohamed, a University of Toronto researcher who has used a form of artificial intelligence known as '… deep learning...' to improve speech recognition by computers. Based on Apple's recent hiring, Mohamed predicted Siri will improve dramatically [….] Facebook, meanwhile, wants to better understand its users' posts and preferences so it can show them more relevant messages, LeCunn said. It's working on improved facial recognition algorithms, for photo-tagging. Zuckerberg has also hinted he wants to compete with Google in providing answers to users' questions, drawing on recommendations and observations by the social network's 1.2 billion members .…' … [….] The goal here is to use new approaches in A.I. to help make sense of all the content that people share, so we can generate new insights about the world to answer people's questions, ...' Zuckerberg told analysts recently ….'[….] This has the potential to be really powerful ….' …. Google has similar goals. So does Microsoft, Yahoo, China's Baidu and other companies. IBM poured more than $1 billion into its Watson computer system, which uses artificial intelligence and competed on '...Jeopardy[….] ' Already, Google has used artificial intelligence to improve its voice-enabled search and Google Now, as well as its mapping and self-driving car projects. Google wouldn't discuss the details of its projects, but CEO Larry Page showed his enthusiasm at a TED technology conference last month ….' I think we're seeing a lot of exciting work going on, that crosses computer science and neuroscience, in terms of really understanding what it takes to make something smart, ….' Page said. He showed videos from Google and DeepMind projects in which computer systems learned to recognize cats and play games — without detailed programming instructions ….Google and Facebook both hope to do more with '...DEEP LEARNING,...' in which computer networks teach themselves to recognize patterns by analyzing vast amounts of data, rather than rely on programmers to tell them what each pattern represents. The networks tackle problems by breaking them into a series of steps, the way layers of neurons work in a human brain ….The approach was pioneered in the 1980s by a handful of scientists including Hinton, Ng and LeCunn. But researchers say its potential has exploded in recent years because they now have access to more powerful computing systems and bigger sets of data …. That technology could help companies build systems that go beyond recognizing words or phrases, to understand the intended meaning of written texts and conversational speech — so instead of typing the keywords '…. weather forecast San Jose,...' users can simply ask: '...Do I need an umbrella today?...' …. It may also help companies like Google and Facebook analyze individuals' posts and preferences to tailor the ads they see, though neither company tends to highlight such uses ….A powerful artificial brain that knows your preferences and habits can be a scary notion, acknowledged Mohamed, who said companies must consider ethics and privacy as they develop new services ….But experts say it's clear that artificial intelligence will be used more widely. SOME DAY SOON, INTELLIGENT '….ASSISTANTS...' WILL BE BUILT INTO A VARIETY OF GADGETS AND ONLINE SERVICES, predicted Singh …. ' ….Everything is going to be more anticipatory, and more personal,[….] ' he said. '… If it's done right, you may not even notice it. But once you start experiencing it, you'll realize: ' …. Wow! How did you live without it? …' ... " [229].

CITATION ENDS.

Back to the White Swan main hardcore and some amenities about parlance:

For example, there is a major nation in the Western Hemisphere in which its in-general-and-at-large society's “ ...living...” language usage involves many slangs, clichés, idioms, colloquialisms, regionalisms (spoken and written, of), traditionalisms (spoken and written, of) and other idiomatic expressions (spoken and written, of) that, as per the most authoritative own native linguists from said society, semanticists, language experts and professors, do not unfortunately configure, in all rigor, the standard parlance of the official language here coped with.

The preceding paragraph is a great negative encouragement to deal with a world mired by hard science, high tech and complexity.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

There is huge complexity now by geopolitical hazards as well as Cold War II is reaffirming its own birth and rogue ruling.

Cold War II is, unfortunately, a great pre-condition underpinning to a thesis of a WWIII.

Accordingly and dealing with the non-standard usage of language and other amenities, Dr. Carl Sagan, PhD., by way of example, expressed,

“...We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows about science and technology...”

Ergo, non-standard languages are a function of societies fighting against science and technology.

As a result, I put forward that it is impossible to live against the dictum by Dr. Sagan in contemporary days. I also believe that leaders and managers are going to need without a fail and with extreme seriousness, in many cases, a panoply of Rocket Science or Science Rocketry.

Along with Linguistics and Semantics in the swirling Gaia of ours, it is important to heed the notion of Dialectic, a form of preventative non-“...communication breakdown...” Wikipedia asserts:

“ … Dialectic (also dialectics and the dialectical method) is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to European and Indian philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues. The dialectical method is discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, who wish to establish the truth of the matter guided by reasoned arguments …”

Along with the Dialectical Method, Transformative and Integrative Risk Management is into advanced Socratic Method.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Another aspect of TAIRM is to exercise gigantic attentive listening to the client and others related to him or her.

If the language within a major petroleum refinery is ambiguous, irresponsibly miscomprehended operational communications stemming from such petroleum refinery can terminate with the human life and bringing about, say, 100,000 fatalities (living in peripheral cities), not counting the installation's workers and contractors as well as the property damages.

Into my first six-months with PDVSA, there was a devastation by a Petroleum Refinery, known as Refinería de Amuay (Paraguaná Refinery Complex), under Lagoven's (formerly Creole Petroleum Corporation).

CPC is the company acquired by Standard Oil of New Jersey and then state-owned by Citgo's PDVSA. At that moment, Paraguaná Refinery Complex was the world's largest in its type.

I was officially invited by Lagoven's CFO, by Canadian Mr. William Clamens, to visit the “...Crime Scene...” or the locus in which the Disruptive Energy-Potential was Stupidly Unleashed and where Forensic Science was going to be applied afterward. If I were to make a visual comparison, it probably was like looking at the Chernobyl Catastrophe.

In heavy-duty proportions and industrial scales, I reconnoitered the entire site. If you think of your neighborhood or own urbanization, it was, at first sight, about 45-square blocs. The burning smell was all over the place. Nothing was recognizable.

Considerable leakages of gasses, vapors, fluids and fired-up ignitions. Myriad of tiny short-circuits and tons of smoke everywhere, as well. The place was difficult to walk through given the unprecedented amount of cluttered debris.

Outright industrial upheaval with a large assets elimination pseudo-insured and pseudo-reinsured. So, even though such industrial complex was brought under control before rebuilding it. Fortunately, there was no loss of human lives.

At that moment, I was just out of college into tenure commencement. I was, at all rate, paying undivided attention to many details and found out many flaws, not only in maintenance procedures, but also in legal approaches to configure the millionaire insurance-and-reinsurance claim check.

I made a case to the the Refinery CEO, the company's CFO, and the Corporate: Treasurer, Comptroller and Jurist that, as per my opinion, their engineer spokesperson was given more than necessary information. And that such quality and quantity of lavish information was going to be utilized to substantially decreased the global indemnity payment.

The global indemnity payment was internationally managed by Sedgwick Reinsurance Brokers Ltd. (now acquired by and operated through Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.).

Within the overseas reinsurance-paying pool of (reinsurance companies), there were a gamut of participating prime players from North America and Europe at large, for a portion of the entire risk accounting to about a 90%, in toto.

As it is customarily called, the (overseas) Reinsurance Pool Leader was American International Group, Inc. Then, Sedgwick Reinsurance Brokers, precluded, any “...syndicate...”, that is a ' … Lloyd's of London ...'-chartered reinsurance company, to partake into the international reinsurance pool.

Within the national insurance-paying pool of (insurance companies), there were over forty companies participating, for a portion of the entire risk accounting to about a 10%, in toto.

The (national) Insurance Pool Leader was Liberty Mutual's “...Seguros Caracas...”

The narrative about the Refinery “...Loss...” and all of the International and National Ramifications via Reinsurance and Insurance Companies have a strategic end to articulate the narrative HARDCORE of the present work.

I found all of the before-the-loss events and after-the-loss events extremely primitive and mediocre.

Oil Refineries that has continuously benefited from Mr. Andres Agostini’s White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management, including the risk management of the world’s number 1 and the world’s number 3 Oil Refineries. There is a sample of installations of these two refineries at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/05/white-swan-oil-refineries

So my thought process quickly went from sub-critical mass into critical mass to give birth to some alien methodology to fundamentally do away with all the silly corporate red tape from time immemorial.

Sub-Critical Mass.— : “ … Sub-Critical Mass refers to an amount or level NOT SUFFICIENT for a specific result or new action to occur ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

A Little Actual Fun Story with World's #2 Petroleum Corp Chairman and CEO:

Lasserre Restaurant and World's #2 Petroleum Corporation Worldwide Chairman and CEO (1998):

World's #2 Petroleum Corporation was Citgo's PDVSA (the parent and holding company).

PDVSA: Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. is the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil, as well as exploration and production of natural gas.

Please remember that Venezuela has the largest world's petroleum reserves.

Worldwide Chairman and CEO: Engineer Luis Giusti (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Giusti_L%C3%B3pez).

I invited Luis with the CORS Board Members to enjoy a nice French dinner at Lasserre Restaurant.

Andres was then and now the Founder, Chairman and CEO of CORS Risk Management Services.

Through that nice dinner I wanted to communicate to Luis our company's interest and view about establishing a joint venture between CORS and PDVSA to do all the thinkable and unthinkable medical services to PDVSA Employee and Eligible Dependents and then to other institutional clients.

I will give you an accurate account but I will use avatars for my two CORS directors. One I will call Gustav and the other Hans.

Ergo, Andres went on, while focusing on Luis' face, to give him a detailed explanation about exactly what PDVSA's health-care problems were and how CORS could take care of those. For over a decade and half, Andres has assimilated the technical parlance of Petroleum Executives.

So, Andres, in order to make his pitch more comprehensible to Luis regardless of Gustav and Hans, spoke to Luis in his natural parlance. As a consequence, Luis and Andres really hit as a dialogue context was kindly and fruitfully formed. This two-person dialogue became extremely fluid and dynamic.

Then, the ensuing took off:

Gustav: “...Andres, you are confounding Luis...”

Hans: “...Yes, Andres, you are overwhelming Luis...”

For a second, I stared at the two imprudent and ignorant guys. And then Luis disrupted their silliness.

Luis: “...Hans and Gustav, I don't understand what your problem is … Andres is making a great deal of sense to me … Every time I speak with a potential strategic ally, I found him, her inarticulate and without clearly defining the conversation points and highlights …. You are wrong if you think that Andres is sending me into bewilderment …. In fact, I just wish that my Co-CEO and COO could express themselves with the clarity and lucidity of concepts that Andres uses ...”

Andres: “...Thank you...”

Given the breathtaking tactless and imprudent and envious interruption by Hans and Gustav, I requested them to submit before me their resigning letters, which I did accept.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Successively and with the passage of time, I knew we had to prepare to eliminate and avoid before-the-facts risks, but that I was also extremely bound to properly solving the “ugly” unleashing of pent-up risk energy in after-the-facts settings.

This latter is hugely embedded in Transformative and Integrative Risk Management.

To responsibly illustrate the preceding paragraph, Transformative and Integrative Risk Management, coping with pre-morten (a posteriori) and post-morten (a posteriori) disruption potentials, include:

[I] Transformative and Integrative Risk Management includes a dovetailed version of: Red Adair's Methodology. (Applying and adapting some practical techniques by and as: an American oil well firefighter. He became world notable as an innovator in the highly specialized and extremely hazardous profession of extinguishing and capping blazing, erupting oil well blowouts, both land-based and offshore.). Adair's motto establishes, " … Nothing is impossible ….You consider the danger but you don't think about it because nobody can work with fear (non-emotional evenness)...” Parentheses are of the author.

[II] Transformative and Integrative Risk Management includes a customized version of: The National Transportation Safety Board's of NTSB "Go Team" Approach. The generalized notion, greatly adapted by TAIRM, states: The National Transportation Safety Board was established in 1967 to conduct independent investigations of all civil aviation accidents in the United States and major accidents in the other modes of transportation. It is not part of the Department of Transportation, nor organizationally affiliated with any of DOT's modal agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration. The Safety Board has no regulatory or enforcement powers [….] To ensure that Safety Board investigations focus only on improving transportation safety, the Board's analysis of factual information and its determination of probable cause cannot be entered as evidence in a court of law [….] At the core of NTSB investigations is the " … Go Team ..." The purpose of the Safety BoardGo Team is simple and effective: Begin the investigation of a major accident at the accident scene, as quickly as possible, assembling the broad spectrum of technical expertise that is needed to solve complex transportation safety problems ...”

From (a) Complex Transportation Safety and (b) Oil-well Systematized Firefighting Techniques and Practices there are many, vast applications to other risks, both before-the-facts ones and after-the-facts ones, as well.

[III] The “...Red Teaming...” approach is also included in a tailor-made form into Transformative and Interrogative Risk Management. Red Teaming, in a generic form, entails: A red team is an independent group that challenges an organization to improve its effectiveness. The United States intelligence community (military and civilian) has red teams that explore alternative futures and write articles as if they were despotic world leaders. Little formal doctrine or publications about Red Teaming in the military exists …. Private business such as IBM and SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) and agencies such as the CIA have long used Red Teams. Red Teams in the United States military were used much more frequently after a 2003 Defense Science Review Board recommended them to help prevent the shortcomings that led up to 9/11. The Army then stood up a service-level Red Team, the Army Directed Studies Office, in 2004. This was the first service level Red Team and until 2011was the largest in the DoD ...”

The “...Red Teaming...” is a sub-chapter portion or subsystem in Transformative and Integrative Risk Management.

[IV] Transformative and Integrative Risk Management comprises of other proprietary methodologies beyond the ones above that cannot be disclosed here. Again and again, TAIRM structurally and thoroughly deals with before-the-facts hazardous events and after-the-facts hazardous events.

A Quick-Dated Summation, Accordingly:

(A.-) Red Adair's Methodology, adapted to Transformative and Integrative Risk Management, was first included to in TAIRM in 2005.

(B.-) The National Transportation Safety Board's of NTSB " ...Go Team ..." Methodology, adapted to Transformative and Integrative Risk Management, was first included to in TAIRM in 2007.

(C.-) The “...Red Teaming...” Approach, adapted to Transformative and Integrative Risk Management, was first included to in TAIRM in 2009.

(D.-) Transformative and Integrative Risk Management's Proprietary Techniques, coping with after-the-facts hazardous events was first included in TAIRM in 2005.

(E.-) Above Approaches (A.-), (B.-), (C.-) and (D.-) are seamlessly incorporated into and operated from the core of Transformative and Integrative Risk Management with uncanny: (e.1) Cohesiveness, (e.2) Congruence, (e.3) Consistency, (e.4) Reliability, and (e.5) Integrity.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Ideas in which David and readers might prove to be interested?

Insurance and Reinsurance Companies' Actuaries and Statisticians have a MEME:

In that order, they, for instance, speak of: (a).- “...Short-Tail Risks ...”, (b).- “...Long-Tail Risks...”, and (c).- “...Dormant Risks...”

(a).- “...Short-Tail Risks ...” is a risk whose disruptional maturity comes forwards soon.

(b).- “...Long-Tail Risks...” is a risk whose disruptional maturity comes forwards afterward (towards mid and long term).

(c).- “...Dormant Risks...” is a risk whose disruptional maturity is, at the moment, in a non- (c.1.-) Climactic Mode and/or (c.2.-) Critical-Mass Mode.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Some Reasoning Procedures Embraced by White Swan's Transformative and Integrative Risk Management interdisciplinary Problem-Solving Methodology (That is: Feet-on-the-dynamic-ground problem solving):

1.- Deductive Reasoning,

2.- Quasi-Deductive Reasoning,

3.- Inductive Reasoning,

4.- Quasi-Inductive Reasoning,

5.- Partial and/or thorough blending of the above: “1.-”, “2.-”, “3.-”, and “4.-”.

6.- Other proprietary reasoning not disclosed her.

Hence, let us define Deductive Reasoning:

“... Deductive reasoning, also deductive logic or logical deduction or, informally, 'top-down' logic, is the process of reasoning from one or more general statements (premises) to reach a logically certain conclusion …. Deductive reasoning links premises with conclusions. If all premises are true, the terms are clear, and the rules of deductive logic are followed, then the conclusion reached is necessarily true ...”

Subsequently, let us define Inductive Reasoning:

“... Inductive reasoning (as opposed to deductive reasoning) is reasoning in which the premises seek to supply strong evidence for (not absolute proof of) the truth of the conclusion. While the conclusion of a deductive argument is supposed to be certain, the truth of an inductive argument is supposed to be probable, based upon the evidence given ….Inductive reasoning forms the basis of most scientific theories e.g.; Darwinism, Big bang theory and Einstein's theory of relativity ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

LINEAR AND NONLINEAR SENSES TO KEEP INTO IRONCLAD CONSIDERATION:

Senses, immeasurably gauged by White Swans and Transformative and Integrative Risk Management, concisely:

(1.-) Linear Sense of Proportion(s),

(2.-) Linear Sense of Scale(s),

(3.-) Linear Sense of Magnitude(s),

(4.-) Linear Sense of Dynamic(s),

(5.-) Linear Sense of Fluidity,

(6.-) Linear Sense of Scope,

(7.-) Linear Sense of Intensity,

(8.-) Linear Sense of Probability,

(9.-) Linear Sense of Complication,

(10.-) Linear Sense of Complexity,

(11.-) Linear Sense of Operational Limitations, Flawness, Errors and Incompleteness,

(12.-) Linear Sense of Risks, including Existential Risks.

(13.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Proportion(s),

(14.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Scale(s),

(15.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Magnitude(s),

(16.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Dynamic(s),

(17.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Fluidity,

(18.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Scope,

(19.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Intensity,

(20.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Probability,

(21.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Complication,

(22.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Complexity,

(23.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Operational Limitations, Flawness, Errors and Incompleteness,

(24.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Risks, including Existential Risks.

(25.-) Linear Sense of Scope.

(26.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Scope.

(27.-) Linear Sense of Rhythm.

(28.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Rhythm.

(29.-) Linear Sense of Execution.

(30.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Execution.

(31.-) Linear Sense of Urgency.

(32.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Urgency.

(33.-) Linear Sense of Importance.

(34.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Importance.

(35.-) Linear Sense of Purpose.

(36.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Purpose.

(37.-) Linear Sense of Curiosity.

(38.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Curiosity.

(39.-) Linear Sense of Commitment.

(40.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Commitment.

(41.-) Linear Sense of Direction.

(42.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Direction.

(43.-) Linear Sense of Flow.

(44.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Flow.

(45.-) Linear Sense of Constancy of Purpose.

(46.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Constancy of Purpose.

(47.-) Linear Sense of Familiarity.

(48.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Familiarity.

(49.-) Linear Sense of Unfamiliarity.

(48.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Unfamiliarity.

(50.-) Linear Sense of Appropriateness.

(51.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Appropriateness.

(52.-) Linear Sense of Transience.

(53.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Transience.

(54.-) Linear Sense of Impermanence.

(55.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Impermanence.

(56.-) Linear Sense of Universal History.

(57.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Universal History.

(58.-) Linear Sense of Universal Geography.

(59.-) Nonlinear (In S-Curves) Sense of Universal Geography.

NB: Many other linear and nonlinear (In S-Curves) senses are proprietary.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

ALSO to be considered:

Synthesized Practical Toolkital Panoply by White Swan's Transformative and Integrative Risk Management encompasses:

ONE.- Hindsightfulness, (Hindsightfulness is the quality of conforming to perception of the significance and nature of events after they have occurred).

TWO.- Counter-hindsightfulness, (Counter-hindsightfulness is the quality of conforming to an alternate perception of the significance and nature of events after they have occurred).

THREE.- Foresightfulness, (Foresightfulness is the quality of conforming to perception of the significance and nature of events before they have occurred).

FOUR.- Counter-foresightfulness, (Counter-foresightfulness is the quality of conforming to the alternate perception of the significance and nature of events before they have occurred).

FIVE.- Farsightfulness, (Farsightfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to see the foreseeable futures and likely prospects).

SIX.- Counter-farsightfulness, (Counter-farsightfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to see alternate foreseeable futures and likely prospects).

SEVEN.- Closenessfulness, (Closenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to see immediate and near-term foreseeable futures and likely prospects).

EIGHT.- Counter-closenessfulness, (Counter-closenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to see alternate immediate and near-term foreseeable futures and likely prospects).

NINE.- Insightfulness, (Insightfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to engage the acute observation and deduction, penetration, discernment, perception and understanding of a specific cause and effect in a specific context).

TEN.- Counter-insightfulness, (Counter-insightfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to engage the alternate acute observation and deduction, penetration, discernment, perception and understanding of a specific cause and effect in a specific context).

ELEVEN.- Intuitvenessfulness, (Intuitvenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to perceiving intuitive knowledge).

TWELVE.- Counter-intuitvenessfulness, (Counter-intuitvenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to perceiving alternate intuitive knowledge).

THIRTHEEN.- Stargatenessfulness, (Stargatenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to investigate claims of psychic phenomena with potential corporate for-lucre application, such as 'remote viewing', the purported ability to psychically 'see' events, sites, or information from a great distance, including those of the environment, industries and specially those of direct and indirect competitors. Taken by Applied Thinkers and Visionary Corporation by the U.S. Federal Government' and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency's Stargate Project).

FOURTEEN.- Counter-Stargatenessfulness, (Counter-Stargatenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to investigate alternate claims of psychic phenomena with potential corporate for-lucre application, such as 'remote viewing', the purported ability to psychically 'see' events, sites, or information from a great distance, including those of the environment, industries and specially those of direct and indirect competitors. Taken by Applied Thinkers and Visionary Corporation by the U.S. Federal Government' and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency's Stargate Project).

FIFTEEN.- DoctorStangelovesness, (DoctorStangelovesness is the quality of conforming to the ability to investigate, through military strategy and practical systems theory as they are instituted in corporate theater of operations, as claims of management phenomena with potential corporate for-lucre application, such as 'remote viewing' through scenario-planning methodology 'unthinkables', the purported ability to physically 'see' unknown events, sites, or information from a great temporal distance, including those of the environment, industries and specially those of direct and indirect competitors to those corporations. Taken by Applied Thinkers and Savvy Corporation by and beyond the prescription of the RAND Corporation and the Hudson Institute), and

SIXTEEN.- Counter-DoctorStangelovesness. (Counter-DoctorStangelovesness is the quality of conforming to the ability to investigate, through alternate military strategy and practical systems theory as they are instituted in corporate theater of operations, as claims of management phenomena with potential corporate for-lucre application, such as 'remote viewing' through scenario-planning methodology 'unthinkables', the purported ability to physically 'see' unknown events, sites, or information from a great temporal distance, including those of the environment, industries and specially those of direct and indirect competitors to those corporations. Taken by Applied Thinkers and Savvy Corporation by and beyond the prescription of the RAND Corporation and the Hudson Institute).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

When instituting the TAIRM interdisciplinary methodology, I develop and give the client a FUNCTIONAL glossary of agreed-upon terms with their definitions and concepts, as well with practical application examples.

This glossary will be used during training, indoctrination and service (fundamental turnkey solution), in order to communicate back and forth with a universally in-agreement, consistent, congruent and underlying sense.

My clients under TAIRM enjoy a practical and continuous knowledge transfer from me beyond initial training and indoctrination.

Clients committed to accessing the sustained and progressive efficiencies, productivity, benefits, rewards and opportunities, as well as the respective durable advantages, of “...Transformative and Integrative Risk Management...” will receive vast (a) executive training and (b) technical indoctrination by me, for Perpetuity.

“...Transformative and Integrative Risk Management...” is only for serious go-getter clients.

Just a thought, the crucially important client's officer to TAIRM is not the CFO, but the Chairman and CEO.

The CFO, the Human Resources Officer, the I.T. Officer (CIO), CTO, and every other officer (manager) of “...function...” and incumbent of “...line...” will be, as well, properly trained, indoctrinated and coped with.

To people that wish a quick and simple start-up overview on the future, I powerfully suggest to begin reading Alvin Toffler's “...Future Shock...” book.

On 1985, a very late date, that book taught me that insurance losses (unmanaged risks) could, to a greater degree, be better either eliminated or mitigated or, at least, modulated or even isolated.

A Technological Singularity's Primer: Alvin Toffler's “...Future Shock...," narrated and explained by Mr. Orson Welles via YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cB8FQeawvA

I was then thinking about petroleum and petrochemical equipments and installations, including oil refineries and oil wells, automotive and logistical factories, facilities and many other industrial plants and organizations, whose manufactured and produced products and services are mostly tangible.

Crucial infrastructure coped with through beyond-insurance risk management includes that of IT or data processing, such as data centers.

As an insurance doubled major and a manager to me so-called “...insurance...” is not “...risk protection...” but a financial device that just PARTLY indemnifies you from SOME losses and ONLY SOMETIMES and only to SOME degree.

AND “LOSS INDEMNITY” IS NEVER RISK MANAGEMENT.

In my case, a loss (disruption potential) is the un-managed and uncontrolled unleashing of pent-up energy.

Once pent-up energy is unleashed, it can create (upside risks) or destruct (downside risks).

To this end, one helpful insight to the reader might be this:

“...It would be hard to find anyone who believes that losses occur without any cause. Yet many managers, acting as though an accident is a random stroke of fate, have to be reminded to seek and remove causes prior to a loss. Less obvious to the layman is the idea that nearly all accidental losses have a multiple causes: virtually no accident has a single cause [….] Identifying causes, especially those that are subtle or unseen, requires tenacity, imagination, and a systematic method. However, since almost every accident or loss has a known precedent, you never have to start your search for causes empty-handed...” [226].

To cope with the future is to cope with changed changes (upside risks and downside risks), today.

And the entirety of the planet is now inundated with massive, increasing changed changes, omnipresently.

All incumbents and practitioners must perceive that management is turning itself into a highly scientific field and practice without a fail.

Believe it or not, management is literally going into applied “...Rocket Science...”

By way of example, the expression “...Keep It Simple, Stupid...” has been radically replaced by “...Keep It Scientific, Savant...”

And notions as those of Thomas Paine's “...common sense...” are now absurd and rendered ineffectual and counterproductive by representatives of numerous institutions such as DARPA, NASA, MIT and Stanford University.

Common sense is radically replaced by APPLIED SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.

So called “...out of the box..." thinking is impious and outrageous mediocrity by the 21st-century standards and practices.

“...Out of the box..." thinking will bankrupt you or your government easily and without a fail.

And the “...power of simplicity...,” unless it is applied by a consummated polymath, is a chat about rubbish.

We live in a world in which the Power of Complexity, Randomness and Pseudo-Randomness rules dictatorially. Pseudo-Serendipity, infinitely more than plain-vanilla Serendipity, is a self-inflicted ruler by an equivalent to the Tudor Family.

Managing is an art, practice, methodology, technology and hard science.

That's why Futures Studies, Foresight Research and Scenario Planning are managerial disciplines seriously observed by the United Nations and the advanced for-lucre enterprises in the world.

Shell is a miniscule good example of this plethora of global enterprises.

I firmly believe that management today is in a gargantuan challenge. More so than before because of the massive, ubiquitous changes affecting society and economy.

Change is going abusively “...auto...” and “...techno...” and “...in vivo...” and “...infotech...” and “...cyborg...” and “...digital...” and “... neuro...” and “...bio...” and “...transbio...” and “...nano...” and “...nanotech...” I am not afraid to proclaim.

And wait until the scientific and technological convergence takes place even further, a tiny bit later.

BEYOND THE MANAGERIAL CHALLENGES (DOWNSIDE RISKS) BESTOWED BY THE EXPONENTIAL TECHNOLOGIES AS IT IS UNDERSTOOD IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY AND ITS INHERENT FUTURISTIC FORCES IMPACTING THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE NOW, THERE ARE ALSO SOME GRAVE GLOBAL RISKS THAT MANY FORMS OF MANAGEMENT HAVE TO TACKLE WITH IMMEDIATELY.

I must insist that the as-of-now Disruptional Singularity might preclude the Technological Singularity.

THESE GRAVE GLOBAL RISKS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ADVANCED SCIENCE OR TECHNOLOGY. MANY OF THESE ERRORS AND HAZARDS STEM FROM NATURE AND SOME ARE, AS WELL, CHIEFLY MAN MADE AND ENFORCED BY UNIVERSAL POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND MEDIOCRITY.

Corruption and war-waging and conflict-inflecting have no gender, at all. In the Western Hemisphere, there are four (4) female heads of state amazingly corrupted. Like Sixth Sense and intuition, corruption has no gender.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

FOR INSTANCE, THESE GRAVE GLOBAL RISKS — EMBODYING THE DISRUPTIONAL SINGULARITY — ARE GEOLOGIC, GEODESIC, CLIMATOLOGICAL, POLITICAL, GEOPOLITICAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, SOCIAL, ETHICAL, ECONOMIC, FINANCIAL, LEGAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL, AMONG OTHERS.

To this purpose, Dr. Robert A. Collins, Ph.D. comments,

“...Disasters are a natural and predictable part of the human condition. This includes both natural disasters and human-made disasters. In spite of this, whenever a disaster strikes, most people are unprepared. The inevitable result is the loss of life and property. It does not have to be this way [….] SINCE DISASTERS ARE AN INEVITABLE PART OF LIFE, THE WISEST COURSE OF ACTION IS TO UNDERSTAND THEM, PREPARE FOR THEM, AND CAPITALIZE ON THE OPPORTUNITIES THAT THEY PRESENT. The first and most important step in disaster planning is, obviously, to have a plan. Without a specific plan, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to implement the other steps in disaster preparation. Most organizations deal with disasters by first hoping that they don’t happen. Then when they do happen, they respond to them and try to recover from them. MOST ORGANIZATIONS DO NOT TRY TO MITIGATE THEM IN ADVANCE. THIS IS AN IRRATIONAL AND EXPENSIVE STRATEGY [….] It is impossible to plan for things that you cannot imagine. Therefore, the first step in forging the resilient organization is to conduct ‘scenario planning’ [….] It is necessary for the organization to be honest with itself when completing the scenario planning step in disaster preparation. THE TASK HERE IS NOT TO IMAGINE THE WORST DISASTER THAT THE ORGANIZATION THINKS THAT IT CAN HANDLE. THE TASK IS TO IMAGINE THE WORST DISASTER THAT COULD POSSIBLE STRIKE THE COMPANY, GIVEN ITS GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION AND INDIVIDUAL CIRCUMSTANCES. Lee Clarke, a disaster planning expert and professor at Rutgers University argues, ‘IT’S NOT CRAZY TO THINK ABOUT THE WORST CASES [IN ADVANCE]’ ...” [124] Brackets are of the author.

Is there an example of disruption-potential and post-‘risk management’?

“...You may remember the situation in 1982 when seven people in the U.S. died from ingesting Tylenol that had been laced with cyanide. The nation panicked. Some predicted that Johnson & Johnson would never be able to sell another product under that name. But Johnson & Johnson took responsibility for the situation. They immediately alerted consumers to stop using Tylenol until they could determine the extent of the tampering. They recalled approximately 31 million bottles of Tylenol, retailing at more than $100 million. They offered to exchange all Tylenol capsules that had already been purchased for Tylenol tablets, which cost them millions more. They established relations with law enforcement officers on every level to help search for the person who laced the medication and to help prevent further tampering. They put up a reward of $100,000 for the person who committed the crime. When they reintroduced the product back in the market, it had new triple-seal, tamper-resistant packaging. As a result of their actions, they turned what could have been a disaster into a victory in credibility and public trust ...” [196].

Xerox Vice President, Mr. Brooks also observes,

“ … Both government and the private sector have prioritized critical infrastructure as the primary focus of threat and response. There is a growing understanding of the seriousness and sophistication of the threats, especially denial of service and the adversarial actors that include states, organized crimes, and loosely affiliated hackers. Two former Secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) best summarized the stakes if we are not proactive in meeting the potential cybersecurity threats. Hon. Tom Ridge noted that “a few lines of code can wreak more havoc than a bomb.” And Hon. Janet Napolitano stated that 'our country will, at some point, face a major cyber-event that will have a serious effect on our lives, our economy, and the everyday functioning of our society.' ...”

And Brooks adds:

“ … In the past year, DHS (U.S. Department of Homeland Security) tracked over 200,000 cyber incidents involving critical infrastructure in the United States. All critical infrastructure including the electric grid, healthcare, transportation, communications, and financial networks are vulnerable to attacks by hackers and even governments. Cybersecurity capabilities in information sharing, hardware, software, training and protocols, must keep pace to protect and pre-empt the increasingly sophisticated threats in both the public and private sectors ...” Parentheses are of the author.

Continuing with the White Swan hardcore:

Can we take advantage of risk and benefit from management with immense forethought and never in expensive hindsight?

Verify this:

“ ... Journalist Geoffrey Colvin (2005) argues: '…The events that do the worst damage are the one no even conceived of … The idea that a passenger jet might crash into the World Trade Center had been thought of; it was a fairly obvious possibility, especially since a plane once crashed into the Empire State Building. What no one imagined was the combination of large planes with nearly full fuel tanks plus the impact of the crashes jarring fireproofing from the girders, and how this could bring the towers down. In retrospect [a posteriori], it obviously could have been imagined. I’ just wasn’t'...” [124]

How are these speedy and somewhat dramatic times shaping and re-shaping us? [124]

“... Journalist Amy Bernstein (2006) point out, ‘…Few issues have morphed as dramatically in the last five year as corporate resilience. That phrase once refereed to managing risks that were fairly predictable and relatively easy to insure against: fires, strikes, and economic recessions for example. But all that has changed. A string of catastrophes — beginning with the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and continuing through the bombing of the Madrid railway and the Asian Tsunami in 2004, the blast on the London Underground in July 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August and September, and the earthquake that devastated Pakistan in October 2005 — has rearranged our concept of disaster preparedness. It’s no longer enough for companies to devise a business continuity plan and file it away somewhere. THEY NOW HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO BOUNCE BACK FROM THE UNTHINKABLE.’...” [124]

What are the relevant considerations that we insist on ignoring beyond any irresponsibility concerning advanced beyond-insurance risk management (the exact opposite of insurance-based risk unmanagement)?

“...Yossi Sheffi, Professor of Systems Engineering at MIT, conducted a three year study of resilient organizations from Toyota to UPS to the US Navy, and drew a simple conclusion: A COMPANY’S ABILITY TO RETURN TO BUSINESS DEPENDS MORE ON THE DECISIONS IT MAKES BEFORE A SHOCK HITS THAN THOSE IT MAKES DURING OR AFTER THE EVENT… According to Sheffi, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 forced him and his colleagues to see a more comprehensive view of risk. He states: ‘Before that, I thought about it mostly in financial terms — buying insurance against various business risks, buying commodity futures such as oil to hedge against price fluctuations, the use of financial derivatives, Et cetera. In the wake of the attacks, I starred looking at all kinds of disruptions, and it became clear that there’s a lot more to consider than contingency planning or financial hedging. THERE ARE LOW-PROBABILITY/HIGH IMPACT EVENTS like terrorist attacks that may cause unplanned exists from important markets or even the demise of the unprepared business’ [….] During MIT’s three year study on resilient companies and interviews with dozens of companies, found that a culture of resilience was a common element. He argues, ‘The essence of resilience is the containment of disruption and recovery from it. Culture contributes to resilience by endowing employees with a set of principles regarding the proper response when the unexpected does occur, and when the formal organization’s policy does not cover the situation at hand or is too slow to react, it suggests the course of action to take’ ...” [124].

THE DISRUPTIONAL SINGULARITY'S MAJOR RISKS ARE GRAVELY THREATENING US RIGHT NOW, NOT LATER.

Vast grave hazards by the Disruptional and Technological Singularities are also the combined downsides by and to the globalization, as well.

By a folly faulty move by Western Europe the Euro-Asian superpower was awaken and unfailingly activated the World's Cold War II.

Many national security advisers and diplomats, along with their majestic statesmen and stateswomen, gravely ignore to remember that Napoleon Bonaparte' and Adolf Hitler's armies invaded Russia through Crimea.

New science and its intrinsic risks are further discussed herewith (to some extent). Please see the following accordingly:

In a related manner, Cambridge University' and Royal Society's Sir Martin Rees, Ph.D. noticed,

“...Science is emphatically not, as some have claimed, approaching its end; it is surging ahead at an accelerating rate. We are still flummoxed about the bedrock nature of physical reality, and the complexities of life, the brain, and the cosmos. New discoveries, illuminating all these mysteries, will engender benign applications; but will also pose NEW ETHICAL DILEMMAS AND BRING NEW HAZARDS ...”

And Sir Rees adds:

“ … How will we balance the multifarious prospective [a priori] benefits from genetics, robotics, or nanotechnology against the risk (albeit smaller) of triggering utter disaster? [….] Science is advancing faster than ever, and on a broader front: bio-, cyber- and nanotechnology all offer exhilarating prospects; so does the exploration of space. BUT THERE IS A DARK SIDE: NEW SCIENCE CAN HAVE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES; IT EMPOWERS INDIVIDUALS TO PERPETRATE ACTS OF MEGATERROR; EVEN INNOCENT ERRORS COULD BE CATASTROPHIC. THE ‘DOWNSIDE’ FROM TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY TECHNOLOGY COULD BE GRAVER AND MORE INTRACTABLE THAN THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR DEVASTATION THAT WE HAVE FACED FOR DECADES. AND HUMAN-INDUCED PRESSURES ON THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT MAY ENGENDER HIGHER RISKS THAT THE AGE-OLD HAZARDS OF EARTHQUAKES, ERUPTIONS, AND ASTEROID IMPACTS ...” Brackets are of the author.

By way of example:

“ … A catastrophic collapse of civilization could destroy continuity, creating a gap as wide as the cultural chasm that we would now experience with a remote Amazonian tribe. In Walter M. Miller Jr.'s novel A Canticle for Leibowitz (ISBN: 978-0060892999), North America reverts to a medieval state after a devastating nuclear war. The Catholic Church is the only institution to survive, and generations of priests attempt, for several centuries, to reconstruct prewar knowledge and technology from fragmentary records and relics ...”, argued by British national Sir Martin Rees PhD (cosmologist and astrophysicist), Astronomer Royal, Cambridge University Professor and Royal Society President. Parentheses are of the author.

Towards the arena, Charles, Prince of Whales, observed:

“ … The strategic threats posed by global environment and development problems are the most complex, interwoven and potentially devastating of all the challenges to our security. Scientists …. do not fully understand the consequences of our many-faceted assault on the interwoven fabric of atmosphere, water, land and life in all its biological diversity. Things could turn out to be worse than the current scientific best guess. IN MILITARY AFFAIRS, POLICY HAS LONG BEEN BASED ON THE DICTUM THAT WE SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR THE WORST CASE. WHY SHOULD IT BE SO DIFFERENT WHEN THE SECURITY IS THAT OF THE PLANET AND OUR LONG-TERM FUTURE? …” [229]

Bill Joy posits:

“ … If we could agree, as a species, what we wanted, where we were headed, and why, then we would make our future much less dangerous—then we might understand what we can and should relinquish. Otherwise, we can easily imagine an arms race developing over GNR technologies, as it did with [nuclear] technologies in the twentieth century. This is perhaps the greatest risk, for once such a race begins, it's very hard to end it. This time—unlike during the Manhattan Project—we aren't in a war, facing an implacable enemy that is threatening our civilization; we are driven, instead, by our habits, our desires, our economic system, and our competitive need to know ...” [229]

And then:

Sir Martin Rees PhD. argues, “ ...Indeed, a main theme of this book is that technical advances will in themselves render society more vulnerable to
disruption ...”

A simpler and still a practical way to view complexity:

Dr. Stephen Jay Gould argues, “...Once you build a complex machine [intricate fundamental mechanism], it can perform so many unanticipated tasks. Build a computer ‘for’ processing checks at the plant, and it can also … whip anyone’s ass [or at least then them everlastingly] in tic-tac-toe ... " [187]. Brackets are of the author.

To underpin the motion by Sir Martin Rees further, see also the following.

The term Technological Singularity ( http://bit.ly/1hF6Vpe ) entered the popular science culture with the 1993 presentation at the VISION-21 Symposium sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, March 30-31, 1993, by Professor of Mathematics Vernor Vinge (San Diego University).

Correspondingly, Professor Vinge, PhD. indicated on March 30-31, 1993,

“...Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended … Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers [and some further dangers] are presented...” Brackets are of the author.

San Diego University Scholar, Professor, Mathematician and Published Author Vernor Vinge, PhD. was the primordial scientist in coining the " ...Technological Singularity..." concept in his «...Marooned in Realtime...» book under ISBN: 978-0765308849.

TO THIS END PLEASE ALSO CHECK THIS: “... TRANSCENDING COMPLACENCY ON SUPERINTELLIGENT MACHINES ...”

“ … Artificial intelligence (AI) research is now progressing rapidly. Recent landmarks such as self-driving cars, a computer winning at Jeopardy!, and the digital personal assistants Siri, Google Now and Cortana are merely symptoms of an IT arms race fueled by unprecedented investments and building on an increasingly mature theoretical foundation. Such achievements will probably pale against what the coming decades will bring [….] The potential benefits are huge; everything that civilization has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools AI may provide, but the eradication of war, disease, and poverty would be high on anyone's list. Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history [….] Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks. In the near term, for example, world militaries are considering autonomous weapon systems that can choose and eliminate their own targets; the UN and Human Rights Watch have advocated a treaty banning such weapons. In the medium term, as emphasized by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee in The Second Machine Age, AI may transform our economy to bring both great wealth and great dislocation [….] Looking further ahead, there are no fundamental limits to what can be achieved: there is no physical law precluding particles from being organized in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human brains. An explosive transition is possible, although it may play out differently than in the movie: as Irving Good realized in 1965, machines with superhuman intelligence could repeatedly improve their design even further, triggering what Vernor Vinge called a "singularity" and Johnny Depp's movie character calls "transcendence." One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand. Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all [….] So, facing possible futures of incalculable benefits and risks, the experts are surely doing everything possible to ensure the best outcome, right? Wrong. If a superior alien civilization sent us a text message saying, '… We'll arrive in a few decades,...' would we just reply, '… OK, call us when you get here — we'll leave the lights on...'? Probably not — but this is more or less what is happening with AI. Although we are facing potentially the best or worst thing ever to happen to humanity, little serious research is devoted to these issues outside small non-profit institutes such as the Cambridge Center for Existential Risk, the Future of Humanity Institute, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and the Future of Life Institute. All of us — not only scientists, industrialists and generals — should ask ourselves what can we do now to improve the chances of reaping the benefits and avoiding the risks ...” [240]

Back to the White Swan hardcore.

An even deeper exploration on existential risks is better achieved through the reading of the following three materials:

1.- “...Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning...” By Sir Martin Rees, PhD. at http://lnkd.in/bHkBp4S

2.- “...Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios..." By Professor Nick Bostrom, PhD. at http://lnkd.in/RsNRmm

3.- “...Prophets of Doom...” available at http://lnkd.in/bfpzAdx

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

AS PER NOBEL PHYSICS PRIZE LAUREATE DR. STEPHEN HAWKING WARNS,

“ … Artificial intelligence '...could be the worst thing to happen to humanity...': Stephen Hawking warns that rise of robots may be disastrous for mankind …. Nobel Prize-winning physicist discusses Johnny Depp's film Transcendence. He says dismissing the film as sci-fi could be the ‘worst mistake in history’ ‘AI would be biggest event in human history,’ he wrote in the Independent. ‘...IT MIGHT ALSO BE THE LAST, UNLESS WE LEARN HOW TO AVOID THE RISKS...’ …. A sinister threat is brewing deep inside the technology laboratories of Silicon Valley. Artificial Intelligence, disguised as helpful digital assistants and self-driving vehicles, is gaining a foothold — and it could one day spell the end for mankind. This is according to Stephen Hawking who has warned that humanity faces an uncertain future as technology learns to think for itself and adapt to its environment. Stephen Hawking has warned that artificial intelligence has the potential to be the downfall of mankind. 'Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history,' [...] '...UNFORTUNATELY, IT MIGHT ALSO BE THE LAST...' [….] Professor Hawking said dismissing the film as science fiction could be the ‘...WORST MISTAKE IN HISTORY...’ …. He argues that developments in digital personal assistants Siri, Google Now and Cortana are merely symptoms of AN IT ARMS RACE which ‘... pale against what the coming decades will bring [….] ’ …. But Professor Hawking notes that other potential benefits of this technology could also be significant, with the potential to eradicate, war, disease and poverty …. GOOGLE SETS UP A.I. ETHICS BOARD TO CURB THE RISE OF THE ROBOTS. Google has set up an ethics board to oversee its work in artificial intelligence …. The search giant has recently bought several robotics companies, along with Deep Mind, a British firm creating software that tries to help computers think like humans …. One of its founders warned ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS '...NUMBER 1 RISK FOR THIS CENTURY...,'[….] and believes it could play a part in human extinction …. ' … Eventually, I think human extinction will probably occur, and technology will likely play a part in this,' DeepMind’s Shane Legg in a recent interview …. site The Information, is to ensure the projects are not abused …. In fact, IBM has already developed smart chips that could pave the way for sensor networks that mimic the brain’s capacity for perception, action, and thought …. One day, it could allow computer scientists to develop a machine with a brain that is even more intelligent than that of humans …. ‘...As Irving Good realized in 1965, machines with superhuman intelligence could repeatedly improve their design even further, triggering what Vernor Vinge called a technological singularity,’ said Professor Hawking ….Professor Hawking added experts are not prepared for these scenarios. Offering a comparison, he said that if aliens were to tell us saying they would arrive within a few decades, scientists would not just sit waiting for their arrival ….‘ … Although we are facing potentially the best or worst thing to happen to humanity in history, little serious research is devoted to these issues …. ‘... All of us should ask ourselves what we can do now to improve the chances of reaping the benefits and avoiding the risks...’ ….In the short and medium-term, militaries throughout the world are working to develop autonomous weapon systems, with the UN simultaneously working to ban them ….” [232]

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

THEREFORE, PRACTITIONERS AND INCUMBENTS FORCEFULLY NEED TO MOST URGENTLY AND CONCURRENTLY MANAGE A MYRIAD OF GLOBAL RISKS IN PARALLEL (SIMULTANEOUSLY AND HENCE: ORCHESTRATING THE TOTALLY OF THE WHOLE AT THE SAME TIME, AT ONCE) BY BOTH THE DISRUPTIONAL SINGULARITY AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY.

THIS IS ULTIMATELY AND DESPERATELY IMPORTANT!

Consequently, Dr. Gary Hamel, PhD. indicates,

“...What distinguishes our age from every other is not the world-flattening impact of communications, not the economic ascendance of China and India, not the degradation of our climate, and not the resurgence of ancient religious animosities. RATHER, IT IS A FRANTICALLY ACCELERATING PACE OF CHANGE...”

Conversely:

White Swan’s Pandora Versus Cassandra Predictions!

Cassandra: What is going to happen in the World as per the Euro-Asian Superpower?

Pandora: First, we have Cold War II and beautiful Preconditions of a Global War of Trade and Commerce in place. Second: Let us hope that switches to ascertain M.A.D. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction ) are never turned on.

Cassandra: What is going to happen in Southern Europe's Public Health-care and Retirement Systems?

Pandora: Those safety nets will be somewhere between insolvency and meagerness and totally downed. And citizens either become inventors and find their own solutions or bestow upon them self-inflicted death sentences.

Cassandra: What is going to happen by 2023?

Pandora: Bots will have human-intelligence level of themselves. And they will be competing for jobs and professional contract services against un-enhanced humans.

Cassandra: What are Ministers of Defense and Intelligentsia Agencies are going to do?

Pandora: They will secure to increase budgets for scientists and technologists to bring about extreme bots to make the human soldier a thing of the past, rendering the human mind insanely worthless.

Cassandra: What is going to happen to major democracies soon?

Pandora: Well, most of them are Plutocracies already. But in pursuing a more strict control of the citizenry they will become Stratocracies, also ruled by Aristocracies and Technocracies.

Cassandra: What is going to happen to the Superrich 1%?

Pandora: The 1% is going to get infinitely more in the zillions. And the 99% is going to become more indignant and chaotic.

Cassandra: What is going to be brought about by techno-snoopying?

Pandora: Police states, all over the place.

Cassandra: Who is going to countermeasure economic, political and military dominance in the Pacific Ocean?

Pandora: China and Russia.

Cassandra: What are the jobs that are going to be lost to Artificial Intelligence?

Pandora: From theologians all the way through to computer scientists and computer engineers.

Cassandra: If we don't get “...Rocket Science...”-based tiny-wienie startup entrepreneuring Mentoring, Where are we going to get it from?

Pandora: Right now, evidently by talkative savvy bots. But come to think of it: They don't need you at all unless you are forced to be a mascot pet under the watch of the Bot Master.

Cassandra: Whose backyard is that of Latin America today?

Pandora: Of course, that of China and Russia.

Cassandra: What is wrong in the West?

Pandora: In addition to rampant violation of ethics by public and private sector, there is a GRAVEST abject lack of applied German language and STEM.

Cassandra: What are public protests around the world?

Pandora: The Age of Indignant immemorial and the marvelous preconditions to massive civil wars.

Cassandra: Will that nation into shop keeping, marketing, public relations and sales ever make it decently?

Pandora: Germany will outdo them both in Europe and in the World, through manufacturing tangibles, not marketing tricks.

Cassandra: What is Germany?

Pandora: The World's Manufacturing Superpower #1.

Cassandra: Who are the world's leaders in education?

Pandora: South Korea, Japan, China, Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland and Israel.

Cassandra: How far damaging can get the universal disruption of ethics and statespeople’s mediocrity?

Pandora: The end of the world, right now.

Cassandra: Who will be profitable in the next 12 months?

Pandora: Anyone who manages, in all practicality, five or six superspecializations at once.

Cassandra: Where can I get the whole White Swan predictions?

Pandora: Get real, go and read the White Swan at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

CONCLUSIONS:

(PLEASE SEE THE ENTIRE INFORMATION ENSUING RIGHT AFTER THIS).

In addition to being aware and adaptable and resilient before the driving forces reshaping the current present and the as-of-now and contemporary-time future and present, THERE ARE SOME EXTRA MANAGEMENT SUGGESTIONS THAT I CONCURRENTLY PRACTICE:

1.- Given the vast amount of insidious risks, futures, challenges, principles, processes, contents, contexts, practices, tools, techniques, benefits, rewards and opportunities, there needs to be a full-bodied practical and applicable methodology (methodologies are utilized and implemented, with the utter purpose of solving complex problems and to facilitate the proactive decision-making and anticipatory process). (That is: Feet-on-the-dynamic-ground problem solving).

Arguably, Dakota tribal and decision-making wisdom:

“...Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you’re on a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. Of course, there are other strategies. You can change riders. You can get a committee to study the dead horse. You can benchmark how other companies ride dead horses. You can declare that it’s cheaper to feed a dead horse. You can harness several dead horses together. But after you’ve tried all these things, you’re still going to have to dismount...”

Then:

The manager must always address issues with a panoramic view and must also exercise the envisioning of both the whole and the granularity of details, along with the embedded (corresponding) interrelationships and dynamics (that is: [i] interrelationships and dynamics of the subtle, discrete and non-discrete, [ii] interrelationships and dynamics of the overt and [iii] interrelationships and dynamics of the covert).

Both dynamic complexity and detail complexity, along with fuzzy logic, must be pervasively considered, as well.

Along with Fuzzy Logic, Cybernetics must also be contemplated:

“ … Cybernetics is, in general engineering, the branch of science concerned with control systems in electronic and mechanical devices and the extent to which useful comparisons can be made between man-made and biological systems …. The comparative study of complex electronic devices and the nervous system in an attempt to understand better the nature of the human brain ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Black Swan entails Event Horizons that are so because corporations have NOT instituted the White Swan. Under the White Swan there are many (a) lucrative “...points of no return..." and (b) lucrative “...points of reversals...” Under the White Swans “...reversals...” are positive risks and upside futures, out-conquered in the theater of operation.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

To this point, it is wisely argued,

“...You can’t understand the knot without understanding the strands, but in the future, the strands need not remain tied up in the same way as they are today...”

For instance, disparate skills, talents, dexterities and expertise won't suffice ever.

A cohesive and congruent, yet proven methodology (see the one above) must be optimally implemented. If you don't like that one, you are, alas, most welcome to create your own.

Subsequently, the Chinese proverb indicates,

“...Don't look at the waves but the currents underneath...”

2.- One must always be futurewise and technologically fluent. Don't fight these extreme forces, just use them!

One must use foreknowledge-mired counter-intuitiveness (geometrically non-linearly so), insight, hindsight, foresight and far-sight in every day of the present and future (all of this in the most staggeringly exponential mode).

By the way, counter-intuitiveness and sixth sense have no gender.

To shed some light, I will share two quotes as well.

Nevertheless, the Panchatantra (body of Eastern philosophical knowledge) establishes,

“...Knowledge is the true organ of sight, not the eyes ... "

And Antonio Machado argues,

“... An eye is not an eye because you see it; an eye is an eye because it sees you …”

Managers always need a clear-eyed and lucid pineal gland's knowledgeable and knowledge-injected vision.

Did you already connect the dots stemming from the Panchatantra and Machado?

Did you already integrate those dots into your marshable big-picture vista?

As side effect, British Prime Minister W. E. Gladstone considered, “...You cannot fight against the future...”

3.- In all the Manager does, he / she must observe and apply, at all times, a sine qua non maxim,

“...Everything is somewhat related to everything else...” IN FACT, SOME THINKERS INSIST ON THE FOLLOWING: “ ... Everything is deeply intermingled with everything else ...”

4.- Always manage as if it were a “project.” Use, at all times, the “...Project Management...” approach. In so doing Matrix Management is optimal.

5.- Always use the systems methodology with the applied omniscience perspective.

In this case, David, I mean to assert: The term “ … Science ...” equates to about a 90% of “...Exact Sciences...” (Pure, Hard Sciences) and to about 10% of “...Social Sciences...”

All science must be instituted with the engineer's view.

And scientific inquiry is the most advanced application of the ever-enhanced Socratic Method.

6.- Always institute beyond-insurance risk management as you boldly integrate it with your scientific futuring skill and expertise.

7.- In my firmest opinion, the following must be complied this way (verbatim):

The corporate strategic planning and execution (performing) are a function of a grander application of beyond-insurance risk management (the exact opposite of insurance-based risk unmanagement).

It will never work well the other way around. TAIRM is the optimal mode to do advanced strategic planning and execution (performing).

TAIRM is not only focused on terminating, mitigating, modulating and isolating risks (expenses of treasure and losses of health and life), but also concentrated on bringing under optimal control fiscally-sound, sustainable organizations and initiatives.

TAIRM underpins sensible business prosperity and sustainable efficiency, growth and progress.

8.- I also believe that we must pragmatically apply the scientific method in all we manage to the best of our capacities. Responsible scientists don't speak of “...Excellent...”, but Optimal.

If we are “...MANAGERS...” in a Knowledge Economy and Knowledge Era(*) (not a knowledge-driven multi-fold eon because of superficial and hollow and shallow caprices of the follies and simpletons and ignoramuses), we must thence do extensive and intensive learning and un-learning for Life if we want to succeed and be sustainable.

(*) Some authors argue that this is the “...Age of Innovation...”

Others argues that this is: the “ … Age of Discovery ...” and going into the “….Age of Mastery ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

As a result, Dr. Noel M. Tichy, PhD. argues, “...Today, intellectual assets trump physical assets in nearly every industry...”

Consequently, Alvin Toffler indicates, “...In the world of the future, THE NEW ILLITERATE WILL BE THE PERSON WHO HAS NOT LEARNED TO LEARN...”

We don't need to be scientists to truly learn some basic principles of actionable advanced hard science and hi-tech.

Accordingly, Dr. Carl Sagan, PhD. expressed, “...We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows about science and technology...”

And Edward Teller stated, “...The science of today is the technology of tomorrow ...”

And it is also crucial this quotation by Winston Churchill,

“...If we are to bring the broad masses of the people in every land to the table of abundance, IT CAN ONLY BE BY THE TIRELESS IMPROVEMENT OF ALL OF OUR MEANS OF TECHNICAL PRODUCTION...”

I am not a scientist buy I tirelessly, and by several orders of magnitude, support responsible scientists and apply science.

I like scientific, engineering and technological knowledge and methodologies a great deal.

9.- In any management undertaking today, and given the universal volatility and rampant and uninterrupted rate of change, one must think and operate in a fluid womb-to-tomb mode.

The manager must think and operate holistically, both systematically and systemically, at all times.

In the twentieth-one century, How managers must be, in order to succeed?

The manager must also be: i) Multidimensional, ii) Interdisciplinary, iii) Cross-disciplinary (or Interdisciplinary), iv) Multifaceted, v) Cross-functional, vi) Multifarious, vii) Multi-specializing, viii) Cross-Referential, ix) Multitasking, x) Cross-pollinating, xi) Cross-fertilizing, xii) Cross-sectional and xiii) Longitudinal.

That is, the manager must now be an expert state-of-the-art in-all-practicality generalist and erudite.

An expert state-of-the-art in-all-practicality generalist and erudite INCLUDES, as per 1999's SAIC CEO, Mr. Roger Brown, observed that my notion comprises of:

(I.-) A Knowledgist,

(II.-) A Champion, and

(III.-) A Braingainer.

ALSO:

THIS EXPERT STATE-OF-THE-ART IN-ALL-PRACTICALITY GENERALIST AND ERUDITE MUST ALSO CONJOINTLY INCLUDE A STRONG BONDING TO:

(A.-) Science,

(B.-) Punditry, and

(C.-) Nerdiness.

ERGO, THIS IS THE NEWEST SPECIALIST AND SPECIALIZATION.

ATTENTION:

In Corporate Life there is now the right time for a senior-most CPO, Chief Polymath Officer or Chief Officer of Polymathy (A Braingainer).

Accordingly, the manager must have seven (7) or eight (8) areas of great expertise (thus: five or six Subject-Matter Expertises, i.g. SMEs) while also being able to include and efficiently manage generic and generalizable knowledge of a plethora of fields within his and her management areas of incumbency, directly stemming from his or her organization.

To some extent and degree, Howard Hughes is a good example.

Without a formal education in science and engineering, he anyway could work very well with engineers and scientists. In fact, he really got the best out of them and beyond posterity.

Managers must never manage elements, components or subsystems separately or disparately (that is, they mustn’t ever manage in series).

Everything should be managed in parallel. This requires of (a) Altogetherness and (b) Orchestrated: (i) Thinking and (ii) Execution.

So, Altogetherness is the quality of conforming to the ability to investigate with all or everything included.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Managers must always manage all of the entire system at the time (that is, managing in parallel or simultaneously the orchestrated totality of the whole at once and always so).

This theorem is highly advisable:

“...A primer on the development, application, and requirement of ‘...systems thinking...’ to obtain an ordered, global [...beyond-insurance...] management perspective — a critical need if historical risk management is to be translated [in advance] from reaction into prevention of risk [many call risks '...problems...'] [….] The systems approach is godlike — at least in perspective. It aims to look at any situation with OMNISCIENCE — TOTALITY OF KNOWLEDGE [….] Of course, it never succeeds because of human limitations. But the goal remains. And such goal is essential if risk is to be managed effectively. Every possible risk must be considered before systematic management of risk can occur. If this seems grandiose, it isn’t meant to be. In failing to take such a lofty and all-encompassing view, managers are vulnerable to being blind-sided by an overlooked risk while believing that they have everything under control ... " [226] Brackets are of the author.

If you want to make it even better go from Systems Thinking into Concurrent Convergent Systems Thinking.

“... Concurrent Convergent Systems Thinking...” is an expression as per the sole ingenuity of the author.

10.- In any profession, beginning with management, one must always and cleverly upgrade his or her learning and education until the last exhale.

An African proverb argues,

“...Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it...”

A D.C. thought indicates, “...The heritage of the past is the seed that brings forth the harvest of the future...” — Inscription from statuary pedestal at National Archives in Washington

And Winston Churchill established,

“...The empires of the future are the empires of the mind...”

And an ancient Chinese Proverb, “...It is not our feet that move us along — it is our minds...”

And Malcolm X observed, “...The future belongs to those who prepare for it today...”

And Leonard I. Sweet considered, “...The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create...”

And finally, James Thomson argued, “...Great trials seem to be a necessary preparation for great duties ...”

In search of those that are instituting a search of a future-wise meaning? Are you?

T. S. Elliot: “...We must never cease from exploring. At the end of all of our exploring will be to arrive at where we began and know the place for the first time ...” [153]

And,

William Shakespeare (Macbeth): “...To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing ...” [96]

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Fairly sophisticated measures follow:

Every manager should take unprecedented thinkable and unthinkable precautions with the purpose of countermeasuring threats at all times (including intractable threats).

BY WAY OF EXAMPLE ONLY, IT COMES VERY HANDY DR. ROBERT COLLINS, PHD.'S “...TEN COMMANDMENTS OF RESILIENCE ... "

He, accordingly, observes:

I.- Thou Shalt Have a Written Detailed Step-by-Step Disaster Plan,

II.- Thou Shalt Do Cost-Benefit Analysis,

III.- Thou Shalt Be Fully Insured (beyond any plain-vanilla insurance companies, by the government or otherwise),

IV.- Thou Shalt Search Out and Repair Vulnerable Systems,

V.- Thou Shalt Prepare To Outsmart Your Threats and To Deal With the Consequences,

VI.- Thou Shalt Have Redundant Systems,

VII.- Thou Shalt Be Mobile,

VIII.- Thou Shalt Set and Follow Priorities,

IX.- Thou Shalt Not Depend on Others,

X.- Thou Shalt Keep Lines of Communication Open,

XI.- Thou Shalt Capitalize on Opportunities,

XII.- Thou Shalt Rid Bureaucracy At Any Cost And Always Run Mean And Lean,

XIII.- Thou Shalt Concentrate on Completion Through The End. (Leonardo Da Vinci asserted, “ ...Let's first think in completion, and then let's carry on through the end ...”) Item XIII.- was researched and written by author. [221].

XIV.- Thou Shalt Follow Precedence insofar that “...Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a solution ...” Item XIII.- was originally generated by Edward Teller. [93]

XVI.- Thou shalt not bear ignorance of supine ignorance about every strategic military and technological surprises in the form of Corporate Sputnik Moment, thus causing bankruptcy.

XVII.- Thou shalt not think the out-the-box folly, unless you are eager to embrace failure.

XVIII.- Thou shalt trust, but verify.

XIX.- Thou shalt not think out-the-box, unless you are eager to embrace failure. Thou shalt be infinitely more unconventional and heterodox,

XX.- Thou shalt depend only on your own intellectual capital, methods, technologies, resources, and actions.

XXI.- Thou shalt be self-reliant at all times, for Life.

XXII.- Thou shalt be Disruption-Ready and Adjust and Adjust and Adapt and Adapt.

XXIII.- Thou shalt be Business-Recovery Ready and Adjust and Adjust and Adapt and Adapt.

XXIV.- Thou shalt be Business-Restoration Ready and Adjust and Adjust and Adapt and Adapt.

XXV.- Thou Must Prepare For Darkness While Traveling In The Sunlight.

XXVI.-Thou Must Realize That Plans Without Action Are Only Dreams.

XXVII.-Thou Must Sweep Cobwebs From Thy Mind Before They Imprison Thee.

XXVIII.-Thou Must Lighten Thy Load If Ye Would Reach Thy Destination.

XXIX.-Thou Must Never Forget That It Is Always Later Than Ye Think.

IN ADDITION TO RESILIENCE ABOVE, IT SHOULD ALSO BE CONSIDERED THE FOLLOWING:

“ … We are all good at reacting and responding, putting out fires, and crisis management. In addition, organizations large and small have learned how to be lean and agile, and how to best execute a strategy at a high level [….] HOWEVER, DESPITE THESE SKILLS, GENERAL MOTORS STILL DECLARED BANKRUPTCY, BLOCKBUSTER CLOSED ITS LAST STORE, AND BLACKBERRY QUICKLY MOVED FROM LEADING TO BLEEDING. AND LET’S NOT FORGET HEWLETT-PACKARD, SONY, DELL, AND A HOST OF OTHER COMPANIES WHO FAILED TO THRIVE DESPITE ITS LEADERS AND WORKERS BEING CONSTANTLY BUSY [….] TO THRIVE IN THIS NEW AGE OF HYPER-CHANGE AND GROWING UNCERTAINTY, IT IS NOW AN IMPERATIVE TO LEARN A NEW COMPETENCY—HOW TO ACCURATELY ANTICIPATE THE FUTURE [….] That may seem impossible, but it’s not. The future is there for you to see when you know where and how to look for it. And when you and your employees master this skill, you’ll be able to create what I call an 'Anticipatory Organization' [….] Based on three decades of research and applying the principles I’ve developed to organizations worldwide, I have developed a way of separating what I call Hard Trends from Soft Trends. Over the years I’ve written about this extensively in books and articles [….] A Hard Trend is a projection based on measurable, tangible, and fully predictable facts, events, or objects. It’s something that will happen: a future fact that cannot be changed. In contrast, a Soft Trend is a projection based on statistics that have the appearance of being tangible, fully predictable facts. It’s something that might happen: a future maybe. Soft Trends can be changed, which means they provide a powerful vehicle to influence the future and can be capitalized on [….] This distinction completely changes how individuals and organizations view and plan for the future. Understanding the difference between Hard and Soft Trends allows us to know which parts of the future we can be right about. When you learn how to analyze trends in this way, you can accurately predict future disruptions, identify and solve problems before they happen, and practice what I call 'everyday innovation.' This enables you to solve challenges and problems faster and see opportunities that were impossible just a few years before. In other words, you become anticipatory rather than reactionary [….] Employees of an anticipatory organization understand that those who can see the future most accurately will have the biggest advantage. They know that you cannot change the past, but you can shape the future based on the actions you take in the present. As such, they actively embrace the fact that many future disruptions, problems, and game-changing opportunities are predictable and represent unprecedented ways to gain advantage. They know that it’s better to solve predictable problems before they happen, and that future problems often represent the biggest opportunities. Above all else, they are confident and empowered by having a shared view of the future based on Hard Trends and what I call the 'science of certainty.' [….] WHAT IS THE SCIENCE OF CERTAINTY? Once you can separate Hard Trends from Soft Trends—once you can differentiate between the things you know will happen from the things that might happen—you can accurately define the certainties going forward. For example, we know that the iPhone 7, 8, and 9 will all have faster processing chips than those before them. We know that after 3G and 4G will come 5G and 6G in a predictable way. And we know that we are putting more and more in the cloud—that we’re not going to discontinue using cloud computing [….] Those are technical examples. Here are some non-technical ones: We know that Baby Boomers are not going to get younger. We know that governments are going to continue, all over the world, to issue future regulations. We know the cycles of nature, such as after winter comes summer [….] In other words, there is so much we can see that it’s absolutely possible to create certainties using the Hard Trend/Soft Trend model I’ve developed [….] WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT TO BUSINESS? BECAUSE STRATEGY BASED ON CERTAINTY (ON HARD TRENDS) HAS LOW RISK, WHILE STRATEGY BASED ON UNCERTAINTY (ON SOFT TRENDS) HAS HIGH RISK. Also, when you have certainty, you have the confidence to say 'yes,' to move forward, to hire, to start businesses. When you have uncertainty, it’s like a giant roadblock. You’re stuck and you don’t move forward [….] To succeed in business these days, simply being lean and agile is no longer enough. You and your team need to harness the ability to anticipate the future. In fact, I see this as being the most important missing competency that we’ve seen for decades. So learn how to anticipate today, before your competitors do ...” [271]

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Even if each risk is small, it could mount up to a substantial cumulative danger, and foreseeable fundamentally coping, thereby, is in place in the instances of:

Quandaries, predicaments, uncertainties, perplexities, paradoxes, contradictions, dilemmas, black swans (so-called), troublesomeness, plights, complicated challenges, complex problems, persistent risks, dystopian futures, asymmetric situations, mishaps to be, the combined or successive failure of several components (to be), so forth.

Incidentally, troublesomeness is the quality of conforming to the ability to cause trouble, annoyance, or difficulty; vexation.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

All of the preceding harbors magnificent lucrative knowledge, too.

AT THE END OF THIS MATERIAL, THE READER CAN THEREFATER ACCESS THE WALKTHROUGH MANAGERIAL SUCCESS TENETS (PRINCIPLES) BY THE AUTHOR.

Comprising points 1), 2), 3), 4), 5), 6), 7), 8), 9) and 10) above, I hence composed the following thought some weeks ago:

“… If you do your attitude, you can't do your conscientious awareness. Once your conscientious awareness is done by you, you can then do your attitude. Your attitude will only count if it is practical and concerns actual problem solving and current decision making. Once you do your problem solving and decision making, you can transform your risks. To transform your risks, you need to do your strategy. Once your risks are transformed by you, you can couple your strategy with your futuring. To make your strategy matter-of-fact and morrow-ready, you first need to do your futures. Once the upsides (benefits) and downsides (risks) of the future are done by you, you can overcome your challenges and driving forces, in order to seize your benefits, sustainability, growth, profitability and progress. Once you do your benefits, sustainability, growth and profitability, you can do your continuous success and progress..."

OF COURSE, ONE MUST DO HIS / HER ETHICS. WONDERFUL SCIENTIFIC, TECHNOLOGICAL AND MANAGERIAL INITIATIVES FAIL BECAUSE ONE SINGLE INDIVIDUAL IS FLAGRANTLY VIOLATING ETHICS WHILE HONORING PSEUDOSCIENCE.

Speaking of “...pseudo-science...”, let us consider:

When SOME scientists feel theirs thought process challenged by omniscient ideas by other intellectuals, they have a couple of wild-cards to downplay the new ideas:

(1.-) By using sophistry, they called the challengers: Prima Donnas. (Prima donnas often had grand off-stage personalities and were seen as demanding of their colleagues. From its original usage in opera, the term has spread in contemporary usage to refer to anyone behaving in a demanding or temperamental fashion or has an inflated view of herself.).

(2.-) By using trickery, they called the challengers: Pseudo-Scientists.

(3.-) Then, these SOME SCIENTITS, start frequently reciting quotations by Henri Poincaré.

Their tenures, publications and commissioned R&D&I grants, because of omniscient ideas by other intellectuals, immediately become endangered species by the emergence of proven new ground-breaking ideas.

But Google and Amazon and Facebook, NASA and DARPA, the U.S. Industrial-Military-Complex, the White House and the U.S. Homeland Security Department, GE and Exxon-Mobile, the glorious U.S. Armed Forces and the Los Alamos National Laboratories cannot just wait and accept old-timer's “...non pseudo-science...” to be worshiped as Germany', China' and India' and Brazil's are outright coming forward with novel idea, seeking Outright Non-American-Exceptionalism and World’s-Power-Number-1 Status, through their clever and radical scientific and technological development and conquest, creatively disrupting ? for Life ? the old-snailed démodé and allegedly non-pseudo-science scientists.

What is Soft Power?

And Germans, as well as Austrians, redefine the totality of everything, beginning with Thought-Process Completeness and Thought-Process Thoroughness literally at any expense, as long as THEY PREVAIL through DIPLOMACY, COMMERCE, TRADE, AND INSANELY-FRUITFUL DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGHS AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES AND NOVEL INNOVATION DEVELOPMENTS, again, and again at the expense of any emotional evenness or emotional unevenness, ludicrously coined by Goleman.

Germans (and Austrians) don't believe in the silly notion of Daniel Goleman by means of which a bus driver falsely throws phony smiles, in order to retro-project the flawed self and in order to be accommodating toward the passengers. To them that is neither Customer Services and nothing but ridiculous marketeer’s stunt, never “...Positive Psychology...”

Plain-vanilla Psychology is more than sufficient.

Under the guidance of most august University of Göttingen and most prominent Her Excellency German Chancellor and STEM-ed and non-pro-Rusky and non-pro-“... São Paulo Forum ...” Dr. Angel Merkel (Doctor of Physics and Chemistry, and NEVER into appalling: Tweeting, PR, marketing, guerrilla marketing and so-called “...smart networking …”), and NEVER INTO Emotionally-Supine Ignorance (ESI), solely in order and with the ultimate purpose of outsmarting the totality of China, Japan, India, Brazil, Russia and the U.E. And also in order to make Germany the greatest Milky-Way's Exporter of Tangibles.

For instance, in outputted high-end tangibles worldwide, Germany is, by far, going to supersede China's without flagrancy. Why Anglo-Manufacturers insist that, as per the Bilderberg Group's Prescription, it is only better to manufacture un-instituted intangibles.

BGP tells Anglo-Manufacturers to outsource to far East all the tangibles-based jobs. While the Germanics tell themselves to in-source every single intangible and tangible.

And Germany does NOT need a 300-million-plus population to beat China, but only a tiny 81-million-plus population.

In related manner:

To see what Germany and China are doing about manufacturing, let us read this by The Economist:

“... Developed manufacturing nations such as the US, Japan and Germany are under pressure to enhance their manufacturing capabilities. THESE COUNTRIES ARE ALREADY FALLING BEHIND CHINA IN TERMS OF COMPETITIVENESS; in the next five years, they are expected to fall even further behind. At the same time, enhanced manufacturing capabilities are increasingly important for developing nations, especially China, which risk losing their competitive advantage as labor costs continue rising in the medium and long term …. COUNTRIES SUCH AS GERMANY, WHICH HAVE BEEN STRONG IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MACHINES, SEE THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE THE LEAD IN THIS NEXT WAVE OF INNOVATION IN MANUFACTURING …. Enhanced manufacturing capabilities are a must for developed manufacturing economies such as the US, Japan and Germany. According to Deloitte’s 2013 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index, these nations already fall behind China in terms of competitiveness; in the next five years, they are expected to fall even further behind. In the past decade or more, the US, Japan and Germany have seen declines in their manufacturing output and manufacturing employment. IN THE US, MANUFACTURING HAS DECLINED TO 20.7% OF GDP, ACCORDING TO DATA FROM DELOITTE. AND IN THE DECADE TO 2010, 3.1 MANUFACTURING JOBS PER HUNDRED POPULATION DISAPPEARED ...”

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Accordingly, without firing one a single Luger-shot, Germany does not theorize about Soft Power, but Applies it, boundaryless-ly.

By any measure, any median German and Austrian lay-person is absolutely kind, tactful, friendly, prudent, constructive, acculturated and educated.

A good example of German citizenship and citizenry was intensely exploited by NASA and by NASA's Dr. Wernher von Braun (Optimal Critical Mass). While Dr. Robert H. Goddard offered a Sub-Optimal Sub-Critical Mass.

Dr. Merkel's is the greatest female polymath in every exo-galaxy.

Germans, in all sanity, believe in the universal violation — within legitimacy and lawfulness — of Emotional Intelligence with the Breathtaking Geostrategic End to Exercise Legal and Peaceful LUCRATIVE SOFT POWER.

The people who better understand the infinite potentials by Germans are the Japanese, Israeli, Austrian and Germanic Swiss.

Other prominent Lucid Thinking Folks are those from Sweden and the Netherlands.

Back to the White Swan harcore.

TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE UPSIDES AND DOWNSIDES OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, SEE THE ENSUING:

E.Q.-Focused Nations (suboptimal) Versus I.Q.-Centric Countries (optimal)

1.- E.Q.-Focused Nations argue that the millenarian applied terms such as: Prudence, Tact, Sincerity, Kindness and Unambiguous Language DO NOT SUFFICE and hence they need to invent a marketeer's stunt: Emotional Intelligence. I.Q.-Centric Countries argue that the millenarian applied terms are beyond utility and desirability and that stunts are to social-engineer and brain-wash the weak: Ergo, all of these are optimal: Prudence, Tact, Sincerity, Kindness and Unambiguous Language, as well as plain-vanilla Psychology 101.

2.- E.Q.-Focused Nations are mired with universal corruption, both in private and public office. I.Q.-Centric Countries are mired with transparency, accountability and reliability, as well as collective integrity and ethics.

3.- E.Q.-Focused Nations are flooded with structural unemployment. I.Q.-Centric Countries are flooded with fundamental employment and hiring even not only nationals but also international talents.

4.- E.Q.-Focused Nations are waging military campaigns and violence internationally, always attempting to IMPOSE HARD AND HARSH AND FORCEFUL POWER. I.Q.-Centric Countries are at Peace with all of the Nations of the world and ONLY believe in Diplomacy and its Concurrent Soft Power.

5.- E.Q.-Focused Nations are too quick, too ready and too constant to DESTROY THEIR OWN ECONOMIES while turning their great nations into seventh-level nations of the world. I.Q.-Centric Countries are ALWAYS CONSTRUCTING GREATER OWN ECONOMIES WHILE MAKING THEIR NATIONS MORE APPEALING TO FOREIGNERS, INCLUDING FOREIGN INVESTORS, TO DO BUSINESS WITH.

6.- E.Q.-Focused Nations are ALWAYS expecting major Domestic Terrorism Attacks and Huge Disruption to Public Services and Infrastructure through Cyber attacks, while they attract Immense Industrial Espionage. I.Q.-Centric Countries are NOT WORRY AT ALL about being attacked in any form at all, but focused on how to become world's largest manufacturers of Tangible Goods that are both desired by Rich and Poor Countries.

7.- E.Q.-Focused Nations HAVE INVESTED LARGELY IN MAKING TOO MANY LOCAL AND GEOPOLITICAL ENEMIES around the Globe. I.Q.-Centric Countries HAVE ZERO DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL ENEMIES WHILE ONLY PROFITING FROM FRIENDLY CLIENTS AROUND THE GALAXY. I.Q.-Centric Countries' friendliness is taken incessantly to the banks.

8.- E.Q.-Focused Nations are bathed with CIVILIAN PROTESTS, including Anarchists and Anti-Systems and Anti-Establishments, in a permanent context of Social and Political Unrest. I.Q.-Centric Countries have ZERO CIVILIAN PROTESTS while enjoying and profiting from an Emotionally-Even Most Talented Population, while thoroughly employed into Rule the World through Economic and Peaceful Conquests.

9.- E.Q.-Focused Nations have HUGE BANKRUPTCY DIVIDES between those Leaning to the Left and those Leaning to the Right. I.Q.-Centric Countries FIND HUGE LUCRE IN EXPLOITING THE INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL OF BOTH THE “LEFT” AND THE “RIGHT,” OPERATING FROM WITHIN THE EXACT “CENTRE” WHILE LEVERAGING UP THE INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE WEALTH OF EVERY CITIZEN.

10.- E.Q.-Focused Nations DO NOT SPEAK GERMAN. I.Q.-Centric Countries ONLY SPEAK GERMAN.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

If you country is flooded with unemployment, poverty, public protests and a promissory future of outright failure? Why?

I will tell you why exactly: Because in your country the first language is not amazing German!

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Some intellectuals sincerely argue that the three only statespeople respected, whether in the West, the East or the nugatory limbo, by Mr. Vladimir Putin are: (a) Don Juan Carlos I of Spain, (b) German Chancellor Angela Merkel PhD., and (c) The President of the People's Republic of China Mr. Xi Jinping.

The Castilian and Spanish word “...Don...” above is a respectful treatment, quite generalized today, that is ante-posed to masculine names, in antiquity reserved to determined people of high social rank.

For females, there is the equivalent title: Doña. Spain's Queen is, by the way, Doña Sofía.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

IN THE WORLD TODAY THERE ARE MANY HIGH-RANKING PEOPLE, BOTH IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE OFFICE, UNIVERSALLY VIOLATING ETHICS TO THE MEASURE OF AN EXISTENTIAL RISK TO EARTH IN ITS TOTALITY.

I am neither a moralist, nor an ethicist. I am a firmest believer in the two paragraphs above.

I AM AND WILL ONLY BE A BEYOND-INSURANCE RISK MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT, RESEARCHER, STRATEGIST AND PRACTITIONER WITH AN EMPHATIC FUTURES STUDIES PERSPECTIVE.

Universal violation of ethics in both public and private office is, by way of example, a primordial component (risk) of the Disruptional Singularity.

HOW DOES A 21ST-CENTURY MANAGER MUST EXERCISE HIS OR HER MIND?

Exactly and concisely, by implementing the following at all times:

FIRST. Through Discipline of Thought.

SECOND. Through Discipline of Technique.

THIRD. Through Discipline of Procedure.

To underpin the preceding disciplines, the following explanation is now in place:

“...DISCIPLINE OF THOUGHT [….] As might be expected, the first set of disciplines involves thinking. The systems approach employs orderly inductive logic. That simply means to think or reason by going from particular facts to general conclusions. This type of thought is also the backbone of the scientific method. The inverse — deductive thought, which reasons from general principles to specific conclusions — is also used at times. But it is of less importance [….] A second mental discipline seeks totality of understanding. The objective of this discipline is omniscience, or unlimited knowledge of a system, its use environments, and its risks. This idealistic goal is never reached, of course, even though is vigorously pursued. Two quite different kinds of understanding are combined [….] Theoretically understanding is related to comprehending how all the elements in a system (for example, physical plant, products produced, personnel employed, management policies, and accounting methods) are intended to interact with one another. In contrast, practical understanding is knowing how these factors actually work together in a real world [….] The third discipline of thought — continued challenge in depth — emphasizes the fact that professional managers can never relax in the comfort of all their analyzes. Constant vigilance and sustained questioning — ‘What if such and such happens?’ — is essential [….] The three disciplines of thought collectively identify the problems that must be solved in the system. They also produce a qualitative picture of the system … DISCIPLINE OF TECHNIQUE [….] The problems that have been identified by disciplines of thought are next resolved by a second set of disciplines — those of technique [….] Specific mathematical tools used in risk management are not expounded here. However, Boolean algebra and set theory — as well as probabilistic logic, statistical mechanics, and other calculative modeling methods — are widely employed to solve complex problems [‘advanced problems’] in a system [….] Complexity of most systems also forces the use of system analysis methods to solve difficult problems. Several types (for example, Fault Tree Analysis or Hazard Mode and Effect Analysis) that are used extensively in risk-related issues [….] Automatic processing capability by computers makes a considerable technical contribution to solving system problems. For example, many functions formerly performed by people can be much more rapidly and efficiently done by computers [….] These three problem-solving techniques, taken together, also produce quantitative assurance that the system is adequate for its intended objectives [….] DISCIPLINE OF PROCEDURE … One of the greatest differences between the systems approach to problem solving and other choices lies in this third set of disciplines. In fact, it is the easiest way to tell whether a problem has been attacked systematically or not [….] stimulated the establishment of procedural disciplines. Paperwork and records are anathemas to everyone who has to create them. Yet, because of complexity, it is necessary to have a documented trail, for several reasons. First, in complicated situations, objective review by someone other than the person who perform a function is generally required. Second, …, you need it not only for failure analysis but for success analysis as well! Otherwise, you have to always start over at ‘square one.’ [….] There are two major disciplines of procedures. The first — system engineering procedural requirements [….] Results of work completed — such as Functional Flow Block Diagrams, resource allocation sheets, and trade-off studies — are documented and retained for future reference [….] Complete, unambiguous technical writing is another ideal never reached. But to the degree that the documented information is both complete and free from misunderstanding, the decision-making workload is reduced. This is true both at the time of decision and at later times of reconsideration ... " [99] Brackets are of the author.

I create theories to disprove them and to find their embedded disconfirming evidence. Once I have ruled them out, I ensuingly create neo-theories and new proto-theories, in order to disprove them and to find their embedded disconfirming evidence.

From the entirety of this process I gained new knowledge that I apply in all practicality. And this process lab-to-fab life cycle by me goes on infinitely.

In the ultimate analysis, I am into 30% Practical Theories and Neo-Theories and novel Proto-Theories and 70% in to Outright Theory.

UNDER A BRIEF CONCISE SYNTHESIS, TRANSFORMATIVE AND INTEGRATIVE RISK MANAGEMENT INTERDISCIPLINARY PROBLEM-SOLVING METHODOLOGY SERIOUSLY CONTEMPLATES:

(1.-) Proprietary Quality-Assurance Methodologies,

(2.-) Toyota Production System (TPS),

(3.-) Kaizen Methodology,

(4.-) Juran Prescription.

(5.-) Deeming Prescription.

(6.-) Six Sigma.

(7.-) Lean Management.

(8.-) Six Sigma Methodologies

(9.-) Lean Six Sigma Methodologies.

(10.-) Agile Management.

(11.-) Scrum Management.

(12.-) Agile Management.

(13.-) Kanban.

(14.-) Process Re-Engineering Methodology (Conjointly: Los Alamos Labs and Procter and Gamble)

(15.-) Mr. William E. Conway's "Right Way to Manage" (ISBN: 978-0963146458).

(16.-) Methodologies by the U.S. Navy and Hitachi.

(17.-) Several methodologies into Continuous Improvement.

(18.-) Red-Teaming.

(19.-) Red Adair's Approach.

(21.-) NSTB's “... Go-To ...” Team Approach.

(22.-) Extreme Project Management.

(23.-) A considerable number of proprietary: (23.1) Approaches, (23.2) Methodologies, (23.3) Prescriptions, (23.4) Techniques and (24.5) Practices that are forbiddingly disclosed, given their proprietary nature.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

WHAT AND HOW TO STUDY TO CONQUER THE MILKY WAY?

(1.-) If you want to study Political Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(2.-) If you want to study Sociological Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(3.-) If you want to study Jurisprudence Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(4.-) If you want to study Psychological Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(5.-) If you want to study Psychiatric Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(6.-) If you want to study Sacred-Scriptures Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(7.-) If you want to study History-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(8.-) If you want to study Leadership-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(9.-) If you want to study Mathematics-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(10.-) If you want to study Physics-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(11.-) If you want to study Chemistry-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(12.-) If you want to study Biology-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(13.-) If you want to study Quantum Mechanics-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(14.-) If you want to study Genetics-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(15.-) If you want to study Genomics-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(16.-) If you want to study Biotechnology-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(17.-) If you want to study Nanotechnology-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(18.-) If you want to study Astronomy-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(19.-) If you want to study Astro-Physics-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(20.-) If you want to study Law-Enforcement-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(21.-) If you want to study Law-and-Order-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(22.-) If you want to study Medicine-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(23.-) If you want to study Theology-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(24.-) If you want to study Philosophy-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(25.-) If you want to study Accounting-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(26.-) If you want to study Auditing-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(27.-) If you want to study MBA-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(28.-) If you want to study Belles-Letters-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(29.-) If you want to study English-Language-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(30.-) If you want to study Criminology-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(31.-) If you want to study History-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(32.-) If you want to study Economy-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(33.-) If you want to study Finance-Based Science(s) in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(34.-) If you want to become Astronomer Royal in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(35.-) If you are a High-School Graduated and College Freshperson the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(36.-) If you want to lead the Papal State in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(37.-) If you want to lead a first-order Lama Monastery in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand,

(38.-) If you want to be the Prime Minister or President of a great superpower in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand, and

(39.-) If you want to be the Monarch or Emperor of a great nation in the second order, by the FIRST ORDER you must commence by studying Systems Engineering (this is non Computer-Science Engineering) beforehand.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Forthcoming as-per-now times will be:

(A.-) Counternatural,

(B.-) Antinatural,

(C.-) Transnatural,

(D.-) Overnatural,

(E.-) Supernatural, and

(F.-) Preternatural.

AND HENCE:

Plausabilities, as of today:

Pre-Crime,

Pre-Cop,

Pre-Law-And-Order,

Pre-Law-Enforcement,

Pre-Intel,

Pre-CounterIntel,

Pre-War-Waging, and

Pre-Soft-Power.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

How are those pseudo-plausabilities possible? Via PreCognition (the Cognition Embracement of Forethought and Foreknowledge).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

WHITE SWAN TRANFORMATIVE AND INTEGRATIVE RISK MANAGEMENT PROBLEM-SOLVING METHODOLOGY ENCOMPASSES:

(1.-) Systems Quality Assurance,

(2.-) Systems Continuous Improvement,

(3.-) Systems Safety (Including: Systems Industrial Safety),

(4.-) Systems Security,

(5.-) Systems Corporate Integrity, and

(6.-) Many other, along and beyond these lines, that are Proprietary.

Where will White Swan be Scrutinizing in the Corporation?

Every Corporate: (a) Function and (b) Line or Staff Responsibility and Duty that will be Reviewed THOROUGHLY through White Swan Transformative and Integrative Risk Management:

For illustration purposes (brief list):

(1.-) Risk and Insurance,

(2.-) Corporate Planning,

(3.-) Into-Futuring,

(4.-) Quality Assurance, Continuous Improvement, Reliability and Industrial Safety,

(5.-) Group Employee Benefits,

(6.-) Corporate Integrity,

(7.-) CIO, CTO,

(8.-) CFO,

(9.-) HHRR,

(10.-) Legal Affairs,

(11.-) Sales and Marketing (CMO),

(12.-) Corporate Integrity.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

BRIEFLY AND GENERICALLY STATED, ONE MEETS AND PREVAILS THROUGH FACING AND COPING WITH REALITIES AND BY INSTITUTING — FOR INSTANCE — THE FOLLOWING AND SUGGESTED MANAGEMENT ROAD-MAP.

INCIDENTALLY, EVERY REALITY BEFORE THE MANAGER MUST BE BROUGHT UNDER OPTIMAL CONTROL.

As it ensues:

First! Once you realize that the most important thing to nurture is the rotational-and-translational motion revolting within and beyond the innermost core of and by you, you can do your ethics and morality.

Now you have conquered bridge 1. Conquering this foundational pillar also implies that every facet and phase of your personal and professional life will be carried on with dogged solemnity.

Second! Once you do your ethics and morality, you can do your actionable knowledge for Life.

Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 2 for Life.

Third! Once your actionable knowledge is done by you, you can do your corporate planning and respective marshaled strategy.

Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 3 for Life.

Fourth! Once your corporate planning and respective marshaled strategy is done by you, you can do your systems hazard management.

Now you have conquered and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 4 for Life.

Fifth! Once your systems hazard management is done by you, you can do your systems quality assurance management.

Now you have conquered and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 5 for Life.

Sixth! Once your cross-functional, interdisciplinary systems quality assurance management is done by you, you can do your systems reliability engineering.

Now you have conquered and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 6 for Life.

Seventh! Once your systems reliability engineering is done by you, you can do your systems risk management.

Now you have conquered and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 7 for Life.

Eighth! Once your systems risk management — with the applied omniscience perspective — is done by you, you can do your contingency planning lavishly and with thousand layers of redundancy in place for Life.

Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 8 for Life.

Ninth! When your contingency planning is done by you, you can do your benefits (both upsides and downsides).

Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 9 for Life.

Tenth! When benefits are done by you and you become hyper-engaged into pervasively transformational self-renewal and self-challenging in excelsis of your own intellect, you can do your sustainability perpetually.

Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 10 for Life.

Eleventh! Now you can conceive of and design your own profession and tenure while concentrating in capturing womb-to-tomb (so-called) “...success...” and its gargantuan sustainability effort.

Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 11 for Life.

Twelfth! Neither “...the secret,...”, nor the “...hidden secret,...”, nor the “...discrete secret...,” or any “...magnificent marketing stunts...” will warrant the oxygen and energy and vision that your mind, body, and souls require (sic).

Now you have conquered management for Life.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

GROUNDBREAKING MANAGEMENT BOOKS I HIGHLY RECOMMEND AND IN THIS SEQUENTIAL ORDER! N.B.: PLEASE NOTE, TOO, THE IMPORTANT MATERIAL ENSUING AFTER THE READING LIST!

Managing Risk: Systematic Loss Prevention for Executives by Vernon L. Grose ( ISBN: 978-0135511107 )

The Human Race to the Future: What Could Happen - and What to Do by Daniel Berleant ( ISBN: 978-1494712112 )

Leading the Revolution by Gary Hamel ( ISBN: 978-0452283244 )

The Future of Management by Gary Hamel ( ISBN: 978-1422102503 )

What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation by Gary Hamel ( ISBN: 978-1118120828 )

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK(R) Guide by Project Management Institute ( ISBN: 978-1935589679 )

The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil ( ISBN: 978-0143037880 )

Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 by Michio Kaku ( ISBN: 978-0307473332 )

Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies — and What It Means to Be Human by Joel Garreau ( ISBN: 978-0767915038 )

Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler ( ISBN: 978-1451614213 ).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Subsequently and more than ever, own education is learning by doing as it is perpetual studying and researching the books above all of the time and forever. But managers must go, by far, way beyond the books and other resources.

Thus, Napoleon Bonaparte asserted, “...I have only one counsel for you — be master...”

In his many letters and beyond his military achievements, Bonaparte indicated that the study of English, Math and Science was instrumental to him and every subject in the Napoleonic Empire.

I consider him the world's best thinker and manager into Systems Approach.

I read a book by a consummated scholar into military science and a professor to the U.S. Armed Forces Academies. He strongly argues that U.S. Military doctrines are based on Napoleon Bonaparte's teachings and practices.

By way of enlightenment, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821) declared,

“...No longer it is question simply of education ... NOW IT BECOMES A MATTER OF ACQUIRING [HARD] SCIENCE …" Brackets are of the author.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

HOW DO WE WALK THE TALK BY ANDRES HERE? VERY EASILY: PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR A PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION (SIC.):

THE MANAGER'S HYPOTHETICAL BLUEPRINT TO PRACTICAL SUCCESS CAPTURING:

(1.-) Picture mentally, radiantly.

(2.-) Draw outside the canvas.

(3.-) Color outside the vectors.

(4.-) Sketch sinuously.

(5.-) Far-sight beyond the mind’s intangible exoskeleton.

(6.-) Abduct indiscernible falsifiable convictions.

(7.-) Reverse-engineering a gene and a bacterium or, better yet, the lucrative genome.

(8.-) Guillotine the over-weighted status quo.

(9.-) Learn how to add up — in your own brainy mind — colors, dimensions, aromas, encryptions, enigmas, phenomena, geometrical and amorphous in-motion shapes, methods, techniques, codes, written lines, symbols, contexts, locus, venues, semantic terms, magnitudes, longitudes, processes, tweets, “...knowledge-laden...” hunches and omniscient bliss, so forth.

(10.-) Project your wisdom’s wealth onto communities of timeless-connected wikis.

(11.-) Cryogenize the infamous illiterate by own choice and reincarnate ASAP (multiverse teleporting out of a warped / wormed passage) Da Vinci, Bacon, Newton, Goethe, Bonaparte, Edison, Franklyn, Churchill, Einstein, and Feynman.

(12.-) Organize relationships into voluntary associations that are mutually beneficial and accountable for contributing productively to the surrounding community.

(13.-) Practice the central rule of good strategy, which is to know and remain true to your core business and invest for leadership and R&D+Innovation.

(14.-) Kaizen, SixSigma, Lean, LeanSigma, “...Reliability Engineer...” (the latter as solely conceived and developed by Procter & Gamble and Los Alamos National Laboratories) it all unthinkably and thoroughly by recombinant, a là Einstein Gedanke-motorized judgment (that is to say: Einsteinian Gedanke [“...thought experiments...”].

(15.-) Provide a road-map and blueprint for drastically compressing (‘crashing’) the time’s ‘reticules’ it will take you to get on the top of your tenure, nonetheless of your organizational level.

(16.-) With the required knowledge and relationships embedded in organizations, create support for, and carry out transformational initiatives.

(17.-) Offer a tested pathway for addressing the linked challenges of personal transition and organizational transformation that confront leaders in the first few months in a new tenure.

(18.-) Foster momentum by creating virtuous cycles that build credibility and by avoiding getting caught in vicious cycles that harm credibility.

(19.-) Institute coalitions that translate into swifter organizational adjustments to the inevitable streams of change in personnel and environment.

(20.-) Mobilize and align the overriding energy of many others in your organization, knowing that the “...wisdom of crowds...” is upfront and outright rubbish.

(21.-) Step outside the boundaries of the framework’s system when seeking a problem’s solution.

(22.-) Within zillion tiny bets, raise the ante and capture the documented learning through frenzy execution. (23) “...Moonshine...” and “... Skunkworks ...” and “...Re-Imagineer...” it all, holding in your mind the motion-pictured image that, regardless of the relevance of “...inputs...” and “...outputs,...”, entails that the highest relevance is within the sophistication within the THROUGHPUT.

(24.-) Don’t copy Nature and Biology, don’t even copy Universe. Just copy the Omniverse.

(25.-) Correlate everything else with the ignored and unthinkable ‘else’ of everything else, forever.

(26.-) Combine the practical and technological with the mysterious and meaningful.

(27.-) Pencil your map.

(28.-) Brush your road-map.

(29.-) Scratch your blueprint.

(30.-) Conceive of, develop and share unthinkable lessons learned.

(31.-) Facilitate a heterogeneous group — in the midst of appalling interpersonal chemistry — towards the accomplishment of a common goal.

(32.-) Learn complex new skills and new ways to make corporate miracles crystallize.

(33.-) Typo the cartoon.

(34.-) Keystroke the drawing.

(35.-) Acculturate your brain to operate executions from the applied omniscience via the lenses and springs of systems methodology.

(36.-) Manage RISKS and BENEFITS and CHANCES and OPPORTUNITIES in series and never in parallel.

(37.-) Remove accident causes prior to a loss, knowing that an accident is never a random stroke of fate, but an utter and thus purported instrument of ignorance of supine ignorance.

(38.-) Convert your viewpoint to a systems approach.

(39.-) Enable full-orbed and balanced stability of your thinkables and unthinkables.

(40.-) Attempt to know, early on, the end from the beginning.

(41.-) Identify driving forces to make better decisions, manage uncertainty, and profit from change.

(42.-) Declare the past, recover yesterday, analyze the present, enjoy today, and reinvent tomorrow (today's ensuing 24 hours).

(43.-) Build your own FUTURE transcending your past.

(44.-) Contort your mindful, mindless executions — and those in the midst of 'mindful' and 'mindless' executions —, solely out of this world, and solely out of this universe, and solely out of this reality, but not just for the inexpensive, tangential, impious sake of intellectual stunts, but only so that the 'life' has not unfruitful 'afterlife' — so-called —, and also so that the 'world' has no 'afterworld' (as well as, in congruence with the present work, ‘after-universe’ and even ‘after-verse.’) — so-called —. Aren’t afterlife and afterworld dis-intermediated anyway? Now, you, and merely you, proceed and transcend yourself, by yourself and for yourself.

(45.-) If you really want to make an operational difference in your professional theater of operations, go and get a full immersion in the fringe. Right in there, under that tense and pressing dynamics, you’ll have the vantage flux of the mirage.

(46.-) Tantalize your tangential pre-cognition and cognition into ever-?metamorphosing ?your attentive and contemplative trans-meditation Zen.

(47.-) ?De-realize, thus, de-focus from that taken-for-granted realities of the folly and the faulty, literally!

(48.-) ?Mostly in-source your mind with long-unknown virtualities.

(49.-) Assure that there are not un-searched areas of risk, benefit and sustainable opportunity.

(59.-) Acculturate yourself and those in your crew and in the orbit of incumbent stakeholders with most actionable, applied omniscience. Remember culture without science and technology is beyond blind.

(60.-) Cultivate the highest manifestations of human intelligence: vision, discipline, passion and conscience.

(61.-) Achieve next-level breakthrough in productivity, innovation and leadership in the marketplace and society.

(62.-) Develop the internal power and moral authority to break out of those problems to become a significant force in solving them.

(63.-) Use your voice and deeds to superbly serve your organization’s purposes, functions and stakeholders.

(64.-) Magnify your current gifts, talents, skills and dexterities.

(65.-) Take a prior learning for Life, apply it to a new situation, learn from practical experience, and apply the new learning.

(66.-) Pervasively reason from effect to cause and from cause to effect.

(67.-) Envision shrewd yet calculated risks, from start to end, to turn downsides into upsides.

(68.-) “...Exponentialize the rushed and marshaled progression of your own all-rounded, perennial learning curves on the doubles, chiefly those directly concerned with engaging your diverse skills, dexterities, and talents to overcome — through fluid execution by mind preparedness — your theater of operations because of and by the increasingly threatening surroundings. Otherwise, the onset Technological Revolutions (compounded in a pervasive composite), as explained in «Futuretonium and Futureketing», will give you the hardest time to you and yours. There is realistic and austere hope if we work the hardest and in the most scientific mode.

(69.-) Figure out exactly which genes and neurons coalesce to make synapses with.

(70.-) Wire up synapses and genes the soonest.

(71.-) Ask now more sophisticated questions to marshal upon.

(72.-) Don't juts copy Nature but focus on copying Biology, Nature and the Omniverse.

(73.-) Transfer the Heritage Business or the Legacy Business into the Third Millennium.

(74.-) Transform Completely.

(75.-) Expand Globally.

(76.-) Extend Digitally.

(77.-) Build an Intelligent-Innovation Strategy.

(78.-) Combine the best features of the three breathtaking strategies into one.

(79.-) When in doubt, Be Bold!

(80.-) Learn to recognize situations in which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high.

(81.-) Experiment at the edges of business.

(82.-) Challenge yourself to question every assumption.

(83.-) Keep the acceleration going, keep your world changing and off balance.

(84.-) Remember, the frozen image is false. The reality is continual motion.

(85.-) Trigger domino effects and change the way the economy behaves.

(86.-) Foreshorten product life cycles from years to months or even weeks or hours.

(87.-) Put customer experience at the heart of digital transformation. This includes blurring the line between digital and physical customer experiences, the authors advise. “A Digital Master figures what customers do and why, where and how they do it. The company then works out where and how the experience can be digitally enhanced across channels.”

(88.-) Constantly challenge your business model; consider how you might transform your industry before others do it. “Not paying attention is even a bigger risk. Executives in music, newspapers, and equity trading have already seen the radical upheavals that digital business model reinvention can bring to their industries.”

(89.-) Get familiar with new digital practices that can be an opportunity or a threat to your industry and company.

(90.-) Identify bottlenecks or headaches — in your company and in your customers — that resulted from the limits of old technologies, and consider how you might resolve these problems digitally.

(91.-) Craft a compelling digital vision, one that specifies both intent and outcome. “There is no single best way to express a vision for digital transformation. It’s not a formulaic process,” the authors state. “You need to craft a vision that builds on your strengths, engages employees, and evolves over time.”

(92.-) Make your digital vision specific enough to give employees a clear direction, while giving them the flexibility to build on it.

(93.-) Open up the conversations to give everyone a role in digital transformation, and deal with resistance by being open and transparent about the goals.

(94.-) Consider which digital decisions must be governed at the highest levels of the company, and which will be delegated to lower levels.

(95.-) Focus your initial investments on getting a clean, well-structured digital platform; it’s the foundation for everything else.

(96.-) Challenge yourself continually to find new things you can do with your IT-business relationships, digital skills, and digital platform.

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

Given your clever question, David, and commented simply to you:

“ ... I am no longer a captive to history.
Whatever I can imagine, I can accomplish.

I am no longer a vassal in a faceless
bureaucracy, I am an activist, not a drone.

I am no longer a foot soldier
in the march of progress.

I am a Revolutionary! ... ” (Taken from Leading The Revolution).

Back to the White Swan hardcore:

IT MUST BE FINALLY NOTED #1 (ONE OF FOUR):

The beyond-insurance risk management cases above were solved as complete and deep theoretical, practical, empirical and factual knowledge were applied and made a huge difference as per the ultimate outcomes and in-place metrics that were verified by top-ranking stakeholder in the cited corporate organizations.

The pure-science scientists that audited those outcomes established and documented utilized systems (ample connotation), boundaries of these systems, structure, hierarchies and priorities, among other aspects, explaining that respective outcomes were, in fact, canonical milestones achieved within the designated time frame in all practicality.

IT MUST BE FINALLY NOTED #2 (TWO OF FOUR):

I have seen many corporate cadavers and entrepreneurial and managerial morgues in my professional experience. Beyond the current bibliographic references contained herein, this author has the most breathtaking contingent literature that pales the bibliographical reference included.

IT MUST BE FINALLY NOTED #3 (THREE OF FOUR):

Readers seeking more updates, insights, information, publications and other resources are very welcome to join the author at LinkedIn's Becoming Aware of the Future! At http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2131629&trk=my_groups-b-grp-v

IT MUST BE FINALLY NOTED #4 (FOUR OF FOUR):

The present author owns a never-publicized proprietary method of Intelligence Augmentation and Amplification (IAA) — also called: “... — underpinned the Intelligence Augmentation and Amplification (IAA) — ...” — by natural biological means without resorting to genetics or cochlear implants.

Any student from and/or into:

(I.-) Post-Doctoral Studies,
(II.-) Doctoral Studies,
(III.-) Master's-Degree Studies,
(IV.-) Bachelor's-Degree Studies,
(V.-) AS or AA-Degree Studies,
(VI.-) Schoolchild Studies,
(VII.-) Primary-school Studies,

Can fervently benefit from IAA before the advent of beyond-human-intelligence ubiquitous bots (supra bots and nanobots), populating and ruling the marketplace.

For simplistic illustration purposes, by using IAA it was thoroughly accomplished:

(A.-) Transformative and Integrative Risk Management,
(B.-) The White Swan treatise.

As major and tiny governments and other organizations spend zillions into weapons build-up, access to IAA can be sold by a nice cash-paying figure, only.

My clients are warranted to have a first-sight taste of it.

I greatly agree with the lucid slogan by the American Negro Foundation, “...the mind, a terrible thing to waste ...”

Optimal intellectual functioning is crucial.

Back to the ending White Swan hardcore:

David, given your posited question at the beginning here, I hope my independent POV helps. This is no substitute for your own discernment at all. Please note the bibliographical references below.

WHITE SWAN — UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY

Accident analysis .— “... Accident analysis is carried out, in order to determine the cause or causes of an accident or series of accidents so as to prevent further incidents of a similar kind. It is also known as accident investigation. It may be performed by a range of experts, including forensic scientists, forensic engineers or health and safety advisers. Accident investigators, particularly those in the aircraft industry, are colloquially known as "tin-kickers" …. actual information in the message. Informally, it is the amount of wasted "space" used to transmit certain data …. Data compression is a way to reduce or eliminate unwanted redundancy, while checksums are a way of adding desired redundancy for purposes of error detection when communicating over a noisy channel of limited capacity ...”

A continual improvement process (abbreviated as CIP or CI).— “ ...A continual improvement process, also often called a continuous improvement process (abbreviated as CIP or CI), is an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek "incremental" improvement over time or "breakthrough" improvement all at once. __[....]__ Delivery (customer valued) processes are constantly evaluated and improved in the light of their efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility …. Some see CIPs as a meta-process for most management systems (such as business process management, quality management, project management, and program management). W. Edwards Deming, a pioneer of the field, saw it as part of the 'system' whereby feedback from the process and customer were evaluated against organizational goals. The fact that it can be called a management process does not mean that it needs to be executed by 'management'; but rather merely that it makes decisions about the implementation of the delivery process and the design of the delivery process itself ...”

A CTQ tree (critical-to-quality trees).— “... A CTQ tree (critical-to-quality trees) are the key measurable characteristics of a product or process whose performance standards or specification limits must be met, in order to satisfy the customer. They align improvement or design efforts with customer requirements …. CTQs are used to decompose broad customer requirements into more easily quantified elements. CTQ trees are often used as part of six sigma methodology to help prioritize such requirements …. CTQs represent the product or service characteristics as defined by the customer/user. They may include upper and lower specification limits or any other factors. A CTQ must be an actionable, quantitative business specification …. CTQs reflect the expressed needs of the customer. The CTQ practitioner converts them to measurable terms using tools such as DFMEA. Services and products are typically not monolithic. They must be decomposed into constituent elements (tasks in the cases of services) ...”

Agile management or agile project management.— “ ….Agile management or agile project management is an iterative and incremental method of managing the design and build activities for engineering, information technology, and new product or service development projects in a highly flexible and interactive manner, for example agile software development. It requires capable individuals from the relevant business, with supplier and customer input __[....]__ There are also links to lean techniques, Kanban and Six Sigma. __[....]__ Agile techniques are best used in small-scale projects or on elements of a wider program of work, or on projects that are too complex for the customer to understand and specify before testing prototypes …. Agile techniques may also be called extreme project management. It is a variant of iterative life cycle __[....]__ where deliverables are submitted in stages. The main difference between agile and iterative development is that agile methods complete small portions of the deliverables in each delivery cycle (iteration) while iterative methods evolve the entire set of deliverables over time, completing them near the end of the project. Both iterative and Agile methods were developed as a reaction to various obstacles that developed in more sequential forms of project organization. For example, as technology projects grow in complexity, end users tend to have difficulty defining the long term requirements without being able to view progressive prototypes. Projects that develop in iterations can constantly gather feedback to help refine those requirements. According to Jean-Loup Richet (Research Fellow at ESSEC Institute for Strategic Innovation & Services) "this approach can be leveraged effectively for non-software products and for project management in general, especially in areas of innovation and uncertainty. The end result is a product or project that best meets current customer needs and is delivered with minimal costs, waste, and time, enabling companies to achieve bottom line gains earlier than via traditional approaches …. all three of which must fail before the system fails. Since each one rarely fails, and the sub components are expected to fail independently, the probability of all three failing is calculated to be extraordinarily small; often outweighed by other risk factors, e.g., human error. Redundancy may also be known by the terms "majority voting systems" __[....]__ or "voting logic" …. Redundancy sometimes produce less, instead of more reliability – it creates a more complex system which is more prone to various issues, it may lead to human neglect of duty, and it may lead to higher ...”

A hazard analysis.— “ … A hazard analysis is used as the first step in a process used to assess risk. The result of a hazard analysis is the identification of different type of hazards. A hazard is a potential condition and exists or not (probability is 1 or 0). It may in single existence or in combination with other hazards (sometimes called events) and conditions become an actual Functional Failure or Accident (Mishap). The way this exactly happens in one particular sequence is called a scenario. This scenario has a probability (between 1 and 0) of occurrence. Often a system has many potential failure scenarios. It also is assigned a classification, based on the worst case severity of the end condition. Risk is the combination of probability and severity. Preliminary risk levels can be provided in the hazard analysis. The validation, more precise prediction (verification) and acceptance of risk is determined in the Risk assessment (analysis). The main goal of both is to provide the best selection of means of controlling or eliminating the risk. The term is used in several engineering specialties, including avionics, chemical process safety, safety engineering, reliability engineering and food safety ...”

A life-critical system or safety-critical system.— “...A life-critical system or safety-critical system is a system whose failure or malfunction may result in: death or serious injury to people, or loss or severe damage to equipment or environmental harm ...”

An airborne early warning and control (AEW&C).— “ … An airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system is an airborne radar picket system designed to detect aircraft, ships and vehicles at long ranges and perform control and command of the battle space in an air engagement by directing fighter and attack aircraft strikes. AEW&C units are also used to carry out surveillance, including over ground targets and frequently perform C2BM (command and control, battle management) functions similar to an Airport Traffic Controller given military command over other forces. When used at altitude, the radar on the aircraft allows the operators to detect and track targets and distinguish between friendly and hostile aircraft much farther away than a similar ground based radar. __[....]__ Like a ground based radar, it can be detected by opposing forces, but because of its mobility, it is much less vulnerable to counter-attack …. AEW&C aircraft are used for both defensive and offensive air operations, and are to the NATO and US forces trained or integrated Air Forces what the Command Information Center is to a US Navy warship, plus a highly mobile and powerful radar platform. The system is used offensively to direct fighters to their target locations, and defensively, directing counterattacks on enemy forces, both air and ground. So useful is the advantage of command and control from a high altitude, the United States Navy operates Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye AEW&C aircraft off its Supercarriers to augment and protect its carrier Command Information Centers (CICs). The designation "airborne early warning" (AEW) was used for earlier similar aircraft, __[....]__ such as the Fairey Gannet AEW.3 and Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star, and continues to be used by the RAF for its Sentry AEW1, while AEW&C (airborne early warning and control) emphasizes the command and control capabilities that may not be present on smaller or simpler radar picket aircraft. AWACS (Airborne Warning And Control System) is name of the specific system installed in the E-3 and Japanese E-767 AEW&C airframes ...”

An incident.— “ … An incident is an event that could lead to loss of, or disruption to, an organization's operations, services or functions. __[....]__ If not managed an incident can escalate into an emergency, crisis or a disaster. Incident management is therefore the process of limiting the potential disruption caused by such an event, followed by a return to business as usual …. Without effective incident management an incident can rapidly disrupt business operations, information security, IT systems, employees or customers and other vital business functions …. Usually as part of the wider management process in private organizations, incident management is followed by post-incident analysis where it is determined why the incident happened despite precautions and controls. This analysis is normally overseen by the leaders of the organization, with the view of preventing repetition of the incident through precautionary measures and often changes in policy. This information is then used as feedback to further develop the security policy and/or its practical implementation. In the United States, the National Incident Management System, developed by the Department of Homeland Security, integrates effective practices in emergency management into a comprehensive national framework. This often results in a higher level of contingency planning, exercise and training, as well as an evaluation of the management of the incident ...”

A red team.— “... A red team is an independent group that challenges an organization to improve its effectiveness. The United States intelligence community (military and civilian) has red teams that explore alternative futures and write articles as if they were despotic world leaders. Little formal doctrine or publications about Red Teaming in the military exists …. Private business such as IBM and SAIC and agencies such as the CIA have long used Red Teams. Red Teams in the United States military were used much more frequently after a 2003 Defense Science Review Board recommended them to help prevent the shortcomings that led up to 9/11. The Army then stood up a service-level Red Team, the Army Directed Studies Office, in 2004. This was the first service level Red Team and until 2011 was the largest in the DoD …. Penetration testers assess organization security, often unbeknownst to client staff. This type of Red Team provides a more realistic picture of the security readiness than exercises, role playing or announced assessments. The Red Team may trigger active controls and countermeasures within a given operational environment …. In wargaming, the opposing force (or OPFOR) in a simulated military conflict may be referred to as a red cell (a very narrow form of Red Teaming) and may also engage in red team activity. The key theme is that the aggressor is composed of various threat actors, equipment and techniques that are at least partially unknown by the defenders. The red cell challenges the operations planning by playing the role of a thinking enemy. In United States war-gaming simulations, the U.S. force is always the Blue Team and the opposing force is always the Red Team …. When applied to intelligence work, red-teaming is sometimes called alternative analysis …. When used in a hacking context, a red team is a group of white-hat hackers that attack an organization's digital infrastructure as an attacker would in order to test the organization's defenses (often known as "penetration testing") …. Benefits include challenges to preconceived notions and clarifying the problem state that planners are attempting to mitigate. More-accurate understanding can be developed of how sensitive information is externalized and of exploitable patterns and instances of bias ...”

A strategy game or strategic game.— “...A strategy game or strategic game is a game (e.g. video or board game) in which the players' uncoerced, and often autonomous decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome. Almost all strategy games require internal decision tree style thinking, and typically very high situational awareness …. The term "strategy" comes ultimately from Greek, (????????? or strategia) meaning generalship. __[....]__ It differs from "tactics" in that it refers to the general scheme of things, whereas "tactics" refers to organization and execution...”

Avionic systems.— “...Avionic systems include communications, navigation, the display and management of multiple systems, and the hundreds of systems that are fitted to aircraft to perform individual functions. These can be as simple as a searchlight for a police helicopter or as complicated as the tactical system for an airborne early warning platform …. The term avionics is a portmanteau of the words aviation and electronics ...”

A wargame (also war game).— “ … A wargame (also war game) is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short. When used professionally by the military to study warfare, "war game" may refer to a simple theoretical study or a full-scale military exercise. Hobby wargamers have traditionally used "wargame", while the military has generally used "war game"; this is not a hard and fast rule. Although there may be disagreements as to whether a particular game qualifies as a wargame or not, a general consensus exists that all such games must explore and represent some feature or aspect of human behaviour directly bearing on the conduct of war, even if the game subject itself does not concern organized violent conflict or warfare. __[....]__ The business wargames exists too, but in general they are only role playing games based on market situations …. Wargames are generally categorized as historical, hypothetical, fantasy, or science fiction. Historical games by far form the largest group. These games are based upon real events and attempt to represent a reasonable approximation of the actual forces, terrain, and other material factors faced by the actual participants. Hypothetical games are games grounded in historical fact but concern battles or conflicts that did not (or have yet to) actually happen. Fantasy and science fiction wargames either draw their inspiration from works of fiction or provide their own imaginary setting. Highly stylized conflict games such as chess are not generally considered wargames, although they are recognized as being related __[....]__ Games involving conflict in other arenas than the battlefield, such as business, sports or natural environment are similarly usually excluded …. The modern wargaming hobby has its origins at the beginning of the 19th century, with von Reiswitz's Kriegsspiel rules. Later, H.G. Wells' book Little Wars ushered in the age of miniatures games in which two or more players simulated a battle as a pastime. During the 1950s the first large-scale, mass-produced board games depicting military conflicts were published. These games were at the height of their popularity during the 1970s, and became quite complex and technical in that time …. Wargaming has changed dramatically over the years, from its roots in miniatures and board wargaming, to contemporary computer and computer assisted wargames; however, both miniature and board wargames maintain a healthy, if small, hobby market with lighter games being popular with many 'non-wargamers' ...”

Business process re-engineering.— “ ...Business process re-engineering is a business management strategy, originally pioneered in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and business processes within an organization. BPR aimed to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work, in order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors. __[....]__ In the mid-1990s, as many as 60% of the Fortune 500 companies claimed to either have initiated reengineering efforts, or to have plans to do so …. BPR seeks to help companies radically restructure their organizations by focusing on the ground-up design of their business processes. According to Davenport (1990) a business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome. Re-engineering emphasized a holistic focus on business objectives and how processes related to them, encouraging full-scale recreation of processes rather than iterative optimization of sub-processes …. Business process re-engineering is also known as business process redesign, business transformation, or business process change management … constituent elements (tasks in the cases of services) ...”

Contingency management.— “... Contingency management or systematic use of reinforcement is a type of treatment used in the mental health or substance abuse fields. Patients' behaviors are rewarded (or, less often, punished); generally, adherence to or failure to adhere to program rules and regulations or their treatment plan. As an approach to treatment, contingency management emerged from the behavior therapy and applied behavior analysis traditions in mental health. By most evaluations, contingency management procedures produce one of the largest effect sizes out of all mental health and educational interventions ...”

Enterprise Life Cycle (ELC).- “... Enterprise Life Cycle (ELC) in enterprise architecture is the dynamic, iterative process of changing the enterprise over time by incorporating new business processes, new technology, and new capabilities, as well as maintenance, disposition and disposal of existing elements of the enterprise …. The enterprise life cycle is a concept in Enterprise Architecture (EA). The Enterprise Architecture process is closely related to other processes, such as enterprise engineering and program management cycle, more commonly known as the Systems Development Life Cycle. This concept aids in the implementation of an Enterprise Architecture, and the Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) process that selects, controls, and evaluates investments. Overlying these processes are human capital management and information security management. When these processes work together effectively, the enterprise can effectively manage information technology as a strategic resource and business process enabler. When these processes are properly synchronized, systems migrate efficiently from legacy technology environments through evolutionary and incremental developments, and the Agency is able to demonstrate its return on investment (ROI). The figure on top illustrates the interaction of the dynamic and interactive cycles as they would occur over time ...”

A Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).— “ … A Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is the senior-level executive within an organization responsible for establishing and maintaining the enterprise vision, strategy and program to ensure information assets and technologies are adequately protected. The CISO directs staff in identifying, developing, implementing and maintaining processes across the organization to reduce information and information technology (IT) risks. They respond to incidents, establish appropriate standards and controls, manage security technologies, and direct the establishment and implementation of policies and procedures. The CISO is also usually responsible for information-related compliance …. Typically, the CISO's influence reaches the whole organization. Responsibilities include:

Information security and information assurance
Information regulatory compliance (e.g., US PCI DSS, FISMA, GLBA, HIPAA; UK Data Protection Act 1998; Canada PIPEDA)
Information risk management
Cybersecurity
Information technology controls for financial and other systems
Information privacy
Computer Emergency Response Team / Computer Security Incident Response Team
Identity and access management
Security Architecture
IT investigations, digital forensics, eDiscovery
Disaster recovery and business continuity management
Information Security Operations Center ISOC

Having a CISO or the equivalent function in the organization has become a standard in business, government and non-profit sectors. Throughout the world, a growing number of organizations have a CISO. By 2009, approximately 85% of large organizations had a security executive, up from 56% in 2008, and 43% in 2006. In 2011, in a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers for their Annual Information Security Survey,[1] 80% of businesses had a CISO or equivalent. About one-third of these security chiefs report to a Chief Information Officer (CIO), 35% to Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and 28% to the board of directors …. In corporations, the trend is for CISOs to have a strong balance of business acumen and technology knowledge. CISOs are often in high demand and compensation is comparable to other C-level positions ...”

END OF A Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).

Altogetherness.— “... Altogetherness is the quality of conforming to the ability to investigate with all or everything included ...”

A Posteriori.— “ … A Posteriori indicates the demonstration that entails the ascendance of the effect to the cause, or the properties of the essence of something [….] After examining the matter that is dealt with [….] Derived by or designating the process of reasoning from facts or particulars to general principles or from effects to causes; inductive; empirical [….] Knowable from experience [….] relating to or involving inductive reasoning from particular facts or effects to a general principle [….] derived from or requiring evidence for its validation or support; empirical; open to revision [….] from particular instances to a general principle or law; based on observation or experiment [….] not existing in the mind prior to or apart from experience [….] the process of reasoning from effect to cause, based upon observation [….] A synonym of A Posteriori is the term ex post facto ...”

A Priori.— “ … A Priori comprises that proceeds from a known or assumed cause to a necessarily related effect; deductive [….] Derived by or designating the process of reasoning without reference to particular facts or experience [….] Knowable without appeal to particular experience [….] Made before or without examination; not supported by factual study [….] relating to or involving deductive reasoning from a general principle to the expected facts or effects [….] to be true independently of or in advance of experience of the subject matter; requiring no evidence for its validation or support [….] existing in the mind independent of experience [….] conceived beforehand [….] A synonym of A Priori is given by the term Ex Ante ...”

Blitzkrieg.— “ ... Blitzkrieg is a German MEME for war-waging White Swan Corporate Strategy conducted against competitors and with great speed and force; specifically: a violent techno-surprise offensive by massed brick-and-mortar forces and through digitized ground and World-Wide Web forces in close beyond-perfection coordination ...”

Change .— “... Change is to transfer from (one conveyance) to another and/or to undergo transformation or transition and/or to go from one phase to another and/or the act, process, or result of altering or modifying and/or the replacing of one thing for another; substitution and/or a transformation or transition from one state, condition, or phase to another and/or to make or become different and/or a variation, deviation, or modification and/or anything that is or may be substituted for something else and/or to transform and/or to transfer from one (conveyance) to another and/or to pass gradually into and/or to pass from one phase to another and/or the act of changing or the result of being changed and/or a transformation or modification and/or the substitution of one thing for another and/or the process of becoming different and/or impermanence and/or biological metamorphosis ...”

Closenessfulness.— (Closenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to see immediate and near-term foreseeable futures and likely prospects).

Complexity Science .— “ … Complexity Science is the systematic study of the nature and behavior of the material and physical universe, based on observation, experiment, and measurement, and the formulation of laws to describe these facts in general terms, with the utter purpose of instituting the perusal of the phenomena which emerge from a collection of interacting objects [….] Complexity expresses a condition of numerous elements in a system and numerous forms of relationships among the elements [….] The use of the term complex is often confused with the term complicated. In today's systems, this is the difference between myriad connecting 'stovepipes' and effective 'integrated' solutions. This means that complex is the opposite of independent, while complicated is the opposite of simple [….] While this has led some fields to come up with specific definitions of complexity, there is a more recent movement to regroup observations from different fields to study complexity in itself, whether it appears in anthills, human brains, or stock markets. One such interdisciplinary group of fields is relational order theories ...”

Counter-closenessfulness.— (Counter-closenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to see alternate immediate and near-term foreseeable futures and likely prospects).

Counter-DoctorStangelovesness.— (Counter-DoctorStangelovesness is the quality of conforming to the ability to investigate, through alternate military strategy and practical systems theory as they are instituted in corporate theater of operations, as claims of management phenomena with potential corporate for-lucre application, such as 'remote viewing' through scenario-planning methodology 'unthinkables', the purported ability to physically 'see' unknown events, sites, or information from a great temporal distance, including those of the environment, industries and specially those of direct and indirect competitors to said corporations. Taken by Applied Thinkers and Savvy Corporation by and beyond the prescription of the RAND Corporation and the Hudson Institute).

Counter-farsightfulness.— (Counter-farsightfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to see alternate foreseeable futures and likely prospects).

Counter-foresightfulness.— (Counter-foresightfulness is the quality of conforming to the alternate perception of the significance and nature of events before they have occurred).

Counter-hindsightfulness.— (Counter-hindsightfulness is the quality of conforming to an alternate perception of the significance and nature of events after they have occurred).

Counter-insightfulness.— (Counter-insightfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to engage the alternate acute observation and deduction, penetration, discernment, perception and understanding of a specific cause and effect in a specific context).

Counter-intuitvenessfulness.— (Counter-intuitvenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to perceiving alternate intuitive knowledge).

Counter-Stargatenessfulness.— (Counter-Stargatenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to investigate alternate claims of psychic phenomena with potential corporate for-lucre application, such as 'remote viewing', the purported ability to psychically 'see' events, sites, or information from a great distance, including those of the environment, industries and specially those of direct and indirect competitors. Taken by Applied Thinkers and Visionary Corporation by the U.S. Federal Government' and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency's Stargate Project).

Critical Mass.— : “ … Critical Mass refers to an amount or level needed that IS SUFFICIENT for a specific result or new action to occur ...”

DoctorStangelovesness.— (DoctorStangelovesness is the quality of conforming to the ability to investigate, through military strategy and practical systems theory as they are instituted in corporate theater of operations, as claims of management phenomena with potential corporate for-lucre application, such as 'remote viewing' through scenario-planning methodology 'unthinkables', the purported ability to physically 'see' unknown events, sites, or information from a great temporal distance, including those of the environment, industries and specially those of direct and indirect competitors to said corporations. Taken by Applied Thinkers and Savvy Corporation by and beyond the prescription of the RAND Corporation and the Hudson Institute).

Dynamic Driving Forces .— "...Dynamic Driving Forces are forces outside the firm (external factors) that trigger the change of strategy in an organization. Industry conditions change because important forces (the most dominant ones that have the biggest influence on what kinds of changes will take place in the industry’s structure and competitive environment) are driving industry participants (competitors, customers, or suppliers) to alter their actions, and thus the driving forces in an industry are the major underlying causes of changing industry and competitive conditions. Driving forces analysis has two steps: identifying what the driving forces are and assessing the impact they will have on the industry __[....]__ The Most Common Dynamic Driving Forces include: 1. The Internet and new e-commerce opportunities and threats it breeds in the industry; 2. Increasing globalization of the industry; 3. Changes in the long-run industry growth rate; 4. Changes in who buys the products and how they use it. 5. Product innovation; 6. Technological change; 7. Market innovation; 8. Entry or exit of major firms; 9. Diffusion of technical know-how across more companies and more countries; 10. Changes in cost and efficiency. 11. Growing buyer for preferences for differentiated products instead of a commodity product (or for a more standardized product instead of strongly differentiated products); 12. Regulatory influences and government policy changes; 13. Changing societal concerns, attitudes, and lifestyles; 14. Reductions in uncertainty and business risk ... Other dynamic driving forces include geologic, climatological, political, geopolitical, demographic, social, ethical, economic, technological, financial, legal and environmental forces, among others …"

Dynamics.— “...Dynamics is a branch of mechanics that deals with forces and their relation primarily to the motion but sometimes also to the equilibrium of bodies …. an underlying cause of change or growth …. a pattern or process of change, growth, or activity *population dynamics* ...”

Enterprise risk management (ERM). — “ … Enterprise risk management (ERM) in business includes the methods and processes used by organizations to manage risks and seize opportunities related to the achievement of their objectives. ERM provides a framework for risk management, which typically involves identifying particular events or circumstances relevant to the organization's objectives (risks and opportunities), assessing them in terms of likelihood and magnitude of impact, determining a response strategy, and monitoring progress. By identifying and proactively addressing risks and opportunities, business enterprises protect and create value for their stakeholders, including owners, employees, customers, regulators, and society overall. (ERM) …. ERM can also be described as a risk-based approach to managing an enterprise, integrating concepts of internal control, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, and strategic planning. ERM is evolving to address the needs of various stakeholders, who want to understand the broad spectrum of risks facing complex organizations to ensure they are appropriately managed. Regulators and debt rating agencies have increased their scrutiny on the risk management processes of companies ...”

Extreme project management (XPM).— “ … Extreme project management (XPM) refers to a method of managing very complex and very uncertain projects …. Extreme project management differs from traditional project management mainly in its open, elastic and undeterministic approach. The main focus of XPM is on the human side of project management (e.g. managing project stakeholders), rather than on intricate scheduling techniques and heavy formalism …. Extreme project management corresponds to extreme programming …. Advanced approaches to extreme project management utilize the principles of human interaction management to deal with the complexities of human collaboration ...”

Far-fetched.— “ … Far-fetched is improbable in nature; unlikely. But given the emergent as-of-now nature of the Omniverse, far-fetched is omniverseral nature's most probable and so probable to tectonically reform our cosmovisions, in front and beyond our smartest observations, and other constellations believed indisputable by our folly human assumptions ...”

Farsightfulness.— (Farsightfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to see the foreseeable futures and likely prospects).

Flawness.— (Flawness is the quality of conforming to maximum error and failure).

Foresightfulness.— (Foresightfulness is the quality of conforming to perception of the significance and nature of events before they have occurred).

Fortuitousness.— (Unexpected and casually happening[s], as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Futilitifulness Thinking.— (Futilitifulness is the quality of conforming to maximum futility).

Future (the ,) .— “ … The Future is 1) What is yet to come, 2) What can happen or not, 3) The future is a tranquil country, 4) The indefinite time yet to come, 5) Something that will happen in time to come, 6) A prospective or expected condition, 7) Undetermined events that will occur in that time, 8) time that is to be or come hereafter, 9) Something that will exist or happen in time to come, 9) The period of time following the present moment and continuing on indefinitely, 10) The situation or condition of someone or something in the future, 11) One of a plurality of possible future conditions or situations, 12) The time or a period of time following the moment of speaking or writing; time regarded as still to come, 13) The future is what will happen in the time period after the present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the inevitability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist can be categorized as either permanent, meaning that it will exist for the whole of the future, or temporary, meaning that it won't and thus will come to an end. The future and the concept of eternity have been major subjects of philosophy, religion, and science, and defining them non-controversially has consistently eluded the greatest of minds. In the Occidental view, which uses a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the projected time line that is anticipated to occur. In special relativity, the future is considered absolute future, or the future light cone. 14) The only way you can see the future is if you're ahead of your own time, 15) Learning how to be ahead of your time, today!, 16) The future is that the future is something that happens to us, not something we create, 17) Our future is determined by the actions of all of us alive today. our choices determine our destiny, 18) The future is a phenomenon that will be completely real someday even though it does not exist today, 19) Future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition, 20) Our intuition about the future is linear, which is hard-wired in our brains, 21) The future is being colonized all the time by people who have the resources, who do spend time thinking about it, planning for it and trying to shape it in their direction, 22) The future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed, 23) the future is called ‘perhaps,’ which is the only possible thing to call the future. and the important thing is not to allow that to scare you, 24) The future is unsure. that’s the way it should be, 25) The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power, 26) The future is the past of to-morrow, 27) The best way to predict the future is to invent it, 28) To be masters of the future is to change the past, 29) The future is extremely important to high morale, to dynamism, to consensus, and in general to help the wheels of society turn smoothly, 30) The past is gone, the future is not to come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, 31) The future is not for the fainthearted, 32) The future is not an echo of the past, 33) The future is not a privilege but a perpetual conquest, 34) The future is not what will happen; the future is what is happening, 35) The future is more challenging than playing catch up, 36) The future is not an extrapolation of the past, 37) The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create, 38) The future is an unknown country which requires tough visas for anyone to enter. not all of us will get the chance to visit it, 39) The future is not what is coming at us, but what we are headed for, 40) The future is where I expect to spend the rest of my life, 41) The danger of the future is that men may become robots, 42) The future is the creation of millions of independent economic actors, 43) The future is independent of the past, 44) The future is alive. Like the present, the future is not a single, uniform state but an ongoing process that reflects the plenitude of human life, 45) The future is natural, out of anyone’s control, 46) The future is continually stalking on the present, 47) The future is technocracy in perpetuity, 48) The future is eternally clashing the present, 49) The future is absolute hard science dominance, 50) The future is going to get invented, with you or without you, 51) The future is S-H-A-Z-A-M (“...The wisdom of Solomon, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury....” and 52) The future is not something that happens to us, but something we create.

Fuzzy Logic.— (A form of algebra employing a range of values from "true" to "false" that is used in decision-making with imprecise data, as in artificial intelligence systems, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Haphazardness.— (the quality of lacking any predictable order or plan, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Hindsightfulness.— (Hindsightfulness is the quality of conforming to perception of the significance and nature of events after they have occurred).

Inflection point .— “...Inflection point is a moment of dramatic change, especially in the development of a company, industry, or market ... And/or a time of significant change in a situation; a turning point … A moment of dramatic change, especially in the development of a company, industry, or market … A point on a chart that marks the beginning of a significant move, either up or down … An event that results in a significant change in the progress of a company, industry, sector, economy or geopolitical situation. An inflection point can be considered a turning point after which a dramatic change, with either positive or negative results, is expected to result. Companies, industries, sectors and economies are dynamic and constantly evolving. Inflection points are more significant than the small day-to-day progress that is made and the effects of the change are often well-known and widespread … Andy Grove, Intel's co-founder, described a strategic inflection point as '...an event that changes the way we think and act …' … What Intel's Grove calls '...strategic inflection point …, Andres terms « ... Sputnik Moment inflection point … » ... Inflection points can be a result of action taken by a company, or through actions taken by another entity, that has a direct impact on the company. Regulatory changes, for instance, could lead to an inflection point for a corporation that was previously held back by regulatory compliance issues. Inflection points in technology include the advent of the Internet and smart phones. Politically, an inflection point can be illustrated by the fall of the Berlin Wall or the fall of Communism in Poland and other Eastern Bloc countries ...”

Innovist.— “ … INNOVIST is someone that moves or alters something nonlinearly, adding new features and properties and capabilities and that nonlinearly brings about a new idea, device, or method and that engages in the act or process of nonlinearly introducing new ideas, devices, or methods and begins or introduces something new breakthrough for or as if for the first time, as a ground-breaker. One that geometrically innovates on and through and beyond another's creation and innovates a computer operating system __[....]__ and innovates and brings something breathtakingly new to an environment __[....]__ initiates, pioneers — takes the lead or initiative in; participate in the development of __[....]__ pioneers, opens up an exoplanetary area or prepare a way __[....]__ Innovatising comprises finding a new way of doing something __[....]__ Innovation can be viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, in—articulated needs, or existing market needs __[....]__ This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily not quite available to corporations, organizations, markets, governments and society. The term INNOVISTING can be defined as something never thought of and, as a consequence, new, that rampantly "breaks into" the market or society … '… An INNOVISTING is something original, new, and important in whatever exponential-technology field that breaks into a market or society, redefining the totality of civilization...' __[....]__ One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas by the simpletons …. a person who attacks cherished beliefs or traditional institutions as being based on error or superstition, falsehoods or fallacies or past-driven notions __[....]__ An INNOVIST is To produce or contrive (something previously unknown without precedence) by the use of pervasive ingenuity or staggering imagination __[....]__ to produce or create with the imagination __[....]__ to originate as a product of one's own ingenuity, experimentation __[....]__ An INNOVIST creates, makes, produces, develops, designs, discovers, imagines, manufactures, generates, devises, conceives, originates, formulates, spawns, contrives, improvises, dreams up, daydreams up, concocts, thinks up __[....]__ An INNOVIST is To cause to exist; bring into being something beyond this world, literally __[....]__ To give rise to; out-produce __[....]__ To out-produce through artistic or out-imaginative effort __[....]__ to out-do something creative __[....]__ to out-make or out-cause to be or to become __[....]__ to out-generate and out-regenerate and to overhaul and to re-engineer and to creatively-disrupt something by several orders of magnitude __[....]__ An INNOVIST is the outright practical and pragmatic archetype into absolute: Concurrent Coordinated Convergent Systems Thinking (CCCST) — underpinned the Intelligence Augmentation and Amplification (IAA) — ...” .— Ich bin ein Innovist! — (I am an Innovist!)

IT management.— IT management is the discipline whereby all of the information technology resources of a firm are managed in accordance with its needs and priorities. These resources may include tangible investments like computer hardware, software, data, networks and data center facilities, as well as the staff who are hired to maintain them …. Managing this responsibility within a company entails many of the basic management functions, like budgeting, staffing, change management, and organizing and controlling, along with other aspects that are unique to technology, like software design, network planning, tech support etc. …. The central aim of IT management is to generate value through the use of technology. To achieve this, business strategies and technology must be aligned …. IT Management is different from management information systems. The latter refers to management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making. IT Management refers to IT related management activities in organizations. MIS is focused mainly on the business aspect, with strong input into the technology phase of the business/organization …. A primary focus of IT management is the value creation made possible by technology. This requires the alignment of technology and business strategies. While the value creation for an organization involves a network of relationships between internal and external environments, technology plays an important role in improving the overall value chain of an organization. However, this increase requires business and technology management to work as a creative, synergistic, and collaborative team instead of a purely mechanistic span of control …. Historically, one set of resources was dedicated to one particular computing technology, business application or line of business, and managed in a silo-like fashion. These resources supported a single set of requirements and processes, and couldn’t easily be optimized or reconfigured to support actual demand. This led technology providers to build out and complement their product-centric infrastructure and management offerings with Converged Infrastructure environments that converge servers, storage, networking, security, management and facilities. The efficiencies of having this type of integrated and automated management environment allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with simpler manageability and maintenance, and enables IT to adjust IT resources (such as servers, storage and networking) quicker to meet unpredictable business demand ...”

Insightfulness.— (Insightfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to engage the acute observation and deduction, penetration, discernment, perception and understanding of a specific cause and effect in a specific context).

Intuitvenessfulness.— (Intuitvenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to perceiving intuitive knowledge).

ISO 31000.— “ … ISO 31000 is a family of standards relating to risk management codified by the International Organization for Standardization. The purpose of ISO 31000:2009 is to provide principles and generic guidelines on risk management. ISO 31000 seeks to provide a universally recognized paradigm for practitioners and companies employing risk management processes to replace the myriad of existing standards, methodologies and paradigms that differed between industries, subject matters and regions …. Currently, the ISO 31000 family is expected to include:

ISO 31000:2009 - Principles and Guidelines on Implementation
ISO/IEC 31010:2009 - Risk Management - Risk Assessment Techniques
ISO Guide 73:2009 - Risk Management - Vocabulary

ISO also designed its ISO 21500 Guidance on Project Management standard to align with ISO 31000:2009 ...”

END OF ISO 31000.

Litmus Test.— “... Litmus Test is a critical indication of future success or failure ...”

Minimax.— “... Minimax is a decision rule used in decision theory, game theory, statistics and philosophy for minimizing the possible loss for a worst case (maximum loss) scenario. Alternatively, it can be thought of as maximizing the minimum gain (maximin or MaxMin). Originally formulated for two-player zero-sum game theory, covering both the cases where players take alternate moves and those where they make simultaneous moves, it has also been extended to more complex games and to general decision making in the presence of uncertainty …. In the theory of simultaneous games, a minimax strategy is a mixed strategy which is part of the solution to a zero-sum game. In zero-sum games, the minimax solution is the same as the Nash equilibrium ...”

Mishaps.— (an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Mistakenness .— (Mistakenness is the quality of conforming to maximum mistake and an unintentional act, omission).

Narrow-mindedness.— (Narrow-mindedness is the quality of conforming to unresponsive to new ideas).

Normalness.— (Normalness is the quality of conforming to maximum normal quality or normal condition).

Omniscience .— “... Applied non-theological omniscience consists of having total knowledge; knowing everything, having infinite knowledge, the current state of knowledge, the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known and actually knowing everything that can be known. Synonyms to omniscience include panshopy, polyhistory and all-knowingness ...”

Open-mindedness.— (Open-mindedness is the quality of conforming to receptiveness to new ideas).

Optimal.— “...Optimal is the most favorable point, degree, or amount of something for obtaining a given result. The best result obtainable under specific conditions ...”

Prospective.— “ … Prospective comprises something that is likely or expected to happen [….] that looks forward to the future [….] that it is anticipated or likely to happen [….] of or in the future [….] potential, likely, or expected [….] yet to be or coming [….] of or concerned with or related to the future Set of analyzes and studies developed, with the utter end of exploring or foretelling the future, regarding a determined subject matter ...”.

Pseudo-fortuitousness.— (quasi-unexpected and quasi-casually happening[s], as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Pseudo-Fuzzy Logic.— (A form of algebra employing a range of values from quasi-"true" to quasi-"false" that is used in decision-making with quasi-imprecise data, as in artificial intelligence systems, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Pseudo-Haphazardness.— (the quality of quasi-lacking any predictable order or plan, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Pseudo-Mishaps.— (a quasi-unknown and quasi-unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Pseudoserendipity.— Pseudoserendipity means PURPOSEFULLY CREATING the constant preconditions and conditions to seize "fortuitous happenstance" and/or "pleasant surprise" and/or “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”. And also entails unexpected positive and beneficial accident(s) [….] the art of finding something unintended [….] the common experience of observing unexpected, anomalous and strategic data and events, which are transformed into the instance and context to develop a new theory or to complement an existing theory [….] And the faculty of making fortunate Technological Breakthroughs and Scientific Discoveries And Innovation Developments by accident, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles and tangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits and planes [….] Somewhat Expected Accidental Beneficial Discoveries in Science, Technology, Strategy, Business and Management ...”

Pseudo-Randomness.— (Pseudo-Randomness means quasi-lacking of pattern or quasi-predictability in events. Pseudo-Randomness suggests a quasi-non-order or quasi-non-coherence in a sequence of symbols or steps, such that there is no intelligible pattern or combination, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Pseudo-recusriveness.— (quasi-pertaining to or using a rule or procedure that can be applied repeatedly, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Qualitative Analysis.— “...Qualitative Analysis refers to the skills, technologies, applications and practices for continuous iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business, risk and futures planning. Qualitative Analysis focuses on developing new insights and understanding of sustainable business performance based on narrative data ...”

Qualt.— “...A qualt is brand of systems engineering who applies mathematical and ESPECIALLY non-mathematical models of uncertainty to financial and ESPECIALLY non-financial data and complex industrial operations. And a person who also studies the errors, the flaws and the limits of these qualitative models, understanding that there is a point of (i) inflection and (ii) Event horizon, in anything pursued by the for-lucre corporations …. A qualt has a combined background of advanced management, extreme project management (Agile) and systems engineering. A qualt spreads the usage of most-advanced business analytics and transformative and integrative risk management …. Whether he or she acknowledges it or not, the qualt is extremely AWARE of the many critical short-comings of many quantitative strategies and works hard at it advance to eliminate every form of downside through qualitative strategies …. For instance, qualts know that “...systemic risks ...” are direct brainchildren of (a) Ignorance, (b) Manipulation, (c) Greed and (d) Corruption [….] Systems engineering, hugely embraced by Qualts, is an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design and manage complex engineering projects over their life cycles. Issues such as reliability, logistics, coordination of different teams (requirements management), evaluation measurements, and other disciplines become more difficult when dealing with large or complex projects. Systems engineering deals with work-processes, optimization methods, and risk management tools in such projects. It overlaps technical and human-centered disciplines such as control engineering, industrial engineering, organizational studies, and project management. Systems Engineering ensures that all likely aspects of a project or system are considered, and integrated into a whole. White Swans are the brainchildren of Qualts ...”

Quantitative Analysis.— “ … Quantitative Analysis refers to the skills, technologies, applications and practices for continuous iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business, risk and futures planning. Quantitative Analysis focuses on developing new insights and understanding of sustainable business performance based on numerical data, narrative data, alphanumerical data and statistical methods ...”

Quant.— “ … A quant is brand of industrial scientist and engineers who applies mathematical model of uncertainty to financial and/or socioeconomic data and complex financial instruments. And a person who also studies the flaws and the limits of these models, understanding that there is a point of breakdown …. A quant has a combined background of applied mathematics, engineering and statistics. A quant spreads the usage of artificial intelligence in today’s markets …. Whether he or she acknowledges it or not, the quant is extremely AWARE of the many critical short-comings of many quantitative strategies (as he is never interested in qualitative analytics), such as their tendency to lead to crowded trades and their underestimation of the likelihood of chaotic, volatile moves in the markets …. Along with Central Bank chairpersons and world's finance ministers, quants are the first ones to “...elicit...” that the global economy is being “ ...affected...” by “ ...systemic risks...”, that systemic risk turbo-charged by several corrupted politicians, manipulative economists and beautiful quants that never understand what the tangible corporate theater of operations is [….] Industrial engineering, partly used by so-called Quants, is a branch of engineering dealing with the optimization of complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, materials, analysis and synthesis, as well as the mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering design to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems or processes. Its underlying concepts overlap considerably with certain business-oriented disciplines such as operations management. Black Swans are the brainchildren of quants ...”

Randomness.— (Randomness means lack of pattern or predictability in events. Randomness suggests a non-order or non-coherence in a sequence of symbols or steps, such that there is no intelligible pattern or combination, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Recursiveness.— (pertaining to or using a rule or procedure that can be applied repeatedly, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits.

Retrospective.— “ … Retrospective comprises something that is looking back on, contemplating, or directed to the past [….] looking or directed backward [….] Applying to or influencing the past; retroactive [….] looking or directed backwards, esp in time; characterized by retrospection …. applying to the past; retroactive [….] directed to the past; contemplative of past situations, events, etc. [….] looking or directed backward [….] review, revision, another look, reassessment, fresh look, second look, reconsideration, re-evaluation, re-examination [….] Considering a past event or development [….] Something that is chronologically presented pertaining to business tasks, with the utter object to show the trajectory of said business tasks ...”

Risk .— “... The quantitative or qualitative expression of possible loss that considers both the probability that an event will occur and the consequences of that event … and/or the likeliness of injury, harm, damage, disruption or loss multiplied by its potential magnitude ...”

Scenarist. — “ … A Scenarist is corporate for-lucre techno-war-wager in the four-dimensional coordinate system and beyond it, in which organization's physical (tangible) and non-physical (intangible) events are located …. A Scenarist is into Nonlinear Scenario planning, not limited for the 3-scenario output and/or rendition, also called scenario thinking or scenario analysis, is a strategic planning method that some organizations use to make flexible long-term plans. A Scenarist is in large part utilizable an adaptation and generalization of classic methods used by military intelligence …. The original method, pertaining to A Scenarist, was that a group of analysts would generate simulation games for policy makers. The games combine known and unknown facts about the future, such as technological and scientific knowledge base, demographics, geography, military, political, industrial information, and mineral reserves, with key driving forces identified by considering social, technical, economic, environmental, and political (STEEP) trends …. In scientific business applications, the emphasis on gaming the behavior of opponents was reduced (shifting more toward a game against nature). At Royal Dutch/Shell for example, scenarist’s scenario planning was viewed as changing mindsets about the exogenous part of the world, prior to formulating specific strategies …. scenarist’s scenario planning may involve aspects of radiant systems thinking irradiantly, specifically the recognition that many factors may combine in complex ways to create sometime surprising dynamic futures (due to non-linear feedback loops). The geometrical method also allows the inclusion of factors that are difficult to formalize, such as novel insights about the future, deep shifts in values, unprecedented regulations or inventions. Most-advanced systems thinking used in conjunction with scenario planning leads to plausible scenario story lines because the causal relationship between factors can be demonstrated. In these cases when scenario planning is integrated with a systems thinking approach to scenario development, it is sometimes referred to as dynamic scenarios …. A Scenarist is into the Art, Science and Practice of directing military operations .... Art of tracing a route to address an issue …. A Scenarist is one who is engaged in or experienced in corporate for-lucre battles …. A Scenarist is one who is engaged aggressively or energetically in an activity, cause, or conflict or struggle to reposition his or her corporation in the world's marketplace arena …. A Scenarist is one who is skilled in the planning and execution of military tactics …. A Scenarist is A farfetched outmaneuverer who always prevails …. A Scenarist is the outright practical and pragmatic archetype into absolute: Concurrent Coordinated Convergent Systems Thinking (CCCST) — underpinned the Intelligence Augmentation and Amplification (IAA) — …. Ich bin ein Scenarist! — (I am an Scenarist!) ...”

Serendipity.— Serendipity means a "fortuitous happenstance" and/or "pleasant surprise" and/or “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”. And also entails unexpected positive and beneficial accident(s) [….] And the art of finding something unintended [….] the common experience of observing unexpected, anomalous and strategic data and events, which are transformed into the instance and context to develop a new theory or to complement an existing theory [….] And the faculty of making fortunate Technological Breakthroughs and Scientific Discoveries And Innovation Developments by accident, as a result of corporate manager's perpetual MOST-RECURSIVE search for lucrative intangibles and tangibles in omniverseral: (a) hidden quadrants and (b) ignored flanks and (c) forgotten angles, and (d) recondite spheres and (e) hermetic theater of operations and (e) unrealized orbits and planes [….] Unexpected Accidental Beneficial Discoveries in Science, Technology, Strategy, Business and Management ...”

Scientific Futuring.— “...Scientific Futuring is in place to develop a scientific method for studying the future. Scientific Futuring comprises: 1) an inductive process consisting of a number of accurate observations which have been consolidated, or generalized, into empirical laws or statements of underlying relationships between key variables and 2) A deductive, intuitive process by which the scientific “investigator” places his observations into a larger system of thought, or theory based on fundamental axioms. Scientific Futuring is instituted with the purpose of seizing knowledge of effects through causes. This method of Scientific Futuring, made up of a process employing the classical scientific steps of induction and deduction, and reinforced by additional steps of contextualization and evolutionization, is a battle-plan for study of tomorrow’s evolving world...”

Simpleton.— “ … A person who is felt to be deficient in judgment, good sense, or intelligence; a fool. a foolish or ignorant person ...”

Stargatenessfulness.— (Stargatenessfulness is the quality of conforming to the ability to investigate claims of psychic phenomena with potential corporate for-lucre application, such as 'remote viewing', the purported ability to psychically 'see' events, sites, or information from a great distance, including those of the environment, industries and specially those of direct and indirect competitors. Taken by Applied Thinkers and Visionary Corporation by the U.S. Federal Government' and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency's Stargate Project).

Sub-Critical Mass.— : “ … Sub-Critical Mass refers to an amount or level NOT SUFFICIENT for a specific result or new action to occur ...”

Sub-Optimal.— “...Sub-Optimal is the least favorable point, degree, or amount of something for obtaining a given result. The worst result obtainable under specific conditions ...”

System .— “...System comprises the whole compounded of several parts, members elements, components and subsystems, a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole, an organized set of interrelated ideas or principles, a naturally occurring group of objects or phenomena, a condition of harmonious and orderly interaction, and an organized and coordinated method; a procedure. System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole or a set of elements (often called 'components') and dynamic relationships which are different from relationships of the set or its elements to other elements or sets. Systems unite and put together elements, components and subsystems toward the entire whole..."

Technology.— “... Technology is instituted in order to solve practical problems (both mild and complex ones) ? especially in industry, commerce, economy, science, technology, society, and politics (including geopolitics) ?, the methodical practical application of the scientific method, mathematical principles, practical sciences and material used to achieve a commercial or industrial objective and beyond, as well as to achieve practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems …. The profession of and/or the work performed by any engineer ...” If you want a briefer definition, please see this: " ... the methodical and systematic application of science, in order to solve practical problems …"

Theater of Operations.— “... Theater of Operation is hereby included to mean the four-dimensional coordinate system and beyond it, in which organization's physical (tangible) and non-physical (intangible) events are located ...”

The Eureka Moment.— “ … The Eureka Moment, also known as the '...Aha! Moment ...', refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept. The Eureka effect is named after the myth that the Greek polymath Archimedes, having discovered how to measure the volume of an irregular object, leaped out of a public bath, and ran home naked shouting 'eureka' (I found it) ...”

The Sputnik Moment.— “ … The Sputnik Moment is a point in time in which a country or a society or even a corporation, realizes that it needs to catch up with the apparent technological and scientific gap that exists between it and some other superpower and/or global competitors, increasing its investment efforts into education and innovative R&D&I ...”

Transformative and Integrative Risk Management.— “...Transformative and Integrative Risk Management comprises of all activities and initiatives required to seize the optimum degree of risk elimination, mitigation, modulation, isolation, or control within the constraints of operational effectiveness, time, and cost, attained through the specific application of management, scientific, engineering and mathematical principles throughout all phases of system operation."

Transformative and Integrative Risk Management.— "Transformative and Integrative Risk Management comprises of all activities and initiatives required to seize the optimum degree of risk elimination, mitigation, modulation, isolation, or control within the constraints of operational effectiveness, time, and cost, attained through the specific application of management, scientific, engineering and mathematical principles throughout all phases of system operation."

Troublesomeness.— Troublesomeness is the quality of conforming to the ability to cause trouble, annoyance, or difficulty; vexation.

Un-reconnoiterable Cues.— (Un-reconnoiterable cues refers to un-explorable cues).

Wild-Card Event.— “ … A wild card is a future development or event with a relatively low probability of occurrence but a likely high impact on the conduct of business ...”

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA).— "...Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) was one of the first systematic techniques for failure analysis. It was developed by reliability engineers in the 1950s to study problems that might arise from malfunctions of military systems. An FMEA is often the first step of a system reliability study. It involves reviewing as many components, assemblies, and subsystems as possible to identify failure modes, and their causes and effects. For each component, the failure modes and their resulting effects on the rest of the system are recorded in a specific FMEA worksheet. There are numerous variations of such worksheets. An FMEA is mainly a qualitative analysis __[....]__ A few different types of FMEA analysis exist, like Functional, Design, and Process FMEA __[....]__ Sometimes FMEA is extended to FMECA to indicate that criticality analysis is performed too __[....]__ FMEA is an inductive reasoning (forward logic) single point of failure analysis and is a core task in reliability engineering, safety engineering and quality engineering. Quality engineering is specially concerned with the "Process" (Manufacturing and Assembly) type of FMEA __[....]__ A successful FMEA activity helps to identify potential failure modes based on experience with similar products and processes - or based on common physics of failure logic. It is widely used in development and manufacturing industries in various phases of the product life cycle. Effects analysis refers to studying the consequences of those failures on different system levels __[....]__ Functional analyzes are needed as an input to determine correct failure modes, at all system levels, both for functional FMEA or Piece-Part (hardware) FMEA. An FMEA is used to structure Mitigation for Risk reduction based on either failure (mode) effect severity reduction or based on lowering the probability of failure or both. The FMEA is in principle a full inductive (forward logic) analysis, however the failure probability can only be estimated or reduced by understanding the failure mechanism. Ideally this probability shall be lowered to "impossible to occur" by eliminating the (root) causes. It is therefore important to include in the FMEA an appropriate depth of information on the causes of failure (deductive analysis) …"

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA).— “ … Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) was one of the first systematic techniques for failure analysis. It was developed by reliability engineers in the 1950s to study problems that might arise from malfunctions of military systems. An FMEA is often the first step of a system reliability study. It involves reviewing as many components, assemblies, and subsystems as possible to identify failure modes, and their causes and effects. For each component, the failure modes and their resulting effects on the rest of the system are recorded in a specific FMEA worksheet. There are numerous variations of such worksheets. An FMEA is mainly a qualitative analysis ...”

Fault tree analysis (FTA).— “ … Fault tree analysis (FTA) is a top down, deductive failure analysis in which an undesired state of a system is analyzed using Boolean logic to combine a series of lower-level events. This analysis method is mainly used in the fields of safety engineering and reliability engineering to understand how systems can fail, to identify the best ways to reduce risk or to determine (or get a feeling for) event rates of a safety accident or a particular system level (functional) failure. FTA is used in the aerospace, nuclear power, chemical and process, __[....]__ pharmaceutical, petrochemical and other high-hazard industries; but is also used in fields as diverse as risk factor identification relating to social service system failure …. In aerospace, the more general term "system Failure Condition" is used for the "undesired state" / Top event of the fault tree. These conditions are classified by the severity of their effects. The most severe conditions require the most extensive fault tree analysis. These "system Failure Conditions" and their classification are often previously determined in the functional Hazard analysis ...”
Forensic engineering.—. “ … Forensic engineering is the investigation of materials, products, structures or components that fail or do not operate or function as intended, causing personal injury or damage to property. The consequences of failure are dealt with by the law of product liability. The field also deals with retracing processes and procedures leading to accidents in operation of vehicles or machinery. The subject is applied most commonly in civil law cases, although it may be of use in criminal law cases. Generally, the purpose of a forensic engineering investigation is to locate cause or causes of failure with a view to improve performance or life of a component, or to assist a court in determining the facts of an accident. It can also involve investigation of intellectual property claims, especially patents ...”

In engineering, redundancy.— “... In engineering, redundancy is the duplication of critical components or functions of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the system, usually in the form of a backup or fail-safe. In many safety-critical systems, such as fly-by-wire and hydraulic systems in aircraft, some parts of the control system may be triplicated, __[....]__ which is formally termed triple modular redundancy (TMR). An error in one component may then be out-voted by the other two. In a triply redundant system, the system has three sub components,

Incident management (IcM) .— “... Incident management (IcM) is a term describing the activities of an organization to identify, analyze, and correct hazards to prevent a future re-occurrence. These incidents within a structured organization are normally dealt with by either an Incident Response Team (IRT), or an Incident Management Team (IMT). These are often designated before hand, or during the event and are placed in control of the organization whilst the incident is dealt with, to restore normal functions …. Similar to an IRT or IMT is an Incident Command System (ICS). Popular with public safety agencies and jurisdictions in the United States, Canada and other countries, it is growing in practice in the private sector as organizations begin to manage without or co-manage emergencies with public safety agencies. It is a command and control mechanism that provides an expandable structure to manage emergency agencies. Although some of the details vary by jurisdiction, ICS normally consists of five primary elements: command, operations, planning, logistics and finance / administration. Several special staff positions, including public affairs, safety, and liaison, report directly to the incident commander (IC) when the emergency warrants establishment of those positions ….

Industrial engineering.— “...Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering dealing with the optimization of complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, materials, analysis and synthesis, as well as the mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering design to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems or processes. Its underlying concepts overlap considerably with certain business-oriented disciplines such as operations management …. Depending on the subspecialties involved, industrial engineering may also be known as, or overlap with, operations management, management science, operations research, systems engineering, management engineering, manufacturing engineering, ergonomics or human factors engineering, safety engineering, or others, depending on the viewpoint or motives of the user. For example, in health care, the engineers known as health management engineers or health systems engineers are, in essence, industrial engineers by another name ...”

ISO 9000.— "...ISO 9000 is a series of standards, developed and published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), that define, establish, and maintain an effective quality assurance system for manufacturing and service industries. __[....]__ The standards are available through national standards bodies. ISO 9000 deals with the fundamentals of quality management systems, __[....]__ including the eight management principles upon which the family of standards is based. __[....]__ ISO 9001 deals with the requirements that organizations wishing to meet the standard must fulfill __[....]__ Third-party certification bodies provide independent confirmation that organizations meet the requirements of ISO 9001. Over a million organizations worldwide[6] are independently certified, making ISO 9001 one of the most widely used management tools in the world today. Despite widespread use, the ISO certification process has been criticized __[....]__ as being wasteful and not being useful for all organizations …"

Kaizen.— "... Kaizen, Japanese for "improvement" or "change for the best", refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, business management or any process. It has been applied in healthcare, __[....]__ psychotherapy, __[....]__ life-coaching, government, banking, and other industries. When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions, and involves all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. It also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain. __[....]__ By improving standardized activities and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste (see lean manufacturing). Kaizen was first implemented in several Japanese businesses after the Second World War, influenced in part by American business and quality management teachers who visited the country. It has since spread throughout the world __[....]__ and is now being implemented in environments outside of business and productivity …"

Kanban.— Kanban(literally signboard or billboard in Japanese) is a scheduling system for lean and just-in-time (JIT) production. __[....]__ Kanban is a system to control the logistical chain from a production point of view, and is not an inventory control system. Kanban was developed by Taiichi Ohno, at Toyota, to find a system to improve and maintain a high level of production. Kanban is one method through which JIT is achieved __[....]__ Kanban became an effective tool in support of running a production system as a whole, and it proved to be an excellent way for promoting improvement. Problem areas were highlighted by reducing the number of kanban in circulation __[....]__ . One of the main benefits of Kanban is to establish an upper limit to the work in progress inventory, avoiding overloading of the manufacturing system. Other systems with similar effect are for example CONWIP …"

Kaizen Engineering.— "...Kaizen aims at the development or improvement of products and services by translating the customer's psychological feelings and needs into the domain of product design (i.e. parameters). It was founded by Mitsuo Nagamachi, Ph.D, Professor Emeritus of Hiroshima University (also former Dean of Hiroshima International University and CEO of International Kansei Design). Kansei Engineering parametrically links the customer's emotional responses (i.e. physical and psychological) to the properties and characteristics of a product or service. In consequence, products can be designed to bring forward the intended feeling …"

Lean-manufacturing management.— Lean manufacturing, lean enterprise, or lean production, often simply, "lean", is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, "value" is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for …. Essentially, lean is centered on preserving value with less work. Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) (hence the term Toyotism is also prevalent) and identified as "lean" only in the 1990s.TPS is renowned for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes to improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The steady growth of Toyota, from a small company to the world's largest automaker, __[....]__ has focused attention on how it has achieved this success.

Mechanical engineering.- “... Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of engineering, physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the design, production, and operation of machines and tools. __[....]__ It is one of the oldest and broadest engineering disciplines …. The engineering field requires an understanding of core concepts including mechanics, kinematics, thermodynamics, materials science, structural analysis, and electricity. Mechanical engineers use these core principles along with tools like computer-aided engineering, and product lifecycle management to design and analyze manufacturing plants, industrial equipment and machinery, heating and cooling systems, transport systems, aircraft, watercraft, robotics, medical devices, weapons, and others …. Mechanical engineering emerged as a field during the industrial revolution in Europe in the 18th century; however, its development can be traced back several thousand years around the world. Mechanical engineering science emerged in the 19th century as a result of developments in the field of physics. The field has continually evolved to incorporate advancements in technology, and mechanical engineers today are pursuing developments in such fields as composites, mechatronics, and nanotechnology. Mechanical engineering overlaps with aerospace engineering, metallurgical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering, petroleum engineering, manufacturing engineering, chemical engineering, and other engineering disciplines to varying amounts. Mechanical engineers may also work in the field of Biomedical engineering, specifically with biomechanics, transport phenomena, biomechatronics, bionanotechnology and modeling of biological systems, like soft tissue mechanics ...”

Military strategy.— “...Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. __[....]__ Derived from the Greek strategos, strategy when it appeared in use during the 18th century, __[....]__ was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general", __[....]__ 'the art of arrangement' of troops. __[....]__ Military strategy deals with the planning and conduct of campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces, and the deception of the enemy …. The father of Western modern strategic study, Carl von Clausewitz, defined military strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war." B. H. Liddell Hart's definition put less emphasis on battles, defining strategy as "the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy".[5] Hence, both gave the pre-eminence to political aims over military goals …. Sun Tzu is often considered as the father of Eastern military strategy and has influenced greatly the Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese historical and modern war tactics.[6] The Eastern military strategy differs from the Western by focusing more on asymmetric warfare and fooling of the enemy ...”

Muda management.— “... Muda is a Japanese word meaning "futility; uselessness; idleness; superfluity; waste; wastage; wastefulness", __[....]__ and is a key concept in the Toyota Production System (TPS) as one of the three types of variation (muda, mura, muri). __[....]__ Waste reduction is an effective way to increase profitability. Toyota merely picked up these three words beginning with the prefix mu-, __[....]__ which in Japan are widely recognized as a reference to a product improvement program or campaign. A process adds value by producing goods or providing a service that a customer will pay for. A process consumes resources and waste occurs when more resources are consumed than are necessary to produce the goods or provide the service that the customer actually wants. The attitudes and tools of the TPS heighten awareness and give whole new perspectives on identifying waste and therefore the unexploited opportunities associated with reducing waste ...”

NTSB " … Go Team …".— “... At the core of NTSB investigations is the " … Go Team ..." The purpose of the Safety Board Go Team is simple and effective: Begin the investigation of a major accident at the accident scene, as quickly as possible, assembling the broad spectrum of technical expertise that is needed to solve complex transportation safety problems ...”

Occupational safety and health (OSH).— “... Occupational safety and health (OSH) also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS) or workplace health and safety (WHS) is an area concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. The goals of occupational safety and health programs include to foster a safe and healthy work environment. __[....]__ OSH may also protect co-workers, family members, employers, customers, and many others who might be affected by the workplace environment. In the United States the term occupational health and safety is referred to as occupational health and occupational and non-occupational safety and includes safety for activities outside of work …. Occupational safety and health can be important for moral, legal, and financial reasons. All organization have a duty of care to ensure that employees and any other person who may be affected by the companies undertaking remain safe at all times. __[....]__ Moral obligations would involve the protection of employee's lives and health. Legal reasons for OSH practices relate to the preventative, punitive and compensatory effects of laws that protect worker's safety and health. OSH can also reduce employee injury and illness related costs, including medical care, sick leave and disability benefit costs ...”

Operations management.— “... Operations management is an area of management concerned with overseeing, designing, and controlling the process of production and redesigning business operations in the production of goods or services. It involves the responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient in terms of using as few resources as needed, and effective in terms of meeting customer requirements. It is concerned with managing the process that converts inputs (in the forms of raw materials, labor, and energy) into outputs (in the form of goods and/or services). The relationship of operations management to senior management in commercial contexts can be compared to the relationship of line officers to highest-level senior officers in military science. The highest-level officers shape the strategy and revise it over time, while the line officers make tactical decisions in support of carrying out the strategy. In business as in military affairs, the boundaries between levels are not always distinct; tactical information dynamically informs strategy, and individual people often move between roles over time …. Ford Motor car assembly line: the classical example of a manufacturing production system …. Cinema queue. Operations Management studies both manufacturing and services …. According to the United States Department of Education, operations management is the field concerned with managing and directing the physical and/or technical functions of a firm or organization, particularly those relating to development, production, and manufacturing. Operations management programs typically include instruction in principles of general management, manufacturing and production systems, factory management, equipment maintenance management, production control, industrial labor relations and skilled trades supervision, strategic manufacturing policy, systems analysis, productivity analysis and cost control, and materials planning. __[....]__ Management, including operations management, is like engineering in that it blends art with applied science. People skills, creativity, rational analysis, and knowledge of technology are all required for success ...”

Operations research.— “....Operations research, or operational research in British usage, is a discipline that deals with the application of advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions. __[....]__ It is often considered to be a sub-field of mathematics. __[....]__ The terms management science and decision science are sometimes used as synonyms …. Employing techniques from other mathematical sciences, such as mathematical modeling, statistical analysis, and mathematical optimization, operations research arrives at optimal or near-optimal solutions to complex decision-making problems. Because of its emphasis on human-technology interaction and because of its focus on practical applications, operations research has overlap with other disciplines, notably industrial engineering and operations management, and draws on psychology and organization science. Operations research is often concerned with determining the maximum (of profit, performance, or yield) or minimum (of loss, risk, or cost) of some real-world objective. Originating in military efforts before World War II, its techniques have grown to concern problems in a variety of industries ...”

PDCA (plan–do–check–act or plan–do–check–adjust).— " ...PDCA (plan–do–check–act or plan–do–check–adjust) is an iterative four-step management method used in business for the control and continuous improvement of processes and products. It is also known as the Deming circle/cycle/wheel, Shewhart cycle, control circle/cycle, or plan–do–study–act (PDSA). Another version of this PDCA cycle is OPDCA. The added "O" stands for observation or as some versions say "Grasp the current condition." This emphasis on observation and current condition has currency with Lean manufacturing/Toyota ...”

Process assessment.— " ... Process assessment, also known as SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination), is a set of technical standards documents for the computer software development process and related business management functions. It is another joint International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard, which was developed by the ISO and IEC joint subcommittee, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7 __[....]__ ISO/IEC 15504 is the reference model for the maturity models (consisting of capability levels which in turn consist of the process attributes and further consist of generic practices) against which the assessors can place the evidence that they collect during their assessment, so that the assessors can give an overall determination of the organization's capabilities for delivering products (software, systems, and IT services) __[....]__ A working group was formed in 1993 to draft the international standard and used the acronym SPICE. SPICE initially stood for "Software Process Improvement and Capability Evaluation", but in consideration of French concerns over the meaning of "evaluation", SPICE has now been renamed "Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination". SPICE is still used for the user group of the standard, and the title for the annual conference. The first SPICE was held in Limerick, Ireland in 2000, "SPICE 2003" was hosted by ESA in the Netherlands, "SPICE 2004" was hosted in Portugal, "SPICE 2005" in Austria, "SPICE 2006" in Luxembourg, "SPICE 2007" in South Korea, "SPICE 2008" in Nuremberg, Germany and SPICE 2009 in Helsinki, Finland __[....]__ The first versions of the standard focused exclusively on software development processes. This was expanded to cover all related processes in a software business, for example project management, configuration management, quality assurance, and so on. The list of processes covered grew to cover six business areas: organizational, management, engineering, acquisition supply, support and operations …"

Process engineering.— “...Process engineering focuses on the design, operation, control, and optimization of chemical, physical, and biological processes. Process engineering encompasses a vast range of industries, such as chemical, petrochemical, mineral processing, advanced material, food, pharmaceutical, and biotechnological industries. The application of systematic computer-based methods to process engineering is process systems engineering ...”
production demands which are over-stressing the system making it less safe ...”
Production System literature …"

Project management.— “... Project management is the process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals in scientific or daily problems. A project is a temporary endeavor designed to produce a unique product, service or result __[....]__ with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables), __[....]__ undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, __[....]__ typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with business as usual (or operations), __[....]__ which are repetitive, permanent, or semi-permanent functional activities to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and management strategies …. The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals[5] and objectives while honoring the preconceived constraints.[6] The primary constraints are scope, time, quality and budget.__[....]__ The secondary — and more ambitious — challenge is to optimize the allocation of necessary inputs and integrate them to meet pre-defined objectives ...”

Quality control.— “...Quality control, or QC for short, is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. This approach places an emphasis on three aspects …. Elements such as controls, job management, defined and well managed processes, __[....]__ performance and integrity criteria, and identification of records …. Competence, such as knowledge, skills, experience, and qualifications …. Soft elements, such as personnel, integrity, confidence, organizational culture, motivation, team spirit, and quality relationships …. Controls include product inspection, where every product is examined visually, and often using a stereo microscope for fine detail before the product is sold into the external market. Inspectors will be provided with lists and descriptions of unacceptable product defects such as cracks or surface blemishes for example ….. The quality of the outputs is at risk if any of these three aspects is deficient in any way …. Quality control emphasizes testing of products to uncover defects and reporting to management who make the decision to allow or deny product release, whereas quality assurance attempts to improve and stabilize production (and associated processes) to avoid, or at least minimize, issues which led to the defect(s) in the first place __[....]__ For contract work, particularly work awarded by government agencies, quality control issues are among the top reasons for not renewing a contract …. Service quality is a comparison of expectations with performance ….. A business with high service quality will meet customer needs whilst remaining economically competitive. Improved service quality may increase economic competitiveness …. This aim may be achieved by understanding and improving operational processes; identifying problems quickly and systematically; establishing valid and reliable service performance measures and measuring customer satisfaction and other performance outcomes ...”

Quality function deployment (QFD) .— " ...Quality function deployment (QFD) is a method to transform qualitative user demands into quantitative parameters, to deploy the functions forming quality, and to deploy methods for achieving the design quality into subsystems and component parts, and ultimately to specific elements of the manufacturing process., __[....]__ as described by Dr. Yoji Akao, who originally developed QFD in Japan in 1966, when the author combined his work in quality assurance and quality control points with function deployment used in value engineering __[....]__ QFD is designed to help planners focus on characteristics of a new or existing product or service from the viewpoints of market segments, company, or technology-development needs. The technique yields charts and matrices __[....]__ QFD helps transform customer needs (the voice of the customer [VOC]) into engineering characteristics (and appropriate test methods) for a product or service, prioritizing each product or service characteristic while simultaneously setting development targets for product or service …"

Quality management.— “ … Quality management ensures that an organization, product or service is consistent. It has four main components: quality planning, quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only on product and service quality, but also the means to achieve it. Quality management therefore uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent quality __[....]__ Quality management is a recent phenomenon. Advanced civilizations that supported the arts and crafts allowed clients to choose goods meeting higher quality standards than normal goods. In societies where arts and crafts are the responsibility of a master craftsman or artist, they would lead their studio and train and supervise others. The importance of craftsmen diminished as mass production and repetitive work practices were instituted. The aim was to produce large numbers of the same goods. The first proponent in the US for this approach was Eli Whitney who proposed (interchangeable) parts manufacture for muskets, hence producing the identical components and creating a musket assembly line. The next step forward was promoted by several people including Frederick Winslow Taylor a mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. He is sometimes called "the father of scientific management." He was one of the intellectual leaders of the Efficiency Movement and part of his approach laid a further foundation for quality management, including aspects like standardization and adopting improved practices. Henry Ford was also important in bringing process and quality management practices into operation in his assembly lines. In Germany, Karl Friedrich Benz, often called the inventor of the motor car, was pursuing similar assembly and production practices, although real mass production was properly initiated in Volkswagen after World War II. From this period onwards, North American companies focused predominantly upon production against lower cost with increased efficiency ...”

Red Adair's Methodology.— “... Red Adair's Methodology consists of Applying and adapting some practical techniques by and as: an American oil well firefighter. He became world notable as an innovator in the highly specialized and extremely hazardous profession of extinguishing and capping blazing, erupting oil well blowouts, both land-based and offshore.). Adair's motto establishes, " … Nothing is impossible …. You consider the danger but you don't think about it because nobody can work with fear (non-emotional evenness) ...”

Redundancy in information theory.— “...Redundancy in information theory is the number of bits used to transmit a message minus the number of bits of
Requirements analysis.— “... Requirements analysis in systems engineering and software engineering, encompasses those tasks that go into determining the needs or conditions to meet for a new or altered product, taking account of the possibly conflicting requirements of the various stakeholders, analyzing, documenting, validating and managing software or system requirements …. Requirements analysis is critical to the success of a systems or software project. __[....]__ The requirements should be documented, actionable, measurable, testable, traceable, related to identified business needs or opportunities, and defined to a level of detail sufficient for system design ...”

Risk assessment.— “ … Risk assessment is the determination of quantitative or qualitative value of risk related to a concrete situation and a recognized threat (also called hazard). Quantitative risk assessment requires calculations of two components of risk (R):, the magnitude of the potential loss (L), and the probability (p) that the loss will occur. Acceptable risk is a risk that is understood and tolerated usually because the cost or difficulty of implementing an effective countermeasure for the associated vulnerability exceeds the expectation of loss …. In all types of engineering of complex systems sophisticated risk assessments are often made within Safety engineering and Reliability engineering when it concerns threats to life, environment or machine functioning. The nuclear, aerospace, oil, rail and military industries have a long history of dealing with risk assessment. Also, medical, hospital, social service __[....]__ and food industries control risks and perform risk assessments on a continual basis. Methods for assessment of risk may differ between industries and whether it pertains to general financial decisions or environmental, ecological, or public health risk assessment ...”

Risk management of information technology.— “ … Information technology is increasingly pervasive in modern life in every sector …. IT risk is a risk related to information technology. This is a relatively new term due to an increasing awareness that information security is simply one facet of a multitude of risks that are relevant to IT and the real world processes it supports …. A number of methodologies have been developed to deal with this kind of risk …. ISACA's Risk IT framework ties IT risk to enterprise risk management ...”

Root cause analysis (RCA).— “... Root cause analysis (RCA) is a method of problem solving that tries to identify the root causes of faults or problems. A root cause is a cause that once removed from the problem fault sequence, prevents the final undesirable event from recurring. A causal factor is a factor that affects an event's outcome, but is not a root cause. Though removing a causal factor can benefit an outcome, it does not prevent its recurrence for certain. RCA arose in the 1950s as a formal study following the introduction of Kepner-Tregoe Analysis, which had limitations in the highly complex arena of rocket design development and launch in the United States by the National Aviation and Space Administration (NASA). New methods of problem analysis developed by NASA included a high level assessment practice called MORT, and acronym for Management Oversight Risk Tree. MORT differed from RCA by assigning causes to common classes of cause shortcomings, that summarized became a short list. These included work practice, procedures, management, fatigue, time pressure, along with several others. For example, an aircraft accident could occur as a result of weather augmented by pressure to leave on time. Failure to observe weather precautions could indicate a management or training problem, while lack of any weather concern might indict work practices …. RCA practice solve problems by attempting to identify and correct the root causes of events, as opposed to simply addressing their symptoms. Focusing correction on root causes has the goal of preventing problem recurrence. RCFA (Root Cause Failure Analysis) recognizes that complete prevention of recurrence by one corrective action is not always possible …. Conversely, there may be several effective measures (methods) that address the root causes of a problem. Thus, RCA is an iterative process and a tool of continuous improvement …. RCA is typically used as a reactive method of identifying event(s) causes, revealing problems and solving them. Analysis is done after an event has occurred. Insights in RCA may make it useful as a preemptive method. In that event, RCA can be used to forecast or predict probable events even before they occur. While one follows the other, RCA is a completely separate process to Incident Management …. Root cause analysis is not a single, sharply defined methodology; there are many different tools, processes, and philosophies for performing RCA. However, several very-broadly defined approaches or "schools" can be identified by their basic approach or field of origin: safety-based, production-based, process-based, failure-based, and systems-based ...”

Safety engineering.— “ … Safety engineering is an engineering discipline which assures that engineered systems provide acceptable levels of safety. It is strongly related to systems engineering, industrial engineering and the subset system safety engineering. Safety engineering assures that a life-critical system behaves as needed, even when components fail ...”

Safety management system (SMS). — “ … Safety management system (SMS) is a term used to refer to a comprehensive business management system designed to manage safety elements in the workplace ...”

Scientific management.— "….Scientific management, also called Taylorism, __[....]__ was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management..."

Scrum.— “... Scrum is an iterative and incremental agile software development framework for managing software projects and product or application development. It defines "a flexible, holistic product development strategy where a development team works as a unit to reach a common goal". It challenges assumptions of the "traditional, sequential approach" to product development. Scrum enables teams to self-organize by encouraging physical co-location or close online collaboration of all team members and daily face to face communication among all team members and disciplines in the project __[....]__ A key principle of Scrum is its recognition that during a project the customers can change their minds about what they want and need (often called requirements churn), and that unpredicted challenges cannot be easily addressed in a traditional predictive or planned manner. As such, Scrum adopts an empirical approach.—accepting that the problem cannot be fully understood or defined, focusing instead on maximizing the team's ability to deliver quickly and respond to emerging requirements ...”

Situation awareness (SA).— “... Situation awareness (SA) involves being aware of what is happening in the vicinity, in order to understand how information, events, and one's own actions will impact goals and objectives, both immediately and in the near future. One with an adept sense of situation awareness generally has a high degree of knowledge with respect to inputs and outputs of a system, i.e. an innate "feel" for situations, people, and events that play out due to variables the subject can control. Lacking or inadequate situation awareness has been identified as one of the primary factors in accidents attributed to human error. __[....]__ Thus, situation awareness is especially important in work domains where the information flow can be quite high and poor decisions may lead to serious consequences (e.g., piloting an airplane, functioning as a soldier, or treating critically ill or injured patients) …. Having complete, accurate and up-to-the-minute SA is essential where technological and situational complexity on the human decision-maker are a concern. Situation awareness has been recognized as a critical, yet often elusive, foundation for successful decision-making across a broad range of complex and dynamic systems, including aviation, air traffic control, ship navigation, __[....]__ health care, __[....]__ emergency response and military command and control operations, __[....]__ and offshore oil and nuclear power plant management …. Situation awareness is often studied in the context of leadership and roles involving time-critical applications, however it is often referenced in other fields as well. For example, in the study of influence, situation awareness is found to be a critical component. This is further extended into the animal kingdom, where very often the alpha pair demonstrates superior situation awareness with respect to the well being of those within the animal pack ...”
Situation awareness is the perception of environmental elements with respect to time and/or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status after some variable has changed, such as time, or some other variable, such as a predetermined event. It is also a field of study concerned with perception of the environment critical to decision-makers in complex, dynamic areas from aviation, air traffic control, ship navigation, power plant operations, military command and control, and emergency services such as fire fighting and policing; to more ordinary but nevertheless complex tasks such as driving an automobile or bicycle.

Six-Sigma management.— Six Sigma is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement. It was developed by Motorola in 1986, coinciding with the Japanese asset price bubble which is reflected in its terminology __[....]__ Jack Welch made it central to his business strategy at General Electric in 1995. Today, it is used in many industrial sectors …. Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization ("Champions", "Black Belts", "Green Belts", "Yellow Belts", etc.) who are experts in these methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified value targets, for example: reduce process cycle time, reduce pollution, reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, and increase profits. These are also core to principles of Total Quality Management (TQM) as described by Peter Drucker and Tom Peters (particularly in his book "In Search of Excellence" in which he refers to the Motorola six sigma principles).

Statistical process control (SPC).— "... Statistical process control (SPC) is a method of quality control which uses statistical methods. SPC is applied in order to monitor and control a process. Monitoring and controlling the process ensures that it operates at its full potential. At its full potential, the process can make as much conforming product as possible with a minimum (if not an elimination) of waste (rework or Scrap). SPC can be applied to any process where the "conforming product" (product meeting specifications) output can be measured. Key tools used in SPC include control charts; a focus on continuous improvement; and the design of experiments. An example of a process where SPC is applied is manufacturing lines ..."

Strategic management.— “... Strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by a company's top management on behalf of owners, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization competes …. Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise and involves specifying the organization’s objectives, developing policies and plans designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision making in the context of complex environments and competitive dynamics. __[....]__ Strategic management is not static in nature; the models often include a feedback loop to monitor execution and inform the next round of planning …. Harvard Professor Michael Porter identifies three principles underlying strategy: creating a "unique and valuable [market] position", making trade-offs by choosing "what not to do", and creating "fit" by aligning company activities to with one another to support the chosen strategy.[6] Dr. Vladimir Kvint defines strategy as "a system of finding, formulating, and developing a doctrine that will ensure long-term success if followed faithfully." …. Corporate strategy involves answering a key question from a portfolio perspective: "What business should we be in?" Business strategy involves answering the question: "How shall we compete in this business?"__[....]__ In management theory and practice, a further distinction is often made between strategic management and operational management. Operational management is concerned primarily with improving efficiency and controlling costs within the boundaries set by the organization's strategy …”

Strategic management.— “ … Strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by a company's top management on behalf of owners, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organisation competes …. Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise and involves specifying the organisation's objectives, developing policies and plans designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision making in the context of complex environments and competitive dynamics. __[....]__ Strategic management is not static in nature; the models often include a feedback loop to monitor execution and inform the next round of planning …. Harvard Professor Michael Porter identifies three principles underlying strategy: creating a "unique and valuable [market] position", making trade-offs by choosing "what not to do", and creating "fit" by aligning company activities to with one another to support the chosen strategy.[6] Dr. Vladimir Kvint defines strategy as "a system of finding, formulating, and developing a doctrine that will ensure long-term success if followed faithfully …. Corporate strategy involves answering a key question from a portfolio perspective: "What business should we be in?" Business strategy involves answering the question: "How shall we compete in this business?"__[....]__ In management theory and practice, a further distinction is often made between strategic management and operational management. Operational management is concerned primarily with improving efficiency and controlling costs within the boundaries set by the organization's strategy ...”

Strategic planning.— “... Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the strategy. Strategic planning became prominent in corporations during the 1960s and remains an important aspect of strategic management. It is executed by strategic planners or strategists, who involve many parties and research sources in their analysis of the organization and its relationship to the environment in which it competes …. Strategy has many definitions, but generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). The senior leadership of an organization is generally tasked with determining strategy. Strategy can be planned (intended) or can be observed as a pattern of activity (emergent) as the organization adapts to its environment or competes …. Strategy includes processes of formulation and implementation; strategic planning helps coordinate both. However, strategic planning is analytical in nature (i.e., it involves "finding the dots"); strategy formation itself involves synthesis (i.e., "connecting the dots") via strategic thinking. As such, strategic planning occurs around the strategy formation activity ...”

Systems analysis.— “ … Systems analysis is the study of sets of interacting entities, including computer systems analysis. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, systems analysis is "the process of studying a procedure or business, in order to identify its goals and purposes and create systems and procedures that will achieve them in an efficient way". Analysis and synthesis, as scientific methods, always go hand in hand; they complement one another. Every synthesis is built upon the results of a preceding analysis, and every analysis requires a subsequent synthesis, in order to verify and correct its results …. This field is closely related to requirements analysis or operations research. It is also "an explicit formal inquiry carried out to help someone (referred to as the decision maker) identify a better course of action and make a better decision than he might otherwise have made …”

Systems engineering.— “... Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design and manage complex engineering projects over their life cycles. Issues such as reliability, logistics, coordination of different teams (requirements management), evaluation measurements, and other disciplines become more difficult when dealing with large or complex projects. Systems engineering deals with work-processes, optimization methods, and risk management tools in such projects. It overlaps technical and human-centered disciplines such as control engineering, industrial engineering, organizational studies, and project management. Systems Engineering ensures that all likely aspects of a project or system are considered, and integrated into a whole ...”

Taguchi methods.— “ ...Taguchi methods are statistical methods developed by Genichi Taguchi to improve the quality of manufactured goods, and more recently also applied to engineering, __[....]__ biotechnology, __[....]__ marketing and advertising. __[....]__ Professional statisticians have welcomed the goals and improvements brought about by Taguchi methods, particularly by Taguchi's development of designs for studying variation, but have criticized the inefficiency of some of Taguchi's proposals __[....]__ Taguchi's work includes three principal contributions to statistics: A specific loss function, The philosophy of off-line quality control; and Innovations in the design of experiments ..."

The Toyota Production System (TPS).— "... The Toyota Production System (TPS) is a integrated socio-technical system, developed by Toyota, that comprises its management philosophy and practices. The TPS organizes manufacturing and logistics for the automobile manufacturer, including interaction with suppliers and customers. The system is a major precursor of the more generic "lean manufacturing." Taiichi Ohno, Shigeo Shingo and Eiji Toyoda developed the system between 1948 and 1975 __[....]__ Originally called "just-in-time production," it builds on the approach created by the founder of Toyota, Sakichi Toyoda, his son Kiichiro Toyoda, and the engineer Taiichi Ohno. The principles underlying the TPS are embodied in The Toyota Way …"

Total quality management (TQM).— “ ...Total quality management (TQM) consists of organization-wide efforts to install and make permanent a climate in which an organization continuously improves its ability to deliver high-quality products and services to customers. While there is no widely agreed-upon approach, TQM efforts typically draw heavily on the previously developed tools and techniques of quality control. TQM enjoyed widespread attention during the late 1980s and early 1990s before being overshadowed by ISO 9000,Lean manufacturing, and Six Sigma ...”

TRIZ.— "...TRIZ a problem-solving, analysis and forecasting tool derived from the study of patterns of invention in the global patent literature". __[....]__ It was developed by the Soviet inventor and science fiction author Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues, beginning in 1946. In English the name is typically rendered as "the theory of inventive problem solving", __[....]__ and occasionally goes by the English acronym TIPS …"

Troubleshooting.—. “ ….Troubleshooting is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes. It is a logical, systematic search for the source of a problem so that it can be solved, and so the product or process can be made operational again. Troubleshooting is needed to develop and maintain complex systems where the symptoms of a problem can have many possible causes. Troubleshooting is used in many fields such as engineering, system administration, electronics, automotive repair, and diagnostic medicine. Troubleshooting requires identification of the malfunction(s) or symptoms within a system. Then, experience is commonly used to generate possible causes of the symptoms. Determining the most likely cause is a process of elimination - eliminating potential causes of a problem. Finally, troubleshooting requires confirmation that the solution restores the product or process to its working state …. In general, troubleshooting is the identification of, or diagnosis of "trouble" in the management flow of a corporation or a system caused by a failure of some kind. The problem is initially described as symptoms of malfunction, and troubleshooting is the process of determining and remedying the causes of these symptoms …. A system can be described in terms of its expected, desired or intended behavior (usually, for artificial systems, its purpose). Events or inputs to the system are expected to generate specific results or outputs. (For example selecting the "print" option from various computer applications is intended to result in a hardcopy emerging from some specific device). Any unexpected or undesirable behavior is a symptom. Troubleshooting is the process of isolating the specific cause or causes of the symptom. Frequently the symptom is a failure of the product or process to produce any results. (Nothing was printed, for example) …. The methods of forensic engineering are especially useful in tracing problems in products or processes, and a wide range of analytical techniques are available to determine the cause or causes of specific failures. Corrective action can then be taken to prevent further failures of a similar kind. Preventative action is possible using failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) and fault tree analysis (FTA) before full scale production, and these methods can also be used for failure analysis ...”

END OF THE WHITE SWAN DICTIONARY.

Mr. Andres Agostini

www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini

Inventor of Transformative and Integrative Risk Management at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan

The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador at https://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.andres.agostini

The «... The Human Race to the Future ...» Worldwide Ambassador at http://amzn.to/19H3qf0 AND at http://amzn.to/1cujxeG

POINT OF CONTACT AND QUERY: www.linkedin.com/in/andresagostini

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE: http://ThisSuccess.wordpress.com

www.appearoo.com/aagostini

http://connect.FORWARDMETRICS.com/profile/1649/Andres-Agostini.html

@AndresAgostini

@ThisSuccess

@SciCzar

Arlington ? NYC ? Miami ?Reno ? London ? Caracas ? Madrid ? Sao Paulo ? Rio de Janeiro ? Mexico City ? Buenos Aires ? Worldwide

AS A CONSULTANT, MANAGER, STRATEGIST AND RESEARCHER, ANDRES WORKS AND HAS WORKED WITH INSTITUTIONS — AND THE RESPECTIVE EXECUTIVES OF THOSE ORGANIZATIONS — INCLUDING THOSE ONES SUCH AS:

  • Toyota,
  • Mitsubishi,
  • World Bank,
  • Shell,
  • Statoil,
  • Total,
  • ExxonMobil,
  • PDVSA, Citgo,
  • Lagoven (a PDVSA subsidiary full-scope petroleum company, formerly Creole Petroleum Corporation, Standard Oil and ExxonMobil in Venezuela),
  • Maraven (a PDVSA subsidiary full-scope petroleum company, formerly Royal Dutch Shell in Venezuela),
  • GE,
  • GMAC,
  • TNT Express,
  • AT&T
  • GTE,
  • Amoco,
  • BP,
  • Abbot Laboratories,
  • World Health Organization,
  • Ernst Young Consulting,
  • SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation),
  • Pak Mail,
  • Wilpro Energy Services,
  • Phillips Petroleum Company,
  • Dupont,
  • Conoco,
  • ENI (Italy’s petroleum state-owned firm),
  • Chevron,
  • LDG Management (HCC Benefits).
  • Liberty Mutual (via its own Seguros Caracas)
  • MAPFRE (via its own Seguros La Seguridad)
  • AES Corporation (via its own Electricidad de Caracas)
  • Lafarge
  • The University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Most Professor Dr. Daniel Berleant, PhD.

SKILL AND SPECIALTIES (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER) BY MR. ANDRES AGOSTINI:

1) Business Development
2) Business Process Improvement
3) Business Process Outsourcing
4) Change Management
5) Complex Negotiations
6) Conflict Resolution
7) Continuous Improvement
8) Cross-functional Teams
9) Customer Satisfaction
10) Design thinking
11) Entrepreneurship
12) Executive and Technical Instruction
13) Government Relations
14) Government Relations
15) Hard Science (Advanced Knowledge: Dissemination and Propagation)
16) Healthcare Solutions
17) Insurance and Reinsurance
18) Intercultural Counseling
19) Interpretive Translations
20) Marketing Strategy
21) Marketing/Sales for Corporations and Governments
22) Master Classes
23) Organizational Culture Diagnosis and Development
24) Outsourcing
25) Personal and Professional Development
26) Public Outreach
27) Quality Assurance
28) Risk Management (Advanced and Beyond Insurance)
29) Sales and Business Development
30) Scientific Futuring
31) Senior Executive Management
32) Social Media Marketing
33) Strategic Communications
34) Strategic Foresight and Scenario Planning (Lecturer, Researcher, Developer, Strategist)
35) Strategic Partnering
36) Strategy (Corporate, Organizations)
37) Strategy and Management and Leadership Consulting
38) Systems Integration
39) Scientific Futuring
40) Technologies
41) Technology Transfer
42) Workshop Facilitation
43) Writing (technical)

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES:

[1] Every quotation and/or citation is attributed to the mentioned author of that quotation.
[2] Sir Francis Bacon (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ISBN: 0-19-866185-1
[3] Dr. Bertrand Russell (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ISBN: 0-19-866185-1)
[4] Dr. Albert Einstein (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ISBN: 0-19-866185-1)
[5] Dr. Buckminster Fuller (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ISBN: 0-19-866185-1) and at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[6] Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ISBN: 0-19-866185-1) and at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[7] Theodore Roosevelt at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[8] Ralph Waldo Emerson at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[9] Dr. Malcolm Knowles at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[10] Dr. Albert Einstein at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[11] Thomas Jefferson at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[12] Dr. Henry Kissinger at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[13] Sir Winston Churchill at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[14] Antonio Machado from Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ISBN: 0-19-866185-1.
[15] The Panchatantra (body of Eastern philosophical knowledge) from Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ISBN: 0-19-866185-1. And at << http://bit.ly/bj0rI1 >>
[16] Bernard d'Espagnat from Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ISBN: 0-19-866185-1.
[17] Peter Drucker from Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ISBN: 0-19-866185-1.
[18] Dr. James D. Watson, Ph.D. as he was interviewed by Charlie Rose most recently in year 2009.
[19] Arthur C. Clarke at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[20] Otto Herman Khan at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[21] General Francisco de Miranda from Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ISBN: 0-19-866185-1.
[22] James Canton, “...Technofutures: How Leading-Edge Innovations Will Transform Business in the 21st Century...” by James Canton (http://amzn.to/bYrN8q )
[23] “...Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives...” by Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler (ISBN-10: 038552207X)
[24] Ella Wheeler Wilcox at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[25] “...Future Shock...” by Alvin Toffler (ISBN-10: 0553277375)
[26] “...Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever...” by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman ( ISBN-10: 0140282025 )
[27] “...Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever...” by Ray Kurzweil Ph.D. and Terry Grossman M.D. (ISBN-10: 1605299561)
[28] “...Leading the Revolution...” by Gary Hamel (ISBN-10: 1591391466)
[29] “...Emotional Intelligence...” by Daniel Goleman (ISBN-10:055309503X )
[30] Criss-cross at Oxford Dictionary ISBN 0-19-861122-6
[31] Crinkum-crankum at Oxford Dictionary ISBN 0-19-861122-6
[32] Terzetto at Oxford Dictionary ISBN 0-19-861122-6
[33] Thé dansant at Oxford Dictionary ISBN 0-19-861122-6
[34] Tertium quid at Oxford Dictionary ISBN 0-19-861122-6
[35] Computronium at http://bit.ly/bvf2AE
[36] Futuretronium at http://bit.ly/aP2VlF
[37] “...Einstein in the Boardroom...” by Suzanne S. Harrison and Patrick H. Sullivan Sr. (ISBN-10: 0-471-70332-X
[38] Tête-à-tête at Oxford Dictionary ISBN 0-19-861122-6
[39] Dilettantes and poseurs at Oxford Dictionary ISBN 0-19-861122-6
[40] “...Why Mars and Venus Collide: Improving Relationships by Understanding How Men and Women Cope Differently with Stress...” by John Gray.
[41] Multiverse at http://bit.ly/2FTBYa
[42] “...The Cycle of Leadership...” by Noel M. Tichy (ISBN0-06-662056-2)
[43] Herman Kahn’s quotations at http://bit.ly/bgxeP0
[44] “...Innovate Like Edison: The Five-Step System for Breakthrough Business Success...” By Michael J. Gelb (ISBN-10: 0452289823)
[45] Déclassé at Oxford Dictionary (ISBN 0-19-861122-6)
[46] Démodé at Oxford Dictionary (ISBN 0-19-861122-6)
[47] Richard Buckminster Fuller at http://bit.ly/amahEh
[48] Yoctosecond, definition of, at http://bit.ly/c5ZMZS
[49] Dr. Pangloss at http://bit.ly/b5LkXL
[50] “...Monster of omniscience...” at page V, first paragraph, Concise Oxford Dictionary (ISBN 0-19-861122-6). Also viewable online at http://bit.ly/Omniscience-Monter-Bibliography
[51] Quotations by Karl Popper at http://bit.ly/d9GdeX
[52] “...Radical Evolution...” by Joel Garreau (ISBN0-385-50965-0).
[53] Definition of “...throughput ... " Throughput: Output or production, as of a computer program, over a period of time. The quantity or amount of raw material processed within a given time, esp. the work done by an electronic computer in a given period of time. An amount of work, Et cetera. done in a particular period of time. Volume of data or material handled: the amount of something such as data or raw material that is processed over a given period.
[54] The American Heritage Dictionary’s (fourth edition, 2000)— ISBN 0-395-82517-2
[55] By John F. Kennedy, Address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort Delivered in Houston, Texas, September 12, 1962. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/ckBJ4r (seen on June 12, 2007).
[56] “...The Art of The Long View...” — ISBN 0-385-26731-2
[57] “...The New Religion of Risk Management...” by Peter L. Bernstein, Harvard Business Review, March-April 1996.
[58] As quoted in title — ISBN 978-980-293-503-1
[59] As cited by David Jay's 2006 textbook, “...Mavericks of Medicine...” (ISBN: 1-890572-19-5)
[60] http://bit.ly/LuNRa
[61] Einstein “...on being smart...” at http://bit.ly/EZMFj
[62] “...A Devil’s Dictionary of Business...” (2005) — ISBN 1-56025-712-1 by Nicholas von Hoffman
[63] Original source: http://bit.ly/aEmAkO
[64] Textbook: “...Leading The Revolution...” (ISBN 1-57851-189-5), year 2000, by Gary Hamel
[65] Oxford Dictionary ISBN 0-19-861122-6
[66] Textbook known as “...A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations...” by Alan L. Mackay (ISBN-10: 075031066) in 1991.
[67] Dr. Stephen Hawking was interviewed by CNN's journalist Becky Anderson in year 2009.
[68] http://bit.ly/9aLCB4
[69] “...A Dictionary of scientific quotations...” By Alan Lindsay Mackay - ISBN-10: 0750301066
[70] The Oxford dictionary of quotations - ISBN-10: 0199237174
[71] “...The Book of Positive Quotations,...” 2nd Edition (2007) — ISBN-10: 1577491696
[72] “...The Yale Book Of Quotations...” by Fred R. Shapiro (2006) — ISBN-10: 0300107986
[73] Well said, well spoken: 736 quotable quotes for educators by Robert D. Ramsey (1999) — ISBN-10: 0060194111
[74] Compelling conversations: questions and quotations on timeless topics by Erin Hermann Roth (2007) — ISBN-10: 141965828X
[75] Wit and Wisdom of the American Presidents: A Book of Quotations by Joslyn T. Pine (2000) - ISN-10: 0486414272
[76] The Routledge Dictionary Of Latin Quotations by Jon R. Stone (2004) ISBN-10: 0415969085
[77] Quote Unquote by M.P. Singh (2004) — ISBN: 1557099405
[78] “...Inevitable Surprises: Thinking Ahead in a Time of Turbulence...” by Peter Schwartz (2004) — ISBN-10: 1592400698
[79] “...Mind Set...” by John Naisbitt (2008) — ISBN-10: 0061136891
[80] http://bit.ly/2lvo4q
[81] As per David Jay Brown’s text book “...Mavericks of Medicine...” (2006) — ISBN 1-890572-19-5
[82] Singularity: Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases By Inc Icon Group International.
[83] http://bit.ly/b3aBN4
[84] Cumputronium at Wikipedia at http://bit.ly/4zTEHn
[85] Multiverse at Wikipedia at http://bit.ly/2FTBYa
[86] James N. Gardner’s “...The Intelligent Universe...” (2007) — ISBN: 978-1564149190
[87] Gary Hamel’s textbook “...Competing for the Future...” (1996) — ISBN-10: 0875847161
[88] Gary Hamel’s “...Leading The Revolution...” book — ISBN-10: 1591391466
[89] Eamonn kelly’s book “...Powerful Times...” (2006) — ISBN 0-131-85520-4
[90] http://bit.ly/bLrAOk (bibliography to Fuzzy Logic and Quantum Mechanics)
[91] As cited on “...The Juran Prescription...” by Kathleen Jennison Goonan, M.D. — ISBN 0—7879-0096
[92] Http://Futuretronium.blogspot.com/
[93] http://bit.ly/Past_Vs_Now
[94] http://bit.ly/Industrial-Military-Complex
[95] The State Of The University: Academic Knowledges And The Knowledge Of God (2007) By Stanley Hauerwas, B.D. M.A. M.Phil and Ph.D. — ISBN-10: 0300057253
[96] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Future
[97] http://www.wfs.org/forecasts.htm
[98] In the Book “...How We Decide...” (2009) by Jonah Lehrer — ISBN 978-0-618-62011-1
[99] “...Managing Risk: Systematic Loss Prevention for Executives...” (1987) — ISBN 0-13-551110-0 by Dr. Vernon Grose, D.Sc.
[100] http://bit.ly/9xPbxJ
[101] http://bit.ly/9yTWk5
[102] Adam Gordon in Book “...Future Savvy ...” ( 2008 ) — ISBN-10: 0814409121
[103] J. Scott Armstrong in book “...Principles of Forecasting...” — ISBN: 0792379306
[104] Bob Seidensticker's book "Future Hype..." (2006) — ISBN-10: 1576753700
[105] Dr. Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D. ’s book “...The Time Paradox...” (2009) — ISBN-10: 1416541993
[106] Hans Moravec’s “...Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence...” (1990) — ISBN-10: 06745761187
[107] David Jay Brown’s “...Mavericks of Medicine...” (2006) — ISBN: 1-890572-19-5
[108] Quotations under this number either has been sent to me via e-mail or have emerged as a result of private interviews.
[109] http://bit.ly/9P6HHB
[110] http://bit.ly/be9kE4
[111] Quotations at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[112] The Adult Learner, Sixth Edition: The Definitive Classic in Adult Education and Human Resource Development by Malcolm S. Knowles Ph.D. (2005) — ISBN-10: 0750678372
[113] Napoleon Bonaparte: A Life By Alan Schom (1998) — ISBN-10: 0060929588
[114] “...Science But Not Scientists...” By Vernon Grose (2006) — ISBN-10: 1425969917
[115] Http://www.jfklibrary.org/
[116] Http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/
[117] Gerard K. O’Neill’s “...The High Frontier...” (2000) — ISBN-10: 189652267x
[118] "Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe" by Simon Conway Morris, Ph.D. — ( 2004) — ISBN-10: 0521603250
[119] “...Frases Celebres Para Toda Ocasión...” (In Spanish, “...Famous Sentences For Every Occasion) — (1993) By Rafael Escandon — ISBN 968-13-1285-6
[120] “...Our Final Hour...” (2003) By Sir Martin Rees — ISBN 0-465-0682-6
[121] http://bit.ly/xXGMf
[122] http://bit.ly/aMQjdV
[123] “...A Risk Management Approach to Business Continuity: Aligning Business Continuity with Corporate Governance...” (2006) — ISBN: 1931332363
[124] Dr. Robert A. Collins, Ph.D. ’s “...Resilience: Protecting your Business from Disasters in a Dangerous World...” (2007) — ISBN-10: 0595409245
[125] “...Thinking in Technical Analysis...” (2000) By Rick Bensignor— ISBN-10: 1576600491
[126] http://linkd.in/chnhzH
[127] Source: “...Against The Gods...” (1998 ) ?— By Peter L. Bernstein ?— ISBN: 0-471-29563-9
[128] http://bit.ly/9h9prC
[129] Quotations and citations that are solely under the own and utter discernment and intellectual faculties of the present author. Among many amenities that are described in my biography, I am a perpetual and ruthless researcher.
[130] “...Diccionario de Citas...” (Spanish, “...Dictionary of Quotations...”) by Castañares y Quiroz — ISBN 84-87462-03-0
[131] Respondent’s answers are in actuality own quotations of those authors, whose citations are accurate and available at <>.
[132] http://bit.ly/mB6Oo
[133] “...Principles of Counseling and Psychotherapy: Learning the Essential Domains and Nonlinear Thinking of Master Practitioner...” (2009) — Gerald J. Mozdziers, Paul R. Peluso, Joseph Lisiecki — ISBN-10: 0415997518
[134] “...Cracking Creativity...” by Michael Michalko — ISBN 1-58008-311-0
[135] “...The Definitive Handbook of Business Continuity Management...” (2007) By Andrew Hiles — ISBN 0470516380
[136] Ray Kurzweil’s quotations at ‹brainyquotes.com›
[137] http://bit.ly/9BWSVQ
[138] http://bit.ly/bCOZDF
[139] “...The World is Flat...” By Thomas L. Friedman (2006) — ISBN-10: 0-374-29279-5
[140] “...Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative...” (2001) By Ken Robinson — ISBN-10: 1841121258
[141] http://bit.ly/NfD8z
[142] The Singularity is Near (2005) by Ray Kurzweil — ISBN 0-670-03384-7
[143] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_V._Gerstner,_Jr.
[144] www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html
[145] http://www.saffo.com/
[146] http://www.monitorinstitute.com/
[147] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alvin_Toffler
[148] http://www.brainyquotes.com/quotes/authors/a/alvin_toffler.html
[149] http://bit.ly/9gQMiY
[150] http://slidesha.re/9CN0mO
[151] http://bit.ly/10V0Xm
[152] http://bit.ly/dWw04
[153] The 8th Habit (2004) By Dr. Stephen R. Covey — ISBN 0-684-84665-9
[154] Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy (1999) — ISBN-10: 087584877X By Thomas S. Wurster
[155] Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness (2008) — ISBN-10: 0137135599 By Hal Abelson
[156] http://bit.ly/a3oaUk
[157] “...The Failure of Risk Management...” (2009) — ISBN-10: 0470387955 By Douglas W. Hubbard
[158] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/futurism
[159] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/futurology
[160] “...Futuristics: Looking Ahead...” ( 2005 ) By Dr. Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D. — ISBN-10: 0791084019
[161] “...Moving Along: Far Ahead...” (2005) By Dr. Arthur B. Shostak — ISBN-10: 0791084043
[162] “...Creating Better Futures: Scenario Planning As a Tool for A Better Tomorrow...” (2002 ) By James A. Ogilvy — ISBN-10: 0195146115
[163] “...As the Futures Catches You: How Genomics & Other Forces Are Changing Your Life, Work, Health and Wealth...” (2005) By Juan Enriquez — ISBN-10: 1400047749
[164] “...Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species...” (2001) By Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio — ISBN-10: 0262632454
[165]...”...Beyond Humanity: Cyberevolution and Future Minds...” (1996) By Gregory S. Paul and Earl Cox — ISBN-10: 1886801215
[166] http://bit.ly/gWka0N
[167] “...Managing Product and Service Development...” (2006) By Stefan Thomke — ISBN-10: 0073023019
[168] “...The Art of Asking: Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers...” (2008) By Terry J. Fadem — ISBN-10: 0137144245
[169] “...Beyond Humanity: Cyberevolution and Future Minds...” (1996) By Gregory S. Paul and Earl Cox — ISBN-10: 1886801215
[170] “...The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress...” (1999) By Virginia Postrel — ISBN-10: 0684862697
[171] “...Visions: How Science Hill Revolutionize the 21st Century...” (1998) By Dr. Michio Kaku, Ph.D. — ISBN-10: 0385484992
[172] http://bit.ly/dXWGm2
[173] http://bit.ly/guBaWL
[174] “...Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel...” (2009) — ISBN-10: 0307278824 By Dr. Michio Kaku
[175] “...The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man...” (1962) By Dr. Marshall McLuhan, Ph.D. — ISBN-10: 0802060412
[176] http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B16U920101203
[177] http://bit.ly/fnOO6h
[178] Massive Change (2004) — ISBN-10: 0714844012 By Bruce Mau
[179] The Artilect War: Cosmists Vs. Terrans: A Bitter Controversy Concerning Whether Humanity Should Build Godlike Massively Intelligent Machines (2005) — ISBN-10: 0882801546 by Hugo de Garis
[180] “...Creating Tomorrow’s Schools Today: Education — Our Children — Their Futures...” (2010) — ISBN-10: 1855393948 by Richard Gerver
[181] http://tiny.cc/p3piz
[182] “...The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Reshape the World in the Next 20 Years...” (2007) — ISBN-10: 0452288665 By James Canton
[183] “...The Predictioneer’s Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future...” (2010) — ISBN-10: 081297977X By Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
[184] “...Crucial Questions About the Future...” (2002) — ISBN-10: 0819182753 By Allen Tough
[185] http://tiny.cc/j33u9
[186] http://tiny.cc/ocn6a
[187] Synaptic Self: Our Brains Become Who We Are (2002) — ISBN 0-670-03028-7
[188] The Political economy of information (1988) By Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko — ISBN 0-299-11570-4
[189] Management Information Systems (2009) ISBN-10: 013607846X By Ken Laudon (Author), Jane Laudon (Author)
[190] http://tiny.cc/xbob0
[191] Wilson's Ghost: Reducing The Risk Of Conflict, Killing, And Catastrophe In The 21st Century by Robert S. McNamara (2003) — ISBN-10: 1586481436
[192] Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd Edition) by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig (Dec 11, 2009) — ISBN-10: 0136042597
[193] http://3.ly/XWtr
[194] “...The Dance of Molecules: How Nanotechnology is Changing Our Lives...” (2006) — ISBN-10: 1-56025-895-0 by Ted Sargent
[195] http://goo.gl/YFQZ6
[196] The Speed of Trust (2006) — ISBN-10: 0-7432-9730-X — By Stephen M. R. Covey
[197] Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change (2009) —ISBN-10: 0470998105 —By Joe Tidd, John Bessant
[198] http://goo.gl/LuojF
[199] http://bigthink.com/ideas/14657
[200] Source: http://goo.gl/iFpX2
[201] Hyperinnovation: Multidimensional Enterprise in the Connected Economy (2002) — ISBN-10: 0333994388 by Chris Harris
[202] “...Learning from the Future: Competitive Foresight Scenarios...” (1997) — ISBN-10: 0471303526 By Liam Fahey, Robert M. Randall
[203] “...Rethinking the Future: Rethinking Business, Principles, Competition, Control & Complexity, Leadership, Markets, and the World...” (1998) — ISBN-10: 9781857881080 By Rowan Gibson
[204] “...Connect the Dots... To Become An Impact Plyer...” (2003) — ISBN-10: 0595294928 By Dick Lynch
[205] Source: http://goo.gl/7KGG4
[206] “...The Leader Manager...” (1986) — ISBN-10: 0471836931 by John N. Williansom
[207] ISBN 978-0-309-11660-2
[208] http://goo.gl/dvfoQ
[209] Inscription in Washington National Archives’ building.
[210] Found via search engine query as it was earlier mentioned in REDES, the scientific television program from the Spanish state-owned television network. (As it was seen in August 2011).
[211] http://goo.gl/3GoQe
[212] Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software — ISBN-10: 0684868768 by Steven Johnson
[213] www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2048299,00.html
[214] The (Mis)behavior of Markets (2004) — ISBN 978-0-465-04355-2 By Benoit Mandelbrot
[215] The Lights in the Tunnel (2009) — ISBN: 978-1448659814 by Martin Ford
[216] Thinking for a Change: Discovering the Power to Create, Communicate and Lead (1996) by Michael Gelb — ISBN-10: 1854104209
[217] No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington — (2011) — ISBN: 978-0307587862 by Condoleezza Rice
[217] https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/03/Futureketing
[218] At http://bit.ly/1lcGtsH
[219] At http://bit.ly/1gK1Md3
[220] At http://bit.ly/1rdbP3t
[221] At http://bit.ly/OMVQtT
[222] At http://bit.ly/NDtiBW
[223] Athttp://goo.gl/SzF3U9
[224] At http://bit.ly/1iOhs4h
[225] Resilience: Protecting your Business from Disasters in a Dangerous World by Ph.D. Robert Collins (ISBN: 978-0595409242).
[226] All citations and quotations are from the Futuretronium Book ( http://lnkd.in/ZxV3Sz ) and The Future of Scientific Management, Today! ( http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC ) . A descriptive bibliographical reference has been included.
[227] By Dr. Nassim Nicholas Taleb PhD in his book: The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. (ISBN: 978-0812973815).
[228] Mr. David Shaw's profile is at http://lnkd.in/ba6xX-K .
[229] Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning by Martin Rees (ISBN: 978-0465068630).
[230] http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_25627092/google-facebook-and-other-tech-companies-race-develop
[231] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/22/robots-google-ray-kurzweil-terminator-singularity-artificial-intelligence
[232] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2618434/Artificial-intelligence-worst-thing-happen-humanity-Stephen-Hawking-warns-rise-robots-disastrous-mankind.html
[233] Thinking in New Boxes: A New Paradigm for Business Creativity by Luc De Brabandere and Alan Iny (ISBN: 978-0812992953)
[234] Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now by Douglas Rushkoff (ISBN: 978-1617230103)
[235] The Predictioneer's Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita (ISBN: 978-0812979770).
[236] http://bit.ly/1pN95Mo
[237] http://bit.ly/1ov8LOy
[238] http://bit.ly/1j3Up8y
[239] http://bit.ly/TUQDmm
[240] http://huff.to/QveKGq
[241] http://read.bi/1qYvqna
[242] http://read.bi/1sjj3pF
[243] http://bit.ly/1gF9kyC
[244] http://bit.ly/1jt7bu2
[245] http://read.bi/1dCtc9f
[246] http://onforb.es/1oxdaAw
[247] http://bit.ly/1lF4bsn
[248] http://bit.ly/UE5mCW
[249] http://onforb.es/18UixmG
[250] http://bit.ly/1r2F31Y
[251] http://on.wsj.com/1qzvJWv
[252] Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now by Douglas Rushkoff (ISBN: 978-1617230103)
[253] The Last Myth: What the Rise of Apocalyptic Thinking Tells Us About America by Mathew Barrett Gross and Mel Gilles (ISBN: 978-1616145736).
[254] Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Steven Kotler and Peter H. Diamandis (ISBN 978-1451614213)
[255] Future Shock by Alvin Toffler (ISBN: 978-0553277371)
[256] Blur: The Speed of Change In the Connected Economy Hardcover – March 25, 1998
by Stan Davis (Author), Christopher Meyer ( ISBN: 978-0201339871)
[257] http://read.bi/1rJfWWE
[258] http://bit.ly/1kGgWIC
[259] http://bit.ly/1ouKUNo
[260] http://bit.ly/1ouLcUy
[261] http://bit.ly/1qF2d1k
[262] http://bit.ly/1kxD6HU
[263] http://bit.ly/1kxD6HU
[264] http://bit.ly/1k0o2CE
[265] http://ti.me/TOLiN1
[266] http://bit.ly/1qde58H
[267] http://bit.ly/1meeIhY
[268] Who Owns the Future? by Jaron Lanier ( ISBN: 978-1451654974)
[269] The Artilect War: Cosmists Vs. Terrans: A Bitter Controversy Concerning Whether Humanity Should Build Godlike Massively Intelligent Machines [Paperback]
Hugo de Garis (Author) ISBN-13: 978-0882801544
[270] Artificial Intelligence: The Basics by Kevin Warwick (Oct 15, 2011) ISBN-13: 978-0415564830
[271] http://linkd.in/1p7Pbbo
[272] The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee ( ISBN: 978-0393239355)
[273] The Future, Declassified: Megatrends That Will Undo the World Unless We Take Action by Mathew Burrows (Sep 9, 2014) - ISBN: 978-1137279552
[274] The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World Paperback – April 15, 1996 (ISBN: 978-1863160995)
[273]www.brocade.com/downloads/documents/fact_sheet/network-facts-supercomputers-business.pdf

RECOMMENDED READING:

EDUCATION, ELUCIDATED BY EMPEROR NAPOLEON BONAPARTE AND DR. WERNHER VON BRAUN:

REFLECTING ON THE EDUCATION WE IMMEDIATELY NEED! EMPEROR NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, THE GREATEST RULER IN THE TOTALITY OF THE WEST, (1769 — 1821) observed:

“...Education, strictly speaking, has several objectives: one needs to learn how to speak and write correctly, which is generally called grammar and belles letters. Each lyceum has provided for this object, and there is no well-educated man who has not learned his rhetoric [….] After the need to speak and write correctly comes the ability to count and measure. The lyceums have provided this with classes in MATHEMATICS embracing arithmetical and MECHANICAL KNOWLEDGE IN THEIR DIFFERENT BRANCHES [….] The elements of several other fields come next: chronology, geography, and the rudiments of history are also a part of the education of the lyceum [….] A young man who leaves the lyceum at sixteen years of age thence knows not only the mechanics of his language and the classical authors, the divisions of discourse, the different figures of eloquence, the means of employing them either to calm or arouse passions, in short, everything that one learns in a course on belles letters. He also would know the principal epochs of history, the basic geographical divisions, and how to compute and measure. He has some general idea of the most striking natural phenomena and the principles of equilibrium and movement both with regard to solids and fluids [….] Whether he desires to follow the career of the barrister, that of the sword, or ENGLISH, or letters; if he is destined to enter into the body of scholars, to be a geographer, engineer, or land surveyor — in all these cases he has received a general education necessary to become equipped to receive the remainder of instruction that his circumstances require, and it is at this moment, when he must make his choice of a profession, that the special studies present themselves ...”. [113]

DR. WERNHER VON BRAUN ON EDUCATION, (1912 — 1977 and Father of the American Space Program) observed:

“...The average citizen today, of course, has far more scientific information at his disposal than did those greatest of intellects of earlier times. Yet paradoxically, I think that THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A GREATER NEED FOR INCREASED UNDERSTANDING AND APPRECIATION OF SCIENCE. It has been said that, although the choice of direction for our civilization will be determined through democratic process, it is there that the problem begins. TO MAKE RATIONAL CHOICES, THE AVERAGE CITIZEN MUST UNDERSTAND THE NATURE AND ROLE OF SCIENCE AT A TIME WHEN ITS BREADTH AND COMPLEXITY ARE INCREASING ALMOST EXPONENTIALLY [….] Conversely, the scientist, at a time when he can barely keep up to date in his specialty, must not isolate himself in his parochial interest. Instead, he should see his profession as a part of the larger world, to evaluate himself and his work in relation to all forces, especially the humanities, which shape and advance society. THE NEED, THEN, IS FOR AN EDUCATIONAL PROCESS RESULTING IN MORE SCIENTIFIC LITERACY FOR THE LAYMAN, AND MORE LITERACY IN THE HUMANITIES FOR THE SCIENTISTS [….] Man in this scientific age is free only to the extent that he has a grasp on himself and his surroundings. FREEDOM — THE ABILITY TO SPEAK, THINK, ACT, AND VOTE INTELLIGENTLY — is based largely on our ability TO MAKE CHOICES growing out of our understanding of the issues involved. With each advance of science, there is an invitation to more understanding. This is the essence of the burden borne by all peoples since the dawn of humanity. There must be widespread understanding of the role of science in modern society, both as to its limits and our dependence on its basic function as a tool for our survival. This is the imperative for scientific literacy [….] How do we encourage scientific literacy? I THINK THE PROBLEM IS HOW TO INSTILL IN STUDENTS A PERMANENT DESIRE TO LEARN. All youth is endowed with curiosity from the very beginning. What can education process do, not only to keep this natural curiosity alive, but to make it a permanent part of the individual drive? ... " [114]

LIST OF UPDATES (MARCH 24 THROUGH MARCH 30/2014). By Mr. Andres Agostini at The Future of Scientific Management, Today! At http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

lba

Smartphone app reads blood oxygen levels, forewarns of life-threatening pre-eclampsia
http://www.kurzweilai.net/smartphone-app-reads-blood-oxygen-…-eclampsia

Stanford lab launches new privacy-based social network
http://www.kurzweilai.net/stanford-lab-launches-new-privacy-based-social-network

New type of ‘ultracold’ molecule ideal for quantum computing
http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-type-of-ultracold-molecule-ide…-computing

Meet the ‘Most Connected Man’ in the World
http://mashable.com/2014/03/13/most-connected-man-in-world-c…dzeGFtNyJ9

Turning the CO2 we pump into the air into a valuable product sounds like a pretty good idea.

Headlines: Carbon Sequestration Finds a New Ally

Ben Gurion University Wins Cyber Competition
http://i-hls.com/2014/03/ben-gurion-university-wins-cyber-competition/

The Agent in His Labyrinth
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/opinion/cohen-the-agent-in.…html?_r=0

Defense Contractor Pleads To Selling Secrets To Chinese Girlfriend
http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2014/03/defense-contractor…girlfriend

NSA’s Deployed Malware via Automated Tools to Enhance Spy Capabilities
http://www.hotforsecurity.com/blog/nsas-deployed-malware-via…-8178.html

Kremlin website hit by ‘powerful’ cyber attack
http://news.msn.com/science-technology/kremlin-website-hit-b…ber-attack

Spain Adopts the ‘Israel Model’ to Engineer a Biotech Resurgence

Spain Adopts the ‘Israel Model’ to Engineer a Biotech Resurgence

NASA aims to go to Europa on the cheap
http://www.nature.com/news/nasa-aims-to-go-to-europa-on-the-cheap-1.14875

Magnetic materials could make future computers 1,000 times more efficient
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/178045-magnetic-materials…-efficient

A Self-Contained and Autonomous Soft Robotic Fish

A Self-Contained and Autonomous Soft Robotic Fish

Serpentine Style: The Physics of Flying Snakes
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2…ng-snakes/

U.S. to Give Up Role in Internet Domain Names

There’s More Than Just Qubits In Computing With Quantum Cats
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2014/03/13/theres-mo…ium=social

Can Management Get Us Out Of The Economic Mess It Has Created?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/03/14/can-mana…ign=buffer

Big Data Gives Us More To Argue About
http://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2014/02/03/big-data-gives…ium=social

New smartphone app measures oxygen saturation for diagnostics.

Gizmos & Gadgets: New Smartphone App Measures Blood Oxygen Levels

Proton poised for launch of dual satellites
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1403/15proton/

The art of science: Stunning, psychedelic images from Fabian Oefner
http://blog.ted.com/2013/10/03/the-art-of-science-from-fabian-oefner/

Stephen Wolfram Wants To Make Computer Language More Human
http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/stephen-wolfram-wan…SOC&dom=tw

Ukraine crisis: Moscow rally opposes Crimea intervention
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26593249?ocid=socialflow_twitter

Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

“Living and Working in Space: Conducting Solar Observations from Skylab”
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/smithsonian-national-air-and-space-museum

Hagel says crisis demands review of Russian engine
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1403/14rd180/

Ukrainian hackers claim they took down NATO websites ahead of secession vote
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/15/5512936/ukrainian-hackers-…o-websites

Chinese Automakers Build Bridges to U.S. EV Market
http://www.forbes.com/sites/pikeresearch/2014/03/14/chinese-…ev-market/

Google exec confirms phone in the labs
http://www.engadget.com/2007/3/15/google-exec-confirms-phone-in-the-labs/

Why the U.S. Military Is Into Bee Brain Surgery. Bees might hold the secret to a new kind of nighttime navigation.
http://m.nautil.us/issue/11/light/why-the-us-military-is-into-bee-brain-surgery

The Best Advice Steve Ballmer Ever Got
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/03/09/micro…r_got.html

From Chess Player to Barroom Brawler. There’s increasing evidence that Vladimir Putin is dangerously drunk on power — and reckless.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/14/from_chess_…k_on_power

The days of tax-free digital content are numbered. States aim to boost revenue by slapping sales tax on more digital content
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/prepare-for-more-taxes-on-a…?link=sfmw

VW Expects To Sell Over 10 Million Vehicles This Year
http://www.forbes.com/sites/christinentierney/2014/03/14/vw-…ium=social

Pioneering 3D printing reshapes patient’s face in Wales
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-26534408?utm_content=buffer…ign=buffer

Study: Women Who Can Do Math Still Don’t Get Hired

Russian and Ukrainian troops in natural-gas pumping station standoff
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0315/.UyTZG7RFURo.twitter

NATO says its websites hit by cyber attacks
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/15/us-ukraine-nato-id…rit=992637

Seeking Their Fortune: The Career Path for Top Executives in Big Companies

Seeking Their Fortune: The Career Path for Top Executives in Big Companies

Our brains deliberately make us forget things, to prevent insanity
http://io9.com/our-brains-deliberately-make-us-forget-things-to-preve-1543846375

Live Chat with World Bank Vice President for East Asia and Pacific on Climate Change
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2014/02/27/live-chat…Asia_P_EXT

35 Entrepreneurs Making a Difference in the Arab World
http://kw.wharton.upenn.edu/arab-women-rising/

This is what a job in the U.S.’s new manufacturing industry looks like
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/09/t…ooks-like/

U.S. Patients More Likely Than English Patients To Receive Life-Saving Surgery
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryhusten/2014/03/13/us-patien…ium=social

Obama national security aides meet to discuss Ukraine
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-national-security-aides-meet-dis…33314.html

NATO computers attacked by hackers
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/15/world/europe/nato-computer…um=twitter

Gravitational Waves: Einstein Was Right, Again, Maybe
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/gravitational-waves-ei…SOC&dom=tw

The price of success. Some American law schools are paying many of their graduates’ salaries
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21599037-some-america…ce-success

Why Cloud Browsers Are The Wave Of The Future
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/03/10/why-cloud-…ium=social

Defining How a No-Holds-Barred Russia-Ukraine Cyberwar Would Play Out
http://itsecuritynews.info/2014/03/09/defining-how-a-no-hold…lay-out-2/

Astrophysicists Plan To Announce A Major Discovery Tomorrow
http://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-smithsonian-center-fo…z2wBbqEH5f

Culture Is The Engine Moving Your Business
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aileron/2013/11/07/culture-is-th…-business/

How Many Species Inhabit the Earth?
http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/63#.UyZ7-_ldWSq

Harvard students develop patch for chemotherapy delivery
http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles…ivery.aspx

NSA ‘hijacked’ criminal botnets to install spyware
http://ca.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idCABREA2B21420140312

A Surgical Procedure’s Risks, Unmentioned

Why China Manipulates Its Currency
http://www.slideshare.net/johnmaxfield376/why-china-manipula…23827374=1

Bitcoin turmoil hasn’t turned off the VC investment tap
http://blogs.ft.com/tech-blog/2014/03/bitcoin-turmoil-hasnt-…tment-tap/

Need A Cloud Resource for Science? TACC Serves Up Rodeo
https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/news/press-releases/2013/need-a-…s-up-rodeo

Thorium Powered Car Could Run 100 Years On Just 8 Grams of Fuel
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/03/05/thorium-power…ucm%2Edpuf

The Future of Brain Implants
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579435592981780528

Gravitational Waves: Einstein Was Right, Again, Maybe
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/gravitational-waves-ei…gain-maybe

SpaceX Set to Launch the World’s First Reusable Booster
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525426/spacex-set-to-la…e-booster/

Drones Cleared for Takeoff. The FAA dreams of regulating drone use, but a wise federal judge has grounded that idea.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230491490…29582.html

Tokyo technology start-ups offer devices and gadgets
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26511514?OCID=twitterasia

Canada Explores G.M. Link to Accidents

Kasparov: ‘Carter looks like Churchill in comparison’ to Obama
http://time.com/26755/kasparov-carter-looks-like-churchill-i…-to-obama/

Crimea, it’s the most serious crisis in relations between the West and Russia since the Cold War. And until it’s over, risk aversion should remain the play of the day, analysts say.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101498478

Philippines: Inclusive growth can be enhanced through sustainable reconstruction and job creation – World Bank
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/03/17/ph…Asia_P_EXT

The Absolute Break Between Life and Death Is an Illusion
https://www.deepakchopra.com/blog/view/1520/the_absolute_bre…n_illusion

The banking industry can benefit from big data
http://www.bigdata-startups.com/BigData-startup/big-data-ana…HM.twitter

Radioactive Fukushima Waters Arrive At West Coast Of America
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/03/16/radioactiv…f-america/

Crimea crisis: Europe must finally check the Putin doctrine
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/14/opinion/ukraine-russia-put…g-forbrig/

Russian government, central bank websites hacked
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/03/14/Russian-go…394813278/

New Study Shows That Common Pain Relievers Fight Bacterial Infections
http://linkis.com/dlvr.it/riEVg

A Lesson In Partnering Up For The Greater Good: Corporations Assist NGO In Employing The Homeless
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2014/03/17/a-lesson-in-pa…ium=social

10 YouTube Videos That Prove Science Is Magic
http://mashable.com/2014/03/16/youtube-magic/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link

More Screenings Put Dent in Colon Cancer
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230328780…rss_Health

India remains the world’s biggest arms importer as purchases across the region rise
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2014-03&#…se/1280582

Big outsourcing firms find that escaping the crowd is not so easy
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21599033-big-outsourc…-elevators

Spring Cleaning Who Has Access to Your Data

Navy Launches Plans on New Amphib Design
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2014/03/17/navy-launches-plans-on-new…um=twitter

Putin’s pet journo: Russia could turn America into ‘radioactive dust’
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/themargin/2014/03/17/putins-pet…/?mod=sfmw

China develops drone to freeze air pollution over cities.

Headlines: China to Use Drones to Combat Urban Pollution

Big data tackles tiny molecular machines.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140314111533.htm

New Rover to Take Up Hunt for Martian Life in 2020.
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/78454.html

Predictive tech is getting smarter and more pervasive — but more controversial, too.
http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/15/predictive-tech-is-getting…rsial-too/

The Internet of Things Means More Things to Hack.
http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-report/20…g-dropdown

2020 vision: The future of Google Glass.
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-tech/2020-vision-t…ss-1190832

Latest NASA Study Says Long-Term Warming Trend in Line with IPCC Projections.

Headlines: Latest NASA Study Says Long-Term Warming Trend in Line with IPCC Projections

Bionic plants: Nanotechnology could turn shrubbery into supercharged energy producers.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140316153328.htm

Why Robots Won’t Take Every Job in the World.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/relax-robots-wont-take-every-job-79569766736.html

Want to build an immersive experience that shoppers will love? Learn more
http://intel.ly/1c8eV4m

Neuroscape Lab visualizes live brain functions using dramatic images.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/neuroscape-lab-visualizes-live-bra…tic-images

Are three-person designer babies ethical?
http://www.kurzweilai.net/are-three-person-designer-babies-ethical

Could emotion detectors make driving safer?
http://www.kurzweilai.net/could-emotion-detectors-make-driving-safer

Scientists Announce A Big-Bang Breakthrough.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/17/290866227/sci…um=twitter

Total Retail: Global survey of online shoppers.
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/retail-consumer/retail-consumer-pub…dex.jhtml#

This Ingenious Touchscreen UI Should Be in Every Car.
http://www.wired.com/design/2014/02/watch-ingenious-touchscr…every-car/

Intel CEO talks wearable tech, creativity and lunch on Reddit.
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/blog/2014/02/intels-ceo-…ml?ana=twt

Intel Survey: Americans Skeptical, Yet Hopeful, About Smart Cities.
http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2014/02/19/intel-survey…rt-cities/

The Secret To Getting Rich And Changing The World Is To Have A Stupid Idea’
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-secret-is-to-have-a-stupi…%20Morning

Why Altruism Will Be Crucial To The Rise Of A Driverless City.
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3026435/why-altruism-will-be-cruc…rless-city

Intel’s Sharp-Eyed Social Scientist.

How Many Americans Want to Live in Driverless City?
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/how-many-americans-want-to-li…Lvd4A.html

Jetsons Age Beckons, But Opinion Split on Driverless Car, Drones.
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/jetsons-age-beckons-o…nes-n27221

This robot will utterly destroy you at air hockey.
http://io9.com/this-robot-will-utterly-destroy-you-at-air-hockey-1517492358

Robots, Data, and Experiences: A Glimpse Into the Future of Computing.
http://www.c2mtl.com/blog-creativity/?utm_source=cvent&utm_m…own#!10761

Watch the intricate dance of objects levitated by sound.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/2/5266670/watch-the-intricate…d-by-sound

Future technology is bright, says Intel guru Steve Brown.
http://m.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/future-te…2z4k0.html

Are Millennials Falling Out of Love With Technology?
http://www.wired.com/insights/2013/11/are-millennials-fallin…echnology/

Obama Says U.S. And EU Will ‘Stand Firm’ With Ukraine.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/17/290788338/u-s…oin-russia

What’s It Like to Pilot a Supersonic Fighter Aircraft?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/03/17/what_is_it_like_…craft.html

A Window on the Universe’s Distant Past and Future.
http://www.wfs.org/blogs/richard-yonck/window-universe%E2%80…and-future

California’s Dreamin’ About Autonomous Car Regulations.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/green-tech/advanced-cars/…egulations

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba to float in US.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/17/chinese-ecom…CMP=twt_gu

Russia, Now at War in Ukraine, is Between Reaction and Revolution.
http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-now-at-war-in-ukraine-i…evolution/

Einstein’s Gravitational Waves Discovered.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrodgers/2014/03/17/einsteins…ium=social

Entrepreneurship Simulation: The Startup Game.
http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/WH0001-HTM-ENG

The Navy’s Plan to Beam Down Energy From Orbiting Solar Panels.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2014/03/space-solar/

Big Bang echo: scientists find ‘signal from dawn of time’. Astronomers have detected the first evidence of gravitational ripples which were sent out in the first second of the Big Bang.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/10703721/Big-Bang-e…-time.html

Gravitational waves. If you could detect a bowling ball’s gravitational waves, you would know when someone threw the ball—even if you were standing outside the bowling alley.
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/october-2012/explain…onal-waves

Future Workforce.
http://paper.li/Avadon/1310148911

Glaxo to Bring Doctors In-House as Educational Speakers.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-17/glaxo-to-br…eform.html

U.S. Lags as Commercial Drones Take Off.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/17/us-lags-as-…e-off.aspx

How An LA Times Reporter Got An Algorithm To Write Articles For Him.
http://www.businessinsider.com/quakebot-robot-la-times-2014-3

Facebook and TED Team Up to Bring Exclusive Content to ‘Paper’.
http://mashable.com/2014/03/17/facebook-ted-content-collabor…witterfeed

TURBINE, how NSA has plundered botnets to the cybercrime.
http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/23034/cyber-crime/turbin…crime.html

New NASA Doomsday Scenario – Real or a Hoax?

Headlines: New NASA Doomsday Scenario – Real or a Hoax?

The Internet of Everything: This is the Year!
https://communities.bmc.com/people/billemmett/blog/2014/02/2…97978285iy

An uncommon thread. Conductive fibres: From lighter aircraft to electric knickers, flexible filaments raise a wide range of interesting possibilities.
http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21598328-…mon_thread

You Can Wear This Fabric Wi-Fi Antenna.
http://gizmodo.com/you-can-wear-this-fabric-wi-fi-antenna-1545394652

Graphene Could Give You Predator-Vision Contact Lenses One Day.
http://gizmodo.com/graphene-could-give-you-predator-vision-c…1545466030

STUDIES SHOW THAT FOUR BASIC EMOTIONS COMBINE TO CREATE OUR EXPERIENCES. HERE’S WHAT THAT MEANS FOR THE WAY CONTENT IS SHARED ONLINE.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3027699/how-our-brains-decide-what-we-share-online

Big Bang breakthrough announced; gravity waves detected.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/17/tech/innovation/big-bang-g…?hpt=hp_t2

Bionic plants: Nanotechnology could turn shrubbery into supercharged energy producers.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140316153328.htm

Building a Space Infrastructure Starts with Gas Stations.

Building a Space Infrastructure Starts with Gas Stations

Top 10 Tech Predictions for 2015.
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140317161746&#4…s-for-2015

The next generation of electronics is a press-on tattoo.
http://phys.org/news/2014-03-electronics-press-on-tattoo.html

Drones will cause an upheaval of society like we haven’t seen in 700 years.
http://qz.com/185945/drones-are-about-to-upheave-society-in-…700-years/

Cybersecurity 2014: Beyond the NIST framework.

Cybersecurity 2014: Beyond the NIST framework

Chad Jenkins- The former FBI Counter-terrorism expert.

Ukraine: Ban ‘deeply concerned’ Crimea vote will worsen complex, tense situation
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=47366&Cr=ukraine&Cr1=#.UydG44XEH8c

Cosmologists Finally Capture an Elusive Signal From the Beginning of Time.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/03/gravitational-waves-b-mode-inflation/

Thanks To Bill Clinton, We Don’t Regulate The Internet Like A Public Utility.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/03/17/thanks-to-bi…ium=social

Firms that hire convicts to be eligible for federal loans.
http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/business/201014-firms-that…eral-loans

First direct evidence of cosmic inflation. Telescope at the South Pole finds twists in microwave-light remnants from the Big Bang, showing evidence for inflation and gravitational waves
http://www.kurzweilai.net/first-direct-evidence-of-cosmic-inflation

Nanoscale optical switch breaks miniaturization barrier
http://www.kurzweilai.net/nanoscale-optical-switch-breaks-mi…on-barrier

Android Wear: Here Comes the Future of Android Smartwatches
http://gizmodo.com/android-wear-heres-the-future-of-android-…1546388688

Why is it green to grow a brick?
http://antenna.sciencemuseum.org.uk/topiczone/articles/biomason-brick

Watch how Virtual Reality is used to treat war veterans with Post-traumatic stress disorder
http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2014/03/18/watch-virtual-re…mpaign=pro

STUDY SAYS ROBOTS CAN PRESSURE HUMANS TO DO THINGS AGAINST THEIR WILL
http://www.fastcompany.com/3027845/fast-feed/study-says-robo…their-will

THE 3D FUTURE OF YOUR SMARTPHONE CAMERA
http://www.nextgov.com/mobile/2014/03/3d-future-your-smartph…ng-HPriver

Toward ‘vanishing’ electronics and unlocking nanomaterials’ power potential
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140317174305.htm

Artificial Antibody Company Exceeds Crowdfunding Goal.

Biomedicine Update: Artificial Antibody Company Exceeds Crowdfunding Goal

The Relationship Between Greenland and Sea Level Getting More Troubling.

Headlines: The Relationship Between Greenland and Sea Level Getting More Troubling

Japan holds first broad cybersecurity drill, frets over Olympics risks.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/18/us-japan-cybercrim…O920140318

Largest, sturdiest self-assembling DNA cages built. Could be used to create miniscule factories that produce specialty chemicals or high-sensitivity photonic sensors that diagnose disease.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/largest-sturdiest-self-assembling-dna-cages-built

Nanobionic superplants. Nanotechnology + synthetic biology creates plants capable of supercharged energy production or as sensors for explosives.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/nanobionic-superplants

Proliferation of tracking technology reaps security benefits, sparks privacy concerns.
http://www.securityinfowatch.com/article/11350683/dr-steven-…technology

Tomorrow We Will Know More About the State of Our Future.

Headlines: Tomorrow We Will Know More About the State of Our Future

Harvesting Earth’s Infrared Energy Proposed by Harvard Physicists.

Headlines: Harvesting Earth’s Infrared Energy Proposed by Harvard Physicists

5 Tech Trends You’ll Hear About at SXSW 2015.
http://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/5-tech-trends…45;0807599

Stem cells inside sutures could improve healing in Achilles tendon injuries.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140312182026.htm

New cell line should accelerate embryonic stem cell research.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140314095104.htm

12 reasons robots could be the next trillion-dollar business opportunity.
http://qz.com/190004/12-reasons-robots-could-be-the-next-tri…portunity/

White House Launches Climate Data Website To Help People Prepare For Effects Of Global Warming.
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-white-house-launches-climat…014-19

Talking to the next generation.

Talking to the next generation

3D Printing in the Home: 1 In 3 Americans Ready For 3D Printer.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2014/03/19/3d-printing-i…d-printer/

HOW WEARABLE TECH CAN MAKE
DATING MORE ENJOYABLE.
http://www.psfk.com/2014/03/how-wearable-tech-can-make-datin…fer#!AKEQE

SETI Scientists Predict Alien Life Discovery Within 25 Years.

Headlines: SETI Scientists Predict Alien Life Discovery Within 25 Years

State of Wyoming in Climate Change Denial.

Headlines: State of Wyoming in Climate Change Denial

Singapore scientists create stem cells from a drop of blood. DIY finger prick technique opens door for extensive stem cell banking
http://www.kurzweilai.net/singapore-scientists-create-stem-c…p-of-blood

Microplasma transistors for extreme environments, like nuclear reactors.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/microplasma-transistors-for-extrem…r-reactors

Fierce solar magnetic storm barely missed Earth in 2012. “Perfect storm” could have knocked out the electrical grid and disabled satellites and GPS, costing trillions worldwide
http://www.kurzweilai.net/fierce-solar-magnetic-storm-barely…th-in-2012

Graphene superconducting property discovered. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory see electrons dancing in superconducting material, setting a foundation for future explorations.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/graphene-superconducting-property-discovered

Introducing Project Morpheus.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/introducing-project-morpheus

Doping carbon-nanotube circuits for more reliable, faster, and power-efficient flexible devices.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/doping-carbon-nanotube-circuits-fo…le-devices

A stretchable antenna for wearable health monitoring.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-stretchable-antenna-for-wearable-health-monitoring

NASA Doomsday Scenario Paper.

An Update on NASA Doomsday Scenario Paper

The Microbiome: Brave New World for Health Care — and Biotech.

The Microbiome: Brave New World for Health Care — and Biotech

X Plane: One step closer to the next military breakthrough.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/03/20/x-plane-one-step-clos…akthrough/

Border Security’s Turn Toward the High-Tech.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/us/border-securitys-turn-t.…html?_r=0

Infrastructure maintenance takes largest piece of DHS IT spending pie.
http://gcn.com/articles/2014/03/21/dhs-it-spending.aspx

Sharpening the Focus on Critical Infrastructure, Cybersecurity and Interdependencies.
http://www.emergencymgmt.com/safety/Sharpening-the-Focus-on-…cture.html

Thieves Dig 50 Foot Tunnel to Steal ATM.
http://security-today.com/articles/2014/03/20/thieves-dig-50…l-atm.aspx

Be Open to Possibilities Around STEM, Google and Homeland Security Leaders Encourage Students at K-12 STEM Symposium.

Be Open to Possibilities Around STEM, Google and Homeland Security Leaders Encourage Students at K-12 STEM Symposium

Companies Turn to Cyber Insurance as Hacker Threats Mount.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2014/03/20/companies-t…at-mounts/

Why Goldman Sachs is worried about Bank of America.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101514954

How to explode brain-cancer cells.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-explode-brain-cancer-cells

Anti-counterfeit patterns made from nanowires are ‘nearly impossible’ to replicate.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/anti-counterfeit-patterns-made-fro…-replicate

Artificial Intelligence Gets Boost from Big Name Investors.

Artificial Intelligence Gets Boost from Big Name Investors

How The World Will Look In 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Years Time.
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3024522/how-the-world-will-look-i…ps04101rss

10 Technological Breakthroughs Of 2014 That Could Change The World.
http://www.businessinsider.com/technological-breakthroughs-2014-3

Big Bang Discovery Opens Doors to the “Multiverse“
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140318-multi…nce-space/

Google Has a Plan for Your Future.
http://www.thelowdownblog.com/2014/03/google-has-plan-for-your-future.html

Ground-improvement methods might protect against earthquakes.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140321101738.htm

Regards,

Mr. Andres Agostini
Risk-Management Scientific Futurologist and Entrepreneurial Success Consultant
http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

Carey Dunne — FAST COMPANY


This tiny computer clips onto your ear and lets you scroll through a menu by winking or pause a song by scrunching your nose. The Samantha Stevens-ification of human interaction has begun.

It looks like we’re one step closer to becoming cyborgs with little chips implanted in our skulls. Researchers in Japan are currently developing the “Earclip wearable PC,” a tiny computer that clips onto your ear. It weighs all of 17-grams (0.59 ounces), but manages to house a GPS, compass, gyro-sensor, battery, barometer, speaker and microphone, and its functions are controlled by your facial expressions: the blink of an eye, a raise of an eyebrow, a click of the tongue. As inconspicuous as a hearing aid, it’s less dorky-looking than Google Glass.

“We have made this with the basic idea that people will wear it in the same way they wear earrings,” creator Kazuhiro Taniguchi, an engineer at Hiroshima City University, told AFP in a recent interview.

Read more

LIST OF UPDATES (FEBRUARY 22 THROUGH 23/2014). By Mr. Andres Agostini at The Future of Scientific Management, Today! At http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

lba

A light switch for pain
http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-light-switch-for-pain

World’s most powerful terahertz laser chip
http://www.kurzweilai.net/worlds-most-powerful-terahertz-laser-chip

Are bots taking over Wikipedia?
http://www.kurzweilai.net/are-bots-taking-over-wikipedia

Gigabit Internet may be coming to 35 US cities
http://www.kurzweilai.net/gigabit-internet-may-be-coming-to-35-us-cities

Stretchable, bendable optical interconnections for body sensors and robotic skin
http://www.kurzweilai.net/stretchable-bendable-optical-inter…botic-skin

New type of MRI ‘whole body’ scan could improve treatment of bone-marrow cancer
http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-type-of-mri-whole-body-scan-co…row-cancer

Intelligent alien life could be found by 2040, says SETI astronomer
http://www.kurzweilai.net/intelligent-alien-life-could-be-fo…astronomer

Zeroing in on how Alzheimer’s-disease toxins are created
http://www.kurzweilai.net/zeroing-in-on-how-alzheimers-disea…re-created

A drug that can help wipe out reservoirs of cancer cells in bone marrow
http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-drug-that-can-help-wipe-out-rese…one-marrow

Apple patents health-and-fitness monitoring headphones
http://www.kurzweilai.net/apple-patents-health-and-fitness-monitoring-headphones

Chips that listen to bacteria
http://www.kurzweilai.net/chips-that-listen-to-bacteria

Growing number of chemicals linked with brain disorders in children
http://www.kurzweilai.net/growing-number-of-chemicals-linked…n-children

New multilayer graphene structure allows ‘ultraprecise,’ ‘ultrafast’ water filtering
http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-multilayer-graphene-structure-…-filtering

Developing World Surpasses the Developed in Growing GMO Crops

Developing World Surpasses the Developed in Growing GMO Crops

New Battery Technologies May Make EVs Ubiquitous

New Battery Technologies May Make EVs Ubiquitous

A Handheld Device That Can Diagnose Diseases And Drug Resistance In 15 Minutes
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3026100/fund-this/a-handheld-devi…15-minutes

A World Without Car Crashes
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2014/02/world-witho…22919200=1

The cars we’ll be driving in the world of 2050
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131108-what-will-we-be-driving-in-2050

The city of 2050
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23524249

11 Predictions for the World in 2030 That May Sound Outrageous Today but not in the Future.
http://www.ilookforwardto.com/2010/11/10-predictions-for-203…no-lo.html

U.S. Intelligence Agencies See a Different World in 2030
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-10/u-s-intelli…-2030.html

China Factory Data Show Slowdown Risk as Xi Limits Credit
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-19/chinese-man…onths.html

Can Homemade Goods Become The Global Brands Of Tomorrow?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnowrid/2014/02/19/can-homemad…-tomorrow/

America’s Fusion Race With China Is Heating Up, So Why Is Washington Going Cold?
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2014/02/americas-fusion-race…old/78848/

Why Wearable Tech Will Be as Big as the Smartphone
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/12/wearable-computers/

This Ring Scans Text And Reads It Aloud For Visually Impaired People
http://gizmodo.com/this-ring-scans-text-and-reads-it-aloud-f…socialflow

Smart Shoes Could Help Runners Hit Their Stride
http://www.livescience.com/41844-smart-running-shoes-improve-runners-gait.html

‘We need the iPhone of guns’: Will smart guns transform the gun industry?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/we-need-the-iphone-of-gu…story.html

How The Knowledge Economy Is Redefining Work
http://www.fastcompany.com/3026566/leadership-now/how-the-kn…ining-work

Bitcoin Exchange Prices Plummet as Investors Brace for Bankruptcy
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/02/mtgox-2/

Google prepares 34-city push for ultra-fast Fiber service
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/19/us-google-fiber-idUSBREA1I1ZT20140219

Some predict computers will produce a jobless future. Here’s why they’re wrong.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/18…yre-wrong/

Quantum Microscope May Be Able to See Inside Living Cells
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2014/02/Layout.jpeg

Looking ahead: what will the world be like in 2064?
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/editorial/world-issues/2014/01/0…-ahead.htm

QUOTATION(S): “…Now, for the first time, we are observing the brain at work in a global manner with such clarity that we should be able to discover the overall programs behind its magnificent powers…”

AND

“…When Queen Victoria was in her prime, an Englishman, Charles Darwin, discovered a fundamental truth that shook mankind so severely that it remains today a matter of extreme distress and massive denial. Darwin realized that life on our planet is not the recent and fixed product of deity-mediated special creation, but has been constantly changing over a long span of time … The paleontologist who followed Darwin have taught us that time has no respect for species. Whole dynasties of life have been swept away and replaced with new ones. More than 65 million years ago, the world was filled with swift, deadly meat-eaters, including huge tyrannosaurs stalking elephant-sized horned dinosaurs and duck-billed herbivores. Flying pterosaurs were as big and heavy as sailplanes. Small, graceful, predaceous dinosaurs had binocular vision, big brains, and grasping hands. After 170 million years of successful evolution, they achieved the height of variation and power. Resplendent and numerous on the fertile Cretaceous plains, how could it be that within a few years they all would be gone forever? This chilling story suggests a ticking clock for humanity, as well; dare we think of our own extinction? There is ticking clock for humanity, and it may be mere seconds before midnight. TOMORROW IS UPON US, AND WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN IN THE NEW DAY IS FAR, FAR STRANGER THAN MOST PEOPLE DARE TO THINK … Even Darwin did not realize how right he was, or how far evolution will take us. We should not fault Darwin for his lack of vision. Darwin lived in a time when the modern scientific revolution was just beginning. It was also a time of steam engines, gas lamps, and phrenology. Science, in our late 20th century sense, was still a few years away. Yet even today, few nonscientists have more than an inkling of how life evolved or how technologies such as the automobile, the light switch, or the airplane actually work … WE LIVE IN A HIGH-TECHNOLOGY WORLD, WITH LITTLE APPRECIATION FOR HOW THINGS GOT THE WAY THEY ARE…”

AND

“…Man, incurable futurist, is the only traditionalist animal…”

AND

“…A person’s world equates to the size his (her) own vocabulary…”

CITATION(S): “…Wealth is concentrated and portable. MIT faculty and alumni produce as much wealth as all but Twenty-Two Countries In The World…”

AND

“… [The human being] experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty…”

AND

“…Yet the opportunities and challenges do not pause. The forces of change are in fact accelerating as technology, communications, and mobility link us in a blurring and buzzing globalizing world.… The image of this future became clearer when we and 40 executives and thought leaders closely examined five specific technology areas and explored their implications for society, business, and government. We examined biotechnology, cyber-technology, nanotechnology, ubiquitous sensing, and wild cards from science and technology. We asked the thought leaders to apply their projections in five crosscutting areas to identify the key technology convergences that would most affect or disrupt society in 2025: economy and wealth, energy and the environment, health and demographics, infrastructure, and governance .… We learned that the technologies were changing in ways that made traditional distinctions between disciplines and areas of science decreasingly relevant. Biotechnologists regularly describe nano-scale developments. Nanotechnologists apply insights from genome sequencing. Research is spread, enhanced, and stolen with cyber tools. Research will lead to carbon-free or carbon-neutral technologies that disrupt industries and policies. The blurring of boundaries between sciences are creating convergences. Breakthroughs across disciplines are stimulating accelerating insights and applications…”

AND

“…Knowledge is being created at such a rate that much of what we know will soon be obsolete .… The technological developments maturing between now and 2025 and the innovative ways they may be applied reflect an acceleration and shift that can seem both promising and challenging to decision makers. In the Industrial Age, developments in steam power, combustion engines, automobiles, aerospace, and telephony seemed slow to mature – their development and spread required large industrial infrastructures. In the Information Age, developments in bio, nano, cyber, and sensors are possible with a smaller and more differentiated infrastructure, and they are occurring simultaneously around the globe. Global information networks are increasing the pace of this technological innovation. This deeper, more widely spread development of knowledge is different from our recent past and portends further changes .… The convergences of bio, nano, cyber, sensors and wild card technologies are causing even greater acceleration of change. But at the same time, knowledge is being created at such a rate that much of what we know about these technologies and their application rapidly becomes obsolete as it is overtaken by newer discoveries. Our institutions will be challenged to respond to the combination of these technological changes and the many other drivers of change simultaneously. We expect many systems and institutions to be desynchronized by these changes and efforts to resynchronize them will add to the sense of disruption that many people feel .… Many thought leaders we worked with in this effort are highly optimistic. Nearly all who contributed to these findings see technological developments as promising, and as stimuli for new opportunities. At the same time, some cautioned about vulnerabilities and called for leadership and action to address these vulnerabilities before we feel their impact. This report serves as one input to decision makers who can aid us in adapting with the changes and creating our future…”

AND

“… In the mid-1980s a study by Shell suggested that the average corporate survival rate for large company was about half as long as that of a human being. Since then the pressures on firms have increased enormously from all directions ─ with the inevitable result that business life expectancy is reduced still further. Many studies look at the changing composition of key indices and draw attention to the demise of what were often major firms and in their time key innovators. For example, Foster and Kaplan point out that of the 500 companies originally making up the Standard & Poor 500 list in 1957, only 74 remained on the list through to 1977. Of the top 12 companies which make up the Dow Jones Index in 1900 only one ─ General Electric ─ survives today. Even apparently robust giants like IBM, GM or Kodak can suddenly display worrying sings of mortality, whilst for small firms the picture is often considerably worse since they lack the protection of a large resource base … Some firms have had to change dramatically to stay in business. For example, a company founded in the early nineteenth century, which had Wellington boots and toilet paper amongst its product range, is now one of the largest and most successful in the world of telecommunications business. Nokia began life as a lumber company, making the equipment and supplies needed to cut down forests in Finland. It moved through into paper and from there into the ‘paperless office’ world of IT ─ and from there into mobile telephones … Another mobile phone player ─ Vodafone Airtouch ─ grew to its huge size by merging with a firm called Mannesmann which, since its birth in 1870s, has been more commonly associated with the invention and production of steel tubes! TUI owns Thomsom (the travel group) in the UK, and is the largest European travel and tourism services company. Its origins, however, lie in the mines of old Prussia where it was established as a public sector state lead mining and smelting company!…”

NEWEST, PRACTICAL PRINCIPALS (TENETS) TO SEIZE SUSTAINABLE PROFESSIONAL, MANAGERIAL AND BUSINESS SUCCESS TENTES: (21) Step outside the boundaries of the framework’s system when seeking a problem’s solution. (22) Within zillion tiny bets, raise the ante and capture the documented learning through frenzy execution. (23) “…Moonshine…” and “…Skunks-work…” and “…Re-Imagineer…” it all, holding in your mind the motion-picture image that, regardless of the relevance of “…inputs…” and “…outputs,…”, entails that the highest relevance is within the sophistication within the THROUGHPUT.

BOOK(S): What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation… by Gary Hamel. ISBN-13: 978–1118120828.

N.B.: Quotations, Citations and Success Tenets are by the Futuretronium Book.

Regards,

Mr. Andres Agostini
Risk-Management Futurist and Success Consultant
http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

LIST OF UPDATES (FEBRUARY 17 THROUGH 21/2014). By Mr. Andres Agostini at The Future of Scientific Management, Today! At http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC 777 Wearable glasses help surgeons view cancer​​​​​​​​ cells in real time http://www.kurzweilai.net/wearable-glasses-help-surgeons-vie…-real-time

Miniaturized hearing aids that will fit into the ear canal http://www.kurzweilai.net/miniaturized-hearing-aids-that-wil…-ear-canal

DHS, Purdue Develop Social Media Analysis Tool to Monitor Crime http://www.executivegov.com/2014/02/dhs-purdue-develop-socia…1msiI.dpuf

The Global Search for Education: What Israel Did http://www.huffingtonpost.com/c-m-rubin/the-global-search-for-edu_b_4797810.html

Virgin America Wants To Turn Boring Plane Flights Into Awesome Networking Sessions http://www.businessinsider.com/category/virgin-america

The World’s Most Powerful 3-D Laser Imager http://www.technologyreview.com/news/524166/the-worlds-most-…er-imager/

Scientists Create Virtual Brain to Study Neurological Disorders http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/02/16/scientists-create-a-…65956.html

Scientists to create frozen zoos on other planets? http://innovation.uk.msn.com/planet/scientists-to-create-fro…er-planets

Welcome to the Future of Transportation http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/blog/welcome-future-transportation

The Power of Unintentional Collaboration http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-power-of-unintentiona…=sm-direct

‘Hand of God’ Spotted by NASA Space Telescope (Photo) http://www.space.com/24225-hand-of-god-photo-nasa-telescope.…7_18570724

Education is the key to smart security preparation http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/education-is-the-key-…on-1221637

NASA Finds Clues That There’s Flowing Water On Mars http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2014/02/10/nasa-finds-…r-on-mars/

The World’s Most Powerful 3-D Laser Imager http://www.technologyreview.com/news/524166/the-worlds-most-…er-imager/

Explore 10 trends that offer CIOs the opportunity to shape tomorrow and to transform “business as usual.” http://dupress.com/articles/2014-tech-trends-introduction/?i…awa:021414

Cameras That Can See Through Walls! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLtzilM0epg

Aquaponics: The Answer to California’s Drought? http://www.bloomberg.com/video/aquaponics-the-answer-to-cali…3U_Dw.html

Why the Tiny Home Movement May Not be So Tiny http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2014/02/why-the-tiny-home-mov…e-so-tiny/

A termite-inspired robot construction team http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-termite-inspired-robot-construction-team

Helping robots collaborate http://www.kurzweilai.net/herding-robots

Robots with insect brains http://www.kurzweilai.net/robots-with-insect-brains

Four new galaxy clusters discovered some 10 billion light years from Earth http://www.kurzweilai.net/four-new-galaxy-clusters-discovere…from-earth

What makes us human? Unique brain area linked to higher cognitive powers http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140205212015.ht…ce+News%29

5 (Relatively Simple) Steps To B2B Social Media Marketing Success http://www.fastcompany.com/3026450/dialed/5-relativity-simpl…Company%29

Q&A: What studying networks can tell us about the world and ourselves http://news.yale.edu/2014/02/11/qa-what-studying-networks-ca…-ourselves

Iran proposes joint naval exercise with Russia. Show of strength as interim nuclear deal takes effect http://kleinonline.wnd.com/2014/02/14/iran-proposes-joint-na…4fUpi.dpuf

Chronic Pain Common in Teens with Mental Health Problems http://americannewsreport.com/nationalpainreport/chronic-pai…23025.html

Is truth stranger than fiction? Yes, especially for science fiction http://phys.org/news/2014-02-truth-stranger-fiction-science.html

The Future of Work by 2020 http://www.elsua.net/2013/05/22/the-future-of-work-by-2020/

Personalized medicine by 2020 and other futuristic healthcare predictions (infographic) http://medcitynews.com/2012/08/personalized-medicine-by-2020…z2tLx3xLZP

NASA Invites Private Companies To The Moon http://www.popsci.com/article/science/nasa-invites-private-companies-moon

How The Internet Of Things Is More Like The Industrial Revolution Than The Digital Revolution http://www.forbes.com/sites/oreillymedia/2014/02/10/more-1876-than-1995/

Atheer Glasses, the Best Way to Experience the Future http://arabnet.me/atheer-glasses-best-way-experience-future/

Next-Gen Nanotech Breath Sensor Could Change How We Monitor Health http://www.medgadget.com/2013/10/hold-next-gen-nanotech-sens…ealth.html

Will your clothing spy on you? http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/02/13/will-your-clothing-sp…ign=buffer

Two Female VCs Launch Silicon Valley Firm To Show Diversity Equals Profit http://www.fastcoexist.com/3026479/two-female-vcs-launch-sil…als-profit

How to Adjust to the Silver-Tsunami of Working Baby Boomers? http://synecticsworld.com/how-to-adjust-to-the-silver-tsunam…t=3977617#

Colonialism’s Enduring Dividends. Why European Companies Have an Advantage in Emerging Markets http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140776/bhaskar-chakra…-dividends

Ad Infinitum. ‘Our Mathematical Universe,’ by Max Tegmark. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/books/review/our-mathemati.…html?_r=0

Yahoo’s Mayer Views 2014 as Tech ‘Tipping Point’ http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/yahoos-mayer-2014-tip…echnology/

Social platform for sharing cyberthreat intell goes live http://gcn.com/articles/2014/02/11/activetrust.aspx

QUOTATION(S): “…The forces shaping your future are digital [and mathematical], and you need to understand them…” AND “…You can’t understand the knot without understanding the strands, but in the future, the strands need not remain tied up in the same way as they are today…” AND “…ALL CHILDREN ARE BORN GENIUSES; 9,999 OUT OF EVERY 10,000 ARE SWIFTLY, INADVERTENTLY DEGENIUNIZED BY GROWNUPS…” AND “…Supercomputers will achieve one human brain capacity by 2010, and personal computers will do so by about 2020 .… We appear to be programmed with the idea that there are ‘things’ outside of our self, and some are conscious, and some are not .… We are beginning to see intimations of this in the implantation of computer devices into the human body…” AND “…People are always [and wrongfully] assuming that everything that is going to be invented must have been invented already. But it hasn’t…”

CITATION(S): “…We have the Internet that we have today because the Internet of yesterday did not focus on the today of yesterday…” AND “…Legal scholars can debate whether copyright law mandates a future of ‘authorized use only’ for digital information. The answer may not matter much, because that future is coming to pass through the technologies of digital rights management and trusted systems…” AND “…Can we envision the future transcontinental flights, where books, music, images, and videos are automatically extracted, sampled, mixed, and remixed; fed into massive automated reasoning engines; assimilated into the core software of every personal computer and every cell phone ─ and thousands of other things for which the words don’t even exist yet?…” AND “…Governments of the Industrial World, your weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You have no so sovereignty where we gather .… We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity … In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits .… [Y]ou are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace…”

NEWEST, PRACTICAL PRINCIPALS (TENETS) TO SEIZE SUSTAINABLE PROFESSIONAL, MANAGERIAL AND BUSINESS SUCCESS TENTES: (18) Foster momentum by creating virtuous cycles that build credibility and by avoiding getting caught in vicious cycles that harm credibility. (19) Institute coalitions that translate into swifter organizational adjustments to the inevitable streams of change in personnel and environment. BOOK(S): A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel H. Pink (ISBN-13: 978–1594481710).

N.B.: Quotations, Citations and Success Tenets are by the Futuretronium Book.

Regards,

Mr. Andres Agostini

Risk-Management Futurist and Success Consultant

http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC