Newsletter #5
June 28, 2017
Frontiers Seminar Unit 4: Moving Toward a Complexity-Oriented Paradigm
- Embracing Complexity: The Key to Dealing with Intractability --The Moving Beyond Intractability MOOS Seminars introduction to unit on complexity, ecosystems, & intractability. (May 23, 2017)
- Complex vs. Complicated Systems -- Intractable conflicts are complex adaptive systems, so they need complex, adaptive responses. (May 24, 2017)
- System Levels -- Simple models won't work! We must develop conflict intervention models for higher-level complex systems. (May 25, 2017)
- The Really Big Picture Ecodynamics and Planetary Evolution -- An exploration of how understanding ecodynamics and evolution can help us deal with complex conflict. (May 31, 2017)
- Meeting the Adaptation Challenge -- Speeding society's ability to rapidly adapt to changing conditions should be a key goal of the conflict field. (June 1, 2017)
- The Evolutionary Choice: "Power With" or "Power Over" -- An explanation of why this may be our best/last chance to make democracy work (and avoid autocracy and anocracy). (June 12, 2017)
- Our Most Important Conflict: Coexisters vs. Fighters vs. Divide-and-Conquerors - We need to resist "divide and conqueror's" efforts to control society by exacerbating left/right tensions. (June 15, 2017)
- The Complex Causes of Social Problems -- We need to think about social problems as complex adaptive systems requiring massively parallel problem-solving. (June 27, 2017)
Fundamentals Seminar Unit 5: Examining Causes of Intractable Conflicts: Overlay (or Complicating) Factors
- Conflict Overlay Factors -- A very short introduction to Unit 5, covering conflict overlay factors that make conflicts even more intractable. (June 12, 2017)
- Frames, Framing and Reframing -- Frames determine what we believe is true. When we framing things differently, conflict resolution is a challenge! (June 12, 2017)
- Process Frames -- Your process frame is a blinder that lets you see a solution...or forces it away. (June 13, 2017)
- Win/lose and competitive/cooperative framing -- Self-fulfilling prophecies keep us stuck in destructive conflict styles. (June 14, 2017)
- Into-the-Sea Framing -- Total refusal to live with the "other side" results in into-the-sea framing and deep intractability. (June 15, 2017)
- Identity Frames -- Identity frames shape who we are...and what we believe and do as well. (June 27, 2017)
Recent Posts from the Additional Resources Blog
- Trump won, and Amy Siskind started a list of changes. -- An example of a realistic, small-scale project that is making a real contribution to efforts to defend democracy. -- 06/26/2017
- A Cyberattack ‘the World Isn’t Ready For’ -- Another, even scarier, story of cybercrime and, maybe, cyberwarfare. Will this be a new form of political violence? -- 06/26/2017
- End of the Left & Right -- From Thomas Edsall, more evidence that society is repolarizing as a battle between the nationalists and globalists. -- 06/25/2017
- The Cheapest Generation -- Are Millennials really going to be less materialistic than their parents? If so, what are the economic implications -- 06/25/2017
- In Search of the American Center -- As US society has moved to the left, the left has moved even further to the left! Why can't anyone find the center? -- 06/24/2017
- A Different Billionaire -- An interesting profile of a billionaire with a more positive approach to influencing society. -- 06/23/2017
- Violent Talk Vs. Violent Action -- Important question for progressives: How to express their moral fury without embracing a dehumanizing language? -- 06/22/2017
- The Many Faces of a Botnet -- A story of how botnets and fake people are being used to turn us against one another. -- 06/19/2017
- How He Used Facebook to Win -- Reviews of two important new books on how social networks were manipulated to help win last year's elections. -- 06/19/2017
- The Democratic Party Is in Worse Shape Than You Thought -- A look into just how far Democrats are from building a governing coalition. Time for reaching out & compromise? -- 06/18/2017
- James Comey's 'Shock and Awe' Testimony -- An argument that part of our problem is that we have become far too used to "abnormal behavior." -- 06/18/2017
- Fringe Groups Revel as Protests Turn Violent -- One route through which today's deep political divisions could lead to large-scale civil unrest and violence. -- 06/15/2017
- Opinions It’s not just Trump’s message that matters. There’s also his metamessage. -- In the context of the Comey testimony, an explanation of the important difference between messages and metamessages -- 06/15/2017
- Stop Pretending You’re Not Rich -- "Stop Pretending You're Not Rich"--a must read essay for anyone thinks of themselves as reasonably successful. -- 06/14/2017
- A Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theorist, a False Tweet and a Runaway Story -- Tracking down the complex way in which facts and fake facts propagate through society -- 06/14/2017
- 50 Years of Palestinian Rejection -- An Israeli perspective on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 war and the continuing failure of the two-state solution -- 06/13/2017
- The Cognitive Science Behind Repeating Mistake -- The cognitive to science behind the repetition of mistakes--part of what makes intractable conflict so complex. -- 06/13/2017
- Now let's fight back against the politics of fear -- An excellent assessment of Trump's shock-based divide & conquer politics. It's being more successful than you think -- 06/12/2017
- A Public Service Message From the Class of ’67 -- From the Vietnam generation, a persuasive appeal for some type of National Service. -- 06/12/2017
- The Disintegration of the World -- An interesting look into the way that giant corporations are trying to adapt today's volatile political climate. -- 06/11/2017
- The Liberal Order is Rigged -- An important reminder that the liberal world order must be reformed if it's to survive. It's not just about Trump. -- 06/08/2017
- The New Class War -- The New Class War--a lengthy and in-depth exploration of our biggest, and still largely unrecognized, conflict. -- 06/08/2017
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