voice of humanity - Category: Articles    
 Global Assembly now accepting sign ups11 comments
picture24 Jun 2007 @ 23:17
The prototype Global Assembly Dialog is set to begin in late July 2007 using a web rating technology to vote on messages written by the participants. Please join us. Your part will be to write a message and to read and rate messages written by others. The highest rated messages will be distributed back to everyone by email. The goal is to go global with massive numbers so that the "elected" messages truly represent the entire human race.

The Dialog is sponsored by the Unity-and-Diversity World Council. See udcworld.org/global. Co-sponsors wanted. Contact UDC's Rev Leland Stewart at udcworld1ATyahoo.com or Roger Eaton at rogereatonATearthlink.net.

At this point we have about 4000 email addresses, which will likely equate to between 400 and 800 active members. Once we hit critical mass, estimated at 10,000 active members, we should be able to zoom to planetary size in three or four years. Please join us as we build a world that works for everyone.

We are betting that democracy on a global scale is the solution to the ever more obvious shortcomings of the nation-state system. We love our nations, but we have to rise up to the global level to solve global problems. Unifying mankind, if we do it right, will mark the beginning of a golden age – and it is in our reach.

We have two plans to bring the online GA Dialog down to earth so it will have its effect. First, as we recruit groups and networks for the Dialog, we will be asking them to add a mention of Dialog results to their local agendas and to provide representatives to an annual in-person Global Assembly meeting. The annual Global Assembly meeting is expected to evolve into a global institution that sits permanently, something like the U.N. General Assembly, but organized bottom up from groups and networks rather than top-down from the nations. Second, we have high hopes for a Nonviolent Service Arm (NVSA) of the Dialog as described below.  More >


 WiserEarth / Paul Hawken9 comments
picture26 May 2007 @ 19:26
There is an up and coming online community called Wiser Earth. Wiser Earth is a creation of Paul Hawken's Natural Capital Institute. The WE software is based on MySQL and open source php. Hawken has just come out with an important new book: "Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming."

Here is the blurb: "WiserEarth serves the people who are transforming the world. It is an open source, community-editable international directory and networking forum that maps, links and empowers the largest movement in the world – the hundreds of thousands of organizations within civil society that address social justice, poverty, and the environment."

Check it out and join up!  More >


 Latest InterMix Design7 comments
picture18 Mar 2007 @ 23:19
Before continuing with this article, please be sure to read about the Eaton Model of Collective Communication.

The technology we will be using for the Global Assembly Dialog is called InterMix Group Dialog Software.  A single instance of the software, refered to as an InterMix hub, runs on a windows platform with SQL server as the database.  It uses dot-net technology, written in C#.  More >

 A Nonviolent Service Arm for the Global Assembly7 comments
picture30 Dec 2006 @ 17:53
The dialog software though delayed again, is advancing well and we will get there. Meanwhile I am using the time to start up a Nonviolent Service Arm for the Global Assembly. If we have even the beginning of the NSA (;-) in place when the dialog kicks off, I think we can improve our chances in a couple of ways. The NSA will originally be composed of autonomous local taskforces connected via the internet. The purpose of the local NSA taskforces will be to support the Global Assembly through nonviolent action based on GA advisories - more on the advisories below. Each local taskforce will have a secretary whose responsibility will be to coordinate with the other taskforce secretaries and to respond as a group via the dialog software to the Global Assembly. See also the Wedding of Humanity and Nonviolence article.  More >


 Global Assembly Dialog Progress Report2 comments
picture19 Nov 2006 @ 15:45
Text of a report that was delivered to the UDC World Council on November 18, 2006. Also, an excellent development from that meeting, Lyle J. Noorlun has subscribed his contact list of 900 that he has gathered from his website, worldpeaceflag.org, nearly doubling our current list of participants. Plans are coming together, and it appears we will be off to a good start. The Interfaith flag displayed to the right is the Fourth of Ten Peace flags from the World Peace Flag site. Information is posted on the site to submit your design for the next World Peace Flag.  More >


 True Religion Creates Community17 comments
picture12 Oct 2006 @ 15:49
The following article is by Rev Stewart, key sponsor of the upcoming Unity-and-Diversity Global Assembly dialog. He is a kind hearted man and a thinker, as you can see from his words. His Unity-and-Diversity World Council website is worth a look.

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RECONCILIATION: A Celebration of Our Common Humanity - by Rev Leland Stewart

Put away from you all bitterness and wrath ... and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.
--Christianity (Ephesians 4:31), Science and Spirituality, p. 140

Religions are many, but the Spirit of Life is One. Religion in our time must therefore embrace diversity and in the midst of that diversity create unity, a sense of the wholeness of all things. Let us be reconciled to one another and live in harmony.  More >


 Voice of Humanity and the Information Commons?2 comments
picture1 Oct 2006 @ 18:24
The MAYA Information Commons is a major project with global application from MAYA Design, a design consultancy and technology research lab spun out of Carnegie-Mellon University. Here is MAYA's Josh Knauer speaking on the Info Commons at the O'Reilly Where 2.0 conference.  More >


 The Outsider has a place in the Global Assembly Dialog4 comments
picture24 Sep 2006 @ 22:12
The Global Assembly positively encourages the participation of "fringe" groups with eccentric or even unpopular points of view. We seek the widest possible range of thought and opinion coming into the Dialog. As long as no one group dominates, the inclusion of the kooky idea can only enrich the process. Who knows, under some circumstance, sometime, some oddball message might kick off a train of thought that takes us where we need to go. The Dialog will operate as a collective mind for humanity, and, just as for an individual, it is important to keep that mind open.  More >


 "Unity and Diversity" and "Unity in Diversity"9 comments
picture17 Sep 2006 @ 20:44
Googling these two phrases, we find the former occurs 369 thousand times and the latter 598 thousand times. For non-hairsplitters, they can be taken as meaning the same thing: a living vibrant togetherness that thrives in that middle ground between uniformity and fragmentation.  More >


 The Wedding of Humanity and Nonviolence22 comments
picture11 Aug 2006 @ 05:13
Our Unity-and-Diversity Global Assembly Dialog will begin in September. By now readers of these pages will know the outline of the Global Assembly process. We will start with two or three networks, each with some 150 to 750 email addresses. The online dialog will alternate between “unity” and “diversity” rounds where in the unity rounds, all the participants together will write and rate each other's messages to select one message representing all the participants, and in the diversity rounds each network will in like fashion select its own message in parallel. The intent is to bring in more and more networks until we are truly representative of humanity, all the while debating best practices for growth and action.  More >


 The Voice of Humanity will Reground Western Civilization2 comments
picture16 Jul 2006 @ 18:38
The Lovers of Democracy have a thoughtful website, well worth a look for those interested in the deeper meanings of dialog. Among the articles there I particularly recommend one from 2001 entitled "DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS: WHAT FOR?" by Hernán López-Garay, a professor at the Centro de Investigaciones en Sistemologia Interpretativa, Universidad de Los Andes, Meridia, Venezuela.  More >


 Global Assembly Progress Report6 comments
picture15 Jul 2006 @ 16:05
Dear Friends,

The plan is to build a Unity-and-Diversity Global Assembly from the bottom up, using the internet and a process of voting on messages to involve the hundreds of millions of people who realize that humanity must adopt a global perspective if we and the earth are to thrive. Instead of electing candidates to a global assembly, a hugely expensive undertaking, we will elect messages to represent us in both our unity and our diversity.  More >


 Response to Josep L.I. Ortega's Statement for Unity of Action1 comment
picture11 Jul 2006 @ 15:12
The world is experiencing a tremendous surge towards human unity. Necessity drives us and we are pulled by a vision of a friendly world that has its act together and does the smart thing. But we have a big hurdle to get over, and that is figuring out how to make "unity and diversity" really work. This is what Josep L.I. Ortega is addressing in his congenial "Statement for Unity of Action", which also, by the way, provides us an excellent map of the movement for world citizenship and democratic global governance. His main point is that the various trends within that movement need to support each other and unite on an agenda in an umbrella organization. Only in this way can the movement achieve the numbers and credibility it needs to succeed.  More >


 Organizing a Unity-and-Diversity Global Assembly from the Bottom Up46 comments
picture24 Jun 2006 @ 00:22
Dear Friends, Our topic is "Organizing a Unity-and-Diversity Global Assembly from the Bottom Up." That means the real thing, a powerhouse Global Assembly to put the world on a better path. Can we possibly succeed? In preparing this talk, I was reminded of Shel Silverstein's cartoon of two raggedy men chained hand and foot, hanging from a wall. One turns to the other and says, “Now, here's my plan.” That's me to you - I have a plan. My aim today is to convince you that those two guys did get down off that wall.  More >


 Jewish-Muslim Email Dialogue Success10 comments
picture25 May 2005 @ 01:31
The Los Angeles Jewish-Muslim Email Dialogue on Human Rights has just concluded most wonderfully. Both the individual messages and the development through the five rounds of the dialogue are very impressive from the "Oneness that underlies all reality" of the first message to a specific five point agenda for Southern California of the last. See groupdialog.org/humanrights/results.htm to view the dialogue results.  More >


 The Network Second Layer1 comment
picture17 Oct 2004 @ 22:59
Sepp Hasselberger has alerted me to an important article on Robin Good's site: The Network Second Layer: RSS Newsmastering. The article discusses the use of rss to create portal websites for particular interests.

This second layer of the internet notion is akin to the annotated web idea laid out in a previous article.  More >


 The Extinction Crisis and Society8 comments
picture25 Sep 2004 @ 21:35
We are making good progress on the programming for the Jewish / Muslim email dialogue.

For the best writeup yet of the Voice of Humanity vision, see the earlier article entitled "A New Heaven".

The New Visions for Culture and Society Committee of the Threshold Foundation has offered a $50,000 grant "to proactively address societal awareness of mass extinction and our responsibility in creating and reversing it." The current mass extinction is very serious, with projections of loss of 50 percent of all species by 2100 at the current rate. I have applied for the grant with the following LOI (Letter of Inquiry):  More >


 How Collective Email Dialog Works10 comments
picture14 Aug 2004 @ 10:12
Work continues, slowly, on developing the specs for the Voice of Humanity Network. Meanwhile in an important side development, a prototype collective email dialog program is being assembled using Python and MySQL. Time frame is to have it ready by January for a possible Jewish / Muslim Interfaith Dialogue. Focusing on the Middle East, this dialogue will use collective communication to build consensus in a non-confrontational way. Each of these three terms needs a short explanation.  More >


 specifications for InterMix II begin to take shape13 comments
picture6 Jun 2004 @ 14:48
On the web now at the InterMix home page -- click on the specifications link there. Having failed to get myself off the dime and actually coding, I have had to outsource InterMix development to India. No kidding. The Indian programmer will be using these specs. Comments welcome.  More >


 A System for Negating Alternatives0 comments
picture22 May 2004 @ 20:47
Danny Hillis of Thinking Machines fame has published an article on the Edge about his latest venture, "Aristotle" (The Knowledge Web). His idea is to combine an authoring tool, a peer to peer network and a specialized browser to enlist us all in the building of an all encompassing knowledge database for humanity to be accessed through our own personalized artificial intellgence (AI) tutor, which he calls "Aristotle".  More >


 voice of humanity powerpoint presentation37 comments
picture18 Mar 2004 @ 12:32
Click here for presentation. Tomorrow I'm off to Washington DC for the PyCON 2004 Python Conference and Chandler Sprint. The sprint will be my baptism for both Python and Chandler -- I am rather going in at the deep end, so wish me luck! Mitch Kapor -- see previous article -- will be giving a key note speech. This will be my chance to meet Mitch, and I am hopeful he will give me some serious face time, so on good advice I have prepared by developing this Open Office presentation as a guide. There is also a pdf version.  More >


 Web Annotation Discussion online6 comments
category picture11 Mar 2004 @ 19:05
Testing Darryl's tres cool TRAFFIC.zodeca.com tracking software, I discovered some percolation on the subject of web annotation.

Casey has an excellent article about the history of annotation on the web, citing articles about a 1999 product called "Third Voice" that used browser plugins to allow web annotation, with mixed to poor results.  More >


 Technical Working Paper - InterMix API7 comments
category picture7 Mar 2004 @ 21:54
A previous article, A New Heaven, has an overview of the voice of humanity (voh) concept.

InterMix is middleware; it can be thought of as an "engine" or black box whose working details can be ignored. The Application Programming Interface, or API describes exactly how programmers can connect their applications to the InterMix engine in order to participate in the voh network. This is where we begin to bring the concept down to earth and it has to be done right. Our goal is to keep the interface simple enough that web scripters, of whom there are millions, will feel comfortable using it. As you will see, this article is very much a rough draft.  More >


 Progress Report - Dimensions4 comments
picture22 Feb 2004 @ 18:38
A previous article, A New Heaven, has an overview of the voice of humanity concept.

Plans are very nearly complete; the next article, coming soon, will detail the awaited InterMix interface. This article covers "dimensions" -- a final element needed to complete the voh design. (Image can be found in startling full size detail at www.math.toronto.edu/gif/polytope.gif.)  More >


 A New Heaven24 comments
picture2 Jan 2004 @ 20:31
At this point, the plans for a voice of humanity are sketched out and time has come to begin coding. Fact is, though, a combination of the flu and the holidays has slowed me down and I'm finding it hard to switch over from the 2 percent inspiration stage to the 98 percent perspiration long haul, so I've decided to recap what has been developed so far before settling down to work.  More >


 Continuing Chandler/AntWeb Discussion35 comments
picture9 Dec 2003 @ 11:31
Following up on the comments of the previous article, I have just posted my conclusions to the Chandler Design list. See the December Archives of the Design list for previous postings under the heading "Thoughts on a Browser Parcel". If the Open Software Foundation people respond positively to the idea of including Mozilla in the Chandler distribution, then perhaps Mitch Kapor's idea of a Mozilla toolbar could be made to work. Otherwise, we will go with our "Personal Portal" idea.  More >


 The Annotated Web30 comments
picture28 Nov 2003 @ 14:44
The voice of humanity network will be implemented first as the "annotated web", that is, as a community created stigmergic overlay of the web. The AntWeb is entered through portal pages, one portal page for each participating web community. Having entered through the portal, every link traversed by the membership is logged as the members browse the web. Facilities will be available to rate web pages and to add notes and keywords as members browse along. The links followed and the ratings given will be used to mark links as popular or unpopular for the others who might visit the same site – provided they have entered through the same portal, of course. The notes will likewise be accessible to those who come by later, and the keywords can be used in a lookup facility on the portal page to jump straight to items that are "funny" or "curious" or "delightful" etc. It should be fun. (See the MetaWeb Article for a previous take on the Annotated Web concept.) For example, take the Blogger’s Parliament...  More >


 Chandler and Mitch Kapor8 comments
picture20 Nov 2003 @ 19:14
Mitch Kapor's Open Source Applications Foundation is building a personal information manager (PIM) called Chandler which InterMix is likely to adopt as a user interface. Here's a good transcript of a Chandler discussion with Q&A.  More >


 Roger Eaton's Collection of Solutions17 comments
picture12 Nov 2003 @ 18:27
Natalie d'Arbeloff and her friend Augustine have kicked off the Bloggers Parliament, a search through the web for solutions. It looks like fun to me and it is related to the voice of humanity concept so I have joined in to see where the Parliament takes us.  More >


 The Academic Document Retrieval Scene4 comments
picture9 Nov 2003 @ 12:36
Two or three principal finds plus the sheer fun of words have made the search through academia worthwhile.  More >




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