[FRIAM] Global Slum: Digital Narrative and the New Urbanism (fwd)

[Carl Tollander]

I've been getting enough mail on my comment that I feel I should clarify 
the meaning: 

Scenario planning has been around for quite awhile, the 
military/government uses of it are but a small fraction of its overall 
use, it is *not* so far as I can tell a sales tool for new weapons 
systems, it is simply a way of putting together coherent and contrasting 
stories about possible futures in the absence of available broad 
prediction capabilities.  It is not about choosing a 'best' scenario, 
but in understanding what policy choices alternative scenarios may 
present.  As such, to increase the contrast, alternative scenarios may 
look extreme or fantastic to the outsider.   The motivation for my 
comment on the articles was that I felt the authors of the articles had 
misunderstood both the method and its application.  I have no problem 
with the method's employment in any domain, so long as it is applicable 
and done well.  That said, please don't consider me an advocate; it's 
just another available tool (which does not have any necessary IT or 
applied complexity component,  though now that  you got me to think 
about it....).

Carl

PPARYSKI at aol.com wrote:
> I certainly understand and agree with Carl's concerns as expressed in 
> the article he included in his email.  The use by the Pentagon of 
> modeling and IT programs for present and future urban battles is 
> rather scary.  This is a moral question; should complexity/chaos/ABM 
> expert lend their knowledge and skills to promote such warfare?  I 
> think not.
>  
> The UN currently does confront serious peacekeeping issues in such  
> poor mega-urban areas such as Port-au-Prince, Haiti and in other 
> failed states where its peacekeeping troops are involved. However, 
> this is morally different than a world power using IT & applied 
> complexity to consolidate its hegemony or extend its empire.  Each 
> expert must make a moral choice on this issue and it might be useful 
> to develop consensus based guidelines on this issue (without any 
> evident or smelly flatulence!).  As climate change and global warming 
> create urban migration, these problems will become more pressing than 
> ever.
>  
> cheers Paul
>  
>    
>
>
>
> Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com 
> <http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour/?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000982>.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org