Needed: A New Paradigm to Promote Thought and Action

Can "Civic Intelligence" Help?

• A perspective that unites and motivates our activities - but doesn't lock us in.

• It's not intelligent, for example, to allow continued exploitation of people or the earth. War is not intelligent. It is simply a FAILURE of society.

• Distributed and collective -- Everybody can contribute! A network model

• Pragmatic! Built on today's realities, possibilities, visions

• Concerned with the whole (global) and the part (local)

• Based on the idea that citizens can be leaders and that human action can improve the situation.

• Detects and repairs tears in the social and environmental fabric.
  When a neighbor's house is on fire, yours is also at risk.

• Challenges and cooperates with business and government

• Is conscious

• Communication and information systems are central (But they aren't everything!)

• We need
  • information on current problems (realtime environmental data, e.g.)
  • to be able to form agendas for action
  • to devise tactics and strategies
  • universal access to information and communication systems
  • to be able to evaluate (and re-evaluate) situations and our response
  • to alternately challenge and cooperate with business and government -- as appropriate