[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.9.0″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_fullwidth_header title=”Selected Quotes from Richard Thieme” text_orientation=”center” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][\/et_pb_fullwidth_header][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.22″][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_3,1_3,1_3″ _builder_version=”4.9.0″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.9.0″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 1″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
The convergence of enabling technologies of intrusion, interception, and panoptic reach, combined with a sense of urgency about the counter terror imperative and a clear mandate from our leaders to do everything possible to defeat an amorphous non-state entity defined by behaviors rather than boundaries, borders, or even a clear ideological allegiance, has created an ominous but invisible set of conditions that undermine the previous cornerstones of law, ethics, and\u00a0even religious traditions.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 4″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
The weakest link in discussions of privacy is the definition of privacy, and the definition of privacy is not what we think.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 7″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
Current technologies make speaking of interception obsolete. Our technologies constitute the physical framework, and software and informational contexts, of a pan-global society. Boundaries between elements of the network, between the networks that make up the network, that is, are arbitrary and porous. We live in a world literally without walls. Every attribute of a process or structure that broadcasts or transmits information about itself by any physical or electromagnetic means can be detected, often at the source. Often enough, those who built the system in the first place engineer information to come to them. \u201cHere\u201d and \u201cthere\u201d are distinctions without a difference.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 10″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
There\u2019s plenty of laughter among hackers, laughter at the paradox of the mind watching itself build worlds in which–in spite of seeing the marks of the tools on the raw material and seeing the tools in our hands–we lack the freedom not to believe.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 13″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
Cyberspace is like a multi-dimensional cubist construction in which we become ten-dimensional portraits by Picasso, our digital selves both artifact and artist.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 16″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
Footnotes are conspicuous by their absence on the Web. Information is self-referential. Symbols and images point to themselves like a ten-dimensional dog chasing its own tails.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 19″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
We create the online world out of nothing, then forget that we made it up so we can play in it.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 22″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
Like speech, writing, and print, the computer is a tool that shapes our perceptions into forms the computer can use. If we are to bring our ideas to the computer, we must express them in language the computer understands.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 25″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
Web sites work best that lead us by easy stages from accessible text or images into the complexity of information patterned beyond our comprehension.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 28″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
To understand the world, we must first understand ourselves. Then, like the Hubble telescope when it first went up, we can compensate for distortion.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 31″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
When we lose ourselves, we find ourselves, but when we try to hold on to what we find, we lose it again.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 34″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
\u201cTechno\/spirituality\u201d is the search for \u201chuman nature\u201d transformed by interaction with information technologies. We are like apes seeing their faces in the river for the first time \u2013 a digital river flowing through our collective mind.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 37″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
What is the particular gift this day has given me? Who have I loved, and have I dared to love them as well as I could? Have I contributed to the well-being of another, have I enhanced their sense of dignity or expanded the possibilities of their lives?\u00a0 And of everything I have received, have I given anything back?<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 40″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
The meta-rule–\u201cdo the right thing\u201d–requires sometimes that we break the rules. There is only one rule: if you don\u2019t know when to break the rules, don\u2019t break the rules.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 43″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
We only feel a need to impose a rigid structure on the flow of life when we are afraid that life is chaotic.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 46″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
We\u2019re like people wearing glasses running around frantically looking for our glasses.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 49″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
The Internet\u2014like the world\u2014is best ruled by letting things take their course.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 52″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
The digital world is water, a rising tide, a tsunami impacting our consciousness with revolutionary force, leveling our villages, sweeping away our shrines and altars, sweeping everything, everything out to sea.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 55″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
When we see our thinking from a point outside our thinking, we see that ideas and beliefs are mental artifacts, as solid and as empty as all the things in the physical world\u2013things that are patterns of energy and information that fingertips or eyes or brains are structured to perceive as if objects external to ourselves. That is, of course, an illusion.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 58″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]The universe is gregarious and welcoming. We are built to live in space that is gateless, unbounded, free.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 61″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]If we are lucky, there occurs a \u201cmoment of clarity\u201d in which we see ourselves with our own eyes and how narrowly we have lived in contrast with how we might live if we dare to fulfill our possibilities.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 64″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Nothing is harder to see than what we believe so deeply we don\u2019t know we believe it.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 67″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Faith is getting out of bed in the morning and just showing up.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 70″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Something new is breaking out of the cracked egg of civilization.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 73″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Powerful ideas are rare, and those who see them in the first light endure ridicule and rejection until everyone finally agrees that they always believed them all along.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 76″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]What we call \u201cour species\u201d will soon be a wistful memory in the molecular clusters of the progeny we design, an arbitrary distinction that served for a while before we morphed.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 79″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Our interaction with structures of information technology transforms how we hold ourselves as possibilities for action.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 82″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]The best ideas are like good coaches who put the reins of our lives back into our hands.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 85″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]The first lines of defense of consensus reality are laughter and ridicule. Only when the idea does not go away do we attack.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 88″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]\u201cOut of the box thinking\u201d is just a name for climbing out of one box into a little bit bigger box.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 91″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]”The coin in the palm of my hand disappears while you’re watching. Get as close as you like.
\n You’ll never see where it goes.” – Mobius[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 94″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]”We have no friends; we have no allies. We only have targets.” Deputy Director of SIGINT, NSA[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 97″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]”The earth is a mass grave. Ninety-nine per cent of species that evolved are gone from the planet. We are among the one percent, but only for the moment. The ashes of our brief lives rise into the smoky air where they darken the skies and blow in all directions and at last drift down like black snow onto the landscape we inhabit in a trance, heading for the edge of night.” – Mobius[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 100″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]We can not unlearn what we have learned but we can choose not to remember it[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 103″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]The universe is bigger, life is shorter, and it\u2019s later than we think. [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 106″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Humility is better. It works better. [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 109″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]\u201cInside my all-too-human heart now is a deep well of serenity. Even if everything I have said is a lie, the lie contains the deeper truth.\u201d \u2013 More Than a Dream [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 112″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]\u201cTo disappear, you have to be there in the first place.\u201d \u2013 Silent Emergent, Doubly Dark[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 115″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Software and hardware do not simply add tools or processes to our lives \u2013 they form habits, and once they become part of the infrastructure, part of the culture, those habits are stealthy. For information technology professionals, whether the ones who build or the ones who secure networks, to become aware that the structures they create shape the behaviors and thinking of people who interact with them is critical. [\/et_pb_testimonial][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.9.0″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 2″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
Identity at a fundamental level is being transformed. Digital identities can be appropriated, yes, but more than that,\u00a0we can invent them on the fly and determine at the moment of action or execution to which matrix we are related as a node in the network.\u00a0We choose the context that in turn creates the content we designate at the moment of execution. <\/em>Our identities exist as potentialities made actual by our intention at the moment of action. They are the equivalent of quantum states, fixed only when expressed.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Humans are open systems of information and energy.\u00a0Current work in biotech, nanotech, genetic engineering, artificial organisms, electromagnetic fields applied to surveillance, intrusion, and weapons to disarm, debilitate and kill, intersects with traditional \u201cinformation security\u201d models but is becoming a tail that wags the dog.\u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 8″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n We are like miners tunneling through an immense mountain, seeing only the earth in front of our faces. Our interests and intentions focus what we see like\u00a0 lights on a miner’s hat. What we don\u2019t know is so much bigger than ourselves.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 11″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n We are real birds in digital cages.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 14″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Information is always relational. The power of information that is linked and mined is magnified by orders of magnitude. What matters are patterns and who can see them. The patterns result from relationships between events and processes, and seeing them is relational, too. Notice that I said, information is related to a process or event, not to an “object” which does not exist in the form our brains like to paint it.\u00a0 Step back when you think you see a “thing” and feel the breeze as it evolves. Rocks may evolve more slowly, but they are as much in motion as a neutrino. And when you see them, you change the frame.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 17″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n The Net is an imaginary garden with real toads in it.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 20″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n A photo is no longer worth a thousand words. Or maybe it is, since digital words and images alike are subject to manipulation. Same with voices. Deep fakes are real.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 23″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n The full evolution of the human\/computer synthesis is likely to be a religious experience. It will happen as Hemingway said bankruptcy happens, gradually, then suddenly.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 26″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n The Internet does not replace anything, it redefines how we use other media.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 29″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n The fancy name for diverse styles of living is \u201cspirituality.\u201d Our challenge is not to find the one that\u2019s right. Our challenge is to find one that works.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 32″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Our existence is a recursive call of the pattern of the pattern of the code.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 35″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n We live on the edge of a digital blade and the blade cuts both ways.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 38″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n When my life began to grow more mellow, I thought I was becoming disciplined, even virtuous. Now I know it was just lower testosterone levels.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 41″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Believing is seeing. Believing is the precondition of a possibility.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 44″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n The structures of energy and information in the universe are the universe.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 47″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Money is dye in the arteries of our souls.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 50″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n When chaos for breakfast and doubt for lunch make for indigestion at dinnertime, real power is wisdom, not winning. The wise person steers a course by the torchlight of doubt and chaos.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 53″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Between we humans and our souls there are no barriers but the ones we erect to protect ourselves from the terror of self-transcendence.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 56″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]When prayer “happens ” during online exchanges, luminous sacred space ignites and glows, transforming our monitors into altars and sacred groves.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 59″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Now that we know that the uterus produces a marijuana-like compound called anadamide, we can understand why birth is a sobering experience.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 62″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Truth and lies are Siamese twins, joined at the lips.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 65″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]There is ultimately only ourselves to know. Consciousness is the sea, and the sea is all around us.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 68″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]The Universe is full of gestures and our minds interpret its shrugs or smiles through the narrow aperture of ourselves, opening like a lens to let in just a little light.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 71″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Science fiction is how a left-brain technological society dreams of the future.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 74″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Human beings are slow learners. Insights occur to us thousands of years before we act on them.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 77″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]The center is constantly shifting. People who are comfortable at the center keep finding themselves on the edge and must partner with \u201coutsiders\u201d who can show them how to live on the edge.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 80″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Our paradigms determine the questions we can ask and therefore the answers we can hear.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 83″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]When entertainment is the fuel of a global digital economy, it is unpatriotic not to buy a ticket.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 86″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Early adopters and late adopters have different seats on the same bus–a LONG bus, a very long bus.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 89″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]”Fiction is the only way I can tell the truth. ” – Mobius[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 92″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]”Illusion, distraction \u2026 and above all, ridicule \u2026 these are the legs of the stool of deception. But the greatest of these is ridicule. ” – Mobius[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 95″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]The unwritten rules, not the manual, determine how well we fit into a culture. [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 98″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]We think of ourselves in 20th century frameworks that no longer exist. [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 101″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Critical thinking is an acquired skill.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 104″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Enterprises and individuals alike must build in an openness to heresy.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 107″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Identity is a function of boundaries. \u201cHere\u201d and \u201cthere\u201d are now distinctions without a difference. Like “natural” and “artificial.” Identity is a matter of observation, not assertion.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 110″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]\u201cIf fiction is the only place I can tell the truth, then fiction it is.\u201d \u2013 More Than a Dream[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 113″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]\u201cThe future came earlier than expected. They kicked it around for years but never knew what they had. By the time they realized what it was, it was already broken. Broken open, I should say. Even then, looking at the pieces of the egg and wondering where the bird had flown, they didn\u2019t know how to say what it was. The words they might have used had broken too. Now it\u2019s too late. The future is past.\u201d \u2013 The Geometry of Near[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 116″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]We need new language to articulate what we experience, to grasp the nature of the context in which we live. We need new language to discuss ethics, spirituality and religion, and … identity and privacy.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 119″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]The mind of society\u2013how it is shaped, how it is governed, how it is aimed\u2013is both target and weapon in the new battlespace. [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 118″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]These are the real questions: Because \u201celements of the National Security State were committed to the production of strategic fictions, simulations, and deceptions\u201d as Timothy Melley put it, the mind of society becomes confused about what is real and must rely on postmodern deconstruction in a futile attempt to discern what is happening.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 6″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n The digital world, with all its circus animals and mythical beasts, is simply a new way for the human brain to deceive itself into thinking it knows.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 9″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Neither hackers nor spies live inside consensus reality. They live at the terminator on the moon where everything is thrown into relief, where intentionality creates consensus.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 12″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n A browser is a knowledge engine that organizes information in flux so it seems momentarily frozen. Portals are like gravitational lens that boost distant clusters into the foreground.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 15″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Computers aren\u2019t about technology, they\u2019re about people. The power of the Net derives from the deepest intentions of the people who use it.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 18″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n We think, therefore the cursor moves. The universe is a point-and-click multi-dimensional interface in which we are immersed, multi-dimensional point-and-click beings.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 21″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n You can\u2019t write a 32-bit application for an IBM XT. It just can\u2019t handle the code.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 24″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n The first two weeks in a new culture are so impactful, Margaret Mead said, that you have to stay another year to learn more. That’s how fast a culture assimilates an “observer.” Our first two weeks in the digital world are almost up.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 27″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n When we explore the Net, we are exploring ourselves. We learn to surf swells of meaning that surge back and forth like the sea. We learn to follow currents of information, feeling swells interact in complex ways. We become voyagers in a sea of information, we make tangled star maps that remember for us how to find our way home.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 30″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Descriptions of reality are true at different degrees of precision.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 33″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n The moment we see ourselves as we are perceived by another, we become someone else, neither who we were nor who they think we are. Spies live in a dynamic loop of meanings and projections.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 36″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Once I had answers. Now all I have is questions.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 39″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Change causes fear, rigidity, and isolation. The antidotes are mutuality, feedback, and accountability.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 42″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n An idea that ripens at the right time can not be stopped by all the NOs in the world.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 45″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Wisdom, like insanity, is contextual.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 48″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Thinking about the unthinkable ripens the mind toward new possibilities.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 51″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Prophets are people who get wet before everybody else and start sneezing. We can quarantine them, but reality is a cold it is impossible not to catch.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 54″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n There comes a point as we think at which the framework of our thinking itself wrinkles and slides into the dark. We see the edge of our thinking mind, our mind thinking, beyond which we see \u2026 something else \u2026 luminosity that constitutes the context of our thinking and our thinking selves.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 57″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]The symbols with which we manipulate our constructions of reality point increasingly to other symbols. It is no longer a case of remembering that the finger pointing toward the moon is not the moon, but that the finger is pointing toward another finger that is pointing toward another finger \u2026 and we call that recursive experience \u2026 the moon.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 60″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Keep your seat belt buckled and your virtual lamp lit.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 63″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Nothing is harder to see than what we believe so deeply we don\u2019t know we believe it.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 66″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]How we intend to live our lives is how we wind up living them.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 69″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]When we share a myth with others, it feels like reality. That\u2019s why the challenge to our myths \u2013 political myths, religious myths \u2013 feels like an assault on ourselves and we\u2019re willing to kill those who don\u2019t share them.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 72″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]I am not a \u201cfuturist.\u201d I describe the present to people who haven\u2019t arrived at the present, so to them, it sounds like the future.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 75″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Where is the vision that will animate our outward expansion, our migration into the universe from the deep cave of the earth?[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 78″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]The basis of capitalism is a handshake.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 81″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]In a knowledge economy, information is capital, but wisdom is gold. And gold is currently devalued.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 84″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]In a global free market economy, intelligence and counterintelligence, information and disinformation, are axiomatic to remaining viable.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 87″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]We can only predict the predictable.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 90″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]”The rule is, if you can steal an election fair and square, you get to keep it.” – Mobius.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 93″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]”In situations in which people want answers to reasonable questions, tailor your statements to the consensus reality in which they live, what they believe. That way, a false statement is never noticed–you can\u2019t see deer in the woods unless they move. So make sure nothing moves.” – Mobius[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 96″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]”What if you sold your soul and didn’t know it until after you had signed?”[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 99″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]We continue to speak of ethical norms in relationship to the cultural past as if it is still the context of our beliefs and actions. We speak of individuals as primary moral agents. We speak of nation states as primary determinants of our collective identities. We speak of the intelligence mission as if \u201cwe\u201d who live inside one nation are intercepting or penetrating or subverting the technical processes and social dynamics of others who are also \u201cinside\u201d the boundary of a nation state that defines them. These distinctions no longer hold. [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 102″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]When Schools of Journalism turned into Schools of Journalism and Public Relations, we knew the jig was up.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 105″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]A historian at the National Security Agency said, when I asked what historical points of reference we shared because we knew the same things about them: \u201cAnything up until 1945.\u201d[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 108″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]\u201cWhen something happens that does not connect to anything else, usually you don\u2019t even see it. You don\u2019t allow yourself to see it. Seeing it is too disturbing. You can live in a marriage, a neighborhood, a community, even on a planet for years and if everyone is committed to not seeing the same things, then no one sees them.\u201d \u2013 Incident at Wolf Cove[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 111″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]\u201cWhoever they were, politicians, the mob, businessmen, bigwigs in the Church, it didn\u2019t matter. They worked together. They were everybody and nobody. And no one cared.\u201d \u2013 My Summer Vacation (on growing up in Chicago)[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 114″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]\u201cHe closed his eyes and held his face in his hands. The world inside his apartment disappeared, the snow globe world in his head appeared. He was player and field, figure and ground, and all of the advertisements or stories were torn pages in a magazine or comic book blowing down an alley in a black wind, an empty black wind defining glimpses of pictures on flapping pages changing from moment to moment in the wind and the shadow-and-glare of the minimal light, the form of the lost stories framed by whatever, whatever had been, whatever names or labels had once been pasted onto the torn pages disappearing now in the sudden calm windless still of a disappearing planet.\u201d \u2013 The Man Who Hadn\u2019t Disappeared [\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 117″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]The interpenetration of all of our meaningful systems of information have transformed human beings from \u201cindividuals\u201d to nodes in networks. We knew we were cells in a body but we emphasized the cell-ness. Now we have no choice but to emphasize the body-ness. … The loss of privacy is irreversible for information is never unrevealed. Meta-data means we are known better than we know ourselves because patterns radiate purposeful behavior, values, meaning. The level of abstraction at which you can see determines what you think is a real identity.[\/et_pb_testimonial][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The convergence of enabling technologies of intrusion, interception, and panoptic reach, combined with a sense of urgency about the counter terror imperative and a clear mandate from our leaders to do everything possible to defeat an amorphous non-state entity defined by behaviors rather than boundaries, borders, or even a clear ideological allegiance, has created an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":3,"menu_order":40,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":" \u201cThe depth, complexity, and texture of Richard Thieme\u2019s thought \u201cThieme\u2019s ability to communicate complex, abstract concepts and \u201cSilent Emergent, Doubly Dark\u201d is ... very imaginative writing, with a \u201cBeautiful descriptions and intriguing concepts ...\u201d The Fix (UK).<\/p> \u201cThieme\u2019s clarity of thinking is refreshing, and his insights are \u201cBuy this book!\u201d \u2013 Robert Morris, Sr. Chief Scientist, NSA (ret), \u201cThe reader is left reeling, dizzy with insight.\u201d Robin Roberts, \"Richard Thieme takes us to the edge of cliffs we know are there but \u201cIn his writing and speeches, Thieme has never let me down. Always A review from a reader familiar with all sides of intelligence operations:<\/p> \u201cThis extraordinary book of short stories draws the reader into multiple levels of reality and multiple dimensions. The settings are mostly futuristic, as in engineered societies. But the principles of social engineering are laid bare, inducing the reader to reflect on current values, desires, and markers of progress.<\/p> The story that resonates most with me is a subtle account of a married couple's evening out with friends, \"Incident at Wolf Cave.\" On return home at night -- by the husband\/narrator's account --they are witness to UFOs over a lake. Next day, when the husband remarks on the sighting, the wife denies it. This incident closes the door to the psychic flow between them, and they gradually divorce. A UFO story, yes, but who has not felt this closing of the door when reality changes for one friend but not another?<\/p> The form of the book, consonant with the theme, veers into another dimension of literature. The short introduction to each story describes the author's relevant life experiences, quests, or critiques. Rather than demystifying the story, the author thereby locks the reader more securely into the mystery of the story. Artist Duncan Long has also provided a sort of portrait introduction to each story, in which the boundary between line drawing and photograph cannot be discerned -- another play on the junctures of different realities.<\/p> Liking and disliking is maybe not the right attitudinal axis for this book. Better: Are we game for these uncomfortable mental adventures in consciousness and the nature of reality?\u201d<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1307\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhow do you live vibrantly?
\nhow do you free the mind?
\nHow do you live in a world without walls? – Kenneth Olthoff[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 120″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Hundreds of years ago in France, it was mandated that you had to carry a light. Why? So you could be seen, not so you could see. The world of darkness was a world of sudden attack and constant threat. Then public lighting was mandated for public spaces and private citizens were compelled to light public spaces abutting property. Fast forward: what is equivalent in cyberspace? Persistent identity so you can be seen, tracking devices like smart phones so you can be tracked.[\/et_pb_testimonial][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 121″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]Nothing is what it seems.[\/et_pb_testimonial][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.9.0″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_testimonial admin_label=”Quote 3″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
processes break the mold.\u201d Brian Snow, Senior Technical Director, NSA (ret)<\/p>
personalize them is like verbal origami.\u201d - Jeff Moss, Director, Black
Hat, a division of TechWeb\/United Business Media, and a member of the
DHS HSAC<\/p>
complexity that raises [the story] to the fringes of slipstream. We\u2019re
left wondering what\u2019s real and what\u2019s not ....\u201d Steven Pirie, The
Future Fire<\/p>
profound.\u201d Bruce Schneier, security technologist and author.<\/p>
holding up Islands in the Clickstream <\/em>at the Black Hat Briefings<\/p>
Information Security R&D, CIA (ret)<\/p>
rarely visit. He wonderfully weaves life, mystery, and passion through
digital and natural worlds with creativity and imagination. Delightful
and deeply thought provoking reading.\" - Clint Brooks, former Senior
Advisor for Homeland Security and Assistant Deputy Director, NSA<\/p>
informative, relevant, unpredictable and thoroughly entertaining ...
.one of the great thinkers of the cyber-world.\u201d - Larry Greenblatt,
InterNetwork Defense<\/p>