A Quote by Harry Elmer Barnes
War is the most striking instance of the failure of intelligence to master the problem of human relationships.
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We have actually experienced in recent months a dramatic demonstration of an unprecedented intelligence failure, perhaps the most significant intelligence failure in the history of the United States.
Our failure was that our intelligence community thought [Saddam Hussein ] had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. That was a mistake. There is fallibility in human intelligence and in human decisions.
You are hierarchical. That's the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It's a terrestrial characteristic. When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all... That was like ignoring cancer.
If we consider the actual basis of this information [i.e., intelligence], how unreliable and transient it is, we soon realize that war is a flimsy structure that can easily collapse and bury us in its ruins. ... Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain. This is true of all intelligence but even more so in the heat of battle, where such reports tend to contradict and cancel each other out. In short, most intelligence is false, and the effect of fear is to multiply lies and inaccuracies.
'War and Peace' is about relationships: family relationships, loving relationships, relationships at war... it's a really young story as well.
Astronomy ... is of all others the science which seems to present to us the most striking instance of waste in nature.
Anything that could give rise to smarter-than-human intelligence - in the form of Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, or neuroscience-based human intelligence enhancement - wins hands down beyond contest as doing the most to change the world. Nothing else is even in the same league.
Making mental connections is our most crucial learning tool, the essence of human intelligence; to forge links; to go beyond the given; to see patterns, relationships, context.
Human beings have a variety of intelligences, such as cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, musical intelligence, kinesthetic intelligence, and so on. Most people excel in one or two of those, but do poorly in the others. This is not necessarily or even usually a bad thing; part of Integral wisdom is finding where one excels and thus where one can best offer the world one's deepest gifts.
The parallels between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor are striking. In each instance there were warning signs before the attack, and in each instance our government failed to connect the dots.
The war was an escape to reality... The only thing that mattered were human relationships; not money, not position, not even family... Only relationships with people who might be dead tomorrow were important. It is a sort of wonderful state of mind. It's too bad it takes a war to create such a condition among men.
Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented. Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations and the communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US intelligence. Facebook, Google, Yahoo.. all these major US organizations have built-in interfaces for US intelligence. It's not a matter of serving a subpoena. They have an interface that they have developed for US intelligence to use.
There is no such thing as an inevitable war. If war comes it will be from failure of human wisdom.
Implementation of reforms within the Police and Intelligence agencies should certainly improve security and reduce terror attacks. But that will not eliminate the problem. Israel, with the most efficient intelligence, security and police has not been able to eliminate the problem, despite the small size of the country.
I knew I could write infinitely about relationships. That's the most beautiful, most confusing, most rewarding, most heartbreaking thing in our lives - and not just romantic relationships: that's all relationships.
The problem with the war in Iraq is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.
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