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Century of Self

This is an award winning documentary from British tv that takes a look at the systematic campaigns to control and influence public opinions and beliefs during the previous century in American culture.  This is the first episode in the four part series.

Proposal to tear down I-280 exit and remove Caltrains Railyard

Razing I-280 stub only part of vision

Realtors, developers, and transportation planners are pushing the city of San Francisco to consider a plan to remove portions of I-280 and the Caltrains rail-yard.  Read more about the proposal in the SFgate link below.

The portion of 280 to be removed as well as the Caltrain railyard.  Systems Mural is nestled just in between the two.

The portion of 280 to be removed as well as the Caltrain railyard.  Systems Mural is nestled just in between the two.

Kqed's Michael Krasny with guest Neil Shubin - The Universe Within

He made scientific history when he discovered a fossilized fish that was the "missing link" between land and sea creatures. Now paleontologist and popular science writer Neil Shubin is focusing his attention on the links between humans, rocks and plants -- and how clues to the universe's 14-billion-year history can be found in our bodies. Shubin joins us to talk about his new book, "The Universe Within."


The Reason for the (Flu) Season • Viruses

When you get the flu, viruses turn your cells into tiny factories that help spread the disease. In this animation, NPR's Robert Krulwich and medical animator David Bolinsky explain how a flu virus can trick a single cell into making a million more viruses.

To Understand is to perceive patterns

Jason Silva rants poetic in his video expressing  the interrelatedness of all things.  "Man-made systems are looking exactly like natural systems."

By @jason_silva and @notthisbody - Follow us on Twitter! Our other videos: Beginning of Infinity - http://vimeo.com/29938326 You are a RCVR - http://vimeo.com/27671433 Imagination - http://vimeo.com/34902950 Abundance - http://vimeo.com/34984088 INSPIRATION: The Imaginary Foundation says "To Understand Is To Perceive Patterns"... Albert-László Barabási, author of LINKED, wants you to think about NETWORKS: “Networks are everywhere. The brain is a network of nerve cells connected by axons, and cells themselves are networks of molecules connected by biochemical reactions. Societies, too, are networks of people linked by friendships, familial relationships and professional ties. On a larger scale, food webs and ecosystems can be represented as networks of species. And networks pervade technology: the Internet, power grids and transportation systems are but a few examples. Even the language we are using to convey these thoughts to you is a network, made up of words connected by syntactic relationships.” 'For decades, we assumed that the components of such complex systems as the cell, the society, or the Internet are randomly wired together. In the past decade, an avalanche of research has shown that many real networks, independent of their age, function, and scope, converge to similar architectures, a universality that allowed researchers from different disciplines to embrace network theory as a common paradigm.' Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, writes about recurring patterns and liquid networks: “Coral reefs are sometimes called “the cities of the sea”, and part of the argument is that we need to take the metaphor seriously: the reef ecosystem is so innovative because it shares some defining characteristics with actual cities. These patterns of innovation and creativity are fractal: they reappear in recognizable form as you zoom in and out, from molecule to neuron to pixel to sidewalk. Whether you’re looking at original innovations of carbon-based life, or the explosion of news tools on the web, the same shapes keep turning up... when life gets creative, it has a tendency to gravitate toward certain recurring patterns, whether those patterns are self-organizing, or whether they are deliberately crafted by human agents” Patrick Pittman from Dumbo Feather adds: “Put simply: cities are like ant colonies are like software is like slime molds are like evolution is like disease is like sewage systems are like poetry is like the neural pathways in our brain. Everything is connected. "...Johnson uses ‘The Long Zoom’ to define the way he looks at the world—if you concentrate on any one level, there are patterns that you miss. When you step back and simultaneously consider, say, the sentience of a slime mold, the cultural life of downtown Manhattan and the behavior of artificially intelligent computer code, new patterns emerge.” James Gleick, author of THE INFORMATION, has written how the cells of an organism are nodes in a richly interwoven communications network, transmitting and receiving, coding and decoding and how Evolution itself embodies an ongoing exchange of information between organism and environment.. (Its an ECO-SYSTEM, an EVOLVING NETWORK) “If you want to understand life,” Wrote Richard Dawkins, “don’t think about vibrant, throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology." (AND THINK ABOUT NETWORKS!! Geoffrey West, from The Santa Fe Institute, also believes in the pivotal role of NETWORKS: "...Network systems can sustain life at all scales, whether intracellularly or within you and me or in ecosystems or within a city.... If you have a million citizens in a city or if you have 1014 cells in your body, they have to be networked together in some optimal way for that system to function, to adapt, to grow, to mitigate, and to be long term resilient." Author Paul Stammetts writes about The Mycelial Archetype: He compares the mushroom mycelium with the overlapping information-sharing systems that comprise the Internet, with the networked neurons in the brain, and with a computer model of dark matter in the universe. All share this densely intertwingled filamental structure. An article in Reality Sandwich called Google a psychedelically informed superpowered network, a manifestation of the mycelial archetype: “Recognizing this super-connectivity and conductivity is often accompanied by blissful mindbody states and the cognitive ecstasy of multiple "aha's!" when the patterns in the mycelium are revealed. That Googling that has become a prime noetic technology (How can we recognize a pattern and connect more and more, faster and faster?: superconnectivity and superconductivity) mirrors the increased speed of connection of thought-forms from cannabis highs on up. The whole process is driven by desire not only for these blissful states in and of themselves, but also as the cognitive resource they represent.The devices of

Brains are automatic, but people are free

Do you believe in total free will, are we natural automatons or a combination of both?  Michael S. Gazzaniga, professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, gives his thoughts regarding free will as it relates to our understanding of the "mechanics"  of the brain.    Gazzaniga suggest it is both with "personal accountability being essential or the whole thing falls apart."

A good place to start - The Story of Stuff

The Story of Stuff is a great resource for 'systems thinkers".  It's website, storyofstuff.org has lots of videos and other information that explore economic, political and other types of systems and how to respond to them.  This video was the first in the series that provides an overview of how "The System" is not operating in a sustainable way.

Welcome to the new site

Systems Mural Project has a new site!  This is the spot for Systems Thinkers.  We're going to be posting interesting articles and links to sites and stories that will raise your awareness of the interconnections going on all around you.  From the practical to the profound, we'll be posting about the natural systems found within the ecology, the systems we create to try to manage this mess, and the belief systems that structure our behavior and culture.

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