Thanks for the comments and citations, Starr*. I did watch the Eli Pariser TED video, and explored this issue. And I did a little testing on whether "different browsers" or "different users" or "different computers" get "different results" on Google. The testing wasn't all that great, but the answer more or less is "yes". But why? This is a fast-moving area, with a lot of technology moving very quickly, but I did hear Pariser say in this 2011 video that Google does give users the option to control whether they want tailored searches. I should probably know more about this -- but I was hearing about "collaborative filtering" in the mid-1990's, and I thought it was a great thing. Can these tools be abused? No doubt. But whether they are being abused -- is probably a matter of opinion.

For me personally -- I am not thrilled when I see an ad pop up on my screen that seems based on personal information about me -- but I don't feel controlled or abused. I actually feel like I have tremendous capacity at my fingertips -- and the big challenge we face involves seeing how to use this capacity.

And I like a lot of what you say in your message -- particularly where you quote Buckminster Fuller and use this phrase "Alliance of All".

That's what's got me going right now -- the sense that we are making huge explosive progress on seeing how this "Alliance of All" concept can realistically and actually emerge in the context where we actually exist, recognizing and dealing with all the "differences" that surround us -- and seeing those differences as an essential key to our collective creative power.

It's hard to explain or convey this in just a few sentences, when there is so much involved -- but this "tagging" system that is emerging for me -- that inherently represents "all facets of the whole in every imaginable detail, at any level of precision that anyone cares to develop" is really coming together. Yesterday was another astonishing burst of insight and movement on this theme. It can be so simple, so intuitive, so quick -- and yet so comprehensive, so integral, so highly faceted...

We have to have an "action" interface -- not write glowing philosophical statements about how great something might or could be -- though we do need those statements. But how to get there? That's what nobody -- yet -- has been able to come up with. The "shift" movement has been stuck for quite a while, as we beat our brains out trying to move from philosophic vision to action.

But we are getting there.

And the points you make, Starr* -- I don't think these commercial "filters" need to block what we are doing (though I think it is true that national boundaries do tend to control what internet content is available -- as was clear to me when I cross the Canadian border and see a very different internet and a very different Google, with very different choices). We can design something that does not distort or cater to personalities, but simply runs flat and objective, as best humans can do that.

So -- I think we are starting to see something hugely flexible and transformative that can be put in a tiny box. We're not there yet -- but it feels so alive.

"Anything you care about" -- in any detail you wish -- regionalized if you wish -- in a form intended to develop, as you suggest, absolutely any kind of "alliance" on any subject, from any point of view. Open that capacity -- and then offer what might be the absolute eternal general wisdom of the universe, as best we are able to gather it, as the central aligning force -- and all running on human freedom and personal choice.

That's a stunning and absolutely transformative thing. My guess is -- we're getting there....

--- On Mon, Oct 13, 2014, Starr* Saffa wrote ---

Here is an interesting video by TED that explains how things are edited out of our searches and how really isolated our Web search make us - the Internet is in this way scary and that is the danger in what an Alliance of All can do to us once connected --- how do we protect from that is a question needing clarification:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s

--- On Mon, Oct 13, 2014, Starr* Saffa wrote ---

Hi Bruce

You ask: Starr*, do you have an article that shows how your search results are affected by previous searches -- or other things you may have clicked (on Facebook, or wherever)? I have not seen anything that says this -- though I can see how it could be true. I almost always use Google -- and they do know a lot about me -- I use the Chrome browser -- which signs me into Google anywhere I go. But I live with that -- and I am not aware that they are limiting search results. If I am simply naive, let me know.

Starr*: The Search Bubble has been in effect for over five or six years now - and I tell you - it really cuts down on the variety of information each person gets. So if your 'bubble' shows you read a certain slant on information then you get *your kind of slant* on any topic. So people have NOT received rounded information about anything they are talking with each other about - but think they know the *truth* when they know VERY little.

I can tell you that when I came out with the Tahirih Proofs and Information - the BIA (Baha'i Internet Affiliates) - was quick to marginalize that information. I do have all the links saved - although they have been sanitized from most searches. This is standard operation.

FILTER BUBBLES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble

Qutoe re Search Bubbles:

A filter bubble is a result of a personalized search in which a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user (such as location, past click behavior and search history) and, as a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles. Prime examples are Google Personalized Search results and Facebook's personalized news stream. The term was coined by internet activist Eli Pariser in his book by the same name; according to Pariser, users get less exposure to conflicting viewpoints and are isolated intellectually in their own informational bubble. Pariser related an example in which one user searched Google for "BP" and got investment news about British Petroleum while another searcher got information about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and that the two search results pages were "strikingly different".[1][2][3][4] The bubble effect may have negative implications for civic discourse, according to Pariser, but there are contrasting views suggesting the effect is minimal[4] and addressable.[5]"

Starr*: The Duality of personality is fading into Oneness - a Oneness that is Whole in relation to the Absolute Source. Those that live in the shadows, will remain in duality while they choose to live there - and thus are not in the ever-evolving category.

CREATE THE EVOLVING CATEGORY AND

THEN THERE CAN BE CATCH-UP FOR THOSE INTERESTED SO AS TO BE INCLUSIVE.

First one has to accept the old system is failing so as not to put energy into bolstering it up. Sure - keep the positives when possible but let the system evolve for the needs of the Day - according to the Light coming - evolving consciousness.

Like Gerald Dillenbeck and Myself have stated here, we think that Buckminster Fuller has good direction in suggesting that we should create an ALTERNATIVE MODEL to the one that is fading.

Gerald quote: Buckminister Fuller said both that the best way to optimize abundance is to minimize loss; and that the most abundant way to minimize a system that no longer operatives efficiently and effectively and inclusively, is to go out and create an alternative system. So, our best opportunity to achieve the ecological balance we long for is to belong to, invest in, immerse our cooperative mindfulness in gratitude and compassion for each other's personal and vocational resources and liabilities today. Or so it would seem.

With Best Intentions for an Ever-Evolving Conscious and the Environment that nurtures that aim,

Living Love, Starr*

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