Valerie Landau interviewed by Martin Wasserman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62ig8ecXlrA

Q: Some people will have to change their normal method of thinking?

A: I think today, Aday really summed it up, that one of the things
about collective intelligence means that we really have to start
looking at ways that we can collectively share knowledge. And one of
the problems with that is there are no good tools for sharing massive
quantities of knowledge. So it's very hard to stay on top of things.
So Doug's methodology creates maps and new ways of displaying data
that we have not explored. So that we can really see large amounts of
data, large amounts of knowledge, put them into structured arguments,
so what he means by structure -- and maps, so that people can
literally see what exists now and create very rapidly stragies -- both
long term strategic planning, as well as tactical planning -- to
address the issues that are confronting us.

Q: Does this assume that if people have the same information they'll
all come to the same conclusions?

A: No, not at all. What it means that you will be able to look at data
and make intelligent conclusions based on the best data we have
currently. Because right now there is a lot of good data that is
currently not available to the people who are making the decisions. He
was saying that this was a dynamic knowledge repository and it was
about allowing people to have an intelligence quotient. In other
words, he saud that the infrastructure that you have to support a
society determines the capability of that society. Just because we
have all these capable tools doesn't necessarily mean that we'll
behave intelligently, but it does allow us the chance to behave
intelligently. So by improving our infrastructure, we're improving our
intelligence QUOTIENT, not our actual intelligence. Just like the same
people who are intelligent sometimes make bad choices, even though
they're capable of making a better choice.

Q: Now you say that Doug was interested in solving the most urgent
problems of humanity. What type of problems was he referring to?

A: He was definitely referring to things like Global Warming, issues
around water, food, hunger, war, corruption was very high on Doug's
list. He also followed very closely the work of the Millinenium
Project, and so often times he would cite whatever they had cited. He
would often cite those same issues.

Q: Do you think his vision was going to become a reality at some point?

A: I think yes, if I didn't I don't think I would have spend the last
30 years following it.

Q: What did you find most impressive about him as a person?

A: His humility. He was such a humble man, and his steadfastness of keeping his vision. Often times leaders like Doug, who many people call a prophet... In our society, we tend to think of the leaders as these sort of charismatic, ambitious people, and I think that Doug really broke that mold, in that he was a very humble, really shy person.

Q: Do you have any last minute comments or observations about him to finish up. Or a good anecdote?

A: I think -- I wanted to say one thing that Doug told me many years
ago. And this is really for the software developers out there. Once,
this was in the 90's. And I said, Doug, Doug, I'm just started to get
involved with software development, and we have this really cool tool
we're working on. Do you have any advice, about ... for a young
software developer. He looked at me and said:

"Yes. Make sure that
whatever you do is very modular. Make everything as module as
possible. Because you know that some of your ideas are going to
endure, and some are not. The problem is you don't know which one
will, and which one won't. So you want to be able to separate the
pieces so that those pieces can carry on and move forward."