SUMMARY
Review of Can the World Be Wrong? by Doug Miller, dealing with global polling beyond politics as usual.
Review relating Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner to polling work by Miller.
Review relating Patterns of Commoning edited by David Bollier and Silke Helfrich to the commons gathering wisdom explored by Miller and Tetlock and Gardner.
Can The World Be Wrong? Where Global Public Opinion Says We’re Headed by Doug Miller, Greenleaf Publishing, Sheffield, UK, 2016
Superforecasting: The Art And Science Of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner, Crown, USA, 2015
Patterns Of Commoning, eds. David Bollier and Silke Helfrich, Commons Strategies Group, Amherst, MA, USA, 2015
These three important books, Can The World Be Wrong?, Superforecasting, and Patterns of Commoning, focus on the global rise of grassroots citizenship, public opinion, social innovation and creativity, arguably the world’s growing superpower. The worldwide rise of citizens demanding fuller participation in their governance and institutions is a potential force for positive change and more inclusive sustainable futures. These new forces are disrupting cultures, societies, legacy institutions and whole sectors of many economies. Ignored, denied or suppressed, these demands for inclusion can also turn rogue as we see in terrorist groups. However, these forces from the grassroots are overwhelmingly creative, and when their energies are tapped, their opinions sought and polled, their inventiveness, self-reliance and entrepreneurship can lead to social renewal and evolutionary change and progress.