The national and international debate caused by the Sydney Test has led to polls in Australia showing up to 47% voting against the Australian side.

This sudden 47% loss of support by Australians for the Australian Team on this issue is an extraordinary result! However, it may be a classic example of a tipping point.

It may be less likely that this poll reflects just the events of the past few weeks but more likely a gradual build-up of thinking over recent years.

Tim Lane of The Age seems to support this view: The public intervention this week of John Bertrand, Herb Elliott and Rob de Castella was, I suspect, not the result of a spur-of-the-moment reaction but of a growing frustration.

The first School of Thinking class of online trainees for 2008 is the biggest ever and has now passed the 3000 mark!

Welcome to the 3,003 members of SOT’s first class of 2008.

In 2007, more than one million thinking lessons were exported online from Melbourne, Australia to SOT members in more than 51 countries including: Australia, United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada, New Zealand, China, Malaysia, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Philippines, Spain, South Africa, Singapore, Ireland, Sweden, Japan, Belgium, Ghana, Uganda, France, Mexico, Nigeria, Finland, Israel, Korea, Republic of, Norway, Czech Republic, Italy, The Vatican, Egypt, Brazil, Europe, Austria, New Caledonia, United Arab Emirates, Romania, Hungary, Dominican Republic, Cambodia, Luxembourg, Thailand, Macedonia, Cameroon, Azerbaijan, Qatar and The Bahamas.

Chinese citizens in 2006 were more likely than in 2004 to say they’d like to start and own a business, and at the same time they’re less likely to express high satisfaction with their jobs. Together, the data may foretell a growth in small- to medium-sized businesses.

More on this article …

Twenty-six years ago I coined the term cognocracy to mean ‘a society of individuals who think for themselves’. I did this to anticipate the coming ‘opt-in-opt-out revolution’ empowered by technology and ‘peer2peer’ thinking.

In an interview for Reason Magazine (October 1982) with Patrick Cox I explained what I meant by cognocracy: “as communications technology improves and people acquire the tools to think for themselves, systems such as democracy, socialism, and communism–where a few do the thinking for the many, who are, if anything, asked simply to vote on other people’s ideas–will be replaced by societies of individuals who think for themselves.”

Oct ‘82

The advent of the www has made it possible to directly link technology to global brainpower. This is accelerating a move away from the slow and traditional ‘follow-the-leader’ democracies towards fast opt-in-opt-out cognocracies.

Opt-in-opt-out cognocracies are open to anyone, anywhere, anytime … 24/7.

Early examples of peer2peer and opt-in-opt-out cognocracies in evolution can be seen at Wikipedia, Facebook, Google, eBay, YouTube, Blogger and LimeWire.

Watch this space!