Date archives "February 2006"

Larry Penslinger on P2P and quantum physics

Larry Penslinger is an American author, of the legendary novel “The Moon at Hoa Binh“, and an expert on quantum physics and m-valued currencies, who lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand. His thought is complex, sometimes difficult to understand without philosophical and scientific grounding, and many people of my circle here in Chiang Mai, including myself,… Continue reading

Dialogue with Patrick Godeau (1): free software and equity

I recently discovered an interesting text by Patrick Godeau, on Software Freedoms and Parecon Values, which examines the free software freedoms from the point of view of the values of equity, solidarity, diversity, and self-management. Patrick is also the conceptor of a very important proposed reform of the GPL license, which he calls the IANG… Continue reading

Are P2P relations personal, or impersonal?

Quote from StpehanMz, Oekonux: the difference between personal or abstract types of domination – and the free society without domination including a type of societal organisation, is that the latter is based on personal relationships. This does not necessarily mean, that “you know each other” (which is impossible), but the cooperation is driven by humans… Continue reading

The “Great Cosmic Mash-up” as an answer to postmodernist fragmentation

Michel Bauwens: I discovered an interesting website yesterday, The Age of Embodiment, a forum for commentary on what Karl Shroeder, a science fiction author must praised by Cory Doctorow, but which I haven’t read yet, sees “as a massive cultural change that’s sweeping towards us: the end of the Modern/Postmodern age, and the beginning of… Continue reading

Web 2.0 and the new minipreneurial culture

Darren Sharp reports: Two great articles from today’s New York Times which look at how Web 2.0 is transforming business processes and entrepreneurial culture. The first “Web Services Upend Ideas About the Little Guy’s Role” explores what might be called the “Long Tail” of the small-business market through the democratisation of information technology. According to… Continue reading

John Heron on the spiritual in the Global Integral-Spiritual Commons

John Heron: Thanks for the opportunity to clarify and enlarge on my very brief statement about the global integral-spiritual commons in Issue 89.I take a fundamentally relational view of spirituality. I don’t believe that spirituality is about individualistic states of consciousness, however subtle, refined and elevated. See my piece “Integralism 2” at the end of… Continue reading

P2P and the Cooperative movement: critical comments from Marcus Moltz

Michel Bauwens: Both theory and practice are important, even though they do not always coincide. Any theoretical scheme, such as the one I’m trying to develop on P2P, has to constantly check itself to the reality of transformative practice. Theory is subject to hubris, to ‘conceptual imperialism’ and to various forms of arrogance. It is… Continue reading

Dialogue with Wim Nusselder on Quarternary Economics and P2P

Reprinted from P2P News 91, this refers to our previous entry on Quarternary Economics. Two comments on the relationship between P2P theory and the quarternary economics of Wim Nusselder, which we featured before. My comments are in between the comments of Wim. Comment 1: Wim: “I have the impression that there are essential differences between… Continue reading

Cooperative capitalism as an intermediary between the market and peer production?

On Chris Cook and the Open Capital Movement. Last week I got an interesting email from Chris Cook, one of the former Directors of the International Petroleum Exchange, who is working on the development of a framework for cooperative capitalism on his site Open Capital where he develops alternatives to the existing financial structures based… Continue reading

The new gatekeepers, equipotentiality vs. the Power Law

There is a recurrent debate on the internet, summarized here, about re-intermediation through the new gatekeepers. Observers note that a new elite of A-list bloggers is able to set the terms of the debate, and that many of the existing search engines based on popularity, then re-inforce that dominance. There is therefore a tension in… Continue reading

Peer production, the market, and the state

Christophe Lestavel has sent us a number of questions and challenges, about how peer production will affect both the private sector and the state. His questions are in French, but I’ve summarized them in English. Comment l’open source (ou P2P), en faisant baisser le cout general de l’infrastructure (au sens le plus large, on pourrait… Continue reading