Following a recent discussion with a friend, I decided to reprint this editorial of P2P News 18, which is a summary of my take on the new age. The new age movement is of course mostly dead, though still pretty much alive as a publishing category, but it was an important cultural moment, with both… Continue reading
Date archives "March 2006"
Differentiations in P2P Psychology: the legacy of Clare W. Graves
One of the aims of P2P Theory, is not just to study social change and to understand the current transformation of our civilisation, but to have an understanding of the psychological underpinnings of this transformation. This project is beyond my own individual ability, but nevertheless, I am and will be collating material on this. My… Continue reading
The P2P Meme Map, and the positioning of the Foundation
We’ve experimented with a new visualisation of the P2P universe, and we’re adding an excercise in positioning the P2P Foundation within it. (to view the vizualization below, right click and select ‘view image’ as there is too much text for the width of this blog…’apologies in advance..) Strategic Positioning P2P is a template of human… Continue reading
Best P2P Blogs
The Foundation for P2P Alternatives focuses on the sharing economy and the new participatory practices enabled by the new internet-based technologies. We are part of an ecology of information providers and analysts which we integrate in our blogroll at the right side of our blog. Here’s an overview of why we are reading them. The… Continue reading
The library of the (near) future: the catalog IS the library
(please note that the project I’m mentioning is no longer available since my laptop was stolen) Towards a global, localized, physical-virtual distributed peer-based library for all Most of our readers probably ignore that I used to be a librarian, for the first 12 years of my professional life, a job that I really loved. Back… Continue reading
Ted Lumley: a critique of P2P from the point of view of inclusionality
Ted Lumley of Goodshare has a point of view which is both supportive and critical of our peer to peer paradigm, from his own paradigm of inclusionality. The following is one of the best summary statements concerning the similarities and differences in both approaches, it’s part of a longer text which you can find here:… Continue reading
An update on the P2P Foundation’s resource areas
Dear friends: I’m sure that most of our blog readers know about our Wiki, but perhaps not all, so, I would like to give you a rundown of the most recent activities and resources. Concerning our Encyclopedia project, we have in excess of 300 entries, and given the volume, we are now creating specialixed areas… Continue reading
Mediacast:Update on blogging in China
“China’s blogging community will soon be bigger than America’s, and not even the world’s most sophisticated system of web censorship can silence the chatter. “(Channel 4 news) Please use IE to view the video as somehow it doesn’t work in Firefox….(C4 please take note) Watch the report here
A P2P theory of social change
A reprint from P2P News 101: Peer to Peer Theory is an attempt to develop a new emancipatory theory, a strategy for political and social change, that is congruent with our times. How does it differ from other theories, what is distinctive about it. I think much revolves about the significance of the Relational Model… Continue reading
The Germ Form theory of social change
The germ form theory of Free Software production is a hypothesis that this form of peer production is the germ of a new society and has been developed by Stefan Meretz of Oekonux. Stefan Meretz writes: “I would not call the ideas around the term “germ form” a “theory”, however, others do. There are two… Continue reading
Limits to growth
When I was writing my manuscript, I was struggling with the aspects of scarcity and abundance in the economy, since peer to peer seems predicated on abundance. I concluded, largely inspired by Herman Daly that 1) natural resources are scarce 2) productive resources are abundant; 3) mental resources are limitless. This naturally points to a… Continue reading
P2P, markets, cooperatives, the state, and altruism
I have a continued admiration for the quality of thinking of Kevin Carson in the Mutualist Blog , which is why I asked him to specify his comment on markets. At issue is the insistence of libertarians to call the internet, and even peer production, a market, even though 1) there is no tit for… Continue reading
‘Fair trade’ or: Peer arbitration in markets
Just Prices and Equitable Markets A reprint from P2P News 101: The context: Remember that peer to peer theory uses the relational model of intersubjective relations of Alan Page Fiske, which says that there are four basic modes of inter-relating: 1) non-reciprocal communal shareholding, what I call peer to peer; 2) authority ranking; 3) equality… Continue reading
The emergence of slivercasting
Slivercasting = the showing of specialized TV programs on the internet Coined in the New York Times, in an article that reviews mostly commercial initiatives. We found this reference in an excellent overview by Dan Gillmor on video journalism. “Perhaps more interesting — and, arguably, more important — are the thousands of producers whose programming… Continue reading
Does Wikipedia need a benevolent dictator?
… Well, not one, but many … that’s the gist of a proposal by the “a VC‘ (= venture capitalist) blog, who cites a column by the New York Times. We’re citing the entry extensively as it goes to the heart of our interest in peer governance and their authority structures: “kids shouldn’t use Wikipedia… Continue reading
Anti-P2P: Opposing Certified Email projects
We received this email of the RiseUp email service, in opposting to the two-speed internet that would result from paid-for email services such as the ones planned by AOL and Yahoo: AOL is adopting a system called CertifiedEmail, which is a threat to a free and open Internet. The list that you have with Riseup… Continue reading