“Ripple is a monetary system that makes simple obligations between friends as useful for making payments as regular money. Normally, if your friend Alice owed you $10, she would have to pay you back before you could make any use of that debt. If you were creative, however, you might be able to pass the… Continue reading
Date archives "June 2006"
Some thoughts on leftism and libertarianism
Peer to peer theory is an attempt to re-construct, starting from current conditions, a theory of human emancipation. And with current conditions we mean the internet-enabled emergence of the peer to peer relational dynamic in distributed networks, and its associated processes of peer production, peer governance, and peer property. As Marx did for the emerging… Continue reading
Kevin Carson on markets without capitalism
To put the following into context: P2P Theory envisages a new political economy that evolves around a core centered on non-reciprocal peer production (Commons-oriented), surrounded by other modes of production which are re-formed and in-formed by the peer to peer mode. The core would be surrounded by: – a re-invigorated field of reciprocity-based gift economies,… Continue reading
Per Bylund on vertical and horizontal Counter-Economics
This is an item on political strategy ‘from the ground up’, from a Swedish libertarian Per Bylund, found at Mutualist.org. I do not share a blanket hostility for the state, and in peer to peer theory, I argue for a reform of the state, and of global governance institutions, towards a model based on multi-stakeholdership…. Continue reading
Conservatives and “upward redistribution” welfare state
Conservatives have been much better, over the last decades since the eighties, of creating a framework for debates. For example, we will routinely read in the press that the right is against the welfare state and government intervention, and the left for it. But this flies in the face of reality, where it is, for… Continue reading
Intermediate Technology
I’ve got a serious problems. I have so many blogs I want to monitor in my bloglines feed, that I have to limit myself to reading one blog per day (not to speak of the newsletters and mailing lists I’m getting in my mailbox, and the suggestions I get from my readers). This means that… Continue reading
Good wrap-up on the state of the music industry
What’s the score with the music industry and the impact of legal and illegal filesharing? A good wrap-up, re-blogged from the P2P Weblog: “Mitch Bainwol, Chairman of RIAA, recently told CNET “Digital sales are rising at a value that is larger than the decline in physical sales. We went through a pretty extraordinary time (recently)…. Continue reading
Launch of Mizzima TV for Burma
We’re reposting an announcement: “Mizzima.tv, a gateway to footage, documentaries and hard news programmes on Burma-related issues. Our top story today is “Salute to The Ladyâ€? in honour of Burma’s democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi who spends her 61st birthday today under house arrest in Rangoon. At Mizzima, we are dedicated to providing… Continue reading
WiFi Phones for Rural Connectivity
Next.Billion.Net reports that WiFi phones are becoming increasingly popular in rural areas. The models it discusses are the following: ” UTstarcom F1000 Wi-Fi VoIP Phone The F1000 residential Wi-Fi handset expands the reach of VoIP communications. It provides consumers a new cost effective way to communicate, and includes features such as 3-way Calling, Call Waiting,… Continue reading
The Crooked Timber seminar on The Wealth of Networks
We mentioned the importance of Yochai Benkler‘s new book on The Wealth of Networks before. And we’ve selected it as one of the top 10 P2P Books that are a must-read. The Crooked Timber blog now adds an interesting resource: a discussion seminar with the participation of other eminent authors on related topics. Here’s an… Continue reading
The Class of the New, by Richard Barbrook
Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project and Humphrey Jennings’ Pandaemonium, The Class of the New uses quotations from a long line of thinkers selected because of their common identification of a emerging, innovative, class within their respective societies, Barbrook’s “class of the new.” As Barbrook writes in Chapter 3 of this text, “The Makers… Continue reading
satellite view p2p foundation blog and wiki
blog wiki “A graph visualization of the Document Object Model (DOM) of a user-chosen website web page. colors denote specific HTML tags (e.g. blue for links (the A tag), red for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags), green for the DIV tag, etc.).” from websites seen as graphs via (infosthetics)
Unconferences, and how they exemply the new peer-based work cultures
If there is a common thread between the different conferences that I participated in recently, it’s the emerging of the new mode of peer to peer based “unconferences”. The peer to peer conference organized by W-S Network in Leuven, Belgium, had not only peer to peer as its topic (and this sense, I think this… Continue reading
The new marketing remix: whatever happened to the four P’s
As you can see on the top right of the blog, I partcipated as a virtual conferencer, using Skype to give my presentation to a live audience, in a Belgian conference on P2P marketing on June 15, without leaving my cozy office in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where it is very hot and humid right now…. Continue reading
After the hacking: a call for assistance
As you perhaps already know, the P2P Foundation site, and our blog, have been hacked twice (by the Turkish ayt cracker team lead by the ‘Dark Lord’). Fortunately, thanks to the assistance of Brice Le Blevennec and his team, who were at the same time struggling with a IPO, our site has been restored. Need… Continue reading
Mobfilms: peer production in documentary filmmaking
This is one of the most interesting blogs I have discovered lately. Mobfilms monitors the emergence of new genres of documentary filmmaking, made by smart mobs, using new modes of collective production and editing. It’s a good source to monitor the new types of political documentaries, the machinima genre, and other initiatives. Eamonn Crudden is… Continue reading