Great post from our friend Dale Carrico at Amor Mundi: “I simply cannot stress strongly enough that the term “postmodernâ€? is precisely the same kind of term “politically correctâ€? is: Namely, it is a smoke-screen behind which difficult ideas and difficult problems vanish the better to be replaced with clownish caricatures in which unappealing cartoons… Continue reading
Date archives "October 2006"
Is a post-Christian Europe being joined by a post-Christian U.S.?
This is definitely Dale Carrico time at our blog. (hint: we read about 60 blogs overall but only one per day, so that we read a whole bunch of one-blog-related items in a bunch; so if you want to be covered in our blog with a recent item, you have to email us to be… Continue reading
Clay Shirky on Citizendium and the problems of experts
Citizendium is the much-talked about new alternative to Wikipedia, which aims to give a prominent place to experts. There is an excellent description and commentary at the Modern Dragons blog, which I strongly recommend, and won’t reproduce here. The entry also cites insightful commentary by Clay Shirky. I share his concerns. In earlier entries on… Continue reading
Cooperatives in Venezuela – update
The L.A. Times has an article about the cooperative movement in Venezuela. It shows the enthusiasm of the participants, but also the inherent dangers of caudillismo and state support. “100,000 were cooperatives formed in Venezuela in the last two years that are the centerpiece of President Hugo Chavez’s new socialist model to create jobs and… Continue reading
e-Advocacy research in Asia, research project
Forwarded by request of Mary Joyce of the Demoblog: Dear Digital Democracy Friends, I was recently hired as a consultant by the NGO Res Publica help them complete a researchproject for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the topic of “e-advocacy“ in the global south”. Specifically, the report will look at the possibilities for… Continue reading
Is there a P2P approach to the state?
Dale Carrico’s previous comments have inspired me to put to writing a number of thesis concerning a specific p2p-approach to the state: Some general remarks about a p2p-approach to the state: Michel Bauwens, 14/10/2006: –Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The state has existed since the dawn of civilization and the class society,… Continue reading
Democratizing the state, rather than smashing it
A debate such as the one we have with Dmitry Kleiner, highlights the specificity of the approach of the P2P Foundation, which is based on plurarity, not just recognizing the plurality of the world, but the plurarity of possibilities and desires to change it. So within the general framework of being in favor of peer… Continue reading
Some questions to the media industry
Reblogged from Dale Carrico, who found this at the EFF: “the RIAA and MPAA trot out their spokespeople at conferences and public events all over the country, repeating their misleading talking points. Innovators are pirates, fair use is theft, the sky is falling, up is down, and so on. Their rhetoric shouldn’t be given a… Continue reading
The Benkler/Lessig Bauwens/Kleiner debate, part four
Dmytri Kleiner sends us a new reaction: Thank you Michel, it is a great pleasure to discuss this topic with you, I am not sure however, that your last contribution can be seen as a response to my comments, which you appear more or less to agree with some part of, so much as an… Continue reading
YouTube: How videos are signs, watching is social
Marshall McLuhan, in Understanding Media, writes: “What we are considering here, however, are the psychic and social consequences of the designs or patterns as they amplify or accelerate existing processes. For the ‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.” To say… Continue reading
Ethical Economy Debate (3): William Brandon Shanley’s critique of the Scarcity Matrix
The following contribution by William Brandon Shanley, The Age of Infinity and the Scarcity Matrix, places abundance squarely in the physical world. I must admit that this type of thinking is a challenge to peer to peer thinking. I often argue that the peer to peer relational dynamic can arise out of abundance and/or distribution…. Continue reading
The Ethical Economy Debate (2): Michel Bauwens on P2P and the Corporation
In the previous post, we referred to Kevin Carson’s excellent contribution to management-by-stress practices. In this entry, I’m recopying an excerpt from my own essay on the contradictory relationship between peer to peer practices and the corporate world. Here’s part of the conclusion: “Today, people want and need to collaborate and they want to find… Continue reading
The Benkler/Lessig Bauwens/Kleiner debate: recap page
We’are creating this page, so that you have direct access to the continuing debate on peer production. Do click on the individual entries, so that you have access to the comments as well, as there is a lot of added material there as well. It started with Dmytri Kleiner’s original posting reviewing and critiquing the… Continue reading
The Ethical Economy – 5
This is part five (and the last of the introductory chapter), of the new ‘Book of the Week’ experiment, where we will publish excerpts of new books. Adam Arvidsson’s book on the Ethical Economy is a draft, to which you are strongly invited to contribute. You may do so in the form of comments, separate… Continue reading
The End of Open Source? – The Beginning of Open Services
Open source was fine for desktop computers, but what if the network becomes the computers, then it matters less that we have Linux on our computers, instead we need to make sure the services are open! Join the debate on this topic at OpenBusines.cc: The rise of the ‘network as the computer’, web 2.0, and… Continue reading
The Ethical Economy debate (1): Kevin Carson on Tom Peters
Kevin Carson has written a most remarkable essay, about the double nature of the new, ‘peer to peer’ inspired management practices, which can be read as a companion to Adam Arvidsson’s book-in-progress on the Ethical Economy. See also my own comment to the fourth installment of the Ethical Economy book. Kevin’s comments are of particular… Continue reading