Inspiring summary of recent trends: “Carrotmob begat a number of other initiatives. A ‘podmob’ in Vancouver raised a few thousand dollars at a local sushi restaurant in return for the owners agreement to spend on new menus that would highlight ‘best, go slow, avoid’ fish choices for sushi as well as other greening. Inspired, a… Continue reading
Date archives "December 2008"
Organization as Containment of Acquisitive Mimetic Rivalry: The Contribution of Rene Girard
I am sure I am not alone wondering about the recurring pattern of the decay of on-line communities. It seems that it is unevitable that after they grow into becoming some significant force they always deteriorate into nasty politics or a total melt-down. A glimpse of an answer I found in the theory mimetic rivalry… Continue reading
The Internet Revolution in figures
Good overview and reminder of how much has changed in recent years:
Open source self-replication
If you haven’t yet grasped the revolutionary nature of the self-replicating, distributed, open-source machines, then you haven’t been paying very close attention to the debate, and you should go back and do some homework. Agroblogger outlines 3 conditions for advancting open source self-replicating machines, which are not so far away from realisation, as evidenced by… Continue reading
The importance of facilitation
In order to truly achieve a peer to peer society, to have the maturity to engage with such dynamics, we need to evolve both as individuals but even more crucially in our intersubjective relations and skills. This is the aim of a global movement of facilitators, which we cover here. It’s also the topic of… Continue reading
The emergence of public domain studies
An important book review by David Bollier in the On the Commons blog. Book: Terms of Use: Negotiating the Jungle of the Intellectual Commons, Eva Hemmungs Wirtén. David Bollier (excerpt): “Now that scholars have established the value of the public domain, mapped its contours and suggested new ways to conceptualize it (e.g., let’s lose the… Continue reading
P2P Energy Economy: request for critical feedback
Via Marc Fawzi: “Dear All, The more exposure an idea gets the more debate it benefits from and the faster it evolves to meet real world needs. We have tried the P2P Foundation forum at Ning, the P2P Research list, the Open Manufacturing list, and the Oekonux list and the debates there definitely helped shape… Continue reading
Who were the pirates?
People who want to share music or videos or want to reform copyright are often accused of practicing piracy, but the question asked by David Bollier is: where pirates really so bad? Excerpt: “As the “piracy” metaphor has gained currency, its literal history has all but disappeared from memory. But it’s worthy revisiting that history… Continue reading
An appeal to develop a new p2p business metric
We are reproducing this important appeal by French researcher Serge Soudoplatoff. See also for more background at http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Metrics Serge Soudoplatoff: “I am a French researcher, professor, and entrepreneur working on the topic of the impact of Internet in real life : on business, corporate, customer relationship, etc… I would like to work on a new… Continue reading
Hyper-connected globalized localization
During my last lecture tour in the US, I was particularly challenged by my host and co-organizer of the tour, Daniel Arraya, about my ‘neo-feudal’ scenario, which expects any P2P society to be much more localized but connected globally through open design communities. Daniel called this vision ‘romantic’ and anti-global, based on ignoring the strong… Continue reading
What with the Obama movement?
David Bollier, after describing current plans of the Obama team, calls for taking up the unique opportunity of designing and mobilising a powerful social change movement. Excerpt: “The Obama White House has other options. It could set up an affiliated nonprofit that would “geo-target” its supporters to solicit donations to political allies. It could run… Continue reading
Debate: How to scale open source appropriate technology (OSAT)?
Agroblogger asks contributions to the following key question: can OSAT efforts be scaled fast enough to keep pace with the disintegration of the global system after Peak Oil and Peak Credit? Go to the original article to contribute your comments. Agroblogger explains: “Since 2005 I have been a strong advocate for the development of open… Continue reading
Bolivian government calls for Open Source Appropriate Technology
The following text on development in the context of climate change, by Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, contains 20 proposals, three of which are an undisguised call for the development of open and shared designs for appropriate technology. This is a great step forward towards peer to peer policy formulation. Evo Morales on technology transfer… Continue reading
The era of the commons
Jay Walljasper, in On the Commons, writes that the commons movement is at a historical juncture, comparable to the shift to neoconservatism in the eighties, but now moving in the other direction. The concept of the commons may be the underlying rallying point for a new progressive movement. Excerpt: “There is evidence that the market… Continue reading
Chris Carlsson on Nowtopia
The author discusses his book, which we announced here. The author is very articulate not only in his critique of ‘work’, but in describing really existing alternatives. “Nowtopia is a book about a new politics of work. It profiles tinkerers, inventors, and improvisational spirits who bring an artistic approach to important tasks that are ignored… Continue reading
Re-localization and the negative effects of containerization
Interesting argument in this book review: Book Review: Mark Levinson: The Box. How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. Princeton University Press, 2006. Alice Friedemann: “Mark Levinson has written a book that shows how containers made global trade possible. In the preface of the paperback edition, he notes other… Continue reading