From a participatory standpoint, the history of religions can be read, in part, as a story of the joys and sorrows of human dissociation. We conclude our presentation on the book, The Participatory Turn (in spirituality), which we presented on Monday and Friday. In the last installment, Jorge Ferrer made the case how a vision… Continue reading
Date archives "December 2008"
Towards a free matter economy
I discovered this older article by Terry Hancock, but find that it is still an excellent overview on the issues surrounding the possibility of free hardware development. Article. Towards a Free Matter Economy. (pdf) By Terry Hancock. Free Software Magazine, Issue 7, October 2005. Some excerpts by Terry Hancock: “Material products are getting “smarter” in… Continue reading
Bruce Sterling on the new materiality of the Post-Material Era
In his beautiful thoughtpiece announcing the end of his 10 year old Viridian Design movement, which is well worth reading in full for the other passages, such as the ones on glocal cosmopolitanism, Bruce Sterling has the following to say about a new relationship to material things. Bruce Sterling: “The sustainable is about time –… Continue reading
The Social Currency debate: key issues overview
Marc Fawzi launched an intensive debate on social currencies on our Ning community site, with 112 replies on November 28, as I write this. I asked him for an overview of that debate. Marc Fawzi: “Here is my summary: 1. With respect to my interactions with Dante, the discussions centers around how deep of a… Continue reading
Book of the Week: Jorge Ferrer on Spiritual Truth as Co-Creation (2)
We continue our presentation of the landmark book on participatory spirituality, edited by Jorge Ferrer and Jacob H. Sherman. Today, Jorge Ferrer discusses what the consequences are for religious truth-claims, once we consider spirituality as a process of co-creation. Source: The Participatory Turn. The Plurality of Religions and the Spirit of Pluralism. By Jorge N…. Continue reading
From Gain Maximization to Risk Minimization
Under conditions of abundance, the ideal economic agent is not the gain maximizer competing for self interest and incidentally making markets efficient, but the risk minimizer cooperating with others to intentionally make their common resources more reliable. Roberto Verzola makes this very interesting distinction in economic governance modes in his important essay on “Undermining Abundance“…. Continue reading
Collaboration Ecology – The Challenge of the 21st Century
This is an article I have been writing which explores the meaning and practical application of collaboration with an eye on the environment, the ecology in which people can, or cannot work together. And since ‘everybody is talking about it’ these days I rounded it of with a couple of principles that I feel are… Continue reading
Is Self-sufficiency possible in Suburbia?
The answer partially turns on the degree to which suburbia can convert itself away from a commuter model and toward a knowledge-based, distributed production model. Jeff Vail continues his detailed investigation on the prospects of suburbia after Peak Oil. In this third installment, he examines food, water and energy potentials. I’m not providing the details,… Continue reading
How the Public-ness and Egalitarian Nature of the Internet is Threatened
Six civil society organisations in India have proposed an open letter to the UN Internet Governance Forum which meets for its third annual meeting between 3^rd and 6th December in Hyderabad. The letter exhorts urgent global action to ensure that the public-ness and the egalitarian nature of the Internet are preserved as its essential features…. Continue reading
David Graeber on the new political imagination
The revolution begins by asking: what sort of promises do free men and women make to one another, and how, by making them, do we begin to make another world? Interesting thoughtpiece about social change by anthropologist David Graeber. His full article starts by asking why amidst a such a severe crisis, there seems to… Continue reading
Emergence of DIY clubs
Via The Hartford Courant: “Do-it-yourself clubs are forming around the country as homeowners try to make improvements on a budget. The clubs provide additional labor and know-how when members tackle big projects. “Consider it an expertise barter,” says Abby Buford, spokeswoman for the home-improvement store Lowe’s. “For instance, someone may have experience with minor plumbing… Continue reading
Book of the Week: The Participatory Turn in Spirituality
Book: The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies. Edited by Jorge Ferrer with Jacob H. Sherman. SUNY Press, 2008 The new book by Jorge Ferrer is out! Here are the publisher details: “Cuts through traditional debates to argue that religious phenomena are cocreated by human cognition and a generative spiritual power. Can we take seriously… Continue reading
The meltdown of nature
According to Pavan Sukhdev, lead author of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, current studies show that we are losing between 2 and 5 trillion dollars in natural capital per year:
Video: Open Source Futures for Education
Via Brianna Laugher: “I recently attended an education conference in Victoria, Australia. One of the speakers was Pia Waugh, from Linux Australia (and OLPC Friends), who spoke about “Open Source Futures”. She basically spoke about the application of open source ideas to many different aspects of education. I recorded a video of her talk: For… Continue reading
The emergence of peer consumption
“Peer consumption” happens when consumers use technology to coordinate their consumer behavior in an intelligent way, in this case, for purposes of alleviating the environmental, health, and social implications of products and companies. On Smart Mobs, Stephanie Gerson describes the plans of GoodGuide, a guide to ethical consumption that aims to become social-media enriched in… Continue reading