Interesting summary of this key issue by Kurt Cobb: “Money is nothing more than the ability to command energy to do what we want it to do. This energy can be expended by people doing things we want them to do or by machines running on some form of energy with or without the assistance… Continue reading
Date archives "February 2009"
P2P Foundation receives Millenia Award as ‘bridge maker’
Via John La Grou and http://www.millenniamediagroup.com/foundation/ppm.php : Dear friends, They seem to be very low key about it, but in any case, I’m happy to receive it and since this is in many ways a collective endeavour, it’s an award for all of us, the many contributors who have ‘peer produced’ through contributions and dialogue,… Continue reading
Victorian bushfires: the Good , the Bad and the Ugly side of the social Web
It’s quite surreal living about an hour’s drive away from most of the recent bushfire activity. The reality of it all hit home last night when some good friends of ours were forced to flee their home in Belgrave, about 35kms from Melbourne, to avoid fires threatening the Dandenong Ranges and spend the night with… Continue reading
For interoperability, protocols are better than API’s
A contribution by Martien van Steenbergen, in favour of “Protocols over API”. Martien van Steenbergen: “PROTOCOL OVER API—in a scale-free, distributed, decentralized peer-to-peer system, interoperability and exchange of information and meaning independent of technology, programming language and behaviour is key. Interoperability means consistency across platforms, applications, and programming languages. Forces: * A protocol determines how… Continue reading
Android, the iPhone, and the law of asymmetrical competition
Umair Haque: Light beats heavy. Open beats closed. Free beats paid. Good beats evil. Glyn Moody (in ComputerWorld) applies the law of asymmetrical competition, i.e. that open beats closed, to the struggle between iPhone and Android, predicting that in the field of software (not hardware!), the openness of Android will mean that the iPhone capabilities… Continue reading
Clashing debt cycles, clashing meltdown narratives
In this very interesting essay about the long term history of debt and its relation to the current meltdown, anthropologist David Graeber writes that intervening in history is always based on a story, and therefore, once’s choice of narrative, amongst competing offerings, is a key issue to mobilize social struggle. This essay points to various… Continue reading
Building a Open Village Construction Set
Nice summary by Kevin Carson on this important project. Go to his original article for the links. Kevin Carson: “I would like to call everyone’s attention to the work of the Open-Source Ecology group, and its Factor E Farm demonstration project. Factor E Farm provides constant updates on the progress of specific projects at their… Continue reading
The “rent after foreclosure” solution as an alternative to bank bailouts
As resistance to foreclosure evictions grows among homeowners, community leaders and some law enforcement officials, a broad civil disobedience campaign is starting in New York and other cities to support families who refuse orders to vacate their homes. As the New York Times reports: “The community organizing group Acorn unveiled the campaign with a spirited… Continue reading
Eric Hunting on Usman Haque’s: the possibilities of open source architecture
I asked Eric for his commentary on a landmark essay regarding open source architecture: Hardspace, Softspace and the possibilities of open source architecture – Usman Haque Eric Hunting: “This paper is an excellent example of a new sensibility emerging among contemporary designers. An emerging awareness of the evolution of civilization’s artifacts from static products developed… Continue reading
The ‘Semantic Web’ vs ‘Emergent Semantics’ on the web
…or syllogisms vs neologisms Tim Berners-Lee – “The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.” This statement projects the typical view of the ‘semantic web’ that somehow the chaotic and loosely defined nature of the web can… Continue reading
Dale Carrico responds to James Hughes interpretation of transhumanism
In case you missed Dale Carrico’s response to our article by James Hughes offering a progressive interpretation of transhumanism, see here for a full-length treatment. Here’s a representative quote that will give you a taste of Carrico’s counter-interpretation: “Despite all this I cannot sympathize at all with Hughes’ insinuation that he is defending “transhumanism” when… Continue reading
Market incentives vs. volunteering in Second Life
In a previous blog post, on Abundance and Scarcity in Second Life, we asked whether the success of Second Life was based on its openness which alllows volunteering, or on the internal market incentives. We are upgrading a very valuable comment from Gwyneth Llewelyn, which answers clearly: it’s the market incentives. Gwyneth Llewelyn: “IMHO, a… Continue reading
Network speed as a challenge to government
some college student in a Texas Ag program writes up permaculture for Malawi, and a retired doctor in Hawaii translates it, and two teenagers in suburban Durban make a video and dub it, and a Japanese phone services start up compresses the video so it fits over thin pipes, and a guy in Brazil wires… Continue reading
Launch of We Magazine Volume 2
we-magazine is all about the emergence of a new understanding of”WE”, caused and driven by the WEB in the fields of art, culture,society, education, economics and science … “we-magazine was first launched in august 2008 and has so far reached in more than 140 counries worldwide! it has been translated into arabic and chinese …… Continue reading
Peer Believing
I came to a realization today: that all of the theorization and activity around “peer production” and p2p phenomenon is neglecting a fundamental problem: that is the way that people think about, and see themselves really doing something like this. What does it look like, feel like, for a person who is not an early… Continue reading
Timescales for p2p emergence
In our earlier review of the book by David Laibman on “Deep History”, we offer an interpretation of the advent of peer to peer society, in 3 broad stages. First a phase of emergence, which are going through today. Second, after a reorganisation of capitalism resulting of the current crisis, and a new Kondratieff upcycle… Continue reading