A message from Ryan Lanham, announcing a new project which attempts to define the core collaborative principles of p2p: “The project relates indirectly to the partnership Michel Bauwens announced early this April in association with the University of Hull as coordinated by Athina Karatzogianni. I contended, somewhat cynically, that universities do not know how to… Continue reading
Date archives "April 2009"
Is the P2P movement reaching the early phases of mass mobilization?
This could be an erroneous interpretation based on my too limited historical memory, but if two news items make a trend, then we can conclude that the global p2p movement is starting to move into a different phase, that from countercultural transgression, into active political mobilization. The first item concerns the demonstration by Pirate Party… Continue reading
Cooperatives more resilient in the meltdown
Via the Solidarity Economy blog, with Hagen Henry, chief of the ILO’s Cooperatives Branch: “ILO Online: Why does the ILO promote cooperatives? Hagen Henry: The ILO views cooperatives as important in improving the living and working conditions of women and men globally as well as making essential infrastructure and services available even in areas neglected… Continue reading
Tim O’Reilly calls for DIY government and civic action
Via: “Now is the time for a renewal of our commitment to make our own institutions, our own communities, and our own difference. There’s a kind of passivity even to our activism: we think that all we can do is to protest. Collective action has come to mean collective complaint. Or at most, a collective… Continue reading
Bifo and MacKenzie Wark in Conversation
Via the Brooklyn-based Not An Alternative space: “a conversation with renowned philosopher, media activist and cultural agitator Franco Berardi (aka Bifo) and media theorist MacKenzie Wark, author of Game Theory and A Hacker’s Manifesto. Bifo has been a pivotal figure in Italian social movements for that past 40 years. He co-founded the legendary Radio Alice… Continue reading
Hack-Up.org
Hack-Up is an informal meeting for people sharing a common passion for technology and hacking devices. It works like this: people propose different ideas and groups are self-assembled. Each group has to develop a project in 4 hours. All projects are published in an open wiki allowing anybody to use or implement them. No long… Continue reading
Citizen reporting in Quebec
Lyne Robichaud: “Zonegrippeaviaire.com, based in Quebec, Canada, is a DIY story (I suppose in French we would say «Débrouille-toi-tout-seul». This site, run by common citizens, provides open information about pandemic surveillance. Quebec Government hired the firm BCP – among several projects – to set up a secret ‘Pandemic Watch Portal’, only accessible to 20 officials… Continue reading
Changing money down under: Thomas Greco in New Zealand
Thomas Greco, the St. Paul of the monetary reform movement, has been afoot in New Zealand, after his visit in Thailand, where we met. Excerpt from his regular email newsletter. Thomas Greco: “A couple hours after my arrival at the Auckland airport, Laurence put on a ferry boat to Waiheke Island, a half-hour ride across… Continue reading
Creation of a Circular Exchange Trading System
Evgeni Pandurski: “I am currently working on a P2P system for extended bartering. I almost have finished the design of the system and have done a toy implementation of one of the subsystems. I plan not to release any code in public until I have most of the design frozen. I believe this is going… Continue reading
Trying to Track Swine Flu Across Cities in Realtime
O’Reilly Radar posted this analysis by John Geraci Trying to Track Swine Flu Across Cities in Realtime by John Geraci John Geraci is a guest blogger and heads up the DIY City movement. He will be speaking about DIY City at Where 2.0 in San Jose on 5/20. Since early last friday, when I got… Continue reading
A critique of the Pirate Bay
Ryan Lanham: “In Pirate Bay, the policy aim was maximum access–fewest restrictions regardless of other rules of law in force. That is a form of uncivil behavior in that it violates laws–no doubt about it. Sanctions exist just like they do for people who soil a public park. The whole advantage of p2p is that… Continue reading
Failing business models for user-generated content
With Adam Arvidsson, I have outlined on several occasions the Crisis of Value facing capitalism, because the exponential rise in use value production (value produced by ourselves, outside of a market setting), is outpacing the linear capability of monetizing them. A special subcase of this concerns the proprietary platforms, only Google being an exceptional case… Continue reading
The new reality of statelessness: the state form is becoming a burden
Jakub Grygiel has written a very cogent “John-Robb-ian” essay at the Hoover Institution, written from the standpoint of power itself. It’s main thesis is that the state form is no longer something that is being aspired to by the new type of insurgents, whether they are worldchangers or criminal organizations. A must read, some brief… Continue reading
Transitioning, resilience, and participation in Sandpoint, Idaho
John Robb comments and quotes from a long reportage on the Transition Town movement, based on the experience of Sandpoint in Idaho, stressing the participatory aspects of the process. John Robb: “the real value of the Transition Towns approach isn’t its emphasis on energy descent (which may neither be sufficient nor ultimately valuable for resilience),… Continue reading
AN UNSCHOOLING MANIFESTO
Dave Pollard wrote about unschooling on his blog How To Save The World AN UNSCHOOLING MANIFESTO In Grade 11, my second last year of high school, I was an average student, with marks in English in the mid 60% range, and in mathematics, my best subject, around 80%. Aptitude tests suggested I should be doing… Continue reading
A culture critique of the primitivist wing of the permaculture movement
Eric Hunting in the Open Manufacturing discussion list: “Permaculture is a valuable and practical technology whose inspiration probably has its roots (pun intended…) in Taoist gardening and cultures like that of the Chagga tribes of the south-eastern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro where, until recent times, the purposeful concerted co- cultivation of nearly a thousand plant… Continue reading