Date archives "May 2009"

Towards a copyright for fans, as well as critics

The celebrated American science-fiction writer Steven Brust produced a fantastic, full-length novel, My Own Kind of Freedom, inspired by the television show Firefly. Brust didn’t – and probably can’t – receive any money for this work, but he wrote it anyway, because, he says, “I couldn’t help myself”. Brust circulated his book for free and… Continue reading

Two ways for the state to adapt to networks

While networks on their own might be democratising, equalising, liberating – the hybrid forms are not, because they inject aspects of command at key points as substitutes for voluntary agency. Very interesting contribution by Andy Robinson: “I think part of the crisis since the 70s has to do with networks and hierarchies. The “old” system… Continue reading

A review of trends towards modular, adaptive ‘P2P’ architecture

Detailed discussion by Eric Hunting: “The ideal situation for P2P architecture is where you can produce structures of small to large scale using intuitively simple modular systems with components on a human scale that are easy for the solitary individual to manipulate and which encode aspects of safety and structural engineering into their interface standards… Continue reading

Thomas Lord, on Why We Need Free Network Services, and not just Copyleft

Copyleft is not enough. Free software web services must technologically resist needless centralization of services A text by Thomas Lord, from O’Reilly Radar, which appears in the comment field, here. Thomas Lord: ” Background The concept of software freedom relies on an assumption that users will normally have control over the computers they use. A… Continue reading

Transforming destructive speculative capital for green reconstruction

First, how to build a clean energy economy, creating millions of good jobs in the process; and second, how to create a financial system focused on channeling money toward productive investment as opposed to destabilizing speculation. In fact, the link between these matters becomes clear once we pose the simple question: how can we pay… Continue reading

Why combining GM foods with organic agriculture is a bad idea

Vandana Shiva: “Monsanto’s contribution to the suicide economy is by extracting super profits from farmers in the form of royalties and by intentionally transforming seeds from a renewable resource that farmers can save to a nonrenewable resource that they must buy in the market every year … The government should impose a moratorium on GMO… Continue reading

Social Technologies in an age of amoral corporations

Knowledge is almost always being produced in service of power – not as a liberating force from it and there is always a gap between what a society proclaims about it’s goals and aims – and the functional outcomes of its institutional policies and procedures. Article: The Question Concerning Social Technology. By Joshua-Michéle Ross. O’Reilly… Continue reading