The most serious problem for our time is realistically imagining how we can get from here (capitalist ecocide) to there (Ecotopia) without invoking supernatural or extraterrestrial intervention. ZNet is hosting a massive debate between a multitude of world-changers, called Re-Imagining Society. (see my own short contribution formulated as a series of theses). A good place… Continue reading
Date archives "July 2009"
Sharing food: the Fruit Tree Project
It is sad to see good food wasted, especially when people are going hungry around us. David Parkinson: “So for the last four years the Powell River Fruit Tree Project, a small but scrappy community initiative, has been working on a next-to-zero budget to see that as much fruit gets saved and used as possible…. Continue reading
Hooked on Growth: documentary on the post-growth economy
As a professional filmmaker I decided to produce this film as an intervention. Your friends and family, business associates, elected representatives – and even your priest – all need to see Hooked on Growth, so we can recognize the addiction and begin the recovery. This film examines the superstitions and outdated beliefs we must leave… Continue reading
Open Source Cloud Computing?
A contribution from Sepp Hasslberger: It appears that the term “cloud computing” has been hijacked by corporate giants who wish to introduce server farms to hold a great amount of corporate data, as well as web based applications to access and elaborate them. I prefer to think of a cloud as a huge number of… Continue reading
Objectivity without Transparency is Arrogance
Objectivity is a trust mechanism you rely on when your medium can’t do links. Great piece by David Weinberger: (David makes the same point in the video shown below) “Outside of the realm of science, objectivity is discredited these days as anything but an aspiration, and even that aspiration is looking pretty sketchy. The problem… Continue reading
Open Sailing – an organic approach to homesteading the sea
A contribution from Eric Hunting: “The notion of marine colonization is, perhaps, almost as old as the legend of Atlantis that so often seems to inspire it and, energized by industrial prowess and stimulated by Modernist idealism, the 20th century saw the emergence hundreds of different visions of marine settlement, though for the most part… Continue reading
The ethical economy of socially responsible outsourcing
Socially Responsible Outsourcing => ethical outsourcing => ethical economy. There is a growing sense of the need for social & ethical framework for development and doing business in emerging markets. Is there a good ethical side to outsourcing, when it is specifically dedicated to create an economy in the poorer regions of the world? Samasource… Continue reading
The jobs we need, and those that we don’t
While the essay is right that collectively we are trashing the planet, and that consuming less slows this, ultimately it is a failed philosophy, because slowing your descent into a volcano still leaves you falling into a volcano, just more slowly. I asked Franz Nahrada to discuss a very readable essay or condensed talk called… Continue reading
Are free ideas and Peak Oil compatible?
Lisa Margonelli asks a good question, referring to Chris Anderson’s book on the Freeconomy: “Underlying this copious pile of free is a steady stream of electrons that keeps our eyes and ears hooked into the ideas beaming out of our computers, TV’s, stereos, and twitter-enabled smart phones. Between 2000 and 2005 according to this pdf… Continue reading
Peer to peer science, network effects, and consilience
Just as the technium is currently in the process of connecting all humans to each other (via the internet), and all devices to each other (ditto), it is also in the process of connecting each idea to all other ideas, so that there is a one unified body of knowledge. From the extensive meditation by… Continue reading
Steven Vedro launches peer-based blessing community
A message from Steven Vedro: Friends: Many of you know me from Digital Dharma, others are friends from spiritual practice, or just ‘friends.’ In the last six months I have been working on using the Internet to facilitate the giving and receiving of blessings. I first created a blog to share the blessings I have… Continue reading
How the Internet killed California’s economy
Douglas Rushkoff’s take on the Crisis of Value created by peer production. Douglas Rushkoff: “The real estate crash is really just the second leg of the dot.com crash–the failure of housing to absorb the tremendous cash surplus generated by the irrational exuberance of Internet investors. And it actually goes deeper than this. The Internet is… Continue reading
Food localisation and the culture of the audit (vs. regulation)
From an interesting essay on the resurgence of sustainable agriculture and its stress on food localization. Jordan Kleiman reviews critical reactions to Michael Pollan, whose 2006 bestseller The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals “has contributed substantially to the recent burst of enthusiasm for local food.” The critic is Julie Guthman, professor of… Continue reading
The zigzag path of collaborative community within the firm
Essay: Paul S. Adler and Charles Heckscher. Essay: Paul S. Adler and Charles Heckscher. Towards Collaborative Community / (Book: The Corporation as a Collaborative Community) This is an absolutely remarkable essay, nothing else than an indispensable must-read, that charts the history of community within the capitalist form, from the earliest community oriented paternalism (the ‘Gemeinshaft’… Continue reading
Thomas Diener’s proposal for a FairWare system
From an extensive discussion about the possibility of a infrastructure for Open Hardware stores, at the p2presearch mailing list. Thomas Diener: “I’ll can send a more structured text within the next few weeks but it will be in my very simple English. If somebody would like to translate from German into English it would make… Continue reading
Carrotmob activism
Via Mediacology: “Carrotmob is a good example of the kinds of social activism enabled by Internet social networks that Clay Shirky talks about in Here Comes Everybody– a combination flash mob and consume pressure that invites social change through positive engagement with businesses.” Watch the founder of the movement explaining it here: