A rather incredible video by the right-wing Fox News commentator Glenn Beck (I did not further check his background), outlining the capture of the regulatory government apparatus by former Goldman Sachs employees. Quite unbelievable but unfortunately in this case, so true, and the left could probably not say it.
Date archives "July 2009"
What exactly does the P2P Foundation do?
V. Sasi Kumar undertook a lengthy interview after my visit to Kerala in December 2008. It was just published in Malayalam with an English translation here. Here, we’re only reproducing the questions about the P2P Foundation project itself, since it provides some extra personal details which are not usually available. “You were an information scientist… Continue reading
Where does food come from? (Canada)
This video presentation about the (re)localization of food production is remarkable for its infographics: via @Edial and Bright
Why “intellectual property” is a misnomer
Copyright – with all its quirks, exceptions and carve outs – was, for centuries, a legal regime that attempted to address the unique characteristics of knowledge, rather than pretending to be just another set of rules for the governance of property. The legacy of 40 years of “property talk” is an endless war between intractable… Continue reading
Metrics for the Planetary Commons
The brutal reality is that failure is possible in human societies as well as in ecological systems. There are points beyond which societal problems start to become effectively impossible to solves. And when you combine the two — an on-going societal meltdown with massive ecological degradation — the result can be real, catastrophic failure that… Continue reading
Shared work policies against the meltdown
Proposals for anti-meltdown policies, partially inspired by the New Deal in the 1930’s Jan Hively: “To create a commons-based society, people need more than exposure to new ideas. They need tangible ways of practicing and living out these bright possibilities. Old habits about how we organize and pay for work maintain the sharp divisions between… Continue reading
Reclaiming the Housing Commons
In These Times reported on the resurgent squatters movement in the U.S. Jake Thomas: “Take Back the Land, based in Miami, finds empty foreclosed homes and illegally moves homeless families into them. So far his organization has moved nine families into “liberated” houses and has at least four more occupations planned. Squatting has a long… Continue reading
The deepening meltdown must be matched by increased resilience
The “slow burn” is my term for a centrally managed economy in which a small group of insiders covertly subsidize themselves at the expense of the outsiders through (i) monetary policy, (ii) manipulation of government resources, regulation and enforcement and (iii) manipulation of financial markets and data. If you’d ask me which people are really… Continue reading
Great Use of Data Part 3: RewiredState.org | Be Vocal
From Be Vocal A site about social media for social good in Birmingham and using the internet to turn public data into something useful. Great Use of Data Part 3: RewiredState.org This is part of our ‘Great use of Data’ series in which we explore projects and applications that use data in new and existing… Continue reading
Building ecologies of collaboration
Developing community requires ongoing investments in intangible assets over extensive periods of time. Mushin has a five part series about the construction of integral collaboration ecologies. In the first excerpt, from part 2, he makes the very important point that contemporary complexity precludes full individual understanding, so that the effort needs to shift towards the… Continue reading
“The Pirate Party is a real net community”
Amelia Andersdotter recently presented the Swedish Pirate Party in Citilab at the invitation of the Virtual European Parliament. On her first visit to Spain Amelia, who will become the second Euro MP for the Swedish Pirate Party if the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified by the Irish, began the informal debate by explaining the rise… Continue reading
From free trade, via fair trade, to scalar trade?
Free Trade is based on the assumption that markets will self-correct, but in a world where the rich companies actively block true costs of production showing up on price tags and balance sheets, the markets are a political construct, as artificial as Second Life or Disneyland. Free trade is a game rigged so that global… Continue reading
The struggle for the Water Commons
Daniel Moss reports in On the Commons (excerpt): “Across Latin America and Africa, consumer, human rights, and environmental organizations have campaigned successfully for constitutional amendments and laws enshrining water as a human right. At the recent World Water Forum in Instanbul, 25 countries signed a declaration affirming that same right (the official declaration weakly suggested… Continue reading
The Spirituality of Twitter
Extended meditation by Steven Vedro, the author of Digital Dharma: A Users Guide to Expanding Consciousness in the Age of the Infosphere. (review) Steven Vedro: “Our new IP-based communications systems and forms – the Internet, digital media, pervasive wireless networks and embedded communicating microprocessors – are not only changing our ways of seeing the world,… Continue reading
Yes!, to the burgeoning new economy
The excellent Yes magazine has a really good special Summer 2009 issue dedicated to the New Economy, which covers the many topics familiar to the P2P Foundation, but offers many concrete examples emerging in the various regions of the U.S. From the introduction: “This downturn marks the end of an unsustainable economy. Rather than trying… Continue reading
The Promise of Open Media
Video reportage on the Open Video conference: The Promise of Open Media from thoughtcast on Vimeo. Produced by Jenny Attiyeh of ThoughtCast: “At the first ever Open Video Conference, held at New York University in Manhattan, participants pondered the significance of the open media movement, at a time when its tools are being put to… Continue reading