Date archives "August 2009"

Kevin Kelly’s Information Metaphysics

The billion-years rise of extropy — as it flings up stable molecules, solar systems, a planetary atmosphere, life, mind and the technium — can be restated as the slow accumulation of ordered information. Or rather, the slow ordering of accumulated information. Information is its own force in the universe, which started with energy, became increasingly… Continue reading

Jeff Vail on the Diagonal Economy and the Rhizome Organisation

Jeff Vail is starting his long-awaited series on the next step for our post-meltdown political economies (see ToC for full project description): An excerpt on how this change may come about in the core country of the present system. Jeff Vail: “The diagonal economy might rise amidst the decline of our current system—the “Legacy System.”… Continue reading

DataSF

From the DataSF website: DataSF is a central clearinghouse for datasets published by the City & County of San Francisco. The site allows you to find datasets in several ways: general search, tags/keywords, categories, and rating. The goal is to improve access to city data through open machine-readable formats. While the number and quality of… Continue reading

James Quilligan: 21st century commons, the new social charters, and the State

Very interesting, and crucial contribution, by James Quilligan: “In my view, many commons need a social contract negotiated between the commoners and the state. Each one should be negotiated on its own terms. There may be pure commons management on one hand, or perhaps state-commons hybrids on the other — but that’s up to the… Continue reading

Rural revolution in Colombia goes digital and p2p

“Latinamerica is particularly well equipped for these changes (peer production) by their cultural affinity with the values of P2P”, said Michel Bauwens on an interview for Pagina/12 the Argentinian journal. This statement seems to prove itself when one reads Elyssa Pachico;s article “Rural revolution in Colombia goes digital” (first published by CounterPunch, you can find… Continue reading

Peer to peer ‘unclasses’

Springwise reports on the LaidOffCamp initiative: “Unconferences have become increasingly common over the past decade or so, notable in particular for their low-key structure and participant-driven format. LaidOffCamp is one such example, and now—inspired, in fact, by that initiative—the concept has been applied to education with the launch of (un)classes. Aiming to provide a more… Continue reading

The revival of homegrown urban agriculture

Commentary from Sam Rose: “Not only is urban agriculture an emerging movement for individuals, it is also being pursued as part of a sustainable urban renewal strategy throughout the midwest. Some examples include: http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/SweetWaterFishFarming/HomePage Sweetwater organics Aquaponics fishfarming in Milwaukee WI self sustaining urban food production in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit  http://localfoodsystems.org/lfs-storytellers Efforts in Chicago… Continue reading

Participatory Leadership

We have started to separately collate material on the new forms of leadership that are emerging in networked communities. You can find our tag here. Our latest find is this table by Chris Corrigan, which contrasts the new requirements with those of classic hierarchical industrial firms and bureaucracies. Traditional ways of working Participatory leadership complementing… Continue reading