Thomas Greco writes: “Paul Grignon, creator of the excellent videos, Money as Debt I and II, came to my presentation on Salt Spring Island and brought with him a new short video called The Essence of Money, a Medieval Tale. In less than eight minutes, this video explains as well as anything I’ve seen how… Continue reading
Date archives "November 2009"
On the insufficiency of lifestyle changes
That, ultimately, is the biggest problem with the hand-made approach to sustainability: even when it works, it makes us passionate about small things in our lives, not engagement with the world. Visiting a neighbor’s great backyard garden may well encourage me to want to grow my own; it doesn’t encourage me to understand global agrobusiness,… Continue reading
Book of the Week: The Sharing Solution
Book: The Sharing Solution. How to Save Money, Simplify Your Life & Build Community. Janelle Orsi & Emily Doskow. Nolo, 2009. This is an extremely practical handbook for people who want to organize or join sharing networks in their lives. This is how lawyer-authors Janelle Orsi and Emily Doskow explain their motivation: “Some people worry… Continue reading
P2P and the Social Cloud
Social networking services available on the web are based upon proprietary software which have the ultimate purpose of advertisement-driven profit which implicitly demands tracking user activities. On the other hand, in order to allow people’s collective intelligence to fully develop by means of their self-organized social networks, communication in social networking software must be independent… Continue reading
The three revolutions in human productivity
About (roughly) 5,000 years, humanity witnessed a first revolution in productivity. It discovered that you can make people work through coercion (slavery), or by forcing farmers to give away a part of their production. To simplify, the emergence of negative extrinsic motivation was born. The city-state was probably one of it earliest instrument. As it… Continue reading
Varieties of authoritarian spiritual abuse
William Yenner’s book on the spiritual abuse happening at Andrew Cohen’s community, American Guru, has been the subject of a vigorous counter-campaign by his followers, yet no denial’s of the factual allegations have come forward, only the argument that they should be understood ‘in their context’. For those readers who may not have read the… Continue reading
The coming revolt of the guards, by Howard Zinn
This is an excerpt from chapter 24 of Howard Zinn’s book, A People’s History of the United States, chosen by Paul Fernhout: “However, the unexpected victories-even temporary ones-of insurgents show the vulnerability of the supposedly powerful. In a highly developed society, the Establishment cannot survive without the obedience and loyalty of millions of people who… Continue reading
The Rally Fighter: a crowdsourced car
A report via Mutopo: “Local Motors wants to build C.O.O.L cars. They invite a large community or car enthusiasts to participate in the development of their car. But this is where the similarities with Powell Motors ends, because Local Motors decides to decide differently. While Homer was the decider with rather unfortunately results, Local Motors… Continue reading
Frank Pasquale’s Assessment of Algorithmic Authority
This is a comment on Clay Shirky’s “A Speculative Post on the Idea of Algorithmic Authority,”, excerpts of which were also featured on our p2p blog. Frank Pasquale: “Here are some reasons to worry about that process: a) Shirky notes in the piece that there are several kinds of knowledge out there unsusceptible to assessments… Continue reading
The operating system of money is obsolete
Douglas Rushkoff’s keynote from the O’Reilly Web 2.0 conference. Key thesis: How we’re using an obsolete operating system for money, optimized for a pre-Internet economy. (an interesting video, with remarks on the situation in the Middle Ages)
Towards open source living
The basic pattern of openness is that better access to information and better systems lead to better decisions and better living. This general principal is broadly accepted, but we’re just now discovering that it also applies to the minutiae of our lives. An excerpt from a meditation by Paul Buchheit: “there’s another “open” that still… Continue reading
Andrew Harvey launches ‘networks of grace’
Via Reality Sandwich: (Source: excerpted from the Andrew Harvey’s new book The Hope: A Guide To Sacred Activism, recently released by Hay House) Andrew Harvey (excerpts): 1. “In a recent article in the “New York Review of Books” Bill McKibben wrote: “The technology we need most badly is the technology of community — the knowledge… Continue reading
Peak Globalization and the (historical) logic of relocalization
Fred Curtis: A double whammy of higher energy costs and extreme climate events will disrupt global transportation patterns, reversing the historical trend towards greater and greater levels of global trade and forcing a process of “relocalization” Excerpted from a contribution by John Michael Greer: “That relocalization needs to happen, and will happen, is clear. Among… Continue reading
Construction or resistance?
This is from an interesting exchange on the IDC list, where Brian Holmes responds to my following quote: Are you sure that activists from the old waves are not too wedded to particular types of spectacular resistance? What I see for example is a huge constructive shift towards new forms of being that go beyond… Continue reading
A visit to Wörgl
Rob Hopkins, of the Transition Town Movement, recently visited the legendary Austrian town, home of a very successfull open money experiment in the 1930’s. He retells the tale: “The Wörgl was introduced to the town in 1932, at the height of the Depression, when a third of the town was without work. It is an… Continue reading
Putting the commons to work: the next market wave
This blog entry from Massimo De Angelis is available from his website, with links: “The next disciplinary market wave — if it will come at all — will likely be greatly dependent on commons at every scale of social action. For this reason, a reasonably strong political recomposition wave around commons to contrast this market… Continue reading