Shareable magazine has an excellent article, explaining the RelayRides initiative: Peer-to-peer car-sharing within closed networks (friends, family, neighborhoods) is already a successful reality with services like Divvycar. (Its parent, Divvy, is an integrated reservation and billing system for sharing any asset within a chosen community.)The notion of opening up one’s sharing network to just about… Continue reading
Date archives "March 2010"
Obstacles to open source hardware (1): The lack of open-source culture among component makers
Howard Wen has an article on the mainstreaming of open source gadgets, which amongst other interesting points, mentions open source thrives only in commoditized areas without much innovation. He also gives examples of open source gadgets. In the article, he reviews some of the roadblocks. Here’s what he has to says about non-open components: Howard… Continue reading
Three Works on Technological Unemployment and Abundance, Part Four: Martin Ford’s Agenda and Mine
In the previous installment of this series of review essays, I considered the technological unemployment scenario presented by Martin Ford in The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future. In this last installment, I will discuss his proposed agenda for dealing with abundance, and then present my own counter-agenda…. Continue reading
Architecture and Design is Policy
EFF Panel on “Architecture Is Policy”: Technology design can maximize or decimate our basic rights to free speech, privacy, property ownership, and creative thought. Must watch video:
Myths and realities about job losses in Europe due to illegal downloads
Summary theses by David Hammerstein, of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, followed by commentary from Kevin Carson: 1. David Hammerstein on JOB LOSSES IN EUROPE AND ” ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS”: MYTHS AND REALITY 1. IT IS GROSSLY FALSE TO DIRECTLY RELATE THE NUMBER OF PIRATED DOWNLOADS WITH JOB LOSSES IN EUROPE. Studies that blame Internet downloads for… Continue reading
From Resilience to Thrivability
Thrivability is our path out of unsustainable practices toward a world where all people have a high quality of life, a voice, and a nurturing earth supporting them. Using whole systems approach, we evolve our way of being together, of collaborating, so that our collective wisdom and action bring forth a flourishing world and thriving… Continue reading
Three Works on Abundance and Technological Unemployment, Part Three: Martin Ford
Martin Ford. The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future (Acculant Publishing, 2009). Of the three works considered in this series of review essays, Ford’s pays by far the most attention to the issue of technological unemployment. It’s the central theme of his book. Members of the P2P Research… Continue reading
No patents for life forms – Bolivia takes the lead
February 2010 – Bolivia has challenged, during the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations of the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the prevailing philosophy that life forms should be patentable and that they can be considered to be ‘intellectual property’. Bolivia’s capital city La Paz – by Sepp The purpose of the… Continue reading
Responsibility in open vs. closed systems of cooperation
An excerpt from Open Collaboration Journal: issue1. In one of the articles, Alden Bevington discusses the transparent ground of an open stakeholder model. The author gives a detailed treatment of the Greek financial crisis in this context. Excerpts: “In any system, efficiency, and perhaps even sustainability, appears directly proportionate to the degree of transparency of… Continue reading
Three Works on Abundance and Technological Unemployment, Part Two: Adam Arvidsson
Adam Arvidsson. “The Makers—again: or the need for keynesian management of abundance,” P2P Foundation Blog, February 25, 2010. In the first installment of this review essay, I dealt with Economic Abundance by William Dugger and James Peach. I found it only tangentially related, at best, to the post-scarcity tradition we’re familiar with. Adam Arvidsson and… Continue reading
The practice and theory of the gift circle in Fairfax, California
An excerpt from Open Collaboration Journal: issue1. In one of the articles, Alpha Lo talks about his theory of social systems and how love and nonattachment and higher consciousness states factor into what level a social system is at. He relates it to experiments to create a gift economy in Fairfax, California. Alpha Lo: “An… Continue reading
JCOM special issue on User-led and peer-to-peer science: Commentary
Via: The new issue of Journal of Science Communication also has a commentary section with the following items: Special issue on peer-to-peer and user-led science: invited comments: In this commentary, we collected three essays from authors coming from different perspectives. They analyse the problem of power, participation and cooperation in projects of production of scientific… Continue reading
Three Works on Abundance and Technological Unemployment: Part One–William Dugger and James T. Peach
William M. Dugger and James T. Peach. Economic Abundance: An Introduction (Armonk, New York and London, England: M.E. Sharpe, 2009). Adam Arvidsson. “The Makers—again: or the need for keynesian management of abundance,” P2P Foundation Blog, February 25, 2010. Martin Ford. The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future (Acculant… Continue reading
JCOM special issue on User-led and peer-to-peer science: Articles
Via: The new issue of Journal of Science Communication is now online (Open Access, so you can download all PDFs for free). This issue has a number of interesting articles, reviews, perspectives and papers: Users and peers. From citizen science to P2P science: (this is editor in chief Alessandro’s Delfanti’s intro to the issue) This… Continue reading
Periodisations of power from Sean Cubitt: Nations, markets, networks
A potpourri of stimulating paragraphs from Sean Cubitt: 1. Market, Nations, Networks “China sees the market as servant of the nation. The market sees nations as infrastructure, providing the legal and physical systems it needs to run. The network sees the market as a way of getting money to secure the free flow of information…. Continue reading
Towards a World Day of the Commons, a proposal
Via Frédéric Sultan: A proposal for a World Day of Commons October 15, 2010! Following the Manifesto Reclam the Commons, we suggest organizing the first World Day of Commons on October 15,2010 This would be a day of public actions, presentations, debates, workshops, shows, meetings,…around the world to share the visions and the practices of… Continue reading