The critique that the P2P approach that we are defending in these pages is utopian can come from two different quarters. One is the obvious one, the conservative side. This approach suggests that humans are very flawed, and that our societies reflect those flaws and that social rules should take into account the basic fact… Continue reading
Date archives "May 2010"
Why Open Digital Standards Matter in Government
(this post is a short synthesis of the essay I wrote for O’Reilly’s Open Government book: the full text is reachable by clicking here or on the titles of each section) Introduction (digital) Standards are the foundation for our everyday activities in ways we often don’t even imagine. Consider this question: are the pens that… Continue reading
Solidar – a nature congruent money system for peace
Åsa Brandberg posted a note on the openmoney ning site about her idea for a solidarity based economy, to be brought about by a money system that puts individuals as the only entry point of money into the economy. The Solidar system is better described on a dedicated web page titled A NATURE CONGRUENT MONEY… Continue reading
The Digital Commons interview
On the occasion of a recent seminar in Venice, Italy, Tiziana Terranova republished the following interview. An edited version was published in Italy by Il Manifesto. Tiziana: Michel, you started the Foundation for P2P alternatives some years ago to create a ‘pluralist network to document, research, and promote peer to peer alternatives.’ How would you… Continue reading
Autonomous Learning, Sustenance, and Culture in the US Midwest: Invert the Logic of The Zombies
The cultural hegemony here in the midwest is full of rigid and stifling assumptions. Even in the supposedly “progressive” places (like Madison, Ann Arbor, and even Chicago). “Education” for most is primarily about working on grinding you down as an individual until you finally forget about your unique local originality, history, diversity, and freedom. People… Continue reading
Open Source hardware research: Pendulum pump
David Matos de Matos who is of Portuguese descent and lives in Angola, has earlier described a possible way to reverse entropy using hydraulics (see Thermoenergetics: Can Hydraulics Reverse Entropy?). David has now come up with a simple idea of making use of gravity and a pendulum, together with hydraulics, to produce a useful pump… Continue reading
VIRT3C: Conflict on Virtual Networks
March 2010 saw the inaugural interdisciplinary conference of the Virtual Communication, Collaboration and Conflict (VIRT3C) Research Group at the University of Hull. It was a great event at which I was presenting. Alex Grech has done a great summary of the event: It’s not often that you get to spend two days with ecumenical Marxists,… Continue reading
Individuality, Relationality, and the Collective in the P2P era
I’ve just sent this text to a brazilian sociological newsletter, in preparation of my lecture tour there: “The individualist articulation of modernity, based on a autonomous self in a society which he himself creates through the social contract, has been changing in postmodernity. Simondon, a French philosopher of technology with an important posthumous following in… Continue reading
Twitter, Jainism, and Wisdom 3.0
A short quote from a commentary by Nick Jankel, which discusses the spiritual potential of Twitter in terms of what becomes possible through mass connectivity: “It is therefore conceivable that (with some smart content and designed-to-fit experiences), social media platforms like Twitter could help individuals bring to life a concrete form of what the Jains… Continue reading
Open Source and Climate Change
The Ecologist has an article, somewhat superficial and journalistic as it misses really essential developments such as the Global Innovation Commons, but which has the merit of mentioning some work by p2p friends such as Josef Davies-Coates United Diversity and Marcin Jakubowski’s Open Source Ecology projects. New for me was the Homecamp project, an offshoot… Continue reading
A brief history of P2P education in the visual arts
I think most would agree art school and approaches to art education are in general quite different from the rest of academia. The study and practice of contemporary art requires a certain amount of openness and experimentation. As a student I found the emphasis on self directed creative exploration and the development of ones own… Continue reading
The battle for public water in Italy: an anticipation of European water policy and a test of political maturity
Among the many things that keep us busy in Italy these days there is the battle around “privatization of water”. Here’s an excerpt from A Water Commons Clash in the Coliseum to give some context: “At the end of November 2009, a new law was approved. Its name is Ronchi Law: the starting point of… Continue reading
Announcing a Sky Charter
The Global Commons of the atmosphere, our shared sky, is a critical context for an enduring and comprehensive solution to global warming. I will be participating in this event which will announce the launching of a Sky Charter, in Salvador de Bahia: The Sky Charter and the Global Commons: “We all depend upon the commons… Continue reading
Watching You, Watching Us, Watching YouTube
There is an interesting dynamic happening with vbloggers; people blogging their thoughts and ideas via video: the more people tune-in to watch; the less the vblogger reveals; As subscriber counts and page views steadily rise on vloggers’ personal YouTube channels, so too does the level of self-censorship. It makes sense: The more people who are… Continue reading
Ezio Manzini: design for community-centered sustainable open/social innovations and scenarios
One of the real strategic features of the P2P Foundation is the ability to connect different and (almost sometimes) isolated projects and initiatives in order to build a working new scenario. This ability proceeds, at the same time, investigating how current P2P trends can face current (and future) problems in the society, the economy and… Continue reading
What is the internet’s mode of consciousness?
A republication from a blog entry in 2008: Unrelated to our earlier treatment of Integral Theory, we want to highlight another aspect of Rich Carlson’s essay. The remarks discuss an essay by Ronald Purser, i.e. The Limits of Cyberspace – Hypermodernist Detour in the Evolution of Consciousness. The issue discussed here is: what mode of… Continue reading