David Wiley is against definitions of openness that excludes those that are not sufficiently ‘opening up’: “The idea advocated by groups like the Open Knowledge Definition or the Free Cultural Works crowd that there should be a litmus test for openness really bothers me. Deeply bothers me. What is the point of crying from the… Continue reading
Date archives "July 2010"
The mycelial approach to social change: networking transformations instead of achieving ‘hierarchical’ reform
We can see there is a hierarchy focused way of creating change which is focused on changing what the hierarchy (government) does. And then there is a way that is based on transforming people from a grassroots way and then linking them up in mycelial networks. And which is based on collaborating between the different… Continue reading
How much inequality is compatible with a commons approach? Southern anti-poverty strategies based on rough social equality
“If rough social equity is essential to a healthy commons, the other side of that equity’s roughness is (presumably) some acceptable level of inequality. So how unequal should our economy be from a commons perspective?” Kim Klein responds to the above question posed by Sean Thomas-Breitfeld. Both authors are inspired by the following book: *… Continue reading
Three scenarios for future connectivity in Europe
The Rand Corporation think thank has a report featuring three scenarios on the future broadband/p2p infrastructure, commissioned by the EU: * Trends in connectivity technologies and their socioeconomic impacts. Final report of the study: Policy Options for the Ubiquitous Internet Society. By: Jonathan Cave, Constantijn van Oranje-Nassau, Helen Rebecca Schindler, Ala’a Shehabi, Philipp-Bastian Brutscher, Neil… Continue reading
Rise of the prosperians: beyond stimulus or austerity
On one side, Keynesians. On the other, “austerians.” The former argue: spend, spend, spend, for the real problem in the economy’s a lack of demand — not enough buying power to create jobs and trade. The latter argue: cut, cut, cut, for the real problem’s a lack of supply — a shortage of financial capital,… Continue reading
Short interview with Joon Sang Baek on P2P
Joon Sang Baek interviewed me via email, through 3 questions. Here are my short answers. * Joon: You once said that technologies, especially ICT, can provide communication and S/W infrastructures of P2P and indeed today various collaborative social tools proliferate in our daily life that connects distributed knowledge and enables co-design and co-production. In your… Continue reading
The interstitial approach to politics: taking advantages of the cracks
If you want to know contemporary left thinking about social change, and how it takes into account the commons, then this is a quite extraordinary video. It features three speakers: 1) Alex Callinicos, who in my view expounds the classic left view based on the primacy of struggle 2) Slavoy Zizek who really rocks here,… Continue reading
Things you should know about the problems with the CouchSurfing organization
Despite my criticisms of CouchSurfing I have had absolutely amazing experiences through the site and have met terrific people through there. It’s a certain subset of the community I have a problem with, and to a far larger extent the actions of Casey and the organization itself. While I may not be able to stand… Continue reading
Damanhur’s theatre of possibility
The citizens of Damanhur believe there is more than one strand of this frayed weave. What Damanhur wants to do with its Temples and its vital community experiment is to remember a different future, to materialize a more distant time-line and to thereby rewrite our current course in a more positive direction. In less SciFi… Continue reading
Three new and emerging open source business models
OSBR‘s July issue is dedicated to the theme of Going to Market for open source businesses, and it contains one article which offers an overview of five open source software business models, three of which are called ‘new’ and ’emergent’ by the author Thomas Prowse. We excerpt that part of the article dedicated to the… Continue reading
A new place for civil society?
“Making good society, the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society, argues that civil society has been pushed to the margins in key areas including politics, finance and the media and that this must change. The report explores how civil society activity can help: grow a more civil economy;… Continue reading
Towards a new type of public services
An essay from Hilary Wainwright, taken from 20 for 20, a collection of essays looking at the future challenges and opportunities for the public and not for profit sectors over the next decade. The book features a range of provoices including Geoff Mulgan, Andrew Hind, Frances O’Grady, Julian Baggini and John Holden. 20 for 20… Continue reading
The link between poverty, (de)centralisation and (non)connectivity
A talk by Iqbal Quadir , “Technology Empowers the Poorest”, summarized by Kevin Kelly: “In Quadir’s view, it’s not that centralization per se creates poverty. Poverty is the natural beginning state of all societies, east or west. Rather, decentralization is the engine which removes poverty and brings wealth. To the degree that infrastructure, education, and… Continue reading
Personal genomics anyone?
Do you want to explore your own genome, hack together DNA code, build your own biofuel, or prove that the trees in your backyard really are Truffula trees? You’ll need a PCR machine, one of the cornerstones of molecular biology, which costs $4,000 up to $10,000. How are the Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Andy… Continue reading
Peak oil, capitalism and philosophy
I first started learning about peak oil sometime in 2005 through websites such as The Oil Drum and From the Wilderness (by Mike Ruppert who was recently featured on this blog). As a philosopher I had been somewhat tuned to the issues of energy through Georges Bataille who based his thinking on the wasteful and… Continue reading
The state of Open Source 3D Printing at the Maker Fair
Via Joseph Flaherty, who writes: “While I was at MakerFaire it was impressive to see how much energy there was around Open Source 3D printing. The MakerBot was the belle of the ball, but the Fab@Home, RepRap, and other Open Source projects were well represented as well. It is exciting to see is the improving… Continue reading