What is the connection between the historical tradition of socialism/communism and the contemporary emergence of ideas and practices centered around p2p dynamics and the commons? 1. Let’s first tackle our understanding and interpretation of communism. To me it is basically the idea, probably born at the same time as post-tribal class-based society, that an alternative… Continue reading
Date archives "August 2010"
Is our civilization in free fall?
Richard Hames has a long essay on why our system is not addressing its systemic challenges, given a number of intergrated psycho-cultural causes. Here’s the intro, but go to the full article for the detailed treatent of the individual causes. Richard David Hames: “During the coming decade we are likely to face a cascade of… Continue reading
Data Roads: turning Internet routing upside-down
Jared Hardy’s DataRoads Foundation advocates a radical change in how data are routed on the internet. Instead of a central naming system, Hardy says, we could have user-centric addresses which, combined with a geographic component, could do the job as well as or even better than today’s global IP numbers. The concept is explained in… Continue reading
Why the World Needs WikiLeaks
Via Open Culture: “Above, we have TED’s Chris Anderson interviewing Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website that made headlines last month when it released the Afghan War Diaries, all 92,000 pages worth. During the 19 minute interview, Assange talks a little more about the philosophy behind WikiLeaks, how the organization decides when to… Continue reading
FLOSS as a Commons
A text by David Bollier: “FLOSS as Commons: What is the way, what are the actions for having FLOSS acknowledged globally as a strategic and crucial common for knowledge society? Is FLOSS paving the way for bigger initiatives and larger variety of commons? Even though FLOSS has generated countless high-quality software programs, public recognition of… Continue reading
Dale Carrico on libertarianism, redux
Excerpted from Dale Carrico’s longer comment on our previous extract here: “The unifying thread between the two parts is a critique of the metaphor of “spontaneous order” which figures so prominently in the arguments of so many techno-centric commentators to this day, from both the right (which, contra many of its proponents, is where I… Continue reading
Documentary: “A new we”, on ecovillages in Europe
The Austrian documentary filmmaker Stefan Wolf traveled for ten months through Europe in order to explore well established eco-communities and to present a broad spectrum of lifestyle possibilities to many people. Experience ecovillaged and ecological communities in Europe in this two hour long documentary portrait Video:
Alan Rosenblith on Fractal Sovereignty
fractal sovereignty is where the sovereignty of the individual and the sovereignty of the group are simultaneously fully embraced. Excerpt from Alan Rosenblith: “The question about where to place sovereignty has long been one of the core divides in politics. Many who consider themselves conservative favor the sovereignty of the individual over the group, decrying… Continue reading
An update on the SolaRoof project
Update via the SolaRoofGuy: “Eric, I appreciate your update on the Open Structure development. I would like to update you about SolaRoof, which is still progressing – but slowly – as an OpenSource technology under our Creative Commons Public License. Our approach is to identify activity such as: DIY, education, research and humanitarian use of… Continue reading
Is network theory the ideology of Empire?
Excerpted form Micah White’s article on the birth of the altermodern, this is summary of Zizek’s critique of network ideology as complicit in neocapitalist efforts: “According to Slavoj Žižek in the final chapter of his book Organs Without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences, the exemplars of Deleuzian philosophy are not the anarchists but the late-capitalists:… Continue reading
Dale Carrico’s epigrams on empire and peer to peer democratization
A peer is not an equal — for there are no equals — the peer is the one who appears in the public square, and by virtue of the public square, be it the polis of the streets or of the nets, and who appears as one who contributes, contests, collaborates, has a stake in… Continue reading
The spiritual basis of inequality
Excerpted from Tikkun’s Amanda Udis-Kessler: “Devaluation and dehumanization are equally important and equally present in any form of inequality that has both structural and cultural elements. And devaluation and dehumanization have profound spiritual implications for how social inequality works: “Devaluation in this context means just what it sounds like: a person is treated in ways… Continue reading
Mike Leung on the case for abolishing human rentals
Should we abolish wage labour? Mike Leung of the Abolish Human Rentals site argues the ethics and rationale for doing so: “Inalienable rights are universal non-transferable rights that arise from intrinsic human properties and are independent of the laws, beliefs, and customs of a society. They invalidate arrangements that seek to violate those rights and… Continue reading
Video: Resisting market solutions to resource management
Via OTC: “Robby Rodriguez talks about the importance of holding resources in common and resisting market solutions to resource management – shares traditional acequia irrigation system as an example.” Video:
What is the true meaning of the ethical economy?
There are I think a number of competing interpretations of the meaning of the concept and practice of the ethical economy. One stresses the motivational aspect, where ethics is both a new demand by consumers and a new practice by business that demands ethical action and practices. Another, used I believe by my friend Adam… Continue reading
Why electronics recycling is energy stupid, BUT open hardware and modular design is energy smart
Via Shareable‘s Neal Gorenflo: “We’ve talked about open hardware before, but not the energy saving advantages of it. We’ve focused more on the democratization of manufacturing. But in the video, Dominic Muren argues that open hardware is also as a vastly superior manufacturing strategy from an energy conservation standpoint and therefore is more appropriate in… Continue reading