Bolo’bolo is an underground classic by Swiss writer P.M., describing a contemporary utopia, and using a new vocabulary. In a contextual piece about this work, the author explains why he developed this new language, and it resonates with my own decision to develop a political and social vocabulary rooted in p2p practices: “The original idea… Continue reading
Date archives "November 2010"
Innovating through the Common
Gerry Canavan reports on a talk at Duke entitled “The Decline of the Anti-Commons”, by Christopher Newfield. Excerpt: “The talk explored two alternative models for scientific innovation. The first, the dominant model in our moment, is the linear paradigm that employs limited public funds to generate privately held intellectual property within a market context. When… Continue reading
How does the idea of p2p and the commons differ from the socialist tradition?
In the article for the Argentinian national daily “Pagina 12”, journalist Mariano Blejman writes that I equate open hardware with socialism. and this is also the message that is being retweeted. This is not explicitely my position, so I’d like to take up the occasion to republish an earlier article on how our position is… Continue reading
Productive Paradigms in the Digital Era: on two-sided markets and peer production
With the development of information technologies, information has become the centre of production. Due to its specific characteristics consumption externalities are frequent. Internalization of these externalities has lead to different strategies to internalize them. Peer-to-peer can be understood in this context.
Continue readingInternet Time (2) Integral Time Awareness
“The experience of time is only “here” when we’re aware of it. We consider time as something that pulses through but time does not really “exist” wholly apart from our experience. For example, for the all-present zen master, there can exist a “space” in which there is only one moment which encompasses everything. Like the… Continue reading
Manufacturing Contempt through the Commoditization of Practically Everything
Contempt has become a coping mechanism for the increasing isolation and dog-eat-dog nature of the modern world. If we focus all our energy on outward contempt (and there are so many possibilities for doing so), we don’t have time to examine what’s really going on here. And then we’re exactly where the greater powers want… Continue reading
Summary theses on the emergence of the peer to peer civilization and a new political economy
I wrote these summary theses about two years ago, but I believe they are still valid, food for thought, and show the specific approach I’m proposing to politics, state and governance issues: 1. Our current world system is marked by a profoundly counterproductive logic of social organization: a) it is based on a false concept… Continue reading
Internet Time (1): Stowe Boyd on the enduring myth of attention scarcity
Excerpted from Stowe Boyd: (the counterargument on internet as mental pathology is here) “This thread of Western philosophical discourse — attention scarcity, future shock, information overload — has become the conventional wisdom. It seems to be based on unassailable and unshakable logic. But what is that logic? The framing of the argument includes the unspoken… Continue reading
First article about open hardware ever published in a Spanish-language national newspaper?
Una nueva estructura de producción y circulación de la información, que será libre, abierta y distribuida Argentinian journalist Mariano Blejman believes this is the first article about open hardware ever published in an spanish-language national newspaper, in Argentina in this case. Is this true. References about previous publications would be welcome. The original article is… Continue reading
On the licensing (and other) difficulties of open hardware: upcoming book by John Wilbank
Copyrights enable from a rights perspective, while patents exclude. Copyrights are relatively international while patents are nationally defined. Very few people have the capacity to practice a complex technology, while many have the capacity to take and share a photo, edit Wikipedia, or write code (even though the vast majority of people do none of… Continue reading
Heidi Williamst on the human genome: the study that broke the myth of the innovation effect of Intellectual Property restrictions
The Las Indias “Indianopedia” english article on Devolutionism writes: Devolutionism is the defense of the progressive legal reduction -until its total disappearing- of the economic monopoly for patents, copyrights and other intellectual property forms, expanding the public domain with the creations of the last decades. Devolutionism has won its theoretical maturity with the works of… Continue reading
Short video on social commerce for Italian participants of the Ethical Economy Summer School
30 seconds intro in Italian by wonderful interviewer, He Jinchuan: then a short intro to p2p business trends by myself: For more interviews with other participants and presents, see Societing TV
Niko Paech: Elements of a post-growth economy
Food for thought: (thanks to Brian Davey for sending this text) Dr. Niko Paech: “the concept of post-growth economics rests on the following premises: * No ecological uncoupling of economic growth measured in money is in sight. In an expanding economy, “boomerang effects“ wipe out advances in de-materialisation or ecologisation as result of growing demand…. Continue reading
Examining the ethics of human rentals and the moral need to create cooperatives
This is certain a complex conversation, but worth the effort of deep listening, and it may change your view on the ethics of ‘renting’ human labour, and makes a strong argument for the necessity of cooperatives. It is part of a series of four which you can find here. The playlist function will probably loop… Continue reading
Milano’s Radio Popolare Interview on P2P
10 minute interview thanks to Tiziano Bonini near the Cadorna rail station in Milan, he asked me to be short and speak to a general audience:
Beyond Democracy – Video Project
Michel has pointed me to the trailer of a video made to promote the concept of sociocracy, which is a way to make decisions in organizations that takes into account the combined intelligence of the participants. Sociocracy avoids the faults of both autocratic and democratic decision making. There is a page on the p2pfoundation’s wiki… Continue reading