Remix the commons is a collaborative and evolutive multimedia project. It aims to document and illustrate the key ideas and practices of the commons movement, including through the creative process of the project itself. Description of the project by David Bollier: “The International Commons Conference in Berlin continues to generate some interesting follow-up work. One… Continue reading
Date archives "December 2010"
Hope for a post-cynical Europe
(via Dante Monson) The financial has devastated the body and the soul of the European society, so now Europe is a corpse, a zombie. The movement is here to invent a new Europe, emancipated from the dogmas of competition and accumulation. Europe will be reborn thanks to the emergence of the social and erotic body… Continue reading
Homebrew Industrial Revolution, Chapter Five: The Small Workshop, Desktop Manufacturing, and Household Production (first excerpt)
[Michel Bauwens has kindly invited me to serialize excerpts from my recently published book The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto. My plan is to post two excerpts from each chapter.] Neighborhood and Backyard Industry. A recurring theme among early writers on decentralized production and the informal and household economies is the community workshop, and… Continue reading
Herman Daly on the Tragedy of Artificial Scarcity
Excerpted from Herman Daly: “There are two sets of important distinctions about goods, and they make four cross-classifications. Goods can be either rival or non-rival, and they can be either excludable or non-excludable. My shirt, for example, is a rival good because if I’m wearing it, you can’t wear it at the same time. The… Continue reading
Yochai Benkler on open source (media) economics
Not a new presentation, but this TED performance by Yochai Benkler is still very much worth seeing as an introduction:
The twelve basic trends of the p2p economy
According to the Symbionomics project, these are the twelve basic trends: (I adapted the titles somewhat and added links) * In New Media: Technology Yields Opportunity. In the last twenty years, a wave of new tools has transformed the way we communicate. Twentieth century media tools used the broadcast, or “one-to-many” form, but today, with… Continue reading
The continuing torture of ethical giant Bradley Manning
Glen Greenwald has earlier reported the details of the torture and solitary confinement of the American (alleged) whistleblower Bradley Manning, but here is a report from a friend visiting him in prison.
George Monbiot on right-wing libertarian astroturfing
The internet is a remarkable gift, which has granted us one of the greatest democratic opportunities since universal suffrage. We’re in danger of losing this global commons as it comes under assault from an army of trolls and flacks, many of them covertly organised or trained. The question for all of us – the Guardian,… Continue reading
Book review: The Art of Not Being Governed
From a double book review in The American Interest, which also reviews Benedict Anderson’s 2006 book, Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination. Here, we excerpt from the review of: * Book: The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. by James C. Scott. Yale University Press, 2009 Henry… Continue reading
International Review of Information Ethics Call for Papers
IRIE International Review of Information Ethics Call for Papers for Vol. 15 (01/2011) Ethics of Sharing edited by Wolfgang Sützl and Felix Stalder – Deadline for extended abstracts: January 31, 2011 – Notification of acceptance to authors: February 8, 2011 – Deadline for full articles: April 30, 2011 – Publication: July, 2011 Sharing has emerged… Continue reading
Julian Assange: Corporations offer no Civic Freedoms
Excerpted from Julian Assange: “The corporation as a nation state has the following properties: * Suffrage (the right to vote) does not exist except for land holders (“share holders”) and even there voting power is in proportion to land ownership. * All executive power flows from a central committee. Female representation is almost unknown. *… Continue reading
Ellen Brown on the Case for a Public Credit System
We have emerged from the financial crisis with new clarity: Money today is simply credit. When the credit is advanced by a bank, when the bank is owned by the community, and when the profits return to the community, the result can be a functional, efficient, and sustainable system of finance. After a clear explanation… Continue reading
Rachel Botsman explains collaborative consumption
At TEDx Sydney:
David Frost interviews Julian Assange
Very precise interview, dated December 22, followed by the Swedish, but english-language Wikirebels documentary below: Wikirebels:
Charlie Stross: Let a Thousand Utopia’s Bloom
Historically, when a civilization collapsed, it collapsed in isolation: but if our newly global civilization collapses, what then …? Excerpted from Charlie Stross: “It seems to me that the post-cold war neoliberal dominated political consensus (which is a consensus of the Right, insofar as the flagship of the Left hit an iceberg and started to… Continue reading
Lawrence Bird Interviews Michel Bauwens about creation, the city, and p2p dynamics
Lawrence Bird, a designer, instructor and writer with an interest in cities and their image, interviews Michel Bauwens for furtherfield.org, an online arts community, platforms for creating, viewing, discussing and learning about experimental practices at the intersections of art, technology and social change Interview It’s a commonplace now that the peer-to-peer movement opens up new… Continue reading