it is not just in the workplace: life itself is a constant struggle to break through the connections forged by abstract labour to create other sorts of social relations: when we refuse to go to work so that we can stay and play with the children, when we read (or write) an article like this,… Continue reading
Date archives "December 2010"
26 Propositions on Networking, Labour and Solidarity
Proposed by Peter Waterman, in an article on networking and labour in Interface journal. “1. Networking is becoming the dominant ‘relational form’ under capitalism; 2. It is a highly contradictory form which can, however, be more fully, creatively and democratically used by popular, radical-democratic and anti-capitalist forces; 3. Notions of networking and internationalism, understood as… Continue reading
Operation Payback – Anonymous hackers support Wikileaks their way
Revelations by WikiLeaks have obviously hit a raw nerve. In the face of embarrassing diplomatic cables finding their way onto the internet and into the press, the US government is doing what it can to close the floodgates. The US State Department seeks to prevent the passage of its own documents – leaked by disgruntled… Continue reading
Wikileaks: Stop the crackdown petition
from avaaz.org : The vicious intimidation campaign against WikiLeaks is wrong, dangerous and undermines the rule of law. Top US politicians have branded WikiLeaks a terrorist organization, and urged corporations to shut it down. Commentators have suggested assassinating its staff. The future of our freedoms and the Internet is at stake. Let’s urgently take a… Continue reading
Vandana Shiva on Ending the War against our own Planet
Important text by Vandana Shiva: “When we think of wars in our times, our minds turn to Iraq and Afghanistan. But the bigger war is the war against the planet. This war has its roots in an economy that fails to respect ecological and ethical limits – limits to inequality, limits to injustice, limits to… Continue reading
Wikileaks as Napster Redux, and why even its defeats breeds the victory
Brilliant analysis from Mark Pesce: “A few months ago I wrote about how confused I was by Julian Assange’s actions. Why would anyone taking on the state so directly become such a public figure? It made no sense to me. Now I see the plan. And it’s awesome. You see, this is the first time… Continue reading
Role of Alternative Digital Media in Contemporary Activism
* Interface Volume 2 Issue 2: Voices of dissent: activists’ engagements in the creation of alternative, autonomous, radical and independent media. Alice Mattoni, Andrejs Berdnikovs, Michela Ardizzoni and Laurence Cox Below, the contents of this special issue, followed by an excerpt from the introduction. Part One: The Contents “This issue of Interface … proposes some… Continue reading
Bringing local activism, open mapping, and open data together
Two parallel worlds are starting to rub up against each other – open data enthusiasts and local activist groups. As Sam Smith has pointed out, embedding the power of open data in other worlds such as local activism has barely begun. Maps are one medium where I’ve been trying to bring these worlds together. Tom… Continue reading
Assange editorial in Australia
from The Australian IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide’s The News, wrote: “In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win.” His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch’s expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the… Continue reading
Preparing for the End of Growth
In recent years China’s economy has been growing at eight percent or more per year; that means it is more than doubling in size every ten years. Indeed, China consumes more than twice as much coal as it did a decade ago—the same with iron ore and oil. The nation now has four times as… Continue reading
What Wikileaks shows about the failure of contemporary journalism and the failure of the state
The fact is that freedom of the press, like freedom of speech in general, is a crucial part of the fabric of a free society. Every action that impinges on those freedoms is a loss for society, and a step down a slippery slope — and that applies to everything that falls under the term… Continue reading
Transparency, not secrecy, is the right default option
From an editorial by Jeff Jarvis, for Welt am Sontag in Germany: “Government should be transparent by default, secret by necessity. Of course, it is not. Too much of government is secret. Why? Because those who hold secrets hold power. Now Wikileaks has punctured that power. Whether or not it ever reveals another document—and we… Continue reading
Reviving Europe’s dead urban fabric through participatory ‘biophilic’ architecture
A presenatiion of the ideas and methods of p2p urbanism by Nikos Salingaros, for an Italian conference about reviving the urban fabric in Rome: Nikos Salingaros: Projects for the International Workshop on the Roman Periphery, 1 December 2010. from arch4people on Vimeo.
Derrick Jensen on “deep green resistance”
Interview on Democracy Now: Amy Goodman writes: Derrick Jensen lives in Northern California. I had an extended conversation with him in San Francisco just a few weeks ago. Today we play part one of that discussion. I began by asking Derrick Jensen about the title of his book, what he means by Deep Green Resistance.
The internet is a boon for artists associated with the “new” music industry
Thanks to technology and Internet-enabled services, more music is being purchased, more music is being heard, and artists are getting paid. But the traditional music industry measures success using a bygone standard, leading to a lopsided perspective of how artists can achieve success in this day and age. And in our view, this leads to… Continue reading
What is the size of the sharing economy today?
Sean McColgan of a UK frugality blog has alerted us to a summary graphic produced on the size of the sharing economy, based on the study on “the sharing economy” by the Latitude Group. Collaborative Consumption Infographic By Promotional Codes