Chris Cook attended the conference in Hyderabad, convened by the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) and the Foundation for Ecological Security, and which seeks to “sustain the future of the commons” amid the rising tide of climate change and deepening economic divides. The physical commons are on the retreat, was one… Continue reading
Date archives "January 2011"
Daniel Pinchbeck: When reform becomes impossible, does revolution become inevitable?
Excerpted from an excellent editorial by Daniel Pinchbeck of Reality Sandwich / Evolver: As I write this, the ruling regime in our rotten republic of Obama-stan is seeking to ignore the pain of the sheeple and extend lavish tax breaks for the wealthy.The financial elite engineered a massive transfer of assets over the last decades,… Continue reading
Share or Die: Call for submissions for planned Generation Y Resilience Handbook
Neal Gorenflo: “Share or Die, Youth in Recession Call for Submissions: http://www.shareable.net/blog/share-or-die-youth-in-recession-call-for-submissions Contemporary American 20-somethings face a disorienting set of conditions. While only a few years ago pundits worried about the “me” generation, children raised in material abundance and cultural vacuity, even college-educated young people have come to face to face with hardship: – 85… Continue reading
A critique of information exceptionalism
A contribution excerpted from J. Martin Pedersen: “The philosophical problems inherent in “information exceptionalism” and their consequences for Free Software and Free Culture politics result in a very important recursive relation being absent, namely with the tangible realm. The Free Software movement is “vitally concerned” with copyright reform and abolition of software patents, but they… Continue reading
Brigitte Kratzwald: Towards a constructive approach to commoning
From a debate in the Commoning mailing list, and how commoners should deal with political and philosophical differences. Brigitte Kratzwald: “As a starting point I’d claim that all of us think that the current way to organise our societies produces serious problems and something has to be changed. But, nevertheless, we have different motivations for… Continue reading
P2P practices as condition for the next long wave
This article, previously published in Re-public (and written in cooperation with Franz Nahrada and Gleb Tyurin), takes at hypothesis that a new long wave of strong capitalist growth is still in the realm of possibilities. My own position is that this still can happen, provided strong structural reforms would be undertaken, which is not very… Continue reading
Common Course – registration open
Via Mary Beth Steisslinger: Hello Friends Around the World, thought you might be interested in participating in the next Common Course online, beginning the end of January, 2011. I am putting this out to people i know who are working towards sustainability and justice in various fields. I think you will find that the commons… Continue reading
Peer to Peer, Piracy and Gigs
As we move into 2011, the debate over copyright shows no signs of slowing or stopping. First it is worth noting an interesting article from Ars Technica (hat-tip to Michel) that concludes that while piracy may indeed damage legal sales, it does have a benefit in promoting the artist/s and so allowing the artist/s to… Continue reading
Documentary: the consequences of Peak Oil and Climate Change for the future of our economy and civilization
James Howard Kunstler says that we cannot survive peak oil unless we “come up with a consensus about reality that is consistent with the way things really are.” This documentary series hopes to help build that consensus. Via Kevin Gosztola: “Video Nation has produced a documentary series that will be running on what will happen… Continue reading
Umair Haque on the structure of the Meaning Organization
Excerpt from the author of the New Capitalist Manifesto: Umair Haque: “Here’s what I think that organization — call it the Meaning Organization — might look it. It’s a nod to — but a step beyond — Peter Senge’s learning organization. It’s built not just to learn (and then do “business”) but, more deeply, to… Continue reading
The Open Data Movement needs to pay attention to the ‘effective use’ of open data
Excerpted from Michael Gurstein: (see also the follow-up here) “The open data movement in the area of access to public (and other) information is a relatively new but very significant, and potentially powerful, emerging force. It has now been widely endorsed by among others Tim Berners-Lee generally acknowledged as the Father of the World Wide… Continue reading
Wikileaks’ Lesson: Decentralize!
If there is one thing we should learn from what is happening to WikiLeaks, it is that large and centralized services cannot be trusted to stand up to political pressure. Whether it be cloud servers, mainstream payment systems or something as simple as a pointer to your domain that suddenly Just doesn’t work any more,… Continue reading
Property is a social relation
A contribution from J. Martin Pedersen, excerpted from: * PhD thesis – “Property, Commoning and the Politics of Free Software”. J. Martin Pedersen. Martin Pedersen: “To begin with, then, we need to overcome the idea that property is a simple person-thing relation that implies an absolute (or even conditional) entitlement: “We often think of property… Continue reading
How Wikileaks mainstreams hacktivist youth culture: how Wrong Hands revealed Linden Lab spy operation in Second Life
No one is saying that the operations exposed by the Wrong Hands were equivalent to the Afghan War documents or the State Department cables exposed by Wikileaks; the real moral is not the importance of the exposed information, but rather the fact that the Wikileaks operation could provide a model for a new generation of… Continue reading
The advantages of seeing free software as property
Excerpted from section 1.3.2 of the thesis of Martin Pedersen, “Property, Commoning and the Politics of Free Software“. * Property and the tangible/intangible divide: a policy of what? at http://commoning.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/is-copyright-policy-or-property-a-critique-of-the-fsfs-position/ The text below helps understand the ‘tactical’ opposition of the Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman against seeing free software as property and especially against… Continue reading
Self-publishing comes of age
According to Carla King, in a review of 2010 publishing trends, self-publishing is becoming a mainstream way to reach audiences. She discusses 10 trends with many references, below are just the top two. Carla King, excerpt: “In today’s tight traditional publishing market, agents, editors, and publishers are now encouraging authors to test market their book… Continue reading