Key thesis Profit-Maximisation can no longer be contained by pure external state regulation, but needs new forms, that embed the profit function into higher ethical requirements, that are embedded in the very corporate structures, while at the same time, new economic forms are created directly by autonomous productive communities, so that they can maintain their… Continue reading
Date archives "February 2011"
Sugata Mitra’s new experiments in self-teaching
Interesting TED presentation where Sugata Mitra shows the amazing self-learning and peer-learning capabilities of children everywhere in the world, without teachers. A must-see Video:
The Rise of Maptivism (2): Cairo
Following on from yesterdays post about Maptivism, We’re looking at another post on the iRevolution blog, this time looking at Check Ins. If you are a programmer then Check In means one thing (putting code into a repository) but most other people encounter ‘Checking In’ when travelling. However location-based social media systems have adapted the… Continue reading
The Rise of Maptivism: London Protests
The rise of web 2.0 and it’s associated technologies such as mobiles web access, Google maps, Twitter has brought with it a host of new ideas and developments around our sense of place. We can learn and share much more about our immediate physical environment. While until recently this was mainly confined to personal navigation,… Continue reading
Could the money system be the basis of a sufficiency economy?
I recently discovered the really excellent Citizen’s Income Newsletter, which for example, in Issue 1, 2011, has very cogent reviews of important books that could inspire a commons- based, p2p-inspired, policy. For example, the following 3 books: * Hartley Dean, Understanding Human Need * Bill Jordan, Why the Third Way Failed * Harry Shutt, Beyond… Continue reading
The Evolution Will Be Socialized – The Contact Summit
excerpted from a post by Douglas Rushkoff …with some encouragement from a few great organizations including Shareable – I’ve decided to convene a summit called Contact. Contact will seek to explore and realize the greater promise of social media to promote new forms of culture, commerce, collective action, and creativity. I’m inviting technologists, artists, activists,… Continue reading
The end of the vacuum: the larger implications of Tunisia and Egypt for the whole world
An email from Doc Searls’ sister, “Jan”: ” I can’t help but believe that at least half the educated and aware (not always the same thing, is it?) population of the world isn’t digesting yesterday’s outcome without thinking of their own government. I liked Tom Friedman’s line in his latest column Postcard From a Free… Continue reading
From the YOYO Ethic of Individualism to the WITT Ethic of Commoning
* Book: All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons, by Jay Walljasper. New Press, 2010 Because of the popularity of our ‘book of the week’ rubric, we can only pay a more detailed attention to Jay’s wonderful introduction to the commons on March 8. Today an advance taste through this atmospheric piece… Continue reading
Book of the Week: Umair Haque’s New Capitalist Manifesto
“So here’s the twenty-first-century capitalists’ agenda, in a nutshell. To rethink the “capital” — to build organizations that are less machines, and more living networks of the many different kinds of capital, whether natural, human, social, or creative. And second, to rethink the “ism”: how, when, and where the many different kinds of capital can… Continue reading
Social business design: from relieving logic to an enabling logic
Stowe Boyd writes: From a social viewpoint, the architecture of business seems all wrong. People aren’t really designed to do one thing, like a cog in a watch. They have various relationships with other people, and through these relationships they have influence on the work going on all around them. …And some, a few, are… Continue reading
Science Does Sharing!
This is a really interesting article. It points to a huge advance in the transparency and sharing-potential of science. I think it can also lead to more scientists being able to call on members of the public to assist and more p2p science.. Monday [Jan 11th 2011] was a great day for public health research…. Continue reading
Janelle Orsi on the four degrees of sharing, and their respective requirements
From cars to CDs, houses to handbags, people are no longer aspiring to own. Belongings which used to be the standard by which to measure personal success, status, and security are increasingly being borrowed, traded, swapped, or simply left on the shelf. Various factors – arguably the most important being an increasingly connected and digitally… Continue reading
P2P Aspects of the Arab Uprising (3): the real history of the role of blogs and Facebook in Egypt
Online activists have played a key role in transforming the conditions of political possibility in Egypt during the last decade, and of paving the way to Tahrir Square today. They have sought out and cultivated new forms of political agency in the face of the predations and repressive actions of the Egyptian state. They have… Continue reading
Strong vs weak ties are the wrong dilemma: the internet’s role in deep relationships
The key contrast was, and remains, between bridge and non-bridge ties; conflating them as weak and strong ties and then contrasting them as if they were direct opposites is conceptually incorrect. In reality, people’s ties range from very strong to very weak. Strong-ties become weak over time and vice-versa. Weak ties and strong ties are… Continue reading
Clay Shirky on how Wikileaks has changed and transnationalized democracy
WikiLeaks allows leakers transnational escape from national controls. Now, and from now on, a leaker with domestic secrets has no need of the domestic press, and indeed will avoid leaking directly to them if possible, to escape national pressure on national publishers to keep national secrets. Excerpted from Clay Shirky’s editorial in the Guardian: “WikiLeaks… Continue reading
Is Google Blacklisting Torrent Searches? I don’t think they are…(yet?)
Michel pointed me towards an interesting article on Google and it’s searches: Google started to filter search suggestions that include terms associated with copyright infringement like “torrent”, “bittorrent”, “rapidshare”, “megaupload”. It’s a slippery slope and Google’s suggestions will be less useful since they’ll no longer include many popular searches. Last month, Google explained that this is… Continue reading