Great, must-see, inspiring talk by Victor Frankl:
Date archives "May 2011"
Prelude, a peak oil novel
Kelpie Wilson writes about Prelude: “Prelude may be the first thriller novel explicitly about peak oil (numberless thrillers concern the nefarious machinations of international oil conglomerates — ultimately those are stories about peak oil too). It follows a short period in the life and career of Cassie Young, an oil industry analyst based in Washington,… Continue reading
Is bee die-off related to mobile phone radiation?
Mashable reports that Cellphones Could Be Killing Bees, quoting a study conducted by Daniel Favre at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Favre found that mobile phone radiation radically altered the bees’ behavior and may be responsible for disorienting and eventually killing large numbers of the insects. Favre tested honeybees’ reactions to nearby cellphones in… Continue reading
How three concurring media systems aided the unfolding of the Arab Spring
Ethan Zuckerman moderated a very interesting panel discussion on the role of social media in the Middle East: Among the participants are Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor of sociology at UMaryland Baltimore County, Clay Shirky, and Sami ben Gharbia, the director of Global Voices Advocacy. “Sami opened the conversation by giving his view of how… Continue reading
Blaming Locke and his Failed Metaphysics of Private Property
This article focuses on the sacred cow of private property in liberal philosophy and politics and its catastrophic impact on the commons. Numerous liberal thinkers (mostly male) have attempted to base social systems, moral obligations and property rights in human nature using the laws of the natural universe. They share the blame for the devastation… Continue reading
Milan, May 17: Le dinamiche di produzione in rete, collaborative, aperte, decentralizzate, orizzontali
Via Alessandro Delfanti: All’interno del corso in Sociologia dei nuovi media, Michel Bauwens della Peer-to-peer foundation terrà una lecture sulla diffusione del P2P… dappertutto. Aula Alpha, Dipartimento di informatica e comunicazione, Università di Milano, via Comelico 39, Tuesday, May 17 · 11:30am – 1:30pm Le dinamiche di produzione in rete, collaborative, aperte, decentralizzate, orizzontali che… Continue reading
Bifo on How the Cognitivat Will Lead to an Unprecedented Socio-Cultural and Informational Revolution
To be free from these kinds of illusions would mean stopping to think that we can increase or change the existing society; on the contrary, we need to create the condition to get out from such a system; to create structures of production, distribution and education that are external to the logic of capitalism. *… Continue reading
George Siemens on Massive Open Online Courses
George Siemens, pioneer of connectivist learning, in an excellent interview conducted by Howard Rheingold: “George Siemens, at the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute at Athabasca Universityhas been running “Massive Open Online Courses” (MOOCs). I talk to him about what a MOOC is, how it works, and the educational philosophy behind it.” Watch the video:
Towards distributed and collaborative learning infrastructures
Our nation and our schools and universities should invest in distributed and collaborative learning experiences—curricula emphasizing the interconnectedness of life and geochemical processes in the biosphere, empathy courses that promote social behavior, cyberspace classes connecting students around the globe, service-learning programs in communities, sharing knowledge in peer groups, and interdisciplinary and multicultural studies—with the objective… Continue reading
The Desktop Regulatory State: Kevin Carson’s new book on Open Source Government
* Book: Open Source Government. Kevin Carson Introduction to the “very rough” draft version, already available online: “The subject of my previous book — The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low Overhead Manifesto — was the way in which falling capital outlays required for both information and material production was eroding the rationale for large organizations,… Continue reading
Nick Dyer-Whiteford on the emancipatory potential of digital commons
Nick interviewed for a conference in Italy in May 2010 on how the “Web 2.0″‘s recuperates emancipatory energies for the benefit of media and platform owners:
Towards emphatic education
The realization that we are an empathic species, that empathy has evolved over history, and that we are as interconnected in the biosphere as we are in the blogosphere, has profound implications for rethinking the mission of education. New teaching models designed to transform education from a competitive contest to a collaborative and empathic learning… Continue reading
“There is no other”: Increased “super”interdependence leads to super-cooperation
Watch this video by Tim Flannery, on the new sciences of cooperation based on the latest findings in evolution, genetics, and the cognitive sciences:
London P2P Event May 14: Governance in worker cooperatives, p2p networks, and commons
From Mark Jagdev: Dear fellow commoners, As you may have heard, Michel Bauwens, the founder of P2P Foundation will be taking part in a panel discussion at Re-rooting digital culture – media art ecologies unconference at the University of Westminster, London on Friday 13th May. In addition to that, Michel has gracefully accepted our invitation… Continue reading
From open (city) government data to participatory city budgetting
Excerpted from an appeal by Darren Sharp: “It’s time for Gov 2.0 champions to ask the hard questions about what participatory democracy really means in a networked world. What options are on the table that can really change how government institutions work for the better? If the Gov 2.0 community is serious about the role… Continue reading
Slavoj Zizek on cloud computing as corporate enclosure of the ‘general intellect’
Excerpted from Slavoj Zizek: “Users today access programs and software maintained far away in climate-controlled rooms housing thousands of computers. To quote from a propaganda-text on cloud computing: “Details are abstracted from consumers, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure ‘in the cloud’ that supports them.” There are… Continue reading