Choke Point Project Ars Update from Choke Point Project on Vimeo. James and myself are in Linz at the moment to take part in the Ars Electonica Festival 2011 where the ChokePoint Project has won the [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant. Here is the video we’ve made for the festival, explaining the background to the… Continue reading
Date archives "August 2011"
Stalled youth at the heart of a global political awakening
Excerpted from Pankaj Mishra: “In India, tens of thousands of middle-class people respond to a quasi-Gandhian activist’s call for a second freedom struggle – this time, against the country’s venal “brown masters”, as one protester told the Wall Street Journal. Middle-class Israelis demanding “social justice” turn out for their country’s first major demonstrations in years…. Continue reading
From Machinic to Organic Organisations
Excerpted from Martin (King?): “The 21st century environment is becoming faster, more diverse and complex – people want greater choice, customisation and speed. 20th century “Machine organisation” is not suited to fast, flexible and complex responses and cannot thrive in an environment of speed, choice and customisation. “Machine organisation” cannot easily cope with complex environments… Continue reading
Transitioning (6): Re-thinking Money Creation and Fostering a new Ecology of Currencies
Sixth and last in a series on the transition to a sustainable economy. Excerpted from Christian Arnsperger: “One of the areas which transition activists need to invest in urgently is the area of money creation and the circulation of currency through bank credit. Sure enough, as many alternative economists from Herman Daly to Douglas Booth… Continue reading
Peer production as distributed aggregation of capital
Excerpted from Charles Johnson: “Both emerging distributed technologies in general, and peer production projects in particular, facilitate the aggregation of dispersed capital — without it having to pass through a single capitalist chokepoint, like a commercial bank or a venture capital fund. Because of the way that peer production projects distribute and amortize their costs… Continue reading
Land as community property
Via Gene Callahan: “Reading James C. Scott’s excellent Seeing Like a State. He gives, as an example of how land was traditionally held, the following: “Rural living in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Denmark, for example, was organized by ejerlav, whose members had certain rights for using local arable, waste, and forest land. It would had… Continue reading
Future of Hope documentary on Iceland
Over the past 20 years we have seen a growing realization that the current model for society and culture is unsustainable. We have been living beyond our means…Future of Hope is a documentary film following individuals that strive to change the world of consumerism, a system of credit and debt that the Icelandic economy was built… Continue reading
German Village Produces 321% More Energy Than It Needs
From Inhabitat: […] Not only has the nation announced plans to shut down all of its nuclear power plants and started the construction of 2,800 miles of transmission lines for its new renewable energy initiative, but now the village of Wildpoldsried is producing 321% more energy than it needs! The small agricultural village in the state of Bavaria is generating an impressive $5.7 million in… Continue reading
Bifo: “So far, the result of the collapse of neoliberal politics has been its consolidation”
The crisis: “The late-neoliberal ruling class states that if deregulation produced the systemic collapse, we need more deregulation. If lower taxation on high incomes led to a fall in demand, let’s lower high-income taxation. If hyper-exploitation resulted in the production of unsold and useless cars, let’s intensify car production. Are these people crazy?“ The alternative:… Continue reading
Book of the Week: The Commons of Soil
* Book: Patrick Noble. The Commons of Soil. Feasta, Ireland, 2010. Available via www.bryncocynorganic.co.uk! Author Patrick Noble introduces the theme of the book: “We have picked up our fossils and minerals because they have been lying around. We have done so more and sometimes less judiciously. They have been sources of wealth, power and injustice…. Continue reading
Transitioning (5): Deepening Economic Democracy and Encouraging New Forms of Entrepreneurship
Fifth in a series on the transition to a sustainable economy. Christian Arnsperger: “It’s likely that growing sections of the alternative pluri-economy we’re investigating here would not be capitalist in nature. Helped by the Economic Transition Income (and also, as we will see in the next installment, by new modes of monetary creation), the successive… Continue reading
Natural World: A Farm for the Future
Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key. With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family’s wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last… Continue reading
Key values of the 15M Movement
Excerpted from a declaration of the 15M movement in Spain: “We drafted the text to proclaim that this strong and powerful movement refuses to be cast as a victim and that the time has now come to do more than just protest: we need to retake the initiative, come back to the things we want… Continue reading
“Growing Cities” documentary on urban farming
From their site: — Growing Cities is a feature-length documentary film about urban farming across America. It follows two friends in their road trip across country as they meet with leaders in the urban farming movement and learn how cities are being revitalized one vegetable, bee, and chicken at a time. (See the Growing Cities Preview video) Some… Continue reading
What can we do about the state of the world?
I am Vinay. I have always erred on the side of the incomprehensible truth. I’m not sure how many of you can hear me, or understand what I have to say. This is a planetary emergency. You have been activated. You’ve been activated since you were born. You just have to remember that you are… Continue reading
Writing a Global P2P Constitution of the Peoples
Peter Waterman has been calling for a Global Labour Charter Movement for already a some time. The following link is to his updated text published by a shop-floor activism project NetzwerkIT. An earlier version can be found here:. Waterman’s call for a dialogue on such Global Labour Charter can be a fertile ground today on… Continue reading