Ezio Manzini, sustainable design expert, is interviewed by Sarah Brooks for Shareable magazine. Q: What’s most interesting to you right now? A: Right now, what’s most interesting me is what we can do to catalyze the most abundant resources we have on the planet, which are our human capabilities. This is, if you want, my… Continue reading
Date archives "August 2011"
Adam Arvidsson and Nicolai Peitersen on the Ethical Economy (new book)
“That a generalized, technology-enhanced capacity for manifold cooperation has become the main productive force means that there is no longer any contradiction between ethics and economics. On the contrary, the ethical ability to open up to and share with others has become the most fundamental quality of a successful economic agent.” * * Book: Ethical… Continue reading
Anonymous: we will use our culture and technology against their economic shocks
We have reached a new historical stage, in which the more naturally emerging shocks that are inherent to our economic system, such as the 2008 economic meltdown, are supplemented by artificially induced crisis such as the Greek debt crisis and the U.S. debt ceiling drama, with the purpose of inducing ‘shock and awe’ into traumatized… Continue reading
Review of “Subjectivity in the Ecologies of P2P Production”
“Subjectivity in the Ecologies of P2P Production”, a new essay written by Phoebe Moore from Salford University, can be found in The Fibreculture Journal, issue 17. Free Software can be viewed as a social movement -although not every contributor would define its contribution that way- while Open Source, Moore notes, is more of a development… Continue reading
People take Puerta del Sol back #solrenace
View “#madridsinmiedo # solrenace” on Storify
Saskia Sassen on open sourcing urbanism
Excerpted from Saskia Sassen: “We can think of the multiple ways in which the city talks back as a type of open-source urbanism: the city as partly made through a myriad of interventions and little changes from the ground up. Each of these multiple small interventions may not look like much, but together they give… Continue reading
On the enclosure and depletion of social capital
An excerpt from the book, Sacred Economics, by Charles Eistenstein: The Strip-Mining of Community “The most important type of capital for purposes of this discussion is social capital. Social capital refers primarily to relationships and skills, the “services” that people once provided for themselves and each other in a gift economy, such as cooking, child… Continue reading
What Is Networganising? – UnionBook
Via SNU Workgroup on Unionbook Networganising is different than both organizing and networking. It is actually the synthesis of the best parts of the two. It does not only involve convincing people to join in a rank-and-file army in order to form collective identities, or tying people to an existing or emerging agenda to make a stronger… Continue reading
Japanese social media reveal the seriousness of the Fukushima nuclear disaster
Excerpted from Ben Sandilands: “In a series of widely viewed and replicated YouTube videos a Japan nuclear expert, Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama, has told Japan’s lower house Diet that the nation has failed miserably to make a timely evacuation of the at risk population worst affected by Fukushima radioactive fallout compared to the massive relocation that… Continue reading
Book of the Week (3): David Graeber’s on Humanity’s ‘primordial debt’
David Graeber’s is an amazing, must read book, important because it deals with the core issue of our civilisational crisis, i.e. how we deal with debt, very well written, surprising, and full of historical and anthropological insights. * Book: Debt: The First 5,000 Years. David Graeber. Melville House Publishing, 2011 Today, in our last excerpt,… Continue reading
Urban-agricultural and cultural renewal in Detroit
Excerpted from Aaron M. Renn: “Detroit, for all its problems—or perhaps because of them—has become nothing less than a new American frontier. Once, easterners heeded the call to “Go West, young man,” to leave behind the comforts and sophistication of the established citadels in search of adventure and fortune and to tame this great continent…. Continue reading
The P2P of Zion (2): Social Economy developments within the Mormon Church
The second part of a series by Alan Avans. This part discusses the role of Mondragon type coops and permaculture within a policy centered on city-region centered development. It makes an explicit linkage between the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, which inspired Mondragon, and the Zionic tradition within the RDLS. Alan Avans: “To summarize… Continue reading
The RDLS, Zionic Theology and the Social Economy: p2p developments within the Mormon Church?
This is part of our ongoing exploration of ‘neotraditional economics‘: Alan Avans: “A couple of months ago Michel asked me to share a little bit of what is in my ‘theological space’ that is of some relevance to a P2P economy. I’ve dragged my feet a bit because this piece is sectarian and sermonizing. Which… Continue reading
Blackout Resilient Technologies Village at CCCamp, August 10-14, 2011
Via Gustaf Björksten: Hi all, This is a call to all you hackers out there working on projects in the blackout resilient technology area. Come hang for five days in an open-air camp with a group of like-minded folks and work on bringing these technologies to fruition for the ongoing benefit of humanity. This hackathon will… Continue reading
How the internet creates ecological/relational forms of awareness
The manner in which we communicate reflects our own internal processes. It may be that the rise in global information technologies (Internet and mobile phones), which has brought into being a modern age of distributed communications, reflects a new distributed yet participatory consciousness among people. No longer are we the passive audience as during the… Continue reading
Edward Miller: Arguments for the Land Value Tax
Excerpted from Edward Miller: “What if I told you there was a solution which transcends political divisions? Which is consistent with the ideals of our Founding Fathers? Which can be implemented anywhere on the local, state, or federal level? Which can increase our overall prosperity, reduce inequality, promote peace, and improve the environment all at… Continue reading