This week we are presenting the book “Life Rules. Why so much is going wrong everywhere at once and how Life teaches us to fix it” by Ellen LaConte. According to David Braden, Ellen discusses 9 aspects of “Life’s /Eco/nomic Survival Protocol” that continuously puts life into upward spiral in spite of the geologic history… Continue reading
Date archives "September 2011"
Michel Bauwens at Designs on E-Learning
Michel Bauwens will be giving a keynote speech about Networked Spaces on September 28th as part of the Future Learning Spaces, the 7th annual Designs on E-learning 2011 conference taking place at Aalto University in Helsinki. Finland from September 27-30, 2011. Check out the progamme for more details http://www.designsonelearning2011.com/programme
Democracy in the Workplace
In the West we often accept and defend democratic ideas in politics – but what about in the workplace? I think its important for us to think about workplaces in the sense of spaces that are democratic or authoritarian, because we tend to spend so much time there. The bookshelves of local stores bustle with business books about… Continue reading
Wikileaks And The Battle Over The Soul Of The Networked Fourth Estate
* Article: Yokai Benkler, A Free Irresponsible Press: Wikileaks And The Battle Over The Soul Of The Networked Fourth Estate, forthcoming Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 66 pages The netdefenses blog reviews the draft version of the forthcoming essay: “Parts I and II tell the story of Wikileaks, the release of the documents, and… Continue reading
The next issue of eLearning Papers will be devoted to Designing for learning. Send your contribution!
The 27th edition of eLearning Papers will focus on Designing for learning. How can teachers develop new approaches to the design of learning activities and whole curricula that takes account of the new complex, technologically enhanced learning contexts? Published five times a year, the eLearning Papers journal aims to make innovative ideas and practices in… Continue reading
Unemployment Is The Cure
I don’t often write longer pieces, so before I begin to explain such a provocative title, let me note a few points: I was spurred to write this after reading Douglas Rushkoff’s CNN piece “Are jobs obsolete?” (Sept 7, 2011) Some of what follows was in a work I originally did in 2003 called “The… Continue reading
Peer Production and Capitalism
A contribution by Jakob Rigi to the “Journal” mailing list of Oekonux: “Peer production does not depends on capitalism for its identity, this identity is defined by its own mode of productivity. In this sense as Matt says capitalism is not relevant for P2P production. The domestic mode of production, feudal mode of production and… Continue reading
The current Indian model of development vs. Gandhi’s proposals on Trusteeship
The following is excerpted from the lecture by Ramaswamy Sudarshan (UNDP.org) at the “RE-THINKING PROPERTY: pathway to a Well-Being Society” conference in Bangkok, in August 2011. “In India we have steadily raised the economic growth rate from what was once called the ‘Hindu rate of growth’ – 3 percent in honour of the Hindu Trinity… Continue reading
Subversive apps help citizens fight state silencing
The P2P Foundatation’s ChokePoint Project was recently the subject of a feature article in the New Scientist: WHEN the Egyptian authorities realised protesters were using the internet to organise themselves in January, they came up with a simple solution: in an instant they disconnected the nation, cutting off anti-government dissidents from an invaluable resource. The outage… Continue reading
Why cooperative banking is better than microfinance: ownership and control matters!
‘Phil’ disputes the myth that Yunus’ microfinance proceeds from the German cooperative banking system. Though there is a tenuous historical link (excerpt 1), microfinance fails to empower the poor (excerpt 2). See also: A new systematic review of the evidence on microfinance, published last week, is dynamite for the world’s most popular development policy. Madeleine… Continue reading
Book of the week: “Life Rules” (Part 2)
This week we are presenting the book “Life Rules. Why so much is going wrong everywhere at once and how Life teaches us to fix it” by Ellen LaConte. According to David Braden, Ellen discusses 9 aspects of “Life’s /Eco/nomic Survival Protocol” that continuously puts life into upward spiral in spite of the geologic history… Continue reading
Healthy selfishness and partnership parenting
Excerpted from the site “Enjoy Parenting.com“. Scott Noelle: “Conventional thinking has it that if children get “too much” of what they want, they’ll become narcissistic adults who only care about themselves. But this thinking is locked inside the box of the “dominator paradigm,” where you “win” by exploiting, excluding, or defeating others. Outside the dominator… Continue reading
Open Reciprocal Production, Resource-based economics and the World Game
Eric Hunting dives into the history of resource-based economics, in an online email to Dante Monson: “The idea of netention systems, and especially the extension of that into that Global Survival System, seems a very promising and ambitious attempt to reduce to software the principles of Buckminster Fuller’s World Game and Jacque Fresco’s Cybernation. This… Continue reading
Cities Under Siege Discussion
The London School of Economics recently held an interesting discussion with the author Stephen Graham. Stephen has recently written ‘Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism‘. In the talk Stephen talks about a wide range of subjects, about how the continued blurring of the lines between police and military, especially in the realms of tactics… Continue reading
The emergence of the influence economy
This is not new, the article appeared in 2009, but still valid food for thought. Excerpted from Beth Etling: “One of the most interesting topics at the recent Future of Influence Summit was the emergence of business models for influence. Some particularly intriguing issues were raised in the Business Models for Influence and Reputation panel,… Continue reading
Looking into OccupyWallStreet protests in NY
[View the story “#OccupyWallStreet” on Storify]