Excerpted from Ian MacKenzie: “In 2010 and 2011 respectively, filmmaker/director Velcrow Ripper and I raised over $80K towards our upcoming film Occupy Love, illuminating the Occupy movement and other uprisings unfolding around the world. We turned to crowdfunding for two reasons: 1) traditional sources of development funding have shrunk, even for established filmmakers, and 2)… Continue reading
Date archives "July 2012"
P2P Foundation website blocked at US Public Library
Et tu, public library? Floren Cabello (fcabello@ uma .es) “SOPA is dead. PIPA is dead. ACTA is dead….” (@KitDotcom). No doubt this July 4th will be difficult to forget for all the people around the world who have joined efforts to denounce ACTA and force its rejection at the European Parliament. Nevertheless, there are certain… Continue reading
Chris Cook presentation today
via Alan Avans: “P2P Foundation and the What Works Project are sponsoring a presentation by energy markets expert Chris Cook about alternate currencies, credit and trading systems based upon a partnership model known as Open Capital. Chris Cook is based in Scotland,UK. The presentation will take place on Monday, July 23 at the Plaza Branch Library… Continue reading
Overview of the contents of the first issue of the Journal of Peer Production
Excerpted from Mathieu O’Neil’s editorial introduction: “The issue’s title, “Productive negation” refers to the role of peer production as a “work of the negative”. That is to say, as a critical force in capitalist society. This theme is featured in three peer reviewed articles. In “Authority in Peer Production: The Emergence of Governance in the… Continue reading
Ozzie Zehner on the Ecological Impacts of Manufacturing a Renewable Energy
Source: Extraenvironmentalist “We’ve imagined for several decades that in an ideal energy future we’ll have solar panels on every building and wind turbines accompanying the corn on rural farmland. Yet, is our energy context ready for photovoltaic modules and wind generated electricity? Who doesn’t love the idea of harvesting solar energy that would just hit the… Continue reading
The massive-scale online collaboration of the re-Captcha project
Very entertaining presentation by Louis Von Ahn, of how the Captcha registration process has been put to effect social good: “After re-purposing CAPTCHA so each human-typed response helps digitize books, Luis von Ahn wondered how else to use small contributions by many on the Internet for greater good. At TEDxCMU, he shares how his ambitious… Continue reading
Commons-based peer production and the new creativity of labour: crucial questions
Hilary Wainwright asked me to explain peer production ‘as a challenge to capitalism’ for the July issue of Red Pepper. She then responds the following: “The work of Michel Bauwens and the P2P Foundation on a peer to peer/commons approach to production is important for several reasons. First, it draws attention to the fact that… Continue reading
The place of the Journal of Peer Production in academic research
Through the analysis of the forms, operations, and contradictions of peer producing communities in contemporary capitalist society, the journal aims to open up new perspectives on the implications of peer production for social change. The following is excerpted from Mathieu O’Neil, in the introduction to the first issue of the journal: “The journal has been… Continue reading
The ‘sustainable intensification’ agricultural revolution in Africa: the ongoing success of participatory rural development programmes
Excerpted from Zareen Bharucha: “It is now understood that a sole focus on increasing yields can be counter-productive in the long-run, causing or exacerbating environmental and social problems. Yet, it is also clear that demand for agricultural goods (especially food) is increasing, due to the demands for food and raw materials for growing and industrialising… Continue reading
Inner change doesn’t guarantee outer change
Excerpted from a very long critique, by Be Scofield, of Eckhart Tolle’s Evolutionary Activism, followed by a response by Marissa Handler. Interesting references are made to the role of ‘enlightened’ Zen Buddhism in justifying and supporting Japanese militarism in WWII: “A friend recently told me that he believed spiritual awakening would make someone become more… Continue reading
Sander van der Leeuw on Evolving Innovation for a Resource Scarce World
Source: Extraenvironmentalist “Our understanding of innovation has been shaped by decades of growth in the rate by which we can extract environmental resources. Now that conventional oil reserves are no longer flowing as readily, what does this do to how our modern civilization thinks about innovation? Do the innovations of the future involve faster processors and… Continue reading
Steve Keen on Debunking Economics
Source: Extraenvironmentalist “Roughly 90% of the world’s economics professionals failed to see the current economic crisis forming on the horizon of the early 21st century. Many of them are now striving for stability through policies of refinancing and quantitative easing. While this class of economic thinkers have driven the planet’s policies for decades, their faulty logic… Continue reading
David Graeber on Police Repression Against Occupy and Other Social Movements
Interesting interview clippings: “”David Graeber interviewed in Berlin on 30 May 2012, on the Occupy movement and social movements, with a focus on state and police repression measures and the use of undercover officers. He mentions the scandalous case of Mark Kennedy, as well as how big a threat social movements are to neoliberalism at… Continue reading
Have we reached ‘Peak Government’ ?
Charles Hugh Smith on the Four Key Drivers of State Expansion, and why these are now reversing: “The twin peaks of oil and government are causally linked: central government’s great era of expansion has been fueled by abundant, cheap liquid fuels. As economies powered by abundant cheap energy expanded, so did tax revenues. Demographics also… Continue reading
Permaculture can feed the world
The latest permaculture methods can deliver much more than just double or triple the yield of conventional farming. I recently came across this article by David Blume chronicling his nine-year permaculture enterprise in California. Running a CSA for 300-450 people on two acres of land, he achieved yields eight times what the Department of Agriculture… Continue reading
Yes, P2P Change Agents Should Be ‘Promethean’!
the problem is that in a world thoroughly hominised, in this inhospitable and even inhuman ‘anthropocene’, a totalising politics, capable of envisioning collective control, is an indefeasible requirement for emancipation. Withdrawal, secession and mere interruption—that is, revolts conceived not as inexorable moments but as an end in itself—will barely register on the radar of domination…. Continue reading