[This is the fifth installment in my serialization of the first three chapters of my book-in-progress, tentatively titled Desktop Regulatory State] II. Individual Superempowerment According to Tom Coates, as quoted in the previous chapter, the desktop revolution has had an enormous effect in blurring the distinction in quality between work done within large organizations and… Continue reading
Date archives "August 2012"
Organic Certification – Do it yourself
The system of organic certification is too onerous, too complicated and at times the rules are stupid. A revolution of sorts is in the wings, with organic producers refusing to submit to rules that favor large scale agriculture but are way too onerous for small producers. Who wants to spend their days fulfilling bureaucratic requirements… Continue reading
Rethinking Common vs. Private Property (1): Introduction
A very important essay to rethink property forms, away from the public vs. private (or socialized vs. private), and towards a recognition of common, ‘distributed’, but above all, ‘responsible’ property. In today’s first excerpt, we publish the introduction and the conclusion to this important essay, which we will be serializing. * Article: Rethinking Common vs…. Continue reading
The emergence of pocket factories for microsolar production
These guys shrank an important, factory-sized piece of the microsolar supply chain down to something that can fit on your desktop. Think of it as an early step in a globally decentralized, relocalized economy. “ John Robb writes, in his newsletter on resilient communities: Microsolar is “used to power appliances that are either remote or… Continue reading
Self-interest and altruism, P2P vs. Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society. – Gore Vidal Michel Bauwens: It is my view that that traditional pre-modern societies were mostly determined by a social morality (I’m aware… Continue reading
Devising p2p business models as an open game
An article and exploration by Tiberius Brastaviceanu of the Sensorica Open Value Network: “More and more value comes in the form of open products. We have grown accustomed with open communities creating open soft-and hardware. Most of these communities are based on gift economies, i.e. the creators of these open products are not rewarded in… Continue reading
The arguments for a free knowledge commons
Peugeot argues that information and knowledge should be regarded as commons, which fits into the concept of a collaborative economy and opposes traditional principles of scarcity and rivalry. This new approach to intellectual goods and the economy will in the end strongly stimulate innovation, creativity, participation and social cohesion. By Valerie Peugeot, President of the… Continue reading
Project of the Day: FarmHack
Via Shareable magazine: “FarmHack is a network for sharing open source know-how amongst the distributed fringe of DIY agricultural tech aficionados and innovators. In the same vein as Appropedia or Open Source Ecology, a collaborative digital knowledge-base facilitates the harvest of crowd wisdom to address challenges and inefficiencies in modern ecological (and economical) farm operation…. Continue reading
IMF research paper backs away from private creation of money supply
privately controlled money creation has much more problematic consequences than government money creation The following is not trivial as it may signal the beginning of a shift in the heart of the key institutions supporting the neoliberal model. As reported by Positive Money: “We’ve been in a state of mild shock since Saturday, after discovering… Continue reading
Book of the Day: The Organic Internet and emancipatory social movements
This is not a new book, but as we haven’t seen many books taking this particular perspective, we think it’s important to know about it. * Book: The Organic Internet. May First / People Link. The May First group writes: “What exactly is the Internet and what role does it play in our movement for… Continue reading
From open hardware to open manufacturing: do open guns show the way?
I have to wonder if conditions are right for a Maker-minded, open-design hardware community to stake a claim in the consumer manufacturing landscape. Excerpted from Eric Larkin who looks at the conditions which make this transition more realistic: * 1. Software has laid the philosophical foundation for open-source design “The success of Linux and other… Continue reading
Richard Levins on Developing a Science for the People
Though described as a two-part introduction to dialectics, this is actually a very interesting treatment of science and power throughout history, showing a great erudition and passion. One of the things mentioned at the beginning is how Caribbean cigar workers used to educate themselves by hiring teachers to read aloud on history and science while… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Sauti Ya Wakulima in Tanzania
Sauti ya wakulima, “The voice of the farmers”, is a collaborative knowledge base created by farmers from the Chambezi region of the Bagamoyo District in Tanzania by gathering audiovisual evidence of their practices using smartphones to publish images and voice recordings on the Internet. The project website explains what it is about: ‘The participants of… Continue reading
Book of the Day: The Intention Economy
* Book: Doc Searls. The Intention Economy. Excerpted from an in-depth review by John Hagel: “We’ve long known that customers are gaining power in markets around the world as they tap into the twin forces of digital technology and economic liberalization. They are able to access more and more information about products and vendors and… Continue reading
The P2P Revolution in Transportation (2): moving things
“The Autonomous Roadless Intelligent Array (ARIA) is an open source autonomous logistics infrastructure that leapfrogs traditional road infrastructure”. At Burning Man 2012 and after: “ARIA and ReAllocate.org are developing an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS). We will be delivering a system that is capable of tracking a person (via GPS-enabled tracker) and delivering a payload to… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Banco Palmas in Brazil
The Banco Palmas in the Palmeira precinct of Fortaleza/Brazil is a bank that emits a local currency. The bank offers credits in the local currency (interest-free) and in Brazil’s national currency (interest rate 2%). For a fee of 1%, amounts in local currency can be swapped with the national currency (ratio 2:1). Stemming from a… Continue reading