Occupy Europe: a supranational front of progressive forces is needed to refund the European Union Excerpted from a proposal and argument by MONICA FRASSONI: “We need to orientate some of the energy of the civil society movements and that of some of our best politicians towards the fight for a better EU. We have not… Continue reading
Date archives "August 2012"
Franz Nahrada on Videobridging for Global Villages
Bringing villages on an equal level with cities in terms of knowledge sharing and development, in a very clear interview for the WSIS Forum 2012 by Franz Nahrada. Watch the interview here:
Punishing greed in 16th cy. Europe
“Stanford University historian Laura Stokes is uncovering how attitudes toward “acceptable greed” have done a turnaround in the past 500 years..” Looking at 16th century court records from Switzerland, she comes at the following conclusion: – “In short, blatantly selfish economic behavior was simply unacceptable. In describing the contradiction between present-day business attitudes and a… Continue reading
Negative Reciprocity in the Sharing Economy
Person to person sharing services may be better than commercially mediated sharing services, suggests Ariel Schwartz in her reading of a recent study regarding the lack of care for sharing goods (‘negative reciprocity). Ariel Schwartz: “A new study warns that participants may not always take the best care of their loaned objects because they don’t… Continue reading
The debt strike is the key weapon to restore popular power
If people really want change, they are going to have to find ways of taking power – and debt strikes are one way. An important argument, previously made by Dmytri Kleiner of the International Debtors Party, that finance is the key energy keeping the current system together, but therefore also its point of vulnerability. Excerpted… Continue reading
Open access revolution not sufficient for scholars in developing world
Excerpted from a longer article by Jorge Contreras, who argues that both ‘green‘ (self-archiving) and ‘gold‘ (author pays publishing) open access publishing models are not sufficient for southern scholars. More needs to be done. He writes: “Given the challenges faced by researchers in the developing world, is open access publishing likely to advance their scientific… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Creating Sustainable Societies, towards the “Principles Societies” model of governance
As envisioned, a Principled Society is a membership organization. Other well-known membership organizations include AARP, the National Organization for Women, and your local Chamber of Commerce. Unlike these, however, a Principled Society is not a nonprofit. Nor is it a profit-maximizing corporation. It is a socially responsible corporation that is a blend of both. Like… Continue reading
Alicia Gibb on the Status of the Open Source Hardware Movement in 2012
Alicia Gibb is the president of OSHWA, the Open Source Hardware Association. The interview from which the following was excerpted was conducted by Simone Cicero for OpenPicus: “Alicia, what are the latest progresses on the OSHWA project? [Alicia Gibb] We have just finished up writing our bylaws and are about to enter into the specifics… Continue reading
Andrew McGettigan and Sean Rillo Racza on the University of Strategic Optimism
Source: Resonance FM Novara’s Aaron Peeters in discussion with the University of Strategic Optimism, Andrew McGettigan and Sean Rillo Racza. ‘THE NEW COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES’. 14th June 2011. A university based on the idea of a free and open education.
Valve: a bossless company with centralized ownership
Distributed capitalism and a commons-oriented economy are the two polarities that the ‘great horizontalisation’ of communicative, cooperative, and productive relationships are bringing us into, along with many hybrid experiments. Here is an example of a private for-profit company using peer-production like ‘self-allocation of labor’, yet owned by a small set of shareholders/owners, as described by… Continue reading
Why it is crucial that peer production companies refuse Venture Capital investments
Joe Justice of why the WikiSpeed car project adamantly refuses VC investments: “”Aptera took Venture Capital, a few million dollars worth, in exchange for the VC firm having the right to cancel the project and retain all rights and IP if they got cold feet. These terms are common from VC. While we were in… Continue reading
An introduction to the importance of Benefit Corporations
B Corporations allow corporations to conduct social impact strategies, without fearing shareholders suits. NY State has legalized them. This PBS News Hour documentary gives many examples of such initiatives in NY State. Watch the video here:
Essay of the Day: Do-It-Yourself Biology and the Rise of Citizen Biotech-Economies
In order to set up a laboratory in a garage, people depend on a multitude of objects, networks, and people. They heavily depend on other people interested in do-it-yourself biology, they rely on scientific institutions (even if indirectly), they rely on the sharing of information, on the circulation of objects, on Internet platforms, on emails,… Continue reading
The Sadhana Forest permaculture community in Auroville and Haiti
By now, we’ve lost interest in the idea of work entirely. All of those discussions about working more, working too much, finding ways to work less–they didn’t get us anywhere. What is needed now is something that will allow us to move beyond these known distinctions and characterize, instead, engagement in activities with a sense… Continue reading
Reflections on Rio+20 (Part 2 of 3)
Who are we to judge failure or success and from what perspective? By Daniel Christian Wahl (www.danielchristianwahl.com) One of the main disappointments about the Rio+20 outcomes is that the conference failed to produce a document worth of the name “The Future We Want”. Sure it would be useful to have a document signed by all… Continue reading
San Francisco’s Urban Agriculture Law, a milestone for the freedom to grow
B-Corporations will no longer make it illegal for companies to do social good as part of their central mission (NY State law), and this new legislation will help legalize growing food in the city. (if you don’t believe that growing food is illegal, read John Robb’s story below). Amongst the general darkness of living in… Continue reading