* Article: The Commodification of Information Commons. By Primavera De Filippi and Miguel Said Vieira. In summary: “”Internet and digital technologies allowed for the emergence of new modes of production involving cooperation and collaboration amongst peers (peer-production) and oriented towards the maximization of the common good—as opposed to the maximization of profits. To ensure that… Continue reading
Date archives "October 2012"
On the Need for Global Deterritorialized Counter-Struggles
* Article: Reactivating the Social Body in Insurrectionary Times: A Dialogue with Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi. By Hugill, David and Thorburn, Elise. Berkeley Planning Journal, 25(1), 2012 The article above is an extented interview with Franco “Bifo” Berardi that covers a broad swathe of topics, including issues of education, debt, crisis, and mediation in the contemporary… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Truth in the Age of Social Media
Report: Truth in the Age of Social Media. Nieman Reports, 2012 Patrick Meier: “Some of the gems in this superb 72-page Nieman Report. In the opening piece of the report, Craig Silverman writes that “never before in the history of journalism—or society—have more people and organizations been engaged in fact checking and verification. Never has… Continue reading
David Harvey on Rebel Cities
“The struggle for the right to the city is against the powers of capital that ruthlessly feed upon and extract rents from the common life that others have produced…. Capitalist urbanization perpetually tends to destroy the city as a social, political, and livable commons.” The interview of David Harvey, on his book, Rebel Cities was… Continue reading
Project of the Day: the Forum for a New World Governance
Excerpted from from the coordinators of the Forum, Arnaud Blin and Gustavo Marin : “Why have we opened this Forum for a new World Governance? Today, it is commonplace to say there is a crisis in world governance. As citizens all over the world are fully aware, tensions, conflicts, and wars are persisting, and national,… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Virality. Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks
Book: Virality. Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks. Tony D. Sampson. University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Abstract “Tarde’s diagram comprises of mostly unconscious flows of desire, passion, and imitative radiations of muscular, as well as cerebral activities. In sharp contrast then, Tarde’s society of imitation does not fall back on collective or individual representations…. Continue reading
Economic Crisis and the Future of European Economy by Kees van der Pijl
Kees van der Pijl presents his insightful analysis on the transnational dimension of and the main contradictions embedded in the structure of today’s global political economy that might be heading to a catastrophic end. link
John Robb on Building Resilient Communities
At World Maker Faire 2012, John Robb asked and answered the important question: “Do you live in a Resilient Community? A resilient community produces the food, energy, water, things, and incomes it needs locally. If you don’t live in one, build one.” Watch the video here:
Book Of The Day: #CryptoParty Handbook
Source: CryptoParty This 392 page, Creative Commons licensed handbook is designed to help those with no prior experience to protect their basic human right to Privacy in networked, digital domains. By covering a broad array of topics and use contexts it is written to help anyone wishing to understand and then quickly mitigate many kinds… Continue reading
A Theory of Transnational Revolution by Kees van der Pijl
“The ‘end of the Cold War’ here assumes a new meaning, since these revolts can no longer be denounced as ‘Moscow-backed’ and treated accordingly. It may well be that we are in the midst of an important turn of events in which, on a truly global scale, the limits of the capitalist mode of production… Continue reading
The Commons Beyond Market and State
Below is the introduction to the book, The Wealth of the Commons. By David Bollier & Silke Helfrich: “It has become increasingly clear that we are poised between an old world that no longer works and a new one struggling to be born. Surrounded by an archaic order of centralized hierarchies on the one hand… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Stuffed and Starved
Book: Raj Patel. Stuffed and Starved. 2nd ed. 2012 Description It’s a perverse fact of modern life: There are more starving people in the world than ever before, while there are also more people who are overweight. To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel… Continue reading
Jacob Appelbaum, Dmitry Kleiner: Resisting the Surveillance State and its network effects
Jacob Appelbaum, the founder of the TOR Project and Dmitry Kleiner, the author of the Telekommunist Manifesto discusses brilliantly on the alarming state of the state surveillance and why and how we should resist it! link
Tent – a new open distributed social networking protocol
Tent is an open, decentralized networking protocol, made to run on multiple servers. “Tent allows every user to run their own server, but like email and the web, most users will use a hosting service to handle it.” The first hosted server to come on line is tent.is and it has a basic free account… Continue reading
The World Tomorrow: Cypherpunks, Part 1 & 2
Witnesses and prominent figures of the evolution of cyberpunk movement are discussing the current day issues. A must watch! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eil_1j72LOA&feature=player_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DQghUChYtk&feature=relmfu
Book of the Day: Peeragogy Handbook
Book: Peeragogy Handbook, a Resource for Self-organizing Self-learners. Howard Rheingold and Peeragogy Team. Description ‘With YouTube, Wikipedia, search engines, free chatrooms, blogs, wikis, and video communication, today’s self-learners have power never dreamed-of before. What does any group of self-learners need to know in order to self-organize learning about any topic? The Peeragogy Handbook is a… Continue reading