Circular Economy = The circular economy is a generic term for an industrial economy that is, by design or intention, restorative and in which materials flows are of two types, biological nutrients, designed to reenter the biosphere safely, and technical nutrients, which are designed to circulate at high quality without entering the biosphere. Definition “A… Continue reading
Date archives "December 2013"
Marica in Brazil launches local-government sponsored Electronic Social Currency
Via Janice Figuereido: The first Electronic Social Currency in Brazil has been launched by a government in Maricá, the state of Rio de Janeiro (130km from the city of Rio de Janeiro). “The Town of Marica sanctioned a municipal law establishing the Municipal Fund “Popular Community Bank of Marica”, responsible for promoting a program of… Continue reading
Group Process Innovation from Intentional Communities
Intentional communities experiment with and develop many different forms of interpersonal and group processes, or communication methods among people, some of which migrate into and influence the larger culture. Excerpted from Allen Butcher: “Intentional communities also make or adapt innovations in group process, for inter-personal communication, self-governance, and communal economics. There are many forms of… Continue reading
Last Year’s Best P2P Books
I never fully finished and published the selection of best p2p books for 2012 (yes!), but it would be really a shame to miss that selection. So before publishing our best book list of 2013, here is a recap of last year’s choices, just in time to still be able to say ‘last year’. Find… Continue reading
Even in the p2p age, we will need large-scale supra-state organisations
Slavoj Zizek, making a lot of sense as usual. Watch the video here:
Book of the Day: Re-Thinking Social Protection as a Commons
* Book: Francine Mestrum: Building Another World: Re-thinking Social Protection. Global Social Justice, 2013 Francine Mestrum writes: “It is a proposal for a new concept of social protection, which is particularly important at the moment that international organizations start to make their proposals for ‘social protection’. The ILO came out with its ‘social protection floors’,… Continue reading
MOOCs and Big Data vs. Labor and Gender Discrimination
“Soon, your MOOC performance will be sold to online recruiters taking advantage of the kinds of information that big data allows—fine distinctions not only on content assimilation but also participation, contribution to, and status within associated online communities. But what if these new possibilities—used by recruiters and managers to efficiently and objectively get the best… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations
Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations * Article: Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations. By Gary Ruskin – Essential Information, 2013. Report on corporate espionage/surveillance of nonprofit advocacy groups. Executive Summary “This report is an effort to document something we know little about: corporate espionage against nonprofit organizations. The entire subject is veiled in secrecy. In… Continue reading
Creating buildings and environments that support life (Interview with Nikos Salingaros)
Click on the play button below to listen to the interview: Interview with Nikos Salingaros by James Alexander Arnfinsen, originally published by Levevei.no Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:46 — 62.0MB) “In this episode I have the delight of connecting with Nikos Salingaros, who is a Professor in Mathematics, an Urbanist and Architectural Theorist. He is originally from Greece, but… Continue reading
Restructuring the economy with empathy as its center
Democracy is lost unless we re-structure our economies, and re-structuring our economies requires a new operating system based on different values. That’s what empathy provides, not in its “thin” form as a vague appreciation of peoples’ feelings, but in its “thick” form that commits everyone to foster the wellbeing of others, and do no harm…. Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Economy of Contribution in the Digital Commons
* Article: Andreas Wittel (2013) Counter-commodification: The economy of contribution in the digital commons, Culture and Organization, 19:4, 314-331 (a free downloadable copy is available here) Andreas Wittel writes: “I have recently published an article where I try to explain why the difficulties in building the digital commons are not due to the exploitation of free… Continue reading
The Vacation Credit Labor System as the Benedictine Rule for emerging post-capitalist times
“Now with the vacation-credit labor system, secular communal society has what Catholic monasticism has had with Benedict’s Rule, a means of organizing a communal, labor-sharing economy without the use of money, and in the case of egalitarian community, with a participatory as opposed to an authoritarian form of governance. Kat Kinkade’s labor system innovation may… Continue reading
There is no such thing as a sharing economy
My neighbor and I share a snow shovel because we share some stairs that need to be shoveled when it snows and we share responsibility for doing the work. If I owned the stairs and charged him a small fee every time he walked in our out of the house, that would be the opposite… Continue reading
Co-operative place making and the capturing of land value for the 21st century
* Report: Commons Sense: Co-operative place making and the capturing of land value for 21st century Garden Cities. Mike Lewis and Pat Conaty. Co-operatives UK, 2013. David Bollier discusses the findings and recommendations of this report: “By converting land into commonwealth – capturing escalating land values for everyone’s benefit – it is possible to make… Continue reading
Book of the Day: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs
“It is a basic how to manual for young faculty and I am not exaggerating on the cost savings – for example to outfit an undergrad optics lab the costs drop from $15,000 to about $500 for equipment of equal performance. Research grade equipment cost savings are even more substantial. As a scientist and a… Continue reading
Selected Citations on Peer to Peer Media
For the sources, see here: * Algorithmic Authority Algorithmic authority is the decision to regard as authoritative an unmanaged process of extracting value from diverse, untrustworthy sources, without any human standing beside the result saying “Trust this because you trust me.” This model of authority differs from personal or institutional authority. … Algorithmic authority handles… Continue reading