Quiliro Ordóñez Baca writes: “Excellent documentary about surveillance. It could serve to convince people about the risk of surveillance and the use of social networks; especially the non-free ones.” “Admit it: you don’t really read the endless terms and conditions connected to every website you visit, phone call you make or app you download. But… Continue reading
Date archives "January 2014"
Wa(te)rdrops and Golfland: Natural Commons in Greece
A new documentary about the Commons in Greece is titled “Stagones” (a Greek word which is a play on the words and carries two meanings: “in the struggle” and “drop of water”) and is currently in production. Stagones (or, in English, “Wa(te)rdrops” ) documents the water struggles around Greece. It is being filmed by a… Continue reading
Why “Global Villages” are opposed to “globalized villages”!!
Excerpted from an excellent speech/essay by Franz Nahrada: “The insights of ecology helped us to conceptualize human habitat as a catalizer for natures self- regereneration. If human and natural processes are looked at from a higher viewpoint of mutual regeneration, there is a vast new world of opportunities to create interplays between them. Ecosystems and… Continue reading
Occupying ISIA students in Florence are redesigning the Near Future of Education
Starting from the Near Future Design course, and quickly spreading to the whole school, we decided to reinvent our reality with the most our powerful tool: the Design. We started building the Near Future Design of Education, to push a bit further people’s perception of what is possible, and using this shift to enact a… Continue reading
Podcast of the Day: Aram Sinnreich on “The End of Forgetting”
Two fascinating pre-Snowden recordings with Aram Sinnreich. Excerpted from the shownotes: “Two weeks ago, I headed to the annual ICA conference to present two papers. Here’s the slide show and audio for one of them — an article I coauthored with Jonah Bossewitch called “The end of forgetting: Strategic agency beyond the Panopticon.” The article will be published in New… Continue reading
Coming soon: Twister – a distributed p2p microblogging platform
Twister is a new distributed microblogging platform that is being developed by Miguel Freitas, a programmer who lives in Rio de Janeiro. You can download the white paper that describes the idea from Arxiv: twister – a P2P microblogging platform How does twister work? It builds on previous developments in distributed networks and computing and… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Digital Disconnect – How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy
Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy. Robert W. McChesney. New Press, 2013 Book Review by Greg Macdougall: “…discusses how politics and the “capitalist*” economic system of the United States has very much warped the initial vision and potential of a non-commercial democratic Internet. In it noted scholar and activist Robert W. McChesney… Continue reading
Project of the Day: PlantCatching
PlantCatching = finding and donating free plants Shared plants and food in a garden near you! “PlantCatching connects you with gardeners in your area and lets you do two very simple things: 1. Find plants, seeds and bulbs, gardening materials and even fruits and vegetables given by fellow gardeners, either anonymously in a public area,… Continue reading
John Restakis and Michel Bauwens on the FLOK Society Transition Project in Ecuador
My talk for the democracy conference in Amsterdam, Crosstalk 2013 | Borders to Cross, on the p2p transition process in Ecuador. It is followed by the first installment of a diary by co-researcher John Restakis. Watch the video here: John Restakis writes: “It is now six weeks since I arrived in Ecuador as part of… Continue reading
Can we talk about enviromental sustainability within our current money system?
Extracted from Andrew Jackon’s and Ben Dyson’s book, Modernising Money. The authors analyse the current situation: Money created as interest-bearing debt will always necessitate more growth, at the expense of our rapidly decaying living systems. There are, however, plenty of solutions being put forward to end this vicious cycle of destruction. “The current monetary system… Continue reading
Trend of the Day: Occupy Wall Street Guilds
Compiled by Poor Richard: “Guilds are skill based. They traditionally have two broad functions: 1) maintaining standards in a profession, trade, or craft and 2) training and education. Numerous guilds have worked with OWS, including National Lawyers Guild Progressive Librarians Guild Writers Guilds The Newspaper guild Citizens Media Guild The OWS NY City General Assembly… Continue reading
What is Wholesome Power ?
Excerpted from Tom Atlee: “In times of scarcity, conflict and crisis, what kind of power do we need and where shall we get it? We are surrounded by potential resources, companions, and capacities which—to the extent we recognize, welcome them, work with and appreciate them—become actual resources, partners and capacities, generating an expanded power to… Continue reading
Lack of politics will doom the promise of today’s maker movement
Excerpted from a must-read critique of the maker movement by Evgeny Morozov: “One thinker who saw through the naïveté of Illich, the Homebrewers, and the Whole Earthers was the libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin. Back in the late sixties, he published a fiery essay called “Towards a Liberatory Technology,” arguing that technology is not an enemy… Continue reading
Podcast of the Day/C-Realm: “Economix: How Our Economy Works (And Doesn’t Work)”
Reposted from the C-Realm podcast a great conversation demystifyng economics and some of the myths drawn up around Adam Smith and his writings. From the shownotes to the episode: “KMO welcomes Michael Goodwin, author of Economix: How Our Economy Works (And Doesn’t Work) In Words and Pictures to the C-Realm to talk about money, history,… Continue reading
Beyond Green/Pirate cooperation towards a European grand alliance of the commons
Ever since their emergence within the political landscape, Pirates have been perceived by Greens both as rivals for voters’ support and potential allies in a common cause. The Pirate movement has articulated its distinctive political vision and, in several countries, succeeded in creating a new constituency of voters. Whereas on the level of national politics… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Richard Heinberg on the End of Growth
A must-watch video on the interplay between growth, peak oil, debt, how harnessing fossil fuel energy gave us economic growth – and what this now means in the face of peak oil and the end of the fossil fuel era. Richard Heinberg, author of “The Party’s Over” and leading peak oil educator, talks about the… Continue reading