“The financial sector is a notoriously closed and opaque system, with barriers to entry at many different levels. What elements, technologies and players are required to open it up, and what would the result look like? Brett Scott, author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money sketches out some ideas… Continue reading
Date archives "January 2014"
Trend of the Day: DIY Judaism
The Organic Growth of Independent Jewish Spiritual Communities by Amy Dean: “According to the major Jewish federations’ own internal census, Conservative congregations’ membership is in “free fall,” having dropped by 14 percent since 2001. The Reform movement is experiencing similar drop-offs in membership, especially in the 18-34 year old age range. The labor movement’s decline… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Farmery
Farmery = all-in-one urban farm and grocery store URL =http://www.resilientcommunities.com/a-revolution-at-the-grocery-store/ Description John Robb: ‘If we can create an interactive food experience, people will begin to cultivate a relationship with their food that extends far beyond the traditional grocery store. At least, that is what Ben Greene and his company, The Farmery, are attempting to prove…. Continue reading
Selected Citations on P2P Policy Making
For the sources, check here: Our economy prospers when the Internet is equally open to every good idea. Our democracy flourishes when all ideas can get an equal hearing. Our culture is enriched when anyone can create a song, a movie, a book, or manifesto. – David Weinberger * Marvin Brown on why we need… Continue reading
Peru will provide solar electricity to the poor through national program
Peru, where currently only some 66% of the population has access to electricity, will install solar panels in a National Photovoltaic Household Electrification Program for 500,000 of the poorest households. The project, which was kicked off recently in Contumaza province with the installation of some 1600 solar panels, will eventually provide electricity to many Peruvians… Continue reading
GNUnion – One Big Mesh Network for All the Working Classes
Global Networked Labour Union, GNUnion – One Big Mesh Network (gnunion.wordpress.com) is the released 1.0 Beta version of new generation, free to join, borderless worker self-organisation, a work in progress. The ‘code’ of the network is free, GNUnion is aimed to be build by and for all the involved peers who has to sell their labour… Continue reading
Liquid Democracy is not voting or delegative democracy
Excerpted from Josef Davies-Coates: ” a very important point made by Sayke, the guy who came up with the idea, is almost universally missed by most people who talk about it these days, and by every single software implementation I’ve seen to date. And that is the difference between vote delegation/ proxies and vote recommendations…. Continue reading
Book of the Day: Invasive Technification
Gernot Böhme, Invasive Technification: Critical Essays in the Philosophy of Technology, Cameron Shingleton (tr.), Bloomsbury, 2012, 261 pp. Book Review by Andrew Feenberg: “This book covers a vast range of issues in the philosophy of technology with clarity and insight. It is divided into six chapters, each of which contains several short essays on related… Continue reading
Towards a Basic Income Law
Excerpted from R.C. Smith: “Elliot Sperber’s recent paper ‘Toward a Salutary Political-Economy – Freedom from Jobs’ has received some interesting comments, questioning the basic income law and its practical consequences. In this paper Elliot wonderfully argues that freedom is not dependent on jobs, and what we should really be arguing toward is a ‘freedom from… Continue reading
Podcast of the Day: David Bollier on Green Governance and the Law of the Commons
Excerpted from Writer’s Voice.net, journalist and activist David Bollier talks about his most recent book, co-written with legal scholar Burns Weston, GREEN GOVERNANCE: Ecological Survival, Human Rights, and the Law of the Commons. From the shownotes to the podcast: Journalist and activist David Bollier talks about his most recent book, co-written with legal scholar Burns… Continue reading
Annemarie Naylor on the cooperative ownership of digital assets
Excerpted from an interview conducted by Olivia Tusinski of the Open Institute. * On Community-Owned Digital Assets Annemarie Naylor: “There’s a long history in the UK of community ownership going back over a thousand years – of people arguing against enclosure right through to the Occupy movement in more recent times. What’s interesting is that… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Political Economy of Not Asking Permission
Hacking and Hustling: The Political Economy of Not Asking Permission. Description “Innovation has become the prima economic development tool of cities. Obama said “innovation” nine times in his 2013 inauguration speech, more than any other presidential speech in history. As US cities went bankrupt and a deep recession was felt in all corners of the… Continue reading
Trend of the Day: Transanimism
Jedediah Walls writes: “Transanimism is the belief that conscious life will evolve into a space where it fills almost every crevice in the universe. Technology will allow this to happen, and technology will play a big role in the next evolutionary plateau that life undergoes. Transanimists like to make big statements about the nature of… Continue reading
Great Information Transitions in the Past and the Present
If the ensemble of the managerial class had been educated with handwritten notes, big auditoriums and printed books, the class which will replace them in 30 years will have been educated with screens, interactivity and network-based collaboration. The rules which today regulate our identities, our territories and our economies have all been written for the… Continue reading
Podcast of the Day/XE: John Michael Greer on the History of Apocalyptic Thinking and its Limitations
From our friends at The Extraenviromentalist Podcast. John Michael Greer talks about the apocalypse meme, its historical content and all the days in which the world didn’t end, despite “reliable predictions”. From the shownotes to the episode: Even though we live in an age of economic decline and collapse, do our expectations for the future… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Nature for Sale
Nature for Sale: The Commons versus Commodities. Giovanna Ricoveri. Pluto Press, 2013 Description “Nature for Sale uncovers the rich heritage of common ownership which existed before the dominance of capitalist property relations. Giovanna Ricoveri argues that the subsistence commons of the past can be reinvented today to provide an alternative to the current destructive… Continue reading