Another conversation with Michel Bauwens on the FLOKSociety project, this time with a different slant compared with previous presentations and interviews. After the trauma of hyperinflation, is Ecuador ready to talk about cryptocurrencies and alternative monetary policies? From the shownotes to the podcast Paul Buitink talks with Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation and the… Continue reading
Date archives "April 2014"
Sean Esbjörn-Hargens introductory article to “Integral Theory”
– AN OVERVIEW OF INTEGRAL THEORY: An All-Inclusive Framework for the 21st Century (pdf) The word integral means comprehensive, inclusive, non-marginalizing, embracing. Integral approaches to any field attempt to be exactly that: to include as many perspectives, styles, and methodologies as possible within a coherent view of the topic. In a certain sense, integral approaches… Continue reading
Rik Verschueren on the Need for New Ethical Alliances
A reaction from Belgium on our Open Letter to Pope Francis on the Ethical Economy. Rik Verschueren: “Yesterday I celebrated Easter with our extended family in a Youth accomodation owned by the church. As with many catholic rooted families most of us don’t practice catholicism anymore but are involved in the daily spirituality of educational,… Continue reading
Project Ara: Google’s new Modular Phone
Wired reports on Project Ara (http://www.projectara.com/) and calls it “Google’s attempt to reinvent the cellphone as we know it”. Instead of a slab of glass and metal that you have no ability to upgrade, save for buying a new device, this one’s an attempt to launch a phone where the components are interchangeable modules that… Continue reading
Policies for Shareable Cities 3: Food and the Sharing Economy
Continuing our serialization of Shareable magazine’s Policies for Sharing Cities Report, today we take a look at food provisioning in cities and how it relates to the sharing economy. Come back next week for Part 4, dealing with Shareable Housing. In a sharing economy, individuals look less to big chain stores to meet their food needs, and… Continue reading
The WordPress.com transparency report
We really have to commend Automattic, the original developers of WordPress, for stepping up and providing a transparency report on the volume of international government takedown demands, information requests and other intrusions. The text below, written by Jenny Zhu and originally published in WordPress’ own blog introduces the report. To read the report itself, click here. Automattic’s… Continue reading
Seeds as a Commons: Plant Breeders Start Open Source Seed Initiative
Excerpted from an article in NPR news… A group of scientists and food activists is launching a campaign to change the rules that govern seeds. They’re releasing 29 new varieties of crops under a new “open source pledge” that’s intended to safeguard the ability of farmers, gardeners and plant breeders to share those seeds freely…. Continue reading
Why I wrote an Open Letter to Pope Francis – Michel Bauwens
On Monday Michel Bauwens published an Open Letter to Pope Francis calling on the Catholic Church to support the growing movement for an ethical economy of P2P alternatives. In this short interview Michel explains his motivations for writing the letter. You can read the original letter here – http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/an-open-letter-to-pope-francis-on-the-ethical-economy/2014/04/21 As further background, I recommend watching… Continue reading
#OurNetMundial – End Global Surveillance and Protect the Free Internet
End Global Surveillance and Protect the Free Internet A message to governments of the World Edward Snowden exposed the collaboration between the governments of this world and the most powerful companies of Silicon Valley, that turned everyday technology into a tool for global surveillance and social, political as well as economic control. These unjustifiable mass… Continue reading
File-sharing declared legal in Spain
Extracted from Torrentfreak. In a landmark win for P2P software protocols, Spanish developer Pablo Soto has been acquitted of charges that could have landed him a 13 million € fine. Moreover, the court has found that P2P filesharing programs are neutral and are not liable for infringement. “In 2008, Universal, Sony, EMI, Warner and “Spanish RIAA”… Continue reading
Owning and Owing – Why we need to change the nature of ownership
A review of Majorie Kelly’s ground-breaking book on new property forms, by Ed Mayo: Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution by Marjorie Kelly “Uplifted by reading Kelly’s book, I turned back to reread the classic UK work on stewardship, from 1987, The Just Enterprise by the late George Goyder. Goyder wrote: “it is worth… Continue reading
Supporting the CommonsFest 2014 in Heraklion, Crete
The whole world should emulate these Commons Festivals pioneered in Crete and bringing all the strands of the movement together:
An Open Letter to Pope Francis on the Ethical Economy
Dear Pope Francis, I write to you as a cultural Catholic moved by admiration for the Christian values and how they have been embodied by social change activists such as Ivan Illich, E.F. Schumacher, Paulo Freire, and profound and provocative thinkers such as Marshall McLuhan and Bruno Latour. I write to you as someone who… Continue reading
What’s Happening in Mexico? Global campaign against internet repression
Mexican internet, digital and human rights activists are asking for your support: * Join us at http://contraelsilencio.wordpress.com or http://nomaspoderalpoder.org * On April 21 just use #EPNvsInternet to help us to create a Global Storm to defend freedom speech * On 22 & 26 we will take the streets Watch this self-explanatory video here:
We need ‘dynamic property’ systems
From Pat Conaty: “Chapter 11 of our Resilience Imperative is the penultimate one and we had to write and rewrite this one five times to get it right. It is focused directly upon your question about Ownership transfer mechanisms and what these look like including the roots of the idea in the 1820s with the… Continue reading
A Manifesto for the Commons in the European Union
The text below is a manifesto elaborated and signed by some members of the European Parlement. A informal group of commons activists is interested to take the opportunity of this manifesto (and within the agenda of European election) to discuss how to interconnect the Social Economy, the SIEG (Economic services of general interest) and the… Continue reading