Redecentralize.org is an effort to find and promote projects that will help bring the internet back into its ‘native’ state, which is that of a decentralized, distributed network dominated by its users, not by central servers or grotesquely overgrown data silos. The original Internet was decentralized. Anyone could set up parts of it. That’s why… Continue reading
Date archives "May 2014"
Commons Sense New thinking about an old idea
“Throughout the globe there is a blossoming of interest in the old idea of ‘the commons’. For many, it offers a radical escape from the all-too-apparent devastations of capitalism and the impoverishments of a world possessed by the idea of possession. For these commoners, the commons were not all lost with the European land enclosures… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Acorn Community
We’ve already featured Acorn Community in one of our Podcasts of the Day. That was a fascinating conversation between KMO, host of the C-Realm, and G. Paul Blundell, a member of the community. Today we offer this follow up, featuring some texts from Acorn’s page including a passage on their governance system. About Us Acorn Community… Continue reading
MAKING MONEY – How we could take the power away from banks by Pat Conaty
A Review by Pat Conaty of ‘Future Money Breakdown or Breakthrough?’ This book describes how the money system fails to serve the wellbeing of most of the world’s people, and motivates both rich and poor to destroy other life on the planet on which our own survival depends. Moreover, the system is now breaking down…. Continue reading
Radical Change Presupposes Radical Will
A mustread excerpted from Gene Youngblood: “The ecological holocaust and the crisis of democracy are radical systemic breakdowns that demand radical response — transformation at the root. This is recognized around the world. Unless you live exclusively in the broadcast, you hear everywhere today the call for fundamental change, for transformation at the root. That’s… Continue reading
@WePromiseEU European Day of Action – 15 May 2014
from – https://www.wepromise.eu/ Take back the net and take back EU politics! Organisations from across Europe invite you to participate in a day of action today Thursday, 15 May 2014. Tweet, blog, spread the word and ask your candidates running for the EU elections to stand up for digital rights! How to participate? *TAKE A… Continue reading
Brewster Kahle on a New Governance Infrastructure For A Knowledge Society and Economy
This talk explores how high-tech non-profits are creating infrastructure and services for a peer-productive world. On the FLOSS Foundations and beyond. Watch the video here:
Occupying the Sharing Economy in Spain
Here’s a great article, extracted from Shareable and penned by David M. Gross on a very different concept of what a true sharing economy looks like, compared to the work of more mainstream proponents in the field. If you’d like to know more about Enric Duran and CIC from a P2P point of view, don’t miss his recent… Continue reading
Epistemologies of the South – Justice Against Epistemicide
Source – Publisher website: http://www.paradigmpublishers.com/books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=367839 “In a world of appalling social inequalities people are becoming more aware of the multiple dimensions of injustice, whether social, political, cultural, sexual, ethnic, religious, historical, or ecological. Rarely acknowledged is another vital dimension: cognitive injustice, the failure to recognize the different ways of knowing by which people across the… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Jerome Hergueux on Cooperation in the Wikipedia Peer Production Economy
Intro: “From Wikipedia to Open Source Software, Peer Production — a large-scale collaborative model of production primarily based on voluntary contributions — is emerging as an economically significant production model alongside firms, markets and governments. Yet, its impressive success remains difficult to explain through the assumptions of standard economic theory. In this talk, Jerome Hergueux… Continue reading
Jeremy Rifkin on the third industrial revolution – BBC Hardtalk
Feeling Must be the Clue to Wholeness
Here is another example of the way feeling must be the clue to wholeness, when we seek to make something alive. I once had an interesting discussion with Sim Can der Ryn. He was arguing that feeling is not enough. In his view it was too vague, too emotional. For instance, he said: “In making… Continue reading
The Role of Money in a Civic Provisioning Economy
A contribution by Marvin Brown: “An Economics of Provision begins with an assumption that the purpose of the economy is to provide people with the provisions they need for a good life. A “civic” economics of provision proposes that citizens—members of the civic—should work together in designing such systems. Several are now advancing the idea… Continue reading
Book: The P2P Prospect (in Greek)
A new publication for our Greek-speaking audience: “The P2P Prospect” is a collaborative book in Greek –edited by Vasilis Kostakis and Christos Giotitsas– with fundamental texts of scholars and activists on the P2P theory and the Commons. It was just published by Voreiodytikes Publications: the pdf is freely accessible under a CC license whereas the… Continue reading
What about our water Commons? 18 May, water referendum in Greece
The water Commons in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, are under threat (an older post about here). Needless to say that in time of crisis such an enclosure of a common good is a common practice. A recent text by Theodoros Karyotis, a member of the Initiative 136 for social control of Thessaloniki’s water services,… Continue reading
James Robertson on the Reform of National Money Systems
Policy proposals by James Robertson, author of the book, Future Money: “Governments are at the heart of the money system. By deciding • how the national money supply is created, • what is taxed and not taxed, and • what public expenditure is spent on and not spent on, governments largely determine where money goes… Continue reading