By LUKE RUNYON: “Imagine turning a public park into a free-for-all of community plants – and snacks. Food forests have been likened to Garden of Eden revelry, or the blissful sampling in Willy Wonka’s chocolate waterfall room. It’s like a community garden on steroids. The concept is pretty simple: planners recreate a forest ecosystem with… Continue reading
Date archives "November 2014"
Outernet’s ‘Lantern’ provides remote offline digital library
About two thirds of humanity or more than 4 billion people do not have access to the internet. Outernet www.outernet.is has plans to provide those people (and the rest of us as well) with a continuously updated internet library, the content of which can be viewed off line, which means it also works even where… Continue reading
The Art of Commoning
This past weekend I learned a lot about the art of commoning through a process known as The Art of Hosting. It’s a methodology for eliciting the collective wisdom and self-organizing capacity of a group – which is obviously important for a successful commons. We all know that the commons is about the stewardship of… Continue reading
The Sharing Bros 21,000 KM with the Collaborative Economy
The Sharing Bros are making a 21,000 Km journey using only the Collaborative Economy. Their Mission To cross the American continent in 6 months using only the Collaborative Economy. Why? We want to meet the People who have made the choice of living the economy differently and integrated sharing into their daily lives. 15 countries,… Continue reading
Ethereum: Freenet or Skynet
What is Ethereum? Can this technology actually support the establishment of a utopian, free, and decentralized society? Or could it instead promote a more dystopian vision of society – or even a Skynet? Before we can understand anything about Ethereum, we must first understand Bitcoin: what it is, and how it works. The Bitcoin story… Continue reading
Enspiral: Changing the Way Social Entrepreneurs Do Business
Anna Bergren Miller describes the inner workings of Enspiral, one of our favourite, P2P-based, social entrepreneurial networks. This article was originally published at Shareable. While it seems clear that New Zealand-based social enterprise network Enspiral is doing exciting things in the social impact space, it can be difficult, at first, to understand what exactly Enspiral is. It is easier… Continue reading
AntiCafe Coworking Space
A news pace has opened in Rome, a space that someone might consider strange, but nonetheless innovative and special. Leonardo Rossi: The concept is quite simple: AntiCafé is not a simple bar where you go and pay for your drinks; it is an open space where you pay hourly and you can use all the… Continue reading
MyWheels Cooperative Car Sharing
This article on the organisation of the MyWheels Car Sharing Cooperative was submitted to us by Henry Mentink of https://mywheels.nl/ My car, your car Keep everyone involved and decision making efficient: that’s why a car-sharing service in the Netherlands, uses the sociocratic circle-organization method (SCM). SCM also prevents potential conflicts between the organization and its… Continue reading
New Virtual Think Tank Studies How to Govern Knowledge Commons
By Cat Johnson of Shareable.net The commons are often associated with shared natural resources including grazing pastures, public spaces and water, but there are lots of commons including the Creative Commons, seed commons, and even knowledge commons. Yes, knowledge, passed from person to person, generation to generation, is a commons that we all share and contribute… Continue reading
The point of money is that it makes intermediation easy
From John Michael Greer’s essay; Dark Age America: The Hoard of the Nibelungs “Thus the logic behind money pretty clearly isn’t what the textbook story claims it is. That doesn’t mean that there’s no logic to it at all; what it means is that nobody wants to talk about what it is that money is actually… Continue reading
Our Generation of Hackers by Nathan Schneider
Over the summer of 2014 Nathan Schneider embarked on a journey with the Wisdom Hackers—a group of artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and activists exploring elemental questions together. Travelling to Paris, Berlin, southern Italy, to Ecuador, and Silicon Valley, and a hacker congress in New York. This week he presents insights from that journey as a chapter… Continue reading
Pablo Iglesias of Podemos on going for the win
The “secret” of Podemos according to Pablo Iglesias: “I have defeat tattooed on my DNA. My great-uncle was shot dead. My grandfather was given the death sentence and spent 5 years in jail. My grandmothers suffered the humiliation of those defeated in the Civil War. My father was put in jail. My mother was politically… Continue reading
How the Internet of Things will disposses us through Protocollary Ownership
Excerpted from Scott Johnson: The Internet of Things, “will subtly redefine ownership as we know it. You will no longer own many of the most expensive and sophisticated items you possess. You may think you own them. But you’ll be wrong. They say “possession is nine-tenths of the law,” but even if you physically and… Continue reading
Open Call for CommonsFest Athens 2015
Source : http://commonsfest.info/en/2014/anikto-kalesma-gia-tin-diorganosi-tou-festival-ton-kinon-stin-athina/ After the open call for the organization of the 3rd CommonsFest at Heraklion, now comes the 1st open call for organizing CommonsFest in Athens in 2015. We wish a good start and we hope CommonsFest to travel in more cities in Greece and the rest of the world. CommonsFest was held the… Continue reading
Why the Right Keeps Winning and the Liberals and Progressives Keep Losing
By Rabbi Michael Lerner Source : http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-the-Right-Keeps-Winnin-by-Rabbi-Michael-Lern-Democrats_Losing-Elections_Progressives_Progressives-Relationship-With-Democrats-141110-844.html Why does the Right keep winning in American politics, sometimes through electoral victories, sometimes by having the Democrats and others on the Left adopt what were traditionally right-wing policies and perspectives? Sure, I know that progressives won some important local battles in 2014: A few towns in California,… Continue reading
The emergence of p2p-solidarity formats to combat Energy Poverty
Some time ago, I created a new section in the p2p wiki, on peer-driven solidarity forms, see here; which features the excellent introductory pamphlet by Felix Stadler on the topic, called Digital Solidarity. Gridmates allows ‘smart grid’ users to gift energy to those in need. Watch the video here: