Etienne Hayem explains Symba – one of the P2Pvalue testbed communities. More info at https://www.symba.co/
Date archives "December 2014"
Video of the Day: Michael Hudson on Public Banking
Hudson explains how public banks could provide an alternative to our current model of extractive finance: “Michael Hudson says that banking since World War I has been more and more focused on loading down the economy with debt rather than what he thinks should be the business of banks, which is financing economic growth and… Continue reading
Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free
Cory Doctorow has produced an audiobook edition of his non-fiction book Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age narrated by Wil Wheaton with audio and music by John Taylor Williams, and bed-music from Amanda Palmer and Dresden Dolls. “In sharply argued, fast-moving chapters, Cory Doctorow’s Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Towards a Legal Framework for Crypto-Ledger Transactions
This is from a draft text by Primavera de Filippi which discusses, amongst other things, the legal enforceability of ‘smart contracts’: I. Integration of Law and Computer Technology “The marriage of law and technology in the late 20th and early 21st century can be divided into three phases. Phase one involved digitizing information itself: taking… Continue reading
SELC Celebrates Victories and Launches Seed Library Campaign
In this article – penned by Cat Johnson and originally published in Shareable – our good friends at the Sustainable Economies Law Center take us for us ride in their fabulous community-supported time machine. Theirs is a constructive and inspiring vision of the future that is fully aligned with the ideals of the P2P Foundation… Continue reading
Gaza’s Offline Ride-Sharing App Does What Uber Can’t
Source – Guardian.co.uk Gaza and Uber aren’t the likeliest of combinations. The latter is a ride-sharing app, valued this week at $40bn (£25.6bn), that relies on its users owning smartphones. The former is a recovering war zone with no 3G network. Safe to say, Uber won’t be expanding in to Gaza any time soon. Which is… Continue reading
The City as a Commons: from Mantova to Bologna and beyond
Great presentation on “the city as a commons” approach which is emerging particularly in Italy. The author, Christian Iaione, and the staff at LabGov where instrumental in Co-City projects like Co-Mantua and the Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons, which has been adopted by over 40 other cities in Italy. Watch… Continue reading
Marie Goodwin on How to Run a Business in the Gift Economy
Reposted from Shareable magazine, Marie Goodwin talks about the challenges and rewards of exploring the gift economy. Maybe this is you: you’ve been working for a while on your own, making a little bit of money, maybe a lot of money. But something doesn’t feel right. When you bill people for your time and expenses,… Continue reading
Communities and governments are switching to localized alternative energy systems
Overview of recent initiatives by the Encounters newsletter: (the original has all the links; ENCOUNTERS is an e-newsletter publication of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns’ Faith Economy Ecology Program) “Creating and strengthening local energy systems that are locally controlled is a key priority for communities preparing for a post-peak oil reality and all around… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Noam Chomsky on Adam Smith’s Critique of the Invisible Hand
Chomsky argues that the conventional notion of “invisible hand” is mistaken and that though worshipped by conservatives, Adam Smith is very rarely read. Watch the video here: (link correct even if video is not loading)
Manifesto for a Media Revolution
In this article Nafeez Ahmed explain how and why mainstream media is broken and calls for your support for a revolution in independent investigative journalism. The mainstream media is broken Dominated by special interests?—?whether corporate lobbies, financial power, ideological bias, chauvinistic institutional racism, the entrenched problems are well-documented. My experience at The Guardian?—?the highly-regarded liberal… Continue reading
A Neat Inversion
The two positions I’ve described each harbor hidden assumptions about the nature of change that set them into irreconcilable opposition. The radical critique gives the system primacy over the individuals that make it up, and concludes that change must originate on the system level. The opposing position gives primacy to the base level and doesn’t… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Anti-Leaders in Social Movements
* Article: Anti-leaders(hip) in Social Movement Organizations: The case of autonomous grassroots groups. By Neil Sutherland, Christopher Land et al. Organization June 5, 2013 (please note embedded link above may only work after ‘searching’) From the Abstract: “Through the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement, the idea of horizontal, leaderless organization has come to the… Continue reading
Deflationary Collapse is Underway
By Eivind Berge. Original post here. As a reader of Gail Tverberg’s blog Our Finite World, I am privy to the fact that our world is soon collapsing. This is an open secret expounded in broad daylight and even in a friendly commercial-free environment, yet most people will never grasp it. The masses will starve… Continue reading
The Prototype: more than many and less than one
The prototype: more than many and less than one by Alberto Corsín Jiménez is part of a series of research papers presented at the Prototyping Conference and published in the Journal of Cultural Economy. Special Issue, Prototyping cultures: art, science and politics in beta, ed. Prototypes have acquired much prominence and visibility in recent times…. Continue reading
Movement of the Day: The Green Web Foundation
“One day the Internet will run entirely on renewable energy. The Green Web Foundation believes that day should be within reach, and develops tools to speed up the transition towards a green Internet”. Towards a green web: “The Green Web Foundation wants to facilitate the transition towards the Internet being powered by sustainable “green” energy…. Continue reading