In this special event, organised by Guerrilla Translation and the P2P Foundation, Digital Rights researcher Primavera de Filippi explores the possibilities and pitfalls of blockchain-derived platforms developed through Ethereum. The event was held at Madrid’s MediaLab-Prado and features an extensive and engaging round-table discussion after the main presentation.
Date archives "December 2014"
What You Can Do to Prepare for a De-Industrialized World
“Prepper” is a negatively loaded word, raising images of funny people storing canned food and ammo. This is how a declining civilization likes to dismiss everyone questioning its fall. Real preppers, on the other hand, are those who identify technological suits fit for a de-industrialized world, working for the installation of these and the knowledge… Continue reading
Obama Wants to Defeat ISIS — But Not That Badly
The Obama administration recently announced a policy of limited intervention in Iraq, using drone strikes to stave off conquest of Kurdish autonomous areas by ISIS. The main US ally on the ground is Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Regional Government, and US support against ISIS is limited to Kurdish areas inside Iraq. Barzani’s main competitor for the… Continue reading
Relationships of Mutual Cooperation
Today we feature an interview with John Restakis by Irish artist and curator Megs Morley which looks at the relationship between Cooperation and Culture. The interview was conducted as part of the Para-Institution project curated by Morley as part of the Galway city curator in residence program. The Para Institution explores the parameters and potentials… Continue reading
Silicon Valley Is Creating ‘The Camera Panopticon’
In this powerful and indignant article, Aral Balkan – verging on ‘mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more‘ mode, exposes the nascent total surveillance state, what he calls ‘Spyware 2.0’ and their fraudulent ‘free’ services. He likens the exchange of convenient technology for personal data as tantamount to a theft… Continue reading
A true sharing economy requires new equitable forms of ownership
Léonard and his collaborators are part of a widespread effort to make new kinds of ownership the new norm. There are cooperatives, networks of freelancers, cryptocurrencies, and countless hacks in between. Proposals are being made for a driver-owned Lyft, and Amazon Mechanical Turk workers are scheming to build a crowdsourcing platform they can run themselves…. Continue reading
Community Discussion as the Foundation for a New Neighborhood
By Christopher Alexander. Original text here. GO OUT AND THINK ABOUT THINGS BY YOURSELF To start with, it’s a good idea to go to the place where you think the neighborhood may be built, just stand there, look around, try to imagine what might happen there, try to draw in whatever inspiration you get from… Continue reading
Reforming Electronic Markets And Trading
Article by Hazel Henderson Hazel Henderson organized the Reforming Electronic Markets and Trading seminar. Author of eleven books and the recent downloadable e-book “Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age,” she is president of Ethical Markets Media, creator of its Green Transition Scoreboard®, co-creator with Calvert of their Quality of Life Indicators (2000) to… Continue reading
Video: Janelle Orsi on the Requirements for a Real Sharing Economy
Janelle Orsi writes and explains: “It’s time to talk about how the sharing economy can build itself on true sharing. In this video, Janelle Orsi talks about how companies can build in: 1. Shared Control 2. Shared Responsibility for the Common Good 3. Shared Earnings 4. Shared Capitalization 5. Shared Information, and 6. Shared Efforts”… Continue reading
The Coming Great Disintermediation and simplification of economic life
Excerpted from John Michael Greer: “One of the results of the contraction of the real economy is that the costs of intermediation, financial and otherwise, have not merely gone through the roof but zoomed off into the stratosphere, with low earth orbit the next logical stop. Health care, again, is among the most obvious examples…. Continue reading
Murray Bookchin on The Communalist Project
Continuing today to reflect on the work of social theorist Murray Bookchin and its influence on the struggles of the Kurdish people we reproduce here an extract from Bookchins essay on The Communalist Project. Communalism constitutes a critique of hierarchical and capitalist society as a whole. It seeks to alter not only the political life… Continue reading
SHELTER: The Timeless Way
Once a geodesic dome advocate, Lloyd Kahn now favours a very different home: hand-built, sustainable and simple. Or in other words: THE TIMELESS WAY OF BUILDING
A critique of the commonist ideology
The Other Spiral critiques commonism for its lack of clear analysis of the current political economy: “The commonists tend to give us an overly-optimistic portrait of how socialism is spontaneously arising out of capitalism, and is just around the corner (luckily we don’t have to figure out how it will work!). The article “The Emergence… Continue reading
Janet Biehl on Libertarian Municipalism and the Kurdish Struggle
Everyday in the international news we hear of the ISIS assault on the Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria. Kurdish fighters are defending the city but we hear very little from the mainstream media of what it is the Kurds are fighting for. In this recording Janet Biehl biographer of American social scientist Murray… Continue reading
Open the Omni-Commons, Oakland, Ca.
Michel Bauwens says: “Please support this wonderful and important project in Oakland … ‘hackerspace’ would not even do remotely justice to it .. a true commons space, ‘free, sustainable and solidarity’”. We invite you to join us in building a place to pool resources for the shared use and stewardship of the greater community—a space… Continue reading
Video: Paul Cockshott on Cybersocialism
“Dr. Paul Cockshott, Computer Scientist at University of Glasgow will give us insights into the potential for cybernetic economics based on his research in computer planning. Talk held in Unite Hall, Middle Abbey Street, Dublin at 7.30pm on November 18th 2014. The talk is hosted by the Left Forum.” Watch the video here: