Date archives "June 2016"

Podcast: Bruce Sterling on the Casa Jasmina project and the IoT

“World traveler, science fiction author, journalist, and future-focused design critic Bruce Sterling spins the globe a few rounds as he wraps up the Interactive Conference with his peculiar view of the state of the world from a global perspective, as one who lives in Turin, Belgrade, and Austin. Most recently, Bruce has been an instigator… Continue reading

Ephemeralization for Post-Capitalist Space Exploration

At a time when government space programs like NASA’s seem to be in permanent retrenchment — shifting to a strategy focused on uncrewed probes, fighting to maintain an “International Space Station” that looks like a joke compared to Golden Age science fiction visions of giant cartwheel stations in orbit — a lot of people see… Continue reading

Tiptoeing Through the Renewable Energy Minefield

Unfortunately, the debate is already quite polarized and politicized. As a result, realism and nuance may not have much of a constituency. The following article was sent by Richard Heinberg as part of the Post-Carbon Institute‘s Mailing list. It is reprinted here with permission: I spent the last year working with co-author David Fridley and Post Carbon… Continue reading

Greek Financial Crisis Explained in 7 Minutes

“As citizens, we have to decide where we stand. Do we stand with the old system that’s dying? Or do we stand for a new system that we [ourselves] have to birth?” (Maria Scordialos) Upstream, a podcast about economics that might make conventional economists a little uneasy, presents a sneak peak from their upcoming episode on… Continue reading

John Restakis on Civil Power and the Partner State

As a partner in the upcoming Synergia Summer Institute the P2P Foundation will over the coming month feature a series of interviews, articles and videos on key themes that inform the program on “Transition to Co-operative Commonwealth: Pathways to a new political economy”. Places on the Synergia Summer Institute’s 3 week intensive September program are… Continue reading

On Brexit, young people “betrayed” by their elders, and voting

I have a strong feeling that certain headlines and assertions about the Brexit result are  if not factually wrong, at least very misleading. I refer to statements that summarize charts and tables like the ones above in this way: “The U.K.’s Old Decided for the Young in the Brexit Vote” “Brexit is a middle finger… Continue reading

Connecting the Dots 8: The Commons as the Response to the Structural Crises of the Global System

The Connecting the Dots series has convincingly shown a number of interconnected reasons why the global system is in crisis, and why there is no way out without a structural transformation of the dominant neoliberal system. In our contribution, we want to stress the key importance of what we call a “value regime,” or simply… Continue reading

Not a Co-op? Not a Platform Co-op!

Last month Shareable wrote a great article entitled “11 Platform Cooperatives Creating a Real Sharing Economy“. It’s a really nice list of projects who are all moving in the right direction (i.e. toward greater sharing of ownership and control), but some of them aren’t actually co-operatives. This got me thinking: Should organisations that are not… Continue reading

Movement of the Day: The Library of Things Movement

Excerpted from Cat Johnson, (the original article has 8 examples) “The Library of Things movement is emerging in communities around the world. These spaces give people access to a huge spectrum of items, from board games, party supplies and tennis rackets to saws, kitchen appliances, turntables, clothing and tents, without the burden of ownership. Specialty… Continue reading

Commoning as Adaptive Reuse in the Context of a Failing Civilization

1. So I see the task of contemporary Commons development as the cultivation and engineering of an alternative, parallel, infrastructure building on these overlooked resources. Adaptive reuse as a way of life. We are like settlers in the ruins of a prior, alien, civilization whose sometimes still dangerous machinery carries on blindly, stupidly, pursuing programmed… Continue reading

Copyright Review Management System Toolkit

The Copyright Review Management System (CRMS) Toolkit is a resource for institutions interested in establishing their own copyright determination projects. It has been developed in the context of the CRMS project by Melissa Levine, Richard C. Adler, Justin Bonfiglio, Kristina Eden, and Brian S. Hall. Full title: Finding the Public Domain – Copyright Review Management… Continue reading

Movement of the Day: The Love-Driven Politics Collective

I attended their conference in Philadephia and am now member of this network. It’s a very diverse movement in terms of ages, gender, and ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and very rigorous in its approach to a politics based on love rather than hatred. The explanation is excerpted from David Kim: “The Love-Driven Politics Collective is… Continue reading

Who is creating the future nobody wants?

Article by Joe Brewer Here’s an amazing fact: It’s 2016 and humanity is collectively moving toward a future that nobody wants. We are literally going somewhere that will hurt every single one of us. Mass extinctions are terrible things. Impoverished societies create the conditions for radical extremism and violence. Depleting top soils create food insecurity… Continue reading

Seeing Wetiko: On Capitalism, Mind Viruses, and Antidotes for a World in Transition

Wetiko: the greatest epidemic sickness known to humanity. ~ Paul Levy It’s delicate confronting these priests of the golden bull They preach from the pulpit of the bottom line Their minds rustle with million dollar bills You say Silver burns a hole in your pocket And Gold burns a hole in your soul Well, uranium… Continue reading

The Search for a Convergence of Citizen and Commons-Based System-Critical Movements

Excerpted from David Bollier: “The … strategic approach I want to suggest for building a new polity supportive of the commons is through an ongoing convergence and alignment of diverse system-critical social movements. The failures of neoliberal capitalism are coming at the very time that promising new modes of production, governance and social practice are… Continue reading