Slavoj , one of the most famous philosophers of the radical left, gives here an interpretation of why progressive movements that were formed in the 19th and 20th century, keep failing, but also intimates that the big issues of the day, the big threats to the survival of humanity, are today essentially problems of the… Continue reading
Date archives "December 2016"
Germany-wide consortium of research libraries announce boycott of Elsevier journals over open access
Cory Doctorow writes the following at BoingBoing.net: “Germany’s DEAL project, which includes over 60 major research institutions, has announced that all of its members are canceling their subscriptions to all of Elsevier’s academic and scientific journals, effective January 1, 2017. The boycott is in response to Elsevier’s refusal to adopt “transparent business models” to “make… Continue reading
‘Reclaiming the Internet’ with distributed architectures (Special Issue)
The December issue of First Monday [Vol. 21(12)] entitled “‘Reclaiming the Internet’ with distributed architectures” was recently published. This special issue was co-edited by Francesca Musiani and Cécile Méadel. From the editorial: “The interdisciplinary research program ADAM (Distributed Architectures and Multimedia Applications, adam.hypotheses.org), conducted from 2010 to 2014 and funded by the French National Agency… Continue reading
Don’t Mourn, Commonify! The European Commons Assembly Convenes
By David Bollier: Across Europe, a vision of the commons has been emerging in the margins for many years. But now, as the credibility of conventional politics and neoliberal economics plummets, commoners are becoming more visible, assertive and organized. The latest evidence comes from the first meeting of a newly formed European Commons Assembly. More… Continue reading
Profiling a Post-Consumer World
“But other factors shaping a post-consumer future for every segment of society are not a matter of choice. An economy that makes employment for all ages uncertain, and which constrains earnings for the majority, is an economy that can no longer be based on ever-escalating consumer spending, on mass consumption by a socially massive middle… Continue reading
Do it Together: Discover the power of collaboration
We are people like YOU working together for the common good. Community gardens, social centers, maker spaces, activism and all sorts of collaborative projects. Enter http://teem.works and start collaborating! This video was put together by our good friends at Teem, with whom we collaborated as part of the P2PValue project. Read more about Teem in… Continue reading
Finding Common Ground 2: Institutional Diversity for Resilient Societies
Traditionally, approaches to managing resources in society or providing services have tended to be presented as a stark choice between control by the state or by market mechanisms. This binary division ignores a crucial third possibility: management by autonomous citizens. Evidence suggests this approach is crucial to the wellbeing of both individuals and societies. This… Continue reading
Supporting the Commons: Opportunities in the EU policy landscape
Executive Summary & Recommendations – Working Paper – Commons Network, November 2016 Sophie Bloemen & David Hammerstein With support from the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the European Cultural Foundation. Supporting the Commons: Opportunities in the EU policy landscape Major fault lines are starting to appear in the dominant worldview based on individualism, private ownership and an… Continue reading
An exciting new idea in Basic Income
The following post authored by Jordan Greenhall originally appeared on Medium.com One of the biggest challenges to the Basic Income movement has been answering the question, “where do the funds come from”? After all, even a basic income of a mere $5,000 per year for every American adult carries a bill of $1.2 Trillion dollars… Continue reading
Solidarity in Brussels: the voices of the European Commons Assembly
Text by Sophie Jerram: “To open my space, my home – my house, my language, my culture, my nation, my state, and myself…this unconditionality is a frightening thing, it’s scary.” Jacques Derrida on Politics and Friendship in Europe. 1997 Experiences of solidarity and edges of reason On Wednesday 16th November, the second day of the… Continue reading
RD Wolff: The Recession isn’t Over, but is Capitalism?
Unemployment is down and the stock market is up. So we’re in a recovery, right? Many politicians and economists would like us to think that, but in this Upstream Podcast “Sneak Peak”, Professor Richard D. Wolff explains how this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Not only is the recession that started in 2008 far from over, but… Continue reading
Team Human: Kyra D. Gaunt Phd on Full Spectrum Humanity
http://teamhuman.fm/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/TH-Ep.13-Kyra-Gaunt.mp3 Playing for Team Human is author, activist, ethnomusicologist and singer Kyra Gaunt Ph.D. Kyra’s research on the harassment of young women and people of color has recently focused on the YouTube phenomenon of twerking videos and trolling. In today’s episode Kyra and Douglas talk about invisible audiences and their effect on social media… Continue reading
A New Path for Shareable
Dear readers, We have exciting news. For the past six months, our team has been hard at work on forging a new path for Shareable. We sought and received invaluable input from more than 400 readers, 34 leaders in the sharing movement, our readers, partners, board, funders, staff, and Miriam Abrams, our indomitable strategic planning… Continue reading
How the internet is used for “Authoritarian Deliberation”.
Excerpted from TED transcripts by Evgeny Morozov: “What you can actually see is that certain governments have mastered the use of cyberspace for propaganda purposes. Right? And they are building what I call the Spinternet. The combination of spin, on the one hand, and the Internet on the other. So governments from Russia to China… Continue reading
Love, Religion, and Holonic Philosophy
Many religions have professed, at least at some point, to promote some concept of “love.”Christianity, for example, exposited a metaphysical idea of agape, something of transcendent value that allows. Regardless of whether or not this is their founding principle, religions have, by and large,become focused on doctrines, law, or other parts that are not consistent… Continue reading
Individualism cannot lead to political change
Filmmaker Adam Curtis newest documentary called HyperNormalisation, makes the argument that “Self-Expression Is Tearing Society Apart”, as he explains in an Artspace interview by Loney Abrams. Adam Curtis: L.A.: Towards the beginning of HyperNormalisation you talk about a shift that happened in the ‘70s when artists detached from reality and retreated into themselves to mine… Continue reading