As my C4SS comrade Charles Johnson has pointed out, circumventing state authority and capitalist monopoly is far more cost-effective than lobbying and organizing to reform the law. This is confirmed, once again, by news of open-source hardware projects that offer much cheaper versions of two outrageously expensive medical devices: the EpiPen and the MRI machine…. Continue reading
This is the first article of the Be More Human series, which explores ideas and issues that define the new economy. This piece was written by Pedro Jardim and edited by Ben Riddle. The article was originally published at Coliga: “When I was 17, I moved from my birthplace in São Paulo, Brazil to Germany…. Continue reading
http://teamhuman.fm/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/TH_11-Steven-Lambert.01_01.mp3 Playing for Team Human is art activist Steve Lambert. Steve reclaims public spaces with his work, igniting the radical imagination and critical thinking of his audience collaborators. With his recent piece, “Capitalism Works For Me!(True/False),” Lambert brought an interactive scoreboard out to the public, and in doing so, sparked an honest, candid, and personal discussion… Continue reading
Creative Commons: Citizen science is the powerful idea that communities should be empowered to participate in the process of scientific inquiry, investigating the world around them and creating societal change in the process. One of the most prominent projects within the citizen and civic science movement is Public Lab, a community of individuals using inexpensive… Continue reading
Crossposted from Platformcoop.net Matthieu Lietaert: The sector of online food delivery is booming in many cities in the economically developed world. It’s a promising market and many corporations like Deliveroo or UberEATS are pedaling fast to move in and win the race. The recent strikes of couriers’ have shown that despite all the millions of dollars in venture capital, the human factor is… Continue reading
Maira Sutton: The economy can often feel like it’s out of our control — a system that abides by its own forces that we have no power to influence. While business reporters tend to spotlight the rise and fall of stock prices and policymakers focus on gross domestic product (GDP) to push their agendas, these… Continue reading
This month, the United States news media began fretting publicly over “fake news”. Stanford university published a study revealing that middle school students did not distinguish between “sponsored content” and real news. If you are laughing as you read this, I can’t fault you. In the United States a dozen billionaires own nearly all media companies…. Continue reading
We’re happy to share this recent article on CopyFair tendencies. It was written by Brian Loudon and originally published in loud1design.co.uk: On Patents, Open Source Design and Reciprocity I previously blogged on open source and IP here and I wanted to revisit this in a more concise way to focus in on the limitations of open… Continue reading
A very interesting report on public perception regarding money creation. Originally published in Positive Money’s website. More than 23,000 people in 20 countries were asked about who they think actually creates 95% of the money in circulation and who they think should create most of the money. These questions were part of the Glocalities survey… Continue reading
By Silke Helfrich and David Bollier: “At the end of the day, we are what we do to change who we are.” –Eduardo Galeano As the idea of patterns of commoning suggests, commons are not objects, but actions. In Part II, we would like to illustrate the many forms that commoning takes by examining more… Continue reading
Two Austrian privacy researchers, Wolfie Christl and Sarah Spiekermann, have conducted a comprehensive study about corporate surveillance, digital tracking, big data and privacy. Their detailed report shows, how networks of companies are collecting, analyzing, sharing and making use of vast amounts of personal information about billions of people. The report was originally published at Cracked… Continue reading
This video from the amazing Platform Cooperativism conference that took place recently, brings the good news of the creation of transformative unionized labor platform coops for healthcare: “Platform cooperativism has the potential to completely transform the caregiving industry – including childcare and homecare – into dignified jobs where people make a livable wage and have… Continue reading