Reposted from Medium Milica Begovic, Joost Beunderman, Indy Johar: The intent of putting the Next Generation Governance (#NextGenGov) agenda at the centre of the Istanbul Innovation Days 2018 was to start to explore the future of the world’s governance challenges, and to debate how a new set of models are needed to address a growing… Continue reading
Michel Bauwens: This video from IASC COMMONS is covers the evolution of the commons through history, and the role of the commons in the current shift from labor-based capitalism to contribution-based capitalism and the potential for post-capitalist developments in this particular context Photo by † David Gunter
In modeling systems dynamics, Self-Reinforcing Feedback, also known as a Positive Feedback Loop, happens when the output of a process amplifies the input to that process in continuing cycles of that process. That may have made it sound complicated, but it’s fairly simple. In a large group of cattle, if something startles a few of… Continue reading
The following is reposted from Daniel Pinchbeck’s newsletter. Daniel Pinchbeck: I want to let you know about a new activist movement I am supporting, Extinction Rebellion. Our movement is using large-scale direct actions to pressure governments to move faster on climate change. We have three immediate demands. One is that governments tell the truth about the ecological… Continue reading
Technology offers the potential for a better society. But only if used wisely and fairly, and this is the part we are missing and need to focus on.
Continue readingThough created by humans, our technologies, markets, and institutions often contain an antihuman agenda. Douglas Rushkoff, digital theorist and host of the NPR-One podcast Team Human, reveals the dynamics of this antihuman machinery and invites us to remake these aspects of society in ways that foster our humanity. In 100 aphoristic statements, his manifesto exposes how… Continue reading
SUNY professor and author Virginia Eubanks on how our government and corporations are erasing social services through unequal digital practices. About Virginia Eubanks Virginia Eubanks is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is the author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor; Digital Dead End: Fighting… Continue reading
Andrew Leonard, writing in Medium, compares current Blockchain hype to the cybertarian utopianism of the the early Internet: Andrew Leonard: I remember the day I fell in love with the Internet as well as I remember the birth of my children. The summer of 1993; I was a reporter at the alt-weekly San Francisco Bay Guardian and my editor… Continue reading
By Trebor Scholz. Originally published in Platform.Coop Friends, This has been a difficult but also consequential year for many of us. Beyond the political chaos, we bore witness to the “Death of Tumblr,” the pushback against Upwork’s time-tracking software, and compelling scholarly analysis of Uber’s role in the labor market. Facebook gave Netflix and Spotify access to the private messages of… Continue reading
Jeffrey Hollender: In his book Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich provides an outstanding guide to many of the factors that prevent the possibility of a truly free market. He writes: Few ideas have more profoundly poisoned the minds of more people than the notion of a… Continue reading
Knowledge, Spirit, Law // Book 1: Radical Scholarship by Gavin Keeney, published by Punctum Books. Knowledge, Spirit, Law is a de facto phenomenology of scholarship in the age of neoliberal capitalism. The eleven essays (plus Appendices) in Book 1: Radical Scholarship cover topics and circle themes related to the problems and crises specific to neoliberal academia,… Continue reading
Eau de Paris (EDP) was set up to end a fragmented, opaque and expensive municipal water service. Relying on strong political will, the city of Paris has worked to make water management a major democratic issue, ensuring better-managed and cheaper water supplies, and an environmental strategy that is second to none. Before 2010, Paris’s water… Continue reading
Stefaan G. Verhulst and Andrew Young: The hype surrounding the potential of blockchain technologies– the distributed ledger technology (DLT) undergirding cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin – to transform the way industries and sectors operate and exchange records is reaching a fever pitch. Governments and civil society have now also joined the quest and are actively exploring the… Continue reading
Cross-posted from Shareable. This article was adapted from our latest book, “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons.” Download your free pdf copy today. Johannes Euler: In Cochabamba, Bolivia, the lack of water has caused conflicts for decades. In 1999, Cochabamba’s public water supplier, SEMAPA, was leased to the international consortium Aguas del Tunari. The major shareholder of the… Continue reading
David Brooks discusses the signs of civic renewal, making a number of interesting historical comparisons (for example, with the Progressive Era in the US). “What makes for ‘thick’ organizations, where relationships heal atomisation”. This is a really great presentation. Photo by Ian Sane
Calls for a Universal Basic Income have been increasing, most recently as part of the Green New Deal introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and supported in the last month by at least 40 members of Congress. A Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a monthly payment to all adults with no strings attached, similar to Social Security. Critics… Continue reading