“UnMonasterians could do worse than devote some serious time in studying the benedictine ways as a protocol for societal impact in social innovation. This consists of the Rule (software), the physical arrangement of the monasteries and abbeys (for example, single cells for monks to sleep in are a part of the protocol governing monastic life… Continue reading
Movement of the Day: the Catalan Integrated Cooperative
Excerpted from Patricia Manrique: “The Catalan Integrated Cooperative (CIC) began two years ago; it now has 850 members and several thousand people who participate in debates and projects. Under the label “integrated,” the Cooperative functions as a political project seeking to tie together consumer and labor initiatives “and many others, such as education, mechanisms to… Continue reading
Introducing Farm Hack
Farm Hack is a farmer-driven community to develop, document and build tools for resilient agriculture. Watch the video here:
Video: Marc-David Choukroun on Food Communities
Keynote presentation via OuishareTV: Marc-David Choukroun is the Co-Founder of La Ruche Quit Dit Oui. Watch the video here:
Software is reorganizing the world – from cloud computing to cloud countries
In his recent Wired opinion piece “Software Is Reorganizing the World”, Balaji Srinivasan asks whether the affinity groups we form on the net will eventually coalesce into real physical locations where we come together not because we were born in a certain place or grew up there or happen to work there, but because we… Continue reading
Flyer: The Representative Ingroup Democracy (RID) Model
Download the flyer in English language (pdf): Can bytes save the future? The money value delusion. Download the flyer in German language (pdf): Können Bytes die Zukunft retten? Die Geldwert-Täuschung. Is it possible to design a democratic, solidary and sustainable society, stabilised by human ingroup drivers? Excerpt: “In our book «The biological human being –… Continue reading
“Damn the Masters’ Plan!”, by Wouter Vanstiphout
Strelka Talks. “Damn the Masters’ Plan!” by Wouter Vanstiphout from Strelka Institute on Vimeo. Read more at Archiframe. Nikos Salingaros says about this video: Here is an excellent video linking urbanicide to modernism. Wouter still likes the modernist aesthetic look, but he clearly analyzes its destructiveness. It’s what we have been saying all along, though… Continue reading
Interview with FLOSSK in Pristina, Kosovo
Part of the Open-Steps.org tour of open (data) initiatives around the world. Interviewed are Gent Thaçi, Ardian Haxha, Altin Ukshini from FLOSSK ( Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova ) flossk.org. Watch the video here:
Support Radical Alternatives Donate to Riseup.net
As you may have seen, Riseup is having our annual fundraising drive (help.riseup.net/donate). Riseup.net provides free and secure internet communication tools to tens of thousands of activist organizations and individuals across the world. The need for this has become painfully obvious this last year, what with all the damn spying. As we see it, the… Continue reading
The Commons and Co-operative Commonwealth
Pat Conaty is a leading expert in the emerging Commons movement and a research associate with Co-operatives UK. He is also co-author with Micheal Lewis of “The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady-state Economy” Pat recently presented at Schumacher College on the ‘The Commons and Co-operative Commonwealth’ – posted above are the full set… Continue reading
ModEling a Democratic green ecOnomy for a Sustainable Society (MEDOSS)
A VERY PROMISING NORWEGIAN RESEARCH PROJECT (download pdf): – ModEling a Democratic green ecOnomy for a Sustainable Society (MEDOSS)
Movement of the Day: Red de Evolución Colaborativa
Excerpted from Victor Valenzuela: “We are a Chilean group called “Red de Evolución Colaborativa” (Collaborative Evolution Network), RedEC. We work in the study, analysis, implementation and promotion of alternative production models. Our goal is to reach a society that allows an indefinite, collective and individual development (social evolution). We are profoundly convinced that the peer… Continue reading
Video: Local Currencies for Global Resilience
Via OuiShareTV: “In the recent year we have seen a boom in complementary currencies. What are they? What can they do? How can Citizen, Companies and/or Local municipalities use and design their own currency to serve a mission that they agree on? With concrete examples of Toulouse and a time-bank Projet in Barcelona we will… Continue reading
New Intertrading Protocol for Complementary Currency Systems
Press Release An international group of monetary experts met at The Hague in June and engaged a process to define a common Intertrading protocol. By using this protocol, complementary currency systems become interoperable and able to exchange in a global marketplace. Culminating substantial discussions in the group, some experts met in Berlin this September and… Continue reading
Presenting the Open Source Beehives project
“The Open Source Beehives project is a collaborative response to the threat faced by bee populations in industrialised nations around the world. We design hives that can support bee colonies in a sustainable way, to monitor and track the health and behaviour of a colony as it develops. Each hive contains an open source sensory… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Free Seeds, Not Free Beer
* Article: Free Seeds, Not Free Beer”: Participatory Plant Breeding, Open Source Seeds, and Acknowledging User Innovation in Agriculture. Keith Aoki. UC Davis Legal Studies Research Paper Series ; Research Paper No. 167, April 2009 Summary: “This essay has examined the relevance of user-innovation in the context of participatory plant breeding. This essay first looked… Continue reading