The ‘Uneconomics’ debate is headed up by Will Davies at Our Kingdom/Open Democracy and can be found here http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/collections/uneconomics.
Fifteen Citations about Peer to Peer Learning and Education
digital technologies are now providing educators and students with tools of study, as opposed to tools of instruction For the original sources, go here. 1. Value lies in what cannot scale “Content is no longer a value point. Teaching and accreditation still are, but to a lessor degree than only a decade ago. Individual assessment,… Continue reading
Civic Crowdfunding shouldn’t undermine public services
Crowdfunding can be used to undermine public goods and services, and this should be avoided, argues Ethan Zuckermann. But first, he gives some examples. Ethan Zuckermann: “Kansas City was denied funds from the US Department of Transportation to build a new streetcar line. Jase Wilson is now trying to raise $10 million towards the streetcar… Continue reading
Money Should Not Be a Commodity, but a Measure of Value
From Marc Gauvin: (for version with links, see here) Source: We Don’t Need Money to Circulate. V 3.0. By Marc Gauvin, In support of The Passive BIBO Liquidity Project. Abstract “The only logically coherent and scientifically valid function of money/currency is to record the measure of value and its divisions so that the value of… Continue reading
Abundance/Scarcity and Equality/Hierarchy: Four Basic Scenarios for the Future
A very important essay: * Frase, Peter. Four futures. Jacobin. 2012 Winter; 5:27–34. “Frase considers the endgame of our current political struggles, locating future scenarios along two axes: scarcity versus abundance, and social hierarchy versus equality. This yields four possibilities: * communism (abundance with equality), * rentism (abundance with hierarchy), * socialism (scarcity with equality),… Continue reading
New work collectives in Greece (part I): the “Pagaki” traditional cafe
This post about Athens-based “Pagaki” collective is the first of a series which is going to document various work collectives in Greece. For this article we asked “Pagaki” (which stands for “bench” in Greek) to provide us with a version of their manifesto/about us in English. Needless to say more, we let people from “Pagaki”… Continue reading
Pam Warhurst on Incredible Edible in Todmorden
Recommended talk: “What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With energy and humor, Pam Warhurst tells at the TEDSalon the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable gardens, and to change the narrative of food… Continue reading
Ecosphera in Forli: Community-supportive Type B cooperative systems in Italy
Watch this interesting presentation:
A return to a political economy based on distributed property
John Médaille is a U.S.-based ‘distributist’. Distributism is a tradition which originated within Catholic social thought and stresses that the distribution of property between all citizens is a prerequisite for a just and prosperous society, and sharply distinguishes equitable markets from capitalism. This speech was given in Romania, for the Advanced School of Economics, under… Continue reading
The loss of unity and polarisation within the Occupy movement
The following is from a long analysis of what went wrong with the Occupy movement. It traces its dislocation to the loss of the unifying encampments, the subsequent polarisation within the movement, and the rise of confrontational tactics that lacked a connection with mass movement. Excerpted from a long analysis by Jen Roesch: “It would… Continue reading
Hackitat – A film about political hacking, world wide
What compels some people to spend a lot of time and energy on setting up servers, creating programs and even committing crimes to help people in a dictatorship in another country to communicate freely? Who are the people building a nation on the Internet and why are they doing it? How are the hackers in… Continue reading
Ten Citations on peer to peer spirituality
For the sources, go here. Simply I learned about her, and ungrudgingly do I share — her riches I do not hide away – Old Testament, The Book of Wisdom 7,13 I. John Heron on the relational ground of human consciousness. “I prefer to think of the spiritual development of human culture as rooted in… Continue reading
Why is the UN Trying to Take over the Internet?
In an article published by Forbes Magazine, Larry Downes rightly denounces efforts by the International Telecommunications Union to gain control over the Internet. The main bone of contention seems to be a proposal to make senders pay a fee to receiving countries – for content the users in those countries request. Since most Internet content… Continue reading
The extraordinary militarized New Zealand police raid against the Kim Dotcom filesharing company
Evidence of extraordinary ‘over the top’ military tactics during the illegal raid in New Zealand: Via: “Kim Dotcom, the founder of file sharing site Megaupload, was arrested in January by the New Zealand Police in response to US charges of criminal copyright infringement. Since then he has been the topic of enormous controversy and still… Continue reading
Interspecies communication (2): Where does life start?
The academy is now being infiltrated by non-indigenous voices articulating the idea that life/not life is too binary and restrictive. This indicates greater scope at this moment in history for bringing indigenous voices to the conversational table. What is different between indigenous and Western standpoints? Kim TallBear, a cultural anthropologist of Dakota background, continues our… Continue reading
From downloadable chemistry to desktop chemical processing plants
Abhijit Anand Prabhudan writes that: “Modern chemical processing plants take multi million dollar investments. 3d printing is not just for creating solid objects, this innovation points to new direction. Think about this such 3d printers can be refined and developed to produce not just pharma but most essential chemical formulations needed by individuals and households… Continue reading