A deep dive into Holochain – what some are calling an evolution on blockchain technology, operating “in parallel to BitTorrent to power fully distributed apps” Continuing our coverage of Holochain, the following analysis was written by Tristan Roberts and was originally published in Crypto Insider. Tristan Roberts: Bitcoin made the impossible a reality, and Ethereum aimed… Continue reading
“I was in the forest today and I came out taller than the trees” Karin Eyben, writing for Voluntary Art’s series on Cultural Commons, tells the story of Garvagh People’s Forest. Karin Eyben: Garvagh (from Irish: Garbhach, meaning “rough place” or Garbhachadh meaning “rough field”) is a village in County Londonderry. It was developed in its current lay out by the Canning family in the… Continue reading
It was a woman actually, but that time finally came. Uber’s self driving car will go down in history as the first one to cause a fatality. While Uber should certainly be held responsible for this, judging Uber and its ilk on moral grounds distracts from the real issues at hand. This incident is likely… Continue reading
It’s even worse than I feared. I left Facebook in 2013, less for my own sake than for what my presence on the service was doing to others. I knew that anyone who “liked” my page could have their data harvested in ways they wouldn’t necessarily approve. Over the past five years, people have not… Continue reading
Presenting a new report from CICOPA (the International Organisation of Industrial and Service Cooperatives). Here is the press release. The organization of work and of the production of goods and services is experiencing profound changes that may strongly alter the way we work and the future of work itself. Cooperative employment tends to be more sustainable… Continue reading
Authoritarian institutions Spending some time in Cuba recently was a good opportunity to consider the problems of trying to common institutions from the inside, that is to say, bring them under the control and effective ownership of those who they affect, and particularly those who work within them. Applying this to the institutions that structure… Continue reading
In this interview we caught up with Felix Weth, founder of Fairmondo. Fairmondo, a co-operative social business, is a fair mass marketplace that aims to fight corruption and give power back to the consumer and crowd. Felix Weth talks about Fairmondo, whom we recently profiled in our Commons Transition Primer. This interview was originally published by… Continue reading
Here’s the magic number: 50 billion tons. That’s how much of the Earth’s materials and life forms we can safely use each year, without destroying the web of life. That includes everything from wood to plastic, fish to livestock, minerals to metals: all the physical stuff that we consume. Right now, we’re using about 80 billion tons… Continue reading
Want to discover the world around you? Then maybe it’s time you picked up a sensor. This exciting online course on citizen monitoring and science starts today. The following introduction was written by Drew Hemment and originally published in the Grow Observatory‘s Medium blog. This is an astonishing, precarious time to be alive. There are… Continue reading
Food as a purely private good prevents millions to get access to such a basic resource, since the purchasing power determines its access. With the dominant no money-no food rationality, hunger still prevails in a world of abundance. In this paper, the commons approach is applied to food, deconstructing food as a pure private good… Continue reading
You can ditch Facebook. It’s OK. You will survive. And not only will you get through it, but your life will get better. This month’s revelations that Facebook had sold, released or lost control of millions of users’ data has left many people wanting out — but wondering whether they can leave the social media platform they and hundreds of millions of… Continue reading
Britain is failing its growing army of self-employed workers according to a new report. With 7.1 million workers engaged in ‘precarious’ employment and 77 per cent of the self-employed living in poverty, the report ‘Working Together: Trade Union and Co-operative Innovations for Precarious Work’ calls for increased protection for those operating in the so-called gig… Continue reading
We’re talking about a different mental register of paradigm for understanding the world. For so long, we’ve had this presumption of fiction that the homo economicus, the utility maximizing individual, is the chief agent in the way to see the world. The commons says there is a different way to see humanity—not simply as a notional… Continue reading
Cross-posted from Shareable. Khushboo Balwani: Here’s the problem: The rapid expansion of cities is breaking the relationship that people have with the food ecosystem. Although the problem is receiving attention by some city officials, and they are adopting new sustainability programs and policies, it is a time-consuming, top-down process with an uncertain impact. What if with… Continue reading
Alnoor Ladha: This interview is the first in a 17-part series and forthcoming book entitled The Deschooling Dialogues: Wisdom from the Front Lines of the Battle Against the Western Mind edited by Alnoor Ladha (AL). He is an activist, author and the Executive Director of The Rules, a global collective of activists focused on addressing the root causes of… Continue reading
Since Bitcoin appeared in 2009, the digital currency has been hailed as an Internet marvel and decried as the preferred transaction vehicle for all manner of criminals. It has left nearly everyone without a computer science degree confused: Just how do you “mine” money from ones and zeros? Don’t miss this forthcoming book, co-authored by… Continue reading