Intentional communities experiment with and develop many different forms of interpersonal and group processes, or communication methods among people, some of which migrate into and influence the larger culture. Excerpted from Allen Butcher: “Intentional communities also make or adapt innovations in group process, for inter-personal communication, self-governance, and communal economics. There are many forms of… Continue reading
Last Year’s Best P2P Books
I never fully finished and published the selection of best p2p books for 2012 (yes!), but it would be really a shame to miss that selection. So before publishing our best book list of 2013, here is a recap of last year’s choices, just in time to still be able to say ‘last year’. Find… Continue reading
Even in the p2p age, we will need large-scale supra-state organisations
Slavoj Zizek, making a lot of sense as usual. Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuqiJWo9Xis&feature=youtu.be
Book of the Day: Re-Thinking Social Protection as a Commons
* Book: Francine Mestrum: Building Another World: Re-thinking Social Protection. Global Social Justice, 2013 Francine Mestrum writes: “It is a proposal for a new concept of social protection, which is particularly important at the moment that international organizations start to make their proposals for ‘social protection’. The ILO came out with its ‘social protection floors’,… Continue reading
MOOCs and Big Data vs. Labor and Gender Discrimination
“Soon, your MOOC performance will be sold to online recruiters taking advantage of the kinds of information that big data allows—fine distinctions not only on content assimilation but also participation, contribution to, and status within associated online communities. But what if these new possibilities—used by recruiters and managers to efficiently and objectively get the best… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations
Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations * Article: Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations. By Gary Ruskin – Essential Information, 2013. Report on corporate espionage/surveillance of nonprofit advocacy groups. Executive Summary “This report is an effort to document something we know little about: corporate espionage against nonprofit organizations. The entire subject is veiled in secrecy. In… Continue reading
Creating buildings and environments that support life (Interview with Nikos Salingaros)
Click on the play button below to listen to the interview: Interview with Nikos Salingaros by James Alexander Arnfinsen, originally published by Levevei.no Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:46 — 62.0MB) “In this episode I have the delight of connecting with Nikos Salingaros, who is a Professor in Mathematics, an Urbanist and Architectural Theorist. He is originally from Greece, but… Continue reading
Restructuring the economy with empathy as its center
Democracy is lost unless we re-structure our economies, and re-structuring our economies requires a new operating system based on different values. That’s what empathy provides, not in its “thin” form as a vague appreciation of peoples’ feelings, but in its “thick” form that commits everyone to foster the wellbeing of others, and do no harm…. Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Economy of Contribution in the Digital Commons
* Article: Andreas Wittel (2013) Counter-commodification: The economy of contribution in the digital commons, Culture and Organization, 19:4, 314-331 (a free downloadable copy is available here) Andreas Wittel writes: “I have recently published an article where I try to explain why the difficulties in building the digital commons are not due to the exploitation of free… Continue reading
The Vacation Credit Labor System as the Benedictine Rule for emerging post-capitalist times
“Now with the vacation-credit labor system, secular communal society has what Catholic monasticism has had with Benedict’s Rule, a means of organizing a communal, labor-sharing economy without the use of money, and in the case of egalitarian community, with a participatory as opposed to an authoritarian form of governance. Kat Kinkade’s labor system innovation may… Continue reading