“It must be continually stressed that we really are dealing with a tiny percentage of the population. Even if you include their minions in the security apparatus it’s still less than 1%. The Stasi in East Germany were the most feared security service in the world; they commanded about half-a-million informants; yet they were overthrown… Continue reading
Towards biodiversity in currencies
Specifically, I believe that we need to support the introduction and expansion of three different kinds of currencies alongside our national currencies: (1) an inflation-proof global complementary currency designed to stabilize the world economy; (2) business-to-business currencies designed to counteract the effects of conventional money shortages during periods of economic crises and contraction; and (3)… Continue reading
McKenzie Wark on Technological Constructionism and Tektology
Excerpted from McKenzie Wark: This was a key insight of a now little-known thinker who has preoccupied me a lot lately: Alexander Bogdanov. He was Lenin’s rival for the leadership of the Bolsheviks, before Lenin forced him out. He spent a chunk of the rest of his life working on the problem of how different… Continue reading
Podcast of the day: The Extraenviromentalist: Changing Reactions.
From our friends at The Extraenviromentalist Podcast. From the episode notes: The catastrophe at Fukushima presents the opportunity to re-evaluate basic assumptions about energy and technology but the temptation to double down on business as usual becomes incredibly strong. Will our species obtain a paradigm shift in the face of an energy emergency? Could we create new… Continue reading
Book of the Day: The End of Power
* Book: THE END OF POWER. By Moises Naim. From a review by Tom Atlee: “Moises Naim’s new book THE END OF POWER should properly be called “The Decay of Power”. His thesis is that while it is becoming easier to get power, it is also becoming harder to use it to control others and… Continue reading
McKenzie Wark on the Rentier Vectoral Class
This is a ruling class that, in its quiet moments, knows it has failed its historical task and is preparing for the worst. Our task then is the hardest one: orderly retreat. Even if this bankrupt and enervated form of organization based on commodification were to disappear tomorrow, the material conditions of existence are still… Continue reading
Podcast of the day: The Extraenviromentalist: David McNally on Successfully Resisting Austerity
From our friends at The Extraenviromentalist Podcast. From the episode notes: Through the transfer of private debt to balance sheets of governments around the world, we’ve entered an age of austerity where citizens are experiencing drastic cuts to basic necessities. Civil unrest has resulted from people demanding that corporate greed should be punished instead of individuals. As… Continue reading
Dave Hakkens about the Co-Design of Phonebloks
Watch the video here: Simone Cicero‘s original article has the transcript and explains the context: “Few days ago, after the presentation of the joint venture between Phonebloks and Motorola, called Project Ara, that I pretty enthusiastically commented earlier on this blog, we reached out to Phonebloks website with a contact request. Surprisingly enough we got… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Revolutionary or Less Than Revolutionary Recognition
* Article: Revolutionary or Less-Than-Revolutionary Recognition? By Richard Gunn & Adrian Wilding Summary: “In the course of the last twenty years, the term recognition has entered the lexicon of mainstream political theory. The present paper takes issue with accounts of recognition which have become influential in these decades. Our criticism of such accounts is twofold:… Continue reading
Michael Sandel on Why We Shouldn’t Trust Markets With Our Civic Life
Via TEDTalks: “In the past three decades, says Michael Sandel, the US has drifted from a market economy to a market society; it’s fair to say that an American’s experience of shared civic life depends on how much money they have. (Three key examples: access to education, access to justice, political influence.) In a talk… Continue reading