the 15thMay Movement reveals that far from being the passive agents that so many analysts take them to be, citizens have been able to organise themselves in the midst of a profound crisis of political representation and institutional abandonment. The new generations have learned how to shape the web, creating new ways of “being together”,… Continue reading
Al Jazeera’s Network Revolution: a timeline and account of the cyberwar accompagnying the Arab uprisings
Worth watching for its timeline of the not so visible digital side of the struggles:
Wikipedia as an Epistemological Revolution: from individualist expert to collaborative knowledge
Excerpted from Maria Bustillos: 1. “Wikipedia is the foreshock of an epistemological earthquake to rival the one set rumbling by Johannes Gutenberg ca. 1439. Bob Stein, founder and co-director of the Institute for the Future of the Book (and co-founder, in 1984, of the Criterion Collection company) has been writing persuasively in this vein about… Continue reading
The Sangham seed and p2p lending movement in India
Farmers are “misled” into believing the promise that the high-input, chemical-intensive, single-crop agriculture of the so-called “green revolution” is their salvation, he says. So when it fails, they end up trapped in a debt spiral that too often leads to despair and suicide. “Those that say that the green revolution will save the world should… Continue reading
An alliance between labor and enterpreneurs
I’ve argued repeatedly that social change is dependent on finding the right form of alliance between peer producers, and workers generally, and real enterpreneurs. In the U.S. heartland, this seems to be happening, as documented in the Washington Monthly. There is a lot of fine analysis in this article by Barry C. Lynn, which I… Continue reading
Youth Revolution 2011: Voices from the #15M May 15 Spanish mobilizations
Video with voices from the demonstrators and analysis by José Luis Sampedro. Click on cc below the video for english subtitles. (if that function doesn’t work in this embedded version, go here to the original) Watch this video: This is a good visual representation in english as well:
Declaration of Principles – Barcelona Protest Camp
DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES #acampadabcn We have come here voluntarily and by free will. After the 15th of May demonstrations we have decided to remain united and grow in numbers on our fight for dignity. We do not represent any political party and they do not represent us. We are united on our rage, our discomfort, our precarious life… Continue reading
Two interviews on open design and economical sustainability
Open design, co-design and p2p production are influencing not only the way we think about designing and making things but also the way we approach economical sustainability, supply chain and business models. In the past weeks Massimo Menichinelli interviewed us (Bertram Niessen and me) on Openwear and Peter Toxler on some issues regarding these topics… Continue reading
Edgar Cahn on the two impulses of human nature and corresponding money systems
Draft interview excerpted from the Money and Life documentary. Edgar Cahn is the founder of the Time Banks. Edgar Cahn interview from StormCloud Media on Vimeo.
Yoga to the People
Yoga to the People is a unique yoga studio with the goal of recapturing what we consider to be the essence of yoga… simply put, yoga made available to everyone. In a time where yoga as a business is getting a lot of attention, the fact that it is being priced out of many people’s… Continue reading
The global commons and the defense the soils, the seas and the skies against commodification
Pat Mooney on the threats against the commons and what is at stake at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 4-6, 2012. Interview made at the World Social Forum in Dakar in February 2011 for « The commons on the global agenda… Continue reading
2021: the tipping point for peer to peer banking and government taxation
If you thought the wars over knowledge and culture were intense, I believe we’ll see much more interesting events unfold in the coming decade. The decentralized, uncontrollable economy where one lifetime employment is no longer central to every human being is something I’ve called the swarm economy, and I predict it will redefine society to… Continue reading
#acampadabcn Barcelona Occupation
UPDATE: front page of Washington Post reporting on the situation in Madrid (pdf)
Kafka in Brazil: Minister Ana de Hollanda’s non-transparent copyright reform consultation process
Excerpted from Pedro Paranaguá: “Despite the nearly 8,000 contributions received in 2010 through an online, open and transparent platform that enables everyone to have full access to all content of the proposals, now the Ministry of Culture’s new administration is launching another consultation. Yes, another. This time, however, one cannot say that it is open… Continue reading
Isabella Lövin – Pillaging the Sea: another tragedy of the Commons
Isabella Lövin is a Swedish Member of the European Parliament. A member of the Green Party, she is a journalist and author of the best seller « Silent Sea » in 2007. She speaks here about how the pillaging of the sea is an example of the tragedy of the Commons and shows its relationship… Continue reading
Douglas Rushkoff’s canonization by the Church of Life After Shopping
In traditional American ‘rant’ style, Douglas Rushkoff makes some really important points about the history of the anti-market system known as capitalism. Really entertaining to boot. Watch this video: