It is through our participation — although not only through our participation — that God (or the Goddess, or the Tao, or Life) works wonders. How to position yourself in a world of change, while being a force for good? An interesting response from Tom Atlee: “These strategies are remarkably consistent with what you’d expect… Continue reading
Open Education: Changing Educational Practices
E-Learning Papers have published its issue number 23 entitled “Open Education: Changing Educational Practices”. You can download it from this link. In the Editorial section, Ulf-Daniel Ehlers and Tapio Koskinen, says: The idea of open education has spread to hundreds of educational institutions, foremost higher education and adult learning institutions, across the globe. “Giving away… Continue reading
Is ignoring copyright the best strategy against IP monopolists?
Rick Falkvinge has an excellent editorial on the death of copyright if the IP industry ignores all appeals for sensible reform, such as those proposed by the Swedish Pirate Party. Kevin Carson has a further reaction: “I think ignoring the law and developing countermeasures against enforcement are a much more cost-effective use of resources than… Continue reading
Disempowerment of labor: enough is enough
Excerpted from David Harvey in an analysis of the prospects for continued neoliberalism after the meltdown of 2008: 1. Disempowerment of labor: enough is enough “Whether we can get out of this crisis in a different way depends very much upon the balance of class forces. It depends upon the degree to which the entire… Continue reading
Successful Global Commons need Social Capital on a global scale
Kaitlyn Rathwell makes an important point relative to an age of global problems, global solutions and global governance, i.e. we need global trust. This can be achieved through local engagement, global solidarity, and the intelligent use of social network tools. Excerpted from a longer article by Kaitlyn Rathwell: “We can start now building trust, reciprocity,… Continue reading
Wikileaks, Hacktivism 2.0 and the Threats to National Sovereignty and Empire
Very interesting essay in the Hungarian blog War Systems (from Bodó Balázs ), which has two important themes. First is how Wikileaks/Anonymous represent new threats to the principle of sovereignty, and second how they represent an empowerement of hacktivism 2.0, defined as ‘attacks from the inside’. Read the whole essay here. 1. First Theme: Wikileaks… Continue reading
PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference 2011
The Public Knowledge Project is pleased to announce that, in partnership with the Freie Universität Berlin, the Third International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference will be held from September 26 – 28, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. This is the first time that the PKP Conference is being held outside of Vancouver, Canada, and we look forward… Continue reading
Reportage on a Seed Commons project and p2p farmers network in the Andhra Pradesh region of India
Reproduced from an article by David Bollier: “Over the past twenty-five years, thousands of women in small villages in the Andhra Pradesh region of India have escaped from working as low-paid, bonded laborers, to become self-reliant farmers able to grow enough to feed their households. Food was once unaffordable and hunger common. Now the women… Continue reading
Business Models for Open Hardware
Few months ago, Platoniq commissioned me a report about business models for Open Hardware, DIY Craft and Fab Labs, for their crowdfunding project Goteo. It is now available in Spanish from Platoniq’s YouCoop website, and on openp2pdesign.org in English. I’m now reposting it here, since the text is under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons… Continue reading
Every technological benefit is also a handicap: media effects on youth learning
Mark Bauerlein focuses on what we loose through heavy use of digital media. Are we really the “Dumbest Generation”? His points seem valid and worth pondering:
Property Rights in the Commons: The ubiquity of mixed systems
* Research article. Ostrom’s Law: Property Rights in the Commons. Lee Anne Fennell (University of Chicago Law School). International Journal of the Commons, Vol 5, No 1 (2011). One of the key articles in the latest issue of the IJC, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Ostrom’s ‘Governing the Commons’. Abstract “Elinor Ostrom’s work has… Continue reading
Going from weak ties connections to engagement relationships
After explaining the difference between connections and relations in a previous post, Gideon Rosenblatt goes to the heart of the matter of what is important for social change mobilization: ” The weak-tie connections we build on Twitter and Facebook are great for asking small favors like signing online petitions. Connections are not relationships and not… Continue reading
After Japan: Time for an Energy Revolution
Tzeporah Berman, co-head of the climate and energy campaign at Greenpeace International, gives a TedX talk about the solution to our current and future energy needs: Details: Founding principles The Energy [R]evolution is based on five founding principles: * Increase human well-being without fossil fuels. * Fair energy access for all, including the 2 billion… Continue reading
The SSG Framework for Cloud Manufacturing: bringing modularity to matter
A proposed standards methodology for ‘production outside the factory’, by Dominic Muren: We should aim for a DJ culture for objects “Sourceforge is a great example of what a distributed community can accomplish by working on small pieces together. It was the need to allow local developers to work on small parts that lead to… Continue reading
Landmark legal ruling: The Supreme Court of India Defends the Village Commons
Excerpted via David Bollier, where you can read the more extensive legal analysis: “While common lands and waters are being stolen by investors and developers the world over, the Supreme Court of India decided it was not going to look the other way. In a bold, surprising ruling, the Court made a sweeping defense of… Continue reading
Robin Dunbar explains the Dunbar Number
Excellent presentation of relational limits by the originator of the Dunbar Number hypothesis: