Watch the video here, from the Real News Network: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqFuch9ym3g
Douglas Rushkoff on understanding the good and the bad of Presentism
Willie Osterweil of Shareable did a great interview about Doug’s latest book, Present Shock: * Willie Osterweil: Throughout the book and your writings you talk about how ideas germinate over long periods of time. How did you first come up with the concept of Present Shock? Is this an idea that has been building slowly,… Continue reading
Launch of the Track Off anti-surveillance campaign
Below is a trailer for a forthcoming documentary about online privacy that launches an action campaign against surveillance called Track Off: “Recent news makes shockingly clear the extent to which Americans are being tracked by websites and surveilled by law enforcement agencies. But it’s become evident that even our policymakers don’t understand the breadth of… Continue reading
Why you should read the essay, Red Plenty Platforms
Nick Dyer-Whiteford, in an extended review of Red Plenty, discusses the renewed possibilities for cybernetic planning. In this first installment, we present the history and present forms of this economic thought movement. This is a very informative and thoughtful essay. * Article: RED PLENTY PLATFORMS. By Nick Dyer-Witheford. CULTURE MACHINE VOL 14 • 2013 From… Continue reading
The Supercell Autonomous Team Model
Walter Chen describes the governance model of the Supercell gaming company: “Supercell, a remarkable Finnish company that’s making $2.5 million dollars every day and has been described as “the fastest growing company ever.” Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen, calls himself “the world’s least powerful CEO”, and that’s not the surprising part. What’s incredible is that Paananen… Continue reading
Cooperative Land Banks
Pat Conaty writes: “The issue and question for me though is: Is the current system reformable? It appears not to be or at least in relation to the dominant parts. Therefore the arguments for ecological reconstruction that Gar Alperovitz has been advancing seems to me to be the viable and practical way forward. Critical to… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Jacopo Amistani on the Open Source Ecology Project in Europe
“The network of Open Source Ecology in Italy have to face new challenges and have new opportunity to deal with. There are a lot off differences between the USA and Europe and we will not let this differences stop us. The diffusion and the reproduction of the GVCS and the realisation of the Open Source… Continue reading
Why you should read Red Plenty!
Nick Dyer-Whiteford contextualizes this important book: “Shortly after the great Wall Street meltdown of 2008, a novel about obscure and remote historical events provided an unexpected node for discussion of the ongoing crisis. Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty (2010) offered a fictionalized account of the failed attempt by Soviet cyberneticians of the 1960s to establish a… Continue reading
The Provision of Public Services by Civil Society
Excerpted from John Restakis (in ch. 6 of Humanizing the Economy): “The argument for promoting a renewed role for civil society in the production of social services does not mean the abandonment of the fundamental principle of collective responsibility for these services. Nor does it mean the abrogation of state responsibility in favour of private… Continue reading
Video: Sascha Meinrath on the Commotion Wireless Open Source Wireless Meshwork
The sofware enables “what is called a “mesh” network that allows you to share Internet access with other devices on the network. “It challenges this business model that everyone has to buy their own Internet connection, and it really puts forth this notion of, ‘Why don’t we share resources?’ We can share them across our… Continue reading