An excerpt from a cogent questioning of NGO’s role by Joan Roelofs. Excerpt: “Why would these philanthropic efforts offend anyone? Why do they hate our kind hearts? In the first place, these public-private philanthropies have worked together to fund and direct overthrow movements. We had a “Subversive Activities Control Board” here, but export was encouraged…. Continue reading
Paul Fernhout: for a right meshwork between organic and industrial agriculture
Despite the fact that evidence demonstrating organic agriculture’s productive potential has been steadily accumulating, there are still many voices holding out to industrial agriculture’s absolute superiority. For example, in these commentaries about Postapocalyptic Gardens on the IEET website (also here) Bruno Rinesi writes that: Home gardening as a significant food source for consumption and barter… Continue reading
The Crisis in Agriculture & Food: Conflict, Resistance, & Renewal
Bob Sheak reports on Monthly Review’s latest issue on the Crisis in Agriculture at the Local Food Systems website. Bob Sheak: “The focus of the issue is captured in its title: “The Crisis in Agriculture & Food: Conflict, Resistance, & Renewal.” The first articles document the terrible damage and disastrous trends associated with the corporate-dominated… Continue reading
How the Mozilla Foundation leads its voluntary contributors ‘from behind’
This description appeared in a Business Week article by Douglas MacMillan : “Even as Mozilla’s internal staff has grown to 250, from 15 in 2005, an army of volunteers still contributes about 40% of the company’s work, which ranges from tweaks to the programming code to designing the Firefox logo. How Mozilla channels those efforts… Continue reading
Were the medieval Maghrebi traders P2P pioneers?
A re-post from the Golpe de Estado blog: Within the digital revolution P2P processes have aroused as something radically new, a new form of production, a new paradigm that could outset more traditional productive models. Is this the case? Well, once upon a time, in the eleventh-century, some Mediterranean traders conformed a peer organization. Members… Continue reading
Dama: Mali’s Gift Economy
Yes magazine has an interesting article on Mali’s gift economy: “In one study in Bamako, each person gave an average of 1.5 gifts per day. Another study found that gifts account for 18% of total expenditures among Malian villagers, comprising the largest single category. Presents are passed along everywhere: a small household decoration, change to… Continue reading
Michael Hardt: for a politics of the common
This article by Michael Hardt (co-author with Toni Negri of the landmark book, Empire), on the Politics of the Common(s) is a contribution to the Reimagining Society Project hosted by ZCommunications. Michael Hardt: “A central task for reimagining society today is to develop an alternative management of the common wealth we share. In this essay… Continue reading
Open source communities vs. corporations
Excerpts from a blog entry by Martin Michlmayr about corporate participation in open source communities: “How do corporations successfully utilize an open source community? Corporations can benefit from an open source community in many ways. For example, they can often find people who will review their code or make code contributions. If people become excited… Continue reading
Is Cloud Computing dangerous for innovation?
In the New York Times recently, Jonathan Zittrain focused on the dangers of cloud computing, some in in obvious plain view, like privacy and data control issues, others more subtle. One of the latter is that the cloud may diminish the ‘generativity‘ of the internet, i.e. its capacity for innovation. Jonathan Zittrain: “The most difficult… Continue reading
Creation of the Free Culture Forum
Important event and inititiative that will take place in Barcelona from 29th October – 1st November 2009. “There is a need, recognized for several worldwide voices, of an international space to build and coordinate a global frame and common agenda for the free culture and knowledge issues; the Free Culture Forum of Barcelona aims to… Continue reading
Mutiny on Spaceship Earth
The most serious problem for our time is realistically imagining how we can get from here (capitalist ecocide) to there (Ecotopia) without invoking supernatural or extraterrestrial intervention. ZNet is hosting a massive debate between a multitude of world-changers, called Re-Imagining Society. (see my own short contribution formulated as a series of theses). A good place… Continue reading
Sharing food: the Fruit Tree Project
It is sad to see good food wasted, especially when people are going hungry around us. David Parkinson: “So for the last four years the Powell River Fruit Tree Project, a small but scrappy community initiative, has been working on a next-to-zero budget to see that as much fruit gets saved and used as possible…. Continue reading
Hooked on Growth: documentary on the post-growth economy
As a professional filmmaker I decided to produce this film as an intervention. Your friends and family, business associates, elected representatives – and even your priest – all need to see Hooked on Growth, so we can recognize the addiction and begin the recovery. This film examines the superstitions and outdated beliefs we must leave… Continue reading
Open Source Cloud Computing?
A contribution from Sepp Hasslberger: It appears that the term “cloud computing” has been hijacked by corporate giants who wish to introduce server farms to hold a great amount of corporate data, as well as web based applications to access and elaborate them. I prefer to think of a cloud as a huge number of… Continue reading
Objectivity without Transparency is Arrogance
Objectivity is a trust mechanism you rely on when your medium can’t do links. Great piece by David Weinberger: (David makes the same point in the video shown below) “Outside of the realm of science, objectivity is discredited these days as anything but an aspiration, and even that aspiration is looking pretty sketchy. The problem… Continue reading
Open Sailing – an organic approach to homesteading the sea
A contribution from Eric Hunting: “The notion of marine colonization is, perhaps, almost as old as the legend of Atlantis that so often seems to inspire it and, energized by industrial prowess and stimulated by Modernist idealism, the 20th century saw the emergence hundreds of different visions of marine settlement, though for the most part… Continue reading