Very interesting political analysis by Douglas Rushkoff, a commentator who almost never gets it wrong in my book. Read the whole commentary, which starts with an evaluation of transpartisan politics, how Obama did already so much more than the Dean campaign on the internet, BUT, still shows substantial limitations. I’m limiting my excerpts to what… Continue reading
Kevin Carson reciprocity in an (un)free market (2): the problem of artificial scarcity
We continue the publication of Kevin Carson’s critique of capitalism from a ‘free market’ perspective. Here, in the last of the two-parter, he outlines what reciprocity can mean under unfree conditions. Kevin Carson: “Privilege–coercion–creates a zero-sum situation in which one party benefits at the expense of the other. There is a symmetrical relationship between one… Continue reading
Freedom Hardware – or – Hardware Freedom
Pure information such as ideas, plans, intellect, software, video, audio, genetics, or any design of any kind is not rivalrous, so does not need owners. But each copy must be “hosted” by the rivalrous land and capital needed to store, copy and express it. It is this inescapable connection to the physical world that makes… Continue reading
Video: Marcin Jakubowski – Progress at the Factor E Farm
Marcin Jakubowski: “Along the lines of Global Swadeshi, Unplugged Lifestyle, neosubsistence, Global Village Construction Set, Buying out at the Bottom – here is our first video to record the history of changes at Factor e Farm. This change is continuous. You may have seen this post on how our place has evolved from a plain… Continue reading
The measurement of mind assets
Yihong-Ding has a great post (as usual) on web evolution, in which he makes the following claim about the measurement of mind assets: “By presenting mind in Web resources, we are able to objectively measure its value as if we measure the value of capital asset. As we know, there is a large variety of… Continue reading
Everything is hackable: the economy, politics, …
Stimulating intervention by Umair Haque: Excerpt from a longer article which also includes references to the history of hacking: “Why is everything hackable today? Because in the edgeconomy, the universe of the economically possible has exploded: resources are more and more accessible. And if you can get your hands on it, you can hack it…. Continue reading
Kevin Carson on reciprocity in an (un)free market (1)
I asked Kevin Carson, a mutualist who values “free markets” for his vision on Reciprocity. See also here for an extensive discussion of reciprocity in the context of peer to peer dynamics. This is the first of two parts, with part one focusing more on ‘free markets’ and part two on ‘unfree markets’. This is… Continue reading
How’s FON doing? A status report.
Update on the project for a global peer to peer wireless infrastructure in the New York Times: Excerpt from the 3-page recommended reportage: “At the moment, there are just 830,000 registered Foneros around the world, and only 340,000 active Wi-Fi hotspots run FON software. Because it’s built upon the concept of sharing Wi-Fi access, FON… Continue reading
Buying Out at the Bottom through an Unplugged Lifestyle?
Concept developed by Vinay Gupta and expressed in fictional format here. Excerpts from a TV documentary in 2030: “Well, first we’ve got to cover briefly how Unplugging works. The core of the theory is that we can all live off the interest generated by our savings, or the profits from our investments, if we possess… Continue reading
How Open is VIA’s OpenBook Design?
A buzz-creating article appeared in Wired which announced that VIA, one of Taiwan’s leading chip and computer makers, is posting the computer-aided design (CAD) files for its OpenBook PC under a Creative Commons license. Wired writes that: “For industrial designer Scott Summit, VIA’s move is part of a gradual shift toward more highly-customized manufacturing, in… Continue reading
Valentin Spirik: online theme park theatres as the future of film
A contribution from Valentin Spirik, the author of our guide to making your own videos: – The future of film? “Just like YouTube seemed like a far out vision only ten to fifteen years ago (remember the time when there was no internet and when no one had a mobile phone?) the cinema of the… Continue reading
The turn to the cities and P2P heterogenesis
I have noticed in circles of political thinkers, such as Toni Negri for instance, a turn towards the cities, which is part of a much larger trend that drives attention towards strategies of localization. From a totally different perspective, military analyst John Robb in his blog on Global Guerilla warfare, has been analysing cities both… Continue reading
Future Melbourne: The Dawning of the Age of P2PGovernance
This is my first post to the p2p blog (though I’ve wanted to for some time). Michel has asked me to discuss my experiences with the Future Melbourne project – the transformation of a traditional city planning exercise governed by a few, to a global, wiki-based collaboration on the future of Melbourne, Australia. First, here’s… Continue reading
Margaret Archer on the morphogenetic society and the implications for peer to peer socialisation
I received a fascinating text by sociologist Margaret Archer, on the history of reflexivity, which has a very interesting thesis of why peer to peer socialisation is by necessity becoming dominant in the new generation. To understand the chosen excerpt which will illustrate her thesis, two prior elements are necessary. First of all, Margaret Archer… Continue reading
The emergence of free software/open source cooperatives: India’s WikiOcean collaborative
I was already aware of the existence of the OS Alliance in Austria, a successfull free software cooperative. I’m also aware of Kunlabori Collabortive in Sweden but have no updated information on their status. Now comes news of a very ambitious initiative in Pune (and Mumbai), India, which uses a peer-to-peer based decision-making and revenue… Continue reading
Is peer production capitalist exploitation? A reply to Jasper Bernes and David Bollier.
David Bollier has a presentation of the debate on the relation between the commons and the market, which has a great citation of a fairly traditional left critique (see just below), then counterposes the positive interpretation of the commons, using Adam Arvidsson’s (I co-authored later versions with Adam) Crisis of Value essay as a guide… Continue reading