Free Software Magazine has an interesting conversation/interview with members of the Open Graphics Project , an open hardware initiative, in which they talk about what difficulties make open hardware more challenging than free software. FSM introduces the topic: “The tools and techniques for creating hardware designs are very different from those used for software; and… Continue reading
Dave Pollard on Peer Production and the Myth of Economies of Scale
Via Dave Pollard, whose How To Save the World blog, would probably get my vote as the best in the world. Here’s an extensive excerpt because he touches on one of the great myths of the industrial age that is being dismantled ever more as our means of production get more distributed: the myth of… Continue reading
What should we think of free trade?
“The closer the economy approaches the scale of the whole Earth the more it will have to conform to the physical behavior mode of the Earth. That behavior mode is a steady state—a system that permits qualitative development but not aggregate quantitative growth. Growth is more of the same stuff; development is the same amount… Continue reading
There is always already coercion
One of the commentators I regularly follow, is Dale Carrico, who is of the opinion that no realistic political theory can be held, which ignores the role of violence and coercion as inherent in the human condition. I agree, and this is how P2P Theory differs from the libertarian tradition. The following excerpt is from… Continue reading
Sustainability and development require participation
Achieving sustainability without participation is an impossibility!! One of my key arguments regarding an eventual transition to a new form of society that is based on peer to peer as its core logic, which I consider a ‘conditional inevitability’, is a hypothetical but hopefully likely attempt, to a new global reform towards a green/natural capitalism…. Continue reading
The Tilaphos project – Interview
In a previous post I said a word about the Tilaphos project , a reforestation project that takes place in Greece. The new issue of the well-known journal Republic includes an interview with Dimitrios Zachariadis, the driving force behind this project, who explains that Tilaphos aims at dispersing, through the Greek web, “reliable public information… Continue reading
Kevin Carson on peer production as a crisis of capitalism
Kevin Carson is continuing his work on Organization theory , and has published added drafts and excerpts for chapter 13 and 15. I have always liked Kevin’s work because, though it is libertarian and in his own words, ‘free market fundamentalist’, his brand of mutualism is not based on a justification of the exploitation of… Continue reading
Are higher transportation costs reversing globalization?
Michel Bauwens recently sent this link in an email to the p2plist: http://research.cibcwm.com /economic_public/download /feature1.pdf Along with the question: “Are higher transportation costs reversing globalization?” My own answer: Globalization was never a self-sustaining system to begin with. Globalization began in part (after WWII) precisely because local systems were too efficient for market mass producers. They… Continue reading
What happens next after the great neoliberal unraveling?
Do you also have the impression that we are witnessing the great unraveling of the neoliberal period, and that we are entering a period that is akin to the long crisis period that came after the Great Depression in the 20’s and 30’s of the last century? If this would be true, then a further… Continue reading
Bits and Pieces from the Idea Predators (part 1)
I am suggesting a new series in this blog, describing Anti P2P Practises in various industries, exploiting users ideas, times and efforts in ways that are clearly immoral, while taken for granted and legal by their promotors. To begin with, I found a little note on a site of a commercial software company (The Omni… Continue reading
Video: Open Source Ecology Project
“Interview by Vinay Gupta for the first of the Global Swadeshi Dialogues weekly interview series. This interview is perhaps the most clear description to date of the essence of our experiments with Open Source Ecology, and its implementation lab – Factor e Farm. If you can bear the 54 minutes of time, this will definitely… Continue reading
Some ethical concers regarding Google searches and subsequent email advertisement
Something strange happened to me today, and I wonder if any of you can explain to me how this could possibly happen. Yesterday, I undertook a google search on the topic of summer camps in Italy, for a friend of mine in Italy. I did not contact any of the people behind the pages I… Continue reading
Video: Evolving the network: Politics, Culture and Consciousness
“On March 28, 2008 Reality Sandwich/Evolver sponsored a panel discussion on the capacity of digital technology to transform our reality. As moderator Ken Jordan put it, “What’s going to emerge from this digital soup?” The panelists were Laura Dawn, cultural director of MoveOn; Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, musician, writer, and filmmaker; Daniel Pinchbeck,… Continue reading
Objects with consciousness are necessary to the survival of our planet
One of the great insights of science fiction author Bruce Sterling, is how intelligent objects, i.e. that know and can telll you where they come from, are necessary to create a world of zero waste. Before presenting that argument, a recap of the vocabulary of the P2P-Objects, and a summary history of their evolution. This… Continue reading
Hierarchy and peer to peer – a recap
(note: also proposed as a discussion on our Ning network site) Though there are many kinds of networks , they all seem to have a hierarchy This seems to be the logical conclusion from recent research reported in Nature We quote: “researchers at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) have shown that it’s possible to extract… Continue reading
On the primacy of intersubjectivity
(note: I rediscovered this in our archive, it was mistakenly labeled private and does never saw the light of day, back in 2006) Some interesting quotes to think through, selected from this essay by Evan Thompson: “When we consider ourselves, taking what is usually called a first-person perspective, just what do we see ? We… Continue reading