By Ray Anderson and John A. Lanier: The original Mid-Course Correction, published 20 years ago, became a classic in the sustainability field. It put forth a new vision for what its author, Ray C. Anderson, called the “prototypical company of the 21st century”—a restorative company that does no harm to society or the environment. In it Anderson recounts his eureka moment as founder and leader of Interface, Inc., one of the world’s largest carpet and flooring companies, and one that was doing business in all the usual ways. Bit by bit, he began learning how much environmental destruction companies like his had caused, prompting him to make a radical change. Mid-Course Correction not only outlined what eco-centered leadership looks like, it also mapped out a specific set of goals for Anderson’s company to eliminate its environmental footprint.

Those goals remain visionary even today, and this second edition delves into how Interface worked toward making them a reality, birthing one of the most innovative and successful corporate sustainability efforts in the world. The new edition also explores why we need to create not only prototypical companies, but also the prototypical economy of the twenty-first century. As our global economy shifts toward sustainability, challenges like building the circular economy and reversing global warming present tremendous opportunities for business and industry. Mid-Course Correction Revisted contains a new foreword by Paul Hawken, several new chapters by Ray C. Anderson Foundation executive director John A. Lanier, and interviews with Janine Benyus, Joel Makower, Andrew Winston, Ellen MacArthur and other leaders in green enterprise, the circular economy, and biomimicry.

A wide range of business readers—from sustainability professionals to green entrepreneurs to CEOs—will find both wise advice and concrete examples in this new look at a master in corporate and environmental leadership, and the legacy he left.

Reviews and Praise

• “Unlike most business leaders for whom ‘the business case for sustainability’ is all that really matters, Ray Anderson unapologetically advanced a moral case as well, constantly focused on our duty to future generations. This is more important today than ever before, as we come to recognize that an incremental, softly-softly approach to corporate sustainability is pretty much a busted flush—we’ve simply run out of time. The Interface story is as inspirational today as ever, but it needs to be read for its deeper, radical reckoning: If not now, when? If not you, who?”—Jonathon Porritt, founder and director, Forum for the Future; author of The World We Made
  
• “I’m so glad Ray Anderson’s story is getting another telling—few sagas are more inspiring or more timely. We desperately need more and more people following in his footsteps with the same blend of humility and determination!”—Bill McKibben, author of Falter
  
• “Twenty years after its first edition, there is still so much for us to harvest and learn from Mid-Course Correction. When it came to the precariousness of our shared future, Ray Anderson was both impatient and relentless in fighting for a world of beauty, abundance, justice, and fairness. When Ray asked me to join the Interface board, his exact words were, ‘Come help me change the world!’ Those words stayed with me throughout my seventeen years working with him. This twenty-year update provides the perfect guide for others to join in climbing Mt. Sustainability, the most critical mission of our time.”—Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, CEO, Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future

• “So far, Ray C. Anderson is the twenty-first century’s undisputed master of making business a potent force for saving people and the planet. As his winning carpet and textile firm, Interface, now wrings out the last few percent of its fossil-fuel use, his bold strategy—take nothing, waste nothing, do no harm, do very well by doing good—inspires visionary leaders everywhere. This valuable update, with additions from his grandson, John Lanier, maps out necessary next steps.”—Amory B. Lovins, cofounder and chief scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute; author of Reinventing Fire

• “Twenty-one years ago my friend Ray Anderson brought an engineer’s insight, a businessman’s rigor, a grandfather’s love, and a poet’s heart to what he called ‘the creative act of business.’ He challenged his company to ‘first to attain sustainability and then to become restorative,’ reminding all who would listen that ‘if your sustainability program is costing you money, you’re doing it wrong.’ And in this book and in his countless speeches—with a vision as clear as any since, to our peril and shame, and with a roadmap still valid—he challenged us all to do the same.”—Gil Friend, CEO, Natural Logic, Inc.; founder, Critical Path Capital

• “Ray Anderson was one of the most extraordinary business leaders I ever met—and I have met and worked with scores. He was extraordinary in his early embrace of the sustainability agenda, years before most of his peers were even aware of the term. And he was extraordinary in his willingness to admit he had got parts of his response wrong, which is the remarkable tale brought bang up to date in Mid-Course Correction Revisited. Highly recommended for anyone wanting leadership in these challenging times.”—John Elkington, founder and chief pollinator, Volans; originator of the Triple Bottom Line

• “When I began my personal journey from a traditional business career to this world of ‘sustainability,’ Ray Anderson’s Mid-Course Correction was the first book I read. I felt the same ‘spear in the chest’ that Ray described, and so I followed his intellectual path of discovery. I am indebted to Ray’s legacy, and I know it is long past time to revisit his work. The global challenges we face are more daunting than ever, so the imperative Ray described has only gotten more urgent. We must convert ‘business as usual’ from an obsession with short-term profits to a relentless focus on using business to build a thriving world. Ray saw it clearly years before almost everyone, and it’s a critical time to bring his vision to a new generation of business leaders.”—Andrew Winston, founder, Winston Eco-Strategies; author of The Big Pivot and coauthor of Green to Gold

About The Author

Ray C. Andersonwas founder and chairman of Interface, Inc., one of the world’s leading carpet and flooring producers. His story is now legend: Ray had a “spear in the chest” epiphany when he first read Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce, inspiring him to revolutionize his business in pursuit of environmental sustainability. In doing so Ray proved that business can indeed “do well by doing good.” His Georgia-based company has been ranked number one in a GlobeScan survey of sustainability experts, and it has continued to be an environmental leader even after Ray’s death in 2011. Ray authored the 1998 classic Mid-Course Correction, which chronicled his epiphany, as well as a later book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist. He became an unlikely screen hero in the 2003 Canadian documentary The Corporation, and was named one of Time magazine’s Heroes of the Environment in 2007. He served as cochairman of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development and as an architect of the Presidential Climate Action Plan, a 100-day action plan on climate that was presented to the Obama Administration.

Connect with this author

• Ray C. Anderson Foundation
• Ray Anderson on Facebook
• Ray Anderson on Twitter

Interviews and Articles

• Fast Company – How a Carpet Maker Became an Unlikely Hero of the Environmental Movement
• Atlanta Business Chronicle – Family of Interface Founder Ray Anderson Carrying on his Environmental Mission
• New York Times – Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet

Author Videos

• Ray Anderson: The business logic of sustainability

About John A. Lanier

John A. Lanier joined the Ray C. Anderson Foundation as executive director in May 2013 to advance the legacy of Ray, his grandfather. He is chair of the board of directors for Southface Energy Institute, the southeast’s nonprofit leader in the promotion of sustainable homes, workplaces, and communities through education, research, advocacy and technical assistance. Previously, Lanier was an associate attorney with Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan, LLP (now Eversheds Sutherland), specializing in US federal taxation. Lanier earned his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law, and he holds bachelor of arts degrees in history and economics from the University of Virginia. He blogs regularly and his TEDx can be viewed on YouTube.

The copy in the post is reprinted from chelseagreen. You can find the original post here. The video is reposted from the YouTube channel of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation.

The post Book of the Day: Mid-Course Correction Revisited appeared first on P2P Foundation.

“You never change things by fighting against the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.”- Buckminster Fuller

Ruth Gordon: In recent years there’s been a global awakening to the momentous choice humanity now faces: do we cling to the old system and choose extinction, or create a new system that grants us a future worth living?

Movements such as Standing Rock, Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future are giving voice to the widespread longing for a tenable alternative to capitalism – our urgent need for new, regenerative ways of living: systems of life that use clean renewable energy, restore ecosystems, and re-position human beings as nurturers of social networks that enable us to be caretakers for the Earth.

In Fridays for Future, the weekly youth strikes kick-started by Greta Thunberg’s solo action of protest, a new generation are questioning the apathy of the societies they’ve been born into, marching under the slogan “System Change, Not Climate Change.” They are loudly demanding that we wake up, pull ourselves back from the brink of catastrophe, and put our energies into co-creating a system of life that can avert climate disaster.

The success of Extinction Rebellion, “a revolution of love, deep ecology and radical transformation,” is partly due to the ways in which their vision of building such a regenerative culture guides their methods of organization. It was the integrity of their commitment to nonviolence and the functioning support systems that emerged among members that made it so difficult for the police to make arrests during the recent ten days of protest in the UK.

Those who thronged the streets were nourished by the actions they took part in, which were creative and joyful. This led to results, with the UK Parliament declaring a climate emergency. It remains to be seen whether this will really influence decision-making in the UK, but it’s further proof that nonviolent action sustained by networks of real solidarity can create change.

Standing Rock set a precedent for this form of holistic activism. It was one of the most diverse mass political gatherings in history, hosting such historic scenes as US army veterans asking forgiveness from Native American elders. Its unique power to gather together Indigenous peoples, environmentalists, spiritual seekers and ordinary Americans was a tribute to the depth of intention at its core – people took a stand for life itself, for the water, for the sanctity of the Earth. It showed how a global cry of outrage can be transformed into a healing convergence for life.

Although President Trump’s executive order to go ahead with the pipeline was eventually passed and the camp violently evicted, the story did not end there. Resistance continues at Standing Rock, and its example has inspired many other water protectors to stand up in movements around the world. But how can we create a worldwide and permanent shift to regeneration in every sphere of life?

What could a regenerative culture look like?

In 2017, when members of the Tamera Peace Research and Education Center in Portugal heard about the resistance at Standing Rock, they accompanied the protest with prayer and reached out to its leaders in solidarity. This exchange led to the initiation of the annual “Defend the Sacred” gatherings, which foster a network of exchange and support among activists, ecologists, technologists and Indigenous leaders who share the vision of creating a regenerative cultural model as a response to the global crisis.

Tamera is an attempt by Europeans to restore community as the foundation of life, with the vision of seeding a network of such decentralized autonomous centers (known as Healing Biotopes) right across the world. Creating solidarity between diverse movements and projects requires deep investigation of the human trauma that so often creates conflict and derails attempts at unification. This is why Defend the Sacred gatherings focus on healing trauma through consciousness work, community building, truth, and transparency. The goal is to create bonds of trust among people that are so strong that external forces will no longer be able to break them.

The leaders of the gatherings know that we can’t create a regenerative culture solely by trying to ‘smash capitalism.’ Instead, we need to understand and heal the underlying disease that generates all such systems of oppression. This disease can be described as the Western sickness of separation from life, or “wetiko,” as it was named by the North American Algonquin people. Martin Winiecki (the gatherings’ co-convenor) describes it like this:

“‘Wetiko,’ literally ‘cannibalism,’ was the word used by the Indigenous peoples to describe the disease of white invaders. It translates as the alienated human soul, no longer connected to an inner life force and so feeding on the energy of other beings.”

Wetiko is the psychic mechanism that keeps us trapped in the illusion that we exist separately from everything else. Within the isolated selfish ego, the pursuit of maximum personal gain appears to be the goal and meaning of life. Coupled with the chronic inability to feel compassion for the lives of other beings, violence, exploitation and oppression are not only justified, but appear logical and rational. If we resist only the external effects of wetiko, maybe we can win a victory here or there, but we can’t overcome the system as a whole because this ‘opponent’ also sits within ourselves. It is from within that we constantly feed and support this monstrous system.

An important part of healing wetiko relates to healing our interracial wounds. It’s significant that Defend the Sacred was initiated in Portugal – the place from where so many perpetrators of genocide and slavery in the Americas and Africa set out. A new path towards a nonviolent future will emerge from creating spaces where we can acknowledge our violent past and gain insight about what we have done as a collective. Such spaces offer the possibility of finally stepping out of the futile pattern of oppression, guilt and blame.

Tangible visions of the future.

In a recent co-written book, Defend the Sacred: If Life Wins, There Will Be No Losers, participants in the gatherings offer a mosaic of short essays that present their shared vision, along with many different ways to put it into practice. These include ending fossil fuel dependence, healing natural water cycles in cooperation with ecosystems and animals, transforming economic structures from systems of extraction to systems of giving, re-centering the voice of the feminine, creating a planetary network of solidarity and compassion, and anchoring everything in spiritual connection with the Earth as a living organism.

Supporting the transition away from fossil fuels, some members of the group are developing decentralized alternative technologies based on solar energy, while others are creating open source blueprints that enable people without specialist knowledge to construct simple plastic recycling machines all over the world.

Continuing the work of Standing Rock, the last two gatherings focused on thwarting oil drilling threats in Portugal, and each included an aerial art action in which participants used their bodies to form giant images alongside messages to “Stop the Drilling.” These actions strengthened the growing resistance in Portugal to fossil fuel extraction, which won a significant victory in October 2018 when the oil companies involved announced that they were voluntarily withdrawing all plans to extract oil in the country.

The group is also working on an approach to climate change that goes beyond the mechanical question of carbon reduction or balancing inputs and outputs, to one that views the Earth as a living whole whose ‘organs’ all need to be intact for life to flourish. A key part of this approach is the widespread restoration of ecosystems through creating Water Retention Landscapes (a method of sculpting the land to help it absorb and retain rainwater where it naturally falls). Such landscapes heal natural water cycles, which in turn can rebalance the climate and protect forests from the increasing risk of wildfires.

Another central aspect of the group’s work is to create social systems that both support the revival of feminine power and reestablish a basis of mutual support between the masculine and the feminine. Since overcoming patriarchy cannot be achieved by simply demanding change, this means creating forms of human co-existence that do not replicate patriarchal structures, but, as Monique Wilson puts it (another contributor to the book and coordinator of One Billion Rising), instead allow women to rediscover solidarity and “remember their abilities to heal, to teach, to create and to lead.”

Imagine what would happen if all the separate movements for climate justice, racial justice, ending sexual violence and developing new forms of economy could unite around a shared spiritual center, just as they did at Standing Rock. Imagine if, drawn together by their love of life and their commitment to protecting our home, the Earth, they could come together to articulate a shared vision for a future that is more compelling to people than remaining in the current broken system. This is what our planet needs now.

To join this year’s Defend the Sacred gathering from August 16–19, please click here.

For more information on our new book, Defend the Sacred: If Life Wins, There Will Be No Losers, please click here.

Reprinted from opendemocracy. You can find the original post here!

Featured image: Aerial art action during Defend the Sacred in Portugal, 2018. | Tamera Media. All rights reserved.

The post If life wins there will be no losers appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The book showcases the wealth of transformative ideas that the international commons movement has to offer. With contributions by Kate Raworth, David Bollier, George Monbiot and many others, Our Commons is a political call to arms to all Europeans to embrace the commons and build a new Europe.

Commons Network’s very own Sophie Bloemen and Thomas de Groot worked on this book for almost two years, doing research and interviews, working with academics, policy makers, authors and activists to paint a colourful picture of the commons as the blueprint for a new future, one that is inclusive, ecologically sustainable, equitable, democratic, collaborative, creative and resilient.

Our Commons features reflections on the enclosure of knowledge and the monopolisation of the digital sphere, stories about renewable energy cooperatives and community foodwaste initiatives and urgent pleas to see the city as a commons and to treat health as a common good. Published by the Institute of Network Cultures, the book is first released online as an e-book, free for all to download and share and as a printable PDF. The book will also be available on a wide variety of print-on-demand platforms.

In the next few months, Commons Network will organise a number of official events around the book. Please get in touch at [email protected] if you are interested in hosting a book-launch with the editors and possibly with some of the contributors of the book. Off- and online media that are interested in publishing texts from the book or interviews with the editors and/or contributors are encouraged to reach out to [email protected].

Download the ePub or the print-PDF here and make sure to share this page with as many people as possible, using the hashtag #OurCommonsBook

For all further questions, press inquiries or event bookings, possible citations or cross-posting, or requests for hard-copy printed books, please do not hesitate to reach out to the editors, Thomas de Groot and Sophie Bloemen.

([email protected])

([email protected])

Reprinted from commonsnetwork, you can see the original post here.

The post New Book Out Now: Political Ideas for a New Europe appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Derek Wall: Almost every day, we learn of new horrors in the Middle East. Syria and Iraq are suffering from a brutal war. Fundamentalist groups like the so-called Islamic State and authoritarian leaders are murdering innocent citizens. Yet there is one sign of possible hope: in Northern Syria, the Kurdish people and their allies have established a secular, feminist and ecological republic, called Rojava, which means ‘the West’.

It would be easy to romanticise this – in a situation of conflict and war, it can be difficult to put high ideals into practice. Nonetheless, Rojava, with its organic agriculture, cooperatives, direct democracy and women’s leadership, is both fascinating and inspiring.

Most striking is the fact that Rojava is based on the teachings of a New York, working-class and Jewish-born green philosopher, Murray Bookchin. Bookchin, who died in 2006, is having a massive and massively positive effect in the Middle East. Ecology or Catastrophe is the unputdownable biography of Bookchin, which I am sure will be thought provoking to any member of the Green Party.

Bookchin was born in the 1921. His parents had emigrated from Russia and his grandmother had been a member of the Socialist Revolutionaries, a peasant- based radical organisation. From childhood, Bookchin was immersed in political activity and made a transition from socialism to anarchism to his own form of politics he called communalism.

He can be seen as an early advocate of radical green politics. His book, Our Synthetic Environment, published in 1962, discussed the dangers of pesticides. In the 1950s, he was already warning of the effects of climate change caused by fossil fuels. He campaigned against giant freeways that devastated cities and felt that cars were wrecking the environment.

Janet Biehl was Bookchin’s partner, and her book is honest, showing Murray’s flaws as well as his greatness. It is a very personal and sometimes sad book, but it is also political and philosophical, introducing the reader to important ideas.

Bookchin thought deeply about green politics, arguing that capitalism threatened our survival and that we need a democratic, ecological alternative. To challenge climate change and introduce a socially-just society isn’t easy, but Murray provides some ideas and inspiration we can learn from.

Reprinted blog by Derek Wall on Greenworld, you can see the original post here

Featured Image: “Kurdish YPG Fighters” by Kurdishstruggle is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

The post Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Charts the strategic thinking behind the movements challenging neoliberal globalization.

A Movement of Movements charts the strategic thinking behind the mosaic of movements currently challenging neoliberal globalization. Leading theorists and activists—the Zapatistas’ Subcomandante Marcos, Chittaroopa Palit from the Indian Narmada Valley dam protests, Soweto anti-privatization campaigner Trevor Ngwane, Brazilian Sem Terra leader João Pedro Stedile, and many more—discuss their personal formation as radicals, the history of their movements, their analyses of globalization, and the nuts and bolts of mobilizing against a US-dominated world system.

Explaining how the Global South and the experience of indigenous peoples have provided such a dynamic and practical inspiration, the contributors describe the roles anarchism and direct democracy have played, the contributions and limitations of the World Social Forum at Porto Alegre as a coordinating focus, and the effects of and responses to the economic downturn, September 11, and Washington’s war on terror. Their statements, at once personal and visionary, offer a dazzling new insight into the political imagination of the global resistance movements.

Available here: https://www.versobooks.com/books/170-a-movement-of-movements

The post Book of the Day: A Movement of Movements appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The book will be reflective of quite a few people’s thinking – a real community effort, coordinated by a strong core team.

It will be mixture of short essays, personal reflections, collective thinking and really practical guides. It’s being written to be relevant for both entrepreneurs, founders and freelancers as well leaders and cultural influencers in larger organisations.

We’re aiming for this project to share our learnings, inspire action and help grow the global movement of people putting purpose at the heart of their work – so we hope has a wide appeal.

We would love your support.

Our crowdfunding campaign is live and you can be part of the special first edition release of the book here.

You can support our campaign here and pre-order your copy of the book here – and we would love all the help we could get to share the word as well!

Thanks so much!

betterworktogether.co

The post Better Work Together – The Book! appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Description

“This book is not just about a new what. The book is also about a new how. The new how is about fluid conversation, about public deliberation, about grappling with issues.

And it is more personal in that I use “I,” because I wish to model academic work as embedded into a context, rather than pretending to exist in a social and psychological vacuum. This book brings a very personal journey to the table, a journey that travels the circles of the reflective equilibrium (chapter 12), and a journey that is embedded into the confluence of a large global network of relationships, the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies network. The book models its emphasis on the significance of social relationships by acknowledging the members of this network. The clarity of the flow of the argument may sometimes be interrupted by these acknowledgments, yet, in the spirit of Jean Baker Miller’s relational-cultural theory (chapter 3), this practice brings more clarity into the social embeddedness of those arguments.

…

In my first book on dignity and humiliation, Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict (2006), I describe my vision of a more dignified world.

First, this book lays out a theory of the mental and social dynamics of humiliation and proposes the need for “egalization” (the undoing of humiliation) for a healthy global society. It then presents chapters on the role of misunderstandings in fostering feelings of humiliation; the role of humiliation in international conflict; and the relationship of humiliation to terrorism and torture. It concludes with a discussion of how to defuse feelings of humiliation and create a dignified world. This book was characterized as a path-breaking book, honored as “Outstanding Academic Title” by the journal Choice for 2007 in the USA.

My second book, Emotion and Conflict: How Human Rights Can Dignify Emotion and Help Us Wage Good Conflict (2009) is an expansion of a chapter that I wrote for Morton Deutsch’s Handbook of Conflict Resolution.

I describe how realizing the promise of equality in dignity can help improve the human condition at all levels—from micro to meso to macro.

This book uses a broad historical perspective that includes all of human history, from its hunter-gatherer origins to the promise of a globally united knowledge society in the future. It emphasizes the need to recognize and transcend malign cultural, social, and psychological effects of the past. The book calls upon the world community, academics and lay people alike, to own up to the opportunities offered by increasing global interdependence. My third book, Gender, Humiliation, and Global Security: Dignifying Relationships from Love, Sex, and Parenthood to World Affairs (2010), examines the social and political ramifications of human violations and world crises related to humiliation. Archbishop Desmond Tutu contributed with the Foreword. It is a book about big love, in the spirit of Gandhi’s saty?graha (nonviolent action), a term that is assembled from agraha (firmness/force) and satya (truth-love). It analyzes why women were devalued during the past millennia, and why the work of nurturing relationships, including the work of love, became invisible. The book encourages constructive social, political, and cultural change through the force of saty?graha. The book is being “highly recommended” by Choice.

In all of my work, I make the point that equality in dignity, with humiliation as its violation, becomes ever more salient when global interdependence increases. Never before did anything called a global village exist. Until recently, the world was fragmented into many “villages,” all afraid of their neighbors who could quickly turn into enemies. No history lesson helps us, because the notion of one global village turns the whole of humanity into one single in-group (with inner diversity) on one tiny planet, something that has never occurred before.

Like my first three books, A Dignity Economy was written in dialogue with Linda Hartling and the other members of our network. It is part of a larger body of work that aims at creating new visions for the future, visions for systemic paradigm shifts, visions of unity in diversity, not just locally but globally.

Our aim is to nurture the next Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandelas to change the world. To serve this aim we strive to bridge existing gaps. We connect academic disciplines, we build bridges between academia and practice, and we bring together those who focus on creating a new consciousness within with those who have their attention on building new institutional frames out in the world.”

Photo by jm_carnero

The post A Dignity Economy: Creating an Economy that Serves Human Dignity and Preserves Our Planet appeared first on P2P Foundation.

“There is a lie at the heart of global capitalism. Politicians, financiers and global bureaucrats claim to believe in free competitive markets, but have constructed the most unfree market system ever. It is corrupt because income is channelled to the owners of property – financial, physical and intellectual – at the expense of society.

This book reveals how global capitalism is rigged in favour of rentiers to the detriment of all of us, especially the precariat. A plutocracy and elite enriches itself, not through production of goods and services, but through ownership of assets, including intellectual property, aided by subsidies, tax breaks, debt mechanisms, revolving doors between politics and business, and the privatisation of public services. Rentier capitalism is entrenched by the corruption of democracy, manipulated by the plutocracy and an elite-dominated media.

Meanwhile, wages stagnate as labour markets are transformed by outsourcing, automation and the on-demand economy, generating more rental income while expanding the precariat.

The Corruption of Capitalism argues that rentier capitalism is fostering revolt, and concludes by outlining a new income distribution system that would achieve the extinction of the rentier while promoting sustainable growth.”

More details can be found here.

The post Book of the Day: Why Rentiers Thrive and Work Does Not Pay appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Now I need to state that I’ve not read the book, only listened to the talk so please temper my comments around that point. While there does seem to be a militarising of police forces around the world as the tools and ideas of the military are sold into civilian use, there is also the flow of technology the other way. The Internet is the classic example of a technology designed to ensure a missile control network survives a nuclear strike now used to share lolcats, or the movement of GPS from military into civilian use. Another point I’m not 100% is the repeated reference to ‘video games’ as some sort of adjunct to the military-industrial complex. Yes there are games used by and for the military – lots of them, but so are TV, film and radio.

The recent growth of games has been in the social gaming sector with games such as Farmville – which I can’t see as war propaganda. Stephen talked about how controller for military systems are being designed to ‘look like video game controllers’ implying a propaganda style link – but it made me wonder what is the causal link? My guess is that the design of video game controller design is much more advanced, has more money put into it and has much more user feedback that military systems, so yes one is copying the other but for ergonomic reasons.

Still, those points aside it is an interesting talk and worth a listen and I might try to get hold of a copy of the book…

(Hat-tip to Michel for the link. Also posted on my blog.)

The post Cities Under Siege Discussion appeared first on P2P Foundation.