Peer2Politics

‘If representative democracy is only to choose every four, or five, or six years the person who’s going to do everything they want without taking popular will into account... we are in a sort of trap and I think that’s certainly the case today for Europe and elsewhere.’

  

A very special interview between sustainable community expert and “business provocateur” John Thackaray and our very own Michel Bauwens.

 

KMO welcomes Douglas Rushkoff back to the C-Realm Podcast to talk about the themes of his most recent book, Present Shock: When Everything Happens now, and between tangets related to Scientology, the IRS, Colbert Report schwag, ceremonial magick, the faded out look of rock stars who’ve had their juju drained by millions of adoring fans and the little known collapse of WTC Building 12 on 9/11, they do manage to make at least passing reference to the themes of Doug’s book. KMO ends with listener feedback on last week’s conversation with Guy McPherson and announcements about the upcoming 2013 Age of Limits gathering and an Evolver NYC event, The Singularity is Where?

 

A must-listen trialogue between Michel Bauwens, Dmytri Kleiner and John Restakis sketching out proposals for radical new economic models that draw on the best from the Co-op, commons and P2P and Venture Communism movements. This conversation was originally recorded by KMO of the C-Realm Podcast.
 

“After visiting the OKCon – Open Knowledge Conference in September 2013 I was overwhelmed by so many inputs on ‘openness’ and since I had to deliver a report on the conference for novice people on the subject, I’ve decided to try to make sense of all these open movements visually, my way, and annex it to the general report.

“Something about thriving speaks to our inner sense of harmony, abundance, greatness, generativity, aliveness, vitality, well being, and right-placement. What would our lives and the sum of our society be like if we said they were thriving? I want that. Intensely. Coming across this word was like finding the name of my homeland. The one name that captures all the things I want for myself, my family, my community, the organizations I work with, and the world as a whole.”

 

Shareable and the Sustainable Economies Law Center have released a fantastic new report surveying the ways in which cities can adopt policies to promote “sharing” in a range of areas -- food, housing, transportation and jobs.  The landmark report, “Policies for Shareable Cities:  A Sharing Economy Policy Primer for Urban Leaders,” pulls together “scores of innovative, high impact policies that US city governments have put in place to help citizens share resources, co-produce, and create their own jobs.” 

 

"Nina Simon’s new book is essential for museum directors interested in experimenting with audience participation on the one hand and cautious about upending the traditional museum model on the other. The book is well written, interesting, well researched, and useful. It will encourage and support those who wish to begin. Simon dissects the process of participatory change, showing how to make choices that will augment, without overturning, the museum’s current programs or mission. In concentrating on the practical, this book makes implementation possible in most museums. More importantly, in describing the philosophy and rationale behind participatory activity, it makes clear that action does not always require new technology or machinery. Museums need to change, are changing, and will change further in the future. This book is a helpful and thoughtful road map for speeding such transformation."

 

Around the world, Muslims who use the internet are much more likely than other Muslims to have a favorable opinion of Western movies, music and television and are somewhat more likely to see similarities between Islam and Christianity, according to an analysis of a recent Pew Research Center survey.

 

The (London) Guardian reported two weeks ago on a group of students that are cooking up a storm, or a"quiet revolution," in Manchester. Their online petition charges that "Academic integrity requires that alternative economic theories be introduced to students" and the "recognition of the fact that economics is a discipline that consists of a variety of schools of thought." The Guardian thinks highly of them. Aditya Chakrabortty in an opinion piece headed by a stern stone faced Marx, revived the story later in the week. In the original (online) article the group is pictured as if posing for the latest installment of the Avengers. Action heroes for economics! Badass!

 

Ruth Benedict first made the distinction between “shame cultures” and “guilt cultures” (source). Pervasive feelings of guilt are part of a behavioral package that enabled Northwest Europeans to adapt to complex social environments where kinship is less important and where rules of correct behavior must be obeyed with a minimum of surveillance. Is this pervasive guilt relatively recent, going back only half a millennium? Or is it much older?

Every innovation starts with an act of insubordination. So said tech entrepreneur, futurist, and scientist Walter de Brouwer. “It starts with saying ‘no,’ with disrespect.

This is the second part in this weeks series of posts featuring
“Thrivability Breaking Through to a World that Works” by Jean Rusell

While our first post featured a summary and the books introduction, today’s post is from the books conclusion.

This essay narrates, from a creator-observation perspective, the production of two works of fiction, a book of short stories and a play, based on the principles and technologies of Commons-based peer production (CBPP). This is potentially interesting from both the CBPP and the literary perspective. Even though both seem well-matched by their prima facie lack of profit orientation, CBPP case studies rarely deal with fiction, and regarding plays, artistic creativity is still mostly associated with one, maybe two. After tracing and analysing the CBPP phenomenon, the case studies show concretely the fate of the specific projects as well as how, nowadays, people can involve in collaborative artistic projects inspired and catalysed by Commons-oriented principles and technologies.

 

"In 2010, we set out to create a platform for two things we love and value: freedom of critical thought and digital culture. We wanted to create something that would testify of something major of our contemporary age. Having grown up with the Internet, we, the unknown digital kids, hoped to create a website that would be different from traditional academia: Cyborg Subjects was born. The major idea behind it was not only to freely publish articles that dealt with a broad range of themes and debates of the zeitgeist but to create a transparent and lively debate. We wanted to have an open review system where everything would be published and everyone could add their 2 virtual cents to an essay or artwork. This was an attack on the monopoly publishers in academia.