In 2010, three people had the crazy idea to start a school where the teachers teach whatever they want and the students pay for classes with whatever teachers need—cutlery, art, advice—but never with money. A barter-based learning space, they called their project Trade School, and ran it for the first time out of a tiny store front on New York City’s Lower East Side. It was a huge hit.
In just two years, Trade Schools have been popping up around the world and are now active in 15 cities and 10 countries, with almost no prodding from its founders.
Help build an open source software platform to share with local Trade School chapters around the world with Trade School's Kickstarter Campaign.
How bankers and politicians take down nations one after the other and buy up their resources with fraudulent debt derivatives.
The video is a Greek production and it has English subtitles. (To get the subtitles, click on cc in video controls) 
Image found at http://connectingdotz.com
"So I am proposing to create a gift tribe. What is a gift tribe? It is a community of people who sees, acknowledges and invests in an imaginal cell to liberate him/her from the struggle of monetizing his/her work in the world, in order to release their full creative potential to focus on the very thing they were born to create here and now."
"This is an experiment. It’s a prototype. For the next 12 months, starting June 2012, I am calling on 50 people..." 
(CNN) -- Facebook advocates are touting the company's initial public offering this week -- the biggest ever for an Internet company-- as if it will save the net, the economy and the American way. Its detractors see the final chapter in the rise and fall of a smart but solipsistic Harvard dropout, and predict the inevitable decline of Facebook's stock will spell the end to innovation in social media. Internet Bubble 2.0.
"Of course, none of this is true. Such hyperbole is more about our traditional media's need for simple stories than anything happening at Facebook or on Wall Street..." 
Though it seems like a relatively unique idea, around 40 community tool libraries already exist throughout the United States, from Philadelphia to Seattle and south to Oakland and New Orleans.
Each has its own unique flavor but most operate roughly the same way by accepting tool donations from the community and then lending those tools out for free—or nearly free—to anyone capable of presenting an ID and signing a waiver.
Through that basic setup, some tool libraries have been happily participating in the sharing economy for over 20 years. 
The meeting lasted two-and-a-half hours with the mercury amalgam argument taking up most of the time - the first two hours.
Then the vaccine conglomerate began their comments - and all the big boys were there: Novartis, etc. Then there was the so-called vaccine supporters (all, of course, funded by the vaccine big money boys): GAVI, PATH, and the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP). And, they were there with a unified message, one that sounded like it was read from the same cue card.
Their message:
(1) Thimerosal is safe, effective, and has been extensively tested, and
(2) Removing Thimerosal from vaccines would make vaccines too expensive for third world countries, because, they claim, without deadly mercury in the mix, vaccines would have to be refrigerated - and that is unaffordable in the Third World. 
Joe Justice is the ideator of Team Wikspeed: a team of volunteers distributed around the world who recently created a prototype car that is open source, modular and ultra-efficient in just three mo...
...YES, in just three months compared with the years it takes traditional car manufacturers to bring out a new model. 
"Eben Moglen, a professor of law and history at Columbia University, made a haunting appeal to participants of the 6th re:publica conference that opened in Berlin this morning: Do not to fail in completing the fight for freedom of thought."
"Social networks like Facebook, search engines like Google, or online shopping malls like Amazon are “consuming” the users. Governments, large and small, are eager to re-use the profiling, predicting and persecuting activities and passing laws to store these data indefinitely, Moglen said."
“They own our search box, we are reported everywhere and every time,” and with mobile devices always on it is “confession 24/7”. Via Jose Murilo 
"The Manchester FabLab, which marked its second birthday at the weekend, gives businesses, entrepreneurs and inventors access to advanced equipment to make prototypes of their products."
"Visitors to the FabLab, the first in the UK, can get their hands on manufacturing technology from precision laser cutters and 3D digital printers to electronic circuit fabrication equipment."
"FabLab Manchester is owned and run by The Manufacturing Institute, a charity funded by manufacturers and universities that works with companies to help improve skills and productivity."
"After the success of the scheme in Manchester, it now plans to roll out the concept by opening a network of 30 Labs across the UK over the next eight years." Behrokh Khoshnevis is a professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and is the Director of Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at the University of Southern California.
In this talk, prof. Khoshnevis explains how 3D printing can be scaled up to the construction of buildings, with great savings of both time and cost, but not only...
Printing buildings will allow for great flexibility of design and form. ![The gentleman manufacturer [Video] | Networking - p2p - a new society | Scoop.it](http://img.scoop.it/rX7bWcwstAEZLWOE6EzMmjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ)
QUIRKY and Shapeways are putting the tools of manufacturing into the hands of the masses using 3D printers and social networks.
The future of manufacturing will be very different from what it is today. Mass production will no longer be the dominant thing. With computers for design and printers for output - stuff can be produced even if there isn't a mass market ready to buy.
The video looks into two companies that drive adoption of this new technology by crowd-sourcing ideas and designs and taking them through the steps to a finished product. 
If we want the poor to benefit from electricity we cannot wait for the grid, and we cannot rely on fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency, historically a grid-centric, establishment voice, admits that half of those without electricity today will never be wired. The government of India estimates that two-thirds of its non-electrified households need distributed power.
"Getting 1.2 billion people local solar power they can afford is within grasp — if we only think about the problem in a different way."
"There are almost 600 million cell-phone customers without electricity — using their phones very little, still spending $10 billion to charge them in town."
"Cell phone companies have a powerful motivation to get renewable power into rural areas, to get electricity to their customers, and to charge for electricity through their mobile phone payment systems." 
Answer (1 of 12): Ignoring the inaccurate assertions and attacks in the questions, I can tell you that when I worked with Mark Zuckerberg, money was certainly not his primary motivator. He lived an absurdly spartan lifestyle.
"Mark's main motivations were pretty clearly based around materially changing the world and building technology that was used by everyone on the planet."
"It's not like he didn't know that if he was successful, he'd become incredibly wealthy - and I wouldn't go as far to say that he would've done everything he's done if there wasn't a big financial payout from it all. But that always seemed like a happy side-effect of his true goals."
"My impression back then was that if he had to choose, he'd rather be the most important/influential person in the world rather than the richest..." |
A LESSON IN DEMOCRACY FOR THE WORLD: WHY NO NEWS FROM ICELAND?
"How come we hear everything that happens in Egypt but no news about what’s happening in Iceland?
In Iceland, the people have made the government resign, the primary banks have been nationalized, it was decided to not pay the debt that these created with Great Britain and Holland due to their bad financial politics and a public
A whole revolution against the powers that have created the current global crisis. This is why there hasn’t been any publicity during the last two years: What would happen if the rest of the EU citizens took this as an example? What would happen if the US citizens took this as an example. Have we been informed of this through the media? Has any political program in radio or TV commented on this? No! The Icelandic people have been able to show that there is a way to beat the system and has given a democracy lesson to the world."
Arun's Comments: This is the only way forward. People should nationalize private properties, assets and institutions that create liabilities on common people without their knowledge and cause socio-economic chaos for everyone. Unless these banks are taken to task (a) for what they are doing with our money and (b) for forcing governments to borrow money against sovereign guarantee, people shall remain enslaved.
My comment: There has been a recent video on CNN highlighting that the Icelanders are re-writing their constitution, their social contract, and that this is being done in an incredible open way, with everything in the text open to public discussion and suggestions... Here's a link to the video Via Arun Shrivastava 
All property ownership is conditional, and it always has been. This thousands-of-years-old legal doctrine is seldom appreciated or understood by modern activists, politicians, economists, or even by lawyers.
"Our existing legal framework has many mechanisms for protecting the commons, but we often fail to use the legal tools we have at our disposal.
We sit by while corrupt regulators give away public property and resources to corporations. Why? Our legal system does not dictate that.
Could our addiction to cheap energy and consumer goods have anything to do with it?
We could encourage private property owners to trade various kinds of rights to their properties in exchange for tax breaks. Or we could impose tax penalties or fines on owners who mange their property in ways that harm the public good. Why don’t we do this more intensively and consistently? Could our lifestyles have more impact on our environment and our economy than our legal system does?" This wasn't a full TED talk but a short presentation of just under 6 minutes saying how the rich are not the real job creators, and how they should not enjoy special taxation privileges.
The gist (from the end of the talk):
"Here is an idea worth spreading: In a capitalist economy, the true job creators are middle-class consumers. And taxing the rich to make investments, to make the middle-class grow and thrive is the single shrewdest thing we can do for the middle class, for the poor - and for the rich." 
"I have a modest proposal for Facebook. I will even be so presumptuous to say that it is a solution to all of its problems. Basically, Facebook should fully embrace its gift essence and take a bold step into new territory by announcing that henceforth, it will be a gift-supported website. It could make an announcement like this:
Facebook’s value lies in you, its 900 million users. You are what make Facebook what it is. Therefore, we are laying out a new goal: to remove all advertising from Facebook..." 
America can't afford to leave its government in the hands of professionals.
"The work of democratic life -- solving shared problems, shaping plans, pushing for change, making grievances heard -- has become ever more professionalized over the last generation. Money has gained outsize and self-compounding power in elections. A welter of lobbyists, regulators, consultants, bankrollers, wonks-for-hire, and "smart-ALECs" has crowded amateurs out of the daily work of self-government at every level."
"What we need today are more citizen citizens. Both the left and the right are coming to see this. It is the thread that connects the anti-elite 99 percent movement with the anti-elite Tea Party. It also animates an emerging web of civic-minded techies who want to "hack" citizenship and government." 
Almost exactly a year ago I spoke via email with ex-WikiLeaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg.
"He and the four or five others who'd defected from WikiLeaks in September of 2010 were already at work on OpenLeaks, a successor organization with the same basic goal: to maintain a secure platform where sensitive documents of interest to the public can be uploaded by whistleblowers and anonymously distributed to the press."
"From its inception in September 2010, OpenLeaks was designed with all the painful lessons of WikiLeaks in mind."
"The key difference is that where WikiLeaks itself participated in the vetting, editing and publication of leaked documents, OpenLeaks won't even be able to read them. OpenLeaks provides only the platform for submissions, which will be encrypted and visible only to publishing partners designated by the source. OpenLeaks is pursuing a course of total neutrality." Max Keiser talks to Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation about bitcoin in the virtual world and about pseudo abundance and artificial scarcity in the real world. 
The wealthiest university of Earth can't afford its academic journal subscriptions. Why not? Because academic journals are expensive. Now, the British government is doing its part to change that.
"UK Science Minister David Willetts outlined the details of a plan that would make publicly funded research available online. Free of charge. They're even enlisting the help of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales to help pull it off. This is a huge win for the open science revolution."
"My department spends about £5bn each year funding academic research – and it is because we believe in the fundamental importance of this research that we have protected the science budget for the whole of this parliament."
"We fund this research because it furthers human knowledge and drives intellectual, social and economic progress. In line with our commitment to open information, tomorrow [May 2, 2012] I will be announcing at the Publishers Association annual meeting that we will make publicly funded research accessible free of charge to readers..." ![Greek town Volos stimulates economy with credit currency [Video] | Networking - p2p - a new society | Scoop.it](http://img.scoop.it/AoUtNjIqdDn8EY_EpEtnsjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ)
"As reported by Kelly McCartney in shareable and based on a video from BBC News that was posted on YouTube, the Greek port town of Volos has adopted a barter network – aided by a credit system called TEMs – to help its citizens get through an economically trough time."
"People sign up for a TEMs network account, see what services they might offer to other folks in their area who are in need, and start amassing credits that can be cashed in for things they themselves need. TEMs can be used for everything from bakers to babysitters, teachers to technicians." 
Zurker is still in private beta, which means you can get in only with an invitation.
It is a social network in the making, which will be owned by its users. Being developed on a shoestring budget, the application isn’t your typical social network backed by investors. Yet the people behind it would love to see this grow and overtake both Facebook and Twitter, and who knows … the chemistry of social networks may still have some surprises for us. 
This is an in-depth report by Gordon Cook on the mesh network communications infrastructure, first implemented at Occupy Wall Street and then extended to various other Occupy sites.
There is information about the Free Network Foundation and its founders, the man behind the idea - Isaac Wilder - and their plans for a future citizen-owned mesh network that will connect users before linking into the larger internet.
The article has an interview with Wilder and a detailed description of the hardware that makes up the "Freedom Tower" mobile networking unit.
Although the New York Police Department made sure that none of the computers used at Occupy Wall Street's Zucchetti Park will ever be used again by smashing them to a pulp, the idea of citizen-owned communications has brilliantly weathered its first hard challenge.
The idea will not go away. 
Back in 1995, a retired Hughes Avionics engineer decided to give back. And give back he did. Being entrenched in the high technology industry for most his life, he was dismayed at the lack of technology being used in California’s public schools. The affluent schools were outfitted, such as the ones in Manhattan Beach, CA were he lived. But Manhattan Beach, the home of the aerospace industry – was far from the norm in the state. So he decided to do something about it.
Having a computer science background, he organized an effort to wire every public school in California for the internet. And he was going to do it using all volunteer labor and donated supplies … in one day. |
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