Peer2Politics

DiDIY (Digital DIY) is an European H2020 research project in which I work these days. Its looks at (emphasis mine) the “emergence of new scenarios in the roles and relations among individuals, organizations, and society, in which the distinction between users and producers of physical artefacts is blurred, and new opportunities and threats emerge accordingly”.  …

The idea of POC21 is to invent inexpensive, modular household devices, farm tools and energy systems that can be replicated cheaply and shared by anyone.

“Citizen networks, wireless or not, could become a transversal infrastructral layer, reaching across society and different domains, becoming a revolutionary enabler of a new urban life in a way that points beyond capitalism as we knew it. … Rather than having corporations and the state who centrally organize production and consumption, in such a commons mode of production peer-to-peer forms of cooperation link infrastructural, political and cultural layers. The decentralized utopia envisioned by the 68 generation can now become a concrete project. With citizen networks and decentralized computing power localized exchange economies can be organized.”

Continuing our coverage of FLOK Society’s recent “Buen Conocer” summit, we’re glad to present this special long-form conversation between Open Access chronicler Richard Poynder and Michel Bauwens, held just before the summit took place. The interview is specially noteworthy for being a very honest across-the-board examination of FLOK as a process, including both its virtues and the unavoidable pitfalls it has faced. Read on for more.

“In the current debate concerning the rise and consequences of “cognitive capitalism”, a new discourse is developing around the concept of a “social knowledge economy”. But what does a social knowledge economy mean and what are its implications for the ways in which a society and an economy are ordered?

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

“empowering innovation” that expands access to technological innovations in waves, to new segments of society. My argument at this point is exactly this: open source hardware (open source in general) or more properly an innovation that is actually based on the commons can have this role today, that of giving us the opportunity to extend access to innovations without the need for capital, now more interested in financial speculation that the impact on the transformation of society. It seems clear, therefore, who’s the final target to be engaged in this revolution, in the absence of the interest of large financial investors: we are looking for communities, even if we didn’t realize it yet. We are trying to tell you that thanks to these new tools there’s now a way to take responsibility – as a community – to support innovation by directing the rudder to impact and growth of a long-term ecosystem rather than thinking about quarterly earnings.

“Anyone reasonably informed today understands that we are going through a major cultural shift. Capitalism and logics of egoist accumulation have led to the destruction of the environment, and as the number of humans on earth does not cease to grow, worst case scenari beckons. The scale of environmental man-made damages suggests that we need to envision new scalable collective solutions. Everything humans do is a form of technology, so it is technology itself that needs to radically changed to revert the adverse effects on our environment. I propose this axiom to get closer to that “ideal paradigm” : “If a technology is good for the environment, it should be made available for everyone to use, modify, distribute.” That is simple enough to call for a volunteer action and establish a consensus among a group of individuals to work together towards a common objective.”

 

What are the conditions for a more intentional technology movement?

“My research project is an exploration of an alternative way of organizing the production, outside of the capitalist logic based on the obligation to work, separation between producers and consumers, and the orientation on profit and not the benefit.”

Extracted from Andrew Jackon’s and Ben Dyson’s book, Modernising Money. The authors analyse the current situation: Money created as interest-bearing debt will always necessitate more growth, at the expense of our rapidly decaying living systems. There are, however, plenty of solutions being put forward to end this vicious cycle of destruction.

“Take an obvious example: Many of the advances that have propelled our high-tech economy in recent decades grew directly out of research programs financed and, often, collaboratively developed, by the federal government and paid for by the taxpayer. The Internet, to take the most well-known example, began as a government defense project, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), in the 1960s. Today’s vast software industry rests on a foundation of computer language and operating hardware developed, in large part, with public support. The Bill Gateses of the world might still be working with vacuum tubes and punch cards were it not for critical research and technology programs created or financed by the federal government.

Elizabeth Warren points out that there “is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.” Meaning: if the rich don’t pay their fair share of the taxes that educate their workers and provide roads, security and many other things, they are essentially stealing from everyone else.