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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 27, 2013 7:24 PM
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"In the days of the Arab Spring, Syntagma Square, the Occupy Movement, the public sector strike and the education struggles we were witness to a renewed ‘popular front’ of sorts. A ‘populous front’ that brought together different levels, forms and registers of protest. It was interesting to note that in Athens many sectors of the left viewed the initial Syntagma Square assemblies with suspicion. The spectre of nationalism, inaugural in the historic popular front of Soviet Policy, was off-putting and, however briefly, seen by some as a definitional overcoding of the assemblies. Yet, re-reading some of the initial statements made in these assemblies and the reported suspicion of a political hijacking of them, it is interesting to note that many of these statements were directly ‘affecting’ expressions of suffering that seem to be uttered in defiance of the ‘languages of power’.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 21, 2013 1:13 PM
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In addition to our efforts in the P2P Lab and to our collaborators and partners (for example the DLN network or the Athens-basedhackerspace), the TEPSIE report (see the full citation and more info about it at the end) contains some more initiatives with the aim to build alternatives for the Greek society:
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 20, 2013 11:48 AM
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Through the case of the Helix_T wind turbine project, this article sets out to argue two points: first, on a theoretical level, that Commons-based peer production, in conjunction with the emerging technological capabilities of three-dimensional printing, can also produce promising hardware, globally designed and locally produced. Second, the Commons-oriented wind turbine examined here is also meant to practically contribute to the quest for novel solutions to the timely problem of the need for (autonomous) renewable sources of energy, more in the sense of a development process than as a ready-to-apply solution. We demonstrate that it is possible for someone with partial initial knowledge to initiate a similar, complex project based on an interesting idea, and to succeed in implementing it through collaboration with Commons-oriented communities, while using peer-produced products and tools. Given the trends and trajectories both of the current information-based paradigm and the problems of the predominant industrial modes of production with all the collateral damage they entail, this may be considered a positive message indeed.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 18, 2013 4:45 PM
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1. We believe the most important division in today’s left is between those that hold to a folk politics of localism, direct action, and relentless horizontalism, and those that outline what must become called an accelerationist politics at ease with a modernity of abstraction, complexity, globality, and technology. The former remains content with establishing small and temporary spaces of non-?capitalist social relations, eschewing the real problems entailed in facing foes which are intrinsically non-?local, abstract, and rooted deep in our everyday infrastructure. The failure of such politics has been built-?in from the very beginning. By contrast, an accelerationist politics seeks to preserve the gains of late capitalism while going further than its value system, governance structures, and mass pathologies will allow.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 15, 2013 7:46 PM
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California has been the source of much innovation, from agribusiness and oil to fashion and the digital world. Historically much richer than the rest of the country, it was also the birthplace, along with Levittown, of the mass-produced suburb, freeways, much of our modern entrepreneurial culture, and of course mass entertainment. For most of a century, for both better and worse, California has defined progress, not only for America but for the world.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 14, 2013 1:58 PM
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” it has been drummed into our heads for a considerable period of time that there is no alternative. One of the first things we have to do is to think about the alternative in order to move towards its creation.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 8, 2013 6:07 PM
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With falling party memberships and a narrowing gene-pool of candidates, parties need to open up. Supporters should be able to sign up and vote online just as easily as they are able to buy something on Amazon
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 8, 2013 1:13 AM
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In the last decade, the commons has become a prevalent theme in discussions about collective but decentralized control over resources. This paper is a preliminary exploration of the potential linkages between commons and cooperatives through a discussion of the worker cooperative as one example of a labour commons. We view the worker coop as a response at once antagonistic and accommodative to capitalism. This perspective is amplified through a consideration of five aspects of an ideal-type worker cooperativism: associated labour, workplace democracy, surplus distribution, cooperation among cooperatives, and, controversially, links between worker cooperatives and socialist states. We conclude by suggesting that the radical potential of worker cooperatives might be extended, theoretically and practically, by elaborating connections with other commons struggles in a process we term thecirculation of the common.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 6, 2013 1:51 AM
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“The emergence of Partido X (Spain), Partido de la Red (Argentina), Red Sustentável (Brasil) and Wikipartido (Mexico) suggest a new era in politics. Net (InterNet) parties incorporate the open, horizontal and leaderless processes associated with free software and social movements such as 15M.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 1, 2013 1:57 AM
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Better Reykjavík is one of the pioneering direct democracy projects originating from Iceland. By harnessing the collective wisdom of the crowd, it enables people to connect directly with political power and could be applied far beyond Iceland’s shores.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
September 29, 2013 2:57 PM
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This is not the least merit of #Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics. It has at least some grasp of contemporary conjuncture in which we find ourselves. But the grasp is in my view, only partial. In some ways it’s a rather old-fashioned text. Of course, one is always drawing on the past to imagine a future. But this process – some would call it détournement, some would call it hacking – has to be done with a little more historical depth and breadth. What follows, then, is a friendly commentary and critique of #Accelerate. The numbering of these counter-theses match those of the original document.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
September 27, 2013 1:04 AM
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Here are some of the terms of the old vocabulary: public goods and private goods, for-profit and non-profit organizations, public agencies and NGOs, capital and social markets, government, markets, and civil society, the commons and the private.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
September 22, 2013 9:47 AM
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This 2-part piece aims to locate cybernetic systems theory and digital developments within the context of the now-structural economic ‘crisis’ and project of world libertarian communism, or to put this term another way, ‘the human project’…
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 23, 2013 4:47 PM
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With falling party memberships and a narrowing gene-pool of candidates, parties need to open up. Supporters should be able to sign up and vote online just as easily as they are able to buy something on Amazon.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 20, 2013 12:25 PM
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We’re collectively insane. Our civilisations now appears to be almost psychotic. We’ve created systems that if you were to look at them as if they were individuals, we would see them as being mentally ill to an extreme extent.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 19, 2013 5:57 AM
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There seems to be a prevalent trend in media and political commentary about the Canadian province of New Brunswick where I live and am from; that the province is falling behind, in decline.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 15, 2013 8:06 PM
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 14, 2013 4:49 PM
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With rapid urbanization under way, cities want to call their own shots. Increasingly, they can.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 10, 2013 1:19 AM
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Rachel Falconer writes about the cyberfeminist art collective subRosa,a group using science, technology, and social activism to explore and critique the political traction of information and bio technologies on women’s bodies, lives and work.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 8, 2013 1:22 AM
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With falling party memberships and a narrowing gene-pool of candidates, parties need to open up. Supporters should be able to sign up and vote online just as easily as they are able to buy something on Amazon
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 8, 2013 12:54 AM
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“The International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO) is a growing association of citizens worldwide who use their votes in a coordinated, effective way to drive all nations to co-operate in solving our planetary crisis. ISPO goes beyond merely demanding greater political accountability by offering citizens a new way of restoring genuine democracy lawfully and peacefully, one vote at a time.”
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Scooped by
jean lievens
October 5, 2013 6:18 AM
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" The basis of that theory is the uncontroversial fact that human societies routinely build more infrastructure than they can afford to maintain. During periods of prosperity, societies invest available resources in major projects—temples, fortifications, canal or road systems, space programs, or whatever else happens to appeal to the collective imagination of the age. As infrastructure increases in scale and complexity, the costs of maintenance rise to equal and exceed the available economic surplus; the period of prosperity ends in political and economic failure, and infrastructure falls into ruin as its maintenance costs are no longer paid.
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Scooped by
jean lievens
September 30, 2013 10:43 AM
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“Regardless, the biggest difference between the new Net parties and the old is something else: their open program. Both the Pirate Party and Partido de Internet have very specific objectives regarding Internet freedom, free licenses and participatory democracy. And Equo doesn’t try to hide its green face. The Candidatura d´Unitat Popular (CUP) – a Net-born Catalonian Party – defines itself as “Anticapitalist, Separatist Left”. Despite this, Net parties are, above all, open processes. They are also, by choice, unfinished mechanisms. The aim is to create platforms, protocols and tools that can employed by others. Anyone can use the mechanism, regardless of the content created with it.”
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Scooped by
jean lievens
September 29, 2013 2:56 PM
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The book launch of Revolucionarios cibernéticos will take place August 28 at 7:30pm at the Fundación Salvador Allende (Av. República 475, Santiago de Chile) as part of a series of events commemorating the 40-year anniversary of the Unidad Popular. Jaime Tohá González, ex-Minister of the Unidad Popular will be presenting the book and I will be sharing stories and answering questions. Spread the word to those who might be interested or perhaps I’ll see you there!
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Scooped by
jean lievens
September 23, 2013 5:26 PM
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“GLOBALISATION” has become the buzzword of the last two decades. The sudden increase in the exchange of knowledge, trade and capital around the world, driven by technological innovation, from the internet to shipping containers, thrust the term into the limelight.
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