August 2015 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

Fwd: [Rethink UvA] on the uberfication of the university
by Orsan Senalp 21 Aug '15

21 Aug '15

Begin forwarded message: > From: "Pekelharing, Pieter" <P.Pekelharing(a)uva.nl> > Date: 21 Aug 2015 16:06:45 GMT+2 > To: "rethink-uva(a)list.uva.nl" <rethink-uva(a)list.uva.nl> > Subject: [Rethink UvA] on the uberfication of the university > > Dear all > > I thought the article below ( circulating via twitter) was interesting enough to be sent over het uva-list. It hooks up with discussions on this list about the value and effects of big data, of MOOC’s, teaching, the rise of the precariat, privatisation and the possible takeover of public universities by private enterprises on the basis of new business models derived from the rise of the sharing-economy and the application of new information technology. It gives a good impression of the forces those who want to defend the worth of public universities are up against. > > On the one hand we do not want to come over as luddites fighting a rear-guard struggle against the ‘unstoppable’ advancement of technology, on the other hand we don’t want to be ‘uberized’ and fall into the hands of private monopolists. > > What is it in the idea of education that can explain why universities need to remain public and why isn’t the creation of a perfect match between supply and individual demand (the promise of big data) the whole story? Is it only that we as workers, will - just like many other workers - end up getting the worst part of the deal? Is it that uberfication leads to monopolies with much too much private power and discretion? Or should the argument against uberfication be broader in scope? > As usual we will probably have to come up with a story about education’s intrinsic worth and the way in which its intrinsic worth will be undermined when the issue education is reduced to the creation of a perfect match between supply and demand. > Pieter > > The Uberfication of the University > > Gary Hall (Coventry University) > > Talk about being careful what you wish for. A recent survey of UK vice-chancellors identifies a number of areas of innovation with the potential to transform UK higher education. Among them are ‘uses of student data analytics for personalised services’ (the number 1 innovation priority for 90% of VCs), ‘uses of technology to transform learning experiences’ (Moocs, flipped classrooms etc.), and ‘student-driven flexible study modes’, leading not least to the ‘demise of the traditional academic year’. Responding to this survey, an editorial in the Times Higher Education laments that, ‘the UK has world-leading research universities, but what it doesn’t have is a higher education equivalent of Amazon or Google, with global reach and an aggressive online strategy.’ Yet one wonders whether any of those proclaiming the merits of such disruptive innovation have stopped to consider what a higher education institution emulating the expansionist ambitions of Amazon and Google would actually mean for those currently employed in UK universities. > > We can see the impact aggressive, global, for-profit technology companies have on the organisation of labour by looking at those data analytics businesses that are associated with the sharing economy. Emerging from the mid-2000s onwards, the sharing economy is a socio-economic ecosystem that supplies individuals with information that makes access to things like ridesharing and sofa surfing possible on a more efficient and expanded basis. As such, it’s often portrayed as bringing community values back into the ways in which people consume, and as helping to address environmental issues – by reducing the carbon footprint of transport, for example. > However, certain aspects of the sharing economy are also helping to enact a significant societal shift. It is a shift in which state regulated service intermediaries, like hotels and taxi companies, are replaced by information and data management intermediaries such as the start-ups Airbnb (a community marketplace for renting out private lodging and other kinds of accommodation) and Uber (an app that enables passengers to use their mobile phones to connect with a taxi, rideshare or private car). > > In this respect, the sharing economy is one of the ways in which neoliberalism has been able to proceed with its programme of privatisation, deregulation, and reduction to a minimum of the state, public sector and welfare, even after the financial crash of 2008-2009. For by avoiding pre-emptive government regulation, these profit-driven sharing economy businesses are operating according to what can be understood as a post-welfare model of capitalism. Here there are few legislative protections for workers, and hardly any possibilities for establishing trade unions or other means of generating the kind of solidarity capable of challenging this state of affairs. It’s a situation that often leaves those providing services for these companies without a host of workers’ rights. As Mike Bulajewski notes, the list includes ‘the right to have employers pay social security, disability and unemployment insurance taxes, the right to family and medical leave, workers’ compensation protection, sick pay, retirement benefits, profit sharing plans, protection from discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age or national origin, or wrongful termination for becoming pregnant, or reporting sexual harassment or other types of employer wrongdoing.’ > > All of which goes a long way toward explaining why in the March 2015 budget the government declared it is planning to make the UK a global centre for the sharing economy. Hence also one of the other names associated with this aspect of the sharing economy: ‘platform capitalism’. Indeed, the for-profit sector of this socio-economic ecosystem is almost the neoliberal ideal. It creates a situation in which the general population not only aspires to own their own homes – the vision Margaret Thatcher sold to the British working-classes in the 1980s with the right to buy scheme – they also have the opportunity to become private capitalist entrepreneurs themselves. And in the case of Airbnb, one way they can do so is precisely by trading underutilized space in their now privately owned homes. As Airbnb’s CEO, Brian Chesky, puts it, previously ‘only businesses could be trusted… Now, that trust has been democratized – any person can act like a brand…. It means… people all over a city, in 60 seconds, can become microentrepreneurs’. > > The information and data management intermediaries of the sharing economy may create jobs, then, but ‘it’s a new kind of job’, as Chesky acknowledges. He calls it a 21st century job, though really it’s closer to a 19th century Victorian job. For these for-profit companies, and the microentrepreneurs who labour for them, are operating in an open market that’s relatively free from the power of state regulators, the labour movement and trade unions, to not only put a limit on the maximum hours those employed in these new kinds of jobs work, but also to specify the minimum wage they receive, the number of days off they need, and the paid holidays and free weekends they’re entitled to. > > Production and control, profit and risk, are thus not shared in this sector of the sharing economy at all. It is the networks of users who help build the platform and provide the aggregated input, data and attention value that generates a market. It’s the owners of the information and data management intermediary who take the profits generated by financializing, corporatizing and exploiting the ’sharing’ of goods and services between the users and microentrepreneurs. These owners also control the platform, software and data, deciding pricing, wage levels, work allocation, and preferred user and labourer profile. > > Research on the sharing economy by McGregor, Brown and Glöss shows a certain ‘homophily’ occurs, by which it is often ‘similar “types” of people [who] provide and use these services (in terms of class, education and race)’, especially when a rating system is employed. Uber, for example, enables both customers and drivers to rate one another, and suspends drivers if their scores are not high enough. Finally, it is the microentrepreneurs (who can now be potentially ‘any person’ rather than a specific set of employees) who labour to provide services in the market created by the platform on a freelance, on demand, and frequently precarious basis; who take the risks associated with having lost their rights, benefits and protection as employees; and who, according to this research, often face ‘increased surveillance, deskilling, casualisation and intensification’ of their labour too. > > Such concerns are only too easy to push to the back of our minds when we’re trying to find a cheap place to stay for a weekend break, or call a taxi to take us home from a friend’s place late at night. It’s perhaps only when we think about these information and data management intermediaries from the perspective of a worker rather than a user, and consider their potential to disrupt our own areas of employment, that the implications of the shift to a post-welfare form of capitalism they’re helping to enact are really brought home. So what is the potential affect of this transformation in the organisation of labour on higher education? > > In April of this year, LinkedIn, the social networking platform for professionals, spent £1.5 billion purchasing Lynda.com, a supplier of online consumer-focused courses. Although it doesn’t address the sharing economy specifically, a report of this deal by Goldie Blumenstyk published shortly afterwards in the Chronicle of Higher Education under the title of ‘How LinkedIn’s Latest Move May Matter to Colleges’, was very quick to draw attention to some of its potential implications for higher education. Of course, with its University Pages and University Rankings Based on Career Outcomes, LinkedIn already has enough data to be able to provide the kind of detailed analysis of which institutions and courses are launching graduates into which long-term career trajectories, that no traditional university can match. > > But what the Chronicle piece makes clear is that, with its immanent transition into being both a social network and an actual provider of education, such data could now be used to develop an extremely successful data and information intermediary business model for higher education – if not by LinkedIn then by some other platform capitalist company. (Academia.edu, say, which has already signed up over 22 million academics who between them have added more than 6 million papers.) Such a model would be based on providing ‘transparent’ information on a fine-grained basis to employers, students, policy-makers and governments. This information would indicate which of the courses, classes and even teachers on any such education ‘sharing economy’ platform are better at enabling students to obtain a particular degree classification or other educational credential, make the successful transition to a desirable career, reach the top of a given profession, and so achieve a high level of job satisfaction and salary. > > But it doesn’t end there. The Chronicle report also tells of how LinkedIn bought a company called Bright in 2014. Bright has developed algorithms enabling it to match job positions with applicants according to their particular achievements, competencies and skill sets. And it wouldn’t be difficult for a business with the kind of data LinkedIn now has the potential to gather to do much the same for employers and students – right down to the level of their salary expectations, extracurricular activities, and ‘likes’. This business could charge a fee for doing so, just as many dating agencies make a healthy profit from introducing people with compatible personalities as deduced by algorithms. They could then charge a further fee for making this information and data available on a live basis in real time – something highly desirable in today’s ‘flexible’ economy, where many employers like to draw from a pool of zero-hours workers available ‘on tap’. > > More ominous still, given that it would be able to control the platform, software, data analytics and the associated ecosystem, it’s clear that such a global platform capitalist higher education business would also have the power to decide who could be most easily seen and found in any such alternative market for education (much as Google’s does with its page ranking, the European commission having decided in April 2015 that Google has a case to answer regarding possible abuse of its dominance of search through ‘systematically’ awarding greater prominence to its own ads). Understandably, perhaps – especially following the recent fuss over MOOCs – Blumenstyk’s analysis of LinkedIn’s acquisition of Lynda.com shies away from arriving at any overly exaggerated or pessimistic conclusions as to what all this may mean for higher education and its system of certification and credentialing. > Nevertheless, if a company like LinkedIn took the decision to provide this level of fine-grained data and information for its own unbundled, relatively inexpensive online courses, but not for those offered by its more expensive market competitors in the public sector, it would surely have the potential to be at least as disruptive as Coursera, Udacity, FutureLearn and co. have proven to be to date, if not considerably more so. For the kind of information about degrees and student final destinations and ability to react to market changes any traditional bricks-and-mortar university is capable of providing on its own will appear extremely unsophisticated, limited and slow to compile and deliver by comparison. And, lest the adoption by a for-profit sharing economy business of such an aggressive stance toward public universities seems unlikely, it’s worth remembering that Google maintains its dominance of search in much the same way. In the words of its chief research guru, Peter Norvig, the reason Google has a 90-95% share of the European market for search is not because it has better algorithms than Yahoo and Bing, ‘it just has more data’. Indeed, one of the great myths about neoliberalism is that it strives to create competition on an open market. As the venture capitalist Peter Thiel, co-founder of Pay-Pal and early Facebook investor, emphasizes in his book Zero to One, what neoliberal businesses actually want is to be a monopoly: to be so dominant in their area of operation that they in fact escape the competition and become a market of one. > > Of course many of those who work in higher education already have contingent, precarious positions as a consequence of neoliberalism’s insistence that universities operate increasingly like businesses. According to Sally Hunt, secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), ‘more than a third of the UK’s total academic workforce is now on temporary, fixed-term contracts’, with a recent UCU survey of 2,500 casualised staff identifying a third of those in universities experiencing difficulty paying household bills, and as many as a fifth having problems finding enough money to buy food. > > If an higher education equivalent of Amazon or Google along the lines sketched above did come into being, it would disrupt the public university still further – only this time by means of an innovative, profit-driven, ‘sharing economy’ business operating according to a post-welfare capitalist model, just as Airbnb is currently disrupting the state regulated hotel industry, and Uber state regulated taxi companies. Increasing numbers of university workers would thus find themselves in a situation not dissimilar to that facing many cab drivers today. Instead of operating in a sector that’s accountable to state regulators, they would have little choice but to sell their cheap and easy-to-access courses to whoever’s prepared to pay for them in the ‘alternative’ education market created by platform capitalism. They too would become atomised, precarious, freelance microentrepreneurs. As such, they’d experience all the problems of deprofessionalisation, intensification and surveillance such a post-welfare capitalist economy brings. Is that what UK vice-chancellors actually want? > > Van http://discoversociety.org/2015/07/30/the-uberfication-of-the-university/ > > > _______________________________________________ > Rethink UvA mailing list: rethink-uva(a)list.uva.nl > Guidelines / Working Groups: http://bit.ly/rethink-working-groups > (Un)subscribe / change details: https://list.uva.nl/mailman/listinfo/rethink-uva > View members: https://list.uva.nl/mailman/roster/rethink-uva > Website: http://rethinkuva.org/ > Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1409697112666035/ > Twitter: https://twitter.com/rethinkUvA

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Fwd: Up-coming courses in Permaculture, Herbal Medicine and Small Wind Turbines
by Kevin Flanagan 20 Aug '15

20 Aug '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kostas Latoufis <latoufis(a)power.ece.ntua.gr> Date: 20 August 2015 at 17:39 Subject: Up-coming courses in Permaculture, Herbal Medicine and Small Wind Turbines To: Dear friends, During the next months Nea Guinea will be organizing three courses in Greece. Permaculture Design Course (PDC) with Rosemary Morrow (27th September - 9th October 2015) http://www.kangouro.gr/PDC-Rosemary-Morrow-Greece-2015-en Herbal Medicine course (7th November - 15th November 2015) http://neaguinea.org/7-15th-november-herbal-medicine-course-in-nea-makri-gr… Small Wind Turbine construction course (20th November - 29th November 2015) http://neaguinea.org/20-29th-november-build-a-small-wind-turbine-constructi… It would be great if you could spread the news to people that you think might be interested! You can find more information about these courses on Nea Guinea's website and FB page. Best wishes, Kostas Nea Guinea <Developing the self-reliance and resilience of people and communities> Website: http://www.neaguinea.org Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nea-Guinea/304122449642277 -- https://twitter.com/flgnk Skype: kev.flanagan Phone: +353 87 743 5660

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Re: [P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] Towards a people's Internet | América Latina en movimiento
by Orsan Senalp 20 Aug '15

20 Aug '15

Down with the of Internet of Everything (IoE) viva free / libre and open source Intermet of The Peoples' (Flos-IoP)! > On 20 Aug 2015, at 09:10, Peter Waterman <peterwaterman1936(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > http://www.alainet.org/en/revistas/169787 > _______________________________________________ > NetworkedLabour mailing list > NetworkedLabour(a)lists.contrast.org > http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour

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Fwd: [members] Crosscloud
by Michel Bauwens 20 Aug '15

20 Aug '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Pablo Ojanguren <pablojan(a)ucm.es> Date: Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 1:51 PM Subject: [members] Crosscloud To: members(a)lists.p2pvalue.eu A MIT project for decentralized Web http://crosscloud.org/ -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Re: [P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] [WSF-Discuss] Human Use of Human Beings by SS. Wiener (1989)
by Orsan 19 Aug '15

19 Aug '15

> Working on the bomb? Did they understand? Maybe with hindsight. I think they were seduced by Anti-fascism, thanks to being petrified by the Nazis. And may be we are watching the same movie again, or may be the worse: 'Google’s Artificial Intelligence Speaks, and She’s a Woman' http://tech.co/stephen-hawking-ai-danger-2015-07

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Fwd: Food for a change of language thought 12
by Michel Bauwens 19 Aug '15

19 Aug '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Claudio Schuftan <cschuftan(a)phmovement.org> Date: Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 12:08 PM Subject: Food for a change of language thought 12 To: yo <schuftan(a)gmail.com> Excuse if received earlier. Had some problems with mailing list. Human Rights Reader 367 *DEVELOPMENT MEANS ‘TO BE MORE’, BUT UNDER GLOBALIZATION IT HAS COME TO MEAN ‘TO HAVE MORE’ --TWO VERY DIFFERENT PARADIGMS.* (R. Bissio) Underdevelopment is not a phase on the road towards development. Underdevelopment is the historical result of somebody else’s development. (Eduardo Galeano) *Why does the ‘development industry’ need a total overhaul of strategy and not just a change of language? * 1. The crisis of applied development approaches so far has become so patent that development practitioners are scrambling for alternative responses (unfortunately not all along the human rights pathway…). The dominant development narrative has simply not yet come to see poverty as a matter of injustice; it sticks with business as usual, endlessly wrapping it with fresh new language that is way *passé*. 2. The best strategy we see these days goes about peddling the following mantra: Talk about the poor as ‘equals’ who share our values and aspirations; emphasize that development is a ‘partnership’; stop casting rich people and celebrities as saviors of ‘the poor’; and, above all, play up the idea of ‘self-reliance’ and ‘independence’ with special attention to empowering women and girls. ‘Progressive’ Northerners love this stuff. But this new framing amounts to little more than a propaganda strategy. ‘The poor’ are still treated as an impersonal entity and there is no mention about partnerships understood as a coming together of equals, for once, leveling the playing field… 3. Instead of changing their actual approach to development, philanthropies, foundations and international NGOs just want to make people *think* they're changing it. In the end, the existing aid paradigm remains intact, and the real problems remain unaddressed --unfortunately, I fear, also post-2015 despite the SDGs... Piecemeal gains are not tantamount to long-term success! Poverty is not a natural phenomenon, disconnected from the rich world, and people and countries rendered poor need much more than piecemeal bits of charity to allow them to help themselves out of it. All of this makes it clear that poverty really continues to be a state of plunder. It is thus delusional to believe that charity and foreign aid are meaningful solutions *to this kind of a problem*.* (J. Hickel) *: It would seem then that the time is overdue to denounce safety nets and targeting as only being forms of risk management --since the only risk they really mitigate is the risk of subversion. (Can we thus say that they represent a form of common, but differentiated irresponsibility…?). 4. For instance, just consider: As part of the jargon *en vogue*, donors offer and/or demand ‘transformative policy packages’. But the problem is that these typically pay too little attention, if any, to the inherent political obstacles to transformation. Naiveté? Hardly…! (D. Messner) 5. With this said, it is not an exaggeration, then, to also denounce that the current inter-governmental system is not being able to act in the true interest of humankind (and of human rights). Look at the post-2015 agenda, the climate and the human rights (HR) talks so far: The pacts arrived-at were or are adopted by every country, simply because they carry no obligations! They are a kind of global gentlemen’s agreement, where it is assumed that the world is inhabited only by gentlemen …including those in transnational corporations (!). Carrying on business this way, is an act of colossal irresponsibility where, for the sake of international consensus agreements, not one realistic set of more radical solutions has been agreed-on and approved. It is all like in a hospital where the key surgeon announces that the good news is that the patient will remain paralyzed. The paramount issue sought is to say that the inter-governmental system can unanimously declare to the world its unity and its ‘common engagement’ --no matter how non-specific, non-binding and vague the latter is. Needless to say: The interests of humankind and of HR are not part of *the equation in such a consensus.** **(R. Savio)* **: Ought not each individual in the South then virtually be an enemy of the Northern Development Model, given that the above ‘consensus’ is ultimately imposed by a minority? 6. At this point, it is fitting to raise the issue regarding the use of the term Development. Any word has to mean one thing; it cannot represent two opposite meanings. Lately, development has come to mean increases in infrastructure, industrial growth, capitalization of agriculture, free global flow of financial capital and of technology; also, privatization, liberalization of laws regarding labor, environment and direct taxes, etc. All this has led to an alarming worldwide rise in inequality, pauperization of workers and farmers, destruction of the commons and its resources*** with pollution reaching alarming proportion: In short, a threat to peace and to life on earth itself. Therefore, no surprise that HR have all but been forgotten in this *biased kind of development*! ***: Claims that we live in an era of limited resources fail to mention that these resources happen to be made more available now than ever before in human history. (P. Farmer) 7. A few years ago, I was comfortable in using the concept of Sustainable Development. But now, I feel that the corporate world has appropriated even this qualified development concept.**** As you must see, I do not see HR being a criterion either when the mainstream media (‘the Fourth Estate’) talks of development. Then, why should a HR activist like me use the word development *to represent what I do not wish for?** (Dileep Kamat)* ****: Activist public interest civil society organizations and social movements do understand the subterfuge the corporate world uses under its HR discourse to, in fact, promote its own (development) agenda. *In human rights work, what is now necessary is to go a step further and move from an aspirational to an operational mode * 8. It is not an exaggeration to say that, so far, the HR contents of the Post 2015 Agenda remain at normative (window dressing) level at best. For instance, the ‘Six Essential Elements for Delivering on the SDGs’ proposed by the UN Secretary General, namely Dignity, Prosperity, Justice, Partnership, Planet and People are OK. But they detract from the Three Core Dimensions of Sustainable Development, i.e., the Environmental, Economic and Social dimensions --as well as detracting from the HR Framework! Inequality cannot be considered to automatically fall within the realm of the Dignity element above; doing so makes inequality caused by the non-fulfillment of HR emerge with its place diminished in the hierarchy of post 2015 development priorities; we must trumpet its importance more forcefully since equality is and will continue to be built on the bedrock of HR principles. (K. Donald, CESR) 9. We cannot thus miss the opportunity to denounce and illustrate how previously close-to-universally-agreed and well-defined HR obligations are *not* being carried over into development planning and practice. (Even the all-important post 2015 SDGs have failed us). Aiming for a ‘Shared Prosperity’ through development is a typically vague and not adequate marker of success if not coupled with gauging the realization of HR as a way to assess progress on sustainable development goals. 10. The way forward must thus be marked by seriously addressing the current dominant macroeconomic and fiscal policies that undermine not only HR, but also economic, gender, environmental and other aspects of justice in this, our ailing world. 11. Truly people-centered and participatory accountability mechanisms used at the local, national and global level require a new approach and, at the very least, a significant meaningful reform, as well as the democratization of existing institutions. This is part of what it means going into an operational mode in our work. Emphasizing the need for regulation, safeguards and mandatory reporting for private investments in sustainable development is another step in the right direction. But quite a bit more will be needed to ensure HR are respected in all development processes. 12. At all levels, the post-2015 accountability mechanisms must be made robust and comprehensive enough to cover private sector actors, public private partnerships and international financial institutions (IFIs), as well as states *and* UN agencies, demanding transparency in the name of the right to information --not forgetting to demand the application of extra-territorial obligations and demanding that tax evasion and illicit financial flows are tackled. (Post-2015 Human Rights Caucus) Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City cschuftan(a)phmovement.org <cscuftan(a)phmovement.org> *Postscript/Marginalia* -‘Ethical policies’ invariably end up being lax if and when money or perks are offered. - As a reminder, there are 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) being considered, namely in the areas of ending poverty; ending hunger, improving nutrition, achieving food security and sustainable agriculture as well as healthy lives, education for all, gender equality, water and sanitation, energy for all, sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work, industrialization, reducing inequalities, inclusive cities, sustainable consumption and production, climate, marine resources, terrestrial ecosystems, forests, desertification and land degradation, peace and justice, and revitalizing global partnerships for sustainable development. BUT to transform the global development paradigm, more is needed than goals… -The post 2015 development agenda discussions are actually geometric: they have angular problems that are discussed in round tables by a bunch of square-headed bureaucrats that, due to their skewed appreciation of reality on the ground, come up with obtuse solutions. (quoted by Albino Gomez) In the debates of the last two years, there simply have been persons who have extreme elliptical convictions with whom we should not loose our time any more. (R. Ampuero) -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: FW: AAG 2016 CfP: Sharing in/on sharing: socio-spatial, temporal and technological transitions
by Michel Bauwens 19 Aug '15

19 Aug '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: TRAVLOU Penny <p.travlou(a)ed.ac.uk> Date: Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 6:59 PM Subject: FW: AAG 2016 CfP: Sharing in/on sharing: socio-spatial, temporal and technological transitions To: "jpandreoni(a)gmail.com" <jpandreoni(a)gmail.com>, "michel(a)p2pfoundation.net" <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net>, "rachel.odwyer(a)gmail.com" < rachel.odwyer(a)gmail.com>, "panayotis(a)nethood.org" <panayotis(a)nethood.org>, " aqua(a)hol.gr" <aqua(a)hol.gr>, "katalinhausel(a)gmail.com" < katalinhausel(a)gmail.com> FYI Best, Penny ________________________________________ From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [ CRIT-GEOG-FORUM(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK] on behalf of Helen Jarvis [ helen.jarvis(a)NEWCASTLE.AC.UK] Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 12:00 To: CRIT-GEOG-FORUM(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: AAG 2016 CfP: Sharing in/on sharing: socio-spatial, temporal and technological transitions AAG 2016 CfP: Sharing in/on sharing: socio-spatial, temporal and technological transitions AAG Annual Meeting, San Francisco 29 March - 2 April 2016 Organisers: Mike Crang (Durham University, UK), Helen Jarvis (Newcastle University, UK), Ramon Ribera-Fumaz (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) Human geography scholarship increasingly deploys the language and practice of 'sharing'; notably in debates on social and environmental justice; with respect to traditional and digital sharing economies; the 'conviviality' sought in efforts to open up public space for civic engagement; and in cooperation and collaboration between academics, activists and practitioners. Thus Popke (2006) calls for an expansion of ethical significance (and responsible action) to all aspects of daily life and to emphasise connectedness to others based on 'mutual obligations and relations of trust' (McDowell 2004: 157; Lawson 2007: 3), 'cooperation rather than competition' and 'interdependence over individuation' (Smith 2004: 11). Yet, from classical anthropology we learn that sharing represents an 'integration of intimate economies' that cannot be reduced to reciprocity or exchange relations alone (Price 1975). Therefore, this session aims to expand the conceptual significance of sharing (goods, services, knowledge, space, time, technology, visions and values), theoretically, empirically and ethically- taking fuller account of intimacy and interdependence. There are many possible futures for a burgeoning sharing economy, some progressive, others reinforcing the deep social divisions and wasteful consumption associated with neoliberal emphasis on market choice, competitiveness and efficiency. It is timely to deconstruct the tensions and contractions bound up with interdependent networks of peer-to-peer and face-to-face sharing. This is especially so at this AAG because it is to be held in San Francisco at a time when the 'success' of the digital home-sharing market, notably Airbnb, for instance, is implicated in exacerbating rising prices and evictions. Airbnb originated in San Francisco and is valued at $25 billion. San Francisco is also home to the influential non-profit online magazine Shareable which provides a hub of grassroots movements that variously advocate new and expanded sharing economies to address challenges such as climate change, lack of affordable housing, resource depletion and waste. According to Shareable, the sharing transformation that is emerging in cities around the world connects communities of interest as varied as the maker movement, collaborative housing, collaborative consumption, solidarity economies, transition towns, degrowth and voluntary simplicity. Acknowledging San Francisco as a provocative reference laboratory on the conference doorstep, this session aims to bring a critical theoretical gaze to claims made by and for a sharing transformation. In particular we seek to explore: . To what extent are we witnessing a reinvention and revival of sharing in our cities? How is this manifest in new and/or progressive ways? . To what extent does the sharing transformation offer solutions for social justice? Community resilience? Carbon-neutral one-planet sustainable development? We invite papers which engage with the tensions and contradictions bound up with the language of sharing and expectations of sharing virtually 'at scale' that compete with intimate economies that embed the 'social architecture' of sharing in meaningful community relations of place-making. In particular, we invite papers which deal with: . The sharing economy and the geographies of community . Ways of 'living together' (intentionally sharing space and time) as a path out of capitalism . The non-economic 'intangible' processes and attributes of collaborative networks that formal economic modelling and city planning and governance tend to overlook . Sharing and conviviality, proximity and trust . Structure and agency: individual 'choice' and structural barriers to alternative ways of living Submission Procedure: Please send your abstract of 250 words or fewer to: Helen.jarvis(a)ncl.ac.uk We particularly encourage contributions from doctoral students, activists, practitioners and early-career researchers, from anywhere in the world. Please send abstracts before 3 October 2015. We will notify contributors of acceptance before 12 October. Please note that all accepted contributors will need to register for the AAG conference at aag.org. School of Geography, Politics and Sociology Room 3.70, Daysh Building Newcastle University Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom *NOTE NEW PHONE NUMBER* t: +44 (0)191 208 6959 e: helen.jarvis(a)ncl.ac.uk w: www.ncl.ac.uk/gps Twitter: @communityvita ESRC Seminar series: Collaborative Housing and Community Resilience http://collaborativehousing.net/ -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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sustainable exchange course
by Michel Bauwens 19 Aug '15

19 Aug '15

*From: *Leander Bindewald <leander(a)criterical.net> (admin) *Subject: **[sustainablemoney] 2nd Online Course on Money and Society* *Date: *18 August 2015 23:31:35 GMT+1 *To: *sustainablemoney(a)community-currency.info Respond by replying above this line or visit http://forum.community-currency.info/conversations/336 *Did you know…* ... members of this list can now find all conversations archived online - www.ccresearch.community-currency.info +1 this post <http://forum.community-currency.info/conversation_posts/55d3b21c383634000d0…> Hi all, This weekend the second iteration of the University of Cumbria's MOOC (Mass Open Online Course) on "Money and Society" will start. Join 300 students registered already, from all over the world, and the alumni from the first iteration! More information and registration here: http://iflas.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/money-and-society-mooc.html This online course is also the pre-course work for the University's credit-bearing residential course "Sustainable Exchange", which is next taught in Spring 2016: http://www.cumbria.ac.uk/Courses/Subjects/BusinessComputing/Short/Sustainab… -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: World Social Forum (WSF) 2016 Montréal Open Assembly on Saturday, August 29th 1-4pm at McGill University
by Kevin Flanagan 18 Aug '15

18 Aug '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Becky Lentz <roberta.lentz(a)mcgill.ca> Date: 2015-08-18 19:36 GMT+01:00 Subject: World Social Forum (WSF) 2016 Montréal Open Assembly on Saturday, August 29th 1-4pm at McGill University To: Becky Lentz <roberta.lentz(a)mcgill.ca> *Please post/forward as appropriate, and excuse any unavoidable cross-postings [French version follows]* You are cordially invited to the next WSF 2016 Open Assembly, which will take place on Saturday August 29. Where: McGill University Arts Building (west side), 3rd floor, Room W-215 When: 1-4pm How to get there: *http://www.mcgill.ca/maps/arts-building <http://www.mcgill.ca/maps/arts-building>* (please use the Southwest or Southeast building entrances because the main entrance is closed for renovations) For questions contact: info(a)fsm2016.org Website for the WSF2016: *http://www.fsm2016.org/ <http://www.fsm2016.org/>* This Open Assembly will be a chance for people to learn about the WSF, how and why Montreal was selected as the 2016 host city, and how to get involved in helping plan the next stages of getting ready for the WSF scheduled for August 9-14, 2016. Particular attention will be given to collaboration between the WSF 2016 organizational process and the partner organizations that are supporting Montreal’s hosting of the WSF. We remind you that the World Social Forum (WSF) is the largest gathering of global civil society, aiming to find solutions to the problems of our time. The Montreal WSF 2016 will make a mark on history as the first event of its type to take place in a Northern country. In fact, since its creation in Porto Alegre (Brazil) in 2001, the WSF has only taken place in Southern countries (Latin America, Asia, Africa). The objective of the WSF 2016 is to gather between 50,000 and 80,000 people, representing 5,000 organizations from local, national, regional, and worldwide civil society, in downtown Montreal from the 9th to the 14th of August 2016 to participate in more than 1,500 self-managed activities, with opening and closing processions, a youth camp, and extensive cultural programming. The agenda of the assembly and the documents will follow next monday. Sincerely, The WSF 2016 Organizing Collective *Venez participer à l’Assemblée ouverte du Forum Social Mondial (FSM) 2016, Samedi 29 août, 13h-16h - Université McGill* --------------------------------------------------- *Faites suivre et partagez cette invitation largement !* Vous êtes chaleureusement invitéEs à la prochaine Assemblée ouverte du FSM 2016 qui aura lieu le samedi 29 août. Où: Université McGill - Arts Building (côté ouest), 3ème étage, Local W-215 Quand: 13h-16h Comment s’y rendre: http://www.mcgill.ca/maps/arts-building (Utilisez les entrées sud-ouest ou sud-est du pavillon car l’entrée principale est fermée pour rénovation) Contact: info(a)fsm2016.org Site du FSM 2016: http://www.fsm2016.org/ Cette Assemblée sera l’occasion de faire le point sur l’état d’avancement du processus d’organisation, les prochaines échéances et les besoins qui émergent à cette étape. Une attention particulière sera portée à la consolidation de la synergie entre le processus organisationnel FSM 2016 et les organisations partenaires qui appuient la tenue du FSM à Montréal. Nous vous rappelons que le Forum Social Mondial (FSM) est le plus grand rassemblement de la société civile globale, visant à trouver des solutions aux problèmes de notre temps. Le FSM-Montréal 2016 marquera l’histoire comme étant le premier événement de ce genre à se tenir dans un pays dit du Nord. En effet, depuis sa création à Porto Alegre (Brésil) en 2001, le FSM n’a eu lieu que dans des pays du Sud (Amérique latine, Asie, Afrique). L’objectif du FSM 2016 est de rassembler entre 50 000 et 80 000 personnes au centre-ville de Montréal du 9 au 14 août 2016, dont les représentantEs de 5000 organisations de la société civile locale et mondiale, pour participer à plus de 1500 activités autogérées, avec des marches d’ouverture et de clôture, un campement de la jeunesse et une vaste programmation culturelle. L’ordre du jour de l’Assemblée et les documents de préparation suivront lundi prochain. Solidairement, Collectif FSM 2016 Montréal -- https://twitter.com/flgnk Skype: kev.flanagan Phone: +353 87 743 5660

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Re: [P2P-F] [WSF-Discuss] Human Use of Human Beings by SS. Wiener (1989)
by Orsan 18 Aug '15

18 Aug '15

Probably there is a short circuit here as Franz and Brian you may be rightly identified.. Yet how naive can a brain like Wiener? To miss where life is leading him, and his work, paid by state and army. Can a scientist be so precise and creative in systemic thinking and knows so much about its relation of developing control mechanisms, and then be so naive about where it is going... Does she or he have the luxury of being ir- or non-responsible? Wiener, Bertalanffy, Hebb, Von Neumann, Boltzmann, Bohr, even Einstein ... This large network of East European scientists and philosophers, interestingly most of them having reformist-Jewish family back ground, and somehow influenced by the relativist and energetic ideas and work of Ernst Mach- most of them linked to or connected to -in Europe- Vienna circle and Mont Pellerin society and -in US- Chicago where Von Misses and Von Hayek (both are staunch followers of Carl Menger) built their hubs (later Chicago centered Austrian School of Economists - also known as 'Mach circle') and attracted state and corporate funders like Rockefeller, Ford, Rand. These hubs became central to the emergence of the Big Brother: networks of state and TNCs led cybernetics and complex systems management centers (known as operation research units) like Los Alamos, MIT labs, Silicon Valley, as Google's and NSA-Prism's birth places. May be in terms of Wiener's or Bertalanffy's specific personalities I have followed incorrectly connected dots and reached early/wrong opinions. Yet I believe that they were very well aware of what they have been doing, and what that was serving for. This is totally opposite to what Bogdanov have done and how he done that, he developed much more complete, compact and flawless theorization of complex systems and their internal, external and interconnected dynamic formation and changes, to steer the change bottom up. Not to steer thr steerers, from winter palace. The most important point is what SSCB missed with Bogdanov is caught and exploited by the West by resulting in most sophisticated and meta-algorithmic war and oppression machine, that is globalized capital and the transnationalised state, resting on transnationally networked control and informational management of organization of the people, things, ideas, behaviors, even nerves, and genes. Orsan > On 17 aug. 2015, at 16:52, Brian K Murphy <BrianKMurphy(a)bell.net> wrote: > > Have you actually read this book, Orsan? I have considered it ‘required reading’ since I discovered it in the late sixties. It is a profound and trenchant warning about the dehumanizing trajectory of technology in the 20th century, and the inevitable enslavement of humans in the service of the machine... > > > On 16 Aug 2015, at 10:52 am, Orsan wrote: > Human as a mean of production, by ex-nazi 21. cc Malthus, Norbert Wiener, a good friend of von Hayek. Wiener is guilty of plagrimism and assimilating work of Alexander Bogdanov, and put it in service of the builders of the panotpticon during the cold war: > s > "This is one of the fundamental documents of our time, a period characterized by the concepts of 'information' and 'communications'. Norbert Wiener, a child prodigy and a great mathematician, coined the term 'cybernetics' to characterize a very general science of 'control and communication in the animal and machine'. It brought together concepts from engineering, the study of the nervous system and statistical mechanics (e.g. entropy). From these he developed concepts that have become pervasive through science (especially biology and computing a common parlance: 'in formation', 'message', 'feedback' and 'control'. He wrote, 'the thought of every age is reflected in its technique . . . If the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries are the age of clocks, and the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries constitute the age of steam engines, the present time is the age of communication and control.' " > http://asounder.org/resources/weiner_humanuse.pdf > > > > _______________________________________________ > ** WSFDiscuss is an open and unmoderated forum for the exchange of information and views on the experience, practise, and theory of the World Social Forum at any level (local, national, regional, and global) and on related social and political movements and issues. Join in !** > _______________________________________________ > WSFDiscuss mailing list > POST to LIST : Send email to WorldSocialForum-Discuss(a)openspaceforum.net > SUBSCRIBE: Send empty email to worldsocialforum-discuss-subscribe(a)openspaceforum.net > UNSUBSCRIBE: Send empty email to worldsocialforum-discuss-unsubscribe(a)openspaceforum.net > LIST ARCHIVES: http://openspaceforum.net/pipermail/worldsocialforum-discuss_openspaceforum… > LIST INFORMATION: http://openspaceforum.net/mailman/listinfo/worldsocialforum-discuss_openspa… > > There is no way to peace; peace is the way... > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > ** WSFDiscuss is an open and unmoderated forum for the exchange of information and views on the experience, practise, and theory of the World Social Forum at any level (local, national, regional, and global) and on related social and political movements and issues. Join in !** > _______________________________________________ > WSFDiscuss mailing list > POST to LIST : Send email to WorldSocialForum-Discuss(a)openspaceforum.net > SUBSCRIBE: Send empty email to worldsocialforum-discuss-subscribe(a)openspaceforum.net > UNSUBSCRIBE: Send empty email to worldsocialforum-discuss-unsubscribe(a)openspaceforum.net > LIST ARCHIVES: http://openspaceforum.net/pipermail/worldsocialforum-discuss_openspaceforum… > LIST INFORMATION: http://openspaceforum.net/mailman/listinfo/worldsocialforum-discuss_openspa…

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