I have just acquired a Fairphone, which I think addresses both the points you raised Peter in 1) below, ie mining raw materials and instant obsolescence. Addresses but does not completely resolve, admittedly. Things will not change overnight. As with most of these problems it is a question of increasing awareness. Anna On 17 Jun 2015, at 18:42, peter waterman <[email protected]> wrote: Michel Although, as you know, I generally agree with your posture toward ICT, I am not sure whether your response meets Ariel's concerns. Let me inter-leaf in horrible CAPS... 2014. From Coldwar Communism to the Global Justice Movement: Itinerary of a Long-Distance Internationalist. http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/from_coldwar_communism _to_the_global_emancipatory_movement/ (Free). 2014. Interface Journal Special (Co-Editor), December 2014. 'Social Movement Internationalisms'. (Free). 2014. 'The Networked Internationalism of Labour's Others', in Jai Sen (ed), Peter Waterman (co-ed), The Movement of Movements: Struggles for Other Worlds (Part I). (10 Euros). 2012. EBook: Recovering Internationalism. [A compilation of papers from the new millenium. Now free in two download formats] 2013. EBook (co-editor), February 2013: World Social Forum: Critical Explorations http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/ 2012. Interface Journal Special (co-editor), November 2012: For the Global Emancipation of Labour 2005-? Ongoing. Blog: http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman.???. Needed: a Global Labour Charter Movement (2005-Now!) 2011. Under, Against, Beyond: Labour and Social Movements Confront a Globalised, Informatised Capitalism (2011) (c. 1,000 pages of Working Papers, free, from the 1980's-90's).
On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 6:31 PM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote: dear Ariel,
I understand the argument, and the energy costs,
my argument is two-fold
1) that in a different systemic context, internet energy usage can be seriously curtailed (SEEMS TO BE 3-FOLD!). DEPENDENCE ON A 'DIFFERENT SYSTEMIC CONTEXT' IS A LITTLE LIKE SAYING, AS WE DID IN HAMPSTEAD YCL 1951: 'AFTER THE REVOLUTION THE MEN WILL HAVE THE BABIES'. MOREOVER, THIS POINT DOES NOT ADDRESS EITHER THE MOMENT OF RAW-MATERIAL EXTRACTION NOR THAT OF WHAT I CALL 'INSTANT OBSOLESCENCE' AND ITS POLLUTION EFFECTS. 2) that it is in any case an essential civilizational advance, like writing etc, which we will want to preserve even in times of crisis AGREED, A CIVILISATION ADVANCE, NOT JUST A CAPITALIST ONE (CASTELLS SAYS SOMETHING LIKE 'TRANS-EPOCHAL'). 'EVEN'? IN SO FAR AS WE ARE LIVING A CIVILISATIONAL CRISIS, I WOULD SAY THAT ICT IS BOTH PART OF THE PROBLEM AND PART OF THE SOLUTION.
3) that it is essential to social struggle
INDEEDY. SOCIAL STRUGGLE IS TAKING PLACE BOTH WITH AND WITHIN ICT. MOREOVER, IT INCORPORATES THE PRINCIPLE OF FEEDBACK, IT HAS A HORIZONTAL POTENTIAL (THUS UNDERMINING, FOR EXAMPLE, THE TRADITIONAL HIERARCHY OF THE TRADITIONAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT ORGANISATION), AND (AS ONE OF THE DOCS ON P2P POINTS OUT) HAS THE POTENTIAL FOR EMPOWERING THE LOCAL AND THE SMALL-SCALE PRODUCTION.
4) that it is essential for the transformation of the economy towards sustainability if we want to avoid massive loss of human life
AGREED, BUT NEEDS SPELLING OUT. AND THE SOURCES OF SUCH ARGUMENTS IN THE P2P DOCS YOU INDICATE AROUSE MY SCEPTICISM.
Of course, we are having this conversation of the network as well,
ALL OF WHICH IS NOT TO SAY THAT I AGREE WITH ARIEL'S POSTURE, AS YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED IN PREVIOUS POSTINGS IN THIS EXCHANGE! Best, Peter
see also: http://p2pfoundation.net/Internet_is_NOT_an_Energy_Hog
eventually http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Ecology#Green_Computing / http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Ecology#Specifics:_Green_Computing
On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 9:38 PM, Ariel Salleh <[email protected]> wrote:
Michel Thanks. There are a number of interesting political economy questions in this outline of P2P commoning but let's keep focus on the environmental costs of ICT - like the massive contradiction faced by WSF activists between dependency on the Internet, on one hand, and Climate Change, on the other.
Internet Cloud data centers or server farms are giant warehouses stacked with computers covering a denuded land area of hundreds of acres across a given state. They draw electricity to function as info-distributors and email storehouses, but day and night, generate so much heat that half as much power again must be used to cool the machines by air-conditioning. Google Corp alone is said to have over 20 ‘farms', housing some half million servers - each with a power consumption measured in triple digit megawatts. To gauge scale, we can compare domestic use where one megawatt would on average supply 1000 homes. Computing is seen as clean technology, but only because its ecological footprint - mining, global warming - is externalized on to nature and less privileged others to deal with. Ariel
On 15 Jun 2015, at 9:18 pm, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
the solution to me seems obviously not to leave the communication power in the hands of the elite only, but to democratize it and make it sustainable.
I would guess that the change in mode of production, using globally networked distributed production (light is global, heavy is local) would have the following effects, first in terms of redistribution of value:
* interest-free money would remove 38-48 percent of production costs that now go directly to the elite
* abolisning IP taxes as well would also have a huge redistributional effect, both these first measures would redirect massive amounts of capital for making production sustainable
* creatomg commons-producing open cooperative models would keep the surplus value within the hands of primary producers as well, causing the same re-investment potential
The direct effects of networked local production models would be:
* local production would remove 75% of production costs by eliminating transport
* local production 'on demand' would eliminate overproduction but also the massive need for promoting consumption through mass advertising and communication
* open supply chains would make the transformation possible towards a massive adoption of circular economy principles and cradle to cradle design
* together with open book accounting this would ensure also a massive ethical shift towards fair distribution of value
Of course, none of these is an automatic result of technology alone, but of a techno-social appropriation of technology by struggling populations, and in the meantime, by prefigurative productive communities.
None of this can be done without the mutualization of knowledge and physical infrastructures.
Without networked technology, this can only be done by massive loss of human life. For example, without technology, the renewable transition would be catastrophic since people would revert to wood burning and other destructive practices, while solar and wind technology would ensure a much smoother transition path.
The answer can never be anti-technology, since the use of technology is what defines being human, but 'what technology and for whom'. The internet has to be re-appropriated, made sustainable, and put to use for a massive transition of our industrial and agricultural basis, not left into the hands of the enemies of mankind.
Michel
On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 8:11 AM, Ariel Salleh <[email protected]> wrote: Peter - of course, we both love a good wrestle of ideas. But I don’t see you engaging below with either - commodification - or - global warming. The first topic we can save for another day, because I have work to get on with here.
But re global warming, as I wrote yesterday:
A globally just technology would not damage the planetary ecosystem that we all depend on for our very existence. The Internet has massive costs in terms of toxifying water - just as we approach “peak water”. It’s global warming impacts alone should be enough to stop WSF activists in their tracks. Then there are the medical effects of electromagnetic radiation on human bodies.
I will be really grateful if you can point me to a serious consideration of climate impacts among any of the cyber scholars you list below. Ariel
On 13 Jun 2015, at 7:45 pm, peter waterman <[email protected]> wrote:
Ariel:
It is a pleasure to dialogue with you. But to avoid us going round in circles, rather than in a constructive spiral, I should really leave a defence of - no a positive, eco-sensitive, gender-aware - the emancipatory implications of the internet/the web/cyberspace to those better qualified than I.
So I will take issue with one one para of yours:
'No I think you are not quite grasping the full meanings of ‘commodification' and 'colonisation' as materially and culturally embodied in this manufactured instrument the Internet. That reflects perhaps your marxist schooling, which tradition has leaned towards an assumption that technologies are neutral. Here it seems important to emphasise the difference between a technology and a tool. The latter is a relatively simple object. The former brings - and commits us to - a whole fandangle of social relations.'
My Marxist schooling: A touch, a touch, I do confess. But it was, rather, a Communist schooling, to which your strictures, here and elsewhere, do certainly apply. I have been struggling with both, however, since - let's say - my first experience of living with and under Communism, in Czechoslovakia, 1955-8.
Commodification and colonisation: the first of these is pretty much associated with Marxism. The second was taken over and reworked in Marxist/Leninist theories of imperialism.
Technology: I think we have to recognise this as marked by profound internal contradictions.
It was not the intention of the railway to make it possible for French workers to take a cheap trip to London, to meet up with those of other countries, 1851 (I seem to recall).
No more was it the intention of the German Empire that their sealed train, with Lenin inside, should lead to the Bolshevik Revolution (they only wanted him to screw up the Russian Empire's war effort).
I go with the spirit of Hans Magnus Enzensberger, commenting on the Paris 1968 activists' failure to occupy the TV rather than the Opera, and to depend on wall slogans and hand-lithographed posters. He said, of the highest capitalist communication technology of that era, 'A distaste for handling shit is something sewer workers can hardly afford'.
Well, the latest capitalist technology is, in comparison, dramatically different from the shit of 1968. It has created a new universe, which I call Cyberia, of an extremely contradictory nature. It is, of course, both surrounded by shit, full of shit and productive of shit. You have stressed the ecology-destructive effects of the technology involved. These are known to those concerned with emancipation and the commons. As, also, of course, its capacity for surveillance, control and punishment. The moment of left-ish cyber-utopianism was the 1980s-90s. What I today see is a wide, varied, complex and - yes - contradictory wave of radical-democratic efforts on this novel terrain. I mention a few names: Snowden, Castells, Bauwens, Laura Agustin, Gerbaudi, Sally Burch, Dyer-Witheford, Jodi Dean.
You will be considering yourself lucky that I didn't respond to ALL the paragraphs?
Best,
PeterW
2014. From Coldwar Communism to the Global Justice Movement: Itinerary of a Long-Distance Internationalist. http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/from_coldwar_communism _to_the_global_emancipatory_movement/ (Free). 2014. Interface Journal Special (Co-Editor), December 2014. 'Social Movement Internationalisms'. (Free). 2014. 'The Networked Internationalism of Labour's Others', in Jai Sen (ed), Peter Waterman (co-ed), The Movement of Movements: Struggles for Other Worlds (Part I). (10 Euros). 2012. EBook: Recovering Internationalism. [A compilation of papers from the new millenium. Now free in two download formats] 2013. EBook (co-editor), February 2013: World Social Forum: Critical Explorations http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/ 2012. Interface Journal Special (co-editor), November 2012: For the Global Emancipation of Labour 2005-? Ongoing. Blog: http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman.???. Needed: a Global Labour Charter Movement (2005-Now!) 2011. Under, Against, Beyond: Labour and Social Movements Confront a Globalised, Informatised Capitalism (2011) (c. 1,000 pages of Working Papers, free, from the 1980's-90's).
On Sat, Jun 13, 2015 at 10:06 AM, Ariel Salleh <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 11 Jun 2015, at 7:27 am, peter waterman <[email protected]> wrote: > > Ariel, hola! > I am wondering whether or not you received a message I sent in response to you, dated c. May 29. Peter dear friend, I did reply - to you and Jai and Mikel all together - but it evaporated in the ether - which may well be a sign of things to come. > It might have got lost in space. I will not repeat it. But I do want to respond to what you say below (re-pasted by me so that it fits my screen). > I know it is a pain on the eye, but I will do this para by para and in CAPS.
> While considering security aspects of the 2016 WSF in Canada, remember that the more we embed our activities in capitalist technologies like ICT the more we give up our autonomy and make our politics transparent and vulnerable to unsympathetic powers. > I AM WONDERING WHETHER THERE ARE ANY EMANCIPATORY TECHNOLOGIES AROUND, EITHER PRE- OR POST-CAPITALIST. WE ALL USE TRAINS, MOST OF US USE PLANES, WE WATCH OR PRODUCE MOVIES, VIDEOS, PHOTOS, PRINT. OF THESE THE ONLY ONE THAT IS NOT CAPITALIST MIGHT BE PRINT - WHICH PROVIDED A MAJOR MEANS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM. > ICT IS THE MOST CONTRADICTORY TECHNOLOGY CAPITALISM HAS PRODUCED. ALL SERIOUS LEFT WRITERS ON IT EITHER RECOGNISE OR EVEN SEARCH OUT ITS PRESENT AND IMMINENT DANGERS. THEY THEN, HOWEVER, GO ON TO CONSIDER ITS AMBIGUOUS OR EMANCIPATORY POTENTIALS (AND CURRENT USES). CHECK THE NICK DYER-WITHEFORD CHAPTER I POSTED THIS VERY DAY - EVEN IF HE DOES NOT HERE SHOW ANY GENDER SENSITIVITY. Agreed
> But the idea of an Internet Social Forum carries much deeper political contradictions than this. > Technologies are never culturally neutral but embody value systems within them. Recent List discussions in favour of an Internet Social Forum overlook this by embracing wholesale a form of colonisation by the commodity society, fully opposed to the alter-global social critique that WSF is building on. > COLONISATION AND COMMODIFICATION ARE FULLY RECOGNISED BY EMANCIPATORY ACTIVISTS AND THEORISTS. SO THERE IS HERE NO WHOLESALE EMBRACE BUT A SELECTIVE USE INTENDED TO SUBVERT AND SURPASS COLONISATION AND COMMODIFICATION. No I think you are not quite grasping the full meanings of ‘commodification' and 'colonisation' as materially and culturally embodied in this manufactured instrument the Internet. That reflects perhaps your marxist schooling, which tradition has leaned towards an assumption that technologies are neutral. Here it seems important to emphasise the difference between a technology and a tool. The latter is a relatively simple object. The former brings - and commits us to - a whole fandangle of social relations.
> SECONDLY, IT IS QUITE UNCLEAR TO ME WHAT TECHNOLOGY WOULD, FOR YOU, BE COMPATIBLE WITH 'ALTER-G' (A TERM I NEVER USE BECAUSE OF ITS DEPENDENCE ON THE G-WORD. I PREFER 'GLOBAL JUSTICE AND SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT'). A globally just technology would not damage the planetary ecosystem that we all depend on for our very existence. The Internet has massive costs in terms of toxifying water - just as we approach “peak water”. It’s global warming impacts alone should be enough to stop WSF activists in their tracks. Then there are the medical effects of electromagnetic radiation on human bodies.
> WOULD THIS IMPLY A RETURN TO THE CHASQUIHUASI SYSTEM OF COMMUNICATION USED IN THE ANDES BEFORE THE SPANISH INTRODUCED THE HORSE. > WELL THAT QUITE REMARKABLE SYSTEM (OR RUNNERS AND STAGEING POSTS) ENABLED COMMUNICATION OVER 5,000 KM. BUT IT WAS AN IMPERIAL SYSTEM, USING A PRE-ALPHABETIC MESSAGING UNDERSTOOD ONLY BY THE RULERS. > FURTHER IT MUST BE POINTED OUT - AND HAS BEEN IN THIS AND OTHER EXCHANGES - THAT WSF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS HAVE BEEN THE MOST UNDEVELOPED ASPECT OF ITS ACTIVITIES. Important to avoid lapsing into ideological assumptions, like the Social Darwinist notions of “development” or “going backwards”. It is part of the capitalist mythos that history is linear and upwards, whereas in fact ever new forms of idiocy and barbarism arise all around us as we speak.
> It is ironic that a Canadian hosted WSF emphasising indigenous knowing and being, as well as economic models based on de-growth, should tie itself to an instrument of global military domination and social homogenisation. > NO IT IS NOT IRONIC. INDIGENOUS PEOPLES WOULD HAVE NO INTERNATIONAL, POSSIBLY NO INTERCOMMUNAL NETWORKING IF NOT FOR ICT. I am not so sure that this is true, Peter. Peoples have travelled across land and sea and made cultural exchanges for centuries.
> THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH 'DE-GROWTH' (ANOTHER NEGATIVE TERM I DO NOT CARE FOR, THO I AGREE WITH THE GENERAL ARGUMENT IT EXPRESSES). THAT IS THOSE ASPECTS OF PRODUCTION, CONSUMPTION AND DUMPING WELL PORTRAYED IN THE ITEM YOU ATTACHED. ANY HOLISTIC EMANCIPATORY ITC STRATEGY HAS TO PRIORITISE THIS INCREASINGLY BURNING ISSUE. MY GUESS IS THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SO. ANYONE BETTER INFORMED THAN ME ABOUT THIS? We share these reservations about the de-growth movement. It is a very tentative step towards eco-sufficiency and global justice on the part of folks in the global North.
> Yes, we are already using the internet here for our communications, but that should not imply some kind of historical inevitability. For example, I drove a car for 3 decades, then decided to refuse the technology - one small step towards eco-sufficiency. > I ALSO GAVE UP MY CAR, ARIEL. AND I HAVE ARGUED THAT THE STANDARD WSF MODEL IS ANTI-ECOLOGICAL IN REQUIRING AIR TRAVEL OVER LONG DISTANCES. AND WITHOUT RECOGNISING ANY CONTRADICTION HERE. BUT ARE YOU ALSO GOING TO GIVE UP AIR TRAVEL? The environmental costs of jet-setting to WSFs should be eased somewhat by the Polycentric WSF model. As a slightly tongue in cheek suggestion: Australians and Pacific Islanders are both small populations and remote from other continents - so perhaps a principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" might apply in this case!
> Political security and cultural homogenisation aside, reliance on the Internet also has neocolonial impacts, human health costs, and severe environmental effects - as the following article explains. > OK, THE ADDITIONAL ARGUMENT HERE IS THAT OF CULTURAL HOMOGENISATION. THIS HAS BEEN WELL UNDERWAY WITH TV OVER MAYBE A 50-YEAR PERIOD. THIS WAS A MAJOR ISSUE AMONGST LEFT MEDIA CRITICS/ACTIVISTS IN LATIN AMERICA. TV, LIKE RADIO, LIKE CINEMA IS PRIMARILY A ONE-TO-MANY MODE, AND IT WAS, INDEED, COMMODITISATION, THAT WIPED OUT THE INTERNATIONAL WORKER (ACTUALLY COMMUNIST) FILM AND RADIO MOVEMENTS. > ICT IS BASED ON THE LOGIC OF FEED-BACK AND IS, INCREASINGLY A MANY-TO-MANY MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. Radio is very much a two-way technology, of course - as for TV, I’ve never had one.
> THE PEER TO PEER MOVEMENT IS, PRECISELY CONCERNED TO ENSURE THAT IT BECOMES SO, THAT IT IS DE-COMMODITISED, AND THAT P2P IS NOT CAPTURED FOR ITS OWN NEFARIOUS PURPOSES BY CAPITAL, STATE AND PATRIARCHY. This strikes me as illusory - and rests on a quite thin notion of commodification. P2P cannot possibly manufacture the global infrastructure itself but will needs rely on some kind of capitalised industry to do so. > > There is a huge dilemma here for WSF - and one that cannot be answered simply by ensuring "democratic consultation" and “protecting human rights” in the digital sector. > IT IS NOT LIMITED TO THESE TWO AIMS OR VALUES. Well actually I think it is, as long as cultural, medical, environmental aspects are continually backgrounded by Left and Right alike. A > > At the very least, future WSF meetings - polycentric and otherwise - must carefully Workshop these critical questions. > AGREED. > > Ariel > BEST, > P. > 2014. From Coldwar Communism to the Global Justice Movement: Itinerary of a Long-Distance Internationalist. http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/from_coldwar_communism _to_the_global_emancipatory_movement/ (Free). > 2014. Interface Journal Special (Co-Editor), December 2014. 'Social Movement Internationalisms'. (Free). > 2014. 'The Networked Internationalism of Labour's Others', in Jai Sen (ed), Peter Waterman (co-ed), The Movement of Movements: Struggles for Other Worlds (Part I). (10 Euros). > 2012. EBook: Recovering Internationalism. [A compilation of papers from the new millenium. Now free in two download formats] > 2013. EBook (co-editor), February 2013: World Social Forum: Critical Explorations http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/ > 2012. Interface Journal Special (co-editor), November 2012: For the Global Emancipation of Labour > 2005-? Ongoing. Blog: http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman.???. Needed: a Global Labour Charter Movement (2005-Now!) > 2011. Under, Against, Beyond: Labour and Social Movements Confront a Globalised, Informatised Capitalism (2011) (c. 1,000 pages of Working Papers, free, from the 1980's-90's).
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