[P2P-F] weak vs strong ties as wrong dilemma

Samuel Rose samuel.rose at gmail.com
Fri Feb 4 15:39:34 CET 2011 

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 2:57 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Samuel,
>
> I really want to move in that direction, and hope the p2p-f can contribute
> to the creation of a political expression ...
>
> For me the first step is to establish some policy framework/proposals,

Hi Michel, do you already have this work somewhere on the wiki in any
stage of completion?

A few questions/issues I can think of:

1. How would a politician know where the best first places to start
campaigning within the existing system are (where is P2P politics
applied today most effective?) That's an open ended question to get
people thinking about where they would begin within the existing
systems as a candidate, activist, lobbyist, or other agent.

2.  I believe that P2P politics can gain traction among existing local
and regional groups already engaged in politics by creating more
access to participation, effective modeling of participation (the
"shadow government" systems used in Iceland and
https://github.com/rbjarnason/open-active-democracy etc), access to
information via P2P community resource planning ( a concept I'm
helping to evolve with http://flywheeltechcollective.com in
Cleveland). Plus, transparency in the form of channels like
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch and citizen
news channels like http://lansingonlinenews.com/ and
http://annarborchronicle.com/

3. Move "government" from the "halls of government" to voluntary
co-governance where needed and desired. "Wait a minute" I hear
millions of people saying, "I don't want government so close to my
personal life". Ok, that's *exactly why* I said "voluntary
co-governance where needed and desired". In order for our political
systems to evolve government, some of it needs to move *out* of it's
traditional established culture/place/tradition of a few
representatives working on our behalf, and be accessible to be invoked
by people anywhere and anytime they agree they need and want to
(Henrik Ingo http://www.openlife.cc/blog and  Tere Vadén
http://nuvatsia.terevaden.net/ both discuss this
http://p2pfoundation.net/Open_Life http://p2pfoundation.net/Wikiworld
). Given the state of our world, I'd trust the majority of people to
govern themselves directly on many things that they are currently
forced to hand off to centralized representatives. That goes against
the common culture that "people cannot be trusted to govern
themselves".  We'll never know, since people have never had the access
to truly do this! My partner in P2P Foundation Paul B. Hartzog has
done some incredible work to come to the conclusion that we may be
making a terrible mistake as a species by *not* trusting people to
directly govern themselves:
http://www.panarchy.com/Members/PaulBHartzog/Papers/

4. Finally, this all is directly related to  co-governed commons
approaches to addressing basic problems of existence we discussed in
http://forwardfound.org/blog/?q=five-commons One of the largest
obstacles to change I've run into in the industrial midwest is the
attitudes people have towards understanding how important it is to
pool and share useful and employable technological advances early and
often in the areas of food, energy, and physical technology
production. The attitude is of "who cares about all of those other
people, this is for *me*" is pervasive, and is causing people to
re-invent the same things over and over again, and needlessly burn
through and waste already scarce resources. I think there is a way to
prove that more "wealth" can be brought to the individual if they
design for interoperability first *before* they make and do what is
best for them, and if they share early and often over and above
hoarding and isolating their efforts. *Pooling* a fraction of your
resources with others can get you access to an exponential return on
those resources. Hoarding all of your resources limits you to only
what you have and tends to encourage others to do the same (the "tit
for tat" game).

None of this even discusses connections that could be made to people
*already* producing f/l open source software, technologies, open
education resources, etc etc plus traditional businesses, Unions,
associations, etc etc. I've seen genuine interest in all of these
quarters. P2P Foundation doesn't have to shoulder the burden of
organizing all of that, but could *easily* be an intellectual base
from which much of this grows by continuing to do what P2P Foundation
does.



>  then
> look for 'sympathetic politicians', either candidates (like smari mccarthy
> in iceland or diego rivera in argentina) or already practicing
>
> Parallel with that could be the creation of local political salons, where a
> p2p political culture could be created ...
>
> I'm afraid though that for the moment this is beyond me (and us?)
>
> Right now, I'm focusing on policy work through the vehicle of the Commons
> Strategies Group,
>
> I would like to find people who can independently create a 'political wing'
> of the p2p movement, who could be inspired by our work and that we could
> support
>
> Michel
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Michel, I really agree. As I said sometime last month, I hope that
>> P2PF might become some form of political movement here in the
>> industrial midwest that can be taken seriously (as opposed to
>> progressive groups that are dismissed and marginalised, and
>> neo-liberal politics that basically puts political activity in service
>> of big corporations).
>>
>> Transition movement is a great example. I've talked here locally and
>> in Cleveland about the idea of a P2P political network (*not* "party")
>> and there is definitely interest. The idea is that P2P politics is
>> part of the whole of existence, not a division of human activity. We
>> can decide together anywhere, at any time, to do anything within our
>> abilities to do it. More transitionally and closer to existing
>> bureaucracies, we can also start using tools and system like "shadow
>> government" to start keeping track and feedback loops of what is
>> happening.
>>
>> Over in Wisconsin, Sheldon Rampton and Co.have also made some serious
>> progress in coordinated social transparency with
>> http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch and nearer to
>> home http://arborwiki.org is an example of a way for people to engage
>> based on the place that they are in. The global network that is P2PF
>> is a missing component that I see that could aid in bridging the gaps
>> in global/local organizing (realizing of course that there would be
>> much work and building to be done to make that happen).
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 6:59 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > hi Sam,
>> >
>> > I agree, with the geo-local focus, but it is not enough, we also need
>> > globa-local forms of popular organisation ... I think the transition
>> > movement is exemplary in that regard, combining strong local focus with
>> > a
>> > global movement
>> >
>> > Michel
>> >
>> > On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 3:53 AM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 3:17 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton
>> >> <dennis.hamilton at acm.org> wrote:
>> >> > I am fascinated by the current explorations concerning social media
>> >> > and
>> >> > how community formation and spontaneity are enabled.  I find a great
>> >> > deal to
>> >> > digest, and much thoughtful analysis in the recent threads.
>> >> >
>> >> > Although it is not material to the clarification of weak and strong
>> >> > ties
>> >> > as a false dichotomy, this one passage brought me up short:
>> >> >
>> >> > " ...what is destroying our opportunities for individuality and
>> >> > creativity, subverting us from realizing our human potential is not
>> >> > that we
>> >> > are tweeting about trivialities, but that the governance of our
>> >> > planet has
>> >> > been taken away from us."
>> >> >
>> >> > The hyperbole is appealing, but I wonder if there is something more
>> >> > important here.  When, if ever, have "we" possessed the governance of
>> >> > our
>> >> > planet?  Indeed, what can it possibly mean to give ontological
>> >> > standing to
>> >> > the notion of planetary governance and suggest that it has ever
>> >> > existed?
>> >> >
>> >> > I ask this because is it perhaps more the case that we have before us
>> >> > the opportunity to gain something, not that we ever lost it.
>> >> >
>> >> >  - Dennis
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> I see you  point and it is a good one.
>> >>
>> >> There are some ways in which we lost at least some freedom over our
>> >> environments over time as the industrial revolution emerged. I can
>> >> think of the example of a farmer in Canada, who's ancestors came to
>> >> Canada generations ago to seek freedom from tyranny in Europe, and who
>> >> is now subject to legal system manipulations from companies like
>> >> Monsanto that threaten to take away his livelihood and force him to
>> >> buy and use products he never wanted to use in his operations (because
>> >> their patented strains of corn contaminated his and Monsanto came out
>> >> and discovered this)
>> >>
>> >> For me, the meat of the article is the idea that weak ties and strong
>> >> ties is the wrong dilemma to focus on. I think this is true. I think
>> >> we need ties that are geo-physical local *and* "network" local (people
>> >> around the world that have any degree of connection with you that you
>> >> at least become aware of them). Fracturing and isolation weaken the
>> >> value people can get out of all of their connections.
>> >>
>> >> > -----Original Message-----
>> >> > From: p2p-foundation-bounces at lists.ourproject.org
>> >> > [mailto:p2p-foundation-bounces at lists.ourproject.org] On Behalf Of
>> >> > Michel
>> >> > Bauwens
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > <https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/2011-February/000401.html>
>> >> > Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 07:01
>> >> > To: p2p-foundation
>> >> > Subject: [P2P-F] weak vs strong ties as wrong dilemma
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > --
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>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > _______________________________________________
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>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> --
>> >> Sam Rose
>> >> Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
>> >> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
>> >> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
>> >> skype: samuelrose
>> >> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
>> >> http://forwardfound.org
>> >> http://futureforwardinstitute.org
>> >> http://hollymeadcapital.com
>> >> http://p2pfoundation.net
>> >> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
>> >>
>> >> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
>> >> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>> >>
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>>
>> --
>> --
>> Sam Rose
>> Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
>> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
>> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
>> skype: samuelrose
>> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
>> http://forwardfound.org
>> http://futureforwardinstitute.org
>> http://hollymeadcapital.com
>> http://p2pfoundation.net
>> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
>>
>> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
>> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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-- 
--
Sam Rose
Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
skype: samuelrose
email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
http://forwardfound.org
http://futureforwardinstitute.org
http://hollymeadcapital.com
http://p2pfoundation.net
http://socialmediaclassroom.com

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition." - Carl Sagan

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