[P2P-F] a new type of platform?

Tue Jul 19 15:47:14 CEST 2011

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:01 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm really interested in a 'constructive critique' of OSE ...
>
> here is some of my own:
>
> - first of all, Nicholas refers to the authoritarian tendencies ... as I see
> it, this was certainly a problem in the beginning, when people expected OSE
> to work as as a voluntary open source program, which I think it isn't. It's
> a almost fully thought out vision from marcin, and the project is a vehicle
> to bring that to fruition. It's like working for Avatar for Cameron, you
> fully expect to be ordered around. What was not clear perhaps was this
> underlying social contract, hence the early problem.  However, it seems
> quite clear that this issue has been resolved, i.e. new volunteers are clear
> about this expectation, and, that there is also funding, making this type of
> relationship clearer as well. Nevertheless, it seems that Marcin has been
> successfull in attracting a new layer of volunteers and that they are happy
> with the level of participation they can bring, though it is true that the
> ones I know are 'remote participants' .. For me, the Marcin approach is
> legitimate, there needs to be place in the world for 'genial individuals'
> who have a capacity to mobilize people and realize a vision. The key is that
> you are aware of the implicit or explicit social contract.
>
> - I think the project has many merits, but it is also a limited one. It is a
> vision of an autonomous village, but doesn't answer more global social
> concerns like for example the commodity ecology of Mark Whitaker does. But
> of course, it shouldn't. I.e. there must be room for systemic approaches
> that touch communities as a whole, and core initiatives like Marcin, which
> are meant to seed the broader environment with strong local subcommunities
> with alternative logics, and of course, the latter's availability will
> influence the former.
>
> Now, this is my provisional critique, but I don't really see the
> totalitarian aspects.
>
> They're work is interoperable and open standard, so as I see it, others can
> work on it, create variations, etc ...
>
> Michel
>

A practical critique:

The designs need some work to be safe and usable machinery. I would
feel safer using manual Amish equipment for building and farming over
some of these designs. I've seen many of my farming relatives lose
fingers, legs, and lives. This would happen much faster by way of
distributed (internet mediated) collaboration, involving people who
have genuine knowledge of design and engineering of the type of
equipment proposed. Creating Blender files and posting them with
descriptions to a wiki doesn't cut it for useful collaboration around
design and engineering. There are working examples for how to
collaborate in distributed ways around design in projects like RepRap,
Arduino. Spend less time and energy on publicity, and more time on
building a robust collaborative design infrastructure on the internet.

> On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 4:42 PM, Karl Robillard <krobillard at san.rr.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Monday, July 18, 2011 09:00:40 pm Nicholas Roberts wrote:
>> > personally I think that while the OSE project is idealistic and
>> > technically
>> > interesting, its also totalitarian, naive and a dangerous distraction
>> > from
>> > existing social systems, craft movements and appropriate technology
>> >
>> > its a kind of utopian new age totalitarianism, with a digital
>> > fabrication
>> > and software development festish... if you cant model it, design it, it
>> > doesnt exist
>>
>> Everything in our world has a structural design.  Our bodies, our
>> machines,
>> our systems of production, our forms of government, and our environment.
>>  Open
>> source is about the absolute freedom to communicate and modify designs.
>> This
>> empowers people to understand, repair, replicate and customize the
>> structures
>> around them.  What's your beef against understanding the world?
>>
>> We live in the information age.  Software isn't a fetish, it's just the
>> way we
>> manipulate information.  Our new information tools are certainly
>> revolutionary, but I don't see anything utopian about them.
>>
>>
>> > real-life just doesn't work like that, you might be able to insulate
>> > yourself from that if you've got a stream of volunteers, a large number
>> > of
>> > donors etc, but really it only works for those principals at the core
>>
>> Open source works for whoever wants to take advantage of it.  What you
>> said
>> could be said about any human endeavor.
>>
>>  "Super-stardom only works for artists who can attract enough fans!"
>>  "Free markets only work for capitalists who can sell to enough
>> customers!"
>>  "Representative democracy only works for voters who can get their
>> candidates
>> elected!" (Heh... and not even then)
>>
>>
>> > the problem isn't a design problem, it's a social and political one
>>
>> I agree, where the social problem happens to be that the designs for all
>> the
>> products we use and the institutions we must engage with are not open and
>> easily modified.  Ha!  I take that back, the problem is very much a design
>> problem - a problem of social design.  To advocate that people ought not
>> spend
>> time learning about the structure of things and communicating this
>> knowledge
>> to others is totalitarian.
>>
>>
>> -Karl
>>
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