<div dir="ltr"><div>Dear Roberto,</div><div><br></div><div>You are probably aware of that report that showed that not a single industry would be profitable if they had to pay for their destructive externalities ..</div><div><br></div><div>This in echo of your strategy, which I think is very complementary to our transvestment proposals, as we grow our power to impeach their destructive behaviours, and as they are increasinly unable to outlets for their investments .. funneling their surpluses into the commons networks will be seen as reasonable</div><div><br></div><div>I have just become an advisor of an investment fund that will do just that, only invest in purpose driven companies in which investment shares give no voting shares, and the voting shares are in the hands of the purpose-driven creators, with capped returns and all the techniques to subsume formerly extractive capital</div><div><br></div><div>have you worked out somewhere, this strategy of yours, i..e. how do we make 'extraction' so difficult, that 'generation' becomes a rational option ?</div><div><br></div><div>Michel</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><<<span style="font-size:12.8px">Message: 2</span></div><span style="font-size:12.8px">Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2016 10:41:44 +0800</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">From: Roberto Verzola <</span><a href="mailto:rverzola@gn.apc.org" style="font-size:12.8px">rverzola@gn.apc.org</a><span style="font-size:12.8px">></span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Subject: Re: [P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] A note on the post-capitalist</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px"> strategy of the P2P Foundation</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">To: </span><a href="mailto:p2p-foundation@lists.ourproject.org" style="font-size:12.8px">p2p-foundation@lists.ourproject.org</a><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Message-ID: <20160619104144.1c102a30@</span><span style="font-size:12.8px">hotline></span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">I agree with Kevin that at the hardware-software level much can be</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">done locally, given the technologies that he cites.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">My own worry is more about the increasingly vast info-gathering powers</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">(the technologies also improving rapidly) that centralized</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">institutions--govt and private--are acquiring: the</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">NSA-Microsoft-Google-Facebook complex. Just to give one</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">example: the increasing numbers of CCTV cameras deployed in public</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">places. In some areas, even small businesses are now required (using</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">crime and terrorism as excuse) to install them. Almost every</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">computer/smartphone now comes with a camera. And microphone too. Sooner</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">or later, if it has not happened already, these can be remotely</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">activated for surveillance. Plus all the info we willingly give in</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">every online transaction, in exchange for convenience.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">In short, we can choose to go small-scale/local/p2p/foss/</span><span style="font-size:12.8px">organic/</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">renewable/bike transpo PGP Duckduckgo Bitcoin etc but how many are</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">willing to put up with the inconveniences (the central institutions</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">will make sure of that) that go with them? How many on this list, for</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">instance? It is dilemma of The Matrix. The mere use of technologies</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">themselves, as E.F.Schumacher observed a long time ago, shapes minds</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">and changes mindsets.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Eric's earlier post about adaptive reuse describes a decaying</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">civilization that has lost a lot of its powers. Unfortunately at the</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">level I'm describing (control of information, behavior and mind), their</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">powers are increasing day by day.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">I am reminded of a debate here (on media) between mining companies and</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">the local farmers who opposed them. The mining rep accused the</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">anti-mining leader of hypocrisy because he used the metal products of</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">mining like laptops and cellphones. The leader replied, "Ok, we can</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">stop using your products if you also stop using ours. Let's see who</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">gives in first!" Very powerful riposte, but are we willing to exercise</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">that option? (I try, one reason why my posts are very occasional, only</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">when I think what I'll say is important enough.)</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">All this implied suggestion about violence (behind the word</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">"expropriation") recalls to me the old Marx Lenin Mao etc approach</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">though cast in contemporary terms. Be careful what you ask for... Had</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">they won the Cold War, can you imagine where we'd be today? (I can</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">already hear in my head a friend's reply, "Probably like China!" Or</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">like North Korea?, who knows...). The law of unintended consequences</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">can play cruel historical jokes sometimes.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">I've tried that route too by the way. Today, in case anybody is</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">interested, my personal "ideology" if you can call it that, is the</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">prayer "Give me the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference."</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">I couple this apparently less "revolutionary" approach with the insights</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">from the sciences of complexity, which have seeming equivalents in</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">quantum physics although I don't know if they are real or imagined.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">These insights say even ordinary termites, working only locally and</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">aware only of what their immediate neighbors are doing, can build</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">architectural/ecological wonders, which somehow emerge out of local</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">interactions without need for a grand design (or a grand designer for</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">that matter).</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">But then again, termites are the products of millions of years of</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">evolution and God knows how many failures, before the species that</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">survive today got it right. We don't have that luxury. We will probably</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">need to act with more intentionality and mindfulness than termites do.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">As you can see, although I am somewhat confident in my own ideas, I'm</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">not so sure about them that I'd be willing to ask people to</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">"expropriate" others for these ideas. Also those others will probably</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">"expropriate" back and we end up with the law of unintended</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">consequences again.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">I do have an idea how to deal with corporations, which I try every so</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">often. It is not expropriation. It is more about asking everyone</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">(you have to do it yourself of course) to take all kinds of steps, big</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">and small, legal or otherwise, to whittle down their profits,</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">until existing is not profitable anymore. For Monsanto, for instance,</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">mandatory labelling of GMOs will probably do it. Even at the 5% content</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">level (big debate I know), they cannot be profitable with only 5% of the</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">market, and as a contaminant at that. Edward Abbey's Monkey Wrench</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Gang described other ways, probably applicable to mining companies.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Just keep whittling down their profits. We can be very creative here,</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">more than termites. Deny them markets. Raise their costs. etc. I call</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">this approach "working with the nature of corporations." Like termites</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">bringing down an unwelcome house.</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Greetings to all,</span><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><br style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Roberto Verzola</span>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: <a href="http://commonstransition.org" target="_blank">http://commonstransition.org</a> </div><div><br></div>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br><br><a href="http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation" target="_blank"></a>Updates: <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens</a><br><br>#82 on the (En)Rich list: <a href="http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/" target="_blank">http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/</a> <br></div></div></div></div>
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