Social media and the internet provide us with both "information" and "fake news". Our growing cap... more Social media and the internet provide us with both "information" and "fake news". Our growing capacity to analyze reams of old and new economic and political data and models brings both despair and hope that we can define new low carbon models of cooperation and solidarity. Here I look at the potential for progressive use of "artificial intelligence" and "BOTS" to provide social and cooperative movements with the analytical tools to begin this huge challenge. I begin with Mike Cooley's learning curve within the exploding internet, which explains how our subjective filters of languages, gender, religions, ideologies and cultures allow us to see patterns in the clouds of data on our screens and turn them into information, then knowledge and eventually "wisdom". But Bill Rees has noted how our "cultural narratives" have stood in the path of change, and now, artificial intelligence, through chatbots and large language models search and "synthesize" millions of "pages" into "information" (documents) based on subjective filters dominated by corporate and political sources which aren't necessarily our own. The obstacles now include "big data" challenges like Google and Facebook's algorithms and sale of personal data to shape and reinforce our consumer desires and manipulate elections to maintain the status quo. But Piketty's 1% vs 99% and Vettese's analysis of the economy of half earth show how "popular" access to and analysis of historical economic, energy, climate and other data can be used to develop alternative models and behaviours for a transition. I briefly review some of these alternatives: the P2P (Peer 2 Peer) Transition to the Commons, Green New Deal(s), Degrowth and the indigenous "buen vivir", and the promise and difficulties of implementing them. Thousands of individual and confederated local, community and regional examples already exist as lived examples of alternatives and progressive social media and cooperative networks which challenge the capitalist mainstream. As pluralistic cultural, political and living alternatives and systems, they show that people can live well together and with nature.
An exciting new paradigm of transition to a post-capitalist world is unfolding in the forms of pl... more An exciting new paradigm of transition to a post-capitalist world is unfolding in the forms of platform cooperativism, open source peer to peer manufacturing, agricultural and production technologies and convivial degrowth. It proposes a reduction of our societal and industrial metabolism to a level that is sustainable on our limited planet, based on the commons, i.e. resources and governance more in the hands of community and social movements than of individuals or corporations or authoritarian and/or sectarian political elites. I present here an overview of why we need this transition, some elements of what it might look like and an introduction to the largely European peer to peer and convivial degrowth movements.
A nos amis de l'UJFP, comme membre du comite de soutien canadien de Dr. Hassan Diab, je vous ... more A nos amis de l'UJFP, comme membre du comite de soutien canadien de Dr. Hassan Diab, je vous envoie cette mise a jour sur le cas du Dr. Diab. Vous etes sans doute au courant des derniers developpements dans l'affaire du Dr. Hassan Diab, emprisonne en France depuis trois ans, dans l'attente d'un possible proces eventuel, bien que quatre juges francais aient trouve des "elements concordants" prouvant qu'il etait a Beyrouth, pas a Paris, au moment de l'attentat de la synagogue dans la rue Copernic le 3 (...)
Caribbeana has become a growth industry in the wake of the United States invasion of Grenada. The... more Caribbeana has become a growth industry in the wake of the United States invasion of Grenada. The veritable explosion of analysis, speculation, and general academic interest in the area has produced a good deal of decent material which would have been ignored or never have appeared were it not for the tragic events of October 1983. The three books reviewed here are but the tip of an iceberg; yet they provide a good basis for examining the events leading up to the United States invasion, the current situation in Grenada, and the implications of both for future development in the wider Caribbean. All three look upon Grenada from a perspective sympathetic to the Grenadian revolution and attempt to draw lessons from the internal collapse of the New Jewel Movement (njm), as well as to explain and elaborate upon the many factors, both internal and external, which influenced and limited that revolution. The first two books are
Fair trade organizations provide a market for small, inexperienced prod-ucers in developing count... more Fair trade organizations provide a market for small, inexperienced prod-ucers in developing countries, so that they can learn how to deal with commercial export organizations. However, some observers question whether the benefits of so-called alternative trade ...
In addition to providing income and fair prices for southern producers, fair trade has generall... more In addition to providing income and fair prices for southern producers, fair trade has generally had the objective of raising northern awareness of working conditions and the unequal and unjust trading and power relations between the north and the south. The introduction of fair trade ...
Recent discussions about the relative merits of the fair trade labels TransFair and Max Havelaar ... more Recent discussions about the relative merits of the fair trade labels TransFair and Max Havelaar at the Fairtrade Federation conference in San Francisco indicate that a written summary of the issues involved would be helpful. I have prepared my own unauthorized history of the development of fair trade labels in Europe as a contribution to putting concrete, objective information into the 'public' domain.
Social media and the internet provide us with both "information" and "fake news". Our growing cap... more Social media and the internet provide us with both "information" and "fake news". Our growing capacity to analyze reams of old and new economic and political data and models brings both despair and hope that we can define new low carbon models of cooperation and solidarity. Here I look at the potential for progressive use of "artificial intelligence" and "BOTS" to provide social and cooperative movements with the analytical tools to begin this huge challenge. I begin with Mike Cooley's learning curve within the exploding internet, which explains how our subjective filters of languages, gender, religions, ideologies and cultures allow us to see patterns in the clouds of data on our screens and turn them into information, then knowledge and eventually "wisdom". But Bill Rees has noted how our "cultural narratives" have stood in the path of change, and now, artificial intelligence, through chatbots and large language models search and "synthesize" millions of "pages" into "information" (documents) based on subjective filters dominated by corporate and political sources which aren't necessarily our own. The obstacles now include "big data" challenges like Google and Facebook's algorithms and sale of personal data to shape and reinforce our consumer desires and manipulate elections to maintain the status quo. But Piketty's 1% vs 99% and Vettese's analysis of the economy of half earth show how "popular" access to and analysis of historical economic, energy, climate and other data can be used to develop alternative models and behaviours for a transition. I briefly review some of these alternatives: the P2P (Peer 2 Peer) Transition to the Commons, Green New Deal(s), Degrowth and the indigenous "buen vivir", and the promise and difficulties of implementing them. Thousands of individual and confederated local, community and regional examples already exist as lived examples of alternatives and progressive social media and cooperative networks which challenge the capitalist mainstream. As pluralistic cultural, political and living alternatives and systems, they show that people can live well together and with nature.
An exciting new paradigm of transition to a post-capitalist world is unfolding in the forms of pl... more An exciting new paradigm of transition to a post-capitalist world is unfolding in the forms of platform cooperativism, open source peer to peer manufacturing, agricultural and production technologies and convivial degrowth. It proposes a reduction of our societal and industrial metabolism to a level that is sustainable on our limited planet, based on the commons, i.e. resources and governance more in the hands of community and social movements than of individuals or corporations or authoritarian and/or sectarian political elites. I present here an overview of why we need this transition, some elements of what it might look like and an introduction to the largely European peer to peer and convivial degrowth movements.
A nos amis de l'UJFP, comme membre du comite de soutien canadien de Dr. Hassan Diab, je vous ... more A nos amis de l'UJFP, comme membre du comite de soutien canadien de Dr. Hassan Diab, je vous envoie cette mise a jour sur le cas du Dr. Diab. Vous etes sans doute au courant des derniers developpements dans l'affaire du Dr. Hassan Diab, emprisonne en France depuis trois ans, dans l'attente d'un possible proces eventuel, bien que quatre juges francais aient trouve des "elements concordants" prouvant qu'il etait a Beyrouth, pas a Paris, au moment de l'attentat de la synagogue dans la rue Copernic le 3 (...)
Caribbeana has become a growth industry in the wake of the United States invasion of Grenada. The... more Caribbeana has become a growth industry in the wake of the United States invasion of Grenada. The veritable explosion of analysis, speculation, and general academic interest in the area has produced a good deal of decent material which would have been ignored or never have appeared were it not for the tragic events of October 1983. The three books reviewed here are but the tip of an iceberg; yet they provide a good basis for examining the events leading up to the United States invasion, the current situation in Grenada, and the implications of both for future development in the wider Caribbean. All three look upon Grenada from a perspective sympathetic to the Grenadian revolution and attempt to draw lessons from the internal collapse of the New Jewel Movement (njm), as well as to explain and elaborate upon the many factors, both internal and external, which influenced and limited that revolution. The first two books are
Fair trade organizations provide a market for small, inexperienced prod-ucers in developing count... more Fair trade organizations provide a market for small, inexperienced prod-ucers in developing countries, so that they can learn how to deal with commercial export organizations. However, some observers question whether the benefits of so-called alternative trade ...
In addition to providing income and fair prices for southern producers, fair trade has generall... more In addition to providing income and fair prices for southern producers, fair trade has generally had the objective of raising northern awareness of working conditions and the unequal and unjust trading and power relations between the north and the south. The introduction of fair trade ...
Recent discussions about the relative merits of the fair trade labels TransFair and Max Havelaar ... more Recent discussions about the relative merits of the fair trade labels TransFair and Max Havelaar at the Fairtrade Federation conference in San Francisco indicate that a written summary of the issues involved would be helpful. I have prepared my own unauthorized history of the development of fair trade labels in Europe as a contribution to putting concrete, objective information into the 'public' domain.
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