[p2p-research] Future of making request

Fri May 16 22:19:22 CEST 2008

People can learn to collaborate in complex ways, but they have to be part of
the "process" in an ongoing fashion, and it doesn't scale up to levels that
people are used to from mass-consumption/mass-production systems that are
one-way (mostly).

Although, stigmergic collaboration *is* possible, but is most useful for
things like sharing data, sharing knowledge, and anything really, that does
not require ongoing discourse or social negotiation.

However the actual collaboration required for managing most production will
require social negotiation and discourse. It will require collaborators to
be involved in  "due dilligence", decision making, coordination, discussion
with people outside of the collaborative, etc

Yet, at the same time, one can think of *parts* of "production" that can be
engaged stigmergically. Imagine, for instance, if I design a solar
collector, and release the design under an open license, and make the files
available for you to download. Maybe I declare that you would need to be on
my "team" to see changes to my solar collector design make their way into
the design that I "support". But, let's say you download, change the design,
upload your changes to your own server, under the same copyleft license. I
look at your design, like what I see, and merge in the changes anyway,
without ever talking to you (though I do give you credit).

What about businesses? I think a step that people are ready for right now is
to become *organized* "consumers", who base their decisions on ethics. To
collectively bargain, and put conditions on what is purchased based on their
own ethics (safe for the environment? socially equitable? etc) Their
information can flow through a "follow/follow" set of channels, which
actually helps to strengthen the validity of the information. These groups
can and should release their data about what they endorse and do not endorse
collectively.

This same framework could also be engaged by "prosumers". This is already
somewhat of a picture of what is emerging right now, except that practically
everyone participating is usually also beholden to ongoing debt governments,
and debt to corporations, which at least partially locks people into
existing social and economic systems.

The question for me is not how people might theoretically participate in a
theoretical economic system. Question for me is: what is the best way to
begin retrofitting existing systems, to allow people to self-produce those
basic subsistence things that they must buy or procure from others, until
the majority of basic subsistence problems are solved in a "decentralized"
way. Once you solve the problems of basic subsistence for people in a way
that does not leave them chained to debt to companies and governments, then
they will be ready to change in ways that have them focusing on more
advanced social issues.

So, to me, it is health, food production, shelter, personal safety, access
to developing knowledge, ability to self produce energy on the individual
level, to fabricate technology, to simulate and test, to freely offer
products and services, to self-govern, that are the most important for any
human, anywhere on the face of the earth. Because, in fact, societies can
collapse, so it is not, and increasingly will not always be just a problem
of the so-called "developing nations". We'll have the potential for unjust
economic and social conditions as long as people remain "jacked-in" to
systems that are rooted in scarcity and centralized control.

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 2:14 PM, Patrick Anderson <agnucius at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Are produsers really ready to manage their own production?  I want to
> think so, but have recently seen some researchers saying the opposite.
>
> David Braden says "The most efficient decision making structure to
> have evolved to date is the one employed by business corporations. I
> think we need to design in that same efficiency if we are going to
> build local organizations with the power to balance global
> organizations."
>
> And Sepp tells us "I just have little faith in our average consumer to
> run a business that they have no clue about (or to make the right
> decisions that will allow a manager to successfully run it)."
>
> Both of these quotes are at
>
> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2003008%3ABlogPost%3A4761
>
> Sincerely,
> Patrick Anderson (Lord AGNUcius)
>
> On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 11:30 AM, Michel Bauwens
> <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This is an important visualization of the future of production, and I'm
> > hoping for a volunteer to mention and comment on it for our blog?
> >
> > see http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/05/future-of-making-map.html
> >
> > Michel
> >
> > --
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> >
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> >
> > Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at
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