[p2p-research] p2presearch Digest, Vol 22, Issue 30

Mon Aug 10 20:17:28 CEST 2009

Kevin,

I am also a true fan. Yet, I have frequently compared Marcin to Stalin and
Mao in private conversations. The similarities are striking, and have been
for quite some time. He is always coming up with 3 month plans. He doesn't
tolerate any inefficiency. He needs to be the center of attention. His idea
of OSE is actually not all that different from Mao's Great Leap Forward, as
far as trying to decentralize industrial production. Turns out he is a bit
paranoid as well, or at least quick to blame others for problems.

He means well, but I tend to agree with most of what has been said. To
actually withdraw support from the movement would be a hard thing to do. I
am heavily invested in it, and cognitive biases associated with that
investment are hard to shake.

What should I do about the reprap I am building? I'll contact the guy who
sent me the parts, see what he thinks.

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 5:00 AM, <p2presearch-request at listcultures.org>wrote:

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>   1. Re: Crisis at the Factor E Farm (Kevin Carson)
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>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 03:52:22 -0500
> From: Kevin Carson <free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [p2p-research] Crisis at the Factor E Farm
> To: Peer-To-Peer Research List <p2presearch at listcultures.org>
> Message-ID:
>        <dcb5c5e50908100152s71486a0fi74f102ec7bbc58db at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>
> On 8/10/09, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Crisis at the Factor E Farm
> > Michel Bauwens
> > 10th August 2009
>
> > Readers of this blog will know that we have consistently supported the
> Open Source Ecology project, which consists of creating a full set of open
> source technologies for resilient communities.
> >
> > We have not writtent his anywhere, but in conversations at the Oekonux
> conference we also suggested to Marcin Jacubowski that this was not yet in
> any way a true global open design project, since it all dependent on the
> leadership of one person in a particular locale. My own vision suggests that
> what should happen is that OSE should work through a ?sourceforge?, where
> people in the whole world can contribute to the designs, while different
> locales try it out. And therefore NOT one locale trying to control and
> funnel all energies to itself under the control of one person. Such change
> has not happened and instead we have a long series of personal conflicts
> unfolding at Factor E Farm.
> >
> > So to be clear, my take is that this is not a local leadership issue, as
> that affects only one locale, but rather the design of the project itself,
> which should be globally centered as a true open commons with different
> locales collaborating, and Marcin Jacubowski?s Factor E Farm as just one
> project, working with those who can accept this type of leadership.
> >
> > So, here?s the documentation on the latest crisis.
> >
> > ?Inga? describes the last, more serious, conflict here and it is followed
> by interesting comments from which we select some material below. You
> probably want to read the official account first, before reading the
> comments here below.
> >
>
> I just learned about it tonight catching up on my feeds.  I was
> utterly astonished at the tone of Inga's post, and the way she tore in
> to Jeremy and Ben with what seemed like a lawyer's brief aimed at
> demonizing them to the outside world.  Then she followed it up a day
> or so later with an apology, noting that they'd discovered the hoses
> really did come loose on their own again after Ben and Jeremy had
> left, so maybe it wasn't sabotage after all.  As Emily Latella would
> say, "Never mind."  I was also taken aback by the follow-up post in
> which Inga complained about the "hateful and destructive" tone of the
> comments you quote here; nothing hateful and destructive in her
> original comments about Ben and Jeremy, eh?
>
> As a "true fan" and someone who's repeatedly tried to promote the
> project in the larger alt economy world, I have to say this is really
> disappointing.  I'm a fervent supporter of the OSE toolkit, and what
> it promises for the future.  I'm just glad the projects and their
> progress to date are all heavily documented so others can take them up
> and finish them, in more than one place, whenever they want--without
> the personality cults and drama.
>
> In addition, this stuff thoroughly creeps me out.  Several months ago
> I published a fund-raising bleg at Mutualist Blog for OSE, and Marcin
> got into a really bizarre exchange with P.M. Lawrence, a respected
> frequent commenter at my blog.  It degenerated into Marcin repeatedly
> posting childish taunts like "liar, pants on fire" and so forth.  I
> eventually started blocking his comments because they contained
> absolutely nothing of substantive value--just a continuing grudge
> match.  I was utterly amazed that this kind of meltdown came from the
> same Marcin who was doing such wonderful work at Factor E Farm.
>
> The other thing that creeps me out is the hint of Fuhrerprinzip
> lurking in Inga's comments, both in the blog post and as quoted by
> others in the comments.  The stuff about everybody being guided by
> Marcin's vision, and such things not being achieved by democracy, etc.
>  That's just really *weird*.  When I read her illustration of the
> solar concentrator, with every facet of the array being focused in
> common, I thought "Yeah!  Another edifying illustration might be a
> bunch of sticks bound around a common axe handle--oh, wait, somebody
> else already thought of that."
>
> --
> Kevin Carson
> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
> Mutualist Blog:??Free Market Anti-Capitalism
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
> Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
> http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
> Organization Theory:??A Libertarian Perspective
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>
>
>
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> End of p2presearch Digest, Vol 22, Issue 30
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