[p2p-research] [Open Manufacturing] important appeal: social media and p2p tools against the meltdown

Thu Mar 5 09:06:04 CET 2009

Nathan,

I'm publishing this on the 8th:
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/p2p-answers-the-meltdown-nathan-cravens/2009/03/08

keep it coming!!

Michel

On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 1:36 PM, Nathan Cravens <knuggy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Michel,
>
> Thanks for making this call.
>
> What I have to present addresses the three questions asked by the author of
> 'Social Media vs. the Economic Recession'. Housing may need to be
> manufactured out of Fab Labs at first until rent based vacancies are too
> rampant, lowering prices down to practicality. Our contact to solve the
> housing issue is Larry Sass. From
> http://otherexcuses.blogspot.com/2009/01/social-media-vs-recession.html:
>
>    - practical/financial (e.g. how do I pay the rent/avoid my house being
>    repossessed?)
>    - emotional/psychological (e.g. how do I face my friends? where do I
>    get my identity from now I don't have a job?)
>    - directional (e.g. what do I do with my time? how do I find work?)
>
>
> Here's an idea package to add to the TO DO NOW list:
>
> The Open Cafe / Community Supported Agriculture / Fab Lab Alliance
>
> Open Cafes:
> The physical hub for activity. A place where meals are prepared by people
> for people to eat for zero money. Its hip and empowering to dine/work/have a
> chat here.
>
> Community Supported Agriculture:
> Enough participants work in DIY gardens or community farms and donate the
> produce to the Cafe and or from government issued food cards. (I play both
> sides for the same aim)
>
> Open Source Fab Labs:
> Cafes align with OS Fab Labs to fill out the resource necessity gap to
> further save financial cost.
>
> Wikis provide only an example for the communications medium used until
> better mediums are made: easy to use and easier to organize. For now, let's
> work with the communications we have ready-made: e-mail and wikis.
>
> Here are a few, but hardly all, hoops to jump through to make this Alliance
> a reality. This is just to prime the creative pump.
>
> The Cafe is the focus:
>
>    - A space and resources are donated for this purpose by those that see
>    the benefit. It can begin in your home and branch out. In urban settings, it
>    can begin with what is already public domain, the local park.
>    - Food and beverage donation. Donations for the day/week can be viewed
>    in advance on the Cafe's wiki. Most everyone will want to participate in
>    production because everyone can go here for free. There are no consumers
>    here, rather, this is where producers are born willingly. There is not much
>    difference between consumption or production here.
>    - If money is needed, a wiki shows expenses that need to be met and
>    what is generating them; those in the Fab Lab then have something to make to
>    reduce or eliminate that cost.
>    - Event planning. This too is done in wikis and is a place for people
>    to perform or have specific discussions at the Cafe or elsewhere (like at
>    the CSA or Fab Lab) to benefit the Cafe and the people that go there. The
>    Cafe is our focus, because its where all of our interests can unite: in
>    putting food literally on the table.
>    - Elaborate and replicate the Cafe as needed from here:
>    http://opencafe.wikispot.org/
>
> Other than crowdsourcing, here's another way the Trio can receive
> additional funding until its less or no longer required. If one part of the
> trio has more surplus funds than another, these funds are tapped by the Cafe
> or Community Farm as needed based on the Open Source Pact or publicly
> viewable and revisable mutual agreement. (when necessary) Ideally, this pact
> works very well as a wiki. The establishment of a wiki contract shows in
> itself how well the contract works.
>
> The Sell Stuff to Get Stuff Business Model
>
> I want to produce a Fab Lab to make 'almost' anything, but first need money
> to build one, but I'm not interested in profit so much as getting these labs
> up globally for abundant access so people can make what they want to have
> (rather than purchasing it / bashing me over the head for one). In prospect,
> once these labs are ubiquitous, I will ask "how can I make this?" rather
> than "where can I buy this?" Later it will only be "where can I make this"
> as desired. Knowing this foreseeable reality makes the presentation of Open
> Business plans like this one even more relevant and necessary.
>
> I then go to the market and see what's selling for a high return that's
> easiest to make with as few tools and resources as possible. Once I've
> reverse engineered (open sourced) the thing and simplified the production
> process (potentially ignorant of patent law) I can now build it in our
> feeble lab and sell it for a return (like on Ebay) in order to put more
> tools in the lab which are then reverse engineered and resold to produce
> more fabrication tools and so on until a fully replicable Open Source Fab
> Lab is in every town around the world.
>
> The Fab Lab is only an example presented in the story found in the
> preceding two paragraphs. The basis of this model can work for a CSA and
> Cafe as well, but I suspect OS Fab Labs will be the bread winner financially
> for these groups, even if the bread comes from the CSA and made at the Cafe
> by real people with real machines. I say OS Fabs will be the bread winners
> because the stuff made there are more difficult than replicating Cafes or
> Farms. Argument complete.
>
>
> Conclusion
>
> My presentation and prose may be a fault, but I believe the general ideas
> are sound. If you disagree, its only based on my presentation. With your
> help or without you even knowing it we will amplify and attenuate a version
> of this proposal into practicality before generating something better. This
> can begin by further refining the ideas described here to better assist:
> viable application.
>
> Support Michel and P2P Foundation, Factor e Farm and Appropedia, your local
> OS Fab Lab, CSA, and start an Open Cafe. MIT, can you spare a dime? We'll be
> fine given our persistence toward the aims touched on here.
>
>
>
> Nathan Cravens
> Effortless Economy
>
>
> BTW, everything I have to say past, present, and prospective is public
> domain. I'm only saying this once here. Just don't blame or hurt me (based
> on my undisclosed definition of pain) if it causes a problem for you. Rework
> it to your advantage, the advantage that works for the benefit itself works
> the best, that is, that which works best in the longest run for the most
> people.
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Thanks to Joseph (or was it Sam?), I came across
>> http://otherexcuses.blogspot.com/2009/01/social-media-vs-recession.html,
>> which I will cover on the blog, and through some further linking on
>> initiatives such as http://www.deskspacegenie.co.uk/
>>
>> Though commercial, it illustrates that social media and p2p tools can be
>> one of the ways to help individuals and communities cope with the crisis,
>> and even transform our  society and economy.
>>
>> Since this issue is eminently practical and affects human survival and
>> well-being, I think we should cover these initiatives with more focus than
>> usual.
>>
>> So here is a first appeal:
>>
>> - can you send me anything you have already found on the topic? The only
>> requirement is that it represents some practical advance for those who would
>> use it, making a real difference in their lives ...
>>
>> I will start the following page to keep track of it:
>> http://www.p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Meltdown_Solutions
>>
>> Michel
>>
>> --
>> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>> Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
>> http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
>> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
>>
>> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>>
>> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
>> http://www.shiftn.com/
>>
>> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "Open Manufacturing" group.
>> To post to this group, send email to openmanufacturing at googlegroups.com
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>> openmanufacturing+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com<openmanufacturing%2Bunsubscribe at googlegroups.com>
>> For more options, visit this group at
>> http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing?hl=en
>> -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> p2presearch mailing list
> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
>

-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20090305/6ceff84c/attachment-0001.html>