[p2p-research] P2P Ideology

Wed Oct 21 04:25:20 CEST 2009

It all depends on what we call ideology ... In the old marxist sense, it
meant a set of ideas that justify a social order and a privileged group
position's within it ... so ideology is 'false' by definition ...

Now, none of us can be totally free of our social conditioning (the
constraints of the society we live in), our our social class, our personal
history and limitations of consciousness ...

Definitely, I think we can say that what we call peer to peer, or openness,
or the commons, is a broad value system that has particular distinctions,
but it is at the same time a spectrum ...

We can compare it to the socialist idea, which had a wide spectrum of
adherents, while also substantially altering what non-socialist people would
think ...

In particular I do think there is a netarchical ideology in the old sense,
in which a privileged sector of capital, can use open and commons and peer
to peer language, in order to justify its own position ..

Within the P2P Foundation, I try to bring together lots of material
representing the wide spectrum of p2p sensibilities and practices, aim to
bring a platform for such varied thinking, but at the same time, I have my
own set of ideas and theories, based on my own synthesis and deduction of
what I'm privileged to observe ... It's open to debate, but at the same
time, as part of the 1% of people doing most of the work, it is bound to
have a greater effect on what appears to the outside as 'associated with the
P2P Foundation'. While it is clear to me what the difference is between my
version of P2P Theory and the P2P Foundation's ecology as a platform, that
may not always be the case to the outside ...

Two typical complaints are, from the right, that we are too orientated
towards the left, see Ryan's perception that he is in a minority as a
liberal; but I get similar complains from the radical left, with people
telling me they feel 'sick in the stomach' with what they feel are 'our'
compromises with capital ... Whatever, I, and we do, whatever we say,
however we sway in one or another direction, there will always be
boundaries, that act as self-regulated exclusion and inclusion filters ...

and perhaps Sam is right that the more we 'specify', the more we exclude ...

My take is, keep it a open platform, for people 'sympathetic' to the broad
value system, be clear and transparent, as I try to be, about your own
positions, and be open to dialogue at all times ... The boundaries to me is
both the content and the style of communication which would actively demean
other humans (as in racism, etc..), but also people who consciously favour
the opposite values of p2p ... I honour their right to think differently,
but feel there are enough outside places for them to communicate ...

Some boundaries we only discover when they are crossed ...

Michel

On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 8:57 AM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com> wrote:

> Think about the nature of of online systems like wikipedia, when dogma
> begins to rule, or open source software cultures that begin to take on
> an ideological direction (we talked about this at Political Economies
> of Peer production back in 2007)
>
> When ideological-driven thinking emerges, the nature of the system
> starts to favor exclusion over inclusion. This begins to erode the
> "commons" that is the participatory culture of the system. The system
> is now changing from one state to another, from a "p2p" state to a
> system that is ruled by a few.
>
> Luckily, the affordances of commons based systems tend to be able to
> survive this co-optation, people have the ability to leave and reform
> elsewhere (although forking is not often exercised in the case of
> wikipedia). Particularly within the last 2-3 years, when commons
> consist of mostly digital content, it has become quite trivial to
> expand space, and re-boot the system, so to speak
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 9:44 PM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Where what we are calling "P2P" begins to resemble and function like
> > an ideology, the culture attracted will begin to disaggregate. What
> > will be left is an ideology that is fundamentally not what we are
> > calling "P2P'.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 9:57 AM, Matt Cooperrider
> > <mattcooperrider at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I'm forking this out from the discussion "Is the P2PFoundation a Shill
> for
> >> Proprietary  Software?"  The question of whether P2P is an ideology
> needs
> >> discussing.
> >>
> >> -----
> >>
> >> Athina wrote:
> >>
> >>> It seems this raises again the issue of ideology I think in p2p which
> so
> >>> far has been a bit conveniently thrown under the carpet, especially in
> >>> relation to the commercialization and promotion of the open source and
> >>> open
> >>> products in general.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> Kevin wrote:
> >>
> >> I don't think it's been thrown under the carpet at all.  Upon close
> >> inspection, the notion of a general ideology in p2p itself is a
> nonsensical
> >> concept.  P2P is a phenomenon / process.  Participants may have diverse
> >> ideologies (e.g. profit-only vs freedom-only), but as long as they agree
> on
> >> the basic principles of production, that doesn't impact the process.
> >> Ideological differences can and do impact organizations participating in
> p2p
> >> production, and that has come up regularly (e.g. Wikipedia).
> >>
> >> -------
> >>
> >> I don't have much of an argument, but I wanted to invite others to
> discuss
> >> (particularly to invite Athina to rebut, and Kevin to expand on his
> close
> >> inspection).
> >>
> >> I agree with Kevin that there is no "general ideology in p2p itself",
> but
> >> the notion of "p2p itself" brackets the historical context.  Employing
> p2p's
> >> "basic principles of production" in 2009 has potentially huge political
> and
> >> social implications.  Those of us who work to advance "p2p alternatives"
> do
> >> so because p2p processes (maybe not in every case, but when considered
> >> together) privilege certain outcomes that we prefer.  Our preferences
> need
> >> to be examined.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Matt
> >>
> >> --
> >> Matt Cooperrider, Consultant
> >> SITE: http://mattcoop.com
> >> SITE: http://collabforge.com
> >> TWITTER: @mattcoop
> >> PHONE: 774.487.8152
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> >> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > --
> > Sam Rose
> > Social Synergy
> > Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
> > Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
> > skype: samuelrose
> > email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
> > http://socialsynergyweb.com
> > http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
> > http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
> > http://socialmediaclassroom.com
> > http://localfoodsystems.org
> > http://notanemployee.net
> > http://communitywiki.org
> >
> > "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
> > ambition." - Carl Sagan
> >
>
>
>
> --
> --
> Sam Rose
> Social Synergy
> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
> skype: samuelrose
> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
> http://socialsynergyweb.com
> http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
> http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
> http://localfoodsystems.org
> http://notanemployee.net
> http://communitywiki.org
>
> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>
> _______________________________________________
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> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>

-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
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