[p2p-research] ecovillages and communities : which ones are interested in "open p2p" ?

Sun Sep 13 06:47:04 CEST 2009

Hi Dante,
For the uninitiated, when I'm asked 'what I do', I'm now in the habit of
saying, 'I help people better care for themselves'. If I were in the East,
(and I hope in parts of Europe) I would say, 'I help people care for their
families'. (family is a far more interesting and satisfying idea in my
opinion, but to say that in the culture that surrounds me presently, this
would be considered unpractical or overly dramatic.)

Thanks for addressing this topic, Dante. Intentional communities at the
surface, seeing that they are an alternative social movement wanting to be a
community movement, you might think they would be attracted to p2p; and I
believe they are for the most part; but the established language used in
these areas are probably the greatest challenge to overcome unless we have
viable solutions to show rather than tell.

The greatest hurdle in my experience is addressing the topic of technology.
If you call it 'technology', in the IC crowd I've lived in for a time, the
listening stops. There's a tremendously deep seeded neoluddite sentiment
(like that professed by the romantic and very persuasive prose of
Kirkpatrick Sale) that I believe is a great detriment to the autonomy these
groups would like to establish.  The issue is not that technology is bad,
but that technology in this view is confused with mass production, only one
general approach to tool and object manipulation, which is not bad in
itself, but it is bad if you want to 'earn money in the workforce'. This
means I'd like to see all existing jobs fully automated, just like a
majority shareholder of a company, but the difference between the
shareholder and I is that I want to see this further decay the economic
system that surfaced the mass model so that more people see the need to
develop something better 'underneath'; and that 'better' is a "commons
floor" which will rise to better production standards than mass production
as development attention is better coordinated; after the vision is better
defined: broken into easy to comprehend developmental parts (first for key
developers that can better establish in more detail what must be done; then
presented for users to do for themselves without a developer hierarchy),
assembled, and distributed.

My views may be considered post-luddite, (though I seem to have skipped the
luddite phase ;p) as I believe craft production (or personal fabrication in
contemporary terms) is the most sincere or meaningful work, but I understand
the benefit in having more advanced techniques that may include having a
desktop device produce the entire product, especially if it for someone
else, like the elderly, that may not be able to produce or deliver needed
items for themselves when I or anyone else cannot possibly produce or
deliver what everyone needs with simple hand tools. That may be practical in
smaller 300-600 village settings with the right people, but not for large
urban areas where abilities are more difficult to match a variety of needs.

Its also important any p2p advocate be very sensitive to the established
culture or spiritual beliefs; and try to understand them; and address the
practices members of the group care to better meet or exceed. After the
advocate is well established in the community then talk of other areas may
be appropriate. (The term 'p2p colonialist' comes to mind... ;p We're the
GOOD colonialists! ;p I would only jest on this if no other approach
worked.)

Our foundation needs to place a fairly rigorous amount of attention toward
describing how p2p technology differs from mass production technology. P2P
advocacy ensures self sufficiency by sharing knowledge and other resources
in commons. Demonstrating good technologies like mesh network communications
and solar power energy devices (for example) easy to personally fabricate
and maintain by the community itself will go a long way in influencing this
very important movement and potential partner.

Nathan

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Dante-Gabryell Monson <
dante.monson at gmail.com> wrote:

> I ask myself : Which existing ecovillages would identify to " p2p meme"
> approaches ,
> or be interested in integrating such memes ?
>
> more in message below...
>
> Cordially,
> Dante
> http://hitchwiki.org/en/Dante
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 4:33 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi Dante,
>>
>> interesting questions, but I´m not able to answer them, ecovillages is
>> not something I have monitored at all.
>>
>> I would forward the question the whole p2p list, with cc to franz
>> nahrada and possible try the global village list,
>>
>> Michel
>>
>> On 9/12/09, Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hi Michel , Hi Nathan,
>> >
>> > This morning I am attempting to have a overview and reflect on emergent
>> > community cultures,
>> > what symbolical framework they may use, based on what heritage ?
>> >
>> > I am also reflecting on the relations between them, and on the potential
>> > introduction of p2p memes into their narratives.
>> >
>> > For example, in some ecovillages in europe, there seems to some form of
>> > revival using neo-paganism,
>> > in some cases also combined to tibetan Buddhism ( itself also based on
>> > paganism ? ) ,
>> > or christian influences, etc
>> >
>> > Some of these communities are older and already well established ,
>> > such as the Anthroposophic movement
>> >
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroposophy
>> >
>> > and also developed a number of communities / villages all over the world
>> >
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camphill_movement
>> >
>> > which could correspond to some of the of various "ecovillage"
>> definitions I
>> > found on the net such as
>> >
>> > http://www.ecovillagenews.org/wiki/index.php/What_is_an_Ecovillage%3F
>> >
>> > http://gen.ecovillage.org/about/wiaev.php
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > I ask myself : what do other "ecovillage listings" such as this one
>> >
>> > http://www.ecovillage.org/php/public/evdir/evsearch.php?lg=1
>> >
>> > or this one
>> >
>> > http://directory.ic.org/records/ecovillages.php
>> >
>> > see as common features between such communities, sharing a common
>> > definition
>> > ?
>> > sharing common or divergent cultural, political, economic, etc
>> approaches ?
>> >
>> > Which communities and ecovillages would identify to "p2p meme"
>> approaches ,
>> > or be interested in integrating such p2p memes ?
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>> Research: http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>
>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>
>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>
>
>
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