[p2p-research] [Commoning] - Re: ?ce

Fri Dec 31 09:39:16 CET 2010

Martin,

just an extra word, I'm using here in my last postings a somewhat more
agressive style,

in a way, I do it on purpose, as I'm sure it will make you 'jump' and feel
typecast, just as I, and I'm sure others, feel typecast by the way you
formulate the issue,

if you say that the logic of abundance of cyberspace is just like the
colonial logic, or, 'all' free advocates ignore the reality of resource use
or exploitation, you are creating absolutes that necessarily put all other
people who do not fully agree with you as straw men adversaries, and many
people will resent that, as I do,

in my view, better to see the world as polarities, between what you see as
the truthful understanding and what others do, there are many shades,

given this fact, one can communicate to highlight the differences in such a
way as they create division and reaction, or you can focus on commonalities
that allow a common struggle and creation to occur, which does not mean at
all giving up on your own perspectives, but may mean expressing in such a
way, that others actually feel they can integrate it in their own
understandings

do you really believe that all commoners 'see no evil, hear no evil'; can't
you not accept that most people in the world, not just digital commoners,
actually know that they live in a world with much evil, but that they see
this as 1) a natural state of affairs and that they have to think of
themselves first; 2) deplore it, but don't see what they can do about it; 3)
realize it, choose to do something about it, but choose their struggles
based on their own inclinations, affinities, etc ... 4) realize it, but
choose to lie about it because it is in their interest; 5) lie so much to
themselve that they start believe in it 6) are so dumb that they believe all
that group 5 is telling them

I'm suggesting that only group 4 and 5 are really problematic and thast
groups 1-3 and 6 could be friends, if we approach them in a right way

I'd suggest many digital commons activists belong to group 3, and that they
are not your enemies

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 1:28 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> just one more thing,
>
> there is no single 'logic' of cyberspace, but many different ones,
> depending on the material and spiritual interests of various human forces
>
> there are many forces that are geared now to systematically dismantle the
> logic of abundant sharing that is now possible, by using various means of
> artificial scarcity-fication
>
> here is what I think peer to peer forces should do, irrespective of those
> who hate the spirit and practice of abundant sharing,
>
> - use the existing infrastructures for immaterial exchange for personal and
> social autonomy
>
> - change those infrastructures itself away from centralized and corporate
> control
>
> - use the existing infrastructrures, and the new p2p-transformed ones, to
> change the very infrastructure of production of material goods, making it
> more sustainable in the process
>
> - change the property structures of the infrastructure and means of
> production in the process
>
> - transform the infrastructures so that the abundance of immaterial sharing
> can co-exist with the sustainability of the planet, and the demands for
> equity and social justice
>
> this process is not linear, but nevertheless has dependencies; how far we
> can go in combining the different steps, is a matter of productive debate
> and experimentation
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 1:17 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Martin's remark is really a heavy body blow to the countless activists who
>> are using online tools to defend their communities against enclosures
>>
>> to equate the zapatistas use of cyberspace with that of imperial forces
>> hints that some lack of differentiation is at work here ... if you  can no
>> longer differentiate friend from foe ...
>>
>> to see infrastructures as totally dominated by the enemy instead of as
>> terrains of struggle, (and as co-created, co-produced by that ongoing
>> struggle) seems singularly designed to demobilize any efforts for autonomy
>> of exploited groups
>>
>> how does one go from the valuable insight that cyberspace/interent is
>> rooted in the physical world, and in the exploitative nature of present
>> social systems, to an effective de-solidarising oneself with the struggle
>> for civic communication and cooperations and the right to create autonomous
>> infrastructures for social life, is something not altogether clear to me
>>
>> Michel
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 1:04 PM, Roberto Verzola <rverzola at gn.apc.org>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>  Does the tree not drink water, does it not grow in soil that was stolen
>>>> from the native people, does your friend not labour to care for it at
>>>> all?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Trees normally don't need human care to bear fruits. But people can do so
>>> if it makes them happy.
>>>
>>> If you go back far enough into the past, most occupied land today is the
>>> result of a land grab.
>>>
>>> I probably live today on land that was in the past stolen from someone
>>> else, who might have also grabbed it from an even earlier native, or traced
>>> far back enough, from some animal hunting ground. It should not stop me from
>>> planting trees and growing a vegetable garden in order to create a little
>>> abundance for my family. A farming family might be fighting an ejection case
>>> by a landlord, but they can still maintain their garden and make a living
>>> out of it.
>>>
>>> In the information economy, information abundance comes from the
>>> near-zero marginal cost of reproducing information. In agriculture,
>>> biological abundance comes from the instinct in every organism to reproduce
>>> itself (whether or not a human takes care of it). There is another source of
>>> abundance I did not mention in my Berlin paper: creative organization.
>>> Separately or arranged badly, different components may not produce much or
>>> none at all, but organized in a special way, they interact synergistically,
>>> produce more than the sum of the individual parts, in abundance.
>>>
>>> Today, much of the potential abundance is either privatized/monopolized
>>> or suppressed/undermined, to create artificial scarcity. But the more
>>> conscious the people are of the potential, the better the chances they can
>>> act together to realize that potential and focus on ways to make the
>>> abundance accessible to more people and to make the abundance last longer,
>>> or even make it last indefinitely.
>>>
>>>  I do not see much of a difference, systemically speaking, between the
>>>> abundance logic of the Euro-American colonial empire, which lives in
>>>> abundance paid for by others (through exporting the costs by means of
>>>> exploitative trade, slavery, land grabs, resource squeezes) and the
>>>> "abundance logic" of cyberspace. There might be differences in degree,
>>>> but the principle appears to be very similar: see no evil, hear no evil,
>>>> feel no evil, - like an ostrich with the head in the sand.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> The difference is between a source of abundance (be it information,
>>> biological, creative organization, or others) that is held in monopoly for
>>> profit-seeking, and one that is held in common for the general good. Between
>>> these opposite poles are shades of control and ownership that have to be
>>> studied and tried out.
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Roberto Verzola
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> p2presearch at listcultures.org
>>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>>
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>>
>> Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
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>
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>
>
>
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>
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