[p2p-research] Non digital commons a lot more complicated than Free Software

[Roberto Verzola]

j.martin.pedersen wrote:
> Take control: log off, leave the keyboard, occupy land - at least
> support those who do, such as the MST; i.e. outspoken support for
> landless, peasants and indigenous movements who work for common control
> over land is essential. At the moment a lot of free culture does the
> very opposite: speaks of immateriality, sucks up to IT corporations and
> appears to be allergic to stances that confront the power of capital (as
> we heard time and again in Berlin).
>   
You point out a real dilemma. I'm based in the Philippines and have been 
an activist both in the information and agriculture fields. Although I 
helped introduce the Internet among Philippine NGOs, I eventually 
realized the dark side of the Internet too, which I describe in detail 
in my book Towards a Political Economy of Information (full text 
available here: 
http://rverzola.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/infoeconomy-verzola.pdf) and 
several other pieces circulating online. I even went as far as "logging 
off", as you suggested (again, I describe this the book) and only 
occasionally using Internet cafes for some searching and emailing. I did 
so for around one year.

And I truly saw the dilemma. The Internet was so biased in favor of big 
monopolists that to simply join it already made us markets for hardware, 
software, connectivity, consultancies, etc. etc. So, we join and we 
already lose. Yet, if we don't join we also lose by default, by not 
contesting what is a growing arena of conflict and where rules and 
practices were being set with hardly any public debate etc. Then there 
were the tools that we could use (mainly the email, the egroups and the 
search engines) to reach some people who would otherwise be beyond reach 
or too expensive to do so. We could have stuck to faxing and overseas 
calls, but it didn't make sense. We would lose likewise. Facjng such 
dilemma, I had to find some principled balance. Today, I use paper and 
pencil a lot for drafts (I drafted my talk at the Berlin ICC 2010 with 
paper and pencil), and I don't have a laptop. But I still use a desktop 
and still type some drafts directly on the keyboard. However, I can 
think clearly even without my fingers on a keyboard, which is not the 
case anymore with many people I know. I don't use FaceBook or similar 
sites, but I use search engines a lot. (I don't own a car either and 
rely on public transport, but when friends offer me a ride on their car, 
I'm thankful. Maybe I still need to do things differently in the future; 
balancing is a real dilemma.

In my case. however, I decided that "logging off" was not an option. 
Since you are on this list, it seems you have decided likewise not to 
"log off". I'm curious though if you have actually "logged off" yourself 
and if you think that experience was a good long-term approach. I 
decided it wasn't.

On the material/immaterial debate: you are right that the 
Internet/cyberspace sits on a material medium. I was concerned about 
that too and looked for ways that poor farmers in the Philippines might 
take advantage of its benefits without the high costs. So we are 
experimenting with SMS and CD players. I coordinate a farmers' network 
called SRI-Pilipinas (SRI is system of rice intensification), where 
farmers text us their mailing address then we send them by snail mail a 
free primer, and then offer to send at minimum cost a training CD on 
SRI. We announce our cellphone number via radio stations, because 
farmers can afford a $10 transistor radio (one-time cost) and about $1 a 
month for batteries. If they don't have a cellphone (many do, because 
they have relatives  working as overseas contract workers), they can ask 
a neighbor to send the SMS, and there is usually one or a few VCD or DVD 
players even in the poorest village. This program is still ongoing. Even 
in this situation, it is hard *not to see* the benefits of 
"intangibility" -- the low cost of texting (which admittedly can still 
be lower if the mobile ISPs were not so biased against the poor) -- and 
the low cost of reproducing CDs/DVDs. The principle we try to follow is 
we don't want to ask people to buy new hardware or software. We want 
them to learn how to fully utilize the information tools they already 
own or have access to. Again, there are all kinds of dilemmas here, but 
the challenge, if you ask me, is to find the balance, rather than to 
"log off" and lose by default. I can imagine not using the Internet, but 
distributing DVDs instead, if a village already has some DVD players, 
but no Internet cafe. The demand to set up an Internet cafe will not 
come from me. But when an entrepreneur sees a business opportunity, and 
sets up an Internet cafe, which does provide lower-cost options for 
farmers (like emailing their daughters abroad or talking to them on 
webcam, instead of making overseas calls), I feel obligated to point out 
this lower-cost option for farmers. The alternative is to watch them 
dissipate their hard-earned money on older, more expensive methods.

I am also aware of the evils of technologies and have written about it. 
Here in the Philippines, I led a 30-day hunger strike in 2003 against 
the commercial introduction of Bt corn. I am also deeply involved in the 
anti-nuclear campaign. Lines have to be drawn. I use the term 
"human-scale" technologies on one hand, and technologies "beyond 
human-scale" on the other hand. Nuclear technology and genetic 
engineering, I put under the latter, because nuclear wastes that last 
tens or hundreds of thousands of years are beyond the scale of the 
longevity of humans or even civilizations. Engineered organisms, which 
reproduce, mutate, and evolve are also beyond our capacity to control. I 
would probably put nanotechnology in the same category (I need to read 
about it some more).

I'm not ready to say though that information/communications technologies 
are beyond human-scale to control and regulate. I don't think "fab labs" 
are beyond human-scale either. I could be wrong (I've been reading Ray 
Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near), but perhaps not, based on my own 
engagement with these technologies.

I've been talking about the nature of the technologies themselves. 
Ownership is of course another issue. If a technology is beyond 
human-scale, ownership isn't very relevant, It wouldn't matter if the 
P2P Foundation were the one running a nuclear plant or engineering a new 
bacterium. They would still be beyond human-scale. But if a technology 
by nature problemmatic, then ownership and/or control is a major issue, 
as someone else pointed out here. One of the things I've advocated in my 
book is to turn the hardware infrastructures of cyberspace itself into 
community-owned facilities or into commons.

I realize that our positions and analyses are colored by our own 
experiences, so I can't insist that my experience is more valid than 
yours. Among the Philippine Greens, we are wary of anyone who says 
theirs is the only way out. We need a variety / range of strategies and 
approaches, because people whose experiences vary may developed varied 
approaches too. I think all the different alternative approaches 
(though, as I said above, we have to draw a line somewhere), have to be 
given a chance to play themselves out.

My concept of abundance, which has been criticized by some, is different 
from the technologically deterministic cornucopian view represented by 
Kurzweil in his Singularity book. I recognize the limits imposed by 
material resources and I wrote in my paper at the Berlin ICC 2010 that 
abundance in the industrial sector will need to emulate ecosystems and 
rely on close material loops fuelled by renewable energy. If metals were 
treated as a flow rather than a stock in closed material loops fuelled 
by renewable energy, we'd need to worry less about the material limits. 
After all matter is never destroyed: all the metals dug out of the earth 
in the past are mostly still around. We just need to learn better how to 
use them in the context of closed material loops.

I recognize the current ecological (and socio-economic) crisis of the 
present. To put it simplistically, I would agree that the present is 90% 
bad and 10% good (or whatever hi/lo number you might want to assign). It 
is fine too that some want to focus their attention on the 90%. But I 
think it is even better, describing the same present situation, to focus 
on the 10%. There is even an approach called "appreciative inquiry" that 
has systematized this way on focusing on the good as a strategy for 
overcoming the bad.

In addition, I disagree with those who would mechanically project the 
present into the future. The future is NOT necessarily 90% bad and 10% 
good, even if the present is. If we focus on the possibilities opened up 
by the 10% (which is what I essentially did in my Berlin paper), we can 
help the good grow, and who knows, if we work together hard enough, it 
might even become the dominant feature in the future.

While you might have met some people at the conference who "suck up to 
IT corporations", I don't think anyone who  posted any recent message on 
this list meets the characterization.

I'd really be interested in continuing the dialogue between commoners 
who work in the cyberspace realm, and those who work in the agriculture 
and natural resources sector, especially since I straddle both realms 
and I'm painfully aware of the dilemmas and differences. I think the 
Berlin ICC was a good start.

Cheers, and warm greetings to all,

Roberto

> Thinking honestly about the problem and refrain from misleading ideas,
> such as treating digital commons as immaterial. In other words, discuss
> philosophy and politics of organisation of digital commons as if they
> were, as they indeed are, very complex systems embedded deeply and
> problematically in natural resource systems: i.e. acknowledge the
> problem, instead of glossing it over,
>
> We are not even at a problem solving stage yet, we are still deep in
> denial - nevermind the material aspect, just look at the widespread use
> of, say, Facebook - which is a major agent of enclosure in cyberspace -
> by virtual "commoners".
>
> Once we are all on the same kind of page - this is *not* about ideology,
> but acknowledgement of the material realities of the virtual and the
> power of capital - then let us move forward to the practical questions
> you pose. Meanwhile, we need to work on awareness and realisation - and
> importantly: global solidarity, meaning that we have to move away from
> Euro-centric conceptions of history, which supports a culture that never
> has acknowledged very much where its riches came and continues to come
> from. Digital commons are parasites on natural resources and territories
> of people elsewhere in the world in much the same way as supermarkets are.
>
> When enough eyes see the materiality of the virtual, the hack might
> emerge. We are far from that.
>
> -m
>
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