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

Mon Nov 29 06:33:00 CET 2010

Hi Roberto,

thank you so much for this informed contribution, from someone "in the
field",

I would like to reproduce this in our blog, if that is okay with you,

Michel

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Roberto Verzola <rverzola at gn.apc.org>wrote:

> 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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