[p2p-research] Rushkoff on Net Neutrality

[Michel Bauwens]

I'm also excerpting doug's editorial with a comment on the 11th as well:

see:

<I must disagree that it is an either/or proposition. Yes, indeed, the
current internet infrastructure has become corporatized and is under the
control of censoring governments, but unlike fully centralized media with
one point of access, the internet is still distributed in many aspects, and
we cannot assume we have lost the fight, such as for example over network
neutrality, open standards, and free network services. Both struggles, that
for independent distributed resources and for the defense of the current
hybrid internet, have to be conducted at the same time. The success of many
user revolts, and corporate backtracks, shows that many things can still be
achieved. The internet will be the result of a social compromise between
users/producers and platform owners, we cannot abandon the terrain to them.>

of course, I fully support Doug's call as well, and have asked Sepp to
publish a top of alternative distributed infrastructure projects, I think we
urgently need some kind of mapping of what needs to be done, and how,

Neal, can you also spread the word about this:
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-ten-best-p2p-books-of-2010/2011/01/04

On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 12:24 PM, Neal Gorenflo <neal at shareable.net> wrote:

> Oh, cool.  I saw this in your mail, but missed it on the blog.  I'm going
> to share this with our community prime time tomorrow.  BTW, Roberto's ICC
> address is very popular on Shareable.
>
> Thanks Michel, thanks Sepp!
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 9:02 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Dear Neal, thanks for pointing out that link, which also echoes our
>> proposals here,
>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-new-years-message-of-the-p2p-foundation-what-digital-commoners-need-to-do/2011/01/01(see also below under sigfile)
>>
>> I copy Sepp who monitors infrastructures for us,
>>
>> Michel
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 9:32 AM, Neal Gorenflo <neal at shareable.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Hey Michel, Happy new year!
>>>
>>> I think I sent this to you earlier.  In the mean time a lively
>>> discussion has sparked up here:
>>> http://www.shareable.net/blog/the-next-net
>>>
>>> I'm curious how citizens could actually build a separate internet or
>>> at least fork it in a useful way.  Wondering if there's actually
>>> serious proposals out there that should be getting more attention as
>>> the mainstream media keeps us focused on the collapsing of net
>>> neutrality and Wikileaks.
>>>
>>> Rushkoff + Shareable + whoever else wants to join in are foolishly
>>> attempting to shift the dialog a bit with our tiny megaphones ;)
>>>
>>> Neal
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Neal Gorenflo | Publisher, http://Shareable.net | 415.867.0429
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>
>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>
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>>
>> Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>>
>> The New Year’s Message of the P2P Foundation: What Digital Commoners Need
>> To Do<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-new-years-message-of-the-p2p-foundation-what-digital-commoners-need-to-do/2011/01/01>
>> [image: photo of Michel Bauwens]
>> Michel Bauwens
>> 1st January 2011
>>
>>  The following is *a meditation on the strategic phases in the
>> construction of a peer to peer world*
>>
>> *What have we been doing in the last few years, and what should we be
>> doing next?* Here is a list of major undertakings, some well under way,
>> some barely begun. All need to be done, are interdependent on each other,
>> but need to be done ‘at the same time’, though there is a certain maturation
>> effect which may need to take place to move from one phase or priority to
>> another. Finding out these interdepencies and choosing amongst those
>> priorities is a matter of debate, strategising, and practical experience.
>>
>> ** use the existing infrastructures for immaterial exchange for personal
>> and social autonomy*
>>
>> We started by creating an infrastructure that allowed for peer to peer
>> communication. Out of this striving came the internet and its end to end
>> principle, web 2.0 and its possibilities for participation, and social media
>> allowing for intense relational interaction, and tools such as wikis which
>> allow for the collaborative construction of knowledge.
>>
>> The creation of this infrastructure was a combination of efforts of civil
>> society forces, governments and public funding, and private R&D and
>> commercial deployments. It’s an imperfect world full of governmental
>> control, corporate platforms, but also many capabilities for p2p interaction
>> that did not exist before.
>>
>> My assessment is that this struggle can experience setbacks but can no
>> longer be undone. They have become civilisational achievements that are just
>> as necessary for p2p-commoners than for the powers that be, even if they can
>> impose a ‘dissent tax’
>>
>> ** change those infrastructures itself away from centralized and
>> corporate control*
>>
>> But precisely because phase 1 is an imperfect one and partially if not
>> largely in control of forces which have their own agenda of (political)
>> control and (commercial) exploitation, as lately exemplified so well in the
>> corporate decisions around Wikileaks, we are increasingly realizing the need
>> to control these very infrastructures and insure that they can continue to
>> allow and even expand the possibilities for p2p communication and value
>> creation.
>>
>> Hence the movements for free software, open standards, independent p2p
>> infrastructures. There are many efforts underway in this area, some
>> successful, some fledlging, some of which will go nowhere and be defeated.
>>
>> Success on this front also depends on what the ‘enemy’ is doing. To the
>> degree they want to go too far in controlling the platforms, to that degree
>> they will mobilize the counterforces building the counter-infrastructures,
>> and convince more and more users to use them.
>>
>> ** 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*
>>
>> As we get habituated to p2p communication and value creation, and move
>> from open software to open knowledge to open design, p2p communities get
>> involved in redesigning the means of production and making, i.e. open design
>> necessarily needs to a reconfiguration of production processes towards
>> ‘distributrion’. Open design communities moreover have no perverse
>> incentives for planned obsolence or for hindering the sharing of innovation,
>> so the new infrastructures have a bias towards sustainability, but also to
>> relocalized production and a rationalisation of wasteful and unsustainable
>> material globalization.
>>
>> ** change the property structures of the infrastructure and means of
>> production in the process*
>>
>> As the new modalities of open design and distributed manufacturing are
>> deployed, peers discover and experience the many constraints imposed by the
>> old order of production, such as modes of property, the lact of benefit or
>> revenue sharing, compound-interest based capital which is not easily
>> available for them etc … They start building their own platforms, governance
>> foundations, etc …This creates a need to extend p2p practices and modalities
>> to the rest of the economy, with efforts towards forms of peer funding, open
>> money, a revival of cooperatives and mutualism, and many other. Commoners
>> also discover their affinities with other counter-economies such as the
>> solidarity economy, fair trade, and other forms of commons-friendly
>> enterprise and start developing practical and political alliances
>>
>> ** raising of political awareness and expression as a means of overcoming
>> opposition*
>>
>> As all the above processes are undertaken, digital commoners learn about
>> and experience the political and economic forces that are arraigned against
>> them, and become more politically aware, discovering the need for their own
>> modalities of political action and expression. They may also discover
>> affinities with the enemies of their enemies, other social movements,
>> commons-friendly enterpreneurs, etc
>>
>> ** 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*
>>
>> Immaterial cooperation rests on a physical infrastructure which is
>> currently part and parcel of an unsustainable mode of production. Commoners
>> learn the importance of recognizing the natural scarcities of the physical
>> world and how knowledge sharing and open design are themselves vital factors
>> to redesign the unsustainable infrastructure, and to transform it into
>> resilient modalities that insure the perenity of the new social practices.
>> Digital commoners ally with those forces that combine an interest in the
>> abundant sharing of immaterial resources, in the context of preserving
>> natural resources, and according to the principles of social equity.
>>
>>
>>
>


-- 
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