Cyborg Lives New Currency Frontiers Knowmads, Infocology of the future Art Brock / Prezis Lifelong Learning Caught in Our Own Words System diagram of the vicious cycle of the Industrial Economy (red, top) and the virtuous cycle of the Natural Economy (green, bottom) Jeff Clearwater and Ferananda Ibarra* led a presentation on (Charles Eisenstein et al’s) Sacred Economics and Sharing Economies the other day while I was in Eugene OR (thanks to fellow communitarian and alternative economies enthusiast Tree Bressen twisting their arms to add Eugene to their current West Coast speaking tour). One of the ideas they presented that I found particularly inspiring was this: Much of what we believe, and much of what we are trying to change, is rooted in the terminology, the language we use to discuss it. If we want to change our own ideas , beliefs and worldviews, we need to stop using that terminology, because it leaves us anchored in the paradigm we are trying to escape. If you want to change your thinking, they say, you must first change the old-paradigm words and expressions you use. What is an “economy” anyway?
Buiding a better world Metacurrency: a wealth system After Sibos, Q4 is usually the period of the year when I try to re-boot, to refresh my sources, to be a sponge and take-in new knowledge. It’s when I start painting for the next year. When the themes and trends for next year start emerging. I wanted to get a much better feel for what this world of alternative and complementary currencies was all about, and decided to join a week-end “Collabathon” organized by Art Brock (@artbrock) and Eric Harris-Braun (@zippy314), the founders of The Metacurrency Project. In the slipstream of the Contact Summit, they wanted to gather the minds to work on NextNet ideas and tools. From their site: What is the NextNet? It was a small group of people – about 50 or so- gathering that Friday evening. Friday evening was intro-day. The weekend had something “sacred”. Some of you may remember that Art was one of our “igniters” for the New Economies session at Innotribe at Sibos Toronto, but there we only had a couple of minutes. Metacurrency comes in two parts:
Geography Education The New Industrial Revolution We like to think that the value of an idea is unlimited. From Watt’s steam engine to Darwin’s natural selection to Einstein’s relativity, ideas have changed the world. But that’s not the whole story. Watt, Darwin and even, to a certain extent, Einstein came from a privileged class and that matters. Most ideas go unnoticed because they require investment capital and distribution to make their way into the physical world. That’s beginning to change. While your ability to start a successful business still depends greatly on the place and situation of your birth (if you live in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, you’re probably out of luck), many of the barriers to getting ideas to market are disappearing. The Industrial Economy The chart above tells the story of what happened next. It was, above all, an economy of atoms. The Information Economy In the old economy of atoms, value was determined by energy, time and scarcity. The information economy is quite the opposite. The Maker Economy
Collective consciousness Social Solidarity Economy: Toward Convergence across Continental Divides | News & Views This is part of a series of think pieces by scholars and practitioners working on a broad range of issues within the field of Social and Solidarity Economy. The series is being published in tconjunction with the UNRISD conference “Potential and Limits of Social and Solidarity Economy”. The conference took place on 6-8 May 2013 in collaboration with the International Labour Organization and the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service. The Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) is a relatively new framework and as such there is still a wide variation in concepts and definitions between, and even within, different regions. The Réseau intercontinental de promotion de l’économie sociale solidaire (RIPESS)1 is engaged in a process of exploring divergences and convergences surrounding concepts, visions and definitions of SSE across continents. This think piece will draw on insights and documents being developed in the ongoing RIPESS process, as well as those of my colleagues on the RIPESS board. 1. 2.