Access

Capitalism 3.0

Are you drowning in books to be read? Sometimes I think that I am. Then while I am in the middle of the deep end of the pool, instead of a life buoy, another book comes skimming across the water. This time it was Peter Barnes’ book Capitalism 3.0 which is available both as in a Pdf file (licensed under Creative Commons naturally) and in the more comfortable paper variety.

After scanning through the pdf I ordered the book. Barnes’ argument is based on the idea that capitalism is flawed and needs to take the Commons into consideration. He takes a broad view of the commons which includes headings such as nature, community and culture. Based upon this view he attempts to draw together the diversity of our commons and connect it to the capitalist approach to business.

 

 The book is critical of the accesses of old capitalism (which Barnes calls Capitalism 2.0). But he is also a bit too positive to what capitalism has done well – but a good book must be one that you disagree with in parts. Barnes attempts to show that Capitalism 3.0 has a chance of alleviating some of the access of capitalism 2.0 and he ends his book on a positive note:

Capitalism 2.0 had its moments. It defeated communism, leveled national boundaries to trade, and brought material abundance never seen before. But its triumph was accompanied by huge unpaid bills, debts that are now coming due. Perhaps we ought to think of ourselves as a company in bankruptcy. We canâ??t pay all of our bills, but we can pay some, especially if we stretch the payments out. In some cases, we can compensate debt holders with equity. In any event, we need to reorganize our economy so, in the future, we donâ??t run up the same debts again. Thatâ??s what
Capitalism 3.0 would do.

But Capitalism 3.0 also has a higher purpose: to help both capitalism and the human species achieve their full potential. To do that, our economic machine must stop destroying the commons and start protecting it. At the same time, it must lift the bottom 95 percent of humans at a faster rate than it raises the top 5 percent. This requires more than compassionate rhetoric, or a few bandages around the edges. It requires an upgrade of our operating system.

You can either buy a copy of the book or, if you prefer it, download it from the Capitalism 3.0 website.

Posted on by mklang

Change of State

Do you read First Monday? Well to be honest I don’t usually have the time to read through every issue but I get the email alert for every new issue – its out on the first Monday of every month – and I tend to browse through the titles and find something interesting to read each month.

First Monday is one of the first openly accessible, peerâ??reviewed journals on the Internet, solely devoted to the Internet. Since its start in May 1996, First Monday has published 795 papers in 132 issues; these papers were written by 951 different authors. In addition, eight special issues have appeared.

This month has a focus on Wikipedia which is naturally interesting but what really caught my eye was a chapter from Sandra Braman’s book Change of State: Information, Policy and Power.

Thanks to MIT Press and Sandra Braman, First Monday is pleased to present an excerpt from Sandraâ??s latest book Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power. This book examines the implications of the change of the governments from welfare states to informational states. Sandra describes how information policy in areas as diverse as intellectual property, border protection, privacy, and research funding affect issues such as identity, the nature of technological systems, and organizational structures.

The table of contents for Change of State follows with a link to chapter 9, â??Information, Policy, and Power in the Informational State.â??

The book is naturally amerocentric but promises some interesting ideas. It looks like another book to add to the reading list – check it out.

Posted on by mklang

Internet Curfew

The BBC reports that one of the top engineering schools will be shutting down their dorm Internet access every night in order to improve academic performance. Students will still be able to log on to the library or their departmental laboratories.

The authorities in India’s premier engineering institute, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Bombay (Mumbai), have cut off internet access to students in hostels at night.

They feel that 24-hour internet access is hampering students’ academic performance and overall personality development…Ms Thosar-Dixit said they were beginning to see a drop in attendance during morning lectures and a noticeable decline in students’ participation in extra-curricular activities.

“In the morning the students would not be fresh and attentive and their socialising patterns were changing as they preferred to sit in their rooms and surf the net rather than interact with their mates.

This is an exciting example of technology regulation. If the school chooses to regulate in this fashion it curtails free choice among students and punishes all students – even those who have a “good” relationship to technology.  But if the school chooses to ignore the problem then the overall performance of the students (and the school) will decline.

The decision to turn of the Internet at night may be well-intentioned but the question of concern is not the regulators intention but rather the results of the regulation. In addition to the results an important consideration in regulation must be the signal regulation sends to the regulated. In this case the students are told that their behavior patterns are incorrect and unacceptable. Whether this is true or not is not the relevant issue. Right and wrong change over time.

I disagree with blanket prohibitions such as these. The paternalistic approach creates a great deal of tension between groups. Between them and us. The regulated and the regulators. I know for a fact that it is not only students at the IIT in Bombay that have “unusual” nocturnal habits. Therefore the school is attempting to impose a normality on a weaker group while the regulators themselves do not subscribe to the concepts of normality they are trying to impose.

Orwell again: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Posted on by mklang

London

It’s brilliant to be in London again. I made it from Heathrow to the lecture hall with just a few minutes delay. The lecture of the day was Civil Disobedience Online and I think it went down well. Now I shall go and check into the hotel and spend the day in tourism mode. Tomorrow is more lecturing both a repeat on today and then a seminar on my thesis.

It’s almost too much I don’t know what to do first. But the list includes pub, beer, food, shopping, museum (British, National Portrait), British library, bookshops, bookshops and bookshops. Actually the first thing is to check into the hotel and have a shower. Too early in the morning and too little sleep, followed by travel and then two hours lecturing have overpowered my deodorant.

This is academic travel at its best! The only drawback is that I need to leave my free wifi access to go to the hotel.

Posted on by mklang

Open Access Petition

Have you signed the “Petition for guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research results”? No? Well there is still time. The purpose of the petition is to register support for free and open access to European research and for the recommendations proposed in the EU’s ‘Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe‘.

Read more about the petition and sign it here. Over 18000 have already signed but there is always room for more.

Posted on by mklang

Free and open access to European research results

January 29th 2007. Nobel laureates Harold Varmus and Rich Roberts are among the more than ten thousand concerned researchers, senior academics, lecturers, librarians, and citizens from across Europe and around the world who are signing an internet petition calling on the European Commission to adopt polices to guarantee free public access to research results and maximise the worldwide visibility of European research.

Organisations too are lending their support, with the most senior representatives from over 500 education, research and cultural organisations in the world adding their weight to the petition, including CERN, the UK’s Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Italian Rector’s Conference, the Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts & Sciences (KNAW) and the Swiss Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW), alongside the petition’s sponsors, SPARC Europe, JISC, the SURF Foundation, the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Danish Electronic Research Library (DEFF).

The petition calls on the EC to formally endorse the recommendations outlined in the EC-commissioned Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe.  Published in early 2006, the study made a number of important recommendations to help ensure the widest possible readership for scholarly articles.  In particular, the first recommendation called for ‘Guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research results shortly after publication’.

The EC will host a meeting in Brussels in February to discuss its position regarding widening access and the petition is intended to convey the overwhelming level of public support for the recommendations of the EC study.

JISC Executive Secretary Dr Malcolm Read, said: ‘Maximising public investment in European research and making more widely available its outputs are key priorities for the European Union as it seeks to enhance the global standing of European research and compete in a global market. JISC is proud to be sponsoring a petition which seeks these vital goals and which has already attracted such widespread support.’

One of the petition’s signatories, Richard J Roberts, Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine in 1993, said: “Open access to the published scientific literature is one of the most desirable goals of our current scientific enterprise. Since most science is supported by taxpayers it is unreasonable that they should not have immediate and free access to the results of that research. Furthermore, for the research community the literature is our lifeblood. By impeding access through subscriptions and then fragmenting the literature among many different publishers, with no central source, we have allowed the commercial sector to impede progress. It is high time that we rethought the model and made sure that everyone had equal and unimpeded access to the whole literature. How can we do cutting edge research if we don’t know where the cutting edge is?”

The petition is available at: www.ec-petition.eu

The EC-commissioned Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe is available here.

The petition is sponsored by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee, UK), SURF (Netherlands), SPARC Europe, DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany), DEFF (Danmarks Elektroniske Fag- og Forskningsbibliotek, Denmark).

Posted on by mklang

Databases and international protest

At an informal meeting of European Union ministers of justice and ministers of the interior Wolfgang Schäuble proposed

…that the Prüm Treaty be transposed into the legal framework of the EU. The treaty, which was signed by Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria and Spain in the town of Prüm in Germany in March 2006 provides for enhanced cross-border cooperation of the police and judicial authorities, especially with regard to combating terrorism, cross-border crime and illegal migration. The purpose of the treaty is not only to facilitate prosecution, but also to aid the crime prevention efforts of the authorities. (Heise Online – I added the bold)

So what? It sounds good, almost boring.

The whole point of this is to create a network of national databases and increase the exchange of information. Those who sign the treaty will give each other access to their DNA and fingerprint data.

Pointing to this “added value provided by the treaty” Mr. Schäuble spoke out in favor of adopting the system throughout Europe: “Our aim is to create a modern police information network for more effective crime control throughout Europe,” he said. Apart from allowing for cross-border police raids and patrols the treaty permits “the authorities to exchange information on traveling violent offenders, such as hooligans, in the context of major events (for example football matches, European Council meetings or other international summits) in order to prevent criminal acts.” (Heise Online – I added the bold)

So even though the database is originally for the prevention of “combating terrorism, cross-border crime and illegal migration” the database will also be used in preventing protesters in traveling to other countries. This is particularly interesting since the political level is now supra-national but the protesters will not be allowed to be.

Posted on by mklang

Finally online again!

The #%&â?¬ system has been down for the second time in a week. I think that any place that calls itself an IT university should be able to do much, much, much better. It’s not that I expect constant perfection but it would be nice if the level of access to our website was improved significantly.

Posted on by mklang

Christmas Reading

So when you have tired of the good company, food and presents here is a hot tip on what to take a look at. Its a pdf entitled “Best Practice Guide” for “Implementing the EU Copyright Directive in the Digital Age” written by Urs Gasser and Silke Ernst released in December 2006. Here is a short extract from the intro:

At a time where the existing EU copyright framework is under review, this best practice guide seeks to provide a set of specific recommendations for accession states and candidate countries that will or may face the challenge of transposing the EUCD in the near future. It is based on a collaborative effort to take stock of national implementations of the EUCD and builds upon prior studies and reports that analyze the different design choices that Member States have made.

I shall be saving it for Boxing day 🙂

Posted on by mklang

Anonymous Online

Most people have heard of the Zen koan “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The purpose of the koan is not to have an answer but rather to be a point of departure for deeper reflection. Unfortunately for most of us with a western education we tend to attempt to answer the question with a yes or no – therefore defeating the purpose. My question of the day is a variation of the koan: If a protest is not heard – does it make a sound?

The ability to communicate in particular mass communicate is becoming easier. With all due respect to the numerous digital divides (age, knowledge, access, infrastructure etc) the ability to communicate via the internet is still growing. The question is whether this technology will serve the purpose of those attempting to conduct resistance or protest actions. The drawback with mass communication is that the communicator is all too easily identified and can be punished by those she is protesting or communicating against.

So there is a need to both be able to conduct mass communication via the internet and to remain anonymous. There is (thankfully) a growing number of relatively user friendly methods, in addition to tips and tricks, which the anonymous protester can use.

Many of these are to be found in the following guides:

Posted on by mklang