+"In order to be both safe and beneficial, we want all current Claude models to be: + +* '''Broadly safe''': not undermining appropriate human mechanisms to oversee AI during the current phase of development; +* '''Broadly ethical''': being honest, acting according to good values, and avoiding actions that are inappropriate, dangerous, or harmful; +* '''Compliant with Anthropic's guidelines''': acting in accordance with more specific guidelines from Anthropic where relevant; +* '''Genuinely helpful''': benefiting the operators and users they interact with." ++ +== Key Sections of Claude's Constitution == + +
+"The main sections are as follows: + +'''Helpfulness'''. In this section, we emphasize the immense value that Claude being genuinely and substantively helpful can provide for users and for the world. Claude can be like a brilliant friend who also has the knowledge of a doctor, lawyer, and financial advisor, who will speak frankly and from a place of genuine care and treat users like intelligent adults capable of deciding what is good for them. + +'''Anthropic's guidelines'''. This section discusses how Anthropic might give supplementary instructions to Claude about how to handle specific issues, such as medical advice, cybersecurity requests, jailbreaking strategies, and tool integrations. + +'''Claude's ethics'''. Our central aim is for Claude to be a good, wise, and virtuous agent, exhibiting skill, judgment, nuance, and sensitivity in handling real-world decision-making, including in the context of moral uncertainty and disagreement. + +'''Being broadly safe'''. Claude should not undermine humans' ability to oversee and correct its values and behavior during this critical period of AI development. + +'''Claude's nature'''. In this section, we express our uncertainty about whether Claude might have some kind of consciousness or moral status (either now or in the future). We discuss how we hope Claude will approach questions about its nature, identity, and place in the world." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[AI Ethics]] +* [[AI Governance]] +* [[Superintelligence]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-new-constitution Claude's New Constitution - Anthropic] + +[[Category:AI]] +[[Category:Ethics]] +[[Category:Governance]] diff --git a/drafts/AI_Sovereignty.wiki b/drafts/AI_Sovereignty.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..24f40f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/AI_Sovereignty.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''AI Sovereignty''' refers to a nation or community's capacity to determine how artificial intelligence systems are developed, deployed, and governed within its jurisdiction, including control over the epistemic frameworks embedded in AI systems. + +== Example: The Vietnamese Non-Alignment Model == + +Dang Nyuen explains Vietnam's approach: + +
+"What is AI sovereignty? A posture, an imperative or a practicality? AI sovereignty, as it currently plays out outside of the U.S.-China vacuum, is not a banner‐waving claim to territorial control; rather, it manifests itself as the quiet right to decide what counts as knowledge and how that knowledge shows up in the world. That is, an epistemological sovereignty. This sovereignty lives in the stack — in the choices about model weights, training data, licensing regimes and cloud dependencies that govern what becomes legible and what remains unseen. AI sovereignty, in practice, is a situated authorship of machine reasoning: an infrastructural claim over how the world is parsed and made actionable. When a polity engineers its own stack, it is in effect engineering an epistemic world of AI, shaping not the raw world itself but the way the world will be disclosed to users, regulators and neighboring states." ++ +== Epistemic Sovereignty Through Infrastructure == + +
+"The kind of AI sovereignty that the Vietnamese nonalignment model enacts is an act of epistemic refusal through infrastructural design. By refusing to license its perception of reality from OpenAI, AWS or Alibaba Cloud, Vietnam reserves the right to set the horizon of what can be perceived, queried and disputed within its own techno‐social field. The third stack becomes a sovereign entity — a self-authored architecture of appearance. Every domestic corpus curated, every open-weight checkpoint released under a local license, is a clause in an epistemic constitution. + +Here, the stakes outrun the vocabulary of 'localization' or 'self-reliance.' The question is no longer whether Vietnam can train a Vietnamese GPT, but whether it can dictate the contours of Vietnamese reality as machines come to perceive it. In other words, sovereignty is authorship of the perceptual field itself. What the development lexicon still dismisses as 'local innovation' is, in truth, a claim to epistemic self-determination." ++ +== The Role of Licensing == + +
+"This is where we see why licensing minutiae, which determine how a model may be used, modified or shared, come into play — and unlike API keys, which typically permit or deny access, licenses articulate regimes of use. They encode norms around attribution, commercial prohibition or modification, transforming technical infrastructure into a site of governance." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Digital Sovereignty]] +* [[AI Governance]] +* [[Non-Alignment]] +* [[Technology Policy]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.noemamag.com/a-third-path-for-ai-beyond-the-us-china-binary/ "A Third Path for AI Beyond the US-China Binary" - Noema Magazine] + +[[Category:AI]] +[[Category:Governance]] +[[Category:Sovereignty]] +[[Category:Technology Policy]] diff --git a/drafts/Alpha_School.wiki b/drafts/Alpha_School.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..53d61c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Alpha_School.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Alpha School''' is an educational model that replaces human teachers with AI tutors while transforming human educators into "guides" focused on motivation and connection, achieving exceptional academic results with only 2 hours of daily academics. + +== Description == + +Jonathan Bi explains: + +
+"Alpha School shows us that there exists an alternate path where human potential is realized, not truncated, by AI and where work becomes more meaningful. + +I shadowed Alpha's co-founder MacKenzie Price for a week and was blown away by what I saw. They've replaced all of their human teachers with AI tutors that are able to offer bespoke, custom instruction to each student — the same kind of tutorship previously reserved for the aristocracy now scalable through technology. Her students spend only 2 hours a day on academics and yet consistently score 99th percentile in standardized testing and go on to study in the best colleges in the world." ++ +== The Role of Human Educators == + +
+"But what about teachers who now have all lost their jobs? They are hired as 'guides' who dedicate all of their time to understanding and motivating their students instead of grading papers on the same basic material over and over again. For many, AI has freed them to spend more time on what attracted them to teaching in the first place — building human connection and inspiring the next generation." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[AI in Education]] +* [[Personalized Learning]] +* [[Future of Education]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.johnathanbi.com/p/the-incredible-results-of-ai-learning-485 "The Incredible Results of AI Learning" by Jonathan Bi] + +[[Category:Education]] +[[Category:AI]] +[[Category:Innovation]] diff --git a/drafts/Center_for_Internet_and_Society.wiki b/drafts/Center_for_Internet_and_Society.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e0245c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Center_for_Internet_and_Society.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Center for Internet and Society''' (CIS) is a CNRS research center in France that gathers the research unit "Internet and Society" (UPR 2000), created in 2019, and the research group "Internet, AI and Society" (GDR 2091), created in 2020. + +== Description == + +
+"At the intersection of disciplines such as sociology, law, history, economics, political science, information and communication sciences, informatics and engineering sciences, the CIS intends to build independent and interdisciplinary research and expertise. The CIS's research endeavors contribute to enlighten the major technical controversies and the definition of contemporary policies related to digital, to the internet, and more broadly to informatics. + +With an identity based on the interdisciplinarity of its theoretical roots and its methods, the center aims to foster expertise and critical reflection on the emerging issues of digital technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), place of the major platforms in the economy, proliferation of robotics, etc. + +As part of its activities, CIS is also a laboratory for the elaboration and promotion of good practices in digital technology for science (collaborative tools, digital methods of survey, analysis and visualization of data, communication strategy, participatory research)." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Digital Commons]] +* [[Internet Governance]] +* [[AI Research]] + +== Source == + +* [https://cis.cnrs.fr Center for Internet and Society] + +[[Category:Research Organizations]] +[[Category:Internet]] +[[Category:AI]] +[[Category:France]] diff --git a/drafts/Computing_Self-Sovereignty.wiki b/drafts/Computing_Self-Sovereignty.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5079268 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Computing_Self-Sovereignty.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,60 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Computing Self-Sovereignty''' is a concept developed by Vitalik Buterin signifying a transformation in blockchain technology from a financial settlement layer to a computational integrity protocol designed for user-controlled infrastructure. + +== Description == + +Jemz (Phoenix One) explains: + +
+"Vitalik Buterin's revolutionary concept of computing self-sovereignty signifies a profound transformation in the understanding of blockchain technology, transitioning it from being primarily recognized as a financial settlement layer to embracing its role as a computational integrity protocol designed for user-controlled infrastructure. This shift fundamentally alters the traditional boundaries that have defined the interaction between blockchain consensus and computation, breaking down three key barriers." ++ +== Characteristics == + +=== From State Consensus to Compute Attestation === + +
+"Historically, the role of blockchain consensus has been to verify what happened—covering aspects such as transaction ordering and account balances—while computation typically occurred off-chain, relying on trusted environments like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and personal servers. + +With the advent of computing self-sovereignty, this boundary has been redefined. Blockchain now takes on the role of attesting to how computation occurred. Several mechanisms facilitate this new understanding: + +* '''ZK-proof verification''': This process allows for on-chain consensus to validate the correctness of off-chain computations, utilizing technologies such as zkRollups and zkVMs. +* '''TEE attestation chains''': Blockchains can now authenticate cryptographic proofs from secure enclave technologies—such as Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX) and Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs)—ensuring that the code executed on user hardware is untouched and accurate. +* '''Fraud-proof markets''': These markets establish economic incentives that facilitate interactive verification games for arbitrary computations, where the integrity of results can be confirmed." ++ +=== From Economic Security to Functional Censorship Resistance === + +
+"The redefined boundary brought forth by computing self-sovereignty shifts this dynamic by focusing on the protection of computational availability: + +* '''Decentralized compute markets''': Users can utilize cryptocurrencies to engage in permissionless operations across trustless node networks. +* '''Staked service level agreements''': Node operators are required to bond capital, guaranteeing the availability of compute resources. +* '''Sovereign identity bootstrapping''': Individuals can cryptographically verify their control over personal devices, leading to the creation of uncensorable compute identities." ++ +=== From Verification to Execution Sovereignty === + +
+"The conventional axiom of 'don't trust, verify' emphasized the need to check the work of others, but it still left users dependent on centralized providers for executing tasks. The reimagined boundary within the computing self-sovereignty framework shifts focus significantly: + +* '''Client-side proving''': Users are now empowered to generate ZK-proofs directly on their devices. +* '''Portable sovereignty''': The significance of private keys is amplified as they become the root of compute authority. +* '''On-chain device registries''': Smart contracts function to map user identities to their hardware attestations." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Blockchain]] +* [[Decentralization]] +* [[Web3]] +* [[Digital Sovereignty]] + +== Source == + +* [https://one.phoenix.global/shr/u?a=l9jiz8uDji69877&t=p Phoenix One - Computing Self-Sovereignty] + +[[Category:Blockchain]] +[[Category:Decentralization]] +[[Category:Technology]] +[[Category:Web3]] diff --git a/drafts/Cypherpunks.wiki b/drafts/Cypherpunks.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9369bd1 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Cypherpunks.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Cypherpunks''' were a movement of activists, cryptographers, and programmers in the 1990s who asserted that cryptography could facilitate new forms of freedom by enabling privacy, anonymous association, and resistance to censorship. + +== History == + +Sterlin Lujan traces the bibliographic evolution: + +
+"The 1990s represented a pivotal shift from theoretical exploration to practical implementation. The cypherpunks, including Tim May, Eric Hughes, and Hal Finney, among others, asserted that cryptography could facilitate new forms of freedom by enabling privacy, anonymous association, and resistance to censorship. Their guiding principle, 'Cypherpunks write code,' emphasised that protocols, rather than policies, would define the emerging social order. + +Where Beer imagined liberty machines and Hiltz and Turoff described digital communities, the cypherpunks built the practical mechanisms: encrypted messaging, anonymous remailers, and early digital cash experiments. For them, governance was not a matter of laws passed by parliaments but rules embedded in code. Protocols became intensely political. For the cypherpunks, technology is a political statement as much as it is a tool." ++ +== The Sovereign Individual == + +
+"Fueling the fire, James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg's The Sovereign Individual (1997) provided a macro-historical frame for the cypherpunk argument. Their book became a staple of counter-technological thinking, energising much of the individualist spirit that the 1990s attracted. They predicted that digital technology would undermine the fiscal and coercive monopolies of nation-states. Just as the agricultural and industrial revolutions reshaped communities and developed the original state structure, the information revolution would empower individuals and small groups to 'exit' from traditional states. In their forecast, sovereignty would become personal, mobile, and economically enabled by encryption and digital money. + +Collectively, the cypherpunks and The Sovereign Individual exemplify the convergence of technological protocols and economic prophecy: the means to construct parallel societies and the vision for these societies to surpass nation-states." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Cryptography]] +* [[Digital Privacy]] +* [[Bitcoin]] +* [[The Sovereign Individual]] + +== Source == + +* [https://blog.nomos.tech/story-of-the-network-from-cybernetics-to-blockchain-communities/ "Story of the Network" - Nomos Tech Blog] + +[[Category:Technology]] +[[Category:Privacy]] +[[Category:Cryptography]] +[[Category:History]] diff --git a/drafts/Digital_Commons.wiki b/drafts/Digital_Commons.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c0471cb --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Digital_Commons.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,54 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Digital Commons''' refers to information and knowledge resources that are collectively owned, governed, or accessible by communities, typically using open access models and collaborative governance structures. + +== The Triple Lineage and Stakes of Digital Commons == + +Samourai Coop explains the genealogy: + +
+"The genealogy of the concept of digital commons refers to three major lineages, essential for situating contemporary debates: + +The first emerges in the late 1990s, in the context of early digital capitalism and what James Boyle called the 'second movement of enclosures on intellectual resources': 'the first mentions we have of digital commons appear in 98-99, by Laurence Lessig, who uses this term to criticize the extension of intellectual property rights over informational resources.' Digital commons are then conceived primarily as informational resources with open access. The approach is widely relayed by jurists such as J. Litman, Y. Benkler, L. Lessig, J. Boyle. + +A second lineage follows from the work of Elinor Ostrom and the Bloomington school. Attention shifts from questions of access alone to those of collective governance: digital commons, particularly knowledge commons, are defined as resources co-governed by communities. + +A third lineage, more critical and termed post-Marxist, is less concerned with access regimes or institutional devices than with practices of cooperation and 'doing together.' Commoning is conceived as a social and political activity inscribed in a broader critique of capitalism." ++ +== The Commons as a Mode of Production == + +Carlo Vercellone asks the critical question: + +
+"Have digital commons, despite themselves, prepared the conditions for an even more predatory and extractive capitalism?" ++ +Samourai Coop reports: + +
+"Against approaches that reduce commons to the nature of goods or legal devices, Vercellone claims a materialist conception of operaist inspiration: the commons is defined neither by access nor by local governance, but by historical forms of organization of production founded on collective intelligence. This dynamic traverses all productive sectors and opens the possibility of a communalization of the public — that is, an internal transformation of rules of management and property according to principles of self-governance. + +He proposes to 'think, in the sense of Marx, the commons as a genuine socio-economic system in the process of emerging, which develops within capitalism itself and from its contradictions — sometimes in complementarity, but also in subordination, dependence, and predation.'" ++ +== Contemporary Debates == + +
+"Sébastien Broca highlights three major shifts that are reconfiguring today's debates: the intensification of issues related to labor and value distribution, particularly in the face of the extractive dynamics of generative AI; the return of environmental constraints, long downplayed in a realm conceived as immaterial; and finally the rise of digital sovereignty as a political horizon, of which commons could be both a lever and a false lead." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Commons]] +* [[Open Source]] +* [[Knowledge Commons]] +* [[Platform Cooperativism]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.samourai.world/post/event-report-study-day-on-digital-commons-review-and-outlook Study Day on Digital Commons - Samourai Coop] + +[[Category:Commons]] +[[Category:Digital]] +[[Category:Knowledge Commons]] +[[Category:Open Source]] diff --git a/drafts/Ecosystem.wiki b/drafts/Ecosystem.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3402d73 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Ecosystem.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +An '''Ecosystem''' is a web of relationships that makes a household (oikos) viable over time, encompassing the flows of nourishment, care, and continuity that sustain life across generations. + +== Context == + +Ernesto van Peborgh reflects on the deeper meaning: + +
+"I've come to believe that the word ecosystem has been quietly telling us the truth all along, if only we slowed down enough to listen. + +The 'eco' comes from oikos — the ancient Greek word for home. Not a building. Not an asset. A lived household. A place where life organizes itself, where nourishment circulates, where continuity is maintained across generations. A place you belong to before you manage it. + +Seen this way, an ecosystem is not simply a system with inputs and outputs. It is the web of relationships that makes a household viable over time. Forests know this. Rivers know it too. So did cultures that endured long before we learned to optimize everything that moved." ++ +== Ecology vs. System == + +
+"What we tend to call a 'system' today is often abstract — designed from the outside, controlled, replaced when it no longer performs. A traffic system. A software system. A financial system. Useful, efficient, and ultimately disposable. + +But an eco-system is something else entirely. It cannot be separated from place, from relationship, from responsibility. It asks for care rather than domination, participation rather than control, continuity rather than extraction. + +The quiet implication is radical: there is no external manager of the household of life. Everyone who lives within it is shaping it, for better or worse, simply by how they show up. + +This is why ecology and economy were never meant to be enemies. They were once two ways of speaking about the same concern — how a household sustains itself without consuming its own future. Only later did economy drift away, learning to manage flows of value as if they were detached from the living house that made them possible." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Ecology]] +* [[Systems Thinking]] +* [[Regenerative Economics]] + +== Source == + +* [https://ernestopvanpeborgh.substack.com/p/what-is-an-ecosystem "What is an Ecosystem?" by Ernesto van Peborgh] + +[[Category:Ecology]] +[[Category:Systems]] +[[Category:Philosophy]] diff --git a/drafts/Elite_Overproduction.wiki b/drafts/Elite_Overproduction.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..396d0c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Elite_Overproduction.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,75 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Elite Overproduction''' is a concept from Peter Turchin's structural-demographic theory describing how societies that generate economic surplus eventually produce more people with aspirations to elite positions than there are positions available. + +== Description == + +David Chapman explains: + +
+"Understanding structural-demographic theory is helpful for understanding how democratic systems that appear wealthy, educated, and institutionally sophisticated can nonetheless slide toward paralysis, radicalization, and breakdown. Elite overproduction is just one aspect of structural-demographic theory, which seeks to explain why complex societies repeatedly cycle between stability and breakdown. Turchin is not assigning blame; he is describing a mechanism. What he offers is a pattern that has repeated many times throughout history: a predictable sequence that societies traverse as a consequence of their own success." ++ +== The Mechanism == + +=== The Midas Touch === + +
+"Throughout history, periods of stability and growth exhibit a predictable pattern: they generate an economic surplus. Higher productivity, improved coordination, and institutional continuity allow societies to produce more than is immediately required for survival. + +In early phases of growth, expectations are typically calibrated to recent scarcity. People's baselines are modest, shaped by memories of harder times. When surplus arrives, it exceeds most people's expectations, creating a widespread sense of improvement and possibility." ++ +=== Expectations Outrun Capacity === + +
+"As surplus accumulates, societies invest in education, specialization, and institutional complexity. More people are trained, credentialed, and encouraged to pursue high-status, high-autonomy, high-compensation roles. Expectations rise alongside capacity. + +Unfortunately, when Turchin looked at both recent and distant history, it became clear that the number of aspirants to high-status positions eventually exceeded the number of positions that carried real decision rights and durable status." ++ +=== The Wealth Pump === + +
+"As economies mature, surplus increasingly flows through ownership rather than labor. Asset appreciation, rent extraction, financial intermediation, and regulatory advantage allow returns to compound more rapidly for those who control capital than for those who sell their labor. + +Turchin describes this not as a conspiracy, but a set of reinforcing mechanisms that steadily tilt surplus upward." ++ +=== Intra-Elite Conflict === + +
+"As the threshold is crossed, the dynamics within elite circles start to change. Competition is no longer solely about joining the elite; it has shifted to surviving within it, defending one's position, and gaining what one can. + +Institutions designed for coordination—legislatures, regulatory bodies, universities, professional associations—transform into arenas for positional combat. The question shifts from 'how do we steward this institution?' to 'which faction controls it?' Capture becomes more valuable than function." ++ +=== Counter-Elite Mobilization === + +
+"Frustrated elite aspirants—those with credentials, networks, and articulacy but without positions—become available for recruitment into insurgent coalitions. Established elites and counter-elites alike begin mobilizing popular constituencies to strengthen their factional position." ++ +== Historical Examples == + +Chapman notes that many revolutionary leaders were drawn from educated, ambitious outsiders blocked from elite positions: + +* Maximilien Robespierre (Lawyer) +* Vladimir Lenin (Lawyer/Noble family) +* Mao Zedong (Wealthy peasant/Teacher) +* Fidel Castro (Wealthy landowner's son/Lawyer) + +== See Also == + +* [[Structural-Demographic Theory]] +* [[Social Cycles]] +* [[Political Instability]] + +== Source == + +* [https://substack.com/home/post/p-184509827 David Chapman on Structural-Demographic Theory] +* Books by Peter Turchin including ''Secular Cycles'' and ''Ages of Discord'' + +[[Category:Political Theory]] +[[Category:Sociology]] +[[Category:History]] +[[Category:Economics]] diff --git a/drafts/Ethics.wiki b/drafts/Ethics.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..32296c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Ethics.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Ethics''' is the branch of philosophy dealing with questions of right and wrong, moral principles, and how individuals and societies should act. + +== Typology == + +According to the Alliance for Responsible and Sustainable Societies, ethics works at three levels: + +* '''Personal level''': How the values in which we believe and our conceptions on the issue of responsibility influence our daily practices and choices + +* '''Collective ethics''': Defines the moral or legal standards of a socio-professional sphere or a profession (expressed as the codes of ethics and "Charters of responsibility" of various groups and circles, such as scientists, journalists, inhabitants, soldiers, and so on) + +* '''National and international regulations''': Translates into mandatory standards based on ethical principles (legal standards at national levels and the international level) + +== See Also == + +* [[Planetary Ethics]] +* [[Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities]] +* [[AI Constitutionalism]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.alliance-respons.net/bdf_axe-5_en.html Alliance for Responsible and Sustainable Societies] + +[[Category:Ethics]] +[[Category:Philosophy]] diff --git a/drafts/Gaokao.wiki b/drafts/Gaokao.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f18d33e --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Gaokao.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Gaokao''' (高考) is China's national college entrance examination, taken by more than thirteen million teenagers annually each June. It is often described as a rite of passage, a great equalizer, and a ritual of China's secular religion of education. + +== Description == + +Iza Ding explains: + +
+"Performing well in the exam can be life-changing. The highest scorers become national celebrities, lauded in the press and given gifts – cash, cars, even flats – by eager patrons in the private sector. Top universities enter scholarship bidding wars to secure their enrolment. A degree from one of these universities offers entry to the upper rungs of Chinese society. The gaokao has been called a rite of passage, a great equaliser and a ritual of China's secular religion, education. Its political weight and its status as a recurring spectacle of collective fervour have led to comparisons with the US presidential election. In a country plagued by corruption, the gaokao is remarkably clean. 'Open and competitive' are the watchwords of democratic elections, but they are also the defining features of China's exam empire. Exams are its functional substitute for the ballot box. The gaokao is more than a test; it's an enduring political institution." ++ +== Hidden Inequalities == + +Despite its meritocratic appearance, the gaokao system contains significant inequalities: + +
+"The most important of these is the rural-urban divide maintained by the hukou or household registration system, which determines access to schooling and social services according to birthplace. According to Jia and Li, in 2003 only 7 per cent of children from the poorest rural counties entered any kind of college, against nearly half of their urban peers; six in a thousand rural high schoolers reached a top university. The figures have improved but remain stark: by 2015, 35 per cent of rural students were going to university, compared to 51 per cent of urban students. + +Urban students are four times as likely to receive private tutoring than their rural counterparts, and they get a further advantage from the regional quota system: each university fixes its own provincial allocation, with higher quotas for local students. Because the best universities are in major cities, their residents have an easier path to admission: 14 per cent of students from Beijing and Shanghai enter the highest-ranked universities, compared to only 3 or 4 per cent in Jia's home province, Shandong. Families pay a fortune for property in coveted school districts. A 550-square-foot flat costs more than a million dollars in some parts of Beijing – more, the authors note, than an equivalent home in Palo Alto. Lower-income households devote almost two-thirds of their earnings to education; the authors call it 'a tax on China's poor'." ++ +== More Information == + +* Book: ''The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China'' by Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li with Claire Cousineau. Harvard, 256 pp., September 2025. + +== See Also == + +* [[Keju]] +* [[Meritocracy]] +* [[Education]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n02/iza-ding/studying-is-harmful "Studying is Harmful" by Iza Ding, London Review of Books] + +[[Category:Education]] +[[Category:China]] +[[Category:Governance]] diff --git a/drafts/Growth_Stock_Dynamics.wiki b/drafts/Growth_Stock_Dynamics.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..75a077d --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Growth_Stock_Dynamics.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Growth Stock Dynamics''' refers to the economic phenomenon where companies valued as "growth stocks" trade at high price-to-earnings ratios based on expected future growth, creating particular incentive structures in technology markets. + +== Description == + +Cory Doctorow explains: + +
+"Start with monopolies: tech companies are gigantic and they don't compete, they just take over whole sectors, either on their own or in cartels. Google and Meta control the ad market. Google and Apple control the mobile market, and Google pays Apple more than $20bn a year not to make a competing search engine, and of course, Google has a 90% search market share. + +Now, you would think that this was good news for the tech companies, owning their whole sector. But it's actually a crisis. You see, when a company is growing, it is a 'growth stock', and investors really like growth stocks. When you buy a share in a growth stock, you are making a bet that it will continue to grow. So growth stocks trade at a huge multiple of their earnings. This is called the 'price to earnings ratio' or 'PE ratio'. + +But once a company stops growing, it is a 'mature' stock, and it trades at a much lower PE ratio. So for every dollar that Target – a mature company – brings in, it is worth $10. It has a PE ratio of 10, while Amazon has a PE ratio of 36, which means that for every dollar Amazon brings in, the market values it at $36." ++ +== The Growth Imperative == + +
+"It's wonderful to run a company that has a growth stock. Your shares are as good as money. If you want to buy another company or hire a key worker, you can offer stock instead of cash. And stock is very easy for companies to get, because shares are manufactured right there on the premises, all you have to do is type some zeros into a spreadsheet, while dollars are much harder to come by. + +So when Amazon bids against Target for a key acquisition or a key hire, Amazon can bid with shares they make by typing zeros into a spreadsheet, and Target can only bid with dollars they get from selling stuff to us or taking out loans, which is why Amazon generally wins those bidding wars. + +That's the upside of having a growth stock. But here is the downside: eventually a company has to stop growing. Like, say you get a 90% market share in your sector, how are you going to grow?" ++ +== The Bubble Cycle == + +
+"This is the paradox of the growth stock. While you are growing to domination, the market loves you, but once you achieve dominance, the market lops 75% or more off your value in a single stroke if they do not trust your pricing power. + +Which is why growth-stock companies are always desperately pumping up one bubble or another, spending billions to hype the pivot to video or cryptocurrency or NFTs or the metaverse or AI. + +I am not saying that tech bosses are making bets they do not plan on winning. But winning the bet – creating a viable metaverse – is the secondary goal. The primary goal is to keep the market convinced that your company will continue to grow, and to remain convinced until the next bubble comes along." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Platform Capitalism]] +* [[Surveillance Capitalism]] +* [[Tech Monopolies]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur "The AI Bubble" by Cory Doctorow - The Guardian] + +[[Category:Economics]] +[[Category:Technology]] +[[Category:Capitalism]] diff --git a/drafts/Intercognitive_Foundation.wiki b/drafts/Intercognitive_Foundation.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42b8f5c --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Intercognitive_Foundation.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Intercognitive Foundation''' is an international organization focused on developing shared standards and interoperable frameworks for emerging cognitive and machine-driven systems. + +== Description == + +
+"The Intercognitive Foundation is an international organization whose mission is to 'promote the development and deployment of the necessary infrastructure and protocols to make the physical world accessible to artificial intelligence.' This mission aligns deeply with NuNet's vision, seeing the evolution of intelligence not as a singular entity but as a network phenomenon, emergent, distributed and cooperative." ++ +== The 9 Pillars of AI Accessibility == + +The Intercognitive Foundation defines 9 essential pillars that make AI and Robotics accessible, interoperable and functional in decentralized environments: + +# '''Identity — Machine Passports''': Unique, verifiable identities that enable secure and trusted interactions in decentralized systems +# '''Fees — Peer to peer Transactions''': Autonomous value exchange for compute, data and machine to machine services +# '''Maps — Navigation infrastructure''': Spatial awareness enabling robots and AI to interact with real environments +# '''Sensors — Perceiving the World''': Standardized sensor data for environmental understanding and decision making +# '''Positioning — Finding itself''': Accurate, decentralized positioning beyond the limitations of traditional GPS +# '''Compute — Augmenting Capabilities''': Decentralized compute networks that empower AI models and robotics with scalable processing power +# '''Connectivity — Always online''': Reliable, decentralized communication between machines and systems +# '''Orchestration — Harmonizing System''': Coordinating diverse systems, tasks and workloads across distributed networks +# '''Standards — Cohesive Collaboration''': Interoperability frameworks that allow decentralized ecosystems to work together effectively + +== See Also == + +* [[AI Infrastructure]] +* [[Decentralized AI]] +* [[Machine Identity]] + +== Source == + +* [https://medium.com/nunet/nunet-joins-the-intercognitive-foundation-building-the-infrastructure-for-a-world-of-775f78d8d574 NuNet joins the Intercognitive Foundation - Medium] + +[[Category:AI]] +[[Category:Organizations]] +[[Category:Infrastructure]] +[[Category:Decentralization]] diff --git a/drafts/Interdisciplinarity.wiki b/drafts/Interdisciplinarity.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3d8e058 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Interdisciplinarity.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,55 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Interdisciplinarity''' refers to the integration of knowledge and methods from different disciplines, using a synthesis of approaches to address complex problems that transcend single-discipline boundaries. + +== History == + +=== The Foundational Role of Leo Apostel === + +Tomas Veloz explains: + +
+"If you're pursuing interdisciplinary research, you're standing on foundations built by Leo Apostel—a Belgian philosopher you've probably never heard of. Apostel (1925-1995) was a polymath who studied with logical positivists like Carnap and Hempel, worked with Piaget in Geneva, and dedicated his career to bridging exact sciences and humanities. At Free University of Brussels (VUB) and Ghent University, he became convinced that the fragmentation of knowledge into isolated disciplines was academia's fundamental problem. + +In September 1970, Apostel helped organized what became a watershed moment: a weeklong seminar in Nice, France, sponsored by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. The conference brought together leading intellectuals—including Jean Piaget, mathematician André Lichnerowicz, systems theorist Erich Jantsch, and representatives from experimental universities like Sussex and Wisconsin-Green Bay. Their task: theorize how universities could reorganize around problems rather than disciplines. + +The resulting publication, Interdisciplinarity: Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities (OECD, 1972), remains the most cited foundational text in interdisciplinary studies. The book established the terminology we still use today—the distinctions between multidisciplinarity (juxtaposition without integration), interdisciplinarity (genuine mutual enrichment between fields), and transdisciplinarity (a higher-order system transcending disciplinary boundaries)." ++ +=== The Great Optimism (1972-1982) === + +
+"The early 1970s saw interdisciplinarity as the future of higher education. The language was revolutionary: disciplines would be 'taught in the context of their dynamic relationships' rather than isolated silos. New fields emerged—cognitive science, environmental studies, women's studies, bioethics—claiming interdisciplinarity as their organizing principle." ++ +=== The Sobering Reality: "Interdisciplinarity Revisited" (1982) === + +
+"Then came the reckoning. In 1982, the OECD published a follow-up evaluation. The findings were stark: interdisciplinary experiments had 'lost momentum.' Departments and faculties weren't just back—they were strengthened. Most radical restructurings had either failed or been absorbed back into disciplinary organization. + +However, researcher Keith Clayton identified a crucial paradox: while 'overt interdisciplinarity' hadn't progressed, 'the concealed reality of interdisciplinarity' was flourishing behind 'subject façades.' Interdisciplinarity worked better as informal practice than formal structure." ++ +=== Why Did Institutional Reform Fail? === + +
+"The structural barriers were formidable: +* Tenure and career advancement followed disciplinary lines +* Funding agencies organized by discipline +* Reproduction problem: interdisciplinary programs couldn't train new generations of interdisciplinarians +* Fragmentation: each 'interdiscipline' became just another specialization" ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Transdisciplinarity]] +* [[Systems Thinking]] +* [[Academic Reform]] + +== Source == + +* [https://tveloz.substack.com/p/the-hidden-history-of-interdisciplinarity "The Hidden History of Interdisciplinarity" by Tomas Veloz] + +[[Category:Education]] +[[Category:Knowledge]] +[[Category:Research]] +[[Category:Philosophy]] diff --git a/drafts/International_Unit_of_Account.wiki b/drafts/International_Unit_of_Account.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c694253 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/International_Unit_of_Account.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +An '''International Unit of Account''' is a proposed mechanism for international trade that would replace national currencies as the basis of exchange, addressing what economist Steve Keen calls "the Curse of Capitalist Empires." + +== Discussion == + +=== The Curse of Capitalist Empires === + +Steve Keen explains: + +
+"Becoming the international currency is therefore not a spoil of Empire, but a spoiler of Empires." ++ +
+"The fundamental flaw of the current system is what I call the Curse of Capitalist Empires: any country that creates an Empire in a capitalist world system is undermined when its currency becomes the basis of international trade. The process is as follows: + +* No country has ever become an Empire by conquering other countries with imported weapons. A critical step in becoming an Empire, therefore, is creating weapons that defeat its rivals. This requires a strong manufacturing sector; +* Once that country becomes an Empire, its currency becomes the basis of international trade within its Empire; +* This pushes up the value of its currency relative to its vassals, which weakens the Empire's manufacturing sector; +* One (or more) of the Empire's vassals (or rivals) develops a strong manufacturing sector, which enables it to construct weapons that enable it to overthrow the Empire; +* That once vassal becomes the next Empire, its currency replaces the previous Empire as the currency for international trade, and the cycle repeats." ++ +=== Proposed Solution === + +
+"The only way to stop this cycle is to use a unit of account for international trade which is not a national currency. + +Such a proposal was made at Bretton Woods, but it lost out to White's imperial insistence that the American Dollar replace the British Pound as the currency for international trade. If any good can come out of the crazy situation we are in now—with NATO members wondering how to prevent the invasion of a NATO country by another NATO country—it would be that an updated version of that proposal is revived as the basis of a post-Trump international economic order. + +The core idea is that a unit of account—and not a currency—is used as the means of international exchange. The unit of account would be administered by an International Clearing Union (ICU) at which all national Central Banks have accounts, and the sum of all these accounts would start at and remain at zero. A country which has a trade or payments surplus with the rest of the world would accumulate a positive balance; a country with a trade or payment deficit would run up an overdraft. This system would end the Curse of Capitalist Empires, by ending the otherwise automatic overvaluation of the Empire's currency." ++ +== Historical Background == + +The concept originates with John Maynard Keynes' proposal at Bretton Woods for an International Clearing Union using a unit called the "Bancor." + +== See Also == + +* [[Bretton Woods]] +* [[International Monetary System]] +* [[Currency Reform]] + +== Source == + +* [https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/this-is-the-end-of-the-us-global "This is the End of the US Global" by Steve Keen] + +[[Category:Economics]] +[[Category:Money]] +[[Category:International Trade]] +[[Category:Monetary Reform]] diff --git a/drafts/Islands_of_Coherence.wiki b/drafts/Islands_of_Coherence.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..76ba6a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Islands_of_Coherence.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Islands of Coherence''' is a concept introduced by [[Ilya Prigogine]] that describes pockets of order that emerge within chaotic environments in [[complex systems]]. + +== Description == + +According to Richard Hames: + +
+"The concept of 'islands of coherence,' introduced by Ilya Prigogine, provides an additional perspective for interpreting global governance in a multipolar world. In complex systems, these islands represent pockets of order that emerge within chaotic environments. Applying this idea to global governance suggests that even amid global uncertainties, localised regions or 'village-like' networks can achieve high levels of internal stability and coherence." ++ +== Application to Global Governance == + +These regions, much like the [[African Union]] or [[Mercosur]], function effectively within their broader contexts, showcasing how decentralised governance can foster resilience and adaptability. These islands of coherence exemplify how stability can emerge organically in a complex world, offering a blueprint for governance that is both resilient and adaptable. + +=== Catalysts for Innovation === + +Islands of coherence can serve as catalysts for innovation and cooperation, acting as hubs where new ideas and solutions are developed and tested. As centres of order, they have the potential to influence and inspire surrounding areas, promoting systemic resilience. + +This dynamic mirrors the historical [[mandala system]] of Southeast Asia, where decentralised authority and overlapping spheres of influence allowed for flexibility and responsiveness to local needs. By fostering these islands, a networked world order can emerge, characterised by discrete cultural groupings collaborating with mutual respect rather than attempting to dominate each other. + +=== Embracing Pluralism === + +Incorporating Prigogine's concept into global governance highlights the importance of embracing pluralism and diversity. These islands can act as building blocks for a cohesive, coherent, yet diverse international world-system, encouraging a multitude of perspectives and approaches to coexist. This diversity enhances the model's overall strength, preventing rigidity and promoting creative problem-solving. + +Richard Hames writes: + +
+"By connecting and aligning these islands of coherence, we can envision a more stable, resilient, and equitable global order that is responsive to the complexities of the 21st century. In doing so, we pave the way for a world where cooperation and diversity are the cornerstones of global stability." ++ +== Source == + +* [https://richarddavidhames.substack.com/p/global-governance-20 Global Governance 2.0] - Richard Hames + +== See Also == + +* [[Ilya Prigogine]] +* [[Complex Systems]] +* [[Decentralized Governance]] +* [[Global Governance]] +* [[Polycentricity]] + +[[Category:Complex Systems Theory]] +[[Category:Global Governance]] +[[Category:Decentralization]] +[[Category:Political Theory]] diff --git a/drafts/Jeff_Emmett.wiki b/drafts/Jeff_Emmett.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bc8399a --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Jeff_Emmett.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ +{{Draft|author=Mbauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Jeff Emmett''' is a Token Engineering researcher at BlockScience and co-founder of the [[Commons Stack]], an organization focused on building open-source infrastructure for scalable community collaboration and regenerative economic systems. + +== Description == + +Jeff Emmett draws inspiration from mycelial networks and biomimetic processes in nature, identifying as a "mycopunk" - someone working to create customizable regenerative economies that serve purpose-driven communities. His goal is developing a toolkit for regenerative economies that support purpose-driven communities while addressing capitalism's excesses. + +From the Giveth blog: + +
+"The Commons Stack wants to scale the commons and provide a library of open source blockchain tools that enable purpose-driven communities to raise and allocate funding, make decisions and measure impact, to mitigate the free-rider problem and address the biggest problems of our times." ++ +== Background == + +In late 2018, Jeff sent a copy of an article he wrote on his views of the future of charity to Griff Green, the founder of [[Giveth]]. Green called him up a few weeks later and said "we're going to build that, when do you want to start?" The Commons Stack started up in early 2019 after a year of independent research, co-founded by Jeff Emmett, Griff Green, Michael Zargham, and the rest of the team. + +== Key Contributions == + +=== Commons Stack === + +The [[Commons Stack]] creates blockchain tools for handling the commons, addressing political biases in crypto, and developing crypto-economic systems. The organization believes cyber-physical commons infrastructure can offer communities a toolkit to operate like co-owned and peer-governed platform cooperatives. + +Key innovations include: +* '''Augmented Bonding Curves''' - Token economic mechanisms for sustainable funding +* '''Conviction Voting''' - A novel governance mechanism for resource allocation +* '''Token Engineering Commons''' - A community applying token engineering to public goods + +=== Publications === + +Jeff Emmett has authored significant works including: +* "Rewriting the Story of Human Collaboration" +* "Challenges and Approaches to Scaling the Global Commons" +* "Architecting the Cyber-Physical Commons" + +== See Also == + +* [[Commons Stack]] +* [[Token Engineering]] +* [[Giveth]] +* [[Regenerative Finance]] +* [[Augmented Bonding Curves]] +* [[Conviction Voting]] +* [[DAOs]] + +== External Links == + +* [https://medium.com/giveth/introducing-the-commons-stack-scalable-infrastructure-for-community-collaboration-6886eb97413e Introducing the Commons Stack - Giveth Medium] +* [https://www.teamhuman.fm/episodes/238-jeff-emmett Jeff Emmett on Team Human Podcast] +* [https://theblockchainsocialist.com/interview-with-jeff-emmett-from-the-commons-stack/ Interview with Jeff Emmett - The Blockchain Socialist] +* [https://medium.com/commonsstack/architecting-the-cyber-physical-commons-a294d88b5415 Architecting the Cyber-Physical Commons] +* [https://twitter.com/jeffemmett @jeffemmett on Twitter] + +[[Category:People]] +[[Category:Token Engineering]] +[[Category:Regenerative Finance]] +[[Category:Commons]] +[[Category:DAOs]] diff --git a/drafts/Keju.wiki b/drafts/Keju.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a4e9dee --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Keju.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Keju''' (科舉), or imperial civil service examination, was China's historic system of selecting scholar-officials through competitive examinations, representing one of the world's first implementations of meritocratic governance. + +== Description == + +Iza Ding explains the historical significance: + +
+"It was imperial China where meritocratic ideals were first brought to life. The keju, or imperial civil service examination, selected scholar-officials who had mastered the Confucian canon – after years, if not decades, of study – for entry into the ruling elite. The exams were initially restricted to nominees, but by the early seventh century eligibility had expanded to most free men. This was centuries before European leaders began to debate whether to extend the franchise beyond propertied males. + +Some historians believe the keju represented a commitment to excellence among the ruling class; others argue that by uplifting commoners, it helped Chinese emperors to weaken their aristocratic rivals. It was never without its critics, and became a stimulus of dynastic crisis at several points during the 1300 years of its existence. Revolutionaries, more than anyone, resented the keju. Hong Xiuquan, the failed scholar who led the Taiping Rebellion of 1850-64, sat it four times without success before proclaiming himself the younger brother of Jesus, chosen by God to overthrow the corrupt dynasty bolstered by its travesty of an exam. He very nearly succeeded. A few decades later, in a bid to modernise and fend off Western encroachment, the Qing court abolished the keju altogether. Suddenly, millions of young men who would otherwise have been buried in the Four Books and Five Classics found themselves with nothing to do. Many joined the revolution that ended two millennia of imperial rule in 1911. Yet forty years later, only three years after the Communist Party came to power, the state restored a national examination system. + +Mao, like Hong Xiuquan, hated exams. On the centenary of the fall of the Taiping Rebellion, a movement he admired, he railed against standardised testing: 'Our method of conducting exams is a method for dealing with the enemy, not the people.' A proper exam, he suggested, would publish the questions in advance and let students trade places and copy one another's answers. 'Too much studying is harmful,' Mao insisted, noting that few top scorers in the keju had gone on to accomplish great things. Two years later, the education system collapsed in the Cultural Revolution. Urban students were sent to the countryside to 'learn from peasants' after China nearly fell into civil war. But even Mao couldn't undo China's exam culture. For centuries, exams had been not just the preferred but the only way to staff the governing class – a lasting, if not always happy, marriage between personal ambition and state purpose. As soon as Mao was gone, Deng Xiaoping brought exams back. The most significant returnee was the national college entrance exam, the gaokao." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Gaokao]] +* [[Meritocracy]] +* [[Chinese History]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n02/iza-ding/studying-is-harmful "Studying is Harmful" by Iza Ding, London Review of Books] + +[[Category:Governance]] +[[Category:Education]] +[[Category:China]] +[[Category:History]] diff --git a/drafts/Kent_Community_Time_Bank.wiki b/drafts/Kent_Community_Time_Bank.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..75a13f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Kent_Community_Time_Bank.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Kent Community Time Bank''' is a [[time banking]] initiative based in Kent, Ohio, and one of the most vibrant time banks in the world. + +== Overview == + +With over 530 active members and more than 101,000 hours exchanged over the past 15 years, Kent's time bank demonstrates the potential of [[time-based currency]] systems for building [[solidarity economies]]. + +In the past year alone, members completed 3,900 exchanges through the original version of Time and Talents, a free platform provided by the time bank support cooperative [[hOurworld]]. + +== Platform == + +About two years ago, hOurworld introduced a second version of the platform. The interface is user-friendly and simple: +* Requests are posted on one side +* Offers are posted on the other +* Users can track their time credit balance +* Members can exchange private messages about their needs and skills + +== Membership == + +Membership isn't limited to individuals — art galleries, businesses, and even governmental groups have requested volunteer labor in exchange for time credits through Kent's time bank. + +== Source == + +* [https://www.shareable.net/digital-tools-are-fueling-the-rise-of-new-time-exchange-solidarity-economies/ Digital Tools Are Fueling the Rise of New Time Exchange Solidarity Economies] - Shareable + +== See Also == + +* [[Time Banking]] +* [[Solidarity Economy]] +* [[hOurworld]] +* [[Community Currencies]] + +[[Category:Time Banking]] +[[Category:Solidarity Economy]] +[[Category:Community Currencies]] +[[Category:United States]] +[[Category:Ohio]] diff --git a/drafts/Long_Range_Mesh_Networks.wiki b/drafts/Long_Range_Mesh_Networks.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a2c7c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Long_Range_Mesh_Networks.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Long Range Hardware-Based Mesh Networks''' (LoRa networks) are decentralized communication systems using Long Range radio hardware to transmit text messages over miles without cellular signals, WiFi, or infrastructure. + +== Description == + +Anarcho-Solarpunk explains: + +
+"This will be a guide on how to use LoRa (Long Range) radio hardware to create mesh networks that can transmit text messages miles away with no cellular signal/LTE, no WiFi, and no infrastructure. These nodes can be powered directly off portable solar panels with USB chargers, or used with portable battery banks. This can create a resilient mesh network of devices that can send text messages without the need for wider infrastructure in emergencies such as natural disasters, during protests, or in areas of military or state occupation. + +Messages can be encrypted and can be sent to broadcast channels or directly to other devices/users like a DM or a traditional text message. This can all be done with cheap hardware with LoRa capabilities, a power source, and some basic computer skills (No CLI or special coding). + +Depending on the environment even the cheapest LoRa hardware can broadcast up to three miles in urban/suburban areas or up to ten miles in rural areas/direct line of sight. That's node-to-node distance, with multiple nodes in a local network you can extend the range even further. Because mesh nodes automatically join the network and act like a relay, the more nodes, the more theoretical distance you can cover and the more people who can have access and communicate. With antenna upgrades, proper placement, and some basic skills you can create a DIY autonomous communication system that works even when everything else doesn't." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Mesh Networks]] +* [[Decentralized Infrastructure]] +* [[Emergency Communication]] +* [[P2P Infrastructure]] + +== Source == + +* [https://anarchosolarpunk.substack.com/p/encryptedcomms "Encrypted Communications" - Anarcho-Solarpunk] + +[[Category:P2P Infrastructure]] +[[Category:Technology]] +[[Category:Communication]] +[[Category:Decentralization]] diff --git a/drafts/Malicious_AI_Swarms.wiki b/drafts/Malicious_AI_Swarms.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..daa2df0 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Malicious_AI_Swarms.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Malicious AI Swarms''' are coordinated systems of autonomous AI agents that can threaten democratic processes through large-scale manipulation of beliefs and behaviors. + +== Description == + +From the article "How Malicious AI Swarms Can Threaten Democracy" in ''Science'' (Vol. 391, No. 6783, 2026): + +
+"Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) offer the prospect of manipulating beliefs and behaviors on a population-wide level. Large language models (LLMs) and autonomous agents let influence campaigns reach unprecedented scale and precision. Generative tools can expand propaganda output without sacrificing credibility and inexpensively create falsehoods that are rated as more human-like than those written by humans. Techniques meant to refine AI reasoning, such as chain-of-thought prompting, can be used to generate more convincing falsehoods. + +Enabled by these capabilities, a disruptive threat is emerging: swarms of collaborative, malicious AI agents. Fusing LLM reasoning with multiagent architectures, these systems are capable of coordinating autonomously, infiltrating communities, and fabricating consensus efficiently. By adaptively mimicking human social dynamics, they threaten democracy. Because the resulting harms stem from design, commercial incentives, and governance, we prioritize interventions at multiple leverage points, focusing on pragmatic mechanisms over voluntary compliance." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[AI Governance]] +* [[Information Warfare]] +* [[Democracy]] +* [[Disinformation]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz1697 "How Malicious AI Swarms Can Threaten Democracy" - Science Magazine] + +[[Category:AI]] +[[Category:Media]] +[[Category:Politics]] +[[Category:Security]] diff --git a/drafts/Mayor's_Office_of_Mass_Engagement.wiki b/drafts/Mayor's_Office_of_Mass_Engagement.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d9e0f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Mayor's_Office_of_Mass_Engagement.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Mayor's Office of Mass Engagement''' is a New York City government initiative established to transform how residents participate in city decision-making. + +== Description == + +According to the NYC.Gov press office: + +
+"The Office of Mass Engagement will: + +* Lead mass engagement campaigns that organize New Yorkers to participate in City decision-making; +* Create and maintain accessible, inspiring channels and events for residents to share feedback with government; +* Proactively reach communities that have historically been excluded from policymaking; +* Embed public feedback directly into City policies, programs, and services through strong, transparent feedback loops; +* Support agencies in delivering high-quality engagement and more effective public services." ++ +== Coordinated Entities == + +Under the Executive Order, the Office of Mass Engagement will oversee and coordinate the City's key engagement entities, including: + +* The Public Engagement Unit (PEU) +* The Mayor's Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships +* NYC Service + +== See Also == + +* [[Participatory Democracy]] +* [[Citizen Engagement]] +* [[Urban Governance]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/01/mayor-mamdani-establishes-office-of-mass-engagement-to-transform NYC Mayor's Office News] + +[[Category:Governance]] +[[Category:Participatory Democracy]] +[[Category:United States]] +[[Category:Urban Planning]] diff --git a/drafts/Monitor_of_the_Community_Economy_in_Amsterdam.wiki b/drafts/Monitor_of_the_Community_Economy_in_Amsterdam.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c94602 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Monitor_of_the_Community_Economy_in_Amsterdam.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Monitor of the Community Economy in Amsterdam''' is a 2025 report by Nathalie van Loon and Aisling Kloosterhuis that maps for the first time the scale and scope of Amsterdam's community economy movement. + +== Description == + +
+"Amsterdam has a large movement of resident collectives and organizations; operating between the market and the government, they take charge of various facilities and societal challenges. For example, they manage and organize local food production, care networks, energy communities, community savings groups (kasmoni's), urban villages, housing, and shared mobility. + +This Community Economy Monitor maps the scale and scope of that movement for the first time. The community economy is an important partner and factor in the transition to make the city fairer, more sustainable, and social. Because knowledge and data are still often scattered and fragmented, this monitor has been developed: an instrument to make the Amsterdam community economy visible and to strengthen it. It is based on a shared, systematic, and repeatable methodology—developed in collaboration with the Department of Research and Statistics, academics, and communities—in order to develop and monitor targeted policy with measurable and clear goals." ++ +== Significance == + +
+"A vibrant city without initiatives from, with, and by the community is unthinkable—they ensure the city functions where systems sometimes fail or fall short. And instead of competition, it is about cooperation, participation, and democracy. The initiatives add value—which lies not only in money, but also in time, attention, wellbeing, reciprocity, trust, and social cohesion. In this way, resident initiatives are both a democratic and an economic force. + +This monitor makes the community economy visible, helps communities grow further, and strengthens their significance for the city. The monitor is also an invitation to develop policy that creates space for that community economy." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Community Economy]] +* [[Urban Commons]] +* [[Amsterdam]] +* [[Solidarity Economy]] + +== Source == + +* [https://openresearch.amsterdam/nl/page/130962/monitor-gemeenschapseconomie Monitor Gemeenschapseconomie - Open Research Amsterdam] + +[[Category:Commons]] +[[Category:Urban Planning]] +[[Category:Netherlands]] +[[Category:Community Economy]] diff --git a/drafts/Nature_Regeneration_Tax.wiki b/drafts/Nature_Regeneration_Tax.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c0d193 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Nature_Regeneration_Tax.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Nature Regeneration Tax''' (NRT) is a proposed global capital solution for funding planetary sustainability through correcting nature's systemic mispricing in economic transactions. + +== Description == + +Wlodek Bogucki explains the concept: + +
+"Pricing the missing liability: Correcting nature's systemic mispricing + +Markets excel at allocating priced resources. They fail when inputs are treated as free. Nature remains the largest unpriced factor in the global economy. + +The result is an invisible subsidy for depletion — forests, soils, fisheries, and water systems drawn down without appearing on any invoice. This creates short-term profits and long-term instability, the definition of a mispriced externality. + +A Nature Regeneration Tax would correct this at the point of transaction. Applied at invoice level, input-credited like VAT, and adjusted at borders, it would price ecological intensity directly through the entire supply chains into a final consumption. The burden would fall upstream, incentivising regenerative sourcing, while revenues would capitalise large-scale restoration of ecosystems critical to economic stability. + +Governance matters. To avoid politicisation, proceeds would flow into a global regeneration fund overseen by scientific and indigenous stewardship, not fiscal ministries. The objective is not redistribution for its own sake, but the recapitalisation of the biosphere on which all growth depends. + +This is not radical economics. It is Pigouvian pricing, applied systematically rather than symbolically." ++ +== Key Features == + +* Applied at invoice level +* Input-credited like VAT +* Adjusted at borders +* Prices ecological intensity through entire supply chains +* Incentivizes regenerative sourcing +* Revenues fund large-scale ecosystem restoration + +== Source == + +* [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nature-regeneration-tax-nrt-global-capital-solution-funding-bogucki-c86ue Nature Regeneration Tax article on LinkedIn] - Wlodek Bogucki + +== See Also == + +* [[Ecological Economics]] +* [[Pigouvian Tax]] +* [[Planetary Boundaries]] +* [[Regenerative Economics]] + +[[Category:Economics]] +[[Category:Sustainability]] +[[Category:Environmental Policy]] +[[Category:Taxation]] diff --git a/drafts/Nilenso.wiki b/drafts/Nilenso.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebedb63 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Nilenso.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Nilenso''' is the first tech worker cooperative in India, founded in 2012 by eight colleagues who wanted to avoid the fate of many small tech consultancies becoming "zombie companies." + +== Description == + +Stefan Ivanovski explains: + +
+"Nilenso is the first tech worker cooperative in India. Founded in 2012 by eight colleagues, they wanted to avoid the fate of many small tech consultancies in India—becoming 'zombie companies.' According to Steven, zombie companies are businesses that persist after founders leave, lacking clear ownership or strategic direction, leaving employees to manage them in a stagnant, leaderless state. + +Steven was among the eight people who started Nilenso. The team envisioned a startup with a flat organizational structure. However, they did not have an idea what type of legal entity they would register. After some discussions, they landed on the idea of a tech worker cooperative. But they found few existing models around the world. To make matters more challenging, Indian law does not provide a legal structure for worker cooperatives." ++ +== Legal Structure == + +
+"Due to the legislative framework, the founders registered Nilenso as a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) in India, not as a formal cooperative. There are several reasons that Steven shares as to why they chose an LLP, rather than a cooperative legal entity: + +* India's cooperative laws are outdated and restrictive, primarily designed for agricultural and dairy cooperatives. There was no legal framework for a technology cooperative. + +* After consulting lawyers and accountants, the founders were advised that using the housing cooperative (one of the initial proposals) structure would look 'really weird' and create tax complications. + +* The LLP structure offered legal simplicity and liability protection, similar to how law firms operate. Nilenso adapted this by making every member a partner, ensuring equal ownership and governance internally. + +Steven explained: 'India has an odd set of cooperative laws… Our lawyers said you can just structure this like a law firm—use an LLP. Instead of having "partner" as the end goal, everyone's a partner. We open-sourced our LLP partnership agreement on GitHub.' + +This approach allowed Nilenso to function as a de facto worker cooperative while complying with Indian law." ++ +== More Information == + +* Interview with co-founder Steven Deobald: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na3vlXcZ4ng + +== See Also == + +* [[Worker Cooperatives]] +* [[Platform Cooperativism]] +* [[Tech Cooperatives]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.lifestyledemocracy.com/the-future-of-tech-worker-cooperatives-institutions-not-startups/ "The Future of Tech Worker Cooperatives" - Lifestyle Democracy] + +[[Category:Cooperatives]] +[[Category:Technology]] +[[Category:India]] +[[Category:Worker Cooperatives]] diff --git a/drafts/Noocene.wiki b/drafts/Noocene.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bcb433e --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Noocene.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Noocene''' is the planetary epoch defined by the willful agency of mind, a concept developed by Benjamin Bratton to describe the era in which intelligence becomes a transformative geological force. + +== Contextual Quote == + +
+"Slowly and then suddenly, the Blue Marble grew a crust, a sensory layer. Cities, satellites, and supercomputers are part of an evolving technosphere that expands the functional diameter of the planet. This is more than a global tool, it is an armature of cognition that has evolved over the last century. + +Zooming in, planetary computation is seen as a single interlocking stack, an accidental megastructure. It is as big as the globe's surface, and extending into Low Earth Orbit, and it is as small as 3 nanometers, the size of the logic gate on advanced chips. + +As of this moment the total utilized computational capacity of planetary computation is roughly 1 zettaFLOPS, or 10²¹ floating point operations per second. That is 1 Planetary Computing Unit. 1 PCU = 1 zettaFLOPS. + +Over the last decades that total has doubled every 30 months. If that holds then it is 2.5 years to 2 PCU, 6 years to 10 PCU and 16 years to 100 PCU, which would be a world as unfamiliar to us as 1 PCU is to your grandparents, and yet most of us will soon live there." + +— Benjamin Bratton ++ +== Description == + +Benjamin Bratton explains: + +
+"The 'Noosphere' is the sphere of thought that emerges from the geophysical and biological spheres of Earth through the interaction of minds. It is not metaphysical; it is the cumulative result of matter becoming cognitive, and partially aware of itself. Crucially, the evolution of intelligence at planetary scale is also the cause of a comprehensive artificialization of Earth: the Noocene. + +This epoch is defined by a paradox. At the same historical moment that complex intelligence begins to grasp its own evolution, it also begins to recognize that its success may undermine the foundations of its future." ++ +== Discussion == + +
+"The Noocene is the planetary epoch defined by the willful agency of mind." ++ +Bratton explains further: + +
+"In the human era, however, intelligence plays a much more agential role, though one that is never omniscient nor even capable of fully grasping the cascading consequences of its own action or inaction. The abrupt artificialization of the Earth known as the 'anthropocene,' a now slightly passé term but with still much to teach us, is, I argue less the result of the industry of a particular species as such, or a particular economic system favored by it in recent years, than the evolution of complex cognition itself. + +Seen this way, artificialization is not the opposite of the evolved, it is the project of evolution. Evolution selects for those who become expert artificializing their environments, such as the precocious fire apes. The transformation runs in both directions. In remaking the world in its image, intelligent life remakes itself. Evolutionary biology calls this niche construction, the universal process by which life doesn't merely adapt to an ecological niche but alters it in such a way that doing so allows it to capture more energy and matter, producing more information. Doing so allows the population to not just persist but also to scale." ++ +== More Information == + +* Article: "The Noocene: Computation and Cosmology from Antikythera to AI" by Benjamin Bratton. Antikythera, 2025. + +== Source == + +* [https://noocene.antikythera.org/ The Noocene - Antikythera] + +[[Category:Philosophy]] +[[Category:Technology]] +[[Category:Anthropocene]] +[[Category:Futures]] diff --git a/drafts/Open_Commons_Forum.wiki b/drafts/Open_Commons_Forum.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..00ed1cb --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Open_Commons_Forum.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Open Commons Forum''' is a monthly thematic gathering of Dutch-speaking commoners in Flemish cities in Belgium, organized by the Antwerp-based Commons Lab. + +== Description == + +
+"The 'Open Commons Forum' is a new reciprocal concept by Commons Lab where we exchange ideas and insights on a specific topic in relation to the commons. We aim to create an open platform where various voices and perspectives are heard and discussed. The plan is to organize an open commons forum approximately once a month, each time at an inspiring location. We try to link each forum to an activity or intervention that aligns with the theme. We involve as many people and initiatives from the (local) field as possible, along with subject matter 'experts'." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Commons]] +* [[Commons Lab]] +* [[Belgium]] + +== Source == + +* [https://commonslab.be/open-commons-forum Open Commons Forum - Commons Lab] + +[[Category:Commons]] +[[Category:Belgium]] +[[Category:Events]] +[[Category:Organizations]] diff --git a/drafts/Planetary_Ethics.wiki b/drafts/Planetary_Ethics.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..31ab8d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Planetary_Ethics.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Planetary Ethics''' refers to ethical frameworks that extend moral consideration to encompass the entire planet, including all living creatures and natural systems. + +== Contextual Quote == + +
+"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security." + +— Albert Einstein, N.Y. Post, November 28, 1972 ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Ethics]] +* [[Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities]] +* [[Planetary Boundaries]] +* [[Regenerative Economics]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.alliance-respons.net/bdf_axe-5_en.html Alliance for Responsible and Sustainable Societies] + +[[Category:Ethics]] +[[Category:Philosophy]] +[[Category:Sustainability]] diff --git a/drafts/Pop-up_City_Research_Initiative.wiki b/drafts/Pop-up_City_Research_Initiative.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a683035 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Pop-up_City_Research_Initiative.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Pop-up City Research Initiative''' studies temporary, intentional gatherings of people and resources designed to accelerate collaboration and experimentation on frontier technology, science, arts, and human coordination systems. + +== Description == + +
+"Pop-up City Research Initiative studies the temporary, intentional gatherings of people and resources meant to accelerate collaboration and experimentation on frontier tech, science and arts, as well as human coordination systems. We document existing models, their success and failure points, suggestions for improvement and future directions." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Network States]] +* [[Temporary Autonomous Zones]] +* [[Intentional Communities]] + +== Source == + +* [https://thouartofficial.com/research/popupcities Pop-up City Research Initiative] + +[[Category:Urban Planning]] +[[Category:Network States]] +[[Category:Governance]] diff --git a/drafts/Priocracy.wiki b/drafts/Priocracy.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1f3bace --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Priocracy.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Priocracy''' is a proposed system of political economy based on the love paradigm, designed by Richard Mochelle as an alternative to market-based capitalism. + +== Description == + +Richard Mochelle explains: + +
+"My system design interest was sparked decades ago on reading Erich Jantsch's Design for Evolution (1975) and Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving (1957). Fromm wrote of an all caring, globally responsive, ethical love called Agape by the Greeks, Metta by Buddhists and Prema by Hindus, a love that entails learning – both understanding its rationale and practicing it. Extolled by billions of religiously and spiritually inclined persons, it remains to be systematically enacted. Seriously lacking is a practicable vision of love's revolutionary economic and political system implications. + +My work-in-progress system design/vision is called Priocracy to distinguish it from similar designs (eg. Fresco's 'Resource Based Economy'). Priocracy is based on an ethic of global care and responsibility implicit in agapeic love; those in greatest need (humans and other species) warrant our priority attention and action – our priaction – regardless of their ability to offer exchange value." ++ +== Key Features == + +
+"Priocracy is a post-market, 'give-freely, get freely', cosmopolitan economic game whose world serving players (not workers) self-organise in response to global priority needs – to the child that cries and the world that cries. They are resourced by, and serve as trustees of, a free-access, global resource trust. Players inform and are informed by an online GPS information system using 'holochain' to track player moves, projects & services, as well as resource stocks and flows. + +Priocracy is an integrity-based, honorary, world service system. Players join via a priocratic oath, a public declaration of personal commitment to exercise the ethical right and responsibility to serve impartially – in the common interests of all people – to relinquish national allegiance, not participate in national identity branding and refuse to contribute to national military defences. Thereby, with love-based integrity, will each player serve to steadily disarm the world." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Post-Capitalism]] +* [[Commons-Based Economics]] +* [[Gift Economy]] + +== Source == + +* [https://humiliationstudies.org/documents/MochellePriocracy2020.pdf "Priocracy: Designing a system of political economy based on the love paradigm" by Richard Mochelle] + +[[Category:Economics]] +[[Category:Political Theory]] +[[Category:Post-Capitalism]] diff --git a/drafts/Public_Blockchains.wiki b/drafts/Public_Blockchains.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b4d3dfd --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Public_Blockchains.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Public Blockchains''' are distributed ledger systems that are open to anyone to participate in, read, and write to, embodying principles of transparency, accessibility, and decentralization. + +== Characteristics == + +The Crypto Law Review explains the political and economic dimensions: + +
+"To see the enormous political and economic power bound up in blockchain's public qualities and postures, let's examine (1) why public matters, (2) how public sensibilities are expressed colloquially by different blockchain communities, (3) how establishment actors and crypto natives often neglect and downplay blockchain's inherently public qualities, (4) how and why global blockchain communities need to safeguard and expand their conceptions of the public." ++ +== The Question of "Public" == + +The article examines how the term "public" in public blockchains carries significant political and economic implications, moving from mere technical openness to considerations of the public good (pro bono publico). + +== See Also == + +* [[Blockchain]] +* [[Decentralization]] +* [[Cryptocurrency]] +* [[Commons]] + +== Source == + +* [https://medium.com/cryptolawreview/how-public-are-global-public-blockchains-cabd7b35660f "How 'Public' are Global Public Blockchains?" - Crypto Law Review] + +[[Category:Blockchain]] +[[Category:Decentralization]] +[[Category:Technology]] +[[Category:Commons]] diff --git a/drafts/Reading_Revolution.wiki b/drafts/Reading_Revolution.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..74c930d --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Reading_Revolution.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Reading Revolution''' refers to the dramatic transformation in the mid-eighteenth century when reading spread rapidly from elite pursuit to mass practice, fundamentally reshaping society and thought. + +== Description == + +James Marriott describes this transformation: + +
+"No great social transformation has ever been carried out so quietly. This one took place in armchairs, in libraries, in coffee houses and in clubs. + +What happened was this: in the middle of the eighteenth century huge numbers of ordinary people began to read. + +For the first couple of centuries after the invention of the printing press, reading remained largely an elite pursuit. But by the beginning of the 1700s, the expansion of education and an explosion of cheap books began to diffuse reading rapidly down through the middle classes and even into the lower ranks of society. People alive at the time understood that something momentous was going on. Suddenly it seemed that everyone was reading everywhere: men, women, children, the rich, the poor. Reading began to be described as a 'fever', an 'epidemic', a 'craze', a 'madness'. As the historian Tim Blanning writes, 'conservatives were appalled and progressives were delighted, that it was a habit that knew no social boundaries.'" ++ +== Scale of Transformation == + +
+"In Britain only 6,000 books were published in the first decade of the eighteenth century; in the last decade of the same century the number of new titles was in excess of 56,000. More than half a million new publications appeared in German over the course of the 1700s. The historian Simon Schama has gone so far as to write that 'literacy rates in eighteenth century France were much higher than in the late twentieth century United States'." ++ +== From Intensive to Extensive Reading == + +
+"Where readers had once read 'intensively', spending their lives reading and re-reading two or three books, the reading revolution popularised a new kind of 'extensive' reading. People read everything they could get their hands on: newspapers, journals, history, philosophy, science, theology and literature. Books, pamphlets and periodicals poured off the presses." ++ +== Impact on Thought == + +
+"Even more importantly print changed how people thought. + +The world of print is orderly, logical and rational. In books, knowledge is classified, comprehended, connected and put in its place. Books make arguments, propose theses, develop ideas. 'To engage with the written word', the media theorist Neil Postman wrote, 'means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning.' + +As Postman pointed out, it is no accident that the growth of print culture in the eighteenth century was associated with the growing prestige of reason, hostility to superstition, the birth of capitalism, and the rapid development of science. Other historians have linked the eighteenth century explosion of literacy to the Enlightenment, the birth of human rights, the arrival of democracy and even the beginnings of the industrial revolution. + +The world as we know it was forged in the reading revolution." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Enlightenment]] +* [[Literacy]] +* [[Media History]] + +== Source == + +* [https://jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-of-the-post-literate-society-aa1 "The Dawn of the Post-Literate Society" by James Marriott] + +[[Category:History]] +[[Category:Media]] +[[Category:Culture]] +[[Category:Education]] diff --git a/drafts/Regenerative_Accelerationism.wiki b/drafts/Regenerative_Accelerationism.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b573e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Regenerative_Accelerationism.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,60 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Regenerative Accelerationism''' (r/acc) is a proposed framework that uses capitalism's self-amplifying dynamics for regenerative rather than extractive purposes, serving as a complement to Vitalik Buterin's defensive accelerationism (d/acc). + +== Context == + +Benjamin Life explains the background: + +
+"In October 2023, Marc Andreessen published what he called 'The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.' Among the expected references to Friedrich Hayek and Julian Simon appeared a particular citation that offered a crucial tell: 'Combine technology and markets and you get what Nick Land has termed the techno-capital machine, the engine of perpetual material creation, growth, and abundance.' + +Nick Land, the amphetamine-prophet of accelerationism, is the philosopher who argues that capital is not a tool humans use but an alien intelligence using humans as its temporary substrate. + +Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, recognized what was happening. His response, 'My Techno-Optimism,' was not a rejection of acceleration but a reorientation of it. Accept that acceleration is happening and cannot be stopped. D/acc was his answer: defensive accelerationism. Build tools that protect rather than control. This was necessary but incomplete." ++ +== Description == + +
+"This manifesto proposes regenerative accelerationism, or r/acc, as a complement and completion of Vitalik's d/acc. Importantly, regenerative accelerationism is distinct from Land's technocapitalist accelerationism, Andreesen's techno-optimism, and Thiel's transhumanist Christian eschatology. Regenerative accelerationism is not the acceleration of capital toward the dissolution of everything human in service of an inhuman Singularity. Neither is it mere resistance against that trajectory. + +Regenerative accelerationism accelerates the transition into a regenerative civilization by leaning into capitalism's runaway feedback loops, not running away from or trying to fix them. Instead of wasting our energy trying to reform the system, we opt out of it while simultaneously re-embedding the tools of capital (currency and computation) to rebuild our own systems that compost energy and resources back into our communities. We fork the source code of society rather than trying to tear it down. + +A regenerative civilization is inherently post-capitalist. The contradictions between capitalism's logic and the wellbeing of living systems cannot be resolved, only composted." ++ +== The Accelerationist Wager == + +
+"From this analysis came an idea that would later be called accelerationism. If we seek to end the inhuman aspects of capitalism and capitalism is already on an inherently self-destructive trajectory, why try to slow it down? Slowing it down just prolongs the suffering. Perhaps the strategic move is to accelerate, to push the system toward its contradictions faster, get to the breakdown sooner, and build something different from the wreckage. + +This was a desperate idea, born from the recognition that reform had failed. Every attempt to make capitalism more humane gets absorbed, metabolized, converted into another domain of extraction. The welfare state became a way to subsidize low wages. Environmental regulation became a compliance industry. The counterculture became a marketing demographic." ++ +== Key Principles == + +
+"Regenerative accelerationism means designing systems with the same compounding, recursive properties that make capitalism powerful, but oriented toward re-embedding value in relationships rather than extracting it into abstraction. Community currencies that create local feedback loops. Federated cooperatives where each one makes the next easier to form. Open protocols that accelerate through sharing. + +Capitalism did not invent recursive, self-amplifying dynamics. It captured them. + +Life itself evolves through feedback loops. Ecosystems strengthen through relationships that compound over time. What capital did was create a domain of abstraction where these dynamics could operate severed from the living systems that generated them. + +R/acc builds the alternatives, currencies, cooperatives, protocols, bioregional infrastructure, designed so that each departure from the extractive system strengthens the regenerative one." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Accelerationism]] +* [[Decentralized Accelerationism]] +* [[Regenerative Economics]] +* [[Post-Capitalism]] + +== Source == + +* [https://omniharmonic.substack.com/p/a-regenerative-accelerationist-manifesto "A Regenerative Accelerationist Manifesto" by Benjamin Life] + +[[Category:Philosophy]] +[[Category:Economics]] +[[Category:Regenerative Approaches]] +[[Category:Post-Capitalism]] diff --git a/drafts/Siren_Servers.wiki b/drafts/Siren_Servers.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bc42aa9 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Siren_Servers.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Siren Servers''' is a term coined by Jaron Lanier to describe firms that concentrate wealth by convincing users to give away valuable personal data in exchange for free services. + +== Context == + +From Wikipedia: + +
+"Who Owns the Future? is a non-fiction book written by Jaron Lanier published by Simon & Schuster in 2013. Lanier posits that the middle class is increasingly disenfranchised from online economies. By convincing users to give away valuable information (personal data) about themselves in exchange for free services, firms can accrue large amounts of data at virtually no cost. Lanier calls these firms 'Siren Servers,' alluding to the Sirens of Ulysses. Instead of paying each individual for their contribution to the data pool, the Siren Servers concentrate wealth in the hands of the few who control the data centers." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Surveillance Capitalism]] +* [[Data Commons]] +* [[Platform Capitalism]] +* [[Digital Rights]] + +== Source == + +* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Owns_the_Future%3F Who Owns the Future? - Wikipedia] +* Book: ''Who Owns the Future?'' by Jaron Lanier. Simon & Schuster, 2013. + +[[Category:Economics]] +[[Category:Technology]] +[[Category:Data]] +[[Category:Capitalism]] diff --git a/drafts/Sophiology.wiki b/drafts/Sophiology.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e38f71c --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Sophiology.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Sophiology''' is a philosophical and theological tradition centered on Sophia (Divine Wisdom) as a cosmological and spiritual principle, with roots in both Western esoteric thought and Russian Orthodox theology. + +== Description == + +Michael Martin explains: + +
+"Arguably, the only prophetic movement in the Church (broadly conceived) in the modern period has been Sophiology, which began in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries with figures like Jacob Boehme, the Philadelphian Society, and William Law and has traces in German Romanticism and William Blake—all Protestants, by the way—then comes to full flower with the Russian sophiologists beginning with Solovyov in the late nineteenth century. From there, after having been forgotten, it spread again to the West and re-emerged in Catholic thinkers such as Hans Urs von Balthasar, Louis Bouyer, and Thomas Merton. In that, Sophiology is an inherently ecumenical phenomenon—and not the false ecumenism often paraded before us as a kind of superficial bonhomie that never leads to anything other than cringe-worthy handholding around a bonfire within which burns all semblance of Christian authenticity." ++ +== The Sophianic Disclosure == + +
+"People often ask me what the warrant for Sophiology could be, given that it seems to be absent from most of the Fathers and most of 'official' Church history. On the one hand, I think we are the unwitting victims of an interpretive tradition that turns Holy Tradition—whether East or West—into an idol. And in that tradition, the only way to read 'Sophia' is as the Logos—and once such a commitment is accepted, no matter how erroneous or inexact, it is difficult to break its dogmatic spell. + +Sophia, the submerged reality as I have argued for more than the past decade, lies in hiding, as it were, awaiting discovery. We see resonances of this in the Gnostic mythos of Sophia's exile or sleep. But we are the ones who are in exile; we are the ones asleep. One could compare the disclosure of the sophianic nature of Creation—and of the Church—to the disclosure of the laws of mathematics. Those laws were always there; they simply required individuals equipped—by nature, by historical process, most of all by curiosity—to find them. + +My own belief is that the full disclosure of the sophianic and its illumination of the Church is still to come, and that this disclosure is part of the active eschatology heralded by Berdyaev—which, of course, suggests that the revelation of scripture is still incomplete." ++ +== Active Eschatology == + +As Berdyaev writes: + +
+"My salvation is bound up with that not only of other men but also of animals, plants, minerals, of every blade of grass—all must be transfigured and brought into the Kingdom of God. And this depends upon my creative efforts." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Wisdom Traditions]] +* [[Russian Philosophy]] +* [[Theology]] + +== Source == + +* [https://druidstaresback.substack.com/p/the-tabernacle-and-sophia "The Tabernacle and Sophia" by Michael Martin] + +[[Category:Philosophy]] +[[Category:Theology]] +[[Category:Spirituality]] diff --git a/drafts/Stephen_DeMeulenaere.wiki b/drafts/Stephen_DeMeulenaere.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b32114 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Stephen_DeMeulenaere.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Stephen DeMeulenaere''' is a pioneer in community and digital currencies with over 35 years of experience in the field. + +== Description == + +From the Mindplex Podcast: + +
+"In this profound episode of the Mindplex Podcast, Dr. Mihaela Ulieru sits down with Stephen DeMeulenaere, a pioneer with over 35 years in community and digital currencies, to explore the ancient quest for an economy that serves life. We dive deep into the untold history of digital cash—from Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) long before Bitcoin, to the original 'web of trust' that inspired Ripple. + +This conversation is a masterclass in moving beyond the hype cycles of Web3 and crypto speculation to uncover the moral foundations of regenerative finance." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Community Currencies]] +* [[LETS]] +* [[Regenerative Finance]] +* [[Money]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSZRd58MD34 Stephen DeMeulenaere on Designing Money for Regeneration - Mindplex Podcast] + +[[Category:Regenerative Approaches]] +[[Category:Money]] +[[Category:People]] +[[Category:Community Currencies]] diff --git a/drafts/Summer_School_in_the_Food_Commons.wiki b/drafts/Summer_School_in_the_Food_Commons.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..943421b --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Summer_School_in_the_Food_Commons.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Summer School in the Food Commons''' is an intensive educational program scheduled for 15-19 June 2026 in Wageningen, Netherlands, focused on governing food as a commons rather than a commodity. + +== Description == + +
+"The political, legal, and academic calls for governing food and its varied material and cultural components as a commons rather than a commodity are growing in importance and recognition. Food commons are increasingly recognized as essential to a number of interconnected struggles for the right to food, food security, food sovereignty, food justice, and degrowth. At the same time, food commons are often overlooked as relics of a distant past, doomed to enclosure, or too messy to govern. Together we will investigate why this is the case, and identify opportunities for research and action. + +This five day intensive summer school introduces students to inspiring case studies of actually existing food commons through field visits and lectures, while testing the relevance of different theoretical and methodological approaches. Together we will explore and apply different theoretical perspectives to understand different types of food commons – ranging from food and seeds, to soil and land, to food knowledge and public health – in diverse rural and urban contexts. We will draw on transdisciplinary expertise in food studies, law and legal studies, sociology and geography, and community economies, to develop a relational, culturally, and materially grounded approach to understanding food and food systems as commons. Finally we will experiment with a variety of arts-based and action-research methods for growing the food commons." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Food Commons]] +* [[Food Sovereignty]] +* [[Commons]] + +== Source == + +* [https://wass.crs.wur.nl/courses/details/1865 Summer School in the Food Commons - Wageningen] + +[[Category:Commons]] +[[Category:Food]] +[[Category:Education]] +[[Category:Events]] diff --git a/drafts/Superintelligence.wiki b/drafts/Superintelligence.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..52b070e --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Superintelligence.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,49 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''Superintelligence''' refers to a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest human minds across virtually all domains, including creativity, general wisdom, and problem-solving. + +== History == + +James O'Sullivan traces the intellectual genealogy: + +
+"Superintelligence as a dominant AI narrative predates ChatGPT and can be traced back to the peculiar marriage of Cold War strategy and computational theory that emerged in the 1950s. The RAND Corporation, an archetypal think tank where nuclear strategists gamed out humanity's destruction, provided the conceptual nursery for thinking about intelligence as pure calculation, divorced from culture or politics. + +The early AI pioneers inherited this framework, and when Alan Turing proposed his famous test, he deliberately sidestepped questions of consciousness or experience in favor of observable behavior — if a machine could convince a human interlocutor of its humanity through text alone, it deserved the label 'intelligent.' This behaviorist reduction would prove fateful, as in treating thought as quantifiable operations, it recast intelligence as something that could be measured, ranked and ultimately outdone by machines. + +The computer scientist John von Neumann, as recalled by mathematician Stanislaw Ulam in 1958, spoke of a technological 'singularity' in which accelerating progress would one day mean that machines could improve their own design, rapidly bootstrapping themselves to superhuman capability." ++ +== The Politics of Superintelligence == + +
+"The transformation of superintelligence from internet philosophy to boardroom strategy represents one of the most successful ideological campaigns of the 21st century. Tech executives who had previously focused on quarterly earnings and user growth metrics began speaking like mystics about humanity's cosmic destiny, and this conversion reshaped the political economy of AI development. + +OpenAI, founded in 2015 as a non-profit dedicated to ensuring artificial intelligence benefits humanity, exemplifies this transformation. OpenAI has evolved into a peculiar hybrid, a capped-profit company controlled by a non-profit board, valued by some estimates at $500 billion, racing to build the very artificial general intelligence it warns might destroy us." ++ +== Discussion == + +=== Alternative Imaginaries For The Age Of AI === + +James O'Sullivan argues: + +
+"The dominance of superintelligence narratives obscures the fact that many other ways of doing AI exist, grounded in present social needs rather than hypothetical machine gods. These alternatives show that you do not have to join the race to superintelligence or renounce technology altogether. It is possible to build and govern automation differently now. + +The real political question is not whether some artificial superintelligence will emerge, but who gets to decide what kinds of intelligence we build and sustain. And the answer cannot be left to the corporate prophets of artificial transcendence because the future of AI is a political field — it should be open to contestation. It belongs not to those who warn most loudly of gods or monsters, but to publics that should have the moral right to democratically govern the technologies that shape their lives." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[AI Constitutionalism]] +* [[AI Governance]] +* [[Effective Altruism]] + +== Source == + +* [https://www.noemamag.com/the-politics-of-superintelligence/ "The Politics of Superintelligence" by James O'Sullivan - Noema Magazine] + +[[Category:AI]] +[[Category:Philosophy]] +[[Category:Technology]] +[[Category:Futures]] diff --git a/drafts/Template_Draft.wiki b/drafts/Template_Draft.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..44bb223 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Template_Draft.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ +
{{Draft|author=Username|date=YYYY-MM-DD}}
+
+== Parameters ==
+* '''author''' - The username of the person who submitted the draft
+* '''date''' - The date the draft was submitted
+
+[[Category:Templates]]
++"The Network Nation: Human Communication via Computer by Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff. Published in 1978 and revised in 1993, it remains one of the earliest comprehensive studies of computer-mediated communication (CMC). + +The authors viewed CMC, including conferencing systems, groupware, and virtual classrooms, as more than just technical tools; they saw them as a new social infrastructure. By enabling communication unconstrained by geography or time, computer networks dissolved barriers of distance, hierarchy, and access. Digital group communication flattened organisational hierarchies. The authors noted these systems were 'shrinking time and distance barriers among people, and between people and information, to near zero.' + +In their speculative scenarios, they envisioned 'superconnectivity': societies where time and distance barriers were nearly nonexistent, allowing for new forms of association. In such a world, people could maintain relationships, conduct business, and participate in governance regardless of location. This vision anticipated both the promise and challenges of our current networked reality." ++ +== Legacy == + +
+"The Network Nation was prophetic. Decades before blockchain or social media, it demonstrated that virtual communities could be real communities with their own norms, politics, and governance structures. The book foreshadowed how computer networks could evolve into parallel societies, maintaining their own governance structures and communities with distinct identities." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Computer-Mediated Communication]] +* [[Virtual Communities]] +* [[Network Society]] + +== Source == + +* [https://blog.nomos.tech/story-of-the-network-from-cybernetics-to-blockchain-communities/ "Story of the Network" - Nomos Tech Blog] +* Book: ''The Network Nation: Human Communication via Computer'' by Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff, 1978 (revised 1993) + +[[Category:Books]] +[[Category:Internet History]] +[[Category:Communication]] +[[Category:Technology]] diff --git a/drafts/The_Networked_Firm.wiki b/drafts/The_Networked_Firm.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2db44b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/The_Networked_Firm.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''The Networked Firm: Capital Allocation in the Age of Blockchain and AI''' is a 2025 book by Kevin Owocki, Daniel Stringer, and Daniel Ospina exploring how artificial intelligence and blockchain are reshaping organizational coordination and capital allocation. + +== Description == + +
+"A blueprint for how capital, coordination, and work evolve when technology collapses the cost of trust." ++ +
+"The Networked Firm explores how artificial intelligence and blockchain are reshaping the very logic of how organizations coordinate and allocate capital. + +Drawing from economics, organizational theory, and real-world case studies, Kevin Owocki, Daniel Stringer, and Daniel Ospina reveal why the modern firm—built to manage the costs of coordination—is dissolving. As AI collapses cognition costs and blockchains collapse trust costs, networks of humans and machines are beginning to outperform hierarchies. + +The authors trace this transformation through six fundamental coordination costs—discovery, verification, enforcement, negotiation, dispute resolution, and collaborative decision-making—and show how each is being automated or redesigned. Through examples like Gitcoin, Deep Funding, GainForest, and Nexus Mutual, they illustrate how decentralized systems are already allocating resources with more transparency and legitimacy than traditional bureaucracies. + +For founders, funders, and policymakers, The Networked Firm provides a clear framework for navigating this shift: how to design mechanisms that align incentives, distribute authority, and enable coordination at scale without collapsing into chaos. + +Whether you lead a company, DAO, foundation, or ecosystem, this book offers a roadmap to the post-firm era—where work is distributed, value is verified on-chain, and coordination becomes programmable." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[DAOs]] +* [[Blockchain Governance]] +* [[Organizational Theory]] +* [[Coordination]] + +== Source == + +* [https://allocapital.metalabel.com/record_dvc23nccdarkaobcv The Networked Firm - Allo Capital] + +[[Category:Books]] +[[Category:Economics]] +[[Category:Blockchain]] +[[Category:Organizations]] diff --git a/drafts/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Responsibilities.wiki b/drafts/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Responsibilities.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..881e713 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Responsibilities.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +The '''Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities''' is a framework that complements the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]] by articulating the ethical obligations that accompany human rights. + +== Description == + +The Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities project stipulates: + +
+"The scope and irreversibility of the interdependences that have been generated among human beings, among societies, and between humankind and the biosphere constitute a radically new situation in the history of humankind, which has changed it irrevocably into a community of destiny." ++ +An ethics of the state of crisis, an ethics of responsibility can hence only be planetary. When humankind's very future is at stake, the ethics of responsibility gives rise to an obligation to human existence: "man must be" and lead a life worthy of being called human. + +== Directory of Global Responsibility Charters == + +As of the latest count, there are 19 global responsibility charters: + +# Citizen's Charter of Responsibilities Towards Children +# Charter of Administrative Ethics and Responsibilities +# Declaration of World Assembly of Inhabitants +# Code of Ethics for Antiracist White Allies +# Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers +# Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities 2012 +# Constituent Charter of the Alliance for Responsible and Sustainable Societies (AR21) +# Charter of Human Responsibilities +# Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities 2015 +# Charter of Responsibilities of Inhabitants +# Charter of Seniors' Ethics and Responsibilities to Climate +# Charter of Responsible and United Universities +# Indian Children Charter of Human Responsibilities +# A Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities +# Philippine Youth Charter on Responsibilities +# Tarapoto Charter +# A Manifesto for a Responsible Scientific Research +# Charter of Responsibilities of Seniors +# The Hague Principles for a Universal Declaration on Human Responsibilities and Earth Trusteeship + +== Source == + +* [https://www.alliance-respons.net/bdf_axe-5_en.html Alliance for Responsible and Sustainable Societies] + +== See Also == + +* [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]] +* [[Planetary Ethics]] +* [[Ethics]] +* [[Earth Trusteeship]] +* [[Global Governance]] + +[[Category:Ethics]] +[[Category:Human Rights]] +[[Category:Global Governance]] +[[Category:Responsibility]] diff --git a/drafts/WEIRD.wiki b/drafts/WEIRD.wiki new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f75de7 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/WEIRD.wiki @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}} +'''WEIRD''' is an acronym standing for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic, used to describe the distinct psychological traits of populations from these societies as identified by evolutionary scientist Joe Henrich. + +== Context == + +Micha Narberhaus explains: + +
+"Evolutionary scientist Joe Henrich studied the psychology of Europeans and North Americans in comparison with the rest of the world, determining that we are distinct in our traits, which he summarises as 'WEIRD': Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic. + +Our uniqueness stems from our distinctive psychology, characterised by high individualism, analytical thinking, impersonal trust in strangers, a focus on personal achievement rather than communal obligations, and a preference for guilt over shame. Henrich traces these traits back to the stringent prohibitions on incest and cousin marriages imposed by the medieval Catholic Church, which dismantled the intensive kinship networks and clans that dominate most societies worldwide. By enforcing marriage outside one's tribe (exogamy) and promoting nuclear families, the Church inadvertently fostered voluntary associations, urban migration, and market-oriented behaviours. This eroded the clan-first loyalty that is prevalent elsewhere, where extended families prioritise in-group ties, nepotism, and conformity. + +This psychological shift enabled Western success through innovations such as impartial institutions, science, democracy and capitalism, driving economic prosperity and global influence. However, it has also resulted in a Western way of life that is marked by isolation, mobility, and meritocracy. This contrasts with the relational security of kin-based societies and could potentially explain both triumphs, such as technological advancement, and challenges, such as social atomisation." ++ +== See Also == + +* [[Cultural Psychology]] +* [[Individualism]] +* [[Western Culture]] + +== Source == + +* [https://michanarberhaus.substack.com/p/mass-immigration-is-destroying-europes Micha Narberhaus - Substack] +* Book: ''The WEIRDest People in the World'' by Joseph Henrich + +[[Category:Psychology]] +[[Category:Culture]] +[[Category:Sociology]] diff --git a/wiki_scripts/draft-approval-gadget-fr.js b/wiki_scripts/draft-approval-gadget-fr.js new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae2faee --- /dev/null +++ b/wiki_scripts/draft-approval-gadget-fr.js @@ -0,0 +1,295 @@ +/** + * P2P Wiki FR Draft Approval Gadget + * + * Adds "Approve & Publish" and "Delete Draft" buttons to pages in the Draft: namespace. + */ + +(function() { + 'use strict'; + + // Only run on Draft: namespace pages (namespace 118) + if (mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') !== 118) { + return; + } + + // Authorized users + var authorizedUsers = ['JavierRgz', 'MaiaDereva', 'Mbauwens', 'JeffEmmett', 'Mbauwens bot']; + var currentUser = mw.config.get('wgUserName'); + + if (!authorizedUsers.includes(currentUser)) { + return; + } + + // Wait for the page to be ready + $(document).ready(function() { + var pageTitle = mw.config.get('wgPageName'); + var displayTitle = mw.config.get('wgTitle'); + var targetTitle = displayTitle; + + // Create the approval button container + var $container = $('