So I just watched, Yochai Benkler's "on the new open-source economics" (TED). He describes the open source movement as social production and compares it to the industrial system of production. Social production is characterized by large problems of information gathering, distribution, use, etc. which can be broken down into many smaller tasks of sorting, compiling, expanding, etc. Not only does Yochai cite Wikipedia, but he also cites Google and the crowd sourcing way in which it ranks search results.
This is a major insight into the way in which people interact to build useful things. The talk was given in 2005, and today it seems that Facebook is the next great example. What is also interesting is that both Google and Facebook have made successful businesses by giving people the platform from which to interact. It seems that getting people to interact and share information may be a big wave in business. This raises a question about just how non-profit the open source world is or should be. Obviously, not all problems need money to be solved, but a lot could use it. I should say, money could be used wisely on things we need. Wealth is truly capital or the means of production and not money (which has little intrinsic value).
Back to Open Source Ecology, I was interested in their dedicated project. A dedicated project is a proposal that anyone can submit to make something useful for the OSE project at the Factor E Farm. The application seems competitive. If I were to take on such a project, I would think about recycling plastic, or better yet, turning it into thread that could be used in a 3D printer (REPRAP) or yarn, like that used in woven, reusable bags. From an initial search, that seems more complicated than first thought. Thermo printing uses ABS plastic which is not the same as the plastic commonly found. Think LEGO blocks and not plastic water bottles.
Ok need to do at least a few min of "real" work.
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