#stacktivism

[suzilight]

Vinay Gupta :: Infrastructure and systems for a nine billion world | Saturday 13 July 2013

Transcript available at opentranscripts.org/transcript/infrastructure-for-nine-billion/

How do we turn what we have into what we need?

And that core question is buried right at the heart of almost every human activity. But all the way through it gets obscured by methods. The core need is covered up by the market, or it’s covered up by socialism, or it’s covered up by environmentalism. But this is what we’re doing.

[stacktivism]

In this essay a new form of Internet activism is proposed: stacktivism. Building on hacktivist practices, this form of code and standard development as political struggle is envisioned to connect different layers of the techno-protological stack (also known as the Internet) in order build bridges between different, still isolated institutional levels and disciplinary practices such as grassroots wifi-access initiatives, interface design, geeks, computer scientists and governance experts. How do we envision a public stack that goes beyond the structures such ICANN, IETF and IGF that can take up the task to rebuild the Internet as a decentralized, federated, public infrastructure?

Principles of Stacktivism | tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society

[stacktivism]

Russia successfully disconnected from the internet | ZDNet

RuNet disconnection tests were successful, according to the Russian government.

“The goal was to test if the country's national internet infrastructure -- known inside Russia as RuNet -- could function without access to the global DNS system and the external internet.Internet traffic was re-routed internally, effectively making Russia's RuNet the world's largest intranet.“

[stacktivism]

Seizing the Chokepoints

In the logistics industry, from port workers to truckers to delivery drivers, time is of the essence. Their potential control over that time gives workers enormous leverage in the global economy.

[stacktivism]

N. Korea releases dam water without prior notice

YEONCHEON, South Korea -- North Korea released water from a border dam without giving prior notice to South Korea on Monday, causing the water levels of a cross-border river downstream to rise dangerously, officials said.The North opened the floodgates of Hwanggang Dam on the western inter-Korean border, sending water into the Imjin River flowing to the South and causing water levels under the river's northernmost Pi...

[stacktivism]

(Re)narrating the societal cyborg: a definition of infrastructure, an interrogation of integration The call for this special issue invites us to consider “integrated infrastructure as a response to climate change”. In doing so, it recapitulates a normative narrative wherein human beings play the protagonist in a struggle against climate change in the antagonistic role, and where infrastructure – integrated or otherwise – is the instrument of human action against it. This narrative raises important questions, some of which are definitive: what exactly do we mean when we say “infrastructure”? What does it mean for an infrastructure to be “integrated”? And is the integration of infrastructure so defined desirable, or even achievable? It also begs a further question, namely: to what extent is infrastructure, integrated or otherwise, already complicit in anthropogenic climate change?

(Re)narrating the societal cyborg: a definition of infrastructure, an interrogation of integration | People Place and Policy

[stacktivism]

WHOLE FOODS: CUSTOMER, NOT RETAILER

This is the key to understanding the purchase of Whole Foods: to the outside it may seem that Amazon is buying a retailer. The truth, though, is that Amazon is buying a customer — the first-and-best customer that will instantly bring its grocery efforts to scale.

Today, all of the logistics that go into a Whole Foods store are for the purpose of stocking physical shelves: the entire operation is integrated. What I expect Amazon to do over the next few years is transform the Whole Foods supply chain into a service architecture based on primitives: meat, fruit, vegetables, baked goods, non-perishables (Whole Foods’ outsized reliance on store brands is something that I’m sure was very attractive to Amazon). What will make this massive investment worth it, though, is that there will be a guaranteed customer: Whole Foods Markets.

(via Amazon’s New Customer – Stratechery by Ben Thompson)

Extremely good essay. well worth a read.

STACKS STACKS STACKS - Jay

[stacktivism]

Between the Net and the Street

RACHEL BAKER DISCUSSES THE NETWORK EXPERIMENTS OF HEATH BUNTING

This essay accompanies the presentation of Heath Bunting’s Communication Creates Conflict as a part of the online exhibition Net Art Anthology.

In the 1990s, as activists, artists, and their ilk explored the new possibilities presented by the internet, communities often formed around shared resources such as servers. In London, the cybercafe bulletin board and, later, the Irational web server—both initiated by Heath Bunting—played such a role role. Run on recycled hardware and software, they offered space for posting and exchange that tended towards the aesthetically and politically radical. In this interview, Rachel Baker, one of Bunting’s collaborators, recalls her experience as a participant in these two platforms, which shaped her own work in net art, activism, and internet radio.

(via Between the Net and the Street | Rhizome)