Categoría: technopolitics

Everything you need to know about Bitcoin, Blockchain and Ethereum in less than 90 minutes of short videos

Xabier Barandiaran5 comentarios

In less than 90 minutes of short videos you should be able to understand how Bitcoin, Blockchain and Ethereum works, how is it possible to create applications, contracts, democratic systems or value exchange and reputation systems that are incorruptible, decentralized, without intermediaries, secure, impossible to censor and verifiable. Without magic.

Original picture by Jason Benjamin, on the Public Domain at Flickr
Original picture by Jason Benjamin, on the Public Domain at Flickr

Projects like Bitcoin, Blockstream or Ethereum are about to change the world in irreversible and unpredictable ways (much like the internet did in the 90s) through the Blockchain technology. It makes possible to create things like digital nations, cryptocurrency based universal basic income, autonomous democratic organizations, adaptive employment networks without intermediate management, or incorruptible distributed computers that run on «ether». If you don’t know what I am talking about or if you don’t believe that any of these makes sense at all, you should watch these videos now:

Understanding the Blockchain technology is very important if you want to acquire the capacity to think and imagine what is possible to do with it, why, how and to which extend we can trust it and how to start using these tools without blindly having to trust third party gurus or applications. More importantly, if you don’t think there can be anything good coming out of a digital currency, you need to understand it first. You won’t be able to critize Bitcoin, explore its deepest implications or fight against its most potentially harmful effects if you don’t understand how the Blockchain works. I am myself skeptical about the potential of Blockchain technologies to challenge the existing injustices and social and economy power struggles. But I want to understand the future. And the Blockchain is here to stay.

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The multitudinous autonomous collective identity of the 15M

Xabier BarandiaranDeja un comentario

We just published a beautiful paper trying to understand the structure and dynamics of the 15M communication networks and they way in which they give rise to forms of collective identity.

Network analysis of the multitudinous collective identity of the 15M network (green)
Network analysis of the multitudinous collective identity of the 15M network (green) compared to traditional labour unions (in red). Click on the picture to enlarge.

Abstract: The emergence of network-movements since 2011 has opened the debate around the way in which social media and networked practices make possible innovative forms of collective identity. We briefly review the literature on social movements and «collective identity», and show the tension between different positions stressing either organization or culture, the personal or the collective, aggregative or networking logics. We argue that the 15M (indignados) network-movement in Spain demands conceptual and methodological innovations. Its rapid emergence, endurance, diversity, multifaceted development and adaptive capacity, posit numerous theoretical and methodological challenges. We show how the use of structural and dynamic analysis of interaction networks (in combination with qualitative data) is a valuable tool to track the shape and change of what we term the «systemic dimension» of collective identities in network-movements. In particular, we introduce a novel method for synchrony detection in Facebook activity to identify the distributed, yet integrated, coordinated activity behind collective identities. Applying this analytical strategy to the 15M movement, we show how it displays a specific form of systemic collective identity we call «multitudinous identity», characterized by social transversality and internal heterogeneity, as well as a transient and distributed leadership driven by action initiatives. Our approach attends to the role of distributed interaction and transient leadership at a mesoscale level of organizational dynamics, which may contribute to contemporary discussions of collective identity in network-movements.

  • Monterde, A., Calleja-López, A., Aguilera, M., Barandiaran, X. E., & Postill, J. (2015). Multitudinous identities: a qualitative and network analysis of the 15M collective identity. Information, Communication and Society, doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2015.1043315

    • Devenir Pachamama del Conocimiento, Designing the FLOK society

    Xabier BarandiaranDeja un comentario

    For the last couple of weeks I have been involved in a fascinating project: to help Ecuador design a new productive matrix based on an open and commons knoledge society. No researcher in the world can respond to this challenge on her own, so I (we) have decided to offer a participatory research process that could potentially meet the challenge. Below you can download what we call «the mother document» where we detail (in Spanish) the theoretical and political framework of the process, its diferent stages and the design of the collaborative research and production architecture. Donwload mother document.

    Documento madre de propuesta de arquitectura de la participación para un proceso de investigación y producción de 10 documentos base que permitan al Ecuador cambiar a una matriz productiva del conocimiento común y abierto.
    Documento madre de propuesta de arquitectura de la participación para un proceso de investigación y producción de 10 documentos base que permitan al Ecuador cambiar a una matriz productiva del conocimiento común y abierto.

    Data-analogy: modelización sistémica del 15M como desorden de identidad disociativo

    Xabier Barandiaran2 comentarios

    Dentro del encuentro HD15M del grupo de investigación DatAnalysis, he dado una charla titulada «Data-analogy: modelización sistémica del 15M como desorden de identidad disociativo» en el que intento establecer un espacio analógico entre los datos generados por el 15M en la red (nalizados por el colectivo DatAnalysis) y los datos y modelos de neurodinámica de la consciencia. La hipótesis más arriesgada (pero espero que sugerente) es que el 15M, dentro de la totalidad psícosocial del estado español, emerge como una identidad disociativa. Esta hipótesis permite ensamblar datos en el espacio analógico de la neurodinámica para aclarar fenómenos como: a) las manifestaciones «conscientes» del 15M, b) la profundidad emocional del 15M, c) la topología estructural, funcional y efectiva del 15M en analogía con el connectome y las redes funcionales de imaginería neuronal, etc.