Mastodawn

@h Ahh! ANOTHER conference in BA I'm not going to get to attend!

@Steve Sorry about that. I still don't know if I'll be able to make it myself, but I'll report if I go. Still not sure what's it gonna be like, but you can never get bored in Buenos Aires anyway.

@h What's most ironic of all is that my big interest is in the overlap between the two--the co-op (self-managed) economy and the commons-based economy.

@Steve Quite amazing that the initial event of the Worker's Gathering will take place at an hotel occupied by its workers. I think this hotel used to be quite popular in Buenos Aires back in the day.

@h I stayed there exactly ten years ago, and I've been fascinated with it ever since. There's a new book out about it in Spanish, and I'm wondering if it's worth translating.

@Steve Maybe do it before Naomi Klein does it, hahaha

@h She's moved on. Frankly, I kind of wish there was more competition in getting out the news about recovered businesses.

That said, I'm trying to get a sense of whether there could be an ongoing conversation between the commons and cooperatives.

@Steve I'm exploring a not too dissimilar avenue, approaching it from the free software side of things. There's some overlaps to be sure, but I'm more about finding ways to interconnect and optimise coop systems and processes.

I'm at early stages of thinking this through, so I thought that hanging out with others who have taken the lead (like @mattcropp and @mayel at #socialcoop) is a good kickstarter for cross-pollination in the meantime, in advance to whenever I'm ready to present my stuff.

@h @mayel @mattcropp Interesting. Can you give some examples of what you'd like to see co-ops doing?

I'm a long-time FLOSS user (Linux-exclusive since '07, after dabbling since '99). Look back in my personal feed for my discussion with @dajbelshaw about #gitit.

@Steve @dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel

Example:

- Coop A maintains inventory with widgets it produces
- Coop B maintains inventory and sells a product C produced with components (or ingredients, or chemicals, etc) produced by Coop A
- A produces an invoice for items sold to B. Typically B would get a paper invoice, and would update its records locally, and update its own inventory once the items bought are recorded.

If these systems were capable of being easily linked friction would be removed.

@mayel @mattcropp @dajbelshaw @Steve Additionally, A would have finely tuned controls to allow some of its customers to watch its inventories, and variations in price. All of A's customers could monitor the best time to buy and compare with other coops who produce substitutes. Not for competition, but for optimal cooperative allocation, which could be a semi-autonomous system.

And all the coops would have to do would be to connect the outputs of one coop with the inputs of another.

@Steve @dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel So that's basically what I'm prototyping right now. Many other use cases will vary from industry to industry, but there's a core logic that I think I've identified, that is irreducible and can be used as a template for other devs to add induistry-specific modules on top of it.

@Steve @dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel Some coops provide services, others deliver products, and many a combination of the two. The products of one coop can often be delivered as an integral package with services by another.

The central idea is to eliminate the friction to cooperation, which will make it trivial for a coop to cooperate with another coop, much easier to work with than a capitalist company (as far as this can be improved on the systems and processes level).

@mayel @mattcropp @dajbelshaw @Steve Eventually, what I would like to see would be a type of Cooperation License Manifest that a system can advertise, specifying the types of operation in which it is willing to engage with another coop's system.

That could help further automate price discovery and financial terms among an ecosystem of coops.

Hypercooperation, if you will.

@h @dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel Very interesting stuff. I've said that the biggest single problem co-ops face (and the co-ops here in #Madison are a prime example) is that we're not in each other's supply chains. Supply chaining is one of #Mondragon's secrets to success, together with co-op education and co-op financing.

Would it be fair to call this decentralized planning?

@Steve @mayel @mattcropp @dajbelshaw I think it's fair to call it that way, it's certainly evocative of the famous Chilean experiment that never was. Although I'm unsure about sticking to that moniker beyond its use among technical people, as my hopes are that people focus on the value of synergies, process cooperation, and friction removal more. I'm afraid that using slightly ideologically charged naming could detract a bit from that. But I agree, it's a fair category, if you will.

@h @dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel Well, I'm also comfortable with terms like "libertarian left," which are also prone to being dismissed and/or misunderstood, so I'm OK with agreeing to terms and then not emphasizing them.

Anyhow, I'll be very curious to see how your work lines up with a commons-based economy. The physical commons were emergent over centuries, but I think the digital commons will have to be more deliberate.

@Steve @mayel @mattcropp @dajbelshaw I agree. Even if there are certain physical constraints and a certain "shape" of digital things (network topology, network latency, cost of storage, cost of energy, etc.) the abstractions we have built on top make the digital commons too perfect. There is no digital weather, no digital public square, no digital time, no digital space. All these things have to be created with deliberate intent.

@dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel @Steve In a way, that's what cryptocurrency people do (or Satoshi Nakamoto did) with the creation of the concept and algorithms of "proof of work". Which is, ultimately, a certificate of digital labour.

@h @mayel @mattcropp @dajbelshaw But that isn't labor, it's processing. To capture labor, you need a wage, a share, or some sort of time-bank currency.

@Steve @dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel It's interesting and probably beyond the scope of this space :-) Coffee in Buenos Aires?

@h @mayel @mattcropp @dajbelshaw I'll see what I can do. :)

@Steve @dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel I mean, in September. Still a few months away.

@Steve Steve, is it possible that your name rings familiar to me?. Didn't you use to translate articles at Las Indias blogs? I think you even translated one of mine once when I worked with them in 2011-2012.

@h Yes, I used to do that a lot. It was all volunteer, and I don't have time for volunteer work any longer. Which was your article?

@Steve I think one in which I talked about the ways in which Apple had overcame the 'uncanny valley' and replaced it with reification, and a fetish for objects of desire. But I don't remember the title and I don't have a copy here. I don't even remember in what language I wrote the original.