A Deeper Inquiry #4 – DisCOs Distributed Cooperative Organisations A Deeper Inquiry
Speakers: Ann Marie Utratel, Irene Lopez de Vallejo & Stacco Troncoso
CHAPTER 1: Rage Against the Machine and Science Friction
How disruptive (or not?) are technologies in social change? The DisCO Manifesto provides a critical overview of blockchain technologies, DAOs and Artificial Intelligence.
CHAPTER 2: You say Potato, I say Decentralized: Semantics Matter
What are DisCOs, compared to DAOs? Why do we advocate for “distributed” over “decentralized”, and “cooperative” over “autonomous” systems? We explore worrying trends and interests in the blockchain space, techno-determinism and AI (artificial intelligence).
CHAPTER 3: Last Night A Distributed Cooperative Organization Saved My Life
How have cooperatives and the commons provided important historical precedents for decentralised models? How does DisCO upgrade the seven cooperative principles for the 21st-century?
CHAPTER 4: Punk Elegance: The Story of Guerrilla Translation and the Guerrilla Media Collective
DisCO isn’t theory, it emerged from the real experiences of a commons-oriented collective called Guerrilla Translation, later Guerrilla Media Collective (GMC). How does the governance model work, and does this baby scale? Spoiler: that’s not the real question.
CHAPTER 5: Turn the Beat Around: Community Algorithmic Trusts and Care Oriented Cooperativism
Blockchain, carework, and the human/machine trust spectrum from trustless to trustworthy: our thoughts on how to build a platform that tracks value where value isn’t always recognized. Meet the DisCO CAT.
CHAPTER 6: Open-Value Co-ops for Radical Workplace Democracy
Let’s get into some revolutionary details: what would radical workplace democracy look like in a DisCO? Inclusive, educational, balanced in culture and structure. Tech enabled, not dependent. Online or offline? On-LIFE!
CHAPTER 7: The Last Dance: The Future is Unwritten
Our concept for the future of work is restoration. We believe that the DisCO framework represents a more realistic, socially positive use of the potential of distributed ledger and blockchain technologies, by explicitly including co-ops, commons, feminism, open source communities, the precariat, etc. So, where do we go from here?