New World Academy Readers

Author(s)
By Heath Bunting, Becky Hogge, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Geert Lovink, Willem van Weelden, Merijn Oudenampsen, Matt Mason, Metahaven, Dirk Poot, Jonas Staal

The international Pirate Parties consist of about 40 political parties worldwide, initiated by the founding of the first Pirate Party in Sweden in 2006. The parties present themselves as practitioners of "leaderless politics", convinced as they are that the cult of leadership has long undermined the possibility of a true, direct democracy. The parties defend a process of permanent voting through an approach they term Liquid Democracy, in which online forums are maintained by each Pirate Party that give members the opportunity to continuously vote on new proposals. Despite the fluid nature of their programs, the parties nonetheless remain committed to defending several of their key causes, which include supporting a free and open Internet, common intellectual property, and the establishment of strong privacy laws to protect Internet users.

With contributions by: Heath Bunting (artist, net activist, and cofounder of www.irational.org, Bristol), Becky Hogge (writer and technologist, Cambridge), Birgitta Jónsdóttir (Pirate Party Iceland, Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, cofounder of WikiLeaks, Reykjavík), Geert Lovink (media theorist and founder of Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam) & Merijn Oudenampsen (sociologist and political theorist, Amsterdam) with Willem van Weelden (new media writer, Amsterdam), Matt Mason (writer, vice president of marketing BitTorrent, San Francisco), design studio Metahaven (Vinca Kruk & Daniel van der Velden, Amsterdam), and Dirk Poot (Pirate Party of the Netherlands, The Hague).

Table of contents

Foreword

Maria Hlavajova

Introduction

Jonas Staal

The Uppsala Declaration

European Pirate Parties

Lessons from Iceland: the people can have the power

Birgitta Jónsdóttir

We Have Lost Control of Our Democracies

Dirk Poot

The Freedom Cloud

Becky Hogge

Captives of the Cloud: Part I

Metahaven

The Status Project

Heath Bunting

The Pirate’s Dilemma

Matt Mason

WikiLeaks as an Editorial Problem: A Conversation with Geert Lovink and Merijn Oudenampsen

Willem van Weelden

Liquid Democracy Will Do Away With Parliament

Dirk Poot interviewed by Jonas Staal

Colophon

Editor: Jonas Staal in dialogue with Dirk Poot

Associate Editor: Seyma Bayram

Coordinator and Proof Reader: Gwen Parry

Design: Remco van Bladel, Amsterdam in collaboration with Andrea Spikker

Lithography and Printing: Drukkerij Raddraaier, Amsterdam

Language: English

Pages: 158

ISBN: 978-90-77288-20-7

Price: € 5

Unfortunately the printed copies of this reader are sold out. You can still view the reader online when you click here.