Online/offline? Onlife!

The online/offline distinction often blinds us to the needs of "the bodies behind the computers". DisCOs are centered on care for social relations and care for the non-human world. No matter how much time we spend interfacing online, as people we all have the same basic survival, creative and affective needs.

The following is extracted from the DisCO Manifesto chapter 6: Open-Value Co-ops for Radical Workplace Democracy:

Online or offline? Onlife! Mexican-Catalán Zapatista cyberactivist Guiomar Rovira breaks down the dichotomy between our "on" and "off" line lives as follows: "My position is that, beyond the differentiation between online and offline worlds, everything occurs on-life. Seen this way, the corporeal experience of encountering is the key."

There really are no "material" and "immaterial" commons considering that all depend on material resources and knowledge. Geographically distributed DisCOs that produce digital services, like Guerrilla Media Collective, are the easier implementations of DisCO because value tracking is easier, there are fewer material inputs and less development capital needed, etc. But while material production is always more difficult than intangible creative production, the DisCO framework has been designed to ease the governance and economics of "Design Global-Manufacture Local" initiatives. Whether on- or off-line, we recognize our relations as happening on-life, striving to maximize trust through networks and regularly encountering each other face-to-face.