Year: 2022

A conversation on trust/control in social technology

Q. In a nutshell, my manifesto could be “form your own little communities and federate them”

A. What would be the “common” understanding/agreements/standards that would bridge these communities, or would it Only be code, if only code what standards?

Q. Federation just depends upon the willingness to do so. The code is just the plumbing which makes it happen. And I think nearly all fediverse federation is opt-out, so that you are federating by default but can opt-out (block) if you want to.

A. Interesting to look at #peertube backend for a opt-in federated model, this aproch is the social/technical model for the social/tech of the #OMN project. That is building a human network first, technology is to support and mediate the very strong #geekproblem that is #blocking the human change/challenge we need #KISS

Q. Opt-in is ok if you are trying to build a small federation or an institution with different departments (eg a federation of libraries with particular rules and membership criteria).
I don’t think the fediverse would have been as successful if it had been opt-in from the beginning, though.

A. The #peertube network is an working example of this opt-in for content sharing. Think commenting is opt-out. It’s not got any “social” UX for this, which is why its kinda limited at mo… it suffers from the #geekproblem like just about all coding projects so worth looking at/using but its not core #OMN

Q. The problem with peertube was that the way it was federated initially was pretty bad, and the large majority of the videos being posted were not self-made and were just copyright violations, inviting legal takedowns. Initially, they also didn’t have enough moderation capability to combat disinformation and spam.
Often developers are expecting a twee world in which everyone is nice, but this is never the case for social networks. That expectation has a lot to do with the socio-economic position of commercial software development and its demographic homogeneity.

A. think the resion they did not do good moderation was a question of priorates, we have endemic BAD history for most of our tech, good to keep this in mind.
There are two paths out of the mess you touch on, one is social, one is hard tech. Agen we have only BAD history of thinking about this, good to keep this in mind.
The #geekproblem that writes this bad history is #BLOCK ing the social technology we need, good to think about this.

#OMN #KISS #OPENWEB notice the last hashtag, we DO NOT NEED more #closedweb if we have any hope of mediating the #geekproblem for tech/social progressive outcomes that we so urgently need.

Q. And opt-in is kinda closed. “Your name’s not down, you’re not coming in”. That sort of thing. Exclusivity isn’t really going to move the needle on anything, though.

A. This reply is a #geekproblem view of the thinking.
Good to look at a social view, all society are based on #TRUST and healthy society have more reliance on trust and unhealthy society more reliance on “hard” process/structure.
There are academic bases to this, a sadly right-wing view https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_trust_and_low_trust_societies
The #geekproblem fails in building “good trust” based society, it’s an endemic failing of our tech/thinking.
TRUSTLESS is the #geekproblem good to think about this when coding social/technology.
We need to build tech social networks that “fail” so that human beings can fix this “failing” based on TRUST and from this build a real progressive society.

Q. I don’t advocate trustless. You can’t prove trust merely by doing some complicated blockchain math. Trust is earned, or broken, by people. Not by machines.
Also, vaguely related to #chatcontrol. The EU is going to lose a lot of trust by trying to do policing-by-algorithm. The algorithm approach is a sort of abuse of trust.

A. the #OMN is this project: “We need to build tech social networks that “fail” so that human beings can fix this “failing” based on TRUST and from this build a real progressive society.”
No geeks/technologist are building this, let alone thinking like this. The #geekproblem we need to mediate for any outcome.

Leave the #EU to one side on this, as they are well hopeless on social technology, though some of them are looking (with blindfolds on)

Q. I’ve been around the block enough to have seen many online communities fail. I think you have some experience of that also.
When communities fail, there can be a lot of bad outcomes, and sometimes it’s actually fatal. Social networks are a lifeline for a lot of people and when the network fails so do its members.
This isn’t even about narrowly technical failures. Social engineering attacks such as the ones of the last few years can cause enough aggravation and fear that people just lose trust and quit.
So when building this type of software, we need to be mindful of the potential consequences, and not design failure into the system. People’s social lives are not a demolition derby for the entertainment of others.

A. it’s normal, that you are finding it difficult to see the point am talking about. All humane relationships fail It’s what makes us human, the #geekproblem trying to fix this is taking away our humanity. You see this in both mainstream #dotcons like #failbook, and you also see it in all ALT_TECH it’s a (social) systematic problem.
Build stuff that is messy, human. Please DON’T TRY AND FIX problems created by the problem you are trying to fix is basic. Take the #geekproblem blindfold off is a good step.

Reading this book would help https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.101521/2015.101521.The-Sciological-Imagination_djvu.txt

Real social change needs shared storys

Horizontal people are always getting fucked over by vertical people as the first gives away “power” to build social where the second “concentrates” power to use individual.

Horizontal only has social outcomes if the is a shared world view. It is easy to defeat if it has non #stupidindividualism

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Examples of shared world views are #4opens

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Vertical people will keep wining in till we have some shared world-view on the progressive/left and some examples of practical working alternatives for people to rally round #OMN

Stepping away from our tech mess – you need to compost it


It’s good that people try not to push pointless tech projects… And the majority of new tech projects are obviously pointless. To get an idea of what to push do a review and publish this, let’s build a community of useful tech together. We need to do better.

#techchurn has made so much #techshit over the last 10 years. There are piles of #mainstreaming and alt tech that needs to be composted to grow a more humane world. Focus on what we CAN change and what we do have directing (social) power over, our mess.

From a grassroots prospective, we don’t have alternatives as they have been devoured and turned into shit by #NGO #fashernistas and social #deathcult worshipping (40 years of neoliberalism)

Thus, your/our lack of motivation, in my lifetime there were meany anarchist/ecological/socialist alternatives which kinda worked in imperfect ways.

Let’s use federated tech to reboot these from before they were killed and eaten by this mess, and innovate om this.

#OMN #indymediaback

Our friends the liberals

In protest camps, squats, rainbow gatherings, akt-tech the is a long history of “liberals” pushing in with “common sense” agenda to distroy working alternatives. Our “liberals” have little understanding of the damage they do when this happens, for them this disstruction simply proves the alt’s are NOT posspable and thus their common sense is reinforced and the disstruction feeds back this “common sense”.

Worshiping the #deathcult in the era of #climatechaos the #OGB mediates this.

CRT are not fit for purpose

A. Not a esey ansear: we should break #CRT this is relatively easy as their next state funding round is coming up. This does create chaos, but it also stops the push for privatisation of the London waterways. As replacement of CRT is a government decision the is little point in pushing real change. Scary path #CRTnotfitforpurpose

Q. are C&RT really trying to privatize the London waterways? How are they going about that?

A. They have anounced that the central eco moorings are going to become pay moorings and then roll out more eco moorings. The “safety zones” are going ahead. We are now in a 3 steps forward 2 steps back slow loss of our a
14 day moorings in London.

Q. do you know who gets the money for the pay moorings?

A. #CRT were set up in a way that they would have to pay there own way with out government subsidies. Of course they being #notfutforpurpose they have failed in this after selling off lots of canal side land and buildings. The are asking for more government money in the next year or so.

Q. part of the problem C&RT faces is that the combined income from moorings and licences only covers about a quarter of its maintenance costs. Selling off property helps plug the gap in the short term. Sooner or later some tough financial decisions are going to have to be made.

A. The obvious way #CRT can help “pay there way” is by privatisation of all London moorings, the is domand for static boats. Keep 7,3 and one day “visitors moorings” to keep the outa town boaters happy. This is the outcome already in the waterways of Northern Europe, just came back from a 13 country boating expedition over 5 years. They have a model to Follow.

Q Surely breaking CRT gives the government an even easier opportunity to directly privatise the whole lot though (as one or piecemeal)? If the charitable trust they set up fails to successfully to replace the failed government body and they have to choose a replacement, privatisation might look like the next thing to try (especially given recent government inclinations).

A. The government does not have the focus to deal with such a small issue. So braking #CRT that is forcing their current management to resign by blocking their funding #CRTnotfitforpurpose would leave the waterways with broken management… Kinda like we have now, just with less effective attacking of CC boaters in London.

It’s not a easey path to take. But if people won’t to keep scruffy CC boating inside the M25 then this is likely no other option.

Q I think you are right that chargeable moorings will become more and more common. But C&RT doesn’t seem to enforce its mooring charges for people who overstay at the moment so I’m not sure how that will work. I suppose they could contract the collection of mooring fees out to a private company, as happens now on parts of the Thames.

A.With the safety moorings defeat they have realised they need to play the long game. 3 steps forward 2 steps back, they lose each time but they just keep steping forward.. looking like they have a non dickhead doing strategy, This is a very hard thing to campaign about for groups like #NBTA as every time they “win” they still LOSE… It’s demoralising…

Our worshipping the #deathcult (neo-liberalism)

For the last 20 years, everyone in the ruling classes has failed you

Our governing glasses of every colour has failed us

Our media and entertainment elites have failed us all

Our NGO and their leaders have betrayed us all

Our business and academic classes have grasped and dithered

We face the #climatechaos naked and disjointed at war and in the shopping centres

We have failed ourselves, it’s pastime to step away from this mess.

Don’t drink from the #mainstreaming

Go with the flowing #undercurrents

Compost this mess

In the lives of our current generation, we face the world sliding into eco-chaos, both social/political and directly climate related. It’s a truism that if we can’t radical change society now in 10 years, we face a world of BIG DUMB UGLY MEN WITH GUNS telling us what to do. The money we are now poring into “defence” in reaction to the Ukrainian crises will be buying weapons that will then be used on “us” as social chaos grows to shape our society.

Ukraine – the is a war going on

Q. Looking for some frontline reporting from Ukraine, all am finding is #mainstreaming internet reports. Looked for links for people posting direct from out there.
A. No, there is very little coming out, a lot that cannot be verified and some that is fake. Some sick people out there.

Q. Interesting, was getting nothing from alt sources, so finally looked at #mainstreaming media today, and it’s all inside #Ukraine propaganda. So after a day of that I looked agen for on the ground sources but found nothing, so looked at RT but all streaming blocked.

Ok #RT native player works, let’s see the other side’s propaganda https://www.rt.com/on-air/rt-player/

Looking and learning – life on the water on a scruffy boat

What did I learn from my 3-months back in London, cruising the waterways?

#CRT have learned from their failures in the past and the long history of British Waterways. They are going slow, 3 steps forwarded 2 steps back in their removal of “nuisance” boaters. That’s us, the CC boaters without a home mooring.

A strategy that #NBTA has no solution to “slow change” that is immune to classical campaigning. The old #LondonBoaters which came from the direct action #RTS days could have challenged this, but it has long since moved with the shift in culture to #NGO friendly #failbook agenda to put a friendly face on this change.

We live in the time of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisling and yes this is an unpleasant apt metaphor, for anyone who is not fighting hard and dirty for our boater life in London.

Fear and loathing on the river lea is killing rare flowers and plants.

The issue on LondonBoaters #failbook sparked this post off.

The root of the problem comes from the institutions that have duty of care in each case. #CRT and #leavalley are not providing bins for the increasing numbers and diversity of boaters to dispose of their waste.

A new generation of people are moving onto “smart” boats as a first step to buying a flat on land, this is leading to much bigger boats that are badly fitted out for CC life due to excess energy usage in terms of electricity and soiled fuel stoves.

A underclass of boaters is moving onto scruffy boats as a “last step” to the London housing crises, this is leading to an increase anti-social behaver due to alcohol and drug use as coping mechanisms for social exclusion.

Both of these groups are externalizing the ecological/social footprint onto the towpath and surrounding land near the canal. This is coursing a building ecological and social impact that need mediating from all sides. This mediation in the end needs to build the resources, traditions and social cohesion for a better outcome.

Instead, we have all of these groups externalizing their bad behaver by scapegoating the others. We have blocking of mediation that can only escalate the problem. The ending is strongly pushing the privatization of the spaces and the removing of the majority of the boaters, taking commons and making them “pay” is the strong world view pushed as a “solution” to the failing of the organization’s duty of “care” to provide proper waste disposal in the first place.

Working on this problem in the LondonBoaters #failbook group

Feeding a vampire class of #fashernistas for 20 years

When people do not understand/respect the value in keeping the fluffy/spiky debate in place you end up like this the-crypto-syllabus.com/france This is the problem, not the solution.

Worth a read to see the issue of feeding off the state and the VC poison that shapes the #fashernista ploughing over grassroots by the #deathcult These people are adding to the #techshit and shifting the focus to pointlessness, I have seen no good outcomes from their work.

But they were “our” people at one time, our old friends in activism took the heathy internal stresses that were braking projects like #indymedia to feed a #fashernista vampire class, to built careers feeding on and draining grassroots corpus for 20 years.

It’s not a good look, but people like these are the gatekeepers you talk to when you talk to “power” #indymediaback