#Decentralized Publishing

[dal23journal-blog]

Web 3.0 vs Web 2.0: A Writing Revolution

How Web 3.0 is Rewriting the Rules of Writing, Ownership, and Monetization Forever The Broken Promise of Web 2.0 For decades, writers have been trapped in a system that rewards platforms over creators. The Web 2.0 era turned content into a commodity—owned by corporations, monetized through ads, and dependent on algorithms. Writers became cogs in a machine, trading their time and talent for…

[derek-hanson]

Do the Woo is Trailbazing the Fediverse with Matthias Pfefferle and Derek Hanson

It was fun to be a part of this project. I came into it with very little understanding of the Fediverse and decentralized social media beyond the basic concepts. Do the Woo and the work Bob Dunn is doing with the network of shows is an amazing gift to the WordPress community. I’m grateful to be a part of the community and to know Bob. If you haven’t spent any time with Do the Woo or the…

[qqueenofhades]

hi I hope you don't mind but I would love to hear your long tired historian rant you mentioned in your tags on that one post, if you feel in the mood to share? (no pressure!)

(also thank you for existing, you do wonderful work and the world is a better place for you being in it)

Aha. Well. For context, the mention of said rant was in relation to this post:

Basically, this post struck a nerve because of how it exactly encapsulates the anti-intellectual, anti-academia, anti-historical, anti-reality thinking that is absolutely rampant in social media spaces, even and especially spaces that identify as leftist, liberal, or otherwise "superior" to the right wing when it comes to identifying fake news or misinformation. (Example A: anything ever written by a self-proclaimed leftist on Twitter.) We all know that there are huge problems with the American public school system (and the people writing this are almost always American) and the American practice of education in general, and that yes, there are many things that happened in the past (or y'know, the present!) that are not taught very well, or at all. But because the American public school system is so decentralized and largely autonomous, incredibly dependent on the temperament of local superintendents and/or school boards, taxation and funding, availability of teachers, requirement of useless standardized tests, etc., it is very difficult (if not outright impossible) to claim that this is the result of a Unified Grand Conspiracy To Not Teach Real History To The Youth In Order To Make Them Mindlessly Support Capitalism. That is the exact sort of deranged conspiratorial thinking that the right wing does and fits everything into a sinister narrative about how "They" are planning to keep you ignorant and therefore nothing harmful that you ever think or do is really your fault. It's not good.

(Whoosh. That was very calm and reasonable of me. For the rest of this post, please just picture Captain Holt "apparently that's a trigger for me" dot gif.)

Also: even in public school, and despite the Republicans' best efforts, there are plenty of opportunities to study complex or "controversial" subjects. For example, I spend a week every June grading AP Euro History exams with a lot of other educators in a giant windowless steel box (woo-hoo, fun times!) Every year, there are questions on the exam about women's rights, imperialism and exploitation, slavery/race relations, the development of capitalism and the current economic model, religion and science, the history of labor, and other topics that would be considered "controversial" if you're an idiot. This is an exam taken by high school students in all grades from across the country, and there are also AP World History and APUSH (US history) exams every year which are doubtless making an effort to address similar themes. This is an advanced program, yes, but it's widely available to many schools and is not a result of a sinister plot to keep the youth from discovering the truth. Also: you live in an era of absolutely unprecedented access to information. Put down the ChatGPT bullshit generator and visit a goddamn public library. Or even open Wikipedia. The tools are there for you to start educating yourself and they are so easy to find!!!!!

The "Historians Are Hiding The Truth!!!" narrative becomes even more ridiculous in university-level or professional academic historical-study spaces, especially when historical educators and associations (such as the American Historical Association) have been at the forefront of pushing back against right-wing efforts to censor history, punish teachers, and remove culture-war subjects from classrooms. Also as someone who has advanced degrees in history, has taught/worked in several universities in different countries, writes and publishes historical research, and otherwise participates professionally in the field: trust me, we aren't "hiding" shit. There are vigorous debates and disagreements on various bogglingly obscure subjects and points of clarification and so forth, but that doesn't mean we're not talking about them (trust me, we're often talking about them too much). If you're issuing confident blanket statements about how "historians are conspiring to hide x," you're an idiot.

This also has dangerous repercussions in the field of, say, politics and civics, where a lot of absolutely braindead Online Leftists have spent the last four years posting deranged nonsense on social media and then, whenever they're called out on it for that not actually being how anything works at all, whining that "I was never taught this!!!" (And yet, it somehow never actually changes their perspective or their theories....) They whine about how "they didn't know this" and it was someone else's fault, they make up total fantasy about what the Biden administration did or should have done and now are still happy about Trump coming back because "It will teach the Democrats a lesson!!!" and otherwise accelerating us oh-so-quickly down that slippery slippery fascism slope. Their weaponized ignorance and their magical fantasies about what "should" have happened often come back to this same learned helplessness, where it's everyone else's fault (especially Capitalism's) that they're total wankers. Look: I'm not a goddamn fan of capitalism either. But we all grew up in this same system, and some of us aren't raving idiots, so at some point, you have to take the tiniest modicum of personal responsibility for the information you seek out, the content you consume, the opinions you propagate, and the people you surround yourself with. Shocking.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Online Leftists are actively and unrepentantly enabling American fascism and should be treated in the same way as we treat MAGA when it comes to deciding what is good or worthwhile information. This is because their entire political philosophy (insofar as their beliefs can be dignified with the term) is based on the "make shit up and remove it from any basic empirical references, grounding in reality, or 'should I run the most basic Google search and see if I'm completely talking out of my ass in a distorted social media echo chamber? Nah I'm good' " technique. This is, as the original tweet above references, trying to retcon sheer malicious laziness and stupidity into grand ideological theories about how it's actually "better" that they don't know a damn thing and won't shut up. It's your evil history teacher's fault, or "academics are all rich and elitist" (ask any academic-precariat person like me and we will laugh hollowly and then throw monkey poop at you), or "They" wouldn't let you learn this, or on and on. Even in our terrible, awful, no-good very-bad timeline, there are still ample tools to educate yourself, to learn how to filter out bad information and junk news, and otherwise gird yourself even a little for the even-more-massive assault on empirical reality that we are about to experience in the next four years (ugh). I suggest you take advantage of them.

[tricksterlamb]

hey there, i'm currently working on a feminist website and i'm looking for the help of other women to give their feedback, their opinions, and advice/expertise. the site is not published yet but it is in the development stage, and i would really like as much help as i can get as i have big plans for it and what it sets out to accomplish.

this is a website that aims to promote activism, raise class consciousness, support women of all backgrounds, organize events, share resources, and build community. there is a serious lack of infrastructure in feminist spaces and having us all shouting into the void on social media is antithetical to true feminist action. this website aims to act as a hub for ALL the wonderful resources the women on here post on their blogs, for ease-of-access and the sake of decentralization. this website also seeks to mitigate the amount of discourse and in-fighting within the community in favor of encouraging direct action, change, and connection.

please interact with this post or send me a message if you:

are tired of social media interfaces and would be interested in meeting with other feminists, online and in-person

create feminist art, zines, music, media, graphics, etc.

would be interested in participating in or conducting a workshop for feminist consciousness raising or skill building

know back-end coding

would be interested in contributing whatever you can to a project like this

do not hesitate to ask questions about the project, and reblogs for visibility are very much appreciated.

thanks for reading!

[reasonsforhope]

The Surucuá community in the state of Pará is the first to receive an Amazonian Creative Laboratory, a compact mobile biofactory designed to help kick-start the Amazon’s bioeconomy.

Instead of simply harvesting forest-grown crops, traditional communities in the Amazon Rainforest can use the biofactories to process, package and sell bean-to-bar chocolate and similar products at premium prices.

Having a livelihood coming directly from the forest encourages communities to stay there and protect it rather than engaging in harmful economic activities in the Amazon.

The project is in its early stages, but it demonstrates what the Amazon’s bioeconomy could look like: an economic engine that experts estimate could generate at least $8 billion per year.

In a tent in the Surucuá community in the Brazilian Amazonian state of Pará, Jhanne Franco teaches 15 local adults how to make chocolate from scratch using small-scale machines instead of grinding the cacao beans by hand. As a chocolatier from another Amazonian state, Rondônia, Franco isn’t just an expert in cocoa production, but proof that the bean-to-bar concept can work in the Amazon Rainforest.

“[Here] is where we develop students’ ideas,” she says, gesturing to the classroom set up in a clearing in the world’s greatest rainforest. “I’m not here to give them a prescription. I want to teach them why things happen in chocolate making, so they can create their own recipes,” Franco tells Mongabay.

The training program is part of a concept developed by the nonprofit Amazônia 4.0 Institute, designed to protect the Amazon Rainforest. It was conceived in 2017 when two Brazilian scientists, brothers Carlos and Ismael Nobre, started thinking of ways to prevent the Amazon from reaching its impending “tipping point,” when deforestation turns the rainforest into a dry savanna.

Their solution is to build a decentralized bioeconomy rather than seeing the Amazon as a commodity provider for industries elsewhere. Investments would be made in sustainable, forest-grown crops such as cacao, cupuaçu and açaí, rather than cattle and soy, for which vast swaths of the forest have already been cleared. The profits would stay within local communities.

A study by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the New Climate Economy, published in June 2023, analyzed 13 primary products from the Amazon, including cacao and cupuaçu, and concluded that even this small sample of products could grow the bioeconomy’s GDP by at least $8 billion per year.

To add value to these forest-grown raw materials requires some industrialization, leading to the creation of the Amazonian Creative Laboratories (LCA). These are compact, mobile and sustainable biofactories that incorporate industrial automation and artificial intelligence into the chocolate production process, allowing traditional communities to not only harvest crops, but also process, package and sell the finished products at premium prices.

The logic is simple: without an attractive income, people may be forced to sell or use their land for cattle ranching, soy plantations, or mining. On the other hand, if they can make a living from the forest, they have an incentive to stay there and protect it, becoming the Amazon’s guardians.

“The idea is to translate this biological and cultural wealth into economic activity that’s not exploitative or harmful,” Ismael Nobre tells Mongabay."

-via Mongabay News, January 2, 2024

[she-is-ovarit]

It's concerning that this is now an LGB and women's issue now, but I really encourage people to begin purchasing USB drives or external hard drives and saving digital research on things such as gay & lesbian history, screenshots of tweets that might be important, homosexual and bisexual research, women's history, radical feminist books or PDFs, and really just anything that is at risk of being "corrected" by gender ideology or made inaccessible by academic publishers.

We need to save these things in a hard copy format as opposed to just using internet archive or taking Sci-hub for granted, because these organizations are experiencing heavy lawsuits. Additionally, it's becoming common for LGB and gender nonconformity history and research to be "rewritten" by gender ideologists. Actually, this is even true for past research and history on transvestism and transsexualism, too, in addition to things such as sex dysphoria, etc.

I bought three 64GB USBs for just $25. If you can't afford an external hardrive, buy some different colored USBs and start building your own library. We need to preserve this information and decentralize it as much as possible. It's worrisome enough that we rely on digital archives this much just generally, especially with the advent of AI and government and corporate attempts to eliminate data privacy and control.

This is a women's rights issue and an LGB issue now.

[purplealmonds]

Preview of New Lore Document (And my own extrapolations on it!)👀

To be discussed at length in yet another Youtube interview Director Nakamura and producer Shoji to be released this Saturday!

Transcript and Google auto translations of the doc, as well as my thoughts are below the cut. @sarahwatchesthings This might be an interesting one for you to sink your teeth into!

📜Transcript

-怪 続編アイデアメモー 3) 蒐我の峰(しゅうがのみね) 【全ての物が、産まれてくる座、全てのものが還るべき座 古代よりさまざまな宗教によって、「神」とあらわされる根源の座 全知がそこにはあり、あまたの聖人たちが「瞑想」などによって「写し世」にいながらにして触れよう、近 づこうとした物、そのもの。 「 心理学者のユングが言うところの「集合的無意識」であり、預言者たちがアクセスする「アカシックレコー ド」であり、仏教でいう彼岸の知恵 「般若」(はんにゃ)ともいわれています。 時間」もたたみ込まれているため、宇宙の始まりから終焉まで、全てがそこにはあります。 「蒐我」を知るということが、人��にとっての「悟り」であり、仏教でいう「明心見性」(みょうしんけん しょう)と同じ意味を成します。 そこには、写し世との距離(実際には距離というものは存在しないが、便宜上わかりやすくそう言われてい )をはかる深さの概念があり、一業目、二業目(いちごうめ、にごうめ)と数えられます。 数が増えるほど、深く業に沈んでいる事となり、人間でいえば、深く死んでいる、より偏在化している状態 となります(正常な状態)。 人は、死を迎えると、ゆっくりと蒐我へと沈んでいく旅にでるのです。

📝Translation

Kai Sequel Idea Memo 3) The Peak of the Collected Self [The seat from which all things are born, the seat to which all things return. The seat of the origin, which has been expressed as "God" by various religions since ancient times. Omniscience resides there, and it is the very thing that many saints have tried to touch and approach while living in the "duplicate world" through "meditation" and other practices. It is what psychologist Jung calls the "collective unconscious," the "Akashic Records" that prophets access, and is also called "Hannya," the wisdom of the other shore in Buddhism. Time is also folded in, so everything from the beginning to the end of the universe is there. Knowing "the self" is "enlightenment" for humans, and has the same meaning as "clearing one's mind and seeing one's true nature" in Buddhism. There is a concept of depth that measures the distance from the world of reflection (in reality there is no such thing as distance, but it is referred to as such for convenience and clarity), and it is counted as the first karma, the second karma (ichigoume, nigoume). The more the number, the deeper one is sunk into karma, which would be like being deeply dead and in a more decentralized state in human terms (the normal state). When a person approaches death, they embark on a journey that slowly sinks them into the self.

🧠My Thoughts

So we finally get some much-needed context as what this realm of Shuuga (蒐我) is like. As a refresher, the previously published lore document says that the medicine seller's headquarters, called the Jyu-Yoku (じゅうよく) resides unevenly between the human world and this Shuuga in a state of perpetual non-existence and existence– Schrödinger's cat is a rather apt metaphor for it.

Based on my (rather sleep deprived) ramblings about the Asian philosophy of the universe which the hexagram paradigm resides in, I believe that Shuuga is part of the broader realm of Mukyoku (無極) which is the primordial zero which all of existence originates from.

From here, I form another hypothesis. Kusuriuri stated in the Umibozu arc that he fears is (according to fan subtitles) "the knowledge that the edge of this world exists without Form, Truth, or Regret." Whether that describes the Shuuga or Mukyoku, I believe this may be a reason why he may be reluctant to make trips to the Jyu-Yoku headquarters.

His journeys in the human world are always driven by the pursuit of knowledge to purify Mononoke from that realm. In a place like Shuuga, where all of existence and non existence and time coalesce into pure omniscience, his purpose for existing, and thus his physical form, would be utterly eradicated.

So he is very human in that he wants to keep his individuality and not become just one small drop in the collective unconsciousness and/or hivemind that I'm beginning to think the Jyu-Yoku "headquarters" is a manifestation of.

There are probably hundreds of other entities similar to medicine sellers residing there, but only the ones who earn the right to wield one of the 64 exorcism swords have the privilege of getting personhood and freedom to roam the mortal realm.

But even then, only a handful of these swords are "on duty" at a time depending on the state of the world. I bet becoming a wielder of one of the 8 the powerful trigram swords is a much coveted position, because they are the most likely weapons to be deployed into the human world, and thus the key to freedom from the Jyu-Yoku.

In the transformation sequences, we see Hyper and Kusu exist in a strange pocket dimension between the grounded human world and fantastical mononoke domain. Thus, I believe the key to entering and exiting the Jyu-Yoku's liminal space is the exorcism sword (though I imagine clever entities that know what to look for can become a stowaways/hitchhikers in the brief window of time when that gateway's opened).

Thus, the existence of all medicine sellers is rather contradictory. While they seek knowledge to eradicate mononoke from the world, their existence in the human realm simultaneously confirms that they are actively running away from an enlightenment which they can easily access should they return to Jyu-Yoku.

This level of enlightenment is embodied by the exorcism sword - how else can it know when to clank its teeth when a medicine seller correctly deduces a Form, Truth, or Regret?

Medicine sellers are the walking embodiments of the individual valuing their sense of self over the more efficient collective. Why else would you do something as impractical as picking off one mononoke at a time, when you can effectively exorcise the lot of them from Jyu-Yoku?

Let's consider this from a different perspective. In the Jyu-Yoku, I imagine it is all-too-easy to fall into the trap of looking at the "bigger picture" and let the "lesser" issues of insignificant individuals fall on the wayside.

Those who become medicine sellers feel compassion for the entities that fall below the notice of the Jyu-Yoku. Although there are much bigger forces at play in the universe, these "trivial" pockets of suffering, left unchecked, can grow into something much more dangerous: mononoke.

If the entire universe is represented by the human body, the Jyu-Yoku could be considered the immune system. It works with the intricate internal workings of the body which goes through the endless cycle of cell death and regeneration. In theory, it should be self-sustaining.

The medicine sellers, by comparison, are quite literally that: the peddlers of medicine that the body consumes or uses to expedite the healing of superficial injuries or illnesses that with time, the Jyu-Yoku could have eventually taken care of.

Or perhaps a better metaphor for the Medicine Seller is vaccines - they collect knowledge of the pathogens (the mononoke) which are rendered mostly inert (purification via exorcism sword) to train the body (Jyu-Yoku) how to better combat it. And like vaccination development in the real world, it's a never ending task ensuring that it is capable combating the evolving sicknesses of the world.

Anyways, thank you for attending yet another one of my Mononoke TED talks!

[fansplaining]

Hello! I just read your article Endless Appetite for Fanfiction. It was very good, and touched on a lot of problems we are faced with in this era of media exploitation. And I agree! There are so many threats! But I do think the future is still in our hands. As the producers and curators of the fandom, we get to steer our audience and peers in the direction we want it to go. Mostly by sticking to our guns and continuing to function as normal, and to teach newcomers the way of the land! We can write PSA's, do disclaimers, continue writing fic the way we want to, comment on each other's work, maintain visible fandom friendships, etc. There are so many things we can do! As long as we want deep connections to the work and each other ( which is why we are doing this in the first place), they can't take anything from us. If anything, we are more established than ever. Anyway, there is hope. <3

Aw, thank you so much for the lovely message, anon! That's this article, if someone still hasn't managed to see it haha.

I definitely agree that we should keep doing all the stuff you've beautifully articulated. Sometimes I feel that as fans and fic writers, there's not much more we can do: so much of this is about external forces we can't control.

As a journalist, I do feel like I have a little more in my arsenal—like reporting on the for-profit fic binding in a mainstream publication, which definitely brought it to the attention of people outside fandom. With these recent AI grifters, they capitulated pretty quickly when fandom pushed back, but I worry the next guy will be a bit more pro, or a bit more uncaring about public outcry. Legally, we do have rights here, but we're decentralized, and unlike Disney etc, an individual fan doesn't have a team of lawyers that can sit on Etsy or wherever, constantly issuing DMCA claims—let alone bring a lawsuit.

Then I think, I'm a fan and a journalist, and so many fandom people have professional skills that can help here. The OTW exists because trained pros—librarians, developers, lawyers—have donated their skills over the years. But they can't be the single centralized group in transformative fandom, and I often worry that many people treat them that way. It's partly why I've been excited to work with the EFF recently, since they're interested in being another transformative fandom advocate. But I also think there's room for much, much more.

So I do have some hope on the external side—it's hard to see what shape our pushback will take, but I know there are tons of fans who will push back! Within fandom itself, it's just as you say: we can make our spaces vibrant and welcoming and meaningful, and we can keep creating and sharing with people in those spaces. I have zero plans to stop writing and publishing fic, no matter how many jackasses swoop in and try to profit off it. And I'm grateful that so many of my fellow fans feel the same way.

Thanks again for your message—I really appreciate it. <3

[misfitwashere]

Trump will overplay his hand. Be ready for when he does. 

ROBERT REICH

JAN 2

Friends,

I sometimes share with you perspectives about what we’re up against from non-American writers and journalists. Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. and a former journalist, published this short essay recently in Politico Magazine. As we prepare for Trump’s regime, I thought you’d find her views useful.

***

American democracy is about to undergo a serious stress test. I know how it feels, in part because I lived through the slow and steady march of state capture as a journalist working in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey.

Over a decade as a high-profile journalist, I covered Turkey’s descent into illiberalism, having to engage in the daily push and pull with the government. I know how self-censorship starts in small ways but then creeps into operations on a daily basis. I am familiar with the rhythms of the battle to reshape the media, state institutions and the judiciary.

Having lived through it, and having gathered some lessons in hindsight, I believe that there are strategies that can help Democrats and Trump critics not only survive the coming four years, but come out stronger. Here are six of them.

1. Don’t Panic — Autocracy Takes Time

President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power is unnerving but America will not turn into a dictatorship overnight — or in four years. Even the most determined strongmen face internal hurdles, from the bureaucracy to the media and the courts. It took Erdoğan well over a decade to fully consolidate his power. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Law and Justice Party needed years to erode democratic norms and fortify their grip on state institutions.

I am not suggesting that the United States is immune to these patterns, but it’s important to remember that its decentralized system of governance — the network of state and local governments — offers enormous resilience. Federal judges serve lifetime appointments, states and governors have specific powers separate from those granted federally, there are local legislatures, and the media has the First Amendment as a shield, reinforced by over a century of legal precedents. 

Sure, there are dangers, including by a Supreme Court that might grant great deference to the president. But in the end, Donald Trump really only has two years to try to execute state capture. Legal battles, congressional pushback, market forces, midterm elections in 2026 and internal Republican dissent will slow him down and restrain him. The bottom line is that the U.S. is too decentralized in its governance system for a complete takeover. The Orbanization of America is not an imminent threat.

2. Don’t Disengage — Stay Connected

After a stunning electoral loss like this, there’s a natural impulse to shut off the news, log off social media and withdraw from public life. I’ve seen this with friends in Turkey and Hungary with opposition supporters retreating in disillusionment after Erdogan’s or Orbam’s victories. Understandably, people want to turn inwards.

Dancing, travel, meditation, book clubs — it’s all fine. But eventually, in Poland, Hungary and Turkey, opponents of autocracy have returned to the fight, driven by a belief in the possibility of change. So will Americans.

Nothing is more meaningful than being part of a struggle for democracy. That’s why millions of Turks turned out to the polls and gave the opposition a historic victory in local governments across Turkey earlier this year. That’s how the Poles organized a winning coalition to vote out the conservative Law and Justice Party last year. It can happen here, too.

The answer to political defeat is not to disconnect, but to organize. You can take a couple of days or weeks off, commiserate with friends and mute Elon Musk on X — or erase the app altogether. But in the end, the best way to develop emotional resilience is greater engagement.

3. Don’t Fear the Infighting

Donald Trump’s victory has understandably triggered infighting inside the Democratic Party and it looks ugly. But fear not. These recriminations and finger-pointing are necessary to move forward. In Turkey, Hungary and Poland, it was only after the opposition parties faced their strategic and ideological misalignment with society that they were able to begin to effectively fight back.

Trump has tapped into the widespread belief that the economic order, labor-capital relations, housing and the immigration system are broken. You may think he is a hypocrite, but there is no doubt that he has convinced a large cross-section of American society that he is actually the agent of change — a spokesman for their interests as opposed to “Democratic elites.” This is exactly what strongmen like Erdoğan and Orban have achieved.

For the Democratic Party to redefine itself as a force for change, and not just as the custodian of the status quo, it needs fundamental shifts in how it relates to working people in the U.S. There is time to do so before the midterms of 2026.

4. Charismatic Leadership Is a Non-Negotiable

One lesson from Turkey and Hungary is clear: You will lose if you don’t find a captivating leader, as was the case in 2023 general elections in Turkey and in 2022 in Hungary. Coalition-building or economic messaging is necessary and good. But it is not enough. You need charisma to mobilize social dissent.

Trump was beatable in this election, but only with a more captivating candidate. For Democrats, the mistake after smartly pushing aside President Joe Biden was bypassing the primaries and handpicking a candidate. Future success for the party will hinge on identifying a candidate who can better connect with voters and channel their aspirations. It should not be too hard in a country of 350 million.

Last year’s elections in Poland and Turkey showcased how incumbents can be defeated (or not defeated, as in general elections in Turkey in 2023) depending on the opposition’s ability to unite around compelling candidates who resonate with voters. Voters seek authenticity and a connection — give it to them.

5. Skip the Protests and Identity Politics

Soon, Trump opponents will shake off the doldrums and start organizing an opposition campaign. But how they do it matters. For the longest time in Turkey, the opposition made the mistake of relying too much on holding street demonstrations and promoting secularism, Turkey’s version of identity politics, which speaks to the urban professional and middle class but not beyond. When Erdoğan finally lost his absolute predominance in Turkish politics in 2024, it was largely because of his mismanagement of the economy and the opposition’s growing competence in that area.

Trump’s appeal transcends traditional divides of race, gender and class. He has formed a new Republican coalition and to counteract this. Democrats too, must broaden their tent, even if means trying to appeal to conservatives on some issues. Opposition over the next four years must be strategic and broad-based. 

Street protests and calls to defend democracy may be inspirational, but they repel conservatives and suburban America. Any grassroots action must be coupled with a clear, relatable economic message and showcase the leadership potential of Democratic mayors and governors. Identity politics alone won’t do it.

6. Have Hope

Nothing lasts forever and the U.S. is not the only part of the world that faces threats to democracy — and Americans are no different than the French, the Turks or Hungarians when it comes to the appeal of the far right. But in a country with a strong, decentralized system of government and with a long-standing tradition of free speech, the rule of law should be far more resilient than anywhere in the world.

Trump’s return to power certainly poses challenges to U.S. democracy. But he will make mistakes and overplay his hand — at home and abroad. America will survive the next four years if Democrats pick themselves up and start learning from the successes of opponents of autocracy across the globe.

[cyberpunkonline]

What is a Cypherpunk?

The term "cypherpunk" refers to a movement and a community of activists advocating for the widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change. Emerging in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the cypherpunk movement is a confluence of libertarian political philosophy, hacker ethos, and cryptographic science.

The Core Traits of Cypherpunks

1. Advocacy for Privacy and Anonymity: Cypherpunks champion the right to privacy, emphasizing that individuals should have control over their personal information and digital footprints. This advocacy is often in direct opposition to government surveillance and corporate data collection practices.

2. Use of Cryptography: The cornerstone of the cypherpunk movement is the use of strong cryptography to secure communications and transactions. Cypherpunks believe that through cryptographic techniques, individuals can protect their privacy in the digital world.

3. Open Source and Decentralization: A significant trait among cypherpunks is the belief in open-source software and decentralized systems. This ethos promotes transparency, security, and resistance to censorship and control by central authorities.

Who are the Cypherpunks?

The cypherpunk community consists of programmers, activists, academics, and technologists. Notable figures include Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks; Jacob Appelbaum, a former spokesperson for the Tor Project; and Hal Finney, a pioneer in digital cash systems. The manifesto "A Cypherpunk's Manifesto" by Eric Hughes (1993) [https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html] eloquently encapsulates the philosophy and ideals of this movement.

The Cypherpunk Movement

Cypherpunks are not a formal organization but rather a loosely associated group sharing common interests in cryptography and privacy. The movement's origins can be traced to the “Cypherpunks” mailing list, started in 1992 by Eric Hughes, Timothy C. May, and John Gilmore. This list served as a platform for discussing privacy, cryptography, and related political issues.

Relation to Cyberpunk Principles

While cypherpunks share some overlap with the cyberpunk genre of science fiction, they are distinct in their real-world activism. Cyberpunk literature, like William Gibson's "Neuromancer" (1984) [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6088006-neuromancer], often presents a dystopian future where technology is pervasive and oppressive. In contrast, cypherpunks aim to use technology, specifically cryptography, as a tool for empowerment and resistance against such dystopian futures.

Notable Contributions and Technologies

The cypherpunk movement has been instrumental in the development of technologies that emphasize privacy and security:

Tor (The Onion Router): A free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication [https://www.torproject.org/].

Pretty Good Privacy (PGP): A data encryption and decryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication [https://www.openpgp.org/].

Bitcoin: The creation of Bitcoin by an individual or group under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto was heavily influenced by the ideas of the cypherpunk movement. It embodies principles of decentralization and financial privacy [https://bitcoin.org/en/].

Wikileaks: Founded by Julian Assange, WikiLeaks is a multinational media organization that publishes news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources [https://wikileaks.org/].

Conclusion

The cypherpunk movement is a critical lens through which to view the ongoing dialogue about privacy, security, and freedom in the digital age. While not an organized group, the collective impact of cypherpunks on modern cryptography, internet privacy, and digital rights is profound. As digital technology continues to permeate every facet of our lives, the principles and contributions of the cypherpunk community remain more relevant than ever. - REV1.

[big-blog-of-cheese-day]

To pull it back around to the original point, what I find interesting is that, and this could just be my experience, there's very little actually enforcement of the social norms, but they're still deeply ingrained.

Like, I can't remember the last time I saw someone actually complain about an "pointless" addition to a post in a reblog. Still, for those who pick up on this norm, it's heavily internally policed. I'm pretty new to Tumblr all things considered, and I've looked back at some of my older posts, and I clearly "violated" that norm. I cringe at them for not following these rules. But no one ever actually told me to not post like that, I just instinctively put that limitation on myself.

If I'm not making myself clear, I'm not trying to say that this makes it more or less ethical. It's just interesting to me that these norms can be so effectively put in place without people necessarily being etiquette police.

For a site that calls itself "the autism website" tumblr sure does love to rigidly enforce unspoken social rules.

[post-leffert]

Announcing Open Distro: A Site for DIY Anarchist Publishers!

From Open Distro

Open Distro is a full-service stop (ok, not really; we're not selling anything) for helping you with your new or on-going anarchist publishing project.

If you have been wondering what it would take to get started in book-making, or are looking for PDFs of some of the books you love, or have some of what you need and are stuck in the final stages of whatever, this is the place to come and get information from experienced people. Little Black Cart and Contagion Press started this exercise in decentralization (and will soon be joined by anarchist publishers near you!). LBC and CPress also have very different styles of production, which will benefit folks who want to learn from our differences and mistakes as well as from what has worked for us.

There are various ways that people can enter into this process (from being gifted a printing machine to having a copier hookup to wanting to handbind your own works, and so on), so the site will provide information on multiple options for each of the main tasks: printing, binding, and cutting. It also hosts PDFs of books that have been prepped for printing already. This site could be considered a combination of The Anarchist Library and Four Thieves Vinegar Collective, only made by and for anarchist publishers.

We hope and expect that other long-term DIY bookmaking folks will participate as well, either with their own PDFs, or with their experiences on various machines and workflows, or all of the above.

And the forums will be learning experiences for all of us, per usual.

Check it out! https://opendistro.net/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Collective Intelligence Institute

History is written by the winners, which is why Luddite is a slur meaning “technophobe” and not a badge of honor meaning, “Person who goes beyond asking what technology does, to asking who it does it for and who it does it to.”

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/07/full-stack-luddites/#subsidiarity

Luddites weren’t anti-machine activists, they were pro-worker advocates, who believed that the spoils of automation shouldn’t automatically be allocated to the bosses who skimmed the profits from their labor and spent them on machines that put them out of a job. There is no empirical right answer about who should benefit from automation, only social contestation, which includes all the things that desperate people whose access to food, shelter and comfort are threatened might do, such as smashing looms and torching factories.

The question of who should benefit from automation is always urgent, and it’s also always up for grabs. Automation can deepen and reinforce unfair arrangements, or it can upend them. No one came off a mountain with two stone tablets reading “Thy machines shall condemn labor to the scrapheap of the history while capital amasses more wealth and power.” We get to choose.

Capital’s greatest weapon in this battle is inevitabilism, sometimes called “capitalist realism,” summed up with Frederic Jameson’s famous quote “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” (often misattributed to Žižek). A simpler formulation can be found in the doctrine of Margaret Thatcher: “There Is No Alternative,” or even Dante’s “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

Hope — alternatives — lies in reviving our structural imagination, thinking through other ways of managing our collective future. Last May, Wired published a brilliant article that did just that, by Divya Siddarth, Danielle Allen and E. Glen Weyl:

https://www.wired.com/story/web3-blockchain-decentralization-governance/

That article, “The Web3 Decentralization Debate Is Focused on the Wrong Question,” set forth a taxonomy of decentralization, exploring ways that power could be distributed, checked, and shared. It went beyond blockchains and hyperspeculative, Ponzi-prone “mechanism design,” prompting me to subtitle my analysis “Not all who decentralize are bros”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/12/crypto-means-cryptography/#p2p-rides-again

That article was just one installment in a long, ongoing project by the authors. Now, Siddarth has teamed up with Saffron Huang to launch the Collective Intelligence project, “an incubator for new governance models for transformative technology.”

https://cip.org/whitepaper

The Collective Intelligence Project’s research focus is “collective intelligence capabilities: decision-making technologies, processes, and institutions that expand a group’s capacity to construct and cooperate towards shared goals.” That is, asking more than how automation works, but who it should work for.

Collective Intelligence institutions include “markets…nation-state democracy…global governance institutions and transnational corporations, standards-setting organizations and judicial courts, the decision structures of universities, startups, and nonprofits.” All of these institutions let two or more people collaborate, which is to say, it lets us do superhuman things — things that transcend the limitations of the lone individual.

Our institutions are failing us. Confidence in democracy is in decline, and democratic states have failed to coordinate to solve urgent crises, like the climate emergency. Markets are also failing us, “flatten[ing] complex values in favor of over-optimizing for cost, profit, or share price.”

Neither traditional voting systems nor speculative markets are up to the task of steering our emerging, transformative technologies — neither machine learning, nor bioengineering, nor labor automation. Hence the mission of CIP: “Humans created our current CI systems to help achieve collective goals. We can remake them.”

The plan to do this is in two phases:

Value elicitation: “ways to develop scalable processes for surfacing and combining group beliefs, goals, values, and preferences.” Think of tools like Pol.is, which Taiwan uses to identify ideas that have the broadest consensus, not just the most active engagement.

Remake technology institutions: “technology development beyond the existing options of non-profit, VC-funded startup, or academic project.” Practically, that’s developing tools and models for “decentralized governance and metagovernance, internet standards-setting,” and consortia.

The founders pose this as a solution to “The Transformative Technology Trilemma” — that is, the supposed need to trade off between participation, progress and safety.

This trilemma usually yields one of three unsatisfactory outcomes:

Capitalist Acceleration: “Sacrificing safety for progress while maintaining basic participation.” Think of private-sector geoengineering, CRISPR experimentation, or deployment of machine learning tools. AKA “bro shit.”

Authoritarian Technocracy: “Sacrificing participation for progress while maintaining basic safety.” Think of the vulnerable world hypothesis weirdos who advocate for universal, total surveillance to prevent “runaway AI,” or, of course, the Chinese technocratic system.

Shared Stagnation: “Sacrificing progress for participation while maintaining basic safety.” A drive for local control above transnational coordination, unwarranted skepticism of useful technologies (AKA “What the Luddites are unfairly accused of”).

The Institute’s goal is to chart a fourth path, which seeks out the best parts of all three outcomes, while leaving behind their flaws. This includes deliberative democracy tools like sortition and assemblies, backed by transparent machine learning tools that help surface broadly held views from within a community, not just the views held by the loudest participants.

This dovetails into creating new tech development institutions to replace the default, venture-backed startup for “societally-consequential, infrastructural projects,” including public benefit companies, focused research organizations, perpetual purpose trusts, co-ops, etc.

It’s a view I find compelling, personally, enough so that I have joined the organization as a volunteer advisor.

This vision resembles the watershed groups in Ruthanna Emrys’s spectacular “Half-Built Garden,” which was one of the most inspiring novels I read last year (a far better source of stfnal inspo than the technocratic fantasies of the “Golden Age”):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/26/aislands/#dead-ringers

And it revives the long-dormant, utterly necessary spirit of the Luddites, which you can learn a lot more about in Brian Merchant’s forthcoming, magesterial “Blood In the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech”:

https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/

This week (Feb 8–17), I’ll be in Australia, touring my book Chokepoint Capitalism with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We’ll be in Brisbane tomorrow (Feb 8), and then we’re doing a remote event for NZ on Feb 9. Next are Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. I hope to see you!

[Image ID: An old Ace Double paperback. The cover illustration has been replaced with an 18th century illustration depicting a giant Ned Ludd leading an army of Luddites who have just torched a factory. The cover text reads: 'The Luddites. Smashing looms was their tactic, not their goal.']

[389]

Another feature that could spark more discussions: Instagram’s network isn’t starting from scratch. It will build on the company’s own network yes. But over time, Threads will also let you follow discussions on Mastodon and potentially other services that adopt ActivityPub. Tumblr and WordPress, which share a parent company, have both said they will support publishing on the protocol. In a year or two, then, you might read WordPress blog posts in Threads — or read Threads posts in your favorite Mastodon client. It’s an almost unthinkable reversal from Meta’s extremely lucrative walled-garden strategy, which it has employed for its entire history as a company. But Mosseri told me that decentralization is the future of social networks — even if it means that someday a disgruntled Threads user will be able to take the following they build in the app to another network, never to return. “There definitely are trade offs,” Mosseri said. “You're giving up some control. But there are benefits. I do think over time, it's going to be a more compelling value proposition that other apps are going to offer. And I think that should attract more creative talent over the long run.”

— Casey Newton, in a Platformer piece discussing Instagram’s new Twitter clone, quoting their chief Adam Mosseri

[genericpuff]

How am I supposed to find indie webcomics? I’m up-to-date on a handful of them and love them all but I’m just not sure how to find new ones. Most searches for webcomics lead you to the mainstream sites.

I mean mainstream sites are fine in and of themselves if you're following the series you like there (especially if the creators of those comics are trying to opt into things like Ad Rev), but if you're wanting to find stuff outside of Webtoons and Tapas, here are some other methods to do so:

Random Webcomic - About as unbiased as you can get, literally sends you to the website for a comic it pulls at random. All comics in the roulette are user-submitted so for the most part, they're all still active or at least have live sites. Sometimes you'll find the odd broken link tho ;0

Top Webcomics - A collective of webcomics competing for top spots. Offers plenty of ad space where people advertise their comics whether or not they make it to the top of the voting pool. And has genre listings you can browse if competitive listings aren't your thing.

The Webcomic List - A collection of webcomics submitted by users that are then crawled by the site's bots to check for new updates. It has a list for most recently updated, but also sorts by genre. Definitely one of the most "old school" listings to exist.

SpiderForest - A jury-picked collection of webcomics. Once every year or two they open submissions where people can pitch their new or ongoing comics - if they're picked, they get a special listing and features on the site, and can either have their existing website affiliated with SF branding or have a new site created for them by the staff. It's all non-profit and it mostly serves as a community of creators and readers, they are not a publisher, but they offer a wide variety of titles.

Hiveworks - Similar concept to SpiderForest except they're an actual publisher so they offer even more benefits to their selected creators including print deals and merchandising, but as such they're way harder to get into. Their submissions have been closed for a VERY long time but they offer a wide array of comics that typically appeal to general-audiences (i.e. there are no NSFW comics AFAIK).

GlobalComix - A platform that, while not new anymore, has been making strides in competing with platforms like Webtoons and Tapas. Has a lot of Western-style comics but their library variety has been growing and I'm pretty sure they're planning on releasing an app soon (if they haven't already).

ComicFury - The final frontier of old school early 2000's webcomic platforms. Run by one guy, this site allows for full HTML/CSS customization, domain hosting, and all those fun little things from an era long gone by. The front page sorting is set to "Recently updated" by default so there's no algorithm bullshit, no editors playing favorites, just classic 2000's era reading.

As a final note, the best part about browsing for comics that have their own sites is that they usually include listings of other comics that are similar to their own. Sites like Tamberlane will often have roulettes of other recommended comics that you can sift through.

There are plenty other comic aggregation sites out there too, of course, but these ones should help you get started if you're looking for other platforms and archives that aren't subject to corporate scrubbing or picky algorithms. It helps decentralize the Internet just a little bit more and rejuvenate what made webcomics so amazing in the first place - independent ownership, accessibility, and unapologetic existence.

Enjoy! <3

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Andy Campbell at HuffPost:

The Proud Boys were the face of political violence in America during Trump’s first term. They hosted bloody street fights across the country week after week, and helped to normalize violence at everyday civic events. They intimidated and attacked people at libraries, school board meetings, drag queen story hours, reproductive health events and political rallies. They cozied up to Trump’s inner circle, enjoyed support from prominent Republicans and right-leaning media and secured political seats of their own. And on Jan. 6, 2021, they led an attempted insurrection at the Capitol. Dozens of Proud Boys were incarcerated over the Capitol attack, including four leaders who were found guilty of a rare seditious conspiracy charge. Their sentences had a dramatic effect on the extremist landscape over the next few years; though the incidence of political violence continued to swell throughout Biden’s term, the Proud Boys and many of their allies were forced to decentralize and flee the national spotlight. The public support they once enjoyed from right-wing politicians and pundits began to wane. They were rarely seen gathering en masse, and some of their chapters splintered or disbanded altogether. By 2023, the Proud Boys as an organization appeared to be circling the drain. But on Monday, a newly inaugurated President Donald Trump granted clemency to the lot of them. A handful of Proud Boys who led the siege at the Capitol on Jan. 6 had their sentences commuted, but the majority — including their leader, Enrique Tarrio — were gifted full, unconditional pardons, alongside the rest of the Capitol rioters. The cascading effects of pardoning some 1,500 insurrectionists remain to be seen. But to researchers, activists and reporters covering extremism in America, the implication was clear: Political violence will be tolerated, and even rewarded, when it’s carried out on behalf of Trump.

[...]

A Golden Era For Political Violence

The future is still uncertain for the Proud Boys as an organization. The gang has splintered since the Jan. 6 arrests, which hit them alongside revelations that Tarrio had previously been a “prolific” informant for local and federal law enforcement. Regardless of whether the Proud Boys reclaim their role as Trump’s extrajudicial enforcement arm or dissolve into obscurity, the political violence they helped normalize during his first term is positioned to thrive. In a column published Monday, The New York Times editorial board delivered a sobering warning to the Trump administration: “In this pardon, Mr. Trump forgave and thus provided encouragement for domestic terrorists who put members of Congress in danger of their lives; the long-term cost will be paid by the entire political system, not just his critics.”

The return of Donald Trump to office has emboldened far-right domestic terrorist groups such as Proud Boys.

See Also:

The Guardian: Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders among January 6 prisoners released by Trump

HuffPost: The Biggest Players of Jan. 6 Walk Free Thanks To Trump