Kind: Notes

The World Wide Web was all about you create knowledge and how you create hyperlinks to different pieces of knowledge. So over time we kind of create this tapestry of humanity and what we know, which at another level of abstraction is kind of creating this meta-map of humanity. This meta-map of humanity is now controlled by these companies that are the ones who have access to the backend.

– The Global South Holds a Better Future of Tech w/ Juan Ortiz Freuler

I love the phrase tapestry of humanity here. I like the IndieWeb and personal wikis as a way of being part of the warp and weft of that tapestry.

I really enjoyed the latest episode of Tech Won’t Save Us, on a successful community action in Melbourne to stop Apple plonking an Apple store in their public square. It’s less about digital transgressions, more about the use of public space in the physical world, an interesting change and a reminder that the big tech firms have global physical presence too.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1004689/4872008-how-to-defeat-an-apple-store-w-tania-davidge

I stumbled on the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast the other day, and after listening to a few episodes (interviews with Dan Hind, Lizzie O’Shea, and Grace Blakely) I recommend it really highly, if you’re interested in tech from a (left-wing) political perspective.

https://techwontsave.us/

Just listened to the Tech Won’t Save Us interview with Dan Hind, where he discusses his ideas around a socialist agenda for digital technology. Included in that is a British Digital Cooperative. I’m a bit skeptical of a state-run platform, which at first blush sounds like it could be a bit of a StateBook, but I think Dan’s proposition is much more nuanced than that. I’d like to dig into it more (e.g. here).

I also like the idea of localised digital tech that he discussed – working in a locality with members of the local community to really work out what is needed in that area. Felt a bit like appropriate technology for digital.

The first chapter of Small is Beautiful is outlining the problem with production. It’s the same story: we are exploiting and overusing natural and human resources, treating them as capital and not income, and heading for a catastrophe as a result. That we need to make drastic changes to how our economy functions to divert from this path.

The thing is, this was written in 1973. Nothing has changed in this regard – in fact it has gotten worse. Makes you think that the latest popular cover versions of essentially the same tune (e.g. Doughnut Economics) are not going to change anything either, no matter how cogent and damning.

What will actually bring about change?

I’m on a bit of a non-fiction kick at the moment. I’ve started reading The Twittering Machine and Small is Beautiful.

The Twittering Machine is about the social industry and its effects. Though I guess at a broader level, it is about writing, and how we’re in an era where we’re all writing more than ever – but looking at the results of that.

Small is Beautiful is E. F. Schumacher’s collection of essays from the 70s that outlines his critique of Western economics, and describes ideas like appropriate technology and Buddhist economics.

I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading and not much writing the past week or so. I think that’s OK. It’s things I know I’m interested in, just don’t know that much about yet. I think the notes will coalesce into something eventually, with a bit of tending. The note-taking I’ve been doing is a bit too much copy-paste, not enough writing in my own words, so I could probably do with revisiting them a bit.

I’ve noticed some constellations of interest forming around agency, self-determination, networked agency, assemblage thinking, actor-network theory, the actor model. Which tie into my past interests in agent-based systems, and technological and political distributed systems.

Also a strand on meditation, appropriate technology, Buddhist economics, and Schumacher, triggered by the Rev Left Radio episode on Meditation, Materialism, and Marxism. Panda previously recommended Buddhist economics to me.

Re: assemblage thinking and actor-network theory:

Both have a topological view of space, in which distance is a function of the intensity of a relation.

^ this makes me think of Ton‘s idea of social distance – https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2019/06/feed-reading-by-social-distance/.

I like Nathan Sanders‘ CommunityRule site – giving a few different models of governance that might be followed in a free software project.

Like choosing a Creative Commons license, CommunityRule offers a palette of templates, from dictatorship to various flavors of democracy.

– How’s That Open Source Governance Working for You?

being explicit matters. It helps avoid that tyranny of structurelessness, ensuring that the lines of responsibility are clear. A Rule also serves as a mirror, encouraging community members to ask whether the current structure really fits the nature of the community. Any Rule should include provisions for how the community can evolve its governance as it matures, as any community must.

– How’s That Open Source Governance Working for You?