@glyph Did you quote post something?

[mux@swingset.social]

@glyph
It was a TAZ. Temporary Autonomous Zones happen naturally in spaces where there is no clear social hierarchy for a long enough period, like the Wild West, or the Occupy encampments.

They cannot last, as power abhors a vacuum, but while they do, every one that took part is forever changed by that glimpse of freedom and will yearn for the rest of their life, to feel it just one more time.

[skry@mastodon.social]

@rrwo
In the long continuum between Cause and Qanon are Control, Class, Collusion, and Kleptocracy. The internet also lets us learn historical nuance and follow the money when the corporate captured media won't investigate.

@glyph

[vordring@bark.lgbt]

@garrwolfdog @glyph True, but the difference is in how far we take the argument of "the man with technology is like an alcoholic with a barrel of wine". The printing press is a Kaczynski style example, while the post is a modern left example (notably, used by Graeber in his internet critique).

[isaackuo@spacey.space]

@glyph Well, one of those "few promising ideas" is Free Software, and the continued existence and thriving of the Debian project is a humongous thing we don't need to re-run from scratch.

Back in the 1980s, Free Software was partly a theoretical - there wasn't a fully functional Free OS yet. We have that now, and much more. Debian's software repositories are easily the biggest and most comprehensive software eco-system bar none. Commercial software can't even come close.

This is something that

[isaackuo@spacey.space]

@glyph the big commercial computing corporations are trying to undo. They're trying to force us into closed gardens of iOS and Android, and Microsoft has also been trying to figure out how to force everyone into some sort of closed garden.

But so far, these efforts have not yet succeeded.

So, we've got a much better starting point than 1978.

[hairylarry@gamerplus.org]

@glyph @aeva

Similarly the music industry will never go back to a time when a record contract was the only path to success. That doesn't mean that the record industry no longer exists. It just means that the internet, email, etc. give musicians options.

#computing #internet #music #promotion

[baconandcoconut@freeradical.zone]

@etsyy @glyph I guess I'm not sure that we do "collectively act against our own best interests?" I think people reliably act in their own best interests but that we don't all agree on what interests we should prioritize for ourselves or our community. I think that privacy is important and others may think that safety and convenience are more important.

[baconandcoconut@freeradical.zone]

@etsyy @glyph Maybe those folks have not seen the studies about the minimal impact that increased surveillance has on safety or maybe their experience is that safety in in such short supply that they will try anything.

[baconandcoconut@freeradical.zone]

@etsyy @glyph Having a listening device in my house that connects to one company and knows about all my shopping and health needs sounds Orwellian to me, but if I were physically disabled and there was not a "no surveillance option" then I can't say I would not choose convenience. People can only choose better options when there are better options for them to choose.

[scooter@labyrinth.zone]

@etsyy @baconandcoconut @glyph Trying to figure out human nature from analyzing the arc of computer development, even in a social context, would be extremely difficult. While there are some sociological and philosophical constructs to explain it, suffice it to say that this is something human beings just do.

[glyph@mastodon.social]

@scooter @baconandcoconut @etsyy when thinking of indifference to suffering in big abstract sociological terms I am often reminded of the discordian sermon on ethics and love:

mal-2: Everywhere people are hurting one another, the planet is rampant with injustices …

eris: WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THAT, IF IT IS WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?

mal-2: But nobody Wants it! Everybody hates it.

eris: OH. WELL, THEN STOP.

[scooter@labyrinth.zone]

@glyph @baconandcoconut @etsyy Or perhaps Alfred's "Some men just want to watch the world burn" speech from Batman...

[rustyring@mastodon.scot]

@glyph

Has happened over and over. Printing press, newspaper, steam, diesel, radio, TV, home recording...

The PTB will always use legislation and brute force to defend their privileged place at the top.

[berniedoesit@mstdn.social]

@etsyy @baconandcoconut @glyph The powerful are excellent at putting us in Nash equilibria that make it very hard for us to escape them.

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@baconandcoconut @glyph ah

we have context on this; our activism has allowed us to meet relatively senior people in the industry, in passing (they mostly didn't become lasting relationships because we're too critical of capital)

lots and lots of people up and down the org charts of all the big companies, have sincerely believed in that ideal

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@baconandcoconut @glyph what changed is that a lot of those people also believed, for ideological reasons, that democratizing information must be compatible with profit. they took that as a given, a thing to never be questioned, and therefore they missed all the red flags as their ideals got subverted

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@baconandcoconut @glyph but those of us who share the democratization ideal but come from someplace outside that trap, we have the ability to make that real, if we choose to, if we work together

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@baconandcoconut @glyph though personally if we were to state our goal for computers it's more about art:

computers should be tools to expand the human potential for creation, discover, and connection with each other

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@baconandcoconut @glyph notice that "democratization" is a theory of change, whereas our thing about potential is a desired end goal. we feel it's important to know what ideal world we're looking for, before we start thinking about the means by which we get there from here.

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@baconandcoconut @glyph there's an alternate lens on "what went wrong" with the ideals everyone held for computing in the 1990s, which is simply that democratizing access information does not automatically lead solely to positive change, such as magnifying self-expression and demolishing the prison in the mind; it also leads to negative change, such as magnifying hate