Standing on the shoulders of last year’s Cosocial reading group, let’s find our way to getting this going again!
I’m looking for collaborator(s) to co-host our reading group.
We can restart with reading Governable Spaces, by Nathan Schneider. Please note that there is a “Read the free, open access edition” option at the top of that page.
I’m in because…
I spend much time reading or interacting with content and want more engagement with people in order to learn together, get support and be inspired.
In my experience, more democratic governance empowers groups and enhances the well-being of individuals. In today’s autocratic moment, reading this is a much needed antidote.
I have a lot of (un)learning to do in pursuit of democratic governance.
Cosocial cooperative offers a unique opportunity to actively participate in democratic governance.
What would make it worth your while to join? Reply here to let us know.
That other people you know and like plan to participate? Lead the way! Let us know you’re interested.
Would you like to co-host the series or one session?
Want to start with a different reading? I’ll include proposed ideas in a poll to finalize our reading selection. For inspiration, see list of potential future readings in the Future Reading Group thread.
Are there other aspects influencing your choice to join?
Stay tuned - will follow up for meeting availability times.
Sounds great! Glad to see you interested in taking this on @tasha.
Happy to join for Governable Spaces next!
I’m not sure I could actively facilitate sessions right now as I have a few key CoSocial tasks on the go from now until June, but I would be a motivated attendee. What I could do is: support scheduling the calls, making luma events, and ofc we will always repost / post from the @coop account.
About (un)learning: I always think of that too: it takes practices and learning to cooperate and I always feel like I’m still learning how to do it all the time
Hey, @emd thanks for your post! Reading fiction is also an interesting idea. Would you like to propose a book? I can create a poll of reading group to finalize book selection and add proposed books to future-reads list. With any luck we can keep a good thing going!
Ooh I just realized I have a partial conflict for the first one, so I’ll be late.
I wonder if the amount of chapters for the first meeting might be a bit ambitious. It might be enough to focus on Into + Chap 1 or even just the Intro because we’ve scheduled it pretty soon after picking the book. But if no one has mentioned that then don’t mind me!
@dawn Thanks for the feedback! It looks like we still have just over two weeks to the first session. Agreed that it is a bit short for the most ambitiously packed session. I hear a motion (not technically ; need a term closer to proposal or change request for the group) to split session 1. I’ve split session 1 into three parts - will run a poll to see how the majority of the group wants to proceed.
Here’s the notes from our session! (I have to break it into multiple posts because of the link limit!) lots of great stuff, and some interesting book mentions:
Democracy in decline
p. 2 Schneider “will argue that the constraints in governance in online spaces have contributed to the peril of democratic politics in general”. Do you agree or disagree and why? What other aspects of technology and its use contribute to democratic decline, and how do constraints in governance compare?
Not totally sure that the peril immediately follows, but definitely feels like there is a lack of democracy online, and that can change people’s expectations of the rest of society.
We often discount that things such as advertising and social media have an effect on us.
Does feel like there is a decline in democracy - a scary one.
We have had a profound change in how we interact and organize (with smart phones and social media) - and that follows the changes from telephones and radio collapsing dialects within languages. Moving away from oligarchs controlling the media - lots of change even in the last year or so.
Deal with it by diving in, getting involved, not being left behind.
Participating and pushing back is important.
we don’t have democracy in online spaces, but that’s a second order effect:
capitalism, big tech monopolies, oligarchic power mean that we don’t really live in a democracy.
Loved the garden club bylaws example - and the follow up that practice democracy in small ways makes us more likely to practice larger democracy.
almost all public spaces are owned by some corporation - there is a lack of power, and you do have to go along to get along. that’s a terrible trend! training people out of democracy
Bylaws example made some feel optimistic - if we DO learn to take ownership of our spaces and social spaces, we can learn the skills that will help us become better at politics in general.
the world is so much richer than ancient Greece! there’s so much else we can learn from.
Book mention: The Dawn of Everything - David Graeber (esp about how property laws are all based on slavery from Roman laws)
Maybe Democracy-the-ideal is not our perfect goal, but can help us identify what we do want to build.
Politics is about people acting for their interests.
p. 9 Building online governable spaces could enable more powerful, creative movements…[or enable]…Anibal Quijano’s “totality”, a search for holistic, cross-cultural knowledge that welcomes difference and refuses domination. What do you see as benefits to building online governable spaces?
p.7 “…different [from civic associations] in online spaces: the ease of joining and leaving, the cultural and geographic diversity, the speed, the anonymity, the metrics of reputation…” What do you see as challenges of building online governable spaces?
p. 10 “Agre stressed that healthier politics begin with and end with human practices…” “Move slower and empower people” - Tuha Benjamin. What are ways to move slower and empower people?
(love these quote pulls)
Benefits: (Why are we doing this? it’s hard!)
everyone can particpate in ways that other spaces do not allow
personal power in people’s own lives - and that that is reflected in their groups - a shared circle of equals - the ability to suggest ways to make things better and have those suggestions seriously considered
it raises all of us up to have spaces where all of us have a say, a safe way to engage with everyone
we need more practice being in membership spaces, when you do hard things together and you do succeed TOGETHER it helps us see ourselves in new ways
we have very few mental models for HOW to do online goverance - hoping we’ll get some concrete ideas from this book!
feels wrong that we can put down how people should act into any kind of fully mechanised, codified set of rules
Book mention: Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences by Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star
^
Human policies can also get us into weird spaces where because that’s how we do it rules over how we should do it
Challenges with online spaces:
problems with people coming from spaces where they had no power and have no idea what to do
members need to know where to find answers/understand the structure/what power they have and how to use it
social learning - adjust to a place where you do have power and have the right to say things
the ease with which people exit
many of our social norms are about reducing all friction - and it’s hard to stay in a space where it takes more effort than we are wanting to spend
The way to deal with how hard people are is to continue to engage with people, from a technical and a governance space.
Implicit Feudalism
p. 37 “[Implicitly feudal]…designs have specific, sensible historical origins but unnecessary persistence…implicit feudalism has initiated users into a willingness to accept the exit logic and affective voice of their online fiefdoms without the effective voice of democratic participation.” How can the persistence of implicit feudalism be explained?
it was the model in early forums
it’s easier than taking other people’s opinions into account
people are making money off of it the way it is now
making money off it is a newer thing - BBSs, Usenet, etc
Not everyone has the bandwidth to be an active member in every forum, regardless of the structure - people who are more engaged have more power in some ways
it’s ok to not want to have a say in every single decision - even in our coops
initially the owners had responsibility and had control - even with social media platforms, there are owners and they are serious about their own profits
we have no soveriegnty in most of these online spaces
we have different roles in a public park vs a private backyard
paying in to the coop does give us a sense of ownership that makes it easier to take the voice that we also have
copies are cheap! how does that make it easier to do things digitally? if it were even easier to leave but take what matters to you…
even editing your myspace profile gave people a voice of a form, “a place that i can make changes to”
Lots of old communities had attempts to escape feudalism, and there’s a lot of new amazing things happening all the time.
CommunityRule Templates
Templates are “starting points for adopting the right Rule for your community.” Benevolent dictator, circles, consensus, do-acracy, elected board, jury, petition, self-appointed board. How have you experienced similar rules? What adaptations would you recommend?
reminds us of the creative commons license picker tool!
great for seeing the differences, but maybe it’s not enough to help you pick the right format for your needs
Invite to enable video. No recording and no transcription in use.
Share notes file with read/write permissions for everyone. Plan to post notes publicly after this session on CoSocial Discourse General Discussions
Invite to add name and/or handle to notes file
Goal is for notes capture the discussion, excluding who says what
Need a volunteer to take notes
Introductions (10 minutes)
Discussion (60-70 minutes)
2. Homesteading on a Superhighway: How the Politics of No-Politics Aided an Authoritarian Revival, Profile: A People’s History of Twitter
This chapter explores “homestead” as a cloistered place on the internet, does that match your (earlier) experiences online? Has it changed? When?
Are there other metaphors of the early internet that stand out to you?
The Californian ideology (a politics of no-politics, or a form of reactionary modernism that fuses parts of traditionally left and right political projects) was first developed in 1995, does it in some ways speak to our present? How so?
Á la Adam Curtis: “The original promise of the Californian Ideology, was that the computers would liberate us from all the old forms of political control, and we would become Randian heroes, in control of our own destiny. Instead, today, we feel the opposite—that we are helpless components in a global system—a system that is controlled by a rigid logic that we are powerless to challenge or to change.”
What are the ways that you see your everyday experiences online reflected in larger political economic formations?
Schneider uses the conceptul tools of fractals (adrienne marie down) and lattices (Agre) to connect the micro and the macro.
3. Democratic Mediums: Case Studies in Political Imagination, Profile: Excavations
Focuses on crypto economics and transformative justice / abolitionist thinkers to explore “remedies” to this moment. How do those two strains of thought hang together for you?
What do you think is key in the shift from scalability (the ability to expand without rethinking basic elements according to Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing) to subsidiarity (a principles that prioritizes local control wherever possible within a larger system according to Schneider)?
… an attention to social trust and coordination mechanisms the key insight from cryptoeconomics as all the “actually existing crypto” plays out at odds with the stated goals of democratization.
… Huzinga on the need for play and crypto economics “LARPing” the future into the present.
Top level thoughts:
metaphor of the homestead - not sure it captures the depth of feudalistic construct that tech is
^ it’s as if the land was created by the master, it’s so hard to escape the closed systems
homesteading machines = corporate machines, not building homes
collision of military/industrial tech with the idealistic california culture
homesteading has a ton of baggage as a metaphor, raises a lot of uncomfortable topics
the people that were left out don’t really have a voice
now the corporations are in charge, the people are not in charge of the spaces
homestead.com was an actual web builder site back in the day - it still exists!
early days of geocities with neighbourhoods, staking a claim on various topics
none of us have much connection to the Well - bbs’s early in the 80s did have the ability to download threads of conversation from Usenet or the Well
relationship between “homesteading” (connotations of settler-colonialism), tech feudalism, corporate control?
Next metaphor - Information Superhighway
2. Homesteading on a Superhighway: How the Politics of No-Politics Aided an Authoritarian Revival, Profile: A People’s History of Twitter
This chapter explores “homestead” as a cloistered place on the internet, does that match your (earlier) experiences online? Has it changed? When?
Are there other metaphors of the early internet that stand out to you?
The Californian ideology (a politics of no-politics, or a form of reactionary modernism that fuses parts of traditionally left and right political projects) was first developed in 1995, does it in some ways speak to our present? How so?
Á la Adam Curtis: “The original promise of the Californian Ideology, was that the computers would liberate us from all the old forms of political control, and we would become Randian heroes, in control of our own destiny. Instead, today, we feel the opposite—that we are helpless components in a global system—a system that is controlled by a rigid logic that we are powerless to challenge or to change.”
quote from
documentary! All watched over by Machines of Loving Grace - Adam Curtis
Philip Agre on Politics
CS → Anthropology, wrote a very bleak perspective of where computers are taking us
California is actually very conservative - very focused on maintaining status quo
pretty self-centered
Richard Barbrook and David Cameron wrote a paper that coins the phrase Californian Idealogy
critique of the fusion of left and right politics and the ends to which they want to use technology
Jeffersonian democracy and ties it to the Louisiana purchase - local power belongs to feudal lords, and the democracy is among the people who have power
our reading centers it on Yarvin, kind of a weird person to center it around - more of a 90s person, recently resurfaced, “neo-monarchist”
do we find Californian Ideology helpful?
reeks of privledges - politics of no politics, “political is personal” computers can liberate us! especially privileged in a time when not everyone had computers
it’s for the elite
homespaces being more about black women, home grown democracy - making your home a place you want to be, very personal.
What are the ways that you see your everyday experiences online reflected in larger political economic formations?
Schneider uses the conceptul tools of fractals (adrienne marie down) and lattices (Agre) to connect the micro and the macro.
What else do we to talk about for ch 2?
moving from centralized servers to peer-to-peer systems
seems to be heading to a place of peer-to-peer/community being better, essential
fractals - small becoming large, everyday concepts becoming overarching ideals
homeplace is a place where people are full humans, and that’s an aspect of the communities we want to build. subjects as opposed to objects.
vs Californian Idealogy is only for the land owners/the elites.
3. Democratic Mediums: Case Studies in Political Imagination, Profile: Excavations
we are trying to build inclusive institutions and that’s where this chapter takes us
didn’t talk about supremacy of human rights - not a topic in this book
about human cooperation and communications
feels like that should at least be mentioned
also only focused on a small portion of what is going on with crypto - we mostly see the money and criminality
goal around crypto doesn’t feel inclusivity, doing weird stuff might be able to repurpose
can we be inspired by their experiments? how can we expand them to be safe to use in the contexts we care about
link between the two things (abolitionists and crypto) here is the rapid experimentation possible for both of them - maybe trying to get at doing the abolition experiments at the speed of crypto
Yanis Varoufakis on crypto
things built on the current power structures will continue to serve those structures
one of us worked for a container shipping company that considered a distributed blockchain database for manifests - realistically was too slow for the needs of that business, couldn’t maintain the data volumes
technology understanding is not as accessible as it needs to be to understand the dynamics and the pitfalls of these systems - involves conversations like this to really think that stuff through
maybe too much change too fast for the social collective
it’s going to take us time to understand the blockchain technology/shared ledger
stuck within certain networks, such as Facebook
you enter into a digital room and it’s already preformatted - hard to see the group dynamics evolve
crypto/DAO - doesn’t work because we can’t replace human judgement with code
the point of law is that language is ambigious, and that’s why we need judges and lawyers
reducing to code is dehumanizing, and that can cause an emotional response in a lot of us - might be fair to say that many of us find it distasteful
LLMs are a sign that we are talking more about probablistic results instead of just binary
Focuses on crypto economics and transformative justice / abolitionist thinkers to explore “remedies” to this moment. How do those two strains of thought hang together for you?
What do you think is key in the shift from scalability (the ability to expand without rethinking basic elements according to Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing) to subsidiarity (a principles that prioritizes local control wherever possible within a larger system according to Schneider)?
lots of control at the local level, but can zoom out by having those local areas roll up to something that is small enough to be democratic
fractals look the same at all sizes - is this implying that we want the same kind of policies and procedures at each of the levels?
playing with ideas: per country, per masto server forms of harm reduction or transformative justice / accountability
governing is participatory, and we’re learning by doing
are we losing a sense of community partly because of becoming individual in the name of the law
in it together if we participate - people who do not vote/join a coop/etc are not used to participating
but it’s not grounded in a community as it might have been in the past
… an attention to social trust and coordination mechanisms the key insight from cryptoeconomics as all the “actually existing crypto” plays out at odds with the stated goals of democratization?
… Huzinga on the need for play and crypto economics “LARPing” the future into the present
Feedback (5 minutes)
Future sessions
June 4, 4:30-6pm PT
Read pages 84-130
; need a term closer to proposal or change request for the group) to split session 1. I’ve split session 1 into three parts - will run a poll to see how the majority of the group wants to proceed.