Hey @ntnsndr JasonW pointed me at Opolis when I posted a question about how we could hire remote workers overseas at Catalyst. And the idea of a co-op that exists to provide members with all the basic needs we've foolishly associated with "employment" in the US seems great and so obvious in retrospect! But...
@ntnsndr having read the white paper, and watched the interviews w/ you and Jason and Yev, I don't get why crypto is involved. Why is that necessary to solve this problem? How is it beneficial? It just feels like an unnecessary layer of technical complexity. And one that I at least have a ton of negative associations with, from the endless parade of scams and cult-like manias that seem to be the norm for a lot of crypto applications. What's the reasoning there?
@ntnsndr I got into a little back and forth over there already. I was initially like "OMG how has nobody done this already?! This is amazing." and then I ran into the crypto stuff. And then the "self-soverign" language. And then I saw that almost every face in all of their YouTube videos was a white dude. And then I was like "ehhhhhh, I dunno about this, maybe it's scammy libertarians." But I engaged because I trust Jason.
@ntnsndr And tried to give some feedback about the gut response I was having, about wanting to back away from it after a cursory look... as someone who already works for a tech co-op and would love to forget about HR stuff and hire people overseas. So I like, kinda the target audience. But it felt like I was seeing red flags and that felt sad, because it does seem like there's a great underlying idea.
@ZaneSelvans I have had good experiences with them (as conversation partners, not work deals). But it is def more crypto culture than solidarity economy culture.
@ZaneSelvans Shhh whatever it takes to get people to make co-ops:)
But seriously, I can imagine potential scaling advantages, as well as governance possibilities. We could certainly ask them if you like on birdsite. I remember when it was just a crypto project, not yet a co-op. That's progress!