bhaugen @bhaugen@social.coop

When day comes we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. In the norms and notions of what “just” is, isn’t always just-ice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colours, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know that to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried that will forever be tied together victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. This effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised, but whole, benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, if we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than one we were left with. Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limned hills of the West. We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realised revolution. We will rise from the Lake Rim cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.

-- Amanda Gordon

#Inauguration2021 #AmandaGordon

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IDK what to make out of this. On the one hand these companies should be beholden to the laws of countries they operate in. On the other, the concrete situation of rule of law in Turkey is bad. But also, the government is about to go.

This is interesting also wrt fediverse. It really shows how unnatural a setting these companies have put us in: almost all of the world is now partially beholden to and affected by US law, and to the profit motives of a bunch of multinationals.

For those who are allergic to Mailchimp:

Cooperation and Chocolate
https://geo.coop/articles/cooperation-and-chocolate

A New Landscape for Skill-Sharing
https://geo.coop/articles/new-landscape-skill-sharing

Meet the Boston Ujima Project
https://www.shareable.net/boston-ujima-project-racism-in-finance-has-sparked-a-grassroots-response/

The gig is up
https://this.org/2021/01/07/the-gig-is-up/

Do worker cooperatives pay a price for equality?
https://thesocialistentrepreneur.com/2021/01/04/do-worker-cooperatives-pay-a-price-for-equality/

On growing a cooperative
https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/designer-architect-teacher-and-learner-dan-taeyoung-on-growing-a-cooperative-like-youd-grow-a-garden/

Debunking the Myth of Homo economicus
https://www.upstreampodcast.org/homoeconomicus

Game Workers Unite!
https://www.gameworkersunite.org/worker-co-op-resource

"We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." ~MLK

The polio #vaccine is another great example of this. What other good examples are there? Must be loads...

RT @ankithharathi@twitter.com

In 1959, a Swedish engineer at Volvo patented what would become one of the greatest inventions of all time

Volvo stood to make billions

But after a meeting with Volvo's President, he decided to give it away for free - and it changed the world

Here’s how that meeting went 🧶👇

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/ankithharathi/status/1348795522547650560

“Are you in BK? Do you care abt the well-being of 50%+ of renter in Brooklyn - mostly blk and brwn - facing the looming threat of an eviction during a deadly pandemic? Do you want to start organizing, doing direct action and building relationships at an crucial site of class and race struggle? Please join sign up to BED and attend our orientation Tuesday January 19th from 6-7. After you sign up you’ll receive an email with all the necessary information to plug in. Solidarity!”
(Vía BED)

I vividly remember how much of an unlikely fight it felt like to standardize ActivityPub. A wild contrast to see AP articles on the frontpage of lobste.rs and HN regularly!

It's so easy for me to despair about the work ahead... a reminder: sometimes we succeed!

On this week's episode of @fossandcrafts we talk with @vickysteeves about opening everything in academic research (source, data, methods, documentation, etc).

It was also great to have a chat with someone whose interests in academics, computing, and fiber arts intersect so much with my own!

https://fossandcrafts.org/episodes/21-vicky-steeves.html

Y'all get real touchy and complain if I say there's no time left for people to not be addressing climate collapse and the 6th mass extinction, saying that I'm just being a fear monger.

Here's /yet another/ piece from Westerners (the fifth I've linked this week I think) that says y'all need to face this anxiety if you don't want to doom your children to death.

I know that's grim but it's just how it is, and saying "no" doesn't change that, it just makes it harder on everyone.

https://hothouse.substack.com/p/no-time-for-bystanders

"...Such a tool, by definition, promotes class-based discrimination, and when it does so, it is seen to be doing its job. However, when it disiriminates based on a single-axis characteristic (race OR gender OR disability) that is explicitly protected by the law, then it is said to be biased."

#algorithms #WeaponsOfMathDestruction

"In other words, the book is a compendium of designed objects that are difficult to use that provides key principes for better design, but it almost entirely ignores questions of how #race, #class, #gender, #disability, and other aspects of the matrix of domination shape and constrain access to affordances. #DesignJustice is an approach that asks us to focus sustained attention on thes questions, benning with "how does the matrix of domination shape afforance perceptibility and availability?"

"Put another way, why do we continue to design technologies that reporduce existing systems of power #inequality when it is so clear to so many that we urgently need to dismantle those systems?"

"Why do the most popular #socialmedia platforms provide such limited affordances for the important work of community organizing and movement building? Why is the time, energy, and brilliance of so many designers, software devlopers, product managers, and others who work on platforms focused on optimizing our digital world to capture and monetize our attention, over other potential goals (e.g. maximizing civic engagement, making environmentally sustainable choices, buiding empathy ... ?)"

This thread by Zooko is worth reading to consider just how much we depend on a *single* institution to keep most contemporary cultural production alive. Yet much is *not* archived (eg YouTube!) https://twitter.com/zooko/status/1271151348273143808

The fediverse has not yet done better, but could (I left a rant here:) https://twitter.com/dustyweb/status/1350938649454669830

We're evolving the governance features of karrot and looking for examples of existing community guidelines, rules, agreements, etc.

This is to make sure the model we come up with will be usable for a range of different groups with different approaches.

Any you can share with us?

To get the ball rolling the noisebridge ones are a good example for us to look at --> https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Community_Standards

Boosts for visibility welcome!

/by https://social.coop/@nicksellen

I don't think people realize why its important to remove white supremacists from your board/forum/web community.

- They are extremely motivated.
- They have a tradition of recruiting via meme(in the classic sense).
- They have centuries of effective propaganda.
- They will take over. Slowly at first then suddenly.
- They will always create more moderation work for you. They will never stop pushing.

Every society struggles with this. And it's not some conspiracy.

A monopolist's first preference is not to be regulated.

A monopolist's second preference is to be regulated in a way that only it can comply with - and that none of its competitors can comply with.

Oh, hai, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg!

"I think [the insurrection was] largely organized on platforms that don’t have our abilities to stop hate, and don’t have our standards, and don’t have our transparency."

https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1348721745688211460

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Translation: make rules that ban all the smaller platforms that compete with us, otherwise Qanon-addled musketfuckers will hogtie Congress with zip-cuffs and execute them in the Capitol Dome.

Even if that was true (and to be clear, *it is not true*), it would be a terrible idea.

But (again): *it's not true*.

"Facebook played a much larger role than Sandberg suggested."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/13/facebook-role-in-capitol-protest/

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