ckohtala @ckohtala@social.coop

#introduction #SocialCoop I'm a researcher based in Helsinki. my topics: #fablab, sustainable production, #sustainabledesign. interested in local economies and #PlatformCoops.

I find it so weird and confusing that things continue on 'as usual', that Brexit can continue on being enfubaraged, as if Cambridge Analytica never happened; the US + Canada election campaigns can continue as if illegal interference hadn't happened + is not still happening now, etc.
this is the biggest denial machine ever (+ I'm deliberately limiting my geographical + cultural coverage), the therapy sofa is not big enough, no one wants it anyway because we have become atomized.

duckduckgo search for 'protest 19 October 2019'

20 years ago, the protests in Seattle https://www.historylink.org/File/9213

I've already told everyone I know that I'm useless at most skills except maybe making and repairing basic furniture but keep me in the pack after the collapse because I will help document and archive, and foment long-think skills and performative humour. #Walkaway

✊✊✊things have clearly shifted, turmoil is inevitable, resilience is our strength and discomfort our training

yesterday Attila Bujdosó of Kitchen Budapest was in Helsinki to launch the Social Design Cookbook. it's a *beautiful* object and full of interviews and examples of how to use the Social Design Canvas to analyse and strengthen your 'social cooperation' initiatives. examples range from Helsinki's Restaurant Day to Critical Mass to Subjective Atlas
http://socialdesigncookbook.com

what is next, is capacity building, the listening, for the pluriverse. to allow for a world where many worlds fit.
for misunderstanding, for slowness, for humble science, for not being protective of oneself and being 'comfortable', for transcending AND including.

and because this will naturally happen online, for developing the capacities and competencies for offline community health and wellness - and online knowledge / information sharing AND the literacies to detect manipulation + fraud.

the ones who are interlinking the circles are slow + diligent. they are not demanding the mic because they have work to do. some of them know how to work the mic and for them we're grateful for their skills.
some of the enactors and + implementers have worked for decades. they have the LISTENING skills. they weave the weft within the constellations of actors to strengthen the resilience of the network of networks. they learn how to hear what reverberates.
what is audibly silent.

there is so much that is new. there is so much that is old that we pretend we don't know. (we - me = white euro woman).
globalization *has* changed us, I have more in common with my colleagues in upper middle class bangalore than neighbours + relatives working in the oilsands of canada.
we are our ancestors. we are not our ancestors.
we are being manipulated online and we pretend we are not.
we commons-wash the commons + create techno-utopias while sleeping with the money.

if you feel uncomfortable IT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE OBSOLETE ALREADY. you have lost track. you can't read the room and you can't pass the mic to those WHO KNOW because you no longer knows WHO HOLDS THE KNOWLEDGE. who knows the next stages, who know what resilience consists of.

science and knowledge making and civilization is not being restricted to some euro 'cradle'.
if you need that cradle then here is a baby bottle. suck it really hard.
self organization of small societies has always been built on 'call out culture', on the recognition that hierarchies needed to be constantly questioned for the sake of societal RESILIENCE and often SHEER PHYSICAL EXISTENCE.

I see so much HATE directed at the feminist writers today.
yes, some of their writings are complicated. but much of what they ask for is LISTENING, READING THE ROOM, nuance, comfort w non-black-and-white-zero-sum other-knowledges-being-possible, knowledge building collectively. PASSING THE MIC. hearing the unheard voices. seeing where the door is blocked and why.

allow the room in our mind, more importantly the TIME, to slowly let other knowledges seep in? and for those of us WITH privilege, with viewing perspective, to see interconnections, to FORGE generative synapses?
know when to shut the f*ck up. when to ampilfy.

are you abandoning routes fraught with peril + uncertainty because of 'call-out culture'? because you feel uncomfortable? why? can we shift the cushion a bit and sit on the dirt? cross-legged? with the others? on the same level? with the fire spitting sparks into our hair? knowing we will never be able to KNOW others' existences and know - and accept - that we will get off the floor and cushion and fly back to our previous existence? can we accept that we can't encompass everything - BUT STIll

as a white woman, my test. am I listening? am I performing a 'white saviour' move because of how I've grown up and been conditioned? do I know how to pass the mic? do I know how and where I can best act? can I amplify effectively without upstaging? can I train myself to know how to strengthen the resilience of the network by understanding its interconnections and weaknesses? and jump to strengthen weak links? is being on stage my 'thing'? can I always acknowledge our community collectiveness?

e.g. a white euro dude saying, "how dare you make me speak last!!!"
"what does that mean, read the room?!?"
"they are saying that we should not read books by old white men anymore!!!! civilization is doomed!!!!!!!!"
"I'm a professor! don't you know who I am!"
"academia is corrupt!!!!! science is rational!!!!!"
--> proceed with a certain amount of caution and strategy. also: NOT ALLIES.

my litmus test.
"read the room."
"pass the mic."
(I also subject myself to the same test, this is my own challenge for the next xx amount of time.)

omfg I can't believe this stuff is being presented as 'fact' and 'science'.
"look, I know the patriarchy makes you uncomfortable but removing me from power makes me uncomfortable so just go back to your knitting circle and safe spaces, that's the only kind of feminism I can live with.." <- my paraphrasing summary of the article and the comments on it.
so frustrating. no wonder that whole movement has zero POC members and very few women. they left or were bullied out.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/p2p.open/permalink/2668072903236872/

earlier this year I watched a narcissist have a complete meltdown, producing lengthy, at-times-incoherent, apesh*t rants when his power and judgement were questioned. it was freaky.