neil @neil@social.coop

Spread good vibes and good info.

"Our reporters will look into:

- How disasters disproportionately impact the most vulnerable and what can be done to respond and rebuild in a just and equitable way

- How communities can prevent "disaster capitalists" (those who seek to profit through rebuilding/recovery efforts) from preying on various populations in the aftermath of a crisis"

Slightly hesitant about the name. It's important to avoid inadvertently framing disaster as an 'opportunity' for anything. I feel like referencing disaster capitalism has that negative association. But I also see why you'd want to directly present counter examples to something so unpleasant.

Cool, Shareable is working on a podcast called Disaster Collectivism. (As contrasted with disaster capitalism.)

Definitely an interesting topic. I was posting about this a bit ago, in reference to Rebecca Solnit's book A Paradise Made In Hell.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the podcast covers the topic.

Really enjoyed this interview with Esteban Kelly of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives.

Hits some great points like common misconceptions of worker coops (e.g. totally flat structure); the question of 'get big' vs 'replicate'; how coops avoid boom bust cycles.

Interesting distinction of anti-capitalist and acapitalist, that's a new one on me.

https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/episode-21-worker-cooperatives-system-change-esteban-kelly

The Broken Spoke bike coop in Oxford is fundraising to move to a new home - send some solidarity their way if you can spare anything!

They do DIY workshops, mechanics courses, cycle training, events for underrepresented groups, and lots more great stuff.

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/keep-broken-spoke-pedalling/?

#bikes #coops #oxford

Another great episode of Upstream. It discusses the coops of Mondragon, and the challenges they faced as they got bigger and brushed up against the global capitalist system. And discusses Cooperation Jackson and their learnings from Mondragon. Emphasises the need for strong political direction in addition to forming coops.

I like the metaphor of islands of coops forming in the sea of capitalism, and eventually they all join up.

https://www.upstreampodcast.org/workercoops2

#coops #mondragon #cooperationjackson

My parents met in a library, working as librarians.

I find that really nice.

Save some small piece of grassland for a red kite on a windy day.

cybrarian

As abstracts go, this is a pretty good one.

"The text proposes questions for an information culture like ours facing technological and informational calamity. [...]This article examines the external world that makes living in an internal virtual world necessary, then explores the issue of whether the Librarian is a harmful or beneficial creation, and finally considers the Librarian as a force for civility."

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251011743_Agent_of_Civility_The_Librarian_in_Neal_Stephenson's_Snow_Crash

Hmm, the Mastodon interface doesn't show you what time you boosted something at. Just the time it was posted at.

#mastodon

Still not found a happy medium between indieweb and Mastodon. I've been neglecting my own website for a while and mostly just posting on Mastodon.

Think I'll go through and do some retroactive backporting/PESOS (https://indieweb.org/PESOS)

I like having my posts on my site, kind of as a backup, and also it's a lot easier to search through old posts.

#indieweb

"we're not just trying to build cooperatives for cooperatives' sake. We're trying to build vehicles, very explicitly and very intentionally, of social transformation."

Nice Q&A with Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson.

https://www.shareable.net/blog/kali-akuno-qa

#cooperationjackson #jacksonrising

Good bit of municipal action here: "the scheme gives citizens the opportunity to be reimbursed for up to 50 % of repair costs amounting to a maximum of 100 EUR per year"

http://www.rreuse.org/households-in-graz-offered-100-eur-per-year-to-have-their-things-repaired/

#repair