How Decentralized Is Bluesky Really?

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Not a good choice for volunteer-driven community that is. A paid stuff might uphold some marginally functioning community against the forces of nature. They are paid to afford the time and energy investment.

Grassroots ecosystems, e.g. fedi and foss cannot be "orchestrated" into doing something collectively and then maintain / evolve it too. No "herding of cats" here.

Instead social dynamics must be accounted for. Figure out what intrinsically motivates.

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@serapath @teledyn @bhaugen @cwebber

So we need to think in "movements" here, imho. How do we get a mass to shift in the right direction? Well, by channeling it.

The biggest weakness in grassroots movement is also part of its strength. All these individuals following own nose, doing as they wish. They are like gas particles, moving all directions.

Ungovernable particles on their own. This lends resilience. Problem is, there is no directed force to punch with, and solve real problems together.

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@serapath @teledyn @bhaugen @cwebber

To get the mass of particles to act in unison you need a charged electro-magnetic field to energize them. A rallying cry, a shared vision.

Still not enough. This only aligns noses to face the south pole of progress together.

Last thing we need is to learn to tweak the ripples and fluctuations in the force field between particles, such that they happily dance together in harmony and choreagraph into these beautiful self-adapting standing waves patterns.

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@serapath @teledyn @bhaugen @cwebber

That is one analogy that appeals to me, at least. Another, better one, is seeking analogies with nature.

How does a grassroots movement organize itself?

Answer: Similar to how autonomous cells acting together form a living breathing organism.

Technically an event-driven architecture

Or: Like vast mycelium networks upon which mushrooms exchange nutrients to thrive and clone themselves.

P2P local-first state synchronisation? Semantic knowledge network?

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@serapath @teledyn @bhaugen @cwebber

Analogies, good. Inspiration by nature and mimicry then..

- Only organic growth and evolution.
- Foster spontaneous emergence.
- Find natural growth paths on-the-fly.
- Every individual participant is free.
- Seek incentives to align and converge.
- Seek for intrinsic motivation to contibute.
- Heart, passion, dreams are fuel to ignite.

Very different than how the biz world operates. Traditional biz practices are no good match to model our governance.

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@serapath @teledyn @bhaugen @cwebber

There are alternative technology adoption models that are better matches for what we need.

Challenge: Fixing the Fediverse Technology Adoption Lifecycle

Background These are just some notes related to my observation that: On Fediverse Ad-hoc Interoperability dominates and hampers innovation. Need to clarify some terminology that I frequently use relating to Social Co…

Discuss Social Coding (discuss.coding.social)

These inspired me to start social coding movement. I am working on a concept, that has all these characteristics, and can be both be a design model and organizational formula (adding an as yet missing layer at ecosystem level), that can be supported by apps, automated services & tools on the social web..

And can evolve that web subsequently.

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@serapath @teledyn @bhaugen @cwebber

This concept I call "prosperity guilds" and is based on an overarching strategy of "leveraging the ecosystem" and charge the gas to have punching power

Main theme is "inherent (holistic) sustainability at any time, during the entire lifecycle of an initiative". That is the foundation to build on.

Sustainability so that e.g. FOSS projects don't shrivel as tiny mushrooms and die, but grow vast mycorrhiza networks with plenty fresh & independent offshoot.

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@serapath @teledyn @bhaugen @cwebber

With a proper conceptual model, a good enough domain design for "commons-driven adaptive adhocracy" we can drill down to what protocols and architecture support best match.

Regardless of under-the-hood tech, I hope we enter an era of app-free computing, where services choreograph into dynamic social experiences tailored to satisfy needs and adaptive to the context of the social interactions that take place between people.

And thriving service ecosystems.

𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓹𝓪𝓽𝓱【ツ】☮(📍🇬🇧)

@smallcircles @teledyn @bhaugen @cwebber

i disagree.
git is a good example and nom as well.

git the tool and npm the tool was enough to create enormous open source supply chains, a.k.a dependency trees

𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓹𝓪𝓽𝓱【ツ】☮(📍🇬🇧)

@smallcircles @teledyn @bhaugen @cwebber yes. traditional biz practices are not a match at all. agree.

i do think we need a tool like git for "github issues" to solve this.

basically taking inspiration from GANTT charts or PERT charts (kinda the same)

a command line tool, peer to peer, where peer add their payment address rather than email address to the confit and in sync with git commits or rather guiding the work and by version controlled recording it, allowing payments to dependency trees

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@serapath @teledyn @bhaugen @cwebber

Sure. But I was more holistically referring to all the processes and people involved throughout the free software development lifecycle and within its larger environment, and how then deliverables come about. Then git is but one of many tools and practices in the supply chain that allowed for this robust organization structures to emerge.

Christine Lemmer-Webber

@steve yeah I'm well aware that it's not a *pure* actor model system, I have implemented multiple of those

It's still more of an actor model system than most things and that's still one of AP's misunderstood strengths

And re: behavior in AP, it can modify its own internal state and you can implement AP using an actor model system that way, even if the spec doesn't specify "you must modify your own internal state"

Christine Lemmer-Webber

@Weatherwax I actually strongly agree with that; our focus in Spritely is on "secure collaboration" and intentional cooperation for individuals and communities

Evan Prodromou

@cwebber @bnewbold I do think if someone at a commercial startup asks the director of a nonprofit to write a 24-page report including extensive technical research, they should help offset that work.

But Christine assured me that it's not the case; the level of effort was not requested and is entirely up to her. She's a grown woman, a professional, and knows how to allocate her own time.

Evan Prodromou

@cwebber @bnewbold I will leave it up to Brian to decide what Bluesky wants to do to support Christine's work.

For the rest of us who appreciate this and other research she does, I highly recommend making a contribution to the Spritely Institute.

Spritely Networked Communities Institute | Every.org

Spritely Institute builds, researches, and standardizes networked technology which put people and communities first.

Every.org (www.every.org)

bryan newbold

@cwebber I've read the whole blog post now, and it is solid! sheds light, good framing, gets to the good stuff.

thank you / congrats!

planning to reply in longer form soon

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@serapath @teledyn @bhaugen @cwebber

Yes, I think indeed git or git-like revision control mechanism can be good solution technologies, candidate for lower-level role in many a robust social stack people stash together.