I have returned, with tea

[cwebber@social.coop]

Conway's Law says that a technical architecture reflects the social structure under which it was built. But the reverse is also true. The social structures *we can have* are made possible by the affordances of the tools we have available.

"Tech problems/social problems": false dichotomy.

[cwebber@social.coop]

It's for that reason that @spritely, while aiming for a *socially collaborative* revolution, is first focusing on a *technical* revolution.

It's too hard to build massively, securely collaborative tools right now. With Spritely's tools, p2p ocap secure tech is the *default output*.

[cwebber@social.coop]

Remember when I said that IMO @jay.bsky.team is the right person to lead Bluesky and that I am sympathetic with many design decisions of Bluesky (even if critical of them for being non-decentralized)?

Bluesky is building what they can for a scale big objective. The tech flows from goals.

[cwebber@social.coop]

So too does the social structure flow from the tech. It does on Bluesky, and it does on the fediverse.

I won't elaborate further on this, I actually would like you to pause and think about it. In which ways are tech and social systems bidirectional, here and otherwise? It's important.

[cwebber@social.coop]

The vision laid out for the fediverse, both independently in my writings and even in Jay Graber and I's joint proposal... well, it's a big lift.

@spritely would like to see if we can retrofit our version onto ActivityPub. Time will tell if that's a separate thing.

[cwebber@social.coop]

And perhaps this is all my *massive* Cassandra complex speaking. I won't deny that I have one, for better or worse

Still, despite all I have said about both Bluesky and the fediverse technically, it is because I want a hopeful direction for all of us. Secure collaboration. More important than ever.

[cwebber@social.coop]

Let's take another tea break. (And another bathroom break. This teacup is massive.) We're getting close to done, I promise. Just two sections left, they're both much shorter.

Then I can finally brave reading my notifications.

Maybe.

== TEA BREAK THE THIRD: BEVERAGE TRIFORCE ==

[cwebber@social.coop]

Hello, I am back again. Did you miss me? I still am not reading notifications.

Help I started writing this summary at 11am and it is now 6pm here I have wasted a whole day of work

But I have tea, and I also flossed my teeth, and it is time to resume this thread. If you are here, you know why.

[cwebber@social.coop]

Before we go any further, earlier I mentioned the US House of Representatives, and here I am giving a MASSIVE content warning for transphobia

But @evangreer is the coolest fucking person for standing up to Rep. Mace at the Project Libery summit https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2024-11-21-transgender-digital-rights-activist-confronts-hate-monger-rep-nancy-mace-at-internet-summit/

[cwebber@social.coop]

What I am trying to say is I don't have many heroes but @evangreer is absolutely a heroine of mine

You should donate to @fight they are some of the only people doing sensible advocacy against terrible internet laws

Also fuck TERFs

But anyway

[cwebber@social.coop]

Also you have reached it: the third secret egg

You have now collected the egg triforce and can defeat Gender Ganon

If you want to

The power was in you all along

But let's continue.

[cwebber@social.coop]

It's time, we have reached the second to last section: "Preparing for the organization as a future adversary."

I love this one because I love that phrase, and the best part is that the Bluesky team came up with it, "the organization is a future adversary". It's genuinely good and self reflective

[cwebber@social.coop]

Occasionally an org creates a phrase like this, and back in the day Google had "Don't be evil"

And yeah, people criticize Google for never having been sincere but it gave an opportunity for people inside and outside the organization to critique Google on its own stated values. That was good.

[cwebber@social.coop]

It was *at least* good insofar as the moment Google retired the phrase as never really meaning anything anyway, as evil as Google may have been before, Google got *noticably* worse.

To Bluesky people internally: keep that phrase going as long as you can, and use it reflectively.

[cwebber@social.coop]

As opposed to Google's "Don't be evil", a commandment for the everpresent, "the organization is a future adversary" acknowledges the realities of the future, that it is uncertain, and in fact, that power-dynamics-wise, there will be pressure to make things worse.

[cwebber@social.coop]

Making design decisions in the present which guard against the future is one of the most important things we can do. It is one of the most important reasons to choose FOSS licenses, for instance, which provide an exit plan and also counterbalance against temptation to enshittify a project.

[cwebber@social.coop]

To this end, Bluesky's goals of "credible exit" are actually very important. It creates a similar pressure for the organization itself to stay true as long as it can, even acknowledging the organization as a future adversary, and actually preparing for it.

I am pro-Bluesky-credible-exit.

[cwebber@social.coop]

And there *will* be a lot of pressure: Bluesky has taken VC money as investments; the pattern of such is that early on, things are very good and flexible, and after some time, the investors start placing pressure to enshittify.

I have seen good peoples' orgs clawed from their hands. It happens.

[cwebber@social.coop]

This happens despite the very best people with the very best intentions. Talk to early Twitter co-founders and they will tell you the org that things became was not the org that they envisioned.

A future adversary indeed. So we should plan for it today.

[cwebber@social.coop]

Before we continue further, I have done about every job imaginable in a FOSS project/organization. Fundraising, by far, is the worst, and the most stressful.

It's incredibly hard to raise anything to do anything. I think that's worth acknowledging.