alxd writes
I just learned that some of my #mastodon contributions were deleted less than a month after merging, for causing "Issues with line breaks / clutter": https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/9675
They went through the full review before merging. I was not asked to fix them, test in another browsers afterwards. No one contacted me. Just deleted a feature that I really wanted to see and decided to create for everyone.
That's why people aren't interested in #mastodondev @Gargron
alxd writes
@jjg I'm afraid that's a very bad and elitist approach.
It directly led to a destruction of some communities I was a part of. You cannot just exclude a lot of people because they don't have time to go through your LDAP config.
You need computers to be _designed better_ and understand that bakers and schoolteachers don't want to worry about HTTPS and DNS. They want to be able to use computers as _tools_ at work.
alxd writes
#SolarpunkReporting or maybe #reporting in general:
Have you heard about Solutions Journalism? Its main idea is to step beyond the regular investigative journalism and show solutions to the problem which worked in other places.
It combats news fatigue and allows people to see that they _can_ do something. It gives hope where regular journalism just exhausts us with a constant stream of bad news.
https://storytracker.solutionsjournalism.org/
alxd writes
Makerspaces in crisis zones are already helping people around the world: Puerto Rico, Haiti, Nepal.
Instead of waiting for expensive western supplies in makeshift tents, the survivors can get tools and start building new houses and infrastructure immediately. This not only makes the help /cheaper/ but also allows the people to feel more empowered and in control, less prone to long-term traumas.
alxd writes
Do you know any artist / reporter / social researcher who would like to go to #35C3 , but didn't get a ticket?
I have one to sell / trade and I would love to pass it to someone who will help the general population to understand hackers better.
alxd writes
Even making, a middle ground between the hackers and the general public is using very entrepreneur-ed language, leading people to think in terms of companies and growth hacking instead of communities and infrastructure. With the MakerFaires all over the world, how will they change the local cultures, which don't have tech independence traditions as strong as Germany? Will they have any other way to perceive modern technology than the startups, Blockchain and phone apps?
alxd writes
Only by providing a counter-narrative, which also deals with the constant burning future shock people are feeling - we can make other perspectives and futures possible.
If you won't create a narrative explaining why you did something, someone else will supply theirs.
No matter how good the software created by the engineers is, no matter how much work the activists put in, the public needs storytellers to tell them why it's important as well.
alxd writes
Some ideas from the #HackerNarratives blogpost I'm writing:
#cyberpunk doesn't describe a state of the world, but is a perspective which we can take to perceive the reality.
Cyberpunk and technical dystopias started out as warnings, but got embraced because of a constant future shock the society is feeling.
Now it's easier to accept huge megacorporations and surveillance because _we know them_ from the culture and stories, while we see no realistic alternatives.
alxd writes
Not every baker and schoolteacher needs to understand HTTP or assembly language, but they all should understand why net neutrality is important.
For over two years I've been working on #GliderInk , a graphic novel which aims to introduce people to hacker values and create an aesthetic different from Hollywood's "black hat" stereotype or a grim cyberpunk future.
alxd writes
In 2014, when Sierra Leone was hit by the Ebola outbreak, three local software developers kept the country's infrastructure working by rewriting it to #FLOSS. They saved hundreds of thousands lives when companies like Google and IBM backed off, calling the project too risky.
And their own recollection of the events with some technical descriptions:
https://medium.com/idtlabs/how-open-source-software-helped-in-the-fight-against-ebola-788bb3ca2bf0
alxd writes
I'm afraid that #solarpunk is too western, white and focused on fiction to make a change. People prefer fetishizing #burningman aesthetics to noticing the real changemakers around the world.
Have you heard about http://globalinnovationgathering.org ? Its a network of hackers from Africa, Middle East, South America and Southeast Asia. They do things some solarpunk writers only imagine, but there is little interest in that in the West.
Why not start #SolarpunkReporting ?
alxd writes
Glider Ink is a project seeking to explain how hackers understand technology and how that affects their daily lives.
Stories of an inventor trying to change the world before it changes her, an activist trying to avoid calamities only he understands and an anarchist wanting to live independently and give more than she takes.
Everything I've gathered, written and commissioned within the last two years is available under Creative Commons BY-SA, so feel free to use it: https://wiki.glider.ink
Jonkman Microblog is a social network, courtesy of SOBAC Microcomputer Services. It runs on GNU social, version 1.2.0-beta5, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All Jonkman Microblog content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.