Notices by I Am My Own Algorithm (tbeckett@social.coop)

We’re now within the cloud cover of the hurricane, even though the center is hundreds of miles away. The sky is overcast and blustery, as this image shows. That’s right, this is a Picture of Dorian Gray.

Musk, Bezos, and Branson all have orbital launch capacity, the DeVos/Prince family-firm has the world’s largest private army, and now Zuckerberg will have his own global currency. It appears that the plutocracy is moving rapidly toward a post-sovereignty power structure that we don’t even have a name for yet.

My org’s new website is live!

https://www.commonenterprise.coop

"It is furthermore the cult of individuality and personal branding that grow out of such platforms and affect the way we think about our offline selves and the places where we actually live.”
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How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, By Jenny Odell

"I am concerned about the effects of current ocial media on expression - including the right not to express oneself - and its deliberately addictive features. But the villain here is not necessarily the Internet, or even the idea of social media; it is the invasive logic of /commercial/ social media and its financial incentive to keep us in a profitable state of anxiety, envy, and distraction."
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How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, By Jenny Odell

"I am not against technology. After all, there are forms of technology - from tools that let us observe that natural world to decentralized, noncommercial social networks - that might situate us more fully in the present. Rather, I am opposed to the way that corporate platforms buy and sell our attention, as well as to designs and uses of technology that enshrine a narrow definition of productivity and ignore the local, the carnal, and the poetic."
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How To Do Nothing, By Jenny Odell

Reconnected with an old friend tonight. The Casper/Bastl Bitranger is a handheld patchable analog synthesizer that I barely understand. It has a soul of its own. Just messing around a little produced this harmonically rich patch that just radiates joy.

Are vampire hunters trans(ylvania) phobic?

I am making a new Terry Pratchett fan.

Is there a crowdfunding campaign to buy the Trump Baby Balloon and bring it back to the US? Can we also license the right to make a hundred of them?

General strike on Amazon in the EU?
https://www.transnational-strike.info/2018/05/17/call-to-all-amazon-workers-in-europe-in-july-a-european-general-strike/

"It is for these reasons that we are promoting the idea of a European general strike in the second week of July. That is when Prime Day is, a day during which Amazon aims to sell millions of products in what is one of its most important days of sales. The idea is that if no concessions to the workers are made, that day will not take place."

What is going on with the German Democratic People’s Republic and why am I getting so many emails about it?

There’s this thing called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Everyone should read it.

http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

@gc @mayel @mattcropp If you want to get abstract about it, there are just 3 kinds of co-ops. 1) people combine their economic power to manage a shared expense, through purchasing goods or maintaining an asset; 2) through collective marketing of their individual production of goods or services; 3) through collective production of goods or services for sale to 3rd parties. Whether they hire managers to operate that enterprise is a separate question.

@h But CUDE types like @BeechMtn are more forward thinking, accessible, and influential. @ntnsndr @GuerillaOntologist

New mutual business idea: invest in a composting toilet for each member, sell the resulting “humanure” to local farmers who pay in farm product, contributing feedstock to for the toilets.
Use blockchain to validate every member “contribution” and sell futures in the humanure with a digital currency. Name for the currency? “Shitcoin” of course! #shitcoin

EFF explains how to disable the Facebook’s platform sharing API FOR your account.

“For now, if you'd like keep your data from going through Facebook's API, you can take control of your privacy settings. Keep in mind that this disables ALL platform apps (like Farmville, Twitter, or Instagram) and you will not be able to log into sites using your Facebook login.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/how-change-your-facebook-settings-opt-out-platform-api-sharing

@h That’s the rich-get-richer aspect of the power law. The dumb luck winners have subsequent advantage in winning more opportunities and, as you say, block others.

Science reveals the secret to extreme wealth: SHEER DUMB LUCK.
“The results are something of an eye-opener. Their simulations accurately reproduce the wealth distribution in the real world. But the wealthiest individuals are not the most talented (although they must have a certain level of talent). They are the luckiest. And this has significant implications for the way societies can optimize the returns they get for investments in everything from business to science.”
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610395/if-youre-so-smart-why-arent-you-rich-turns-out-its-just-chance/amp/

@djsundog Community tool library.