No no no, now you are making large leaps in your thinking. I remind you that I've been doing the same as Hellekin for 5 years and much more actively. Been part of the wellbeing team, helped the procedure improve, tackled issues.
And you associate me with Thiel/Yarvin who I think are the most dangerous persons around. I mentioned above in this thread clearly that I referred to purely the quote about "substrate formation" as a concept. Please don't put things in my mouth.
Even though you disagree with Thiel/Yarvin politically, when I look at this thread I still see your post approvingly quoting somebody who aligns with them said in a post that makes his worldview clear.
And later in the thread I still see you basically agreeing with those views. You explicitly talk about "The realization of the need for a substrate that binds us together" (as opposed to multiple substrates that let people and communities decide who they want to bind with). And you still see the substrate as conceputally centralized, a "mental model" where your "task is to project that notion onto chaotic commons." So it sure sounds to me like you're still buying into the mental model of the guy who aligns with them, and moreover are actively trying to project it to others.
Since you don't want to align with them, my recommendation would be to revisit your thinking on this point -- and then look at your other mental models and how you see your roles to see where else you're unintentionally aligning with them. We're all a lot more vulnerable to propaganda than we realize, and this discussion reveals a specific why in which your vulnerability has been exploited. More positively though this creates an opportuinty for you to mitigage the effects of this exploit, look for and migtate the effects other exploits, and identify other similar future vulnerabilities.
On the question of how much of an effort other white people on SocialHub are making to deal with anti-Blackness, there were a bunch of good suggestions in that https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/how-to-make-progress-on-the-almost-complete-absence-of-black-people-in-socialhub-and-swicg-discussions/4533 How many of them have you followed up on? How many other white active participants have followed up on any of them?
"As for the person you accuse to be racist. That happened on SocialHub where the same wellbeing procedure is in place, and you might have triggered it, to discuss the matter with the rest of the community."
I did! In that very thread, I mentioned that there had been examples of racism, Hellekin encouraged me to flag the posts, and when I explained why that wasn't a great solution we discussed how to notify the well-being team -- so it led to improvements in the process. Here's the comment with some of the excerpts where I tagged well-being.
But as I said there, when the problematic posts happen, almost nobody in the community pushed back -- and the one person I highlighted who had pushed back isn't white.
"It'd be great if SH got a 'design for diversity' track going."
If you think so, then take the initiative and do it -- as you keep pointing out, it's a do-ocracy. Before you do that, though, it's worth rereading the thread and looking at the suggestions there from people like Damon and Jason and a (or me for that matter) and think about whether that's the really the best next step.
"And I expressed the hope here on this thread we may pick up on them at the new SocialHub."
Well, I think it would be great for the white active participants on SocialHub to start dealing with this problem. With the current active participants I'm not particularly optimistic -- it hasn't happened so far, and I'm not sure what will change -- but if people's priorities change or there's a new team as part of a reboot then maybe it will.
But if you're saying that to mean you expect me to be putting time and nergy into those discussions before seeing some signs that people are actively trying to make progress ... you never know, but don't hold your breath. As I said in the reboot thread:
"But when the well-respected white active participants who set the tone for a community, forum, or mailing list act like they don’t care enough to try to do anything about it, my experience is that putting more energy trying to change things is like pushing water uphill … not the best use of my time."
I'm done with the discussion. Your implications/accusations are unjustified. It is your opinion only. I have made an effort to explain myself, to take discussion in constructive direction. Now I see someone just in for a fight. I'm out.
I gave *very* favourable interpretation to your comms. Other people may conclude "He's preaching from a pulpit for an audience, hijacked a thread, subtooted behind the back of SH and accusing them. Parasocial behavior". I think its bad tools.
Thanks for the conversation, @smallcircles.
I'm not just in it for a fight. If you go back through the thread, you'll see I've made several suggestions as to what you could do -- if you're concerned that you're unintentionally advocating ideas from people who are aligned with the Peter Thiels and Curtis Yarvins of the world, if you want to cut down the chance that your actions unintentionally but predictably lead to racists showing up on people's threads, and if you personally want to get involved in improving diversity and equity on SocialHub in ways that will have an impact. It doesn't sound like any of those are resonating with you right now, but these are areas you want to make progress in, perhaps my suggestions will spark other ideas.
Also, it was also a good opportunity to help people who aren't on SocialHub understand how the anti-Blackness (and other aspects of equity there) impacts safety via who participates in the FEP process. I've said multiple times directly on #SocialHub that I think it's an anti-Black space and that it's up to the white active participants there to do something about it. So if anybody there seems me talking about it here as "behind their back" ... oh well, so be it. Still, I am planning on posting something about this there now that the discussion here has wrapped up.
And @laurenshof, sorry if you feel like this hijacked your thread!
congrats both on baiting me into writing this entire article on hobart lol
https://connectedplaces.online/socialhub-and-the-substrate-of-decentralised-networks/
It was useful to me and led me to formulate this toot: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/115094853938175300
Just to stop by here and make a comment. The fact that fair-minded fedi-folk are affirmatively quoting a Yarvin follower who is laying down talk of a "centralized substrate" for decentralized tech, is pretty much its own refutation of the general vibe in the convo to dispense with all the superfluous politics and "identity nonsense" and get on with the technology.
Of course the fascists are coming for decentralization - not just in the social media sphere, or even in tech generally, but altogether. Fascism IS centralization - centralization of power, of thought, of the capacity to dominate and coerce. The clever ones are insinuating themselves into the discourse with seemingly affable technobabble like this.
The fact that people are missing this is exactly the problem. FOSS-folk no longer have a choice about minding or ignoring the political dimensions of their work. If you don't care much about the struggle against authoritarianism or the dearth of devs from marginalized communities in the field, you should at least care about the survival of FOSS and the principles it encodes, because they are very much on the line, and in fact all of these problems are closely related
I mentioned on SocialHub how I deeply appreciate your passion and dedication to bring important subjects to awareness of people. And I expressed the hope here on this thread we may pick up on them at the new SocialHub.
As for the person you accuse to be racist. That happened on SocialHub where the same wellbeing procedure is in place, and you might have triggered it, to discuss the matter with the rest of the community.
Oh, and yesterday I re-read your article, because I remembered your posting of it. So I thought to inform myself. After that I mentioned how nice it would be if we could take things further into solution space at SocialHub.
TLDR
- Fedi-wide ezine
- Discussion topic 'substrate formation'
- You warn, I immediately correct. Thanks!
- You inject inclusion, racism. Important!
- You imply unwitting racism at SH
- You want SH to actively address fedi's DEI
- SH has fedi-wide yet fragmented audience
- SH is talking a reboot
- You are active in these topics at SH
- I say what an opportunity for SH, and link
- Bad tool support had unintended effects
- I'm sorry for that
Let's go solution-space at SH now
@smallcircles I would like it to be on the record publicly that @strypey
was very supporting and encouraging regarding the necessity and promotion of inclusive leadership when it came to our (unsuccessful) attempts to build momentum for #socialhub online events
Such opinions and sentiments may have become lost through bilateral communications and from passages of time.
However, that does not permit such serious fingerpointing.
1/N
Fedi-wide ezine, linking to a discussion thread on SH I'm participating in, also the basis of a new discussion thread on SH.
I am active in those threads on SH, but chose instead to have this particular conversation here instead of SH.
You ignore my choice and link to it on SH.
Predictably, somebody from SH shows up and says the kind of things he says on SH.
I believe that you didn't intend the effect of him joining this thread, but that's what you did -- and it was certainly predictable. And I believe that you didn't intend to ignore my choice, but you did -- and even after I mentioned it earlier in the thread you still didn't think it was worth mentioning in your summary.
Let's go solution-space at SH now
In other words, after sorry for the unintended effect of having a person from SH show up here saying the kind of things he says on SH that I really hate dealing with, your suggestion for a good next step is to continue the discussion at the place where he typically says those things. Got it.
It is you who at the same time hoped this discussion were picked up at SH, where you at the same time are active. Though I regret how it all went, you are being unreasonable now. I can't be more than sorry. If you don't wanna engage at SH anymore that is fine, and good I know your preference now. There was no malintent anywhere by me, and just as you I'm passionate for an inclusive and safe fediverse where people engage freely regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or skill.
I don't think you had bad intent here. I think you didn't think through what you were doing, and even now I'm not sure you understand why it was problematic.
You're passionate about wanting a safe and inclusive fediverse, and you just did something that led to me getting a racist post ... and your takeaway is that my expectation that you might take into account the fact that I had posted here instead of on SocialHub and is "unreasonable".
Anyhow, I'll continue to engage on SH in the ways I find useful and effective.
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