HN user
Message me at hn [at] sambutler [dot] us
Thank you for the kind words! I would agree — and I think there are some more fundamental approaches, like housing density paired with in-fill of retail and shops, that can make that more accessible from the ground up. Literally!
When people "trade-in" a gas car for an EV, those gas cars are usually re-sold to peripheral countries with less regulations, where they continue running on dirtier fuel [1]. The emissions of the gas car continue, plus the embodied emissions of buying a new gas car and the ongoing emissions from the fossil fuel sources of electric charging.
Vehicles that weigh 4,000 pounds, primarily designed to move 250 pounds of people, are inefficient by design — there will never be enough materials or energy on Earth to change that. This will continue showing itself in pollution and other externalities, such as the significant microplastic pollution that comes from car tires [2], and the fact that EVs — which wear through tires faster — are making rubber one of the leading sources of Amazon deforestation [3.]
Of course, if you want to see solutions — they are buried all around us in North America, and exist all around us in many other parts of the world [4]. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in realizing solutions together, or just want to learn more. Contact in profile.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/21/africa/west-africa-benin-used...
[2] https://www.thedrive.com/news/tire-dust-makes-up-the-majorit...
[3] https://e360.yale.edu/features/rubber-plantations-deforestat...
[4] https://docs.google.com/document/d/19QpVabRn0RexxN1GYFbDojXr...
Hey u/thunderbong, thanks for this share on the browser side. Is there anyway to get in touch with you for a conversation? Between browsers, minimal forum software, and some of the other things I've seen you post about — I'd like to connect, about possibilities on working on these things! (If anybody else sees this and has a similar interest in minimal and OSS softwares around forum, chat, browsers, etc, feel free to reach out via my profile!)
Can you elaborate on this? What could a browser look like/do, that has htmx-like hypermedia functionality in it?
Are you personally involved in any climate projects / looking to collaborate?
I recently built a tool for the same concept! (https://park-28u.pages.dev/) Would love to collaborate!
Interested in learning more about this!
Is discoflip open source? If so, would love to support and contribute!
Just noting, I'm interested in CRDT as well and glad to learn more / explore collaboration!
I'm working on projects for local resilience, and this very much resonates. My contact is on my profile, glad to collaborate and explore this together!
Interested in learning more! Particular autonomous drones and robotics on this side.
Are you interested in collabing on projects like these? Feel free to message me, contact on profile, exploring economic alternatives to extraction and local economic empowerment/autonomy initiatives
Send me a note, I'm interested in collabing as well — in particular on concepts related to sustainability and local economic autonomy / empowerment.
I've been thinking about something similar — a large array of drones/flying machines, which can cover a large surface area, and be deployed above points of structural integrity in glaciers and biodiversity hotspots to lessen heating and support those prioritized locations. What you described and the motivations resonate as well. My email/contact is in my profile, would love to connect and explore together!
In the words of Donella Meadows, the ability to change paradigms -- very much in the realm of fiction -- is one of the greatest leverage points we have! Indeed, storytelling is one of our most important capacities.
Here's something I put out yesterday, a review of a story that doesn't exist, inspired Borges' Ficciones -- enabling me to get the key points out, without needing to write an entire book!
Had no idea that's happening in CLAs and company filings, good to know
The book 'Our History Is the Future' by Nick Estes goes into detail on this.
Specifically:
The US army and settlers moving West executed buffalo because Indigenous peoples in the Great Plains depended on them. 'Every dead buffalo is a dead Indian' is one of the quotes from the time. The army/settlers would also poison the buffalo carcasses so Indigenous people couldn't eat from the dead carcass, and as a consequence, other animals in the environment (e.g. wolves) couldn't eat the meat either and likewise suffered, and further reduced the food supply.
This took place after the 1868 treaty of the Black Hills. So the US signed a treaty acknowledging Indigenous land and sovereignty. And then started a genocidal campaign, against the people they just signed the treaty with -- tresspassing on treaty defined land to do so and kill the buffalo. The Supreme Court acknolwedged the history of these wrongdoings in a ruling in 1980, awarding financial compensation to the Indigenous peoples -- however the Indigenous plaintiffs did not want monetary awards, they sought rematriation of their stolen land and the upholding of their rights under the 1868 treaty. The battles to uphold those treaty rights continue to this day.
(In 2007, the UN ratified the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirms Indigeous claim to treaty rights such as the 1868 Black Hills treaty (albeit in a 'non-binding' way). The declaration has now been ratified by all UN member nations -- US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand originally held out for several years -- and many groups are now operating with that document as a legal/political framework and justification to take their treaty and Indigenous rights cases forward.)
This is akin asking 'Will we build our community around hammers or screwdrivers?'
Network architectures are means, not ends.
The question is what are we trying to do?
Based on that context, we can determine whether a hammer, screwdriver, centralized architecture, decentralized architecture, or federated architecture is most beneficial for us. They all have tradeoffs (e.g. easier to remove screws than nails, easier to secure centralized than decentralized systems, easier to power federated systems than decentralized systems, easier to trust decentralized and federated systems than centralized systems) which can make them more or less useful for us in any given context. The point is, they are tools to help us realize our desired outcomes -- not the outcomes themselves.
You keep the shell because you're helping those groups maintain their own presence online? I'm looking into non-FB ways to do this, feel free to contact me, would be glad to explore and chat on it
This.
First thought while reading headline: this is why copyleft is useful.
This is an excellent comment. Can you link to the Geronimo biography?
Love this comment! You can see some of my explorations on subsidiarity:
https://juststart.do/just-start and https://sambutler.us/localfutures
What's a way to contact you @Thorentis? Likewise, you'll have my contacts from these urls — would love to connect and introduce!
Thank you so much, deeply appreciated! Feel free to pass on / use as you like!
My thought was we are all standing on the shoulder's of those who went before us. By helping each other we build towards a better future.
Inspired by this comment, just wanted to share this with you:
https://manyworlds.pages.dev/about
Still in development (first time sharing the site!) — in any case, thought it might resonate!
Working on exactly this kind of effort (revenue-funding) Dreyfan. Just noting to come back and followup later.
Would love to connect and collab on this!
I've been thinking about a series/anthology like this. Similar to Black Mirror — each story starts with a window into our current reality, often dystopic. We see what happens if we continue going down that path.
And then, we see a change. An intervention. And we see a new future unfolding, based on the choices and changes we made.
If this sounds interesting to you, let me know! Would love to connect with others — whether storytellers, artists, creatives, or anybody who's interested in thinking about problems we're facing and what change could look like. Feel free to drop a comment or contact me at https://twitter.com/sambutlerUS or https://sambutler.us!
Well said, I didn't mean to misconstrue! Thanks for sharing this information and vocabulary. Indeed, Ethical Source does seem to be quite communicative. It also probably provides enough of a signal, when it comes to choosing licenses, if a decision-maker has some level of self-awareness. (e.g. If I feel my project doesn't have a problem meeting an "Ethical" standard, I'll feel comfortable choosing Ethical Source. Otherwise, I'll choose Open Source.)
It could also be a signal to end-users, community members, customers, and other stakeholders as well — who may prefer technologies built with Ethical Source, as compared to Open Source, which seems like it could be similar to patterns we see in the real world around "Fair Trade" and "Ethically Sourced" etc.
Restricting software use to only people approved by the creators is a terrible idea.
Everyone is free to use the software. If a project is found to be in violation of the Code of Conduct (e.g. discriminating against marginalized communities, manipulating public opinion, automating weapons) than the community developing the software takes steps to remedy the problem with the reported violator, or the project falls out of compliance with the license.
I agree with your hesitance and apprehension of how it could could go wrong. There is significant responsibility in interpretation and governance, presumably (though in some cases, it could be pretty clear — like with weapons.). And in cases with consequences related to violence and weapons and oppression, it also seems like a step in the right direction.
In the context of some software, this may not fit or be useful. In other libraries, it could also be incredibly important and impactful.
It also requires stepping out of our innocence. It requires accepting responsibility for interpretation, decision-making, and governance — and that sometimes, some of our decisions may not be right. Sometimes, we have to make decisions even when the answers aren't clear. This is part of our personal lives, being in families, being in communities, being in companies. It's just decision-making at the end of the day — call it what you want (e.g. governance, licensing, restricting). Why shouldn't that kind of decisionmaking and responsibility be part of software and the communities building software — especially given its growing impact on the world around us?
Society has to operate with some level of trust that even people we disagree with
This is well said. I would just note that ml5.js's approach leaves room for disagreement, and a pathway to hear and understand and reconcile disagreement, before any action is taken. The devil is in implementation — though it does seem wise, and the community has likely thought through and accounted for more of the problems than we have. They probably had discussions just like this, actually, with perspectives just like ours.
In terms of "antithetical values", the machine learning project ml5js.org actually did something about this. They bound their open-source license to a Code of Conduct¹, which forbids the use of their ML software for (1) discriminating against marginalized communities, (2) building tools that disingenuously manipulate public opinion, (3) building tools of mass surveillance and prediction to repress the rights of people, and (4) building tools that control weapons, including tools that automate the deployment, operation, and targeting of weapons.
Reported violations of the Code of Conduct are sent to a Steering Committee, made up of members of the community, who determine if the reported project is in violation of the Code of Conduct. If so, the Committee takes steps to remedy the situation (e.g. realigning project with the Code of Conduct, or removing ml5.js from the project) — and if no resolution is found, the project falls out of compliance with the terms of the software license.
It's an interesting experiment.² Software is a tool to help us solve problems and reach desired outcomes. Licenses are also a tool to help us solve problems and reach desired outcomes. When desired outcomes exclude certain things (e.g. discrimination of marginalized communities, manipulation of public opinion, autonomous weapons, values antithetical to that of a community), it seems a Code of Conduct can also be a worthwhile tool to solve problems and support the outcomes that the community is working towards. (Of course, wisdom and governance are crucial and not to be taken for granted. Shout out DKP servers³ for showing some light there.)
¹ ml5.js Code of Conduct: https://github.com/ml5js/Code-of-Conduct/
² Analysis from KE Mitchell on ml5.js licensing: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/01/12/ml5js-Takes-a-Stan...
³ On Dragon Kill Points and governance systems in World of Warcraft: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=958945