Re: Renewed Tyranny of Structurelessness
The simple question is: do privacy tools need to have rapist-free origin? If the answer is positive, and the kosher tool origin is in (for the politically correct change of the world, unmarred by questionable characters), then we will not have non-corporate suppliers of privacy tools. See how far this goes. It is rather trivial to attach popular labels to the involved and eliminate them from the process. For the frugal-minded adversaries, this is probably the cheapest way to undermine such tool development (and we live in times when everyone must be frugal.) It's not about strong crypto any more. Now it's about green crypto. Fuck that. On 6/14/16, 1:40, carlo von lynX wrote: Yes, but I think that the missing structures are what is missing here. There needs to be something in-between staying quiet, going to the police or going public, risking to be accused of defamation. Currently # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Renewed Tyranny of Structurelessness
On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 08:19:49PM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote: > This means, that the cost to implement a "new community with new rules", > in terms of education and effort, is not far off zero (at least for those > with a Western schooling). The hindrance right now seems to be the understanding of the sociological implications. Plus maybe the travelling costs, if you want to do proper secret elections of judges and moderators. > When I made a point of the imposition their code of conduct brought, by > cutting no fine hair about swinging their CoC in the face of the > community, I was temporarily banned for life from their mailing lists (I "temporarily" vs "for life" doesn't semantically work out so well. So which of the two? > did repeat the innuendo at least 3 times I must admit, to make the point - So you fulfilled the troll prerequisites. That's bad, because it means that it is appropriate to moderate you even if you may be right in what you are saying. Good content and good intentions may not be enough to compensate for bad behavior. > and when first banned, I had no prior communication with me, I was not > informed of any time frame for being banned, and was given some excessive > red tape process to "appease the Debian gods" if I wanted to join again). :From what I see on https://www.debian.org/code_of_conduct and https://www.debian.org/intro/organization I can tell that Debian is lacking any separation of powers. You may want to join Gentoo instead which *does* have a court of appeals, even if done by the project leaders. Funny, when I look at that list of mailing list admins I see at least three names of old peers from university days. Maybe I can talk to the gods of debian and they will listen? > My online words targetted no individual, only their new CoC, along with > aspects of it that I disagreed with in principle. Having been banned, I am I find it pretty good... anyway, I heard there was a democratic procedure in writing it, so maybe subsequent criticism is unwelcome. > confident that I made my point (whether anyone heard my point I cannot be > sure of course). Also, I suspect that I have been unbanned since then, Yes, unbanned for life. > again without any notice to me, I just discovered one day that an email I > accidentally sent to debian-project went through it seemed > (I had unsubscribed in protest from debian-user for example, since the > banning was a ban from posting, not a ban from receiving emails - I have > never tried to resubscribe to debian-user - if they're too cowardly to > communicate their changes to the effected individuals, well, I don't > support such cowardliness). Don't expect them to be overeager to get a troll back on the list... > Now, one of my points is this - when rules 'change' post facto, you are > going to get kick back no matter what. ? [...] > And there are so many people in the world, that we need 1000s or even > more, "communities" just to host them all, let alone to provide the > different types of environments in which people want to be in. I really > want to be in the cypherpunks/ linux-kernel type mailing lists, where > everyone is encourage to be direct, blunt, and to the point. I personally > discourage any personal attacks and do not condone them, but for me, that > helps me identify the different individuals, allowing me to judge them for > who they are, rather than for who they are having to be due to the rules > in play. I doubt that unleashed online behavior is equivalent to "who they are". Is a person who she is when she is with people in a social situation, or is a person who she is when alone, reacting to easily misunderstood written words, prone to a bunch of psychological mechanisms triggered by the situation of being in front of a computer screen? Of all the trolls I met in real life, few were trolls also in real life. So what brings me the better "who they are" - the uncensored exhibition of social failings in the digital arena, or a digital communication platform that helps them be the persons they want to be? > > >However, sexual assault is its own special case whereby victims > > >don't speak out--understandably--early enough so as to change > > >things before problems spiral. This is not unique to this case at > > >all. > > > > Yes, but I think that the missing structures are what is missing here. > > There needs to be something in-between staying quiet, going to the > > police or going public, risking to be accused of defamation. Currently > > That's called going to (presumably trusted) friends perhaps? Keep on reading. The next few lines say why I think that is not enough. > > this information would spread in random gossip, with victims talking > > to just a few good friends, creating pockets of warning knowledge > > that does not communicate with each other and still does not have > > any authority to *do* anything. By creating structures that have the > > elected role of getting informed
Re: Offline is The New Luxury
Immediacy is The New Luxury! cheers, j ps /.../Meetings in real space are becoming a more and more precious good for the way they add a crucial stage to almost any networked media projects, whether in the arts, culture, or politics. /.../ Geert Lovink, The Importance of Meetspace http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0001/msg00041.html At 10:04 AM +0200 6/14/16, Florian Cramer wrote: Not only is offline the new luxury, it is also becomes a new necessity for critical infrastructures. Today, the government of one of the best-networked countries of the world, Singapore, announced that it will take all its 100,000 government and public administration computers off the Internet for security reasons: <...> # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Renewed Tyranny of Structurelessness
On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 10:40:22AM +0200, carlo von lynX wrote: > On 06/12/2016 10:41 PM, Gabriella "Biella" Coleman wrote: > > >I certainly like this statement and think it has some valuable > >insights: [1]https://jacobian.org/writing/assholes/ > > Yes, by creating structures of rule of conduct enforcement we create > the ruleset by which code can be contributed, so people who had fun > being assholes find themselves in the need to play nice in order to be > able to submit code. Given time they probably get nice (and grown-up). A big public example is Linus. He started Linux, and by virtue of doing so, he is the benevolent dictator for life of his version of Linux, for as long as he chooses. Others are free to fork and release their own versions, to their heart's content. Linus' version carries a fair weight, due to his capacity for assessing code and (earlier on) coding too of course, along with his relationships with those who 'work' with him. As I said recently on cypherpunks, we live in an age of digital abundance, that is anyone can create a new digital/ online community at the click of a few buttons. This means, that the cost to implement a "new community with new rules", in terms of education and effort, is not far off zero (at least for those with a Western schooling). So, all that's left in such situations is the motivation of a significant subset of the community, and "significant" can be as small as two, if there are two individuals who have the desire for their own new online community. With Linux, the major forks have been for technical or "related community" reasons - the staging tree, the networking tree, and the distro trees for Debian, Red Hat etc. Debian has chosen a Code of Conduct, and they are choosing to apply it to all their email lists, which are the primary manifestation of the Debian communities. When I made a point of the imposition their code of conduct brought, by cutting no fine hair about swinging their CoC in the face of the community, I was temporarily banned for life from their mailing lists (I did repeat the innuendo at least 3 times I must admit, to make the point - and when first banned, I had no prior communication with me, I was not informed of any time frame for being banned, and was given some excessive red tape process to "appease the Debian gods" if I wanted to join again). My online words targetted no individual, only their new CoC, along with aspects of it that I disagreed with in principle. Having been banned, I am confident that I made my point (whether anyone heard my point I cannot be sure of course). Also, I suspect that I have been unbanned since then, again without any notice to me, I just discovered one day that an email I accidentally sent to debian-project went through it seemed (I had unsubscribed in protest from debian-user for example, since the banning was a ban from posting, not a ban from receiving emails - I have never tried to resubscribe to debian-user - if they're too cowardly to communicate their changes to the effected individuals, well, I don't support such cowardliness). Now, one of my points is this - when rules 'change' post facto, you are going to get kick back no matter what. Online digital communities can be created at essentially no cost, so perhaps we ought encourage those who desire alternative rule sets for their online forums/ email lists, to create them, moderate as they choose etc. And if a programming project is particularly popular, and there's an asshole running the show, and if there are a few people who really want an alternative online forum for discussion and contribution to that project, then go and create that forum, and it might even be possible to cooperate with those who still participate in the originating group. There are plenty of digits to go around. And there are so many people in the world, that we need 1000s or even more, "communities" just to host them all, let alone to provide the different types of environments in which people want to be in. I really want to be in the cypherpunks/ linux-kernel type mailing lists, where everyone is encourage to be direct, blunt, and to the point. I personally discourage any personal attacks and do not condone them, but for me, that helps me identify the different individuals, allowing me to judge them for who they are, rather than for who they are having to be due to the rules in play. > >However, sexual assault is its own special case whereby victims > >don't speak out--understandably--early enough so as to change > >things before problems spiral. This is not unique to this case at > >all. > > Yes, but I think that the missing structures are what is missing here. > There needs to be something in-between staying quiet, going to the > police or going public, risking to be accused of defamation. Currently That's called going to (presumably trusted) friends perhaps? > this information would spread in random gossip, with victim
Re: Renewed Tyranny of Structurelessness
In the spirit of nettime, I took the time to add thoughts to several of the past contributions. On 06/12/2016 10:41 PM, Gabriella "Biella" Coleman wrote: >I certainly like this statement and think it has some valuable >insights: [1]https://jacobian.org/writing/assholes/ Yes, by creating structures of rule of conduct enforcement we create the ruleset by which code can be contributed, so people who had fun being assholes find themselves in the need to play nice in order to be able to submit code. Given time they probably get nice (and grown-up). >However, sexual assault is its own special case whereby victims >don't speak out--understandably--early enough so as to change >things before problems spiral. This is not unique to this case at >all. Yes, but I think that the missing structures are what is missing here. There needs to be something in-between staying quiet, going to the police or going public, risking to be accused of defamation. Currently this information would spread in random gossip, with victims talking to just a few good friends, creating pockets of warning knowledge that does not communicate with each other and still does not have any authority to *do* anything. By creating structures that have the elected role of getting informed, who have an obligation to keep quiet and respect the privacy of victims and accused alike, but have the authority to express a verdict of local range (like recommending project X to suspend finances for contributor Y - or recommending conference A not to give a keynote speech to relator Y), without going into details. And then there should be a way for Y to reach out for an independent court of appeals. This all happens before ending up at the state authorities, and can legitimately act without hard evidence. > And I believe the digital domain is a special challenge for justice, > harder to deal with than problems Jo Freeman describes. What I wanted to say in this situation is that the digital domain is how we met, where we come from and how we interact. Even if the hurting is happening physically, I would want the structures that help us protect from future hurting to be available by the means we are used to. Or would you expect victims to walk up to the office for harrassment complaints of the EFF or Tor Inc in person, only because the problem was physical? Of course it would be helpful if the Internet were secure. >Why? I think the problem of sexual assault or harassment is a >society wide problem that many groups seem to have issues dealing >with appropriately. In academic circles there are endemic and >persistent problems with harassment and intimidation. In one >institution I worked in, one professor had so many problematic >relationships with graduate students (with so many complaints >levied against him) they disallowed him from advising graduate >students and moved him to an office so that another professor >could monitor him. What a shameful and inadequate response >for both parties and this came from 200 year old institution >with a team of lawyers who you'd think could handle this a bit >more fairly. Our society idolizes stars/celebrities and these >individuals can in turn command a lot of power over victims >whether it comes in form of sexual violence or harassment >and whether it is in academia, in journalism, or in hacker >circles. Thankfully things seem to be changing for the better >in some academic institutions. A pair of scientists at U >Chicago and Berkeley have been forced out or stepped down after >internal investigations. Whereas once the genius professors was >untouchable, this seems to be less and less the case. Maybe this >will change too in hacker circles. Our hacktivist organizations aren't typical boy clubs.. many women have important structural roles already. It is up to us to elect more women into the role of not only assisting victims of harrassment, but also to have the authority to exercise measures when enough evidence exists. The structural mistake here could be that frequently such things are discussed in an assembly if at all, where too many people are supposed to be informed of far too many private details. This is not respectful of the privacy of neither victims nor culprits. And it potentiates the effect of collective shrugging: nobody wants to have enemies, nobody likes to be the one who in the assembly proposed to cut the funds to person Y. If the discussion is already about expulsion, it is happening too late. Justice doesn't need all the people of the assembly, those who have the elected *job* to take measures have a wholy different motivation than your average assembly participant. But it needs that the few who are in charge of justice be trustworthy enough to be told all the painstaking details, and to be trusted enough to not be questioned when the verdict comes out, except by a court of appeals. Develop
