help

i should note that while i didn't really make much of the decision-making roles. i was originally going to make them additional categories of organization (representative federation (US), representative confederation (EU), delegate confederation (anarchist), etc. but i feel like they are two

separate dimensions maybe and shouldn't be jumbled. it's also interesting because historical anarchists would use their terms in funny ways. like they called their organizations "federations", but the most abstracted organization where all the federations federated a "confederation".

its differences in usage here that establish why im so ornery later, because these concepts only have meaning in historical and sub-cultural context, and it seems like the tech usage is just naively supposing "oh here's this well defined concept from something i'm familiar with, and it has

something to do with power i think. let's use that" and its like skreeee it was already messy. i don't think this is going to do the conceptual or normative work you want it to because to be consistent it's either going to be way too thin or way too thick

to the person who liked and retweeted this - i likely disagree with you and do not support your interpretation. :) also i typo'd kms

i'm gonna clarify more. i'm not saying that us philosophers are so wise and untouchable that the tech dregs can't keep up. i'm saying that theoreticians are so shit at their role that tech folks should insulate themselves from our retardation by using the frameworks developed within the specialty,

not because these are infallible (they're probably super deficient in their own ways too), but because there are likely less degrees of separation from the actual problem, and most of the time they may not need the abstraction to describe the admirable traits of their preference

i was supposed to be logged out man... sorry for thread spam.

ok idc im still talking about this because everyone is doing wack tech political philosophy

paul's statement is like intensely interesting and also intensely wrong imo. i was gonna write a blog thing about this yesterday but i thought i was out of steam

imo there are several overlapping concepts at play here (these are stipulated definitions, anachronistic and kinda ideal typic): federation: a group of actors organized under a central authority they comprise confederation: a group of actors comprising a common organization, crucially

with the right to succession. "tech federation": as far as i can tell this is basically interoperability. a common communication method that actors can use to interface with one another.

there are sub-questions here about the internal decision-making procedure of such entities. two forms this can take i think are best explained with reference to the way power is distributed to roles:

representative: a group of actors appoint another actor to present their interests and make decisions on their behalf. delegate: the delegation i'm thinking of is informed by the social anarchist tradition. delegates are strictly mandated and instantly recallable.

i'll let kropotkin explain strict mandates: "the delegate is not authorized to do more than explain to other delegates the considerations that have led his colleagues to their conclusion. Not being able to impose anything, he will seek an understanding and

will return with a simple proposition which his mandatories can accept or refuse". unlike representatives, delegates do not provide their own perspective, but summarize their mandatories' collective perspective to another group of actors.

instant recall is the enforcement mechanism to ensure this happens. if the delegate deviates from the mandatories' desires, they can be recalled and replaced with someone who can summarize their views accurately.

ok wow thats neat alice, what the fuck. well yea idk thats what im thinking bro. literally what is anyone talking about. i glided past the tech federation thing but it has like nothing to do with anything????? i get that it's like the metaphor people use and we're kinda stuck with it, but i agree

with christine that this is like the most absurd, incongruent, misleading set of metaphors in the world. people are not servers. in fact, people run the servers, and there are relations of power within the organizations that run them that are usually like way more important

don't get me wrong like the ability for multiple actors (and actors can be internally organized in any number of ways) to communicate with one another is fucking awesome, and theres a ton of potential here for FOSSy shit that i'm really into

BUT ALSO GUESS WHAT - i don't even like agree with christine because she was making a totally separate point ???? and like yea its a concern but SHES DOING THE METAPHOR THING I HATE AHHHHHH WHATS GOING ON

this whole thing is literally such a clusterfuck. i have political philosophy autism and people keep saying things and i keep trying to make sense of them when actually i think its just a complete waste of time and it's all jumbled nonsense and im gonna have a breakdown

bc its hard to tell when im just like genuinely retarded and missing something (all things technical) vs. when the tech-bros are tech-broing my comfort character

i do think that if we're using the metaphors, the relationship between ActivityPub instances could fairly be called confederated. i literally do not see any universe in which atproto is a federated republic blawg.

there are no representative mechanisms whatsoever. like with the concepts i laid out above, the social arrangement of power almost doesn't arise??? because we're talking about the linkages of servers to other servers, and kinda proxying the human ownership of those servers as power holders.

but this is literally just confused and worthlessly messy. i do not see a meaningful, useful way in which the arrangement of networks can be described without parasitically referencing human relations, but the reference to human relations is actually entirely ignored.

i think it is entirely a worthwhile endeavor to theorize about how the tech we interact with is structured, but these loose metaphors suck fucking ass and i wish computer scientists of all people would be more discrete with their engagement

to demonstrate my point, like you can also just call all protocols federated because erm actually a bunch of servers (separate actors) utilize a standardized communication method, and so they are operating under its authority

BUT THATS STUPID. AND TOTALLY WORTHLESS. like then ig the follow-up is like ok sure after we establish federated vs non-federated (what would a non-federated protocol look like? it probably exists i just can't think of how), then we can talk about "centralization". so like who owns the computers

talking to each other. if they're all owned by one actor (remember, actors can be organizations of people, like bsky pbc), then they're centralized, and the degree to which there are many actors means it's decentralized. and again this is coherent but i actually don't think it tells you anything

REMOTELY MEANINGFUL. it's nowhere near sufficient to get at the type of things FOSSy fucks like. and maybe its like ok fine thats our bare minimum, and they're really just defining two attributes they dislike and saying any of the cool kids can't have that shit.

but... bro.... there's no shot you're just sit down all satisfied after serving that absolutely worthless, vacuous drivel. i asked you what your ethics are and you said that you hate murder. ???? cool ig???? i mean i know that people have strong strong preferences with how networks are designed,

but those are actually quite discrete. which in a way is great! people are having very grounded debates without the mess, in a way. but what that means is

that there is this massive under-theorized chasm between "we're a federated republic hur de durr" and some hyperspecific nerd shit i've never heard before in my life (/pos). i think the philosophy matters a lot, everyone just sucks at it, and a lot of the competent people just ignore it, fairly.

at a minimum i'm saying most tech people should probably just stay in their lane and use the vocabulary that has independently evolved within their domain of expertise to describe how their systems work. there's an abundance of evaluative material in their already to work with

loser philosophers should get their shit together and understand what's going on so they can contribute. there are people that exist with a foot in both camps, and for those, idk what to tell ya. you're probably shit at philosophy, just like everyone else, and maybe i just have to get over that

it's totally fair that you don't wanna fall on the sword for dummies, and you're defi not obligated to. ig im also just more scared if people like you stop saying things, especially around devs, that things could go down a really bad path. someone has to be the asshole or this place is fucked

and i also wouldn't under-estimate the impact you have on lurkers. people that are stupid and vocal and likely to remain that way but there are also lot of people that won't say anything and

will use your comments as a jumping off point. maybe that's too idealistic (and very selfish) but thats kinda my personality so its valuable to me to have someone like u around

unironically i think arguing with randoms is a public service. to the uninitiated, it's a way to learn the protocol without reading the docs, in a casual context that is interesting (conflict)

please keep being annoying, we need you

v2 fits in 100 lines

performance be damned

it’s scuffed that i can get notifs while signed out so i might temp delete the app since i don’t wanna deactivate again

ok i’m logging out again 👋

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