Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Multiple bright, young scientists I know have told me they will not be applying to jobs in TX & FL.

Faculty friends at institutions in these states have shared they are having trouble recruiting new students & concerned about what they could be accused of.

Having spent years working at UT Austin where I loved our weird & welcoming community, I’m deeply troubled watching things fall apart. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/25/texas-a-m-professor-opioids-dan-patrick/

I saw this on Twitter and decided to copy it off.

• X-Men is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get X-Men.

• Black Panther is about colonization. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Black Panther.

• Captain America literally fought nazis. He is the embodiment of fighting the alt-right. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Captain America.

• The Empire in Star Wars is fascist. The Rebel alliance are Anti-Fascist. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Wars.

Gulf stream could collapse as early as 2025.

At which point we’re fucked.

We’ve known it was coming for 50+ yrs and did fuck all to prevent it.

#ClimateBreakdown #ClimateCrisis

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/25/gulf-stream-could-collapse-as-early-as-2025-study-suggests?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Well, this is a breath of fresh air! https://taxjustice.net/reports/the-state-of-tax-justice-2023/ a positive recommendation on what to do with the global tax process for multinational corporations - shift responsibility to the UN so that the standard multinational corporate practice of playing one tax haven off another & screwing everybody else gets stopped in its tracks. Seems very sensible.

Sucks to be this dipshit: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/anti-abortion-leader-child-sex-abuse-1234794177/

Guess what Greta did after being sentenced today for blockading the "Oil Port" of Malmö in June?

Yep, that's right. Went to blockade the same "Oil Port" of Malmö this afternoon, just a couple of hours later, alongside ~15 other habitat heroes.

When Public Service TV asked why Greta was there again so soon after being sentenced, Greta replied that,
"The climate emergency doesn't care about that, I am not deterred by it".

I endorse these "crimes".

One thing Musk knows about Big Journalism is that it chases shiny objects above all else. This is why rebranding Twitter has held front pages and newscast prominence for days.

He hates journalists, but wow does he know how to use them.

(h/t a friend)

2023 Jul 24:
"Why Are OBGYNs Being Forced to Go to Texas?" by Jessica Valenti
https://jessica.substack.com/p/why-are-obgyns-being-forced-to-go?r=1mqsc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

> OBGYNs [...] got an email last month from the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology (ABOG) telling them they’d have to take their certifying exams in Texas this year.
>
> While he’s in New York, [OBGYN] Ottolenghi has shield laws to protect him from any out-of-state prosecutions. “I’m terrified that the second I step foot in Texas I could be arrested,” he says.
>
> ABOG, headquartered in Dallas, is telling candidates that they “should not be at legal risk” because Texas’ criminal and civil penalties only apply to abortions performed in the state. But the group hasn’t addressed the danger for doctors in pro-choice states who ship abortion medication to Texas patients via telehealth—potentially a tremendous criminal risk.
>
>
1/?

The Kolektiva raid reminds us that it’s important to stand with your users in the #fediverse too.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/07/fbi-seizure-mastodon-server-wakeup-call-fediverse-users-and-hosts-protect-their

Again, doing the best I can with just 4 poll options...

Poll 4: How do you feel toward the Anti-Meta Pact, and what best describes your gender history?

#Facebook #federation #defederation

(boosts welcome)

For anyone who hasn't read about it yet, the Anti-Meta Pact is an agreement authored by Vanta Black on the beach.city instance, which many instances have been signing, promising *not* to federate with any Fediverse instances hosted by Meta / Facebook. (see https://fedipact.online/)

Doing the best I can with the 4 options I'm permitted...

Poll 3: How do you feel toward the Anti-Meta Pact, and what best describes your gender?

#Facebook #federation #defederation

(boosts welcome)

Anybody ever had a go at making #sugar at home using sugar #beets? #Medieval type processes, or modern versions of it?

Interested in seeing how well home-made sugar might work in #preserving: #jams, #jellies, etc.

Please #boost for coverage - it might be a bit of an odd topic, but I bet there;s someone out there who's tried it!

i think a lot about how apparently, someone visiting pink floyd's studio in the mid-70s noticed they had several minimoogs set up with gaffer tape all over them, because when they got a sound they liked, they'd put the tape over the knobs so the settings wouldn't get changed, and invoice the record label for another fresh minimoog. i think this is how you're actually supposed to manage python software installations, just buy a new computer every time you finally get the correct packages set up

The Barbie movie makes a point of acknowledging some of the criticisms people have made of Barbie over the years but never quite goes far enough because in the end, it does have to be basically pro-Barbie and pro-capitalist. One thing I'm surprised they didn't highlight more, though, is that Barbie never needs to train to do her jobs? There's a "Doctor Barbie" but no "Medical Student Barbie". Ken complains about this a bit but it doesn't really go anywhere.

Deadly global #heatwaves undeniably result of #ClimateCrisis, scientists show | #ClimateScience | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/25/deadly-global-heatwaves-undeniably-result-of-climate-crisis-scientists-attribution

#Environment #GlobalWarming #ClimateChange

"Surge in electoral autocracies: The share of global output coming from economies classed as ‘mostly unfree’ (economies with a high degree of state ownership and control) is set to rise from 12 percent to 43 percent, based on Bloomberg Economics’ gross domestic product (GDP) forecasts and the United States (US) Heritage Foundation’s classification system."

Well that sounds pretty damn dystopian, doesn't it. 2/2

@jdp23 @dynamic

replying to this to challenge a few framings :—

• most of the big instances are run by cis white men because running a big instance is inherently contradictory to building community, which people who aren’t cis white men have a lot more interest in. so i’m not sure this observation is saying exactly what you think it is. in contrast, i think many of the most culturally‐significant and cherished communities on mastodon have been run by people who do not fit that mould. i would not be at all surprised if MOST mastodon administrators (in general) were not cis white men, even if most of the mastodon administrators of large instances are, and that says something important, i think.

• the above ties into remarks about “power structure” too. how much power do the few administrators of the few large instances actually have, especially when many admins have now silenced or blocked those instances due to poor moderation? i think they definitely have power over mastodon DEVELOPMENT, but setting that aside for a bit, i think there are cultural forces on mastodon which have a great deal more influence than what e·g Eugen says or thinks. especially considering his remarks are now almost universally derided…

• « How many trans and non-binary people from the fediverse have been in the discussions with Meta, either the NDA meetings with admins or on the SWICG call and email discussions? » i think this is a good point but i want to note that this animosity goes both ways. Meta, W3C, and large instances don’t operate in the same universe as a lot of smaller fedi instances and NEITHER group really considers it strategic to go inhabit the other’s space. one of those spaces is just big, and obvious, and formal, and easy to cover from a press standpoint, and the other is practically invisible unless you know where to look. i think it’s very important not to confuse how things look to a corporation, or government, or press outlet, to how things actually are on the ground. so i ask: why are the discussions with Meta / SWICG the privileged spaces in this conversation? from my standpoint, it’s the informal networks between instance admins which are privileged, and it’s Meta / the SWICG who were not invited to participate.

i’m not talking about race in the above points but i’m also not not talking about race. mastodon has had its fair share of wal·marts in the past and it’s also had one or a few actual independent Black‐owned businesses. you can inquire about the supermarket leadership all you like, or whether we should be allowing this supermarket or that one to set up shop in city limits, but in all those conversations you are going to miss out on the people who are the actual lifeblood of the local community, who are not and will never be involved in those conversations, because they have much more pressing and immediate responsibilities.

final point: i want to challenge the idea that activity on a platform is always a measure of success. in my opinion, the fact that people are forced to live their lives on facebook is one of its failures. and i know for a fact that this hits marginalized populations, for example, who do organizing through Facebook Groups. there are people there who in an ideal world would not be on any platform, who have no need for the platform itself but are forced for one reason or another to participate. those people will never be on mastodon, because mastodon does not force anyone to participate. it is very important to bear this in mind when thinking about demographics and why they might or might not be present here.

Thanks for the detailed reply, @dynamic@social.coop, there's a lot to respond to here so hope I covered it all!

There's no literature on fediverse demographics as far as I know. Given a long history of racism (I'll include links on that below) and sexism, the English-language fediverse almost certainly skews white and male. There are a lot of trans-led instances which *don't* skew male, although most of them are very white.

And yes, it's disappointing how cis white males are so dominant in the fediverse's power structure and discourse discourse today. Eugen drove away the trans and queer women and non-binary people who were major contributors in 2017/8 (links below), and Mastodon's large size means that it's disproportionately influential, attracts almost all the coverage. Almost all the larger English-speaking instances are run by cis white guys (@hachyderm@hachyderm.io is the only exception that comes to mind, although there may be others). Because Eugen also runs mastodon.social, development of mainline Mastodon deprioritizes the needs of smaller instances. So forks like Giltch-soc (which was originally created by trans women) and Hometown (where the maintainer is a person of color) have better community and anti-harassment functionality, but relatively few instances run them.

And this all has a huge influence on the Meta discussion, not just on social.coop. We're here, we're queer, fuck Facebook (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) talks about the LGBTQ+ aspects. How many trans and non-binary people from the fediverse have been in the discussions with Meta, either the NDA meetings with admins or on the SWICG call and email discussions?

And the next section in that article discusses the racial aspects. Agreed that despite Facebook and Instagram are a lot more racially diverse than the fediverse today, so many Black people are likely to find much more community and support from their friends and relatives on Threads than they do in the fediverse -- @harris@social.coop's points about potential upsides from that perspective are valid. And yeah, Facebook Instagram and Meta are racist a f ... but so is the fediverse.

Then again, perspectives aren't monolithic. For example:

@wynch@soc.ironwyn.ch "can't believe some people are seriously considering allowing #meta before they solve their spam, esp. nazi spam problem."

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io similarly observed that he's not sure why folks are spending so much time debating whether defederating before the inevitable harm is bad

Longtime Indieweb/ActivityPub developer @jalcine@todon.eu reacted to the Meta person joining the SWICG by saying he'd be leaving the list because "I do not feel comfortable sharing space with representatives from organizations known for causing direct damage to society.".

But just as I rarely see white advocates of blocking Meta acknowledging that the tradeoffs are different for Black people, I rarely see white advocates of federating acknowledging these other views.

Hmm this turned out longer than I expected ... maybe I'll distill this into a blog post at some point. @dynamic@social.coop, my apologies if there's stuff I didn't respond to!


And a few links:

Dr. Johnathan Flowers' The Whiteness of Mastodon and his discussion on the Radical AI Podcast are good looks at how deeply racism is embedded here.

Ana Valens Mastodon is crumbling — and many blame its creator, from 2019, has some good perspectives on how early contributors were driven away.

Mastodon: a (partial) history has a lot of summaries and links to examples of racism from Mastodon in early 2017 in the section on Dogpiling, weaponized content warning discourse, and a fig leaf for mundane white supremacy, and the section on A breaking point for the queer community has some more quotes

@ricmac@mastodon.social @J12t@social.coop

If anyone knows any licensing lawyers who might be willing to provide their opinions on public domain licensing that would preclude use in generative AI, it'd be awesome if you could tag them.

I'm making plans to get the word out about my almost-launched book How To Write A Tech Book. I enjoy talking on podcasts and I think the story of how this book came about (such as the crash course in LaTeX that inspired it) is something a lot of tech podcasters might find interesting.

The audience is basically any technology professional and aspiring tech authors. If anyone here is a podcaster (or knows one) who would find this topic interesting, let's connect!

#publishing #writing