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beckman466

969 karma · joined January 26, 2021

smile, you're on camera!

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Beckman is the last name one of my favorite authors: Dutch author Thea Beckman ('Kinderen van moeder aarde'/Thule trilogy, as well as 'Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek'/'Crusade in Jeans')

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beckman466··on 100 years of whatever this will be
true. i wish they'd called it crowdfunding. they sold credits for a mutual credit currency that is very different to centrally issued credit.
beckman466··on 100 years of whatever this will be
> when the internet was in its infancy and on a plane of existence almost entirely apart from the real world

> there's a lot of power to be had and space for chaos to be sown

i'm seriously not sure if this is a GPT-3 generated response used to waste my time... lol

beckman466··on 100 years of whatever this will be
what's wrong with socialism? in the early days the internet was mostly a fully distributed communist space. the physical internet structure itself is still distributed/communist. it was the Silicon Valley venture capitalist client-server model that enclosed the web and killed it's potential (until now).

i love the Telekommunist Manifesto by Dmytri Kleiner for it's fantastic and concise material analysis of the web, specifically the chapter Peer-to-Peer Communism vs. the Client Server State: http://media.telekommunisten.net/manifesto.pdf

video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YEzHDxn5nY

beckman466··on 100 years of whatever this will be
> This requires centralized RULES (ie. widely agreed-upon standards of behaviour)

yes, or even clearer: the rules for any holochain app are visible/public.

whereas today we meet in Zuck's living room and he dictates what we can speak/do, using the holochain framework (an end-to-end, open source, P2P app framework) everyone holds a copy of the rules themselves and everyone does their own computing and storage. no more black-boxing of the rules/functions. no more straightjacketed client-server relationships.

wanna set up an app with your friends where you can tweet with 500 characters instead of 240? holochain has you covered. the magic of holochain is it's inbuilt forking functionality which makes repurposing and remixing (evolving) any kind of networked app super easy.

one more example to drive this home:

"What I want is to see Uber’s technology become a protocol. Same with Airbnb, same with Postmates, same with other companies in the gig and sharing economies. Same with lots of other important technology companies, while we’re at it. Obviously this can’t happen overnight, but if the technology is useful enough to provide real value, then it’s too useful to be subjugated to the whims of profit forever. I would love to see these technology platforms either fully decentralised, or centralised in such a way that the entity running it is not-for-profit and, ideally, accountable to all stakeholders. The actual mechanisms for making this work are beyond the scope of this post, but I want to throw this idea out there and get people thinking about it, because it’s the only way of making the future work for all of us.

I suspect — and feel free to call me naive, but I don’t think I’m wrong— that the majority of people working on Uber’s technology would prefer to build a system whose social impact they could be proud of. Based on my admittedly limited sample size of people I know in the tech industry, I feel like lots of people working at companies like Uber are there because they want to solve interesting technical challenges and deploy useful innovations in the world. I believe that if given the choice, most would prefer to build a system that makes the world a fairer and more equitable place. The problem is that this choice is, for the most part, withheld from them, and whatever individual intentions they may have are inevitably co-opted by the [current economic structure] in which they make their living. By working together to counteract these prevailing systematic forces, though, they may be able to open up a space in which to envision alternatives."

-- Wendy Liu, https://medium.com/@dellsystem/dont-put-your-faith-in-uber-7...

beckman466··on 100 years of whatever this will be
> Attaching a solution to a cryptocurrency comes off as just wanting to sell tokens, not sell the solution.

well yeah it's not ideal, yet the holochain foundation does all their work in the open and have to fund their development somehow (https://github.com/holochain/holochain). better doing an ethical ico-like crowdsourcing (based on a unit of computing power, like Airbnb but for processing power) than strapping into the chains of Venture Capital.

most important though is that the main framework created by the Holochain team is fully open source (linked above). so using the Holo host system is optional. it is meant as a way to enable easy onboarding of new users for new Holochain apps. Holo's distributed web of nodes help non-technical users use Holochain apps without being technically literate enough. so Holo users like my mom will be comfortable using Holochain apps that look like client-server apps, until we as a society transition to fully p2p apps, and the ecosystem as a whole matures to a point where we no longer need this 'bridge'.

also cool is that, inspired by LETS and similar systems, the holochain framework allows easy deployment of mutual credit currencies [1]. imo the most exciting implementation of this is the Resources Events Agents (REA) accounting by http://mikorizal.org led by, amongst others, two retired software engineers. you can check out their project http://valueflo.ws. there is another project not building on Holochain, but using the Valueflo.ws ontology/vocabulary called bonfire: https://github.com/bonfire-networks/bonfire_valueflows (main website: https://bonfirenetworks.org/)

anyways, before dismissing this project because of preconceived notions about the cryptocurrencies (which i agree are 99.999999% shitcoins), please read through their awesome developer docs: https://developer.holochain.org/

think of Holochain like a Ruby on Rails framework, but for distributed applications instead of client-server: https://medium.com/holochain/holochain-reinventing-applicati...

[1] https://medium.com/holochain/beyond-blockchain-simple-scalab...

beckman466··on Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO
> How do we stop this cycle where it's a (well-deserved) reluctant goodbye every time a company we like seeks to go public and IPO?

venture communism instead of venture capitalism?

peer-to-peer communism instead of the client server state?

http://media.telekommunisten.net/manifesto.pdf

beckman466··on Winamp source code leak
damn what a DIY project!
beckman466··on Indian academics throw weight behind Sci-Hub and LibGen in landmark case
"How did the rich countries really become rich? In this provocative study, Ha-Joon Chang examines the great pressure on developing countries from the developed world to adopt certain 'good policies' and 'good institutions', seen today as necessary for economic development. Adopting a historical approach, Dr Chang finds that the economic evolution of now-developed countries differed dramatically from the procedures that they now recommend to poorer nations. His conclusions are compelling and disturbing: that developed countries are attempting to 'kick away the ladder' with which they have climbed to the top, thereby preventing developing counties from adopting policies and institutions that they themselves have used."

-- Ha-Joon Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective

source: https://anthempress.com/kicking-away-the-ladder-pb

beckman466··on Aphantasia
> I can hear music pretty much perfectly in my head. I can stop it, rewind it, separate the parts... and I can transcribe it into my music software

do you see the notes of the music in your head, as music plays? so it’s like memorizing lines from a story or play?

beckman466··on U.S. to release oil from reserves in coordination with other countries
> Big business is wasteful on our behalf. If I fly on plane, you'd blame American Airlines, but it was 100% my consumption.

the problem is that the development of technology is not done democratically. there is an artificial scarcity in the solutions the working class can choose between due to the way our economic system bottlenecks/limits innovation by imposing an 'intellectual property' regime. those with privileged access to existing techno-scientific tools can expand their control of intellectual property, and the exorbitant economic rents the state empowers them to extract.

> You can blame certain companies for lying about global warming or polluting even when it wouldn't raise costs.

> But that doesn't absolve you from your role in consumption.

again, you are implying we live in a world where we make choices. we do not. decisions are made for us way before we buy the products/commodities we use and consume from supermarket shelves or car dealer showrooms or wherever.

an example to counter your flights example. instead it's take the option between train and air travel and consider the underdevelopment (terrible state) of railways in the US compared to many other countries. 'consumers' cannot choose train travel in the US because the state has not invested in the infrastructure (despite the proven reduced CO2 emissions).

add to all this the fact that all modern tech was developed using taxpayer money (an example of state innovation is SEMATECH - basically a 'socialist' programme which had US tech companies temporarily waive patent claims (at the cost of $100 million payout from the US govt.)) to try to out-innovate Japanese firms together, because the existing economic systems that are supposed to foster innovation, didn't.

when you look at it from this systemic perspective, blaming individuals is gaslighting by the propertied class.

https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/vol24-2-dont-be-evi...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEMATECH

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley

https://jacobinmag.com/2015/03/socialism-innovation-capitali...

beckman466··on U.S. to release oil from reserves in coordination with other countries
> It's big companies and the military that are causing massive amounts of resource waste and overuse.

oops i mixed up two different points in my original sentence. this is what i am talking about:

1) big companies are causing massive amounts of resource waste and overuse: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...

2) the US military is the biggest contributor to CO2 emissions: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/11/worlds-m...

beckman466··on U.S. to release oil from reserves in coordination with other countries
> Has anyone heard from the President a message to reduce consumption in the U.S.? We waste so much

Who is 'we'? It's big companies and the military that are causing massive amounts of resource waste and overuse. Telling the working class to 'improve their lives' is quite ridiculous. This is a production problem at a systems level, not an individual consumption problem. That narrative of individual change is simply gaslighting by the propertied class.

beckman466··on U.S. to release oil from reserves in coordination with other countries
> so by all measures this has been a good trade for the country!

three cheers for good old America Inc.

beckman466··on Addressing Common Concerns with a World Without Timezones
are you trying to say you don’t enjoy overengineering?
beckman466··on “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
> Strange that this hit HN today.

these 'exciting' new dark pattern strategies spread very quickly among firms. many people are suddenly dealing with them. not strange imo

beckman466··on Learn RegEx step by step, from zero to advanced
> I always look at these intros/descriptions of Regex with a heavy heart. They describe what regex's are, but none of the info is going to make much sense to someone who doesn't already know why they would want to learn them.

> Catch 22 of trying to explain what they are.

any teachers, or people who explain/document things for a living, have some good tips or templates to avoid this?

beckman466··on Why Zulip will not get on the blockchain bandwagon
> Also get tired of the aspirational rants of how it is going to fix supply chains and offer banking to the underserved communities. And yes, I understand banking, supply chains, and crypto enough to know that that will never happen.

agreed. have you heard of hREA [1] and http://valueflo.ws, led by Bob and Lynn from http://mikorizal.org, and others? it's sort of an open source SAP alternative designed as local-first networked software. "Radically distributed supply chain systems". it uses the REA accounting method [2] to implement LETS and mutual credit type economic networks for cooperatives / small business ecosystems / commons based peer production / any transitional/solidarity economies.

Bonfire is also implementing the Valueflows vocabulary on ActivityPub [3].

[1] https://github.com/holo-rea/holo-rea

[2] http://www.jeffsutherland.org/oopsla97/haugen.html

[3] https://bonfirenetworks.org/

beckman466··on How to build a second brain as a software developer
do you use git on top of it to track changes? date metadata?
beckman466··on David Graeber’s Possible Worlds
> i'm saying this with a human life approach

what does this mean?

beckman466··on Paper Website: Start a tiny website from your notebook
it's funny that this is downvoted when this has been exactly the way that many Silicon Valley tech companies have run their services behind the scenes
beckman466··on Paper Website: Start a tiny website from your notebook
is this one of those faux-AI mechanical turk services? as in: 'getting underpaid workers in the global south to transcribe your stuff while making it look like a magical algorithm'?
beckman466··on Copy This Book. An artist’s guide to copyright
> back when the name was first introduced, it probably didn’t refer to author in the modern sense, but to a person in the community who, unlike most, was literate (knew how to read and write).

interesting!

beckman466··on Copy This Book. An artist’s guide to copyright
> I’m the author of this book

"I’m the schrijver of this book."

nice lastname!

beckman466··on Making the dislike count private across YouTube
yes you're right, who cares about our digital infrastructure, it's not like it is an industry where some of most valuable companies in the world are in, right? /s
beckman466··on Making the dislike count private across YouTube
why isn't YouTube a public utility yet? or forfeit it for stewardship by archive.org. having the power to monopolistically decide on the design and technical choices for billions of people using proprietary/black box tech is absurd.
beckman466··on Opening this article voids warranty
> It looks like the wages aren't out of line as far as livability

i appreciate the data, though 1.) this is America - so workers have to deal with a lack of basic social services like in Europe, 2.) from my understanding the concessions made by John Deere were pitiful so far. an account from someone on the ground: https://twitter.com/JonahFurman/status/1456457606583758871

> but it is understandably infuriating to see the company as a whole making tremendous profits while only paying slightly above average.

yes exactly, that's the superior argument here.

although the best argument is the one about climate change, and how viable solutions are not profitable enough to capitalism in the short term. we need open source, modular tech like the Science for the People article argues.

"The current political economy is based on a false idea of “immaterial scarcity.” It believes that an exaggerated set of intellectual property monopolies – for [trade secrets], copyrights, trademarks and patents – should restrain the sharing of scientific, social and economic innovations. Hence the system discourages human cooperation, excludes many people from benefiting from innovation and slows the collective learning of humanity. In an age of grave global challenges, the political economy keeps many practical alternatives sequestered behind private firewalls or unfunded if they cannot generate adequate profits."

http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/peer-peer-economy-and-ne...

beckman466··on Opening this article voids warranty
> copyrightism

i've not heard of this. is it the same as critiquing the intellectual property system as a whole? if not, how is it different?

beckman466··on Opening this article voids warranty
> John Deere employees now hold all the cards, if they stop working people will literally starve without tractors to do the harvest

or, you know, maybe John Deere owners/execs have the power? maybe if they paid their employees a living wage employees wouldn't need to go on strike?

beckman466··on Fuck.com (1997)
The hottest place to...
beckman466··on The strange path of accepting how your brain works
> some tips i'm thinking for myself are:

straight to the solutions. are you close to being ‘older’?

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