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!
69 karma · joined April 19, 2021
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...
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!
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.)
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.
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!
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!
Would love to connect and collab on this!
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!
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.
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.
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