@kragen This goes back to the days of "worse is better" -- because "worse" is also (near-term) cheaper, and faster to develop, so it iterates and improves much faster than "better".

You may end up stuck in a local optimum as a result. But you'll at least get there quickly, while "better" is still trying to get their 0.01 out the door.

Otherwise: I tend to agree re: Wikipedia and Debian: social and organisational structures help tremendously.

@zardoz @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid

@kragen @dredmorbius @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid nah I think he means that an agency with a lot of funding(like for instance google) could just become the arbiter of all information by pouring labor into it.

@zardoz @kragen Yes, close to this.

It's the power of free, or at least low-cost.

Software development itself closely resembles network structures (and is a network of interactions between functions or processes). Water seeks the largest channel, electricity the lowest resistance, and buyers the lowest cost, software development favours capable development.

It's impossible to compete against a lower price:

- Features
- Momentum
- Mindshare
- Security
- Etc

@kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid

@zardoz @dredmorbius @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid yeah, they kind of already did. the question from my point of view is how to change the rules of the game to keep them from creating barriers to entry that allow them to dollar-auction their way into net-negative social value

@kragen You'd likely have to undermine their business model.

On the positive side, this is a dynamic which can be used to play megacorps (and possibly other interests) off one another.

That notion goes back to IBM's Earthquake Memo, ~1998.

I'm not sure if you were at the LinuxWorld Expo where copies of that were being shown around, probably 1999, NYC.

Tim O'Reilly wrote on that in Open Sources.

@zardoz @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid

@dredmorbius @zardoz @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid I think it goes back longer than that; IIRC Gumby commented on the fsb list in the mid-1990s that he wasn't worried about other companies contributing code to GCC and GDB because Cygnus could then turn around and sell the improved versions to Cygnus's customers. Of course those customers could get the software without paying, but they found Cygnus's offering valuable enough to pay for, and competitors' contributions just increased that value.

@dredmorbius @zardoz @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid the big insight Tim had, which took the rest of us a while to appreciate, was how this gave new market power to companies that own piles of data, like Google or the ACM or Knight Capital. And now we have AWS and Azure and Samsung capturing a big part of the value from free software instead.

@kragen As I mentioned earlier: Virtually any monopoly I can think of can be described as a network.

The Usual Suspects are transport and communications. Markets are networks (nodes: buyers/sellers, links: transactions/contracts/relationships), politics (power brokers and relationships), information (knowledge as web, multiple contexts).

Most networks have more central nodes, those nodes become power centres as they amplify small applied effort.

@zardoz @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid

@kragen The 1990s power nexuses were:

- Microsoft's per-CPU OEM licenses.
- Office market- and mind-share.
- ISV network and mindshare.

And at the server level, proprietary Unix.

Free software disrupted these, at least on the server, and eventually in the emerging mobile/handheld space. But new networks and centres emerged. Data, and ads, search, retail, and social networkss (Google, Amazon, Facebook).

Swapping monopolies isn't a win.

@zardoz @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid

@kragen Defining "network" in this context may help:

A collection of nodes and links, between which _something_ flows; matterial, energy, information, forces, people, relationships, money.

Characteristics are size (nodes, links: 0, 1, 2, ... many), topology (unary, peer, chain, ring, star, tree, mesh, compound), throughput, permanance, directionality (directed, nondirected), protocols & formats, governance.

Common & distinctive properties emerge.

@zardoz @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid

@kragen Incidentally, the Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein stories have made me aware just how much wealth, power, and corruption are also fundamentally network phenomena. Something I've touched on in a couple of Reddit posts IIRC.

@zardoz @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid

@kragen Weinsteinomics 101: Monopoly is fundamentally a control dynamic, not a marketshare proposition

...Harvey Weinstein and the Economics of Consent by Brit Marling is one of the more significant economics articles of the past decade, though I'm not sure Ms. Marling recognises this. In it, she clearly articulates the dynamics of power, and re-establishes the element of control so critical to understanding monopoly...

https://old.reddit.com/r/MKaTH/comments/78ejl1/weinsteinomics_101_monopoly_is_fundamentally_a/

@zardoz @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid

@dredmorbius @kragen @zardoz @enkiv2 @freakazoid You made a post earlier about economics being a religion rather than science, and I think it's relevant here.

@kick Yes.

That's a point I find from a few writers.

Robert W. McChesney, now in media studies but trained in economics, specifically makes that point in his books (Communication Revolution particularly: https://www.worldcat.org/title/communication-revolution-critical-junctures-and-the-future-of-media/oclc/260208807).

Philip Mirowski's "More Heat Than Light".

W. Brian Arthur who notes that virtually all economics is policy rather than theory driven. There's little actual theory, much of it questionable.

@zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid

@dredmorbius @zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid What convinced me of that view initially was how many economists intentionally and repeatedly make and encourage dimensional faults in comparisons and estimates.

@kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid All: I'm fading a bit here, back at it later.

@dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid This is a very interesting thread you had, but reading it rapidely, none of you has envisionned that changing radicaly of cyberspace architecture was the solution. From what I saw, all your reasonning are still imprisonned by the current norms and standards imposed by the Empire for the current cyberspace architecture.

@dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid

According to my cryto-anarchist studies on cyber-powers genesis, the architecture of all known technological layers and of a cyberspace architecture caracterize what I call the cyber-power model and which in turn caracterize the economical model.

The current statut quo is definitely pushing for the neoliberal surveillance capitalism model we have today.

But different cyberspaces architectures can have cyber-power models that lead to

@dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid

fully different economical models, and therefore, a radicaly different society.

Crypto-Anarchist like me are studying how, by changing those architectures, we can restore human rights, have a fully social and solidary society, ecologicaly and sustainabily driven, with alternative economical models and new forms of self governance handle by new forms of cybernetics of trust.

@dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid

To show you how I "think" differently, I could even ask the following question to Edward Snowden, I'm sure he would answer like most of you would, at least for now :

Let's take this simple question :

"How to fight mass surveillance ?"

Most of you would answer : By implementing end-to-end cryptography making mass surveillance very costy and therefore discouraging it.

That's the answer I get in 99% of the time.

@dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid

And here is what a crypto-anarchist situationist like me would answer to this question :

Mass surveillance is first a matter of telecommunication networks physical topology. By creating an alternative cyberspace architecture that would be a true fully P2P ledger physical network (You create physical links with all your physical neiboors), you make mass surveillance impossible first because there is a fully distributed physical network,

@dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid

making evedropping on each link by any organization simply impossible, then second, you by design invent protocols that are cyphered properly on this physical P2P networks.

Many folks tend to assimilate P2P to P2P overlay TCP/IP. This is a nasty limitation. Crypto-anarchists like me prefer native P2P networks, not only not relying on TCP/IP, but also having their whoosen physical topology, voluntarily something looking like a true P2P

@dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid physical network.

@stman @dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid
Folks in this thread (& in their social circles) have been involved with theorizing about non-IP-based distributed store-and-forward. It's not really accurate to suggest we're not aware of it. (Other folks involved who should join this hellthread: @ajroach@retro.social @natecull )

@stman @dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @freakazoid I think Freifunk-like privacy-protecting mesh physical layers are a necessary ingredient, but by themselves they aren't sufficient either; and they introduce some new vulnerabilities that must be defended against.

@stman @dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @freakazoid it's a start, but it doesn't go nearly far enough; right now we lack trustworthy hardware, trustworthy operating systems, and norms discouraging the revelation of walletnyms, even on the internet, while meatspace is rapidly being covered by cameras and drones, not to mention MAC loggers and microphones.

@stman @dredmorbius @zardoz @enkiv2 @kragen @freakazoid The last *n* posts have been about indexing information, which is a puzzle you're going to have to solve in any configuration of hardware.

The reason "hardware changes" were not considered before the posts on indexing were simply because it was outside of the problem-space. There are multiple people trying to go that route right now, and all of them aren't even scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of progress.

I've only ever seen one good proposal for it, myself, and even it doesn't really work any longer without a major redesign due to how quickly networking and internet usage in general has morphed over the past decade and change.

@kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @kragen @freakazoid

Yes yes, all what you say is true.
First of all, there are no progress because the Empire is persecuting and plotting with its spies on all those trying to take that route and organize. I know what I am talking about regarding this.

Then yes, we are definitely talking about a major redesign of everything. Because we ended demonstrating that there are no other solution that could do the job at all levels.

@kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @kragen @freakazoid

We need, for example, first, to reappropriate ourselves the standardization processes in digital technologies, we need to develop our own norms and standards, and stop being in reaction to those imposed by the Empire and those multinationals like GAFAM.

And yes, the ultimate goal of crypto--anarchism situationism is to redesign everything, revisiting all current concepts, including the concept of personnal computer.

@stman @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @freakazoid there's a certain amount of backstabbing and plotting going on, yeah, but ultimately it's kind of futile; you can cut every flower but you cannot stop the spring. And what we have to face today is really tame compared to what, say, MLK Jr. or Solzhenitsyn faced, much less Spinoza or Galileo.

@kragen @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @freakazoid Yes, all what you say is true, I fully agree.

I've progressively went to systemical approaches in my studies. The more I was studying specific matters or issues to solve, the more I was everytime more convinced EVERYTHING had to be rearchitectured fundamentaly. Even the "all turing machine" concept, as a limitation, has been studied and discussed with my

@kragen @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @freakazoid crypto-anarchist peers here. We have really done a lot of work, and all those reading these lines who already know about all our previous studies and discussions, we all agree that we have to reengineer everything, even the most basic concepts that were taken for granted like concept of personnal computer, and even telecommunication network. We went really far.

@kragen @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @freakazoid If I had to resume all our previous work in a single sentence, I think I would we completely liberated ourselves from current norms and standards, and with the way those scientific specialities were teached.

We even heavily discussed about teaching, the consequences of related scientific knowledge voluntary compartimentation on our ability to think differently

@stman @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @freakazoid I hope your results are correct! The further you stray from well-explored knowledge, the easier it is to spend years working on ideas that turn out to be wrong, in the end. The other day I was reading Gerard 't Hooft's wonderful page, "How to be a BAD Theoretical Physicist," and couldn't help but think of some episodes from my own childhood..

@kragen @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @freakazoid

Ask @theruran ... he's been following and participating for long to these talks and studies... I just feel inconfortable right now because there is so much I'd like to say, and I have no paper ready yet to show you, only a long serie of posts on my TL on different social networks along these last years where many matters have been studied and discussed between like minded crypto-anarchist friends.

@kragen

But we're in touch now, that's the most important thing, and we are like minded, so give me just a little time to prepare all this to introduce you to the research that were done previously.

@kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @freakazoid @theruran

@kragen

I am aware of this.

It's a persistent danger, in science, in general.

Genius like Einstein somehow lost himself with his attempts on his general theory. It's always the danger.

I think that all my work on cyber-powers and cyber-rights genesis, cyber-power models, and also my work on the origin of cyber-chaos is okay. My discovery of what I call the paradox of the current cyberspace architecture with the meatspace is also right.

@kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @freakazoid

@kragen

I think I have managed to put cyber-chaos into equation and find its root causes, and now know how to fight it, and how to elaborate digital architecture that don't generate paradox with the meatspace.

@theruran has been following this work, and I think he can testify that some milestones were clearly reached.

But as said before, it will be impossible for me, right now, to resume you all the topics we've been discussing and studying.

@kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @freakazoid

@kragen @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @freakazoid and to conceive true alternative concepts for the digital "things".

A true new form of crypto-anarchism has slowly emerged from our interzctions, and when we look back into the mirror, we do appreciate all the distance we are walked through from old classical crypto-anarchism to its new form that is currently emerging in our informal international federation.

@kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @kragen @freakazoid

To experiment these new telecommunication networks P2P ledher physical topologies, all we need is this :

A long one, 50 cm long, and start making holes in the walls we have with all our neiboors when we live in flats to put some CAT5 ethernet cables. Then we need to invent a new native P2P protocol...

@kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @kragen @freakazoid

Some say it is impossible to deploy, they are wrong, it's fucking easy. Then we need things like small RONJA's to jump between flats...

It's all at our reach, indeed. The only thing we lack is experimentation and organization to elaborate these new standards.

@stman @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @kragen @freakazoid Oh, wait, did I get baited into responding to a parody account? (I genuinely can't tell at this point.)

@stman @dredmorbius @enkiv2 @freakazoid @kragen @zardoz Apologies.

@kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @stman @freakazoid he's not a parody, I think, just young and struggling to figure out how to navigate a legitimately very complicated political landscape. I wish I could tell you how many of my friends have committed suicide, been interrogated by grand juries, been betrayed by those they trusted most, etc. It's a situation that's difficult for even the best grounded and most experienced.

@kragen @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @stman @freakazoid It's times like these where my mindset of "Eh, you can't win if trying to enact genuine change; you're probably going to die but it's probably worth it" works beautifully. I've never had to worry about that question: all of the people I looked up to politically were dead before I got to ask them any questions, so pretty easy to just write off as a fact of life.

Including, not-coincidentally, one person I've vaguely referenced in this thread RE: how human-readable, secure, decentralized naming systems are a solved problem.

@kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @stman @freakazoid are you referring to Aaron Swartz's Bitcoin-inspired proposal of The Scroll?

@kragen @zardoz @enkiv2 @dredmorbius @stman @freakazoid Yep! I think there's some stuff he got wrong (which was just because of how new it was, really), but nothing fatal to the concept itself.

(Also, I thought the refutals were boring and weak.)

@stman @dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @freakazoid undoubtedly there are many more things we have not managed to imagine than things that we have managed to imagine, however much we would like to radically rearchitect cyberspace. What's your vision?

@kragen @dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @freakazoid Going to write down a text for you about it. Listing first a long list of issues we currently face in the current paradigm, and then drifting to the visions, I'd rather talk about directions, we should follow, and why. My long / middle term followers here know my speech and vision/directions , my analysis, how I worked, and it's impossible to resume in a few toots.

@kragen @dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @freakazoid All what I can tell you, is that I went deep, very deep into analyzing all the issues at hands... Just as an example, my last study was on the conditions to have and to maintain over time digital technologies fully demilitarized, but I've been studying many matters of that kind those last 5 years. Many friends are asking to summerize all this into a first

@kragen @dredmorbius @kick @zardoz @enkiv2 @freakazoid publication which unfortunately I had not the time to write down until now for personnal reasons. What I am saying here is that I al going to answer you, but that I am very serious about the research done those last 5 years on this topic.