ECA/Subject: Re: ECA - continuous refactoring in self-moderation Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 10:19:31 0200

   From: zeljko@qsport.info
   To: jon r <jon@allmende.io>
   Cc: commonswatch@lists.p2pfoundation.net, Frédéric Sultan <fredericsultan@gmail.com>, Torange Khonsari <torange@publicworksgroup.net>, Asli Telli <telli.asli@gmail.com>, Ana Margarida Esteves <anamargarida.esteves@gmail.com>, "Laamanen, Mikko" <Mikko.Laamanen@rhul.ac.uk>, Ruby van der Wekken <rubyvdwekken@gmail.com>, Amanda Jansen <amanda@ouishare.net>, Nonty Sedibe <nontys@gmail.com>, Rémi Bocquet <rmibocquet@gmail.com>, Tibor Katelbach <oceatoon@gmail.com>, Kitty de Bruin <kittydebruin64@gmail.com>, Marie Venner <marie.venner@vennerconsulting.com>
   Subject: Re: ECA - continuous refactoring in self-moderation
   Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 10:19:31 +0200

Dear Jon - thank you for this amazing email, analysis and critique. It is much more than 2 cents and I really hope others find way in it for informing their own practice and inspiriting change in ECA... Will just add minor comments in-line bellow where I find useful.

On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 11:38 PM, jon r <jon@allmende.io> wrote: > Dearest ECA,

> I sense a form of disharmony reaching my inbox these days and feel compelled > to provide my two cents to the discussion. Working in providing > communication infrastructure for socioecological initiatives in the past > years, and only rarely having the free time to enact in political > discussion, us system administrators gain a special view on what's going on. > Think of Snowden, but not for the go(u)vern(e)mental, but for the activists > scenes shaping our collective future.

Indeed. I think we fail to advance more in civil society due to lack of self-critique and slip into neo-liberal 'best practice' collecting routines. If anyone knows of good platform for addressing this I am happy to hear.

> Happily enough I've grown up in the Internet and the early Web of the > '90ies, where information was supposed to be free and unconditional trust to > the available peers was a primary motivation for collaboration. Nowadays, > unfortunately, I have come to acknowledge the cognitive and therefore > physical effects of information and communication technology being enclosed > and commodified in unprecedented scale.

> Instead of monologising and deliberating about the similarities and > differences in collective action and failure, I want to allow someone else's > voice to be heard first, before leaving you with a few questions to carry > on.

Very generous of you to provide food for thought, but as your email did not resonate as much as I hoped it would till now, my thoughts are if it requieres an individual investment or group commitment which is not available here :-/

> Please have a read of Aral Balkan's "Farewell not Goodbye"¹, which describes > a probably similar situation at DiEM25, and focus your attention on the

Excellent read - thank you for sharing this...maybe post you would appreciate https://nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-1603/msg00049.html

> mention of email. Upon your return here, I want to suggest to reflect your > reading against these questions:

> - If there would be alternative ways of communication and documentation, > similar in their production logic to the Commons alternatives (food, care, > housing, energy, education, ...) to the global hegomony we all claim to > support, would you be open to challange your very own expectations and > habits with regards to escaping the echochambers and silos?

Yes. Easily - yes, but at which speed, commitment and mode of adoption?

> - If we are talking about redecentralisation of tools and infrastructures > that support distributed modes of operation, how much effort can we expect > from political practitioners to invest into decoupling their activities from > the global commodities and their shiny surfaces?

Considering amount of apple hardware and software installed at ECA Madrid it is hard to imagine of this being a fast and total transformation anytime soon, but maybe going from lowest common denominators: tools of collaboration, documentation and decisionmaking (loomio had no chance to be presented!).

> - If the Commons are only one part of the movements that need to align for a > better future, most prominently together with Careing Economies, Degrowth as > well as Social and Solidarity Economies, not to mention the explorations > around Degrowth in Movements², and also, if all those narratives are only > vessels to describe a new way of being together to a wider, uninformed > public, which are then the implicit interaction patterns and informational > freedoms that we must absolutely secure to ensure a thriving transformation > of the academic-corporate-nation state system?

I guess this is up for informing, discussion and periodic renegotiation...no?

> 8 of 13 participants in this conversation rely on Google's public mail > service, 3 custom domains are cloaked Google Apps domains, 1 custom domain > is hosted at Microsoft and 1 custom domain is served from a large commercial > ISP. Is this really the decentralised foundation we want to build upon?

Think that at start the focus should be at point of joint work and interaction.

> I may have a lot more to share and say, depending on the course of the > debate, but for now I will be happy to welcome your responses and track the > case from afar.

> Greetings from Hackenow, > sent via an independent librehoster³,

> Jon

Thanks again for links and looking forward to responses...

Best - Z