@mariafarrell

While I have your (fleeting) attention, before I've read more than a few paragraphs of your platform/ecosystem post, I wanted to point out that, using the hashtag #SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity, I have been, over the past two years, (in part) critiquing the washed-out notions of "community" I encounter on the web...and have just begun attempting to initiate something a little more...complex, contingent, and organic.
But bear in mind, I AM a crackpot.

https://social.coop/@baslow/110984332706080186

communitarium.org is still under construction but it is habitable by people with enough commitment to the project.
Although mine is the initial impetus the project won't be mine.
It will belong to the people who join it, learn how to run it and figure out how to use it as the online space and "nervous system" which coordinates their collective efforts to form a robust, enduring, lively community dedicated to improving the world's chances of survival.

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

@seachanger

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

@beecycling
I think that this is the framing that the powers-that-be prefer we adopt...large-scale policy vs. individual action. In the face of the necessity to *drastically* change the way we live and consume they desperately want us to *not* consider ways we could organize to help each other live significantly more sustainable lives.
They don't want us cooperating and acting collectively, they want us changing our lives on an individual basis...that's less effective.
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

@dangillmor
If "the scientific community" wants to
it can *build* platforms, out of open source components, that could be far better tailored to fit its needs than anything currently on offer.
Science has traditionally advanced by building its own tools and its own networks.
That this does not seem to be happening now
strikes me as a depressing illustration of the learned helplessness
to which capitalism has reduced us all.

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

@baslow@friendica.communitarium.org

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

To Foster Competition In Social Media, Invest In Open Source Trust And Safety Tools

The question isn’t whether robust open tooling is possible, but rather how to catalyze investment and action to make it more of a reality.

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/27/to-foster-competition-in-social-media-invest-in-open-source-trust-and-safety-tools/

US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

[Under no circumstances should we question the basic tenets -- or the obvious superiority -- of the system that has led us here.
The evidence that things are not working nust never lead us to question our certainty that things still work.
Rule, Capitalism! Capitalism rules the waves!
Besides, we'd all be lost without our status quo.]

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/30/us-small-business-office-workers-gene-marks

In the short term, I agree that tech unions should proliferate.
On the horizon, given how much of the tech sector has become Orwellian and omnivorous, we need user/tech worker collaborative efforts to wrest control away and undertake degrowth efforts:

member-owned/run tech cooperatives (where that is possible); worker-owned, at least.
Sustainable, cosmopolitan, community-collaborative enterprises in all cases.
...and we need to start now

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
https://todon.eu/@jalcine/110764810252359478

@natematias

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

Blame capitalism? Why hundreds of decades-old yet vital drugs are nearly impossible to find

the drug shortage problem illustrates a major shortcoming of capitalism. While costly brand-name drugs often yield high profits to manufacturers, there’s relatively little money to be made in supplying the market with low-cost generics, no matter how vital they may be to patients’ health.

[Certain drugs must be understood to be public goods]

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

https://theconversation.com/blame-capitalism-why-hundreds-of-decades-old-yet-vital-drugs-are-nearly-impossible-to-find-206848

@HeavenlyPossum
I'd argue that the project of building "societies" (and "states") came at the cost, easier but not necessary, of impoverishing our notions of community and its workings.
We conceptualized individuals in tension with "groups" and "society" and over centuries robbed ourselves of a rich understanding of communities, to the point where they are now treated as incidental and merely instrumental.

What we call "community" today is often just association.

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

The facilities that make up the common good are conceptually different from public goods because these facilities may not be a net benefit for each member of the community. The facilities that make up the common good serve a special class of interests that all citizens have in common, i.e., the interests that are the object of the civic relationship. But each citizen will have various private interests in addition to these common interests.

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/common-good/

The key to jobs in the future is not college but compassion
Human jobs in the future will be the ones that require emotional labour: currently undervalued and underpaid but invaluable
Growing demand for workers with empathy and a talent for making other people feel at ease requires a serious shift in perspective
It means valuing skills more often found among working-class women than highly educated men.

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
https://aeon.co/essays/the-key-to-jobs-in-the-future-is-not-college-but-compassion

What Elinor Ostrom taught: democratic control is not only possible, it's normal

She showed that an alternatives to private ownership are possible
she argued for diverse, democratic ownership and ecological sustainability.
She empirically investigated how we could do better.
Her work can help us move away from an economy that is based on top down instruction, inequality and corporate control.
She was a pragmatic radical.

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/what-elinor-ostrom-taught-democratic-control-is-not-only-possible-its-normal/

What 'Community' Means These Days

Alain Ehrenberg, in "The Weariness of the Self", notes how psychologically exhausting it can be to be constantly self-reliant. (As Bishop put it, “we’re not capable of doing that kind of self-construction every day.”) Identity construction is at the root of things like depression, drug use, and even suicide. “Identity” as a concept might, paradoxically, prove a challenge to American individuals.

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/07/what-does-community-mean/532518/

I Was Wrong About Mastodon

The crucial mistake of social media was trying to force people with wildly incompatible views to co-exist in the same space. In real-life, I can choose who I associate with. Now, I’m most certainly not looking for an echo chamber. I need my views to be questioned and debated, but it must be by people capable of civil discourse. We should discuss, we should reassess, we should admit when we’re wrong.

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

https://escapingtech.com/tech/opinions/i-was-wrong-about-mastodon-moderation.html

@00Aaron

This is one of the reasons I have so insistently tagged various posts -- reflecting multiple aspects of this problem -- with #SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity over the past few years.
It is only by consciously reclaiming and expanding on the most ancient and most sorely needed technology -- human community (tweaked for 21st century circumstances) -- that we will enable ourselves to collectively undertake the necessary solutions to our most urgent problems.

Why Progressives Should Become ‘Preppers’

The prepper subculture has long been associated with the right but, with climate disasters on the rise, shouldn’t we all be thinking about how to better prepare ourselves and our communities?

“For me, the definition of prepping is building a network”

Research finds that social capital is the key to surviving a disaster—and this is at the core of “community resilience building.”

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity

https://progressive.org/latest/why-progressives-should-become-preppers-doerr-20230713/

How Do We Prevent Gun Violence Without Police? Look to Abolitionists

Building authentic relationships is key to creating lasting safety beyond the reach of institutions of carceral control.

There are tensions between radical, community-based solutions and the nonprofit, government-funded world of community violence intervention. They struggle to win sustaining funds while not betraying their mission

#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
https://truthout.org/articles/how-do-we-prevent-gun-violence-without-police-look-to-abolitionists/