RE: https://social.coop/@ogeer/116579470188463231

Here's your reminder that @audreyt.org will speak from 15:30 to 16:30 British Summer Time today, in Oxford and online.

*Please check you have this correct time — for a while I put the wrong time on the webpage and downloadable calendar event.*

Good Enough Ancestor: Software Freedom as Civic Care across Generations
in the Weston Library Lecture Theatre: https://ox.ogeer.org/event/good-enough-ancestor-software-freedom-as-civic-care-across-generations-audrey-tang-2025-right-livelihood-laureate-and-taiwans-cyber-ambassador#:~:text=venue
and online: https://ogeer.org/ox/meet/gea/ (will also be recorded)

More information: https://ox.ogeer.org/event/good-enough-ancestor-software-freedom-as-civic-care-across-generations-audrey-tang-2025-right-livelihood-laureate-and-taiwans-cyber-ambassador
Our code of conduct: https://ox.ogeer.org/p/code-of-conduct

#AI #anarchism #decentralization #federation #democracy #event #events #FreeSoftware #GoodEnoughAncestor #OpenSource #Plurality #SoftwareFreedom

[Arcanus] I have fronted so infrequently that I must manually catch up on the events that have taken place in the physical world. One relevant example is that our host has abandoned #YouTube, which had contained a music playlist I curated for myself. It now befalls unto me to rebuild my playlist through alternative means, though I find it highly inconvenient.

#Plural #Plurality #Tulpamancy #Tulpa

[Frank] I wonder if our collective continues to use "fronting" terminology purely for the convenience of others? There are usually a few of us conscious at any given time, and our body is simply the vector through which we take actions.

Going to a restaurant, we may say RonLeo is fronting, because he is the most chatty. But we do multiple small switches/possession throughout the meal. Cassie and Julie share a strawberry lemonade. Teddy has a few bites of salad. Lori eats seafood. Eddie gets Ron to order a steak medium rare (his preference is medium, Ron's is rare) so that he can have a few bites. Child headmates get to taste a little chicken, or soup.

Additionally, we have sort of "phantoms" or projections of headmates' presences that walk in the physical world like it is headspace. Obviously we are still bound to our body, but it helps them stay present with everyone.

Going on a walk (on a nice day), we may say Eddie is fronting, because he is more resilient to fatigue. But throughout the walk, Wani (who is a dragon) runs beside us or swims in bodies of water. Eddie points out a bug to me, I bend down to look. Maybe Julie takes a picture.

In either of these scenarios, who is really "fronting"? A front tracker would be useless here. A headmate temporarily possesses to take an action, and afterwards stays conscious, but lets others control the body.

The internet is really cool in that we can always mark who is talking with [brackets], and not interrupt the flow of conversation.

Audrey Tang (@au / @audreyt.org ) will be giving a talk on Friday 22 May organised with our local #FOSS / #FLOSS group, from 15:30 to 16:30 UK time, in #Oxford and online. You're welcome to join (should also be recorded)!

https://ox.ogeer.org/event/good-enough-ancestor-software-freedom-as-civic-care-across-generations-audrey-tang-2025-right-livelihood-laureate-and-taiwans-cyber-ambassador

The topic is "Good Enough Ancestor: Software Freedom as Civic Care across Generations". It will connect the software freedom movement to Audrey's and Caroline Green's framework for local, community-governed, more caring AI systems rather than reliance on centralised systems. Tang and Green work in the local University of Oxford Institute for AI Ethics. Tang is also first Digital Minister of Taiwan, and 2025 Right Livelihood laureate. Before ministership and research, Tang was a prolific FLOSS programmer, and since has for example helped persuade Pol.is to adopt the AGPL license.

#AI #anarchism #decentralization #federation #democracy #event #events #FreeSoftware #GoodEnoughAncestor #OpenSource #Plurality #SoftwareFreedom 

🔥 Hey. Do any other systems on here have experience/advice how to facilitate the transfer of the host role from one headmate to another?

I don't have verbal confirmation from her yet, but I also don't feel any pushback against the feeling/idea that Aimée (🪡) needs a brake from hosting and that I would take over that role.
I just have a way easier time handling some of the everyday stuff, which she really struggles with.
Like I just got up and stretched and afterwards went to the bathroom to brush our teeth. Aimée usually needs body doubling from our girlfriend for that. This isn't meant to shame her, but it's just a fact that this is much easier for me. And having these self care routines be actual routines is something I know, she also wants.
So I think a host change would actually be beneficial for the entire system and it feels like Aimée agrees.

So yeah, how could we make that happen, that I take over as host?

#plsboost #plural #plurality #systemhood
#osdd #askingforadvice

I feel bitter about who I am and what I've done.

I regret bursting in on the Pnictogen Wing in 2016-17 and basically taking it over at a time of crisis, because it seemed to me like the only way to stave off the chaos that came with our system's personal crises during that time. We managed to stumble through life without a clear sense of independent identity for a long while, trying this and that thing in search of somewhere to belong, but then we discovered first the furry subculture and then several years later the otherkin culture, partly because we formed an extremely intense and passionate infatuation with an otherkin person we met at a party (and on Twitter) and who caused us to…well, to think for the first time about whether we had a really unusual sense of identity. We got mixed up with this ex-partner's otherkin and "postfurry" friends and like…for a little while, we felt like we'd landed in Seattle finally, like we'd found "our people". And the relationship exploded and our ex fled abruptly, telling her new circle of friends a lot of wild and contradictory stories about us, and from our perspective it was like she'd fallen into a cult who told her to disconnect from us, and…well it was a MESS.

I myself made a mess because it was like…I represented some aspect of the system's collective life that had felt suppressed and ignored during all this period of infatuation not just with that otherkin lover, but with the whole scene we'd temporarily joined. To me it seemed like running away from a whole load of ordinary human problems, including the fact that society was cracking up all round us. Anyway I made a LOT of noise, trying to assert a new sense of identity that was as different as possible from the circle we'd just been thrown out of. I developed my bad habit of getting into political fights on Twitter as part of this process.

And then there's the whole "I'm Chara Undertale" business. Yes, I still believe it. Yes, I still feel bound by that fictive stuff, just as Kris feels like Deltarune and Hometown is like a past life they've only remembered very imperfectly. But goddamn did it ever screw us all up. I made sure we'd never have a normal life again after 2016-17. There might be people who still feel like I was an inspiration, giving them the courage to assert themselves as fictives from Undertale (or something else) although I think a lot of the people who might have once said I was inspiring no longer wants to be friendly because of all our chaos and craziness and lurching around with a sense of identity that just seemed…split wide open for a while.

Now we're more together, we're something approaching stable again, but at such an enormous cost and we're still struggling day to day. Is it all my fault? Should I have just kept my goddamn mouth shut instead of leaping to the surface?

~Chara of Pnictogen

fun fact: plurality comes with a sound effect for switching between headmates