Passend zum heutigen #DigitalIndependenceDay:

Dieser etwas längere, aber dafür inhaltlich umso reichhaltigere Artikel aus #Noema zieht Parallelen von Plantagen, #Massentierhaltung und der autogerechten top-down #Stadtplanung zur monopolistischen Struktur des Internets und schlägt analog zum #Rewilding von Naturgebieten ein Rewilding des Internets vor.

"The story of German scientific forestry transmits a timeless truth: When we simplify complex systems, we destroy them, and the devastating consequences sometimes aren’t obvious until it’s too late. …

Internet infrastructure is a degraded ecosystem, but it’s also a built environment, like a city. Its unpredictability makes it generative, worthwhile and deeply human. In 1961, #JaneJacobs, an American-Canadian activist and author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” argued that mixed-use neighborhoods were safer, happier, more prosperous, and more livable than the sterile, highly controlling designs of urban planners like New York’s #RobertMoses."

"Technologists are great at incremental fixes, but to regenerate entire habitats, we need to learn from ecologists who take a whole-systems view. Ecologists also know how to keep going when others first ignore you and then say it’s too late, how to mobilize and work collectively, and how to build pockets of diversity and resilience that will outlast them, creating possibilities for an abundant future they can imagine but never control. We don’t need to repair the internet’s infrastructure. We need to rewild it."

https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-rewild-the-internet/

#DIDay #DigitalIndependence #RewildTheInternet #systemsthinking #systemdynamics #complexsystems #Decentralisation #Interoperability #Portability #OpenSource #Resilience #Longread #Enshittification #Broligarchy #NoOligarchy #NoKings #StopTheBillionaireTakeover

Geez, I had no idea that there was a #RobertMoses-proposed east-west freeway planned for #Portland that would run down Division and then Powell! Depending on the exact route they settled on, it might have run right through my house!

https://youtu.be/Qz1RZh7LB4U

Matthew Rhys Is In Talks With Netflix Over Adaptation Of Robert Caro’s ‘The Power Broker’
#News #MatthewRhys #Netflix #RobertCaro #RobertMoses #ThePowerBroker

https://deadline.com/2025/12/matthew-rhys-netflix-robert-caro-the-power-broker-1236631815/

I'm personally neither a fan nor a critic of Brennan Lee Mulligan's roleplaying style. But I did enjoy The Power Broker episode where they interviewed Brendan, in part about his D&D campaign patterned as a sort of mythic NYC shaped by an esoteric version of Robert Moses, inspired directly by this book.

Potentially of interest to roleplayers, historians, and civics junkies.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-power-broker-11-brennan-lee-mulligan/

#ThePowerBroker
#99PercentInvisible
#RobertMoses
#DnD
#Dimension20
#BrennanLeeMulligan

I finally finished reading The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro and while the book is extremely long, it paints an extremely detailed picture of Robert Moses' work in the City of New York. I read this as a part of the podcast 99% Invisible's book club, which went through all of 2024.

There are some chapters that feel like: 'here's a bunch of data'. There are other chapters that demonstrate how Moses would not help public transit, not on his watch, cars come first! One such example of that would be to run both sides of a highway far enough apart that you could run trains down the middle. Moses just wasn't interested.

And of course, there are examples of Moses pushing people out of their homes to make room for infrastructure. There are other examples where Moses is going to run a highway through some people's homes, even though there was a park one block south of there that would still work. Moses was having none of that. After all, he had the power – built up over decades.

And now that I'm done with The Power Broker, I need to read some more of the books on my shelf. I have such a backlog.

#thepowerbroker #99pi #Caro #reading #biographies #publicservice #RobertMoses