Mastodawn

bluesoulyerim 3d ago

futures i still believe are possible:
- civilization no longer depends on fossil fuels
- food, housing, physical and mental healthcare for all
- no billionaires
- full reparations to the colonized and the enslaved
- computing without big tech
- an internet without advertising
- total liberation for gender nonconforming people

If my local newspaper's website returns a 402 Error, how will I pay them in your utopia?

Petro-dollars? petro-bitcoin?

EDIT:

If everything is pegged to fossil fuel backed money, it's going to result in endless wars, artificial scarcity, surveillance and worse.

@2qx begone, coiner

64 Islands Aroha Cooperative 3d ago

@jplebreton @2qx for hundreds of years humans made a living from news without snitching on their customers, it's not utopia

Yes, I don't want to be bombarded with ads and trackers. I don't want to be tracked with an account and credit card for reading the news. I don't want my news consumption monitored and eventually sold because I have to login to read anything.

@2qx @airshipper Then don't?

@soc @airshipper

I will pay to read a free press without ads, but I don't want to pay with fossil fuel money. I'm not alone.

If a free press can implement Error 402, I can get them paid. If they can't implement the second error of the internet, are they a free press? who owns the press? and what is the product?

If I can't but a newspaper, who did?

@2qx @airshipper Maybe try stepping out of your American mindset.

Geoff Mackenzie 3d ago

@2qx @jplebreton accurate reporting is a public good and should be free at the point of delivery. Assuming our utopia still has money, fund it from taxes

Your proposal is that people won't be allowed to pay for the news and the state must do it?

Geoff Mackenzie 3d ago

@2qx No; I'm suggesting that it is good for society if people have access to news, so society should collectively provide that access. I don't really care about allowing/preventing payment, or money, or states. As long as our hypothetical society still has money, if producing and delivering the news requires some money, then some sort of entity needs to collect contributions and make funding available. Personally I would prefer a utopia without money, but I don't have a plan for how to get there

We can transition slowly to a post monetary society, but I think, in the interim, I'd like to buy a newspaper with some solarpunk internet money.

I have the money, but the "free press" isn't allowed to accept it for some reason.

@2qx
Shh... moneyless society
@jplebreton

@jplebreton I boosted this because I loved reading the positivity this morning.

On reflection I think I need make it clear to people I’m sharing it to that that while I can think of multiple forms of liberation not mentioned in this list, I wish in particular I could share it with First Nations justice at the top.

Not meaning to detract from the original post and its beautiful sentiments. We’re not free until we’re all free.

Tristan Nitot✓3d ago

@jplebreton I actually wrote a short novel that describes two characters that enjoy life in such a world. It’s called #velorutopia and it’s available for free under a free license. Only issue: it’s written in French. I’m considering a translation to English, though!

Berg am Laimerin (v2)3d ago

@nitot @jplebreton
Yes, please do.
We all need more optimism and utopic scenarios to dream of.

Tristan Nitot✓3d ago

@muenchnerin @jplebreton thanks!

@jplebreton lots of work to do... Great list

Mitex Leo 3d ago

@jplebreton I don't think things will get any better from this point tbh ..

WoesOfMyHoes🇸🇪3d ago

@jplebreton wake me up when a single one of these happens ;]

𝔅icyclet𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰 3d ago

@jplebreton Great #ToDo list. Anything is possible.

May I suggest also to include something like "greater respect for other species living on this planet"?

Simon Brooke 3d ago

@jplebreton Let's hope so, but also ish.

Full reparations, I think, end up bankrupting everyone. Nations have been colonising nations for about five thousand years. Britain owes Africa and India huge reparations, true; but does Italy similarly owe Britain huge reparations for the Roman conquest?

And who should pay the reparations to the indigenous peoples of Australia and the Americas?

can everything be outside now?3d ago

@simon_brooke @jplebreton bankrupting, as in liquidating assets that are held beyond those in productive use or necessary for survival and forgiving all debts?
Are we sure this at scale would be a bad thing?

@simon_brooke the status quo of reparations discourse is that a white person says "it's flat out impossible" to shut down further discussion and i personally feel like i'd be an asshole to perpetuate that. taking it seriously is the critical step to figuring out what *is* possible.
> And who should pay the reparations to the indigenous peoples of Australia and the Americas?
white people. us. proportional to how much we benefited from the extermination and violent assimilation of those people.

MidgePhoto 3d ago

@jplebreton @simon_brooke
The practical aspect of paying the exterminated is significant.

L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ 2d ago

@Photo55 @jplebreton @simon_brooke You know exactly what he meant.
Gtfo.

L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ 2d ago

@Photo55 @jplebreton @simon_brooke Ah, just realized midge is probably someone I blocked years ago on another instance.

L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ 2d ago

@simon_brooke @jplebreton First question is if the nation that perpetrated the crime still around?
If yes, they likely still benefit from it and should pay reparations.
If no – question two: does the inheritors of that nation still benefit?
If yes, they likely should pay reparations.

Then: does the affected people still exist and suffer from it etc.

In the spurious case of Britain vs Italy that's a hard no, cause Italy's far from the Roman empire and Britain's only in need of some empathy.

ArchiveScribe 3d ago

@jplebreton It is possible and, in spite of everything, I believe it will happen.

Saupreiss #Präparat500 🗽3d ago

That sounds promising, as it suggests there is going to be a new civilization again.

Isibnuy 🐇3d ago

@jplebreton I want advertisement to disappear so badly 😭

And I want gacha and similiar gambling addiction predatory microtransactions to be illegal 😭

Elf Burgerman 3d ago

@jplebreton
We'll have an internet without advertising once we have a world without advertising. I can't wait! #AdvertisingOurselvesToDeath

@jplebreton fuck yeah

Mark T. Tomczak 3d ago

@jplebreton I still need to figure out who pays for the Internet without advertising.

Not impossible, but unclear how to get there.

Patronage could work, but (a) that makes content most reflective of the desires of the patrons and (b) no billionaires bumps up against that goal (though not incompatibly; a thousand millionaire patrons are quite possible, and probably reflect the needs of the people, better than one billionaire patron).

sidereal 3d ago

@mark @jplebreton over 50% of all Internet users right now are using adblocking software. Kinda a hot take but internet advertising appears to be to be very overvalued, and not very useful or profitable.

MidgePhoto 3d ago

@mark @jplebreton
Do you think advertising is an efficient or effective method of paying?

Do you not pay a network fee to the organisation maintain8ng your connection?

Mark T. Tomczak 3d ago

@Photo55 @jplebreton Advertising allows people with no money to access the site.

I pay a network fee, but homeless people using the library don't. Any solutions will have to account for whether they are still accommodated or are excluded.

MidgePhoto 2d ago

@mark @jplebreton
You think the Library (a public service funded by the comm7nity and country here) does not pay a fee for the network use?
Maybe the books on the shelves arrived there free of charge?

MidgePhoto 2d ago

(yes, the fees for the library's network service are notional or rolled up in the network the local council funds and provides across it's services, rather than being collected monthly from the chief librarian. )

Mark T. Tomczak 2d ago

@Photo55 @jplebreton They obviously do. The patrons do not, including (especially) the homeless ones.

If the library also has to pay for every website accessed, I doubt it could afford to continue to offer the service. Or it would have to constrain the sites accessible.

MidgePhoto 2d ago

@mark @jplebreton
Ted Nelson worked for a long time on a network of micro payments.
In the event it has not been adopted, but with the key being "micro" don't assume it would be overall more expensive.

Much of the Web is people who want to tell people something. Absent adverts it isn't very expensive to do that, and they each have a reason to do so, so would they stop because there were no adverts? Those who would: better without, thanks.

On average, library users live here. Thus, pay.

@jplebreton While I think these are materially very possible, they would require a massive change in political will in the entire world, or at least a huge majority of the world.

UpLateGeek 3d ago

@jplebreton
- people just generally being nice to each other on the Internet

Dingswart 3d ago

@jplebreton bit late, guess mother nature already changed its mind and opted for another species to garden.

Oberst Enzian 3d ago

@jplebreton All are possible. None of them will happen so long as the Capitalists and their petit bourgeois sycophants still exist. So long as our compassion is extended to them and we rely on them for money, we will be their slaves. *Either fight or buy some kneepads because a future with those assholes will be us on our knees into infinity.*

Aral Balkan 2d ago

@jplebreton @theynege Yes, please.

GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺2d ago

@jplebreton It looks like a pretty good start.

@jplebreton it is necessary for survival of the human race

Ovidi Nawer 2d ago

@jplebreton money was made in an era were scarcity was a reality.
Nowdays we are overproducing corn to make a measly amount of methane and some food for, not us, but the absurd amounts of cattle that needs to be feed to allow us to eat half of the meat they produce while the other half is thrown back into cattle or into the trash.
And this is on the food side, aka, the only source that has to be consumed by default.
Houses and solar panels are more of a permanent asset.

Whiskers 🇦🇺1d ago

@jplebreton An admirable scenario. I like it already.
I reckon if humanity activated a mechanism that selected out sociopaths and psychopaths from leadership positions we'd automatically be on a path towards this.

Nuwagaba Gift 19h ago

@jplebreton
The best way if predicting the future is by creating it. What can be done to create that possible future you're referring to?