Mastodawn

#SovereignByDesign #OpenBiz #Web20 #FuckTheAlgorithm #SocialMedia

Luis Suarez 3d ago

Going to take the liberty of adding a few noteworthy quotes below to remind me as to why I am here (#Mastodon) nowadays 😅👇🏻

"This is the result of two decades of deliberate, calculated effort by the largest technology companies on earth to turn users into consumers, instruments into appliances, and technical literacy into a niche hobby for weirdos"

Truth Collector 3d ago

@elsua54 I think the #quotes are great and see great opportunity to work together as whole. Do you have a page / post about where you'd like to be or write about what your ideal behaviours are in the right "now" or short-term to build whatever it is you looking for?

Luis Suarez

@collective_truth Individually, at this point in time, I don't. I deleted all of my online life in December last year. I'm starting from scratch now, trying to apply what I've learned in the past 30 years to do better. All in all, as an effort to not repeat the same mistakes that brought me to late 2025 to delete everything and start again.

As a group, I'm part of a collective working on exactly this topic of #DigitalAutonomy & #SovereignByDesign right as we speak.

@elsua54 Interesting -

- Did you actually delete everything - maybe archived some etc?

- Also can you say more what you're actually doing?

@collective_truth Yeah, I deleted everything. I only backed up the posts from my 21 year old blog (While I look for a new home for it within the EU) & my Flickr pictures. A clean start. A hard reset, while I try to figure out where to next ...

RE: daily work, I steward, facilitate and look after a worldwide collective of knowledge practitioners with in-depth knowledge and expertise about the underpinnings of both #DistanceWorking and #DigitalAutonomy

(See this toot 👉🏻 https://mastodon.social/@elsua54/116296951766624150)

RE: https://mastodon.social/@elsua54/116296951766624150

@elsua54 Ok that post "How I plan to use #SovereignByDesign ..."

1/ Doesn't seem to say "the what" it is more than good #ideals or #betterpractices etc - so still not clear as actions (not saying it's bad but is it more than a hashtag of principles etc?)

2/ Which open protocols / with who / how ? Even if I deleted my life I'd know what it is or just say "I don't know" but I have these thoughts around it etc which is fine either way.

@elsua54
3. Words like #DigitalAutonomy usually RELY ON OTHERS to do it *for themselves* and aside from a few changes I don't know you can help others to manage their own #life or #undo #addictions or do the #betterpractices stuff other than give them time to catch on to it and a few #tips or #handholding posts / principles etc.

How could you speed up just general tips or convert them on to somethign else?

@collective_truth I agree with you about relying on others. That's key. RE: "How could you speed up just general tips or convert them on to something else?", in order for me / us to be able to do that we may first need to do a bit of pathfinding, i.e. play & discover what works, what doesn't, for what purpose, etc. so that once we're settled on specifics (i.e. the better practices you mentioned earlier) we can persuade / influence others to make the shift.

For instance, why Mastodon? 🤔

@elsua54 If asking the question about #Mastodon.... then it wouldn't be my first choice... it's just the only thing more privacy respecting.

#Mastodon team has no interest in developing people (as far as I asked before).

I make the case often that social change needs social people (so obvious).

A super social engine - nearly empty / just shallow in depth.

Sp we need to solve depth using people (ourselves) not just #Tech.

@collective_truth Agree with you on that one. In fact, technology is an enabler. That's how far it goes. It's the sociology piece that's the most important and for that to kick we first need to realise where we are, where we would want to go, with whom and how we are going to do it.

Why do people still use Twitter in the hundreds of millions? We'd probably need to define "social", too, because if social = traditional social media, we're fucked (Again!).

@elsua54 The answer to that and next post is:

WE, the two or more people have to *redefine* the practices or #introduce incremented #trust / reduce #distance a bit / work on more things alone and then together. Often.

To do different to the same-same text ways we had since #2000's doesn't work even on Mastodon / advanced forums now in #2026.... still without #human encouraging "#pioneers".

Mastodon is more than enough software to arrange a meeting or material to teach ourselves more humanly.

@collective_truth I agree with you about redefining the practices going forward, but you should also take into account the incentives. Motivation is key. I suspect we're all fully aware of the better practices needed, but we may not be aligned with our incentives, specially, in a wider scale.

Like I said, based on what you wrote, why are there hundreds of millions of people still using Twitter / LinkedIn daily? Incentives not necessarily aligned with ours here? Why? 🤔

@elsua54 You are missing the point with this part of #incentives.

Incentives suggests / demands you give something extra when eventually (especially Tech) you have to accept less / go back to basic protocols / interface in order to cancel out most of the bad mixed in.

Features (advertising) also did solve the problem first on a big scale such as better interface + connectability (universal sign-in) as a mainstream effort - but at cost of #mainstream #VentureCapitalism pumping / subsidising it.

@collective_truth RE: Incentives, what you mentioned above is only one side of the coin, perhaps even the least important / relevant when you consider people’s own incentives.

You need to dig in deeper. Fixing the tech is the easy part, it’s the human / sociology side, that requires more work, the toughest piece of work: understanding humans and how they operate the way they do, usually, against their own interests through inflicting pain / harm upon themselves to achieve such incentives.

Why?

@elsua54 So to finish that part:

The modern "incentive" I feel you're mentioning and missing the point with asking about Twitter / LinkedIn because the answer is a mix level of:

🔴 "people don't care"
🔴 "as long as it gives them cake"
🔴 because "everyone else was using it first funding by #BigTech"

Our incentives here are #morality / not accepting #advertising / dirty #tricks - other people don't have that.

Hope the above #list answers mostly of the why.

@collective_truth That’s a pretty good summary, indeed, about incentives, but, once again, it’s your perception, not necessarily people’s own reality.

People *do* care, they are not having enough cake (never had!) and they *definitely* were already there way way before BigTech bastardised the user experience and messed things up through bursts of #Enshittification galore.

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@collective_truth RE: “Our incentives here are morality […]” 👈🏻 Yeah, that’s good and lovely, highly recommended and encouraged, but does it allow you to pay your monthly bills and live a somewhat comfortable life in today’s day and age?

That’s probably where we should first start asking about incentives and motivations people may have before we can aim higher, otherwise we can carry on speaking about morality, starving, homeless and what not 😔

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Truth Collector 23h ago

@elsua54 So which one comes first?

#Paying monthly extortionate bills
or
#Morality (asking people to look after people / not use debt against people)

I #suggest people save their #money and avoid paying - as it's only a month or two until you're in the same starving position and it's never enough for them #landlords.

Or least a place outside of the #scam city of #casino games + give chance to something else.

To keep paying is to keep supporting bad people and that could be worst scenario.

@elsua54 I think it's better to #focus on people who already chose themselves and not stooping to the lower grounds of Twitter (at least not yet).

The good are still far behind and too patient / accepting of things (like rent) to really break out and not accept (people still use google here and are like Twitter users but in many other ways, playing with their Playstation-Linux's all day and pretending more of that "work" helps socially. #Shrug

Note: I will try reduce the barrage of reply.

@collective_truth I still feel we would be much more effective if we focus on changing the conditions under which people operate in the system than on getting people themselves to change, because they won’t. Never have, never will.

It’s one of the many things I’ve learned over last 3 decades doing change management within orgs.

Remember the good old E2.0 & #SocBiz? Where are they nowadays? Did we get it wrong? 🤔

Truth Collector 1h ago

@elsua54 (I didn't answer this so clearly)

WE have to create a new way from here and now, and that probably involves the current willing humans (if not you) to change what they do and tangent from there. (i.e. chat more and develop people / find better ways that just saying we need to change something else!)

I'm not sure of the 2 old things you mentioned at the end.

And I'm not sure which protocols you like (I did ask for a list) but anyway maybe you don't need to answer.

@elsua54 (not sound angry but seems relevant)

We something people-pushed + encouraged or a #helpdesk and department to again encourage togetherness not just give post to inexperienced people who always stay distant / never risk trust or just play with computers. (#Mastodon is almost only #Tech based / % of posts talk about tech or have good other posts but 1-way almost only dissecting why Trump is bad / wrong etc).

Giving super-engine with bad / quiet impersonal social people has little use.

@collective_truth After reading this last toot you've shared, I'm wondering about what's the main incentive for people to use Mastodon. Only tech? I wouldn't say so, at least, my timeline doesn't focus on tech for vast majority of posts that come through it. It's probably a tech audience, but so was Twitter back in 2006 and blogging in general 30 years ago. We need to start somewhere to re-build. Learn from the early Web 2.0 (= people driven). What went wrong then moving into 2026?

@collective_truth Great feedback! Thanks a bunch! 🙏🏻😊

It's work in progress. After all, I wrote those few words nearly 3 months ago while trying to figure out how I'd want to curate specific pieces of relevant & useful content to eventually figure out "the what".

Actions can only come up once I've figured out how / why I'd want to go forward from here onwards. I'm not in a hurry. It's the conversation & the journey that interest me in equal measure as well, just like this one we're having.

@elsua54 Sure it was feedback but also there were questions - care to answer them? (Mainly I've resaid point 2 below)

2/ Which open protocols are you looking at or like the idea of using?
Do you have a list of what you are using / what you like?

Yes I consider the above and conversation as good. Not sure about the "not in a hurry" - sounds like bit more of a speculation on the side, though I don't doubt it all and don't mean to distract.

3/ Why not be in hurry / work on it more ?

@collective_truth Apologies I wasn't clear enough. Here we go:

2) I wouldn't start with the protocols per se, we need to know first what we'd want to do instead. Focus on the task at hand, then decide on the protocols, as multiple may apply. For instance, blogging, microblogging, instant messaging, file sharing, Web meetings, etc. Which protocols? 🤔

3) I'm not. I've been in this space for nearly 30 years. How far have we advanced really? Are we where we want to be? Probably not. Why hurry?

@elsua54 Agree. Thanks for you reply.

"Hurry" (defined a a sense of urgency while not doing bad work just to feel like it's progress) is because everything is getting worse / less possible.

The social construct is what we need to start so if no hurry for you then I doubt it's that important.

I agree with your post I'm replying to
and I don't think I have any more questions or answers for you.

@collective_truth I agree with you about having a sense of urgency. It's needed, but we also need to understand we work with fellow humans, not machines. An example, how long did it take an entity like the EU to regulate #GenAI (with a much needed improvement, by the way!)? 4 years since ChatGPT first kicked in. Is it perfect? No, not at all, it's a start, but it takes time to figure out the sociology piece to it all.

Losing our patience won't get us anywhere other than to where we're today.

@elsua54 'Communicating problems deeply' is what perhaps the many are not getting / accepting as the #DIY.

People too comfortable - unhurried change, So even if you had the answer now you might just potter around it !

(Seems to always be this dept with others and fast replies).

It's not "losing patience" either, but more making it an active part of your #life to be the *actual change" itself! 🙏

...as text or audio chats seems to solve everything, regardless of what subject or problem is.

@collective_truth [Back now] Good thoughts, although I'd venture to state that act of communicating problems deeply was foundational ground ground work done over 20 years ago. It's not about comfort, but incentives, nothing to do with unhurried change either. It's pace, rhythm and flow in equal measure.

If *I* had the answer, believe me, I wouldn't be here. Neither would you. It's already part of our lives, otherwise, why bother at all?

Text / audio chats do work when distant from one another

@elsua54 Pace, rhythm, flow is similar yes.

1 ⏺️ Too much comfort = less need in some ways. I hear it in your voice.

Probably you have no need to change or even help develop others. Have money.

2 ⏺️ I think if you (+others) had the answer (the same way I did) it would need incredible #courage to go against practically the whole #system and people who believe / follow it ignorantly.

It's near suicide / ostracisation / expelling yourself fro m current ways.

Answer is there, but not courage.

@collective_truth 1) I’m going to ask you a favour, if I may. Don’t make assumptions about things you don’t have much of an idea about me personally.

IF I were to have the money, believe me, I wouldn’t be here having these super interesting conversations with you in the first place. I'd be elsewhere. You?

Same for comfort. You’re making an assumption about something you don’t know much about. Thin line you’re walking there. Careful.

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@collective_truth 1) Indeed, I don’t have a need to change or even help develop others, because you just can’t change people.

They’d only change IF you’re capable of changing the conditions under which they operate. That’s the game. Anything else you’re wasting your time, like I’ve done for nearly 3 decades thinking I could change / help develop others. That attitude can eventually turn a bit patronising, frankly. I learned the hard way, not going to make the same mistake again.

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@collective_truth 2) If I had the answer, I know for sure I wouldn’t be here. You probably wouldn’t either, don’t you think?

Once again, you’re making assumptions about me without not knowing much about me in the first place.

"Every dead body on Everest was once an extremely motivated person” comes to mind. Switch ‘courageous’ for ‘motivated’, a thin line to walk through, once again.

@elsua54
3 ⏺️ #Incentives I agree but from bad positions we have only but to accept the bad hole we dug [#inherited from our predecessors] and the casino we entered and help each other to 'get out' somewhat.
Just to take the hit, not try fix the bad methods always (as the fix is not to stay in the #casino / keep digging a #hole for others].

To take the hit, #exit is the main way when #systems become so developed.

Tg back to raw #basics / not #paying / not accepting so much #cheating #swindle.

@collective_truth 3) RE: Incentives, we don’t have to accept any kind of bad position, not even from our predecessors, more than anything else because not everything was bad. Quite the contrary!

It’s about understanding people’s own incentives, why do they do what they do & for what purpose. Only then, can we perhaps intervene in the system through shifting the conditions under which they operate to achieve them. It’s an act of persuasion and influence.

Are your own motives better than theirs?

@collective_truth Here is another example I can think about to understand how bad urgency is when you're trying to promote a lasting social / societal change for the better. In today's turmoil times with the emerging oil crisis, do you know how old #Teleworking is as a concept?

@elsua54 ⏺️ Can you let me know what #protocols you like? Full list or some of them will do...

⏺️ You mentioned #AI - maybe some thoughts on that, how happy you in using it or think it would be regulated eventually for the good.

Thanks

@collective_truth 4) RE: protocols, once again, you’re asking me the wrong question. Protocols are good, helpful to some extent, but for protocols to be useful we first need to figure out both the why, the what and with whom. Only then can we move towards the how (=protocols). But since you asked, here’s a good starter about what I am after 👉🏻 https://youtu.be/6gmP4nk0EOE

Remember the good old Open Social Web?

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Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

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