Gave a talk on the future of work, thinking: the issue here is that work is broken but higher ed can't find the words for this so instead we say "everything is awesome".
The gig economy, work on demand, uberisation, everything is awesome.
And the thing is, it's really not, not if you get sick or you want to raise kids or you have a tiny hope of owning a home or you want to pay off college debt.
None of these ways of working are awesome, except for the people who profit from your work.
So now I'm cranky, because if people withdraw from the economy like employers have withdrawn from the obligations they used to have towards workers, then the entire economy is not-awesomed.
Except for those 8 men who are worth more than 50% of the rest of us. They seem to be doing OK.
Thinking: it's actually pretty remarkable to think of a platform like this as a place to come and pull up a chair and be grumpy among friends.
This is stuff I'm not saying on Twitter.
So I do have an instinctual trust of something here. I wonder what that is?
@katebowles @kcsaff for me, It comes from seeing ppl be open, about their fear or their pain or confusion, and seeing it time and time again be met with compassion, generosity, and support.
Also from a very strongly accepting and tolerant community, where you can look around and see immense diversity along many axes but acceptance regardless.
Also, the fact that Nazis/harassers get banned does a ton to help promote prosocial behavior.
I agree that this is the pattern, but that only happens because the forum tech is somehow treated as "oh it can't pick a side, what happens happens" (I.e. FB news team debacle)
As in, the engineers of these systems- Twitter, forums, Reddit, facebook- decided a-priori it "wasn't their job" to culture community, and build according to their needs.
They build gardens but refuse to put up fences & weed regularly, then wonder where all the pretty flowers went.
@twryst @kcsaff This question of how to culture community is really critical.
I keep thinking that mastodon's asset is in staying fairly small and low profile (@Tdorey has really educated me about small acts).
But you're also exactly right that it's about seeing how people are treated here. It sets a standard of care, across wildly different demographics.
@katebowles @Tdorey @kcsaff I agree- building community is beautifully complex and difficult. While I agree the low-profileness is critical now, I wonder-
considering that this medium follows rules that the devs decide, there exists potential to make the space itself block certain styles of toxicity. Imagine recognizing harassment by ML- currently, very feasible, tho bullying evolves- and silently putting the post behind a "this is likely harassment; view or report/block sender?" alert.
From what I understand, @Gargron has been active in blocking and deleting accounts/ instances involved in harassment.
I think a big part of the "humaness" of this site is the active involvement of humans in tending to it - including actively weeding and building walls.
I might be old fashioned, but I'm not yet ready to leave the 'garden-tending' to bots. ;)
@Tdorey @katebowles @kcsaff
Aye, I agree- he does, often quickly, do so. There have been lots of discussions in the patreon-only discord re: being intentional about what merits banning.
I also see hope here in the federated structure of mastodon/gnuSocial: due to communal differences in tolerance for toxicity, diff instances can have diff ban policies, and block other instances/users on other instances according to degree of (in) compatibility, yet still communicate w/ most.
Last week on Twitter I watched two protagonists go at each other. I follow both closely. Both are people of integrity. They got stuck into each other on the politics of race and Australia Day, all pretty messy here at the moment.
One was sure the other was insulting her at a deep level. Defensiveness became a thing. Stuff got said.
Virtuous beliefs deployed in combat can be really damaging. Hard to know when and what to ban when someone is hurting.
Oof, you just summarized most conversations I've seen on birdsite that actually were in good faith.
I also suspect the simple difference of having 500chars rather than 140 just affords so, !so! Much more nuance.
In fact, on the... 20th? I saw two ppl here end up in a disagreement about the appropriateness of criticizing property damage from protests & "riots". Both had relevant personal experience, yet still by the end a mind had been changed & positions updated.
Btw, relevant to our discussion from earlier:
@InfoGab put together a survey/census of both mastodon.social and the wider fediverse; it can be accessed here:
https://goo.gl/forms/dGL1Q60inn3kTuNw1
It includes both demographic questions, and some consideration of what the purpose of federation is.
(Sorry to just totally flop down on your conversation/observation, I hope it's ok and if not I can ofc abstain in future)
For better explanation underlying how I've been thinking, check out Dr Donna Riley's ?2013?2015? "Engineering and Social Justice" book; I can only read a little at a time cause there is so so much to talk about, and it may interest y'all based off your prev toots.
@Tdorey @katebowles @kcsaff oh cool!
I have, tbh, struggled to find ppl willing to rethink these assumptions/the myth of "apolitical engineering as merely a tool to fight entropy, with no moral valence to its actions", at my university.
I would very much love to hear y'all's thoughts & inferences re: that book/these topics; like i'd honestly be 200% interested in forming a book/reading club re: these topics
@kcsaff @katebowles @twryst Wheels are spinning... A book club on this topic sounds interesting.
I'm also an organizer of the LAK17 Hackathon (https://lakhackathon.wordpress.com/) which I need *good* challenges for. Any interest in rolling in some brainstorming on interesting challenges in with the reading?
@Tdorey @katebowles @kcsaff
OMG YES 1000%
Admittedly, my exposure to pedagogy literature is both v limited depth and exclusively critical service-related, but I for sure would love to contribute to the extent that I could.
To make sure I understand, the LAK challenges are intended to focus on the use/acquisition of data in order to improve learning/empower teachers/increase retention?
@twryst @katebowles @kcsaff All right then we'll be fine because my exposure to engineering is limited to well - none! So we'll all learn something new.
What did you have in mind for book club? Trying it in Mastodon or somewhere else? Personally, I have strong preference to asynchronous discussion, but am open to ideas and options.
I have a strong preference for in-person discussion, but that seems reasonably unlikely, so I would agree on async communication.
Mastodon could be good to allow ppl to join in (and, by doing it here, we normalize respectful&deep discussion in this space) BUT I can be easily distracted & lose oodles of time. Hence I would actually vote against mastodon.
Other async comms?
Email :/
Discord? :|
our own subreddit :?
Has topics, Branching Threads, less distracting?
@Tdorey @twryst @kcsaff I love the idea of a mastodon book club. I wonder (noting my horribleness at reading whole books) if it could be smaller, like an article club?
I really like the idea of reading together, especially things I don't know. I think @lauraritchie might be interested in a chapter or two of John Berger, for example.
@Tdorey @lauraritchie @twryst @kcsaff What I like about this is that I wouldn't have found Donna Riley's work by myself, so it's already introduced new ideas to me.
Looking at this and Berger, the common theme might be social justice.
I'm just also pursuing a reading recommendation on life and narrative that might have a similar focus.
@Tdorey @lauraritchie @twryst @kcsaff
By chance, some of the people we know on Twitter are dusting off a Twitter version of the same sort of idea: https://googleguacamole.wordpress.com/2017/01/24/a-virtual-introduction/
I think this is such a good idea but I find myself thinking: why would you not do it with the longer character limit?
@katebowles @Tdorey @lauraritchie @twryst @kcsaff The simplest reason I can think of to not do it with the longer character limit is because the established community is still mostly in the place where the shorter character limit is.
I'm doing hashtag-OpenLearning17, but I can't do that twitter chat...erm, journal club...because I run a Friday afternoon lab. Wonder if we could talk here at a different time, though? And keep the invitation extended to others?
@ShorterPearson @Tdorey @lauraritchie @twryst @kcsaff I think we could. One thing I like about here is that asynchronous thinking, so it doesn't have to run at a specific time, but could maybe run for a week. This gives slow thinkers like me time to think.
So it's kind of #mastodoncafe, rather than a specific chat time.
@katebowles @Tdorey @ShorterPearson @lauraritchie @kcsaff
Aye, I've thought more abt the tech choice, and I think here w/ both an established community& async comms, is the right choice.
On twitter it is very easy to lose track of a conversation, b/c of the large # of twits needed to express a thought. Also, less % of each msg spent on #hashtag (nonnegligible improvement, imo)
I'm on board with Berger! Which book or articles?
How abt #mastocafe ? Fits w/ pun-on-mastodon community in-joke?
@twryst @katebowles @ShorterPearson @lauraritchie @kcsaff
I go away for a day and a plan is mostly hatched for a book club that does not require reading an entire book- including a hashtag - LOVE it
What if we tried for February to do a chapter/ article a week with the theme of social justice?
Berger, Riley and a couple of others to round out the month maybe?
Found Riley article: Designs on Development: Engineering, Globalization and Social Justice
@lauraritchie @Tdorey @ShorterPearson @katebowles @kcsaff
I'm trying to ensure I do not overload, but I'm most likely interested in collaborating on such a project? Or at least pondering it further.
I'm in an Engineering and Social Justice scholars program (I'm doing a second undergrad) and the program would benefit re: future funding if I can show, to engineering dean(s), concrete, thought-out, outside-of-class writing precipitated from program content.
#writingOnMasto would be perfect!
@lauraritchie @Tdorey @ShorterPearson @katebowles @kcsaff
For MOOCs, I've found "async-d comms, sync-d content progress" to be useful. I.e. continuous, async conversation, but follow a planned week-to-week "be at this point" or "read this article" schedule, to converse when reading is fresh for all?
Does that seem worthwhile for #mastocafe?
If so, What content/what schedule of reading?
If not, (i.e. self-paced), which articles are we aiming for?
@twryst @Tdorey @ShorterPearson @katebowles @kcsaff I certainly vote for Berger - Kate first suggested In the shape of a Pocket (but i know she has already read it!) maybe that? Maybe something new to all of us?
A goal schedule is a good idea, as long as you don't mind late contributions. (I read books slower than I eat them) (if you are visual like me, you will have just imagined that) ;)
Off to make lunches, it's sandwich o'clock here. Happy Tuesday all!
@lauraritchie @Tdorey @katebowles @twryst @kcsaff ...I'm right there with Laura on taking more time to read than to eat.
Or, erm, something.
Point being, my version of asynch is popping up four months later and saying "HEY REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE READING..."
@lauraritchie @fgraver @Tdorey @twryst @kcsaff That one is an odd experience for me, as I was interviewed for it, and I was also part of @bonstewart's thesis research. So I read it from the inside in an odd way.
I'm also thinking hard about @mahabali's recent blog post about working hours.
@twryst @katebowles @kcsaff more cynically, I think the 'neglect' is often purposeful, encouraged or enforced by the confluence of corporate & libertarian net culture.
Within the fediverse at large, the righteous technocratic free speech rhetoric seems less "it's not my job to stop this", more the similar but chilling sentiment "it's my job to not stop this."
For facebook &c, a nazi or a paedophile gives the same ad impressions as a nurse or boardgame enthusiast–maybe more, in outrage clicks.
@paralithode @katebowles @twryst @kcsaff This sounds exactly right. When you make money from clicks and shares it doesn't matter to you what is being shared or why; the more outrageous the better.
I moved to Canada from the U.S. and I have to say I rather prefer the less rhetoric here about the infinite value of free speech no matter how repugnant. It really isn't free speech for all when it's "free speech above all."
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