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   Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 07:43:30 JST Evan Prodromou

   So, this is very interesting to me. I hadn't considered them intertwined, but in "The Ministry for the Future" Kim Stanley Robinson makes the federated social network a crucial part of mitigation.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 07:47:24 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     Here's why I think the fediverse is important for the climate emergency.

     First, because disinformation thrives on big social networks. The fediverse seems more responsive to bad ideas spreading.

     Second, because federation is more friendly to cross-border collaboration. Nation-states are very suspicious of media headquartered in a superpower like the US or China, but will probably be more relaxed about federated systems.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 07:49:12 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     Third, adaptation is going to require some local resiliency. Having networks that are local to a region and stay up through disasters is going to be a big help.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 07:51:04 JST Evan Prodromou

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     Anyway, my response would be "somewhat important". The federated social network isn't as important as, say, eliminating coal-generated electricity or finding a better recipe for concrete. But it's probably a net positive for climate change.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:01:26 JST Evan Prodromou

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     His naivete about the difficulty of launching federated social networks made me throw my Kindle across the room when I read it the first time.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:05:29 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     And fair warning: the two biggest things I've worked on in my career have been the federated social network and climate change, so I'm likely to overstate the connections.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:11:41 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Adam Avenir

     @adam

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     Adam Avenir (adam@tw.town)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:11:42 JST Adam Avenir

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     @evan lol yes he sure makes it sound like it’s such a new (and easy) idea!

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:15:35 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • LIΞBΔCH

     @liebach It's very good, but the unrealistic coverage of the federated social web made me wonder if he got other areas wrong, too.

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     LIΞBΔCH (liebach@bsd.network)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:15:36 JST LIΞBΔCH

     in reply to

     @evan That book is what's up next for med, when I finish the complete Dune.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:18:36 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • vinz

     @vinzv I don't know. My intuition is that it's probably not a big difference either way.

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     vinz (vinzv@floss.social)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:18:37 JST vinz

     in reply to

     @evan What's your take on resources used to power the federated infrastructure? Isn't having lots of nodes more problematic than say two or three data centers around the globe?

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:19:38 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • vinz

     @vinzv I also think that a global climate emergency requires global real-time coordination, so we can't really afford not to use these tools right now.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:42:22 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Bob Wyman

     @bobwyman I don't actually know the state of the network in places like China, so I should probably get better info about that first.

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     Bob Wyman (bobwyman@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:42:23 JST Bob Wyman

     in reply to

     @evan Nation-states may act against specific platforms, but it is less likely that they would ban a protocol -- a whole way of interacting with the network.

     One might block a website, but banning the use of HTTP would be dramatically different. One might block Gmail, but not email (SMTP, POP, etc). Similarly, Mastodon.social might be blocked, but banning ActivityPub use seems much less likely.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:49:39 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • vinz

     @vinzv you don't need continuous connectivity for AP!

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     vinz (vinzv@floss.social)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 08:49:40 JST vinz

     in reply to

     @evan My initial thought was that single nodes would have smaller footprints. But that would only work with nodes not running Mastodon or Friendica, I guess.

     One interesting thing in that regard is SSB (Secure Scuttlebutt) as works off grid and does not need constantly running/connected nodes. But it comes with a price tag regarding convenience, unfortunately. But still!

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 11:08:18 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Brett Peary

     @brettpeary sorry, I worked on one then the other. Currently working at Open Earth Foundation, where we make Open Source software to fight climate change.

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     Brett Peary (brettpeary@mastodon.design)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 11:08:20 JST Brett Peary

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     @evan I didn’t know you worked on this. What aspect of it did you do?

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 12:21:19 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
     • Gupperduck

     @Gupperduck @rysiek I don't know enough to say. I do know that Metcalfe's law says that value of a communications network goes up with the square of the number of nodes, so growth is going to accelerate.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

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     Gupperduck (gupperduck@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 12:21:20 JST Gupperduck

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     • Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

     @rysiek @evan

     Hello, I hope you don't mind a question from a curious newbie. (Apologies if yes - I'm just finding my feet.)

     Do you think the movement toward the fediverse has reached a rolling momentum now that government ministries, institutions and organisations are setting up their own public facing instances/servers?

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     Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 (rysiek@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 12:21:21 JST Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

     in reply to

     @evan heh… I don't know the full context around this excerpt, but I don't necessarily think it is wrong.

     I feel open, decentralized protocols have *staying power* that's hard to overstate. E-mail is still here, for better or worse, half a century after its inception, and so far all attempts at replacing it failed.

     Why? I think that's because the protocols it relies on are decentralized and open, meaning anyone can implement it, anyone can run their own compatible thingy.

     So many people do.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 14:21:45 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Brett Peary

     @brettpeary oh. Yeah. I forgot you don't know about that.

     I started one of the early federated social networks, Identi.ca, and the software it ran, GNU Social.

     I helped create the protocol that it used for communication, OStatus. Then I wrote another distributed software server, pump.io. That software's protocol was the basis for ActivityPub, the protocol that Mastodon uses.

     I was co-chair of the Social Web Working Group that standardized ActivityPub. I also co-authored Activity Streams 2.0.

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     Brett Peary (brettpeary@mastodon.design)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 14:21:47 JST Brett Peary

     in reply to

     @evan sorry my question is ambiguous. You said you worked on the federated social network? Is that Mastadon or something else? What did you do related to it. Super cool. Just curious.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 14:25:17 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Brett Peary

     @brettpeary Beside all this, I convened a series of meetings called the Federated Social Web Summit that brought together people working on different social software projects. I think it was a big help in getting people to focus on standards.

     And I helped out with various standards like Activity Streams 1.0 and Webfinger.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 14:26:30 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Brett Peary

     @brettpeary most of my old friends know about this because they were on identi.ca. I forget when people don't.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 14:29:36 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Brett Peary

     @brettpeary it is weird that I didn't list wikis and Wikitravel as one of my big projects, but I guess I just have a lot of road under my feet.

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     Oleg "Ole" R. ?????? (ole@mstdn.ca)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 14:34:19 JST Oleg "Ole" R. ??????

     in reply to

     • Brett Peary

     @evan @brettpeary This sounds fascinating, Evan. Thank you for all your contributions to the common good.

     I'm curious about the OEF and the software work - is there any way for 3rd parties like me to be of help? Though my software dev expertise might be a bit misaligned with open source

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 14:34:19 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Brett Peary
     • Oleg "Ole" R. ??????

     @ole @brettpeary yes! We've got Open Source projects going at https://github.com/Open-Earth-Foundation

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     Oleg "Ole" R. ?????? (ole@mstdn.ca)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 15:03:35 JST Oleg "Ole" R. ??????

     in reply to

     • Brett Peary

     @evan @brettpeary thank you kindly! Bookmarking. Go language I'll pass on, but JS/TS shouldn't be a hurdle ?

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Thursday, 17-Nov-2022 15:03:35 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Brett Peary
     • Oleg "Ole" R. ??????

     @ole @brettpeary we just launched that project at COP27. If you're interested, I'll make sure there are some tickets marked first