Notices by Tinker ☀️ (tinker@infosec.exchange)

@MrDOS - Oooh, I'll check it!

With all the BS of Apple doing their AI spying (amongst other issues), it's that time of year where I once again look for a "third party" phone to migrate to as a daily driver.

I've followed lots of Linux phones (running Ubuntu Touch, KDE Plasma Mobile, postmarketOS and others), feature phones running KaiOS, and others.

Heck I was even building my own phone on an RPi years ago (https://web.archive.org/web/20210725154717/https://www.tinker.sh/kde-plamo-rpi/ ) and have been following the PinePhone project for a very long time.

My current research is pointing towards a Fairphone 4 running e/OS (degooglefied android). I live in the US, so this is as close to the Fairphone as I can get currently: https://murena.com/america/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-4/ (edit: Annnnd, it's no longer available.)

Really I just need a phone that runs Signal and can run some sort of GPS app. Everything else I can do via a web browser.

I hate Apple/iOS phones. The only thing I hate more than Apple phones are Google/Android phones.

#phone #android #ios #apple #google #fairphone #privacy #linuxphones

@anagnostes @20002ist @briankrebs - You're both wrong! Nano for lyfe!!!!

Reminder to those that want to create a #pixelfed account to spread out to other servers.

@dansup can only do so much on the flagship server.

@jerry has an awesome server at https://pixel.infosec.exchange !

With that, also remember to support Jerry by donating here:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/infosecexchange
Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/infosecexchange
Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/Infosec.exchange/

You can also support with a one-time donation using PayPal to "jerry@infosec.exchange".

A couple folks have brought up a great concern regarding "Free Fridges" and Post-Scarcity Mutual Aid Food Distribution:

(I will not link the specific threads here as to discourage brigading).

Example concern: "It's funny how few of these projects last. I am an old school liberal where we recognize that intentions are not enough. Stuff has gotta work, and that leaves out a lot of hope-cope stuff like free stuff."

Example concern: Post-scarcity programs have been tried over & over. They run into the same issues. 80% decent folk vs 20% selfish sociopaths. [...] Free food outlets get vandalized by NIMBY's to "discourage the wrong sort. Volunteers burn-out & tire of those misusing facilities meant for the common good"

The general concern is that these initiatives "fail." And that the existence of this fail state is enough to discourage even attempting it in the first place.

A couple thoughts:

1) No they don't. Many initiatives fail. Many succeed. Sooo... yay life.

2) A common tech-bro / entrepreneur refrain is "I am a serial entrepreneur." or "Fail Fast, Fail Often, Fail Everywhere". Capitalistic endeavors fail all the time... but that's seen as a good thing there. Why are post-scarcity / mutual aid initiatives held to a different standard?

3) That said, it is important to know WHY those mutual aid / post-scarcity initiatives that fail, do fail. So that we can learn from their mistakes and push for better success. This is a great thought exercise to have.

To go into detail on the above thoughts:

1) It's just not true that all post-scarcity projects and mutual aid efforts fail. My specific free fridge project is in its third year and we're beginning new initiatives to spread and install new fridges. Richmond's free fridges are on their fifth year. Food Not Bombs was established in the 1980's. The NAACP was founded in 1909. So... like... what do you mean fail? Have some projects started that are no longer here, absolutely... but how is that different from any other human endeavor? Which brings me to the next point:

2) Capitalist and for-profit initiatives fail all the time. How many store fronts do you see that run a business and now run a different business? Approximately 60% of restaurants fail within the first year of operation and 80% fail within the first five years. Tech Bros always say "Fail Fast, Fail Often!" and they're praised for being self-labeled as "Serial Entrepreneurs". Does that stop them from trying? Nope. Folks will spin up a new endeavor again and again. Good for them!

Even if I die tomorrow... and fail at "staying alive"... I will have fed people. I have ALREADY SUCCEEDED in feeding people. I have fed people through the food bank. I have fed people through hot meal initiatives. I have fed people through this free fridge project. I have fed people through food rescue. I have fed people by growing hydroponics and giving that away for free. I have fed people by giving them a five dollar bill on the side of the road.

I have already succeeded.

And I will continue to succeed by growing out these initiatives.

3) These "you're gonna fail so don't even try" comes from two places. The first is malicious. They don't want you to succeed, so they tell you you can't. These are discouraging and depressing and I take a step back, feel sad, take a nap, then get up and continue on trying to ignore what they said (it sucks though, and reading these comments hurts, but whatcha gonna do?).

The second set are people that have failed at (or seen fail) post-scarcity initiatives that they wished would have succeeded. They are discouraged and are either venting their discouragement OR are warning you that you might fail in an effort to hope you prepare for it so you succeed.

This is fine.

We can heed this.

For me, in particular, I am not discouraged by temporary set backs. We had a threat of my fridge being shut down recently. We talked to the host and it's staying up (for now). But if it did go down, we would have built another one elsewhere. In fact, this little fright has spurred us to intentionally build elsewhere so that we don't have a SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE. Great. Resiliency.

So let's look at why mutual aid fails. Dean Spade in his book "Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next)" devotes entire chapters to analyzing this, but I'll only use a couple paragraphs here for the sake of brevity. These are my observations. Research more on your own!

Mutual Aid / Post-Scarcity often fails due to a couple reasons. Namely burnout and discouragement. If you treat mutual aid like charity, it will fail. If you pour all of yourself into it and do not take, you will dry up. If you push yourself further than you can, you will burn out.

You know what. You can burn out in your job, too, right? I would argue you burn out more often in capitalist initiatives because your managers treat you like a consumable and burn you out and then replace you. I would argue that I burn out and see burn out LESS in mutual aid efforts.

But still: You cannot over extend yourself.

I know it seems like I do a lot.

I don't.

I sleep a fuuuuck ton. My brain failed a while back (burnout in capitalism... yay). There are times when I can't do anything.

So I only work what I can and I only pursue that which fulfills me.

This is important. Me, personally, I LOVE food programs. I get dopamine rushes by doing it. If I tried to do voter registration or push city-council to do stuff, I would die. So I don't do that. Find the thing that really interests you and focus on that one thing. That frees up others to focus on their thing. Don't try to solve ALL of the world's problems. Focus on one simple thing and do that, when you can, as you can, and to the SUSTAINABLE effort that you can.

Further, I join or create initiatives that involve OTHER PEOPLE. I make sure that I'm part of a greater team where any one of us doesn't have to do much and the initiative continues on even if many of us stop working for a while. These initiatives take effort, sure, and even continued and intentional effort, but many hands make small work. The neat thing about community... is you have a community.

Lastly, I PERSONALLY USE the mutual aid efforts I build.

Again, not charity. MUTUAL aid. Mutual. Mutual means both ways.

I give to my free fridge and I TAKE from my free fridge. The free fridge provides me free food too!

The Olio App (used in the UK and some of Canada and elsewhere), encourages their Food Rescue Heroes to take 10% of what they rescue. So just by picking up food rescue, you immediately gain free food for yourself!

That's mutual aid. You are building an apparatus that makes YOUR life easier. If it makes your life easier, you're libel to continue at it, aren't you?

There are other aspects as to why *some* mutual aid fails and they're important to understand and account for.

But do not fail by not starting.

Fail by trying and then stopping after a while. Even temporary projects have succeeded while they were running. That is a worthwhile effort.

#solarPunk #mutualAid #freeFridge #foodRescue

Trash Panda (@raccoon) asks a great question regarding "Free Fridges" and Post-Scarcity Mutual Aid Food Distribution:

Original Question and Thread: https://hollow.raccoon.quest/notes/a2jvqqajuvif0aog

Question: "A thing that would worry me is people taking advantage of this and taking a shitload of food without needing it. Like, people who could just afford buying it, you know? Does it ever happen?"

Awesome question!

And it has a couple of answers or way to approach it. I'll try to answer it in those couple of ways.

Answer 1) Let them. Let them take as much as they want or need. We'll just produce more. We have the means. - There is often a worry of people "abusing" a system. This is a SCARCITY mindset. It worries that there's not enough to go around, so folks will abuse it and take from others.... BUUUUUT.... there IS enough to go around... you can take what you need, heck take more than you need, and it will be fine. We. Have. Enough.

Answer 2) Let's actually threat model this out. Like... Is this really a problem? If so... who would do it.

So the short answer is, it's not really a problem in practice. There are many free fridges already going. No one really "abuses" (in any meaningful definition of the word) the system.

So it's not a hypothetical. We can just look at what's actually happening. And it's not a concern.

Long Answer: When you grow up in scarcity and first encounter post-scarcity, it is NORMAL to hoard things.

Let me say that again.

It is NORMAL for people to take what they need NOW and then take more for what they think they will need LATER for security and even add a buffer on top of that JUST TO BE SURE!!!

Cool.

Let them.

After a while, they realize that they TOO are not consuming all they have and they start to FEED BACK INTO the post-scarcity input / output.

This is called healing.

Artificial Scarcity (read Capitalism) hurts people.
Post-Scarcity Mutual Aid heals people.

If part of that process is them using the post-scarcity system a lot until they heal and get used to having enough... then it's chill. Let them "abuse" it. It'll be fine.

Answer 3) If we give into this fear, we produce the result of the fear without the fear itself ever needing to be realized. To put it another way, if we worry people will abuse it and there won't be enough food for others, and we don't do it out of that fear... then..... there DEFINITELY isn't food for others. Lol! Out of a fear that the prophesy will come true, we have ensured that it came true. So... like.... just do it... and deal with any problems that come up when they do.

Answer 4) You mentioned "People who could just afford buying it" could take things they don't need.

Cool. Let them!

I don't want ANYONE to have to pay for food.

I want food to be free.

But this line of thinking that we ONLY GIVE TO THOSE WHO DESERVE IT leads to insidious things like "means testing' where we SPEND MORE MONEY AND TIME AND EFFORT to keep food out of the mouths of those who "might not need it" than if we just used that money time and effort to feed everyone including th
e "rich".

Post-scarcity means post. scarcity. It's not scarce. You can get free food even if you could afford to buy it.

Just feed people.

We have enough.

#postScarcity #freeFridge #mutualAid #solarPunk

Someone dropped off a massive food rescue haul to our free fridge and community pantry today.

They're not part of my program and we're not sure who's doing it. This is awesome. It means there are others outside of our volunteer group that does maintenance on the fridges and outside of the group that I'm working with to build out our formal food rescue program.

This is huge.

This means we have successfully built post-scarcity *infrastructure*!!!

Folks are using our fridges both to contribute and to utilize. Folks that have nothing to do directly with the core group of maintainers. Wow.

We need to build more free fridges. This one is running out of room.

#freeFridge #foodSecurity #postScarcity #mutualAid #solarPunk #foodRescue

I get to buy a new domain name and spin up a new web site for our food rescue & free fridge group!!!

I *LOVE* New Domain Day!!!!

😂😂😂

#solarPunk #freeFridge #foodRescue #postScarcity #mutualAid

@anna - Hope is punk. We strive. We take care of each other. We build. Fuck doom. Fuck fatalism. Fuck defeatism.

Update on my Food Rescue Initiative for my local town!!!

Two Things.

One, I've been getting hooked up with the local mutual aid crowd in my town and met some wonderful people recently!!! One of them is an organizer and is very very interested in creating more Free Fridges throughout town annnnnnd is very interested in setting up a Food Rescue program!

So her and I have been teaming up to get it done.

Two, we just had a meeting with a national (United States) group that has their own web app for coordinating between food contributors (the places that create the food and would otherwise throw out the good food that wasn't sold), food distributors, and the gleaners / volunteers who connect the two... basically logistics.

It was a good meeting and we may start to work under their aegis.

We're doing a technical demo of the web app this week hopefully.

If we decide to go with them, I'll put the update here.

I'm excited!!!

#solarPunk #foodRescue #foodSecurity

Ok! Had a technical demo of the web app for food rescue.

I think we're going to go with them.

Solid desktop app that scales well for mobile.

Its a lightweight org with a small budget but they're doing a lot with it. Feature rich currently and does everything i need it to do so far as coordinating between the food rescue sites, the food distribution sites, and the gleaners connecting the two.

Once we get it up and running officially, i'll post it here.

#foodRescue #foodSecurity #mutualAid #solarPunk #postScarcity

Regarding the CEO assassin, I'm noticing a pattern regarding folks' reactions to the assassin...

...it's a positive reaction.

They're calling him The Adjuster, Robin Hoodie, The Hero We Need, The Batman. The Joker. The Riddler. etc.

They're asking "who will he hit next" and "finally someone is standing up to the Health Care Industry". "Do oil and gas and the banks next!" etc et al.

We saw similar reaction to Jack Smith, Robert Mueller, & Fani Willis. It's the same as people that hoped Elon Musk would save us. Or Bernie Sanders, or Kamala Harris, or Trump.

Look.

No one person is going to save you.

Not the CEO Assassin. Not Trump. Not Jack Smith. Not Elon Must. Not Robert Mueller.

The issues are systemic. No one "batman" superhero is going to change everything.

All of that leads to a mentality that celebrates strongmen and demagogues.

Without giving a call for violence (don't ban me @jerry !!!) ...

...be the change you want to see. Get into your local town and work with your neighbors to accomplish change. Pick a thing, any thing, and start working on it as you can.

No gods.

No heroes.

#ceo #assassin #unitedHealthCare #mutualAid #solarPunk

THEY DID IT!!!!

My local library built the seed library!

The local Master Gardeners provided a lot of the intitial seeds (oh my gosh we are stocked!!!). They used an old card catalogue to store them. Today's the kickoff!

The idea is you "check out seeds" from the library, plant/grow/harvest, let some go to seed, then "return the seeds" back to the library!

Free seeds for everyone!

#solarPunk #postScarcity #gardening #mutualAid #seedLibrary #earthDay

Update on the local Seed Library (see previous posts in this thread for background)!

We've got official approval to start building it out!

We'll start the official planning, building, and then community awareness initiatives and concurrent programming and training!

Yay free seeds for the town!

Yay free classes on gardening and hydroponics!

Gardening is one thing. Community is another thing entirely.

Build community. Feed each other.

#solarPunk #hydroponics #indoorGardening #gardening #urbanGardening

Great news! My library got back to me!

They're interested in building out a seed library as well!!!

YAYAYAYAY!!!!!!

I'm developing some basic classes on how to do low-budget, simple, indoor (in any space) hydroponics. I'm also building out some starter kits to give away.

I'll see if the local library would like me to give these courses and kits when the seed library gets built as a way to promote it and get word out to the local community.

#solarPunk #seedLibrary #postScarcity #libraryEconomy #indoorGardening #urbanGardening

Alright, sent an email to the head of my local library about setting up a seed library there.

Seeds libraries are places you can go and "check out" seeds. Grow the seeds. Let one of the grown plants go to seed. Harvest the seeds. Then "return" the seeds back to the seed library!

Free seeds!!!!

Check and see if you have a seed library near you: https://www.communityseednetwork.org/map/

Or connect and share seeds with folks online:
https://exchange.seedsavers.org

#solarPunk #seedLibrary #libraryEconomy #urbanGardening

#insurance #healthInsurance #unitedHealthcare #ceo #assassination #nyc

"There is no rule of law anymore in the US"

Sure.

That Rule of Law enslaved (and enslaves) it's own people.

That Rule of Law destroyed entire towns of people (Tulsa, Seneca Village, etc et al).

That Rule of Law has never been used against those who control and enforce the law. Politicians and police are exempt (shy of very few exceptions where some of their own were sacrificed lest the public riot uncontrollably).

I'm sorry the US is not the fairy tale some of us were "taught" in school.

I'm sorry that even the pretense of progress has been dropped from those that govern us.

But its another day.

Another day in a system that has and continues to hurt and oppress people.

So get up. Survive. Build community. Protect and take care if each other. And thrive.

It's just another day.

We're not doomed.

Step up.

@nf3xn @krypt3ia - Yep! I am. Killing this CEO and killing Elon Musk (prior to any cabinet appointments) could certainly be within the same motive space.