Notices by Nathan Schneider (ntnsndr@social.coop)

I just got a survey from Columbia University on "what constitutes good and bad science, what practices are beneficial or harmful" and, boy, from over there the answer should be pretty obvious.

Love him or hate him it is going to be a mess living with a generation that grew up on Trump's leadership style.

Being regime media is an interesting business model in a democracy.

An excellent introduction to the idea of mutualism by none other than Sara Horowitz: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/mutualism-next-generation

@risottobias It used to be that tariffs were a left policy—to protect unionized workers from worse labor practices abroad.

How would the policies of a pro-tarrif left compare to what we're getting?

@josef @ntnsndr Yep! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RQTMhPJVVdmE7Yeop1iwYhvj46kgvVJQnn11EPGwzeY/htmlview#gid=674927682

I stopped maintaining it with the platform.coop directory launched.

@josef @ntnsndr Yeah I gave up the domain ages ago. Someone else is still running it with a cloned website.

After two days in DC, it is troubling to see how many self-described advocates of free speech and free exchange have lined up behind the most draconian crackdown on dissent and economic entanglement in recent memory.

Is there any direct way in which the Trump-Bukele prison camp deal is related to their shared interest in Bitcoin?

I'm grateful to be back on the Reimagining the Internet podcast with Ethan Zuckerman to talk about the prospects and challenges of open social media: https://publicinfrastructure.org/podcast/110-nathan-schneider-governable-spaces/

How the Trump admin is trying to strong-arm Colorado electric co-ops out of sensible renewable energy planning:

https://coloradosun.com/2025/04/02/electric-coop-clean-energy-grants-new-era-colorado/

I'm proud our co-ops have a history of courage on this front.

Commissioner Hester Peirce now talking at the National Press Club on a kind of #exittocommunity trajectory for tokenized projects—from centralized disclosure to decentralized control.

@rose_alibi @ntnsndr We should also work on the collection of vintage foreign language keyboards

@rose_alibi I need a club like that

@serapio @ntnsndr @kawaiipunk @Trav @mayfirst GREAT question. This has been a major interest of mine lately.

One bit of evidence is in how European codetermined workplaces have been putting limits on how corporate Copilot deployments can be used.

Another is in just ensuing worked control over the AIs and the workplaces, to ensure they augment rather than replace.

@serapio @ntnsndr @kawaiipunk @Trav @mayfirst On the enterprise side, training an internal bot with company data, and perhaps licensing it to others in the sector.

On the consumer side, just having AI managed not by a company historically untrustworthy with IP and climate.

@alwirtes totally! There are so many of these open tools out now. No reason why a co-op couldn't step in and use those and compete on values.

@Trav @kawaiipunk @mayfirst Totally. And I think there's a really compelling consumer pitch if you can get privacy preserving, access to multiple bots, and renewable energy all in one place.

Duck.ai has 2/3, and it has become my go-to (other than for specialized uses like coding).

@kawaiipunk @Trav Ooh, good to know! Is there any discussion brewing there about something like this?

I'm a bit inspired by the news that @mayfirst is incorporating a local LLM translation tool into our Jitsi instance.

Also just went on a walk with a co-op leader who wanted a co-op-friendly enterprise chatbot for his company.