Notices by J. Nathan Matias 🦣 (natematias@social.coop)

Writing about my last ten years in the science of tech policy, I am reminded how designers & advocates perpetually imagine ourselves at the start of something new.

It's a trap. I'm grateful for humanities training that draws me to history amidst deliberate amnesia.

@ntnsndr explains this amnesia here:

https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/13668

Amazing job opportunity for a Chief Communications Officer at the The Union of Concerned Scientists, one of the most crucial organizations for this time, who support the public and scientists to work hand in hand to put science into action.

https://apply.workable.com/union-of-concerned-scientists/j/448D6A9C50/

Just voted to withold on the REI board candidates. Having someone with more experience with labor negotiations would make sense for the co-op, and I'm disappointed that they blocked that candidate from the board.

Grateful to these journalists who explained the situation in a detailed and balanced way.

https://www.cascadepbs.org/news/2025/03/rei-board-blocks-labor-backed-candidates-ballot

Props to the founder of this Syracuse pop-up restaurant whose marketing captured our current moment well

https://platinum-sailfish-lfg2.squarespace.com/wintercsa

Excited about this new book: "Indigenous Intellectual Property: An Interrupted Intergenerational Conversation"

https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/indigenous-intellectual-property

cc @luis_in_brief

“At 1:58 p.m., President Donald Trump tweeted, “Long live the king.” I'm here to say, New York hasn't labored under a king in over 250 years and we sure as hell are not going to start now.”

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-hochul-updates-new-yorkers-congestion-pricing

What would it take to infuse science more deeply into the teachings and work of Christianity?

Excited to see this evaluation of Science for Seminaries, a program at the AAAS that I helped out in a small way by serving as a conversation partner for theological educators on artificial intelligence.

cc @ntnsndr @FrankPasquale @ablerism @hannareichel
https://www.zygonjournal.org/article/id/15305

Today when explaining open source and free software for the first time to a student, I also had to explain that Richard Stallman is NOT safe and any organization that hosts him is also not safe.

It pains me that so many organizations enabled Stallman for so long, more interested in protecting abusers than advancing software freedom.

The Free Software movement didn't have to be Omelas, and many good people fought for it to be better, but that's what the FSF chose. 😢

https://stallman-report.org/

This week, as I start focusing on my tenure file, I have been asking what the point is of being a professor in the tenure system. I reflected on this Sunday on a ride out to a community pancake breakfast.

What’s so important that the people of a democracy would offer someone the potential of long term job security and intellectual freedom (however precarious), even at times of hardship and deprivation? And what kind of promise could ever be equal to that extraordinary trust? #OutdoorMoments

One part of the job of a professor is to be a fearless steward of human knowledge and wisdom into the future- to hold in trust what humanity has learned, to preserve and advance it (even when unpopular) so the next generation can receive from us the relay of the ages into whatever futures they will face.

Because that story of collective understanding has very real power, it is always under threat, from the emperors who burned my Christian forebears and the priests who burned the Mayan archives of my ancestors to the politicians who threaten scientists today.

And yet the quest for truth persists, thanks to both visible and un-acknowledged courage of a thousand thousand thousand people over the ages, including my own many mentors.

Will I get tenure? That’s only partly up to me. But whatever the outcome of this process, I have irrevocably joined hands with the cloud of witnesses in the human search for truth. And I plan to be there to advance and protect this endeavor whatever may come. <3

Wikipedia is one of the world's great treasures, a beautiful work of cooperation across culture, geography, & politics by the
@wikimediafoundation and 37 independent chapters worldwide.

To donate and/or volunteer, look up your local chapter: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters

Today I gave up on search engines and added a bookmark to the Python docs because Google results are so bad I can't use it while programming. Sigh.

It's heartbreaking to watch excellent public goods like the python docs get overwhelmed with spammy semi-content and generative AI :(

Dream job alert: @humanrightswatch is seeking a senior researcher in technology and human rights, focused on:

- the digital public sphere
- the digital state
- the digital economy

https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/humanrightswatch/jobs/7774018002

Fascinated by the 11th hour effort to ask the Biden administration to publish the Equal Rights Amendment as an official part of the constitution.

Basically: 75% of states have now ratified it (after Virginia voted for it in 2020), but the original bill included a 7 year time limit that was unusual and may not be constitutional. So advocates are asking the White House to support the archivist to certify it as a part of the constitution, and then come the legal fights

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/what-comes-next-for-the-equal-rights-amendment/

I guess the news is out that I'm now on the advisory board of the UN Human Development Report.

As someone from a family that has experienced extreme poverty, the stakes for the UN Development Programme's work have always felt deeply urgent to me. I was surprised and delighted to be asked, and I hope my involvement can contribute in some small way to the wider work of others toward human flourishing.

https://hdr.undp.org/reports-and-publications/towards-2025-human-development-report

Is anyone looking at levels of volunteer activity in digital public goods like Wikipedia, Reddit, and stackoverflow and whether exploitation of user content is associated with a decline in human participation?

As companies use ai to convert communal public goods into AI products, while extracting value from them, we could see a general decline in contributions that could lead to ecosystem collapse. Would love to see in depth scholarship wrestling with this. Cc @mako

https://www.infoworld.com/article/3478485/the-rise-and-fall-of-stack-overflow.html/amp/

@ntnsndr I think so. There’s a precursor to this in the water, railroad, and mining politics of California, which I think is partly where tech got these ideas. I used to think myself a bit arcane for reading so much 18th century and early 19th century progressive history but this country seems more and more headed toward contemporary versions of problems a previous generation thought they solved

I have stumbled across the part of Google Books and Amazon that is just completely full of dozens (if not hundreds of) AI-generated conspiracy books about how every possible topic in the universe is related to the repression of men and the power they could have if they only gained more muscles, liberated their minds, and educated themselves with content no human has put time into.

(send help)