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It seems to me that the best hope is to teach the average person how computers work. Teach students how to use Linux/BSD, solder, what a web request is, how to

It seems to me that the best hope is to teach the average person how computers work. Teach students how to use Linux/BSD, solder, what a web request is, how to run a server, etc. If we do these things, then people can return to setting up their own services, instead of walled gardens.

rektide 6y ago
i believe in teaching & sharing & the power of people. a lot. but at the moment i think the geeks have a ton of do-for-themselves to do as well. teaching all of these things will not arise the better world. there is an inertia here that needs to be overcome by working, by doing. the ActivityPub, & the Solid people are the closest i've seen to those who are trying to build some kind of coherent basis for being & building online systems in an interconnective manner. we need a lot more dedicated & willing folks who want to believe in better worlds, more open experiences. i also think teaching the current systems is a waste of time. kubernetes is far & above better than every other way we've run systems, but there's still a lot of work to do to build happy paths for it, especially for the self-hosted crowd & their needs. some important avenues, like sharing aka multi-tenancy are basically unexplored still. to walk myself back a little, yes, a lot of the skills/knowledges you talk about are pretty fundamental. but there's nothing resembling an overarching paradigm for computing, that works together, & everything is manual stick building. trying to re-envision computing as a utility, one we can run, as clouds, that we ourselves can own, is necessary. without this, there is no base, just an endless path of staring at man pages, always knowing we'll not know >80%, and that there is no real order to it all.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
No, the answer is to make these services commodities with security and privacy built-in organised in an open public infrastructure owned by no corporation. Most of the population is simply not interested in Linux, soldering, or what a web request is. Expecting people who can barely put up a bookshelf to manage a web server or configure Linux is nonsensically unrealistic. It's simply not going to happen. Nor should it. That's our job, not their job. What they're interested in are the life benefits that secure, reliable, effective, private commoditised technology can offer them. Providing them is also our job.
- rektide 6y ago
  > Most of the population is simply not interested in Linux, soldering, or what a web request is. No one is fit to judge interest. I hear this experience-nihilosm a lot, that people don't care, won't care, but I also think that we have very hard to learn systems & poor socialization & it's unclear what wisdom would bring you. I don't think we know what people's interest are, in this chicken & egg problem, we don't know how to convey the experience effectively, how to ramp people up. I'm interested right now, with COVID, how some people's attitude changes. We have a lot of kids & professionals suddenly using computers all the time. Will this prevailing spirit of nihilism/apathy endure? Will not-caring consumerism & ennui be the ongoing course for a civilization being eaten by software? Will some of the population be further driven to make technology their own, to gain experience mastery & powers out here in the vast infinite cyber-frontier, amid endless open source, rejecting the walled gardens(/work-houses) they have been forced in to, to live in, all day. I very much think the questions are open. Anyone telling you what people want, what their appetites are is using their own model their own view of the world to sell you something. The truth is people will gravitate towards places of interesting potential, where they can be & do interesting things, & those positions are always in flux, always shifting, & there are so many attractors of both high & low visibility which do & don't make it. To me, making sure the door is open, that people are welcome & can engage themselves here is one of cyberspace's chief merits, one of it's most potent & unmatchable potentials. I want to believe people ought want tech, to invest themselves, to learn. But I have a hard time of it these days- tech is torn in so many directions, & everywhere we are still building programs & applications, things that are not inherently connective, and so with a poor basis, poor foundation, & weaker attempts to reach out, we have limited appeal to get the world engaging here. Which is a tragedy, because cyberspace is as vast as the mind & has so few limitations, leaves you so free to explore your own will & desires & connection, your models & how they meet the world.

rektide 6y ago

i believe in teaching & sharing & the power of people. a lot. but at the moment i think the geeks have a ton of do-for-themselves to do as well. teaching all of these things will not arise the better world. there is an inertia here that needs to be overcome by working, by doing. the ActivityPub, & the Solid people are the closest i've seen to those who are trying to build some kind of coherent basis for being & building online systems in an interconnective manner. we need a lot more dedicated & willing folks who want to believe in better worlds, more open experiences. i also think teaching the current systems is a waste of time. kubernetes is far & above better than every other way we've run systems, but there's still a lot of work to do to build happy paths for it, especially for the self-hosted crowd & their needs. some important avenues, like sharing aka multi-tenancy are basically unexplored still. to walk myself back a little, yes, a lot of the skills/knowledges you talk about are pretty fundamental. but there's nothing resembling an overarching paradigm for computing, that works together, & everything is manual stick building. trying to re-envision computing as a utility, one we can run, as clouds, that we ourselves can own, is necessary. without this, there is no base, just an endless path of staring at man pages, always knowing we'll not know >80%, and that there is no real order to it all.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

No, the answer is to make these services commodities with security and privacy built-in organised in an open public infrastructure owned by no corporation. Most of the population is simply not interested in Linux, soldering, or what a web request is. Expecting people who can barely put up a bookshelf to manage a web server or configure Linux is nonsensically unrealistic. It's simply not going to happen. Nor should it. That's our job, not their job. What they're interested in are the life benefits that secure, reliable, effective, private commoditised technology can offer them. Providing them is also our job.

rektide 6y ago
> Most of the population is simply not interested in Linux, soldering, or what a web request is. No one is fit to judge interest. I hear this experience-nihilosm a lot, that people don't care, won't care, but I also think that we have very hard to learn systems & poor socialization & it's unclear what wisdom would bring you. I don't think we know what people's interest are, in this chicken & egg problem, we don't know how to convey the experience effectively, how to ramp people up. I'm interested right now, with COVID, how some people's attitude changes. We have a lot of kids & professionals suddenly using computers all the time. Will this prevailing spirit of nihilism/apathy endure? Will not-caring consumerism & ennui be the ongoing course for a civilization being eaten by software? Will some of the population be further driven to make technology their own, to gain experience mastery & powers out here in the vast infinite cyber-frontier, amid endless open source, rejecting the walled gardens(/work-houses) they have been forced in to, to live in, all day. I very much think the questions are open. Anyone telling you what people want, what their appetites are is using their own model their own view of the world to sell you something. The truth is people will gravitate towards places of interesting potential, where they can be & do interesting things, & those positions are always in flux, always shifting, & there are so many attractors of both high & low visibility which do & don't make it. To me, making sure the door is open, that people are welcome & can engage themselves here is one of cyberspace's chief merits, one of it's most potent & unmatchable potentials. I want to believe people ought want tech, to invest themselves, to learn. But I have a hard time of it these days- tech is torn in so many directions, & everywhere we are still building programs & applications, things that are not inherently connective, and so with a poor basis, poor foundation, & weaker attempts to reach out, we have limited appeal to get the world engaging here. Which is a tragedy, because cyberspace is as vast as the mind & has so few limitations, leaves you so free to explore your own will & desires & connection, your models & how they meet the world.