Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life – Writings and rehearsals by Nathan Schneider

Governable Stacks against Digital Colonialism

Critics have been converging around the logic of colonialism to describe the Internet economy. If we are serious about the laden language of the colonial, we should be ready to learn from struggles against pre-digital empires and colonial regimes. Although acts of insurrection may attract more attention, one thing leaders and theorists of anticolonial resistance have stressed persistently is the centrality of self-governance in everyday life as both a means and end of their movements. But the dominant platforms for online communities are not well-suited for durable self-governing. Resistance often relies on the same colonial firms it opposes. What would community-governed technologies look like? This paper introduces the concept of “governable stacks”, a framework for self-governing as resistance to digital colonialism.

Why Online Democracies Fail - Eclectic Corvine Muses

A compendium to my upcoming proposal for community infrastructure within the AT Protocol

On the Concept of the Political in AI-Generated Art – Open Assembly

Plotting is an online publication gathered and organized by LASP Rietveld.

Digital Spaces Directory | New_ Public

As the social media landscape changes and a new wave of digital spaces emerges, this Directory is meant to be a resource for our field — a jumping-off-point for further exploration and research for anyone who’s interested in studying, building, stewarding, or simply using digital social platforms. We hope this will inspire creative exploration, spark new collaborations, and highlight important progress.

Modular Politics: Toward a Governance Layer for Online Communities

Governance in online communities is an increasingly high-stakes challenge, and yet many basic features of offline governance legacies--juries, political parties, term limits, and formal debates, to name a few--are not in the feature-sets of the software most community platforms use. Drawing on the paradigm of Institutional Analysis and Development, this paper proposes a strategy for addressing this lapse by specifying basic features of a generalizable paradigm for online governance called Modular Politics. Whereas classical governance typologies tend to present a choice among wholesale ideologies, such as democracy or oligarchy, Modular Politics would enable platform operators and their users to build bottom-up governance processes from computational components that are modular and composable, highly versatile in their expressiveness, portable from one context to another, and interoperable across platforms. This kind of approach could implement pre-digital governance systems as well as accelerate innovation in uniquely digital techniques. As diverse communities share and connect their components and data, governance could occur through a ubiquitous network layer. To that end, this paper proposes the development of an open standard for networked governance.

Design for a Living Planet: Settlement, Science, & the Human Future

In this brief, accessible volume, the authors — an urban philosopher and a mathematician-physicist — explain the surprising new findings from the sciences that are beginning to transform environmental design in the modern era. Authors Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros explore fractals, networks, self-organization, dynamical systems and other revolutionary ideas, describing them to non-science readers in a direct and engaging way. The book also examines fascinating new topics of design, including Agile, Wiki, Design Patterns and other “open-source” approaches from the software world. The authors conclude that a profound transformation is under way in modern design — and today’s students and practitioners will need to be aware of its implications for our future.“Lucidly describes what’s coming in the world of design — and what needs to come.” — Ward Cunningham, Inventor of wiki, and pioneer of Pattern Languages of Programming, Agile, and Scrum“Essential reading for all urban designers.” — Jeff Speck, Author of Walkable City“Brilliant.” — Charles Montgomery, Author of Happy City“Inspired, compelling and fascinating… Recognizes that a true architecture can be dug from the facts, insights, and theories, that occur with a broadening of science to include the human being.” — Christopher Alexander, Author of A Pattern Language and Notes on the Synthesis of FormSome comments on the individual chapters:“Packed with detail and beautiful in presentation.” — Gil Friend“Human society must find a path of retreat. Salingaros and Mehaffy point the way.” — David Brussat, Providence Journal“Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros have written some brilliant articles on how we can co-create cities which are truly resilient, rather than being ‘engineered resilient’.” — Smallworld Urbanism“For me, this essay was like a flash of insight, and I suddenly saw the world in a new light.” — Oeyvind Holmstad, Permaliv“We’ve just come across a very thoughtful article by Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros… [who] draw a number of lessons from biological systems and use them to draw conclusions about how resilient human systems must be designed.” — Resilient Design Institute“Salingaros and Mehaffy take us from the configuration of city spaces to the order of cells in living beings.” — Jaap Dawson, Delft Institute of Technology“If you wanted to know where the cutting edge was in urban design, it is here.” — Patrick J. Kennedy, CarFreeInBigD“This is the single most intelligent and illuminating article I’ve seen on Archdaily in 3 years.” — Nìming Pínglùn Zhě, ChinaMichael Mehaffy is an urbanist and design theorist, and a periodic visiting professor or adjunct in five graduate universities in four countries and three disciplines (architecture, urban planning and philosophy) including the University of Oregon (US) and the University of Strathclyde (UK). He has been a close associate of the architect and software pioneer Christopher Alexander, and a Research Associate with the Center for Environmental Structure, Alexander’s research center founded in 1967. He is currently executive director of Portland, Oregon based Sustasis Foundation, and editor of Sustasis Press.Nikos A. Salingaros is a mathematician and polymath known for his work on urban theory, architectural theory, complexity theory, and design philosophy. He has been a close collaborator of the architect and computer software pioneer Christopher Alexander. Salingaros published substantive research on Algebras, Mathematical Physics, Electromagnetic Fields, and Thermonuclear Fusion before turning his attention to Architecture and Urbanism. He is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas at San Antonio and has been on the Architecture faculties of universities in Italy, Mexico, and The Netherlands.

Democracy x AI Cohort | Mozilla Foundation

The Democracy x AI cohort is founded on the hypothesis that, if built differently, AI could strengthen democracy rather than erode it.

The politics of decentralization and the libertarian allure of Mastodon – Structural Integrity

I am currently reading the fabulous “Hayek’s Bastards” by Quinn Slobodian. It made me think about decentralisation in Mastodon (yes, the federated social network). And it made me think about the lack of a coherent progressive vision for the digital age. I will explain what that book has to do with both. But let’s go back to the political meaning of “decentralisation” in digital discourse first.

Governing Online Speech: From 'Posts-As-Trumps' to Proportionality and Probability

Online speech governance stands at an inflexion point. Platforms are emerging from the state of emergency invoked during the pandemic and lawmakers are poised t

Transforming Social Media Governance With Applied Theories of Justice – lindsay blackwell

This dissertation explores ways in which social media governance can be improved through the practical application of theories and principles of justice. Three empirical research studies demonstrate that current platform governance practices exacerbate the very harms they seek to mitigate, due in large part to the influence of punitive criminal justice models that are structurally incapable of producing equitable governance outcomes. Informed by transformative justice, social media governance can be reframed from a method for control to a practice of collective care, requiring a fundamental restructuring of the systems and logics that currently govern online spaces.

Gradients of intimacy and creating shelter: An interview with Erin Kissane

How might we use nature as an inspiration for creating online communities?

Designing Imaginative Environments by Nathan Fowkes

Join industry veteran Nathan Fowkes on a deep dive into the hows and whys of designing environments for entertainment. From creating mood with color and light, to exploring different biomes and weather, to crafting architecture and props, he will teach you how to design amazing environments that make your work stand out from the crowd.

“Policy Without Tools Is Just Poetry” - AT Protocol

Juliet Shen from ROOST joins the show to talk through the Coop 1.0 release, what open-source trust and safety unlocks for new builders, and where AI actually belongs in moderation

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The Paradox of Open

Numerous organisations and initiatives have been launched with a belief in openness and free knowledge. Their proponents placed their bets on the combined power of networked information services and new governance models for the production and sharing of content and data. We – as members of this broad movement – were among those who believed it possible to leverage this combination of power and opportunity to build a more democratic society, unleashing the power of the internet to create universal access to knowledge and culture. For us, such openness meant not only freedom, but also presented a path to justice and equality.