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📚 Monthly reading group for Data Together
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Decentralization Readings #64

Closed lightandluck closed 5 years ago

lightandluck commented 5 years ago

Hey @b5, figured since I was already making PRs (#63), could lend a hand here

Everyone was recommending this reading and I'd like to second (third? fourth? fifth?) it. Was open in one of my tabs: https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first.html

RangerMauve commented 5 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkaway_(Doctorow_novel) - Talks about societies and global communities that self-organize and use decentralized tech / organization on every level

Paul Frazee has some cool blog posts on the subject: https://pfrazee.hashbase.io/blog/why-p2p-deserves-another-chance

Mr0grog commented 5 years ago

We already did Walkaway in June (Alternatives to Capitalist Structures). It was pretty good! :)

Frijol commented 5 years ago

Seeing Like a State– this was really good and touches on a lot of DT themes. I can try to find some sections to pull out if you want

RangerMauve commented 5 years ago

Are technical readings useful? I think understanding Distributed Hash Tables is pretty important. As well as some of the ways IPFS / SSB / Dat handle keeping data online / p2p connections.

lightandluck commented 5 years ago

@RangerMauve Technical readings could go into the 'Optional' bucket. Personally, I would love to understand how the different protocols handle the things you mentioned.

So, please, drop some links ;-)

StefanMorales commented 5 years ago

I second Seeing Like a State! A really helpful read for sure--it's been ages since I read that one. Here's a few other suggestions to throw into the mix:

I saw that Ostrom came up in an earlier session. Here's a fairly short piece she wrote before her death, all about decentralized networks of cities perhaps being more able to tackle wicked problems than international forums like Rio, etc.

S

lightandluck commented 5 years ago

@StefanMorales That Prehistory of the Cloud book looks stellar. Will have to dig into the other pieces some more.

Welcome again and thanks for your suggestions!

RangerMauve commented 5 years ago

Sadly the video for this isn't up yet, but @isthisanart _ did a wonderful talk about how decentralization means different things to different people.

Here are her slides, and I'll post the video once it's out. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vRS9OW2IXhD3uboF7fDb8aBegEA7MzeqyJpGvoYxithpLYu__cwSyfZhmQj08mJvm1RPtPA6Du3bEeI/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.p

meiqimichelle commented 5 years ago

Quick Hackernoon article: What to do once you admit that decentralizing everything never seems to work, Nathan Schneider

Political scientists talk about decentralization, too—as a design feature of government institutions. They’ve noticed a similar pattern as we find in tech. Soon after something gets decentralized, it seems to cause new forms of centralization not far away.

(In addition to this article ^^, there's also a full draft paper called Decentralization: An Incomplete Ideology, which I haven't read, but may be useful)

ike commented 5 years ago

Hey all!

I've stumbled across some interesting papers regarding political decentralization recently. None of these are related to decentralizing data per se, but I think there are interesting corollaries in decentralized networks that I am a part of. I thought I'd post them here just in case they would be useful.

lightandluck commented 5 years ago

Hi @ike! We've definitely transferred ideas from other spheres into our topics, so these suggestions are great 👍 Thanks for sharing!

Also, if you're planning to join the online discussion session, please join our google group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/datatogether/join

We're still working on settling a date and (obviously 😁 ) selecting readings, so the google group is the best way to get updated on that info. Hope to see you there!

dcwalk commented 5 years ago

Quick Hackernoon article: What to do once you admit that decentralizing everything never seems to work, Nathan Schneider

Political scientists talk about decentralization, too—as a design feature of government institutions. They’ve noticed a similar pattern as we find in tech. Soon after something gets decentralized, it seems to cause new forms of centralization not far away.

(In addition to this article ^^, there's also a full draft paper called Decentralization: An Incomplete Ideology, which I haven't read, but may be useful)

We read that draft article lsat round @meiqimichelle -- reading the new one I don't think it has changed too much.

I've been a little interested in takes in popular media lately, here is a mix of links:

StefanMorales commented 5 years ago

@lightandluck yes I know, hey? Thanks for the warm welcome!

StefanMorales commented 5 years ago

I have one more that I just found that talks about "venture communism" within a system of decentralized production:

Check out the re-write of the communist manifesto starting on page 26!

RangerMauve commented 5 years ago

Here's some links from Dylorb on SSB: %KGXCpyyTfayFHkIm9tra6aoLzODNo/qwrlWf2ZtzN+Q=.sha256

lightandluck commented 5 years ago

@RangerMauve @StefanMorales @ike @Frijol @Mr0grog @dcwalk @meiqimichelle - To continue our decentralized planning 😄 Would y'all like to select 1 excerpt/article (~5-15 pages) each from the suggestions? I'll pick one too.

@b5 and/or I can read through the collected selections, find themes to weave around, then refine and create the final reading list.

Full disclosure: I would love to do this so I won't have to skim and vet all the material myself and it'll mean we'll get a bit of the reading done beforehand as well 😁, but feel free to pass!

RangerMauve commented 5 years ago

I'm just getting started on all the reading material so I'll report back around the end of the week. 😁

lightandluck commented 5 years ago

@RangerMauve You don't have to go through it all yourself either! (unless you really want to). I was thinking people could focus on a couple pieces that speak to them (like what they themselves suggested or a piece that sparked interest) and make a selection from there.

I think it's ok if people select the same thing. It probably means it's something we should definitely include and reduces the total number of readings in the end.

Thank you for taking up the task!

StefanMorales commented 5 years ago

I'll take a gander at everything, and a deeper look at some others and then pick one too! Thanks for the winnowing approach.

lightandluck commented 5 years ago

Great, thanks Stefan! 🙏

Frijol commented 5 years ago

Took a look at Seeing Like a State and for this theme I think I'd pick 309-311 (beginning of chapter 9), 323-328 "Practical Knowledge Versus Scientific Explanation", and 333-339 "The Social Context of Metis and Its Destruction"

Hard to pull out a specific section on a book that's so thematically wrapped up in stuff we talk about! Different sections tie in really well to Civics and Stewardship particularly.

Also thinking about seeing if there's a good short section we can pull from Laloux's "Reinventing Organizations".

Frijol commented 5 years ago

Actually this might be a good piece to cover the concepts from Laloux: https://medium.com/@jessicajprentice/the-most-dangerous-notion-in-reinventing-organizations-9032930295e2

StefanMorales commented 5 years ago

I haven't read all of it, but I think that Isaac's recommendation Decentralization: Fueling the Fire or Dampening the Flames of Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism? https://sci-hub.tw/10.1017/s002081830606019x would be my one pick. (Esp. in relation to Elinor Ostrom's piece Green from the Grassroots https://www.commondreams.org/views/2012/06/12/green-grassroots as a short digestible follow-up).

That article on https://medium.com/@jessicajprentice/the-most-dangerous-notion-in-reinventing-organizations-9032930295e2 Laloux https://medium.com/@jessicajprentice/the-most-dangerous-notion-in-reinventing-organizations-9032930295e2 is also great, and I've done some similar research on what you could call the "anthropology of governance", so that piece would be my second choice.

Stefan

On Sun, Sep 1, 2019 at 10:12 AM Kelsey notifications@github.com wrote:

Actually this might be a good piece to cover the concepts from Laloux: https://medium.com/@jessicajprentice/the-most-dangerous-notion-in-reinventing-organizations-9032930295e2

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/datatogether/reading_datatogether/issues/64?email_source=notifications&email_token=AISY44HWE2IV3S7EBL6H6GLQHPZZDA5CNFSM4ILEG44KYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOD5UGYGI#issuecomment-526937113, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AISY44BSDCSWPUPGLAS3X63QHPZZDANCNFSM4ILEG44A .

-- Stefan Morales Working Together togetherworking.com http://togetherworking.com/about/

lightandluck commented 5 years ago

Awesome, thank you @StefanMorales!

lightandluck commented 5 years ago

Hi all! So far I have:

I'm going to be taking a look at (and paring down):

@RangerMauve Did you have a piece you'd like added?

I'll have a final reading selection within 2 weeks if not sooner. I'm also going to send out a doodle to the mailing list to find a time for the actually meeting (sometime late October-mid November)

Thanks everyone for all your input!

RangerMauve commented 5 years ago

@lightandluck I think local-first software would be pretty good to have on there, and maybe pfrazee's post? :P

StefanMorales commented 5 years ago

Sorry I wasn't able to make the organizing call today! I'm currently traveling around rural Washington, and I have yet to determine which cell/data plan to get between Can/USA so I'm dependent on wi-fi. I wanted to add: my wife is really keen on joining the reading group discussions and contributing. How does it work to invite someone else into the group? Is that OK?

Mr0grog commented 5 years ago

@StefanMorales for the reading group calls, anybody who wants to absolutely can and should just show up!

RangerMauve commented 5 years ago

Might be relevant: https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book33/

Frijol commented 5 years ago

I just realized we're overlooking Jane Jacobs and Donella Meadows, both of whom have made significant contributions to this field. @dcwalk do you know of specific pieces by them that would be appropriate? On a brief search, Downtown is for People by Jacobs and Which Future? by Meadows seem like good potential choices, but I'm not familiar enough with their bodies of work to know if they have better pieces for our focus.

dcwalk commented 5 years ago

Oops, this slipped off my plate with event prep.

I'm not sure I'd read Donella Meadows work expressly in a decentralization vein, though her work around systems dynamics is key in systems thinking. If that is an area you'd like to connect, I'd suggest maybe:

I'm not sure how you'd like to connect Jacobs work to the existing selections @Frijol . Stuff of hers that I'm familiar with seems very located around urban planning discourses, which it out of my wheelhouse. I think perhaps Bookchin or (h/t @structur) Ocalan might suit? Something on democratic confederalism, confederalism, assemblies, libertarian municipalism... seem to be more in conversation with those readings above

Bookchin:

Ocalan on demo. confederalism:

Also... saw this... https://www.coindesk.com/this-north-syrian-school-is-a-baby-step-toward-a-blockchain-society (series: https://www.coindesk.com/tag/crypto-anarchy). Which I have lots of thoughts about.

lightandluck commented 5 years ago

Oh, really interesting article series from coindesk @dcwalk. I added that article to the list

@Frijol This was the list I came up with: https://hackmd.io/ZjnayF4VQpKqOLKIxtkG7g?view. Was going to announce today, but then all these new suggestions dropped in. Do you want to go through Dawn's suggestions & your own and fix up the list? Edits/comments/changes gladly accepted

dcwalk commented 5 years ago

Didn't mean to derail your planning @lightandluck ! None of those things I suggested have to be included, though I could pull the chapters mentioned if needed!

lightandluck commented 5 years ago

No worries @dcwalk! Kelsey and I chatted and are happy with the current list. We'll save your suggestions for another time. Thanks for the recommendations!

Frijol commented 4 years ago

Aw man Patterns for Decentralised Organising would have been another great choice