@maya The only thing that comes to mind while reading about the people making "algorithms and AI tools to identify underperforming workers" is that I think this is what the term 'class traitors' was invented for.
"be gay do crime" aber auf deutsch? das geht so:
Sehr geehrte Lesenden,
unter Bezugnahme auf die fortschreitende gesellschaftliche Differenzierung und in Übereinstimmung mit der Zielsetzung, die strukturelle Integration pluralistischer Lebensentwürfe zu fördern, möchten wir Ihnen im Rahmen dieses Schreibens eine fundierte Grundlage zur intellektuellen Auseinandersetzung und potenziellen praktischen Anwendung subversiv-symbolischer Handlungsstrategien nahelegen.
Es erscheint aus verwaltungsrechtlicher sowie sozialphilosophischer Perspektive angezeigt, eine kritische Reflexion bestehender hegemonialer Diskurse und normativer Ordnungen zu befördern. Diese sollen im Lichte einer theoretisch fundierten und performativ-symbolischen Praxis hinterfragt werden, die auf die Dekonstruktion sozio-struktureller Asymmetrien sowie die Sichtbarmachung institutionalisierter Diskriminierungsmechanismen abzielt. Hierbei könnte eine bewusste Abweichung von traditionellen Konventionen als konzeptionelle Grundlage dienen, um transformative Impulse innerhalb des gesellschaftlichen Diskurses zu initiieren.
Eine solche Methodik umfasst die deliberative Wahl einer von den gängigen normativen Erwartungshaltungen abweichenden Identitätsgestaltung. Dabei ist ausdrücklich die Möglichkeit der Implementierung symbolisch widerständischer Verhaltensweisen in Betracht zu ziehen, die in einem diskursiven Sinne eine Rekontextualisierung von Machtstrukturen und sozialen Hierarchien ermöglichen könnten. Es sei dabei hervorgehoben, dass die juristische Bewertung derartiger Handlungen im Rahmen eines analytischen Ansatzes sekundär zu betrachten ist, sofern deren primäres Ziel die kritische Hinterfragung und Reform gesellschaftlicher Ordnungsprinzipien darstellt.
Die vorliegende Empfehlung richtet sich insbesondere an jene Akteur*innen, die sich durch einen hohen Grad an Engagement für soziale Gerechtigkeit, Diversität und integrative Werte auszeichnen. Ziel ist die Etablierung eines paradigmatischen Dialogs, welcher die Transformation bestehender gesellschaftlicher Machtstrukturen begünstigt und den Weg für eine nachhaltige, pluralistische Gesellschaft ebnet.
Sollten Sie Interesse an einer weiterführenden Beratung, an spezifischen Leitfäden zur konzeptionellen Ausarbeitung nonkonformistischer Strategien oder an der Teilnahme an einschlägigen Fachseminaren zu den Themen Identitätsdiversifizierung, strukturelle Normenkritik und subversive Praxisformen haben, steht Ihnen unser Referat für weiterführende Anfragen zur Verfügung.
Mit verbindlichsten Grüßen und den besten Wünschen für Ihr Engagement zur kritischen Weiterentwicklung gesellschaftlicher Strukturen,
Ember
Hauptreferent*in für Normendekonstruktion und Antikonformismus
Ministerium für Gesellschaftliche Kohärenz, Hegemonialkritik und Antikonformistisches Handeln
RE: https://catcatnya.com/users/cache/statuses/113554716370750422
And, to be clear, everything I describe above would have to be done with the full consent of (at least the network administrators of a given network if not actually) the end user.
You, or someone who administers your machine, would need to trust the certificate authority. You, or someone who administers your networks, would need to select and use these altDNS servers.
You would need to choose to use a browser that supported the services we designed.
I'm not talking about a vector for attack, but rather one for liberation.
Early DNS operated by a bunch of folks literally passing around copies of their host files. Modern DNS has replaced that with a for profit system backed by an allegedly non-profit organization.
The DNS servers that your network uses are probably respecting ICANN, and probably have consensus with most of the rest of the DNS servers in the world, but they don't have to. I could set up a DNS server right now, and you could point your router at it and I could make my own TLDs and also redirect every query issued to google.com to somewhere else and there's nothing anyone could do to stop me (well, sort of, see next toot.)
There are standards bodies writing regulations and handing out domain names, and what have you, but those things only work because we allow them to.
Web standards work because everyone agrees that they'll use a web browser that implements them.
Remember browser prefixes in CSS? For a while, every web browser was scrambling to implement new features that other browsers didn't support and that hadn't been standardized yet, but people used them anyway (I did, certainly) and eventually those things were made in to standards.
We can use browsers that only implement a subset (or that actually implement a superset) of those standards. We can write web pages in such a way that we empower people to skip Google and Mozilla's browser duopoly.
It is within our ability to implement web services that do everything most people want out of the web and a web browser that can access all of those services, without needing anyone's blessing.
(And, a few years ago here on the fediverse, some punks did it! Project Gemini is still out there, still being used, still very cool. It is not what I would have built in the same space, and I bounce off of it when I try to use it seriously, but there are many things about it that I like a great deal.)
uk pol / the rerun of section 28
Tories decided to make school hostile to trans kids by refusing to allow them to use nicknames without parental permission and outing them to their parents, etc.
But then the election happened and the policy was never really clarified.
So bigots feel empowered and staff allies have no idea what support they're allowed to provide. I asked a researcher who specialises in education and trans kids what the current "best practice" is under the current regime and she's asking around. There is a total lack of clarity.
And this is just textbook fascism. People working in schools are ready to obey the rules, so they "obey in advance". They don't know what they should obey, so the error on the side of caution - of failing to protect children.
I do understand that it's scary and there are all kind of vague threats to future livelihood and freedom for allies. Nobody wants to be a martyr and being *the* court challenge is very stressful.
But it's worth recalling that **nobody** was every prosecuted for Section 28.
Protecting the dignity of vulnerable students is right and Labour's major concern is being embarrassed, so if we're clear that it will very much be embarrassing for them to push back, they won't. Be the ally that kids need.
@silvermoon82 @aral FWIW, this is kind of how some citizen's panels work (the ones that make binding recommendations)
I am once again thinking about helping to (loosely) organize some kind of online alternative to FOSDEM for those in FOSS who aren't comfortable attending a super-spreader event in the peak of Europe's flu season.
EDIT: there is now a blog post about it 👇
@buherator I'm assuming no such thing. That's the whole point of social norms; they apply and have an effect *without* needing to personally know about every single case.
@buherator The dynamic is same as with many other forms of abuse; the group of malicious people is very small, and the only reason they can do so much damage is because they can bank on the tolerance of a much broader set of people who wouldn't do the malicious thing themselves, but also aren't going to look too closely at the background of what someone else did.
Making a stink out of the collection process sabotages the use of the dataset for that group of people, which is going to be most of them.
@buherator They might not themselves. But the dataset itself becomes toxic, and if it's known as "that dataset from the people who didn't want it", that will make an awful lot of people think twice before using it.
re: Not talking to cops can be harder than it looks, here's why 👈 😮 (don't talk to them)
@schratze @ramonita I can answer this one for the Netherlands, in case it's any help: you can demand that they contact your lawyer (make sure you memorize their name and city, if not phone number), and they can hold you overnight but will have to release you the next day if they do not have concrete charges to prosecute on (which they generally won't). Technically it's a set amount of hours but night hours aren't counted, so "next day" is what it becomes in practice.
There are a few exceptions; they can hold you over the weekend, and in exceptional cases they can get an extension for how long they can keep you. This doesn't happen that often.
Not talking to cops can be harder than it looks, here's why 👈 😮 (don't talk to them)
Something that I think was not clear to me and maybe to many more people at the beginning: We all have an idea to not say anything incriminating during an interrogation, but cops will be fishing for *any* information at *all* times, and they will use sketchy emotional strategies to catch you off guard or provoke a reaction. A formal interrogation in a room is 1% of it.
**Edit**: Details about laws in these examples are specific to Germany, but the general idea and cop behaviour apply universally.
"Good cop" in my experience looks less like the nice detective from the cop show, and more like a non-cop-looking woman in cleaning lady clothes coming to you at the corridor and asking if you would like a cup of coffee. If you accept the next question will be "are you doing OK?" or "are you being mistreated? would you like to file a complaint? I can ask for a female officer if you prefer." This is a trick. Your emotions are high, you'll be thirstier for support and a bit of fucking humanity than you can imagine right now, and they'll deliberately exploit that to get you to slip more info, about yourself and others.
So your answer to "would you like a cup of coffee" is silence. If you're pressured to say something that's not silence, you say "no comment". "Is this your first time here?" No comment. "If you don't follow the proper procedure we'll have to hold you for longer" no comment. "You know, I don't really want to do this, actually I'm really proud that young people like you are taking a stand, this is just my job, can we just get this done so you can leave earlier?" No. Comment.
"Bad cop" in my experience looks less like the tough guy Dick Tracy slamming on the table, and more like snarky xenophobic or transphobic remarks, or punching protesters under the banner where the cameras can't record it, more to rub on your face that they can do what they want than to hurt, angling for a reaction; or flashing a heil hitler from the van when they pass antifas. If a cop shows my gender marker to others and make mocking comments and I say "that's transphobia and it's illegal", I fall into the trap. This will start a conversation and in the conversation they'll have all sorts of *other* tricks to enrage and scare and provoke you to talk. Complaints are to be filed with a cool head and through your lawyer.
They get you angry enough to return an abusive insult with "fuck you, you bigot"? Congrats, you just did a crime. Furthermore, anger leads to mistakes. At one protest, a cop doing a torture hold on my hand while dragging me around whispered on my ear like, "had enough? I can do much more". The beard of this creep rubbing on my ear while he got off on hurting girls got me so pissed, so eager to be a hero of the resistance, to defy them even harder and prove that pain won't break me, that I refused to show my ID when requested later. Had he not said the thing, I would have been clear-thinking enough to remember that refusing to show the ID, in my particular situation, would just give them a pretext to fingerprint me anyway while increasing my punishment.
Cop walking with you on the corridor: "We know you broke the Starbucks window at the protest, we have you on camera." You, indignantly: "That's preposterous, I was at the other side of the march, I have witnesses!" Now you just helped the cops figure out that one of the other 3 comrades they detained is the culprit, and in addition they get some fresh new witnesses to do their manipulations on.
A trick I heard of: Cop: "We have a complaint that you have been photographing those right-wing protesters, that's illegal." (It's not actually illegal to take photos here, only to publish them; it's also not illegal to photograph cops doing abuse; but they often will tell you it is.) "You must delete the photos from your gallery immediately." (This is not a thing they can demand, but they will anyway.) You, indignantly: "I have no photos of them, look!" Cop will swiftly grab your unlocked cellphone from your hand and take his time scrolling through all folders. Cops are not instant street prosecutors and can't accuse you of things. If an angry cop shouts and accuses you of a crime, you don't prove that you're innocent, you say nothing. "No comment". Criminal lawyers are trained to deal with this type of trick; leave your defense to them.
Want to file a complaint about this type of illegal yet omnipresent cop behaviour? Good luck proving it, it's your word against theirs and who do you think the judges will side with, antifa radicals or cops?
Mikola Dziadok from Belarus recounts that a favourite of cops who catch anarchists, in the post-Soviet world, is to do 4chan-ass political debate, like "you claim to be anarchist but you do judo, that's hierarchical!" Or for good cop, "in my heart I think anarchism makes sense, can you recommend me something to read?" (Your book recommendation is "no comment".)
@buherator Technical measures *can* affect it. The exact measures needed and their exact impact are going to vary from case to case, but yes, putting up barriers does in fact make it less likely to happen, even if it cannot fully prevent it.
As to "what is the point of being outraged": because that is how you set social norms in a community, and make clear to potential scrapers that they will be doing so at the cost of their inclusion in the community. This is how it works in all social environments and it seems to be mostly just IT nerds who think this "doesn't work", despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
Nobody half-competent believes that there's some magical incantation to totally stop any and all scraping. But it's equally absurd to go "well, it's public, nothing you can do, it literally doesn't matter". Harm reduction is a thing, and crucially important to many vulnerable and marginalized folks.
Queer Hacker Community question: I know a few folk who experience and exist with plural identity, but in many regions they're a minority within a minority.
At least one such person is looking to relocate to Minneapolis and is hoping to connect with community there. Anyone want to raise a flag? I offered to post here (and I also did over on Bluesky) since my reach is broader than theirs, and they'll monitor the replies. 🤝
(Also, please forgive if your experience and understanding of plurality falls outside what you'd label as queer. I'm less familiar with this territory but I recognize that some folk feel comfortable with that categorization while others may not be.)
Technical debt collector and general hype-hater. Early 30s, non-binary, ND, poly, relationship anarchist, generally queer.
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Sometimes horny on main (behind CW), very much into kink (bondage, freeuse, CNC, and other stuff), and believe it or not, very much a submissive bottom :p
My spoons are limited, so I may not always have the energy to respond to messages.
Strong views about abolishing oppression, hierarchy, agency, and self-governance - but I also trust people by default and give them room to grow, unless they give me reason not to. That all also applies to technology and how it's built.