McFilter

Interesting Things on the Internet: June 26th 2023 Edition

• Eton and all the murder. Get rid of private schools, or at least start by getting rid of boarding schools.
• Signal’s Meredith Whittaker: ‘These are the people who could actually pause AI if they wanted to’. This is all excellent, sensible stuff from Meredith Whittaker. "No. I don’t think they’re good faith. These are the people who could actually pause it if they wanted to. They could unplug the data centres. They could whistleblow. These are some of the most powerful people when it comes to having the levers to actually change this, so it’s a bit like the president issuing a statement saying somebody needs to issue an executive order. It’s disingenuous."
• Shifting Focus: Organizing for an EcoSocialist Future. Fantastic talk from Kali Akuno, who runs Cooperation Jackson.
• The cavalry have arrived. But not for long. So much potential for good work in tech in the UK; so little of it given any attention while the politicians and media chase boosterish hype-cycle bollocks.
• Missing the Point of Everybody. Beautiful writing about the contradictions and complications of life and, intertwined, #metoo.
• Meta and Mastodon – What’s really on people’s minds? Facebook are, apparently, joining the Fediverse; that's the collection of services like Mastodon—a Twitter-like service; Pixelfed—more Instagram-like; KBin—a Reddit alternative; all of which interoperate so you're no longer walled in and only able to follow folk on the same service. It's good, you should join if you haven't already. There has been much discussion on Mastodon of late about Facebook's actions (or potential actions), and Ian Betteridge does a good job of laying them out. Seems like lots of the other commentators need to read up on Ostrom's work, and how we prevent the so-called tragedy of the commons.
• Qualities of Life. Erin Kissane (who's writing lots of good stuff recently) laying out how we might make better social and sociable software systems.