If you were looking to write the perfect *non-technical* book on decentralisation, what would you include? 🤔
(boosts appreciated!)
Thanks to everyone who replied to this thread. I collated some thoughts briefly here: https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2020/07/20/decentralisation-book/
@dajbelshaw
Hi Doug, hope all is well. Any updates on #moodlenet I have been unable to login with the login I had from #beta any chance of a readd?
@adinfinitum After some drama, I resigned and the team all quit. This post was deleted by the CEO but you can read it on the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20200612160715/https://blog.moodle.net/2020/moodlenet-v1-0-beta/
@dajbelshaw
WoW. shocked am I.
@mayel are you guyz still working together? #commonspub
& what remains open??
@adinfinitum @mayel I'm still in touch with the team but working on other stuff now. Check out commonspub.org 🙂
@dajbelshaw @adinfinitum@activism.openworlds.info yeah, the website is woefully out of date as there's a lot going on in different repos and branches. It's heading towards a decentralised ecosystem of modular/extensible apps. More public updates soon hopefully!
@mayel
That did not appear in #mastodon but found it in #zot @adam
@dajbelshaw
@dajbelshaw its role in networked agency https://www.zylstra.org/blog/networked-agency/
@dajbelshaw
A treasure map, the French underground (resistance movement) of WW2,
@Horizon_Innovations Could you expand on the French Resistance? That's an interesting example!
@dajbelshaw
As far as I understand, there was no central control, it's was local groups who used "gorilla" tactics to disrupt the enemy. Info was passed around for larger more coordinated efforts & for safety. The reason is that the enemy couldn't "chop off the head" because there wasn't one! & If one was captured they could only give limited info - need to know kind of thing.
@dajbelshaw
It's a principal thing that can be repurposed, from enemy disruption to internet disruption!
@dajbelshaw talk about the commons, a sheep field is a good example, to illustrate the difference between decentralized organization vs individual pursuits.
@dajbelshaw surprised no one has mentioned @richdecibels' book Patterns for Decentralised Organising https://leanpub.com/patterns-for-decentralised-organising/ and The Hum online course with Nati https://www.thehum.org/online-course
@jdaviescoates @richdecibels Oh yes, must read that - thanks!
Email (vs Gmail)
@Blort Ah, that's a nice way in - thanks!
@dajbelshaw you would need to write about consensus.
@Downes Could you expand? 🙂
@dajbelshaw well I go straight to technical subjects, like Paxos algorithms. But the idea is that distributed systems need minimally to communicate and maximally to be able to agree on some truths. What is the mechanism for this? Is trust sufficient - how is it established? If not trust, then what...? These are really hard questions but cannot be avoided, otherwise, 'decentralizef' simply means 'separate'.
@Downes Thank you, I'm just wondering whether an understanding of decentralisation has to *start* technically. I feel that it doesn't, but I'm still scouting around for examples that would back up that feeling.
@dajbelshaw I don't think it has to start technically. There are so many examples from nature, like murmurations. There's a great story here in Canada about how a species of sparrow changed its song ... Happened just this year.
@Downes Cool, so I feel like a series of overlapping chapters (dip in anywhere, build up a picture) which give lots of different examples would be appropriate.
It's a bit like 'openness' - yes, there are technical definitions of it and 'decentralisation' but it's usually better to allow people a chance to see different sides of it in everyday life first.
@dajbelshaw @Downes I like the sound of that type of text
@dajbelshaw I like that style, but I wouldn't be able to resist identifying similarities and patterns among the examples.
@Downes well indeed, and that's the point - to kind of choose your own ontology 😂
@dajbelshaw another good example: fandom. It's a self-selected group of people who have agreed to accept some show - Star Trek, say - as canon. As source of truth. Beyond that, anything goes.
Or science fiction fandom generally, where the source of truth and protocols are even looser. (The recent hijacking of the Hugo awards by the alt right is a great case study).
@Downes oh that's an interesting way in, thanks!
@dajbelshaw depending on who your potential audience is, it seems it would need to have vastly different characteristics. I think even using the word decentralization scares alot of folks away.
I would look into how zines and tape culture and mail art circulated around the world and how that history is linked with anarchism and free cultures world wide.
@liaizon Oh, so don't even mention decentralisation and come at it from a different angle?
@dajbelshaw again I think it would totally depend on your target audience. but the folks who I most often have to explain stuff I am interested in have never used the word decentralization before and have no associations with it so I might as well be using the word antidisestablishmentarianism
@liaizon So if it's for a general audience, best not to put decentralisation in the title then 😅
(I'm thinking things like co-ops, left-libertarianism, anarchism, etc.)