Author: Nathan
-
ISIS and “territorial feudalism”
With ISIS back in the (US) news, I have been thinking back to this passage in chapter two of Governable Spaces on ISIS as an apotheosis of “implicit feudalism,” a networked polity “with a clerical sysadmin.” Read the chapter: https://luminosoa.org/site/books/10.1525/luminos.181/read/?loc=009.xhtml
-
Clearing my desk: On using screens intentionally
What follows are some notes about how I use screens, which I am bothering to write because I increasingly notice how my habits diverge from those of people around me. I have not bothered to validate the effectiveness of these practices in any statistical or otherwise scientific way. But people do frequently ask about my…
-
What would happen if we won?
We don’t ask this question nearly enough. Part of a plea (at Princeton last week) for designing online governance for an internet full of #GovernableSpaces. Thanks for the photo by Liz Barry.
-
“Coterminous with geopolitics”
The politics of our online spaces have become coterminous with geopolitics. After Donald Trump left the presidency, he did the obvious next thing: he became a sysadmin. Get the whole book, free and open access: https://ntnsndr.in/govbook
-
Reddit and lost causes
As Reddit goes public, remember that so much of its success comes from the extent to which it enabled #GovernableSpaces among its users. Why another IPO and not an #exittocommunity? See the library of examples at https://e2c.how/library
-
“If words wept, this screen would be leaking.
“If words wept, this screen would be leaking.” My colleague Nabil Echchaibi on Gaza and the unspeakable in Social Text: https://socialtextjournal.org/periscope_article/this-is-a-scream-and-i-dare-you-to-publish-it/
-
Social media elimination fantasies
It is striking that a plurality of my students’ homework this week involves fantasies of abruptly ending social media. The assignment was to plot a world takeover.
-
Snow fort
Take this, NIMBYs.
-
Assumptions in code
When you try to write code that breaks prevailing assumptions, you realize just how deeply embedded those assumptions are. Here’s a bit from #GovernableSpaces on one of my attempts to code my way out of “implicit feudalism.” Get the book: ntnsndr.in/govbook
-
“What if democracy is not what we are after but the path to something else?”
Zizi Papacharissi in #GovernableSpaces. Read it now: https://nathanschneider.info/govbook/