carlo von lynX on Fri, 10 Jun 2016 17:38:37 +0200 (CEST)


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<nettime> Renewed Tyranny of Structurelessness (was: rise and fall of


On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 01:07:59PM +0200, Patrice Riemens wrote:

> Making the rise of celebrities possible inevitably ensures the creation 
> of a celebrity cult, itself the blueprint for individual failure. We 
> should not have allowed ourselves to grow so big - as an aggregate. In 
> my opinion we should: either revert to the small scale, and there, not 
> behave as a start-up, but go for soft and slow ; or organise very 
> strictly beforehand how we are to … organise. Revolving 'presidencies', 
> rotating speakers, revocable mandates and permanent consultations have 
> already been experimented with in history (think of the Paris Commune, 
> 1871). Or better still: we might go for both, but still prioritize the 
> first approach. Maybe in terms of a Bolo'bolo type of scenario (*)

With today's attention economy the formation of celebrities can only be
limited by the adherence to a gatekeeping organization. That may sound
bad, but it can actually be liberating since democracy only happens if
you enable it. As long as the, let's call it "hacktivist community",
is a free form unconstituted something, it is always subject to the
rules of the outside society: attention capitalism, spin doctor style
manipulation. Will we ever know if the ioerror drama was, even if based
on true human weakness - easy to do given the position of omniscience,
but still possibly orchestrated by JTRIG to achieve certain goals in 
shattering the apparent cohesion of the community? Could the community
have had a method such that misbehaviour is addressed and treated soon,
better and without reaching media attention? A method to make it immune
from manipulation, be it by individuals or entire governmental powers?
I believe this is possible. And Paris Commune isn't the only historic
reference to learn from. Think also of the Tyranny of Structurelessness.
Even Elinor Ostrom's way of organizing a Commons teaches some lessons
on how an entire networked community could constitute itself as a power
for good, to a larger extent immune against the interests of evil than
if it just lets things be unstructured and individually "free", but not
free in a social sense. Free for aggressors, not free for victims.

Anyone else in here willing to leave the Structurelessness behind?

nettime leaving behind the structurelessness of cyberspace.
Sure makes sense to me.


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