embrace the fediverse

“If you are staying on a corporate social media platform because the people you follow are still there, consider others are also staying there because you are still there. Someone needs to start the move. Be that person.
Leave X for good.
Leave Facebook forever.
Remember blue skies eventually turn grey.
Embrace the social media that cannot get sold to a billionaire. Embrace the Fediverse“
—@Em

“Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.” —Tommy Douglas

“Remember when you were a kid and adults used to ask you what you would do if everyone else you knew was jumping off a cliff? Would you jump too? Now you know.” —@JeremyMallin

Can we devote some time to discussing Slack? As in, why are we all sending our every thought to a centralized server that can be hacked, and can can train AI with them? And why is Slack allowed to store transcripts but I can’t?

My union uses Slack for organizing. How crazy is it that an organization in the cross hairs of a dangerous and emboldened government would do this? With everything going on right now, I’d love to be more active in the union, but must I really give up so much to this opaque platform?

Is anyone else struggling with these concerns? Do you know of viable Slack alternatives? Are there any hacks that make Slack less of a privacy invasion or make LLM training harder? Are there at least ways for me to save sessions the way I can with IRC? How do I resist Slack and not lose touch with groups that still use it?

—@DanGoodin [check the comments]

What Octavia Butler saw on Feb. 1, 2025, three decades ago via @EstherSchindler

In “Parable of the Sower,” the novel’s 15-year-old protagonist, Lauren Olamina, writes a simple journal entry: Saturday, February 1, 2025: “We had a fire today. People worry so much about fire.”

—What unfolds in the pages that follow is a dystopian world surrounding the gated, racially mixed, fictional community of Robledo, California.
—A new drug forces addicts to set fires to communities, who then rob and rape victims. Unhoused people roam the streets and are forced to steal to survive. Hurricanes, fires and violence push Americans to flee north to Canada.
—President Donner, like President Trump, promises to restore the country to its former glory.
—Racially mixed couples, like Olamina’s Black/Chicano family, are vulnerable to attacks, and her parents, both PhD holders, have limited job opportunities.

Newly Approved Tartan Design Memorializes Those Persecuted Under Scotland’s Witchcraft Act via @MarkRees

“Designed by Clare Campbell, founder of the Prickly Thistle tartan mill, the appropriately gothic pattern carries symbolic meaning. Its black and grey tones reflect the darkness of the era and the ashes of those burned. Red signifies bloodshed, while pink represents the legal tapes binding trial documents then and now. The thread count encodes the years 1563 and 1736 (1+5+6+3 = 15 and 1+7+3+6 = 17), with these numbers woven into black and grey bands surrounding a white check of three threads—symbolizing the campaign’s three objectives: securing a pardon, an apology, and memorials. The 173 black threads in the tartan’s squares represent the 173 years the Witchcraft Act was in force.”