#communitariumproject — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #communitariumproject, aggregated by home.social.
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‘Adversarial clothing’: are garments designed to confuse facial recognition systems about to go mainstream?
These garments may express dissent, and they may sometimes hinder recognition software. But that does not make them collective resistance.
They are private consumer choices made by isolated individuals, not coordinated action by people who have built the capacity to act together. Calling the trend “collective” encourages a politically disabling fantasy: that enough personal gestures will eventually add up to power on their own.
Capitalist realism depends on that confusion. It lets people experience themselves as resistant without confronting their fragmentation or building organizations, strategy, and institutions. The surveillance apparatus remains organized, adaptive, and well funded; the supposed resistance remains individualized, symbolic, and available for purchase.
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I've posted an open letter to #MayorMamdani's newly created Office of Mass Engagement urging that “mass engagement” mean more than better public-input collection.
The post argues for an open-source, federated civic infrastructure (that expands beyond the narrow social-posting scope much of the #Fediverse still reproduces): locally grounded civic commons for mutual aid, public memory, deliberation, collaboration, accountability, and community self-organization.
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/mass-engagement-is-not-mass-intake
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**Such Interesting Aunties: Queering Care**
*Joel is the only non-parental member of a queer parenting collective; Cody is a trans man who’s been mistaken for his chosen niece and nephew’s dad*
My son Joel is one of the subjects of this Substack post from Lisa Sibbett, who writes **The Auntie Bulletin**, about "practical, everyday kinship".
I'm proud of him: he is working out the practice of what, so far, I have merely theoretically gestured toward:
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Gifting with Integrity: Federated Digital Spaces for Mutual Aid Networks
When friends told me, years ago, about "Buy Nothing" -- a Facebook group that implemented an impressive mutual aid ecology, I was intrigued... but did not follow up...because Facebook.
Now, though, they are undertraking a move to the Fediverse, using @bonfire as their online framework!
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Gifting with Integrity: Federated Digital Spaces for Mutual Aid Networks
When friends told me, years ago, about "Buy Nothing" -- a Facebook group that implemented an impressive mutual aid ecology, I was intrigued... but did not follow up...because Facebook.
Now, though, they are undertraking a move to the Fediverse, using @bonfire as their online framework!
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The Law of the Excluded Schmooze
"The belief that freedom and discipline must be in opposition only makes sense in a civilization that has long lived under what we might call the law of the excluded schmooze.
...
Perhaps discipline, properly understood, is nothing more than care extended through time—and schmooze, the medium through which that care becomes collective."https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/the-law-of-the-excluded-schmooze
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Do like me, support Framasoft !
PeerTube is crucial in the fight to erode the control of user content by centralized, commercial, exploitive interests.
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Democracy as Practice, Socialism as Counter-Community
If democracy is a practice, then it cannot be sustained by electoral ritual alone. It must be enacted in everyday life, through communities that share power, resources, and meaning.
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/democracy-as-practice-socialism-as-counter-community
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Redefining Socialism
"[S]ocialism is not a set of policies. It’s a way of organizing life so that the systems we build, maintain, and inhabit serve the flourishing of people in their full, embedded, interdependent existence. That means not just changing ownership structures, but changing the terms of belonging and the terms of engagement."
#CommunitariumProject
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunityhttps://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/redefining-socialism
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How ‘The Dawn of Everything’ Speaks to the Current Moment
Graeber and Wengrow make the case that both [Hobbes' and Rousseau's] views are misguided, that there is no linear tale of human history. They argue that a closer look at the data reveals that human beings have been experimenting with models for how to live as far back as we can look.
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Lowering the Threshold: Socialism Begins with Shared Life, Not Just Shared Demands
What if socialism began not with political identity, but with shared life? This post explores how DSA’s strongest cultural practices could be extended outward—through low-threshold, participatory platforms we call communitaria—so more people can live socialism before they’re asked to name it.
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The photo below shows the current state of #CommunitariumProject
This article gives a basic idea of what I would like us to build:
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/communitaria-what-we-need-to-do-i-thinkElaborations can be found in these articles: https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/tag:TheCommunitariumProject
If you are interested please DM me or send an email to [email protected]
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The photo below shows the current state of #CommunitariumProject
This article gives a basic idea of what I would like us to build:
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/communitaria-what-we-need-to-do-i-thinkElaborations can be found in these articles: https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/tag:TheCommunitariumProject
If you are interested please DM me or send an email to [email protected]
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@ChemicalEyeGuy
I'll leave specific tactics to others, who will have to weigh Trump's demonstrable willingness to break the law (gleefully) and to deploy armed goons to back up his cruelty, indifference, and narcissism.
The counter-measures I am actively contemplating tend toward long-term cultivation of counter-power via new forms of organizing: https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/tag:thecommunitariumproject
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#CommunitariumProject -
@ChemicalEyeGuy
I'll leave specific tactics to others, who will have to weigh Trump's demonstrable willingness to break the law (gleefully) and to deploy armed goons to back up his cruelty, indifference, and narcissism.
The counter-measures I am actively contemplating tend toward long-term cultivation of counter-power via new forms of organizing: https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/tag:thecommunitariumproject
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#CommunitariumProject -
I've initiated a new series on my blog with the article:
Zohran Mamdani as DSA in the Flesh: Disindividuated Politics, Foundational Justice, and the Power of Sincerity#MamdaniForMayorNYC
#ZohranMamdani
#UnderstandMamdani
#CommunitariumProject
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#TheMamdaniMovement -
@yvonnezlam
These days, I'm keeping myself going with the hope that *another tech is possible*! -
🔥 Bonfire Install Party #1 – Get your fediverse instance running!
Bonfire (@bonfire) seems to align technologically with many of the values which I am trying to promote with the #CommunitariumProject* (and with the more general approach of #SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity ). Unfortunately, I have something scheduled for that time, so I'm hoping that a video record of the event will be made available.
https://mobilizon.libretic.fr/events/c0c0b536-5216-412b-a277-1dadead06997* https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/tag:TheCommunitariumProject
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🔥 Bonfire Install Party #1 – Get your fediverse instance running!
Bonfire (@bonfire) seems to align technologically with many of the values which I am trying to promote with the #CommunitariumProject* (and with the more general approach of #SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity ). Unfortunately, I have something scheduled for that time, so I'm hoping that a video record of the event will be made available.
https://mobilizon.libretic.fr/events/c0c0b536-5216-412b-a277-1dadead06997* https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/tag:TheCommunitariumProject
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What is a democratic socialist?
Corey Robin"The stories of these candidates are socialist for another reason: They break with the nation-state. The geographic references of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez — or Ms. Tlaib — are local rather than national, invoking the memory and outposts of American and European colonialism rather than the promise of the American dream."
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#CommunitariumProject
#MamdaniForMayorNYC
#AOC
#ZohranMamdanihttps://coreyrobin.com/2025/06/26/what-is-a-democratic-socialist/
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As someone who's posted #MamdaniForMayorNYC and #ZohranMamdani to the Fediverse dozens of times over the last few months I can assure you the response is *nothing* like that described in this tweet.
I consider that an advantage of the Fediverse, an indicator that it is far less susceptible to the "drive-by community" fostered by mainstream social media.
But I would also like to develop its capacity for meaningful social and political reach.
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#CommunitariumProject -
As someone who's posted #MamdaniForMayorNYC and #ZohranMamdani to the Fediverse dozens of times over the last few months I can assure you the response is *nothing* like that described in this tweet.
I consider that an advantage of the Fediverse, an indicator that it is far less susceptible to the "drive-by community" fostered by mainstream social media.
But I would also like to develop its capacity for meaningful social and political reach.
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#CommunitariumProject -
The Limits of Family Abolition
"Family abolitionism wants to make care more collective, more just, freer. That’s a goal I share. But that project begins not with the end of the family, but with a sober assessment of what families are — and what they are not — under capitalism. Let’s fight for better ways to live and care together. But let’s not assume that abolishing the family will help us reach that goal."
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#CommunitariumProjecthttps://jacobin.com/2025/06/family-abolition-capitalism-social-reproduction
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Why is the media ignoring growing resistance to Trump?
"In the end, it’s up to the American people. Do enough of them care enough about democracy, decency and the rule of law to leave their easy chairs, barbecues and sports-gambling apps to get out in the streets and make their voices heard?"
[I'd argue that they must do more; they must build and organize durable, equitable ensembles of contra-power and contra-culture.]
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My Journey Deep In the Heart of Trump Country
By Arlie Russell HochschildMs. Hochschild, a sociologist, spent seven years getting to know people in eastern Kentucky for her most recent book, “Stolen Pride.”
"Whomever Democrats choose as their standard-bearer, we cannot leave it up to them; to choose wise leaders and strengthen a challenged democracy, we need all hands on deck."
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That Evelyn Quartz, "a former Capitol Hill staffer who served as press secretary for The Lincoln Project", published the above article in *The Lever*, a socialist-adjacent newsletter published by a former Bernie Sanders adviser, attests to some fundamental rethinking going on -- in unexpected places.
Further evidence:
Why the ‘Pro-Democracy’ Center Can’t Save America | Compact
https://www.compactmag.com/article/why-the-pro-democracy-center-cant-save-america/ -
Why The Trump Protests Will Fail
"In an era that has lost sight of what protest is for — how its power is built not through performance but through collective risk — it’s no surprise the liberal class prefers the sanitized version. These rituals offer catharsis without confrontation. They preserve the appearance of engagement without threatening the foundation of the status quo."
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But it needn't!
Here's the first of four posts which collectively propose a "Communitarium Project":https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/the-communitarium-project
Here are all the posts on the topic (in reverse chronological order):
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/tag:TheCommunitariumProjectHuman beings evolved human sociality to reshape the world. Now that we've taken a catastrophically wrong turn we need to put all our heads together and change paths.
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Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The dissonance is real
[In what ways and to what degree does the Fediverse perpetuate and/or amplify #hypernormalization?
In what ways, to what degree, and where does the Fediverse counteract or even battle against hypernormalization?
If experience serves, this post will be ignored or briefly read and then passed on in silence... which is sort of an answer.]
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#CommunitariumProject
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/ng-interactive/2025/may/22/hypernormalization-dysfunction-status-quo -
Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The dissonance is real
[In what ways and to what degree does the Fediverse perpetuate and/or amplify #hypernormalization?
In what ways, to what degree, and where does the Fediverse counteract or even battle against hypernormalization?
If experience serves, this post will be ignored or briefly read and then passed on in silence... which is sort of an answer.]
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
#CommunitariumProject
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/ng-interactive/2025/may/22/hypernormalization-dysfunction-status-quo -
The rise of end times fascism
The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them
As it happens, I've had some thoughts about how we might resist:
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/tag:TheCommunitariumProject
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Technocracy fails not because people are dumb, but because it enshrines the wrong kind of intelligence. Real wisdom emerges in the interplay of lived experience, mutual trust, and shared interpretation—things only real communities can cultivate.
@pluralistic on "Ostromizing Democracy"
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions
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Beyond Social Products: Comparing the Communitarium Project and New_ Public's Vision
New_ Public wants better digital communities. So does the Communitarium Project—but it starts further back, aiming not to reform platforms but to form new communities, infrastructures, and counter-realities beyond capitalism. A comparison:
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Language of the Left: Worker
Class, Myth, and the Obsolescence We Must Design“Worker” has been a rallying point and a mythic role. But its durability is both a strength and a trap. If the Left is to move forward, we must use the term strategically—while refusing to treat it as permanent. The worker must remain historically specific, ideologically provisional, and ultimately, replaceable.
#LanguageOfTheLeft
#CommunitariumProject
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunityhttps://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/language-of-the-left-worker
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The Communitarium Project: Oh God, Not Communes Again!
The Communitarium Project isn’t about reviving communes or escaping society—it’s about building transitional, interstitial spaces where people can live, think, and act together differently. Not utopias, but shared infrastructures for sense-making, coordination, and care—without enforcing consensus or closing down difference.
#CommunitariumProject
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunityhttps://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/the-communitarium-project-oh-god-not-communes-again
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I'm confident that most of the people likely to read this toot already know that, while it is possible for gossip to be malicious and destructive, gossip as a practice is vital to human communality.
If you find yourself needing to make the case to someone who *doesn't* know this, here's a nice little video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHmoWNIO6eo -
(((Baslow))) wrote the following post Sun, 27 Apr 2025 08:54:35 -0700 A single account can have many channels on (streams). This makes learning the platform more complicated but also much more powerful.
I've begun trying to figure things out and I'm making mistakes along the way:
https://social.communitarium.org/display/?mid=https://social.communitarium.org/item/bcb7f339-1222-4c89-ac5f-1df4dbbaea37
I also figured out (duh!) that I can follow @Streams here.
#CommunitariumProject
#Streams
@(((Baslow))) -
What is the Communitarium Project?
The Communitarium Project is an effort to create shared spaces—both online and (eventually) offline—where people can collaborate, deliberate, and take action to challenge the status quo. It is an evolving experiment in building a digital commons for meaningful engagement, exploring alternative models of collective ownership and governance. -
Trumpism as Rebranded Fascism: A New Formation for a Fractured Age
Trumpism isn't old fascism reborn—it's fascism recomposed for the digital age: grievance as policy, spectacle as governance, and symbolic violence scaled without constraint. April 2, “Liberation Day,” marked a shift from trade to retribution, rhetoric to ritual. The enclosures are gone—what comes next?
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Learning From Cults Without Becoming One
Cults create deep commitment and social cohesion, but they also rely on coercion, ideological rigidity, and hierarchical control. The Communitarium Project seeks to harness the strengths of cult-like communities—meaningful engagement, shared purpose, and counter-hegemonic vision—while avoiding their pitfalls. building solidarity without becoming insular, authoritarian, or dogmatic.
#CommunitariumProject
#SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
https://seizethemeans.communitarium.org/baslow/learning-from-cults-without-becoming-one