We live in an interwoven, interconnected world where an injury to one is truly an injury to all. We must confront the coronavirus with solidarity and fight for a society where the health of all is more important than profits for a few. --- The scramble reveals a class system in which a mark of relative status is the power to withdraw. If you have wealth or a salary from an institution that values you, and enough space at home, you might be able to pull off the essentially absurd trick of isolating yourself for a few months by drawing down the global web of commodities on display at Costco and Trader Joe’s. But for the 50 percent of the country that has no savings and lives paycheck to paycheck, or in small apartments with little food storage, or has to hustle every day to find work, this is simply impossible. People will be out every day, on the subways, at the gas stations, choosing between epidemiological prudence and economic survival, because they have no choice but to make that choice. […] “Wash your hands” is good advice but also a poignant reminder that this is not the sort of problem that personal responsibility can solve. Epidemiology is a political problem. It’s not hard to sketch the steps that would ease our cruel situation: a work stoppage, massive income support (unemployment payments with some universal basic income in the mix), a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures and evictions. Treatment for coronavirus and potentially related symptoms should be free and comprehensive, no questions asked (about immigration status, for instance), so that no one goes untreated because of fear or poverty. This is all, in the most straightforward sense, good for everyone. It is also how people look out for one another’s vulnerability and need when they see one another’s problems as their own. […] It takes a vast and intricate infrastructure to keep us all running in one another’s service, and in the ultimate service of return to capital: from highways to credit markets to the global trade regime. The fact that these interwoven systems are tanking financial markets around the world at the prospect that people might need to spend a few months sitting at home rather than hurrying around exchanging money shows how finely calibrated they are to profit, and how totally lacking in resilience to shifts in human need.

A big Google Document full of helpful tips for online meetings, classes, and events. Friends, as we scramble to move our offline interactions online, this is an emerging initial place to share, curate and organize resources. It could really use the loving attention of a great curator!

The Kardashians and the Real Housewives are talking about premade Judy survival kits. Are they any good? --- Clearly, people need supplies like food and water in the wake of any disaster, but as Redlener sees it, typical advice tends to flatten these events into a one-size-fits-all mold, particularly when you look at prepackaged kits. Take the first kit that appears on an Amazon search. Available for $114.99, it promises a “100% satisfaction guarantee” for surviving for three days after “earthquake, hurricanes, floods + other disasters.” It’s a bold claim, considering the myriad variables not only in the disasters described but also when you take into account who might be purchasing the item and the specific needs they have. “In some ways, they just somehow misrepresent themselves as being ‘disaster preparedness.’ So people think, ‘I’ll buy a kit for my car and another for my house, and I won’t have to think about it again.’ Really a false sense of security,” Redlener says. […] Judy is largely being marketed as a trendy new tool your favorite influencers are excited about. The success of that approach hinges on the fact that Americans are keener to follow in Kim Kardashian’s footsteps than FEMA’s. This, despite the fact that she exists in an income bracket that is less likely to be deeply affected by climate change. […] In the US, lower-income communities are also already dealing with a higher rate of pollution in the air and in their water sources, which makes them more vulnerable to any additional issues brought on by climate change. Globally, a similar situation is playing out between higher- and lower-income nations. If the emergency items market continues to grow as projected, it’s hard to imagine the costs won’t continue to increase, as well, responding to a more competitive and eager market — potentially pricing out the consumers that need them most. That stark contrast in who is able to afford to not only evade disaster but also to recover from them is already clear in the postmortems of recent disasters. […] “It’s taking a moment to take stock, which is what the preparedness kits can do, but also taking a moment to to to know who’s in your community, and how you can help and how they can help you,” she says. “Not only be prepared for really, really bad things, but to also be prepared for the day-to-day stress. And so you’re investing when you’re doing this and not just, ‘Oh, well, when is the big, big bad thing going to happen?’ You’re actually doing something that makes you and your community healthier.”

When many lower-income Americans feel isolated and empty, they yearn for physical social networks. All across US, this happens organically at McDonald’s.

This document exists to lay out some general principles of running a small social network site that have worked for me. These principles are related to community building more than they are related to specific technologies.

For a brief moment, Tumblr played host to a tight-knit, but open-minded, community of music lovers who were thinking and writing deeply about music and its place in the world. --- In some ways, we were naïve. When Music Tumblr was humming, few people stopped to think that what we were really doing was providing free content to a large company that was trying to figure out how to turn that content into money. Just about everyone I can think of from the Music Tumblr days is now on Twitter, and just about all of them seem miserable there. You go to Twitter expecting the worst, and it rarely disappoints. As crazy as it sounds now, for a short while, in this time and place, social media seemed like a good idea. But there's always hope.

Once upon a time, my Tumblr Dashboard was full of writing about music.

A map and list of the Portland electronic music scene. Venues, labels, collectives, recurring performances, Facebook Groups, and live music listings.

One way to improve democracy is for more people to appreciate its complex technological underpinnings.

Makerbase was built to allow anyone to edit it — here’s how we’ve tried to stop abuse of that power before it starts. The biggest lesson here is that it is possible to build social platforms where abuse and harassment are not the norm.

Why did I say that? If I’m responding to someone’s question, am I trying to answer it (or better understand what they’re asking), or just boost my ego? Am I trying to be helpful or just look clever? Am I trying to contribute to a conversation or just make sure people know I Have Opinions? Why did I make that bad joke that disturbed the flow of the meeting?

And we won’t kick ourselves for having bugs in the software, or for not being compliant enough with the technical preferences of a small, geeky crowd. We will regret if we just give power to ourselves and to the existing institutions again.

On efforts to rebrand/rename/codify neighborhoods in major cities, and the effects thereof.

This is 100% true. “Because if your website is full of assholes, it's your fault. And if you have the power to fix it and don't do something about it, you're one of them.”

“In early January, President Barack Obama signed the Local Community Radio Act of 2010, which is expected to create hundreds, possibly thousands, of noncommercial FM stations.” A good overview of LPFM and how the recent legislation happened.

As Paul Ford says, “The fundamental question of the web.” Discussions about examples thereof, with Paul Ford himself contributing.

"...would he be instituting the most open and participatory executive branch our nation has seen, directly following the most closed and secretive? ... Oh, the answers are: yes, sure, and of course."

"Scenius is like genius, only embedded in a scene rather than in genes. Brian Eno suggested the word to convey the extreme creativity that groups, places or 'scenes' can occasionally generate."

A few NYC friends are getting into this.

Just like it says.

Another Ze Frank project, this one centered on crowd-sourced advice. Write a letter to Ze asking for guidance, get it from everyone else. Intriguing!

A visualization of the feelings of the web. Beautiful and moving.

Augmented Social Network, explained.

Creative assignments. "You can do any of the assignments, in any order."