@evan I‘m unsure what seven generations, seven continents refers to. Internationalization/localization of software? Making it accessible to old and young people?
@evan something that is missing (or too oblique). Technology should not burn the planet.
Until a few years ago one would think it as absurd concern versus suv's and private jets but two nvidia bubbles later (crypto + AI) its clear that there is no absurdity shameful enough for Homo Sapiens
@evan@mmasnick oh, interesting! we think, to promote adoption, it might be worthwhile to focus on fallback behaviour, and we made #FediLinks for this ( https://fedilinks.org ). it's mainly intended to improve interoperability between fedi instances and apps, but we've been struggling to gather adoption from instances and we think better client/app support for fallbacks would help push for instance support.
@evan I would go further. Our data should be content-addressable, and communication should be protocol-agnostic. We should get rid of data vendor lock-in.
@evan@ritawho But the reality is the world doesn’t need any tech manifestos period. They’re all just techies masturbating in public and expecting praise. Maybe just focus on not enshittifying the world instead.
@evan@ntnsndr I like, though “technology should not actively hurt us” feels a bit like a bare minimum! Surely that requirement can be raised higher, and maybe framed positively.
Also something about non-human impact would be nice, something about minimising material & energy footprint.
@evan@ntnsndr Haha touché. But no need, I’m enjoying critiquing yours from my armchair 😉 (I am enjoying the thought experiment, it’s good to think about these things, so thanks for the prompt)
@derek@Brendanjones The Web is 30 years old, email is 40 years old. That's about 1 human generation back. Von Neumann architecture, some of our programming languages like FORTRAN, COBOL, and Lisp date back another 30 years or so.
Seven Generations is a term in some cultures that indicates long-term thinking.
I think Evan is drawing from an Indigenous / First Nations understanding. It means that you need to think about the impacts of your decisions for the next 7 generations.
But 7 generations is also found in the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the Bible, seven generations is a stand-in for eternity or a really long time. And in India, you get married for 7 lifetimes (basically forever).
@seanbala@Brendanjones@derek yeah, I think the link to Native American traditions is tenuous and may be some kind of exoticism or cultural fabrication.
Thanks for the check. That sounds about right. I wonder if there was a hint of truth but it has been so altered that it has lost all rooted meaning like how mindfulness in the West is usually divorced from its Buddhist context.
Considering 7 generations is a nice concept and doesn't need the roots in some mystical exotic.
I figured it was a clever turn of phrase in your post. 7 generations and continents sounds nice to the ear.
@ironchamber@u24 I made it up. "Seven generations" is a term that means thinking three generations backwards and three forwards. Seven continents is one way of dividing up the world, meaning, don't just think of the US and maybe Europe.
Genevieve Bell tells a wonderful story about arriving at Intel unsure exactly what they want an anthropologist for and discovering they want someone to explain 'women' and 'rest of world' which she sums up as 'everyone who doesn't work here'
@evan@ironchamber@u24 Out of curiosity, where does the 3 forwards/3 backwards concept originate? And when one thinks 3 generations backwards, what would you have them think about?
@Brendanjones@ironchamber@u24 yes, 7 generations is unclear. Some people say 7 forward, some say 3 back, 3 forward. I think the latter makes more sense, since it's possible to meet your great grandparents or people who knew them personally. 7 forward is almost 250 years. Really hard to think about that in anything but abstract ways.
@Brendanjones@ironchamber@u24 as for what I want people to think, that seems like a weird question. I don't know who your great-grandparents were, what they thought, what mattered to them. That's up to you to figure out.
@evan@ironchamber@u24 Ah so when I think of (my impacts on) 7 generations, I think about everyone alive today, plus anyone alive in the next seven generations. So in that frame of thinking, when I saw ‘3 back’ I was thinking you meant thinking about the people 3 generations before anyone alive today, ie dead people. So that’s why I wasn’t sure what we should be considering about them in the software we build today, besides culturally.
@evan@ironchamber@u24 Because thinking with the 7 generations of sustainability in mind, I thought 7 generations meant you think about the impact on them. But in your comment above it sounded like you were also thinking about building software in a way that might ‘have mattered to them’ (your grandparents). So a cultural element to it, is that right? (I hope this explains my original question - I thought it odd to think of the impact on the dead!)
@Brendanjones@ironchamber@u24 I mean, 3 generations back from you. Your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
I don't buy the 7-generations-ahead thing. Barring extreme life extension or very bad decisions among your descendents, you won't meet anyone even 4 generations ahead. Thinking you know what's right for 3 more generations after that seems hubristic.
@evan@Brendanjones@ironchamber@u24 Your take on this being hubris is interesting as I take it to leave it in as natural and livable state as possible with the eye toward sustainability. What's right for them is the things existing and accepting them, not such a hard or hubris filled concept.
So, why not 10 generations? 100 generations? 1000?
Once you get out past real human relationships, you're just talking about abstractions -- some kind of utopian, static, imaginary future. You've unmoored from the real world, and you're trying to force on it some ideal world you imagine.
That's the hubris.
Concentrate on places you know, people you know or will know, and you're going to make different, specific decisions.
@evan@Brendanjones@ironchamber@u24 but I think isnt that the point? To care for something in a way for someone you’ve never met. Seems contrary to hubris. Why not more? Indeed why not? 7 though is only just over the horizon, not some unfathomable distance.
For me, its not making something for them, it’s preserving what is so they can see it and feel it too.
@scetron@evan@ironchamber@u24 Evan I think the difference in our thinking is that you're thinking about the specific people who might exist and their needs, whereas we're thinking about the conditions of their existence. I'm thinking mainly about the state of the natural environment. If we think about rewilding a degraded mining site, the resulting forest is only just coming into proper maturity in 200 years. That time scale isn't hubris, it's just the timescale of natural systems.
@scetron@evan@ironchamber@u24 Y'know that proverb about old people planting trees whose shade they will never sit in? Well extend that out, this is old people planting trees whose ecosystem services they will never benefit from. Y'know, an old tree that's had time to develop hollows and dead material that provides habitat for other flora and fauna, not just a bit of shade.
@Brendanjones@scetron@ironchamber@u24 I think one of the big problems of our culture is and has been that we do everything for the Imaginary World instead of the Real World. I'm sorry you're not seeing why that is a broken system that has killed billions, and maybe staying anchored to reality and relationships we actually experience would be a good practice to cultivate. You seem to think that the problem is finding the right utopia; I'm saying the challenge is giving up on utopias.
@evan@Brendanjones@ironchamber@u24 to me the right thing for the people right now as you say, is using all available resources as efficiently as possible. Lets not bother worrying about creating anything for the future, we dont know what they want.
Seems like some of the same attitudes that got is here and is too short term. Anyway its an interesting idea for sure, and I am glad your statement introduced me to the idea of 7 generations (current or into the future).
@evan@ironchamber@u24 Huh interesting, I think we approach it differently. From my understanding a generation is generally thought of as 25 years, 7 of which would be 175 years.
A tree planted now will be around then. The scars of a mine opened now will still be on the land then, and its resources will be gone.
So I’m not thinking about precisely what 7 generations might want or need, but about leaving the planet in a better condition for them.
@evan@ironchamber@u24 I should have read through the Wikipedia article I shared, it mentions the 3/3 variation (though misses an origin for it)!
“Rather than pointing to seven generations counted from one's own and looking toward the future, there is an awareness of a legacy to honor or a debt to bear in mind to those three generations before one's own, as well as an awareness of one's own legacy bequeathed to the three generations to follow one's own.“
@evan I'd prefer a model which is not as adversarial as unions are. The "co-determination” system in Germany is a good system where workers elect representatives to a company's supervisory board. This way the direction of the company and policies are directly influenced by workers. The current system the US has where workers must go on strike without pay for weeks or months to get fair contracts is harmful to workers as we saw with the writers strike.
By law, companies with more than 2,000 employees must have an equal number of worker elected representatives on the board. This reduces the friction between workers and management while ensuring workers have a voice and significant influence.
@brennansv@evan Also the legal form dubbed 'worker coop' in the UK doesn't exist in many other legislations.
Here in the EU, if not trying to harmonise cooperative legislation, there are attempts at new legal forms where shared ownership is a mandatory quality.
So far the cooperatives movement has found different implementations throughout the globe, and we need to learn a lot more from each other how to use existing and advocate for new legal forms for fruitful ecosystems.
@brennansv@evan Unions are not fundamentally adversarial. Workers have a huge vested interest in the success of the work that they do.
The idea of trade unions being a drag on productivity and corporate performance is propaganda promulgated by capitalists to make it easier for them to exploit labour without hindrance.
In any organisation with fair and equitable employment and compensation policies, the trade union is an ally, not an opponent.
@evan I didn't bother reading it. Kinda tired of Silicon Valley's philosophical whims that are not useful or enlightening. It's just a bunch of boys thinking that they are intelligent producing nonsense for applause.
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