Hi Friends,
I am writing from a place of frustration; frustration that is slowly turning to dismay. I will of course feel better soon, likely by the time I am done writing this rant, however I do feel like I am banging my head against the wall. This banging has intensified as I have watched fascism crawl its way out of the swamp down south.
Why do I feel this way? First, a little context.
My university training is as a political scientist. Several years of it. My liberal book learning education is about as deep as it can go. I cut my teeth politically with drunken uncles who are more then willing to "wrestle it out" over political differences. I have marched in hundreds of protest and physically stood the line with neo-nazis. I even got the premier liberal "leadership" education offered in the province and I am most remembered for my work with the Students Union and subsequent stint in lobbying.
I was once selected as Universities Canada's student lobbyist. Flow to Ottawa to wine and dine. Liberal politics is taking pictures with politicians and expecting them to do something in return.
That is far from my only learning though. During University, before they where a commercial product, I built, coded, and flew quad-copters aka drones. I was blessed with the privilege of having some of the best personal computing devices (thanks mom and dad) throughout my life. I had a computer in my home before cable tv, so as a teen, I was tinkering with code and computers before I knew who the kardashians where. Before my most recent role, I worked for one of Canada's "unicorn" companies (Jobber) and was working sales for their leading product.
I once crashed a drone on a construction site as I was demoing how these devices could track progress on build sites lol
I have been making websites, creating apps, selling, and learning computer language nearly my whole life. I am a trained political scientist.
I telling you all this because I find that it is becoming required for me to remind people of my expertise before I speak because a lot of what I tell people seems to be met with glazed eyes, or worse, purposeful ignorance. I am not sure if this has to do with my shift in identity, my politics, or just because people want to continue on as if everything is normal, however, it is becoming increasingly frustrating for me.
What is becoming increasingly frustrating?
TLDR; I, as a political scientist, with a long history of working with computers, am watching tech-fascism take over politics. I, as a trans person, am telling folks, straight up, that the modern equivalent of the Nazi Book Burnings are happening right now. It is alarming to me that a lot of my closest allies, friends, and family are not taking this seriously. I am reminded that the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house and the medium is the message. If we are using capitalists tools to spread our message; what are we really saying?
I am dismayed by organized political actors using the tools of fascism with little thought. I am often working with professionals, people who should know better, using Google services to do "progressive" politics. Allied organizations who own none of their data and trust republican software to run their campaigns. Entire cities IT infrastructure being handed over to AI systems owned by the billionaire class. Politicians, queer ones to boot, posting to X and Instagram. The farmers market vendors exclusively using credit and the new invisible 5-10% tax on everything that lines billionaires pockets.
The slow takeover of all political thought by tech bro billionaires is so pervasive that even seasoned leftists, old school ones who would have called me a sellout liberal back in the day (no shade, they would have been right lol), are using the platforms of oligarchs. Here is a quick challenge: visit any 'social democratic organizing' site and scroll to the bottom and see if it has a "built with Nationbuilder" tag. It's harder to find organizations not using this software then those using it.
Using these systems is ineffectual. Any progress made using them is the same progress one feels playing a slot machine. That numbered line may be going up, and maybe you know a few folks who have won, however, end of the day, we are playing on the houses machine. We will loose if we use play on the houses table.
I can't get Audre Lordes quote out of my head
For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices. - Audre Lorde
So many organizations doing the work, real work, are so obsessed with "progress" that they do not illuminate their own choices.
The simple choice matters.
Where I host my website and post my content matters.
How I communicate with my community matters.
Who I trust with my data matters.
What software I purchase matters.
The capitalist oligarchs who run things want me to stop learning. They want me to default to the software and hardware choices that they have socialized as the first, soon to be only, choice.
The medium is the message. What medium does your message make?
We can, and must, do better.
I have been writing and learning about these topics for a couple years now. Only recently did bnkops make it over the hump of our entire operation, hardware up, being off of corporate systems. We have documented some of that learning for anyone to implement.
We are dedicated to building our power, not renting it.
Want to join us in pushing back against corporate Goliath? Here is some of my own writing and things I would recommend as staring points for learning:
- The white paper that kicked off all this work: If You Are Doing Politics, Who is Reading Your Secrets?
- Bnkops has documented a lot of our learning here: Software Stack
- How using paid software creates the champagne socialist and how we escape this loop: Distributed Digital Organizing
- Why is this becoming more important? Because the political canary in the coal mine is literally screeching. The trans people in your life are under attack on these platforms: First They Came For The Trannies.
- Finally, if someone tells you that they are a political data hack, consider this perspective: Haunted by Data
I also highly recommend the following videos to really drive home how dangerous this tech bro political takeover is:
Government Censorship vs. Patient Nerds | Stuff Keeps Happening
DARK GOTHIC MAGA: How Tech Billionaires Plan to Destroy America
Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: A Guide to Fighting Back
Changemaker
You of course can also check out Changemaker, our deployment platform for that is upping sites like Pridecorner.ca or thatreallyblondehuman.com
Password: FuckDonaldTrump
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Anyway, thats all this time folks! Thanks for keeping up with my ramblings. I do feel better having gotten that all out and looking forward to calmer days.
In Solidarity,
thatreallyblondehuman,
Bunker Admin,
Reed Larsen