Chad Kohalyk’s Reviews > Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life > Status Update
Chad Kohalyk
is 17% done
Ch1: A history of online spaces from the old BBSs to modern platforms, and how their design leads to “implicit feudalism” taking away voice and leaving exit as the only option for users. From BDFLs to all powerful mods: there is little to no democratic infra for communities to improve. This is the core problem this book will tackle. The chapter ends with some positive cases (Wikipedia, Debian, Python).
— Mar 15, 2024 08:23PM
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Chad’s Previous Updates
Chad Kohalyk
is 55% done
Epilogue: Wrapup. "Feudal designs permit expressions of affective voice but not… effective voice." "Feudal defaults teach their users the embedded ideology of homesteading" (colonialism) "Through governable stacks, communities can identify and root out feudal patterns and remake them as commons." "The stack is social, technical, and environmental infrastructure. It is affective and effective." Not techno-solutionism.
— Mar 25, 2024 03:22AM
Chad Kohalyk
is 53% done
Ch5: Cultivating governable spaces. Relies heavily on feminist theory and countering paternalism of feudalism and hierarchy. Examples of coops, exit to community, citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, Decidim, German codetermination, etc etc. These are seeds that show how we could bring citizen governance to online life. "Self-governance is not a solution; it is a practice"
— Mar 25, 2024 03:19AM
Chad Kohalyk
is 45% done
Ch4: Designing "governance stacks" to refuse the colonialism of implicit feudalism. "Governable stacks are confrontations." Designing user control into apps, even at a small scale. Covers many experiments. May First Movement Tech & Policykit mentioned! 4 design goals for building self-governing modular systems, plus "archaeology" which is about connecting new gov designs to those of the past.
— Mar 21, 2024 06:38AM
Chad Kohalyk
is 35% done
Ch3: using case studies of Restorative Justice and Cryptoeconomics to show expanded political imaginaries. In order to have an accountable social space, we need to "shift from scalability to subsidiarity." He does offer criticisms, but both cases demonstrate new ways for local autonomy that the reigning social infrastructure won't allow.
— Mar 18, 2024 06:35AM
Chad Kohalyk
is 24% done
Ch2: Examination of the California Ideology, its “politics of no politics”, frontierism and homesteading logic, and “faithless religion of exit.”Stands to reason the tech does not teach political skills. Contrasts with homeplaces, Politics of everyday life, consensus building and basically microsolidarity.
— Mar 16, 2024 01:04AM

