Reading through a new lens

Zuckerberg, Musk, and Bezos are paying for and hosting parties for the incoming. Don't get worked up about that - you're not invited.

DO get worked up about the fact that, starting a few weeks ago, you should NOT trust any information you see on Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp. Why? Because Mark owns them. He has been telling you for weeks he's going to deliberately flood the first (Facebook) with AI people and end all content moderation. In this way, Facebook can "help" the #Trusk administration to incarcerate and deport people with brown skin.* Methinks this is what Mark speaks of when he seeks "more masculine energy."

It also makes it easier for people with the very whitest skin to steal from the government (NASA contracts sole-sourced to X, medicare billing overseen by Oz, lord only knows how deep Trump's own grift goes). Stealing from the government BY THE WAY is stealing from you - you paid your taxes. Those three guys at the top of this blog - not so much. 

People, nonprofits and foundations still working for anything other than an oligarchic agenda, people still pursuing communities built on care and participation - ASSUME what you're reading online is BULLSHIT. Designed to distract and detract. I cannot say this any more clearly. The first item on their agenda - minimize, confuse, deflect, and diminish the administration's plan for internment camps and deportations.

 

                                                                Illustration by Tom Worth from Blueprint2025

And since Bezos has also bent the knee - enough to hang out with his sworn frenemy Musk - it's well past time to check where your "cloud" storage actually lives. Chances are better than 75% its on Bezos's servers. It's either there or on Google/Microsoft's servers. It's probably on all three, and add in Zoom. Can you possibly afford to host your own cloud? If so, do it. Yesterday. 

TL;DR

• Check your tech stack and get off their servers. (Yes, I know this blog is hosted by Google - changing platforms is hard - help in doing so appreciated - DM me).
  
• Assume what you're reading online is BS. Coming from bots, malevolent actors, and/or AI.
  
• Figure out how to communicate truth online (or rebuild your comms function, because you don't need a lot of social media followers (ahem - who owns them? - see above), you need to tell the truth)

Prediction from a non-predictor: In 2025 a progressive nonprofit, probably a Muslim-focused one, will find itself being persecuted by the US Federal Government, and the government will use internal messages, blog posts, socialmedia posts, zoom and Otter AI transcripts and information from internal documents stored on the cloud or AI-transcribed zoom calls as "evidence." No, they won't get warrants or even notify you that they're doing this - after all, your stuff is on their property. Assume you will be next (don't quote Heschel to me).

One of two US voters chose this. If you're one of them, and still reading my stuff, know that I hold you responsible for all of the horrors to come. Happy to chat with you but know that I believe your only absolution (which I don't control) is working to rectify things for those who are being immediately and directly hurt by your desire to save on taxes (and, no, egg prices won't go down. There's a bird flu now circulating among humans, c'mon on, now).

*I am a disabled, queer, Jew. No, I don't want to be called crip, faggot, or hebe online. But this IS NOT why they're doing what they're doing. They're doing it to (further) poison the well of news. That's the fight we need to be fighting. They're closely linked, but let's be clear on their purpose and their endgame. 

Blueprint 2025!

#Blueprint 2025 is here 

Join us to discuss tomorrow January 16, 2025.

My health is poor, and so the planning for future Blueprints (or whatever comes next) is in your hands. Help me work with you to co-create our collective next. The short survey is in the #Blueprint and here's a direct link to be part of it.

Philanthropy book club

                                                            Photo by rawkkim on unsplash

There is so much uncertainty in my life right now. I've spent a lifetime reading fiction for joy and mental health, and reading nonfiction for work and an income (OK, I read some nonfiction for fun) and I've always read alone. My sister and I, in the early days of online life, launched a book review that we used to print and distribute at the cash registers of independent book stores in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Baltimore and San Francisco. In just the last year, however, as my illness has made me more and more isolated, I've joined one book club, started another, and am now suggesting a third. 

If you'd like to join a zoom-based reading group focused on books about #philanthropy and #civil society than please let me know by commenting here, DM'ing me on Bluesky or Mastodon, emailing me, or filling out this form. Let me know your name, one book you'd want to read, email, and what time zone you're in. We already have participants from India and California, so we'll be choosing globally accessible times as best we can. I'm hopeful we'll get readers and book suggestions from around the world. (Books need to be written in English language or translations into English, nonfiction and fiction welcome)

My suggested book is Dana Frank's new history of the Great Depression, What Can We Learn From the Great Depression? Stories of Ordinary People and Collective Action in Hard Times, which focuses on the role of community leaders, mutual aid, and other forms of solidarity. I don't know Professor Frank personally, but she's right down the road in my old stomping grounds of Santa Cruz and I may be able to invite her to join when we get to that book. 

At least one of my Stanford colleagues, Aaron Horvath, says he'll join me in this. Aaron is one of the co-leaders of a new project on Private Wealth and the Public Good, and a longtime participant in and teacher of the Stanford PACS seminar. I'm no longer able to teach the Stanford seminar on Digital Civil Society so I'm hopeful this might scratch my "go to seminar" itch. All that being said, participants will be asked to lead the conversation on the book they suggest so no goofing off allowed. There will be no quizzes.

Will try to get this going in February.

100 years too early

The 2173 in the name of this blog refers to the year, 2173. The year was 200 years in the future from 1973, when the futurist comedy "Sleeper"was made. 

Turns out, it's 100 years too late. There's a movie out (coming out) called 2073 that uses real-life footage from today's news to tell a story of a future apocalyptic hellscape. It caught my attention because of the title and because I'd been outlining a piece of fiction using the same primary sources.

Wikipedia says:

"2073 is a 2024 British science fiction docudrama film directed by Asif Kapadia. Set in a dystopian future, the film is inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 featurette La Jetée. It follows a time traveller who risks his life to change the course of history and save the future of humanity.

The documentary premiered out of competition at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on 3 September 2024.^"

You're welcome. Maybe 2173 will be when things turn again from the bleakness to something good.