Aral Balkan @aral
Cyborg rights activist. Leading the Internet of People initiative at DiEM25. Making the web better.fyi
I did it. Quit Facebook. I had many personal reasons, but philosophically, what moved me was Aral Balkan’s critique based on cyborg ontology and theory of surveillance capitalism. This, combined with a vision for decentralized planetary democracy, combined also w/ @Rushkoff's point about it just not being nice to your friends to link them there (like poor hygiene, or knowingly spreading a disease) finally broke my inertia.
This article sums up the argument well: https://ar.al/notes/encouraging-individual-sovereignty-and-a-healthy-commons/ ~ @aral
Breakfast
A little simplicity and calm before tackling a chaotic world.
https://mastodon.ar.al/media/n4rntbcv73kIqRNCeUw
@b3yond Purism have been delivering laptops for a while now. I have no reason to suspect them of anything .
@dajbelshaw @jasongreen Thanks, Doug. Jason, check out some of the articles on https://ar.al/notes (Nature of the self…, Encouraging individual sovereignty and a healthy commons, We didn’t lose control, it was stolen make a good trilogy introduction.)
@aral speaking about cities for people, very powerful talk https://vimeo.com/234305186
@phryk Do you mean in terms of public spaces in tangible space? All for it. Basically, for the commons whether in tangible or virtual space. (And individual sovereignty and privacy when it comes to people/individuals.)
@Curator yep, and this is a really great example of how #SurveillanceCapitalism works: get people to voluntarily supply valuable data by decorating your unethical intentions with something fun / cute @aral
@julianruf creepy fb is using users to train their machine learning algorithms & AI to detect personal emotions. #SurveillanceCapitalism at work. @aral would like this...
See @aral speak at IxDA Berlin in two weeks!
Technology People
I’m in this month’s This Is Some Noise podcast. Listen + share :)
http://thisissomenoise.com/ep-19
(My segment starts ~14:22)
The Internet of People: next steps
Our policies will be developed independently in a new not-for-profit dedicated to the purpose with input from DiEM25 (& implemented in DiEM’s 7th pillar).
It will also have input from (and the legitimacy of) a panel of respected experts in the field of ethical tech and be open to input & adoption by any progressive political movement should they choose to get involved.
Read the full post and reply at:
One month until @aral speaks at Ecopolis in Brussels. For those of you from the rest of Europe, the event is being translated into English, French and Dutch.
Flying from Malaga to Vienna today to present the opening keynote tomorrow at Internet Summit Austria.
@starbreaker So you still have to imagine it, because this isn’t about you (or me) – it’s entirely about making the ability to have that be as seamless as getting a Facebook *spit* account. Your own domain + a convenient interface in under seconds or we don’t win this. Stay tuned… not going to happen overnight but we might just be about to make a start on eventually getting there :)
@DynaMike Hey man, sorry I was just passing through (straight to the airport). Thank you for the kind offer – next time! :)
@starbreaker Exactly! Imagine an internet where we each own our own domain name and our own little piece of space. Where we can publish (and no one can tell us what we can say or not say—even though no one is compelled to listen to us, of course). Where we can have an encrypted copy of our information that’s synced to all our devices. An internet where we have individual sovereignty and a healthy commons. (See https://ar.al/notes/towards-an-internet-of-people-with-diem25/)
Had a wonderful reception for my proposal to kick off the Internet of People with a City of People in Ghent last week. (Watch this space—this is momentous!)
Next week is going to be busy: flying to Malaga on Monday to be interviewed at EmpoderaLive (http://empodera.org/en/empoderalive-2017/#agenda) and then I’m off to Vienna on Wednesday to present the opening keynote at Internet Summit Austria (http://thelink.is/internet-summit-austria-2017).
@DynaMike Thanks! Went really well. More info soon ;)
@yovko Yep. Will post a note here when it’s out.
@Trev Thank you :)