֍ Folklore_0x ::: Drip

TRUST QUEST: "Trust Quests is a program for researchers and practitioners interested in developing a new or existing project at the nexus of AI, blockchain, infrastructural speculation, media art, forensic architecture, electronic music, and organizational design. Throughout the year, participants will receive feedback and support from mentors embedded in a range of fields, in addition to the Trust maintainers, as they develop projects ahead of a demo day presentation at Trust. The program is intended for recent graduates who are looking for a flexible professional and creative development opportunity. Trust Quests also provides participants with 24/7 workspace in Berlin for both project-related and other work." via Folklore Published on January 11, 2024 at 05:27PM Link: https://ift.tt/HNLERJo Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

COLLIGO, ERGO SUM: In her 1991 paper, ‘Why they Collect: Collectors reveal their Motivations’, Formanek developed a set of themes. Building on that study, respondents were prompted to describe their reasons for collecting at this time covering financial, psycho-social, and cultural motivators. The following outlines these motivators and the general pattern of responses from this year’s sample. via Folklore Published on January 11, 2024 at 02:53PM Link: https://ift.tt/evBGl8y Curator: 0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD (0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD)

A TECHNO-PESSIMIST MANIFESTO: “The implicit premise of techno-optimism is that technology drives civilization. To fix any and all of the problems of society, just get out of the way of technology. Across history, do we find this premise to be true?…The system is fragile. A mixture of order and disorder is frightening, even in the pockets. It seems unstable—especially when it seems to be disorder that is advancing. The ultimate sign of order is a semiconductor fab, which places atoms with nanometer perfection. A new fab costs ten billion dollars. A five-dollar can of gasoline can burn it down.” via Folklore Published on January 10, 2024 at 03:16PM Link: https://ift.tt/g1C3DNU Curator: 0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD (0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD)

COMMON ENCLOSURE: "Software (e.g. Linux, Ethereum) is a Symbiotic Good: Anti-rival: From Nikander et al (2020): “For many digital goods, their real (social) value … increases the more they are used, in stark contrast to material goods, whose value almost always decreases as they are used and consumed.” As a software protocol is more broadly adopted, each user benefits from a wider array of associated services, products, shared local knowledge. As digital artifacts, the cost to produce one additional unit is negligible (i.e. approaches a marginal cost of 0). Non-excludable: Open Source Software (OSS) licensing enables actors external to the production process to use, modify, and suggest changes to the software. Different licenses on this software can create different levels of excludability, but the overall expectation is that others will use and modify the software, and that the code is publicly accessible (aka “source available”)." via Folklore Published on January 09, 2024 at 10:06AM Link: https://trent.mirror.xyz/GDDRqetgglGR5IYK1uTXxLalwIH6pBF9nulmY9zarUw Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

COMPUTING COMPUTES: This paper considers some of the limitations and possibilities of computational models in the context of environmental inquiry, specifically exploring the modes of knowledge production that it mobilizes. As has been argued by authors like Katherine Hayles and Jennifer Gabrys, computation goes beyond just reading and representing the world. As a mode of inquiry it has a powerful world-making capacity, generating new pathways for action and therefore new conditions. via Folklore Published on January 06, 2024 at 04:46PM Link: https://ift.tt/1F2avXl Curator: 0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD (0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD)

STAGNANT REMIX: "We’re addicted to 19th century myths. We presume the present is more alive than the past. Industrialization did cause a break with the past. We called it modernism. We expected the big breakthrough of the 20th century, digitization to have the same explosive, creative effect. Yet, we find our fully digitized culture producing either stasis or churn, not progress. Change still comes but it feels more like a hack, a remix, a mash-up— which in and of itself feels like a return to the eclecticism of the early 21st century hipster." via Folklore Published on January 05, 2024 at 10:44AM Link: https://ift.tt/bvq3zx1 Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

DYNAMIC: "Dynamic quorum is an upcoming governance change that reduces the tradeoff space between friction and security, making proposals harder to pass the more [token-holders] vote against them." Previously governance has been using mostly static consensus metrics: you need 10% quorum and >51% approval. However, you can make quorum dynamic based on how contentious a vote is. Here we see how the Nouns community designed it. It's likely we're still in the early days of possible digital governance design options. via Folklore Published on January 05, 2024 at 10:35AM Link: https://mirror.xyz/verbsteam.eth/96zSoFfiT_RM2o2P9UbVKxPzVpB_trZqUjzllBE00BE Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

POST-IDENTITY DESIGN: "As the tactics of branding are widely embraced for corporations, and increasingly individuals as well, even countries have begun to define their identities in marketable terms. Nation branding has become a fertile field for design and advertising agencies around the world. It is common to see symposiums on the topic, and industry experts such as FutureBrand rank the world’s leading country brands." via Folklore Published on January 02, 2024 at 10:49AM Link: https://ift.tt/7aQvV6m Curator: 0x109cE90026964C3a5BFE305B967FD660B8D1382c (0x109cE90026964C3a5BFE305B967FD660B8D1382c)

Hi Folks, I hope you enjoyed the holidays! Back to normal programming next week!

STATED BRANDING: “ A place brand is essentially little more than a first impression. It is the first two, three thoughts people have when they think about a place. To change these assumptions in a more “favorable” direction may require a stylish (or terrible) logo, but it may also consist of more fundamental policy shifts which affect the lives of people: “defining the most realistic, most competitive and most compelling strategic vision for a country, region or city; this vision then has to be fulfilled and communicated,” as the place-branding expert Simon Anholt describes it. What makes place branding slippery in terms of its politics is that it increasingly stands as both a visual practice and a modality of governance.” thank you Gilbert for the suggestion. via Folklore Published on December 25, 2023 at 12:04PM Link: https://ift.tt/4RhOuJC Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

AN IMAGE FOR LIBERATION: "The point (or the essence) of the image, its strange or alien character, is thus not what it shows, but how it shows (or that it is). An image is derealization. But not merely the derealization of the object that it shows, since it is equally the derealization of the world of the one who beholds the image. The image derealizes the object and thereby interrupts or suspends our usual ways of dealing with it. It “de-automatizes,” as Victor Shklovsky describes it, the perception and liberates it from its merely automatic performance." (Thank you to Misha via Trust for the link) via Folklore Published on December 24, 2023 at 09:12PM Link: https://ift.tt/PNHupek Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

PROPAGANDA MACHINES (PART 3): Finally, we look at how John Robb describes the collapse of an online front. When messaging consistency and efficacy ceases to produce a cohesive swarm of support. As described in the article: "Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, is featured in leaked audio (the leak is of indeterminate origin, but it is so on point, it’s hard to dismiss it as a fake) where he acknowledges the loss of support for Israel with younger people and then blames it on TikTok" via Folklore Published on December 23, 2023 at 08:48AM Link: https://ift.tt/nbYSLM1 Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

PROPAGANDA MACHINES (PART 2): Here we see "coordinated spontaneity." Here the news describes how: "The British government has prepared for terrorist incidents by pre-planning social media campaigns which are designed to appear to be a spontaneous public response to attacks" via Folklore Published on December 23, 2023 at 08:45AM Link: https://ift.tt/8UWZdlY Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

PROPAGANDA MACHINES (PART 1): It is important to look at how information distribution is coordinated online. Once, again, we delve into this topic gently and encourage everyone at Folklore to understand the waters we swim in. Some content is organic, and some is not. Today we cover three articles. One is the primary linked one, discussing how "invested heavily in shaping the narrative about its war on social media, viewing online discourse as a vital area for maintaining public support." Two additional articles will be shared prompty, one about the UK response to terrorism, and another from John Robb, who specializes in online digital warfare. via Folklore Published on December 23, 2023 at 08:39AM Link: https://ift.tt/8FPGZ3o Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

THE NEW INTERNET: "By yielding a generational wealth creation opportunity that was a strange hybrid of a lottery jackpot and self-made fortune, crypto created an ideological hold on its early entrepreneurs and workers. It had all the euphoria of a gold rush and all the self esteem of high tech meritocracy. There were suddenly thousands, if not tens-of-thousands of individuals in their twenties who in the span of a few years became multimillionaires this way. They were not multimillionaires in dollars though, at least not yet. They were millionaires in $ETH or their company's native governance token. In order to fully materialize their newfound wealth they had to also internalize a story about their held token's ongoing value. Increasingly this story – one about taking down big banks, liquidity, 'yield farming,' and ‘hodling’ just for the sake of it – grew perpendicular to the original story that engendered many individuals to the ideas of decentralization. Like in so many other industries that started with a small group of purists, the influx of large amounts of capital changed things." via Folklore Published on December 19, 2023 at 10:07AM Link: https://ift.tt/GduyDT8 Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

NIMBYs vs YIMBYs (Backyards and Blockchains): “We design cities, yes, but once they are lived in, the relationships define it. Blockchains are the same. They capture relationships and bring together people as if they were a virtual city. Over time, it stores history and relationships. It’s why, in the event of existential attacks against it, blockchains rebuild themselves to save the relationships in it. Cities and blockchains die from years of atrophy that’s not repaired, not from singular events. They sometimes act quite similar and there’s potential for cross-pollination of ideas and metaphors to each other.” via Folklore Published on December 17, 2023 at 04:48PM Link: https://ift.tt/JSG2Eeg Curator: 0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD (0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD)

SUMMON THE EGREGORE: “In my view there are basically two good arguments, or types of argument, for the existence of group minds. The first common argument for group minds is the argument from equivalence. Beyond the argument from equivalence, there’s another argument for group minds. This is the argument from modularity. Modularity is a common hypothesis in cognitive science (and evolutionary psychology), which is essentially that parts of your mind act like mini-minds themselves, and then pass on their results (…) If you ask “Do we have strong scientific evidence that group minds are possible?” the answer is no. But from a ‘Do people in the academic field seriously consider group minds to be a real possibility?’ the answer is a resounding yes.” via Folklore Published on December 16, 2023 at 12:35PM Link: https://ift.tt/JIz9aXD Curator: 0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD (0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD)

LOSS: "The loss of content on existing — albeit dying — platforms such as MySpace is a harsh reality. But there are other challenges in the preservation of our content... To lose an entire platform is to lose huge swathes of our digital culture and shared memories. But for many creators, it’s not just the cultural missing pieces that are concerning; it’s the work itself, calling back from another time in their lives and their careers, work that they might not have maintained in their archives in a pre-cloud storage world where computers still had CD drives." via Folklore Published on December 15, 2023 at 04:07PM Link: https://ift.tt/zq2WVnE Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

MERCHANT OF DOUBT: "These motivations to embrace biased beliefs cause people to seek out belief-justifying information. The result is a marketplace of rationalisations that rewards the production and dissemination of content that supports favoured narratives in society. We tend to view the super-spreaders of misinformation as master manipulators, orchestrating mass delusion from their keyboards and podcast appearances, but they are often better understood as entrepreneurs who use their rhetorical skills to affirm and justify in-demand beliefs in exchange for social and financial rewards. Beyond Merchants of Doubt they are merchants of affirmation, and for the right price, they'll validate and rationalise anything." via Folklore Published on December 12, 2023 at 03:11PM Link: https://ift.tt/26SQ3J8 Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

SEA OF SMALL ACTORS: Building a successful community means governing active populations and limited resources. This challenge often requires communities to design formal governance systems from scratch. But the characteristics of successful institutional designs are unclear. via Folklore Published on December 11, 2023 at 01:04AM Link: https://ift.tt/Rwat9jv Curator: 0x144c4E5027B69f7798B2B162D924BcAE5c149f15 (0x144c4E5027B69f7798B2B162D924BcAE5c149f15)