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Possible Futures

Possible Futures is a newsletter cataloging movement towards ethics, social responsibility and systemic change in tech, design and culture.

It's put together by Clayton and Colombene. Read more.

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  • Workplace Democracy
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Possible Futures

 

Organizations Fighting for Privacy

icon of legal scales, a crowd holding signs for net neutrality

EFF, Fight for the Future and MayFirst fight for freedom and privacy in tech spaces.

Issue: 
Privacy

'The goal is to automate us': welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism

people walking in a busy city street with techy numbers floating around them

Interview with Shoshana Zuboff, author of "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power" on how big tech extracts surplus value from our everyday human experiences through ubiquitous surveillance.

Issue: 
Privacy

Privacy How-Tos for Tech Users

These resources detail out privacy-protecting best practices for users in various areas and for various levels of tech experience from noob to normie to pro.

Issue: 
Privacy

Ad Targeting: How it Started, How it's Going

You might wonder how we got into the surveillance dystopia we find ourselves in now. The answer is advertising.

Issue: 
Privacy

Employer Surveillance (at work and beyond)

Most people have resigned to the fact that they have no privacy and figure it's ok because they have nothing to hide. However, these links are powerful in reframing that idea. Surveillance is not about finding objective problems, it's about power and access.

Issue: 
Privacy

Tracking Technologies: Luxury or Oppression?

blog post: on The Shitty Tech Adoption Curve by Cory Doctorow, NOV 25, 2020
article: Luxury Surveillance by Chris Gilliard and David Golumbia, JUL 6, 2021

Issue: 
Privacy

Why personal agency matters more than personal data

Illustration of a man pushing down on a see saw with the internet, represented as a globe, on the other end. The number 2 appears in the background.

Lately a lot of thought, work and advocacy has been going into looking at personal data as a fungible commodity. Good though this might be, it also steers attention away from a far more important issue it would be best to solve first: personal agency.

Issue: 
Privacy
Web 3.0

The Pegasus Cyber Security Software and its Role in Undermining Democracy

NSO Group building in Herzliya, Israel

Tech activists document the impact surveillance is having on liberation movements and how we can fight back.

Issue: 
Privacy
Pegasus Project
movement tech

Consentful Tech

The principles of consentful tech: freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic, specific.

The principles of consent should be applied to the digital space.

Issue: 
Privacy
design

Privacy is UX

Illustration of a shy fish hiding in a large fish tank.

Designers play a key role in determining how privacy-respecting a project is.

Issue: 
Privacy
design

Nonprofit Websites Are Riddled With Ad Trackers

Illustration of a spotlight on four people working at a table.

The prevalence of third-party cookies and trackers on nonprofit sites shows that the invasive practices of Big Tech are mimicked in the nonprofit world.

Issue: 
Privacy

Interview with PenPot CEO Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz on Open-Source Design and Ethical Funding

Penpot logo.
Clayton interviews Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz on Penpot's aspirations to make designers first-class citizens in the open source world and how they incubate and ethically fund open source projects.
Issue: 
Funding
design
open-source design

The Problem with Venture Capital

meme of 3D guy in suit in front of stock price numbers and an up arrow that says "stonks"

Rushkoff summarizes ideas from his book Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus on how Silicon Valley, often operating like a sped up, supersized version of Wall Street, is destroying sustainable business. His solution is to look to small, local businesses that focus on providing something of actual value to actual customers.

Issue: 
Funding
venture capitalism
economics

Universal Basic Income, Job Guarantees

Works Progress Administration poster from 1936, "Work Pays America!", Prosperity, illustration of a farmer and laborer shaking hands

Another source of venture funding is the government. Not just directly in contracts, subsidies, or employment; but indirectly in meeting the needs of a labor force to do the work they want to do. UBI or a job guarantee, along with other social services like universal health care, food assistance, public internet and utilities could allow for just that.

Issue: 
Funding
economics
social change

Nothing Fails Like Success

An illustration of a sand castle succumbing to the elements.

A List Apart founder Jeffrey Zeldman unpacks just how destructive VC funding has been for tech startups, particularly those with ambitions to improve the world.

Issue: 
Funding
venture capitalism
startups

Fixing the financial dilemma at the heart of our broken tech industry

Ben Werdmüller, former venture capitalist and Indieweb startup founder, responds to Zeldman's essay Nothing Fails Like Success, with an elaboration on the traps of VC funding and the potential that "zebras" and the Indieweb hold for ethical funding of tech projects.

Issue: 
Funding
venture capitalism
IndieWeb
ethical funding
ethical investing
ethics

Exit to Community Primer

Exit to Community infographic. Share what you've created with the people who value it most.

The Exit to Community (E2C) project is a collaboration between MEDLab at the University of Colorado Boulder and Zebras Unite. They outline a healthier alternative for startups which often get acquired or go public. Instead, they argue for an "Exit to Community — a path for startups to become owned and controlled by users, workers, and stakeholders who value and depend on the startup."

Issue: 
Funding
ethical investing
ethical funding
venture capitalism

Drivers Coop investment drive

photos of a mobile phone showing the Uber app and one showing the Drivers Coop app

The NYC-based cooperative that offers a driver-owned economically equitable alternative to Uber and Lyft has launched a crowd investment campaign on the WeFunder platform. Their goal is $1m and are over half way there.

Issue: 
Funding
platform cooperatives
ethical investing
gig economy
worker-owned cooperatives

Ownership Matters

forest scene with a fern

OM is a great online newsletter about startups and funding for the solidarity economy. It's a Substack-style site of interviews, reviews and original features put out by Washington DC cooperative development group Community Cooperative.

Issue: 
Funding
ethical investing
ethical funding
solidarity economy
media

Funds for Open Source - A Conversation with OpenCollective founder Pia Mancini

Illustration of people puring the stars out of a mason jar.

OpenCollective is transforming the way that open source projects are funded by making it easy for project maintainers to set up a donation platform. On the Changelog Podcast, Pia Mancini explains what OpenCollective is, the journey it's on and ways to make open source projects sustainable.

Issue: 
Funding
economics
open-source sustainability
commons

What Might Healthy Open Source Look Like?

This talk by Sumana Harihareswara is an expansive re-imagining of both open source development and the kind of society that could support it.

Issue: 
Open Source
best practices
social change

Open Source Design & Build & Cut & Sew

WikiHouse and Jumpsuit demonstrate new ways of working in the traditional design fields of architecture and fashion.

Issue: 
Open Source
design
fashion
architecture

Why Open Source? Rationales & Recommendations by Agaric

Members of tech services co-op Agaric share what open source software they use and why in their daily operation.

Issue: 
Open Source
tools
free software
worker-owned cooperatives

Open Source Design Resources

Coming out of a live event in Berlin, Germany called DWebDesign #3, this post is a great introduction and link collection for digital designers interested in learning more about open source.

Issue: 
Open Source
design

Libre Graphics

Libre Graphics Club, Libre Graphics Meeting, and Libre Graphics Magazine are some resources, present and past, for designers looking to explore open source tools.

Issue: 
Open Source
design
learning
tools
free software

Open-Source Governance, Meet Feminist Economics

Open source was meant to be a commons, or a shared marketplace with resources that belong to — and benefit — its community as a whole. In a few important ways, it’s failed to achieve that. But that doesn’t mean it’s too late.

Issue: 
Open Source
free software

Post-Open Source

An incisive analysis of free software and open-source software's shortcomings and a nice summary of the post open-source tendencies emerging.

Issue: 
Open Source
free software

Ethical Source

Ethical Source logo.

Ethical Source takes issue with Principle Zero of Free Software, "The freedom to run the program, for any purpose" and instead insists that ethics must be taken into account with the creation, design and use of technology.

Issue: 
Open Source
free software

Declaration of Digital Autonomy (draft 0.1)

Long time free software proponents Molly de Blanc and Karen M. Sandler pen a declaration outlining an updated set of principles for technology that is empowering, not oppressive.

Issue: 
Open Source
free software

Towards A Cooperative Technology Movement

The Cooperative Technology Movement believes the downfall of the free/open-source movement is its unwillingness to critique capitalism. As a result, open source has been coopted by tech giants.

Issue: 
Open Source
free software

What Happened in Bessemer?

person with pro-union sign standing outside of an Amazon warehouse

Top labor organizing strategist, author and scholar Jane McAlevey weighs in on the failed effort by Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) to organize Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama.

Issue: 
Workplace Democracy
workplace organizing

Resources for Democratic Management

photo of young Black person with glasses at a table with another person

A workplace democracy requires different mentalities, skillsets and practices than most of us are used to. For help in this challenging, unfamiliar terrain, check out these resources by Democracy at Work Institute and Greater Than.

Issue: 
Workplace Democracy
organization design

Enspiral: A Case Study in Self-Organizing Companies

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Enspiral, best known for building Loomio, an open-source decision-making tool, is a network of initiatives trying to create utopia and prepare for collapse at the same time.

Issue: 
Workplace Democracy
worker-owned cooperatives
social innovation
organization design

Starting at the Top: Reinventing Organizations

still from the final episode of Game of Thrones with the words Maybe the decision about how to work should be left to workers.

Though many democratic workplace movements logically start bottom up with the workers, there is an emerging group of consultants advising owners and management on this approach to be more efficient, innovative and to foster a healthier culture. Notable among them is former McKinsey partner Frederic Laloux who wrote Reinventing Organizations.

Issue: 
Workplace Democracy
organization design

Worker-owned co-ops are coming for the digital gig economy

Platform Cooperative Development Kit sketch.

Platform cooperatives, platforms owned stakeholders, are gaining momentum as an alternative to predatory platforms like Uber and TaskRabbit.

Issue: 
Workplace Democracy
worker-owned cooperatives
platform cooperatives
gig economy

Worker Coops: A Better Way to Make a Living in Tech

The Palante Tech Cooperative at their 2019 winter retreat.

Jack Aponte, a worker-owner and co-founder of Palante Technology Cooperative, breaks down what exactly a cooperative, how they live out the coop principles with their company and the benefits of this model.

Issue: 
Workplace Democracy
worker-owned cooperatives

Solidarity Onboarding

Hands holding open the Solidarity Onboarding zine.

Tech worker organizers from Google, Facebook, WeWork and Kickstarter produced a beautiful zine counterposing the most common anti-union talking points with counter quotes of advice, wisdom and inspiration.

Issue: 
Workplace Democracy
unions
workplace organizing

Shifting Capitalist Critiques: The Discourse about Unionisation in the Hi-Tech Sector

Illustrative: Thousands demonstrate in a protest organized by the Histadrut in support of contract workers, at Habima Square in Tel Aviv, on July 16, 2015. (Flash90)

Researchers studied the Israeli tech industry, which has the highest density of unionized workers in the world, to understand why organizing has taken hold there. Their findings show that workers are blurring the lines between traditional workplace issues like better pay and more creative issues like control over what kind of projects the company takes on.

Issue: 
Workplace Democracy
workplace organizing

DisCO Elements

" "
A Distributed Cooperative Organization, DisCO for short, is a new way of running an initiative that incorporates cooperativism, the commons, P2P and feminist economics. Download the Book
Issue: 
Workplace Democracy
worker-owned cooperatives
commons
gig economy
P2P

What exactly is The Alphabet Workers Union?

red logo of Alphabet Workers Union

Kickstarter organizer Clarissa Redwine discusses the unique structure of Google's union which is "what’s known as a non-contract union, an open union, a minority union, or a solidarity union."

Issue: 
Workplace Democracy
workplace organizing

Solidarity, not Advocacy in Tech

Image of people demonstrating in front of Amazon with signs that say No Tech for Ice and Amazon: Whose Side Are You On?

Carmen Molinari critiques common yet largely ineffective strategies in worker organizing at big tech in the IWW-related blog Organizing Work.

Issue: 
Workplace Democracy
workplace organizing

The site runs on Backdrop, is hosted by MayFirst, uses the Lateral theme and features the Grotesk font face from Velvetyne open source type foundry.
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