2026-09-26 19:24 UTC
a lot of these ideas have been inspired by various (generally sci-fi) stories talking about universally-connectable meshnets (Walkaway comes to mind but it's not the only one), and thinking about what the technical side of such a system might look like, how to design it such that it actually is to people's and communities' benefit, and such that it erases the "computing centralizes power in a way that physical reality doesn't" aspect as much as possible
because those kinds of stories often don't talk much about how such networks are designed or how power concentration is avoided in them and I think that's a shame because I do think there's something there
Replies (2)
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@joepie91@fedi.slightly.tech 2026-09-26 19:28
and like. I don't think the distance between "etherpad hosted on a cheap VPS" and that universal meshnet is as big as people often think, and while the meshnets in those stories often are portrayed as something that developed in response to a disaster or totalitarian state, I don't think that's a useful framing because I don't think those kinds of circumstances are *necessary* to make these concepts useful to people today, I think that very same kind of infrastructure could 100% serve people in their daily lives today
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@mei@fed.amazonawaws.com 2026-09-26 20:10
@joepie91@fedi.slightly.tech yooo!!! Walkaway! I love it too. It was so good, doctorow is great sometimes :)