Re: <nettime> Renewed Tyranny of Structurelessness (was: rise and

[carlo von lynX <lynX@time.to.get.psyced.org>]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 02:42:20PM -0400, biella wrote:

> I think it is important to talk about what could have been done
> differently but I don't buy into this argument. There are plenty of
> institutions and organizations in hackerdom that are structured from
> many free software projects (including Tor) to the Pirate Parties to the
> CCC. Jake was kicked out from a structured project, an endeavor with
> policies and which is so not open to all.

Granted, but does it have that extra thing that Frank just alluded
to? Does it have a court and a due process? I would add, does it have
a court of appeals if the court of arbitration is for whatever reason
biased? I think we need a voluntary system of justice that works by
our own standards, and keeps people from furthering bad behaviour
*before* it gets to be a case for the state authorities. And I believe
the digital domain is a special challenge for justice, harder to deal
with than problems Jo Freeman describes. The Pirate Parties thought
they could handle it with regular party structures, but the improperly
addressed digital domain created shitstorms, paranoia and lifelong 
relationships of hatred. Party structures were not enough.

> There are plenty of other hacker projects that are more ad hoc and
> flexible, to be sure. But I am glad both types of organizing--
> institutional and non-instit utional--exist.
> 
> The social movement as a whole, like most social movements, are hard to
> structur e (not sure I would want that anyway as social movements are by
> definition transve rsal to any one organization, group, or entity) but
> there are many  important examples of structured projects built by
> hackers.  The idea that they don't build institutions is the myth we are
> in need of debunk ing.

For Germany's public and supreme courts, CCC has certainly become an
institution. But how well has it solved in-fighting issues? How good is
the inner justice system of CCC? How many software projects have even
thought about that? I noticed Gentoo has a prototypical separation of
powers, I presume debian would have that, too.

> Sure they can have different structures or some may need more structure
> but ther e are plenty examples of structured hacker projects and I am
> not sure that was the sou rce the problem in this case either.

I guess my point is we need a structure that can demotivate people
from exercising anonymous hate speech and especially multiplying it
by the practical "retweeting is no endorsement" mantra. No, it is
not okay to retweet defamation and if there was an organisation
able to provide a justice system to the community, then not only
those who multiply defamation can face sanctions, but it could
possibly implement the frequently mentioned "safe space" or "safe
room", allowing potential victims to turn to people in charge of
prevention of injustice, authorised and enabled to actually do
something about it, something like "due process". It can keep
victims or friends of victims from escalating bad actions even 
further.

"Friends of victims" are potentially the worst, as they can enjoy 
jumping at a chance for a vengeance crusade without having suffered 
the hurting themselves. An excuse is provided to hide behind,
apparently legitimising the satisfactory feeling of exercising
lynch justice. If a structure of justice exists, such "friends" of
victims have no excuse to carry out lynch logic.


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