Reader

Let's tell a Fairy Story

Are you sitting comfortably?

Then I'll begin.

One upon a time in the online realm a cis white man did a controversy. That man then blamed the purity culture within his community.

More controversy kicked off, and the man doubled down on “Purity Culture”. Other's came in defence of the person and repeated that it was “Purity Culture”. Some folks were happy to accuse the left of fermenting discord. Of tearing the great man down.

To be clear I'm not referring to any specific incident here, that's not what this post is about. Although I'm very sure someone's come to mind. There's always someone.

Much like our fairy tales and folklore, there are variants on this story.

Sometimes the person kicks off the controversy referring to those nasty leftists openly. Sometimes it's a general reference to Purity Cultures or Purity Spirals. Sometimes someone finds out about the person doing abuse and raises the alarm. Sometimes it's not a cis white man.

Harassment can happen, the fans of the person rush in to defend them, or whatever disappointing thing the personality is defending. There are reply guys.

Some folks who know the personality hope that it's an aberration and perhaps they can be called in.

You get the idea.

On Spirals

This is a pattern I'm seeing happen again and again.

I keep seeing a libertarian pipeline, it starts where we lift someone up (usually someone who already had a lot of privilege), they manage to shit post and argue their way to popularity. We're very good at that on the internet, we've managed to create an adversarial space in a medium that was meant for sharing information. It's the market place of ideas after all.

They may write some books, create a massively used project, get into policy spaces. At the point they have enough power they decide they are so important. If you are against them, it's tall poppy syndrome or the Purity Culture of the left. “The bitches are out to get me”. Pick your poison, but the fairytale is always the same.

They are cancelled they say, as they appear on various podcasts or talk to authors about that time they dropped the mask. Some folks are a bit shocked, but some of us in the silence of the aftermath start to compare notes.

In the meantime, this person isn't really cancelled because cancel culture doesn't exist either. There will always be people willing to platform, support and patronise someone who is “cancelled”. There's always a talk circuit. There's always fans willing to pay for your work. There's a point in time where they've made it.

I've seen this happen in the past decade a few times online, I've experienced the surprise in person.

Folks, there is no such thing as a purity culture or purity spiral in the left. What you're seeing is the fallout from abuse in community spaces. It's just easier to tell the fairytale of the left not cooperating, rather than examine toxic individuals. Or folks leaving for their safety. Get a community started, at some point in time you will have abusers, or agent provocateurs, or well, people who start to form a cult of personality around them.

But it is easier as a centrist to ask everyone to just get along and follow behind this person. Get behind the banners, get behind the slogan. Which plays into the right wing, because the right wing are very good at lying to centrists and each other.

“Eyes on the prize folks”, you think smugly, as you dismiss leftists. No wonder we can't get anything done if we keep judging people. “You're so judgy on the left, why can you not just follow the banners? It's a purity spiral” you think, the left can't help itself.

So you bury the unease. Bury the niggle. Give chance after chance after chance, after chance behind the scenes. Vulnerable folks, or those of us who've seen this before break off. Start or find another group. Because it's not safe, Or because we know that we can't follow in that direction .

So the personality grows in power and influence. There's no dissension and no one now, to rugby tackle away the means of communication from them. To go, “hang on. Perhaps you want to rephrase that.” Or “perhaps you don't want to argue with people for several days on the internet. Go outside for a walk now and calm down.” They are filled up on Power and Hype, on yes men, who uncritically think that we must follow that banner. We grow that power by reading what they write, sharing their ideas. We open doors to get them to talk to our governments.

Then the controversy happens and those of us that left don't feel victory. We feel tired and start to pick up the pieces of community. We know the call in will be pointless, there will be more incidents like this. We know the personality isn't an ally anymore, and perhaps they never really were.

Can we stop this spiral

I'm so tired of this. Aren't you tired?

Aren't you tired of giving these powerful folks the benefit of the doubt, even as they defend folks like Minsky? Or do they just do good work? Does your favourite matter more than hearing from other points of view? From other backgrounds?

Do we keep having to repeat this spiral, the real spiral. It's not a purity spiral at all. It's bigging up people who confirm what we think, who explain it in a clever comfortable way.

It's the spiral of choosing our comfortable ideas over the truth of what's happening elsewhere. It's not really sacrificing anything for our values, but sharing great slogans to show support. We get behind someone's banner as we think we will get closer to real power.”

We shouldn't be surprised then, when the person drunk on their power does a thing. Throws away the leftists who bigged them up, who shared their ideas. Because they don't need us anymore. We're problematic to the cause. We tend to speak up and share criticism after all. It's time for the centrists to fall behind the banner.

As a recovering centrist myself, I've learned this the hard way.

But whenever I see a man; and in my experience, it is always a man, talking about purity culture (or cancel culture), I tend to wonder what abusive behaviour they are hiding. Or who they've excused because of the “bigger picture”. That access to power and influence. Their comfort, not yours.

Because if your worried about purity culture in leftist spaces, you are chasing power. You aren't particularly worried about hurting people, you are more worried about them exiling you from their group.

People do make mistakes. But the way you gain forgiveness is to be accountable. To examine your behaviour and your motives. To make reparations.

The group does not have to accept you back. But when someone is going from group to group, blaming purity culture in advance, you need to look for the wreckage. Even if their ideas are good, because they may well be packaging other ideas. They just happen to be the person you vibed with.

We do need to take responsibility for who we platform. Because ultimately it is down to us. We give power to our heroes by sharing their ideas, buying their stuff, using their projects. We need to understand the reciprocal nature of this.

Once we understand this, we can then consider if we should keep sharing those particular posts about an idea. We can choose to share our power with marginalised voices from the Global South. We can open ourselves up to folks who aren't from our culture. We're at a time where we need new ideas and viewpoints. We need to look at concepts from around the world.

It's a more positive thing to do than to try to change the personality, it's a more positive thing to do rather than try to argue with the personality. It opens us up to each other. Sometimes we find commonality in the concept of an idea, along with another way to describe it.

Sometimes we want a glib concept, a simple word to explain our world around us. But perhaps we could do a little more work and look outside words and slogans.

Perhaps we could stop putting folks on pedestals, or expand it and open up the stage for others. We can pass the mike. Perhaps those of us on those pedestals need to acknowledge that we are on stage and there's a responsibility towards that audience.

I include myself in this. You shouldn't put me on that pedestal, I can climb on the stage myself. I write well, and I do have a message I want to pass on to you, my audience. But I am sure that there are folks who have better ideas, who don't choose violence. Who are conciliatory rather than argumentative.

Who should we be listening to? This is something we need to ask across our networks. We need to be prepared to listen, especially when we feel uncomfortable and judged. We need to take a moment, think, let the feeling wash over us. After all, when we ask, we are asking for access to their labour. Then listen again, and go and learn. Work on ourselves, understand that discomfort.

People are human, but we do seem to be picking some folks who should never have been given so much power and influence over us. Our big men do have influence and power, we wouldn't be hearing about them otherwise.

We keep platforming them.

So give your power wisely. Build community locally, or in your online spaces. Consider also joining a union, or creating a union. That's really how to do something with our power.

Let's leave this spiral.

Too easy to fall for too strange to parse

Each of my touches seem to leave scars

Too old to hold to too young to die

Too cold to fondle too quick to cry

I will dress in warning signs:

Toxic waste, Beware of mines

********

Beginning last summer I posted a bunch of old lyrics of mine. Early drafts, scribbled down ideas, unused bits, unfinished thoughts.

Among these I posted some final forms, with sometimes only a line or basic consept remaining from those early versions.

The short piece above is what will in the future be an early draft. It was written on Sunday, 8th of February 2026 and by the time I got it written down I knew: this won't do.

The piece is raw and emotional, but the rhyming makes me feel like I'm going to get on stage on a local village culture night's open mic with a bunch of other uneducated in the arts of poetry but having a lot to say villagers.

Not that I'm anything but for village culture nights and uneducated in the arts of poetry folks writing rhymes anyway. At least in this I don't have double standards.

By the following day I was ready to ditch everything but the last four lines. While the feelings expressed in the beginning of the poem/lyrics piece come from trying to express heartfelt things, do I sound whiny? Granted, the lines were not written without tears, but still...

On the other hand, dressing in warning signs takes control of what happens to the narrator, be as it may the end result remaining the same.

We'll see.

#poetry #lyrics

Let me start off by saying this: I create work and express ideas that I believe should stand on their own merits without relying on networking, trends, or the whims of a fickle audience or a handpicked group of elite critics or judges. And yet, I am acutely aware of the paradox that confronts just about anyone wanting acknowledgment that translates into visibility and validation that is genuinely of substance despite not always being able to immediately please everyone: the tension between merit and what people determine is worthy of that acknowledgment.

Now, let's be honest: I am not and never have been a social media person. I don't have as much of a childlike susceptibility to finding literally every kind of well-produced art or comedy or similar entertainment to be easily amusing and so good, as I'm much more discerning about what I like and what I choose to engage with. I don't reply as much to literally every single trending post I see, partly because responses are often misread and partly because of me feeling pressured to reply to these posts for every repeated time I see them. I do not widen my social circle by default, and I reserve warmth and attention for whom and what truly interests me; this does not mean that I find the people I choose not to engage with literally unworthy of that interest, but rather, I haven't found that kind of spark in most people and things yet. (Basically, what I'm saying is, it's not you, it's me.) Because I'm very selective in my warmth, don't believe in joining niche groups on the premise that “common interests bring people together” (in my experience, they don't, and reality is much messier than this childlike premise), or otherwise play the social game of being more entertaining or interesting in a way that attracts others, my work doesn't generate those signals and so it stays mostly invisible to those not susceptible to what's immediately engaging.

As a result, everything I do becomes discoverable only when someone actively seeks it out, when an aggregator surfaces it, or when one or more people (I refuse to use the word “algorithm” or blame it on an abstract “system”) choose to amplify it, hence my reliance on word-of-mouth marketing. Because I don't engage or connect or immediately impress people the way others want me to, I become socially deprioritized, no matter how good I am at my craft or how interesting or useful or talented I could be.

When I say I want my art to be recognized by its own merits, I don't really mean that I want a handful of professionals or a large community to decide whether I am worthy of awards or accolades or grant money. I mean that I want anyone to come take a look at what I do and decide for themselves whether they want to engage further with what I do or what I stand for or not. Experience, expertise, or even an interest in art should not be prerequisites for that judgment. My ultimate aspiration is not recognition from elite circles or mass validation (or even external validation itself!), but something more fundamental: genuine connection with other artists, especially with those in my situation. The ones who aren't immediately recognized and stay hopelessly deprioritized by the masses. That is part of the reason for my selectivity, not because I think I'm too good for everyone else or that no one could ever understand me. And I hate that people default to that kind of bias against me.

However, I don't like how one of the consequences of taking this stance has resulted in what appears to be a consignment of my work to silence, whether intentional or not. Currently, I have had to stop making Untilted constricted to a membership because of how I was not getting any subscribers whatsoever (though I did receive a thoughtful $1 donation), and it's getting harder to work with a lack of engagement and feedback on my work. I feel like everyone has become either too scared or too quick to overlook things to meaningfully criticize others. Constructive feedback and meaningful dialogue become substituted for dismissive one-liners and absolute black-and-white thinking. I also dislike that the populace that privileges visibility often forces this kind of compromise, and I resent that this is read as disengagement.

Let me tell you a personal anecdote about me. When I was still in high school, I would get mostly honor rolls and certificates of excellence and stuff like that. Sometimes, some of my art would be exhibited in the classroom hallways and in-school art festivals. I even had a self-portrait of mine get accepted to be published in the Spring 2017 Celebrating Art Anthology, though it never was selected as a Top Ten or a High Merit Winner. I don't really remember receiving any harsh criticism of my work or anything like that, but I did mostly get vaguely praised – think compliments like “Wow, she's so good!” or “How is she so talented?” But I don't feel like I ever received any real genuine praise or criticism that was actually willing to delve deeper into more than just the techniques I choose to enhance my artwork or the subjects I choose. This is especially noticeable when I make realistic paintings and drawings of things like flowers, plants, nature, animals, and other similar subjects. Part of the reason I don't depict as much realism as I used to back in school is because it seems that the majority of today's viewers only superficially see that I'm good at portraying it and nothing more. It's why I'm increasingly preferring to do nonrepresentational art nowadays, even if the majority mostly ignore it, don't quite understand it, or prefer a stereotypical depiction of it to my unique interpretation of it.

I may have to figure out a way to develop more nuanced strategies of visibility that align with my constraints and philosophy. But what would that mean for me? I don't know. All I ever wanted was to cultivate a small and discerning yet close-knit and thoughtful audience of people. I have no interest in controlling what and how people interact with me, or what they say and think of me. I just want to put my art out there without requiring me to have to actively impress others or justify myself existing. That's all. And frankly I already do some form of that, but I admit I have to try other things as well.

Anyway, now that I've made my point clear, I would like to announce that the Untilted comic strip is now on Comic Fury (has been, since 9 days ago at this time of writing) and I have uploaded all of my comics on there for public viewing, though the website is still technically under maintenance (I still have to manually add descriptions, tweak the website layout a bit, etc.).

I am also thinking of adding new digital products to sell this month soon, as soon as I make some time for it somehow. It will be mostly pay-what-you-want.

I've got so many ideas to experiment with that I often have trouble articulating them and sometimes even implementing them in practice. Not a rapid flight of ideas but rather a disorganized pile of them building up like paperwork. I know, I'm not efficient enough. But I want to test my own limits.

Well, take care.

This is a review of a comic written & drawn by @pebble@critters.gay, available at [https://aacomic.pebble.pet/]. All perspectives expressed herein are my own; I received no compensation or free access to the comic or whatever anytime before or after writing this review. I just really liked it & wanted to share some of the things I liked about it since I suspect may others would like it, too.

---

TL:DR – “Afterhour Adjustments” is a beautiful & impactful concise graphic novel that deserves a place within every collection of 'exceptional queer allegories'.

---

The digital 9-page comic “Afterhour Adjustments” (by @pebble@critters.gay) takes less than a half-hour to read, which I've done more than a dozen times by now. Every time I go thru this comic I find myself enjoying it even more – & I already liked it quite a lot the first time I read it.

Not only are the characters & scenes in this short story gorgeously illustrated, packed with abundant care & eye-catching detail, but the story those panels depict presents readers with an exceptionally compelling personal allegory that kept me ruminating LONG after I'd finished reading.

Right out of the gate, I'm a HUGE fan of how effectively this comic applies the color & composition of each panel & page as visual vehicles for its narrative: the dark, cool colors in first few pages immediately set a tone of unease & vulnerability that pave the way for the strange blue creature's 'adjustments', while the flip from cool to warm colors in the last two pages perfectly reflects Pebble's journey from disbelief to discomfort, to exploration, to acceptance and, eventually, to appreciation.

One aspect of this story I hadn't expected to appreciate as much as I do is the mystery: I LOVE diving deep into & unraveling all the settings & characters & backstories & motives in a story, but here all of those threads seem to be intentionally held forever “off-screen”. We don't know much AT ALL about the mischievous “strange blue creature” aside from what we can glean by their appearance (shackled arms & legs + ear tag suggesting a prisoner/test subject of some kind) & actions (powerful enough to permanently alter & teleport a living creature's body, but not to undo those changes, allegedly!), & there's nothing to imply that information would even matter, to Pebble. Far from a frustration, the absence of any further context or exposition regarding the SBC seems like an essential component that allows Pebble to re-frame & grow as a result of their experience.

To me, the heap of unanswerable questions surrounding the SBC represent their fourth & final 'gift' to Pebble, perfectly matching what their other three 'adjustments' provide:

Freedom via denial.

“By eliminating Pebble's ability to [A], the strange blue creature gave Pebble freedom from [B]”: [A]= speak; eat; grab/hold; have genitals; know anything about who did this to them, or how/why. [B]= worrying about what to say/how to say it; deciding what to eat/make/order for food; having to justify any perceived clumsiness; gender assumptions based on their genitals; the need to understand any of those things.

The titular events in “Afterhour Adjustments” are a powerful series of visual metaphors that manage to deftly capture & reveal the immaterial societal pressures that haunt the esteem of our own personal capabilities in an extremely memorable & remarkably wholesome fashion: by forcibly overturning their anatomy, the 'strange blue creature' relieves Pebble of the oppressive burdens they'd unknowingly inherited, demonstrating the true weight of those shadows by the lightness of Pebble's heart in their absence.

...and ALL of these events are super pretty, the WHOLE time. (Did I mention I like this comic? It's great!)

In fact, the only real criticism I have of “Afterhour Adjustments” (which isn't even an actual problem) is that I want MORE!

I REALLY enjoyed every glimpse of Pebble's story post-alteration, & wish we'd been able to tag along for more of their experience – from immediate fear & uncertainty to grief & dread, to desperate courage & tenuous progress, to fragile confidence & unexpected joys. I completely understand the author's choice to truncate Pebble's journey, as I'd imagine fleshing that all out would've fully redoubled the effort this comic required, but those two pages could have been twenty & I wouldn't have minded at all, given the chance to follow on & on through the indeterminate mire of emotions that led Pebble to the day they stood bare before a mirror within which they saw reflected a body worth appreciating that was their own.

...which was an absolutely incredible panel/imagery for the comic to end on, and I loved everything about it. I'm not crying YOU'RE crying!​

Fantastic work, all around! Cannot even believe that this is the author's first full color comic. 10/10, will happily read again & again.

-GoodNewsGreyShoes

There's a fully Madonna themed takeout restaurant here btw

I thought I would compare my time on Isla Holbox (pronounced “Ol'bosh”) to the lyrics of Madonna's La Isla Bonita.

¿Cómo puede ser verdad?

How can it be true? I don't know. I don't think that it is, but maybe it's “emotionally true.”

Last night I dreamt of San Pedro Just like I'd never gone, I knew the song

Last night I dreamt of Isla Holbox (probably) I still haven't gone, there's much more than one song

Young girl with eyes like the desert

So, dry? Unemotional? Sandy? Or the dark desert at night? This island isn't desert. Nor at all deserted—even when we went to the far north end of the island tonight where this photo was taken, we were among other tourists.

It all seems like yesterday, not far away

It all was yesterday the day before and today and half of tomorrow too, not far away I'm still here

Tropical the island breeze, all of nature wild and free (Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah) This is where I long to be, La Isla Bonita

True!

And when the samba played,

Not so much samba. A lot bordering on techno. Dance music. Big bass. Also cover singers. ABBA daily. Even some Madonna. Sade. Gay, Latin or Miami dance club music. Nonstop right now at 03:27! Absolutely nothing indie. Shakira! Shakira!

the sun would set so high

How is that possible? The sun always sets low, as low as you can see. Madge, is your island mountainous? Isla Holbox is not. And here is its sunset.

(Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah) Ring through my ears and sting my eyes, your Spanish lullaby

My ears always ring. Tinnitus. The salt and sweat and sun lotion does sting my eyes. No lullabies. And if there were I'd likely call them Mexican (or whatever the country of origin) vs. Spanish. I know that the language is Spanish, but Spanish lullaby doesn't sound right, unless it's from Spain. He sang me a Spanish lullaby He sang me an Argentinian lullaby He sang me a Mexican lullaby 🤔

I fell in love with San Pedro Warm wind carried on the sea, he called to me Te dijo, “Te amo” I prayed that the days would last, they went so fast

I fell in love with Isla Holbox Refreshing wind comes off the sea, he called to me, “Are you looking for tequila?” / “Would you like to book a tour?” / “Prescriptions can be mailed to the US.” Te dijo, “No, gracias.” Pero hay un otro hombre y te dijo, “te quiero”! I didn't pray. The days did last. They flowed at the proper pace & it felt good. Yes I feel ambivalence about the time here ending but it's not permanent. My companion and I both look forward to what we will do next, separately. It's not sad just because this moment is good and temporary. I try to make every moment good.

I want to be where the sun warms the sky

💛

When it's time for siesta, you can watch them go by

??

Beautiful faces, no cares in this world

Patronizing, ignorant. But yes there are happy looking people here, why not? Society doesn't have to be miserable; it's a choice.

Where a girl loves a boy, and a boy loves a girl

A lot of that pretty much, though we did see 2 men holding hands walking down the street today. And that felt good.

See https://vernissage.photos/@Romex for photos of the trip. I'll continue adding to this gallery after the current trip ends. And I'll use that address for future Mexico travel.

Holbox is La Isla Bonita indeed. The best memories aren't all sunsets and lovers. I enjoyed meeting the Argentinian man who moved here, worked scooping ice cream for a year and then went in with a friend to open the simple & delicious restaurant where we ate tonight. A highlight of the time in Holbox is observing the many community games taking place in rotation on a central multi use court: practice soccer, volleyball, basketball. Wholesome night activities. And I hope to long remember the look that my words put on a woman's face tonight. In a convenience store where the line was never long but always steady, an older woman began ringing up my purchases. It was one of the few times here that I've seen someone looking beleaguered. “Buenas noches,” I said. She brightened, stood a little straighter, smiled and said, “Muy bueno!” Then we navigated selecting a Kinder Bueno for my friend & soon we parted.

¡Adios!

¡Hasta luego!

Smiling. Human beings being human. Smiling. Smizing. Living. That's why I'm on this trip, human being being human practice. And oh yeah Spanish practice too.

'Staluego amigos

Dass dieses Jahr eine liebe Freundin das erste Mal auf den Chaos Communication Congress fährt, nehme ich zum Anlass, hier einmal ein kleines Howto für den Congress zu geben. Falls irgendetwas Relevantes fehlt, gebt gern bescheid.

Zuerst eine kleine Linkliste zur Orientierung (diese und weitere Links finden sich auch auf dieser Übersichtsseite):

• die Infoseiten sind eine Sammlung von Informationen über die Infrastrukturen des Kongress. Was dort steht, kommt von offizieller Seite. Da gibt es auch einen Abschnitt für Erstbesuchies.
• Der Hub hingegen ist letztlich eine Art Wiki (also eine Informationssammlung, an der jeder alle mitarbeiten können, wenn sie sich einen Account machen). Dort finden sich selbstorganisierte Veranstaltungen, Assemblies, Projekte, ein schwarzes Brett und weiteres.
• Social Media: Es kann sein, dass auf Bluesky auch ein bisschen über den Congress geschrieben wird, aber das meiste wird auf Mastodon los sein, vor allem unter #39c3. Wenn Du Dich dort anmelden willst, hau mich gerne noch mal an.
• Die Chaospat*innen sind eine Gruppe explizit für Erstbesuchende, die haben sicher noch mehr Ressourcen.

Was tun?

• Besuche Self Organized Sessions oder Vorträge, die Dich interessieren.
• Gehe in einen Vortrag oder einen Workshop, von dessen Thema Du keine Ahnung hast.
• Freiwillig mitzuhelfen (“engeln”) würde ich erst ab dem zweiten Congress empfehlen. Falls Du Dich aber sehr verloren fühlst (passiert nicht selten, auch den ganz Erfahrenen), ist das vielleicht trotzdem ein sehr guter Einstieg: https://guide.c3heaven.de/index.en.html
• Sich mit Freunden treffen und über das Gelände stromern ist auf alle Fälle eine gute Idee.
• Wenn du jemanden mit einem interessanten Projekt triffst, frag ihn gerne dazu aus. Die allermeisten Leute haben Bock, über die Dinge zu reden, die sie auf dem Congress zeigen.
• Wenn jemand unfreundlich wirkt, ist er oft eher gestresst, müde oder überfordert.
• Versuche überall mal gewesen zu sein, weil es wahnsinnig viel zu entdecken gibt.
• Versuche trotzdem nicht, alles zu erleben. Der Kongress ist viel zu groß, dass eine Person wirklich alles mitbekommen könnte. Du wirst notwendig irgendwas verpassen; das ist okay. Versuch, den Moment zu genießen.
• Aus dem selben Grund: Ruh auch mal aus.
• Such Dir „Missionen“; zum Beispiel mit jemandem über Geocaching reden, endlich mal ein Bastelproblem lösen indem Du jemanden dazu ausfragst, eine Postkarte austragen oder alle Arcade-Automaten finden. Oft sind das gute Kennenlern-Möglichkeiten und sehr schöne Erinnerungen.
• Eine wichtige Sache ist noch die Foto-Policy. Wenn Du Fotos von irgendwas machen möchtest, dann ist es üblich, alle Leute, die auf dem Foto drauf sein werden, vorher zu fragen, ob das für sie okay ist. Es ist oft sehr schade, dass man dann coole Sachen nicht so einfach festhalten kann, aber es ist eine wichtige Regel in der Community.

Begriffe

• Vorträge vs. Self organized sessions: Das Vortragsprogramm (“Fahrplan”) ist von der Congress-Orga kuratiert, wird größtenteils aufgenommen und gestreamt, und ist üblicherweise von sehr hohem Niveau. Die Self organized Sessions sind viel weniger kuratiert und oft Hands-on-Workshops. Dort lernt eins auch eher neue Leute kennen. Vorträge Du auch im Januar noch anschauen, deshalb würde ich eher Workshops priorisieren. Es gibt übrigens auch eine App für Fahplan und Workshops.
• Assemblies sind die Orte von teilnehmenden Gruppen. So hat der CCC Hamburg beispielsweise einen Tisch, an dem sie sich treffen und an dem man sie treffen kann. Aber es gibt auch größere Assemblies wie beispielsweise die der Haecksen mit eigenem Workshopraum.
• DECT/Eventphone: wenn du noch ein altes Schnurlostelefon hast, kannst du das auf dem Congress verwenden. Dort gibt es ein eigenes Telefonnetz.
• Himmel: Organisation der freiwilligen Helfer*innen („Engel“)
• POC/VOC/NOC: Das -OC steht für “Operation Center”. Das sind Teams, die sich um Infrastruktur auf dem Congress kümmern, sie werden hier im Engel-Guide genauer erklärt.
• Hilfe: CERT für die physische Gesundheit, Awarenessteam für die psychische, Security für die Security.

Gutgemeinte Ratschläge

• Komm schon am 26.12. mal rum; das ist „Tag 0“. Da ist noch Aufbau, aber schon ganz gut zum Orientieren.
• Bring Deinen Laptop mit, vielleicht wollen Dir Leute Computerdinge beibringen...
• Such Dir ein „Zu Hause“, eventuell bei den Haecksen oder der Assembly eines Hackspaces, der nah an Deinem Wohnort ist, am besten bei Leuten, die Du schon kennst. Da liegt dann Dein Ladekabel, Dein Essen und eventuell eingesammelter Bastelkram; und Du kannst da auch mal ein, zwei Stunden sitzen und den letzten Workshop verdauen.
• Wie schon erwähnt, mach auch mal Pause, versuch nicht, alles zu erleben.
• Nimm Dir Essen mit. Das Messe-Essen ist teuer.
• Es sind tausende Personen während der Erkältungssaison in einem relativ engen Raum – „Congressseuche“ ist schon lange ein etablierter Begriff. Regelmäßiges Händewaschen ist absolut sinnvoll; ich würde auch eine gut sitzende Maske empfehlen.
• Wenn Du Dich irgendwann sehr erschlagen und klein fühlst, als wären alle um Dich rum krasse Hacker, nur Du nicht: Glaub mir, auch den krassen Hackern geht es so. Aber „All creatures welcome“ ist ernst gemeint; allen ist klar, dass eine der größten Stärken der CCC seine Diversität ist.
• Ein weiteres bekanntes Phänomen ist der Post-Congress-Blues. Dagegen hilft:
  • Beim Abbau mithelfen
  • Im örtlichen Hackspace vorbeikommen
  • Mit Freunden Vorträge gucken

Addenda

• WLAN: das Congress-Netz ist famously overengineered; hier finden sich Hinweise, wie Du ins Wifi kommst.

I'm not ok. I'm just waiting until Monday when I will contact AAA for a new battery. I don't know why I'm waiting until a weekday to use a 24/7 emergency service but it might require additional steps that would be easier/cheaper during business hours. That and I really don't want to do anything so waiting is easier than doing. At some point today I'll have to order food. I'm miserable and not talking to anyone. Getting help is too hard because it requires me to coordinate the help and I can't do anything right now. Somehow I think calling AAA and dealing with anonymous service providers is something that I might be able to do. And it opens up the freedom to get out of here on my own power. Coordinating help with others is far too many steps and decisions for me in my state. Cleaning and dressing and eating (and packing to move) are all difficult. I said it before & I'll say again, I'm miserable.

In tech we've always had evangelists, weither it's for FOSS, or Blockchain or now AI.

It's a natural thing to do. You have a tech you're excited about and of course you want everyone around you to use it. In time, you learn to read people and see they aren't interested and eventually they may consider trying it. But leave them, they will come in their own time.

When the blockchain was doing the rounds especially with NFTs, the tech was being crow barred into everything. It was in funding rounds, and the EU went on the bandwagon too.

We will always have tech hype.

A lack of Respect

AI however this seems to be worse. Not just because of the serious hardware shortages that LLM models are causing. It's what it's doing to people.

About six months ago we had a friend write a pitch to us to consider working with the AI company they just joined. It was proprietary and we do GPL but surely we'd work around that. It also had that AI vibe to it. It wasn't written in that friends voice, and it was just weird. In the uncanny valley.

We pushed back. We said no, and asked that friend not to use AI in communications with us. We've always been fine with understanding their own voice.

The response made us sad. “Surely we wanted our project to be used in the “Real World”, etc, etc.” There was negging. It made us sad. We'd just lost a little more respect for that friend, and other times that friend jumped on the latest bandwagon came to mind. But the lack of respect for the friendship was clear to us. Although at least this time it was in their own voice. Mistakes and all.

It was sad we had to push that. To put that boundary in place where we'd never had to have a boundary before. But the friend kept pushing against that No AI boundary. The manipulation stayed in the communication.

It is a lack of respect to use an AI to draft a response in communications to your friends and loved ones. It is manipulative and you are choosing to not use your voice, your true words, your true thoughts.

Which is devastating. Because it shows that somehow you think you are lacking, you need to use a voice of blandness, stripped of emotion, yet filled with emotionally manipulative language to get us to see your point of view.

The response put me in mind of various bar interactions I had on girls nights out with that guy at the bar. You know the one folks.

The Pickup

The pickup artist. The guy who plays the numbers game. He's not really interested in you as a person. He doesn't respect you enough as a person to get to know you, to be friends. He's not got time for that. He just wants to fuck you.

If you say no, he'll come up with counter arguments to keep pestering you until you give in.

Sometimes it's reasonable. He's so reasonable. He's a nice guy come on, just say yes.

Sometimes it's a “you won't do better, you're being unreasonable”. He'd be so good, such a gentleman, Just say yes. The negging goes hard.

My boundaries are ignored

It takes so much effort to keep saying no.

I just wanted a night out with my friends.

Adventures in FOSS

We're currently creating an AI policy for my project. It will boil down to please don't.

We won't accept LLM code contributions, we do know that some LLMs can be useful. For accessibility affordances. Now I'm going to leave aside the failure in community that means. Because when it comes to alt text, we should all be doing better.

Automated language translations can be a useful tool. Although it does come at the expense of qualified translators who'd like to eat sometime this month doing something they love.

When it comes to code commits though. I want you to know what you're submitting and why. So you need to be sure even the commit messages actually mean what you think they mean.

Take this example where a project had to deal with a 13000 line commit some guy decided to get an LLM to do “As an Experiment.” Even when the guy was asked to stop, he kept going to justify why he was doing it. Why it was such a good thing, and why the project should let him do it and accept the commit.

Oh.

There's that guy, We're not even in the bar.

Even with our own project, we had to say no to a contributor. Who when we told that contributor what our policy was going to be; sent us a long text detailing how AI helped them and why it was a good thing.

Our other contributors, who have used LLMs on occasion went “Cool, we can do that.”

There's the difference. Respect the boundary. When we say no, accept the no.

Don't assume that we don't understand. We do understand. I studied machine learning at university. This current incarnation is not that, the environmental cost of using AI isn't worth that.

The sheer existential crisis the slop is causing to our communications is not worth that. The exploitation of others to clean up AI, and the deliberate engineering of job losses is not worth that.

Even today, I was evangelised at by someone who thinks LLMs are useful. Who is completely ignoring the consent part. Why on earth would I say no to something so useful? See the community at the project is great. They will listen, honestly! Why would you switch off the AI?

Don't be that guy at the bar.

It doesn't matter my reasons for saying No.

I said no. Respect that.

Is there hope?

I read a beautiful piece by Robert Kingett about a writers group that had been infiltrated by a LLM chugging techbro. The violation of putting someone elses words into an LLM to “improve it.”

The piece hit me hard. It reminded me of when I shared a starting stub of an idea. I'd written a small paragraph, it felt raw. I've always liked writing about smells and how the body feels in a moment. I posted it online to our friend group, I asked for some feedback. Some of my friends gave me constructive useful feedback.

Then one day I came home and outside my door was a letter from another friend. He'd taken my work and rewritten it. I was so upset that he'd taken my words and rewritten them in his voice. To make it better. He thought he'd made it better. I was so angry.

It felt like such a violation. I'd not asked him to do that. I'd asked my friends for feedback. Decades later I can still feel that violation. It affected that friendship and broke my trust in him. It hurt, I couldn't forgive him. To be honest, I still haven't forgiven him for that.

So reading Robert's piece about the techbro doing that to another writer reminded me of the anger I felt at that time. How violated I felt. That's the thing about LLM evangelists. They feel it's so useful. More of the general public are evangelising for a technology they don't really understand. Even our technical press is trying for balance, with puff pieces for AI one day, and publishing pieces about the harm the next.

To the LLM bros, It doesn't matter about the violation to friendships, to artists, to Free Software Projects or ultimately the living biosphere. It's about what's useful to them. There's no space for emotion or beauty. Just bland status quo politeness. I want to tear it all down.

Beauty can be savage, unforgiving. It's not safe. It's not perfect. Beauty is not a bland lawn of astroturf with no weeds. Beauty is that piece of wild forest and meadow with wildflowers. There are no weeds. Don't let the LLM bros peddle that cold, lifeless ideal.

What Kingett did next is beautiful. It's rebellion built around community and the community grows. Go read it now.

We can choose to not give in to the LLM bro's idea of our bland polite future. We can choose to state and enforce our boundaries. Make them unequivocal. Then when someone chooses to not respect that boundary, you can show them the door and put them through it. Not for ever using the LLM, but for insisting they must use it and keep using it in their interactions with you.

They are violating your consent. You can kick them out.

They ignore the fact that No, means No.

They are being that pickup artist at the bar.

So give no quarter.

Editors Note: You can Support Robert's writing here:

https://sightlessscribbles.com/support/

Or, my letter to those who think “AI art” is better and “doesn't need so much meaningless work”.

“I'm sorry for your loss.

I'm sorry for your loss of the feeling of wonder, of excitement, of the feeling of something that did not exist before taking form because you created it with your mind and your hands.

I'm sorry for your loss of feeling frustrated, not quite there yet.

I'm sorry for your loss of the will to grow, to learn, to can, to do and be better.

I am really sorry for your loss.”

-

Originally a reply to this post

I couldn't decide which blog was the best home for my latest post so it's on humanissome with this link stub here:

“Thanks For Sharing”

I just read something I wrote in the 90s, ostensibly to a friend but I didn't send it. Oh no, I put it online instead! Though the color combination & text style I chose was, I believe, intended to discourage readers! See, it was many years before I came out to myself, and the unsent note is addressed to a straight guy friend. We were in our early twenties! I could say a lot more some day when I have time but the basic conundrum is that this guy was drawn to hanging out with me, because I'm one of the most interesting people to talk to 🙃 and at the same time I made him uncomfortable. I am emotionally open, nearly always as much as possible, going back decades. His interest/discomfort puzzled me. In the note I reference a then-recent interview I had seen, starting by saying that I was:

thankful... that we're even able to talk about any of this at all. When Mike Leigh was on Charlie Rose, Charlie made some comment how in “Career Girls” these two old roommates meet up and talk very intensely, about serious personal matters + how Charlie thinks this works cause they're women. Or, really he said: “Women talk about things like this, and men don't. ...I find when I'm with other guys I'm talking about sports or politics.” This made me want to retch — mostly because I don't like Charlie Rose. But anyway I think, before pondering making a similar film with male characters, Mike Leigh just said, “Some men do talk like that.”

So I'm glad to be among the “some” of Mike Leigh than the “all” of Charlie Rose. Of course, that doesn't mean I feel entirely comfortable.

There's a video on YouTube titled, “Terrible Interviewer, Great Interviews” & that's how I felt about Charlie Rose always. Truly I'm not speaking in hindsight. I always felt personal dislike for Charlie Rose while avidly consuming his interviews as a rare example of intelligent conversation on tv. The exchange that I quote above pretty well explains it. For the demographics of his audience Charlie would have on a Mike Leigh. But Charlie is going to talk as if “all men are like ____,” because (as the whole world now knows) Charlie Rose is demented. His conscience clearly wasn't adequately developed, though that did not prevent his ascendence to the heights of broadcasting. Such revelations should cause a thorough reexamination of our media culture, but instead the powers that be in US society will pantomime outrage at a small number of individual failings while ensuring that current systems endure. They will stoke rumblings that changes—any progressive changes ever—are “going too far” and that stability demands regression to the mean, a state in which the powers at be remain the powers that be, minus one Charlie Rose. Even those minor penalties, of individual scoundrels chased from polite society, are only temporary. America can abide no improvement at all, for improvement implies that we weren't already perfect. Exceptionalism!