The Place


Table of Contents
_________________

1. The Place
.. 1. What is it?
.. 2. Values and themes
.. 3. Inspiration
.. 4. Projects


1 The Place
===========

  I guess that this must be the place


1.1 What is it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  In short:
  - an environment imbued with certain values
  - a community informed by those values

  Slightly more concretely:
  - a virtual environment and meeting space facilitating collaborative
    creative expression and the exchange of ideas


1.2 Values and themes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  In no particular order yet, some ideas about the types of values and
  themes that might inform the direction of this project.

  - the inherent dignity of every human person
  - kindness
  - informed optimism
  - fun
  - progressive enhancement
  - speculative fiction
  - mutual aid
  - learning (education) for its own sake
  - sustainability
  - accessibility
  - most technical problems are primarily political problems
  - themes to explore (to further inform values):
    - the power of language
    - the power of technology
    - explorations of ethics and the production of social norms around
      the responsible distribution and exercise of power in the contexts
      of language (and) technology
    - the implications of scale
    - electricity
  - related themes:
    - software user freedom
    - open hardware
    - the production of basic necessities (food, shelter, etc.)
    - retro-computing
    - science and technology studies (STS)
    - interactive fiction
    - role playing games
    - science fiction and fantasy
    - worker cooperatives
    - decentralization
    - federation
    - documentation
    - distributism
    - contextual integrity
    - citizen science
    - software development / programming / programming language theory
    - architecture and urban planning
    - information theory


1.3 Inspiration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Again, in no particular order yet, some existing works and projects
  which may provide some inspiration for the direction of this project

  Books:
  - The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
  - Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich
  - ...

  Technologies:
  - MOO / LambdaMOO
  - Telnet
  - AX.25
  - IRC
  - XMPP
  - ActivityPub
  - Matrix

  Communities:
  - tilde.club
  - the WELL?


1.4 Projects
~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The first project is to create the minimal infrastructure necessary to
  support the development of the community itself.