10-01-2020, 04:40 PM
Async.pre is the latest result of a multi-year discussion between qotdn and me, and Frank Braun and me.
What we all agreed on was that there is no good place to come together to have meaningful and long-running conversations about some of the topics that really matter to us.
The existing infrastructure, mostly IRC and email lists, didn't fit the usage patterns well or wouldn't allow for long running in depths discussions.
Indeed, it is a reoccurring complaint on our chat channels that discussions there are too ephemeral and unstructured.
Moving the conversation to social media is no better. We don't want to discuss how to escape surveillance systems while relying on those surveillance platforms (facebook, twitter etc). We need our own infrastructure, our own systems, things that are not controlled by our opponents.
Furthermore, we deeply despise the shallowness, and emotional reflexes, of social media "communication". We want to discuss ideas, not people or virtue signals.
However, the state of forum communication software is abysmal, at least from our point of view. It's a mix of feature creep, security vulnerabilities, far too much code and unnecessary features. In addition, features we would really like to see don't exist in any product that we know. For a long time that distracted us and kept us from moving on. We were waiting for perfection, or rather, for that mythical moment when we have the time to implement the software we want to see. Of course, that time didn't come and the problem - having a good place to discuss and built community - remained unsolved.
Until we had enough. Fuck the perfect, let's move on with what we have and try to improve on top of that.
Async.pre has a two-fold mission.
First, it is meant as a place where people interested in cryptoanarchy, and technological infused liberty in general, can meet to discuss, learn, coordinate or just have fun. We can build community here, better than anywhere else. Especially for all those that are not living anywhere close to the existing meat space crypto communities.
Second, we hope that it can be a stepping stone from which to create a new communication technology for meaningful communication that preserves privacy, motivates good communication practices, and is resistant against shutdown or takeover by actors who do not want us to be free. We want an open discussion about the design of a future "forum" software, and also see what we can implement together.
None of the mission can be achieved by just the founders of this forum. Whatever Async.pre becomes, it is first and foremost what the members of this community make out of it. It is a place that belongs to the members, and is shaped by them. At best, we can help to keep it civilized :)
What we all agreed on was that there is no good place to come together to have meaningful and long-running conversations about some of the topics that really matter to us.
The existing infrastructure, mostly IRC and email lists, didn't fit the usage patterns well or wouldn't allow for long running in depths discussions.
Indeed, it is a reoccurring complaint on our chat channels that discussions there are too ephemeral and unstructured.
Moving the conversation to social media is no better. We don't want to discuss how to escape surveillance systems while relying on those surveillance platforms (facebook, twitter etc). We need our own infrastructure, our own systems, things that are not controlled by our opponents.
Furthermore, we deeply despise the shallowness, and emotional reflexes, of social media "communication". We want to discuss ideas, not people or virtue signals.
However, the state of forum communication software is abysmal, at least from our point of view. It's a mix of feature creep, security vulnerabilities, far too much code and unnecessary features. In addition, features we would really like to see don't exist in any product that we know. For a long time that distracted us and kept us from moving on. We were waiting for perfection, or rather, for that mythical moment when we have the time to implement the software we want to see. Of course, that time didn't come and the problem - having a good place to discuss and built community - remained unsolved.
Until we had enough. Fuck the perfect, let's move on with what we have and try to improve on top of that.
Async.pre has a two-fold mission.
First, it is meant as a place where people interested in cryptoanarchy, and technological infused liberty in general, can meet to discuss, learn, coordinate or just have fun. We can build community here, better than anywhere else. Especially for all those that are not living anywhere close to the existing meat space crypto communities.
Second, we hope that it can be a stepping stone from which to create a new communication technology for meaningful communication that preserves privacy, motivates good communication practices, and is resistant against shutdown or takeover by actors who do not want us to be free. We want an open discussion about the design of a future "forum" software, and also see what we can implement together.
None of the mission can be achieved by just the founders of this forum. Whatever Async.pre becomes, it is first and foremost what the members of this community make out of it. It is a place that belongs to the members, and is shaped by them. At best, we can help to keep it civilized :)