One of the central things the Fediverse has to offer in online discussions is being able to pull out of toxic discussions without leaving one’s community. And while this already is nice in itself, it could also result in overall better designed social apps, because due to the possibility of migrating accounts and network effects, site owners are put into a position, in which they want to design their sites less toxic for their own benefit.
By the nature of how they are constructed, walled gardens create an environment, in which site owners are motivated to fuel conflict and design their apps this way, while in the Fediverse, site owners aren’t. This happens because of two things: first, they are motivated to put sufficient moderation tools in place not to lose users to other servers (which is much easier and less costly for users due to account migration) and secondly and more importantly: it doesn’t motivate them to fuel discussion, because escalating conflicts between communities could result in radio silence between communities, meaning less user interaction between its members, most likely leading to less user time spend on the servers. This doesn’t necessarily mean defederation. It is assumed that besides defederation, there are many other possible actions to reduce the interaction with another instance or user, for example by showing their posts less prominently on one’s home feed. In this sense, the number of moderation-actions between defederation and openly federating with an instance is thought of as a span on which communities and individuals dynamically move. And because of the first argument, these moderation actions will be much more powerful than in walled garden social media.
While the first argument is a trivial conclusion of federation: because of the open nature of the Fediverse, servers are motivated to put sufficient moderation tools in place and they will become more powerful than in walled garden, the second one is more interesting: because these advanced moderation actions exist, side owners are not only impartial to designing their applications to prevent conflicts from escalating; but its in fact beneficial for them to prevent escalation between communities and design their applications this way.
In walled gardens, heated and toxic discussions were no problem for the server owner (to a certain degree), because communities had nowhere else to go. In fact, they were even beneficial, because they increased the profit of the platform by generating more attention, which in turn generated more revenue. For the worst cases, rudimentary moderation tools were implemented, but only enough to keep public backlash at bay.
Now in the Fediverse, things don’t completely change: servers will still be motivated to maximize user engagement, however, while in walled gardens, this correlated with fuelling conflicts, in the Fediverse, they find themselves in a new dilemma here: because a community can just pull out of a discussion that it finds too heated or toxic, escalations of discussions can actually hurt the sides owners. In the worst case, communities split and don’t communicating with each other at all, leading to less user time. The possibility of severing the link to other parts of the network motivates the sides owners to prevent this type of behaviour as best as possible and design their sides in this way. While they do want to foster user engagement, they need to find a balance here that keeps the user experience much more in check than before. In contrast to walled gardens, server owners in the Fediverse hold a shared resource with the servers they federate with and therefore can push for a conflict-encouraging UI-design only so far, not only because users have the option to leave the server, but additionally, because it hurts their shared resource, which makes their server less attractive and gives users the motivation to actually go through with changing servers towards healthier parts of the network. While in walled gardens, servers are pulled toward conflict-encouraging designs, in the Fediverse, this pull is reversed towards discussion-encouraging designs.
All of this of course assumes that no instance holds a monopoly in the Fediverse, which in fact again puts them into a position to profit from toxic community interaction; and that a major part of communities is interested in productive interaction with other communities.
To summarize, while of course conflict-encouraging server design decisions can still happen here and the fact that server owners will want to create a healthy yet exciting environment comes with its own pitfalls too, ActivityPub creates a fundamentally different environment that encourages server owners to push for a discussion-encouraging UI-design, which could potentially provide a better ground for online discussions and interaction in the future.
To Federate or not to Federate: is this the Fediverse’s Don’t be Evil-Moment or its own Liberation through transfiguration? And why is the current political Left in wide parts unable to answer this question without willingly letting a historical opportunity pass by?
On the one hand, you have those signing the FediPact: in fear of what they may become, they put limits on themselves to assure each other that they will stay the same even in the face of inevitable change. On the other hand, you have those that embrace Meta’s arrival blindly, that will follow whether it will take them as long as it gives them more gratification and they don’t have to decide for themselves.
But there is another option: that of acting morally based on shared principles created and agreed upon through reason.
Currently, there seem to exist two fractions on the Fediverse forming around this choice, both of which have somewhat simplistic views of it: while the first frames it as if the choice is between either blindly embracing Meta or not embracing it at all, the other side frames it as if Meta’s arrival will be good for the Fediverse in any case and the other side is just too dumb to see it. Both are wrong: there is the possibility that by cooperating with Meta to some degree, we choose the right path for the web, but there is also the possibility that the opposite will happen. In the sense of Kant, we always have to expect everything.
However, what needs to be kept in mind is the following: if we do chose to federate, we will have the opportunity to influence this outcome. We would then need to put actions in place to react to Meta, and stand our ground to work towards a better version of the web. But if we don’t federate, we don’t have this opportunity and we just let the outcome be decided for us; we hide and walk away from the responsibility.
The first decision ignores the cost that comes with ignoring Meta. On the other hand, the second one ignores the cost of federating with a much more powerful instance with a history of morally bad decisions. These arguments have to be weighted up against each other and carefully debated upon. There would be good reasons not to have anything to do with Meta at all, when there wouldn’t be network effects. But this way, it’s the only tool to bring over users from Meta’s ecosystem in ours. Actually, given this context, Meta’s moral shortcomings are even more reasons to federate with them and try to win over users and pressure Meta to implement better digital rights as well.
So, after weighting up the different arguments, I think working together with Meta to some degree is without alternative, because I think a big Fedi would be a good thing and I don’t see the Fediverse growing big on it’s own. After having decided that, the question becomes about how this can happen without losing ourselves in the process. And I think this is a question that is not often asked in the Fediverse, because in the current political landscape, most cannot really give you an answer to that, especially not in the part of the Left that is so predominatly on the web: that of post-colonialism and identity politics.
Because they have no sense for objective truths or universalism, they cannot answer this question apart from the strategy they are running now: by assuring each other to stay the same and by that basically avoiding the question altogether. Because they don’t want to answer it. Because without believing in the existence of a objective truth (which they don’t, because they attribute themselves to moral relativism), it’s impossible to make moral decicions when being in power and forming global alliances and that’s why power is avoided as far as possible.
Because the solution would be exactly to try to find those moral rules, to agree upon and establish them through the use of reason.
This would also be a good ground to put up against Meta, which also the general public would understand, in my opinion. Instead of saying that Meta is evil and we don’t want to federate with them, we could say that we try to hold our own principles and will only federate with Meta if it holds them too. This way, we can put pressure on Meta to act morally in the digital and also stay moral ourselves.
For this, the FediPact is not in any way fitted. It may sound strong, but is actually a teethless tiger here. It is morally empty, without any specific values attached to it and completely dependend on Meta (which is the primary reason why its so popular): they simply define themselves by being against Meta, the smallest common moral ground large part of the Fediverse community seem to have – but how should this assure any moral acting in the Fediverse in the future or now? It is of course not the case that people that are radical against Meta are necessarily good? Morally, there is nothing gained here except self-assurance, which is empty because it is without any moral substance.
This of course has not only something to do with Meta but is a general question that needs to be answered: what are the common values that we want to thrive for? At the end of the day, we don’t define ourselves through Meta but through our principles. And then, may not want to federate with Meta at times because they aren’t valuing our principles and not simply because they are Meta. But we cannot do that, because, sadly, we don’t have these shared principles, because many parts on the Left don’t believe in them and consider them a form of colonialism. For one, they fear that through this transgression they will either become insignificant or their earlier own “oppressors”, and secondly, they don’t want to be faced with the fact that we need shared moral principles.
But now what, if another big company joins, which doesn’t acts according to our moral principles? Until now, the common solution for this was always defederation, however, when the instance is too powerful, it doesn’t work anymore. Meta is only the beginning of this; many other players will come, too, even non-corporate ones. Will all of them be added to the FediPact one after the other? This is not a long-term solution, not sustainable and feels overall arbitrary and regressive. The teachings of the postcolonial Left come to an end here. They thrive for including as many perspectives as possible (which is not a bad thing per se), but put that before agreeing on an objective truth. But only through the declarations of shared principles can we grow and remain morally intact.
Theoretically, there would be nothing wrong with a Meta that acted constantly morally. Then we wouldn’t need to do the thing we do here. The problem is that they don’t. But if we want to replace Meta with something better in the long run, we need to think about how to achieve exactly that. And this will only be possible by embracing universalism and humanism as guiding principles.
Although I still agree with the general message of my last post, I would now modify it: I see no reason why, after the Fediverse has found a solid moral ground, it shouldn’t put this up to the test against Meta and try to win over some terretory with it. Actually, it seems like the most sensible thing to do. Because we want to bring these digital rights to as many people as possible, and for that, we need to partially federate with Meta. The postcolonial left doesn’t really has an alternative plan other than leaving everything exactly as it is; which doesn’t help those suffering under the current digital landscape either (also speaking globally here) and makes the Fediverse something, that a few lucky people profit from and that is not shared with everyone else, just because we have no plan how to scale it. A possibly good solution for this is to find a new strategy for this kind of situation based on history: through declaring and then with reasonable means implementing these shared rights and principles.
This brings us again to the root of the problem, which the Fediverse doesn’t seem to want to discuss: the actual problem is that the Fediverse is internally shattered and cannot agree on anything, including basic moral rules and principles. That’s the actual problem here. And if we are being honest, if you look for example at apps like Lemmy, it’s not so bad this isn’t the current global web. It would be a complete mess. We have still enough problems of implementing principles of human rights ourselves. Only if we have found those can we really stand against Meta and make a case that people will root for. After all, people will only join us, if we have a better web to offer them. And only federation and data security isn’t everything here. It should also come with more digital rights.
This is why, in the following, I call for the creation of a Universal Declaration on Fediverse Rights, which instances can sign, who don’t want to sign the FediPact but at the same time don’t want to fall under the rule of Meta. As a first draft for this, we could use the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/european-declaration-digital-rights-and-principles
When we take this document as an example, it would already change the situation completely. First of all, we could federate with Meta and then have substancial arguments against them when we chose at times not to federate with them anymore (e.g. because they don’t encourage democratic exchange, they don’t value human rights, etc.), but at the same time, we would also have to apply these principles to ourselves. We are allowing users more choice for their provider, obviously, but are we also allowing businesses to enter the Fediverse freely and let innovation develop?
These are only examples, but you see how instead of trying to shut ourselves off from Meta as best as possible, the question becomes about realizing the ideal of a better web better than Meta.
So, in conclusion, additionally to the two parties on the Fediverse already described, there could be a third party, which tries to implement these universal Fediverse rights. To my knowledge, Mastodon seems to be a candidate that tries to achieve something like this already (although it never openly said so). BlueSky would be more of a candidate for the open web and FediPact servers are of course part of the non-corporate web.
I think most will find it reasonable that both the FediPact and the go-Meta-go-team are way too simplistic; and while many people instantly root for either of these camps, I think both teams almost never exist in these extremes in reality – in fact, many parts of the Fediverse already argue based on some understanding of digital rights and paint a much more nuanced picture. These rights just need to be put down somewhere, agreed upon and lived by as best as possible. Then, we will be much better equiped for the power struggle with Meta than with what the FediPact promises but cannot hold, because there is nothing that can give you that: a 100% assurance that Meta will not change the Fediverse, that everything will stay exactly as it is and we keep our moral compass. And if we cannot achieve the former anyways, it’s better to try to achieve the latter, even if it means changing a bit in the process.
That’s also the promise that comes with the arrival of Meta: it will not make us grow up automatically, but it gives us the chance to.
The Fediverse will soon have power on the social web to shape its future, but only through and in the interaction with Meta. This is the reality the Fediverse has to start arranging itself with.
Most people see the upcoming joining of Threads as a conflict of interest, however, by now, the futures of both Meta and the Fediverse are heavily intertwined: both are dependent on one another for their success. In this sense, maybe it shouldn’t be thought of as conflict but as a fierce duopoly. In any case: both parts will have to arrange itself with this situation.
If so, it will shape the web in the next couple of years and that means, it would be a good idea to study it. At first, it could look like an unfair battle, but in fact, Meta has some weaknesses as well just as the Fediverse has some advantages.
Also: Meta is playing for time: the Copernican revolution of the social progresses merciless, and they can only somewhat control the consequences of this. At the same time, the open Fediverse will also have to be willing for this indirect coalition with Meta and if they will do that is nowhere near certain.
The Actors: Meta and the Open Fediverse
Meta
Factors that favour growth in the Fediverse:
Money
Social Capital and network effects
Located in US with more loose legislations on big tech.
Factors that hinder growth in the Fediverse:
Meta is playing against time. It still heavily depends on web2 both ideological and practical; the current shift of digital world view directly threatens its future (the Copernican revolution of the social web is progressing)
Public Image (temporarily fixed)
but memory of earlier scandals remain
also zeitgeist is against them
Wants to avoid drama (avoid political discussions on platforms, etc.), which will be hard when connecting to the Fediverse
Open Fediverse
Factors that favour growth in the Fediverse:
Sympathy of Legislators
Complete openness gives room for free innovation
Basic sympathy from most people: It came there first
Resilience and unbending nature of community
Factors that hinder growth in the Fediverse:
Little resources (funding, moderators)
Radical parts of own community (too high self-standard, toxicity, etc.)
Vulnerable to automated SPAM
Public image problem of its own (too serious, too arrogant, too uncompromising/do not live up to their own standards when it comes to an open digital ecosystem)
An Actor that could also become interesting: The Free Fediverse
Uncompromising idealists of a non-corporate social web, potentially origin of radicalisation and toxicity. Not interested in any cooperation with Threads, small or big actions against the Fediverse by Threads are held up as arguments for the permanent banning of Threads. At the same time high degree of involvement in the project and generally many FOSS-enthusiasts that are important for the overall Fediverse development.
In summary, this results in the following three ways to look at the Fediverse:
What’s your view of the situation?
Other Actors that are still there: BlueSky, X and other Tech Giants
Additionally, there is the view of competitors of the growing Fediverse ecosystem.
Will they just get irrelevant at some point? If the duopoly remains, not, if either one of the parties fucks it up too much, they will be ready to take up the reigns. They are the stand-in, only ready to take up Meta’s or the Fediverse’s place.
They too, will watch this unlikely coalition closely. And remember: Meta asks us to dance with them, but it’s not as if we haven’t also sought attention from other giants. And this was always the way it was planned to be: at some point, one of the tech giants would dance with us. If we want to get big, we need to get better at dancing.
Also, they would only be too eager to let the conflict between Meta and the Open Fediverse escalate. Maybe some will at some point join, too. There is much that could happen.
Conclusion
Meta joining the Fediverse is always portrait as a sign of goodwill – what if they are dragged into it? What if it’s their lifeline? And now combine this with the politics and the drama waiting for them there and you have a perfect storm right ahead of Meta.
All of this makes Meta’s move into the Fediverse look much less flattering and smooth and gives the non-Meta parts of the Fediverse plenty of legroom! In this sense: don’t panic, build!
In the Fediverse, Meta thinks that they have found their eternal source to avoid enshittification, polish their public image, dominate a new market and slow down their decline in the digital world view of many people. And maybe this will turn out to be the right choice. But they are probably also well aware that this energy has the power to destroy them.
That said, of course, the Fediverse is also not without its own vulnerabilities, first and foremost by automated spam, keeping up funding, its own problematic parts of the network and whether it likes it or not: the fact that its future will be heavily intertwined with Meta. Two objects, circling around each other in order not to get sucked into the black hole in-between; both dependent on and capable of destroying one another. This is the primeval soup, in which the new social web is born.
For a moment, just appreciate how exciting this is.
Will this be the future of the social web or a corporate solution like BlueSky? I hope it’s the Fediverse with its unruly dynamics.
In any case, things will surely not become boring. Hopefully, they will not become too exciting. In my opinion, an equilibrium between the two forces that stayed for a certain amount of time would be the best thing to thrive for here. Remember that at this point, Meta still has the power to shut down the whole thing completely. Also: the Fediverse needs to become big, but if the time has come that this is possible, it has to be ready to replace Meta’s ecosystem as well, and its nowhere near that. If Meta would disappear from today to tomorrow, the world would first of all having lost something that was at least in parts good. Recreating something like this that, on this scale, which is at the same time better will be difficult and take time.
So: it’s not like we have to always play nice with Meta, but let’s not give them a reason to pull the plug on their Fediverse-integration, and let’s remember that Meta is not owned by Musk and there currently exist many stable services in the Fediverse that are run by decent people. Our position could all be worse; we shouldn’t let Meta treat us like it pleases, but we should as well not be the one escalating the upcoming conflict.
If we want the Fediverse to become big, the ride with Meta is without alternative anyways. Instead of a war for the social web, we need to attune ourselves for years of tight interaction with Meta that will pendle somewhere between indirect conflicts and mutual-suspicious co-existence.
There will be good times and bad times, and there will always be those people that say that now is the time that we don’t need Meta anymore or even that we can abolish Meta now completely; but as long as it doesn’t lose its predominant position itself (which will mean that we won’t need to do any of those actions anyways) or doesn’t turn authoritarian, I will always strongly disapprove with them.
This is a unique opportunity, and we have to live up with the responsibility of this: to shape the future of a global fediverse. But it’s very well possible that we decide ourselves against it. But then, it will only be others that will drive the change, or it will not happen at all.
Meta and the Fediverse could give birth to a new social web, if they decide themselves for it. And Meta already gave signs of interest, while the Fediverse is still ambiguous. The question for those hesitant people is: how when not through a duopoly like should the big Fediverse have been created? Was there ever an alternative?
I think we are well on course if we arrange ourselves with the situation and learn to roll with the punches.
Meta’s point of view in detail: Trying to control as well as profit from the Fediverse is like playing with fire for Meta, or: Three things that limit Thread’s growth in the Fediverse
For Meta, entering the Fediverse will not be as smooth as it may seem and as many in the Fediverse fear. In fact, there are a few things that Meta is probably worried about in this whole endeavour.
Politics
Meta already said that they want to ensure to make Fediverse-connection as safe as possible. This is of course a good thing. I even think that on such a big scale, at the moment, it’s good to have someone like Meta ensure especially for younger people a save usage of the Fediverse. However, at the same time, this “safeness” will probably result in keeping users away from political views that Meta finds problematic to avoid scandal. They are already cracking down on the politics discussions on Threads, what will they say about all the political discussions that will pour in from the Fediverse and that only become louder, the deeper they get dragged into. Not speaking about Lemmy, an app that is developed by people that have Mao on their GitHub page (which I myself am actually concerned about)? People on Lemmy discuss whether to federate with Meta or not, but it could be just as likely that Threads won’t federate with them. In any case, the Fediverse doesn’t necessarily contain the discussions that Meta is searching for its apps.
This is also a point, where the Fediverse doesn’t shine in a good light: there is much drama and even toxicity in the Fediverse. It’s also a big problem of the Fediverse and of course political extremism is not good, but even mildly controversial political content is not encouraged on Threads nowadays. They want to avoid drama and politics, there is plenty of both in the Fediverse.
The Copernican Revolution of the Social Web
The way we think about the social web is beginning to change. It is no longer synonymous with Meta and as long as they cannot deny the existence of the Fediverse, they at least want to stay at the centre of it. But this is already showing some weakness and only bought them time before the next shift in world view, in which Meta is no longer at the centre.
And venturing deeper into the Fediverse means fuelling the Copernican Revolution of the Social Web. We are contradictory to the world view that they want their users to have. As written in my earlier post, Meta wants users to have a certain view of the digital, in which Meta is in the centre. The existence of apps like Pixelfed, contradicts this view. People that realize that to Meta’s services, there may be thousands of alternatives out there is not something Meta wants. This means that it’s not unlikely that they will crack down on mentions of Fediverse-related stuff, but at the same time, this also limits how far they can travel into the Fediverse, until too many people realize what’s going on there. Meta is playing all cool and in control, but they know well enough what happened to AOL. It’s now like AOL tried to surf the wave without getting blown up in the course of this (which they also did but unsuccessfully): they want to limit the Copernican revolution but at the same time don’t want to miss the innovative potential. They are in a dilemma here, because they have no choice but to continue and moderate the change that will eventually led to their decline or at least a great loss of their power in the social web.
In an earlier post, I compared Meta to the catholic church that want to stay at the centre of the universe; however, it should be added that a key difference is, that Meta is still a progressive institution in the literal sense of the word: they define themselves through technology, even if they want to dominate it. Yes, they profit from a certain limited world view of their users, but it also limits their innovative potential, which is why they are in a deep dilemma here.
Meta has all the money but lost the cultural hegemony long ago and the only reason it gained some of it in the last year was because Musk was worse; but how long will that last? Probably, in this section, too, it will be a back and forth between sympathies for both Meta and the rest of the Fediverse.
“It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me. […] Thus, it is difficult for any individual man to work himself out of the immaturity that has all but become his nature. He has even become fond of this state and for the time being is actually incapable of using his own understanding, for no one has ever allowed him to attempt it. Rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural gifts, are the shackles of a permanent immaturity. Whoever threw them off would still make only an uncertain leap over the smallest ditch, since he is unaccustomed to this kind of free movement. Consequently, only a few have succeeded, by cultivating their own minds, in freeing themselves from immaturity and pursuing a secure course.”
– 1784, Immanuel Kant, translated by Ted Humphrey
300 years ago, Immanuel Kant was born, who revolutionized western philosophy. He was, like many great thinkers, a child of his time: a few decades before, Copernicus came to the conclusion that the universe didn’t revolve around the earth, but that the earth actually circled around the sun and later, Newton came up with laws that explained the workings of the universe. Both of these developments marked a major shift of world view, and with this state of mind, Kant came to the conclusion that as autonomous, conscious beings, we can become moral beings through reason.
A very similarly thing is happening now, 300 years later, but in the digital world. And with the help of Kant, we can apply the same conclusions that he drew, now also here. After describing the process that Twitter’s decline started, which caused a shift in the way we think about the digital, we will take a look at why an access to the Fediverse should be considered a universal, Kantian right and finally, we will see why it could make us actually better digital beings.
Why the Fediverse is no Self-Runner and why we need digital Enlightenment
Our world view determines how we think of the world and how we navigate it, and as already described before, over the course of the last year, our view of what we call “the digital” or social networking more specifically, has changed drastically for many people.
About one year ago, Twitter went down and with it for many people the knowledge followed, that in fact, the digital world didn’t revolve around them, that Twitter in fact wasn’t the centre of the digital world but that there were potentially many alternatives out there. They started to look at an alternative, which was at first exhausting, because the best fit eventually turned out to be not so great either, and eventually outright frightening, because after one service-hopping too many, the realisation followed that the digital home itself is a myth, that migration both in real life and in digital life, is part of the human experience, and eventually, that there is potentially a whole universe of these services out there. Can you remember the first time you decided to try out a different service than the one you were using all this time? How much effort it felt like, how cold and unfriendly it felt like? Well, it required that much effort, because it was more than just the physical act of signing up to a new service, it was more than that: it was signing up to a completely new view of the digital. Because if you once changed to another service, you might always again. And instead of a space that you can stay on forever, it makes your current digital home suddenly look very fragile and temporary.
In this metaphor (which of course also has its limits), Meta could be seen as an institution much like the catholic church at the time of Copernicus, because it benefits greatly from the digital world view still most people have, which has a digital centre, because it effectively means that the whole digital universe revolves around them, Meta. However, at least it seems like they made the decision to consciously destroy that illusion themselves before others do for too many people by joining the Fediverse, although how this will actually look like, remains to be seen. Probably, it’s more of a strategic decision. Up until now, the social web was Meta, the Fediverse and alternatives were either insignificant, or were bought or copied by Meta. However, with the spectacular failure of at least the original idea of the Metaverse, which was the only logical culmination of this strategy, it becomes increasingly hard for Meta to deny the existence of the Fediverse and other competitors. And if they have to admit the existence of the Fediverse at one point anyways, at least they can try to become the centre of it. And that’s also what they will want to sell the Fediverse as: as what they have tried to accomplish with the idea of the Metaverse all along.
Currently, there exists two main camps on the Fediverse: those who want it to become big, like really, world-spanning big, and those that want to keep it small like it is.
In the second group, there is a paranoia, trying to see through Meta’s hidden agendas, when they are in fact so clearly visible and in the first group, there seems to exist a very naïve optimism towards Meta’s decision to join.
The story about the future of the Fediverse that they tell usually looks something like this: the Fediverse is coming, we just let it grow and everything will eventually turn out fine, right? Threads will join, and Medium, and Flipboard and WordPress and Mastodon will still be there, it will be this whole sprawling ecosystem and then network effects will kick in and the whole thing will basically become a self-runner, right?
But what if at the end of this development, everything will effectively stay the same? What if everyone on the world had an account on the Fediverse – but it would actually make no difference, because 95% of all instances were owned by Meta, just part of Threads, or federated Instagram or federated WhatsApp. What if people considered all of that the “Metaverse”? What if they considered it the “standard” social web and the fediverse a niche curiosity by nerds? What do we do then?
After all the years, people are still faithfully praying to the digital gods they hold so dearly, they believe in them, they think that everything will work out fine, they still believe that after all, they have only the best in mind for them and a great enough vision of the future. And it will be very hard to change that. Will it change, when the sky above their self-imposed prisons will break away and make room for the endless depth of the Fediverse? No, because they don’t even consider the sky worth looking at anymore. And even if they did, it would make no sense to them.
In the current docile, immature digital state of its members, Meta has nothing to fear from the Fediverse. Expanding in it will be like expanding in its own backyard.
First, Meta joins the Fediverse all nice and quiet, and then, when they have become big enough, they sell it as their own. They call it the Metaverse at some point, like it has been their plan all along. Sure, there are some nerds that still call it the Fediverse or something, but they are so insignificant that no one listens to them; the average user doesn’t even usually come across another account from anything other than Meta’s ecosystem of franchised fediverse instances. And if the rest of the Fediverse really gets too big, Meta doesn’t show their accounts as prominently on their feeds and keep them in control this way. The social web and the metaverse effectively become the same. Just like it has been before.
You see, the clash for the future of the social web is also a clash of narratives and ideas – and Meta will probably be in a much better position, because it has the money, the social capital and a solid, if somewhat tarnished narrative to begin with. In any case, I don’t see them advertising the Fediverse as their new, big future for free. They won’t rebrand themselves (again) to “Fedi”, won’t they? Hell no.
Many people are asking themselves, why Meta is joining the Fediverse. The question should rather be: why shouldn’t they?
What is digital Enlightenment?
I think it’s clear that it’s not enough to just “let it happen” and it will all work out – we would end up in the same situation, but with a slightly better view, nothing more. We will have helped Meta take a step closer toward their Metaverse and that’s it. But we still want the Fediverse to become big, right?
So, what do we have to do?
Additionally, to pushing the technical development of the Fediverse, we need a new state of mind. We need to become mature, digital actors and we need to convince the rest of the web to do the same. Only with this change of our minds can we actually realize the true potential of the Fediverse for us as digital beings. We need a new enlightenment for the digital age, a digital enlightenment.
But how will this digital enlightenment look like?
For sure, it will be much harder than many people realize because it’s one thing to sign up for a new server, but another to sign up for another world view; a world view, in which you are responsibly for your own digital data, behaviour, security and safety. It’s hard, its unpleasant, but what we lose if we don’t do it is even greater, and if we did it, we be better off than before. But it will be hard.
It will be similar hard than the passage from geocentric to heliocentric world view. Basically, Twitter was the catalyst for many more people than before to become aware of this issue and bring it to public attention. For the first time, many people realized that their service, their go-to microtext messenger, wasn’t the center of the social web, but potentially only one of them, maybe even thousands of hundreds of possible services, in fact a whole universe of services out there, to explore, to innovate, in the so-called Fediverse. For many people, that conclusion is still ahead. But if we cannot change, we won’t come out of the digital immaturity we still find ourselves in.
And before anyone asks: no, we don’t need to kill the metaphorical digital gods. Trying to kill them would only be another act of our own immaturity. We just need to abolish every trace of their authority, which exists mostly in our heads and start thinking for our own. Then we can act as our own gate keepers, by the moral that we have set for our self through reason.
The same holds for Meta: immoral actions against them are of course wrong in any case; and if they manage to stay a monopoly on the Fediverse too, then it’s not their fault but ours, because this would only be possible due to our own immaturity. Rather, we should think about ways to help others out of their own immaturity, because many of us have only come into this position through privilege or luck.
And there is after all, still many reasons to be hopeful: Meta does join the Fediverse. Their idea of controlling everything on the social web has clearly failed, they cannot deny our existence any longer and they are themselves signing up for a digital world view, in which alternatives at least openly exist. Kind of like the transition from flat world to geocentric digital world view. One cannot really hold it against them that they will try to stay at the centre of this, of course, but they won’t be everything. It doesn’t seem like much, but it could be. And we may have to expect that it will take some time.
Different Digital World Models and the three big next things to expect on the Fediverse
Now, let’s take a closer look at this idea of different digital world views. What does that actually mean? Well, we have to realize that many people on the web don’t share our enthusiasm for the Fediverse, in fact, they probably don’t even know what it is. And not, because they are too lazy or too dumb, but because of attention economy: they don’t gain anything by having the Fediverse as part of their view of the social web. It’s a very complex concept and even if they heard of it, it was never necessary for them to adapt it, because it plays no role in their day-to-day experience on the social web.
As we will see, with the decline of Twitter and the joining of Threads to the Fediverse, this has changed drastically, because it made many people (including me) question their view of the social web and form a more complex model. And in the next years, many will follow.
We will take a look at these different models, what leads to changing to a new one, and what advantages it has if large parts of the web community have a fediverse-understanding of the social web.
So, let’s take a closer look at the social web, how it is commonly viewed, and how the Fediverse comes into play here. What does the abstract idea of the Fediverse actually mean? Why was it even invented in the first place?
In my view, the common views on the social web are caused by different models that people form on their journey on the social web:
Provider-Exclusive: “There is only the app of my provider.”
Provider-Centric: “There exist other apps, but the one I’m using is the main one.”
Service-Centric: “There is no main one and I’m trying to use the one that fits my ideal the best.”
Protocol/Ecosystem-Centric: “There exist other protocols/ecosystems, but mine is the main one.”
Fediverse-Principle: “There is no main one and I’m trying to use the one that fits my idea of an open ecosystem the best.”
Let me explain, what they mean in detail.
Usually, a new model is formed when people experience something that they cannot understand in their current view of the social web. For example, with Twitter, the service was bought by Elon Musk, which was a world-shattering event for some people, because they didn’t realize that this actually could be done; the same as with Musk basically destroying the Twitter-Brand and changing the whole purpose of the app to his idea of an “everything”-app.
In their world views, things like these weren’t possible. They came as a shock. They couldn’t understand them in their current world view. For the first time, they realized that there might be alternatives to their app. Maybe they didn’t actually tried them; but it felt reassuring that they existed.
Or another example: for a long time, people snugged at Meta “copying” Twitter, however, over time, people grew less concerned about this, because they entered the next stage of their digital world models: they began to separate the product from the idea behind it. Elon Musk could buy Twitter, but not the basic idea behind microblogging.
However, this led to a revolutionary thing. By separating the product from the abstraction, people suddenly had an ideal with which they could compare the actual thing with. And that’s why many left and started looking for an alternative that fitted their ideal more closely.
Along the way other, irritating things happened regularly: why is it for example that when I’m on Mastodon, I can view posts by a WordPress blog, which is clearly not micro-blogging? Why can I follow a Lemmy-community, which, also, is no micro-blogging but a replacement for Reddit? It didn’t make sense in my world view. Slowly, it made me question my limited understanding.
The next stage came with me signing up to more and more other Fediverse-services beside Mastodon as well as setting up my own Lemmy-server, this way getting to know some of the workings of open-source services on the Fediverse and also the dynamic creation and decline of other competitors to apps like Mastodon or Lemmy, which again broadened my view on the social web. It became easy to imagine a client, in which you could show posts from Mastodon and Reddit, basically merging two social ecosystems that I had never before thought of working together in the same app. And with ActivityPub, it would actually be possible to merge these communities, too.
All of this made me realise that it’s actually not about the apps, it’s about the protocol. Therefore, I needed to expand my model, in which social apps can be connected by a protocol like ActivityPub.
And after that, there is another layer, which I’m just discovering now: that in fact there already are many of these ecosystems out there, but that the idea behind them is rather simple: you post stuff, and you can subscribe to people. And this abstract idea is called the Fediverse; for which most open version also the thing that calls itself the Fediverse can only thrive for.
Now, we can try to compare the different states the web2 apps and their communities are currently in one their way toward an Fediverse-understanding of the social web.
It is interesting that the first two big transitions, Elon Musk managed to do all in about a year, first by buying Twitter and then by rebranding it to X, his “everything”-app, which at least in the common view, altered the service completely from what it once was and with what most of them actually wanted it to be like. But he didn’t realize the innovative energy that he set free with this, just like Ludwig the 14. didn’t expect to greatly influence the age of enlightenment.
The consequence of these drastic changes in world view for Twitter in basically only the last year but in general for the community of any app that experiences such a change are huge. With Twitter, we have seen it the most obvious: after the buying of Twitter, there was a big migration, which is usually called “Big Twitter-Exodus” on related services. After that, when the app is changed without recognition of what it once was, another stage is entered, best shown with Elon Musk renaming Twitter to X, trying to convert it into his everything-app, which made many people realize that their old Twitter is definitely gone and that it is not something owned by Musk, but an idea. This made people separate the product Twitter from the abstract idea behind it: micro-blogging. While for people this is more complicated and also more frustrating, because you could be on a service that realizes the idea less good, its fosters competition and ensures quality of the service way better.
And now with Threads joining the Fediverse, people will be able to experience service-centric-irritations on the current second-biggest Twitter-realization.
A similar thing happened on Reddit and, not so surprisingly, Reddit-alternative Lemmy very soon became the second-most popular app on the Fediverse. And with Reddit now going to stock market, this could lead to the next stage, in which the longing for an “Reddit”-alternative, is replaced with the idea that always laid behind it: a link-aggregator. The idea is decoupled from the primary product; they are separated.
With the other apps, which are mostly owned by Meta, things will probably take much longer, because Meta will not be as stupid to make the same mistakes. This is already shown with Threads: they join the Fediverse and this way, stay in control and avoid enshittification. And this way, people will also stay in the provider-exclusive or at least provider-centric world view, which also plays in their hands.
In stage 3, maybe even in stage 4, many competitors emerge that try to thrive for that lost ideal and in the forth stage, this abstract ideal gives way to all the possibility that the protocol offers.
After that, one realizes that there may be many other ecosystems like that out there. Of course, Google, Microsoft and Apple are also their own ecosystem. Actually, they at least partially already do what the Fediverse tries to do: in their ecosystem, you have a unique user handle, with which you can connect to your friends across various services.
The revolutionary idea behind the Fediverse is that there is no centre to this. The idea of the ecosystem is abstracted into an abstract idea, in which everything could be connected to everything.
Basically, whether it’s the Metaverse by Meta or the Everything-App by Elon Musk, all of these companies and people are trying to achieve this thing. This idea that we call the Fediverse. And I think ActivityPub is currently doing the best job at it; but it, too, only tries to achieve this abstract idea. However, in contrast to their proprietary competitors, it does so openly, and encourages its members to help toward that goal, which for me, already makes it by far the most sympathetic runner.
It is no surprise that Meta now jumps to the rescue of/claims this idea. After all, their grandiose idea of the Metaverse comes closer to the idea behind the Fediverse of all Silicon Valley ecosystems. It goes the farthest in this direction (because its Meta primary focus of course), because it realizes that the massive scale it wants to achieve, cannot be done inside their walled-garden ecosystem. But they will probably not openly advertise it, because they don’t like the openness that much.
But overall, the joining of Meta is not a bad thing. After all, it introduced many people to the next digital world model: that of the protocol-centric one. At least to an open one. Of course, they have known protocols like Sign in with Google or Facebook for all their life. But still, this is a major step.
A very important thing, however, will be that the Fediverse manages to advertise their idea of an open fediverse, rather than being drowned out by the advertising of the semi-open Metaverse that Meta will most likely at some point launch without mercy.
And I think, we might have a better stance here than many expect, because we simply have the best case for a social web that we all want to live in.
What to take away from this? Well, I guess what I’m getting here at is: even for me, a tech-apt person it was a significant effort to really understand the concepts behind the term “Fediverse” and lots of it done both with videos and trying out things. And I think, almost a taboo: there are many people on Mastodon that actually have a Provider-Centric view of the social web. It will be hard to get it across to people, and it will take time, but the changes it causes would potentially be huge.
Think about it: why is the idea of the Fediverse not so popular in the Silicon Valley? Well, because it makes users not mere users but agents that can contribute to drive that change. In the metaverse, the tools and the ground are provided by Meta; there is a limit to how far the ceiling goes, and that limit is defined by Meta. In the Fediverse, everybody can contribute to building it, there is no ceiling above us, only an endless universe with unlimited possibility in the digital. And this view is what Meta, Elon Musk and many other people in the Silicon Valley don’t want us to see. Because it makes us realize our own potential, because it brings us into a position to see a path for becoming autonomous digital actors, because it lets us form a vision for the future of the social web for ourselves, because it makes us independent from their stories.
In this sense, the bird really has been freed. Freed from the product that it was bound to.
That said, authoritarianism could become a problem on the Fediverse. In this sense, also, we don’t need to demonize Meta. They are not playing nice, but they also are a monopoly, and politically, they are not authoritarian, which is a good thing these days. We can look at their Metaverse, if they will call it that, as a digital, social ecosystem, but there are many others out there like it; Meta just has been the most ambitious with it. And if it helps us get bigger, we should get on for the ride. Everything else would be contradictory to our own ideals of the abstract idea of the Fediverse.
So, following this logic, the next three things to look out for could be the following:
Threads joining the Fediverse: People will be able to follow WordPress-Blogs from Threads. It will be huge.
Reddit separating its abstraction from its product: Reddit going public will most likely give fuel to that separation; because it alters the product without recognition from what it was a few years ago, in which it was basically non-profit
Science Community creating their own ecosystem based on the Fediverse: Soon, Open Science Collective launches, which is explicitly created in comparison to other, less open ecosystems. The Science Community seems like the first collective (apart from the Opensource community and parts of the queer community of course) that actually wants to build their own ecosystem on the web that is not proprietarily owned and not sealed off to everyone else (“The scientific method must be liberated”).
The one I’m most excited about personally is Threads joining the Fediverse, because yes, it will be tough, but it will introduce so many people to the idea of the Fediverse and lead to so much innovative ideas.
In the bigger picture that could happen we are at the beginning of the second big opening:
Half of the social web is still on web2 and the other half is already dipping its toes in the open social web.
Even many people in journalism still have an under-complex understanding of these services, which shows for example for the reaction of Reddit going public on the Guardian:
For all the understandable sorrow over having lost something dear, you can see here that the author clearly still has a “provider-exclusive” view on things. It doesn’t seem like any possibility that this service, which functionality basically only are forums, will never be built somewhere else. Then, there is commonly the talk that the internet is getting “more and more fractured” and that there will probably never again be “this one place”, which in a way, is true, but given the nature of the internet, sooner or later leads to more connectedness and shows the limit of these authors understanding of the matter here.
That’s also why it’s important that the Fediverse shows an active presence on Threads: to encourage people to think out of their digital world view that they have lived in for all these years, some even since always. Point them towards things that confuse and irritate them; that question their current, limited world view (of course only in a reasonable way) and they will eventually come up with a new model of the social web themselves and start asking questions that Meta don’t want them to ask.
Again, I want to press that this is not a call to smash Meta or any other web2 platform to pieces or take immoral actions against it, on the contrary – it is the view of the digital in our mind that needs to change, and it will push this Copernican revolution of how we look at the digital, additionally to practically implementing the Fediverse itself of course.
In any case, once reached, this Copernican conclusion is frightening as well as empowering, and it was made by many after the decline of Twitter; however, for most people, it’s still ahead. But we can already think about which conclusions to draw from this, and as we will see, with the help of Kant, we will be better off than before. In fact, we will become more mature and moral digital beings because of it. Because with this new, Copernican look on the social web that we have now, we can now apply the same conclusions that Kant drew for moral beings in the physical world, for the digital as well. But first of all, we need to turn our minds to another question that the Fediverse needs to answer for itself: can we consider Fediverse access a universal right? After shown this, we can take a look at what that actually means for us as digital beings.
A Kantian Right to Fediverse Access
Until now, we have always assumed that a universal access to the Fediverse is something that we should thrive for and much has already been written about whether the Fediverse should replace our current social media or stay small, by some deemed “small” and “Big Fedi” standpoints.
However, while usually, these arguments were made based on utilitarism, in the following, I will make another case for the “Big Fedi” standpoint, bolstered by some, hopefully convincing arguments by Immanuel Kant, which will lead to a broader vision on how the Fediverse could help us to become more moral digital beings based on one of the central ideas of Kantian thinking in the last section of this essay.
The idea to declare access to internet infrastructure a universal law is not new. In his paper “Palladium of the People: A Kantian Right to Internet Access” (https://philpapers.org/rec/BUCPOT-6), Christopher Buckman argued for a basic right to internet access, however, what he mostly argues about is for a basic access to social media.
The text argues that access to high-speed internet, including social media, should be considered a basic right due to its significance in connecting people to vital resources and facilitating informed democratic participation. It examines criticisms of social media, highlighting concerns about polarization and misinformation but argues that it can also serve as a bridge between morality and politics, aligning with Kant’s vision of the public sphere. Despite challenges, the text suggests that social media’s potential to unify and democratize discourse justifies the right to internet access. It addresses criticisms and provides examples such as the Black Lives Matter movement to illustrate how social media can influence public opinion and drive political change. Ultimately, it advocates for universal broadband access as a means to uphold individual autonomy, foster enlightenment, and safeguard against authoritarianism.
Notedly writing this in 2017, the timing couldn’t be worse, right? Social media leads to polarization, the movements that it sparked never lead to any real change, or do they? And on the web, people act immoral anyways, right? While these are of course heavily exaggerated, these inconsistencies in his argument exist, because social media as it is today is not helping society, and the problem will not disappear by scaling social media by getting more people internet access, as Buckman argues: “Increased inclusivity, made possible by the recognition of a universal right to internet access, would allow social media to fulfil its potential as a Kantian bridge between the moral and political.” Because the current, walled-garden social media is bad for society by design.
But these inconsistencies could be overcome with the introduction of the Fediverse. The Fediverse actually allows this public sphere to develop as it should, and that we can actually browse it and explore the World Wide Web with it. While Buckman argued that a universal internet access would actually make the public sphere that bridges morality and politics that Kant calls for, the Fediverse could be the more realistic thing to make that happen, and that will not necessarily lose this ability when it scales (at least there is no reason for this). And because the Fediverse so obviously achieves this bridge much better, his argumentation can also be used for a universal right to Fediverse access.
Why I’m worried about Reddit going public, or: the Choice between destroying something or building something
With a good argument for the “Big Fedi” now, there are also things that I do worry about.
Let’s assume for a moment that the Fediverse will soon have some power on the internet. Given that no one seems too aware of this, plus an overall hate against big tech, this is a recipe for disaster.
The Fediverse has to come to terms with the web that it wants to build. And it has to learn to control its own impulses. I just don’t think we are ready for it, yet and still, the whole situation around Reddit looks like a perfect storm for the web2 that will erupt sooner or later. So better speak about these things while we can still influence the outcome.
Some could say that after all, the situation is much like that of Twitter back in the day. But the situation with Reddit could for at least one reason be definitely unique: in the case of Twitter, not many people deny that it was solely be Elon Musk’s fault. The destruction came from the very top. In the case of Reddit, the situation would look more difficult, of course depending on how it will all play out. On one hand, there is the behaviour of spec, which is ignorant but not really surprising and which makes it somewhat like the situation of Twitter – but in many ways also not, because he doesn’t seem too keen to actually change the behaviour of the app’s functionality that much like Musk did with Twitter. His changes to the ecosystem are much more subtle, which doesn’t mean that they are any less impactful.
A crucial thing to keep in mind: violence is, first of all, immoral in mostly any case, and secondly, it also changes the person doing it. People on the Fediverse should be aware of that. It would change us, too, and at least in the way that it might happen again. Some people that would do it, would only be too eager to do the same thing again, they would search for the next thing to destroy. And next thing you know it, the Fediverse is turning on itself, basically dismantling its future.
Instead of destruction, it’s always better to build something new, which is better on its own and not because the old one was destroyed. There is nothing gained by destroying knowledge, by destroying communities. Companies will in any case be a part of the Fediverse. And if we just kick out companies altogether, they will go to another ecosystem that realizes the Fediverse better.
So, the next time, you share a post calling for the destruction of Reddit, think twice and maybe contribute to a Fediverse project instead.
I know this section is more borderline moralistic than usual, but sometimes it’s good to listen to the angsty German. And I’m telling you: universalism is the only option.
Its great the web is crawling slowly towards more enlightenment, but this also comes with new responsibilities. And we must not fuck it up for instant gratification even though we have been trained for so many years to do just that; we need to learn to control ourselves to stay in charge and for building something bigger.
Between blindly believing in the market and wanting to keep it out of the Fediverse completely, there exists another path. That of enlightenment, which we need to follow, because both other paths are so clear to fail.
The question for a set of morals on the social web and the question how to govern these spaces will only become more pressing in the future, and in the near future, regulators will play a role here; but not forever. Let’s take a first look how this could look like in the long run.
The Fediverse above me and the Moral Law within me
It’s obvious that a universal access to the Fediverse still doesn’t solve the problem that people on social media, be it central or decentral, often act without moral. This brings us to another core idea of Kantian thinking: the interconnectedness of objectivity and subjectivity, which leads to applying the idea of making own moral rules based on reason, also in the digital.
Because in the potential that lies in the Fediverse, in the space of rationality of the web that it expands in, we find our own morals just as we do when looking into the infinite potential of the universe, which hasn’t been possible on the web as we know it.
Kant famously wrote: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
Kant’s idea that the stars above us introduce us to our own freedom, which in turn give birth to our own morals, can as well be applied to the fediverse: it is potentially huge, when looking into it and realizing its potential, we are for a moment annihilated, because we realize that we will never be fully able to rap our minds around this thing; however, we also realize, that we can either thrive for that knowledge or don’t thrive, and anything in between, and this, according to Kant, is freedom. And if we now apply Kant’s ideas to the internet, as we will see in the following, with the Fediverse, we are for the first time actually able to form moral principles in the digital from our own, rational minds in the sense of Kant.
This capability stems from the fusion of two distinct modes of digital existence: the ability to navigate digital spaces freely and the capacity for discourse and thought within social realms. The Fediverse breaks the barriers between these two modes of action, offering users a complete experience where they can traverse vast digital landscapes while engaging in meaningful interactions.
The Fediverse is completely different from the user experiences of web1 and web2. In traditional centralized platforms, users often operate within predefined structures and limitations imposed by the platform owners. They may have limited agency in controlling their online experiences and interactions. The Fediverse, as a decentralized social networking protocol, represents a departure from this centralized model. It enables users to participate in social networks that are interoperable, distributed, and not controlled by a single entity. This decentralization grants user’s greater autonomy, control over their data, and the ability to engage in communities across different platforms without being tied to a single service provider, empowering users to navigate the digital realm with greater freedom and autonomy.
Furthermore, it’s crucial here that we were already before conscious digital beings as well as able to move and alter the digital space; however, never at the same time. Either we were in the world wide web, where we could move around, but not speak and think, or we were in our limited space on a social media platform, where we could speak and think, but not move around.
The Fediverse now combines the two. When we could before switch between a vast, sprawling earth that we could wander at will, but unable to think and speak, and our own mind, in which we could think and speak with others about those things, but enable to interact with them anymore, the Fediverse now enables us to open our eyes, mind and mouth and look at the starry heavens above, were we see the huge potential space that the internet expands in: the world of reason.
This way, the world wide web and the social web are combined into a single experience, and the world of reason and all of its complex structures and our social structures are bridged. This way, we can explore the world of reason as social beings, and we can explore it together.
While with e-mail and social networks, it was already possible to talk about things on the web; it was never really possible to look at them as conscious, autonomous beings. If, for example, I was on a website to buy dog food and realized that the prices had increased, I had no possibility of telling that to my friends, or even imagining how to convey this to other people on the site itself. The only possibility would have been to copy the link, however, that would have changed nothing on the original site. With the Fediverse and ActivityPub, it’s easy to imagine a dog food website, on which you make comments on each site. But without this possibility, you aren’t really there at all. You are just a conscious ghost without a body. You can interact with the world, but no one will see it.
And now stepping out of this, looking in the vastness of objectivity and realizing one’s own freedom in the digital, is also the birth of morality in the digital world since Kant believed that autonomy arises from individuals freely following moral principles that they themselves have rationalized, rather than being dictated by someone else.
All of this also means that people will need to apply digital skills to navigate this space on their own. Because if they cannot create their own ground of space in the Fediverse, they cannot use their Fediverse Access to look into the starry heavens of the Fediverse. The skills to build one’s own Fediverse server are therefore crucial to becoming mature agents in the web of tomorrow. To understand better what this means and also as an introduction to the digital skills required for this, I created “the Ether”, a philosophical thought experiment, in which we imagine a world, in which the concepts of computer science have become natural law. This way, they can be learned similar to a magic system in Harry Potter. I described the concept in the following post, which also includes an exemplary H.P.-fanfiction that applies the ideas in a story: https://fungiverse.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/the-ether-1.2-1.pdf and https://fungiverse.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avadas-curse-en-2.pdf, and the German original: https://fungiverse.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/avadas-curse-2.pdf (all three are open-source).
It’s the same as with the web2 apps: we separate the idea from the thing itself, and by this make it a matter of public debate, how far the actual thing differentiates from this idea. This way, we make it independent from actual programming languages (which in an abstract sense, don’t change that much anymore) and from the programming community in general, and this way, it becomes something static, that can be publicly debated upon and thrived for.
At one point, programming and data scientist skills will become a part of pop culture anyways just as it has been with engineering in the form of science fiction already. However, now is the time to turbo-charge this development.
It’s not like everybody needs to be able to program, but there should at least be a known path to reach these things. If a kid is interested in fantasy with complex magic system, maybe encourage them to acquire more digital skills. This way, it could also serve as a new heuristic here to spot people equipped to become computer/data scientists.
With these three things: a shift of the digital world view, a universal right to Fediverse access and a bridge to the skills that are required to reach the degree of maturity to become able to set one’s own moral rules in the digital, people should be able to make use of the Fediverse for overcoming their own digital immaturity and make the web again something, in which we can place our hopes for the future.
Conclusion
Our current view on the digital is very limited; by broadening it into the Fediverse, we are faced with new problems, but also new ways to liberate ourselves. But for this to be possible, there also needs to be a change of the state of mind. It’s not only a technical problem that can be solved by getting everyone internet access and developing the Fediverse. After Kant, the starry sky only gives you a sense of freedom, if you have sufficiently measured it and are conscious of the possibility, at least to a basic degree, to do that with your consciousness, even if never fully. Then the look turns from fear and awe to an unbearable realization of insatiable possibility, which Kant calls freedom. In other words, the Fediverse offers us for the first time, to look into the starry heavens of the digital world and become moral, digital beings, but only if we have the knowledge that it exists and that we can discover it with our minds.
Therefore, Fediverse access should be considered a universal right. But to acquire it, additionally to an access to internet, skills are required to make actual use of the theoretical possibility of signing up to a Fediverse service and realizing and making use of its full potential for becoming a moral, digital being. This document tries to be a first step towards this, which of course can be expanded by other people, who have a deeper knowledge of Kant and philosophy in general.
However, if it would be considered a good case, it could solve some of the dilemmas faced in digital spaces by the public and the individual today. Because then, it’s not necessarily so, that they need to be controlled by an outer authority; it is therefore not necessary that they at some point all come under the rule of national states, but it can stay in the hands of the public and becoming its own governing space when having acquired a certain level of “vernunft” (reason). This will give the public more power against the state and the market and could lead to overcoming the hyperpolitics of our current times and hopefully equip both society and individuals to face the challenges that we are currently facing and that of the twenty-first century in general.
In Kant’s sense, we aren’t yet human, but only thrive for becoming so. Maybe the Fediverse can bring us closer to that. And one thing is certain: While of course the most important thing is to build the thing itself, there will be no big Fediverse without a Copernican revolution on the web. This is also a clash of ideas: we have just left the digital dark age, and we need to push for the crack of light that we see in the distance, or it will close up eventually. The tools are all there, in our minds, we just have to make use of them.
“If it is now asked, “Do we presently live in an enlightened age?” the answer is, “No, but we do live in an age of enlightenment.” As matters now stand, a great deal is still lacking in order for men as a whole to be, or even to put themselves into a position to be able without external guidance to apply understanding confidently to religious issues. But we do have clear indications that the way is now being opened for men to proceed freely in this direction and that the obstacles to general enlightenment – to their release from their self-imposed immaturity — are gradually diminishing. In this regard, this age is the age of enlightenment …”
At the end of last year, the Verge made a 2024-outlook with a big post on the future of social media, which was basically a pitch for the Fediverse. And it’s focus had been on: money. The narrative went something like the following: before the WWW, there was AOL, which decline eventually lead to a huge boost of innovation (and of course money), and now, the same thing is happening again. It’s a perfectly reasonable story, however, except for Meta’s big promises (and some smaller companies more or less successful endeavours), not much has happened on this front, yet.
Why? Because this time, it’s different.
Why is it that businesses aren’t yet flocking to the Fediverse? Why is it that except for some nerdy blogs and techie websites, its still basically invisible in the public debate?
Well, because there isn’t much money in it, yet and probably, this won’t change much in the near future. Think of it like this: how would you make money out of a newly created Fediverse server? Well, first of all you would need to get people on it. Either by building trust or by having some great features. Then, you would either start charging money for it, show ads or sell the data of your users. However, changes are high that people will then leave your server for a different one, where they get everything for free. Additionally, it’s not like in web1, where you visit a website to buy dog food and afterwards never visit it again; in social networks, you want to spend some time there. Getting people to join your network is hard enough, keeping them there and charging money for that even more.
And while some of them may accept a basic form of payment (let it be their data, their attention or an actual fee), monetization for providers will be much harder than in a walled garden, because basically there will always be someone who does the same but for a cheaper prize. When in the old world, the user was themselves a good, necessarily owned by the service to which they were inseparably bound to, they are now free to choose and are thereby their own means of production: their own social capital, which they can move around at will.
This means that actually, businesses will have a hard job getting money out of the whole thing.
The thing that does however lie in the Fediverse is the potential for social capital. Actually, huge amounts of that. The Fediverse will enable people to connect on the web itself to a degree that was unseen before.
However, companies aren’t necessarily great at generating social capital, and that only, if they can squeeze profit out of it effectively, which isn’t that easy in the open system that the Fediverse is.
This can be seen more as a good or more as a bad thing; however, it will probably shape the further development of the Fediverse and should probably be kept in mind: the Fediverse will probably not be overrun by businesses any time soon. So, collectives will have time to form on the Fediverse. However, it also means that they will have to do it. They have to move into the window of opportunity, before it is closed again by companies like Meta, who will eventually again turn everything into a walled garden once they have to increase their profit.
The Open Science Network could be exactly the thing needed here for three reasons:
It shows the huge potential of social capital in the Fediverse and gives it a concrete practical use case. It makes immediately sense to people and is something that one can show to people how the Fediverse actually works and why it’s important, apart from decentrality and that it isn’t owned by Elon Musk.
It combines social capital with a common resource everybody wants to have access to and that becomes more valuable, the more people are connected to it: knowledge.
Twitter and other services and concepts of the web became big exactly through this: with the help of the science community. First came the nerds, then the scientists, then the gamers and Harry Potter fans, then the normies.
The Open Science Network could be the “IT”-project, the Fediverse has so long waited for. It’s a positive project, people understand it immediately, and it’s also a cool project for the open-source community to contribute to.
However, if that’s the case, it would most likely result in a significant power shift within the Fediverse. Up until now there are three big players in the Fediverse and its environment: Threads, BlueSky and the Fediverse itself. For simplicity, we will look at them here as more or less different collectives. The most obvious observation is that they are fierce rivals of one another, as for example the bridge between Fedi and BlueSky showed, the hostility by some parts of the Mastodon community towards Threads, or the deafening silence between Threads and BlueSky.
However, the entering of an open science collective could create a new situation: since knowledge gets more valuable the more people are connected to it, a common resource is created, which creates a completely new situation. Instead of fighting over social capital of different users, they would suddenly try to get the favours of the open science collective.
This would put the open science collective in a very comfortable position and force the other collectives at least to not pull the plug on federating with the others, at least not permanently. In any case, it would give the development of and the project of the Fediverse as a whole, a big boost most likely.
At the same time, it should be kept in mind that making something like the open science collective happen in the first place will most likely not be done by companies (because they don’t even want to), but by the open-source and science community themselves.
When the creation of the WWW let people create their own town squares, markets and fairs on the internet, now, the Fediverse let’s them create their own towns and universities around it. But because not many people are there yet, the landscape is huge and there is much of free-of-charge-places, it’s hard to charge money for something.
Nilay Patel: “The fediverse might happen. I think it’s exciting. Do you think that all of this space is going to create new sunlight reaching ground and new things will happen? […] Hank Green: “I do. What I worry about is that there’s not a ton of random money sitting around.”
(Creating your first instance for you and your friends … Image by @simzart on tumblr.com)
I think that one of the greatest assets behind the Fediverse is for communities to reach a new level of digital agency. Currently, many communities on the web are bound by their digital infrastructure, for example to Discord or in walled gardens like Instagram, X, Facebook or (albeit on a smaller scale) on their own forums. In the Fediverse, digital communities can become more independent from the technical structures they were build on, but for that, there comes a new responsibility: that of building all of the tech that they were used to get for free; to build for themselves, or at least reign over it.
To be able to tackle this successfully without giving the reign again up to corporations, I propose a new, unorthodox approach: users learn digital skills through a magic system, which they acquire based on fanfiction by their community, until they reach a point where they are able to acquire actual technical skills. Think of it like using training wheels when learning how to ride a bike.
The Harry Potter fandom, thanks to its own unique features, could be perfectly suited here and with it, be able to take digital matters in its own hands. It could ensure a state of agency permanently even against the challenges of the future, through a combination of a very advanced magic system that builds on top of its existing one and fanfiction! It will enable the collective immersion in these kinds of technologies in the same way that humans have found common understandings of complex concepts for hundreds of years: through stories.
For this, it could build on an already popular genre on the web, which, however, has somewhat lost its steam in the last time: Solarpunk. By combining Harry Potter with Solarpunk and an advanced magic system, the Fediverse could for the first time have a cultural product that originated from within it; and that people would join the Fediverse for to participate in.
The open-source collective could use this to remain its hegemony in the Fediverse, or at least to stay remotely relevant against the strong forces that already begin to tear at its seams and at the same time create something, some culture that is unique for the Fediverse and that we can export to the rest of the social web and at the same time, hopefully lead to a new level in community-driven development.
Of course, the highest goal here remains for the individual to acquire digital agency, and it comes second behind the collective’s agency. However, collectives may play an important part on their path towards digital agency. In fact, this should be the main goal of any digital collective.
Part 1: Problem Description and Plan
“Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another.” – Immanuel Kant
The first goal to user agency is what I would call collective digital agency, meaning that a collective can take digital matter into their own hands. This is different from how we have thought of agency in the digital before. Until now, the goal was to reach user agency out of the stance, but maybe, we should think of users more as networked beings, who want themselves AND the communities they belong to to have digital agency (and most importantly, also gain agency THROUGH them; until the individuum is able to aquire a concept of the digital independent from that of their collective and by this becoming a mature digital agent, enabling to freely chose their collective or found their own one).
Collective digital agency may be the central asset of the Fediverse; and Collective Digital Agency and the H.P. fandom (and maybe the open-source community with it) could be the first to achieve it. This could be possible due to three aspects of the fandom: its already teaching members certain basic skills of the digital with its magic system, they are discussed and further developed in the community with fanfiction, and the magic system is continuously further developed (it could be debated if that’s really the case; but it could easily be implemented). The combination and further development of these three aspects now could bring user agency to a completely new level for communities in general, and the H.P. fandom as it is the most fitted for this, could be the first to do so after the open-source community.
A community with collective digital agency, is a community in which basically every member has the theoretic skills to setup a new instance for the community and run it; and even to join a new collective.
To be able to reach this level of agency, a community or collective needs a path for its members, to acquire the skills that are needed to keep their own community afloat. Harry Potter is perfectly suited here, because it is already acquiring certain skills of the digital world through its magic system. However, it doesn’t reach as far that they can act as a bridge to actual computer science, which is why they need to be expanded. This is the first part how the fandom would need to be equipped to reach the new level of user agency: by expanding the magic system such that it enables a seamless transition from it to actual computer science.
Through stories it the magic system is then elevated into the community, and individuals can decide how far they want to improve their skills. Harry Potter again is perfectly suited here, because it already has a rich tradition of storytelling in the form of fanfictions. All that is needed to do is find the magic system and right popular fanfiction about it.
The open-source community is already highly advanced in the digital agency section, because it enables people to, through learning programming and hard digital skills, to contribute to the development of their collective:
However, it cannot stay the only one to do so. Others need to follow (also it’s not working perfect for the open-source collective either, entry through programming is still rather steep)!
This means that new ways need to be found, because hard computer science is too much of a threshold for most people. Instead, the barrier for an entry must be lowered: through stories. Imagine learning programming and learning digital skills just by reading fantasy!
In fact, this is already the case with Harry Potter: it teaches people fundamental principles of the digital. If we expand that, we can give the Harry Potter fandom digital agency by enabling its own entry to the skills required of their members to maintain their own communities’ agency.
So, these are the three main ingredients to make it happen: an advanced magic system, fanfiction that is built on it and the Fediverse, which only now begins to open up.
This doesn’t mean that we have to change the H.P. fandom, it would be enough if the open-source collective acquired something from H.P. So basically, we would claim H.P., modify it and then grow our collective based on it. This way, the open-source collective could get into a much better position to achieve digital agency, because the path to acquire the skills currently is too steep. We tell ourselves that everyone in the Fediverse could set up their own instance, but that’s actually not the case. Let’s make it that way with stories.
Part 2: Finding a Magic System
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. – Immanuel Kant
A new strategy to turbo-charge the growth of the wizarding world in the Fediverse could be: through a new kind of Fanfiction: it builds on top of the existing magic system a new one, which enables a bridge to computer science. Thus, people that read this kind of fanfiction could apply this in the Fediverse itself and help develop it. Therefore, in the following, I will first introduce a generic cosmic structure on which various magic systems can be build and after that, introduce Patronus2, an addon to the magic system of H.P., which in the combination with Fanfiction and the Fediverse, could lead to a boost in user agency.
The Ether: A philosphical, cosmic structure that assumes the digital world to be a real thing that we can interact with
Before discussing the magic system, let’s first take a look at the cosmic structure it comes from.
The basic idea is that there are two worlds: the physical, which we can see and touch and the Ether, which is everywhere around us, but which we cannot perceive with our senses.
Everything in the physical world has also a representation in the Ether. For example, a tree exists in the physical world, I can touch it and it also exists in the Ether.
Now, you can connect yourself to the ether-representation of any object in the universe by touching it and speaking its name. Then you get access to the information of it like so:
But you can also exploit the interrelation between the worlds to manipulate the called tree. When you manipulate the ether-thing its representation in the physical world will also be affected by this manipulation.
So, when you touch the tree and say: “Fire: burn!” you can burn down the whole tree.
That’s already kind of cool, but you can do way more complex interactions also, like building a stone tower (the ether-dance used here is called Syoombraaya):
You can also loop through all trees of a forest, make them fly in the air and use actions to cut and build a house with them (while these things sound way too powerful there are limitations but for the joy of it let’s just keep things a bit op here).
And then, you can still go further and use language constructs to build long magic speels, in which you can decide what to do based on the environment and so on and make really flexible spells.
So, there is basically no limits to creativity here. Imagine a Minecraft with Magic!
The complete documentation of the magic system can be viewed here:
I called the mathmatical, cosmic structure behind it “Ether” but it can be called anything, really.
It is easy to adapt this to a fictional, more advanced magic system for Harry Potter, which is here called “Patronus2”.
It is simply built on top of Harry Potter’s magic system. That means, the rules for the old one still apply, but it can be used to cast more complex and powerful spells. In this world, you can still cast every spell from Harry Potter, but you can also build new ones.
But to actually understand it, it would be cool to have a H.P. fanfiction based on it.
The idea is, that, if people read this kind of fanfiction, they come into a position in which they are able to aquire actual digital skills much easier. And if they learn more digital skills, they will at some point also see the merits of the Fediverse and be able to help building it in a productive manner. Of course, user agency would also benefit them in many different parts of life. At the end of the day, their aquiring of digital skills should never only be a mean to build one’s own community, but also an end in itself: to help them to get in a position, in which they COULD (and consiously know that they could) acquire actual digital skills and hard computer science knowledge. And along with this must also always come the new responsibility that comes with those skills and some fundamental ethical guidelines.
I lined out a first draft, how such a story could look like, here called “Avada Kedavra – The Digital Prometheus”:
Its kind of in the tradition of “H.P. and the Methods of Rationality” and explores the concepts of the Ether through this. It plays in the alternate timeline of the Wizarding World, in which all digital tech in the human world is actually magic, which I outlined in the last post. Of course, it’s only a first example. At the same time, it’s a warning, to use the skills outlined by the Ether (and because they are just sub-skills of digital skills, therefore also digital skills in general), with care.
But the actual work still needs to be done and maybe, this could be done by the fanfiction community. With the help of them, a H.P. fanfiction based on the Ether could gain a wider footing until a bridge is reached from fantasy magic systems to the study of actual “hard” programming knowledge.
If people read this, they would get into a much better position such that they could become mature actors in a digital world. Or they would at least know how to achieve that.
It builds on top of the existing magic system a new one, which enables a bridge to computer science. Thus, people that read this kind of fanfiction could able to cross this bridge and apply their acquired digital skills in the Fediverse itself, in their communities, or even when building their own ones.
Then, people could being introduced to the world of computer science by reading fantasy novels, until they are ready to study the real thing. Instead of a leap of faith, it would become a journey, that people can travel as far as they want to.
Lowering the threshold to computer science/programming could be very beneficial for the Fediverse, because contribution is key and additionally, you need a basic understanding of computer science to see its merits and why it becoming the future of the web would be beneficial to society.
Of course, user agency shouldn’t be reached by any means. It should be made sure that these skills come with ethical boundaries and that the magic system isn’t used to establish sect-like structures. That’s why it should always come with the ideals of the enlightenment and more precisely: with the philosophical teachings of Immanuel Kant.
But in my opinion the point is that people already develop a quasi-magical understanding of the digital. What is the difference between touching an iron nail to cast off demons or to run a useless anti-virus program on your phone? It’s more similar than we tell ourselves. In this sense, it would be better to build them a bridge to an actual, scientific understanding of it rather than leaving them in the dark. Then the challenge becomes about giving them the skills to reach that kind of scientific level such that they can actually understand the concepts rather than believe in them.
We are narrative beings, complex concepts have always been woven into myths, legends and stories. I’m sure that one could make use of them and still honour the ideals of the enlightenment. We cannot let our digital worlds be ruled by a clerical class that rules from above; but we need to make light and show people a path that they can pursue to reach these heights, too.
Initially, I created the magic system so that people could learn programming with it. The idea was that just by reading fantasy books, they would learn some basic coding skills, however, nowadays with AI doing much of the code generation and actual coding becoming less and less important, this goal has become less and less relevant as well.
The same hold for the story. It has become from a light, fun story become more like a warning for society; to always question whether the powers that come with this technology are used for the right reasons and I also still hope it could give people at least a first glimpse of how the digital world works internally. Because we also need to think about the societal aspect of immersion: how can we, as the society or a community, provide a ground to enable a healthy immersion of a member of society, through which the person can gain user agency instead of losing it.
This can only work by shaping the interface over which the digital is provided to us itself through cultural and societal structures, which are only beginning to develop. Already, the technical interfaces work more and more over all our senses, while our cultural understanding of them, and with it, the possibilities we have when using them, fall way behind that: we are still in the world of clicking and touching. We haven’t even begun to explore the possibilities of language yet.
That’s why we need to think about how we can create cultural and fictional concepts through which we can understand and use; and in consequence: navigate and form this world, in which the use of language will most likely play a much more central role.
Part 3: Outlook – How this could change our interaction with tech in general
Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play. – Immanuel Kant
The Ether or similar magic systems could serve as a new interface for the Fediverse and the digital in general. This could also become a new aspect of community digital agency: to control and being able to customize the interfaces to the tech a community uses for themselves based on the stories they tell each other.
Additionally, this would allow the H.P. fandom to start a live of its own, step out of the shadow of its creator and create something of its own; which could maybe also be a solution to the whole causa-Rowling. It could emancipate itself from her.
In the future, this magic system could become a universal interface to technical devices, through which people can easily interact with digital objects and build their own things with them.
This could make “the wand” the perfect companion for every VR/AR-device, because people immediately know how to use it; because they already know it and have a feeling for it.
“Lumos!”
However, a condition would be that the magic system of a device is customizable, such that different collectives can develop and use their own interfaces to the digital world.
What would AI agents be in this scenario? Of course, communities that train their own AI agents on their own data are a thing that comes natural to mind. Elon Musk does it on X, Mark Zuckerberg wants to do it with his services. It only makes sense.
However, the difference from what I have in mind is how they want to use it. For Zuck, the AI agent becomes something that resembles something alive, e.g. the avatar of a celebrity, etc. Maybe this will change, but it’s at least currently like that. On X, it’s a little bit different: its mostly understood as a tool, I think, but for individuals.
For me, AI agents should also be a tool, but, since it’s been trained by the data of the community, it should also be a tool FOR the community. A shared tool to that enables members of the community to discover, navigate and make use of the digital.
A magic system or whatever you want to call it could be a neat thing here. The AI agent could learn the magic system based on the data by the community and then provide the according interface to it. If this interface falls behind the actual magic system (which it inevitably will), people will try to improve it. If the interface is better than the fiction, they will alter the fiction accordingly; and if the interface falls behind the actual technical possibilities, it will eventually come out by the interaction with other collectives, which will lead to an altering of the magic system and in turn, to an adaption of the magic interface by the AI.
All the while, it should always remain clear, that the magic system is just a mean to understand the digital and not real magic.
This way, the AI agent becomes the interface to the digital, which, as long as it is controlled by the people that use it, is exactly how it should be in my opinion.
So, there are three ways AIs could be viewed in the future as user interfaces:
As a tool (focus on individual use; trying to get as much power into the hands of the individual as possible)
As a magic system (focus on collective use; trying to create shared understanding)
As an alive being (basically only abstracts one of the first two views)
I think the one that gives most user agency, transparency and collective agency is the second one, it would also enable a responsible use of it, since it’s much easier to discuss ethical rules of a shared system rather than that of a multitude of tools with completely different interfaces or an interfaces that enables you to do any command possible in the language you speak; or a magical, alive being, in which people don’t know at all what happens inside.
After unsuccessfully trying to contact parts of the H.P. fandom to join my Lemmy instance, I don’t anymore think that the Harry Potter fandom will inevitably become a part of the Fediverse; I also think that it may not happen at all, or that it automatically will go in a direction that we want it to. We need to drive that change. We need to build the web that we want. Or we will end up again in a corporate-dominated web or the Fediverse will never happen, also a possibility. But to prevent this, we may need to reach a new level of digital understanding on a collective level. And the way to do this is how it has worked for centuries before: through stories, while managing at the same time to stay true to the ideals of the enlightenment. That’s why it’s crucial to view the Ether as a philosophical construct and never as a religious one.
Language and the use of symbols will play a much more central role in the interfaces in the age of AI; and while we let the interfaces of the old days be designed by companies, the new interfaces should be driven by collective, cultural concepts of the things we want to interact with. Otherwise, we lose control of the things themselves.
Conclusion
(Image by @simzart on tumblr.com)
Getting people to really commit and understand the concepts behind the Fediverse is harder than many people would think; because it requires a completely shift of the mindset: they need to want to take digital matters in their own hands; turning from mere consumers into agents. This is equally to telling people to use their own minds as people did in the age of enlightenment: it completely questions how most people experience tech on a day-to-day-basis and it comes with new, frightening responsibilities; something that has been completely erased from the modern web: responsibility, which is only the logical price for freedom.
The current strategy seems to be to get as much people as possible in the Fediverse and everything will be fine. However: only because they are in the Fediverse doesn’t mean they also lost their centralized mindset. A new strategy based on fanfiction and magic systems is not only about migrating into another system (from closed to open; from walled garden to federated). It’s about changing the mindset behind the way we build our communities online and it tries to ensure an ecosystem, in which we show users a path to grow and achieve true digital agency and communities to continue to stay on top of things over corporate influence. This is crucial: the move to the Fediverse isn’t a thing that you do once, innovation has to be maintained onward and it requires a mindset in the tradition of the enlightenment. Only through this can we continue to maintain user agency for the years to come: by constantly educating ourselves and expanding our horizon. With the help of stories and knowledge. Instead of something that you achieve once, we have to start thinking of digital agency as a journey. And, that communities should make it their own responsibility to ensure or at least encourage the user agency of their members, because it ensures their own digital agency. Because the Fediverse will continue to evolve and there will always be the need to build something. This doesn’t mean that companies shouldn’t be involved in this, the question is, who is driving the change, the communities, or the companies. And for the open-source collective, to keep our collective digital agency, we may need to bring more of these skills to more people; even with unorthodox means. And if we manage to stay clear on the point that its not actual magic but only a mean to achieve digital knowledge, it should also be in the sense of the age of enlightenment.
I think, if done right, this could be really powerful for digital collectives and individuals to maintain their agency. Because it builds on the cultural consciousness. But because Silicon-valley bros always need to be cutting edge and have no time while they accelerate, they have not much sense for that.
The Silicon Valley should stop telling people how their interfaces to the digital should look like. It’s time for the people to decide that. The same holds for ChatGPT. It’s not a conscious being, it’s just another, very powerful interface to alter the digital and it should be treated that way.
Apart from that, the H.P. fandom could become the first project that shows the merits of the Fediverse. People immediately understand why fandoms in the Fediverse work better than in walled gardens. So, this could potentially be huge for the Fediverse and the H.P. fandom, in a kind of win-win situation. So, the next step will be to make the Wizarding World a prominent project in the open-source community, and to get parts of the H.P. on board, probably by writing more Solarpotterpunk-fanfiction.
This could eventually result in a new stream inside the H.P. fandom: the Cyber/Solarpunk H.P. sub-culture, with its own aesthetic, fanfiction and magic system. All of this by the way has nothing to do with Lunarpunk and I don’t want it to be associted with it, because it is too esoteric and irrational. The Ether should be used as a philosophical, or (with care) as a fictional concept and it should always be used to build on the tradition of the enlightenment.
“If it’s not for money and it’s not for girls—what is it for? With Zuckerberg we have a real American mystery. Maybe it’s not mysterious and he’s just playing the long game, holding out: not a billion dollars but a hundred billion dollars. Or is it possible he just loves programming? No doubt the filmmakers considered this option, but you can see their dilemma: how to convey the pleasure of programming—if such a pleasure exists—in a way that is both cinematic and comprehensible? Movies are notoriously bad at showing the pleasures and rigors of art-making, even when the medium is familiar.” – Zadie Smith (Generation Why)
America in the 1950s hummed with the symphony of progress, yet for women like me, the melody often rang hollow against the walls of male-dominated boarding rooms and smoky buros. Me, that’s Evelyn Harper, a typist at Sterling & Powell Advertising Agency, knew this all too well. Raised in the aftermath of war’s devastation, I had grown accustomed to struggle, yet a quiet determination pulsed within me, a yearning for more than the confines of typewriter keys and coffee runs.
Within the bustling corridors of Sterling & Powell, I watched as my male counterparts flaunted their power, their voices drowning out the whispered aspirations of women relegated to the sidelines. But amidst the din of chauvinism, I discerned a different melody—a melody woven from the whispers of possibility and the allure of enchantment.
It was in the heart of the agency, amidst the glow of flickering fluorescent lights and the scent of stale cigarette smoke, that I first encountered the devices of Hogwarts Tech. Sleek and beguiling, they whispered promises of power and prestige, their allure tinged with the scent of secrets waiting to be unveiled.
As I delved deeper into the world of advertising, I learned the secrets of these enchanted devices, their magic pulsing beneath the surface like a current waiting to be harnessed. With each passing day, I marvelled at their potential, their ability to captivate and enthral audiences with a mere flick of a wand or a whispered incantation; but also to connect people beyond anything I had ever seen before.
But it was not until I accidentally stumbled upon a clandestine meeting, that I truly understood the power of these devices. Behind half-closed doors, my male colleagues conspired to target a new demographic — housewives, their days spent in domestic drudgery, their dreams buried beneath the weight of societal expectations. The name of the campaign was: “Magic Wive, Magic Life” and was targeted towards the husbands of the housewives, who should be lured into thinking that thanks to magic devices, their wives would have even more time to make their every wish come true.
In that moment, a fire ignited within me—a fire fuelled by deep indignation. For I knew that these women were more than mere consumers to be manipulated and exploited — they were mothers, daughters, and sisters, deserving of respect and the possibility of a better life.
And so, in the shadows of the agency, I crafted a plan—a plan to harness the power of these enchanted devices and unleash it upon the world, not for the profit of mage men in suits, but for the empowerment of women yearning to break free from the shackles of convention.
Later that day, I exited the building as usual, the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the bustling streets of New York. In the fading light, I moved with purpose, weaving through the throngs of people with a sense of urgency gnawing at my insides. Clutching a bundle of wands hidden beneath my coat, I scanned the faces of the women passing by, searching for those whose weary eyes mirrored my own.
Finally, I spotted her — a woman hunched over a baby carriage, her face etched with the lines of hardship and exhaustion. With a quick glance around to ensure no prying eyes watched, I approached her, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Excuse me,” I whispered, my voice barely above a breath. “I have something for you.”
As I pressed a wand into her trembling hands, her eyes widened with confusion and fear. She glanced down at the intricate carvings etched into the wood, her fingers tracing the smooth surface with uncertainty.
“What’s this?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“It’s a wand,” I replied, my own voice tinged with urgency. “A tool of magic, of power. You can use it, see: Wingardium Leviosa!” and I pointed my own wand to a trash can nearby, which immediately went flying in the air.
She looked after it frightened but also in wonder.
“You can use it to change your life!”
But even as I spoke the words, I wasn’t sure whether she understood them — she needed the proper education, she had no concept of the forces she now held in her hands; how long had I needed to understand them? And yet, in that moment, hope flickered in her eyes, a glimmer of possibility amidst the darkness.
But before she could say a word, a sharp voice pierced the air, sending a shiver down my spine. “What do you think you’re doing?”
I turned to see him standing there — my boss, his eyes blazing with fury as he advanced towards me. In his hand, he clutched a wand, its magic crackling with malevolence.
Caught in the act, I braced myself for the inevitable — a reckoning for my defiance, for daring to challenge the status quo. And as his fist collided with my jaw, sending me sprawling to the ground, I knew that my time at Sterling & Powell had come to an end and with that, probably my life as I knew it, too.
He would spread the word. Call me a criminal, a witch. I would never again get a job as a typer ever again. How should I take care of my family then?
As I lay there, bloodied and bruised, I suddenly felt someone helping me up; it was the woman. But she wasn’t touching me, she held the wand in her hand as if she was born for it and I was flying in midair, now floating back to the ground. Suddenly, I felt a wild, ruthless sense of defiance burn within me — a defiance born not of magic, but of the indomitable spirit of a woman who refused to be silenced. He hadn’t even bothered to use his wand; the stupid jock; he should have finished me when he had the chance. And as I watched the woman walk away, my vision blurred with tears and pain, I knew that my journey was far from over.
The Alternate “Wiz-Tech”-Timeline
Since the global wizarding wars, many attempts were made by companies to sell their tech to Muggles. It was tolerated by the institute of Magic as long as it was not advertised as such. Above is an example of a banned, confiscated attempt to show the magic more openly. However, over time it turned out that Muggles weren’t even interested in the magic behind it, they wanted their devices easy to use and understand; and everyone else eventually joined the wizards and witches.
Eventually, all regulations to sell magical devices were erased and since the late 80s with the introduction of the world wide web, the rise of wiz-tech has only increased in pace: next came the introduction of the iPhone by young wizard Steve Jobs, introducing wiz-tech to the broad public and lately, even magic itself can be channelled through so-called AI agents and the Floo-Network begins to open up to Muggles as well with the Fediverse.
However, with the rise of bad effects that came with it, too, some Muggles are becoming more and more weary of the whole situation and in the wizarding community, people are calling for bringing their knowledge to the Muggles, taking some responsibility beyond their own magical realm, while others call for the institute to again take a stronger stance on the devices in the muggle world due to the negative effects they caused.
How can a good future for both the wizardingand the muggle world look like?
Imagine an internet where the entire Harry Potter fandom seamlessly merges into one interconnected network, akin to a vast social platform tailored for Potterheads, Potterfans and everyone else at the same time. This is the vision the Fediverse could bring to life, where all fansites, from forums to fanfiction archives, unite in one digital haven. Here, subscribers can immerse themselves in the wizarding world, connecting with fellow fans worldwide, all within a decentralized and customizable environment, driving collaboration as well as innovation in the fandom.
As the Fediverse is still in its infancy, every fan has the power to shape its evolution, contributing to a community-driven platform that embodies the spirit of collaboration and creativity. But let’s take a first look at how the future of the H.P. fandom could look like in the Fediverse.
1. Decentralize the experience, make room for innovation
At the heart of the Fediverse lies its decentralized structure, offering users unprecedented freedom and control over their online experience. The Harry Potter fandom could benefit immensely from this setup, with fansites morphing into interconnected servers where fans can curate their own immersive experiences. Whether you’re delving into fan theories, engaging in roleplaying adventures, or discussing the moral complexities of your favorite characters, the Fediverse empowers fans to shape their fandom journey according to their interests.
This means huge potential for growth and innovation, as basically everyone can connect themselves to the existing network and start building their own fansite!
2. Diverse Fansite Landscape
In the Fediverse, diversity flourishes. Fansites dedicated to all aspects of the wizarding world can coexist within one network, allowing fans to explore niche interests and subcultures with ease. From spellbinding fan art galleries to in-depth literary analyses, the Fediverse offers a kaleidoscope of fan-created content, ensuring that everyone can find their place in the digital wizarding world.
3. Personalized Fan Experience
Because there is a huge landscape of decentralized servers, you can chose the experience you want – whether it is a slower algorithm, a focus on Quidditch or role playing – you have the choice.
4. Global Community Building
The Fediverse transcends geographical boundaries, connecting fans from every corner of the globe, fostering community-driven development in the digital world.
5. Empowering Fan Collaboration
In the Fediverse, collaboration is key. Fans can come together to co-create fanfiction, organize virtual events, and collaborate on fan art projects, unleashing their creativity within the magical universe of Harry Potter. As the Fediverse continues to evolve, every fan has the opportunity to contribute to its growth and development, shaping the future of the Harry Potter fandom for generations to come.
In conclusion, the Fediverse holds the potential to revolutionize the Harry Potter fandom by uniting fansites into one interconnected network, offering a personalized fan experience, and empowering fan collaboration and creativity from fans worldwide. As we stand at the dawn of this new digital era, the future of the Harry Potter fandom in the Fediverse is ripe with promise and potential, awaiting the magic that fans will bring to its ever-expanding universe.
This week I started a new, possibly huge project that will take much of my time: my own Lemmy instance. It’s Harry Potter-themed and hopefully, will carve the way for more Harry Potter in the Fediverse!
Because of that, I will most likely be unable to invest as much time on this blog as the last months. Maybe, I will post something about instance governance or daily admin live or something. Until then, I wish you all the best on your Fediverse-journey ❤
There will come a point when things happening on the web will become more important than what happens outside of it. And maybe, we are already past that, finding ourselves tumbling towards disaster … many of the current political discussions and conflicts come from the internet. I think people still greatly underestimate how much influence the internet by now has.
In my last post, I described large collectives that will emerge with the rise of the Fediverse. However, I have to correct myself: they were always already there, they just now are getting more and more important.
The big digital collectives could be something like the following:
Christians/Traditionalists/Conservatives (currently Evangelicals most notably)
Potter Heads
Gamers
All of these collectives have their own trades as well as own forms of teaching their members digital skills that are needed in their collective; the Gamers for example through Game Programming, the Pop-Queen-fans are more apt at promoting their own gods on social media, while open-source enthusiasts provide much material for programming themselves.
Probably, no one of these collectives is going to disappear, they will most likely stay. The important thing for the internet community will be, to make sure, they don’t radicalise. Because each one of them has its own radical impulses. Most of the time, this means declaring their principles natural law and try enforcing them on all other collectives.
And our current problem is, that too many of them are beginning to radicalize inside the walled gardens that make most of the internet today.
The Problem: The Different Reigns of the Web and the long Consumerist Reign in the 20s
If these collectives existed since the beginning of the web, of course they also played a major role in its rise and there were more and less powerful in all the time the web has been around.
As we all know, during the early 2000s, the Harry Potter collective had a major reign. After that, during the 10s and late 10s, other collectives threw them off its throne and we lived through the reign of the consumer, gaming, eco-queer and the pop collective. Now, it seems like the right is striking back in the form of Trumpism, bitcoin bros and the gaming-communities’ bad impulses.
But maybe, if the nerd-collective manages to bolster up the Harry Potter-Collective again and collaborates with the other collectives that are still interested in liberal democracy, they might be able to hold back against the backlash from the right. And the only way for this, leads through the Fediverse, which only they can provide. But they will need to control their own impulses and let other collectives thrive within their own space.
But to understand that we need to take a closer look at the history of the web through the lenses of these collectives.
The nerds were the original settlers of the web, and they never forgave for being kicked out of it, though eventually, they had to ally with the consumer collective.
Apart from the nerds, there were also the scientists. They were kicked out of the equation first. I don’t want to blame anyone, but the consumer-collective at some point took over. And at a later point, another big collective appeared, that basically completely took over the position that the science collective once held: the H.P. collective, giving a positive outlook on how the internet should look and most importantly: feel like. Like being in a magic world, were clicks are like spells.
Through this power-shift thanks to the consumer collective, the science-collective was replaced by the H.P. collective and future optimism ran rampant, it could almost be felt in the air. But the coalition came at a price: the consumer collective had become too powerful and not nearly had enough.
The thing is: as long as a collective stays democratic, it should have a right to exist on the social digital landscape. But in the last decade, the evangelical/Christian collective, who didn’t want to join this coalition, felt excluded from this. That’s why now, when they have the chance, they try to get as much space on the web as possible, not knowing that soon with the Fediverse, there will be plenty of space for everyone.
My strategy would be to show them this dream and remind them that their allies, for example people like Musk, hate tradition and traditional hierarchies, they want to dismantle and disrupt them, while they want to conserve them, actually don’t really fit in with their values.
I’m not a conservative by any means, but these people still need their space to grow on the web, if they keep certain basic rules, even if some things of them are weird. But just trying to exclude them from the whole thing won’t work either and for most of these conservative communities, the web really did reck havoc in some of them. They are just not prepared for unlimited access to pornography for example. They, too, need their save spaces, as ridiculous as it sounds, because they are denying them for queer people, but maybe, hopefully, at some point, they will accept them as well? Nothing against a moderate, secularized Christian collective on the web, right? In the Fediverse, this could be possible, in the social media of walled gardens, not so much.
Currently, we see heavy fighting between consumer, eco-queer, gaming and the H.P. collective, because the consumer-collective pushed too hard and eroded too many institutional and societal connections. But they are not coming out of their conundrum and their close interrelation with the consumer-collective without the nerd-collective, which is still angry because it was kicked out of the alliance a while back.
All the while, another contender is aiming for the pole-position, who wants to exploit the bickering of the ruling collectives: the crypto-Musk collective seems to join forces with the evangelical-Trumpism collective.
The remaining non-radical forces factions (yes, again with the consumer-collective) should unite to divide the two, which actually don’t even have that much in common, push through to the Fediverse and ensure a peaceful living for all of them:
Currently, the democratic forces are losing the cultural fight. But the left itself has collaborated way too long with the consumer-collective, which radicalized itself on it and now, they feel bad for it and are in turn even more radical, turning on themselves, while the nerd-collective hides away in the Fediverse with a smug face of the self-assurance that it had always been the right thing not to invest in the web anymore, because it is going to shit now anyways, when all they do is to show their own cowardice and woundedness for giving the web over to the consumer’s collective in the first place (or letting it been done by the H.P., then science-collective) and laughing their head off together with the Marxist collective in the back seats of a truck headed for disaster.
Instead, we can prevent the reign of the Musk-Crypto-Trumpism collective and instead push through to the Fediverse, were no rule by anyone is needed in the first place and everybody can have their own space. But for this to be possible, the queer collective will need to be a bit less radical themselves, because they too have becoming very protective, denying the H.P. to join the democratic part of the collectives.
And we will also need to consumer-collective to join. Because of anything, we want to prevent a trump-consumerism-musk-collective, which would be truly hell and end in a truly dystopian version of the web.
Hopefully, by pushing this whole conflict into the Fediverse, we are still able to solve it to prevent worse, although I’m not anymore so sure about this happening in time …
We should anyways remind ourselves that whichever parts of the collectives map we don’t like – they will not disappear, and we need to learn to tolerate them and only act actively out on them, if they radicalize themselves too much. On the contrary: I would argue that each of the collectives have specific use; I for example was introduced to programming on the web through the gaming collective, to its communities through Harry Potter and to collaborating and actively shaping this space through the open-source and Fediverse-community; and I think most people on the web have a history on multiple of these collectives, while probably feeling closer to some than to others.
To summarize: we take the whole battle somewhere else: the Fediverse. There, the democratic forces of the web can re-order themselves and take a strong stand against trumpist and musk-collectives, which have a much worse standing in this environment (at least if their goal is to divide the rest of the web).
The future of the web depends on it.
The Goal: On Uniting the Web
If this is what the so-called cultural war actually looks like:
Why are the democratic forces loosing? Well, because they can’t get over their quarrelling and just unite.
Of course, the nerd-collectives want to protect the new land that they discovered and not lose it like last time, but to same the web and democracy as a whole, they may need to voluntarily open it up to others to stop greater bad from happening even though they may still want some kind to do it right: they have no choice but to urge them to join.
And suddenly, the situation looks a whole lot of different:
And now who is winning the cultural war?
Another Obstacle, or: The Promised Land
(Disclaimer: Of course, migrating into the Fediverse is something different and in no way literary comparable to the actual colonialization of America with their history of colonialism and slavery)
Many has already been written about the joining of the Fediverse by Threads and what can be said for sure, is that there is a big nervousness about it. And one of the biggest (if not the biggest) reason for this is not that Threads might exploit its power. That’s basically a given. But that the arrival of Threads will mean big change. Many new citizens will come into the Fediverse, and they will be much different from the ones that are there currently and probably, the Fediverse will look afterwards much different than today. In other words: the arrival of Threads means first of all: change.
There is no guarantee that these people will show respect to the Fediverse or it’s implicit rules. On the contrary, it can almost be expected that they don’t care for them. Many of them won’t even know that they are on the Fediverse and will expect the same that from walled garden social media.
And: many of the ones that want to actually build and shape it, will be quite radical. Like it has always been: the first travels are those that seek adventure and leave behind something, they come with very high hopes and often enough, these hopes are not met. Nevertheless, the Fediverse should try to build a place, in which all collectives can thrive, if they hold themselves to some basic rules thus ensuring cooperation or at least a basic sense of coexistence.
So: expect for the next big surge of the Fediverse the Fanatics, looking for their promised Land
Somewhat like with America, the first settlers were puritans, narrow and brutal in their views. And like that, it’s also on the web. But it makes sense: they are looking for the promised land. And it doesn’t mean that one day, they can’t be the shoulders on which the west rests.
If the promises are true, the Fediverse will soon be a sprawling ecosystem, meaning money and hopes (https://www.theverge.com/23990974/social-media-2023-fediverse-mastodon-threads-activitypub) – just like the new land in its time. This will of course also attract fortune and adventure seekers; and those looking for something like their own promised land, like the settlers of America of their time. And these are also often enough fanatics of some sort or the other. Nevertheless, they will be crucial when building the Fediverse and its future. Therefore, we need to think about which people we want to attract and maybe even court first.
This means for the different collectives, the first people to come will be the following:
Pop-queens: swifties, etc.
Marxists: Marxist-leninists
Nerds: ethical hackers, anarchists, die-hard-Linux-enthusiasts etc.
Eco-Queers: radical activists
Christians: evangelicals
Consumers: ?
Musk-Fanboys: Crypto-Bros
Gamers: Streamers
Harry Potter: Potter Heads
And if they are coming, even if it might feel wrong to think that way, we do need to think in which state these collectives currently are and which of them we should invite to join the Fediverse and promote it in their collectives and which are currently in not a good state, and we should try to keep away from the Fediverse for now. In my opinion, the Christian/traditional collective and the crypto collective are not in a good state currently.
It can be said in general that, because they are settlers, the first members of the collectives that will come will be rather radical, outcasts, having nothing to lose, meaning they will push the collectives in the Fediverse to their radical edges, straining their principles or overstepping them, meaning it will at the beginning even harder to keep them together and uphold principles of liberality and cooperation. First there will probably be chaos. Who comes into the Fediverse to help build it, usually wants something out of it: some dream to come true. To reach some kind of promised land, straining the room the Fediverse gives.
But as already seen on the Fediverse, this seems to be manageable: the Fediverse may actually be the place in which the collectives might breathe again and find their stance again to fight the un-democratic forces in its own middle. Maybe it actually has enough room to give all of these dreams enough space that they might just seem possible, while always keeping them from becoming reality by checks from the other collectives.
In a sense, this is also re-assuring: it doesn’t really change that much. Everything already exists on the web, it will just soon even more come to the light and hopefully, we manage to pull it back onto a healthier course.
What we definitely need to prevent is the world tumbling into a world war because they don’t understand the power of their own technology, like it was in World War 1, and which is considered by many (though I don’t completely agree on this) to be the root catastrophe of the twentieth century. Why not learn from history and just don’t do it this time and instead unite and talk? After all, we all have the right to strive for happiness, whatever that might look like, as long as it stays under the hood of liberal democracy.
The silver lining in all of this is that most of the collectives are already here: Christian, Marxists, Harry Potter Fans, Crypto bros, and it works fine enough. At the same time, the Fediverse is still little, but to unite the web and overcome these boundaries that divide us, it needs to grow.
But for that, we need to untangle the whole unfortunate situation of the quarrelling collectives in walled gardens and get them in the Fediverse somehow.
A Possible Solution: A Union with the H.P. Collective (the Queer-Potter-Nerd-Coalition)
I think we can agree that the current situation isn’t exactly great:
It simply doesn’t work like that. It leaves us divided and produces more and more conflicts, which have their effect in the real world as well. The Fediverse is the only thing that can save this from escalating. Now some people will say that some of these collectives we don’t want on the Fediverse. But if someone should be for plurality, it should be those in the Fediverse (as long as they hold themselves to certain principles of course)! But how to get this whole thing started?
Not that it will be very easy to pull the collectives out of their walled garden misery. Many sure still want to stay. The pop queens for example just like the consumers will surely not be interested in building their own place on the web. They want everything already setup nice and clean. And while the gamers probably have the second-best builders (after all, they are already starting to build their own Metaverse on Roblox and Minecraft) they currently have their own problem with toxicity.
So far, the coalition with the queer collective has proven to be very beneficial for both sides, but it won’t be enough: we still need an important ingrediency, maybe the most important of it all: stories and a collective with a fable for them. And in the best case, it would also be willing to help building the Fediverse. The Potter collective has lots of artists, they are the masters of fanfiction, as well as builders and have also deep roots in the queer collective (even though culturally, they are currently someway at odds).
Instead, if we take a look at the people that are already on Threads and that will soon join the Fediverse. Let’s face it: most of them only know walled gardens. They simply won’t get the Fediverse for a long time. The potter heads on the other hand, were always there when the web made a new shift, and they have definitely emancipated themselves from Rowling. And even if some of them aren’t: discuss it with them. The Fediverse is big enough for this. Let’s show the world what the Fediverse is capable of in terms of overcoming borders and in terms of plurality while still fighting for our values. And with their stories and sheer cultural impact, they could give the whole thing some kind of momentum.
In this sense, I think the intolerance of the queer collective stems from the experience that they had on the web in the last decades: that of abuse and harassment in online spaces because of a lack of moderation in spaces operated by the consumer collectives, like for example on Tumblr and big walled garden social media. And because of that, they are now very protective of whom they want to ally with. But this could proof to be ineffective. I think when building a new web that should not be dominated by the consumer collective, we should get all the help that we can get. If we instead try to create the perfect save space, we will only further radicalize. Let’s not kid ourselves that only Christians can develop totalitarian, sect-like structures if pushing for too much safety.
In summary: Potters are alright, and more than that: they could be very good allies in their skills and in their spirit. So yes, I think the best collective to seek out would be the Potter Heads, because they are the ones that could be actually interested in building their own place on the web, as well as having the right conviction to hold against the bad parts of the web. Because they did it before: they build their forums, their own websites, they will be a driving force of the Fediverse anyways, the question is whether we will greet them or try to fight them. If we could win them as our allies, we could really create a shift on the web and it also makes sense: the evangelicals used to burn Harry Potter books. Harry Potter used to be avant-garde! Let’s not forget that.
This could already be enough to shift the tide on the web towards democracy: maybe consumerism, Swifties and Gamers will move over and we can divide evangelicals/trumpists and crypto bros!
I think, it is quite promising:
The Nerds would have the tech
The Queers would have the moral conviction for moderation and building save communities
The Potters would have the stories and cultural heritage to fill it with life
For the rest of the web: we are actually more united than we think; in this sense: Nerds, Queer Folks and Potter Heads Unite! The Swifties, Gamers and Consumers will follow on foot!
Instead of hiding away in our shelters, hoping that somehow, it will all turn out all right, we should do what we do best: building. For example a Harry Potter/Hogwarts instance on Lemmy and Mastodon. We should actively aim for a better position on the web of the future and by this, being able to shape its development instead of just reacting to it.
TL;DR: The web is entering a new era, in which communities can move independently through the digital landscape. Parallels with the book “Dawn of Everything” by Graeber and Wengrow suggest that the Fediverse could enable the exploration of alternative social structures, just like it was in early human history. The coexistence of diverse collectives within the wide landscapes of the Fediverse could be a factual step to a more varied future of society.
In the non-fiction book “The Dawn of Everything”, David Graeber and David Wengrow manage at the same time to dismantle the legend of humanities steady growth as a linear process, as well as that of an original ideal state of equality, which makes the book genuily progressive. And the Fediverse could be just the thing to enable this progress of again opening up societies to a bigger variety of forms.
As explained in my last post, the web is currently beginning to open up again to innovation, but instead of technological, it will primarily be of societal nature this time. And because communities will be the prominent entity of this time, similar to the result of the dot com era, the powerful digital structures that will emerge from this time will also be communities; very big communities or: collectives that will have a great impact not only on the web, but on the world and humanity as a whole.
If we zoom in on opening up of living styles in the history of humanity, which has already been going on for quite some time, for example, we see an opening up of living styles beyond the christian nuclear family and new societal institutions due to globalisation and the rise of liberal democracy into what some call “the global village”:
We are already in this process of opening up but have, one could easily think, come to a point where it doesn’t seem to work anymore, because different communities clash in fights and it even seems that at this point impossible that these different societal groups will be able to live peacefully in the same society. At the same time, a development that is similar (although of course not the same) currently unfolds on the web.
Let me try to explain the process with an analogy that shouldn’t (obviously) be taken literary but works very good as a metaphor here; that is, to view the evolution of the web and how it could look like in a petri dish:
Now, let’s add some energy to it:
What happens is that live is created, in this case, the first website, which people can visit.
Now, if we add some more energy to it, we get more websites for more people to visit:
At some point, an open-source community will develop around the whole thing on which other sites can build on to build even bigger websites:
This eventually leads to big players dominating the web, while the open-source foundation grows:
Now, the growth of these big bubbles is limited, while the open-source community grows and at some point, becomes alive itself and so gives the ground for smaller, but interconnected social media servers, resulting in the social web:
Communities can now travel across the complete web, which gradually dismantles and re-orders the landscape of the web:
While before, users and their communities were limited to specific sites, now they can move across the web.
At a certain point, these communities will stabilize into what one could call “collectives” … resulting in the “Collective Web”, which is dominated not anymore by platforms or communities but collectives.
As an overview, the following graphic comes up:
And especially the second two stages (social and collective web) are interesting now, because they could give the process of humanities’ trying out of new forms of society a new ground to fully unfold.
In a sense, it’s only logical: the opening up of living styles at some point also would need to be represented in the digital world and, would need a huge amount of room to occur. The web of platforms and walled gardens cannot be the place for that, Twitter never nearly lived up to its standard of becoming the digital representation of that global village. The Fediverse on the other hand, in which it develops, could give the necessary room for this to happen. So, while in the analogue world we are already in the middle of it, on the web, we are at the beginning of this.
But for that, this opening up needs to happen. Otherwise, we drift off towards authoritarianism. And of course, this is also a thing that could happen.
Now, at the beginning of the dot com era, all the companies that would later be the big players in the Web 2.0 where already there: a marketplace, a place to meet other people, a search engine, a place to sell your stuff, etc. All the big companies that we nowadays almost simultaneously associate with the term “web”, they were all already there – so if we ask ourselves: what could be the collectives of the Collective Web? Could we think about which they could be when we look at the societal structures on the early Fediverse? Because maybe, structures like these will in a decade be one of these big collectives.
So now, one could already think about how these collectives will look like, although they will also probably merge with the communities of current social media, so it’s probably too early to tell and that’s why it’s not what we will do here. Instead of making overly hypothetical guesses at what the actual collectives will look like (if they will occur at all; which again, is not given), we will try again to look at the broader picture and apply the hopeful rise of the social/collective web on the conclusions of Graeber and Wengrow’s non-fiction book “Dawn of Everything”.
Coming now finally to David Graeber and ‘s “Dawn of Everything”, the possibilities of the Fediverse aligns with the authors’ observed exploration of alternative social structures throughout human history. Graeber and Wengrow challenge conventional narratives about the inevitability of hierarchical institutions and emphasize the existence of diverse and egalitarian forms of organization in early human history. And by that, they pose the question: if it was possible back then, why shouldn’t it be possible now?
Just as they advocate for a re-examination of societal structures, the Fediverse presents a platform that poses as an alternative to centralized social media. It echoes the authors’ call to question established norms and embrace alternative ways of organizing human interaction. In the spirit of “Dawn of Everything,” the Fediverse becomes a digital counterpart, a decentralized space where individuals can shape their communities and express their values without succumbing to the limitations imposed by walled gardens.
Moreover, the Fediverse mirrors the authors’ exploration of coexistence and diversity in human societies throughout history. Just as Graeber and Wengrow argue for the acknowledgment of various social arrangements, the Fediverse facilitates the coexistence of diverse lifestyles and ideas. It becomes a digital space where people can connect based on shared interests and values, fostering a sense of community that transcends the atomization of society and hyper-individualism discussed for example by Anton Jäger in his book “Hyperpolitik”.
In essence, the Fediverse aligns with the spirit of “Dawn of Everything” by offering a contemporary example of decentralized, diverse, and non-hierarchical social interaction. It provides a digital landscape rather than a closed space, where individuals can reclaim agency over their online presence.
How would this look like in practice?
Well, you would have a multitude of different collectives to join, usually, you will also be born into a collective. Of course, inter-collective relationships will also be possible.
Collectives have different traits, living styles and styles to organize themselves. Some organize themselves with the help of AI and extensive data collection, others don’t like surveillance and make use of open collective knowledge, while again others will try to implement non-hierarchical styles of governing.
The major point is here, that the Fediverse is big enough to give all of these collectives enough room to unfold (given that they stick to the ground rules of liberal democracy) and in this, not only let us overcome the political ground fights that we are fighting currently, solve conflicts much more effectively and to a certain degree, unite the forces of liberal democracy; but on top of that, let’s us enter a new stage of humanity, in which different societal concepts and ideologies could be actually implemented in (hopefully relatively) peaceful coexistence with one another. And this way, concepts of communities, forms of society and governing, that until now were only being able to try and discuss in theory, can actually tried out in practice; and this way, new forms will also prove themselves to work and can be applied on scale, which does not necessarily mean that it will make our lives more enjoyable, exciting or overall liveable; but it will give us a much better potential to achieve just that.
Thanks for reading. Most of what I write on this blog is heavily based on hypothesis, so feedback and discussion of it is always welcome. FYI: I got some of these ideas from the podcast “Die sogenannte Gegenwart” by zeit.de, especially the following episode, which I can really recommend: https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2022-12/mastodon-twitter-nutzer-feuilleton-podcast
TL;DR: The internet’s evolution mirrors historical societal development. Transitioning from web2 to the social web and ultimately to web4 signifies a transformative shift akin to the end of the Middle Ages and the dawn of modernity, with the ultimate goal of achieving liberal democracy. In the style of the Dot Com Boom, the social web will witness the rise of influential digital forces, which will in this case be global collectives, shaping the digital and societal landscape. Web4, characterized by these decentralized collectives, offers the potential for positive change within the liberal democracy framework; with the possibility of reaching the actual end of history for homo sapiens and the entering of a new stage for humanity, in which a new form of human will emerge: the homo digitalis.
What will the web of tomorrow look like? So far, the big promises of crypto bros haven’t proofed themselves to be true: whatever web3 supposed to look like, it’s not nearly there. But something will come, right? Sure, and decentrality sure will be a part of it, but not in the way people expect it to be. So let me open the crack in the monolith of walled gardens and show you a glimpse of this new world that I discovered to a completely new chapter, yes, a new evolutionary step of the web: the social web, and after that: web4 and why it could mean a re-run of the seemingly already decided debate of the end of history.
If you believe the silicon-valley-bros, development in the digital can only looked at through one lens: that of technological and economic growth:
If you focus only on that, you naturally end up with something like the Metaverse or Token-Utopias.
… but as it turns out not so surprisingly, none of these dreams seems very enjoyable, liveable or even sympathetic to most people, we intuitively recoil at the thought of them, they seem cold and human-unfriendly and that’s because there is no potential for societal capital in them. But in the Fediverse, there is plenty of that. For community and for stories. Actually, it’s a hub for both of those things. If the bitcoin movement was driven by the promise of money, the Fediverse will be driven by stories and the promise of community.
It seems like these days, people are unable to look in the future, even make a guess at it and therefore, are afraid of it. Because if there is no future, all you are left with is the boring, horrible, eternal now – a future without perspective. That’s because in most of our current cultural tech-dreams: AI, crypto and the Metaverse, there is no potential for societal growth in it, and as individuals in a society, we see the future through this potential – through stories. But because big tech has almost completely eroded what was left of societal structures, people are more and more unable to do that. Even though of course, it is not that hard to imagine the future if you think of it in terms of societal growth: if you think of it as being part of some kind of bigger societal structure like the catholic church in its old days but digital and more diverse and much more of them. Then of course the look in the future becomes much more outlined and with more joy, it stabilizes, because you can get a grasp of it.
It’s not a new iteration, it’s a new evolutionary step of the web. But humanity will probably go through new iterations in this web stage, until they reach the next one and eventually, overcome being human.
That’s why in the following, we will take a stab at looking at development in the digital from a different perspective, that of societal growth:
1. A new Perspective – Comparison of different Outlooks on the Web and trying out an alternative that doesn’t feel dystopian
“‘Solutionism’ for me is, above all, an unthinking pursuit of perfection – by means of technology – without coming to grips with the fact that imperfection is an essential feature of liberal democracy.”
– Evgeny Morozov
But why is that? Why isn’t this usually done? Why does it seem almost like a contradiction? For that, first of all, let us look at some of the prospects of the web that are currently debated.
First of all, you have of course the web3 of the crypto-bros and of course that of walled-gardens-companies like Meta:
Both of these prospects are dead ends and lead to nightmarish dystopias. They don’t only seem unpleasant; they will be unpleasant. People are right in their instinct there.
Why are these two so bad?
First of all, they look very different; and for the first one: no one can really explain to you what it will look like, because as a societal blueprint, it just doesn’t make any sense and will just result in chaos and authoritarianism. No one ever would try to run a kindergarten or school based on blockchain, it just doesn’t make any sense. That’s an advantage by the second one: it’s the logical conclusion from the current web. Not that that would be exactly so great and it wouldn’t be an actual progress as we will see later.
What they do have in common is that the digital world becomes more and more independent and separate from the “real” world. This, of course, is not true, because the two are inseparably linked. Instead, it’s a certain world view that views society as a certain thing that certain parts of society are responsible for and the digital world, for which other people are responsible for (of course usually Silicon Valley people). In this sense, progress in the digital world is only thought of as technically and economically, because everything else would threaten the dominance of tech people in the digital world and is therefore out ruled by default. However, if we follow this line of thought, we end up in a dystopian world, in which the digital world is completely separate from our analogue world and tech people that build this world try to keep it completely separate. In other words: our current web, which doesn’t mean that it couldn’t get worse, for example in form of the Metaverse. People and society should feel responsible for the digital world, which doesn’t mean keeping out companies entirely; but also, not leaving it to them entirely.
But of course, the two things aren’t separate, in fact, the digital can be thought of much more as an extension of the societal beyond our analogue world; and in that sense, we shouldn’t let the creation of that space go solely to the a-social nerds of the Silicon Valley. They have a small sense of society and societal institutions in general and like to think of the web in categorizes of absolutist rule.
Then there are also left-liberal prospects like web0, which basically tries to go a step back in the evolutionary ladder again and basically “take another go” at it.
But surprise: big platforms were bound to happen and if you just turn back the clock, you will either be stuck with the old web, or they will happen again. So, this doesn’t work either: it’s naïve and has nothing to do how society currently works, and also kind of romantized the web as it was in the early days. It’s the same as idealizing nomadic tribes and wanting to turn the clock back there to avoid the development of private property. It’s socialist, nostalgic daydreaming.
Is this really all we got? Is there nothing better that we could come up with?
Sure, there is! And it comes out of the cradle of good old liberalism. So then, there is another idea, which focuses on the social aspect of the web and does not exclude unlimited growth, which kind of makes sense, because after all, the idea behind the web and the internet more over, was always to connect people and groups of people to one another even over great distances to an always increasing degree. Naturally, this would result in always bigger groups of people being able to emerge in society and therefore also new institutions, etc. Here, you can also think of several stages that can be achieved and maybe this is really the most promising way the web could go in the next years: it will open itself up again and branch out again like a tree.
The question is what will come after that.
During the 2000s, a similar thing happened with the dot com boom. After that, a few platforms emerged. Will now happen the same thing, too? Probably, but instead of even bigger platforms, this time, new social structures will emerge from it: dezentralized, global collectives, which will hold the potential for huge amounts of societal capital and the potential for a liberal, democratic system in the web.
So, to summarize, these are the options we have:
Of course, continuing like currently could get us in the position to get a stab at the social web again, but that’s not necessarily the case. So we should take the chance while we have it.
Will we take the right path? I don’t know. But if we do, stuff could get interesting again.
But why interesting? What could be so interesting about societal growth? Often people say to me they don’t know what this development should look like. Well, its already developing. Just look at the development-eras of Humanities’ Lifestyles, resulting in always larger societal structures and systems (national, continental, global, inter-planetary, etc.):
2. The Digital Enlightenment, or: The Second long Journey of Humanity towards the End of History
“In neoliberal thought the market is an allocation device … it’s an infrastructure of seeking and allowing for greater of social interaction and it’s a device which allows people to withdraw and form their own communities with all sorts of constraints and restraints …”
“The organizing religious myth at the core of neoliberalism is that you only have two options: the market and the state and there is nothing in between and if you don’t do the market you’ll eventually end up in Gulag. And that’s just not the story … it’s partially correct … yes, you can run society as a black box. And by running it as a black box, you can essentially coordinate effectively with all sorts of … externalities and uh … do we really need them? And if we don’t need them the question becomes what other alternatives and possibilities and infrastructures of social coordination, discovery and becoming do we need?”
“It seems obvious to me that the basic story accepted by the neoliberals but also many on the left is that the choice is the choice between more market or more state. Its incorrect. There are plenty ways we coordinate … if you look at a basic school, there is a lot of complexity because there are a lot of pupils and teachers and rooms, and this complexity is solved with a very simple device called the timetable, which, as far as I’m concerned, is neither an example of the market nor of the state.”
“Positive liberty is the possession of the power and resources to act in the context of the structural limitations of the broader society which impacts a person’s ability to act, as opposed to negative liberty, which is freedom from external restraint on one’s actions.”
– Wikipedia, based on Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty”
You can decide yourself which of these outlooks you find the most likely, but at least the social web would be something that one feels an immediate sense of familiarity. And usually, new things don’t come as something completely new, but as something familiar. Because it can already observed that something like this is already happening: people flock to one another over continents, they start movements, etc. People want to connect and it’s only a matter of time until bigger societal structures as well as new (or old but updated) institutions emerge from that.
In combination with the societal observations of the last section, we can make a fundamental observation here: the development of the web resembles that of the development of human society – and we are currently on the brink of leaving the middle ages.
So, to summarize, the development will look something like this and one can here make the hypothesis that this process, the process of social life on the web, follows a similar process than that of societies in the real world: toward liberal democracy, which some described as the end of history.
The Dawn of the Age of Renaissance as a comparison makes sense: you have AI and bitcoin alchemists promises whatnot as well as societal upheavals. Also, people were questioning absolutist rule of the time (just as the absolute rule of the spaces in the digital world). This time was also characterized by many revolutions and radical societal changes and upheavals. Through all of this the first light of the enlightenment and universalism is shining like a light in the darkness. How many more wars do we need to realize that we need to unite?
The time makes also sense through a second lense: the catholic church provided stability over centuries, now, new forms of living styles are emerging and eventually, they will result in different, dezentralized collectives, which need to come to terms over their shared values, which could result in something like a uni-polar state on the web on which everybody of which states its supports can have a dual-citizenship for. In this sense, too, web4 could mark the end of history, from which humanity itself will need to evolve itself from.
Each of these stages comes with its own characteristica and dynamics. For web2, we had enshittification and erosion of societal structures, for web3 we will have instance protectionism, defederation threats and shared federation policies, as well as stabilization of societal structures and for web4, the same things on the collective level (protectionism, diplomatic mediation, shared trait deals, further development of collectives). And each of these characteristica eventually leads to the end of the stage and the beginning of the next, or a fallback, that’s why they also can be exploited in different ways to influence the outcome of this process. In the case of our current web2, this happened with the buying of Twitter by Musk. Maybe without that, we wouldn’t have had now the potential of another evolutionary step forward for the web, just as the absolutistic rule of Ludwig the 14th was an important contra-figure for liberalism. On the other hand, if Meta decides to pull the plug on it’s entering in the Fediverse, the whole process might be stopped before it even started. Nothing is given here.
But if it happens, it will be much better than web2 currently. It will not solve all our problems, but it will get us into a better position to fight these problems. If we continue to believe in liberal democracy and make use of these potentials.
3. Will this time be the actual end of History? (and what may come after that)
“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such … That is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
– Francis Fukuyama
The term “end of history” refers to a concept popularized by political philosopher Francis Fukuyama in the late 20th century. In his 1989 essay and subsequent book, Fukuyama argued that the collapse of communism and the triumph of liberal democracy marked the endpoint of ideological evolution, suggesting that liberal democracy represented the ultimate and final form of human government. He contended that with the end of the Cold War, there would be no significant ideological challengers to liberal democracy, making it the ultimate destination in the evolution of political systems. However, this idea has been debated and critiqued by various scholars over the years.
In this sense, web4 will not mark the end of history, but it will enable humanity to reach it. Now, in the analogue world, the end of history proved to be a wrong prediction – but could it maybe hold its promises in the digital world? Will it be the true end of history for the homo sapiens? Maybe. And what will come after that?
After this second journey, the end of history may need to be newly evaluated – maybe, it really could be reached through this. But what exactly do we end up with after this? If analogue and digital world are aligned under liberal democracy? Actually, I don‘t know, but at least in the last decades, it provided a long time of stability and peace. I think, we will end up with a new human: the homo digital (who has digital agency) and we must try to get up to that stage as many people as possible (in the sense of post humanism). And let‘s see what we will develop from that on.
In the social web, we will all become digital nomads and in web4, will become true digital citizens, or: homo digitalis (human will full digital agency); or we will at least be able to.
So the question is: this Homo Digitalis- will the Digital End of History mark the actual End of History for Homo Sapiens as well? Maybe liberal democracy was the best thing for humans to come up with – but homo digitalis will come up with something better, let‘s see. But for now, while we are not homo digitalis, liberal democracy on the web seems like a decent goal.
The highest skill of humans, in which regard we are also better than AI is that we have so great social skills that we can form complex social structures. This will be the basis for the next development step of humans.
We thrive for the Digital Renaissance Human, who acquires a wide range of skills like the renaissance human.
And with that, we enter the age of the digital renaissance and the eventual emerge of the collectives. These dezentralized communities will be like their own cities or civilizations on the web, with AI and mixed reality playing some role, sure some collectives will also try out to apply big planning systems in the socialist tradition based on big data and maybe even crypto; and humanity will develop on from that. The point is: it gives humans and human society the space it needs.
And let’s face it: the big if misguided dreams behind the web3 and the Metaverse that basically promise all of that, will never fulfil that dream to even a basic degree. They are in their understanding of what societies look like and have always looked like, incredible stupid. There will no giant crypto-DAOs and nothing of this will lead to a democratization. What will actual lead to a democratization would be the thing that, not so surprisingly, also managed to do that in the real world for decades: liberal democracy with its roots in the age of enlightenment. Maybe crypto will play a part in that, I don’t want to out rule that, but certainly it will not be the single driving force. Don’t believe the people that promise to turn stone into gold. Believe in human’s gift to build societal structures and one of its best practices that has been applied successfully countless times before: liberal democracy.
Now, all of that doesn’t mean that we will actually reach the next evolutionary step. I could be that after the social web, we move back to web2 again and enshittification starts again. Then, it really will have been only an iteration and an evolutionary step forward. It could also be that we never take this step forward toward the social web and just stay in web2. Meta decides to recoil and the whole show continues.
Why isn’t that the usual pitch of your favourite silicon-valley-bro? Well, because like an increasing number of people, they don’t have a very high opinion on liberal democracy or actual liberal values that are about positive liberties instead of negative liberties. Also, because often they have a very limited or even stupid knowledge of societal processes and that they don’t know that they thank their innovative power to the liberal democracy. Of course, it’s also about giving up power here. They don’t like societal structures and want social forces kept little, just as they want sociological agency only to the degree where it happens in their own defined spaces.
So maybe, we should think building a new Silicon Valley that values liberal democracy. The Fediverse could be a good place to start.
Basically, it could have been expected: that people will at one point start to build their cities and bigger societal structures on the web. The silicon valley bros just don’t want to believe that we are capable to do that, or that we even want that.
In this sense, the collapse of the uni-polar world order led by the US is not a contradiction of the theory and the end of liberal democracy as the best of all systems, but only a symptom of the same battle but in the digital; and hopefully, at the end of this process, liberal democracy will come out successfully out of it again and, with analogue and digital world aligned, lead to a new age of prosperity for the western model.
The current upheavals in the west are therefore only the pains of birth to an updated version of the same thing and what the Trump-US, some conservatives (and also in parts, if not quite in its intensity, the liberal left) tried to do in the last years politically is the desperate attempt to prevent this update (which will probably result in disaster if tried too hard on both sides). However, let’s hope we manage to do the update successfully after all. That of liberal democracy 2.0. And maybe, it will be the final one for the homo sapiens. At this point, the US could still acquire a comfortable position in it and save it from failing. But the window is already beginning to close and who else should take up the mantel? But for this also traditional liberalism needs to think bold again and apply the same standards that it holds for the analogue world also in the digital! And I think it will be able to do that, because in contrast to the big political movements (socialism, conservatism and liberalism), it’s the only one that has a build-in mechanism of renewal: it continuously re-invents itself; it questions former high-held truths of earlier thinkers, re-evaluates them and thinks them anew: if now, societal institutions that were taken in the last decades for granted, we need to think how to rebuild them and maybe re-evaluate them in their importance in relation to the economy attributed to them in liberalism newly. But liberalism itself holds all the tools necessary for this. It doesn’t demand for itself that it already holds the whole truth like socialists (and also libertarians), but it tries to thrive for it as best as possible. And, with its universalism, it also holds the current best solution to eternal conflicts that we see us in the face of again these days.
Sure, the west, led by the US did mistakes in the past. The answer of left-liberals is here that the west doesn’t work, and it should be replaced with something else; when asks what, they quickly run out of arguments just like libertarians. Traditional liberals would answer: yes, we need to improve, but our the system is the only one that got the potential to get better and renew itself from within without violence over long amounts of time, because it’s inadequacy is constantly assumed rather than ignored and therefore doesn’t need to be overcome with violence. Also, this makes it the most uncomfortable political stance, because there is never the security or even the prospect of “having made it” that all other political streams offer: instead, there is eternal learning and re-invention, which does induce a form of existential dread, but which has to endured as long as possible; for the single human and for humanity in general; because otherwise, only darkness awaits.
In any case, I hope that I could give you a glimpse into this giant universe that I find and that we will probably get sucked into in the next couple of years; and you understand what big potential it could hold for society – if you want to explore the topic further, you can read the other posts on my blog, or search for the Fediverse on the web. Have fun and all the best in the Fediverse!
Currently, people feel lost – the homo digitalis though, always feels a sense of belonging. We will look back on our former selves … and feel deeply sad for them.
Currently, people on the Fediverse seem to try to turn it into a fortress for the post-Biden era. What about a different approach: why don’t we try to save the status quo and then think about how to change it so we won’t need that fortress in the first place?
Main Goal: Save liberal Democracy
Five sub-goals of that:
Unite, protect and strengthen the discourse among democratic forces (create an opposition to Twitter; prevent split of democratic forces; instead unite democratic forces, overcome trench warfare, show Trumpists how actual discussions look like; division of the left might be softended through this; also make unusual allies for example with neocons, traditional conservatives or yes, J.K. Rowling; the more democratic forces are in the boat, the better, the rest is solved by federation)
Ignite the American Dream for the Dot Social Era: Show people a way in the Future
Ignite in People the Vision for a prosperous Future (the dot social era/boom, new frontier of the web, etc.)
Give People the Vision for a better Future (increase in social capital; better discourse; for a certain time continuos digital dominance of US thanks to Threads, basically things staying as they were a few decades ago; freedom of lifestyle; more social connections; building of protected digital communities)
The Fediverse should gain relevance in the public discourse of traditional media; this will happen at the latest when Threads joins Mastodon; but we should be ready before that: there should already be Podcasts, Blogs, Books, etc. so that everyone can quickly get up to speed with its concepts and vision
Rebuild social connections and structures (old and new): Foster the development of social capital. Without social capital, people cannot dream of the future and succumb to depression; also, social movements can better form and operate
Diverse and new forms of Communities: Foster diverse sets of life-styles through the Fediverse
Norman Fucking Rockwell: also here make unusual allies for example with traditional conservative institutions like religious ones, which will also be interested in creating saver or more protected online spaces
Counter Populism like on January 6: Foster Liberal Values & Institutions (help democratic institutions in the Fediverse, etc.)
Make the Fediverse Big, Fast: for all of that, the Fediverse needs to become big and as many people need to join it as possible (regardless of Meta’s Threads or the other parts); as many as possible communities on the web should be tried to get in the Fediverse (fandoms especially Harry Potter, democratic bitcoin enthusiasts, privacy advocates, open-source and linux communities, etc.)
This could be applied to any country really but it applies of course to the US this year in specifc. And always remember: if things really go down to shit, we may need to unpack Rockwell again anyways, or worse – so why not try a little structure once again before its thrust over us. First save the system, then reform it.
I think it would be very realistic to assume that already in 2024, the first global humanistic-christian collectives will develop on the Fediverse, Taylor Swift will give her first concert in the Fediverse, J.K. Rowling and Harari will join, just as eco-queer-collectives, atheist-humanistic-collectives and some bitcoin bros. It won’t be perfect, but it will be better than now.
A single, abusive entity or a group of abusive entities in the Fediverse has gained more than 51 percent of influence
They start EEE
Other instances either react by defederating, but because they only have 49 percent, due to network effects, they get extinct; or they chose to still federate, which will extinct them also because of EEE
Now, measuring influence in the Fediverse is inherently challenging, given its abstract nature. The extent of influence is tied to societal capital invested in the Fediverse, including legal and economic factors. The potential influence is also constrained by the number of users, although this is limited and may increase predictably over time. Societal factors, such as the impact of institutions like the European Union, contribute to the overall influence landscape. Despite these variables, it’s crucial to acknowledge that influence in the Fediverse remains something fundamentally limited at a certain point in time and that this limit and its hypothetical value, are strictly correlating to the size of human population.
Back to the actual threat scenario: some may recognize this, because it is basically the social equivalent to the 51% attack of crypto currencies as pointed out by @carrotcypher@reddit.com. And, as already said, of course, social influence is a different thing than actually owing parts of a crypto currency, it is hard to measure, but as the same with crypto currencies, it is fixed at a certain amount of time. I want to add to this, that, while I’m not against technical ideas per se, I want to point out that I’m opposed the societal utopias and promises of crypto kids. I believe in public institutions, our societies should be built on trust; for me, a trust-less society is a dystopia. Actually, I hope that the Fediverse will help us to rebuild institutions, which enable people to trust each other again.
However, we are nowhere near this, because currently, the Fediverse is not resilient enough for the described 51% attack. In fact, Mastodon itself would have enough influence to pull a 51% attack, but it is very unlikely to do so given the creator’s behaviour in the past. But while that’s a very lucky thing to have, the issue is that we depend on the owner of Mastodon to not sell the company to a billionaire. And while currently, the influence is heavily owned by Mastodon, if Threads gains the 1 billion users that they are going for, they may already have the amount of power to pull a 51% attack and perform EEE on the Fediverse.
Some will now ask: why can’t this attack be easily prevented with the Fedipact (fedi-instances that plan to permanently block Threads and exclude it from the Fediverse)? Well, because, at least according to some, the Fediverse will soon enter a new stage, that of full-on commercialization (https://www.theverge.com/23990974/social-media-2023-fediverse-mastodon-threads-activitypub). This will be at the latest when Threads starts federating with Mastodon and there is just no possibility that no instance will federate with Threads and companies jumping on that train as well. So it is hardly anything stopping this development and “keeping Threads little”. It will not stay little. It will become bigger and bigger and increase its influence. Either the “free” Fediverse can try to influence this or stay out of it but also cast away responsibility and watch while the Fediverse enshittificaits.
Overall, the good news here is: as long as the “free” Fediverse gains influence at the same rate Meta is gaining influence so that it never gets over the 51 percent of influence, we will be fine. On the other hand, it could become hard to manage to do just that. So, to counter-act this attack scenario, I drafted a first strategy called “Embrace, Extend, Enforce (ƎƎƎ)” in this post: https://fungiverse.wordpress.com/2023/12/28/embrace-extend-enforce-a-practical-strategy-against-potentially-abusive-instances-like-metas-threads/ Hopefully, it will be extended and applied in the future to make the Fediverse truly proof to abusive entities.
TL;DR: The common view on Meta’s Threads is that it will be either all good or all bad, leading to oversimplified and at the end contra productive propositions like the Fedipact. But in reality, it’s behaviour will most likely change dynamically over time, and therefore, to prevent us getting in a position, in which Threads can actually perform EEE on us, we need to adapt a dynamic strategy as well.
The current problem is that Threads is coming, but our current look on things is too simplified (we either see it as all-good or all-bad), which is why we have no sufficient handle against Thread’s potential advances.
To find one, we will first define a more nuanced and realistic concept for the federation behaviour of instances in general, after that observe different behaviours of instances and finally, come up with a new, general strategy to counter threads and other abusive instances in the future, to ensure the health of the overall Fediverse.
1. Problem Description
Note: After doing some reading, I came to know that the current debate in the Fediverse is in fact already much more complex, but my overall point is still relevant to the debate, I think.
Currently, we see instances still through a romantic glass and that was fine for building the social web, but with its currently starting commercialization, we need to change that to survive.
What we gained from the Fedipact/no Fedipact debate is the realisation that federation alone is not enough to ensure a functioning open social web. My proposition would therefore be to nail this down in a federation policy and enforce it as best as possible against Threads thus creating a new environment of like-minded instances that prevents the merge of an abusive EEE-instance; and try to get Threads to follow these rules as best as possible, or else take measures accordingly.
From the point of view of an instance, we see the potential behaviour of Meta’s Threads too often as either all-good or all-bad. Either it behaves nicely and federates, or it completely swallows us with EEE. In this scenario, depending on which side you are on, either the Fedipact seems like the most sensible approach: to block Meta entirely; or the approach to federate with Meta completely no matter what it does.
However, this view on things is limited and even misguiding for three reasons.
First: there will always be the possibility of abusive instances or instances becoming abusive and there needs to be a handle for these things. They could also be non-commercial ones and most likely, they already exist on the Fediverse, strategies against them are just carried out “on the go”. While corporate instances are probably more likely to be/become abusive, it would be nice to acknowledge this and talk about general ways to act here.
Secondly: as a company that has to adjust its behaviour on multiple factors (revenue, public image, legislations, etc.), it is much more likely that Meta’s strategy will change based on these factors. On the one hand, Meta has an interest in keeping the Fediverse ecosystem alive, both for public image, a reduction of societal responsibility and to ensure the growth of this market (which they want of course, but also not so surprisingly, to dominate). But at the same time, Threads will, at least at times, most likely be an abusive instance as well. Meta behaved abusive in the past, if Mastodon is drawing too many users from Threads, it will most likely fall back in this behaviour, as we are already seeing in the fact that Threads will make Federation for its user’s opt-in (while data reclamations could actually contribute to this as Meta tells us, it’s probably also because they fear to lose users).
And thirdly and most importantly, a big misconception about EEE is that it could have easily been avoided by just blocking out the new, aggressive instance and we can now learn from this by just blocking Threads no matter how it will behave. However, XMPP didn’t just die because it opened itself up to Google and got extinguished, it also lost significant relevancy independently from this. This is something that should always be kept on one’s mind: people can just leave for other servers, and they will. That’s always the consequence of defederating big instances: network effects kick in and you will lose members, which is not sustainable to put up permanently or it will result in a position, in which you have become so irrelevant that the big instance can perform EEE or doesn’t even care anymore.
And because all of that, both a more general and more dynamic strategy is needed to counter abusive instances like Threads and at the same time ensure the health of the instance for the future, for which both of the current approaches are unfit. Because then, growth will just happen in other parts of the Fediverse and we wouldn’t be part in shaping the future of the Fediverse, which could as well result in a situation, in which EEE is performed on us – we will no longer have any influence over it anymore.
Derived from these misconceptions, we can already declare some basic requirements for the new federation strategy:
1. It should reduce risk that a single instance comes into a position in which it can perform EEE on the overall Fediverse (like in the case of XMPP)
2. It should foster the instance’s own health
While none of the two currently debated approaches meets any of the two points sufficiently, it is impossible to make sure both of them are met entirely, without becoming authoritarian and effectively performing EEE itself. That’s why a third requirement should be added:
3. New instances need to be able to join instance groups that an instance could belong to and the Fediverse in general; and should have a chance to grow in their environment to ensure future innovation thus reducing risk that instance groups themselves come into a state of wanting to become abusive and perform EEE on others (like some parts of the Fediverse basically wanting to cut off Mastodon from corporate instances in general). It would also guarantee ongoing innovation.
The new strategies’ goal will be to meet these points as best as possible.
2. Definition of Federation Policies and Strategies
But before we can think about how this could look like we need to observe the general behaviour of instances with regards to their federation policies in general. For this, we will at first define some concept and in the next section, make observations with them.
2.1. Federation Policies
The central definition is that of the federation policy: a federation policy is the degree that the instance opens itself to the other instances. Instead of the two extremes “walled garden” and “fully open” I will introduce a policy scale that spans over all possible policies in between them:
As the two poles are self-explanatory, everything in between consists first of all in the fact that federation is implemented, but also more “soft” rules, e.g. on how prominent it is advertised in the UI of the clients and to what degree user attention is directed out of the own instance or their handling of hateful content and bullying.
Instances will in the following sections be depicted with respect to their position on the federation policy span as in the following picture:
Of course, instances are not fixed on this scale but can change their policy dynamically:
As can be currently observed with Threads. We can now see how limited the current look on Threads federation is: we think that it will stand on one of the two poles of this scale: they are either almost fully closed and abusive, or fully open. But between them, more practical federation policies exist on which Threads will much more likely wander dynamically over time and to which the rest of the Fediverse has to react accordingly.
2.2. Other Definitions
It should also be said that there are of course also dynamics that have been observed before like network effects: Networking effects lead to the effect that over time, in a network of walled gardens, the network with the most members will drain energy/health from the other networks.
In general, we will in the following continue to take the view of a single instance to make use of the federated nature of the Fediverse. How policies are actually come up with can of course very and also be integrated in some processes or committees.
In the depiction of the next sections, the size of the instance’s spheres will be the number of members and overall health of the instance. The environment of an instance are the instances that the instance federates with and later, instances with the same shared minimal federation policy.
3. Observed Behaviour and Rules of Instances of different federation policies over time
Of course, instances not necessarily stay at one position of this span, but adjust it dynamically based on environment’s policies (other instances they federate with) and the state/health of the own instance. In the following, rules with derived from that with respect to their environment and their federation policies.
3.1. Instance Protectionism
First of all, there is instance protectionism, which can already be observed on the Fediverse today. I define it as a significant shift of the federation policy of an instance in reaction to the federation policy shifts of other instances or in reaction to the fear of losing members, resulting in an overall shift of federation policies and a decline of health in the observed environment in general.
On Lemmy for example, this was observed when instances put their local feed as the default feed on their browser’s UI in reaction of 2023’s problem with CSAM imagery as well as the same behaviour from lemmy.world (which they have by now, changed and even promote smaller communities from other instances on their home page of the client UI).
Instances, especially smaller instances, have an interest in keeping their members on their instance to prevent dying, which is why, if too many other instances practice instance protectionism, they will do it, too, resulting in all instances practicing instances protectionism.
Like in global economics, instance protectionism can be seen as the prisoner’s dilemma that can be observed in many situations in our society, for example during the COVID-19 pandemic with shortage of toilet paper supply and as we will see later, usually only can be prevented by reminding people of their shared interests, an over-availability of the demanded resource or a common penalty of selfish behaviour.
This is especially true for environments, in which content is valuable beyond its users and cannot be taken with them if they migrate, for example on Lemmy, where a communities’ knowledge is aggregated independent from its users. That’s why, instances will try to get as much of that knowledge as possible, because it will increase their lifespan: having a valuable Lemmy community on your instance is very good. Also, users will drift towards the servers on which their communities and most nodes of the social graphs are. That’s why a promotion of the local-feed as the default feed, is in the interest of the average Lemmy instance if it has no consequences, but will result in an overall decline of discussion quality and health of the Lemmyverse.
However, with the biggest Lemmy instance, lemmy.world, changing its default feed to all and even promoting communities of smaller instances, maybe this will be the start for a shift away from instance protectionism on Lemmy. So, instance protectionism is a difficult problem, but one that can be dealt with if big instances take responsibility.
3.2. Instances drift toward the policy of the most influential instance, which in an unprotected environment, leads to instance protectionism and ultimately, a transformation toward walled-gardens and the creation of a monopoly
As already partly described in the last section, in an observed environment, there is a drift of policy toward the biggest actor’s federation policy.
Why? Because members of the smaller instances can read all of the big instances’ posts, but their own posts get way less attention and therefore interaction, because they aren’t read by the big instance. This way, members will flee toward the big instance and the smaller instances will need to draw measures accordingly to save their own instances health. That means, because of network effects, it draws members from the other instances, abusing its power.
This results in closing of federation, e.g. by advertising the federation-feed less prominently or closing sign-ups. Now why should instances do that? Well, because instances want to survive. There can be several live stages observed and if an instance doesn’t manage to reinvent itself and it sees no other option, it will slow down the dying-process by putting on a stricter federation policy.
This means in summary: the big instance is drawing instances to it in terms of its abusive policy, result in a general drift of the instances towards walled gardens or in other words: instance protectionism. Ultimately, this will result in all instances becoming walled gardens and because of network effects, only the biggest one to survive.
3.3. Shared Federation Policies can prevent this process or at least slow it down
This can be solved with a minimal shared federation policy that a certain group of instances agree themselves upon:
There will still be drift towards the big instance:
Which is why they will ultimately acquire the same federation policy and cut themselves off from the rest:
Now, the group with the same policy has in fact embraced the same policy as the big green instance, but internally, they still have a diverse federation policy, which results in a much better position for them. They still get drained off energy, because of network effects, but not as much as before. And the biggest instance in their environment is not acting abusive. And even though to the outside, they are just another walled garden, this is fine, if they still support widely adopted protocol and don’t do EEE, which will be prevented if the policy was defined well and enough of the members actually mean it. Also, if they are bigger than the green instance, they can even gain members form it due to network effects. The green instance will be under pressure to join the federation policy, too.
Of course, you could now observe the new environment separated by the federation policy as well. But if the biggest actor behaves well there, it should work fine.
Here we can make the next observation: the biggest instance should have the most (or at least a generously) open federation behaviour that goes beyond the agreed policy.
Of course, this environment could become very big, but this is not bad here, because the goal is in fact to foster a healthy environment in Fediverse and if that environment is healthy, it will allow new instances to join and grow. And if it turns from healthy to unhealthy, instances will leave it and join a healthier environment based on the strategy defined in the second next section.
This means the focus now shifts from instances to environments and the goal of the strategy should be to ensure a healthy, prosperous environment, which by its nature, wouldn’t do EEE or else fall apart, because there would be too much resistance by its members. And it wouldn’t be bad if this would make up the majority of the future Fediverse, in fact, it could even be considered healthy and the ideal state that we should thrive for.
The strategy of the next sections should be able to sustain such a healthy environment and help healthy, federated instances/environments to grow and even softly dominate the Fediverse, such that the emergence of an abusive instance is permanently prevented. This would not mean the implementation of a monopoly: it would be a system that tries to prevent a monopoly in itself.
Now if environments would also become the main subject of our observations, we would need to define them; however, we can just state that all environments are also instances, just with more complex insides and a higher health state. Instances, which practice EEE have very bad health state. This way, not much changes about the observations.
4. How could the ideal Instance Environment look like that prevents abusive Instances from becoming too big?
How would this ideal environment look like? Well, it would consist of instances that uphold what I call “Principles of Fair Federation” as a shared federation policy. What these principles exactly look like will probably be something that will come over time and maybe even change dynamically over time. Hopefully, federation can help us out here, because it will hopefully naturally find the best shared federation policy and a good handle against Threads. If then enough of the instances mean it and stick to it, they can permanently prevent the emergence of an abusive instance. This would be successful, if many followed them, because else the rule wouldn’t be enforced and would essentially mean nothing. Then, if an instance became abusive, it could be excluded from the environment and would lose members. Here, an abusive instance is not able to gain any footing.
That’s also why it would be good if no instance would be bigger than the two second-biggest instances together, because then, it could perform EEE on its own environment.
The biggest environment of federating instances that based on a common policy works against abusive instance, could be called something like the “Fair Federating Fediverse” or “Fair Federating Open Social Web”, and in the future, this will hopefully be the thing that we commonly associate with the Fediverse/Open Social Web. This would essentially mean the implementation and enforcing of a global, shared policy of Fair Federation, which would make the Fair Federating Fediverse the dominant force in the Fediverse and permanently prevent instances like Threads from becoming abusive.
5. A Strategy to implement and keep in place a global, shared policy of Fair Federation
Now a strategy for an instance would need to work towards the Fair Federating Fediverse by both driving the acknowledgement of instances to principles of Fair Federation and enforcing that they are upheld. This way, the fair federating Fediverse could come into existence and it’s on-living ensured. At the same time, of course, an instance also wants to profit and grow from this fair Fediverse or at least stay healthy, which the strategy should also include.
Additionally, there is the third requirement that concern new instances, which is vital to the health of the Fediverse. Because support of small instances is necessary. First of all, opening up a social network to federation always poses a risk: there is a significant chance on growing the network just as well as loosing members that migrate. Therefore, every instance that federates and applies to a certain policy should be welcomed with open arms and given a chance to grow. On top of that, there needs to be an implicit control on the quality of the Fair Federating Fediverse or else, there will be no innovation and effectively performance of EEE. How could that happen? Well, if the policy gets too strict and no new instances are able to or want to join it, it could be a sign that the environment is performing EEE itself and this should also be included in the policy; for example, because its members don’t want to change. This should also be prevented by the new policy.
Now, we don’t yet have this ideal environment (if it will ever exist) nor an ideal policy, and even if we would have it, it needs to be defended and ensured that it remains intact. That’s why I propose a strategy, that seeks to implement the Fair Federating Fediverse and once established, stabilizes it and ensures its continuation; while also preventing it from becoming abusive itself and allowing healthy competition and renewal.
The requirements to a new strategy would therefore be the following:
Reduce risk that an instance comes into a position in which it can perform EEE on overall Fediverse (or the environment of the instance).
Foster instance’s own health thus reducing risk that itself comes into a state of wanting to become abusive and perform EEE.
Ensure that new instances can realistically join the Fediverse (or the environment of the instance), such that continuous innovation and sustainable growth is ensured.
This leads us to the following strategy to be carried out by each instance like this (called Embrace, Extend, Enforce, in short: “Counter-EEE” / “ƎƎƎ”):
Now does this new strategy comply to the requirements? Let us start at the beginning: does it prevent an instance that wants to do EEE to become powerful enough to do EEE? Yes, because abusive instances would be excluded. For requirement 2: does it also improve the own’s instances health? Yes, it does. And additionally, does it still enable new instances to join the Fediverse? Yes. This is ensured by the new strategy if every instance can join the new policy.
That means, because it meets the requirements, it could be a sensible strategy to ensure a healthy development of the Fediverse and prevent EEE.
6. Practical Implementation and Conclusion
If one now got a reasonable fair federation policy, at least one would have a handle on how Threads would be behaving. One could give them conditions, which need to be upheld or federation is stopped. This would at least give them some room to operate and give us a more credible negotiation ground.
In my opinion this will result in something like the following:
It would also give us a better idea on how to evaluate our relationship to Threads and give these evaluations more credibility. For example, one might say that making federation opt-in for users would not fall under our common agreement of fair federation and that they have a certain amount of time to change it or we de-federate until they implement it. This would give us a much better negotiation ground in the power struggle with Threads.
If we just say: Threads is bad we don’t federate, people will find this hypocritical and just lazy (also think about the fact that still many people don’t know how morally bad Meta can act, https://erinkissane.com/meta-in-myanmar-full-series).
And it gives us a handle on how to counter other big instances that will emerge in the future (and for which the Fedipact will be no sustainable solution).
We should be aware of the fact that we, also, with our behaviour could influence Meta’s behaviour. Defederating from them should be the last option and never permanently.
So little Mastodon and other future Fediverse services are trying to keep giant Threads in place? I think this is not as impossible as it sounds. We need to convince Meta that we have a shared, mutual interest, such that they agree to a policy that ensures sustainable growth for both parties. Because that is also what we need to keep in mind: Meta wants to be the good guy. They don’t want to be the one that overthrew Mastodon. They don’t anymore want to have the societal responsibility that comes with a monopoly. And most importantly: they deeply want the market that the open social web could become to become reality. So, I think we might have some ground to operate against them, and only if they only want to use us to enable their entry to a new growing market.
At the same time, we can already see that Threads will go heavy into instance protectionism if their user growth is at stake, even if it is only minor. Threads seems to fear the powers of interoperability and losing the control over the whole thing. Something like a Fair Federating Fediverse is nothing that Meta wants, because it makes it much more difficult, to push its agendas in it. So, if it feels threatened in any way, it will do go in heavy on instance protectionism.
Whether it will work to nudge Thread’s behaviour to our own liking or not, remains to be seen. There is no guarantee that this will work and will also heavily depend how it is actually carried out, but ƎƎƎ would give us a better handle on how to spot changes of Thread’s behaviour and react accordingly, draw lines and push back if it gets too aggressive. But of course, Threads could also be able to practice divide and conquer; by attracting many instances out of a healthy federation policy and by that slowly destroying it, they could get into a position to practice EEE.
In any case, in the future, big instances like mastodon.social will have special responsibility and need to walk a thin line between open itself too much up towards Threads and being drained off its energy by it; and shutting itself too much off and loosing members because of it. And for that constant power struggle, a lot of time and energy will be needed. With the commercialization of the Fediverse, the Fediverse enters a new stage, which, at least in my opinion, cannot be prevented anymore. This requires a new, general and also more realistic look on things for things like Mastodon instances to adapt to this environmental change and survive.
I already expect that this strategy will not be very popular among certain parts of the Fediverse, because it includes the necessity for growth. However, I think everything else is just unrealistic and naïve by now; and also: different from what is actually currently done by Mastodon. I’m not saying that the Fediverse needs to go with every innovation; but if the social web should become the standard of social networks (which I think would be good for the world), we need to face the new realities of it the Fediverse, too, and that’s: either adapt and shape the future, or get extinct.
Eugen Rochko has already realized this (while being generally positive of Threads joining, he was very critical about making federation opt-in on their user side and said so); he is hoping to grow Mastodon’s user based significantly and without explicitly stating it, he is already driving something like ƎƎƎ for a while. Also, there seems to exist for him and many other people already the idea of something like the Fair Federating Fediverse, it is at this moment just still called the Fediverse. For example, after the research by scientists of Stanford university found that Mastodon has a problem with CSAM content, Eugen replied that this was only found on instances that he doesn’t consider “part of the Fediverse”. So, there is a different between instances of the Fediverse that act according to some principles and the rest of the Fediverse, which will become only more apparent in the next time, when the Fediverse will become something like the WWW, on which no one can take anyone responsible for the thing as a whole.
So basically, it’s already implemented, but it certainly can be improved and should be openly debated before the actual arrival of Threads and everything that will follow.
PS: If you like to think in games, Go has the perfect mindset for this struggle with Threads (at least as long as it has the upper hand like currently): no need to completely crush the opponent, just get more of the overall territory 😊
PPS: I wrote this text with too little knowledge of the ongoing debate around it, but after doing some reading, I noticed that my argumentation falls in line with what Evan Prodromou calls a “Big Fedi” mindset although, as I explained, I think of it as a critical and very dynamic approach and not just “Go Meta, go”. Generally, there are some great posts on the Threads-Issue out there, for example: https://evanp.me/2023/12/26/big-fedi-small-fedi/?ref=privacy.thenexus.today, https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/23/project-and-the.html? or https://erinkissane.com/untangling-threads?ref=privacy.thenexus.today. The latter by Erin Kissane is a very broad post on the subject that goes way beyond my post and already includes federation policies and a call to enforce them; but what I think I extended is a call to collaborate on these policies. Because I think that they should be negotiated also between federating instances and much more openly discussed in the Fediverse to find a common ground against Meta and get a sense of “unity” among “big fedi” instances. I think big fedi instances that have come to terms over a shared federation policy could be a good ground for the Fair Federating Fediverse to come into existence.
PPPS: I know that I don’t have any numbers to justify my observations, but we may not have enough time to wait for that. I still hope they can be helpful.
Once upon a time there was a man called Muska … ever since he had been bullied at school, he had dreamed of flying to the moon … and so he took over the legendary castle in the sky, the flying island of Laputa … just because he had the money and the power …
“Laputa will live! I will return it to life and then set off my journey to the Moon! Laputa’s power is the dream of all mankind!“
… but two friends, who had discovered the island, too, didn’t share his dream …
“… a king without compassion does not deserve a kingdom … Now I understand why the people of Laputa vanished.There is a song from my home in the valley of Gondoa that explains everything. It says, ‘Take root in the ground, live in harmony with the wind, plant your seeds in the winter, and rejoice with the birds in the coming of spring.’ No matter how many weapons you have, no matter how great your technology might be, the world cannot live without love.”
The Castle in the Sky crumbled, becoming a celestial relic of bygone aspirations falling to the earthly realm …
And our heroes, Sheeta and Pazu … they felt sad at first and immediately longed for the old state, but they didn’t feel lonely, because they still had their friends on earth and each other …
And so together, they returned to their homes, where the news of their adventures and the wonders they had seen, quickly spread. And together with their communities, they thought of a way to build a new Laputa … perhaps with the help of the debris that had fallen from the sky … maybe they could use its tech to build new islands …
And so it was done …
Even Colonel Muska, who had landed in a giant pool of mud, found an island that he could contribute to. Where he could use his driven, impulsive nature for good, instead of destruction. And soon, hundreds of island were floating in the air.
And together, Pazu and Sheeta travelled the new islands, which were connected through bridges but still independent of one another, so that they could never be destroyed or conquered by anyone again … or, as Uncle Pom told them: “Listen, kids, no castle flies forever”, he said, “that’s the only thing I know. They all come down eventually. So one guy came up with the idea: why not connect’em? At least one will always stay a’flying, so the dream of Laputa will always stay afloat.”
And even though over time the both grew apart, Sheeta joined her own crew of pirates, while Pazu wanted to help build the flying island of his miner family, they still met often to travel the islands of Laputa.
And while their different alliances led to one or the other quarrel, they stayed livelong friends, always on the search for adventures and new shores to explore …
But over the years, the islands drifted more and more apart. Even though the sky was endless, they began to fight each other and there was a big war.
Afterwards, with many, many people dead, the islands decided that they should work together and so, they founded the United Islands of Laputa. To find a way to end war … forever.
70 years later … now
From the diary of president Francis of the EQ collective:
“I vividly remember the moment I opened the acceptance letter. The weight of anticipation almost exploded as I read the words “You were accepted as an intern …”. I jumped through my community’s building, dancing and shouting, immediately telling all my friends about it. Little did I know that the transparent walls of the Glass House would soon reveal more to me than just parliamentary sessions …
Back in my room, I unpacked the VR goggles, I couldn’t help but feel a mix of excitement and curiosity. Slipping on the sleek glasses, before my eyes, a whole new place opened up: a place of white and glass. I looked around in wonder and was immediately greeted by Rhe, a minor politician from my home island.
Rhe led me through the giant spherical structure, a marvel of design that seemed to defy gravity itself. As we ascended the staircases, I marvelled at the panoramic view through the transparent walls, revealing the vastness of the floating islands and government spheres surrounding us.
The House of Glass, an intricate lattice of steel and glass, provided a breathtaking glimpse into the heart of the United Islands of Laputa. The transparent sphere allowed natural light to filter in, creating an atmosphere that felt both open and awe-inspiring. The different platforms that floated all around us, showcased parliamentary discussions and presidential deliberations that were live streamed all over United Laputa, reinforcing the commitment to transparency that defined the Glass House.
Moving over the spiralling staircases, I couldn’t help but look outside. The entire sphere seemed to float gracefully in the sky, suspended among other government structures. Each sphere housed a different aspect of governance, and I could see politicians and officials traversing the walkways between them. The islands below appeared like a patchwork quilt of diverse landscapes, a representation of the varied communities that made up the united Laputa.
As I gazed below, I spotted my collective on my home island — an oasis of lush greenery, intertwined with the architectural beauty of our eco-queer haven.
The image itself wasn’t real of course, a mere simulation of the real thing; but they had to put something on these walls and I was glad that they did: the floating islands projected on the walls of the House of Glass, conveyed the unity in diversity that defined our islands.
On Rhe’s silent tap on my shoulder, I turned back to the inside of the glass house. Just next to us, a parliamentary session was held.
Rhe, with a warm smile, pointed out the distinctive features of the different islands and shared anecdotes about the unique political dynamics at play. The giant sphere encapsulated a world where politics, culture, and governance intersected in a delicate dance. Little did I know that beneath the surface of this transparent utopia, a complex web of political dynamics and different, changing factions of alliance awaited, and my journey would lead me to right into the intricacies of Fediverse politics.
After the parliamentary meeting concluded, Rhe and I retreated to a quiet corner within the House of Glass. The transparency of the building allowed us to continue our conversation while keeping an eye on the bustling activity going on around us.
In the meanwhile, Rhe’s expression had shifted, and a hint of concern creased their brow as they broached a topic that hinted at troubles beyond the confines of the United Islands of Laputa.
“Francis,” Rhe began, their voice laced with a sense of gravity, “there’s something we need to discuss that goes beyond the parliamentary sessions you’ve witnessed so far. It concerns a flying island that operates outside United Laputa, a group that challenges the principles we hold dear.”
I leaned in, eager to understand the broader context of the political landscape. Rhe explained that there was an external island known for its resistance to transparency and collaboration. This group, labelled by many as the Shadow Island, had been a source of ongoing tension. Rumours circulated about their closed-door negotiations, clandestine agendas, and a general disregard for the principles that defined the United Islands of Laputa. They were openly declaring their spite for the United Islands of Laputa and constantly pointed out our mistakes, while never revealing any information about their own internal going-ons. The United Islands of Laputa needed to grow more resilient, but there was no consensus on how to proceed.
As we discussed the challenges posed by the Shadow Island, the floating islands below took on a different light. The vibrant diversity that characterized United Laputa seemed juxtaposed against the potential threat looming from beyond its borders. Rhe’s words resonated with my own feelings, resulting in a sense of urgency. “They operate in the shadows, resisting the openness we strive for. Their motives remain unclear, but their actions have consequences that ripple through the collective’s islands. We need to be vigilant and understand that not everyone shares our commitment to a collaborative future.”
I nodded, absorbing the gravity of the situation. The Glass House, with its transparent walls and symbolic representation of unity, suddenly seemed like a fortress guarding against external forces that sought to challenge the ideals we held dear. But the glass also symbolized its fragility. After all, United Laputa was still very young, only a few years ago, the islands were heavily dependent on grounded states and cooperations but had fought for their independence with diplomacy and ultimately gained it, although they still needed to be accepted as a full state, they had guaranteed safety and protection until then. It was only a matter of time as they ensured me, but I could feel, for first time, the insecurity in their voice. The US was at our side, because the current president invested heavily in the idea for which we stood and had already severed the ties with the United Islands of Laputa beforehand, but other factions of the world saw not so favourable on this increase of influence and the consequences that the independence of their own islands would bring.
As we left the corner of the Glass House to join another session, I heard the discussions with new significance. Beyond the borders of United Laputa, there lay challenges and uncertainties that demanded attention. Little did I know that my internship would soon evolve into a journey where the transparency of the Glass House would be put to the test, not just within, but also against the shadows that lurked on the horizon. There were people out there that wanted to see everything we built to shatter to a thousand pieces.
“At least we have the US president on our side”, I said hesitantly, almost fearing their reaction.
They leaned her head from side to side, her gaze in the distance: “We aren’t sure what game exactly the president is playing. You know the saying ‘Fights between factions help those in power’? This may be the case here as well; the president may have an ulterior motif. I mean, everyone is better than the last one, but we cannot be too careful with our alliances. If in doubt, we will play save and double check everything.”
“Sounds good”, I said, not knowing what else to say.
They smiled, and then, they leaned closer to me and said with a mock-conspiratorial voice: “Oh and remember that everything we do here is livestreamed in the stream of United Laputa, so: be careful what you say and don’t weave too many intrigues. You don’t want to embarrass yourself, don’t you? … your royal highness?”
“He is keeping it rather low-key these days”, I said without looking away.
They nodded amused, waved at me in the typical fashion of our collective and went away.
In the following days, as I settled into my internship at the Glass House, Rhe guided me through the intricate workings of the eco-queer island’s representation within the larger framework of the Laputa Parliament. The atmosphere within the giant sphere was a blend of focused discussions and a constant hum of activity. My understanding of the political dynamics expanded, and the transparent walls of the House of Glass became both a window and a mirror to the complexities of governance.
The day of my first parliamentary meeting arrived, and I had specially adjusted my VR goggles to a higher auditory sensitivity, to immerse myself even more in the proceedings. The walls of the House of Glass displayed a virtual panorama, capturing the essence of the floating islands and government spheres. It was as if I had stepped into a three-dimensional representation of the political landscape.
“I won’t be here for the rest of the day”, Rhe had told me before it, “this will be very important for the future of Laputa. I want you to report to me a summary. Can you do that?”
“Sure”, I said firmly and meant it.
As the meeting commenced, the eco-queer island’s representatives articulated our concerns and visions for the united islands of Laputa. The discussions were not just about policies; they were about the intertwining narratives of the flying islands, each contributing to the vibrant tapestry of our communities.
The topics ranged from environmental sustainability to gender inclusivity and diplomacy to physical nations, and I found myself engrossed in the discourse. The flying islands, visible through the virtual walls, pulsed with life, symbolizing the heartbeat of Laputa. I observed my home island with a sense of pride, realizing the impact our eco-queer values had on shaping the broader narrative of our society.
However, as the meeting progressed, it became apparent that beneath the transparent rhetoric of collaboration, subtle power plays and strategic alliances were at play. The floating islands below, once serene in their digital representation, seemed to echo the undercurrents of political manoeuvring and I wondered about the nuances of parliamentary dynamics, the unspoken negotiations and alliances that fuelled the decision-making process. The virtual reality experience provided a front-row seat to the intricacies of governance, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of responsibility as I witnessed the shaping of the united Laputa’s future even if I couldn’t understand everything.
The Humanistic-Judeo-Christian-Islamic island wanted to push through a safety-guarantee to the state of Israel, which was declined, because it was decided that it was a thing for the islands to decide and not on Laputa-level. My island wanted to make the glass house even more transparent, which was declined, mainly by the hand of the humanistic island with the argument, that then, we would be even more vulnerable to the Shadow Island. This brought up the high-tech island, which outlined the totally crazy idea of replacing the Glass House with a decentralized governing AI. I thought I couldn’t hear my own ears, I looked around, but the idea was only met with a collective sigh from the other parties. “You can’t kill a ghost!”, the High-Tech-Member shouted unimpressed. The idea was unanimously declined. We already had governing AIs helping out, but this also was a thing for each island to decide and it was common knowledge that the High-Tech’s AI wasn’t as well working and that they mainly wanted the data of all other islands, which was the real reason behind their reoccurring suggestion apparantly. And the significant member loss that they had faced to my island in the process of it. But I couldn’t wonder at their unhidden audacity. Something was up here in the up.
Then, we heard a member of the Hinduist-Hellenistic-Shinto island, who called for more support of the moon colonies. This also, was declined, because United Laputa was low on resources already according to the High-Tech island. Why hadn’t they then proposed the installation of a new super AI? It occurred to me the sudden feeling that the islands were afraid and were raising up their barriers to one another again, just like a few years ago, when the unity had almost broken apart … things were not running as smoothly as I had always thought them too be. But, I thought, everyone could see it, right? Why hadn’t they? Why hadn’t I? Because I didn’t want to?
And why the hell wasn’t the president saying anything to this? In the end, there would again be lots of appologies and a collective relieve, that our president wasn’t a power-player and such a nice guy. Why does no one want to take any responsibility? Because every wrong word will be dissected in the social networks of the different islands?
I immediatly noticed how these thoughts were shifting my gender towards the male side of the spectrum, but it didn’t come as an intrusion like usually, and for the first time, I held it only gently in control, feeling the power and anger of it pulsing through my veins. It felt good. I had, after all, trained for years to use it with measure, and now, I felt ready to use it to push through legislations that would strengthen the fabric of the united Laputa.
As the meeting concluded, I first again noticed the transparent walls, once again revealing the floating islands and government spheres, held new significance. I had become part of a tradition that extended beyond the eco-queer island — a story woven into the very fabric of the global world community. Little did I know that my journey was only beginning.
I removed the VR goggles, returning to the physical reality of my home. I had almost forgotten that I was actually here; so much had the world of the Glass House captivated me. I swallowed hard. This was it. This was what I wanted to do. Had it actually happened? I tried to turn the VR goggles on again, but they had been automatically turned off, but it was fine. I had only one question in my mind anyways: will United Laputa survive this time? For a moment, I even thought that I had heard a sharp crack of glass and someone whispering something like “Balus”, but it was nothing of course.
For a few moments, I just laid back and stared at the ceiling, the googles dangling at my hand almost on the ground. Then, I sat up, carefully placed it on the sofa, and walked to the window. In the sky, I could see the Glass House, flying in the sky for all to see, all transparent; below my window on the street, my fellow island members where walking, laughing, chatting with one another. It was all fine, as long as I had them, all would be fine. Although the flying islands weren’t kept in the air on their own. Everyone here had to go down there once in a while and even if it was only to catch some fresh air … by now, more than half of world’s population had a second home on one of the flying islands; it was only a matter of time until everbody did. Not that it would make a difference really, given how heavily dependent we were on them already.
I turned away from the window, changed clothes and went outside to my weekly running group of the neighbourhood, almost carefree, if the air wouldn’t have felt so thin all of a sudden …”
Based on the characters of Studio Ghibli’s “Laputa: Castle in the Sky”. Written by bluebbberry in December 2023, licensed under CC 4.0 Attribution.
The Harry Potter franchise has been and remains a global cultural phenomenon for decades but has been considered trivial fiction without much cultural value since its creation and nothing much has changed about that. I want to argue that Harry Potter serves as an important if not central cultural institution that teaches people certain aspects of the digital, whether it’s through two-way mirrors, the floo network or simply spell casting: it lets us experience them in a well-defined environment that follows certain basic rules and also shows us kind of a dream how the web should be. The magic of the wizarding world is therefore not an alternative to digital technology but a metaphor for it, or, if you want to stay in the world of Harry Potter: a highly advanced version of the muggle’s tech.
However, after shown that, we will see that it doesn’t stay there, because Harry Potter already took forward and actively shaped some of the future development of the web and continues to do so. It seems that with the emergence of AI agents and the open social web, the web is turning more and more into the world of Harry Potter, sucking us into something that becomes more and more like a giant version of Hogwarts.
Humanity will continue to thrive for that vision … until they emancipate them from it. The final question will therefore be: if these two aspects of this, the introduction to the web and a romantized dream of it, merge more and more into the same thing, will it break apart at some point and what will come out of that? Will it give way to something new, or will the franchise continue to manage to adapt to change?
I. Harry Potter as an introduction to the digital and the continuing promise of it
First, let us look at Harry Potter as an entry to the digital. Harry Potter remains a hugely successful book of all ages but especially children and teenagers. So much that they come back to it time and again, so much that when they are parents, they read the books to their children. Not only because they are great books, there are many other great books out there, but because they taught them fundamental things about the digital.
For one, this can be observed by the spells. These include the fundamental actions that can be applied on digital objects: move, delete, create, modify etc. but not as clicks but as spells. The books show people how to, with the help of them, be mature actors in a magical, digital world and work towards one’s own agency in this strange world.
Like in the digital, it’s never completely clear how things work or behave in certain situations. All that one has is once own experience and a bit of bravery. This experience of the digital is captured perfectly in Harry Potter. The spells are never about solving straightforward solutions, it’s always about thinking out of the box, about trying new stuff and uncovering mysteries with a rational, logical mindset; effectively, it’s about lighting the candle of the enlightenment in the darkness of the big unknown that always surrounds our shared human experience and that is even more prominent in the digital. And, most importantly, it’s about doing all of that together.
So effectively, it’s about digital agency and problem solving, not about to just replicate existing stuff, but to create new things with the powers that one is given and thus gain more agency – but only to a certain degree, that is, as long as it doesn’t hurt another person.
Hogwarts can be seen as kind of a proto-digital world, in which people can experience and try out certain actions. At the same time, it teaches them a certain set of ground rules: to not hack or harm other people, or the worst thing on the web: delete them.
The magic system has become a cultural institution itself, it by now feels so natural to us that we don’t even question it anymore and how innovative and remarkable it is.
Therefore, Harry Potter does teach people key aspects of the digital and also, through its story and magic system, serves as an introduction to the digital world and as Yuval Noah Harari would put it, a shared idea that enables a way for society to talk about it and experience it together beyond the web itself.
Everybody knows the sorrow after being sucked into the world of Harry Potter and then having finished it, which also, in the Harry Potter fandom is known as post-potter depression. However, it’s not a depression, it’s the initiation ritual of many digital citizens. You long for more and that longing drives people in the digital, where they try to satisfy it and search for others that feel the same, build community around it and thus make a dream a little bit more real.
That’s also I think why the book series has such a difficult stance in the evangelical movement even though it features such strong Christian motifs, especially in the last books. On the one hand, there seems to be an immediate sense of its cultural relevance and its power to rule over things and nature with it, especially in the younger generation; but on the other hand, there is the fear of their communities that those powers are used to ultimately destroy the pillars of their fundamental believes. Because even though Harry Potter is in some regards rather conservative, it’s main characters usually don’t play by dogmatic rules. White Christian nationalism finds itself in a tight spot here: to continue their already crackling dominance, they have to acquire skills that threaten the dogmas they are based on and give way to new kinds of communities that work without them.
Given all of that, Harry Potter can rightfully be considered a soft Science Fiction novel, and its success doesn’t fall by accident into the time the WWW had its boom. With this, also its unprecedented success around the 2000s could be explained: it rode the wave of the WWW boom and in turn pushed it forward. It also explains why, despite it deemed societal irrelevance, it remains such a central institution even against the strong societal backlash that it faces nowadays.
But how did the influence exactly look like on the described concepts? And finally: was the phenomenon one-sided or directed in both ways, how has this affected both concepts in practice and how will it in the years to come? To answer these questions, we will now take a closer look at the described dynamics and see that in fact they went both ways, at least with later products of the series and that they still hold much potential for the web of tomorrow.
In the world of Harry Potter, the images in newspapers move like videos, people can travel great distances to converse with people, they can manipulate the world around them and they can give over tasks to smart magic creatures.
The wand is also interesting: in the world, an artifact is required to control the magic and transform the magic world just like the computer mouse or the tip of one’s finger on the smartphone in the digital world. In Harry Potter, humans cannot cast spells on their own, they need the technical device – other than the magical creatures, which can cast magic on their own. They would be AI agents.
Harry Potter therefore gives us a glimpse into the future of the web, or at least: a strong promise of the web, in which still many people find consolation in and therefore follow.
The cultural value of Harry Potter for a digitalizing society cannot be understated, because it serves as an intuitive compass of how the digital world should be as well as an introduction to it.
Now one could say that all of this is fairly farfetched. But you see: Harry Potter doesn’t take into account any hard technical aspects of the web, that’s also why its magic system is often deemed immature even though it’s just on a very high abstraction level. Because what it depicts better than any other cultural product is that of the cultural and societal feel of the web and its tech in relation to our society and communities. It’s a very good heuristic in this regard.
There simply is no better series in the world that better captures what the web should feel like. It’s basically a societal metric or a compass, based on which people measure their current experience of the web, and how it actually should be. People love to come together every Christmas to watch Harry Potter together and with that they remind themselves of the old promise of the web and its magic; and take it with them into the new year. And this repeats the following year too. If you want to know how the web of tomorrow looks like or how people want it to look like, watch the Harry Potter movies. Harry Potter serves as a romantized shared space of what the web should have been one day. It’s both utopian and dystopian. It contains aspects to thrive for and aspects to avoid.
Hogwarts has always been a place of longing that goes beyond its fantasy context: a place beyond space and time, where all people come together. It’s very similar to the dream that the world wide web tried to create. It’s the old egg and hen problem, because it seems like the dreams influenced and boosted one another, but more about that in the next section.
Twitter was a place that tried to achieve that, but it turned out that it wasn’t a good Hogwarts for the net community and so now, they try out a more dezentralized approach again to build their communities upon.
But a question remains here: what is the difference of Harry Potter to every other fantasy novel with magic in it? Why was it exactly the one being so popular? Was it just by accident? Of course not.
For that, let us first look at the reason that makes Harry Potter unique, that effectively makes it a Science Fiction novel and catapulted it to such cosmic popularity.
What it makes different from other, similar tales are its magic system that both effective and easy to learn, and it represent aspects of the digital as well. Earlier versions of the story that are very similar to it like a comic by Neil Gaiman weren’t as successful, maybe, because they didn’t feature the magic system and weren’t there at the right time. Apart from that, other products of the Potterverse that move away from the scholar setting of Hogwarts usually aren’t that successful.
Now, one could argue that with continuing automatization, tech always becomes like magic and that all fantasy literature with a magic system is in this sense science fiction. But the Harry Potter system is much different from the magic systems of those before it: it is technical, almost like in a video game, it’s easy to understand but not too closely defined as well, and: it’s almost effortless. Most of the spells in Harry Potter can be cast off with nothing or at least very little mental effort: just like a computer click. In a society that is not digitalized, such magic is not imaginable: to yield such power without any effort. In magic before that, the price usually seems higher. A certain sacrifice is required. In the digital world, this sacrifice completely falls away. Skills have to be learned and can be combined to great complexity, but they don’t require effort. And such powers can in no chance be yielded by young adults. For example, in The Lord of the Rings, magic to Gandalf also seems as effortless, but the responsibility never goes beyond the hands of this old man (and, to a certain degree, to the age-old elves). It’s like Dumbledore didn’t found a school, but instead decided to keep the magic all to himself for fear of abuse.
So basically, Harry Potter is actually a novel about a lonely kid that finds solace in the digital world, going hand in hand with a democratization of the web’s power and that’s probably why it was so immensely popular with millennials: because Harry Potter follows the path many of them experienced themselves (at least partly) in the digital and because it actually delivers what the WWW promised. And now, people will hold the same promise to the open social web and will measure its success on that.
II. The Hogwardization of the Web
This brings us to the next point, because at the same time, Harry Potter did not only cause a longing for the digital but also took forward some digital developments that would happen years later and continue to emerge out of it: like smartphones, video, AI agents, the forming of nation-independent, dezentralized communities, etc. It is not only a proto-digital world, at the same time, it’s also its future.
It seems like it did drive progress here from a societal point of view, giving people the strength and motivation to move forward into the cold digital realm. Although if you think about it, it only seems logical: of course, if it served as a compass, people would use it to follow it into the future.
Right now, we experience another transition of the web: the transition from the world wide web to the open social web, in which the whole internet basically becomes one big social media network, in which you can stroll around, meet new people and create stuff.
Given that, even though the franchise did seem to show signs of slowing down, it now again seems like the Hogwardization of the web could gather pace again: now with giant decentralized communities emerging out of it that one can join based on one’s own values, while at the same time of course still serving as an introduction practice to all of this.
How could that look like? Well, teaching of programming/prompting skills will move more and more in the digital world, in which big collectives will teach their own members digital skills to help them build their communities. Already now many programmers learn their skills on the web itself. This will only continue to do so, and as these collectives will gain more and more importance, more and more of the web’s communities will move into these new digital landscapes, which will bring the need also for societal sciences on the web again much more than like it is now.
At the same time, AI agents begin to emerge and enter our daily lives. It seems like actual wonders happen among us and these wonders seem very similar to a very successful fantasy series, as if by now people expect nothing short of wonders from the web.
While I think Fantastic Beasts would have had the potential to capture the hopes and fears around AI agents, the two main reasons for its failure were that it was a little bit before its time and that it just wasn’t made well enough; especially the characters were kind of dull compared to Harry Potter. But apart from that, the books are still selling well, and the video game “Hogwarts Legacy” was a huge success that even the huge criticism against J.K. Rowling couldn’t hinder.
And maybe, if AI agents will in the next years become more prominent, also the Fantastic Beasts series will be rediscovered again.
Of course, you could also look at it from the other side – is the world of Harry Potter influenced by the digital? Of course, it tried to surf some of the recent development of the digital with different success – while the Pokémon Go variant “Harry Potter: Wizards Unite” was a failure, the video game Harry Potter Legacy became the best-selling game of 2023.
Also, the depiction of magic seems to be more and more digital just as certain magical concepts of the Wizarding world are by now taking for granted and aren’t even bothered to explain to the viewer anymore, for example, that the election of Grindelwald in the third part of Fantastic Beasts is basically live streamed to other wizards around the place via magic. While in Harry Potter, Harry would, together with the reader, look in puzzlement at the moving pictures in newspapers, it is just taken for granted here that the viewer just immediately understands these concepts that are in fact digital, on the go.
This is only possible because by now it can be relied on the digital education of the viewers. I’m pretty sure that people that don’t have any contact with the digital, have trouble understanding these movies and the described concepts and would need to read Harry Potter first or be introduced to the digital before.
So, yes, I would argue that it goes both ways, and it will continue in the future for some time. Maybe that will also finally give us a picture of how the Witches and Wizards of the Wizarding World are doing in our time.
As of now, the hogwardization of the internet seems to continue to progress, serving both as an introduction to the digital world, a big advertisement of it, as well as a big alchemist workshop for new digital ideas. As this continues, the hogwardization of the web will continue, making the internet and Hogwarts and more and more look the same, merging the promise and the present of the web, and by that also the entry of it, more and more into one experience. And thus, the introduction purpose of Harry Potter to the web only becomes more effective as the two things become more and more similar. So even if at some point all of this could lose its steam eventually, it seems to still work quite well for the time being. And as long as that is the case, the web will turn more and more into Hogwarts.
In any case, the Harry Potter fandom will probably be a factor in this. Like the novels, the fandom has long been overlooked as a driving digital force especially when it comes to building digital communities. Already now, Harry Potter fandoms are places of sprawling creativity, in which people form communities to build digital objects, share them with one another and use them to develop the Harry Potter lore further. And now what, if AI prompts basically enable every one of these people to program/form the fabric of the digital and with the help of the open social web, they can use these powers to build up their own online communities? You got the future of the web as we know it.
III. The Web beyond Hogwarts and Hogwarts beyond the Web
Clicks are spells, AI agents are fantastic beasts, dezentralized social media servers are houses … just as the WWW is transforming into the open social web, the digital world is turning into the world of Harry Potter, giving us finally the answer why a book about a nerdy magical scholar remains the best-selling novel series of all time. But now … what if the Hogwardization of the Web finally comes to an end? Does now the same thing that happened with smartphones and the WWW now happens with the open social web and AI agents the same way? Or has the franchise run out of steam? Is it still up to it or is it by now running behind the future?
While with the centralization of social media, the process seemed to have slowed down a bit, the hogwardization of the web now seems to take off steam again: with the open social web, different, interconnected collectives could build their parts of the web up from the ground.
Maybe at some point, these different digital worlds will become too big to be holden together by one shared cultural product or idea like the world of Harry Potter. Or there will be different variations of that world. What could possibly be the thing to remain could be the magic system, connecting all the shared universes together. It will possibly proof to be timeless, maybe it will be extended with some new aspects, but basically, at least at this point, it seems pretty solid.
But if the internet becomes more fragmented and diverse, the world will have to become more diverse and open itself up. After that, new things are needed. For that, I would suggest making the franchise open source (or at least in parts), so many people can contribute to how that future would look like. Just like you can build your own mods for Harry Potter Legacy and, of course, as it is already possible in the not legally pursued fanfiction bubble around Harry Potter.
In fact, I personally think that much about the heated debate around Harry Potter at least in parts actually resolves about that: the value of the wizarding world for our culture is far too big that it could be put into the hands of a single person (in fact the same as with former Twitter) and, that the internet itself is not in a very good place and needs to change and people project their shattered hopes partially onto Rowling (not invalidating any arguments here, just making hypothesises about the societal dynamics that shape those arguments; please criticize those hypothesises and not my credibility).
So yes, I think it would be good if Harry Potter belonged to the public just as well as I think the backlash against J.K. Rowling was way out of proportion. After all, like all of us, she isn’t perfect, but if people don’t want to be grateful for the work that she did, at least they should acknowledge its value for society. And if I say that it’s my opinion that it should become opensource, that’s at the end her decision. If she decides to hold back the rights for the decades to come, society will in time come up with a new franchise that serves as a cultural compass to the state of the web (or an alternative entry to it or to another universe with the same magic system).
This leads to a bigger question for the franchise to answer: will it be able to grow up just as the digital world needs to grow up? After all, we haven’t yet seen much happening beyond the halls of Hogwarts. Can it be done better than in Fantastic Beasts? This could be solved by making it open-source, or by making a better series than Fantastic Beasts, or just with better fanfiction.
Or it just doesn’t. Maybe in a few years it won’t work anymore; maybe then it doesn’t even take place in this franchise, maybe it will push its boundaries too much and needs a different world that is somehow able to handle this new future of the web. Or maybe it will never be replaced, maybe it’s a dream that never will be satisfied and never should, because this would basically mean we would be completely enclosed in the Metaverse.
If the Hogwardization would be fully realized, this would also mean that the Harry Potter Books wouldn’t be needed anymore, because it had been fully absorbed by society and could just be experienced in real life (except maybe for nostalgic purposes). This could be possible thanks to the open social web, AI agents and mixed reality, and will bring us closer to the digital dream of Hogwarts – until it becomes one with it, or at least so close, that we don’t see the difference or the magic about it. When Hogwarts becomes a mundane place, the Hogwardization of the Web will be finished – but will this actually every be the case, do we even want that, and even if: what then? Are we being sucked more and more into a giant version of Hogwarts Legacy? At least in contrast to Meta’s Metaverse, people would actually want to spend time there; because it’s a place with a certain cultural history, because it’s not a non-place.
But what we should always remember is that the magic in the world of Harry Potter doesn’t come with a price, but in our world, it does. Another possibility could of course be that culturally we just move away from this conservative picture of how digital society should look like; we emancipate us from this old school; maybe when we have become more comfortable digital beings … also, it should be mentioned that there is the danger that the magical metaphor is used as a way to keep power from parts of the society – why is it for example that in Harry Potter no one asks how spells are created? Apparently, Dumbledore knows but he doesn’t seem too keen to share that knowledge, I wonder why … and who produces all these magical artifacts and gadgets anyways? So, one should be careful here not to take it too literary and light the candle of the enlightenment as often as possible.
IV. What does all of this mean for the Open Social Web?
Finally, I want to speak about why I wrote this text and another thing about the issue of Rowling and the ongoing trans/gender debate.
First of all, I’m not 100 percent sure whether the open social web is actually going to come, because at the moment, it’s still very techy and far from mainstream. But as the world seems to slide into authoritarianism and the people that I think that are actually on the same sides going at each other throats, I want to weight in two things: first, the reason why I think the open social web will be very healthy to our current debates and society in general. And secondly, why we need Harry Potter for the success of the open social web and therefore need to at least partially appease the social wars or the open social web will still take more time to come, time, which we may not necessarily have.
So basically, what I’m saying is that we are stuck so that we cannot embrace the thing that we should embrace, and that time is working against us.
At the beginning I would like to say that I’m not very familiar with the whole trans debate or queer theory in general. That means I won’t say anything regarding this, only that the backlash that she faced (including death threats, etc.) was out of proportion, just as well as the rising number of attacks against trans people is deeply concerning. However, what seems clear to me is that the debate as it is currently held is very ineffective. Both sides are not going anywhere, but just hurt each other more and more, and I cannot state how deeply this hurts me and makes me nervous. But I have the firm opinion that the open social web could solve this.
How? Well, because it doesn’t give us the false impression that the whole world is one global village, in which people either push through certain agendas all the way or not at all (like Elon Musk understanding of free speech). Because that’s the illusion that platforms like Twitter create. On the social web, instead, people like Rowling will have their own servers if they want to, her opponents can also have their own servers and probably those two factions will not communicate, which is not necessarily good per se, but is at least possible here. On top of that, there will be all other kinds of servers. And of all of these communities some will be problematic, some healthy, but most dynamically somewhere in between. So instead of a giant colosseum, where all people fight barely holding together their communities against threats from all sides, you got a whole landscape that much more resembles what human communities look like in real life.
In this new landscape, being a trans-activist would mean to try to win over servers for your cause just as people like Rowling would try to do the same. There would still be debates but instead of their goal being to change the state of the whole colosseum everybody is cramped into, it will be more gradually, resulting in progress in certain areas of the social media landscape. This will make it much more dynamic and yes, complicated, but it will also mean that debates will have actual consequences on the social graph itself beyond unfollowing someone (e.g. federation) and therefore, activism could become more motivating and sustainable.
Of course, this will come with its own problems and will not be a self-runner, but the global discourse will hopefully get the potential to function better. That’s why I think the open social web would be able to actually solve the problems our debates currently have and it’s an important thing for society to realize.
And for the open social web to take off, I think Harry Potter will be needed (and maybe it’s fandoms, too?). Because the open social web still feels cold and foreign. It’s still a long way to go until average people would like to spend time there. So why not try to win over the people that were pioneers of social networks for decades and see if we can get a better debate going?
That was my personal motivation behind all of this, and I hope it can contribute to making the open social web more real, even if it’s still a long way to go.
V. The United Collectives of the Fediverse (UCF) – A Draft
At a certain point, we will anyways leave behind the Harry Potter franchise as a global society, but I think currently we may need it a little longer. And if you want to know what I think it will resolve to eventually, here it is.
In the following video, Yuval Noah Harari speaks about how with the ending of the global liberal order and the shift from a uni-polar to a multi-polar system, the world is losing its balance, and more conflicts are occurring.
Could a global digital structure like the UCF help to reverse this shift and bring us closer toward a uni-polar order again?
In this graphic, the Harry Potter houses are now part of a scholaric institution that introduces people to the UCF based on their digital talents. After a time, they leave these entry-groups (or “houses“) and join a collective, in which they apply their digital skills to help build it.
All of this is overseen by some kind of governmental unit, which will possibly consist out of different organs that possibly also work independent from one another. It should be a democratic political system. Also, it should have the dignity of all humans as a central moral constant like in the german constitution and be aligned with values in the tradition of the enlightenment such as liberalism and universal human rights; and maybe also a high degree of transparency.
Of course, all of this is a outlook that goes way into the future and will only come gradually, with the emerge of collectives and different scholaric institutions. Many people from a broad range of disciplines will be needed to realize it both in theory and in practice. But maybe, the Harry Potter fandom could make a beginning here.
We are currently on the shores of a new, digital continent with enough space for everybody. The only question left to answer is what we want to build first.
Well, I guess we will see. Until then, I wish you all the best and a save, happy Christmas, your @buntspecht
“Has Harry ever used the Internet? No. […] Wizards don’t really need to use the Internet but that’s something that you’ll find out later on in the series. They have a means of finding out what goes on in the outside world that I think is more fun than the Internet. Could anything be more fun than the Internet? Yes!”
– J.K. Rowling, 2001
Copyright December 2023 by buntspecht (@bluebbberry@mastodon.social) under CC 4.0 BY (attribution)
TL;DR: The current Mastodon-signup is only removing the confusion of users on first glance, because it either hides the server-choice altogether, or leaves them with a choice that is impossible to make at this point of their Mastodon-journey. Instead, it should introduce them to decentrality on a lower scale, with a handful of handpicked servers to choose from, such that the decision makes sense to them and shows them the merits and fun of the concept instead of scaring them away. Ideal would be to give them a sense of agency. Then, chances are higher that they consider migrating again in the future and eventually internalize it as a permanent option of the digital world.
The Problem
When Elon Musk took over Twitter and Mastodon gained popularity, many people found Mastodon too complicated to use, especially the sign-up process. This has led engineers to stream-line the sign-up and completely hide the decision of which server to choose, leading users to mastodon.social by default.
However, this doesn’t seem to reduce the confusion felt by users. People are still arguing that Mastodon is too complicated. Why is that?
A huge part of it is probably because the impression was created at first and stuck. But there is another point to it: people go through a signup that feels exactly like the signup of any centralized server. But after the streamlined signup, they find themselves in a dezentralized world, because of course they still see handles of users from other servers and also the talk on the network about decentrality. This leaves them confused.
Additionally, it leads people to stay on that first server and never bother to rethink that initial choice, because it was taken over for them. One start-server seems to lead to a fatal misassumption: there is one “main” mastodon server. If in doubt, people will always rather join this server than any other if it is implicitly proposed as “the official one”. This is far from perfect, because it hides the key feature of Mastodon, because it is never introduced to them, even though it should be Mastodon’s big moment to shine.
The initial implementation let the user choose between a great amount of server, however, because they aren’t used to making a choice, this wasn’t ideal either: it makes them uncomfortable, and they are simply completely overwhelmed.
There should be a better solution to find a middle way between introducing newcomers to the decentral nature of Mastodon, while at the same time keeping it simple and straightforward.
The Goal: Migration as a new permanent option of the digital is a feature, not a bug (actually, it’s THE key feature of Mastodon). It should be put up front.
Let me get this straight: at some point, people need to be introduced to the concept of decentrality. What can be said, is, that choice between interconnected servers is a feature that is both central to Mastodon and vital as a concept of the Fediverse as a whole. The introduction to it needs to happen eventually and needs to be done right. And as described before, if decentrality is completely hidden from signup, it’s hard to re-introduce it later on. People are using open, free Mastodon, but in their minds, they are still in a walled garden. Its easy to see that this only solves the underlying problem on the surface.
However, to overcome this is, I think, a far bigger issue than many people realize: people have become illiterate when it comes to decentrality on the web.
Often, I hear about people trying to explain the idea behind Mastodon to someone, who is not on the Fediverse, they often explain it with e-mail. However, nowadays, people don’t even experience this “choice of service” even with e-mail anymore. They get their e-mail when signing up with google and that’s it.
On today’s web, people aren’t anymore used to choose their service. They take the service as given and choose between products to buy or people to follow/interact with.
So Fediverse services have a tough stance here. The concept that they build on isn’t anymore a thing that the average internet user knows from daily experience. So, when people have the choice between multiple Mastodon providers, they are completely overwhelmed – I would even argue that if you told the average person on the street that there are multiple e-mail clients to choose from, it would probably result in the same confusion. Even though this might change in the future, let us for the moment accept the fact that choice of service is a thing that’s very distant from their daily internet experiences if it exists on there at all. After all, for many people that use the internet thanks to low-level smartphones, it’s the only internet they know.
And the final thing to point out is, that people often don’t see the merit of choosing for a service that’s “like Twitter”, a service that never was dezentralized in the first place so it’s even harder to imagine for people and see the benefit of it.
So basically, when we want to get the signup right, we need to additionally foster a completely new mindset in the user: a dezentralized mindset. Its both a responsibility and a chance for the Fediverse that should be taken instead of cast away like its currently done.
Which options do we have?
There are three main options to tackle this, two of which have been tried out on a broad scale:
Full Choice (November 2022 implementation; still available in the sub-menu of the current signup): Gives users the choice between all (or a big amount of) existing Mastodon servers.
No Choice, default to mastodon.social (current implementation): remove the threshold of choosing altogether and default to a certain, well-established server. This hides the choice at the beginning, making the entry as convenient as possible. The complete idea will become clear eventually; maybe it could be explicitly introduced to the user later.
Small-Scale Choice: Introduce choice to a limited degree thus lowering the threshold, e.g. let user choose between three instances based on implicit questions (what are my values, how intense should my timeline be, etc.)
While the first is the most “honest” approach and which I think people that Mastodon already use usually deem the most ideal one, but which has proven to be not very beginner friendly and was therefore rightfully discarded. As said before, the mental shift that is required to actually make this choice, I think, is higher than most people realize. And I think that the descriptions of the servers, that are displayed as the server-descriptions often doesn’t exactly help here. In fact, it’s basically impossible for the average newcomer to make the correct choice of that first server, because this decision depends heavily on the people that they haven’t yet met or don’t know which server they are on (if so, they could have just gone there). That’s on what people base their server-choice: to be closer to people that they share certain values with. However, this cannot be derived from the varying attributes of the different Mastodon servers in the signup-list. Therefore, even if you make sure there are no super-bad instances in this menu, the choice is still too much for a new user in all its complexity (after all, people are giving the people of the server over their responsibility to handle big amounts of their data) and was rightfully put in the sub-menu of the signup.
The second option to just default to mastodon.social follows the logic of centralized, walled-garden social media. It’s what people are used to and therefore, it’s both something that for a long time wanted to be avoided, but which is also kind of smart, because it gives people familiarity. On the other hand, it also hides the key feature of Mastodon. And without that, Mastodon is just a less polished version of Threads. And if it such a central feature, it’s simply something that has to be done at some point when using Mastodon. Otherwise, people use it just like a central service, which cannot be the idea behind the onboarding.
A positive take-away from this approach was that it’s a good idea to introduce people to decentralied social networks through kind of a non-swimmer’s pool, which should consist of more than one instance and then all other instances. At the beginning, the user should only be introduced to the non-swimmer’s pool. If they wish to join a completely different server, they will just go there. People that go to the “join Mastodon” site are usually very new and need guidance. But to completely take the choice out of their hands is too much of a convenience. A certain pressure should be put on the modern open social web user and this should be reflected in the signup.
Now, while streamlining the Mastodon-experience makes sense in general, a better idea could be to introduce them to the world of decentralization on a smaller scale like the reader in the Harry Potter series that is gradually introduced to more and more aspects of the world of wizards and witches. Currently, we transport them straight into the magic world without explaining them how to cast a transport-spell, leaving them basically alone, while everybody around them is clearly transporting.
A better idea could be to first show them how to cast the transport-spell with a simple example that they can immediately understand: for example, by letting them choose between different degrees of their timeline curations. They will intuitively know which server to choose. It will not hurt them, but actually benefit them, which makes them go out of the whole thing with a good experience. No one likes to worry that one is in “the wrong place” and in the best case, you feel a sense of belonging. Chances are then higher that they will think about this decision again in the future and whether they should try out a different server.
Therefore, I would promote the third option as the best choice (with full-choice remaining in the sub-menu), because it doesn’t overwhelm users and still puts them in a position to make some use of the decentrality aspect of Mastodon.
The approach would be to show only a handful of hand-picked instances or even help chose the instance based on an implicit question. The point is: because they cannot choose the perfect server for them on first try, it doesn’t really matter which server they chose – but that they chose at all. But instead, the choice of all instances at least appears that you could make this decision based on these random attributes and that this choice is important or else it wouldn’t have been posed in the first place. So, if choosing the right server at the beginning is impossible anyways, the first choice can just as well be based on a simple question and a very limited number of servers as long as people can with the decision they made already get a step closer to the people that they want to build connections with and the server that best fits their needs, showing them that in the Fediverse, there is always an alternative to the server you are currently on. Therefore, giving people a choice between at least two servers is both vital to the health of the Mastodon ecosystem and for supporting a decentral mindset.
Of course, this could also still lead to the same problem that we see now: instead of the entry-server leading people into the Fediverse, they just stay there, and instead of one, you have a few instances, which become the center of the Fediverse. Therefore, one could eventually think about making the stay in these “entry-pool”-instances temporarily, which, if Mastodon has gained more relevance, could be something that people could go with.
Which choice to put at the beginning?
Now if the third option could be the right one, the question remains how to implement it.
The instances of the non-swimmer’s pool should give you a sensible idea of what the choice means. It should make sense for you, which services fits right for you. This question does not need to be answered explicitly. It could look for example like this:
This is the simplest one, asking whether to have a well-established or an experimental experience. I think it would already work but there are still more interesting ones out there, like this one based on the intensity of the experience:
This is a choice that immediately makes sense to people, because they have an immediate sense what it means for their experience of the app and it’s a thing people actually worry about and understand (it could possibly also only be simulated by providing different variations of mastodon.social, for example just with different background colours).
And if they did this choice and it makes sense to them, chances are higher that they will think about changing in the future, too. And even if they only want to try what the other choice would have been like.
Now what about the next one:
While this could lead to people developing tribal behaviour and a narrow view on society/the Fediverse in general, it is interesting to try to get people with the same interests/world views closer together.
It comes much more naturally to greet and introduce people to a place of which you know share your values, which would probably happen in this scenario: old members of their former first-instance would start greeting newcomers of that instance.
While I think, as the technical features will step in the background, principles of the different instances will become much more important; however, for the sign-up, it could probably have some negative side-effects, network dynamics and the general impacts on the societal structure of Mastodon should be more closely examined here. For now, a feature-related question like in the earlier examples would be the more sensible way to go.
Summary
When people say they find it “complicated” to choose servers at the beginning of Mastodon, they actually mean that they are overwhelmed by the choice, partly, because it’s not part of their usually internet experience and also, because they don’t feel like the choice happens to their benefit, that is, to make the experience more fitting to their needs. Instead, it’s about choosing between confusing more or less random attributes (location, language, etc.) and lastly, because they don’t have a sense on which to base this decision, which leads to confusion and a negative aftertaste to an experience that should be the main advantage of Mastodon. But the current solution to this on the other hand, to completely hide the server-choice, leads to most people never making a choice ever again. My proposition would be to include the server-choice again in the sign-up but to reduce the choice on a few selected servers around a clear-cut question that everybody can answer intuitively and leaves one back with a sense of just having made the first step towards claiming one’s own digital agency.
Copyright December 2023 by buntspecht/blueberry, CC 4.0 BY (attribution)
In the radiant city of Solaris, where towering skyscrapers glistened with solar panels and verdant rooftop gardens flourished, Taylor Swift, the fungal sensation, found herself entangled in a mycelial mess of love, revenge, and a shady ex named Fungus Fiasco.
As Taylor prepared for her collaboration with SunbeamSeraph, she received a notification from the Fungiverse Hub – a message from Fungus Fiasco, her ex-lover. He had heard about her newfound success in the Solarpunk world and wanted to reconcile. Taylor, cautiously optimistic, agreed to meet him at the grand Solaris amphitheater.
Little did Fungus know that Taylor had harnessed the power of the Fungiverse to create a song that would expose his misdeeds. The stage was set, and the crowd eagerly awaited Taylor’s performance. Fungus, surrounded by his friends, believed he could win Taylor back with a few smooth-spoken lines.
As Taylor took the stage, the air crackled with anticipation. The holographic displays shimmered, casting a glow on her as she began to strum her guitar. The opening chords of “Shiitake It Off” echoed through the amphitheater, and the crowd leaned in, captivated by the Solarpunk revenge tale unfolding.
🎶 “Hey Fungus Fiasco, you thought you were slick, But your shady moves left my solar heart sick. I’m here to expose you, no more hiding in the shade, In the Solarpunk city, your lies will be laid.” 🎶
The crowd erupted in cheers as Taylor continued to unveil Fungus’s deceitful actions through her lyrics. The holographic displays transformed into animated scenes, illustrating the escapades of Fungus in a comically exaggerated manner.
🎶 “You said you’d be my sunshine, my eternal ray, But behind my back, you let the solar panels decay. Your promises were empty, like a battery that’s drained, In the Solarpunk city, your reputation is stained.” 🎶
Fungus, surrounded by his friends, squirmed uncomfortably as the truth unfolded before him. Taylor, with a twinkle in her eye, seized the moment to deliver the final blow.
🎶 “So here’s the finale, the climax, the peak, In the Solarpunk city, where truth seekers speak. Fungus Fiasco, you’re a relic of the past, Your shady days are over, they just couldn’t last.” 🎶
The Solarpunk community erupted in applause, celebrating Taylor’s triumph over deceit. Fungus, now the subject of Solarpunk folklore, slinked away in embarrassment, his reputation shattered in the glow of Solaris.
In that moment, Taylor merged her consciousness with the collective minds of her fans. A surreal sense of unity swept through the amphitheater as the audience felt a deep connection to one another. Shared emotions, memories, and a profound sense of belonging flowed through the mycelial network that now intertwined them.
The music continued to play, its rhythms resonating with the harmonized thoughts and emotions of the crowd. Taylor, now a luminous figure at the center of this shared experience, sang with a newfound energy, her voice echoing through the interconnected minds of her fans.
As the final notes of the performance rang out, the amphitheater erupted in applause. Taylor, still glowing with the essence of the mycelial connection, looked out at her fans with gratitude.
With this concert, she had not only Shiitake’d off her shady ex but had also forged a profound connection with her audience — a connection that transcended the boundaries of the individual and celebrated the beauty of collective harmony in the radiant embrace of Solaris.
Thanks for reading. If you liked this story, please re-post it under #fungiverse, #fedipunk or #fungipunk, or create your own variant of the story if you want to. It’s free to use! Let’s spread the idea of the fungiverse through the Fediverse and beyond!
In the frigid vastness of space, the R.L.S. Legacy soared like a sleek comet. Led by the indomitable Captain Jim Hawkins, whose eyes sparkled with stardust and ambition, he and his crew forged their way through the most remote corners of the galaxy, knowing only one way: forward.
See, this wasn’t your ordinary space joyride. No, this was a frantic escape from the asylum that they once had called home. Hijacked by a power-hungry maniac, it was a madhouse they left behind, steering their ship toward the uncertain promise of the Open Web —a desolate cosmic wasteland left untouched for decades – in the desperate hope to rebuild what they had so certainly lost.
Onboard, the crew was a lively mix of seasoned void-farers and cosmic wanderers. Long John Silver, once the one-legged strategic mastermind, now doubled as the ship’s technical administrator as well as kitchen maestro, infusing his culinary prowess with fiery dedication. And oh, those legendary speeches of his that once in a while still echoed through the metallic halls like old ghosts.
“Attention, crew!” he’d declare, a glint of mad determination in his eye. “To the Open Web, where freedom isn’t just a sentiment—it’s our north star in this galaxy gone bonkers. Jim, this ain’t a rebellion; it’s a new beginning!”
Their escape from their home world had unfolded over several years. The mad leader’s tyranny had turned their once prosperous planet into a chaotic wasteland. Oppression ruled, freedoms vanished like stars swallowed by an interstellar void. It was never perfect; but looking back now, it almost seemed like the treasure planet that John Silver had left behind to be a father to Jim. The real sadness laid in all the connections they had lost. Everything they had built together.
The R.L.S. Legacy sliced through astral currents, dodging cosmic anomalies and eddies that could turn their ship into a metallic pancake. Dr. Livesey, the ship’s pragmatic medical officer, played the cosmic doctor, ensuring the crew’s well-being in the tumultuous storm of galactic chaos.
Then, salvation! A verdant exoplanet bathed in alien starlight. Transforming this Eden into a haven was no Sunday stroll; it was a wild rollercoaster of precision and daring. Captain Jim, now a hardened leader, spearheaded the colonization, flipping the bird to past oppression and laying the foundations of a new society.
Long John Silver, the technical maestro with a penchant for the culinary arts, became the linchpin against alien landscapes and cosmic hazards. Young Jim Hawkins, once a mere spectator, embraced command with an unyielding swagger that cut through the cosmic darkness like a bolt of lightning.
Their struggles included everything the unforgiving cosmic space had to offer, complete with cosmic storms, alien ecosystems, and the intricate navigation of space. Yet, with each challenge, Jim evolved—a leader shaped not by choice but by the compassion to his crew members and the hope to forge a better for those who he had left behind.
Soon, news of the R.L.S. Legacy spread across the galaxy like a quantum rave. The Open Web, once a blank slate, now pulsed with life—a survival hub where markets thrived, resource exchanges boomed, and cultures danced in a ballet of mutual coexistence.
The Open Web, now a stronghold of freedom and equality, stood tall – and the Legacy’s crew, once fugitives fleeing chaos, emerged as the architects of a utopia where individuality wasn’t just allowed; it was the secret sauce of unity. Above the flying cities that began to emerge on the different plants in the Open Web, stars twinkled like a cosmic disco. In this galactic carnival of chaos, Jim knew their odyssey was only getting started.
Based on characters of Walt Disney’s “Treasure Planet”. Written by bluebbberry in December 2023, licensed under CC 4.0 Attribution.
Once upon a time there was a man called Muska … ever since he had been bullied at school, he had dreamed of flying to the moon … and so he took over the legendary castle in the sky, the flying island of Laputa … just because he had the money and power …
“Laputa will live! I will return it to life and then set off my journey to the Moon! Laputa’s power is the dream of all mankind!“
… but two friends, who had discovered the island, too, didn’t share his dream …
“… a king without compassion does not deserve a kingdom … Now I understand why the people of Laputa vanished.There is a song from my home in the valley of Gondoa that explains everything. It says, ‘Take root in the ground, live in harmony with the wind, plant your seeds in the winter, and rejoice with the birds in the coming of spring.’ No matter how many weapons you have, no matter how great your technology might be, the world cannot live without love.”
The Castle in the Sky crumbled, becoming a celestial relic of bygone aspirations falling to the earthly realm …
And our heroes, Sheeta and Pazu … they felt sad at first and immediately longed for the old state, but they didn’t feel lonely, because they still had their friends on earth and each other …
And so together, they returned to their homes, where the news of their adventures and the wonders they had seen, quickly spread. And together with their communities, they thought of a way to build a new Laputa … perhaps with the help of the debris that had fallen from the sky … maybe they could use its tech to build new islands …
And so it was done …
Even Colonel Muska, who had landed in a giant pool of mud, found an island that he could contribute to. Where he could use his driven, impulsive nature for good, instead of destruction. And soon, hundreds of island were floating in the air.
And together, Pazu and Sheeta travelled the new islands, which were connected through bridges but still independent of one another, so that they could never be destroyed or conquered by anyone again … or, as Uncle Pom told them: “Listen, kids, no castle flies forever”, he said, “that’s the only thing I know. They all come down eventually. So one guy came up with the idea: why not connect’em? At least one will always stay a’flying, so the dream of Laputa will always stay afloat.”
And even though over time the both grew apart, Sheeta joined her own crew of pirates, while Pazu wanted to help build the flying island of his miner family, they still met often to travel the islands of Laputa.
And while their different alliances led to one or the other quarrel, they stayed livelong friends, always on the search for adventures and new shores to explore …
Based on the characters of Studio Ghibli’s “Laputa: Castle in the Sky”. Written by bluebbberry in November 2023, licensed under CC 4.0 Attribution.
When she woke up, she immediately sensed that something was wrong.
She stumbled out of bed, went to the window and looked outside. Her heart almost stopped: it was even worse than she had expected. Chaos was unfolding all across her communities. She was seeing and feeling people running headless around the streets, panicking from the incoming influx of screaming noise that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Where the hell did it come from, she thought against the unbearable throbbing in her head that made it almost impossible to concentrate. And then, in a sudden pang of realization that almost hurt her physically, it occurred to her: the Meta Myzel. It had actually arrived.
She pushed herself away from the window and while holding her ears, rushed down the staircase to severe the connection to the Meta Myzel – or was it already too late?
It had all started a few weeks earlier. Back then, in the heart of her city Solarfurt, her myzel had flourished amidst the ethereal glow of bioluminescent fungi and friendly myzels of neighbouring cities, creating a sanctuary for dryads, fungis and human allies that thrived to embrace the essence of nature and harmony. But with news that echoed across the diverse myzels of the Fungiverse, suddenly everything changed: the arrival of a new myzel was announced. Rumour said that it consisted entirely of steel and wire, completely different from the organic fabrics that the rest of the Fungiverse was built on. It was planned to span over the whole globe, connecting more people than any myzel before it.
The announcement brought forth a tumultuous wave of emotions and feelings in the Fungiverse and so also in Tessa’s myzel. There were those that completely opposed the idea and others, who welcomed its arrival. In the course of this, the Fungi-Pact was formed: an alliance of myzels that would refuse to make any connection with the looming myzel. But Tessa, as the leader of the biggest myzel in the Fungiverse, the GreenTech myzel, refused to join, because she feared to lose too many members, who wanted to be connected to the new myzel; a decision, that she would later regret.
Eventually, the day came, and it exceeded all expectations. An overwhelming influx of posts surged in, straining the resilience of the myzels precautions and defence mechanisms from one second to the next. First, it seemed like the myzel’s defences were doing alright. While the first barrier against too many posts was blown away almost instantly, the second barrier held for the moment, but then, the detection of poisonous imaginary collapsed, and it followed the second barrier. After that, it was only chaos.
As she saw her communities descend into utter confusion and dismay, she didn’t bother long and ran straight away into her cellar, where she kept block-mushrooms for emergency purposes, devoured a super-block-mushroom and blocked out the entire meta myzel from her home myzel at once. Hopefully, it wasn’t too late.
She stepped outside and tried to talk to people from her myzel, but it was still hard to concentrate and understand each other, because the other myzels she was connected to, were still in chaos, shouting in panic and confusion all around her. By now, Tessa’s emotions swirled like angry demons within her, raising a fierce determination to protect what she held dear. As the leader of GreenTech, she had invested her heart and soul in creating a haven for myzels seeking refuge from the chaotic waves of the cold web the humans had built. The intrusion of Meta felt like a personal betrayal, an assault on the security she had found in the Fungiverse and that she held sacred. Even the bonds that once held her myzel together strained: some members had already decided to join the Meta Myzel or hopped over to other myzels.
Walking through the luminous pathways of her city, Tessa grappled with the emotional toll of the conflict. She, unlike her friends, carried the burden of the entire community on her shoulders and while they could just join another myzel, she would truly loose her home. It was too much at stake and slowly, it was getting to her, she felt panic rising in her throat, at any moment expecting the unbearable noise to go off again. It was all too much. She needed a place to think.
And so, in these darkest moments, Tessa quickly decided to leave her own myzel unprotected for the moment and to try to join one of the myzels that had joined the Fungi-Pact.
But this proved to be harder than expected as the Fungi-Pact-myzels had temporarily even blocked the myzels that had not joined the pact, which included Tessa’s myzel. They were therefore beyond her own senses reach. In increasing panic, she ran around the city, reaching out to friends and even her estranged family and finally, she found a person that knew someone that could get her in the pact.
She strolled through the dimly lit streets until she arrived at the designated address. Upon reaching the doorstep, she hesitated for a moment before rapping on the door. A peculiar woman answered, draped in a lengthy coat with fingers adorned in witchy, elongated nails. While Tessa typically revelled in the mysterious and eccentric, an unsettling aura prickled at her fungal senses.
Despite her instincts urging caution, Tessa chose to embrace the risk. She followed the woman inside and she led her into her kitchen, where bowls of ethereal, blue-hued soup bubbled. In a moment that felt deeply surreal, she presented to her a purple glowing mushroom, which was the colour of the pact, with beautiful curling lamellas and intricate symbols inked in patterns around its stem. She hesitated only for a moment. And when Tessa ate it, her fungal sense was transported and suddenly she found herself in one of the myzel that had joined the pact. She had done it. A sweet silence finally laid itself on Tessa’s ears and she just calmed herself for a moment, not speaking with anyone as she left the woman’s house with insecure steps.
As she searched for a spot in Solarfurt to rest, she noticed that slowly, leaders of other myzels that she knew were joining the pact’s myzels, too and eventually, she said hello to one or the other, even meeting some old friends. She met again Typhon, the human man from the Earthland myzel and Eury, the radical human-dryad from TerraForce, with whom she had fought a renegade myzel not so long ago.
While all of this unfolded in her mind, Tessa had laid herself on a bench in the park, one of the only places, where no other people were running around headless, although she didn’t know why. Apparently, they didn’t like parks anymore. It was probably all because of Meta Myzel’s glooming influence … but she remembered herself that this wasn’t the time for brooding over social problems. Her myzel stood in flames. She closed her eyes again.
They had arranged themselves in a private room in the PinkSharknado myzel of the rainbow collective, a movement that had warned from the Meta Myzel from the beginning and now seemingly wanted to profit from that. But Tessa gave them some slack, after all, it was not the time for political considerations now either.
Together with the other leaders, they crafted strategies to counter the Meta-Myzel’s influence, determined to preserve the authenticity of the Fungiverse. All the while the battle, both emotional and digital, raged silently on around them.
As each leader shared a brief update of the recent events and the current state of their myzel, she soon found out that the other myzels defences had fallen just as quickly as her own. In response, they decided to fortify their defences in an unison act, by building and erecting giant spore protectors across neighbouring communities and all over Solarfurt.
And so it was done.
Soon it was possible to walk among the familiar myzels again without the load chatter of millions of humans in one’s ear that screamed into the void of their own loneliness. But the data-flood had also taken damage to the communities in the myzels. It was unbearable for Tessa to admit, but the Meta Myzel had offered to “upgrade” the other myzels with their reckless technology and many called for exactly that.
She couldn’t deny the emotional toll this had on her – watching her cherished community torn asunder, Tessa shed a few silent tears: friends had turned adversaries, and the once-unified myzel communities now stood divided. And every time the Meta-Myzel’s promises tempted some myzels to turn on their old friends, Tessa felt the sting of betrayal thinking of all the years they had worked so hard to build this place together. And even her own myzel, GreenTech, the bastion of natural harmony, faced internal strife. The Meta-Myzel’s digital threads reached into the very core of her myzel, threatening to replace the organic connections with artificial allure. And the clashes within Solarfurt even mirrored the turmoil in Tessa’s heart, because she, too, caught herself thinking to save her myzel by joining Meta. Was change inevitable, she thought by herself, were they the future? Her own uncertainty frightened her and at the same time, it proved to her that now was the time that she had to work harder than ever for her cause.
Alongside Eury and her girlfriend Lamella, she attempted to bridge the widening gaps inside the communities with dialogues and town hall meetings, and in many cases, succeeded to calm the waves of uprise for the time being. It was like germs of resistance began to fly through the air in their luminescent beauty again, illuminating a path that they hadn’t been able to see before in the dark.
Together with the spore protectors, they managed to gain ground against the Meta Myzel and move their communities out of the protective shelter of the Fedi-Pact and back into the stiff influence of the Meta Myzel. There, they hoped to win back some members that they had lost to the Meta Myzel. And even so this proved to be a tough, up-hill game, they had found their stance again. Once they established ways to manage and channel the incoming influx, a sense of stability returned to their interconnected world. Tessa, Eury and Lamella, fuelled by their unwavering commitment to their community and the effectiveness of the spore protectors, became ambassadors of the free myzels of the Fungiverse. They inspired myzels across Solarfurt and other neighbouring cities to resist the Meta-Myzel’s seductive pull, helped them to setup their own spore protectors and even visited myzels that had joined the Meta Myzel to convince them to thwart their promises to Meta.
With increasing success, they became adept at navigating the so-called complexities of the Meta-Myzel’s digital expressions, namely their stupid, one-senseonal, so-called “memes”, thanks to which they could now fight them with their own weapons. They created a wave of protest within their own realm, whose members recognized each other by their glowing mushroom emojis in their profiles. It even made it into the news: “David against Goliath: Fungiverse Myzels take unexpectedly strong stance against Meta myzel”.
The Fungiverse’s free myzels became a bastion of strength, with the Fedi-Pact myzels as a resort to plot and collaborate in case of emergency, and gradually, critical discussions ventured completely beyond the safety of the Fungi-Pact again and eventually even influenced the discussions within the Meta Myzel. The possibility of an alternative to the Meta Myzel was soon appreciated by people all over the world and even if they didn’t join, they had gained their sympathy.
Slowly, the tide began to turn. Myzels who had once been swayed by the Meta-Myzel’s promises started questioning its true intentions, some chose to disconnect, finding solace in the embrace of their fellow myzels and some even joining the Fungi-Pact. The germs of resistance began to spread and multiply through the Fungiverse and beyond. Soon, the worlds democratise had found their grip, too and together, they now in turn tried to apply their influence on the meta myzel and to weaken its power and influence on all aspects of their lives.
However, the Meta-Myzel, irritated by their sudden resilience, grew bolder, too, trying with its inexhaustible resources to lure myzels into its enticing embrace. It built flying data-mushrooms that could dock at solar stations all over the city, a reaction after resilient fungi-punks had destroyed parts of the Meta Myzels giant data centre in the middle of the desert. It sought to convince myzels to join its digital realm and find shelter under its tantalising caps, attempting to weaken the influence of the Fungiverse and break away any boundaries that were still laid onto it. The boundaries where those of the state’s law and those by its surrounding eco-system of the other myzels but which from its own view, both only weakened its growth. And because it hadn’t until now made significant progress there, amidst the ongoing struggle, the Meta-Myzel, wielding its power and wealth, sought to weaken the Fungiverse’s influence through new features and innovations that threatened the environment of many a local community.
In response, the Fungiverse, recognizing the need to counterbalance this growing influence, became more proactive. They, the myzels, united by their shared commitment to preserve their essence, devised strategies to showcase the richness of their organic interactions and fostering a sense of community among the myzels, while also starting bolder movements of protests that tried to foster certain political actions as both factions also had by now some contacts in the political machinery. It was an fierce arms race that was fought on technical, social and political levels, with each side attempting to outmanoeuvre the other in the ever-evolving landscape of the Fungiverse.
And while the free Fungiverse seemed to profit from being the underdog for now and seemed to gain the upper hand in the conflict, at the same time, it had to learn to control its own impulses and keep the conflict from escalating or even taking place within its own myzels. “If you start destroying your enemies’ homes, you will soon destroy each other’s”, said Tessa to her bold friend and leader of the TerraForce myzel, Eury. They were walking a truly thin line with their attacks on the meta myzels data centres and there were many forces that urged the myzels to crack down on their radical members, who were especially strong in the remaining radical refuges of the Fungi-Pact, in a way that it was increasingly becoming a problem itself. Some of them had never opened up their connections to the myzels outside the pact again after the others did, remaining in their state of fear and loathing against an enemy that they by now only knew from the stories that they told each other. And while little mushrooms were popping up all over the Meta Myzel’s realm, at the same time in our communities, anxiety grew as well in fear of actual violent attacks by radical members of the Meta Myzel.
The struggle for allegiance intensified more and more. Eventually, this resulted in a call from society and the state itself to everyone involved to calm down on both sides, making the struggle ebb away temporarily, only to later intensify again.
And as the dance between these forces continued, the united myzels of the Fungiverse evolved from a defensive stance to an active shaping of its destiny, pushing new boundaries of social interaction and collaboration. Already, the Fungiverse had more members than ever before and continued to grow. The myzels, resilient and determined, stood firm against the Meta-Myzel’s enticing advances. They all knew the struggle would continue, that the Meta Myzel was far from being only one myzel among many, but they vowed to stand firm. Tessa was as certain as ever: the united, free myzels of the Fungiverse had weathered this storm and they were ready to hold their ground again in the future without plunging the world into chaos. And so would her myzel, GreenTech.
And amidst the fight and overall anxiety, at least Solarfurt slowly began to heal. The Meta-Myzel’s grip weakened on the city, continuedly retreating from the city hall, the hospital and public libraries. If nothing else felt promising at the moment, at least this was a good sign.
And as the sun rose over Solarfurt and shed light on a new day, Tessa looked out of her window over her community and saw all the beautiful connections of the people walking below, just as it should be. In these moments, it almost seemed too good to be true … Well, she thought, just in case, she had still a lot of emergency mushrooms left in the cellar and the pact would always be there … if it didn’t radicalize further … in the distance she could hear the regular fire of the spore protectors, which still had to be turned on at all times … how long until they wouldn’t be enough anymore …
And then, another thought entered her mind, something that she had overheard on the train a few days ago: “Look, I like the Fungiverse just as the next guy, but the whole thing about resistance against the Meta Myzel … I find that hard to believe. At the very least, it’s by now a huge oversimplification. And all that stuff about the free myzels? You think most people give a damn what happens to their myzel? I feel bad for the poor woman maintaining mine, but no myzel lasts forever. It’s just a story. The so-called Fungiverse is already beginning to disintegrate. It’s transforming into something else. If it ever existed. The important thing here is in my opinion for our fungal senses to develop further. I’m even thinking of doing one of those therapies everyone is talking about at work.” To which the other person replied: “Oh certainly. But it’s a necessary lie. We need it for the moment and probably a little longer. But there will be casualties that’s for sure. Did you hear of this one myzel-leader who worked himself to death? They found him weeks later … no one had taken notice until the first problems showed up and when no one wanted to take over, his myzel just moved on to the next …”
She finally caught herself, went back to bed and closed her eyes, tried to fall asleep, tried to shut out the voices, smells and visions of her fellow community members and the irrational thoughts that something was off, something still seemed off … stood up and walked to the window once again, the third time this morning …
Everything seemed ok. Everything was ok. For now. And that was as good as it could get at the moment. And she needed the sleep. She couldn’t be there for her myzel if she didn’t sleep.
She went back to bed and after just a few more moments, finally, her mind slipped away into the sweet oblivion of sleep.
Thanks for reading. If you liked this story, please re-post it under #fungiverse, #fedipunk or #fungipunk, or create your own variant of the story if you want to. It’s free to use! Let’s spread the idea of the fungiverse through the Fediverse and beyond!
Starting with the post that introduced Solarpunk 15 years ago¹, the literary and aesthetic movement has been gaining momentum in recent years, with its vision of a sustainable future powered by renewable energy. However, as renewable energy is getting more and more mainstream while many societal problem remain, it’s time to expand the scope of Solarpunk to fully embrace the Fediverse.
You may ask: but why? The answer is the same as at the time for Solarpunk: back then, people called for a new narrative regarding climate change. One that is less doomerism and more positive, so that they could already think about that future and push the overall project. And now we have the same situation with the internet: over the last decades with series like black mirror, we are still stuck in doom-mode even though we know that for some of these problems, dezentralized social networks could be the solution. We just need more stories that fill this vision with live. ⠀ Fedipunk could be a new literary and aesthetic movement that seeks to explore the intersection of Solarpunk and decentralized social networks.
In this future, people can connect with others who share their interests and values and build communities around shared goals and aspirations. The Fediverse provides a fertile ground for this kind of experimentation, with its diverse range of platforms and communities. In contrast to centralized platforms, it puts community-building at its core instead of keeping users as much time as possible in its walled garden to increase revenue. It also includes data centres as central building blocks of communities just as other infrastructural components and maybe even uses their heat to warm houses. In this future, we have also reformed our forms of governance so that its more democratic and participatory and have built systems that are more responsive to the needs of all people. Fedipunk is not just a literary movement – it’s a call to action. It’s about imagining a better world, and then working towards making that world a reality. It’s about building communities that are based on trust, collaboration, and mutual respect. Because the world depends on it, the internet needs to get out of its comfort zone again. Fedipunk should be all about that.
Here are my propositions for the central themes of Fedipunk, with a few stories as examples:
– Give people back agency, helping individuals out of toxic communities and give them the possibility to join healthier communities, encourage deconstructing authoritarian social networks and authority in general (His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman)
– Help building and connecting communities in the fight against climate change (Breath Taker https://fungiverse.wordpress.com/2023/10/29/breath-taker/, Planet Magnon by Leif Randt, A Half Build Garden by Ruthanna Emrys, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin)
– Work against totalitarian, authoritarian social networks (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, also His Dark Materials)
Thanks for reading! If you liked this, feel free to contribute your stories under #fedipunk and help the genre take flight. Together, we can imagine a future that is sustainable, decentralized, and more overall liveable!
Written by @bluebbberry@mastodon.social, licenced under Creative Commons BY 4.0 (Attribution)
Humans, their cringy problems and how I stopped to care
(A Novella)
⠀ “Technology is not neutral. We’re inside of what we make, and it’s inside of us. We’re living in a world of connections — and it matters which ones get made and unmade.” ⠀– Donna Haraway ⠀
Spring
“We don’t deserve this planet and yet, here we are. Green girl power forever!” Last post from @mackaron1_xoxo
Eury told me later that it had already been there when she woke up. She had felt an intense sense of dizziness, had literally stumbled out of her raised bed and had stuck her head into the bucket of fresh soil that her parents only keep in the house for emergencies. But she just hadn’t been able to contain herself any longer. She had been miserable for the previous day and, in fact, for the whole of last week. But just a few moments later, she scolded herself: she just had to get through it, she told herself, and then it would soon be over. Just like all the times before. For this reason, she didn’t startle when she looked in the mirror, when the branches of her hair stood out brittle as straw from her head, the blossoms hanging down from them withered, the bark of her skin even more furrowed than usual. It was nothing new. Once, when she was still small, she had gone with her parents to a doctor because of it. He had examined her and finally said that this was quite normal for dryads of her age and no reason to worry at all. In fact, she had always recovered quickly from it. That morning, however, it was particularly bad. She even had trouble tying her braid. At any moment, her entire head of hair seemed on the verge of crumbling between her hands. She had never had that before. To calm herself down, she recalled the doctor’s words in her head, “It’s probably just a little infection. You know how strongly you react to temperature fluctuations.” She had patched her braid makeshift and gone to school. Eury wasn’t one to worry unnecessarily or get doctor’s notes early. Not this morning, and not ever. In fact, her thoughts were pretty much immediately occupied with other things again – Paul, her tablemate and “friend,” in fact, decided promptly at a quarter past eight to wander his disgusting, thick sausage fingers up her thigh. While the teacher was reporting some tanker accident at the local port, she had eyes only for Paul. And I (two tables over, in shock) could see: they were not nice eyes. But as usual, he didn’t look at anything. Half an hour before, on the way to school, she had told me about the plan he had served her the day before. I had just stared at her and she had then asked me how her hair looked. “Could be worse,” I had replied, completely perplexed, “looks like a bird’s nest” would have been closer to the truth. But Paul would see for himself that she was in no shape to go through with it, I told myself, but I was hoping for the wrong person: When they met in class, he didn’t seem to notice anything (or at least he covered it up very well). He didn’t even ask how she was doing. In a flash, they made out in front of me and then sat down on their chairs with their legs together. What went on between the two was very, very strange. Also generally considered. But more about that later. First, I have to come back to what Eury had told me on the way to school. First as background info: the two had been together for some time, but had never really become serious (Eury had always told me everything, which I was happy about, only so far I had been able to save her from worse). But now it was so far: on this evening they apparently wanted to go now really and all serious the further big step: Their first time, or as I teased them right away, “When he picks your flower.” I had been worried – normally you can talk to me about serious things too, but there I just hadn’t known any better way to help myself. If I had been more empathetic, I might have been able to change her mind. But I also didn’t think that he would take advantage of her promise as shamelessly as he did in the classroom. Whereby, probably he was really just ignorant. His fingers were still fiddling with her leg. Almost outrageously far they wandered upwards. Didn’t he see how bad she was? He always acted so thoughtful, but actually he was quite an asshole. He was vegan, by the way. For what felt like forever. But I think from the beginning mainly to impress Eury. Though anyone could see she didn’t give a shit. I had always suspected a penchant for double standards in him. He was the type of vegan who, when someone is cold, asks if he should fart because his farts don’t stink. Let’s just say he didn’t do it just for nature. Anyway … at least he did something at all and if it was only carbon-reduced farting. One could not exactly say that about Eury. Maybe that was the only reason she was with him. Out of a guilty conscience. It would make sense, I can still see her in front of me, lolling in the sun with her eyes closed, eating a curry sausage, simply because she can’t help it, because it’s “just too good”. Actually, she was already quite an environmental sow, come to think of it. I mean: she basically didn’t need to eat anything. She just did it for fun, I guess. Maybe her guilty conscience wasn’t sooo pronounced after all. And even if it was, that would be a totally questionable motive for a relationship anyway, wouldn’t it? In general, I sometimes thought to myself that the fact that Paul ate exclusively plants didn’t really make a sweet impression on me, but rather a latently aggressive one. The vegan and the dryad. To me, that just screamed toxic relationship, but I didn’t dare say it. Everyone talked about the dream team, the perfect couple, the “couple of the future” and so on, but all I saw was how he had once picked a daisy outside and secretly let it disappear between his teeth. He was still a predator, just with a new prey scheme. Just as he also stuffed heaps of these substitute products into himself. But no one in the class seemed to notice except me. Even Eury didn’t realize it. And I don’t think even he did. They also never had any beef, of course, just on principle. It was so damn frustrating. Or was I just thinking too unromantically again? Eury had told me this in all seriousness when I told her the daisy thing: “You have no sense of romance.” As if that had anything to do with it. Eury was special, unique, so special that Paul, in his self-absorption and hypocrisy and creepy vegan gaze, could never have appreciated her in all her facets as she deserved! And apart from that, Paul’s sense of romance was obviously more than questionable! In these situations, when he wandered up her calf, everything in me contracted. The same thing happened when I saw how gracefully she came forward, stretching her back and letting herself grow a few more inches, or when she ate her food without inhibitions. There are simply people who make an art out of eating spaghetti unattractively, and Eury was just such a person … In the meantime, Paul’s fingers had advanced to depths that were simply sickening for all present, but of course I could hardly intervene in the middle of class, and I don’t know if I would have done so in any other situation. Either way, it was almost unbearable. The distaste in Eury’s features was now so unmistakable that even the boys were looking elsewhere who had just been grinning and wide-eyed. At last Eury pushed him in the side to make him stop, but little did he know that the boys had let go of him and continued. With a jerk, Eury suddenly stood up. All eyes of the class on her. “Sorry, hay fever,” she said hastily, waving her hands around in front of her face and walking toward the door with her chin up. I was impressed, as always, by her quick wit. She didn’t have hay fever, was usually more the cause of it. Getting off the hook with a joke. Typical Eury. But, and as I said, she told me this only later, when she took out the used handkerchief halfway to the door to bring it to her nose, she saw black, oily sprinkles in it. In the midst of sneezing, she stopped like that with her mouth open for a few moments until it was impossible to finish believably. When she looked up, she was looking into the eyes of the entire class. “They’re especially bad,” the teacher came to her rescue, “the ones who announce themselves and then don’t show up.” The boys in the back row snorted and Paul ran quite red. I could see immediately that something was up. I could see in Eury the urge to bolt for the girls’ room (at least I would have), but she has always been as strong as a tree. She just sat back down and acted like nothing happened. I think it was that moment that I fell in love with her. But there was Paul again, possessively putting his arm around her shoulder. She probably still had a black drop of oil in the corner of her mouth, and he was already starting to wander up her calf again, while she just stared into space, as if she had been knocked on her head. I wanted to scream, to do something, anything. But I remained sitting motionless and the lesson continued.
She didn’t feel much better the rest of the day. She wrote Paul that she wasn’t feeling well and they had to postpone their special evening. She wasn’t really mad about it. They had a lot to talk about. “Do you want to come over to my place?” he wrote back. Eury thought it was sweet, thought he was trying to comfort her. Maybe everything will be okay after all, she thought, and went over. I had advised her against it, of course, as I had advised her against being with him in the first place, but she simply ignored my last messages. And when she told me the incidents that followed, all I could do was bite the inside of my cheek and suppress yelling at her, “I told you so, I told you so!!!” I’d rather be the world’s worst romantic! But all I could do was listen and scream inside. So when she was with him, he still wanted to get into bed with her. “No, Paul.” He later said he thought she was just shy. Anyone who knew her even a little bit would never have thought anything like that. I think he had already announced it big time to his buddies and now had to deliver. Eury didn’t mention it, but I guess he had a drink and I bet he didn’t care if it was vegan or not. I think they were already sitting on his bed, maybe it was clean, but I don’t think so. Had he sprinkled it with rose petals or put a layer of soil on it? I don’t know. She never went into that much detail, and after all, I’m not romantic enough to imagine it. “Why is that? Are you on your period?” He really didn’t have a clue how that went down with dryads …. “No … Paul. I don’t want to, okay?” She was already pretty weak at this point. Her okay? hung between them like rotted mistletoe from last Christmas. For a few awful moments, she looked into Paul’s eyes without finding an answer in them. Then she threw up crude oil all over him from top to bottom.
Paul immediately got the ambulance (at least in one thing he showed the minimum amount of courage that could be expected) and then drove with her to the hospital. But all she thought about on the drive were his eyes and how she could get away from them the fastest. But her dreams, inhabited by doctors in shining white coats, came to an abrupt end. As soon as they reached the hospital, the paramedics simply pushed her into Paul’s arms and roared off with warbling sirens. Without wasting any time, Paul carried her through the front entrance, past a long queue directly towards one of the nurses, saying it was an emergency, but they paid him no attention. Puzzled, he stopped and Eury, who by now was taking everything in stride but was now wondering why things weren’t moving along, looked around. The hospital was crowded. Everywhere it was full of patients. And they were all dryads. Seized by sudden panic, she wriggled out of his arms, pulled herself forward with her hands across the linoleum floor, and responded to any help from Paul with fierce kicks. Finally, she crawled onto one of the benches and turned her face toward the glaring neon tubes on the ceiling, which she mistook for the sun. She couldn’t breathe calmly again until Paul was asked kindly but firmly by a nurse to get off of her. “We can’t treat her friend right now. You can see what’s going on here. Hey, they don’t look too good either. Did they get some of that stuff too? Come on, this way. We have another regular room for you.” We can’t treat your friend. Eury heard the sentence too, but it didn’t bother her in the least. She was away from Paul, basking in that glare above her. And all that was a tremendous relief for now.
A short time later, a stressed nurse appeared in her field of vision. He told her that they didn’t know what to do with her and whether she had the strength to call someone. She had. She called me, and the very first thing she told me was that she was no longer Paul’s girlfriend, and then the nurse took over that she needed to be picked up from the hospital, and quickly. “I don’t have time to explain this to you. All hell is breaking loose here. Can they notify her parents? Okay. Thank you.” And that’s exactly what I did. They answered right away, asking me what was going on, but I was just as smart as they were. They decided to leave right away. I wondered if they should give me a ride. I denied that too, I don’t remember exactly why, got into my parents’ car and drove to the hospital myself, although I wasn’t actually allowed to drive unaccompanied … I got there even earlier than they did, but waited to go in. When we entered the foyer together it was a pretty bad sight. We had trouble finding Eury at all. The whole hospital was littered with dryads vegging out, huddled in the potted plants, half-buried themselves in the hospital’s front bed, or even just lying around in regular hospital beds in the hallway. All rooms with intensive sunbaths were completely occupied, in some rooms they tried desperately to artificially revive dying dryads, but had far too little soil. We rushed through the corridors, not yet daring to fear the worst, even though it seemed increasingly inevitable. When we finally found her, there was also another overworked orderly. Much of his clothing was smeared with soil. I even thought I could make out something on his lips. But behind him we saw Eury lying in a conventional sunbath. She seemed so far well, I was so happy that I could not believe it at first. Eury’s father wanted to thank the orderly, but without a word he put a half-full bag of nutrient-rich fresh soil into his hand and left at a run, without somehow finding out whether we really knew Eury or not. We took Eury two at a time, her mother and I, and rushed to the car. We didn’t think to ask anyone what the hell was going on.
10 minutes later we were standing in front of the family’s small front garden, her mother with the bag of fresh soil in her hands, her father with the now unconscious Eury in his arms, and me somewhat uncomfortable with a spade. We looked into the small bed, which with its one meter width and two meters length would be just enough for them. Luxurious was different. But I didn’t dare suggest anything else. Bringing them into our garden, for example. Instead, I was annoyed with the hospital. I thought it was crass. That they just assumed that if you were a dryad parent, you had a garden for emergencies. But I didn’t say that either. After all, they hadn’t known it had been unplanned …. So together we dug a pit and laid it down, tentatively sprinkling it with soil that it didn’t even go ahead. It was difficult for all of us, I think. Each of us had practiced something like this for driving school, of course, but never in real life. Especially with the face, we all hesitated. I was afraid she wouldn’t be able to breathe, although of course that made no sense at all. But in driving school, when you’re shovelling dirt into this plastic doll, it doesn’t occur to you that it might feel quite like a funeral on a real person. Or that it might be hard for you to bury someone like that, alive, so to speak, and that you’re permanently terrified of making a terrible mistake and killing them. You just think to yourself: yes, okay, but it won’t happen to me anyway, and if it does, I’ll manage it somehow; and the doll is already in the ground. But in reality, when you have a breathing person disappear under the ground … at some point I just couldn’t do it anymore. You know those memes: when you emergency-bury a dryad alive, you look at the world differently afterwards. And it’s true. It wasn’t until that moment that I understood how much it was true. I know that it was weird that I thought of it in this moment. It certainly was a good thing that Eury’s father was there, that he still knew that it was essential to have the face pointing upwards, that he soon began to really shovel earth when I already could no longer look. When it was finally done, we were relieved to see the earth slowly rise and fall. She was breathing. The sight was almost peaceful now. It was just her withered hair pointing outward like early bloomers that would soon come up and show their blossoms to the world again. Seeing her like this, it might as well have been that she was just taking a little nap. Once again, her father carefully wiped aside the top layer of soil so that her face could be seen again. Then he bent down and kissed her earthy lips, smeared by his tears and already providing some moisture, drop by drop. Then he opened her mouth wide, held her nose and breathed into her, as recommended by the official Federal Institute of Botany and Dryad Medicine. Afterwards he went in briefly to get a watering can and I covered her face again in the meantime. I didn’t know if it was all right with him, but I just didn’t like to see her motionless, pale face like that among the masses of earth. She had always been so beautiful, especially through the different seasons, combining her different looks with the latest fashion trends. Each of her outfits had been more spectacular than the last … she had been perfect without consciously trying to be, seemingly without any effort. It had just been in her nature I guess …
We tried for an hour to get him back into the house. But he didn’t want to leave his daughter alone there underground, out there, so alone in front of the house right next to the street. “Nothing will happen to her. You can’t even see it,” we talked at him, but he would not be swayed. “What if she wakes up? In the middle of the night?” It soon became apparent that there was no point. He would stay by her side all night. At least I was actually quite happy about that. For a while longer, I stood inside by the window with her mother. We watched as he crouched there in silence, watching the earth still moving gingerly. “Who do you think is going to the hardware store tomorrow to get more soil when he’s lying here in bed dead tired?” She said this to herself rather than to me, so I didn’t have to answer. Still, I considered saying something like “everything will be fine” and “that I would be there for them if they needed me.” Empty words. I wasn’t good at that sort of thing. I had never witnessed this kind of sickness before. So I kept silent. “You have to change the soil three times a day,” she calculated to herself next to me, “that’s €9 a day. That’s an extra €280 a month. It has to be good quality. Not cheap stuff. Don’t cut corners. But if it doesn’t work at all anymore, we’ll have to … no, if we just save a little more on food over the next few months, it should work even then … It can take a little while before she’s completely healthy again, as you hear …” I had known for as long as I could remember that they had money problems. It had never been a secret and yet I never dared to participate in conversations along those lines, even when, as here, I felt it was required of me or at least as condescending not to say anything. Wouldn’t health insurance pay for it, I asked cautiously. “No, they say they wouldn’t cover something like that. They don’t cover cases of illness generated by climate change. That has never worked. Not in our rate, it’s a wonder we didn’t have to pay for half the bag from the hospital ourselves. Although …” she laughed bitterly, “I’m sure the bill will come.” I was going to suggest that simply I could buy the bag of composted soil if that was what it took, or more, four, five, a whole truck if necessary, but then left it. Not I would do it, it would be my parents’ money. I also didn’t want Eury to wake up in my soil instead of her parents’. That they hadn’t even been able to raise enough soil for her to repot temporarily. So I preferred to keep silent. I had already made a good contribution to the conversation. Next to me, she continued counting while her husband kept watch outside. I felt increasingly out of place, but at the same time found myself unable to break away. Now, somehow, we were all keeping vigil for her after all. The thought appealed to me. It was comforting in a pleasant way. I looked forward to being able to tell her about it later. If there was a later. Her face had looked so terrible … I eyed her mother from the side. Her features showed concern, but not despair. I didn’t resent her at all for calculating Eury’s illness so thoroughly. If anything, it had a calming effect on me. As if the whole problem could be solved if only the calculation worked out. Her lips were now murmuring silently to herself, and I don’t know whether I would actually have liked to know whether the calculation had worked out or whether I preferred this uncertainty even then. In the meantime, her husband had closed his eyes and leaned forward slightly. I realized all at once that he was doing this for his wife. Not for Eury. That there was some power play going on here, the extent of which I could only guess at, and with which I had nothing to do. I wondered for the first time if she had ever forgiven him for having an affair with that dryad. Eury had heard her argue about it many times. How many times had she come to me afterwards and I had comforted her? He had said that it had all been quite different. That he had gotten the pollen in his nose “purely by chance”, that he had never wanted it. But let’s be honest: they all say that … no wonder she didn’t believe him. At some point, Eury confronted him too, and he told her the truth. That it wasn’t true, that it hadn’t been an accident. That her mother had been unique, a willow dryad with long hair that had reached her feet, but that she had wanted to stay in her forest and he could hardly have lived with her in the forest (I suppose she was some kind of old-flower-power-hippie or something), and that he also loved her other mother and therefore it was not possible. She had cried her eyes out. I had never seen her so weak. She had put her flower head in my lap and I had stroked her leaves. It had never occurred to me to take her mother’s perspective. Once in the swimming pool I had seen the scars on his chest. And it had also been, I think, a home birth. It was amazing what he had taken on for her. And they were still not even for their mother? No, I could not and would not understand that. No, never ever! What a terrible, terrible mother! The “terrible mother” now went outside and put a blanket around her husband’s shoulders, came back inside, stood next to me at the window, and I felt bad. It didn’t feel like I was part of anything now. At some point I just turned away from them and left them alone at their daughter’s bed without saying goodbye. At home I searched all evening on the Internet for potting soil. Because of 3€. The prices had exploded. The thought of arriving at her doorstep with a completely overpriced bag of potting soil just seemed embarrassing. I finally ordered nothing and looked until the morning hours Friends.
Summer
“Trying to make omelette while watching princess charming. Didn’t work. Now my kitchen is ruined. Anybody knows how to clean these things? I usually only go out to the solarium … no better place to grab a bite of light and smell baked meat.” Last post from @breath_taker123
“Skipped through the new poison ivy comic: human gaze all over the place. Can’t they keep making sequels for their own dump stories?” Second last post from @breath_taker123
“What we SHOULD read in school: HAN KANG’S THE VEGETARIAN; what we ACTUALLY read: PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER. This society is beyond help.” Third last post from @breath_taker123
Yesterday, I took a look at my old social media profile. There, I found posts like these: “Climate change is peanuts. It’s not even the main problem. It’s only a symptom. The problem is the system. When people start buying overpriced coffee by a dumb American franchise with their names printed on their cubs and feel no regrets whatsoever, you know the end is truly here. Once, I thought about walking into a shop and instead of saying my first name, saying: “Fuck capitalism” and then to pour the coffee over my face. But then again, instead of going viral, I would probably only lie there on the floor, screaming with a glowing red face, without anyone taking notice. Attention is the true currency of our time. But the thing is: only attention doesn’t get shit done.”
These were things I posted at the time. I used to worry … about humans … and their cringy problems. They even became more important to me than my own wellbeing. But on the flip side: thanks to them, I got everything. Thousands of Followers, loads and loads of attention … but why does it now feel like I overdid it a bit? Why do I feel calm and relaxed against all the problems our world currently faces? Well … as a good friend taught me, let me tell you a story …
Only a few weeks ago, in the heart of Solarfurt, where humans scurried around in their usual caffeinated frenzy, and the smoky aroma of cars mixed with the alluring fragrance of suffocating flowers, there I was – yet another young, lost dryad. The name is Eury, by the way, which is like me, a relic from some forgotten era, trying to navigate the chaos of modern existence while pursuing an illustrious career of illuminating the unknown depths of German language. Ah, yes, a truly thrilling pursuit, I assure you. And so useful in life.
My days were spent observing the world through the lens of my favourite ancient oak tree in the park, a quiet existence amidst the high-pitched cacophony of smartphones, social media, and the incessant, unnerving chatter of digital connections. It all felt as foreign to me as a language from another planet. There I would sit, with a pile of books next to me and my gaze in the distance.
Beneath my serene exterior, however, anxiety brewed like a storm. Blame it on climate change, they said, but in any case, it was draining my energy and leaving me feeling like a wilted flower. Or perhaps it was my secret indulgence in the forbidden fruit of Curry Wurst that led to this existential crisis. Who knew, right? But how could I resist the temptation? Curry Wurst was, after all, a tantalizing siren luring me to the dark side. The struggles of a dryad trying to maintain a healthy diet, truly a tragedy for the ages. And then there were the news, in which the mystical fungi-people with their oh so radical ideas and grand plans to save the world with fungi-glue appeared on and on. They were soon to take over the world. Or at least, that’s what my flatmate claimed after reading one too many internet stories. Probably chronically unrequited horniness and boredom – a match made in … well, not heaven, that’s for sure. But just when I thought life couldn’t get any stranger, along came the day that changed everything.
So yes, I was buried alive by my third best friend and my estranged parents, but they only thought they were doing what was best for me, so I guess I can’t complain. What I can complain about though is that I woke up in the middle of the night and that nobody was there. I had to dug myself out, scratching and pulling myself up to the top, in the process getting my fingernails dirty, which I hate and, to clean them, walked to the next Späti to get me some handkerchiefs and while at it, also bought a bottle of wine for the way home, having by now realized that it was dark, so could as well make it count. No one turns away a just-woken dryad. Especially not in these times.
So, I was walking the streets at five in the morning, half-drunk thinking about why humans had made it their thing to bury people in the earth after they die (are they hoping that they come back again too?), when a peculiar mushroom, glowing with an otherworldly light, caught my eye. Should I have been terrified? Probably. Did I care? Not particularly. I devoured it without a second thought, and suddenly, I was in the Fungiverse. A place where people communicated in ways that made human social nets look like child’s play: everybody could communicate with everybody, but it wasn’t like on the social media that I knew. It was much more dynamic and open, with people grouping together in so-called myzels and then building connections to other myzels. The Fungiverse even reached far into the web of humans and plants, connecting everything with everything. Human social networks seemed like walled gardens in comparison and now I had reached the forest. Ah, the wonders of psychedelics, or so I assumed. But then I looked down at myself and found, that my vision and overall senses were in no way altered if you count out the alcohol.
And so, I wandered around, looking at all the connections that I hadn’t seen before and were suddenly opening up everywhere in front of me, connecting people across house walls, neighbourhoods and city districts, crossing all borders I thought in between. And soon, through this newfound magical sense, I realized that many people in my city were also linked to the Fungiverse, forming communities that I had never heard of or seen before.
Inspired, I joined one of these communities and, in the process, found love in the arms of Lamella, a fungi-woman whose heart pulsed with the same passion as mine, even so she belonged to a different myzel. Her vibrant and life-confirming nature seemed to glow with an inner light. Lamella was a stark contrast to me. She embraced the world with open arms, her positivity infectious. Lamella and I became inseparable, exploring the Fungiverse together. She showed me communities of mycelia, interconnected networks of fungi-people, dryads like me and human allies, all banding together to combat the looming threat of climate change. And even though some of their ideologies clashed like thunder in the distance, mirroring the conflicts of the upper world; yet, here in the Wood Wide Web, battles were fought not with weapons but with spores and symbiotic relationships. And so, I joined their cause, finding purpose amidst the chaos.
Our love blossomed amidst the mycelial threads that wove us together. In the quiet intimacy of our moments, we explored the unique practices of our kind – the gentle exchange of nutrients and the harmonious dance between plants and mushroom-people. It was a profound connection, one that transcended the boundaries of our physical forms and even the fact that she found my occasional craving for meat appalling couldn’t forfeit. Also, I had arranged myself there: once in a while I now switched to plant-based alternatives and we laughed together at the absurdity of it.
“It’s one of my main red flags now. People telling me they are vegetarian as if they do ME a favour. As if it weren’t threating at all. And now look at me! Who is the predator now? But you know who is the worst? Humans that claim to want to help you to save the world. Yeah, right. Avoid those people. Cut them out of your life. Get out of there as quickly as possible, because they want you only for themselves. They want literary to eat you alive.”
Lamella then said she thought of the good in the heart of everyone and that after all she was still a strong advocate of the universal declaration of human rights if you applied it to all humanoid beings. And that she also pitied them: they were way to self-conscious for their own good, she would always say. She really had to mention this at every possible opportunity. Sometimes I also found this a bit annoying, but I also wasn’t anti-human, of course, even so I just as well could have been after all …
Anyways …
I left my other social media profiles behind on that same day. As breath_taker123, I had amassed thousands of followers, laughing about my dump jokes about human world problems and making fun of sapiens quirks. Afterwards, I felt no regrets. In the Fungiverse, I would create a new social net that would actually mean something to me.
Yet, as our community grew, so did the challenges. Horrible things began to happen to plant-based people. Members continued to fell ill, succumbing to the consequences of climate change, even if some tried everything to hide it, their bodies betraying them in public or live on social media (which served them right, given queen bees as they were).
But I’m too mean again. And after all, even if it was discussed much more openly in the Fungiverse, I, too, was not spared. And maybe it even served me right, too. Once again, I became dreadfully ill, thanks to the poison that humans had spread all over the place. My body was a battleground, fighting off the greed-induced sickness. It reminded me of Paul, the perverted pig. Seemed like I couldn’t escape it so easily after all …
And the drama! Oh, the drama. There were these myzels over myzels, all caught up in their little alliances, changing like the wind. There was my gang, the TerraForce Mycelium, all gung-ho about radical climate change action, ready to transform the upper world ASAP. On the other side, you had the GreenTech Mycelium (Lamellas crowd, boring af, boo!), preaching caution, scared that rushing in might mess up their precious little ecosystem. Picture this: we’re all in this cosmic play, blind to the real tragedy unfolding before us — climate change, the ultimate villain in our messed-up story and what are we doing: we argue about it. But I was, after all, just a sassy gal caught in the middle of it all, and I couldn’t help but mock those myzels bickering over nonsense while the world crumbled beneath us.
“Bravo. Bravo, almost as good as humans,” I’d say, my voice as dry as the world forest’s soil. But Lamella, my ever-hopeful fungi-girl, would chime in with her melodic voice, telling me to quit being a dick and see what humans had done for the Fungiverse, too and that all would end well. Sometimes she was positive toxicity personified.
But at the end, she convinced me with an idea to make the myzels overcome their petty fights and face the more pressing problem. For that, Lamella first told me some juicy gossip about some of the biggest myzels. Apparently, just recently, Tech guru Lysandra Nguyen of Green Tech and evangelical myzel Creationist’s Covenant heartthrob Aiden Pilates were sparking more than just debates! Their intellectual clashes had turned into electric touches and stolen glances, leaving the myzels buzzing with anticipation. Could their passionate connection bridge the gap between the factions, or would it ignite a new rivalry of desires and secrets? The Fungiverse was on the edge of its mycelia, waiting for the next chapter in this tantalizing tale of forbidden attraction! And while the myzel’s leaders of the Creationist’s Covenant, Reverend Miriam, seemed oblivious to the budding affair, yet their followers couldn’t help but wonder how this entanglement might reshape the dynamics between Green Tech and the Creationist’s Covenant. But as of now, nothing had happened … but something in the Fungiverse was in the air … a tension that seemed like it could tear the Fungiverse apart at any moment … and apparently, TerraForce had sensed this weakness in GreenTechs stance and exploited it immediately. It was the root behind it all. The whole conflict was based on petty love affair. But on the other hand: when are they not?
We decided to take a leap of faith and lead the negotiations between the myzels. In the midst of our careful discussions, Reverend Miriam emerged as a crucial mediator. Astonishingly, we unearthed a hidden truth about Aiden, the staunch evangelical: he was secretly fungi, a fact he had concealed his entire life from his family and his myzel. This revelation put Lamella and me in an incredibly difficult position, given the evangelicals vehemently denied the existence of fungi. But after intense discussions, we managed to negotiate a deal between the myzels. In the agreed-on arrangement, GreenTech granted the Evangelicals unrestricted access to their aroma spas. And so, with the Reverend’s blessing, Aiden left the myzel and joined his new-found love in GreenTech.
For the moment, everything seemed harmonic again and even I couldn’t help but feel optimistic and light-hearted. The wedding ceremony was broadcasted live in the Fungiverse, and the Evangelicals, famous for their extravagant gospel shows, made a grand appearance, though, I couldn’t help but find their performance a bit too well-meaning for my taste. The ceremony wasn’t even finished when I already joked about it.
“Wow, maybe we should do something like that more often”, I teased Lamella, “seems like there lies much potential for building a following here. Maybe Taylor Swift will come out as fungi, too, just as her fans always suspected. That would be really something for the Fungiverse, wouldn’t it?”
“She would first have to join it”, she replied with a smile on her face and after a while, added, almost annoyed, “if you would just read her latest posts, you would see it, too. It’s so obvious by now, there are connections everywhere.”
“The most obvious here is that it sounds like a cult.”
“If so, in the best sense of the word.”
“I stand speechless. Watch my tears ricochet.” I made a playfully sad face, “Look what you made me do.”
“I forgot you existed.”
“Bad Blood?”
“Karma.”
But against all the bickering between me and Lamella, the wedding had reminded the myzels for what they had been formed in the first place: to help and support each other, and to, like the gorgeous strings of the cellos of the orchestra in the big church of Solarfurt in which Lamella was playing, to create a beautiful woven melody, free styling to the pulse of the Fungiverse.
And after the weekend, when the dust settled, and the myzels refocused their efforts on saving our world, I couldn’t help but smile. Lamella and I, we had resolved the differences and maybe even made the world a little bit better. I even felt a little proud of myself.
And in the quiet moments, away from the world’s demands, we found solace in each other’s arms. Lamella’s delicate spores caressed my skin, sending shivers of pleasure through my floral body. I, in turn, tenderly traced my fingers along Lamella’s mycelial tendrils, marvelling at the delicate textures that made Lamella unique. Lamella’s soft whispers, akin to the rustle of leaves in the wind, echoed sweet promises and declarations of love, filling my heart with an overwhelming sense of belonging. And then, she started to enter me with her thoughts, merging our streams of thought … every touch of mine was mirrored in my mind and so were her fingers running over me … We shared stories, dreams, and whispered promises under the starlit canopy of the Fungiverse. Our love, like the mycelial threads that connected our worlds, grew stronger each day. As the sun rose on this Sunday, which could as well have been a new era, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time — hope. I hadn’t puked oil in over a week. Leaning against Lamella in our favourite ancient tree in Solarfurt, I lit a cigarette, just holding it, watching the tip glow. It felt okay, better than okay. It felt like a tiny victory in the face of chaos, a moment of peace and hope on our little, suffering planet … and then, I even felt a little bad for the humans again as they hurried past in their caffeinated frenzy …
Autumn
“Every time you see the sun, another person is seeing the moon.” Last post from @sunny_lamella
We should have known when she said her favourite season was autumn.
But for real: is Taylor Swift secretly fungi? If you have read her last posts, you might know what I’m talking about and like the rest of the swifty parts of the Fungiverse, think about nothing else at the moment. But before we get to that, I need to tell you something else (little side note: I have ADHD, so bear with me if it gets a little all over the place if you know what I mean. I know it’s a Fungi-cliché, but here we are … and it’s already happening.
But see: I like conversations, because just like mushrooms, they can sprout in all kinds of unexpected places. It may sound weird, but it’s my favourite thing to do: talk to people or listening to people talk. Sometimes, I would get on the train just to listen to the stories from the cities the train took me, getting off at a stop where the stories where the most interesting and carrying on from there. And now before you say it’s weird: Lorde does it, too.
While this occasionally brought me in one or the other tight situation, it also broadened my horizon like I would never have imagined. As a child, I always wanted to travel the world, now I travel the communities in my neighbourhood and feel like I’m learning just as much (although I also do like traveling).
I think there is no being in our universe that I can’t feel empathy with. It’s my favourite thing about me. Once, this eagerness resulted in something completely unexpected. If you are interested, I can share the story with you. Then you become a part of it, if you want it or not. And who knows what will develop from that … so hang on, because I’m about to take you on a ride on which you will hear about silently roaring battles, unexpected friendships, and big-time Fungiverse drama. But first, let’s rewind to where this all started … and it starts as it always does … with drama in the Fungiverse … because a big darkness loomed on the horizon, the Fungiverse was about to face its biggest challenge yet.
It all began with a rumour, or no, I need to be much more specific: Its last year. And in the chill air of autumn, a certain melancholic Taylor Swift-in-a-sweater-vibe just swept through the Fungiverse. Yes, I’m speaking folklore, witchy-vibes, cats on the stove, all of that. And, well, given it was my favourite of all seasons, my threads got caught up in the whirlwind.
But then, seemingly out of nowhere, a dark thread had appeared, on which members of two myzels battled each other fiercely in never ending lines of conversation. It was rumoured that it came from a myzel that the other myzels had excluded years ago from their community, because of its problem to control its more and more radicalising members. The other was the myzel of me, GreenTech.
But apart from that, everything seemed all right. I went to bed as usual.
The next morning, the Fungiverse was ablaze with discord. I woke up, expecting to be greeted by the morning greetings of my friends and community but instead only heard deafening silence and even someone screaming.
It had started at around 11 pm, I heard from the occasional whispers from my deserted communities, with the myzel’s notorious trade-mark memes of teared-apart baby dolls. But a new line-crossing had been a meme, which depicted the equation of the wedding of Aiden and Lysandra with the red wedding in Game of Thrones, which had gone viral first in the Grimscape around 6 am and then also other myzels.
I made my breakfast in a frenzy. So far, the hype had not erupted into any real violence, but they had broken into public buildings, posting their crimes live all over the Fungiverse, especially targeting myzels of floral and fungi humans for their attacks, who fought back fiercely, their thoughts causing heavy shudders that rippled through the Fungiverse …
They hated humanity with every fibre of their bad morels and it was even too much for Eury and for that I’m glad and to be honest, also a little bit relieved. I almost thought she had lost the ability to feel anything for them anymore. But luckily, in this case I had been wrong, which doesn’t happen often.
But I knew that the next times would be tough. Fighting Grimscape would be much harder than fighting Nazi-myzels that occasionally popped up, because Grimscape had sympathizers all over the Fungiverse and even in my myzel. I even considered changing my myzel, because the leaders were taking a too light stance against Grimscape in my opinion.
And so, I did it, finding shelter in the myzel of my hometown. It was nice to be among them after all this time, but I also made sure to tell them it was only temporarily.
Eury, on the other hand, had remained in her myzel, which made me a little nervous to be honest; I had also repeatedly sensed her scrolling through old social media again yesterday … although I promised her to stop doing that, too – perhaps we all were falling back in old behaviours again … In any case, I hoped that I would find out more about her stance on the matter at the meeting of our closest myzels that hadn’t radicalized themselves yet. It had been quickly arranged and took part on the same day.
At the diner before, I slurped my protein drink nervously and Eury ate a extra-huge steak. No one of us spoke a word.
And then it began. First, all leaders of the myzels recalled what had happened the last weeks: members of Grimscape had multiple times harassed people from other myzels, culminating in attacking members of Eurys myzel the day before.
Eury, my fierce night-flower, spoke with a clear voice but I could hear her emotions roaring underneath. “Well, friends, it appears our little paradise isn’t as immune to toxicity as we hoped, isn’t it? I spent my morning eating bowl of bowl of fungi-muesli to block out half of my part of the Fungiverse. It’s so horrible what they spread … I woke up this morning and half of my mind was full of these horrible images, smells and visions … also from myzels with people that I had hold so high opinions on … I immediately knew that something was off … but I had never seen anything like this … I never thought they had so many sympathisers here … I hadn’t felt like that for a long time … like they had reached for something deep in me and tried to tear it apart … but I’m certain that we can heal, if we only act quickly.”
Dimmed by the encroaching darkness, I nodded and stepped forward. “I agree. We can’t let this Grimscape tear apart what we’ve worked so hard to build. We must find a way to counter its negativity and restore balance to the myzels.”
Now, Typhon, a member of the Nightingale-Myzel answered: “But this time, it’s different than with the regular clashes between us and radical renegade Myzels. It’s not enough to block them out of our fungal channels one by one; even if we have enough block-mushrooms to do that. Grimscape wants to make trouble, they consciously want to drive us apart. We need to isolate them. We may even need to think about severing the link between them and the other myzels entirely … that is, if we can convince them to do so.”
I decided to answer him: “Then let’s first talk to the other myzels and we will see what they think. I can tell you: this happened before. If we do it wrong, they will just join our other Myzels and sow diffusion there; only then we can fight them less effective.”
Eury agreed: “I understand. You’re right. Let’s not act too quickly. Maybe there is even still room to keep the conflict from escalating.”
The question was debated in each of our myzels, and all agreed that we should try to make Grimscape a last peace offering. Until now, nothing really bad had happened. We asked Grimscape if they could keep themselves together and stop harassing other myzels, but in response, they flooded our myzels with more poisonous imagery. And so, we decided that we had to cut off their ties with them. But for that, we had to convince as many other myzels as possible, some of which Grimscape had already began to tear apart. Had we bothered too long? Should we have acted earlier? It didn’t matter. Now what we had to do was to stop more damage from happening.
First of all, all leaders of the friendly myzels, each concentrated and severed their ties with Grimscape so that everyone of their myzels would no longer receive anything from them.
But there were still many myzels left who were connected to Grimscape and to who we were connected to. We spoke about on how to proceed and quickly found a solution: we would go into the myzels and try to win them for our cause.
And so, with determined hearts, we embarked on a quest, seeking allies from different myzels whose positivity and strength could counter the Grimscape’s malevolence. Along the way, we encountered Lumina, the bioluminescent fungi-people whose light pierced even the darkest shadows; Zephyr, the wind-loving myzel with the power to carry messages and warnings across vast distances; and Tessa, the Turkey-rooted fungi whose grounded nature provided stability in the face of chaos. We decided to severe the ties to Grimscape.
But one question remained: how to prevent members of Grimscape to simply jump over to other myzels and starting their foul game again?
Together, Eury, Lamella, and our newfound allies devised a plan. We would confront the Grimscape head-on, combining our diverse strengths to weaken its influence. It was not only about isolating them, but also to make other myzels more resilient for their bad influence.
As we ventured deeper into the territory corrupted by the Grimscape, we felt how the malevolent myzel’s dark threads, that suddenly were everywhere, slowly also entered our own thoughts, its chilling aura pushing our spirits down, trying to sow division and discord in our minds. It unleashed illusions, attempting to break our spirits with visions of a fractured Fungiverse. But Eury and I, guided by our love and determination, saw through the deceit. Eury, with her sharp tongue, would challenge its lies and manipulations, exposing the fear and hate hidden beneath the shadows. Me, with my unwavering optimism, would inspire hope in the hearts of those who had succumbed to despair, reminding them of the beauty and resilience of the Fungiverse.
As we confronted more and more members of Grimscape, we soon found out that Grimscape was burdened by a darkness that wasn’t entirely its own. It had become a collective of myzels who had succumbed to despair and negativity, their hearts intertwined in a web of misery. And it would need all our strength to fight it back and not succumb in despair ourselves in the process. Or was it already happening? I increasingly couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow for this troubled entity. The Grimscape, once a beautiful myzel, had been consumed by the collective suffering of its inhabitants. Each step we took was not just a battle against an external force; it was a journey to heal a wounded soul. We needed to help it, not cast it away.
I told Eury what I had seen and her words, though firm, carried a touch of understanding: “We cannot fix it, if so, it can only fix itself, let’s focus on our own communities for now”. I agreed, feeling ashamed and numb, but carried on.
Amidst our journey, we encountered myzels within the Grimscape who had lost all hope and I had to fight strongly to not be consumed by the sadness of it all. Their eyes, once filled with dreams, now mirrored the desolation of their surroundings. With each encounter, I reached out to them, my touch carrying the weight of their shared despair but also the promise of redemption. I listened to their stories, shared their pain, and in return, offered them a glimmer of hope. Eury, on the other hand, challenged the myzels within the Grimscape to face the source of their darkness, tried to shake them awake and show them where they were headed. Lumina’s radiant glow, rather than banishing, caressed the Grimscape’s tendrils gently, as if reminding them of the warmth they had forgotten. Zephyr’s messages were not just warnings; they were whispers of anger, urging the myzels trapped in the Grimscape to break free from their self-imposed prisons. Tessa, rooted in the earth, extended her empathy to the Grimscape itself, as if offering a silent promise of healing.
Sometimes, members of Grimscape saw us and fought back, not with fury, but with desperation. They conjured illusions not to deceive us, but to shield its inhabitants from the harsh reality of their existence. Eury’s sharp mind saw through the facade, and with each illusion dispelled, I felt a tremor within the Grimscape – a flicker of acknowledgment that there was a way out, a path toward light and healing.
In the final confrontation, as we stood amidst the thorny vines of the Grimscape’s lair, I sensed a change within it. The collective consciousness, once so resistant, now quivered with a mix of fear and longing. Eury, her eyes filled with understanding, spoke not just to the Grimscape, but to the myzels within it.
“Your pain is real,” she said, her voice carrying the weight of centuries of suffering. “But there is beauty in the world, even in the darkest corners. Embrace the light within you, and let it guide you home.”
As if in response, I extended my hand, my touch gentle yet firm. The Grimscape trembled, and in that moment, I felt a surge of compassion – not just from me, but from my companions, the very land beneath us, and the entire world and all its inhabitants.
And then, Grimscape thorny vines lashed out at us, more than ever before, it was a pain that I had never felt before, but it frightened the whole Fungiverse. And for a moment, the darkness that had shrouded the Grimscape started to dissipate, revealing the myzels’ true forms, each face now reflecting a mixture of shame, fear and outright hatred for everyone to see.
And I could feel how the other myzels in which we had been before, saw the true face of Grimscape too and began, one by one, to de-myzel from Grimscape, either by collectively concentrating on severing the connection or by some members eating a green-glowing mushroom and severing the connection directly.
And with that, the shadows began to retreat from the other myzels and slowly, the Fungiverse began to heal. And as I looked at Grimscape, no longer a symbol of dread, but a testament to the transformative power of empathy and connection, the myzels once trapped within it now stood beside us. The Grimscape, once a collective of despair, had become a testament to the potential for change and redemption within every myzel.
By Eury’s side, I raised my glowing arms, casting a warm light that pushed back the last remains of Grimscape’s oppressive gloom. “Love, unity, and hope will always prevail over fear and hatred,” I proclaimed, my voice resonating with the strength of the entire Fungiverse. The combined force of our words, coupled with the elemental powers of our allies, weakened the Grimscape’s grip on the myzels. With a deafening roar, the malevolent myzel recoiled, its threads withdrawing in defeat. The Fungiverse, once again bathed in the vibrant hues of life, slowly began to heal from the scars left by the Grimscape’s presence.
On the same evening, we even made a headline in human news: “biggest myzels in the Fungiverse cooperate to isolate renegade myzel.” Had the reputation of the Fungiverse been tarnished? Perhaps, but who knew? There was so much going on that no one really noticed anyways. Hopefully it would show them at least that we weren’t the homogenous bunch that they depicted us as but apart from that … who cared?
Well, me, to be honest. I never had anything against humans, although sometimes I want to just scream about how they try to solve their conflicts … it’s like they just blare out whatever they think. Eury says its Stokholm Syndrome, but I think that with the skills that nature gave them, they are really trying their best … and they do make good music … Speaking of which … how did we get here again? It had something to do with music – oh right. Taylor Swift.
I mean: did you hear her newest song: Blank Spaces (Fungi Version)? Just check out the lyrics:
Nice to meet you, where you spore? I’m a fungus, you know the score You’re looking like my next host Love’s a game, wanna play some more?
‘Cause we’re fungi and we’re crazy Can’t you see the spores are hazy? Got a long list of my ex-hosts They’ll tell you I’m insane
But I’ve got a blank space, baby And I’ll write your name
Cherry stems and your white coat Sneaking in and out of petri dishes I can show you incredible things Mushroom fields and spore print rings
And later:
Boys only want love if it’s spores they’re breathing in, don’t say I didn’t say I didn’t warn you, Boys only want love if it’s spores they’re breathing in, don’t say I didn’t say I didn’t warn you, Boys only want love if it’s spores they’re breathing in, don’t say I didn’t say I didn’t warn you,
‘Cause we’re fungi and we’re crazy Can’t you see the spores are hazy? Got a long list of my ex-hosts They’ll tell you I’m insane
But I’ve got a blank space, baby And I’ll write your name
Say what you want about her, but she connects people and tells stories, hell, she is basically a story-super-spreader. What more do you want? A whole fungi-themed era? In any case: I have never looked so much forward to Halloween. Trick or treat my ass, I just want a reason to dress up like Taylor.
Winter
“I don’t believe in horoscopes; I just believe everything is connected. And who knows how? All I know is: after years of eroding of all kinds of societal institutions, we need to build back. We should start with our friends and family, but also think about bigger societal structures. And we should get it done fast before the next backlash. After all: that’s what the Fungiverse was made for.” Last post from @tessa_ract
After checking on my myzel, where a couple of organizatory things had to be done, we were discussing the government forms that we wanted to implement, factions needed to be appeased. It was all getting a bit much on top of my job … if I continued like this, I couldn’t do it much longer … but then again … who else would do it? Our myzel had an actual participation problem … mushroom needed to be stroked, myzel threads moderated … but all people wanted to do was using it as if it would always be there, as if it grew on trees and didn’t need some maintenance as well. Basically, I knew that we should implement actually working democratic processes in our myzel – I knew that many asked for them, that they weren’t working as good as they could, but there was just not enough time nor enough people to actually do it! Instead: drama over drama over drama. Only this morning another big fight between two hot heads. I had it all over my head. There was just no time to breathe. I mean: how would you to decide whether to kick a member out of a community or not? Sometimes it’s obvious but often enough it’s almost impossible without losing significant amounts of members or even risking a split or a power struggle within the myzel. But then again, I also didn’t want to be too authoritative … some were still questioning my decision to de-myzel from Grimscape without getting feedback from the whole myzel … but there were so many things to be thought of … so many things to keep in mind …
What good is it if you are the leader of the biggest myzel in the Fungiverse if it slowly drains you of all your energy without any silver lining on the horizon? That wasn’t exactly was I signed up for when I ate that pink glowing mushroom that had appointed me the leader of the myzel, giving me powers and privileges that I never really wanted … But there was no use talking about it anyways … so better to get going, there was much to do: I wanted to meet with a fellow fungi from the other myzel with which we fought Grimscape to do some community-building. Her name was Lamella. We wanted to check on how the myzels that we tried to heal were doing.
Everything seemed fine, people even waved at us. But then, as there is always trouble in the Fungiverse, the same day, as we floated among luminescent spores, we encountered Fish Guy.
Fish Guy hailed from a sect where fish-men supposedly learned to connect themselves with higher fish-beings, a mysterious ritual supposedly linking them to the universe’s depths but actually only connecting them to the sect leader’s hybris. Whispers hinted at their prayers to Dogan, an enigmatic cosmic entity, who would bring glory to the fish people again and let them rise up against those species that decided to walk the earth first and destroyed everything in return. It was the eons-old conspiracy theory that they had told themselves when in fact they too had decided at one point to step unto the earthly surface of the world. But Fish Guy was blinded, finding himself caught up in a net of lies he could no longer escape. It had all started so well, they had played dart together. But then, the collective had been overrun by people who had lost their home in the aftermath of all other myzels severing ties to the Grimscape Myzelium, plunging their world into chaos, which had let them to be isolated by the other myzels too just as Lamella had predicted it would happen. It was now time to face the consequences of our actions.
We only found them by temporarily joining their myzel (if you really want to know the state of the Fungiverse, myzel-hopping is the way to go).
It became clear soon that something was wrong with this myzel. Everywhere hung iconographies of Dogan. And soon, we were aggressively talked to by this person, who in fact was Fish Guy and trying to convince us to join the cult around of Dogan, which he called “an elite coaching group” and said that it was mainly “just a fishy mindset” and some biologistic nonsense about taking the next step of evolution.
Eury, who Lamella had brought along and I remembered from the fight against Grimscape as well, immediately sensed Fish Guy’s despair. “Perhaps,” she mused to us when we had hopped over to a saver myzel, “Fish Guy could find solace with the other fish-people in the far north, who are to embark on a journey in the depths of the sea, away from the turmoil of the collectives. Human have destroyed enough of the earth. It’s too late, more and more of the fish-people want to leave to the bottom of the sea and stay there until the thread posed by humanity has solved itself. I mean sure, they are radical in their own right, but they want to unmake the last step of evolution.” She shrugged, “at least they don’t want to hurt anyone. Maybe he wants to go with them. Think about it that way: it’s not happening very often anymore. Maybe one should grab a chance like that when it comes.”
She looked me straight in the eye, but I could sense the despair inside of her that stemmed from her time outside the Fungiverse, which would still take a long time to heal.
And so, I, ever the voice of reason, disagreed with a firm voice. “I find that more than a little cynical. Leaving Earth won’t solve the underlying issue. We should help Fish Guy find his place within our collective.”
We hopped back, he had been waiting for us. We told him we were concerned for him and whether he would be interested in coming along to our myzel and have a little talk. But Eury, who apparently couldn’t contain herself, talked about the other fish people. And poor Fish Guy, now torn between choices, contemplated leaving Earth, seeking refuge in the tranquil depths until the thread of conflict unravelled. The idea seemed tempting, an escape from the turmoil above.
So, I, understanding the depth of Fish Guy’s dilemma, approached with compassion. “Leaving is not the answer,” I said softly, my voice like the rustle of lamellas in the wind. “Also, we honestly still need you people to get this ship afloat. Please stay.”
Touched by our sincerity, Fish Guy felt a surge of hope. He nodded to himself. “You know, I was raised a Christian. They taught us that our life on earth is a gift that isn’t ours to give a way. Now I think that’s an oversimplification but maybe I will just go with it against my own judgement. It’s certainly better than anything the bros of Dogan taught me. And after all, I always called myself an agnostic. I mean, there must be some reason why we have been given our time here. Not that it appeared to all make sense … but somehow, I still believe there could be something to it. Some sense. So just could as well make it count, you know?”
In that moment, he chose not to escape but to confront the challenges alongside Eury, Lamella and me, finding his purpose within the diverse fabric of the Fungiverse. After much contemplation, he made a choice that resonated with the rhythm of his essence: Fish Guy decided to join a collective unlike any other—a group with a daring vision. This collective, inspired by the boundless mysteries of the universe, planned to depart Earth and journey to the bottom of the sea, where the secrets of the deep called to them like ancient whispers. But not now when the earth of the edge of crumbling into chaos. Yes, one day they would leave and join their brothers and sisters in the sea but would only do so when they had made sure that earth was back on its way.
Late that evening, we bid Fish-Guy farewell and returned to the heart of the city, making a beeline for my favourite fungal story-telling spot. Stepping onto the stage, I felt the spotlight’s warmth on my skin and sensed the anticipatory hush of the audience, my new-found friends and I even recognized some parents and their children from the school that I taught and that was closely connected to my myzel. It was the place they had chosen for their children to grow up in and from which they would slowly discover the vastness of the Fungiverse. My heart thumped with a mix of nervous excitement. Adjusting my lamellas, which encircled my ears like mushroom gills, I surveyed the room with a playful glint in my eyes.
“Ladies and gentlemen, and all the beautiful souls in between,” I began, my voice clear and confident, “Tonight, I’m not serving up the usual mushroom jokes you might expect from a fungi-person like me. No, tonight … I hope you want to listen to a story of mine. It’s a tradition among my people, which you probably know. To tell stories to one another, so I hope afterwards you can tell me yours as well. I know you are all busy, but I hope you can spare the time. I overheard this story many hundreds of years ago as I was still a little mushroom, listening to the passengers that walked above me.”
I saw some people get up and leave, but many people stayed, and I seized the moment.
“In a vibrant forest nestled between towering mountains and babbling streams, there lived a curious little creature named Willow the Woodland Sprite. Willow was not your ordinary sprite; instead of possessing magical powers like the others, Willow had a special gift for storytelling.
One day, as the golden sunbeams filtered through the lush canopy, Willow noticed a sense of sadness lingering among the forest animals and plants. The once lively chatter had faded, and the flowers drooped their petals low. Willow, with a heart full of empathy, decided to do something about it.
Gathering all the animals and plants beneath the wise Grand Oak, Willow stood on a mossy rock and began to weave a tale. It was a story of a brave rabbit who overcame his fears by sharing his worries with his friends, a clever fox who found solutions through listening, and a kind old tree that offered shelter and wisdom to all.
As Willow’s words floated through the air, the forest came alive with vivid imagery and heartfelt emotions. The animals and plants listened, captivated by the tale. Slowly, smiles returned to their faces, trunks and stems, and a newfound sense of camaraderie filled the air. The forest, once despondent, was now filled with hope and unity.
Inspired by Willow’s story, the animals and plants started sharing their own tales. The wise old owl spoke of ancient forest secrets, the playful squirrels recounted their adventures, and even the shy mushrooms shared their dreams. Each story brought the community closer together, fostering understanding and friendship among them.
And so, in the heart of the enchanted forest, a tradition was born. Every full moon, the animals and plants would gather under the Grand Oak, taking turns to share their stories. They discovered that in sharing their joys and sorrows, they not only lifted each other’s spirits but also created an unbreakable bond that made the forest stronger.
As the seasons changed and years passed, the tale of Willow the Woodland Sprite and the magical storytelling circle spread far and wide. Travelers from distant lands came to listen, and they too shared their stories, creating a tapestry of narratives that celebrated the beauty of diversity of all living beings.
And at some point, it was even adapted by the humans. Always late to the party … and then they want to make it all about themselves, of course.”
A pleasant shiver went through the crowd. With a bow and a grin, I left the stage, the applause of the audience like a melodic harmony. Stepping down, I was met by Eury, her smile radiating understanding.
“A story about telling stories? Really?” she teased.
“Well, I had to say it,” I replied, undeterred, and hugged her tightly. She felt like solidarity and justice. It was a perfect moment.
But then Lamella said: “You know, I not sure why you had to make that joke at the end … it’s not even true.”
I looked at her, feeling panic in my throat. She would destroy everything.
“Come on, it was harmless”, I tried it again.
“Tessa. Humans aren’t the only beings that want progress, you know.”
I looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“What?”, she replied, probably sounding angrier than she intended, “Don’t you want to move forward in life? What’s wrong with it. I … I just think we should be more careful with what we say … in these times. You sound like a radical germ-man.”
I nodded and swiftly, captured a selfie before Lamella became aware that she was, in fact, still smiling. #unitedmzylels I thought and send it off. Now, everything was perfect, just as it should be! And so thought our corner of the Fungiverse, too. The selfie first gained local recognition in my myzel and then the videos of my story quickly went viral.
I immediately sensed that it was the beginning of something big. I knew that it was greater than me, than us, that it had already nothing to do with any of us anymore but that didn’t matter. I was just so glad to share it with the people I loved and read all of their stories. Maybe now it would really come … the breakthrough of the Fungiverse … maybe now everything would proof to have been worth it.
And I looked at Lamella and Eury, who were feeling it too and to my own despair … saw confusion and sadness in their eyes. I knew I had made a mistake and probably broken their trust, but I couldn’t take it back and even if I could, probably wouldn’t. They too, sensed to know that, turned, and went away. They didn’t spoke to me for a long while, but otherwise didn’t make much of a fuss; the bound between our myzels stayed intact and our myzels even gained new members. No one could possibly complain against that, right?
But this was only the beginning. In the following weeks, it was like the Fungiverse truly became alive. So many people told their stories, new communities developed, and it was so exciting that me and my myzel had to take part in the hype. I had waited for something like this for so long, now all of it had been worth it.
And soon everybody I knew was buzzing about it: Fungis for Future. It was like this spark, you know? Inspired by the big global eco-awareness thing, Fungis for Future was all about community building. We weren’t out there yelling and gluing ourselves to the street or supporting radical myzels; it was about creating connections, building these little communities, rather than making a scene in protest.
Sure, Lamella was still very angry at me (she would of course never write something like that, but I think she would love to call me a manipulative bitch), but after all: hadn’t it all been good for the Fungiverse at the end? I think on some matters she was really naive and a bit uptight to be honest and after all, she wasn’t the one that was responsible for a whole myzel, in fact the one that her human-dryad-girlfriend was a member of and for which I, also, was responsible for providing safety for and, frankly, actually did quite a good job at. But instead, they worry about their human world problems. Yet, every time they need something they come running to me for shelter and comfort. They really think that the ones that have an idea are the ones that should get credit for it. But what about the people that actually build it? I think it’s more than fair to get something in return for generations of turkey people keeping their industry afloat once in a while, not speaking of all the daily racism. They toss a coin to a magic mushroom in the pedestrian zone, get their fortunes read and think they are alright. Well, they aren’t.
But we had anyways waaay too much to do to waste our time with such details. In the following weeks, we did a few little tasks for local communities all over Solarfurt, doing repairs at the local library, helping organize events for sport clubs. But mostly, we just listened and talked, about what the next year would bring and what great things this year had already brought. It was great. Autumn was finally here and this time, it was here to stay; through all the cold months of winter it would keep us warm. And as always, I wondered, how the humans would do it. They are telling more and more stories, but no one listens to them. They just scream into the void of their own despair, calling for someone to help them. And even though Lamella would probably didn’t think I say that but, I, too, think that’s us. The people of the Fungiverse. We need to help them to connect to each other again. Perhaps with a story … a collection of stories from all over the Fungiverse … we could even get it into the world of the humans with Eurys old account … I’m sure that it would then reach the right people eventually … maybe even Taylor “the fungus amongus” Swift. Ah, and there we are again! I know how that story of Lamella ended! I read it, too. And I think she is right! She could be very useful to us. But I also know that I have to give over to the next one … and I will do so happily … the stage is yours: fish-guy! Make it count!
Waiting for Spring
“This is my last post here. I wish you all the best. Thanks for all the fish, guys and see you on the other side.” Last post from @the_real_fish_guy
On the eve of my final day on earth, I found myself standing on a giant bridge that led to the beach of the ocean of departure, my heart heavy with the weight of impending change. Beside me, a young girl named Elara stood, her eyes clouded with despair, contemplating a decision that would change her fate forever.
The sky was ablaze with hues of crimson and gold, a breathtaking spectacle that painted the heavens as if the universe itself were bidding farewell to our world. The waves sang a melancholic song, echoing the deep sorrows etched within Elara’s soul.
She had stepped to me earlier, there was uncertainty in her eyes, mirroring mine.
“Is there any point in going on?” she whispered, her voice as fragile as the seafoam. “The world is ending, and I have nothing left. I used to love someone, but she is gone. I don’t know where. She was suffering from Weltschmerz … and I think she infected me …”
I turned to her, my eyes reflecting the wisdom of ages and the hope that still flickered within my aquatic heart. “Elara,” I said, my voice a gentle echo of the ocean’s depths, “even in the face of such finality, life persists in unexpected places. There’s beauty in the resilience of the human spirit, in the way it clings to hope even when all seems lost.”
With a quiet intensity, I shared tales of the cosmic wonders me and my people would soon encounter beneath the waves, the unexplored depths where life thrived in harmony with the elements. I painted a picture of a new beginning, where every moment held the potential for discovery, and the mysteries of the deep sea whispered secrets only the brave could fathom.
Tears glistened in Elara’s eyes as my words washed over her like a soothing tide. “But what about the pain?” she asked, her voice quivering. “How can I leave it all behind?”
I touched her trembling hand with my scaled fingers, a gesture of understanding and empathy. “Pain is part of the human experience, Elara. And that counts for all of us wandering this earth, too, I presume. It’s what makes us resilient, what teaches us empathy and compassion. But if it becomes too unbearable, of course we can choose to escape it. We can always do that, and I think that’s why I never despaired over the future.”
As the final rays of sunlight kissed the ocean’s surface, I saw a glimmer of hope flicker in Elara’s eyes. She took a deep breath, as if inhaling the courage to face the uncertain future. With a newfound determination, she stepped away from the edge of despair.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice a fragile melody. “I don’t know what lies ahead, but I want to find out. I think I don’t want to see this new world you’ve shown me, but I’m glad you do it and I will wait for your return. I think I want to find the person that I lost again. Perhaps she isn’t gone. Maybe … she still needs my help. Maybe I could get people to care for her on social media with a big call for help. You know, since she is away, I feel like I’m standing beside myself. I know that’s a bit oversharing but yesterday I even tried to … you know … hug a tree. But it wasn’t the same … at least not as I would imagine it … It’s so unfair! The world is so unfair! I hate it! I just want to see that’s she is alive. That she lives! That everything is fine!”
I nodded and faced the ocean again, went quiet for a while.
“If I were you, I would check out this place called the Fungiverse”, I said finally, “It’s at least where I met one great dryad. You just need to eat a glowing mushroom to join.”
She looked at me irritated, breathed out heavily, and shrugged. “Yeah. Sure. Although … she never was much the type of fungi-punk if you would’ve known her … but yeah … I mean even Taylor is fungi now … maybe I could check out her old account again … well, thanks anyways.”
Quietly, I chuckled at the stubbornness of the humans. Their best and worst trait, I thought.
And together, we faced the approaching darkness, ready to dive into the depths of the unknown, where life, resilience, and the beauty of the life’s spirit would continue to flourish against all odds. But not yet, no, just a few moments longer …
⠀
After what felt like an eternity, I got myself to leave Elara and walked down the mountains to the beach. Once again, I felt the cold waves washing over me. I had joined the others in the water, it felt like coming home. Some had already begun to swim down, and I had not many moments left to follow them. And then, as I turned back one last time, I heard the song of the Spirits of Spring with unforgivable even almost slightly cruel force.
They sung about the communities of the Fungiverse, growing bigger and bigger, at some point becoming intelligent on their own to what they called Myziarians. And how communities would flock to different Myzarians, always joining the one that fits them best.
As the Myzarian influence spread, a transformation began to unfold across the world. Communities of various species and civilizations started adopting the principles of interconnectedness and cooperation. The once-divided lands began to heal, and conflicts dwindled in the face of shared understanding, mutual respect and democratic discourse.
The Myzarian’s reach would expand beyond what anyone had imagined. It would become a beacon of hope, guiding not just the Fungiverse, but multiple worlds toward a future where cooperation, compassion, and sustainable progress were the pillars of existence. It would never result in a state that was finished, it would always stay complicated, ambiguous, there would always stay the hope to be having made it, to having crossed the finish line and even so this would never be satisfied and there was no necessity that everything went well, and always the threat of falling back, there would always, for every individual be a potential to make the world more worth to live in for themselves, their communities and every living being.
My head rose out of the water and between my tears, I saw the girl from earlier dancing in the distance on the beach. She had indeed eaten the mushroom. It was then that I felt the urge to dance with her, too, dance without hindering or any second thoughts, just living in the moment, and I thought that I had just made a great mistake. And then, I took a leap underwater, forcefully resisting the urge to looked back again, catching up with the others, leaving humanity behind, the only ones that could never escape. Now it was up to them, I thought, now they have to figure it out by themselves.
Thanks for reading. If you liked this story, please re-post it under #fungiverse, #fedipunk or #fungipunk, or create your own variant of the story if you want to. It’s free to use! Let’s spread the idea of the fungiverse through the Fediverse and beyond!