@hex@kolektiva.social2026-05-29 22:15:58
I tried to write something up to talk about an idea, but it didn't quite work. I have a lot more I need to put into it. But I want to get an idea out, and, after talking with a person who pointed out some of the flaws in what I wrote, I think I can maybe write down the kernel of the idea here.
An acquaintance of mine did a deep dive on Operational Art and wrote his thesis (which prompted an earlier set of posts and an article I wrote for my professional-ish blog) on the intersection of the OODA loop and critical philosophy. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about Kilcullen's Three Pillars model (after watching Andrewism's wonderful video) and Beer's VSM. The TL;DR of it is that there's a much better insurgency model. Of course, the insurgency model also works for a bunch of other things, because cybernetics lets you do all kinds of cool abstraction like that.
So as I was reading the essay of a comrade the other day, that model popped back into my head and I'm going to try to share what I can of it.
When colonizers came to the Salish region, they saw what they believed to be an untouched wilderness. They failed to see the ways in which Salish people tended the land. Indigenous fire practices were common on the northwest coast, and the suppression of those practices remains a problem. There is an interrelationship between an environment and the systems within it. Systems, like people, animals, and cultures, adapt to the environment. In doing so, those systems will also change the environment.
Social technology was invisible, so colonizers defaulted to either some kind of Rousseauvian or Malthusian model of these people. They were not, for the colonizers, people who had developed advanced social technologies to live in harmony with their world. They were, rather, people in "a state of nature."
The European influenced left continues to draw this Rousseauvian model, which continues through a lot of Anarchist revolutionary thought. European anarchists were heavily influenced by observations and theories around the behavior of indigenous people. The remnants of this thought still exist in the idea that the system must only be destroyed for us to be free.
This is the same obliviousness to social technology, that social technology actually exists, often informs both early colonizers and modern radicals.
It is through this obliviousness that we fail to recognize how capitalism is a social technology that is managed into existence and maintained, and how changes in the environment can threaten institutions that have become over-adapted to a specific version of that environment.
We can extend Kilcullen's metaphor of a "conflict ecosystem" through cybernetics into a much more rich model, populated by viable systems. The ecosystem itself has a fitness function, which drives adaptation within the environment. But all actors in the environment also affect it. Some try to manage the environment. Revolutions are often over who manages a social ecosystem, over who controls the social technology and what it does.
Once we see this dynamic at play, calls of "riot" and "revolution" make a whole lot less sense. Rather, the question becomes, "how do we change the ecosystem in such a way that it cannot be 'managed' at all?"
Graeber/Wengrow talked about Turtle Island indigenous social technologies in Dawn of Everything, such as the system of moieties and clans described in the book. So I have a good reading list as I think through this model, but I hope the "ecosystem" model is helpful (if not completely fleshed out).
I'd be interested in any critiques or thoughts to help develop this idea more.
@unixviking@social.linux.pizza2026-06-29 12:09:00
A week ago, I treated myself to a new monitor: the BenQ MA270S, a 27-inch model with 5K resolution, 2x Thunderbolt 4 ports, and much more. The picture quality is incredibly sharp—the best I’ve ever seen! It was actually meant to connect to my MacBook Pro, but of course, it works just as perfectly with all my Linux and Windows computers. Once you’ve experienced 5K resolution, you’ll never want to go back. And this monitor is significantly cheaper than an Apple Studio Display, which ONLY works…
@cdarwin@c.im2026-05-30 03:05:09
RE: https://c.im/@cdarwin/116661302516855264
Fifteen states with Democratic governors
are suing the HHS and Robert F Kennedy Jr
over the administration’s proposed changes to the federal vaccine recommendations,
arguing that stripping “vaccines of th…
@Dragofix@veganism.social2026-04-21 01:54:30
3 Healthy Vegan Breakfasts You Can Make In 5 Minutes #plantbased
@fanf@mendeddrum.org2026-06-25 17:42:03
from my link log —
LuaJIT 3.0 proposed syntax extensions.
https://github.com/LuaJIT/LuaJIT/issues/1475
saved 2026-06-25 https://dot…
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2026-04-21 21:07:41
Sleeper RB Prospect Jordon Vaughn Fits Cowboys’ Draft Mold Perfectly https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/onsi/sleeper-rb-prospect-jordon-vaughn-fits-dallas-cowboys-nfl-draft-mold-perfectly
@seeingwithsound@mas.to2026-05-28 07:35:25
Brain-wide distributed processing underlying natural vision and audition https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.26.727967v1 "prefrontal cortex coordinated brain dynamics through synergistic interactions independently of sensory modality and previous sensory e…
@cdarwin@c.im2026-06-21 21:38:41
The Olympics made viral stars out of Paul and Gary O’Donovan in 2016, the rowing brothers from Ireland best known for their colourful post-race assessments,
and again in 2024 with Yusuf Dikec, the shooter from Turkey who pitched up in Paris for the Olympics with no equipment beyond his pistol.
That both of those stories ended with a silver medal, rather than gold, was lost in the fun.
@Dragofix@veganism.social2026-04-16 22:04:44
Have you Tried This Vegan Banana Milk Yet? #plantbased
@Dragofix@veganism.social2026-06-22 03:39:14
Plant-Based Public Menus Could Save EU €11.6 Billion a Year, New Research Finds https://vegconomist.com/studies-numbers/plant-based-public-menus-could-save-eu-11-6-billion-year-new-research-finds/
