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Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

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Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "techno fascism" is a term people are using to describe tech company CEOs operating as unelected oligarchs embedded within the new US government. If you're looking for a better term, we could call it "technocratic anti-liberalism" to perhaps cover all the bases. People are attempting to describe the current situation in which the wealthiest humans in all of history are supporting an anti-liberal executive by…

I'd say categorically that fascism is not a helpful term to describe movements outside the 1900-1945 period in Europe. (e.g. Japan's movement was anti-colonial if anything, Tokugawa Japan would have been happy to be left alone to gaze its navel, if that wasn't possible it wanted the asia-pacific region as a buffer zone) Today it is "Keir Starmer is a fascist" (Sci-fi writer Charlie Stross), "the local people departme…

I agree with you about trying to avoid thought stopping terms, and the desire for more specific language in important topics. It's tempting to think that history repeats itself, but it doesn't. It really doesn't. Historians will find ways of comparing and contrasting one moment with another, but whatever is happening right now is not determined by any historical law playing out.

Our language is bending as it ever does to help people explain these political shifts—often people who see what's happening but don't have much education on the matters of history, political science, philosophy. Bear in mind that 21% of US adults are illiterate, and far fewer are even equipped to read, say, Thomas Paine.

We need ways of talking about the values that are winning (nationalist theocratic autocracy) and the ones that are not (the open society, secular liberal democracy), and the word "liberalism" in the US has beenn so tarnished, so I think "fascism" today has come to mean "anti-liberal." I'll take what I can get.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#312
> I want to move our local communities off Facebook and onto our own platform

If you're serious about this, then you need to ask yourself (as dispassionately as possible) why you think this should happen. What benefits are you trying to provide, what shortcomings are trying to bridge. Then validate with your community that these are actually problems they even want addressed, and if so how badly do they want it. Then search for alternatives that explicitly accomplish that.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#313

Go low-tech and start printing a small local newspaper. Pay for it with ads from local businesses, and give it away for free at all those stores. Get your regional Chamber of Commerce to help set you up with connections and sales channels.

Yes, do this and learn firsthand why all the small-town newspapers are gone. Printing, paper, and distribution is expensive, and nobody will pay enough for print ads anymore to cover the costs.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#315
I agree with everyone else saying you probably shouldn't unless everyone else is asking for it, but additionally why would it be a plus for being self-hosted? The last thing I'd want to do is move from the big city to a rural community and try to supplant their communication platform in a way that leaves me and only me responsible for it.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#316
post #19

I know I’ve been posting this a few times over the past few months, but I haven’t started promoting it yet to the world. This is a hard problem because people expect real-time chat, videoconferencing, livestreaming, privacy controls, proper notifications, profiles, photo uploads and much more. I have spent over a decade building essentially an open-source Facebook that can federate in more interesting ways than Masto…

#YangGang

looks full featured from the screenshots.. but... 6 stars??

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#318

For self-hosted and federated community building, might I suggest NodeBB? v4 now fully federates, has always been self-hostable, and is a great piece of software for migrating from Facebook. Consider the "feed" plugin for a less jarring experience. Push notifications via the "web-push" plugin.

With "fully federates", do you mean that it can share forum categories and/or posts with other NodeBB servers?

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say categorically that fascism is not a helpful term to describe movements outside the 1900-1945 period in Europe. (e.g. Japan's movement was anti-colonial if anything, Tokugawa Japan would have been happy to be left alone to gaze its navel, if that wasn't possible it wanted the asia-pacific region as a buffer zone) Today it is "Keir Starmer is a fascist" (Sci-fi writer Charlie Stross), "the local people departme…

I agree with you about trying to avoid thought stopping terms, and the desire for more specific language in important topics. It's tempting to think that history repeats itself, but it doesn't. It really doesn't. Historians will find ways of comparing and contrasting one moment with another, but whatever is happening right now is not determined by any historical law playing out. Our language is bending as it ever doe…

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#320
Facebook, specifically each and _every_ "feature" it implements, is certainly not the only way to "organize local communities" using a computer network. Remember that Facebook is ultimately designed to serve advertisers not community organisers. Advertisers are the customers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulip

https://github.com/zulip/

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