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PLATFIX

                                             March 3, 2025

                                       Mike Pepi, "Against Platforms" (2025)

                                            AGAINST_PLATFORMS

Skimming a ahead, looking for the punchline to
the joke, there's some chatter like this near
the close of the book (p. 201):


  "There are those who admit that Web 2.0 platforms have
  degraded our democracy, and yet, continue to inist
  that it will take just one more technology-driven
  innovation to fix it.  They cede that better
  technology is [to] be our best path to a mananged         Burn the straw
  decline.  I reject this premise."                         man!  Let it's
                                                            smoke blind our
                                                            enemies!

  "The venture capital-backed platform technology
  and its first wave of social destruction need not
  be a foregone conclusion, nor must it be a fixed      Okay.  So
  phenomenon that we are forced to react against."      no VC funding,
                                                        I see that point.

                                                            I can think of other
                                                            points, that seem
                                                            pretty obvious.
  "We try to build new 'good' platforms to fix
  this hole, but each time we fail.  This is a                I sincerely hope
  crisis of political design, not a crisis of                 there's more too
  technology. We don't lack resources, but                    this book that the
  infrastructure.  We don't lack a form, but a                burst of vapid
  political will-- a social narrative about the               generalities at
  role that organizational forms should take.                 the close.
  I believe we can appeal to our institutions
  instead of burrowing further down the nest of            He keeps talking
  contradictions that defines our                          about what our
  techno-determinist present."                             new institutions
                                                           *will* be like,
                                                           but I'm missing
       So our democracy has been                           how we get there.
       degraded, but the fix to this
       is going to be political.

       We need to appeal to our
       institutions.

            Presuming any survive
            the Trump II regime
            and electorate on                  I look forward
            socmeds has handed us.             to seeing those
                                               boots strapped.



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