Kristoffer Grönlund

Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins as before. But the world does not need twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacture of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralising. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness.

• Excerpt from: “In Praise of Idleness” by Bertrand Russell

I have been spending a lot of time on Mastodon lately.

Let me rephrase that. I have been spending a lot of time in the Fediverse lately. Or, should I say on ActivityPub? Anyway, my experience so far has been almost exclusively as a member of the fediverse via my single-user instance running Mastodon, although I am considering many other ActivityPub implementations as well.

An important aspect of the fediverse are the acts of federation and defederation, meaning the way in which different instances exchange information with each other and the level of control that instance administrators have over that process.

In Mastodon, it is possible to block or limit individual accounts on other instances, for example to mute posts from a given account for a time but still keep following them, or to block an account completely and attempt to stop them from following your account.

It is also possible to block on an instance level, both completely severing all contact as well as limiting posts originating from that instance.

Earlier today I got involved in a lot of debate around defederation, specifically regarding the mastodon.se instance and its moderation policies. For more back-story on this I recommend reading the sequence of posts by @Coeur66 that led to me limiting posts from mastodon.se.

In debating this topic, there is a point of view that keeps cropping up which I fundamentally disagree with, and feel like I need to address: The idea that defederation is an act of censorship, and that defederating from an instance is limiting the free speech of the accounts on that instance.

In my view, federation is a voluntary act. As an instance, we choose who we communicate with based on who they are and how they manage their communications in turn. Each instance is its own island, connected only by choice. That choice is the fundamental unit of freedom here, not the freedom of having unlimited means of communication. If an instance is managed poorly, or hosts accounts that harrass or otherwise trouble those of another instance, that instance should be defederated as a safety measure, until its mode of communication is deemed acceptable. Or not. Again, federation is voluntary and can be revoked for any reason.

In the fediverse, there is no central authority and no capacity for large scale content moderation in the same way that is performed by the large corporate social networks. Instead, there is a confederacy of free actors choosing to inter-communicate or not, based on whatever conditions suit each individual member. Participation in that confederacy is voluntary, and to act in a way that causes the other members of the federation to cease communications is an active choice.

We are reaching the end of 2022, and the time is ripe for an update from the Ziran headquarters.

For the last six months or so I have been deep in goblin mode.

I’ve planted a hazelnut tree.

I released two albums of music and a bunch of podcast episodes.

I had a baby.

I guess I could say that I am in stealth mode, doing R&D, that I’m on parental leave, or that I am working on several different projects at varying pace and intensity. All of which would be true. I just like goblins. The term does seem quite appropriate as I shuffle around the house in a hoodie and sweatpants, carrying bags of diapers.

My current plan for next year is to poke around in the garden, plant some seeds and see what might sprout. Figuratively and literally.

I hope that you have had a good year, and that 2023 will treat you kindly.

It’s December, and we are starting to feel the holiday spirit here at Ziran enterprises, inc. In order to properly celebrate the darkest season, I have set up a Spreadshirt shop with some random items to select from.

First and foremost is of course the 2022 holiday design:

…but of course there are also options for the Ornamental Hermits out there, as well as versions with the spaceman logo and others. I tend to come up with more or less brilliant shirt design ideas once in a while, so I’ll probably keep adding to the store continuously.

Shop link here. Enjoy!

I’m Kristoffer, an independent software developer from the Swedish countryside currently working on various small applications while consulting, speaking about code and recording music.

My plan for this space is to write about topics that interest me, and that might be of interest to others. That means topics like small tech, sustainability, computer art and music production, the history of computer programming, colonialism and indigenous culture or black metal anarchism to mention a few.

Also, expect photos of cats.