Episode 222: Nathan Schneider on his new book "Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life"

Guest Nathan Schneider Panelist Richard Littauer | Leslie Hawthorne
Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Richard is joined by
Leslie Hawthorne, and features a discussion with guest Nathan
Schneider, an assistant professor of media studies and the director
of the Media Economics Design Lab at the University of Colorado
Boulder, about his new book,”Governable Spaces: Democratic Design
for Online Life.” The conversation explores the motivations of the
book, which stems from Nathan’s experiences in running online
spaces and his realization of the inadequacies in tools available
for practicing democracy in these spaces. Richard, Leslie, and
Nathan delve into the historical development of online spaces, the
challenges in creating democratic governance online, and the
potential impact on global democracy. The discussion also touches
on open source sustainability, governance failures and potentials
in open-source projects such as Git, and the role of protocols in
shaping online communities. Additionally, Nathan argues for diverse
forms of governance and shares examples of successes in opensource
governance. Press download now to hear more! [00:01:40] Nathan
explains the motivation for his book, “Governable Spaces.”
[00:05:24] The discussion dives into the concept of the book with
Richard questioning the practical existence of such spaces based on
the book’s definition. Nathan confirms the book focusses on the
absence of democratic infrastructures in digital lives and the lack
of support for cooperatives online. [00:09:09] Richard relates the
discussion on culture and democracy to media archaeology and
questions how this relates to open source sustainability. Nathan
acknowledges the importance of the topic and brings up the example
of Git to discuss absences in open source governance. [00:13:41]
Leslie asks Nathan to elaborate on his views regarding the lack of
governance and democratic sharing of responsibilities within the
structure that have developed, particularly in open source. Nathan
responds by identifying two approaches to this issue. He first
addresses the cultural aspect, and then the technical and legal
aspects. [00:16:44] Leslie further inquires whether Nathan has
considered in his book that the lack of governance could be due to
the backgrounds of early internet designers, who were not from
marginalized or vulnerable populations and thus did not prioritize
governance structures. He talks about the colonization metaphor in
the early internet’s language, specifically the term
“homesteading,” and how it reflects a flawed understanding of
democracy and governance. [00:18:18] Nathan mentions Jo Freeman’s
essay, “The Tyranny of Structurelessness,” which warns against the
absence of explicit governance leading to the rise of implicit
governance by those already privileged. He also emphasizes that
despite the dominant structures, there are examples of democratic
practices in online spaces, especially among non-dominant identity
groups. [00:20:33] Richard questions the robustness of democracy
and brings up a point from Nathan’s book that raised some questions
to him. He also wonders it was difficult for Nathan to use terms
that don’t hold up under scrutiny for his book, and Nathan
acknowledges the complexity of the term “feudalism,” and expresses
gratitude for medieval governance structures. [00:24:50] Nathan and
Richard discuss the topic of crypto, and Richard appreciates how
Nathan’s book puts together the chapter on crypto with
transformative justice and brings up that the book doesn’t go deep
into the specifics of internet protocols. Nathan expresses a strong
interest in protocols as a means of social organization and
elaborates on the significance of crypto and blockchain protocols
in breaking away from traditional centralized models. [00:30:30]
Leslie asks Nathan about the Fediverse and federated social
networking. Nathan shares his positive view on the Fediverse and
discusses his experience co-founding a Mastodon server,
acknowledging the potential for creating governable spaces while
also recognizing the challenges in ensuring democratic governance.
[00:32:40] Find out where you can get Nathan’s book for free and to
purchase. Quotes [00:02:52] “The tools we have are really crappy
for practicing democracy.” [00:05:57] “While working on this book,
I started realizing how much my interest is in what we don’t have,
it’s in the absence of our digital lives.” Spotlight [00:33:40]
Leslie’s spotlight is her community devroom co-organizers for
FOSDEM’24: Shirley Bailes and Laura Czajkowski. [00:34:04]
Richard’s spotlight is the Vermont Arts Council. [00:34:32]
Nathan’s spotlight is a group called the Exit to Community
collective. Links SustainOSS (https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS
Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/)
podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS
Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) Open
Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute)
(https://opencollective.com/sustainoss) Richard Littauer Socials
(https://www.burntfen.com/2023-05-30/socials) Leslie Hawthorne
LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesliehawthorn/?originalSubdomain=de)
Nathan Schneider Website (https://nathanschneider.info/) Nathan
Schneider X/Twitter (https://twitter.com/ntnsndr?lang=en)
Governable Spaces-Democratic Design for Online Life by Nathan
Schneider
(https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520393943/governable-spaces) The
Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessness)
Start.coop (https://www.start.coop/) FOSDEM ’24 Community devroom
(https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/track/community/) Shirley Bailes
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/shirleybailes/) Laura
Czajkowski LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauraczajkowski/)
Vermont Arts Council (https://www.vermontartscouncil.org/) Exit to
Community (https://e2c.how/) Credits Produced by Richard Littauer
(https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree
Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by DeAnn Bahr
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guest:
Nathan Schneider.