--- Log opened Thu Oct 27 00:00:00 2011
08:23 < conseo> mcallan: i have to click 4 or 5 times every time i want to get to the main page of the wiki and i go to zelea.com
08:39 < conseo> http://zelea.com/project/outcast/_overview.xht still links to Concept:Forum instead of Category:Forum, where you have moved it
09:07 < mcallan> conseo: thanks c, i fixed the link.  here it is: http://zelea.com/w/Category:Forum
09:08 < mcallan> i just bookmark the pollwiki directly, because i use it so often
09:10 < conseo> sure, but i still think that the structure of the homepage is confusing
09:11 < conseo> it would make sense to expose the wiki directly with the poll about the homepage on the main page
09:12 < conseo> i know that it doesn't fit votorola to materialize as a single product, maybe we can use a different domain for a whole votenet?
09:14 < conseo> best would be a top level domain, but that is too expensive still
09:26 < mcallan> not sure how to correct that, and i'm running on empty just now.  maybe float correction in your g/p/vohall, and we can discuss
09:27 < conseo> ok
10:02 < conseo> mcallan: how much do you pay for your domain?
10:11 < mcallan> i last payed 10 years or so ago.  fairly expensive, forget how much.  i'll probably switch providers when i renew
10:11 < conseo> xvote.net would be there for example. we could then add subdomains to it for different projects like thomas' party or even divisions
10:11 < conseo> 12 euros per year for me
10:12 < conseo> votorola.xvote.net for our homepage for example
10:16 < mcallan> is this being discussed in a list?  i'm signing off soon, but i'll start reading list mail again tomorrow
10:19 < conseo> nope, it is due to the problem that we miss a real homepage for votorola and the other concepts. if we get a common domain and divide the different projects by subdomains then we can easily distribute the architecture and still keep links together while forming a network
10:20 < conseo> maybe it is only my problem, but moving around the sites is not easy
10:22 < conseo> i think part of the confusion and lack of reading of theory and texts comes from the cluttered information on different pages
10:22 < conseo> that is why i also would move the homepage on the wiki as it will allow people to easily explore anything and come back there, without first having to find the right links. most people know mediawiki
10:24 < mcallan> we cannot put votorola in the pollwiki, because it belongs to outcast (or whatever the arch is)
10:25 < conseo> the problem is simply put that most people don't understand what we do when they come to our page and even after pointing them out that get stuck quickly and don't understand it
10:25 < conseo> and i don't want to keep explaining forever
10:26 < mcallan> i suspect that problem cannot be solved with any kind of page, or web site
10:26 < conseo> also the zelea.com domain is your private one and votorola is imo more prominent than just a project of yours
10:26 < mcallan> i do not own votorola, i only own zelea.com
10:26 < mcallan> votorola is free, and can be hosted anywhere and everywhere
10:26 < conseo> i haven't taken votorola serious until i head read all theory and even my best friend hasn't done that, so we have split over this issue (and others)
10:27 < conseo> yes, but this means i need to setup a second infrastructure just to show people it is not your personal project
10:28 < conseo> the wiki would also have the advantage that people can immediatly edit or ask questions
10:28 < mcallan> impossible, for reason i gave
10:28 < mcallan> pollwiki is not owned by votorola
10:28 < mcallan> we cannot throw freedom out the window, for conveniene
10:29 < conseo> if we don't become convenient freedom is lost anyway :-p
10:29 < mcallan> how?
10:29 < conseo> because nobody will use our tools
10:29 < mcallan> we aren't asking anyone to use them
10:29 < conseo> matteo has only seen code on the difference bridge and i have to admit that it is a bit confusing
10:30 < mcallan> matteo is not an alpha user
10:30 < conseo> but it is a bit arrogant of us to say: hey we are so open, if you don't understand that and have problems with figuring out what we do, then nobody will use the tools
10:32 < conseo> this worries me since some time, because almost nobody who mails us as understand anything we do in detail
10:33 < mcallan> that would be impossible
10:33 < conseo> well, this is not urgent and i understand your position, but i don't think the current situation is good. and votorola can be part of the pollwiki, just because it is a poll (the homepage)
10:34 < conseo> mcallan: i am not so sure about it. a faq would be helpful at least
10:35 < mcallan> c, i've been struggling with presentation for years, and i don't pretend it's solved
10:36 < conseo> hmm. ok
10:36 < mcallan> i rewrote the home page in order to *improve* the situation
10:37 < mcallan> it is not possible to *perfect*
10:37 < mcallan> we are 3 people, struggling with a tech with don't fully understand yet
10:38 < mcallan> how the hell can we expect others to understand?
10:38 < conseo> i don't know, but we have to
10:38 < mcallan> not true, i used to think so, but no more
10:39 < mcallan> we don't need to be popular
10:39 < mcallan> we only need to be right
10:40 < mcallan> later, we'll be popular if we need to be (and only if we get it right)
10:40 < mcallan> look at it this way, we have no competitors
10:41 < mcallan> except those who would do it wrong, and the guepo can deal with them
10:42 < mcallan> guepo, plus theory of what is *already* wrong in society
10:42 < mcallan> we are working on exactly what we need to work on
10:44 < conseo> i don't like this position. i think it is a false form of safety to think things from their ends. we need to do the right things now and not in the end otherwise we will lose sight of our problems
10:44 < mcallan> isn't that what i said too?
10:44 < mcallan> we *are* doing the right things now
10:45 < conseo> really? i still cannot even use the tools myself and i am a political animal :-) we are very slow and i don't think that this is good
10:46 < conseo> it is my own fault for a big part, but i get frustrated by the slowness
10:46 < conseo> esp. since we claim we are right we are unreasonably slow
10:46 < conseo> if we were unsure than thinking and doing theory would be right imo
10:47 < mcallan> you are either frustrated with your own slowness (as i am with mine), or you are frustrated with mine
10:47 < mcallan> which?
10:48 < conseo> i don't blame you
10:48 < mcallan> then who is slow?
10:48 < conseo> we thought we would have xf working including some voting functionality till late summer, but now we have to do even more and it might be next summer
10:48 < conseo> we need more participants
10:49 < mcallan> i think you feel i am slowing things, because of this theory
10:49 < mcallan> (yes we need more people)
10:49 < conseo> yes, but i am in university atm. and this takes most of my time sadly
10:49 < conseo> so i cannot blame you and i love theory myself (i even read eclipse of reason atm. although i should work on the mockups)
10:50 < mcallan> i can work full time, and i feel that theory is the quickest path to getting other people. theory then guepo
10:50 < conseo> and time flies
10:50 < conseo> theory?
10:50 < conseo> ehm, i don't think so
10:50 < mcallan> i do
10:51 < conseo> people will not read what you write. how do you believe they will?
10:51 < mcallan> they are reading it, already
10:51 < mcallan> http://zelea.com/project/autonomy/a/fau/fau.xht#H
10:51 < conseo> who? some people on some lists... but are these people as serious about it that they are willing to put work in it?
10:52 < conseo> democracy is topic to talk about all day, but when it comes to action, you will find yourself alone most of the time in this society, because there is no practical application
10:52 < mcallan> there are lots of apps, and all of them are wrong
10:53 < mcallan> they are wrong for lack of theory, not for lack of practice
10:53 < mcallan> thousands of people in occupy camps are treading water right now
10:53 < mcallan> because they don't know what direction to swim in
10:54 < mcallan> show me one guy who's walking in the right direction, and i will follow him
10:54 < mcallan> the others cannot help me
10:55 < mcallan> i *feel* votorola is good design
10:56 < mcallan> but that is not good enough
10:56 < conseo> there is no solution to the problem, because they have no alternative form of economy yet. you will always get this crippled form of society if the economy is alienated. you don't need new theory for that
10:56 < conseo> and how will you find out?
10:56 < mcallan> you cannot point to what is wrong in economy, but my theory can
10:56 < conseo> you are not alone with that feeling
10:57 < conseo> hehe, i don't need to. read marx
10:57 < mcallan> marx was wrong
10:57 < conseo> there really is a lot of theory out there
10:57 < conseo> ok and you have understood our historical problem?
10:57 < conseo> the root of problems?
10:57 < mcallan> it's in votorola
10:57 < mcallan> just like you think
10:58 < mcallan> just like you feel, and i feel
10:58 < mcallan> but what *is* it
10:58 < mcallan> ?
10:58 < mcallan> only the theory can say
10:59 < mcallan> no home page in the world can say
10:59 < conseo> well i will read your theory then and try to understand what you are really after and then i can search for marxist criticism of bourgeois democratical ideas and the idea fixe that you can introduce a democracy in this society without a different economy
11:00 < conseo> but this will take time of both of us
11:00 < mcallan> time well spent, i have no idea what democracy is
11:00 < conseo> and i don't want to argue with you, because it might divert us for no reason
11:01 < mcallan> it's about freedom, c, not democracy
11:01 < mcallan> democracy is some greek thing, nobody understands
11:01 < conseo> right, communism is defined that very way as (neo)-liberalism is
11:01 < conseo> freedom is in itself also not defined
11:02 < mcallan> if we do not know what we are building, then maybe we can still build it...
11:02 < mcallan> but i doubt it
11:03 < mcallan> teche without logos?
11:03 < mcallan> a slow process of evolution, over centuries
11:03 < mcallan> we have to try and understand
11:04 < conseo> you have said that you don't understand democracy. what do you mean with freedom?
11:04 < mcallan> political freedom = power + equality
11:04 < mcallan> that is enough for my own understanding
11:05 < mcallan> individual power in the face of state power
11:05 < mcallan> equality person to person
11:06 < mcallan> nobody alive today has ever experienced political freedom
11:06 < mcallan> it's worth taking time to understand why
11:07 < conseo> sure. but i don't have this problem. i know why it doesn't work. reproduction is privatized
11:09 < conseo> i don't think you can really understand freedom if you have never experienced it. you can only understand it as a negative force questioning the status quo
11:11 < mcallan> sight unseen, you say it is impossible
11:11 < mcallan> no need to discuss it then
11:12 < mcallan> if your ideas are fixed...
11:12 < mcallan> then you already have the knowledge you need
11:12 < conseo> you want to create a fixed definition of freedom, not me
11:13 < mcallan> no, i just gave you a definition that suffices for the task at hand
11:13 < conseo> no i don't, but i am also not unsure that i am unfree. if i put doubt behind what freedom means, than i don't really need it
11:13 < conseo> but i do
11:13 < conseo> what does power mean it is as abstract as freedom and i can already turn it around and say freedom is freedom of any power
11:14 < mcallan> political freedom
11:14 < conseo> and i don't want to live in an equal society
11:14 < mcallan> equal opportunity
11:15 < conseo> equal opportunity by birth, by age 18 or when? because you only have equal opportunities if you are equal
11:15 < conseo> but i want as many opportunities as i can get all my life. this is freedom for me
11:16 < mcallan> c, your thesis seems to be that all theory is nonenses, except marx
11:19 < conseo> nope it is not. my thesis copied from marx is that talking about utopia itself will not give you the right answers about how to achieve it and will only reflect your own prejudices coming from our surpressed present. you have to find the emancipative powers in our society and you have to do so until revolution is complete and all beings are free or you will lose it. if this means to change theory it is ok even to
11:19 < conseo>  drop marx, but i don't need to until now.
11:20 < mcallan> the theory i am writing has nothing to do with utopia, it is the opposite
11:20 < mcallan> it points to the problem, and not the solution
11:21 < conseo> ok, i will read it and try to criticize as best as i can, maybe this helps us both although it is hard for me to do so in english still
11:24 < mcallan> i am pasting the abstract here, because i need to post it somewhere dated (for the record) and i'm too tired to look at lists
11:25 < mcallan> this is not easy to read, tomorrow i will redact and post it somewhere proper
11:25 < conseo> it would make sense to do that on the wiki then imo, but you don't seem to like diff-patching for your own stuff
11:25 < conseo> ok
11:26 < mcallan> (we spoke about that before, these are my own thoughts and not a consensus doc)
11:26 < mcallan> ------ begin rough abstract
11:27 < mcallan> An individual vote in an election has no meaningful effect in the
11:27 < mcallan> objective world, and no effect whatsoever on the official outcome of
11:27 < mcallan> the election; whether the vote is cast or not, the outcome is the same
11:27 < mcallan> regardless.  Beneath this fact lies a structural fault that emerges
11:27 < mcallan> here and there in society as a series of persistent discontinuities
11:27 < mcallan> between facts and norms, or contents and forms, that appear to be
11:27 < mcallan> centered on a general failure of political liberty.  I trace the
11:27 < mcallan> underlying cause to a technical design flaw in the electoral system
11:27 < mcallan> wherein the elector is physically separated from the ballot.
11:27 < mcallan> Crucially, this separation removes the elector cum voter (the active
11:27 < mcallan> decider) from the means and product of decision.  It thereby
11:27 < mcallan> disengages the elector from constitutional electoral power and its
11:27 < mcallan> concomitant supports of equality.  To be sure, these consequences may
11:27 < mcallan> be partially overcome by engaging in voter-like practices of decision
11:27 < mcallan> formation and expression without benefit of the ballot's formal
11:27 < mcallan> support.  Such "abstract voting" is less common today, but it was
11:27 < mcallan> widespread in the public sphere of the late 1700s and early 1800s.
11:27 < mcallan> There a social elite founded primarily in the middle class (and often
11:27 < mcallan> without a basic right to vote) succeeded in reconstituting electoral
11:27 < mcallan> power within the flourishing communication networks of the day.  As
11:27 < mcallan> the franchise they won expanded during the 1800s, however, it came to
11:27 < mcallan> include a large portion of electors who lacked the wherewithal to
11:27 < mcallan> engage in abstract voting; they were fully exposed to the design flaw
11:27 < mcallan> and thus individually disengaged from all electoral power.  The sum of
11:27 < mcallan> these disengagements across the population amounted to a massive power
11:27 < mcallan> vacuum, an occurence that coincided with the rise of the modern party
11:27 < mcallan> system in Great Britain.  The parties were organized to provide
11:27 < mcallan> ready-made political decisions for the consumption of electors who
11:27 < mcallan> lacked the means to make decisions of their own; each party offered
11:27 < mcallan> its own package of decisions, and the elector need only choose which
11:27 < mcallan> package to consume.  Increasingly these packages were consumed by the
11:27 < mcallan> more able electors as well and, with the decline of the political
11:27 < mcallan> public sphere, the organized parties increasingly exercised the
11:27 < mcallan> electoral power and political freedom that were intended for the
11:27 < mcallan> citizens.  This loss of freedom has not been attended by any broad
11:27 < mcallan> failure of electoral power, of course, which means that the general
11:27 < mcallan> failure is isolated in the other essential component of political
11:27 < mcallan> liberty, namely equality.  Equality is formalized in the ballot, but
11:27 < mcallan> its form can have no structural force in society unless it is joined
11:27 < mcallan> with the elector.  However one may imagine such a union, the
11:27 < mcallan> structural fact alone of every elector in possession of a ballot would
11:27 < mcallan> enable the development and provision of decision services that are
11:27 < mcallan> based on form rather than content.  So rather than choosing a
11:27 < mcallan> ready-made, one-size-fits-all decision in order to fill his ballot,
11:27 < mcallan> the elector would instead choose from among a variety of services to
11:27 < mcallan> aid him in the actual process of decision making.  Ordinary
11:27 < mcallan> competition among service providers would then be sufficient to ensure
11:27 < mcallan> that all citizens regardless of personal circumstances had access to
11:27 < mcallan> their share of electoral power and its associated opportunities.  It
11:27 < mcallan> was only ever a technical flaw that precluded this development in the
11:27 < mcallan> first place.
11:27 < mcallan> ------ end
11:27 < mcallan> the crucial failure in society is a failure of equal opportunity
11:28 < mcallan> it's caused entirely by a technical flaw in the electoral system
11:30 < conseo> ok and why exaclty haven't you updated it here: http://zelea.com/project/autonomy/a/fau/fau.xht
11:30 < conseo> ?
11:30 < mcallan> i did a few hours ago (accidently when i fixed outcast link for you) and that's why i needed to post here for record
11:31 < mcallan> hit refresh
11:31 < conseo> ok
11:31 < mcallan> the abstract doesn't prove anything...
11:31 < conseo> ok, but that is not what it is for, right?
11:32 < mcallan> right.  i have 5 sections of text though that i can ground independently...
11:32 < mcallan> and a 6th that follows...
11:32 < conseo> i'll try to do some maths now and wish you a good night.
11:32 < conseo> ok
11:33 < conseo> i also need something to eat
11:37 < mcallan> well, nobody else is particularly happy about working on this.  why should you be?
11:37 < mcallan> yes, it
11:37 < mcallan> (sry) it's late for me too
11:38 < mcallan> good night
11:39 < conseo> i like theory and i understand your need for it. i just don't understand that you need it now when we just have figured out of how to open it up with crossforum extend and the activist approach
11:39 < conseo> i think that this already has years of thinking in it and has good theoretical foundation
11:40 < conseo> maybe we can work that out better and that makes some sense now, but i am not sure if this is what you are after and i am not sure if it is better than showcasing it
11:40 < conseo> anyway, i'll read it and try to put my arguments clear
11:41 < conseo> thx for the chat :-)
11:41 < mcallan> ok.  it's not ready to read, tomorrow probably
11:41 < conseo> cu & n8
11:41 < conseo> ok
11:42 < mcallan> gn8 c
--- Log closed Fri Oct 28 00:00:16 2011