[libreplanet-discuss] project thought

[Thomas Lord]

  I hope that readers of this list are making or are
  willing to make an effort to grapple with the recent
  IPPC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5° (aka
  IPCC SR-15).

  Probably not a few readers - I would guess fewer in the U.S. -
  are aware of the growing School Strike movement,
  the Extinction Rebellion, and so forth.

  There being an immediate need for radical change in social
  relations, particularly those of production and distribution,
  the people of the planet are jeopardized by the threat of
  centralized control of the most basic communications
  infrastructure on the Net (the so-called social-media).

  Readers are also aware that the Free (Libre) Software Movement
  has, de facto, prepared for decades to step up with tried, true
  tested, available substitutes -- substitutes with many
  superior attributes -- ranging from basic email, netnews, and
  chat programs to basic office software, distributed social
  software and so on.   We have not, like the corporations,
  spent two decades trying to learn how to manipulate people's
  behavior on and offline.  We have built some rough and ready
  infrastructure parts for helping people be part of a global
  society populated by autonomous individuals and structured
  by cooperative association.

  Because the world needs such extreme motions as 15%+ reductions
  in emissions in developed countries **IN ONE YEAR**  then **THE
  SAME AGAIN FOR SEVERAL YEARS TO COME** it is, it seems to me,
  probable that the road that avoids hell nevertheless requires
  immediate, mass deployment of basic libre communications and
  networking tools -- we can do quite a bit with micro-machines
  like PIs, freedomboxes, whatever.  A chaos is rapidly coming.
  We can help the passage of the people through that period.

  Now is not a time that calls for further refining of the software.
  I am not suggesting new development projects, though of course
  some small ones may be helpful on the margins.

  Rather:

  Now is a time that calls for mass, global deployment and adoption
  at the grass roots - as part of a mass response to the
  immediate demands of environmental damage mitigation and
  adaptation.   Now is the time to much more widely deploy what
  we already have among ourselves.

  How do we begin to carry out such an action, across the
  whole of the libre movement?

  -t