I'm a firm believer that the only practical way for any protocol to have a shot at real decentralization (and not fall prey to defacto centralization via default client settings and new user onboarding pitfalls) is after a radical personal server revolution.
As long as users are _only_ running clients, the balance is always going to slip towards centralized back ends even in the most well-intentioned networks. Every user must be their own server, providing client UI code to himself. Everyone's servers connect to each other, everyone's client connects to their own single server.
Network topology.
more distributed content getting to interested parties is what this enables
i didn't say "broadcast" in the literal sense, that's just the word that nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6 picked for the function that pushes new events to subscribers really they are updates
the outbox model could run without any major relays caching large amounts of notes if everyone could host their own cache relay
ok, also, maybe technically this is "distributed" but it's a bit fuzzy between decentralized and distributed when replication is not the goal but propagation to interested parties (pub/sub)
Self-hosting cache and proxy servers is the key.
And trivial to start, zero-maintenance sovereign cloud VMs is the path there.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25712075-a-spontaneous-order
Highly recommend. I'm currently summarizing it and will post my notes when done
This is a very good compression of a lot of these topics: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25712075-a-spontaneous-order
Good intro to then get into deeper dives
The only true libertarians are anarchists (trying to make some "libertarian" enemies but also true)
What if they don't have the means to travel away from Cuba because they were never allowed to accrue wealth? Couldn't that been seen almost similarly to "wage salves" in the sense that "they can go elsewhere if they want!" (But really they don't have options or means to exit because the state system defacto reduces their options)
One thing that interests me that I'd like to hear your opinion on: in the "ancap village" it's not like there would be a prohibition on collective ownership. If some coffee farm wanted to operate the way you're describing, it doesn't violate anyone's property rights or coerce anyone, so it would be just fine.
But I'm not sure the opposite is true. In "ancom village" if someone wanted to operate a "wage slave" company that employees chose to work at, I suspect such a thing would be forbidden and forceably stopped.
Am I right about that?
If so, what do you think about the fact that one design allows for the other to operate within it, while the other design forbids its counterpart from existing?
And if I'm convinced, I'm not opposed to the idea of staying and joining the collective. I just don't suppose that'll happen, but I'm open to being convinced always.
Take the community of exploitation you're describing and imagine there are a set of stateless, voluntary anarchist societies open to immigration. Some are ancap, some are ancoms, some are something else entirely. These exploited laborers can go to one of those where they suspect they'll fare better.
Do you see a a problem with that?
All of your critiques of State-backed crony capitalism are basically on point and I agree with all of them.
None of your critiques of purely free markets land for me.
Most of your bolstering of communist-style ideas don't appeal to me, but in a web of anarchist communities (some being capitalist some being communist) the communists would be free to try their experiments (and I support their freedom to do so) and the ancaps would be free to try theirs. Your hypothesis is that the ancaps would fail and the ancoms would succeed. I feel the opposite. Maybe some day we'll get to see who's right.
I think maybe one difference between us (you tell me) is that I wouldnt force the ancoms to be ancaps, while I suspect you would want to force the ancaps to be ancoms. As long as you agree that people should be free to try their own things and stay out of each other's voluntarily communities, we actually have no disagreement whatsoever in practice.
Why don't you own what you produce? Because you signed a voluntary employment contract that states you won't own what is produced. Perhaps you shouldn't have signed it if you didn't want that outcome. You can't be forgiven for renegging on your voluntary agreement.
By "mixes" I meant: if I own an unimproved resource and I improve it by working on it, I've made it more valuable to others and I can trade it with those who want it. And they'll pay a price for the improved product that reflects the work I put in to improve it. If instead of Me working on it, I offered someone else a wage (they agreed to) to improve it, the situation is no different. Except maybe I have to sell it for a little more to account for the wages I paid.
Nobody in that situation has been "enslvaved" - all of those agreements, from wages to final trade, were voluntary.
Just because someone doesn't have access to some imagined better situation doesn't mean they were enslaved against their will (where they "could have had otherwise if not for being forced) into their current reality. I don't have access to a flying car. Is my current car enlsaving me to the ground without my consent? No, it's simply not an option for me to have a flying car. Hopefully my children will have that option, but I don't. Shall I forceably coerce others with the ultimate (unobtainable) goal of providing me with flight? Is that reasonable of me or even in my own best interests?
You keep pointing to the State as the source of the problems (and the protector of entrenched/lobbying interests, and the imprisoner). I agree with you there.
Organized labor can demand whatever they want. And if their demand aren't met, they're free to go elsewhere (or be forced to when their employer chooses to fire them rather than cave, and hire labor who doesn't make demands they don't wish to meet). Where is the problem there? When people can't agree, they must part ways. How else could a disagreement be resolved other than violence? This is good. That's a voluntary situation you're describing.
You said earlier that employers don't allocate labor capital efficiently, but here you're saying it's on the balance sheet, which implies it is being allocated properly to create the highest value output. How do you square these seemingly conflicting points?
Are they allocating labor inefficiently (and therefore losing on the balance) or are they using it to maximal efficiency (and winning on the balance)?
Or by "efficiently" did you mean - earlier - "not for the common good but rather for their own purposes"? This "efficiently" seems ambiguous and I suspect you mean "they're not being efficient relative to the good of all". Do I have you right?
I knew a lot of urbiters (urbit.org) who lived there for a while and built software. They lived like weird slob kings for a while and then left after some time.