Welcome to the Post-Naive Internet
Wake up honey, a new research piece from co—matter just dropped
Gone are the days of believing in a grand alternative to today’s internet. In are the days of building in the cracks of an internet we’ve come to accept as reality.
For Nothing Personal, Mozilla Foundation’s new online magazine that launched today, we contributed an article about the people and projects that are building alternative digital infrastructures in what we call the post-naive mindset.
Many of the projects we talk about are ones that we’ve joined and participated in early on: Subvert, the collectively owned bandcamp. Metalabel, the platform for collaboratively releasing creative work. Trust, the community and Berlin-based network of utopian conspirators. Future Art Ecosystems, Serpentine’s project for building 21st century cultural infrastructure. Perfectly Imperfect, the newsletter turned social network for human-led recommendations. And many more.
Our thesis: as Silicon Valley makes its pivot into its “Hard Tech” era, where the disrupting force of last decade’s consumer apps will seem innocent compared to the world-dominating mind-intruding superintelligences of the future, the people building alternatives are also entering their post-naive era. To “just buidl” (as many now-long-gone web3 projects once proclaimed) isn’t enough anymore in light of the broader structural and systemic forces at play today.
While we’re at it, we thought we’ll give you a little update about what we’ve been up to recently:
NEW WORLD ORDER SOLD OUT
Almost! The memo we released earlier this summer was an analysis of what happens when digital infrastructure collides with global politics, power and ideologies; and well, the result is what we see on the news every day ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We’ve launched New World Order as a digital PDF, physical limited edition riso print zine and t-shirt. The printed zine and t-shirt are now dramatically reduced to 25,- USD each. Plus we ship them! Let’s use those global supply chains while they last.
TWO PODCASTS AND A PARTY
Following the release of NWO, Nick and I (Severin) had the pleasure of being on The Blockchain Socialist Podcast by Joshua Davila to talk about the process of making this memo. Listen in for a deep dive into the ideas behind NETWORKED REALISM: Whoever Controls the Infrastructure, Controls Reality.
A little later, I (Severin) was a guest on The Culture Journalist Podcast by Emilie Friedlander and Andrea Domanick. This was a more loose conversation about the state of cultural nostalgia, talking about David Byrne’s new album (I changed my mind, it’s actually good) and New World Order.
Oh and we also hosted the New World Order release party at our studio in Berlin.
MACH3 INTERNAL INTELLIGENCE
This year we did a lot of work we can’t talk about because it contains MACH3 IDEAS AND INTELLIGENCE (s/o BBSP) that only the organizations we work with get to see. Sad but true. The good news is that you can commission us to create highly specialized research reports, media and strategies for your own pleasure, too.
IN CONVERSATION WITH DANIELLE BRATHWAITE-SHIRLEY
This summer wrapped up season 5 of The Culture & Technology Podcast, created in collaboration with Vienna Business Agency. For our final conversation I met with Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley at her Berlin studio to talk about life, art and video games. I recommend this conversation in tandem with her latest solo show at Serpentine London, THE DELUSION.
Until next time,
Severin