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"title": "This newsletter is posted on Bluesky",
"content": "Hi,\n\n**I usually circulate my newsletter to its subscribers via Mailchimp before reposting it to Medium for my subscribers there. However, for this edition I posted this content from Obsidian, my notemaking tool, direct to Bluesky's Atmosphere. It's early days, but I think this augurs well for decentralised collective intelligence.** \n\nI wanted to make this edition about how AI4communities would look on Nostr, but while I did do some research into Nostr ([7 resources](https://myhub.ai/@mathewlowry/?tags=nostr&types=like&types=do&types=think&timeframe=anytime&quality=all) and counting) I spent more time reworking the content I had and exploring Bluesky further. As a result:\n\n* the [AI4communities post](https://experiments.myhub.ai/ai4communities_post) (now version 6) is as technology-agnostic as I can make it, with subfiles dedicated to how AI4communities would look on the Fediverse and on the ATmosphere (the ecosystem based around Bluesky's ATProto protocol) in various stages of development.\n* thanks to a lovely email from Eddie of BlueSkyFeed Creator, I've updated my [custom feed for the Brussels Bubble](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2zxlmj2dvub7smpul2lvwqfk/feed/brusselsbubble) \n* this newsletter is my third post to Whitewind, an ATProto blogging platform.\n \nI actually think WhiteWind could both transform the way I think and publish *and* represent an early sign of the next step towards decentralised collective intelligence. More on that below, but first...\n### Bluesky's contradictory moment\n\nYou don't need another post tracking Bluesky's vertiginous growth - there are plenty of people doing that. Most also applaud how well the Bluesky team has somehow managed to cope with 4 million new members in 4 days on their decentralised app. \n\nAm I the only one thinking there's a contradiction here? Don't get me wrong: it *was* a tremendous effort, but surely only because Bluesky is *not* decentralised - if it was, would not the effort have been spread over a network, not concentrated on one team and its infrastructure? \n\nThose interested in such things have been debating just how decentralised Bluesky is since its inception, with not a little friction between the Fediverse (Mastodon and other ActivityPub apps) and those preferring Bluesky. But the debate deepened recently with:\n\n* ActivityPub co-author Christine Lemmer-Webber's [How decentralized is Bluesky really?](https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/), which pointed out that while Bluesky is using technology that *allows* for a decentralised ecosystem, it is currently a centralised app operating on centralised infrastructure, which is why it can offer Twitter-like features unavailable on the Fediverse.\n* a quick (and equally friendly) [Reply on Bluesky and Decentralization](https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lbvbtqrg5t2t) from Bluesky protocol engineer Bryan Newbold. \n\nThese are both *long* posts - CWL's is around 10,000 words alone - so I cannot possibly summarise or synthesise them, although I did ask ChatGPT to do so and quickly used the result for [my first WhiteWind test](https://whtwnd.com/mathewlowry.bsky.social/entries/First%20whitewind%20test). FWIW, here's the TL:DR; I extracted, with the caveat that I don't have nearly enough technical knowledge to judge its accuracy:\n\n* there are different degrees of decentralisation, and different ways to get there \n* a comparison between the relatively mature Fediverse and Bluesky, with its brand-new protocol, will therefore be tricky\n* particularly as Bluesky is focusing first and foremost on providing an X-like experience as possible for everyone fleeing the white-supremacist-site-formerly-known-as-Twitter, which required certain choices to be made.\n\nBut in the medium term I'm still optimistic about Bluesky's direction of travel: any ecosystem where independent developers can launch [skircle.me](https://skircle.me), [Sill](https://sill.social/) and [Bluesky Follower Scanner](https://progfeeds.mariozechner.at/scan.html) (see below) within a few days of each other has got to be doing something right. \n\nBut if the above sounds a *little* at odds with my previous edition, so be it - I'm on a learning curve like everyone else. \n\n### New post: Thinking transparently in the ATmosphere\n\n**I share more of my learning journey than most, however.** \n\nThis newsletter, for example, is an intermediate stage in my **transparent thinking process**. I first shared this process almost a decade ago in a [9 minute read](https://betterhumans.pub/manage-the-firehose-or-it-will-manage-you-791097bc53e2#.pq9b9uirb), but essentially it's about getting more value out of the most relevant, highest quality content, and then successively transforming it until you end up creating something original.\n\nWhen I was drafting this edition in Obsidian, I ended up with a long middle section exploring how Whitewind could streamline my process, and how it could support decentralised collective intelligence.\n\nAs it was too long for a newsletter, I put the ideas into practice by selecting the section in Obsidian, right-clicking to extract it into a new file, editing it a little and pasting it into Whitewind to publish it. As I argue in the resulting post, this matters a *lot* more than a simple upgrade to my slightly geeky Thinking & Writing Stack: \n\n>I have a gut sense that this represents the start of a profound longterm shift towards decentralised collective intelligence - [Thinking transparently in the ATmosphere](https://whtwnd.com/mathewlowry.bsky.social/3lcb22vzc3r2x)\n\n---\n\n### Stuff worth reading\n\nWhitewind appeared a few months ago, along with [Frontpage.fyi](https://frontpage.fyi/), a decentralised and federated link aggregator in the ATmosphere - ie., a single front page where people can submit links, and vote and comment on them *à la* Hacker News. Something tells me [there's more on the way](https://bsky.app/profile/tom.frontpage.team/post/3l4rooolkvm24), particularly given the recent [integration from whitewind](https://bsky.app/profile/whtwnd.com/post/3l7x4lxu3av2r).\n\nI also subscribed to my first labeller: thanks to [Officially Verified](https://bsky.app/profile/verified.quest), I now \"*see Official Verified Badges next to people who have been Officially and Artisanally authenticated by me... reporters and media types ... are marked with this badge: 🌐, while the Verified list with celebs, politicians, and the generally famous... got this badge* 😎\"\n\nWhile on the subject of labellers, however, I only recently caught up on some early experiments: \"The two biggest labelers dedicated to content moderation have called it quits... a shift in current expectations what labelers are for. Bluesky [advertised](https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-13-2023-moderation) labelers as a way for communities to help protect themselves, calling ‘community labeling’. The situation ... has shown that labelers that are a high-profile part of the community can however cause unwanted power dynamics\" - [Last Month in Bluesky – June 2024](https://fediversereport.com/last-month-in-bluesky-june-2024/).\n\n\nMy skircle\n\nThe past week, finally, has seen a wave of new apps hitting my radar to analyse your Bluesky account:\n* [Sill](https://sill.social/) \"connects to your *Bluesky and Mastodon* accounts, gathers all of the links posted to your timeline, and aggregates them to show you the most popular links in your network\". \n* [Bluesky Follower Scanner](https://progfeeds.mariozechner.at/scan.html), which provides you with a filterable search interface to all the accounts following you, \n* [skircle.me](https://skircle.me), which creates a snapshot of your interactions on Bluesky via an autogenerated circle of avatars (mine's above)\n* [skyzoo](https://skyzoo.blue/), which translates your activity into animal totems - apparently I'm part of a [squirrel squad](https://skyzoo.blue/stats/mathewlowry.bsky.social/squirrels) and a bit of a [Social Butterfly Explorer](https://skyzoo.blue/stats/mathewlowry.bsky.social) with enough discipline to (mostly) post before and after work (except for Friday afternoons).\n* [blueskyroast](https://blueskyroast.com/), which uses an AI analysis of your posts to create a \"gentle roast\" of your personality, apparently (it's more like flagrant flattery, [so I'm here for it](https://blueskyroast.com/roast/mathewlowry.bsky.social) ).\n\n\n\nIf I don't finish and send this I'll have to add some more and I'll become Sisyphus, so that's all for now.\n\nMathew\n\nPS Comment, follow and get in touch:\n* browse my newsletter, subscribe and drop me a line [on my Hub](https://myhub.ai/@mathewlowry/about/#contact), and [follow me on Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/mathewlowry.bsky.social)\n* browse and filter everything I #LikeThinkDo tagged [BlueSky](https://myhub.ai/@mathewlowry/?tags=bluesky) or [AI4communities](https://myhub.ai/@mathewlowry/?quality=all&types=like&types=do&types=think&tags=ai4communities&timeframe=anytime) or, indeed, [both](https://myhub.ai/@mathewlowry/?tags=ai4communities&types=like&types=do&types=think&timeframe=anytime&quality=all&tags=bluesky) (or [grab their RSS feeds](https://myhub.ai/items/faq-are-there-rss-feeds))",
"createdAt": "2024-12-03T16:32:07.110Z",
"visibility": "public"
}