As the news is confronting us with the ever increasing political and economic power of the small number of companies and individuals that control our digital lives, we believe the best moment to make the move towards free, open source alternatives is now. Wednesday the 29th of January, from 14:00h to 15:00h OpenTech(AUC) organizes a hybrid workshop to support the community (staff and students) in making (a start with) this transition.

This is the second part of a two-part series. See also this article. “…if we can’t convince people to escape the clutches of capitalism when it only requires a USB stick with Linux and a short online course on bash/python, how are we ever going to gain control over (and share the fruits of) other, more material and inert kinds of technology?” Who benefits from innovation? In many ways and in many places, life is better now than it was 100 years ago.

This is the first part of a two-part series. See also this article. Imagine you’re at a house party, and people are getting drunk. Slowly but steadily, they are raising their voice. And as more and more people do, you are going to have to raise your voice as well. At the end of the night, everyone is screaming in each others’ ears, without being any more audible than when everyone was talking at a normal volume.

Normally, when you feel you’re getting the short end of a stick, for example when the supermarket sells you expensive mushy cauliflowers, or when the organization you volunteer at treats you disrespectfully, you go and find what you need somewhere else. This ability to “defect” to an alternative when you feel you’re not getting a good deal, is an important “power” that helps you get reasonable deals.1 When it comes to the way we relate to each other digitally, arguably one of the main ways in which we relate these days, we do not have that luxury.