Rob on Twitter / X

How’s That Open Source Governance Working for You? | HackerNoon

Isn’t it weird that the radically democratic miracle of open-source collaboration is so full of monarchical dictatorships?

Implicit Feudalism — Rushkoff Archive

Too many of us think it doesn’t matter when a platform like X/Twitter has a single, all-powerful owner. Most of our online worlds are simply run by what we hope are benevolent dictators. After all, we figure, if we don’t like what they’re doing or allowing, we can just leave, right? But in most cases we’re just jumping from one rich dude’s idea for how the world should be to another rich dude’s idea for how the world should be.

will depue on Twitter / X

i don't think nearly anyone, myself included, has truly internalized there'll soon be a machine better than us in every single intellectual & physical capacitydeep down we all share a feeling that our 'entrepreneurship' or 'taste' or... is special & safe. it isn't. it's over— will depue (@willdepue) September 23, 2026

Liquid Democracy: True Democracy for the 21st Century

Liquid Democracy, a subset of Delegative Democracy, is a powerful voting model for collective decision making in large communities. Liquid…

Who's Getting Rich Off Your Attention?

How concentrated ownership and automated manipulation reshape democracy

The Authoritarian Stack

How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America — And Why Europe Is Next

The Authoritarian Stack

How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America — And Why Europe Is Next

Jeremy Gilbert on Twitter / X

Really useful analysis of NR / neo-monarchism/ long-termism as authoritarian responses to the perception that democracy just can't get anything done (cos it's locked in to the short-termism of the popularity / electoral cycle). Free to read here: https://t.co/U4z0qmBReM https://t.co/NG4XIUM6O8— Jeremy Gilbert (@jemgilbert) September 21, 2026

Here's my plan to save Twitter: let's buy it | Nathan Schneider

Corporate sharks are circling around the platform we love. But there is another way: shared ownership, where the community takes control

Dear Mark Zuckerberg: Democracy is not a Facebook focus group.

With his 5,800-word manifesto on “Building Global Community,” the Facebook C.E.O. seems to be easing ever more into his role as benevolent dictator of the media universe.

Jeff Bezos Is Afraid Of What Comes Next

What comes after authoritarianism and the golden age of corruption? Billionaires are desperate to abuse their control of mass media to convince you it's anything other than good faith, popular, progressive reform.

Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development

Under anarchy, uncoordinated competitive theft by “roving bandits” destroys the incentive to invest and produce, leaving little for either the population or the bandits. Both can be better off if a bandit sets himself up as a dictator—a “stationary bandit” who monopolizes and rationalizes theft in the form of taxes. A secure autocrat has an encompassing interest in his domain that leads him to provide a peaceful order and other public goods that increase productivity. Whenever an autocrat expects a brief tenure, it pays him to confiscate those assets whose tax yield over his tenure is less than their total value. This incentive plus the inherent uncertainty of succession in dictatorships imply that autocracies will rarely have good economic performance for more than a generation. The conditions necessary for a lasting democracy are the same necessary for the security of property and contract rights that generates economic growth.

Democracy as a Scaled Collective Intelligence Process: Points of Vulnerability and Augmentation

As part of the Digital Library's transition to Open Access, new features for researchers are available in the Premium Edition. Click here to learn more.