drew mca
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drewmca.net
drew mca
@drewmca.net
1K followers 2.1K following 800 posts
software @ mathematica.org
media & public engagement @colorado.edu
research @medlabboulder.bsky.social
building @pmsky.social
cooperatives, protocols, collaboration
drewmca.net
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drewmca.net
Too lazy to repost but here’s the highlights
August 31, 2025 at 9:30 PM
drewmca.net
And it still hasn’t stopped, 65 pages in
Page 65 of “Owning the Future” by Buller and Lawrence: “significant swathes of the economy and set to take more. Unifying ownership and control, the explosive growth of the sector presages a further concentration of economic power. However, contrary to the industry's claims of investing in a productive post-pandemic future, extensive research details the extractive practices favoured by many private equity firms, including loading companies with debt (thereby reducing tax burdens) and asset stripping (such as selling company assets only to lease them back, with the private equity firm rather than the company retaining the cash from the sale).* The corporate form risks being ransacked further through the historic shifts in ownership underway. On David and Goliath: a Democratising Agenda for the Corporation We do not, then, live in the world envisioned by the advocates of shareholder primacy, nor in the socialised corporation imagined by Marx or Keynes. Instead, what has come to pass is a deep and ongoing monopolisation of ownership and control rights in the economy, epitomised by the systemic power of the asset management giants, with corporations increasingly reduced to vehicles for extracting income for passive rentier investors. How then can we reimagine the corporation as a vehicle for democratic production, resuscitating the emancipatory potential many have identified in the corporate form? There is no way that, on the current institutional foun-dations, we can build a world where production is organised democratically to meet society's fundamental needs. Today, property is privileged over the security and dignity of the vast majority, who are subjected to exploitation, coercive…” Page 67 of “Owning the Future” by Buller and Lawrence “The task ahead is to replace private authority over production with a truly democratic and social institution that organises investment to meet needs based on work undertaken under conditions of substantive freedom within and beyond the firm. That means ensuring the question of the purpose of production is subject to democratic nego-tiation. The corporation is not in any meaningful sense a 'private institution; to the contrary, it's a thoroughly public space, and one of the few that we have been content to maintain as fundamentally undemocratic. Why submit to the prerogatives of the rentier shareholder, managerial elites, and asset management titans, when economic coordination rights within and beyond the corporation could just as easily be organised to serve the many?* Reimagining the corporate form is no small feat, but in fundamental terms, the democratic economy begins where the primacy of property ends. Reclaiming the Common Wealth: First Principles The rights enjoyed by owners of capital are not natural, they have been constructed over time through sustained political effort and cemented beneath layers of legal precedent and codes written to construct and protect wealth generating assets.* In contrast to the idea that societal development has travelled along some inevitable path towards the 'end of history', the rights of different classes and peoples have ebbed and flowed, reflecting historically specific distributions of bargaining power within societies. We need only look to European or Chinese models of corporate ownership to see the range of possibilities, even within the parameters of the present. The dominance of…”
August 31, 2025 at 9:26 PM
drewmca.net
Loved this opening 😄
Article title: “Financing shared ownership” subtitle: “How policymakers can support the financing of shared ownership across the economy” Contributors: Júlia Martins Rodrigues & Nathan Schneider Opening paragraph of the article: A truly democratic society should be capable of extending democracy into the workplace and everyday economic life. Shared ownership is a fundamental stepping stone toward such economic democracy. In this context, shared ownership refers to broad-based structures that make company ownership available and reasonably accessible to all members of a stakeholder class-such as its workers, consumers, neighbors, or other groups of direct participants. This way, the owners of a business are people whose lives its operations affect, not just outside investors seeking profits. Through broad-based shared ownership, access to the responsibilities and rewards of ownership can be distributed throughout society rather than concentrated in the hands of a financial elite, resulting in more democratic governance and shared prosperity.
July 19, 2025 at 3:46 AM
drewmca.net
I’m a little late on posting this, but some excerpts from @hcrichardson.bsky.social on Apr 24, alongside a snippet from a favorite essay by @mutual-a.bsky.social, with some of my highlights added.
Trump won the presidency by assuring his base that he was a strong leader who could impose his will on the country and the world. Now he is bleating weakly at Putin. Trump was the logical outcome of the myth of cowboy individualism embraced by the Republicans since President Ronald Reagan rose to the White House by celebrating it. In that myth, a true American is a man who operates on his own, outside the community. He needs nothing from the government, works hard to support himself, protects his wife and children, and asserts his will by dominating others. Government is his enemy, according to the myth, because it takes his money to help undeserving freeloaders and because it regulates how he can run his business. A society dominated by a cowboy individual is a strong one. according to the myth, because it takes his money to help undeserving freeloaders and because it regulates how he can run his business. A society dominated by a cowboy individual is a strong one. Leaders who pushed this ideology knew it attracted voters. Once they were in power, they could slash government programs and cut taxes and regulations that kept wealth and opportunity accessible to poorer Americans. They argued that a society works best if wealth and power are concentrated among a few elites, who can direct capital more efficiently than government bureaucrats can. Their rhetoric worked: from 1981 to 2021, $50 trillion moved from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. But those same people talking about individualism to secure votes also knew that the world has never worked this way. In the twenty-first century, U.S. security and the economy depended more than ever on coalitions and government investment. today, Musk and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent got into a yelling match in the West Wing of the White House. And Musk's vow of $2 trillion in cuts has dwindled down to $150 billion, although that number is not yet verifiable. Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times reported today that the cost of firing workers will be more than $135 billion this year, while cuts to the IRS will cost about $8.5 billion in revenue in 2026 alone. And then there is the cost of lawsuits over DOGE's actions. Rather than working with those government officials already in place to save government money, Musk appears to be trying to display his power over government employees. At the same time, he is scooping up data from various government agencies about individuals in the U.S., a treasure trove that he could use for shaping society, garnering government contracts, or raising money either by selling it or by blackmailing people with it. After today's news that Tesla's Now I do think that Marx is right about the drive towards simplicity. But it doesn't neatly result in efficiency. Marx's assertion that you can just rationally create productive processes is not just historically questionable (see David Noble on how American manufacturers promoted inefficient automation technologies that enabled more control over workers, for example) but also is theoretically at odds with the aforementioned problems of perfect algorithms. Certainly, such rigidity can be efficient for particular ends. But it comes at the expense of potentially reconfiguring the process in ways as well as denying tools that would allow for a broader scope of possible ways of working. But this is kinda the point. Because what the broader capitalist system is optimizing for is control and then efficiency. States and large, hierarchical firms have a symbiotic relationship with each other wherein both provide something of value that the other cannot when it comes to navigating an uncertain world. Capitalists naturally pursue technology in a manner that reinforces power because it's how they make workers easier to direct and control which does unlock certain economies of scale and also allows them to drive down wages. From the perspective of society broadly this is both inefficient and costly in the form of various negative externalities. But from the perspective of the state, this arrangement is preferable because economic centralization enables the state to better achieve its ends precisely because a smaller number of large firms can be more easily mobilized. And so the state tips the scale in favor of large capitalists in a variety of ways. From the enforcement of property claims acquired through expropriation or conquest, to making forms of self-employment or cooperative enterprises more costly if not outright illegal, to subsidies for transportation infrastructure to name but a few, the state has constantly
April 27, 2025 at 10:37 PM
drewmca.net
relatable
screenshot of a charge from aws for 67¢
April 2, 2025 at 10:04 PM
drewmca.net
oop here's the same image with a background
screenshot from the pmsky.social landing page of the same drawing of bricks. a header above the image says "Composable Moderation", and below the text says "Bluesky has taken a stackable approach to moderation..."
March 29, 2025 at 1:24 AM
drewmca.net
i couldn't find an image i liked so i drew this brick wall for a redesign of the pmsky.social landing page, this is probably the first thing i've drawn since middle school art class, so i'm pretty stoked at how it came out 😄
digital drawing of a brick wall
March 29, 2025 at 1:23 AM
drewmca.net
what do we think, left or right?
screenshot of the new landing page with two columns. left is an image, and right has a header and some copy another screenshot of the landing page. this time, the header is above the image and right-aligned, rather than constrained in the right column.
March 28, 2025 at 8:57 PM
drewmca.net
can confirm, including a screenshot bc i was curious what it looked like
screenshot of the youtube warning page before it redirects to bsky. it says “Be careful! This site may be harmful. The site you are trying to visit (bsky.app) may include malware, phishing attempts, or disturbing content. BACK TO SAFETY”
March 28, 2025 at 6:30 PM
drewmca.net
gah thank you
screenshot of calendar advanced settings with an unchecked box next to "turn on time zone support" as the first option
March 24, 2025 at 4:46 AM
drewmca.net
no it's cool i didn't really wanna check into my flight anyways
screenshot of delta.com returning: This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below. <Error> <Code>AccessDenied</Code> 7<Message› User: arn:aws:iam:: 890936766857:user/akamai_oci-prd-ui-delta-us- east-l is not authorized to perform: 53:ListBucket on resource: "arn:aws: s3:::0ci-prd-ui-delta-us-east-1" because no identity-basec policy allows the s3:ListBucket action </Message> <RequestId>V5ZG659YKZMW0CW6</RequestId> T <HostId> Va3yLwHpwvxZ9gXkXySbEEf/dwBHMI07wskyPRd51zaJFLud/D7xzmvyk9APVaCGHut
March 24, 2025 at 4:40 AM
drewmca.net
first time in seattle and really loved it - i have an offering for the moss feed
a variety of mossy plants that are i assume native to the pacific northwest. some fern looking things, budding shrubs, small lily pad looking clusters & moss and wet leaves. good vibes a path made of larger flat stones (blanking on the word for them) with mossy grass between and around them. it’s a path on the UW seattle campus
March 24, 2025 at 3:41 AM
drewmca.net
@htmx.org mention @ #ATmosphereconf
slide from @divy.zone’s talk on atproto app dev, which mentions a stack of HTMX + SSRs
March 23, 2025 at 7:18 PM
drewmca.net
@pius.dog is now enshrined on my laptop
closeup of my laptop lid, which is really just a collage of stickers. centered is the sticker of @pius.dog's head
March 23, 2025 at 4:08 AM
drewmca.net
stay safe out there!
dm from a @pmsky.social user: “ok lmao you can accidentally vote neg on your own meta proposal and get locked out”
February 26, 2025 at 10:00 PM
drewmca.net
surrounded by many good and extremely cool people this weekend at #GFELBoulder
a hand holding a pamphlet / zine found at the general forum for ethereum localism boulder with an astronaut headshot with ethereum logos, titled “The Gitcoin Communist Manifesto”, subtitle “Public goods are inevitable” page two of the manifesto, quote: A specter is haunting Ethereum-the specter of public goods. All the powers of the old world— maximalists and mercenaries, rent-seekers and reactionaries-have entered into an unholy alliance to exorcise this specter. Where is the faction that has not been decried as "communist" by its adversaries in the network state? Where is the builder who has not been branded as an enemy of private accumulation, simply for advocating for the commons? It is time for the stewards of coordination to openly publish their aims, to stand before the networked world and declare: public goods are not theft, they are the substrate of civilization.
February 22, 2025 at 3:23 AM
drewmca.net
heck yeah
screenshot of health.pmsky.social returning a 200, showing i got my server, dns, and caddy all setup correctly
January 27, 2025 at 1:00 AM
drewmca.net
@gahr.io @pmsky.social’s first post!
screenshot of the pmsky.social profile, with its first post! it says “if you’re curious, start here” with a link to pmsky.social. there’s a link preview card with a stock photo of clouds in an afternoon sky.
January 26, 2025 at 11:14 PM
drewmca.net
excuse me
dm from @listifications saying that @sniffer.on.computer has added me to the “extreme stinkers” mod list
January 26, 2025 at 5:06 AM
drewmca.net
lol
screenshot of the top of the wikipedia page for Liberalism, with the last line highlighted, which says “Not to be confused with Libertarianism”
December 12, 2024 at 1:27 AM
drewmca.net
screenshot from the tenth paragraph in the article, which says “Collins’ concerns this week over the tax measure emerged a few weeks after he received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from prominent members of the city’s commercial real estate and hospitality industries. The South Boston Democrat told the Globe that the contributions had no influence on his actions.”
December 5, 2024 at 6:40 PM
drewmca.net
also these could be consolidated the way other notifications are probably
screenshot of the notifications tab, showing several individual “X followed you back” notifications, when it could be one consolidated “Y users followed you back” like other notification types are
November 14, 2024 at 4:36 PM
drewmca.net
easily verifiable and not true???
screenshot of @kamalaharris on instagram, looking normal and no snake like claimed in the post above
November 8, 2024 at 5:02 PM
drewmca.net
hah i think a lot of people just got this text bc the web server for fixing this is now down & throwing 404s
screenshot of a text from BallotTrax saying i need to cure my ballot, and a link to a tool to do so
November 4, 2024 at 12:52 AM
drewmca.net
here’s the gist

they’re (rightfully imo) concerned about fascist organizing on the site. apparently Brazil requested a takedown, and bsky responded by taking down only for Brazil.
Chad Loder @chadloder.bsky.social This is the biggest weakness of Bluesky in my opinion. The fascists are here already and they will keep coming. Zecharias Zelalem @zekuzelalem If they are slow to curb the few fascists mostly communicating in English, all hell will break loose when the fascists from all the non English speaking corners of the world set up a base here. So far, no sign they are serious about preventing What happened with Twitter/Facebook Chad Loder@chadloder.bsky.social The German-speaking fascists have a really large cell here already, probably larger than the English-speaking cluster. But the English cluster's pretty big and growing quickly. Chad Loder @chadloder.bsky.social • 4d They don't see this as dropping the ball. The mental model underlying the design philosophy seems to be very laissez-faire, to the point of techno-libertarianism. The flaw is, as you said, that giving people nuclear blocks and blocklists does not prevent fascists from organizing on here. Zecharias Zelalem @zekuzelalem.... • 4d Okay. Well that sounds almost Musk-esque. Here's to hoping they're prepping something they will rollout in the not too distant future. @recombobulating.bsky.social When the Brazilian state insisted that Bluesky remove specific far right accounts they developed new functionality so that they would be
October 21, 2024 at 1:43 PM