Building in the dark forest
A message from works in progress
Hello again —
We write from our new home in the Dark Forest. This week we fully committed to our new universe: we abandoned Slack and moved all operations into DFOS, our new tool, available more widely in the coming weeks.
It feels good in here. Calm. Cozy. Just enough activity for things to feel alive and thriving, but not too much that it overwhelms.
Right now we're heads down on three projects: Dark Forest OS, which we're onboarding pioneer communities into as we speak; our second-annual Anonymous Creative Futures survey on how creative people are feeling right now; and the very first Artist Corporations law, coming to the floor of a statehouse senate very soon.
In the weeks ahead, we'll release each of these in a new way — stitching them together into a shared space that holds both the process behind the work and the people who gather around it once it's complete. More on that soon.
In this week's podcast, Josh traces the long technological arc that's led to this moment. The internet has been building toward this for decades. Listen below or on Apple and Spotify.
But this moment arrives with competing visions. In one corner: mass surveillance and an individualistic free-for-all. The tenor of the status quo. In the other: shared private internets and mutual-support networks built around the specific worlds we want. This is the universe we're building.
Which we get depends on many things, including how we behave in pursuing it. In a time of uncertainty, we're finding solace using our dark forest to plan, strategize, and build with the people who need and care about these ideas most. That's how the work starts. Where it goes next is up to all of us.
Gratefully,
Metalabel
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