The necessity of Microsolidarity in an Internet Environment

On Why Microsolidarity is Necessary

Welcome to this text and brewing. It has been developed within me, grown from the seedling of microsolidarity, in the soil of syndicalism and anarchism, over the course of many months now.

To start of, I want to specify what I believe Microsolidarity is necessary for, in extention to the points provided in the original article.

Microsolidarity is a necessary step to hinder mass-manipulation in contemporary society.

I have come to strongly believe this. I will attempt to bring you with me on my thought journey. I will also try to include my emotions as I believe one (thought) is seldomly without the other (emotion) no matter how contemporary scientific paradigms may portray it. This display of emotion and thought in combo is not something I have done before, I guess practice makes… . . . So now, to continue my imperfection:


1. Finding the question and the freudian id

With the points of “14 billion tons of ice melting just yesterday”, “a need for people to come together”, “to shape new ways of society” and “to connect and support each other”, all rang true to me, strong enough for Microsolidarity to embed itself within my thought patterns, I had yet to see how it connected, en masse, and why it would even come to happen at all.

In a dark corner of my mind, a bitter voice was whispering “Why would this even take off?”. I tried not listening to the voice as best I could but silently started looking for an answer. It seemed too big of a task for humans to re-organize. I would have to see an innate contemporary human need, which microsolidarity could provide for, before I could truly believe Microsolidarity could take off.

About two years before I read the article on Microsolidarity I watched a documentary called “The Swedish Theory of Love”. Perhaps it spoke to me as a love seeking Swede, but more so it spoke to me in its reflections on the arcitechture of the isolation designed one-room, four-people-families of todays skyrises and white-picket-fence-den societies. A change which has come upon Northern Hemisphere humans in the latest 0,001% of her history. I had seen the need. Could Microsolidarity be a cure of loneliness, the satisfaction to a deep human need, a desirable solution?

2. Exploring the Need

I observed todays society to find an answer as to why society had not already collapsed by the architectured societal loneliness, for my inner logus told me it should’ve. I found that in a timely fashion, internet and the world wide web came to be, creating and comforting with a community for those for whom there were none.

I look at the internet and see a substitution, a band-aid to the loneliness. Corporations feeding endorphines and a sense of belonging to the infected wounds of isolation.

What started irking me was who that sense of belonging was to, really? The identites of the communities, ranging from Twitter to Reddit, from Instagram to Tumbler, were rarely through connections to any individual people but to the masse of agreed jargon and inside-jokes, meta-memes, gifs or trends. More musings on this can be found here yet the bottom line was that these spaces were filled with payed for content, inceptions placed there with corporate incentive, propagand/commercials wearing costumes made up of memes or other relevant community coding to melt into the social settings of the artificial communities.

3. Conclusion

So what had I found so far?

  • I had found that there was a need that Microsolidarity could fill: lonliness.
  • I had found that the need was already covered by artificial communities on the www.
  • I had found that these artificial communities were easy to incept with messages if one has money and that it was already happening as there was no real way of differentiating between the “real” users and corporate shills.

The breeding ground for mass-manipulation is close to reaching its final form, setting the tone and delivering messages with disguised messengers.

What did I feel?

  • Slight desperation
  • An urgency to do something
  • A big “Ahaaaaaa” moment
  • An increased personal need for Microsolidarity

My conclusion is that Microsolidarity is not only a great way to go about reshaping and rebuilding the world, it is a means to avoid the dystopia which inevitably comes with mass-manipulation.

It allows for this

Microsolidarity is not only a step for a healthier earth and person, it’s a necessary step of rebellion.

Edit: removed an asterics

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@zelf hey :slight_smile: this is so on point and discussion that has been going on for ages here in one form or another. We did a fairly large research project exploring this in the context of provision of health and social care support where both state and market are failing. Looking at initiatives groups and individuals running as a response. With something as critical as care provision you have the additional parameters of safety, reliability etc. If you are interested I can dig up a few links for you.

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We did a fairly large research project exploring this in the context of provision of health and social care support where both state and market are failing.

@nadia This sounds super interesting! Also, highly timely.
If you have links I would love to see them!

Microsolidarity, as I understand it (which isn’t a lot) is largely based around being part of a “crew.” I like this notion and it reminds me of the beginnings of my journey, which started on a bus with a group - a crew - of around 8 people. And most of my closest friends over the span of decades are people with whom I was in some kind of crew, in the microsolidarity sense. Working in a garage, playing in a rock band, forging new kinds of online community…things like that.

How is it working for you?

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You can download them from the git repo

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Hey Zelf,

i’m super curious about the articles you provided but can’t seem to access them. Maybe it’s my browser, but I’d love to get those URLs. If it’s not too much trouble to re-post or message me :smile:

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https://github.com/opencarecc/opencareProjectDeliverables/blob/master/WP4/D4.6%20Research%20paper%20-%20Using%20collective%20intelligence%20to%20improve%20care%20-%20an%20empirical%20study%20on%20best%20practice%20in%20the%20care%20sector.pdf

https://github.com/opencarecc/opencareProjectDeliverables/blob/master/WP4/D4.7%20Research%20paper%20-%20Integrating%20community-driven%20care%20services%20in%20European%20welfare%20states%20(second%20edition).pdf

Thanks Soenke, but was more curious about the little blue links that Zelf embedded in her write up.
“original article”, “the swedish theory of love”, “found here”

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haha yes! Sorry, it seems all of the links disappeared. Sadly some of them are posts I made on scuttlebutt but I can link them anyways,

Here they are:
“found here” (musings on memes from a post I made on scuttlebutt) %8+CGdFA7Zj+onCSva39wP2kmKIzEl9FgWvSETHWFLI0=.sha256

Microsolidarity, original article:

Swedish Theory of Love: