Rabble on Nostr: I get it. Authoritarians use the term collectivism for a kind of top down control of ...

I get it. Authoritarians use the term collectivism for a kind of top down control of other people in a way that ends up abusive. What I mean is you’re voluntarily able to choose what collectives you want to participate in as a way of solving problems, organizing work, and resources together. In this case often this is the informal social labor of sustaining an online community like inviting people, welcoming them, setting norms, and in cases where it’s needed moderation. In the case of a fediverse server you end up stuck, they own your content, connections, and identity itself. That’s not voluntary because you can’t leave or fork the community. With subreddits you have a bit more agency but there’s still the issue of the mods being whoever created the subreddit or their self appointed successors.

With Nostr we can have groups and communities which exist as something more than a network of individuals, a collective as it were, but where participation in the larger network is locked open and permissionless. If you don’t like a group on Nostr you can much more established fork the group, or make your own relay. The awesome thing is users who want can put the same post in both the original and forked group.

I use the example of the meth users and anti-woke meth users subreddits. 99% of posts are just about using meth, and should easily be able to exist in both places at the same time. But some posts might be about politics and should only be in one or the other. In Nostr we can do that. Plus we can also make encrypted groups for people who want to have some privacy with then do their illegal drug advocacy and mutual aid.