Extinction Rebellion (XR) Engineers

Nathan Cravens

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Oct 12, 2019, 9:45:15 AM10/12/19

to Open Manufacturing, a nna, Paul D. Fernhout

I've been put off by the snobery of environmental activism in the past, but this is different, post-Occupy different. Many lessons have been learned, and they remain open to new ideas by leaving it up to the public to decide, they do not criticize an individual's behaviors; the people involved are absolutely brilliant. Smart phones are cheap now and many apps like Signal, Telegram, and Slack aid in mobilizing and coordinating spontaneous and radical change. They are also looking into Loomio. :)

XR and open manufacturing are perfectly aligned in my view. Many of the ideas around climate action is where a great deal of innovation is happening. This movement is concerned about climate and ecological devastation, which leads for the need for transparency to get a proper damage report; and the demand for transparency can build on open manufacturing principles by radically modifying* business to ensure ecologically neutral or positive processes put in place for public monitoring (and later, actuation). Nothing can invigorate innovation like the threat of extinction, but another part of XR, at least in sentiment, is of a better world, what they call 'regenerative culture'. It is not a "doom cult".

Consider joining your local XR chapter and tell them how 'regenerative' technology can be; Many within this group remain anti-tech due to its use under capitalism and because many leading figures on the Left have rejected technology as useful given how the bright-eyed hopes and dreams of the emerging World Wide Web have lead to even further atomization and acceleration of monopoly capital.

A few of us have been discussing the future of the Internet and technology for a long time, so joining XR can help to spread a new way of looking at the world in order to redesign it. I mentioned the Left, but this group remains apolitical, if you accept that term. Its a wise move.

A few suggestions:

Setup an event that informs on solutions followed by identifying the challenges in your local area and what solutions to put in place. In many cases 'rewilding' may be the best engineering solution. Transparency of the supply chain is key, and that transparency must be global.
Network with coordinators of XR Engineers (and others) and XR Citizen's Assembly to form a plan (given to a group independent of XR) on how to inform the public with options decided by the public. Its important to make this process have as much input or have the ability to fork or to undertake a variety of options at once. We don't want to be accused or dismissed as technocrats

Follow/Join XR Engineers.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/XREngineers/

https://twitter.com/EngineersXr

My latest manifestos concerning revolutionary practice: (5min read average)

Revolutionary Governance through Citizen’s Assemblies, Expert Councils, & Direct Action: Achieving Post-Scarcity in 8 Simple Steps… (October 3, 2019) | Herding Cats to Map the Damage, the Revolution, and the World of Production (September 24, 2019) | The Shortcomings of Transition & Necessity of Revolution: Extinction Rebellion, The Zeitgeist Movement, and Occupy Reflections (September 12, 2019) | Revolution Now! (September 1, 2019) | The Emergency Consultant Will See You Now (June 28, 2019)

Thanks for the feedback.

*Revolution required.

--

Nathan W. Cravens | @nwcrav | p2pfoundation.net/Nathan_Cravens

Kevin Carson

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Oct 12, 2019, 1:32:52 PM10/12/19

to Open Manufacturing

I'm working on a paper on the Degrowth vs Ecomodernism debate. I
strongly sympathize with the basic principles of degrowth, but I've
found a similarly unfortunate "two cultures" problem regarding their
view of technology. It's mirrored by the eco-modernist hostility
towards anything decentralized, local or small-scale. In both cases,
it's an aversion that's largely aesthetic and based on cultural
associations.

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--
Kevin Carson
Senior Fellow, Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org

Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Desktop Regulatory State http://desktopregulatorystate.wordpress.com
Exodus: General Idea of the Revolution in the XXI Century
http://exodus875.wordpress.com

Vinu

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Oct 14, 2019, 5:00:30 PM10/14/19

to openmanu...@googlegroups.com, Paul D. Fernhout, a nna

Well said!

Do you know anyone from India. Want to do something in India. I think the time has come for the revolution.

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Nathan Cravens

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Oct 14, 2019, 5:06:04 PM10/14/19

to Open Manufacturing

Hi Vinu,

I agree. India has amazing potential. Abhijit Anand Prabhudan can point you in the right direction.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openmanufacturing/CAMY3xiFijxnxDf5K%3D0RAiGiChFA7x--HDoKEth9q9Y_0KZpM_w%40mail.gmail.com.

Vinu

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Oct 23, 2019, 8:32:10 AM10/23/19

to openmanu...@googlegroups.com

Thanks Nathan! That would be great!

Could you kindly give me an introduction?

Let's connect on LinkedIn as well

https://www.linkedin.com/in/visualvinu

Cheers,

Vinu

+91 89393 42166

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openmanufacturing/CAD_FAvoDZxM%3Dw0y4sg4FXuvuKu9d4uFt09uAykfsywPJzpm8Fw%40mail.gmail.com.

Forrest Flanagan

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Oct 25, 2019, 10:52:27 PM10/25/19

to openmanu...@googlegroups.com

I hadn't been speaking up because I wanted to research in more detail, but XR is not a movement I can comfortably associate with.
The key issue is they are an antirebellion, a harmful psy-op misdirecting people and sabotaging other protest groups. They're beyond pro-police, they're dangerously enthusiastic with their bootlicking, collecting member information prior to protests and providing them to police ahead of actions complete with a tick-box on whether they want to be arrested or not. They regard being arrested as a non-obstacle, and encourage each other to hand themselves in to police after committing minor crimes, get on first name basis with their jailer, plead guilty, and write nice letters to the arresting officer complete with a gift basket thanking them for their professionalism. I'm not even joking. It's impossible to write satire about XR at this point.

They're a liability to minorities, immigrants, and every other protest group. People at non-xr mixed attendance protests have been beaten, arrested, and deported because XR members have called the police and thinned blockades as a response to kettling.

They're pro-capitalist and pro-status-quo.
XR business is their financial arm. It's not a satellite group of supporters, it's deeply integrated. They take money from Unilever, airports that compete with the ones they shut down with drones, and basically anyone that wants the money of people that value green capitalism. They're like Susan G. Komen in that regard - pollute some groundwater with carcinogens while fracking? 50K will get you a photoshoot with a pink tricone bit and some attention on twitter and major news networks. Not a cent to breast cancer research, they're really more about 'awareness'. At least Susan G. Komen doesn't get people beaten or arrested.

There's a lot more wrong with XR, but I think I've conveyed enough. If you wanna throw effort into something, Open Source Ecology could probably use the help.

https://sunbeam.city/@GreenandBlack/102027193955658298
https://enoughisenough14.org/2019/04/24/rebellion-extinction-a-capitalist-scam-to-hijack-our-resistance/
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/gy7vd4/britains-new-climate-change-protesters-are-desperate-to-get-arrested
https://twitter.com/aut_omnia/status/1186626604698603520

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openmanufacturing/CAMY3xiH9APWYQYzvWQFChxbaVAAT4zQsfZjbgfp4jsQkMMm%3DJA%40mail.gmail.com.

redhandedxr.jpg

Nathan Cravens

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Oct 26, 2019, 2:00:17 PM10/26/19

to Open Manufacturing

I admit it, XR is just a bunch of Soros funded under cover police that want an ancap police state. Just kidding. You may as well be saying that.

The Right is rallying around thinly veiled fascists and I'm seeing those on all sides of the Left bash this movement however they can. Criticism is good and needs to continue, but XR should not be dismissed.

It is true each XR group wants to know if you are arrestable or not, this is so they know what part of the action you can be involved in, ensure you get proper training in non-violent direct action and de-escalation, and help protect those at an action who are non-arrestable. Names of who is arrestable or nonarrestable is not handed to police, but remains within the local group with coordinators who are usually teachers by trade. There is ongoing debate within the group how much should be public vs. secret.

Civil disobiedience is a primary tactic in XR, which involves getting arrested. The public takes something more seriously if people are willing to get arrested for what they believe. Marches in the past, like the 36 million globally, failed to stop the Iraq War. XR is well aware what they do is pissing a lot of people off, and they are doing everything they can not to be confrontational about it, but mass disruption is the price for whether something gets discussed or not. Talk is not enough of course, there needs to be enough pressure for government to "Act Now" a slogan that calls to institute a citizen's assembly with legislative authority.

Mainstream media focus often amplified by social media users are looking for flaws within the organization or its tactics and ignoring the aims of the movement which they have made clear from the beginning. They want three things: 1) Now that a climate emergency has been declared, for the science to be widely and continuously reported by governments and media; for government to actually take emergency measures. 2) Climate neutrality and ending biodiversity loss by 2025; 3) a citizen's assembly that grant randomly selected individuals from all backgrounds the ability to make informed decisions with legislative power. They have a list of principles worth a look as well. If the Three Demands and Principles are accepted anyone can act as XR.

A majority within XR were against locking onto trains, just as a majority were against drones halting flights. There is a centralised element for large actions in terms of location and action planning, but the execution, including that of small actions, is distributed within a variety of affinity groups that may or may not connect with working groups such as XR Wellbeing, XR Food, ect. This group is not motivated by business interests and have criticed the phrase "business as usual". The oft cited image from the Red Handed campaign was intended as a group action for a particular time and place and not something people should do randomly as individuals.

So the Autumn Rebellion. Many criticised how open to the public they were. My take is that they did this knowing police can easily infiltrate a large group and get this information anyway, so they made the large actions public in an attempt to attract more people. Regardless of tactics, in the UK at least, I'm not seeing the numbers of support rise enough without some sort of external shock like abrupt economic decline or failure, but that is not to say it shouldn't be tried anyway, as a slow build could lead to an acceleration with the right network effects. This has resulted in the police taking sweeping measures to make all protests related to that event illegal, which is being contested in court. When the ban happened, this encouraged notables like George Monbiot to sit in the street and get arrested.

This lack of numbers is true for open manufacturing or Open Source Ecology. I see XR as one tool is the toolset, not an end in itself, or one group that should take the entire spotlight. It takes a variety of instruments to orchestrate a symphony. Like Occupy it united groups together; XR is doing the same, so I applaud it for enabling many people that have been fighting as individuals or small groups to come together and grow numbers in both distributed action and global change.

In the presentation 'Why XR Demands A Citizens' Assembly On Climate And Ecological Justice' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTILQFaREZ4) by Linda Doyle, the external coordinator for national citizen's assemblies, it makes clear that capitalism and representational governments have failed and need replacing.

I stress the baby should not be thrown out with the bath water.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openmanufacturing/CAA_HnBN%2Bmubk%2BAAsj-zZqpe--OgUYmo2Kb%3DjPs20pz5FoTD%2Bsg%40mail.gmail.com.

m d

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Oct 26, 2019, 6:23:54 PM10/26/19

to openmanu...@googlegroups.com

I immediately lose sympathy with any movement which resorts to tactics which blocks traffic or interferes with the rights of other people to move about or enter buildings. I'm fine with peaceful demonstrations which don't harm or inconvenience other people.

On 10/26/2019 11:00 AM, Nathan Cravens wrote:
> I admit it, XR is just a bunch of Soros funded under cover police that want an ancap police state. Just kidding. You may as well be saying that.
>
> The Right is rallying around thinly veiled fascists and I'm seeing those on all sides of the Left bash this movement however they can. Criticism is good and needs to continue, but XR should not be dismissed.
>
> It is true each XR group wants to know if you are arrestable or not, this is so they know what part of the action you can be involved in, ensure you get proper training in non-violent direct action and de-escalation, and help protect those at an action who are non-arrestable. Names of who is arrestable or nonarrestable is not handed to police, but remains within the local group with coordinators who are usually teachers by trade. There is ongoing debate within the group how much should be public vs. secret.
>
> Civil disobiedience is a primary tactic in XR, which involves getting arrested. The public takes something more seriously if people are willing to get arrested for what they believe. Marches in the past, like the 36 million globally, failed to stop the Iraq War. XR is well aware what they do is pissing a lot of people off, and they are doing everything they can not to be confrontational about it, but mass disruption is the price for whether something gets discussed or not. Talk is not enough of course, there needs to be enough pressure for government to "Act Now" a slogan that calls to institute a citizen's assembly with legislative authority.
>
> Mainstream media focus often amplified by social media users are looking for flaws within the organization or its tactics and ignoring the aims of the movement which they have made clear from the beginning. They want three things: 1) Now that a climate emergency has been declared, for the science to be widely and continuously reported by governments and media; for government to actually take emergency measures. 2) Climate neutrality and ending biodiversity loss by 2025; 3) a citizen's assembly that grant randomly selected individuals from all backgrounds the ability to make informed decisions with legislative power. They have a list of principles worth a look as well. If the Three Demands and Principles are accepted anyone can act as XR.
>
> A majority within XR were against locking onto trains, just as a majority were against drones halting flights. There is a centralised element for large actions in terms of location and action planning, but the execution, including that of small actions, is distributed within a variety of affinity groups that may or may not connect with working groups such as XR Wellbeing, XR Food, ect. This group is not motivated by business interests and have criticed the phrase "business as usual". The oft cited image from the Red Handed campaign was intended as a group action for a particular time and place and not something people should do randomly as individuals.
>
> So the Autumn Rebellion. Many criticised how open to the public they were. My take is that they did this knowing police can easily infiltrate a large group and get this information anyway, so they made the large actions public in an attempt to attract more people. Regardless of tactics, in the UK at least, I'm not seeing the numbers of support rise enough without some sort of external shock like abrupt economic decline or failure, but that is not to say it shouldn't be tried anyway, as a slow build could lead to an acceleration with the right network effects. This has resulted in the police taking sweeping measures to make all protests related to that event illegal, which is being contested in court. When the ban happened, this encouraged notables like George Monbiot to sit in the street and get arrested.
>
> This lack of numbers is true for open manufacturing or Open Source Ecology. I see XR as one tool is the toolset, not an end in itself, or one group that should take the entire spotlight. It takes a variety of instruments to orchestrate a symphony. Like Occupy it united groups together; XR is doing the same, so I applaud it for enabling many people that have been fighting as individuals or small groups to come together and grow numbers in both distributed action and global change.
>
> In the presentation 'Why XR Demands A Citizens' Assembly On Climate And Ecological Justice' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTILQFaREZ4) by Linda Doyle, the external coordinator for national citizen's assemblies, it makes clear that capitalism and representational governments have failed and need replacing.
>
> I stress the baby should not be thrown out with the bath water.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 26, 2019 at 3:52 AM Forrest Flanagan <soleno...@gmail.com <mailto:soleno...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I hadn't been speaking up because I wanted to research in more detail, but XR is not a movement I can comfortably associate with.
> The key issue is they are an antirebellion, a harmful psy-op misdirecting people and sabotaging other protest groups. They're beyond pro-police, they're dangerously enthusiastic with their bootlicking, collecting member information prior to protests and providing them to police ahead of actions complete with a tick-box on whether they want to be arrested or not. They regard being arrested as a non-obstacle, and encourage each other to hand themselves in to police after committing minor crimes, get on first name basis with their jailer, plead guilty, and write nice letters to the arresting officer complete with a gift basket thanking them for their professionalism. I'm not even joking. It's impossible to write satire about XR at this point.
>
> They're a liability to minorities, immigrants, and every other protest group. People at non-xr mixed attendance protests have been beaten, arrested, and deported because XR members have called the police and thinned blockades as a response to kettling.
>
> They're pro-capitalist and pro-status-quo.
> XR business is their financial arm. It's not a satellite group of supporters, it's deeply integrated. They take money from Unilever, airports that compete with the ones they shut down with drones, and basically anyone that wants the money of people that value green capitalism. They're like Susan G. Komen in that regard - pollute some groundwater with carcinogens while fracking? 50K will get you a photoshoot with a pink tricone bit and some attention on twitter and major news networks. Not a cent to breast cancer research, they're really more about 'awareness'. At least Susan G. Komen doesn't get people beaten or arrested.
>
> There's a lot more wrong with XR, but I think I've conveyed enough. If you wanna throw effort into something, Open Source Ecology could probably use the help.
>
>
> https://sunbeam.city/@GreenandBlack/102027193955658298
> https://enoughisenough14.org/2019/04/24/rebellion-extinction-a-capitalist-scam-to-hijack-our-resistance/
> https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/gy7vd4/britains-new-climate-change-protesters-are-desperate-to-get-arrested
> https://twitter.com/aut_omnia/status/1186626604698603520
>

> On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 7:32 AM Vinu <vranga...@gmail.com <mailto:vranga...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Thanks Nathan! That would be great!
>
> Could you kindly give me an introduction?
> Let's connect on LinkedIn as well
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/visualvinu
>
> Cheers,
> Vinu
> +91 89393 42166
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 2:36 AM Nathan Cravens <knu...@gmail.com <mailto:knu...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi Vinu,
>
> I agree. India has amazing potential. Abhijit Anand Prabhudan can point you in the right direction.
>
>
> On Mon, 14 Oct 2019, 22:00 Vinu, <vranga...@gmail.com <mailto:vranga...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Well said!
>
> Do you know anyone from India. Want to do something in India. I think the time has come for the revolution.
>

> On Sat, 12 Oct 2019 at 7:15 PM, Nathan Cravens <knu...@gmail.com <mailto:knu...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I've been put off by the snobery of environmental activism in the past, but this is different, post-Occupy different. Many lessons have been learned, and they remain open to new ideas by leaving it up to the public to decide, they do not criticize an individual's behaviors; the people involved are absolutely brilliant. Smart phones are cheap now and many apps like Signal, Telegram, and Slack aid in mobilizing and coordinating spontaneous and radical change. They are also looking into Loomio. :)
>
> XR and open manufacturing are perfectly aligned in my view. Many of the ideas around climate action is where a great deal of innovation is happening. This movement is concerned about climate and ecological devastation, which leads for the need for transparency to get a proper damage report; and the demand for transparency can build on open manufacturing principles by radically modifying* business to ensure ecologically neutral or positive processes put in place for public monitoring (and later, actuation). Nothing can invigorate innovation like the threat of extinction, but another part of XR, at least in sentiment, is of a better world, what they call 'regenerative culture'. It is not a "doom cult".
>
> Consider joining your local XR chapter and tell them how 'regenerative' technology can be; Many within this group remain anti-tech due to its use under capitalism and because many leading figures on the Left have rejected technology as useful given how the bright-eyed hopes and dreams of the emerging World Wide Web have lead to even further atomization and acceleration of monopoly capital.
>
> A few of us have been discussing the future of the Internet and technology for a long time, so joining XR can help to spread a new way of looking at the world in order to redesign it. I mentioned the Left, but this group remains apolitical, if you accept that term. Its a wise move.
>
> A few suggestions:
>

> * Setup an event that informs on solutions followed by identifying the challenges in your local area and what solutions to put in place. In many cases 'rewilding' may be the best engineering solution. *Transparency of the supply chain is key, and that transparency must be global. *
> * Network with coordinators of XR Engineers (and others) and XR Citizen's Assembly to form a plan (given to a group independent of XR) on how to inform the public with options decided by the public. Its important to make this process have as much input or have the ability to fork or to undertake a variety of options at once. We don't want to be accused or dismissed as technocrats

>
>
> Follow/Join XR Engineers.
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/XREngineers/
> https://twitter.com/EngineersXr
>
> My latest manifestos concerning revolutionary practice: (5min read average)
>

> Revolutionary Governance through Citizen’s Assemblies, Expert Councils, & Direct Action: Achieving Post-Scarcity in 8 Simple Steps… (October 3, 2019) <https://medium.com/@nwcrav/revolutionary-governance-through-citizens-assemblies-expert-councils-direct-democracy-f10a19d9e736> | Herding Cats to Map the Damage, the Revolution, and the World of Production (September 24, 2019) <https://medium.com/@nwcrav/hearding-cats-to-map-the-damage-the-revolution-the-world-of-production-a96524f7a207> | The Shortcomings of Transition & Necessity of Revolution: Extinction Rebellion, The Zeitgeist Movement, and Occupy Reflections (September 12, 2019) <https://medium.com/@nwcrav/the-shortcomings-of-transition-necessity-of-revolution-extinction-rebellion-the-zeitgeist-5443f7e3f844> | Revolution Now! (September 1, 2019) <https://medium.com/@nwcrav/revolution-now-c6b0a34d6c35> | The Emergency Consultant Will See You Now (June 28, 2019)
> <https://medium.com/@nwcrav/the-emergency-consultant-will-see-you-now-98028fa66697?postPublishedType=repub>

>
> Thanks for the feedback.
>
> *Revolution required.
>
> --

> Nathan W. Cravens | @nwcrav | p2pfoundation.net/Nathan_Cravens <http://p2pfoundation.net/Nathan_Cravens>