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In any commons system there is, first of all, a resource that is commonly shared (the pasture). For the system to be subject to the tragedy [of the commons], the resource must not only be limited, but erodable when overused. That is, beyond some threshold, the less resource there is, the less it is able to regenerate itself, or the more likely it is to be destroyed. (..). Another reinforcing feedback loop running downhill.

A commons system also needs users of the resource (the cows and their owners), which have good reason to increase, and which increase at a rate that is not influenced by the condition of the commons. The individual herdsman has no reason, no incentive, no strong feedback, to let the possibility of overgrazing stop him from adding another cow to the common pasture. To the contrary, he or she has everything to gain.

— Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows, Diana Wright (Page 117)

For such efforts to be successful, they must blur the line between technology's creators and its users, and eventually aspire to make the two categories indistinguishable. Expertise would no longer be defined in an exclusively technical sense: some people are experts in programming, others in design, still others in their daily lives.

— Internet for the People by Ben Tarnoff (Page 169)

Abolitionists are not just trying to decrease the number of cops and prisons until both disappear. They are also coming up with better ways of keeping people safe.

To do so, Davis argues, it's essential to "let go of the desire to discover one single alternative system of punishment." The point is not to replace prisons with pseudo-prisons (...), but to assemble a "constellation of alternative strategies and institutions" (..).

(..). together they can form a fabric that can "lay claim to the space now occupied" by the institutions that abolitionists are working to eradicate.

Davis and her abolitionists give us the basic blueprint for deprivatizing the upper floors of the internet.

— Internet for the People by Ben Tarnoff (Page 156 - 157)

Yet the political economy preferred by the New Brandeisians isn't a particularly radical departure from the present. They still want an internet ruled by markets, albeit one where markets are competitive rather than concentrated. The pursuit of profit would remain the organizing principle, but profit would be pursued by smaller and more entrepreneurial firms. And they believe that such a restructuring would go a long way toward addressing the concerns raised by the techlash.

But would it? Nick Srniceck notes that more competition could very well make things worse. "After all, it's competition -- not size -- that demands more data, more attention, more engagement and more profits at all costs," he writes.

— Internet for the People by Ben Tarnoff (Page 152)

(..). "people engaged in captured activity can engage in an infinite variety of sequences of action, provided these sequences are composed of the unitary elements and means of combination prescribed by the grammar of action." In other words, one of the virtues of a grammar is the sense of freedom it allows. This sense of freedom helps explain why people find social media pleasurable. Even as their interactions are being subtly (or unsubtly) structured by the design of the user interface and the code underneath, they enjoy a feeling of autonomy (..).

— Internet for the People by Ben Tarnoff (Page 95)

But, if there are local limits, eventually will there be global ones?

I'll leave you to have this argument with yourself, or with someone of the opposite persuasion. I will just point out that, according to the dynamics of depletion, the larger the stock of initial resources, the more new discoveries, the longer the growth loops elude the control loops, and the higher the capital stock and its extraction rate grow, and the earlier, faster and farther will be the economic fall on the back side of the production peak.

— Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows, Diana Wright (Page 65)

Transphobic people often take the strong association between gender variance and Autism as a sign that we aren't "really" trans, we're "just" Autistic and confused. They presume Autistic people are un-self-aware and easily manipulated, and therefore shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about our identities or what we do with our bodies. When Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling published the piece "TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) Wars" on her blog in the summer of 2020, she specifically mentioned her fear that many transgender men are actually Autistic girls who weren't conventionally feminine, and have been influenced by transactivists on the internet into identifying out of womanhood. In presenting herself as defending disabled "girls", she argued for restricting young trans Autistic people's ability to self-identify, and access necessary services and health care.

Rowling's perspective (which she shares with many gender critical folks) is deeply dehumanizing to both the trans and Autistic communities. We're fully fledged, complex people, who are entitled to the same body autonomy and self-determination as anyone else. And it's meaningless to question whether a trans Autistic person would have "still" been trans had they not been born neurodiverse, because Autism is such a core part of who we are. Without our disability (or our gender identity), we'd be entirely different people. There is no separating these aspects of ourselves from our personhood or personality. They're both core parts.

— Unmasking Autism by Devon Price (Page 59)