Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
@captaincalliope.blue
🌐 Working at the intersection of movements, media, and the social web to expand collective agency
🛠️ Seeking collaborations to reshape systems that concentrate power and shape how we live
🧭 Justice-rooted, with field notes and wayfinding at SpaceCadets.love
🛠️ Seeking collaborations to reshape systems that concentrate power and shape how we live
🧭 Justice-rooted, with field notes and wayfinding at SpaceCadets.love
Pinned
The Movement is the Medium
Right-wing media sets the terms of US politics. Drawing on earlier reading, here’s a draft playbook for how we can organize distributed progressive media networks.
spacecadets.love
New post up! Teaser: "Right-wing media sets the terms of US politics. Drawing on earlier reading here’s a draft playbook for how we can organize distributed progressive media networks."
Thanks to @werd.io for inspiring some of the inquiries informing a number of my recent posts. Check out his blog!
Thanks to @werd.io for inspiring some of the inquiries informing a number of my recent posts. Check out his blog!
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
"I doubt I could feel especially good about the tech helping me write emails faster if I knew that same tech was helping to make me, or people close to me, a target of violence.”
joshcollinsworth.com/blog/sloptim...
joshcollinsworth.com/blog/sloptim...
AI optimism is a class privilege
Along the vast divide between AI optimists and pessimists, the main factor in determining which side you fall on may be where you see yourself in the future: above the effects of AI, or beneath them.
joshcollinsworth.com
December 4, 2025 at 7:27 PM
"I doubt I could feel especially good about the tech helping me write emails faster if I knew that same tech was helping to make me, or people close to me, a target of violence.”
joshcollinsworth.com/blog/sloptim...
joshcollinsworth.com/blog/sloptim...
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.
Please please please please stop giving me news articles about blog posts about AI that include images of blue data and robot hands. betterimagesofai.org
Please please please please stop giving me news articles about blog posts about AI that include images of blue data and robot hands. betterimagesofai.org
Better Images of AI
We are a non-profit creating more realistic and inclusive images of artificial intelligence. Visit our growing repository available for anyone to use for free under CC licences, or just to use as insp...
betterimagesofai.org
December 4, 2025 at 6:41 PM
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.
Please please please please stop giving me news articles about blog posts about AI that include images of blue data and robot hands. betterimagesofai.org
Please please please please stop giving me news articles about blog posts about AI that include images of blue data and robot hands. betterimagesofai.org
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
Would AT devs and creators be down for a regularly scheduled open critique session? Get eyes and feedback on in-progress work
December 4, 2025 at 3:23 AM
Would AT devs and creators be down for a regularly scheduled open critique session? Get eyes and feedback on in-progress work
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
I am once again telling everyone to get the fuck off Substack leavesubstack.com
November 29, 2025 at 7:22 PM
I am once again telling everyone to get the fuck off Substack leavesubstack.com
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
i keep reading "it's giving tuesday" and reading it the wrong way.
December 3, 2025 at 12:42 AM
i keep reading "it's giving tuesday" and reading it the wrong way.
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
as a grantwriter, the lack of unrestricted funding is a MASSIVE burden on nonprofits. everyone wants to fund a new shiny pilot program that makes them look like innovators. they don’t want to help make your tried and tested programs that have served the community for 50 years more sustainable
The headline I feel like is that all the philanthropic donations from billionaires typically have a shitload of restrictions.
Mackenzie is like “you’re doing work to stop something horrible or to help something good? Cool. Here’s a few hundred million.” and the paper is like “wow… so novel”
Mackenzie is like “you’re doing work to stop something horrible or to help something good? Cool. Here’s a few hundred million.” and the paper is like “wow… so novel”
Mackenzie Scott’s signature philanthropic style is giving unrestricted gifts—a rarity in the industry. trib.al/DjrurgM
December 3, 2025 at 2:53 AM
as a grantwriter, the lack of unrestricted funding is a MASSIVE burden on nonprofits. everyone wants to fund a new shiny pilot program that makes them look like innovators. they don’t want to help make your tried and tested programs that have served the community for 50 years more sustainable
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
"If Democrats see the same shift in Congress next year as they saw in TN-07 Tuesday night, they’d win a landslide victory of 258 seats in the U.S. House."
A recap of tonight's special election in TN-07 (plus a WAY-TOO-EARLY model of the 2026 midterms).
A swing of 13 points would put Dems over 250 seats in the U.S. House. A more reasonable scenario—say, D+6—still gives them the House, and maybe the Senate.
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/what-the-s...
A swing of 13 points would put Dems over 250 seats in the U.S. House. A more reasonable scenario—say, D+6—still gives them the House, and maybe the Senate.
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/what-the-s...
What the special election in Tennessee's Seventh District means for the 2026 midterms
Republicans held a Trump +22 seat — but by only 9 points. A swing half as large would give Democrats the U.S. House in 2026, and put the Senate clearly in play
www.gelliottmorris.com
December 3, 2025 at 4:02 AM
"If Democrats see the same shift in Congress next year as they saw in TN-07 Tuesday night, they’d win a landslide victory of 258 seats in the U.S. House."
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
Don’t support Amazon? We don’t blame you. We also take cashapp donations $bostonswac or through our donor profile in our bio.
December 3, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Don’t support Amazon? We don’t blame you. We also take cashapp donations $bostonswac or through our donor profile in our bio.
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
Prepping for street outreach for street-based sex workers in Boston. Runs monthly on the 2nd Sunday of the month. Interested in donating supplies? Check out our Amazon wishlist here: www.amazon.com/registries/g...
#GivingTuesday
#GivingTuesday
December 3, 2025 at 12:57 AM
Prepping for street outreach for street-based sex workers in Boston. Runs monthly on the 2nd Sunday of the month. Interested in donating supplies? Check out our Amazon wishlist here: www.amazon.com/registries/g...
#GivingTuesday
#GivingTuesday
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
#GivingTuesday 2025
There are a lot of worthy organizations out there. If you've got a bit of money to spare, please consider joining me in supporting one or two of these – or similar organizations in your area. (1/N)
privacy.thenexus.today/givingtuesda...
There are a lot of worthy organizations out there. If you've got a bit of money to spare, please consider joining me in supporting one or two of these – or similar organizations in your area. (1/N)
privacy.thenexus.today/givingtuesda...
#GivingTuesday 2025
Don't limit your #GivingTuesday gifts to the non-profit industrial complex!
privacy.thenexus.today
December 2, 2025 at 11:59 PM
#GivingTuesday 2025
There are a lot of worthy organizations out there. If you've got a bit of money to spare, please consider joining me in supporting one or two of these – or similar organizations in your area. (1/N)
privacy.thenexus.today/givingtuesda...
There are a lot of worthy organizations out there. If you've got a bit of money to spare, please consider joining me in supporting one or two of these – or similar organizations in your area. (1/N)
privacy.thenexus.today/givingtuesda...
Here's an early preview of what I'm working on for my @spacecadets.love blog.
Bridging Social Movements and the New Social Web (working draft)
On connecting movements, media, and new protocol ecosystems to rebuild the civic, cultural, and technical foundations of a freer, more self-determining society.
captaincalliope.leaflet.pub
December 3, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Here's an early preview of what I'm working on for my @spacecadets.love blog.
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
For this #GivingTuesday I'm going to make the (biased) argument for why you might consider donating to @spritelyinst.bsky.social, especially if you care about a healthier future for the internet! spritely.institute/donate/
Here's a little thread explaining more... 🧵
Here's a little thread explaining more... 🧵
Support Spritely! — Spritely Institute
spritely.institute
December 2, 2025 at 8:10 PM
For this #GivingTuesday I'm going to make the (biased) argument for why you might consider donating to @spritelyinst.bsky.social, especially if you care about a healthier future for the internet! spritely.institute/donate/
Here's a little thread explaining more... 🧵
Here's a little thread explaining more... 🧵
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
I gave probably the most well received talk I've ever given last week about building "Networks of Consent" and about moving computing towards greater agency and empowerment spui25.nl/programma/we...
And the recording is up already! Lovely event!
And the recording is up already! Lovely event!
Social Media: We Can Change the Defaults
Christine Lemmer-Webber, best known as co-author of ActivityPub, the decentralized social networking protocol, will speak about the crisis technologists face. Why must we revise the default assumption...
spui25.nl
December 1, 2025 at 4:36 PM
I gave probably the most well received talk I've ever given last week about building "Networks of Consent" and about moving computing towards greater agency and empowerment spui25.nl/programma/we...
And the recording is up already! Lovely event!
And the recording is up already! Lovely event!
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
Roughly this time tomorrow I’ll be chatting with the folks at @scenius.bsky.social about all things Open Source, something I’ve dedicated >20 years of my life to and have *opinions* about.
I reckon it’s high time we made OSS an innately anti-fascist movement. Let’s talk about it!
luma.com/z9ivf64k
I reckon it’s high time we made OSS an innately anti-fascist movement. Let’s talk about it!
luma.com/z9ivf64k
Making Sense of Open-Source: Ideals, Reality, and What's on the Horizon · Zoom · Luma
Have you been wondering about the future of open-source? Do you find yourself caught between idealistic visions of collaborative commons and the messy reality…
luma.com
December 2, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Roughly this time tomorrow I’ll be chatting with the folks at @scenius.bsky.social about all things Open Source, something I’ve dedicated >20 years of my life to and have *opinions* about.
I reckon it’s high time we made OSS an innately anti-fascist movement. Let’s talk about it!
luma.com/z9ivf64k
I reckon it’s high time we made OSS an innately anti-fascist movement. Let’s talk about it!
luma.com/z9ivf64k
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
I've been thinking about media platforms in the #Fediverse geared around artists. I think the network is in dire need of having support for commerce.
Not "Big Capitalism" commerce, but the ability for people to buy/sell things, support projects, and commission people to keep making stuff.
Not "Big Capitalism" commerce, but the ability for people to buy/sell things, support projects, and commission people to keep making stuff.
The Fediverse and Content Creation: Monetization
Sure, we have open source, federated replacements for Instagram, Tiktok, and YouTube. How do we get creators to use this stuff? One consideration involves the ability to pay for things.
deadsuperhero.com
December 2, 2025 at 6:09 AM
I've been thinking about media platforms in the #Fediverse geared around artists. I think the network is in dire need of having support for commerce.
Not "Big Capitalism" commerce, but the ability for people to buy/sell things, support projects, and commission people to keep making stuff.
Not "Big Capitalism" commerce, but the ability for people to buy/sell things, support projects, and commission people to keep making stuff.
CodeMiko is always doing the coolest metaversal shit completely outside of anything else that has been and is going on in the tech industry around the "metaverse". And yet most people I've seen in tech who know about her cite her as a case study and/or entertainer. Meanwhile she's living cyberpunk.
Here is my first prop test with my new motion capture! I 3D scanned my chair into my digital world and I can grab the chair and do all sorts! It seems to hold incredibly well.
December 2, 2025 at 3:43 AM
CodeMiko is always doing the coolest metaversal shit completely outside of anything else that has been and is going on in the tech industry around the "metaverse". And yet most people I've seen in tech who know about her cite her as a case study and/or entertainer. Meanwhile she's living cyberpunk.
I want a new flagship #atproto app that isn't a Twitter clone on the surface. As much as I loved Twitter, I see what the result has been societally and want to move forward. Bluesky is almost a skeumorphic interface on top of atproto and I can't wait to see what's truly possible with this platform.
December 2, 2025 at 3:00 AM
I want a new flagship #atproto app that isn't a Twitter clone on the surface. As much as I loved Twitter, I see what the result has been societally and want to move forward. Bluesky is almost a skeumorphic interface on top of atproto and I can't wait to see what's truly possible with this platform.
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
When I’m accused of “technopessimism“ I counter that I’m not “pessimistic about technology“; I am opposed to the economic, political, and social project of upward wealth transfer that “AI” is being leveraged to bring about. If that phrasing is useful to others, then go ahead and use it.
September 30, 2025 at 10:04 PM
When I’m accused of “technopessimism“ I counter that I’m not “pessimistic about technology“; I am opposed to the economic, political, and social project of upward wealth transfer that “AI” is being leveraged to bring about. If that phrasing is useful to others, then go ahead and use it.
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
This is why I still wear a mask when I go to the store, etc.
COVID isn’t acting like the viruses most of us grew up with, and treating it like “just a cold” is putting people at real risk. David Brasure breaks down why SARS-CoV-2 is fundamentally different, how it causes long-term damage, and what we can do to protect ourselves.
December 1, 2025 at 9:13 PM
This is why I still wear a mask when I go to the store, etc.
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
'Most of the more than 1,000 users who took part in the experiment during the 2024 US presidential election did not notice that the tone of their feed had been changed.' 3/3
November 28, 2025 at 7:32 AM
'Most of the more than 1,000 users who took part in the experiment during the 2024 US presidential election did not notice that the tone of their feed had been changed.' 3/3
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
'The degree of increased division – known as “affective polarisation” – achieved in one week by the changes the academics made to X users’ feeds was as great as would have on average taken three years between 1978 and 2020.' 2/3 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Platform-independent experiments on social media
Changing algorithms with artificial intelligence tools can influence partisan animosity
www.science.org
November 28, 2025 at 7:32 AM
'The degree of increased division – known as “affective polarisation” – achieved in one week by the changes the academics made to X users’ feeds was as great as would have on average taken three years between 1978 and 2020.' 2/3 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
'Small changes to the tone of posts fed to users of X can increase feelings of political polarisation as much in a week as would have historically taken at least three years, research has found.' 1/3
Small changes to ‘for you’ feed on X can rapidly increase political polarisation
Study finds that a week of political content can bring about a shift in views that previously would have taken three years
www.theguardian.com
November 28, 2025 at 7:32 AM
'Small changes to the tone of posts fed to users of X can increase feelings of political polarisation as much in a week as would have historically taken at least three years, research has found.' 1/3
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
I love this.
If you live anywhere in the dark blue areas, you are closer to outer space (defined by the Kármán line) than you are to the nearest seashore. 🧪
If you live anywhere in the dark blue areas, you are closer to outer space (defined by the Kármán line) than you are to the nearest seashore. 🧪
Space is a lot closer than most people realise
by u/Many-Excitement3246
by u/Many-Excitement3246
October 29, 2025 at 3:37 PM
I love this.
If you live anywhere in the dark blue areas, you are closer to outer space (defined by the Kármán line) than you are to the nearest seashore. 🧪
If you live anywhere in the dark blue areas, you are closer to outer space (defined by the Kármán line) than you are to the nearest seashore. 🧪
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
“Given the severity of the threats social media companies pose to democracy and fundamental rights, policy responses cannot merely tinker around the edges,” writes Christine Galvagna. The EU must act now—fund decentralized, public service social media to protect democracy and digital rights.
Public Service Social Media as a Democratic Safeguard | TechPolicy.Press
Christine Galvagna proposes an EU fund to support decentralized, public service focused social media networks to protect digital rights and democracy.
www.techpolicy.press
November 7, 2025 at 3:41 PM
“Given the severity of the threats social media companies pose to democracy and fundamental rights, policy responses cannot merely tinker around the edges,” writes Christine Galvagna. The EU must act now—fund decentralized, public service social media to protect democracy and digital rights.
Reposted by Lyre Calliope 🧭✨
I was at the Thompson Reuters Trust Conference last week. Blinded by AI and blindsided by Trump, liberal institutions are in survival mode.
How can those of us working in the Open Social Web fight back? Sarah Connor offers inspiration.
www.blog-pat.ch/the-end-of-l...
How can those of us working in the Open Social Web fight back? Sarah Connor offers inspiration.
www.blog-pat.ch/the-end-of-l...
The end of liberalism and the beginnings of resistance
I was at the Thompson Reuters Trust Conference last week. A good place to see where the philanthropic arm of the liberal elite is heading.*
Short answer: it's lost.
Blinded by AI and blindsided by T...
www.blog-pat.ch
October 28, 2025 at 3:42 PM
I was at the Thompson Reuters Trust Conference last week. Blinded by AI and blindsided by Trump, liberal institutions are in survival mode.
How can those of us working in the Open Social Web fight back? Sarah Connor offers inspiration.
www.blog-pat.ch/the-end-of-l...
How can those of us working in the Open Social Web fight back? Sarah Connor offers inspiration.
www.blog-pat.ch/the-end-of-l...