Hey all, my name is Sam. Glad to join this community. I freelance part-time, and spend most of my days working on what seems most important, for better future outcomes and better futures we'll all experience. That often includes digital things, based on the collaborative potential that the Internet enables — as well as the risks / downsides / opportunity costs, of the attention economy and big tech. On that note, here are two concepts I've been reflecting on for some time, and I would love to explore with the FOC community: 1. A substrate for communication, collaboration, and coordination — built on our existing social graphs. I've started using LinkedIn as a way to communicate above the walled garden chat communities. I'm doing this to enable discoverability + accessibility + knowledge-sharing with my work. Much of the professional world — at least in subject areas I'm focused on — is on LinkedIn. By posting content and having discussions there, it enables anybody who may be interested in what I'm working on it to discover it — and likewise, me to discover them. For this use case, and many others, it seems uncontroversial that we'll move away from centralized social networks — to networks that are more free, user-centric, and dynamic. To start this transition, it seems that the simplest and surest first step is having access to our graph data — so that we can use it and build/experiment on it. Specifically, I'm talking about: 1. Export my contacts from LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social networks, using their APIs 2. Import those contacts into a new substrate/protocol, with some simple structure to help with identification. (For example, to tell the difference between two contacts named "Bret Victor." Or, if each of us have a "Bret Victor" in our contacts, an intelligent way to recognize if they are or are not the same person. Email or phone number could be a useful "anchor" for this — and better approaches could certainly be possible as well. ) 3. Once I have all of my contacts accessible — I just want some simple functionality to send messages, and the ability to tinker/experiment with new ways of interacting on top of this new substrate. Part 1 is feasible today. Part 2 seems like it requires some dedicated thought and design. Part 3 only comes after Part 1, and along with Part 2. If anybody is interested in this type of thing, I'd love to hear thoughts and collaborate. Note that this approach isn't about onboarding to a new network, it's about migrating our existing networks to a new and dynamic environment. Also this is envisioned more of a commons / protocol initiative, not as a new network itself. 2. A better browser — for embodied browsing, better bookmarking and tabs, configurable interfaces and websites, etc. • A tool to use face / hand / motion tracking in front-ends and browsers • New browser capabilities like tab management, privacy, custom macros, auto quitting tab processes when memory runs high • Social bookmarking / knowledge management • Modifying website interfaces I want an open-source browser that starts pulling some of things capabilities together, makes them available, and enables us to keep building on top. I want the embodied browsing experience of pulling my hand down through the air, like Luke Skywalker setting down the X-Wing on Dagobah, to scroll down on articles and feeds — turning computer time into embodied, physical activity. When I have shit tons of tabs open, I want my browser to automatically quit the process of the oldest tabs — not x-ing them out, but just freeing up the memory — so I don't have to do that myself. I want to experiment with social bookmarking, and I don't want to depend on an extension or a SaaS product to do it. I want to be able to modify website interfaces — and have those preferences / customizations saved, for whenever I return. I want to be able to experiment with digital virtual assistants and building my own automated processes — e.g. for specific websites as well. There could be limitless other possibilities too — especially if the browser is open-source and configurable. It seems like a lot of the tooling for this is already built out, either in extensions or in experimental GitHub repos. I am very okay with hacky and experimental. I just want to start putting this together and start experimenting / building / seeing if there is anything viable here. I've never worked with browser software, and I'm not going to embark on that journey solo I don't think — so if anybody else wants these types of capabilities too, let's explore making them!

Hey! Just read your intro post; many similar thoughts! Think it could be fun to talk :) (Working on a medium for thought from the ground up, starting through changing the core building blocks we use to create software/infrastructure to make processes more efficient) (currently on the gpu programming part to get text rendering for a basic first declarative logic infinite zoomable graph viewer working, using rust wgpu) (also thinkering with friends on a chain-of-trust/decentralized-identity/spontaneous-connection-facilitator protocol/graph with associated interface/app)

Thanks for sharing this, @Leonard Pauli! Would love to speak!

cc @Garth Goldwater have you seen Wildcard, before?

Update here -- found this https://delta.chat/en/, which could very much be a substrate to build on. If anybody's interested, let me know!

hey—i think we have the same values. would love to chat if you're interested. please feel free to DM me! am just getting back into this slack community after a big move among other things but have been working in every one of your bullet points on nights and weekends