Ben Werdmuller
benwerd@nos.social
npub183ng...4n09
I lead technology at ProPublica and write speculative fiction. This is a personal account.
Every day, I write about tech, democracy, and society at https://werd.io.
More about me: https://about.werd.io
Tech is interesting, but democracy deserves our attention 
Ben Werdmuller
Tech is interesting, but democracy deserves our attention
I’m aware that a lot of my linkblog posts have been about the state of America this week. That’s because — well, I’m sure you
Josseli Barnica Died in Texas After Waiting 40 Hours for Miscarriage Care
Ben Werdmuller
Josseli Barnica Died in Texas After Waiting 40 Hours for Miscarriage Care
[Cassandra Jaramillo and Kavitha Surana at ProPublica]
The deeply tragic stories of how abortion bans lead to preventable deaths continue.
"The f...
Everyone’s asking whether they should be using Threads or Mastodon or Bluesky or Nostr or something else, and the simple answer is that it’s not zero sum. The era of one social network being the holder of the conversation is over. The only sustainable answer is for them all to interoperate.
Once upon a time, there was a simple, open source social publishing tool called Known. Here's a little about it. #opensource #indieweb
Ben Werdmuller
Revisiting Known
Simple publishing for single streams of content
I keep finding right-wing and far right-wing content on Nostr. Which progressives and inclusion-minded people or communities should I be following?
What are my best options for syndicating either my site or my Mastodon feed to my Nostr profile?
There are multiple visions for the future of the Fediverse. And that’s a good thing.
Ben Werdmuller
The two Fediverses
For some, it's about growth. For others, it's a movement. They must work together.
Truly this man has been the weirdest part of this election cycle, and the bar for that has been incredibly high. What a ludicrous guy. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/04/us/politics/robert-f-kennedy-jr-bear-central-park.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Internationalism > nationalism.
Trump and his movement suck and I’m excited for them to fade into nothing post-November.
That’s all.
So, uh, Bitcoin might have a bit of an image problem. 
On the America I can’t bring myself to love, and the one that I can.
Ben Werdmuller
The America I love
It's not loud, but it exists.
It took me a long time to get through the first third of this novel. The protagonist is so vapid, her point of view so incurious and at the same time so familiarly American, against a backdrop of obvious imperialism and climate obliviousness, that it was hard to find the motivation to continue.
But I’m glad I did. This is an indictment of one character, but through her, all of America, and every country and every person that touches the interconnected hyperobject of energy, climate, and western prosperity. It’s savage, witty, and remarkably pointed: the kind of book that’s soothing to read in the modern age because no, you’re not alone, someone else is feeling this too, and their rage has manifested into something far better articulated than you could hope to muster.
Is this shared awareness enough to halt the catastrophe that we’re careening towards? Probably not. But holy shit, there’s something here, and if there’s even a chance we can pull off the total culture change that averting this crisis requires, we need to try.
The remaining two thirds sharpen to a point, an ending that will cut you without mercy. And I’m grateful for it.
https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781638930563
I don’t have the first clue what happens when i select just one relay instead of “all my relays”. Functionally, sure (which most people won’t). But what’s the human effect? Are these different communities? How do I choose one? 
I have a few thoughts about the upcoming British general election. None of them particularly polite.
Ben Werdmuller
A jab back at Brexit (or a kick in the teeth)
The UK general election on July 4 is a symbol.
“Human-centered design for engineers”: a book for engineers on small teams who want to be more effective with fewer resources and solve real, unmet problems for the people they’re building for more quickly than they otherwise might.
I see free speech like the free market. Without rules, the powerful will always benefit. Moderation enables new ideas and less powerful communities to truly be heard.