Outline:

S: This is Sprout

C: and this is Charyan, and we are the hosts of Molotov Now!, on The Channel Zero Podcast Network, thank you for joining us on this episode of the podcast.

S: if you like what we do here and want to support it, you can do that by going to linktr.ee/al1312 and clicking donate, or scrolling to the bottom for Patreon.

C: “Hell yeah! And today, we’ve got something big for you, we are announcing the 5th annual May Day On The Harbor. Also on this episode, we’re sitting down with Isabelle Santin, the powerhouse behind Chosen Few Software, a leftist tech collective and business that’s changing the game. Tech isn’t just for the rich and the powerful—Isabelle and her crew are making sure of that.”

S: “Yeah, if you think software and coding are just tools for capitalism, think again. Chosen Few Software is proving that tech can be radical, accessible, and built for the people, not just for profit. We’re gonna get deep into what they do, why they do it, and how leftist principles are driving their mission.”

C: “Yeah, we got a lot going on too— we got regional news and upcoming happenings, along with mutual aid requests, and more. Music is coming up next and were gonna give all the details for may day.

S: “Oh, you know it. But first, let’s talk about what’s playing on our speakers this week. Got any bangers for the people, Charyan?”

C: Absolutely, we got Propaganda by dead prez up next, but first a message from our sponsor.

Ad:The Child And Its Enemies

Monthly Radical News Roundup:

In Aberdeen

Announcing: May Day on the Harbor – A Celebration of Labor History

Join us on April 26th for the 5th Annual May Day on the Harbor, a celebration of labor history—local and national. We invite everyone to come together for a day of free, family-friendly fun as we honor the struggles and victories of workers past and present!

Location: Grays Harbor Historical Seaport, 500 Custer Street, Aberdeen, WA
Time: 10 a.m. – 10 p.m.

Activities include art projects, both communal and solo, live performances, music, jawbone puppet theater, food, vendors, and more. This event is about solidarity, creativity, and community. Whether you’re here to learn, create, or just enjoy the day, there’s something for everyone. Bring your friends, bring your family, and let’s celebrate the power of the people together!

The May Day Organizing Committee is looking for donations for this year’s raffle as well as vendors, sponsors, and crews looking to table. For more information go to linktr.ee/maydayontheharbor

From Sabotage Noise Productions

And now its time for our radical news roundup from other autonomous media organizations that we follow.

Interview:

Sprout: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Molotov now, today we’re sitting down with Isabel Santin. Can you introduce yourself, give a brief visual description for our listeners, and tell us about any work or organizing experience relevant to the conversation today.

Isabelle: Hello. My name is Isabelle Santin and I’m the founder of my own software brand called Chosen Few Software.

Today, I’m joining Molotov now for my bedroom slash office sitting eagerly underneath my lofted bed. The CFS brand operates as a collective under Antarctic principles and strives to create ethical software. Ethical software as defined by our fair software doctrine is essentially any kind of application or tool that serves the common good of society.

More specifically, this constitutional document goes on to describe malware, not as software created with malicious intent, [00:01:00] but software that manipulates, coerces or otherwise negatively impacts users and society at large under this definition. One can define surveillance software as malware and therefore unethical due to its sole purpose of proliferating hierarchical control.

As a counter example, consider a free and open source application designed to help users organize their daily tests as a list of to-dos. This can be considered ethical software because it’s both created with benevolent, benevolent intent, and in effect fulfills a critical need for its users.

Sprout: Wow. There’s a lot to dive into there. Thank you for putting forth these principles in the technology space, though that’s really valuable work. Could you maybe tell us a bit about your background as a software developer and how you first came in, first became interested in decentralized technologies?

Isabelle: Sure [00:02:00] thing. My background in software development goes all the way back to when I was eight years old, writing simple programs for my Lego Mindstorms robot. Something that has fascinated me since my earliest memories is the way that video games are made and played Over time, that interest evolved into more general interest in software development.

However, my specific interests in decentralized technologies began when I was writing an app that could create images of the famous Mandelbrot set fractal. I was fascinated by the potential for distributing the creation of these renderings across multiple computers. That could significantly speed up the process and allow me to create even bigger and deeper images.

Ever since then, I’ve been struck by the raw power and potential of distributed software applications. My imagination, running wild with dreams of a world where the cloud runs on our devices.[00:03:00]

Sprout: And how do you see anarchist principles? How do you see anarchist principles like decentralization, anti-authoritarianism, mutual aid, and voluntary cooperation, playing a role in the development of technology and software? As an anarchist, I believe in challenging hierarchy and coercion, how do you think that the tech industry could evolve to better align with values like mutual aid, like mutual aid, decentralization, and collective decision making?

Isabelle: Decentralization plays an increasingly important role in the development of modern software systems. What with more and more websites bringing into the cloud, shared hosting providers, experiencing record highs of growth and cloud collaboration and storage solutions becoming the norm for small businesses, worldwide distributed systems are the next big thing for the software industry.

I do want to create a distinction, however, between distributed systems and [00:04:00] decentralized systems, while a textbook glossary will use the same entry to define both, they’re entirely different in my opinion. Distributed systems are what I would define as any system that provides one or more services using resources shared amongst multiple interdependent peers.

Decentralized systems on the other hand. A special kind of distributed system that shares the responsibility for maintaining said system equally among participating peers. To give one example of each Google Drive is a distributed system, while BitTorrent is a decentralized system, the key difference here is ownership.

Everyone participating in the BitTorrent network owns a small but equal portion of the system each, with each being equally important to the others. Google Drive on the other hand, while having no single point of failure is unlike been BitTorrent because it is still subject to hierarchical [00:05:00] control and ownership.

Sprout: Thanks for drawing that distinction. Who owns the systems? Matters a great deal. That’s an important difference from an anarchist perspective. The tech industry is often seen as one of the most centralized and profit driven industries in the world. What’s your take on that? How do you reconcile your work with these structures?

Isabelle: I believe that the tech industry is capable of transitioning away from a model of distributed computing with central ownership. And the first step in that process is moving the means of processing and storing information out of the corporate cloud and onto devices of, uh, whoops, let me start that sentence over.

I believe that the tech industry is capable of transitioning away from a model of distributed computing with central ownership, and the first step in that process is moving the means of processing and storing information out of the corporate cloud and onto users’ own [00:06:00] devices. In this way, I’m imagining a world where the web operates in a peer-to-peer fashion with users’ data being stored and transmitted and processed with their consent on their devices.

Servers providing only the executable code necessary for providing the requested services. With that said, my own software brand chosen FUSE software operates strictly outside and in spite of these systems of control, our mission statement emphasizes the need for responsibility and accountability at every step of the software development process, while simultaneously decrying the mag malignant manipulation and coercion of the industry at large.

Sprout: Big tech companies often emphasize innovation, but the way they operate through monopoly building, data exploitation, and surveillance seems to perpetuate systems of control. How do you view the ethical implications of working in such an environment? [00:07:00]

Isabelle: I believe that every software developer or implementer has a basic responsibility to create the only software.

Whoops. Has a basic, basic responsibility to create only the software they deem as ethical and serving an end. In other words, the moment that a work of software becomes a means of control of others, it is firmly and formally considered to be malware after all. The only difference between ransomware and Google Chrome is the fact that only one of them is considered legal.

Sprout: I lost my spot.

Isabelle: We’re on question six.

Sprout: In the tech world, we see a lot of surveillance tools being developed from an anarch point of view, corporate control. Do you think software [00:08:00] developers have an ethical responsibility when it comes to privacy surveillance and how their code is used by larger corporations or governments?

Do you think that developers have a role to play in resisting surveillance, and if so, how?

Isabelle: Absolutely. Software developers slash implementers as defined by our free software doctrine. Whoops, that, that’s a typo. That should be fair. Software doctrine. One sec.

Absolutely. Software developers slash implementers as defined by our fair software doctrine, have an intrinsic responsibility to act to the benefit and liberty of their users. Importantly, implementers have a fundamental right to refuse the implementation of a design for any reason, especially if they believe that it acts against their principles or the rights of the user.

Of course this IR irrefutable right comes with the stipulation that the implementer should not face [00:09:00] arbitrary consequences for doing so. I believe that yes, developers absolutely have a role to play in dismantling structures of control, especially with regards to user privacy. For example, if I were a software developer employee of Amazon, I should along with the rest of my team.

Advocate for decreased surveillance of delivery drivers using all means necessary, including striking to ensure that users’ basic rights to freedom and privacy are not put in check.

Sprout: Many of the dominant tech companies are built on centralized power structures. Do you think it’s possible to have a genuinely decentralized tech ecosystem and business structure? How would that look in your opinion?

Isabelle: I believe the answer is yes. While tech companies do have a very top down structure, it is absolutely not a requirement.[00:10:00]

Systems of consensus and decentralized implementation already exists in the open source sphere and in at Agile methodologies as well. Agile software development separates design and implementation into sprints. Where at the beginning of each sprint, user and system requirements are established and discussed on a consensus basis.

Then during the sprint, these requirements are implemented and tested for consistency with the original intentions. After the sprint requirements are reiterated and reviewed to determine the requirements of the next sprint, this methodology scales too. Teams of a hundred or more developers communicating with end users, voicing their concerns and creating the software that their users need right now as opposed to developing software on based on some anticipatory sense of future need, which was the case in a more traditional software development scenario.

So to bring it [00:11:00] back to your question, decentralized methodologies already exist and are pop in popular use in the corporate tech scene. The issue of centralization as we observe it today stems more from the coercion and control of developers and end users from the top down, which causes hierarch, which causes hierarchical needs and the in and interest to take priority.

Even though more often than not softwares developed from the bottom up.

Sprout: It’s really inspiring to hear about the ways that we could restructure the industry. I know that open source software is often seen as an alternative to the proprietary profit driven nature of much of the tech world. Do you think of that it’s a viable form of collective ownership or a model that could be, or a model that could challenge centralized control?

Isabelle: I believe that the free and open source software movement has an unparalleled momentum with undeniable net positive effects on the software [00:12:00] industry at large. It is rare these days to find a proprietary software package that doesn’t. In one way or another depend on another library or package that is copy left and or FOSS.

I do want to make clear though that free and open source software is an entirely different model of ownership. Separate from the open source software movement at large, open source projects can still be proprietary in the sense that they’re, they still have exclusive ownership and in some cases exclusive stewardship.

This is antithetical to the FOSS model with Champion, which champions collective ownership under the own your computing moniker. In my view, it is important to emphasize the empowerment of the collective that comes from not open source, but free and open source software. Indeed, this leads me to believe that FOSS stands today as a force even more powerful than proprietary software and centralized ownership in [00:13:00] general.

Sprout: Okay, so FOSS is an even stronger and more liberatory form of ownership than mere open source. I didn’t know that. What’s your opinion on the idea of that technology? If it’s going to be liberating, it needs to be fully decentralized and transparent with all users in control of their own data. How feasible do you think that is?

As anarchists, we believe in challenging top-down structures. Do you think it’s possible for a software development company to operate without hierarchy or management? And if so, what would that look like?

Isabelle: I think it’s entirely feasible and in fact, the future of software in general to exhibit decentralized and user owned design as a core value in its very early life, software existed for the sole purpose of solving big problems.

Sometimes they were math problems, sometimes they were science problems, sometimes they were even video games that gave us hope and [00:14:00] excited our imaginations. To me, software isn’t a tool or a means to an end. It’s a way of life. We built software to solve problems and make the world a better, easier place to live in.

When you start to abuse the tools and power of software to serve state or corporate agendas. To me, that’s no longer software. That’s malware. Here at chosen fee software, everyone is a leader in their own capacity and shares a vision that building software in the modern world means making fundamental change for the good people living within it.

To me, that’s the software developer’s path, and it exists here and now in what we’re building as the chosen for you.

Sprout: How can we build technology that empowers individuals and communities rather than reinforcing power structures of corporations and governments? What are some concrete examples of this happening today, if any?

Isabelle: I believe that all [00:15:00] softwares should center the end user in every element and aspect of its design.

The user experience is not only paramount to the software applications we build. It is the only thing that matters from design all the way down to implementation. That’s what makes chosen for software so different as a brand. We don’t build apps. We build experiences because experiences matter. Making up the entirety of how ordinary people interact with computers today.

A couple of big examples that CFS has been working on recently are surge for the web and subverse. Im. Search for the web empowers users in low bandwidth communities by creating faster, more equitable web browsing experiences on media rich web pages. It does this by offering a competitive, high quality, multi resolution image format that integrates with the websites users are using and creating a scalable lightning fast visual experience for people who have [00:16:00] slow internet connections.

Sub I am on the other hand. Peer to peer, fully encrypted and anonymous, instant messaging application for Android and iOS mobile devices that empowers users to seize the means of communication and eliminate and eliminates the middleman from all communications on the platform.

Sprout: Wow, that sounds great. So do you believe that some technologies like ai, social media platforms, or large scale data collection tools are inherently authoritarian, or is there more about how they’re used and controlled?

Isabelle: I would like to distinguish between technologies and applications on the software stack.

Software technologies are kind of like the foundation for a building. You create it layer by layer, and each layer has a different purpose and meets different technical requirements and needs. Applications, on the other hand, exist at the [00:17:00] top of the stack. These are like the different floors of your building with each next floor serving more and more abstract, high level needs.

So on your iPhone, your foundation might be the iOS operating system. That’s the technology. Then on top of that foundation, we have the first floor. Maybe that’s the phone app that lets you make calls. Your second and third floors might be things like Discord, Facebook, Twitter, et cetera. But we all know that an iPhone is just a tool, like a really complex hammer, and it’s up to the user how that tool ultimately gets used.

The iPhone is an inherently good or bad. Instead, it’s like a platform that we use to advance our needs and interests. So then when you start talking about ai, you need to think about what that really means, what that refers to. In this case, I believe you are talking about large scale generative neural processing networks.

These are [00:18:00] like hammers and screwdrivers tools, but applications that are built below and on top of these technologies are the bigger issue, such as chat, GBT, and copilot, because these are the moving parts that are actually responsible for the authoritarian surveillance and social concerns. To bring it back to your main question.

Software technologies like tools aren’t inherently good or evil. Software applications on the other hand are because they’re created with the intention and purpose of serving a specific interest or need, which itself may be ethical, unethical, or neutral depending on how you look at it.

Sprout: And in the open source world, we see a lot of horizontal structures where decisions are made collectively. How do you think that these kinds of networks can be scaled or implemented more widely, especially in a world that’s increasingly dominated by corporate interests?

Isabelle: There’s [00:19:00] actually a growing peer-to-peer network of open source software repositories called radical, and one thing that it does, which I think is pretty cool and is distinguishing features, that it replicates collaborative code repositories in a redundant distributed way.

This means that even if a few nodes in the collective fail, all the data can still be accessed because it’s spread out evenly in a smart fail safe way. I think projects like radical are the key to not only creating and maintaining horizontal project structures, but also ensuring that these structures survive and can scale despite inevitable failures and challenges.

Sprout: Okay, so what do you think the relationship should be between developers and users? Should developers prioritize the interests and desires of users more than the demands of the companies that employ them?

Isabelle: I think yes, absolutely. [00:20:00] Developers and users should have a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship between each other.

At chosen free software. We believe that users are at the core of the software we build. If the user isn’t happy with the experience we’ve shipped, or if it doesn’t suit their needs, then that’s a bug that needs to be changed regardless of the original developer intention. This also includes features that our teams should ship that don’t meet the needs and expectations of users.

In my view, a company exists to provide the resources and means for developers or as I call them, implementers, to create the ultimate user experience. By extension, all software should be created in collaboration with users, not as a build wants, ship everywhere kind of product.

Sprout: And if you could design the future of software development from a liberatory perspective, what would that look like? What kind of tools or [00:21:00] technologies would exist in this idealized world?

Isabelle: I think we already live in a world where software development is a liberatory process. Yes, software is used to uphold and enforce hierarchical structures in our society, but that’s a very narrow slice of what is otherwise a rich, complex and free software world.

Software is used in your car to control critical engine functions. Software is used in medical imaging and prosthetic hardware. Software is everywhere. It saves lives, it makes new connections and ideas possible. In other words, software isn’t just what you see on your phone and computer screens software makes the world turn for better and for worse.

Like I said earlier, in the end, it’s just a tool. So it’s about how we as a society choose to use this powerful creative tool for purposes. For purposes, we deem as right and good. And that happens now and today as the rule, [00:22:00] not the exception.

Sprout: Do you see the rise of decentralized technologies such as blockchain as a step towards the kind of li di as a step towards the kind of digital autonomy, anarchists and vision, or is it more of a neoliberal solution in disguise?

Isabelle: The blockchain is another example of a technology or as I teach a tool that has gotten sensationalized due to the way people choose to use it in the mainstream. The blockchain is just a decentralized, immutable ledger of transactions that computers collaboratively construct and maintain. It’s brilliant because it creates a way for authentic information to be exchanged in a predictable, well-ordered way that is accessible by everyone who participates.

I believe this is reflective of anarchist ideals, however, oops. I believe that this is reflective of anarchist ideals. However, it is much too [00:23:00] easy to use this technology in a way that creates power imbalances between users. Examples of such applications include cryptocurrency, where the people who have more processing power dictate, in large part how valuable everyone else’s contributions are, even without the environmental concerns of this type of race to the bottom.

I think that blockchain is easy to misuse. Uh, I don’t know what I meant to write there. I think that blockchain is easy to misuse or enforce rather than defer control.

Sprout: And what role do you think the broader tech community should play in creating a more just and equitable digital world, and how can individuals contribute to. What can anarchists, for example, bring to the tech community in return?

Isabelle: I think that users have always had the biggest say in how the software ecosystem is [00:24:00] shaped.

Not to promote a vote with your wallet mentality, but the choices that users make about what software, applications and tools they buy, download, compile, or otherwise use is the greatest superpower that everyone with a phone in their pocket has. So I think that both as developers and users, we can enforce that sense of importance over not just great software, but ethical software and useful software.

Denying our valuable data and time to the largest corporations in the world isn’t easy, but it’s the best way we can all enforced anarchist ideals from the bottom up existence is resistance, especially as digital citizens. The way we choose to use the powerful devices in our hands is the ultimate form of control, and it’s ours right now.

Sprout: If you could leave developers or I guess implementers with one message about how to approach their work from a more anarchist or radical [00:25:00] perspective, what would it be?

Isabelle: I think that radical software development starts with the user, make users part of the software process. Enforce adaptive and agile methodologies within your teams and or communities.

Don’t build products, build experiences. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast. Proud

Sprout: and thanks so much for being on Isabel.

Isabelle: Of course. I really appreciate the invitation. All right,

Sprout: take care.

Isabelle: You too. Thank you. Bye.

Outro:

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Molotov Now! We hope you found it informative and inspiring. Our goal with the podcast is to reach out beyond our boundaries and connect the happenings in our small town with the struggles going on in major urban centers. We want to talk to you if your a big city organizer, we think we have a lot you can learn from, and we know you have much to teach us. If you would like to come on the show please email us at sabot_media@riseup.net with the header “Molotov Now!” and we will be in touch about setting up an interview and crafting an episode to feature you.

We want to give a shout out to our friends at:

• C: Sabotage Noise Productions for putting on awesome benefit shows, including one for The Blackflower Collective, and for being all around awesome people who help us with the upcoming events section of this podcast.
• S: The South Florida Anti-Repression Committee who have launched a solidarity campaign for two individuals facing 12 years for an alleged graffiti attack on a fake Christian anti-choice clinic that does not provide any reproductive care. This Federal overreach and use of the FACE Act, an act meant to protect people visiting reproductive clinics from harassment, is unprecedented. To support this solidarity campaign please visit bit.ly/freeourfighters
• C: We want to thank The Blackflower Collective for their continued support and wish them luck in their fundraising efforts. To support them or learn more their website is blackflowercollective.noblogs.org.
• S: Kolektiva, the anarchist mastodon server, is growing faster than ever thanks to Elon Musk’s stupidity as many activists close their accounts for bluer skies as can be seen in the fluctuation of followers over on IGD’s socials, join at kolektiva.social and follow us and other online activists on decentralized federated internet.
• C: Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network is holding a fundraiser for their weekly meals with Food Not Bombs. To donate visit linktr.ee/crmutualaidnet
• S: The Communique is looking for artist and upcoming event submissions, please write to sabot_media@riseup.net to submit your entry.
• C: Thank you to Pixel Passionate for producing our soundtrack, please check out their website at www.radicalpraxisclothing.com and check out their portfolio in our show notes
• S: and Thank you to the Channel Zero Anarchist Podcast Network. We are proud to be members of a network that creates and shares leading critical analysis, news, and actions from an anarchist persepctive.

Remember to check out sabot media’s new website for new episodes, articles, comics, and columns. We have new content all the time. Make sure you follow, like, and subscribe on your favorite corporate data mining platform of choice and go ahead and make the switch to federated social media on the kolektiva mastodon server today @AberdeenLocal1312 for updates on Sabot Media projects such as The Harbor Rat Report, The Saboteurs, The Communique, our podcast Molotov Now! and many other upcoming projects.

That’s all for tonight. Please remember to spay and neuter your cats and don’t forget to cast your votes at those who deserve them.

Solidarity Comrades,
This is Molotov Now! Signing off

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