They have my ip. shrug

Sure would be nice if we could reform economically instead. Not that I feel bad for the pedos or the tyrants, but a lot of other people will have a very bad time if shit really hits the fan without some sort of economic plan in place.

By organizing into cooperatives.

Or we organize our own industrial worker cooperatives and try to avoid a shooting war.

Organize workers into a co-op, negotiate staffing agreements with the capitalists, and use the staffing margin to fund a business plan for the co-op to operate.

And then of course, drop the staffing contracts when they’re no longer needed. Too bad so sad, find your own workers now.

Perhaps we should organize against those bottom-feeders?

What’s to stop people from rooting the printer?

I genuinely think executives are almost all dead weight once you get high enough in an org but your opinion may differ.

Sure, I mean the wide array of shitty execs we have nowadays certainly. But a strong project leader with the backing of the organization they lead is a powerful combination and I don’t discount it when I think about how things should be run.

In other words, I do think it’s a good idea to have an especially qualified person “in charge” of getting shit done, but our current system of capitalist self-enrichment only works in a “broken clock is right twice a day” sorta way.

honestly I might even have more respect for the AI than the CEO.

That is a crazy stance to take. It’s like saying you prefer Beezelbub over Satan. I mean, you want to give your self-agency over to a machine? Really?

I get the sentiment but do you really want to spend your workday taking orders from an AI? maybe instead we can elect leaders in our companies who are real people and not exploitive monsters

He’s like if a weatherman and a used car salesman had a baby somehow

Claude, design the best Ford ever, make no mistakes.

Do you prefer the idea of new owners gaining their voting rights gradually during the “Provisional Period” (1 share / 1 vote) or should new owners have full voting rights on day 1 (1 person / 1 vote)?

• How would you capitalize?

There are two primary ways to raise funds for startup:

1. Pre-incorporation dues: During the “club phase,” owners will contribute funds periodically to establish the governance and initial systems. Volunteer efforts only during the club phase.

2. Post-incorporation labor contracts: Similar to a hiring agency, the CEO can negotiate labor contracts with other businesses with the goal of hiring out owner labor to bring in initial capital. The owner gets a paycheck and the margin goes toward capitalization of the business plan, a win/win. The percentage of the labor contract value that is paid to the owners doing the labor should be fixed by vote, and all bonus pay must be suspended while labor contracts are active since they are a funding mechanism, not a business model.

This plan is helpful because it no longer requires workers to have the same employer just to organize a union, you can simply create your corporation independently and with whomever you like. Additionally, the larger and more specialized your co-op is, the greater your bargaining power will be.

The startup sequence becomes:

Server Setup >> Recruitment >> Elections >> Dues >> Incorporation (C-Corp) >> Labor Contracts >> Business Plan Implementation

Read the Master Staffing Agreement template.

• How would you actually become a business?

Integral to this plan is the Articles of Incorporation template that is intended to be filed with the co-op’s state as the “constitution” defining what the company is and why it exists. In the AoI I specify equity controls and governance, as well as additional protections from oligarchical takeovers. Here’s an outline:

• Anti-Oligarchy: Altruistic mission statement, individual contributors only, limits on stock purchases, no speculation
• Democratic Governance: General Conference elects officers to the Board of Directors
• Opposing Incentives: President’s bonus based on payroll/equity, CEO’s bonus based on business surplus

This is intended to be used to create a C-Corporation in the US, and it must be reviewed by a licensed lawyer in your state before it can be used. The ideas, however, are universally applicable.

Read the Articles of Incorporation template.

• How would you initially get started?

The first step for a group that wants to organize will be to get the ERP software running.

For maximum privacy, the group could obtain a desktop computer to run the software on initially with the intention to move to server hardware after capitalization. A technically inclined member of the group would reprogram the computer to turn it into the ERP server and then host it through a Dynamic DNS service.

Alternatively, they could use a hosting service and pay a monthly fee.

Once the software is running with logins established, the group will be able to start writing documents, electing officers, and capitalizing.

Techno robber barons pushing us toward ecological disaster? Why would anyone be afraid of that? /s

Although on a serious note, I don’t despair; I’m taking action, and I hope plenty of others are as well.

Dilution should require a vote from owners.

Would it be helpful if that had been written into the company’s AoI and server software?

Yeah I wouldn’t mind an experienced dev taking over the architecture, but I will proceed myself if that person doesn’t come along. If you were worried about it not being applicable outside the US, stuff like the eligible_1099 field could be converted into a “country_config” object or something like that. I’m already planning on supporting all currencies so it would make sense.

In terms of modularity, I’ll have to think about it some more. I’ll spend some time looking into those projects and consulting about it with the LLM today.

Now about that spreadsheet and reddit post. That’s not just something to consider, that’s a person to contact. I would love to see how their ideas have developed in the past 4 years. I’ll have to grab a burner today. Thank you!

To the office, to fight the corpos!

Why not use existing projects? A combination of my specific design requirements not existing anywhere else and my lack of software architecture experience. My background is in systems and organizational theory, and while I have experience in mathematics related programming, this is my first server architecture. So that being said, I’m certainly open to ideas as long as that doesn’t stop it from working right. I am planning on integrating different tools like messaging, and I’ll certainly use something like Continuwuity for that. It’s just that for the core database design it really needs to have a specific integrated schema, at least that’s my opinion. Like I said I’m open to ideas, my goal is to get the project done.

I’m not familiar with ERPNext but it looks interesting. As you pointed out this is US based, so it looks like I would have to take that into account as well.

In terms of sensitive information, the US does have laws about Personal Identifying Information, so the “Party” table has a corresponding “PartyPii” table with information that isn’t subject to audit and can be deleted. Home address, email, phone, etc. It is also stored encrypted, so while I’m sure I don’t have it all figured out yet, these things are on my radar.

In terms of MVP, I will certainly be testing out front-end funtionality as I build it. Start with a login page that accepts a default user and brings you to a dashboard page. Get the accounting going so you can make Journal Entries, etc. Prettymuch going by the “Core Design” section at the start of the README and testing in chunks. But in terms of actually seeing if it meets it’s intended function, unfortunately that comes down to an actual beta version I think. I will need to host it and invite people to participate with “points” instead of money.

Someone over on beehaw suggested Svelte for front-end mock-up so I’ve been playing around with the tutorial. It’s certainly neat. I should be able to get demo pages going without too much trouble, they just won’t look too special.

And yes, I have begun thinking about the day to day. I think non-management members need to have a pretty significant capability with just a mobile version of the pages, since not everyone has an actual computer. But either way I want the information to flow smoothly through the organization.

Thanks for your input!