Do any apps or email newsletters exist which collate tools/apps/resources which can replace Big Tech?

I’m thinking something like https://futuretools.io/ directory but through a left and ethical consumer lens.

-My partner was talking earlier about cutting out the Magnificent Seven (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla). Only Tesla is easy 😂

-I just saw this shared on r/socialistmusic https://www.subvert.fm/ it’s a cooperative music platform.

-Open source models are improving at a rate that’s hard to keep up with.

This all makes me think that a way of filtering information could be useful?

What types of services do you want to replace?

What filter categories would you want? Eg ownership model, open source, free, located…

What existing sentiments could be harnessed? Eg QuitGPT, Digital Sovereignty, Copyleft

What is your take on this? My general view is that AI should be used to automate/delegate the drudgery and heartsink tasks, so that humans have more time for creativity and fulfilling tasks. Shortening the work day type of perspective, which I’d see as aligned with Kropotkin, Marx, Bookchin view of technology and Oscar Wilde too in The Soul of Man under Socialism:

“All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery... At present machinery competes against man. Under proper conditions machinery will serve man.”

I’m not dogmatic about avoiding genAI art though, I’ve previously experimented with it. For me personally I can draw reasonably well and tend to have an image in my mind of what I’m after. I found it less rewarding to prompt the image and for me it took longer, because I was picky about my mental image. I wouldn’t be upset if the future of AI didn’t involve art, I’d also be open to it being a tool for genuine human creativity and/or an entirely new form of art.

Examples of genuinely creative AI art?

I’ve been trying to look out for AI art I consider genuinely interesting and creative, for something I’m doing to do with the balance between human and AI contributions. There are slim pickings I’d say. Probably this is partly a lack of human creativity, because I think the better examples do involve an artistic eye and curation skills, a significant amount of human input.

I like things where they press into it being AI, rather than trying to look the same as human art. For example, a more surreal, quirkiness and maintaining that aesthetic. World building.

There’s a couple of ai video people I think are contenders for genuine creativity

1. David Szauder:

David in Wonderland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZrxEjf-0_Y

And doppelgänger https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jqr0x2X0CyY

2. Or kelly boesch ai art:

In Kelly’s videos the song is I think usually partially human made eg for Not Made For The Cage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACNj3L2bzV8

she says “I always say it's harder to make a video after writing the song. I really don't like making videos that tell exact stories. I prefer an abstract representation that allows the viewer to interpret it any way they want. I made a video a while back using this style reference with these strange faces, and for some reason, I thought of using them again. The way they stand out against the people walking around them. I love how it works with the song.

Thank you to Marshall Altman for the guitar and synth he added to the song, and for the additional production and mixing. This is for sure one of my favorite songs I have written. Working with Marshall has been so wonderful. We had our first co-write a few weeks back and made a song together that will come out in the next few weeks.

This whole process with Nettwerk Records has been really amazing. If someone had told me four or five years ago that I would be writing songs, getting signed to a label, and doing a TED Talk, I would have thought they were insane. NONE of this was even on my radar as a path I would follow. Al has opened doors for me I couldn't have even imagined. When an artist finds their perfect tool, it can open creativity inside them they never knew they had. Pretty wild...

Lyrics written by me, Kelly Boesch. Music created under my creative direction with assistance from Suno. Additional instrumentation, production and mixing by Marshall Altman.”

A World building example from her is A very unusual town https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx1UGA_T1nI

Is AI the new collective unconscious? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUoLagZqQ4o

Please add more examples and your thoughts in the comments.

I’ve noticed something strange about a lot of left music recommendations: We have loads of songs about resistance, collapse, corruption, exploitation and fighting back. But surprisingly few songs about what life after positive change might actually feel like.

I mean songs where people already sound like they’re living differently: sharing food, rebuilding community, working together, tending land, feeling emotionally less alienated, less lonely, less trapped and truly free.

Music that makes another social world feel imaginable and desirable.

So I’m building a playlist around that feeling:

hopeful anticipatory consciousness, communal joy, post-capitalist everyday life, utopian folk memory, that sort of thing. Utopian but not naïve and hopeful but not saccharine (trickiest aspect of this playlist).

Current influences are folk, roots, reggae, soul, anti-folk, oddball communal music, joyful-but-not-religious songs, ironic or playful left songs, and songs with emotional lift. More cultural diversity would be good.

This is the provisional list:

1 New World Coming - darkDARK Remix Nina Simone,darkDARK

2 Reason I Sing Resistance Revival Chorus,Valerie June

3 There Is a Time (feat. Kelsey Wilson) Whiskey Shivers,Kelsey Wilson

4 Better Way - War Mix Ben Harper

5 After the Revolution Carsie Blanton

6 People Have the Power Patti Smith

7 We Shall Be Known (FunkPharm Mix) FunkPharm,MaMuse,Jami+

8 Seeds Ayla Nereo

9 Endless Tree Valerie June

10 These Old Stories Three Wheels Turning,Samara Jade,Micaela Kingslight,Aimée Ringle

11 Joy Comes Back Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem

12 Where the Wild Birds Call Dusty The Kid

13 Dark Honey Martin Simpson,Andy Cutting,Nancy Kerr

14 How Shall We Come Together Maggie Wheeler

15 The Big Rock Candy Mountain Harry McClintock

16 Wild and Free Sarina Partridge

17 Social Living Burning Spear

18 Big Ship Freddie McGregor

19 One Day The Kiffness,Matisyahu

20 (Nothing But) Flowers Talking Heads

21 Pure The Lightning Seeds

22 The Moss Cosmo Sheldrake

23 Tomorrow's Garden Post Coal Prom Queen

24 New World Coming Augustine

25 We Rise Batya Levine

26 Be Good Carsie Blanton

27 Your Heart's a Big Tent Willi Carlisle

28 What a Beautiful Day Levellers

29 I'll Be There Phil Ochs

30 The World Turned Upside Down Billy Bragg

31 Joyful Motherfuckers Allison Russell

32 I Think I'll Call It Morning Gil Scott-Heron

33 Colors Playing For Change,Black Pumas,Slash,The Pocket Queen,Tony Kanal

34 Thulasizwe (I Shall Be Released) Miriam Makeba,Nina Simone

35 The Communists Have the Music They Might Be Giants

36 Revolution Toots & The Maytals

37 Thus Always To Tyrants The Oh Hellos

38 The Lost Words Blessing Spell Songs,Julie Fowlis,Karine Polwart,Seckou Keita +

39 I Believe in Being Ready Rising Appalachia

40 Utopian Futures Kimya Dawson

41 Bound by a Thread Gaelynn Lea

42 Beautiful Dawn The Wailin' Jennys

43 Home Inside Valerie June

44 Metropolis of Eden Sparkbird,Stephan Nance

45 Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream Crys Matthews

46 Le Chant des Fauves Playing For Change,Tinariwen

47 Welcome Table Dan Zanes,Friends,The Blind Boys Of Alabama

48 I Know We're Gonna Make It Rory Lavelle

49 One Voice The Wailin' Jennys

50 I Shall Be Released - Extended Version Joan Baez

51 Astral Plane Valerie June

52 This Is How We Walk On The Moon Arthur Russell

53 Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards Billy Bragg

54 This Train (Bound For Glory) Big Bill Broonzy

55 Better World A Comin' Woody Guthrie

56 Ella's Song Sweet Honey In The Rock

57 The Internationale Alistair Hulett

58 Power and Glory Phil Ochs

59 Brand New Day - 2013 Remaster Van Morrison

60 Rise Up Singing Daisy May

61 Somewhere to Begin Sara Thomsen

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTouLzvyfuaho5vY9mLmlhwqFOjJCsD8V&si=46eGKoEPZIOSQ09Q

Tidal https://tidal.com/playlist/a72550e3-79ce-4a8a-a161-9295e0304092 (missing The Internationale Alistair Hulett, Rise Up Singing Daisy May)

Do any of these songs annoy you? Why? If lots of people don’t like the same song I’ll remove.

What’s your favourite on the list?

Should I split into folk vs electronic genres?

Any ideas? If I seem too fussy just suggest the first song that came to mind!

What do you think about the utopian function of music? Is it something that can help redditors escape capitalist realism? Ernst Bloch in the Principle of Hope claimed “music emerges, the art of strongest intensity distilled into song and sound, of the utopian Humanum in the world”.

I’ll share the playlist in other subs when it feels more done.

I’ve put together this interactive digital collection of sources clustered around the idea of what if we went back to the church being an anarcho-communist network of mutuality and common ownership, using prefigurative politics to dismantle the Evangelical Capitalist Resonance Machine*?

See https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/60a5bde1-b464-4f6e-aaa3-102c57ce0837

The sources include Christian anarchism (and secular anarchist texts), liberation theology, Crip theology, Queer liberation, womanist theology, black theology, poststructuralist theology and ideas around unkingdom, weakness of god, radical hermeneutics.

You can ask your own questions of the sources in the chat section. If you click on the number it brings up the original human source (getting away from hallucination issues). In the studio section you can use the audio and quizzes already there (better use of resources since these already exist) or generate new. For those of you who come out in hives if anything is LLM, in the sources section it’s possible to read the full original sources.

*Evangelical Capitalist Resonance Machine (coined by political theorist William Connolly in his 2008 book, Capitalism and Christianity, American Style) describes resonant forces between evangelical Christianity and “cowboy capitalism” that amplify a shared ethos across media, politics, policy, and culture. The phenomenon where Christianity aligns itself with neoliberal power, imperial imagery, strong force. This is in direct contradiction of the early church described in Acts as a grassroots, horizontal structure of communities sharing everything they had.

All my life I've lived beside the waters that they call the Clyde

I build the ships and watch them glide down the Broomielaw, sir

Trudge to work in sleet and rain, labour for another's gain

Know yer place and don't complain, that's the rich man's law, sir

When I was young I read with pride how Scotland's heroes fought and died

Tae keep the nation fortified against the English crown, sir

Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled by clerics fancy were mislead

Fought among themselves instead and by it were brought down, sir

When the Billy Boys are marchin' in the sash their father's wore

The day they slew the Fenien crew three hundred years before

The gentry give a smile and lift their glasses to John Bull

Who keeps us all in poverty with the old Divide and Rule

Commentary from https://genius.com/39092718

“The singer labours in the shipyards in hard conditions, but even though he build these ships (along with many others), he brings only profit to the rich men who own and operate the yard. This is framed typically within the lens of the Marxist concept of wage theft: by which workers supply the essential labour that produces goods and services, but for which they are offered only partial value, since capitalist organisation priorities the allocation of surplus value from labour to the bourgeoisie class which only owns the means of productions, but is not responsible for the labour of production itself.

Under the maxim of capitalism, our singer must “know his place” as a labourer and accept that economic and political organisation requires him to work without being allowed to keep the value of his productive labour. This maxim is, of course, imposed by rich men, to whose benefit this system of work and ownership operates.

Like many Scots, our singer knows proudly of Scotland’s history of struggle for independence and self-determination against the whims of the English Crown which sought to subjugate the country, and defy the will of Scots towards freedom and independent government.

Scotland and the Scots people have always kept a popular consciousness of their history of resistance. Scots even today are very proud of their country and its independnt identity, and largely see themselves first as “Scots” and only secondly (if ever) as “British”.

Scotland’s history is, in large part, defined in opposition to the English with whom they have a complex history of warfare, subjugation, negotiation, and political union dating back from the medieval period and beyond, with such key events as Wallace’s defence of Scotland against the English, up to the Jacobite Rebellions of 1715 and 1745, and even up to labour resistance such as the Scottish socialists of the early 20th century (e.g., John McLean).

Scotland’s national heroes are often located within this national struggle, and range back to the medieval period with famous figures such as William Wallace, Robert the Bruce (whom this song alludes to vis a Robert Burns poem in the lines that follow.), and Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The “Billy Boys” are the men of the Orange Order, which is a monarchist and Protestant association. In Scotland and Ireland, they march in support of the British Crown on July the 12th especially–which is the date of the Battle of the Boyne, in which England’s King William III suppressed an Irish rebellion in 1689 (“the day they slew the Fenien crew three hunderd years before”). “Feniens” is a label used to describe pro-Irish independence advocates and Irish republicans broadly.

The ruling classes look to the competing Scotsmen who fight over nationalism and cheer on, as they profit from this divide. They “divide and rule” by allowing and stoking this nationalist competition, and in turn conquer all these people, regardless of their brand of Scottish patriotism, through capitalism and the subjugation of working people under the capitalist system that enriches the ruling class.

The man to whom they raise a glass, “John Bull,” is the personification of England, famously depicted as a stout gentleman wearing a waistcoat festooned with the Union Jack (Britain’s flag). The ruling classes cheer onto John Bull (Britain) because, regardless of how much the Scots fight over competing nationalisms, Britain and its ruling classes win by owning the means of production.

Nationalism, the song states, is used by the ruling class to “divide and rule” us through distracting political debates that serve little purpose, while the material reality is that all people (regardless of their political beliefs) are kept poor by the state of capitalist control.”

What do you think?

Speech-to-text, captions, image descriptions, reading help, writing support, voice tools, and assistive communication are not “slop.” They’re basic quality-of-life tools for people with disabilities.

You can criticise AI companies, copyright issues, energy use, or low-effort content. Fine. But pretending the entire technology has no social value is just unserious.

An old one, 1649 lyrics probably Gerrard Winstanley, but a good new recording. What’s the oldest song you like?

Well you noble diggers all Stand up now, stand up now

You noble diggers all

Stand up now

You're digging to maintain Seeing cavaliers by name

Your digging does disdain And your persons all defame

Stand up now, diggers all

Well the gentry are all round Stand up now, stand up now

The gentry are all round

Stand up now

The gentry are all round

On each side they are found

Their wisdom so profound

For to cheat us of our ground

Stand up now, diggers all

Well the lawyers they come in Stand up now, stand up now

The lawyers they come in

Stand up now

The lawyers they come in And thinking now no sin

To make a jail of gin And to house poor men therein

Stand up now, diggers all

With your spades and hoes and ploughs

Stand up now, stand up now

Your spades and hoes and ploughs

Stand up now

Your freedom to uphold

Seeing cavaliers are bold

They'd kill you if they could

And your rights from you withhold

Stand up now, diggers all

Stand up

Stand up now

Stand up

Stand up now

Stand up

Stand up now

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→ Learn more: https://allenai.org/blog/earth-day-2026