Vizified

vizified

This morning, after watching President-Elect Donald Trump's announcement regarding his plan to "shatter" the censorship regime, I experienced a profound epiphany. The discussion surrounding free speech and the manipulation of information sparked thoughts about the potential for change in the current political landscape, particularly concerning figures like Edward Snowden. For years, Snowden has been a polarizing figure—celebrated by many as a whistleblower and condemned by others as a traitor. His revelations about government surveillance practices opened a critical dialogue about privacy, security, and the role of government in the lives of citizens. Yet, despite the importance of his contributions to public discourse, he has remained in exile, away from his homeland. In Trump's speech, he emphasized the need to dismantle what he described as a "censorship cartel" created by various entities, including government agencies and corporate media. This call to action resonated with me, especially when considering Snowden's situation. If there is indeed a movement towards restoring free speech and challenging the status quo, could this pave the way for Snowden's return to the United States? Since 2013, Snowden has made a life for himself in Russia. His story has become emblematic of the complex relationship between government secrecy and the public's right to know. The speech I watched, with its bold promises about preventing federal agencies from "colluding" to control information and its calls for investigations into what it termed "online censorship," made me wonder about the possibility of change. The words echoed through the transcript – departments like Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, the FBI, and Department of Justice all mentioned by name. Each reference carried the weight of potential transformation in how our government handles information and those who choose to reveal it. President Trump's emphasis on "reclaiming" free speech struck a particular chord, though the reality of whistleblower protection remains far more complex than any single speech or policy proposal can address. Just as Julian Assange recently returned to Australia, there may be hope for Snowden as well. The political climate appears to be shifting, with more citizens becoming aware of the importance of transparency and the dangers of unchecked power. If the Trump administration truly prioritizes the restoration of free speech, it might also reconsider the stance towards those who have fought for that very principle. Snowden's return would not only symbolize a victory for whistleblowers everywhere but also serve as a reminder that accountability and justice can prevail. It is essential for our democracy to embrace those who have risked everything to expose the truth. As we look towards the future, the light at the end of the tunnel seems brighter. With ongoing conversations about censorship and the rights of individuals, perhaps we are on the brink of a significant shift. It is time to advocate for a system where whistleblowers are protected and celebrated rather than vilified. In conclusion, my hope for Edward Snowden's return is intertwined with the broader movement towards reclaiming free speech and accountability. As we navigate these complex issues, let us remain vigilant and support those who dare to stand up for the truth, for they are the ones who illuminate the path toward a more just society. This piece represents my own personal observations and thoughts on complex issues. Readers should pursue their own research and consult official sources for ground-truthing. Follow me here on Hackernoon for more insights and updates. This morning, after watching President-Elect Donald Trump's announcement regarding his plan to "shatter" the censorship regime, I experienced a profound epiphany. The discussion surrounding free speech and the manipulation of information sparked thoughts about the potential for change in the current political landscape, particularly concerning figures like Edward Snowden. For years, Snowden has been a polarizing figure—celebrated by many as a whistleblower and condemned by others as a traitor. His revelations about government surveillance practices opened a critical dialogue about privacy, security, and the role of government in the lives of citizens. Yet, despite the importance of his contributions to public discourse, he has remained in exile, away from his homeland. In Trump's speech, he emphasized the need to dismantle what he described as a "censorship cartel" created by various entities, including government agencies and corporate media. This call to action resonated with me, especially when considering Snowden's situation. If there is indeed a movement towards restoring free speech and challenging the status quo, could this pave the way for Snowden's return to the United States? Since 2013, Snowden has made a life for himself in Russia. His story has become emblematic of the complex relationship between government secrecy and the public's right to know. The speech I watched, with its bold promises about preventing federal agencies from "colluding" to control information and its calls for investigations into what it termed "online censorship," made me wonder about the possibility of change. The words echoed through the transcript – departments like Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, the FBI, and Department of Justice all mentioned by name. Each reference carried the weight of potential transformation in how our government handles information and those who choose to reveal it. President Trump's emphasis on "reclaiming" free speech struck a particular chord, though the reality of whistleblower protection remains far more complex than any single speech or policy proposal can address. Just as Julian Assange recently returned to Australia, there may be hope for Snowden as well. The political climate appears to be shifting, with more citizens becoming aware of the importance of transparency and the dangers of unchecked power. If the Trump administration truly prioritizes the restoration of free speech, it might also reconsider the stance towards those who have fought for that very principle. Snowden's return would not only symbolize a victory for whistleblowers everywhere but also serve as a reminder that accountability and justice can prevail. It is essential for our democracy to embrace those who have risked everything to expose the truth. As we look towards the future, the light at the end of the tunnel seems brighter. With ongoing conversations about censorship and the rights of individuals, perhaps we are on the brink of a significant shift. It is time to advocate for a system where whistleblowers are protected and celebrated rather than vilified. In conclusion, my hope for Edward Snowden's return is intertwined with the broader movement towards reclaiming free speech and accountability. As we navigate these complex issues, let us remain vigilant and support those who dare to stand up for the truth, for they are the ones who illuminate the path toward a more just society. This piece represents my own personal observations and thoughts on complex issues. Readers should pursue their own research and consult official sources for ground-truthing. Follow me here on Hackernoon for more insights and updates. This piece represents my own personal observations and thoughts on complex issues. Readers should pursue their own research and consult official sources for ground-truthing. Follow me here on Hackernoon for more insights and updates. Hackernoon

Finding Hope: The Possibility of Edward Snowden's Return

আশার খোঁজ: এডওয়ার্ড স্নোডেনের প্রত্যাবর্তনের সম্ভাবনা

Hoffnung finden: Die Möglichkeit einer Rückkehr von Edward Snowden

Encontrando esperanza: la posibilidad del regreso de Edward Snowden

Trouver l'espoir : la possibilité du retour d'Edward Snowden

आशा की तलाश: एडवर्ड स्नोडेन की वापसी की संभावना

希望を見つける：エドワード・スノーデンの復帰の可能性

희망을 찾다: 에드워드 스노든의 귀환 가능성

Encontrando esperança: a possibilidade do retorno de Edward Snowden

В поисках надежды: возможность возвращения Эдварда Сноудена

Umut Bulmak: Edward Snowden'ın Geri Dönme İhtimali

Tìm kiếm hy vọng: Khả năng Edward Snowden trở về

寻找希望：爱德华·斯诺登回归的可能性

Tiktok Inc., and ByteDance LTD., v. Merrick B. Garland Update Court Filing, retrieved on May 7, 2024, is part of HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series. You can jump to any part in this filing here. This part is 8 of 11. Ground 2: Unconstitutional Bill of Attainder 95. The Act is an unconstitutional bill of attainder. 96. Article I of the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from passing any bill of attainder. U.S. Const. art. I § 9, cl. 3 (“No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”). A bill of attainder is “legislative punishment, of any form or severity, of specifically designated persons or groups.” United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 447 (1965). The protection against bills of attainder is “an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function, or more simply — trial by legislature.” Id. at 442. 97. By singling out Petitioners for legislative punishment, the Act is an unconstitutional bill of attainder. 98. The Act inflicts “pains and penalties” that historically have been associated with bills of attainder. See Nixon v. Adm’r of Gen. Servs., 433 U.S. 425, 474 (1977). Historically, common “pains and penalties” included “punitive confiscation of property by the sovereign” and “a legislative enactment barring designated individuals or groups from participation in specified employments or vocations,” among others. Id. As described above, the Act confiscates Petitioners’ U.S. businesses by forcing ByteDance to shutter them within 270 days or sell on terms that are not commercially, technologically, or legally feasible. See supra ¶¶ 26‒29. For the same reason, the Act bars Petitioners from operating in their chosen line of business. 99. “[V]iewed in terms of the type and severity of burdens imposed” on Petitioners, the Act’s treatment of Petitioners cannot “reasonably . . . be said to further nonpunitive legislative purposes.” Nixon, 433 U.S. at 475–76. The Act transforms Petitioners into a “vilified class” by explicitly prohibiting their current and future operations in the United States, without qualification or limitation, but does not extend the same treatment to other similarly situated companies. Foretich v. United States, 351 F.3d 1198, 1224 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 100. Moreover, in light of the less restrictive alternatives discussed above, there is no justification for automatically barring Petitioners’ current and future operations in the United States (or those of its subsidiaries or successors) in perpetuity without providing them a meaningful opportunity to take corrective action. See Kaspersky Lab, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 909 F.3d 446, 456 (D.C. Cir. 2018). Indeed, the Act imposes this punishment uniquely on Petitioners without the process, and presidential determination of a significant national security threat, that Congress has afforded to everyone else. Expressly singling out Petitioners for these punitive burdens while at the same time adopting a statutory standard and decision-making process applicable to every other entity makes clear that Petitioners are subjected to a prohibited legislatively imposed punishment. 101. Moreover, while Petitioners can avoid the Act’s prohibitions only via a wholesale divestment, all other companies — even those with Chinese ownership and determined by the President to present a “significant threat” to U.S. national security — can avoid prohibition simply by operating a website or an application “whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.” Sec. 2(g)(2)(b). 102. Indeed, any other “adversary-controlled” company that operates an application exactly like TikTok, but also operates a website the primary purpose of which is to post product reviews, is left untouched, leaving a ready path for any company but those affiliated with Petitioners to circumvent the Act’s prohibitions altogether. For all practical purposes, then, the Act applies to just one corporate group — it is a “TikTok bill,” as congressional leaders have described it.[30] 103. For all of these reasons, the Act constitutes an unconstitutional bill of attainder. Continue Reading Here. About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings.
This court case retrieved on May 7, 2024, from sf16-va.tiktokcdn.com is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. [30] Rachel Dobkin, Mike Johnson’s Letter Sparks New Flood of Republican Backlash, Newsweek (Apr. 17, 2024), https://perma.cc/Z5HD-7UVU (quoting letter from Speaker Johnson referencing the “TikTok bill”); Senator Chuck Schumer, Majority Leader, to Colleagues (Apr. 5, 2024), https://perma.cc/J7Q4-9PGJ (referencing “TikTok legislation”). Tiktok Inc., and ByteDance LTD., v. Merrick B. Garland Update Court Filing, retrieved on May 7, 2024, is part of HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series. You can jump to any part in this filing here. This part is 8 of 11. Tiktok Inc., and ByteDance LTD., v. Merrick B. Garland Update Court Filing, retrieved on May 7, 2024, is part of HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series . You can jump to any part in this filing here . This part is 8 of 11. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here Ground 2: Unconstitutional Bill of Attainder 95. The Act is an unconstitutional bill of attainder. 96. Article I of the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from passing any bill of attainder. U.S. Const. art. I § 9, cl. 3 (“No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”). A bill of attainder is “legislative punishment, of any form or severity, of specifically designated persons or groups.” United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 447 (1965). The protection against bills of attainder is “an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function, or more simply — trial by legislature.” Id. at 442. 97. By singling out Petitioners for legislative punishment, the Act is an unconstitutional bill of attainder. 98. The Act inflicts “pains and penalties” that historically have been associated with bills of attainder. See Nixon v. Adm’r of Gen. Servs., 433 U.S. 425, 474 (1977). Historically, common “pains and penalties” included “punitive confiscation of property by the sovereign” and “a legislative enactment barring designated individuals or groups from participation in specified employments or vocations,” among others. Id. As described above, the Act confiscates Petitioners’ U.S. businesses by forcing ByteDance to shutter them within 270 days or sell on terms that are not commercially, technologically, or legally feasible. See supra ¶¶ 26‒29. For the same reason, the Act bars Petitioners from operating in their chosen line of business. 99. “[V]iewed in terms of the type and severity of burdens imposed” on Petitioners, the Act’s treatment of Petitioners cannot “reasonably . . . be said to further nonpunitive legislative purposes.” Nixon, 433 U.S. at 475–76. The Act transforms Petitioners into a “vilified class” by explicitly prohibiting their current and future operations in the United States, without qualification or limitation, but does not extend the same treatment to other similarly situated companies. Foretich v. United States, 351 F.3d 1198, 1224 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 100. Moreover, in light of the less restrictive alternatives discussed above, there is no justification for automatically barring Petitioners’ current and future operations in the United States (or those of its subsidiaries or successors) in perpetuity without providing them a meaningful opportunity to take corrective action. See Kaspersky Lab, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 909 F.3d 446, 456 (D.C. Cir. 2018). Indeed, the Act imposes this punishment uniquely on Petitioners without the process, and presidential determination of a significant national security threat, that Congress has afforded to everyone else. Expressly singling out Petitioners for these punitive burdens while at the same time adopting a statutory standard and decision-making process applicable to every other entity makes clear that Petitioners are subjected to a prohibited legislatively imposed punishment. 101. Moreover, while Petitioners can avoid the Act’s prohibitions only via a wholesale divestment, all other companies — even those with Chinese ownership and determined by the President to present a “significant threat” to U.S. national security — can avoid prohibition simply by operating a website or an application “whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.” Sec. 2(g)(2)(b). 102. Indeed, any other “adversary-controlled” company that operates an application exactly like TikTok, but also operates a website the primary purpose of which is to post product reviews, is left untouched, leaving a ready path for any company but those affiliated with Petitioners to circumvent the Act’s prohibitions altogether. For all practical purposes, then, the Act applies to just one corporate group — it is a “TikTok bill,” as congressional leaders have described it.[30] 103. For all of these reasons, the Act constitutes an unconstitutional bill of attainder. Continue Reading Here. Continue Reading Here . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case retrieved on May 7, 2024, from sf16-va.tiktokcdn.com is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case retrieved on May 7, 2024, from sf16-va.tiktokcdn.com is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. sf16-va.tiktokcdn.com [30] Rachel Dobkin, Mike Johnson’s Letter Sparks New Flood of Republican Backlash, Newsweek (Apr. 17, 2024), https://perma.cc/Z5HD-7UVU (quoting letter from Speaker Johnson referencing the “TikTok bill”); Senator Chuck Schumer, Majority Leader, to Colleagues (Apr. 5, 2024), https://perma.cc/J7Q4-9PGJ (referencing “TikTok legislation”).

TikTok U.S. Lawsuit: Understanding the Prohibition of Bills of Attainder in Constitutional Law

"To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality." - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The General Idea of the Revolution In vivid words, Proudhon describes the core of state authority as brutal subjugation: Surveillance, control, regulation, restriction, exploitation, and even blunt violence. Contemplating Guantanamo Bay, national debt, Snowden, inflation, and Julian Assange, even the most staunch believers of our liberal democracies have to either catch the scent of truth in it or engage in vertiginous feats of mental acrobatics. The liberation? Autonomy. The purest and most radical following and implementation of this principle in the history of mankind is arguably the . From the mining of the first 50 , to the EVM, to Parachains and Danksharding, every step in this space of maximum decentralization is underlined by the moral imperative that increasing the autonomy of individuals is desirable. Web3 space BTC However, as important as it is to achieve autonomy from all claims to power, the question remains about what we should do with this Autonomy. In our desire to create a better world, is autonomy the value we should try to maximize? If the only aim of spelling out freedom is to create as much space as possible for undisturbed self-expression, then this freedom is threatened to remain empty, dead, and meaningless. Although, as the absence of obstacles and undesired influences, a purely negative conception of freedom is not enough to give our lives meaning and orientation. Therefore, autonomy must not be misunderstood as an end in itself. Instead, we must understand it as the foundation and enabling condition for resonant world relations. I would like to argue that the pure value of autonomy requires a supplement to unfold its utopian potential: social freedom. Autonomy Uncontested The value of autonomy enjoys an almost unchallenged status in our society. In all political spectrums ("My body, my choice" / "Taxes are theft" / "Better dead than red"), in culture (glorification of world traveling influencers, the explosion of interest into self-improvement, the rise of non-traditional relationships, etc. ), art (tropes about oppression/emancipation), everywhere the unquestioned virtue of autonomy shines through. This development has reached its climax in the decentralized space. Here, autonomy is not just one value among many but the central ethical guiding principle from which everything else is derived. The vision of a world where individuals can interact directly with each other without intermediaries or higher authorities is the utopian core of the web3 landscape. Indeed, the decentralized space has an emancipatory potential that can not be underestimated. Many of our institutions are, in the best case, unsuitable for the problems of the 21st century and, in the worst case, rotten to the core. By creating structures that enable individuals to govern their data, finances, identities, and contracts themselves, decentralized technologies have the potential to shift power away from gatekeepers to society. But what is autonomy? Autonomy, negative and social freedom The term autonomy is derived from the ancient Greek "autonomía," which means something like "self-legislation" or "self-determination." Autonomy is often understood as the ability to emancipate oneself from external influences and constraints. Proudhons quote and my examples reference that understanding of autonomy. This notion of autonomy thus shows a great affinity to the concept of negative liberty, as prominently defined by Isaiah Berlin and is famously represented by Thomas Hobbes's quote "A free man is he that in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do is not hindered to do what he hath the will to do" Negative liberty denotes a state of absence of external obstacles and limitations. It realizes itself in a protected space of individual decision and action freedom to be exposed to as few interventions as possible. It is precisely this ideal that many advocates of decentralized systems also invoke: The substitution of hierarchical structures by autonomous actors is supposed to enable more negative freedom by removing boundaries and obstacles. The gold standard of a decentralized system is its robustness to censorship and, therefore its ability to maintain boundaries and degree of freedom against external forces. However, is the protection and expansion of negative freedom sufficient to enable people to lead a truly self-determined and fulfilled life? The philosopher Axel Honneth has convincingly argued that this is not the case. For him, individual freedom only becomes possible where it can relate to an "objective reality", i.e. to given social conditions and institutions. True self-determination, therefore, always presupposes a social context in which the individual can realize his or her life plans. Honneth calls the form of freedom that arises from this "social freedom", which he derived from Hegel. According to Honneth, it is not enough for a free individual to be devoid of obstacles. Instead, it necessitates a state in which individuals support each other in realizing their respective goals, enabling each other to lead a self-determined life. That is all quite abstract, so Let's visualize the difference between the two concepts of freedom in the following picture: Imagine you are in front of a river that you want to cross. The river looks quite dangerous; you could be swept across or drown in a whirlpool. Hobbes is sitting next to you on a stone and tells you that you have every freedom to cross this river. After all, there are no dangerous animals in the water. (There are also no border guards with machine guns, and no wall has been erected). However, you are completely on your own. It's just your subjective experience, and you can't hope to make it, should you try. However, it could also be that a tree has accidentally fallen, and you can get across quite easily. For Hobbes, though, it makes no difference to your freedom whether you live in a world in which this tree has fallen or not. At that moment, Hegel arrives with a good wine in his hand and a wheelbarrow full of planks and nails. He offers to build a bridge together because he wants to cross it himself. For Hegel, only now have you gained your freedom, because in reality, the conditions have been created through which you can hope to actually cross the river. Before, it was pure chance whether this hope could be rationally justified. It was only through Hegel that you actively received the support from your environment that can give you rational hope of reaching your goal (the other shore). This applies to societies. It is, as supporters of Hegel's idea would argue in societies without social freedom pure chance whether you grow up in circumstances that enable you to achieve your goals and in which everyone can hope to achieve their goals. In societies with social freedom, however, this hope is justified because the objectives of the other subjects are such that they enable and complement the achievement of one's own goals and complement them. Social freedom thus has a cooperative core: it is based on the insight that the freedom of the individual is dependent on the freedom of others. Only in a community in which people grant and support each other in the development of self-determination can the individual also experience himself as genuinely free. The values of the decentralized space have to be ultimately also committed to such an understanding of social freedom, even if this is not always explicitly reflected. Behind the efforts to create decentralized, self-organized structures has to be the vision of a world in which individuals can freely associate to collectively shape their living conditions with each other for the better. Even the much-cited "trustless trust" and allegedly increase of freedom that blockchain technologies are supposed to enable is ultimately grounded in the individual’s faculty to understand the system. It makes a huge difference if 99,9999& of crypto projects are scams, or if it’s only 80, 70, or 60. However, the fixation on code-based incentive and coordination mechanisms threatens to lose sight of this fact. You could easily imagine a future in which every aspect of societal organization is managed by smart contracts, but in which more people are scammed; more people lack connections and meaning and fewer people can make sense of this world. Conclusion The vision of autonomy that inspires so many in the blockchain space is a noble and important one. Establishing robust individual freedoms and consent is crucial to human flourishing. But to unlock the full transformative potential of decentralized technologies, we must pair the pursuit of autonomy with the cultivation of social freedom. This means aspiring not just for freedom from interference but also to enable the creation of resonance - meaningful, mutually empowering relationships - at both the individual and the institutional level. It means recognizing that our identities are not atomic, but fundamentally intersubjective - our agency is enhanced, not undermined, by positive embeddedness in the social fabric. And it means harnessing the power of decentralized coordination not just to maximize individual gain, but to create emergent realities that are greater than the sum of their parts. By synthesizing the principles of individual sovereignty and collective intelligence, the marriage of autonomy and resonance paves the way for a future that brings out the best in both individuals and the whole. A future where people are free to author their own lives, while also synergizing with others to make the pie massively bigger for everyone. Getting there won't be easy, requiring technical and cultural innovation. But if we can pull it off, the prize is immense - nothing short of the difference between a failed species and a thriving galactic civilization. So let us not settle for autonomy alone but strive for resonant autonomy—the foundation for a world alive with connection, meaning, and potentially infinite upside. We have the rare privilege of living at a time when our actions can shape the entire trajectory of the future. The blockchain renaissance has already expanded our sense of what's possible. Now it's on us to channel that newfound freedom towards a more beautiful and true reality.

The Path to Resonant Autonomy: Navigating Autonomy and Social Freedom in Web3

Heyo, Hacker! is designed by our friends at Āut Labs with themes and ideas for you to enter the Opt Out Writing contest. This writing prompt Click here to write with this template. See the contest announcement . Learn how to enter the contest . here here Theme 1: . Opt out of a System that doesn’t represent you #autonomy: : Explore the critical role of autonomy in decentralized systems like DAOs. Consider focusing on how Āut’s mission and products (i.e.: Nova, ĀutID, ĀutOS, …) enhance this. You can tell us about Roman’s , Greek’s , French or some role-based, [dys/u]topian society that is yet to come. Autonomy in Decentralized Systems, Collectives and DAOs triumvirates poleis communes - : Remember the “ ” in the Berlin of the 90ies? We love that vibe. Consider the intersection of autonomy in art, technology, and activist reforms - highlighting innovative approaches based on autonomy of one or multiple parties. As well as how these parties can play together to take down a censoring, centralized, self-absorbed Moloch. Autonomy in Art, Technology, and Activism hacker labs : Tell us a story on how a “ ” may look like. Are we aiming towards a dystopian, whole-state surveillance, or towards the highest level of individual autonomy and collective productivity that humankind has ever seen? Anything worse? Anything in between? Reshape the future workplace and work culture, especially imagining a world where decentralized organizations actually made it. Autonomy in the Workplace workplace of the future : . Is different for DeFi degens vs. artists & writers vs. political scientists & philosophers vs. governance vs. devs & mathematicians? Feel free to tackle them all at once, tell us a story about one of them - or create a role-based governance model that is going to take the future generations by storm. Role-specific Autonomy 50 shades of Autonomy autonomy : Square and simple. What is , isn't it a paradox in terms, and what does that even mean? Yeah, all that jazz. You can take a mathematical angle, invent new game-theorical rules of the game, or just make up a story that even for a second lets us suspend our disbeliefs. Collective Autonomy Collective Autonomy #identity: : What is identity in the digital space? Is it a mere reflection of what we are offline, or is it an augmented version of ourselves? Is there a “minimum viable tech stack” that can be combined to create verifiable individuals? This is an open prompt - feel free to take it from a technical or philosophical standpoint. And be provocative - we aim for non-trivial answers only on how digital technologies enable new forms of identity, personal expression and verification. Identity in the Digital Space : That’s an obvious one. How identity evolved over the centuries. Did we “mature” as a society? Did technology change what we are as individuals? Are humans different in their [self-awareness; proprioception; way to perceive others] or we did nothing but taking a long stroll from Stone Age to Technocracy? The History of Identity : we talk DAOs, distributed nations, on-chain agencies. But what are individuals within groups? Is collective intelligence a “flattening model” that blurs individuality within collectives, or it turns each individual actor into a needed, recognizable tile of the puzzle? And what is the threshold between individual and collective identity? This is a difficult one - new models, visual graphs, and brand-new, DAO-shaking processes are encouraged. Collective Identity : from Metaverses and NFTs, to basic PGP and SSIDs. How can an ID be as unstoppable, and uncensorable on one side, as it is credible, and reliable on the other? Please, be as geeky as needs be - use your tech-knowledge and understanding as an act of civil disobedience. On-chain Identities : This is our Sci-fi prompt. Tell us stories. Speculate on how identity will evolve in decentralized societies. On how they will impact individuality. For this prompt you can share your tech journal, tell us personal identity narratives, or even invent on-chain personas and breed them to NFT perpetual life. Whatever works. The Evolution of Identity in Decentralized Societies #selfsovereignty: : What is -sovereignty? Why it matters? “ ” is already a long, difficult word per se - so why did we even feel the need to add the prefix “ ” there? This is all about the inalienable individuals’ right to privacy and selective disclosure. Give us self-sovereignty straight, or explore it in a specific context. The Essence of Self-Sovereignty self Sovereignty self- : Provide real-world examples or case studies where self-sovereignty is effectively implemented. Can’t find any? Even better. Make one up, and let’s make it happen together. Self-Sovereignty in Action : This is a big one. As the Anarchist proverb goes, . But what are the borders of this personal freedom? Should self-sovereignty self-enforce in decentralized social/community contracts? Or we should somehow “hardwire” a sort of collective ethos beforehand, into the decentralized smart contracts that will govern us all? Balancing Self-Sovereignty and Collective Responsibility one can only be free if everyone else is free : Think of DeFi credit score, think of UBI. Is a self-sovereign, verifiable ID enough to automate the individual and collective distribution of wealth? Or we still need/want/expect “watchmen” to supervise that all goes smooth - and to potentially deem liable if something goes wrong? Self-Sovereignty in Financial Systems : Should we really be limited by old-world concepts such as “1 person : 1 Identity/vote/seat”? Or meritocracy means that we should be able to enforce a self-sovereign right to multiplicity in the digital space, as long as we can handle our multifaceted selves? To Sybil or not to Sybil Open Prompts: : The old, best writing advise: write about what you know. From literature, to robotics, to the legal system - write about one of the contest topics in relation to a specific field you are deeply knowledgeable or passionate about. [#autonomy; #identity; #selfsovereignty] in [insert field] This is a quote that we like, from J.P. Proudhon. To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality. , - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon The General Idea of the Revolution Explore it in the key that you like, adherent to one of the three main themes. Or just use it as an inspiration, and write about whatever you want :) Click here to write with this template.

Aut Labs Story Template: Opt Out of a System that Doesn’t Represent You

অট ল্যাবস স্টোরি টেমপ্লেট: এমন একটি সিস্টেম থেকে অপ্ট আউট করুন যা আপনাকে প্রতিনিধিত্ব করে না

Aut Labs-Story-Vorlage: Melden Sie sich von einem System ab, das Sie nicht repräsentiert

Plantilla de historia de Aut Labs: optar por no participar en un sistema que no lo representa

Modèle d'histoire Aut Labs : désinscription d'un système qui ne vous représente pas

ऑट लैब्स स्टोरी टेम्प्लेट: उस सिस्टम से ऑप्ट आउट करें जो आपका प्रतिनिधित्व नहीं करता है

Aut Labs ストーリー テンプレート: あなたを代表しないシステムからオプトアウトする

Aut Labs 스토리 템플릿: 귀하를 대표하지 않는 시스템에서 탈퇴

Modelo de história do Aut Labs: desative um sistema que não representa você

Шаблон истории Aut Labs: Откажитесь от системы, которая не представляет вас

Aut Labs Hikaye Şablonu: Sizi Temsil Etmeyen Bir Sistemden Vazgeçin

Mẫu câu chuyện của Aut Labs: Chọn không tham gia hệ thống không đại diện cho bạn

自动实验室故事模板：选择退出不代表您的系统

Heyo, Hacker! This writing prompt is designed by our friends at Āut Labs with themes and ideas for you to enter the . This is your chance to win from $9,000! See the contest announcement . Learn how to enter the contest . Opt Out Writing contest here here Autonomy :
Explore the critical role of autonomy in decentralized systems like DAOs. Consider focusing on how Āut’s mission and products (i.e.: Nova, ĀutID, ĀutOS, …) enhance this. You can tell us about Roman’s , Greek’s , French or some role-based, [dys/u]topian society that is yet to come. Autonomy in Decentralized Systems, Collectives and DAOs triumvirates poleis communes - :
Remember the “ ” in the Berlin of the 90ies? We love that vibe. Consider the intersection of autonomy in art, technology, and activist reforms - highlighting innovative approaches based on autonomy of one or multiple parties. As well as how these parties can play together to take down a censoring, centralized, self-absorbed Moloch. Autonomy in Art, Technology, and Activism hacker labs :
Tell us a story on how a “ ” may look like. Are we aiming towards a dystopian, whole-state surveillance, or towards the highest level of individual autonomy and collective productivity that humankind has ever seen? Anything worse? Anything in between? Reshape the future workplace and work culture, especially imagining a world where decentralized organizations actually made it. Autonomy in the Workplace workplace of the future : . Is different for DeFi degens vs. artists & writers vs. political scientists & philosophers vs. governance vs. devs & mathematicians? Feel free to tackle them all at once, tell us a story about one of them - or create a role-based governance model that is going to take the future generations by storm. Role-specific Autonomy 50 shades of Autonomy autonomy :
Square and simple. What is , isn't it a paradox in terms, and what does that even mean? Yeah, all that jazz. You can take a mathematical angle, invent new game-theorical rules of the game, or just make up a story that even for a second lets us suspend our disbeliefs. Collective Autonomy Collective Autonomy Identity: :
What is identity in the digital space? Is it a mere reflection of what we are offline, or is it an augmented version of ourselves? Is there a “minimum viable tech stack” that can be combined to create verifiable individuals? This is an open prompt - feel free to take it from a technical or philosophical standpoint. And be provocative - we aim for non-trivial answers only on how digital technologies enable new forms of identity, personal expression and verification. Identity in the Digital Space : That’s an obvious one. How identity evolved over the centuries. Did we “mature” as a society? Did technology change what we are as individuals? Are humans different in their [self-awareness; proprioception; way to perceive others] or we did nothing but taking a long stroll from Stone Age to Technocracy? The History of Identity : we talk DAOs, distributed nations, on-chain agencies. But what are individuals within groups? Is collective intelligence a “flattening model” that blurs individuality within collectives, or it turns each individual actor into a needed, recognizable tile of the puzzle? And what is the threshold between individual and collective identity? This is a difficult one - new models, visual graphs, and brand-new, DAO-shaking processes are encouraged. Collective Identity : from Metaverses and NFTs, to basic PGP and SSIDs. How can an ID be as unstoppable, and uncensorable on one side, as it is credible, and reliable on the other? Please, be as geeky as needs be - use your tech-knowledge and understanding as an act of civil disobedience. On-chain Identities : This is our Sci-fi prompt. Tell us stories. Speculate on how identity will evolve in decentralized societies. On how they will impact individuality. For this prompt you can share your tech journal, tell us personal identity narratives, or even invent on-chain personas and breed them to NFT perpetual life. Whatever works. The Evolution of Identity in Decentralized Societies Selfsovereignty: :
What is -sovereignty? Why it matters? “ ” is already a long, difficult word per se - so why did we even feel the need to add the prefix “ ” there? This is all about the inalienable individuals’ right to privacy and selective disclosure. Give us self-sovereignty straight, or explore it in a specific context. The Essence of Self-Sovereignty self Sovereignty self- :
Provide real-world examples or case studies where self-sovereignty is effectively implemented. Can’t find any? Even better. Make one up, and let’s make it happen together. Self-Sovereignty in Action :
This is a big one. As the Anarchist proverb goes, . But what are the borders of this personal freedom? Should self-sovereignty self-enforce in decentralized social/community contracts? Or we should somehow “hardwire” a sort of collective ethos beforehand, into the decentralized smart contracts that will govern us all? Balancing Self-Sovereignty and Collective Responsibility one can only be free if everyone else is free :
Think of DeFi credit score, think of UBI. Is a self-sovereign, verifiable ID enough to automate the individual and collective distribution of wealth? Or we still need/want/expect “watchmen” to supervise that all goes smooth - and to potentially deem liable if something goes wrong? Self-Sovereignty in Financial Systems :
Should we really be limited by old-world concepts such as “1 person : 1 Identity/vote/seat”? Or meritocracy means that we should be able to enforce a self-sovereign right to multiplicity in the digital space, as long as we can handle our multifaceted selves? To Sybil or not to Sybil Open Prompts: : The old, best writing advise: write about what you know. From literature, to robotics, to the legal system - write about one of the contest topics in relation to a specific field you are deeply knowledgeable or passionate about. [#autonomy; #identity; #selfsovereignty] in [insert field] This is a quote that we like, from J.P. Proudhon. To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality. , - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon The General Idea of the Revolution Explore it in the key that you like, adherent to one of the three main themes. Or just use it as an inspiration and write about whatever you want :)

Write on Identity, Autonomy, or Self Sovereignty, Win From $9,000 

Let’s start with a simple experiment. I’ll tell you the equation that can get us to Net Zero. For free. I’m the savior of human civilization, and it’s extraordinarily simple. Stop Existing There. I can now retire on this monumental achievement and display of scientific, political, and economic prowess. Of course, I’m joking, but then again, I am not. The very simple act of reading this passage so far has contributed to the problems we face, but you can’t ‘offset’ this by simply planting a tree sapling or buying a “carbon credit” from a website that didn’t exist last month to fund a green project that either doesn’t exist or cannot prove any positive environmental impact. The system is rigged after all. Now, before you go off half-cocked and claim I am a denialist, be assured that I am nothing of the sort. ; you’ll understand the thought process behind all of this c̶y̶n̶i̶c̶i̶s̶m̶ realism. Go read Part 1 Let’s start with the latest COP itself. We’re to believe that suddenly and without provocation, over 200 leaders of the world decided to unilaterally phase out fossil fuels by 2050? We’re to believe that 200+ people sitting around a 10-course dinner who flew over on private jets managed to agree to phase out fossil fuel when they know full well they’d go to war with each other if one insulted their god or grandmother at the drop of a hat? And then there’s the argument that we shouldn’t call it “phase out” because that’s quite scary to some people, so we should find another softer term, like “phase down” instead, because that way, we can get away with not meeting a target because we’re just rounding down another accounting error on the balance sheet not removing it entirely. Remember — by 2050, not one of them will still be around to take accountability for the false promises they’ve made, so words come as easy as the money sitting in a Cayman Islands account to them. It’s also worth noting some of the phrasings of this historic climate kumbaya. You have to remember that the President of COP himself has openly admitted that he does not believe in the science. Now, context is useful here because he too was also discussing why phase-out is not a scientific goal — — we can just bring our oil and so we have Get-Out Clause #1 projections and consumption down but we don’t need to turn off the tap completely. The president of Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber, has claimed there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting revealed earlier this month. Al Jaber also said a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves.” It’s funny because he’s actually speaking the truth here. Civilization and the world of capitalism aren’t prepared for the changes needed in how society functions. It’s not just fossil fuels and the evil internal combustion engine that has to go; we’ve got to find replacements for pretty much everything else that the byproducts and derivatives of oil are used in — from the 99% of plastic that’s saturating the oceans and in our bloodstream, the tens of “bags for life” you’ve collected this year from the supermarket that are sitting in your kitchen, the plastic that covers the interior of the cheap EV you bought from China because EVs will save the planet, and the plastic parts in every item around your house….the list is endless. But it’s always only about cars. Because cars are easier to paint as ‘bad’ for the environment. You can’t stage a Just Stop Oil protest outside a shop selling toasters after all. Let’s not forget that the road you drove along today in your Audi TDI, potholes and all, especially in the UK, was made from crude oil. Or the crap you coated the top of the roof of your fucking shed with so your precious garden tools wouldn’t get wet and rust. — “in keeping with the science” — and so, the scientists once more will be vilified by the press and public and averting blame from the politicians because it was them who got the science wrong innit. And if we can’t trust the science to get it right, then why should we bother in the first place? And then we have Get-Out Clause #2 And the thing is, we can’t trust the science because there’s no supercomputer in the world that can accurately model what is going to happen. And it will happen. It’s happening now. We are in the middle of a climate shift of our own making but no amount of phasing out or phasing down is going to make a blind bit of difference because the whole concept around Net Zero is a fundamental lie. It defies even the most basic laws of physics. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction — ergo, for everything you do, you are impacting the world around you; no matter how small, and it all adds up. Even if you were the most altruistic and giving person on Earth, the very act of making a decision costs in an unending chain of events you have no control over. What’s worse is that all these initiatives take fuck all account of the livelihoods of everyone on the planet in their various emotional, personal, and financial states; something no climate scientist or supercomputer really understands or would be expected to. They’re only interested in modeling and simulating climatological impacts and effects over the next century. They don’t care about the millions of families with absolutely no choice but to make the same decisions every day because they live in poverty and cannot afford to make the right choices. They live day by day, quite literally in some cases, but they’re being asked to change because they must think about the next 50 years instead. And think about the 50 million other people around them. The idea of Net Zero is as offensive as Carbon Offsetting, that Excel spreadsheet exercise claiming that the billion tonnes of CO2 you output last year in the UK can be written down by planting trees in Jamaica. That’s not how the fucking planet works. The people we are supposed to believe know what is happening overestimate the impact and underestimate the apathy to take action in the first place. I’m not saying don’t bother; I’m saying be realistic because there are planetary-scale forces at work that we still don’t understand. If we can’t predict the weather, you’re telling me we can predict climate change that consists of thousands of unpredictable patterns, plus events like volcanic eruptions and pandemics, a potential atomic explosion or another reactor meltdown in the next 30 years, and so on and so on? Now, go back and read Part 1 again. Go on. Our hubris is our downfall. Do you honestly believe that (1) small changes will amount to anything when every single action in a single second of every single day by every single human being that has a knock-on effect and climate impact can reach this imaginary and civilization-saving threshold called Net Zero, and/or (2) there will be some magical technological breakthrough like skyscraper-sized carbon scrubbers or artificial intelligence to usher in a last-minute Hail Mary and save the climate and human race from extinction, and/or (3) we harness the power of the sun and give away free energy for everyone. Do you hear yourself when you read these words back and how foolish it all sounds? For a start, any technological solution will have its own impact on the climate; the resources have to come from somewhere after all. The idea of having massive carbon scrubbers that suck meager amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere to turn into another type of fuel that contributes back to climate change, only to have been made from materials and effort that negates the value of its existence in the first place is something that is constantly overlooked. And let’s tackle (2) here because there’s an awful lot of bullshit being peddled that AI will solve this and create abundance for all. No. No, it won’t. An AI does not solve the problems of capitalism or an ever-growing species that continues to consume resources faster than the planet can replenish. Not only consume but continue to demand the superfluous and frivolous because we want to be distracted from the truths. These supercharged chatbots won’t solve global inequality, increase food production, or find miraculous ways to generate free energy because if they could, and we all had access to it, then why would we bother with the society we’ve built? That’s a step change too far, and those 200-odd folks living it up at COP are not going to want that for you. In Star Trek, society thrives in a post-capitalist, post-scarcity world driven by a magical MacGuffin called The Replicator. In The Orville, it’s the same thing. Human civilization peaks when we finally figure out how to make shit from nothing. But it’s not going to happen; there are no brightly colored food cubes for you or a hot Earl Grey on command. It’s more likely you’ll be fed Soylent Green at the local food bank and wonder why you’ve not seen your neighbor for over a week…but according to some of the biggest names in venture capital and pop-culture futurists, AI will make this a reality. We will have money for all, medicare for all, want for nothing, and the robots will seize the means of production and do everything for us. We will become a renaissance society, a protopian or utopian future driven by art and humanity and creativity and striving to better ourselves. But we won’t. Because that’s not how humans operate. The ability to have whatever we want will fuel the desire to possess whatever we want and quell the desire to strive for anything. Without a struggle or a challenge, we’ll grow ever more hungry for whatever someone else managed to create from nothing and seek to own it too. A never-ending cycle of needs and wants in a capitalist society is replaced by an unending cycle of wanting more in a post-scarcity society. The idea that ‘life owes me a living’ will become an exponentially louder cry for help that becomes ‘living owes me a life.’ And the capitalists will welcome you back with open arms. Now, add to this the current impacts of climate change, which are happening around us as we speak, and add those already infinite wants and needs, and things are going to get as heated as the planet is when swathes of people start trying to migrate to better corners of the world that won’t be hit as hard. Because climate change doesn’t care about your fucking society, or religion, or political leanings. It will continue to do what it’s doing now regardless — which is changing because we will continue to do what we’re doing now regardless — which is impacting it. I’d go as far as saying that post-scarce societies are the last thing we need right now. The first step is a post-status society, one where we’re not driven to level up material consumption because Janice has a better SUV and OLED TV than you do, or the man in the advert told you that having a 5.0 V8 to drive to and from the school 400 yards away from your whopping 6-bed house for a family of 3 was the ultimate expression of manhood. When Steve Jobs uttered ‘just one more thing’ at the end of every Apple keynote, or when Columbo said the same as he questioned the suspect he knew committed the murder, they may as well have been talking about our inbred push to achieve status. Status will be the undoing of UBI, that other silver bullet-tipped panacea to solve all of our societal woes on top of artificial intelligence. There isn’t a money printer going brrrrr big enough to take on that challenge, and then, when the middle managers find out that the bottom of society has a foot on the ladder they worked so hard to climb, they’ll be pissed off. And when that UBI doesn’t stretch to support the middle management lifestyle they've built by stepping on the lower runged, they’ll be even more pissed off. That poor money printer will be working so hard it’ll eventually contribute more CO2 than the fucking human race it’s meant to support. And let’s not get onto the possibilities of a Personal Carbon Tax; this is not a joke. It’ll happen. It’ll be included in your medical bills, your food shopping, and higher rates applied if you still drive an ICE….it won’t be just a monthly tax on your salary; it’ll be across everything you do. You’ll probably have some kind of digital tracker applied to payments so the Government can get a sense of how obedient or reckless you are with our precious atmosphere. The rich will enjoy their continued existence, but the poor will not. Sound familiar? There is no utopian vision coming. No Star Trek MacGuffin to save the day and the human race. It doesn’t matter if COP succeeds in this latest version of an ever-changing mission statement — one that will be rewritten next year when a new bunch of leaders sit at the table anyway — or if the next one does or the next. There is no, “Oh but if we all make small changes, it will help us get to Net Zero” because there is no such thing; you cannot switch off the impact and attitudes of 8 billion people living on this planet without switching off the people. And so we’re back to the start and our little thought experiment. You can either stop existing, or you can start living with the knowledge that we are a civilization living on the brink of an environmental collapse, and there are forces in motion that we will not prevent from cycling to its next inevitable conclusion. The best we can do is prepare for it. Also published here

Climate Change: There Is Nothing You Can Do About It - Part 2

Idris stirred and awoke; alas! she awoke to misery.

I lived far from the busy haunts of men, and the rumour of wars or political changes

Our Humble Helpers: Familiar Talks on the Domestic Animals by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . INCUBATION CHAPTER VI.  INCUBATION Incubator “Incubation means lying upon. The brooding bird does in fact crouch or lie upon her eggs, warming them with the heat of her body for a number of days with indefatigable patience. When a hen wishes to set, she makes it known by her repeated cluckings, little cries of maternal anxiety, by her ruffled feathers, her restless movements, and particularly by the perseverance with which she stays on the nest, even when it has no eggs, where she has been in the habit of laying. 1 “Some hens with wandering dispositions go back to the instincts of their wild race. They leave the hen-house and seek a hedge or thicket, where they select a hiding-place to suit them, and there make a little hollow in the earth which they line as well as they can with a mattress of dry grass, leaves, and feathers. That is a nest in the rough, without art, a shapeless construction in comparison with the clever masterpiece of the chaffinch and goldfinch. It is, furthermore, worthy of remark that all the domestic birds, as if man’s intervention had destroyed their skill by freeing them from want, fail to display in the construction of their nests the admirable resourcefulness shown by most wild birds. Here might be repeated the saying, as true for man as for beast, necessity is the mother of invention. Sure of finding, when the time comes for laying, the basket stuffed with hay by the hand of the housewife, the domestic fowl does not trouble herself to build a nest, an undertaking in which the tiniest bird of the fields shows itself a consummate architect. At the most, when her adventurous disposition makes her prefer the perilous shelter of the hedge to the safe retreat of the poultry-yard, the hen, gleaning with her beak a few straws and leaves, and plucking, if need be, some of her own feathers, succeeds in making, for her period of brooding, a disordered heap rather than a nest. There, every day, unknown to all, she goes and lays her egg. Then for three whole weeks she is not to be seen, or only at intervals. That is the time of incubation. At last, some fine day, she reappears, very proud, at the head of a family of young chickens, peeping and pecking around her.” “I should like,” said Emile, “to have some hens that set like that in the fields and then come home again some day with their family of little chickens.” “I must admit it is a sight worthy of interest, that of a hen that has stolen her nest returning to the farmhouse at the head of her newly hatched young chickens. Her eyes shine with satisfaction; her clucking has something joyful about it. ‘Look,’ she seems to say to those who welcome her, ‘see how [ ]fine, alert, and vigorous these young chickens are; they are all mine; I raised them there all alone in a corner of the hedge, and now I bring them to you. Am I not a fine hen?’ Yes, my dear biddy, you are a fine hen, but also an imprudent one. In the fields prowl the weasel and the marten which, if you are absent a moment, will suck the blood of your little ones; in the fields the fox is watching to wring your neck; in the fields there are cold, rain, bad weather, grave peril for your shivering family. You would do better to remain at home. 46 “The greater number follow this prudent advice and do not leave the poultry-yard. In the semi-obscurity of a sheltered quiet corner is placed the egg-basket, lined with a bed of hay or of crumpled straw. In it are put from twelve to fifteen eggs, the largest and freshest being chosen, and preferably those not more than a week old. If they were two or three weeks old they would not be sure to hatch, as in many of them the germ would have become too old and would have lost the power to develop. These arrangements made, the eggs are left to the setting hen without being touched again. “Whoever has not seen a setting hen has missed one of the most touching sights in this world: the devotion of the mother-bird to her eggs, her self-forgetfulness even to the point of sacrificing her own life. Her eyes shine with fever, her skin burns. Eating and drinking are forgotten, and in order not to leave her eggs a moment a hen might even let herself die of hunger on the nest if some one did not [ ]come every day and gently take her off and make her eat. Others, less persevering, leave the basket of their own accord, snatch up a little food, and immediately go back to the nest.” 47 “Do hens keep up that tiresome setting very long?” asked Emile. “It takes twenty or twenty-one days for the young chickens to come out of the shell. During the whole of that time, night and day, the mother remains squatting on the eggs, except for the rare moments that she spares, as if grudgingly, for the necessities of nourishment. Her only distraction in this complete retirement is to turn the eggs over every twenty-four hours and change their place, moving those outside into the center, and vice versa, so that all may have an equal share of heat. That is a delicate operation, and it must be left to the hen’s care to move the eggs with her beak. Let us be careful not to interfere with our clumsy hands, for the bird knows better than we how to manage it.” “If the hen is so careful to move the eggs every day and give them all the same amount of heat,” said Jules, “it must be heat alone that makes them hatch?” “Yes, my friend, simply the heat of the mother makes the eggs hatch. That is why the hen can be dispensed with and the eggs hatched by artificial heat, provided it be well regulated, gentle, and continued for a long time without interruption. The Egyptians, an ancient people of great skill, practised this method thousands of years ago. They put the [ ]eggs by hundreds of dozens into a sort of oven gently heated for three weeks, the period of natural incubation. At the end of that time the peepings of the countless brood did not fail to announce the success of the operation.” 48 “What a big family that oven-hatched brood must have been!” exclaimed Emile. “It would have taken a hundred hens to set on all the eggs, but in this way they were all hatched at once.” “A setting hen ceases to lay, and it was doubtless in order not to interrupt the beneficent daily production of eggs that the Egyptians invented artificial incubation in an oven. For the same reason sometimes with us recourse is had to this means, especially where the raising of poultry is made a business; only the incubation is no longer carried out in an oven but in ingeniously contrived incubators. In a drawer, on a bed of hay, the eggs are placed in a single layer. Above, and separated from the brooder by a sheet-iron partition, is a bed of water, which a lamp, kept always alight, warms and maintains at the temperature that the hen’s body would give; that is to say, forty degrees centigrade. In twenty-one days under this warm ceiling the eggs hatch just as they would under the hen.” “Oh, Uncle,” cried Emile, “I should really like to have an incubator like that in a corner of my room and watch the progress of the hatching every day by opening the drawer.” “What you would like to do, others, more skilful, have already done, not only opening the drawer but [ ]breaking an egg each day so as to see how things are going. I told you that the germ of the bird is a round spot of dull white, the cicatricle, which by its mobility is always on top at the surface of the yolk, no matter what the position of the egg. After five or six hours of incubation you can already distinguish in the center of the cicatricle a minute glairy swelling which will be the head, and a line which will be the backbone. Pretty soon there begins to beat, at regular intervals, the organ most necessary to life, the heart, which chases through a network of fine veins the blood formed, little by little, out of the substance of the yolk, and distributes it everywhere to furnish materials to the other organs just coming into being. It is toward the second day that these first heart-beats, destined to continue henceforth until death, become apparent. Thus irrigated with running flesh—for blood is nothing else—this organism thenceforward makes rapid progress. The eyes show themselves and form a large black spot on each side of the head; the quills of the large feathers form in their sheaths; the scales of the feet are outlined in a bluish tint; the bones, at first gelatinous, acquire firmness by becoming incrusted with a small quantity of stony matter. [ ]From the tenth day all the parts of the young chicken are well formed. The little being, softly suspended in its hammock by means of the two suspending cords that untwist little by little to give more room as it grows, is bent over on itself, the head folded against the breast and hidden under its wing. Note, my friends, that it is precisely this attitude of deep sleep inside the egg that the hen assumes when she wants to sleep. Crouched on her perch, she again folds her head on her breast and tucks it under her wing, just as she did when she was a little chicken in its shell. 49 50 “In the meantime the little bird keeps growing on the yellow and white matter; matter which soaks and penetrates it and, vivified by the air, becomes its blood and its flesh. One day it breaks the thin membrane under the shell, and there it is more at ease with the increase of space given it by the air-chamber. Now an attentive ear can distinguish feeble peepings inside the shell; it is the seventeenth or eighteenth day. A couple of days more, and the young chicken, summoning all its strength, will apply itself to the arduous work of deliverance. A pointed callosity, made expressly for the purpose, has formed on the upper part of the tip-end of the beak. Here is the tool, the pick, for opening its prison; a tool for that particular purpose and of very short duration, which will disappear as soon as the shell is pierced. With this provisional pick, the little chicken begins to hammer the shell; perseveringly it pushes, strikes, scratches, until the stone [ ]wall yields. For the most vigorous it takes several hours. Oh, joy! the shell is broken; there is the young chicken’s little head, and all yellow velvety down, and still wet with the moisture of the egg. The mother comes to its aid and completes its deliverance; others, weaker or less skilful, take twenty-four hours of painful effort to free themselves. Some even exhaust themselves in the undertaking and perish miserably in the egg without succeeding in breaking the shell.” 51 “Those are the very ones the mother ought to help,” said Jules. “She would be careful not to, for fear of a worse accident than a difficult birth. How could she direct her blows accurately enough not to wound the tender little chicken just inside the shell? The slightest false move would cause a wound, and at so tender an age any wound is death. We ourselves, with all the dexterity and care possible, could not, without danger, help the bird in distress; it can be tried as a last resort, but the chance of success is very small. The young chicken is the only one capable of carrying through this delicate deliverance if strength does not fail it. The hen knows this wonderfully well, and so does not interfere except to finish freeing the prisoner when half out of its shell. Let us hope that things will turn out as we wish, and that on the twenty-first day the whole family may be warmed under the mother’s wings without mortal accident at the moment of hatching. “From the instant of leaving the shell the young [ ]chickens already know how to peck food and how to run around the mother who, clucking, leads the way. They have besides a little fur of downy hair that clothes them warmly. This development is not found in all birds; far from it. Pigeons, for example, come naked from the egg and do not know how to eat; the father and mother have to feed them by disgorging a mouthful of food into their beaks. The young of the warbler, chaffinch, goldfinch, tomtit, lark, in fact of nearly all the field birds, are naked, very weak, at first blind, and completely incapable of feeding themselves, even with the food just under their beaks. The parents, with infinite tenderness, have for a number of days to bring it to them and put it into their beaks.” 52 “That is a difference that has always struck me,” commented Jules. “Little sparrows open their mouths wide to receive the food offered them, but for a long time they do not know how to take it even if it is put at the very end of their beak. On the contrary, little chickens easily pick up from the ground for themselves the seeds and worms that the mother digs up for them.” “I will tell you, if you do not already know,” continued Uncle Paul, “that the young of the duck, turkey, goose, and, among wild birds, the partridge and quail, have the same precocity as those of the hen. They are clothed with down on coming out of the egg, and know how to eat. One of the causes of this difference in the way young birds act immediately after [ ]hatching comes from the size of the egg. The chick is formed wholly from the substances contained in the egg; the larger the egg in proportion to the size of the animal, the stronger and more developed the young. Therefore the kind with the largest eggs are clothed at the time of hatching; they can run and know how to eat, unaided. Where the eggs are relatively small the young are hatched weak, naked, blind, and for a long time, motionless in their nest, demand the mother’s beakful of food. 53 “The largest egg known is that of an enormous bird that formerly lived in the island of Madagascar, and of which the species appears to-day to have been completely destroyed. This bird is called the epyornis. It was three or four meters tall and thus rivaled in stature a very long-legged horse or, better still, the animal called a giraffe. Such birds ought to lay monstrous eggs; such in fact they are; their length is three decimeters and a half and their capacity nearly nine liters.” “Nine liters!” exclaimed Emile. “Oh, what an egg! Our large vinegar jug only holds ten liters. Certainly the young that come from that ought to know how to run and to eat.” “To equal in bulk the egg of the epyornis it would take one hundred and forty-eight hen’s eggs.” “I think they could make a famous omelet with only one of those eggs.” “A fine large one could be made, too, with an ostrich-egg, which in size represents nearly two dozen [ ]hen’s eggs. It need not be added that young ostriches know how to run and to eat as soon as they come out of the shell. 54 “Those are the largest eggs; now let us consider the smallest ones. They are those of the humming-bird, a charming creature whose splendid plumage would outshine the most brilliant costly metals, precious stones, and jewels. There are some as small as our large wasps and that certain spiders catch in their webs just as the spiders of our country catch gnats. Their nest is a cup of cotton no bigger than half an apricot. Judge then the size of the eggs. It would take three hundred and forty to make one hen’s egg, and fifty thousand to make one laid by the epyornis.” “I imagine the little humming-birds in their nest must be all naked at first and blind, taking their food from their mother’s beak.” “From the smallness of the egg it could not be otherwise.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jean-Henri Fabre (2022). Our Humble Helpers: Familiar Talks on the Domestic Animals. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67073/pg67073-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

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