We’re far from Luddite at the Alternative Global. Technology seems to us like a natural extension of human faculties, although we are certainly in a place - with AI, energy, bioengineering - where its powers to transform nature, and ourselves, is enormous and increasing.

That technology should be shaped by more voices and forces than the usual white male power structures seems to us urgent - given the precipices we tremble over. Much more diverse input into radical technologies is required.

So we’re delighted to find Mobius, a consulting and funding network whose aim is precisely to be (from the front page):

A home for people creating Liberatory Technology products, systems, and narratives.

Our mission is to offer our community the relational, intellectual, spiritual, and financial resources to unlock bold, paradigm-shifting projects that foster liberation and thriving for all.

We prioritize Black, Latinx, Indigenous, queer people, and youth who have lived experiences of the violence, inequity, oppression, and trauma that is too often perpetuated and exacerbated by technology.

Their structure is below -

— but it may be worth investigating their model of “liberatory technology” first:

What if…

Instead of perpetuating racial harm, technology enables co-liberation and repair.

Instead of fueling a mental health crisis, technology supports the thriving of youth and future generations.

Instead of driving polarization, dehumanization, and violence, technology heals and returns us to our wholeness.

Instead of widening income inequality, technology enables equitable access to life-affirming resources.

Liberatory Technology (n):Technology that enables all people and communities to embody and obtain freedom, thriving, and greater access to our aliveness.

This blog tells the history of Mobius - beginning as a group emerging from the Obama office, advising the executive leadership of tech corporates like Apple, Facebook, Amazon Alexa, YouTube, and TikTok. Yet that experience left them with four lessons:

Working to shift Big Tech is unlikely to move beyond harm reduction. I began to feel that, while we were aspiring to support radical systems change, we were actually putting bandaids on a hemorrhaging body. We could not change the underlying incentives, norms, cultures, and structural inequities that give rise to so many of the harms of tech: business models that prey on psychological and emotional vulnerabilities and fuel violence, polarization and a crisis of mental health, extraction of data for the purpose of surveillance and profit maximization, lack of access to quality tech jobs, investment capital, and digital infrastructure, to name a few.
While mitigating the harms created by the existing system is necessary work, I no longer believe it will create the fundamental transformation we long for and need. I saw repeatedly that, despite the best intentions, there is an unwillingness to make the tradeoffs needed to value our individual and collective wellbeing over the fastest route to a profit. And we will continue to suffer greatly because of it, in particular if we fail to lift up, resource, and unlock alternatives.
These times call for unprecedented transformation from systems that perpetuate oppression and extraction to systems that are rooted in love, justice, and spirit. This transformation, and our collective liberation and thriving, depend on a new paradigm for technology. They depend on solutions and visions that come from outside the dominant tech ecosystem, while not alienating those who are working to shift the status quo from the inside.
Despite what I felt we stood for, Mobius’ work was propping up toxic, oppressive power structures and systems. I began to see that where I was placing resources and attention was out of alignment with my values and deeper understanding of what the world needs. Instead of focusing on the current centers of power, I wanted our work to shift power, attention, and resources towards women, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, queer and youth voices who have lived experiences of the violence, inequity, oppression, and trauma that is perpetuated or exacerbated by technology.
We could not and should not do this work as an all white leadership team. We were three white women committed to shifting power, attention, and resources towards people of color who are working to transform the tech sector. We were not in integrity with this commitment until we created the same shift inside of Mobius, nor could we do it in a way that reflected the lived experience of the people we hoped to support.
Building a multiracial team needed to be our highest priority, which would mean resisting white, patriarchal, and capitalist culture by pressing pause on external programs in order to expand and reconfigure our team, move at the speed of trust, and rebuild Mobius with spaciousness and care.

Their new strategy “weaves together community, narrative change, and the articulation of new “tech foundations” (underlying frameworks and values that give rise to Liberatory Technology). We are grounding this in a Liberatory Tech Fellowship that will launch in early 2023”. Watch for this space, and contact them here.

Liberatory technology "heals and returns us to our wholeness”and “enables equitable access to life-affirming resources", say Mobius

What if…