Hello everyone!
To those of you who are new to Flux, welcome to Junto’s weekly newsletter! This is a channel for our team and community to share updates/important info as well as relevant content surrounding the intersection of humans, culture and technology.
This week, we’ll be taking a break from updates (although things are chugging along swimmingly). Today’s Flux issue will feature an essay piece from one of our community members, Andrew Sokulski. Check it out below!
What’s new
#JoinTheConversation
We’ve decided to open up our “Junto Pack” public chat channel to individuals who would like to participate on a more casual basis. If you are interested in following these conversations, getting to know the team/community, sharing your ideas or collaborating, fill out this survey and we’ll add you to the channel.
#JuntoIndiegogo
Due to a stream of requests, we’ve extended our crowdfunding campaign to Indiegogo InDemand. Check it out here!
#CreateWithUs
We’re looking for two engineers to join us. Below is a description of what we’re about and who we’re looking for. If you want to help bring this to life or know someone who might be a good fit, don’t hesitate to reach out at eric@junto.foundation. https://junto.substack.com/p/flux-13-create-with-us
#SustainableSuccess
We are happy to share our partnership with Sustainable Success, the longest running highest quality event for conscious entrepreneurs. This event attracts a diverse community of conscious business owners, holistic practitioners, social activists, creatives and leaders. It’s back in NYC on April 7th for a full day of networking meets classroom meets healing experience.
Use code JUNTO for $10 off.
Junto: Bringing the Fluid and Natural to Life
A guest feature piece by Andrew Sokluski
Junto promises to connect the light of the moon to all of the howling wolves. Through that one connection, all of the wolves will then become acquainted with each other. What was once one moon, with dislocated sounds from individual wolves, has suddenly become a community of united sounds and a common source of brightness. Through its pack-and-den system, people can cuddle up with their mates in the cave, or voyage as a lone wolf through the forest whenever they so desire. Due to its partnership with Holochain, Junto vows not to have access and thus not use the personal information of its users. Junto bases community on learning from each other instead of differentiating each person from one another. Junto is a community of people uniting and communicating; not a gathering of individuals who sit in silence despite sharing the same space. Without advertisements, for once users will be able to take a vacation away from the ‘economic market’ and not feel as if they are a consumer being targeted eternally. It truly is a social program meant to foster constructive, intriguing, and most importantly fun dialogue. It is not intended to create a space where people can sign up to compete on terms of online identities. No one has to put on a mask to enter the room, just come as you are.
To give some historical context, until Junto was brought into the world, the online web has been full of programs that prove to be social. What was once supposed to be a program that gave Harvard students a quick and efficient method through which to identify fellow classmates ‘faces’, suddenly became much more wide-spread, lost connection, and eventually came to symbolize its namesake word for word. It became a book of faces. In other words, it turned into a ‘facebook’. Another form of popular social media has been twitter. Primarily based on spreading rapid information through a minimal amount of words, what is naturally a small bird’s cutesy melody, suddenly transformed into a brisk blurb written by humans in technological space. It seemed to become as singularly echoing and non-persistent as an automatic conductor announcement saying that the doors are closing. People began ‘following’ news sources they frequently read and/or listened to. Then people began ‘following’ their friends. What was at one time a tweet speaking of highly controversial debates and political meetings between leaders, turned into how a friends day went from sunny to cloudy and then rainy. Or, at other times, tweets about how inconsequential the day was. People began debating with each other about what sources and who they ‘followed’ on twitter and what they ‘re-tweeted’. A formerly beautiful song of nature became a method through which words of harm and condemnation were spewed. Twitter has lost some of its users, yet still retains others. But it still has made a cacophony out of what could have been a well-tuned tune. Lastly out of the creations, is Instagram. A platform for both individuals and businesses, Instagram has given people the room for creativity. Some people post artwork, others poetry, and yet others pictures of scenery, food, themselves, or a mix of everything. As has happened on Facebook, and Twitter, fake accounts have been created where people post inappropriate content and sometimes solely seek to hack others. Also, some people have become what has been termed as ‘influencers’. Essentially, people whose profiles have so many ‘followers’ that it has been deemed that whatever they posts ‘influences’ the Instagram community to a large extent. Though it is great that people gain ‘inspiration’ from these people, others feel they must compete with them in order to gain more ‘followers’, Additionally, some people aim to one day become ‘influencers’. In so doing, they try to post content ‘worthy’ of people's’ attention.
What is genuine soon gets discarded in return for what is sought after by ‘most people’. In an app and era that has been believed to be powered on the importance of ‘uniqueness’ people seem to be aiming for the same goal, yet in a most vicious and non-communal manner. If it is too different from the norm, it will not be liked. So I ask, what did that urge to be unique end up producing other than more normalcy?
Junto embraces the free-flowing nature of life. Rivers flow. Certainly, droughts may come, water may evaporate, winter may freeze the water over. However, no matter what, it always flows. It never decidedly stops or goes in another direction. Anything that stops it, is against its natural current. Junto definitely does not desire to stop the natural flows. It is trying to take off the dams blocking our own rivers now. Once on Junto, one will feel the freedom to socialize without being advertised to, without being in fear of their information being sold, without any worries. Sign up for Junto, and sign up for more fluidity in a world desiring to be as natural as a wolf’s howl toward our shared moon.
sokua610@newschool.edu
#WeeklyResonations
Here’s what our team found valuable this week:
From Dora:
A fantastic art installation, a live streamed “portrait” of Mother Earth, went on display on March 13 at 159 Ludlow St, NYC. I went to see it yesterday and it truly delivers a mild version of the “overview effect” that astronauts experience when looking at Earth from space: boundaries disappear and all that remains is a sense of ‘awe’. The piece is called Blu Marble. Imagined by ErraZuriz, Powered by Blu.
From Drea:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit
This week, I discovered jackfruit. Things are different now.
From Yaz:
SPRING HAS SPRUNG. Happy to be seeing more sun these days =]
We want your feedback.
Like what you see? Share it! Think we can be doing things better? Let us know. We’re open to ideas so DM us at hi@junto.foundation or drop any of the team members a note at their individual emails listed on our website here.