The Slop-Free Shindig: Solidarity & Education on Transitioning from Big Tech to Humane Tech

🖐️ “Portlanders who care about human-made goods, services, & communities” 🫶

Calling all PNW humans! 🌲

The Slop-Free Shindig will be is an on-going series of fun, lively gatherings to build solidarity as artisans & business owners who desire to resist the megacorp onslaught of Generative AI & Data Centers. It is also the launchpad of (affordable!) paid educational workshops to learn how to wean ourselves off of Big Tech tools and switch to creator-focused ethical alternatives.

Our goal isn’t to be overtly activist—though some of us certainly are—but to inform & inspire, as well as critique the status-quo narratives being handed to us by Big AI. If you’ve been told to embrace the slop machines or get “left behind”, if you’ve been promised that genAI services aren’t bad for the environment (or human cognition), if you’ve been fed the line that this will be as big as the “industrial revolution” and the genie is out of the bottle…well, we’re here to challenge those thought-terminating clichés.

Peaceful “neo-Luddite” movements are sprouting all over the country, and everyday people are expressing their wishes for a healthier future grounded in lived human experience and ensuring tech exists to serve local & often marginalized communities—rather than perpetuate supremacist systems. We want to acknowledge the harms of late-stage capitalism, and seek ways to move past that by prioritizing technologies borne from collaboration & collectivism.

We’re looking to host our first community gathering in late August 2026, as well as schedule the first educational “ethical tech” workshop in early September. If you’re interested in participating in either or both, hop aboard!

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What’s Signal? Signal is a secure, encrypted private chat app created by the 501c3 nonprofit also called Signal. It is available on all computing & mobile platforms, and it’s absolutely fantastic! (It’s also totally free AND has no ads or trackers of any kind!)

We’re also available on the open social web (the “fediverse”) via our Mastodon profile:
@slopfreeshindig@pdx.social

Who’s Running This?

Howdy! 👋😃 I’m Jared. As a life-long software engineer & online publisher, my mission is to bring my copious years of experience fighting Big Tech (and uncovering worthy alternatives) to the city I’ve been proud to call home for nearly a decade.

I’ve been building & publishing on the web for over two decades. ’Tis true! And I’m used to seeing the rise and fall of many different platforms. Big Tech wants you hooked on their systems and laundering their talking points, paying them like the techno drug dealers they are.

I believe we should put our heads together and find ways to utilize our incredible variety of skills to elevate our local communities and collectively strengthen our ethics-minded businesses. What do you think? Sound like a plan?