Talking about hope and dispair in tech

Q. A lot of evil stuff happens via the cyberweb, no doubt. But I would encourage anyone who still knows how it works not to give up on it. Instead, try to work around the BS and design systems which are resilient to adversaries. As conditions of life get harder and the oligarchy turns the screws we need channels of dissident communication, even if they are no longer mainstream ones. Even retro stuff may go under the radar.

A. This is a social tech problem, a #geekproblem and the solution is social tech that steps away from the #geekproblem we cant just keep doing the same #techshit it’s time for composting #indymediaback #OMN are example of this that are currently blocked.

Q. As far as I could understand from what you said, what would then be exactly the social related problem to solve ? Are you referring to the way spying agencies like the CIA that is dominating the hacktivist scene, are creating “trends” on how to be safe online, which have most of the time no true impact regarding the possibilities of such agencies to continue spying and having social control? So you mean it’s a matter of being good at creating counter propaganda to cancel

A. You are describing the problems, then adding a layer of self-destruction to the problem, that’s not helpful. The #openweb has been “destroyed” by some forces you name. But we have also played a role in destroying it ourselves in refection to the real problems you highlight. We have little power over the first and more power over the second. It’s hopeful to think about this #geekproblem

Q. The #openweb wasn’t destroyed exactly. If you look at the numbers of websites over time, the open web is still there, but what happened is that almost all of the attention got captured by a small number of enormous corporate sites. The corporate sites made themselves critical conduits for search and discovery of news and views, such that the notion of “web surfing” has become almost obsolete. Google search increasingly won’t show much of the open web, because it’s not within the targeted ads business model.

A. yes my point, the #openweb is under a thin veneer of corporate crap. The #fedivers is a tiny break out of this that seceded because it was “accidentally” anti #geekproblem we need to be hardcore anti #geekproblem is the is to be HOPE 🙂

Q. The success of the fediverse did have a very large element of luck to it. Before 2017 it was doing very badly, and I remember unsuccessfully trying to persuade people to try GNU Social instead of going on Facebook. Even people who hated Facebook were reluctant to try the fediverse. Also my interpretation is that ActivityPub was originally a corporate idea but that the corporates lost interest, leaving its development to a few remaining grassroots activists. If the corporates had stayed that ActivityPub would probably be something quite different.

A. Yep, gave me hope, though it’s failing now – we have to stop fucking up this grassroots tech. A start is #4opens talking about the #geekproblem and using these to start composting #techshit

Q. The fediverse isn’t failing as such, but is becoming an established technology and so is no longer shiny or something which a clueless tech journalist would want to breathlessly scribble about as a new phenomena. Like XMPP and other previous protocols it is getting into the “plateau of productivity” where it mostly “just works”. There are complaints about lack of spec development, and some of those are justified. But ActivityPub doesn’t need to do all the things, it only needs to do one job well – that of being a social network protocol.

A. yes, it’s not failing in its own terms. But it is not heading to success in the bigger picture of being a alt to the #dotcons I should know being involved for the last few years outreaching it to the #mainstreaming that understands it has a #closedweb problem. The #EU outreach is interesting in this and likely also going to fail in the wider mission. It’s hard to push #openweb in a era controlled by #stupidindividualism and capitalism/alt diesper.

Q. It depends on what the EU’s wider mission is, but I expect that it’s not really a grassroots type of mission anyway. Whatever the machinations or motives of the EU, we do need to maintain a viable space for people who actively don’t want to be stuck in the corporate hellscape. And we shouldn’t assume that the EU will continuously bankroll some projects.

A. At the #EU it’s a power politics fight between the need for #open in a organization that is all about #closed people know they need to change but are only brave to pretend to do this. Am interested if a little crack of #open might be enough to undermine the monolith. Problem is everyone is up for selling out #open to grab a bit of #closed so only weak #open PUSH is all we have, needs to be sharper and harder push. Think stake and vampire level of PUSH with a few blows of a mallet to drive the point home. #open has power over closed, just like light over darkness.

Real social change needs shared storys

Horizontal people are always getting fucked over by vertical people as the first gives away “power” to build social where the second “concentrates” power to use individual.

Horizontal only has social outcomes if the is a shared world view. It is easy to defeat if it has non #stupidindividualism

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Examples of shared world views are #4opens

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Vertical people will keep wining in till we have some shared world-view on the progressive/left and some examples of practical working alternatives for people to rally round #OMN

Stepping away from our tech mess – you need to compost it

It’s good that people try not to push pointless tech projects… And the majority of new tech projects are obviously pointless. To get an idea of what to push do a #4opens review and publish this, let’s build a community of useful tech together. We need to do better.

#techchurn has made so much #techshit over the last 10 years. There are piles of #mainstreaming and alt tech that needs to be composted to grow a more humane world. Focus on what we CAN change and what we do have directing (social) power over, our mess.

From a grassroots prospective, we don’t have alternatives as they have been devoured and turned into shit by #NGO #fashernistas and social #deathcult worshipping (40 years of neoliberalism)

Thus, your/our lack of motivation, in my lifetime there were meany anarchist/ecological/socialist alternatives which kinda worked in imperfect ways.

Let’s use federated #4opens tech to reboot these from before they were killed and eaten by this mess, and innovate om this.

#4opens #OMN #indymediaback

An example of the #geekproblem

Everything we do is built on “standards” though we do have a problem of the defining bodies.

Some people like building sandcastles, it is what you are doing if you just make shit up in tech.

Actually this is fantasy as ANYTHING you are already building is already on top of a whole pile of standards.

I think people are expressing tribalism and not talking tech in practical sense at all.

What do you think?

#openweb #4opens

“open industrial standards” nebulous and problematic things, but everything in tech is built on top of a pile of them, It’s where the value is.

Nationalism is a nablus thing as well, and its where the violence is.

Tribalism can be beautiful, it can also be a problem.

Some #dotcons are bigger than nations, so maybe it’s a good metaphor?

The geek “problem” is a 20th century dysfunctional part of a tribe that is damaging to us all, think #climatechaos think #failbook think #diaspora

Talking about real issues I have been fighting for 20 years… The #stupidindividualism that treats this as personal is what am sadly talking about much of the time.

Yes, it becomes a boring circle, but it’s always about the importance of the #geekproblem as a block on the change/challenge that we need #XR

I wrote this in 2005 what has changed:

“Its going slow but we are getting there… One of the main problems seams to be a dysfunctional idea of a division of labour – ie. Every one seams to think I should do everything – as I am pretty useless at many things its no wonder it is going so slow… If you wona see something miracles happen you gota wave year arms around a bit and mutter some arcane words… Go on you can do something… Just look at the blog page to see what”

Http://HamishCampbell.com

The first part is about democracy, the second part is hard politics, and is more nasty.

The #fedivers was booted up on grassroot #openweb passion and crowed funding, it was sustained in the early growth by crowed funding and expanded (in an often not helpful way) by #geekproblem passion. Over the last 2 years we have seen this shift sharply to “institutional” funding, some of this has been behind the seanes “think-tanks/academia” but over the last years the #EU though #NGI and more specifically #NGIzero have taken a central role in funding just about all fedivers #mainstreaming projects and much background technology.

In this, we have moved from meany 1000’s of people shaping the direction in a radically #4opens transparent way to handfuls of people controlling the levers of influence in a more opaque process. This is a clear and very obvues failing of #openweb governance, kinda normal and very obvuesly fail.

Now the wider #NGI project pour funding directly down the drain, which is a normal outcome so not an issue for us as the money is wasted anyway. #NGIzero are doing good, they are funding grassroots #openweb technology, so they are people we should work with.

How do we start to mediate this issue “In this we have moved from meany 1000’s of people shaping the direction in a transparent way to handfuls of people controlling the levers of influence in a more opaque process” And more importantly rebalance the #mainstreaming agenda that flows with this funding https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens/wiki/Funding-of-openweb-projects this second part is a BIG problem, this first part is about democracy, the second part is hard politics, and is more nasty.

How to fix the damage to the #openweb from the influx of #mainstreaming funding

The issue around funding and its impact on grassroots and radical projects. The balance between maintaining integrity and openness while navigating external funding is a difficult one. The #4opens provide a guiding framework, but the challenge remains to implement these in ways that avoid the corruption and failure which is normal for the #NGO funding models.

Running projects on minimal funding forces a degree of focus and prioritization that can be beneficial, but, it also comes with limitations. Trust-based models, like those from the direct action movement in the 1990s, show that alternative funding approaches can work, but they require strong social structures, trust, and transparency.

Finding ways to mediate this tension between the potential of funding and the risks it brings is key. What do people think of a more formalized version of those trust-based funding models, could they work today within the #openweb or #OMN?

We start with the assumption that 90-100% of funding on this subject is simply pored down the drain, most of it into pointless NGO projects and #fashernista individuals “careers”. The best #openweb funders I have found recently https://nlnet.nl/ who have money from NGI Zero which is from the EU

https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens/wiki/Funding-of-openweb-projects

To fix some of these issues:

* https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody/wiki/Online-governance- openweb tech from the perspective of a radical, grassroots, social technologist this is distilled into a codebase, as a “permissionless” roll-out of frameworks for social groups to form and see/govern themselves. https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody/wiki/Statements-of-support

* https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody/wiki/Statements-of-support Its easy to see that the #dotcons can not be fixed. The #fashionistas who keep flocking to new “ethical-ish” ones are a problem, not a solution. The #4opens are a simple way to judge the value of an “alt/grassroots” tech project. We need to bring this into our funding agenda.

* https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/Open-Media-Network/wiki Simple #OMN is a standards based political software framework to build #KISS and #4opens grassroots semantic web of trust links and flows. We do this by outlining a human understandable workflow and then building apps for real-world use. We are agnostic on the underling technology and programming as long as it is #4opens based.

Hope is a swift flow and the strong current that pushes change/challenge

Talking to the #EU crew

Hope is a swift left wing flow and the strong current that pushes change/challenge. Simple truth telling is a deep upwelling, the spring that feeds this fresh flow. We need to nurture truth and hope in every part of our society, both our tribalism and bureaucracy are part of this river, more important than ever in the era of #climatechaos we are fast moving into #XR

Bring simple truth to the surface, pure spring waters helps to nourish.

In the #fedivers and wider #openweb rivers, we have increasing inflows of funding from the traditional bureaucracy. This, on the one hand, is feeding the grassroots and on the other hand shaping to a more #mainstreaming river. We need to strive to have a better outcome from this, the tools they are funding are all open licence, we need to build into them that the more bureaucratic/closed agender can be switched on and off in all these funded projects. This is a simple solution we can work towards.

Conclusion

* All flows have value, we need this influx of funding to grow the #openweb and #fedivers if we are to do challenge/change, so use this opening to shape the influx of value and to shape these institutions that push this flow. See this as an opportune for activism, rather than something to be #blocked

* On our-side, we can nurture our tribalism to this “common” course with the #4opens and simple political statements like #PGA hallmarks.

* Our more theoretical friends can use their skills to resurrect the ideas that shaped past movements and feed these into the new movements.

How can we make our media better.

* Use the carrot and the stick, talk about balance rather than conflict.

* Bring the liberals in, but keep the basic #4opens #PGA strong and visible, everyone has a role in the era of #climatechaos so be hopeful and friendly.

* If the river is cool and fresh, the #mainstreaming and #fashernistas will soon jump and swim with this flow.

We live in creative times, let’s enjoy creativity.

The mess we need to step away from

#NGO crew are wannabe hierarchical who hide in plain site inside every grassroots movement, they push “common-sense” agenda to “tidy” the mess that is essential to horizontal organisation. If/when the NGO crew take “power” they slowly kill the organisations they “care” for. This has happened to just about every alt org I have been involved in for more than 30 years.

Now this is not black and white as you likely jump to understand, the horizontal people let them do this each time, so the better outcome is to balance this issue, not fight for one to the other in till all is sterile dust. The horizontal crew will stand by, being feed the #stupidindividualism of #mainstreaming culture, in meany cases their tribalism means that small alt groups flower and die without laying seeds in the ground. I have seen this meany times.

Link to type article ****

Conclusion.

* NEVER let the #NGO crew take the hiricical power that they strongly desire, don’t except there “common sense” be mad and bad on this one. I mean be really mad and bad to stop this crap.

* Keep the tribalism of the horizontal crew open to fresh flows, the #4opens helps with this, making people uncomfortable is needed at times.

* DO useful stuff, if people are only talking and not doing they have less voice, repeatedly give people a chance to DO in the end you might have to be quite rood to them about this, this is a normal outcome.

Q. who are the YOU, who are the people doing, who should be mad and bad, how to make people “uncomfortable” in a useful way, how can being rood be constructive?

Why is communication so bad in our media.

* The post-truth people are full of nastiness, as this is their only reaction to challenge/change.

* Our liberals are defensive as their ideas are pushing us to extinction, they tend to join the post-truth crew in reaction to challenge/change.

* The #fashernistas go with the flow of the above, if they even see the change/challenge they react in the same way.

We live in messy times.

Some questions answered on fediverse “governance”

An important word that needs some thought is “permissionless”

The body is made up of three different, balanced groups:

Stakeholders – the people who do the work, who run/mod the fediverse
Users – the people who use the tools/services, who use the fediverse
The Affiliate Stakeholders – the people who commit time to support the work of the fediverse

This is a very broken web we live in so let’s clarify issues. The names can change, they are placeholders

Anybody can become a stakeholder, in the case of the fediverse this is setting up and running an active instance – could use mastohost for the less technical to do this or a home hosted instance on a old laptop.

If’s simple if a user wont to become a stakeholder setup and mod an instance.

Users are self-explanatory, they buy in but don’t have time or focuses or inclination to run a part of the fedivers.

The Affiliate Stakeholders are a little more complex and are thus treated differently, it’s up to the body itself to decide if the play a active and useful role.

Nothing in this is top down, nothing is this elitist, nothing in this is discriminatory, nothing in this is undemocratic. Its #KISS and looks safe to the “normal world” while at the same time being native to the fediverse and its roots.

All the coding is #4opens and based on #activertypub

We need a grant to make this happen who is helping to write the grant app.

Undated text Online governance – openwebgovernancebody – Gitea: Open Media Network

The geekproblem – humanity’s and science

Coding projects that come from the humanity’s general fail as they are not technically coherent and build out from abstract ideas without real relevance to lived humanity, they are too disconnected to become relevant to communertys of use.

Coding from science tend to fail because they are inhuman, and are built for mashions. They serve abstract ideas based on numbers and thus can reach only tiny numbers of people and can build no outreach social groups of use being irrelevant to “real/normal” people.

Coding from life has a better chance of success BUT only if balanced with a science based discipline and some academic rigour of soiled social thinking

Let’s look at examples:

Knight News challenge was captured by academics and thus has produced a slew of irrelevant projects – the money and focus was poured down the drain.

Diaspora was a pure geekproblem project so found few humans to use it, the resources were poured down the drain.

Mastodon came from a computer scientist but is a human project based on an existing need/use with competent technical agender. It worked and outreached to normal-ish people. Mastodon for filled an existing human need. Thus has real social change/challenge action and potential – we should/need to learn from this.

What has worked for the fedivers to overcome the geekproblem is the copying of existing #dotcons as #openweb tools. This copying has mediated the gap between the humanities and the sciences by taking existing (bad) human technological relationships and building copy’s in the (good) openweb. In clear contrast peoples attempt to build both #geekproblem and academic #NGO tools has (obviously) failed in the fedivers.

We need to build out from this good/bad relationship and nurture the good and push down the bad – while avoiding the pointless ghettos of both geekproblem and academic dogma being pushed by captured funding agenders.

It’s an interesting challenge to have movement on/in. Current foundation funding agenders have been captured by academics on one side and the geekproblem on the other. Capital (#dotcons) funding agenders are dominating and pushing for aristocratic anti-humanistic outcomes and theological neo-liberal group think.

We need to step out of these #mainstreaming flows to push up the good and push down the bad. We are working to do this at the #OMN we’re trying to bring our lived experience (this is always were the value is) to rethink and re-emergence solutions to the old 4 estates thinking:

* The clergy – while being structurally irrelevant are still are at the core of the social condition – belief.

* The nobility – are a dangerous force for social destruction by control and play a bad role at every level, our #dotcons leaders are the new “nobility”.

* And the commoners – are all of us, we need to see this more, our best/worst governance is democratic – we need to embed this is all our social technology.

* The media – is the tools of social control and the path to social liberation we need to chose where we put our power and our intervention in media.

At the OMN we are practical working on the last two – while fighting for humanism is the first and fighting trench warfare agenst the second. In the end it’s a simple path made complex by the forces we are fighting agenst.

The answer is always #KISS the power is always human, the tools #4opens

#nothingnew an old story we are still working through https://theconversation.com/humanities-and-science-collaboration-isnt-well-understood-but-letting-off-steam-is-not-the-answer-92146 today, it’s a good stage to have this conversation in/about #openweb technology.

A conversation

The children of Thatcher and Reagan are limited in their world views – they have been brought up and nurtured in the neo-liberal #deathcult and have limited experience in the nurturing and socialisation of anything else. Academic and book learning are a poor substitute for evolving in a non #deathcult era, so it is no surprise that they find themselves trapped in the circle of #stupidindividualism

In this #deathcult era, individualism is stupid and individualism makes you stupid. This is a degrading circle that no “self-help” or “whoo spiritualism” can help you to escape.

This manifests like dark “social magic” in many areas:

In social movement we have the take-over of #fashernistas who push “alternatives” aside in their “commonsense” self-interest, building careers and grasping at the illusionists of fame and “influence” they are slaves to #mainstreaming

In tech the #geekproblem has pushed emancipation into darkness. The #encryptionists have dominated alt-tech and the #dotcons of the #mainstreaming path, both are born of this world view and the socialisation that keeps it from sight.

The mainstream is blind in its worship “there is no alternative” for #mainstreaming agendas in this era. Our words and actions are simply spewing shit while the world burns, our ecosystems die and communities implode in manufactured (for profit) infighting #failbook

It’s actually easy to step away from this mess, the issue is: are you brave enough to fall and WILL your community catch you when you do? (both valid worries i’m afraid).

We need hand-holding and most importantly we need alt-social/tech structures in place to build and bind – all human communities are built/bound with/from these structures.

The #OMN and the #4opens are there as shovel for the shit and binding for the community – neither of these have any power but the power you use them with – the steeping and away and dreaming and digging is all down to you and your community.

#indymediaback is a #openweb project of consensus based radical grassroots journalism

The#IMC project is an affinity group – so we are planing to work through consensus and diversity of strategy to move the project past where it was ripped apart by internal stresses after 10 years of running as a successfully worldwide radical grassroots media project.

To do this we have a #nothingnew policy, beyond moving the project into modern standards #activertypub we need to reboot the project with work flows intact. Thus, we are working to this #UX https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/Open-Media-Network/issues/26 and the original workflows and process.

Of course this can and will be updated as needed, but we have a “chicken and egg” issue that we need a working affinity group/s to reach consensus on where we go. The #indymediaback project is a way of bootstrapping this code/process in #4opens way.

To keep “diversity of strategy” in place, we are using the #OMN framework.

Update

What would a non #mainstreaming movement look like.

* firstly, it would have to get past meany #BLOCKS that are now common sense.

My action is to jump back in time before these blocks solidified and build up from there. Not a bad idea and will likely work if people embrace it.

* Non #mainstreaming tech is SOCIAL/community and needs to step away from the current geek agender to have real power for social change.

#OMN project, we use the #4opens to build from this.