The entanglement of hard-right politics and #climatechaos is a catastrophe that presents a dire scenario, where each exacerbates the other in a vicious cycle of destruction. As billions of people are displaced by climate disasters, the extreme right capitalizes on their suffering to expand its influence. Conversely, as the extreme right gains power, climate policies…
By embracing projects like the #OGB people have a chance to shape decisions
The current state of our political systems, particularly the electoral process, raises fundamental questions about the nature of democracy and representation. The problem is the system is designed to maintain the supremacy of the powerful, perpetuating conflicts and minimizing real democratic engagement. Elections, rather than fostering democracy, exacerbate divisions and repeatedly fail to address critical…
General elections are a travesty of democracy
The need for the #OGB (Open Governance Body) stems from a growing recognition of the limitations of traditional democratic systems, as highlighted in a recent article by The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/06/general-elections-democracy-lottery-representation Progressive movements are increasingly advocating for alternatives, and the OGB represents such an initiative within the #openweb community. The guardian article argues that general elections…
Looking at the Izmir ship scrapyard
We visited the ship scrapyard, to see what they had in terms of lifeboats and boat parts. The problem was that the boats were old, worn and damaged from being removed without any care from the scraped ships. As Northam Europeans, the 3ed party sellers were asking for unrealistic prices at the same level as…
A European Future
Changing the European Union (#EU) to be more competent and progressive on social and tech issues requires concerted effort and engagement from all the stakeholders, including activists, citizens, civil society organizations (#NGO), policymakers, and Eurocrats. I outline some #fluffy strategies for driving change within the EU: Overall, changing the EU to be more competent and…
The problem with academic “thinking” in activism
The common issue with these Oxford seminars, is outlined in my notes, this is the disconnect between academic discourse and the real-world challenges faced by activists and movements. Here’s a breakdown of the key problems I have highlighted: In summary, the common issue is the disconnect between academic discourse and the lived experiences of activists…
Bridget Kendall in conversation
Join Worcester College Provost, David Isaac CBE, as he interviews leading role models about their lives and careers. Bridget Kendall MBE has spent over 40 years as a BBC journalist, joining as a graduate trainee in 1983. She was BBC Moscow correspondent from 1989 to 1994, covering the final years of the Soviet Union and…
The Meyerstein Lecture in Archaeology 2024: The social worlds of Bronze Age animals
Although cattle and sheep were central to the everyday lives and wellbeing of Bronze Age communities in northwest Europe, they are strangely lacking from our narratives of the period. After the Neolithic, it seems, archaeologists rarely consider domestic animals to be interesting. However, Bronze Age people clearly thought otherwise, as the careful deposition of complete…
Contrasting Balkan utopias: Navigating migration and futurity in the physical remnants of Yugoslavia
“Irregular” #migrants moving along the Western #Balkan Migration Route aspire to competing visions of Europe, and Europeanness, and along their journeys they encounter multiple competing, overlapping, or intersecting political projects. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in #Slovenia since 2021, this presentation will explore how various imaginaries of Europe are instantiated in the wake of Yugoslav socialism,…
Academics at Oxford
Economic Diversification and Climate Change in the Middle East St Antony’s College, Dr Sarah Bush (University of Pennslyvania) The right-wing and the #NGO crew have both coopted the idea of activism with some of its traditions and without any use of its purpose and path. This academic aproch looks at gender and the shift to…
A tech story
In the #openweb world of digital innovation, there existed a culture revered for its ingenuity and technical prowess – the hackers of old. Yet, beneath the surface of their achievements lay a problem, one that has led to the downfall of many endeavours: the #geekproblem. In the early days, hackers were pioneers, pushing the boundaries…
Encryptionists we do need to talk about Governance in tech
The crypto mess talking about governance https://medium.com/@lawrencelundy/no-such-thing-as-decentralised-governance-2a6c6f97382f Lawrence Lundy-Bryan’s perspective on decentralized governance is a reminder that while we aspire to decentralization to break free from oppressive authorities, we should recognize the need for some form of governance. Keep in mind, the key is to establish a type of “central” authority that is accessible and…