We live in a system that worships consumption. It’s not just about meeting needs, it’s about feeding an economy that only grows when people buy more, waste more, and replace instead of repair. This is one of the core tenants of the #deathcult, the #neoliberal ideology that tells us there is no alternative to endless growth, even as it drags us toward #climatechaos.
What if we build something different, something that values community over consumption, reuse over replacement, and DIY culture over passive consumerism? This is where the #4opens come in, transparency, collaboration, and shared knowledge as the foundation for real alternatives to the corporate churn machine. It’s a tool to mediate overconsumption, it isn’t just about the stuff, it’s about the system. The #dotcons (big tech platforms, global brands, centralized supply chains) exist to keep us dependent, feeding a cycle of control, waste, planned obsolescence, artificial scarcity, and throwaway culture.
We see this everywhere, in #techchurn, New phones, new software, endless updates that make old devices “obsolete” before they break. Fast fashion, clothing designed to fall apart, pushing people into a cycle of cheap, unethical labour and landfill waste. Algorithmic media distraction, a constant flood of junk entertainment designed to keep us too distracted to act, too demoralised to challenge the system. This is by design. The corporate web, the #dotcons, will absorb everything if we don’t (re)create our own independent alternatives.
The composting alternative is about creating a regenerative culture, isn’t only boycotting big brands or consuming “better.” It’s about nurturing and mediating alternatives—turning the waste of the old system into compost for something new. By embracing the #DIY ethic – Fix things, repurpose them, and share knowledge instead of feeding the churn. Build the #openweb – Move away from corporate-controlled spaces to decentralized, transparent platforms that serve communities, not ad networks. Reject #mainstreaming trends – Stop chasing the latest thing just because the algorithm tells you to. Foster trust-based networks – Support local, independent, and open-source projects that work for people, not profit.
The #OMN as a tool for mediation, a practical example of challenging the corporate wasteland of mainstream media and tech. Instead of relying on big platforms, it creates a decentralized, grassroots-driven network where people control their own media, bypassing the need for #dotcons and centralized control.
In the same way, we need to mediate overconsumption—not just by refusing to buy, but by building something better in its place. This isn’t about guilt or purity. It’s about real alternatives. If we don’t start creating them, we will be left with nothing but the corporate churn, stripping away our agency and leaving us with a hollow, temporary world. The current mess is compost. We either let it rot uselessly or turn it into the soil for something new. The choice is ours.
Slow travel, there’s something special about taking the slow route, moving at just 8 km/h, feeling the rhythm of the water beneath you, and experiencing places in a way you never would when rushing from A to B.
This is #overlanding, but with a twist, overlanding by water. Instead of highways, we followed ancient trade routes, gliding through canals, rivers, and locks that have shaped Europe for centuries. Our vessel? A refurbished oil platform lifeboat, a rugged, self-sufficient craft that carried us deep into the continent’s heart.
The Journey, waterborne adventure, our route took us across Europe’s vast inland waterways, connecting diverse landscapes, cultures, and histories. Each stretch of river and canal brought a new challenge and a fresh perspective on a continent that many only see from the motorways or rail lines. Some of the highlights:
The Rhine River, Germany, A mix of industrial might and natural beauty, passing legendary castles perched on cliffs, thriving cities, and historic port towns. The river’s strong currents and busy commercial traffic kept things exciting. The Danube, Eastern Europe, A vast and wild waterway, stretching through multiple countries, from Austria to Romania. This river offered true off-grid adventure, with remote stretches of untamed nature, tiny riverside villages, and encounters with local boaters who still live by the rhythms of the water.
The French Canals – A world of their own. Peaceful, meandering waterways winding through the French countryside, past vineyards, medieval towns, and stone bridges that have stood for centuries. Unlike the Rhine and Danube, these canals were more about relaxed travel, culture, and history.
The Amsterdam to Belgium Route – A labyrinth of interconnected canals, bustling harbor cities, and picturesque waterways lined with windmills and historic trading towns. Navigating this network felt like unlocking a hidden Europe, one far from the usual tourist paths.
Like any true expedition, this journey came with its share of hardships and surprises. Boating across a continent is not just about floating down a river, it’s about self-reliance, problem-solving, and adapting to the unknown.
The Challenges We Faced:
Mechanical Fixes – Keeping an ex-oil platform lifeboat running on a #DIY budget was an ongoing challenge. From fixing leaks to repairing the old diesel engine, we had to be resourceful.
Weather & Water Conditions – Strong currents, sudden storms, and fluctuating water levels made navigation unpredictable. Some stretches were calm and easy, while others tested our skills and endurance.
Navigation & Locks – Unlike the open sea, Europe’s waterways are full of locks, bridges, and tidal zones that require careful planning. Some days felt like solving a giant puzzle, with different canals and rivers connecting at odd angles, each with their own set of rules and operating times.
Remote Travel & Supplies – In the wilder sections, finding fuel, food, and spare parts required good planning. Some villages along the rivers still rely on weekly supply boats, a reminder of a slower, older way of life.
But the rewards? Unmatched, instead of rushing through Europe, we immersed ourselves in it. Instead of highways and train stations, we saw the real heart of the continent, the backroads of the water. We watched sunrises over misty rivers, navigated narrow canals that felt like stepping into history, and met people who still live by the pace of the water. There’s a world beyond the tourist hubs, a Europe that exists outside the rush of modern travel, and the only way to experience it is to slow down and take the journey itself as the destination.
The #climatecrisis isn’t just about rising temperatures and vanishing ecosystems, it’s also about the structures we build, the technology we use, and the ways we connect. The fight for a sustainable future isn’t limited to forests and oceans; it extends into the digital world as well.
In this website, a recurring theme is composting the mess of the modern world, whether that’s the corporate-controlled internet (#dotcons), failing grassroots movements, or the destruction of our physical environment. It’s all connected. How tech shapes our planet. The internet as we know it, centralized, monopolized, and powered by massive server farms, has a huge environmental impact. Tech giants consume massive amounts of energy, lock users into wasteful upgrade cycles, and push short-term profit over long-term sustainability.
But just like we need to transition away from fossil fuels, we also need to rebuild a sustainable digital infrastructure:
✅ Decentralized platforms → Reduce reliance on data centers owned by megacorporations. ✅ Longer-lasting hardware → Move away from planned obsolescence. ✅ Federated networks (#openweb) → Support resilient, grassroots-driven alternatives. ♻️ The OMN: Composting the Digital & Social Waste
The Open Media Network (#OMN) is a practical response to this. It’s building an alternative media ecosystem, one that isn’t driven by corporate interests but by community needs and #4opens collaboration. Think of it as #permaculture for the internet: Instead of clear-cutting everything for profit (like the #dotcons do), we nurture independent spaces. Instead of burning energy on ad-driven engagement, we use #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principles to create sustainable digital tools. Instead of accepting “inevitable” climate and digital collapse, we turn the existing mess into compost for new growth. Radical Simplicity = Radical Sustainability.
One of the ideas behind this path is that “stupid” is better than perfect, because perfect never gets built, but “stupid” works. This applies not just to open-source technology, but also to environmental activism, with small, local actions > Waiting for big global solutions. Simple, practical solutions > Over-engineered complexity. Messy, community-driven change > Top-down control.
In the bigger perspective: The Environment will be fine without us, it’s not “the environment” we are destroying. It is ourselves. The world does not need saving, we do. The choice is not a simple choice between saving the planet or letting it die, but between changing our ways or letting ourselves go extinct.
If we want a sustainable future, both online and offline, we need to break from the corporate paths that are destroying our ecosystems. That means, supporting grassroots tech and independent media, building resilient, federated alternatives to big tech, embracing open, transparent processes (#4opens).
The world is in crisis, but crisis is also an opportunity. Whether you’re fighting for a better internet, a liveable planet, or stronger local communities, it’s all part of the same struggle. What do you think? How can we build a more sustainable digital world? Let’s discuss! #RewildTheWeb#SustainableTech#OMN
In the early days, the internet was a wild, open landscape, a place of creativity, collaboration, and decentralization. But over time, the rise of corporate platforms (the #dotcons) turned it into something far more controlled, walled-off, and extractive.
What if we could reclaim that original vision? What if we could build an open, federated, and people-powered web, free from the stranglehold of Big Tech? That’s the mission behind projects like the Open Media Network (#OMN), a radical push to create a truly #openweb, built on trust, transparency, and grassroots collaboration.
What’s the Problem? The modern web is dominated by a handful of corporate giants that: 🔹 Own your data – You don’t control what you create, they do. 🔹 Manipulate what you see – Algorithms push engagement over truth. 🔹 Extract value – Your attention, creativity, and connections become profit streams.
The result? A digital world that feels more like a walled garden than a thriving ecosystem.
The Alternative: The Open Media Network (#OMN) A different way of thinking about the internet, based on open protocols, federated media, and trust-based networks rather than corporate silos.
How does it work? Decentralized publishing – No single company controls what you post. Interconnected platforms – Information flows freely between projects, not locked inside proprietary walls. Built for grassroots communities – Not for advertisers, but for real people creating real change.
It’s inspired by the early #Indymedia movement, the rise of the Fediverse, and the belief that we don’t have to accept the internet as it is, we can build something better.
Why “Stupid” Wins Over “Perfect” A big lesson from past internet experiments is that perfection is the enemy of progress. The web itself succeeded not because it was the best design, but because it was simple and open enough for people to build on.
✅ Nobody agrees on “perfect”—so it never gets built. ✅ “Stupid” solutions work—because they let people create their own versions. ✅ Diversity leads to growth—and growth challenges the corporate web.
This is the philosophy behind the OMN and other #4opens projects, build something simple, open, and adaptable, and let communities shape it for their needs.
How You Can Help Rewild the Web. If you’re tired of Big Tech gatekeeping your online life, there are ways to push back: Ditch corporate platforms – Explore the Fediverse and self-hosted alternatives. Support open projects – Contribute to decentralized media, grassroots organizing, and federated tech. Spread the word – Help others see that another internet is possible.
The internet can be beautiful again, but only if we reclaim it. What do you think? Is a truly open internet still possible? What are your favourite-decentralized projects? Let’s discuss. #RewildTheWeb#InternetIsBeautiful#OMN
The video is bad quality VHS, but worth your time to see a progressive #openweb native capitalism, and to find grounding for post-capitalist with the #OMN project.
Mark S. Miller’s presentation on the Xanadu Hypertext System at George Mason University (GMU) in the early ’90s is good to reference when discussing the #OMN (Open Media Network). The ideas explored then were ahead of their time, but the web ultimately took a worse/better path—a “stupid” #KISS implementation rather than the more idealistic and complex vision of #Xanadu.
Why “Stupid” Wins Over “Perfect”, the lesson is clear: ✅ Nobody agrees on “perfect”, so it never gets built. ✅ “Stupid” solutions work because they let people do their own version. ✅ From diversity comes growth, from growth comes change. ✅ Change is what challenges the current #mainstreaming mess.
This is exactly what the #OMN is doing, taking a simple, “stupid” approach that lets people build their own solutions, rather than arguing endlessly about abstract perfection. Just like the web succeeded by ignoring Xanadu’s “perfect” vision, the #OMN will thrive by avoiding over-engineering and focusing on real-world usability.
With the #Fediverse and the #Openweb, it helps to see the Fediverse as a half-decentralized #openweb project that allows people to communicate across different servers. Unlike centralized platforms, it shifts control back to people and community, but it inherits many of the same flawed assumptions from the #dotcons. Strengths of the Fediverse:
🔹 Decentralization – No single company controls it. 🔹 (Supposed) Privacy – While privacy is valued, it’s ultimately a #4opens project, meaning transparency is the real focus. 🔹 Freedom of Expression – No single authority to censor content, it has community moderation. 🔹 Control Over Data – People can move between servers (to some extent). 🔹 Customization – Communities can shape their own experience.
❌ It still copies the #dotcons too much. ❌ It struggles with large-scale collaboration. ❌ It isn’t designed for media or broadcasting.
The Fediverse is a big step in the right direction, but it lacks a strong foundation for alternative media and real working #DIY culture. The #OMN is designed to fill this gap, moving beyond microblogging clones and building real federated media networks.
The key to success: Leaving capitalism out, one of the biggest reasons the #Openweb worked while Xanadu fizzled is that it didn’t try to “fix” capitalism, it just ignored it. Many well-meaning open projects get stuck because they try to compromise with the existing system rather than building outside of it. This is where the #OMN takes its stand:
Building tools that actually work for grassroots communities.
If we take the #4opens and #DIY cultural path, we can create a real alternative, something that doesn’t get swallowed by the #mainstreaming like so many past projects. In the end, if we don’t build these spaces, the corporate web will absorb everything. Let’s see the current mess as compost, we can either let it rot uselessly or turn it into the soil for something new. We are empowered to act on this, the choice is ours.
The geek path for tech and social change, was always a divers views, though always full of the #geekproblem
It’s interesting that this all turned into monopoly capitalism with the #dotcons we have now. This outcome is the #geekproblem, we need to do better.
One thing to be aware of is that encryption is largely used to introduce scarcity into a natural post scarcity digital path. It about imposing the old on the new. Encryption as a tool of digital scarcity a core problem of crypto/blockchain hype—it recreates capitalist control structures rather than abolishing them.
Though this is a strong historical framing of the #OMN and the #openweb, going back to Xanadu, the #Fediverse, and the mistakes of the past.
The web took the “Worst/Better” path – The “stupid” solution (KISS) won over the “perfect” solution (Xanadu) because perfect never gets built, while stupid can be iterated on.
The #Fediverse is half-decentralized but stuck in #dotcons thinking – It shifts control but still inherits a lot of flawed assumptions.
Capitalism is ignored, not fixed – The #Openweb succeeded by sidestepping capitalism, not by trying to reform it. #OMN must do the same to thrive.
The #Geekproblem led to the #dotcons – Tech culture’s failure to build social and political awareness led to the monopoly mess we see today.
A path away from this mess. The #OMN is about federated media infrastructure, the current Fediverse, is not enough because it wasn’t designed for media production or distribution. #OMN needs to build alongside it, creating real publishing and archiving structures.
A parallel build makes sense, trying to “fix” the Fediverse would be a waste of time because it’s deep in the #geekproblem mindset and #dotcons assumptions. The #OMN needs to exist alongside it, offering something functional rather than only critique.
Composting the current mess into something new, is a powerful metaphor. Instead of just rejecting the broken system, we repurpose its decay into something fertile. The #OMN is not about nostalgia or purity—it’s about adaptation and survival. Parallel paths:
Microblogging clones of dotcons (Mastodon → Twitter, Pixelfed → Instagram). We need Federated media infrastructure for real publishing (archiving, syndication, remixing).
Half-decentralized (still hierarchical servers, admins hold power) More fully federated with trust-based governance (e.g., #OGB)
Privacy-focused (but still built on surveillance-era assumptions). We need transparency-first (#4opens) to avoid NGO/State capture.
Largely run by geeks who reject social movements. Where we need to build from grassroots activism up, not tech-down
How do we frame this for outreach? We need shorter, clearer language to explain why #OMN matters to people outside the tech bubble. Right now, a lot of this still speaks to the few people already deep in the struggle—how do we make it compelling to someone new?
The Fediverse is the “indie music scene” of social media → The #OMN is public-access TV, independent radio, and DIY zines combined. The Fediverse copies Twitter → The #OMN builds what #Indymedia should have become. The Fediverse is a space to talk → The #OMN is a space to organise, publish, remix, and distribute ideas. The #dotcons are a surveillance trap → The #OMN is a composting tool for radical media to push and sustain radical change and challenge.
With a parallel build, how do we balance the first steps, tech-first or community-first? Meaning, do we start with the tools, or the network of people who will use them? Both have been a challenge over the last ten years.
Funding structures are built for #NGO nonsense, not grassroots projects where actual value is created. The #OMN, #indymediaback, and #OGB challenge this, but funders can’t grasp it because they don’t understand value outside institutional framing.
Fixing the funding #blocking, funders need to THINK, not just UNDERSTAND. Right now, they “understand” in the framework of existing institutions, which means they miss the metaphor-driven, emergent nature of the #OMN. Our #Hashtag story is for THINKING, not passive understanding. They are useful tools to push the conversation forward, not dogma to be accepted or rejected. The two often treating them as fixed truths leads to #blocking the needed real change.
We need to break out of this cycle, 20 years of #techshit which is still strengthening the gatekeepers, we can’t keep playing by these rules. The biggest realization here is that truth and metaphor are not the same. Funders, #NGOs, and the #mainstreaming crew think in terms of fixed truths, while real change comes from dynamic thinking. That’s why they keep failing us.
The reality of trying to build real alternatives, without deep-rooted community support, even the best projects wither. The liberal/progressive crowd shouts into the void, but when it comes to actual action, they tend to retreat into safe, performative bubbles rather than engaging with real, messy change.
The Mastodon codebase is key here, it was designed by copying the #dotcons, so the fundamental social architecture reinforces #stupidindividualism rather than community building. Instead of nurturing federated, collective spaces, it encourages a kind of fragmented, isolated posting, which is why it struggles to grow meaningful movements.
Why do we still find it hard to compost the mess? Lack of Shared Vision, too many people still mentally operate within the #dotcons framework, even when they try to leave it. Tech that doesn’t align with community of activists needs. Mastodon (and similar platforms) weren’t built for real social cohesion; they just repackage old models with a federated twist. No real commitment from “Allies”, This move was ignored by the #maisnstreamimg left who stay on the #dotcosons even though they are evil. The liberal crowd loves theory, but often won’t do the hard, unglamorous work of actually shifting paradigms. Structural hostility to #DIY Culture, people are so trained to consume rather than create and maintain that even the “alternative” spaces get stuck replicating the same individualist consumption patterns.
So, what’s next? If the #OMN couldn’t compost this, we need to look at:
Building with different codebases that don’t replicate the #dotcons model.
Focusing on non-liberal, real-world community building—finding people willing to work, not just talk.
Reframing “failure” as learning and redirecting energy to something that actually fits the needs of a federated, people-driven network.
The current #fediverse model is only a first step, not itself the answer, but the idea behind the #OMN still is. Maybe it’s time to stop trying to fix broken tools and instead build with a truly native approach?
Activism is messy. When you push against #mainstreaming, bad faith actors will come at you hard. Your best, often only, defence is sticking to good faith, telling your own stories, and holding onto process. Without this, the dominant narrative (which serves power) will drown out your voice.
The Problem is well-meaning people who wreck everything, in grassroots social movements, some of the biggest obstacles come from inside. People who believe they’re doing good can still do harm, sometimes more harm than outright bad actors. The worst ones often work the hardest. Why? They lack experience with #DIY culture. They unthinkingly worship the #deathcult. Not only that, but they confuse personal virtue with effective action. Shit stinks, but composting it makes flowers grow. The trick is to turn the mess into something productive instead of letting it rot everything.
Mediation is a core #OMN process, we need tools and processes that identify bad faith early (before it spreads), turn well-meaning but harmful actors toward productive paths, filter out the worst behaviours without turning authoritarian. This is a social problem first, a tech problem second. Good moderation, transparent process, and community accountability are essential.
The #4opens is about making It clearer for outreach, if democracy is survival, then in the digital era, you can’t have real democracy without the #4opens. This has to be at the root of our garden of ideas. We need to frame this in a way that connects to real-life impact with questions like: Why does this matter for democracy? How does it protect against the #deathcult? How does it help people step away from #dotcons?
OMN is building from the grassroots up because we can’t rely on the “progressive” top-down crowd to do anything meaningful. We need to tell our own stories before we get drowned in bad narratives. Make the #4opens process simple and clear for outreach. Use mediation as a core practice (not just a reaction). Turn bad energy into compost, rather than letting it poison the roots. Keep the focus on real democratic structures, without them, it’s just chaos.
This isn’t easy, but it’s the work that needs to be done. Ideas?
The blinding effect of mainstream ideology, whether it’s neoliberalism, conspiracy-laced #spirituality, or rigid #geekproblem worship. These all act as barriers to change, keeping people locked in reactive cycles instead of building something different.
The #deathcult (neoliberalism) ensures its survival by designing failure, carbon offsetting, cap-and-trade, plastic recycling, all engineered to look like solutions while maintaining the status quo. These weren’t mistakes; they were intentional. The same happens in tech, where #encryptionists believe they’re liberating people while locking them into opaque, controlled, isolated paths. Security as fear, rather than trust.
What do we do differently now? We have to stop playing by their rules, whether it’s cancel culture’s purity tests, the process geek bureaucracy, or liberal progressives too afraid to act outside the acceptable neoliberal framework. That means:
Break from #mainstreaming narratives – Stop looking to “official” solutions when they are structured to fail.
Stop feeding fear, cowardice, and greed – Recognize when “safe” choices are actually surrendering power to systems of control.
Step into federated, trust-based models – #openweb and #4opens approaches don’t just shift power; they change how power operates.
Mediating the #geekproblem is core, we have the tools to build alternatives, but they are often blinded by their own logic traps, trapped in a false neutrality that serves power, or in rigid frameworks that make real-world change impossible. If we can challenge this blindness, we can bring them into broader movements instead of leaving them locked in their own subcultures.
Non-geeks need pathways to access, understand, and shape technology.
Decentralisation and federated trust models should be built with social movements, not just coders.
The #4opens is a path, the commons-based approach to software is an example of an alternative that works. The stagnant ideology of capitalism blocks innovation that already exists in open, federated models. But the blinded majority keeps trying to push radical tech back into the broken frameworks they understand instead of embracing real alternatives. That’s the cycle we need to break.
If we don’t step outside of our own ideological traps, we won’t see the paths that already exist. The world doesn’t have to be this way, but we need to start living the alternatives, not just critiquing the failures.
What did I get from this event: Cybercrime is no longer only about stolen credit cards and leaked emails, it has become a battleground for national security. This was the focus of the conversation between Professor Ciaran Martin and Dr Max Smeets, a new kind of war, ransomware has evolved from crude digital extortion into a highly sophisticated business model. It’s no longer just about money, it disrupts critical infrastructure, healthcare, and entire governments. The NHS cyberattack in London and the Costa Rican national emergency in 2022 illustrate its devastating impact.
Smeets explains how ransomware groups now operate like legitimate businesses, complete with branding, customer service, and even guarantees. If they fail to decrypt your files after payment, their reputation suffers. Many provide a free decryption demo to prove their credibility—demonstrating the paradox of trust within crime.
The geopolitics of cybercrime often overlaps with national interests. Many ransomware groups originate from Russia, where they operate with implicit state tolerance, as long as they avoid targeting Russian businesses. Russian secret services sometimes leverage these groups for political ends, though the connections remain murky.
Other states are now stepping into the ransomware scene, Ukraine – Once a hub for cybercrime, now co-opting hackers into its war effort, with groups like MB65 supposedly working in support of the state. North Korea & Israel – Expanding their ransomware operations, possibly for both financial and intelligence purposes. China – Running state-controlled ransomware campaigns, but is the goal money or data?
Smeets argues that Western states do not operate ransomware groups, at least not openly. But if cybercrime is now a tool of state power, will governments start adopting more aggressive tactics? We are already seeing discussions about hacking back, sanctions, and even assassinations and drone strikes against cybercriminals.
The Evolution of ransomware has moved beyond lone hackers and small groups. It has professionalised, with specialised teams handling different tasks: Some focus on technical exploits. Others on negotiation and victim management. Others still on money laundering. English-speaking countries are prime targets, as criminals can easily understand and monetise stolen data.
Originally, ransomware groups operated hierarchically, relying on top-down trust structures. Now, they are shifting to decentralised and federated models, outsourcing different parts of the process to specialist teams. This makes them more resilient and harder to disrupt.
How can this be mediated? Smeets offers several strategies to undermine ransomware networks:
Disrupt trust – Leak internal communications and sow distrust within groups.
Expose operational methods – Make it harder for them to operate in the shadows.
Sanction financial networks – Make it harder to launder ransom payments.
A ban on ransom payments won’t end ransomware, but it might shift attackers toward easier targets. The core question remains: Is ransomware just about money, or is it a new tool for states to exert power in the digital age?
My view is an alternative path, might social and economic change, the #4opens and redundant data flows work. In a world where cybercrime thrives on secrecy and centralised control, could radical transparency be part of the solution? The #4opens philosophy suggests an alternative: highly redundant, open-data systems that resist extortion because no single entity holds all the power. If data is widely distributed and accessible, ransomware loses much of its leverage. This is a shift from reactive defence to proactive resilience, a challenge to both cybercriminals and #mainstreaming vertical state actors and culture. This is already a core idea behind both the#OMN and #Fediverse networks, but yes we are talking about both economic and social models and paths shifting fundamentally, it’s a project.
The current political and economic systems don’t just sustain the mess, we are drowning in them. Every major institution, from governments to corporations, actively pushes crisis after crisis, while refusing to deal with the root causes of the disasters they create. For decades, politicians across the spectrum have fuelled endless wars and military interventions, while militarising domestic police forces. Justified global instability and repression in the name of “security” while making the world more dangerous. Celebrated economic growth, while wages stagnate, inflation crushes ordinary people, and skyrocketing rents make survival a daily struggle.
The ecological collapse we are living through, record heat waves, wildfires, extreme weather, is not an accident. It is the result of decades of environmental neglect, corporate greed, and political cowardice. None of the major parties have taken meaningful action; they prioritise profit over the survival of the planet and future generations.
At the same time, the state clamps down on dissent with mass incarceration and police crackdowns, which aren’t about safety, they’re about control. Social movements are repressed, not because they are wrong, but because they threaten the status quo.
Public anger at #neoliberal policies is hijacked by demagogues like #Farage and #Trump, who sell hate, racism, and authoritarianism as the alternative. But this does not bring solutions, only the march towards fascism.
#KISS real change is not coming from these institutions. We need to step away from the #mainstreaming mess by rejecting the ongoing pushing of “common sense” of liberal, neoliberal, and fascist agendas. To organise and resist what we oppose, and towards building something different. To create alternative communities and economies, humanistic, decentralised, and free from the grip of collapsing #mainstreaming structures.
This isn’t only a negative fight, it’s a positive necessity. The world built by the #deathcult is falling apart. We either allow ourselves to be dragged down with it, or we joyously build something new.
The world we live in is shaped by 40 years of entrenched #neoliberalism and #postmodernism, both of which have systematically dismantled radical change and challenge. To reclaim our future, we must reject the illusions of “common sense” fed to us by the #deathcult and reboot from a place of clarity. This is where the following #hashtags come into play, acting as conceptual tools for navigating, understanding, and breaking free from the mess we’re in.
The #nothingnew hashtag is a simple and effective (#KISS) framework for understanding where we went wrong and how to start moving forward again. It rejects the dominant neoliberal and postmodern ideologies that have smothered radical politics for four decades. Instead, it seeks to reboot social change by returning to the original modernist path—one rooted in progress, structure, and tangible social transformation.
Once we re-establish this foundation, we can move beyond it to build #somethingnew. But without a proper starting point, all attempts at change remain trapped in the same neoliberal fog that has defined the status quo for so long. The modernist approach of clarity, direct action, and meaningful social structures must replace the disorienting, fragmented logic of postmodern cynicism that has paralysed social movements and left the field open for neoliberal dominance.
#geekproblem – Technology, Control, and the Worship of Power
The #geekproblem is a complex challenge, one that sits at the heart of many of our current struggles. While technology could be a liberating force, it has instead become a tool for control, both in the hands of capitalist class and within geek culture itself. At its core, the problem is that geeks, historically, have been builders and problem solvers. But many have a deeply ingrained need for CONTROL, which is fundamentally out of balance with the collaborative ethos of modernism. Over the last 40 years, as technology has concentrated power, geek culture has been co-opted by the #deathcult, prioritising power, profit, and authoritarianism over openness and freedom.
To fix this, we need to take the “problem” out of “geek.” That means confronting the fetishisation of control, hierarchy, and technocratic elitism that pervades much of tech culture. This is not a #KISS problem, it requires real and deep reflection, social engagement, and the reclamation of technology as a force for liberation.
The #deathcult is a blunt and direct metaphor for neoliberalism, the ideology of destruction that has dominated the world for the last 40 years. This is a #KISS idea because it’s simple, Neoliberalism isn’t about building, it’s about extraction, enclosure, and control. It disguises itself as common sense, but in reality, it is an economic death spiral, for the planet, for workers, for public services, and for communities. Every time you hear markets presented as the solution to our problems, you are hearing the voice of the #deathcult.
For an example of this, just look at #UN COP process, where the world’s response to climate catastrophe was to double down on markets and profit-driven “solutions.” We are in a truly nasty mess because we have spent decades blindly worshipping a system designed to destroy us.
Breaking free from the mess, understanding these #hashtags is a step towards clarity, a rejection of the confusion and stagnation that has kept us locked into neoliberal dogma.
#nothingnew gets us back on the right path. #geekproblem helps us understand why technology has failed to free us. #deathcult reminds us who the real enemy is.
Using these frameworks, we can begin to rebuild a movement that is rooted in reality, not neoliberal delusions. The question is, are we ready to do this work?
