The tech world is in a state of chaos and dysfunction

The tech world is in a state of chaos and dysfunction, to compost this mess it’s crucial that we reckon with the consequences of our past decisions to understand how we arrived at this point. Over the past four decades, there has been an intertwining of #postmodernist social thinking and #neoliberal economic ideology. This marriage…

Cyril Foster Lecture 2024: On the Declining Success of Civil Resistance

Professor Erica Chenoweth will explore the puzzling decline in the success of civil resistance movements in the past decade, even as unarmed movements have become more popular worldwide. The findings have implications for the future of nonviolent alternatives to armed struggle, as well as to the ability of pro-democratic movements to defeat authoritarian challenges. Erica…

We must reckon with the consequences of our past decisions

The intertwining of #postmodernist social thinking and #neoliberal economic ideology over the past four decades has laid the groundwork for the turbulent state of contemporary politics and the social chaos evident in our digital ecosystems (#dotcons) This marriage of ideologies led to a fracturing of societal values and a narrowing of ideological divides, resulting in…

Tech governance projects miss the mark

Tech governance projects miss the mark because they fail to engage with the real needs and experiences of grassroots activists and community building. This disconnect stems from the entrenched dynamics of the #geekproblem, which prioritize control and certainty over messy collaboration and understanding. The problem is exacerbated by the detachment of the “professional” #NGO crew,…

Composting the Mess: Transforming Society through Collective Action

In the tapestry of human interaction, the worst threads of people and #society manifest as destructive feedback loops. Whether fuelled by greed, fear, or power dynamics, this cycle weaves our current culture of brokenness and decay. To break free from this destructive cycle, we need to embrace a paradigm shift, normalizing the best parts of…

The Mess of Web3: Why #openweb natives question the Blockchain Narrative

In the ongoing discourse surrounding #openweb and its relation to failing technologies like #web3 and #blockchain, a critical question emerges: why do we readily accept solutions without first defining the problem at hand? “… it’s not secure, it’s not safe, it’s not reliable, it’s not trustworthy, it’s not even decentralized, it’s not anonymous, it’s helping…

Revisiting the ActivityPub foundation idea

There are a few views on this issue, the “common sense” #NGO path, an example Presenting Fedi Foundation: Empowerment for SocialHub community 1 And the more “nativist” openweb path What would a fediverse “governance” body look like? And then we have the #geekproblem path, which has been pushing the fep process the last 2 years,…

The term liberals understand is a narrow point of view

let’s look at this through one example. The term #enshittification coined by https://mastodon.social/@pluralistic@mamot.fr is a pop term for a very real social/tech problem. I have been using the term #dotcons for the last 20 years to express this same idea and feel this is a better hashtag, but that’s just my view, you can see…