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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 #hashtags are from a “prospective” thus push rejection from people outside that perspective

The verticals are unthinking in their hierarchies, which turns the “value” of horizontals into a negative thing. Meanwhile, the horizontals despise the “power” plays of the verticals and take every measure to block their outcomes.

The world, however, is one of balance. Both perspectives have roles and shifting values depending on the problems we collectively need to address.

For those pushing #BLOCKING — a few sips to quench your thirst:

The conversations sparked by these flows are what truly matter. Grassroots structures grow from this collective perspective, feeding into shared social knowledge. The #hashtags act as a net, gathering working groups ready to embrace change and challenge.

In the end, all change and challenge are practical. People who only talk without action are naturally carried to the side streams, mingling until they either join the flow of practical work or fade away.

Yes, in your arrogance, you might call this arrogance — and from a different perspective, you might be right… but still blind. If you’re from the same perspective, I’d say nuts and nutters are only useful as part of a balanced diet. Maybe meditate on that before cracking more nuts. (I’m still refining that metaphor.)

If you enjoy playing games, you can spot the word magic in the #hashtags. If you’re more practical, you can translate them into traditional definitions — for example, #deathcult = neoliberalism, #dotcons = the boom-and-bust cycles of the dotcom era, #fashernista = someone fashionable in any subject. It’s not complex at this level.

The complexity lies in the perspective that weaves these elements into a coherent story. Yes, this storytelling could be seen as arrogance — if you choose to view it that way. But that judgment itself makes you a “nut” from the very perspective you critique.

Circles, magic, nets, outcomes — #OMN

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.

Hopelessness is a conservative reaction to social change/challenge

Hopelessness is a deeply conservative reaction to social change/challenge. Sacasam and “meme” culture can be conservative with its strong focus on reaction, in this focus pushing reactionary/conservative rather than hope/progression. In a globalising world strong “inward” looking tribalism is often about conforming a narrow “consumerist” change/challenge to individuals with NO power for wider social outlooks. In the era of #climatechaos all of these dominant “invisible” movements are the problem not the solution. The #deathcult feeds this movement of #stupidindividualism and is clearly and obviously not the challenge/change we need to flourish.

Invisible agenda on the #openweb

A. #NGIforum21 #NGI #EU It’s not “usability” its “control” – the #dotcons are built for control the #eurocrates need, the #openweb tools which work fine is for people to people.

The #openweb tools do not have the control that the #Eurocrats need to move onto our tools and be a part of our community. This is going to lead to a “invisible” fight, as they are increasingly funding development we face a crisis in the #fediverse A Sheldon crises talking the language of our crew.

Q. Yes, we should keep things people-to-people and avoid getting involved with large hierarchical organizations who will try to appear friendly but will move the development into a more centralized mode which they can then influence and have control over.

What the EU people want I think is a Silicon Valley in the EU. A digital portfolio from which they can project influence internationally and a vehicle for venture capital and new digital markets. If you read their blurb this is what they say, and I don’t have any reason to disbelieve them.

Obviously something like the fediverse doesn’t really fit with the cunning EU plan (fits like a fish riding a bicycle) and so at some point there will be an ideological parting of lovers (perhaps it has already happened, I am not following the NGI conversations).

A. The #mainstreaming funding of the #fedivers is already completely dominated by the #EU all the big projects are funded by #NGI

This is more #fuckup than conspiracy though am shore conspiracy is growing as people see the levers of power and control which comes with money agenda.

It’s an “invisible” hot war, standing aside is not an option.

Q. Maybe there should be a plan for whenever the EU launches some venture capital fediverse product. I expect it would be like what Trump is doing, but under some EU branded “incubator” and maybe with centralized moderation.

Something like that would create a tug-of-love between the revenue of projects and a centralizing agenda. I’ve been around the bloc enough times to know it’s bound to happen. These things are so formulaic.

A. I think that’s jumping ahead of were we are for the next year or two. Most of the People at #NGI pushing this agenda simple do not see the damage they do. Only a tiny number are actively “evil” currently.

We have a opening http://hamishcampbell.com the last few posts are a way to step away from this “crisis”.

Q. It’s like you can see the truck driving towards the cliff edge.

“If you go in that direction, you’ll fall off the edge”.

The driver says “Nah mate, it’s different this time”.

And you watch the truck as it reaches the precipice, and then falls off.

A. yep but need to look in the back of tuck as it’s filled with much of the #fedivers infrastructure that’s going to go over the cliff.

Actavisam is to sit down in front of the truck and refuse to move, while talking to the “press” about the issues #fluffy​

Or pour sugar into the truck fual tank in the night #spiky​

Standing and watching while shrugging shoulders is kinda #mainstreaming 🙂

Influx of EU funding into the Fediverse – all together push through, the HARD block crumbles

Getting a good outcome is hard… And this current influx of EU funding risks doing more damage than good to the health of the #Fediverse, if it continues along its present agenda. Yes, the #Fediverse already has its own lifestyle-driven mess, but we can try to mediate the damage driven by funding first. If we succeed there, maybe the lifestyle drift can self-mediate in time.

Aiming for a better outcome, what we’re looking for is social change and challenge with less mess. This page looks at some of the best funding we’ve found http://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens/wiki/Funding-of-openweb-projects Not an attack, but opening a conversation on an obvious issue.

We can also look at funding that is being completely wasted, but that’s likely outside our influence. Lets keeping it positive (When We Can), I like to keep things positive… if possible.
But let’s be honest — a lot of people are BLOCKING, and that’s going to cause fire and a LOT of smoke. This is what real social change/challenge looks like: murky. Focus on #KISS — Keep It Simple — to see through the smoke.

Transparency matters, it’s hard to imagine how you can do a left-wing project without showing your workings:

  • Open/Trust = left
  • Fear/Control = right

That’s the core framing this page is about.

#Dotcons & poisoned agenda, Yep, the whole #dotcons side of the EU funding agenda is poison.
It only feeds the mess. And as I’ve pointed out before, most funding ends up poured straight down the drain. Sadly, that’s the default outcome.

#IndymediaBack – Learning the right lessons, one thing to keep in mind: I think we (the #Indymedia crew) learned the wrong lesson from the repression and state raids. We pushed fear/control as the solution, and this added to the #closedweb mess. But as the #Fediverse now shows, the path should have been open/trust — That’s the #openweb path we abandoned. That split ripped Indymedia apart, and we’ve been stuck in the #dotcons mess ever since.

Simplicity as Strategy, when making judgments, keep it #KISS — Simplicity is what cuts through the mess. Shovels and compost, is the #OMN approach.

Trauma, Repression & Healing, Yes, trauma is real. That’s why I lean into basic ways of looking at these things. From there, it’s up to people to build up, DIY style — a real grassroots approach.

Practical approaches, watch the film:

I made this for the legal support crew of a major campaign. The repression was ongoing and intense — But the healing came through mass participation, like walking calmly through police stop and search zones. That likely helped to mediate a lot of growing trauma.

Final thought: #Openweb – all together push through, the HARD block crumbles. We’ve got work to do. Let’s keep it grounded, open, and as clear as we can through the murk.

Lets rate funding for openweb projects

Can use different ideas, am starting with left/right. If you would like to use a different agenda please open a new page and go for it.

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” in this first look am using very basic definitions.

  • Right-wing is motivated by Fear/control
  • Left-wing is motivated by Trust/open
  • Center – liberal/social democracy agenda
  • NGO – pointlessness, nobody uses it.

Going to start with the best #openweb funders I have found recently https://nlnet.nl/ who have money from NGI Zero which is from the EU

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

This is DIY feel free to add to this draft, just add your view as Right/Left/Center/NGO before the project and if it’s different to the other view’s maybe add a short text why in brackets.

Thinking

The world has shifted hard to the right in the last 10 years, it has dragged the “left” in reaction to this move. The is little what you would traditionally call left.

What is left is in “reaction” to the right, thus is reaction/conservatism, which is a right agenda.

There is a bind/blind/blocking here that we have to work to overcome.

This thread is shovel and composting.

Q. For example, they’ve labelled Disroot as right-wing. Why? Because in their opinion all encryption stuff is motivated by fear/control, which are the tools of the right wing, so it must be right-wing… :/

A. This should be obvious – Disroot is about “Fear/control” yes you can say you are doing this for left agenda which is obviously true. BUT the “motivation” is right wing and not left wing which is what am looking at, it’s based on “Fear/control”

Q. “we want encryption since it guarantees certain freedoms/rights, like the right to communicate privately.”

A. Fear leading to the need for control – this is an obvious right-wing path. Not saying it’s a bad thing in the shit heap we live in 🙂 What would a leftwing path, based on open/trust look like?

Q. But it’s got nothing to do with the right wing. Just because you want to keep all projects in several categories doesn’t justify labeling Disroot, a team of dedicated people who work very hard to provide others with privacy-respecting services, as Right-wing…

A. We are looking at these projects from basic *political* viewpoints in this meany, encryption projects are about “conserving” a right or #blocking a problem. These are both negative conservative agenda.

This might be counterintuitive but have a look at political philosophy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%

“Generally, the left-wing is characterized by an emphasis on “ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism” while the right-wing is characterized by an emphasis on “notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism”

It’s interesting to look at the world in different ways.

End thoughts

Am hoping that people are starting to see that there are almost no left-wing tech funding, yes the is funding using right-wing agendas to push back at right-wing problems. BUT actual projects funded to push left-wing agenda are rare.

Of course there is a huge amount of NGO #pouring money down the drain, this is normal. Here am looking at the BEST progressive tech funding I can find, they do good work, so it’s not an attack please.

On the #pomo “debate”, best to keep it to the basics

* The is such a thing as “reality” and we, intrinsically, have a limited idea of what this is.

* All human though and culture are created by humans.

* in this, there is a strong tendency for all to become religion in the end.

* In the west, we have created a “hack” to try and escape this limitation. All religions are based on “truth” so instead we built a working practice based on “doubt” and remember the outcomes of this “doubt” process.

* This simple hack is called science, and our western society prove that it works VERY well for both good and evil outcome.

Now we have an issue of morality, of how to behave, this is dealt with in the next simple section.

#deathcult and #lifecult are metaphors of human nature

#deathcult and #lifecult are metaphors of human nature. Both are “cults” very human. Life and death is a better truth to speak, but not human to communicate, we compromise with the world as it is and live in the world of cults.

For the logic choppers, the words are not for you, you are a knife, we are talking about metaphors and inspiration, the building of hope. The Knife that you know divides, which is a small part of building hope, I am touching on the wider social “truths” in these metaphors.

#deathcult is the mainstreaming, “greed is good” is a modern glimpse.

#lifecult is a counter current that makes up a part of mainstream, you can find this in “left” politics, ecological movements and some religious heretics and sects.

Death and Life are a balance in the wide view. To us/humans we push a more narrow view some for life some for death.

We build our hope in #undercurrents of our social movements these feed into/or feed the mainstreaming cultures that reshape us.

At best “life” is the spring/flow. Though often our society build sewers and the filth of “death” contaminates this spring. This is the worlds we live in.

The ansear is simple, composting to purify the shit that fill the mainstream. Our job “life” is building this composting social system.

Ideas to communicate this to the logisticians who are our need “blinded” alias in this building work.

Social media is a drug, we need to stop the self/movement harm now #OMN

Facebook is nothing to do with anarchy, it was set up to sell people’s attention to advertisers, so it’s actually about social control as are all #dotcons
 
#failbook algorithms are defined to create divisions and arguments, so best not to talk about core activist things on here.
Just give the clear, simple outreach messages with links to the #openweb and tell people to ask questions in on the #openweb posts.
 
It’s crazy that many activists still think this is a good place and that people still keep creating new #failbook activist groups.