An #openweb organic intellectual,technologist and part of the #OMN
We’re living through a cultural shift. The #Fediverse, the #openweb, and grassroots tech projects like #OMN were born to challenge the values of the corporate web, not to reproduce them.But what are we doing instead? We’re seeing people attacked simply for linking to context and history. Linking is native to the open web. Attacking people … Continue reading When we block thinking, it’s pratish #dotcons behaviour
With the #Fediverse gaining increasing #mainstreaming attention, we’re entering a familiar cycle, an influx of well-funded #NGO-branded projects trying to “fix” the #openweb by reshaping it in their own narrowing and to often blinded paths. Take this year’s #chatteringclass event, #FediForum. Alongside breathless praise, last year, for #Threads joining the #opensocialweb space, we’re seeing the … Continue reading The Fediverse is opening, but there is a cost
In the sprouting landscape of #openweb infrastructure, it’s not just code that gets ignored, it’s the possibility of change itself. Projects like #makeinghistory, part of the wider Open Media Network (#OMN), aren’t asking for much. They’re not flashy. They’re not political in the #mainstreaming sense. They just quietly build the back-end tools that allow people … Continue reading The wall of funding silence
Our powerlessness feeds our desire to hate. This is not a personal failing – it’s a social design flaw. A path built on alienation and distraction will always funnel frustration into polarisation. That’s why the controversy-driven algorithms of the #dotcons (corporate social media platforms) are not just annoying, but actively harmful. They feed on our … Continue reading The story: power, truth, and walking the fun path
A brief literary diversion to get back to our coding and #UX design. In the book News from Nowhere, William Morris invites us to dream, but more than that, he asks us to build. Written in 1890, this visionary novel imagines a world beyond capitalism: no money, no bosses, no state, just people living together … Continue reading Collaborative futures “Go Outside”
This post is from being a part of this Oxford reading group. Feedback on William Morris, his life and books, which doesn’t only critique capitalism and dream about its collapse, but also offers a compelling vision of what comes after. Imagines a society without money, coercion, or hierarchical governance. Power is radically distributed, labour is … Continue reading William Morris – Bridging Theory and Practice in News from Nowhere
Telegram partnering with Elon’s #AI to distribute #Grok inside chats is a clear line crossed. This matters because private data ≠ training fodder, bringing Grok (or any #LLM) into messaging apps opens the door to pervasive data harvesting and normalization of surveillance. This is an example of platform drift: Telegram was always sketchy (proprietary, central … Continue reading Telegram messaging app is dieing
We live inside and meany of us under a system for 200 years, global capitalism, where value is determined not by care, connection, or any collective well-being, but by market logic. If something is not valued in that narrow logic, it is treated as waste. This means that if you don’t actively value the alternatives … Continue reading The Mess – If You Don’t Value Things, You Destroy Them
#Musk is a useful example of the #nastyfew: wealthy technocrats wrapping themselves in the cloak of progress while undermining the foundations of any, let alone a just future. These stories and narratives about innovation are a high-tech rebrand of green capitalism, a slick façade masking the same old decaying systems of extraction, inequality, and authoritarianism. … Continue reading Stop chasing tech cults and start growing rooted alternatives
We need to keep highlighting an old but still urgent tension: the intersection of technology and social change. In this too often unspoken divide, one side leans heavily on practical, technical problem-solving. They want working code, functioning systems, and tangible results, not abstract debates. To them, critiques about capitalism shaping code sound like distractions from … Continue reading The #OMN isn’t just about media, it’s about building the social soil
We need to talk about a circler familiar mess: when movements that are open, non-hierarchical, and anti-authoritarian end up recreating the problems they set out to escape. This is the “dogma of anti-dogma”, and you see it everywhere, the example I am using here is in groups like the Rainbow Gatherings. The Rainbow Gatherings have … Continue reading The #OMN View – The Dogma of Anti-Dogma: Rainbow Gatherings
Dear Michiel, At this point, it’s hard not to notice a pattern. You’ve received clear, thoughtful proposals aligned with your calls – yet no real engagement, year after year. I’ve said this gently before: your call-out text needs to be composted. If you’re not funding alternative, open, activist infrastructure – just say that. Don’t lead … Continue reading Composting the reboot funding