The victim card in activism

There’s a pervasive and damaging cycle in activist and alternative communities that we need to recognize and break, the victimhood narrative. This is not about dismissing genuine struggles or the real problems we face (and let’s be clear, we all have these in abundance on alternative paths). What I’m talking about is the deliberate use of victimhood as a tactic, a card played to push an agenda or gain sympathy at the expense of collective progress.

When someone plays the victim card, it sets off a feedback loop. Others pick up on this narrative, and whether they mean to or not, they reinforce it. Before long, the person who played the card becomes trapped in their own creation. They become victims of the very narrative they set in motion. Those who latch onto this story to push their own agendas also fall into the trap, ultimately damaging the causes they claim to support.

This tactic does more harm than good. It doesn’t address the actual issues we’re facing; instead, it creates a toxic distraction that undermines real work that we need to do. By focusing on the victim narrative, we lose sight of the bigger picture, the subjects we should be addressing with urgency and clarity.

Let’s stop and think. Let’s step away from this destructive loop. We need to be clear about the real issues and not allow this negative narrative to cloud our judgment and derail our efforts.

Please, don’t reinforce this mess.

On the other hand, there are real victims, but these people aren’t playing card games, recognizing the difference should not be so hard for people.

The victimhood narrative needs composting

The process of challenging this mess making runs into the #mainstreaming of safety culture, we can reflect on Douglas Gwyn’s famous quote about Unix:

“Unix was not designed to stop people from doing stupid things, because that would also stop them from doing clever things.”

This is a powerful insight into the dangers of blinded regulation and unthinking control in tech and social paths. The quote speaks to the value of bindings of strong process in design, which allows for creativity, experimentation, and the change and challenge we need to build trust, yes there is the cost of occasional mistakes it’s a price we pay for taking this path.

Safety culture, particularly as it gets pushed into more regulated, closed systems, stifles the our humanistic experimentation we need to tackle the challenges ahead. The push to make everything safe, moderated, and controlled risks, creating paths where nothing truly transformative can happen. It feeds into the #mainstreaming #deathcult path of conformity, where other paths are sacrificed for the sake of avoiding “mistakes”.

By maintaining an process, as with Unix, we create spaces where people are allowed to fail and, in doing so, come up with new solutions, something that’s becoming more and more vital in the context of our ongoing struggles against #climatechaos, #dotcons dominance, and other meany systemic issues we face.

We need to balance this tension between safety and creativity, recognizing that without the latter, we inadvertently push the very problems we’re trying to solve.

To get past people being lost and thus pointless, It’s useful to frame left and right as driven by fundamental emotional motivators—fear for the right and trust for the left, a way to cut through the complexities of political debates. This lens highlights how cycles of fear perpetuate control-oriented agendas, while trust foster openness and collaboration. It’s a powerful way to step outside the immediate mess, recognizing the #KISS dynamics at play.

Do you think this could be used to influence current #openweb projects and the paths they take amidst #mainstreaming pressures?

Federating Metadata Flows: Bridging Folksonomy and Categories for the #OMN

These native #openweb activism based projects have been around for the last ten years. In the reboot of #Indymedia and the development of the Open Media Network (#OMN), the challenge of federating metadata flows sits at the heart of how people organize, distribute, and consume media in a decentralized, grassroots-driven native path. We’re actively navigating the space between #folksonomy (bottom-up, organic tagging) and categories (top-down, structured organization). Each approach offers advantages, but bridging them creatively is key to an effective and open media landscape.

What this #indymedia reboot video leave out is this:

Folksonomy vs. Categories:

#Folksonomy is a people and community -driven method of tagging content, allowing communities to organically build a taxonomy that reflects their interests and needs. It’s flexible, dynamic, and rooted in grassroots culture.
* Advantage: Captures the diversity and fluidity of bottom-up organizing.
* Disadvantage: Can be messy, inconsistent, and hard to scale across diverse instances.

#Categories are a structured, hierarchical way of organizing information, providing clarity and consistency.
* Advantage: Easier to search, sort, and maintain across larger networks.
* Disadvantage: Top-down imposition is restrictive and alienate grassroots contributors.

The OMN path: Combining Folksonomy with Categories

The #OMN and the Indymedia reboot are grounded in bottom-up grassroots projects, so we obviously start with a folksonomy approach. However, we recognize there’s some practical use for categories as well. Here’s a draft proposal for how to bridge the divide:

  1. Folksonomy First: Every media object enters the OMN network with a set of user-generated tags (folksonomy). These tags represent the grassroots nature of the content—open, fluid, and community-driven.
  2. Category Grouping: Allow instances to group folksonomy tags into category clusters. These clusters could be shared across instances, making it easy to adopt community-agreed categories while respecting the folksonomy origin. This means that folksonomy items are not discarded, but instead enhanced by grouping them into more structured categories. The folksonomy items, now part of category groups, flow through the network and can be treated as extra tags, maintaining transparency and openness.
  3. Metadata Flow is the project: The OMN is not just a content distribution network but also a metadata flow tool. It allows media objects to move across instances, while each instance can enhance the object’s metadata (tags/categories) in a transparent and open way. The magic here is in building a path where meaning, the media, tags, and categories are fully federated and can flow effortlessly between decentralized nodes.
  4. Subscription to Category Flows: Instances can subscribe to category flows, essentially saying, “I want to see all media tagged under a specific category or tag group.” This gives structure without forcing it, enabling diversity of content flow while still benefiting from categorization. This flexible subscription system empowers the grassroots while creating a bridge to more top-down consumption or categorization models.
  5. Trust-Based Growth: The entire system is built on trust networks. Instances that trust each other’s tagging and categorization can share media freely, with the assumption that the metadata accompanying it adds value, not friction.

The Philosophy: “Transparency is the New Objectivity”

The OMN is rooted in the philosophy of transparency over objectivity. The flows of metadata, whether from folksonomy or categories, are transparent for to see, remix, and improve upon. This radical openness, guided by the , ensures that the system remains flexible, accessible, and grounded in the needs of people not corporations. Truth bubbles up from this, lies exist, but they are pushed to their own spaces, which people can choose to ignore.

Conclusion: Building the Age of Creative Anarchy

On a positive, we could say that the 19th century was the age of capitalism, the 20th century was the age of social democracy, and the 21st century could be shaping up to be the age of creative anarchy. In this era, the challenge is to embrace diversity while building tools that help us collaborate across differences. The OMN is a practical tool to move media objects and metadata around in a way that encourages creativity, transparency, and bottom-up control, all while allowing some degree of organization through category flows. This is a positive future for media, that is native to our current openweb reboot as our #fashernista like to call this #opensocialweb but the problem it is what we are doing is not social media… bad choice of naming.

The future is messy, but we can compost this mess into a thriving, decentralized media path. Let’s start with trust, folksonomy, and the #openweb, and grow from there #KISS who is coding this, who is funding this, help needed please as I don’t have the focus to see this through, it needs crew and funding, that might be you.

Why We Need the Open Media Network (#OMN)

Mastodon, Meta and Threads

For people who focus on working with the #dotcons there are meany traps, and a lot of dead-ends. This is less of an issue for people fighting them, the problem here is “common sense” #blocking this second path which is a much less lucrative and a thank less task. So we will continue to have more people on the first path. A post that grew from a toot seed, I wonder if Mastodon is to Meta what Firefox once was to Google a small but significant project that big corporations can point to whenever regulators start murmuring about monopolies.

In the early #openweb days, #Firefox was seen as the open-source challenger to the #dotcons of Internet Explorer and later Google Chrome. The NGO #PR represented it as a scrappy, independent alternative, championing the openweb against the increasing dominance of corporate-controlled browsers. But over time, and a lot of funding, Firefox became a tool for companies like Google to gesture toward whenever their monopolistic practices were questioned., “Look, there’s competition! We’re not the only game in town.” The blotted NGO that Firefox became, let the dotcons who funded them, maintain the appearance of a healthy, diverse internet while consolidating power and control.

Today, Mastodon, the corporation, and new NGO projects like the #SWF are likely, unthinkingly, to end up playing a similar role for Meta (#Failbook). With #Meta’s monopoly and influence across social media, platforms like Mastodon offer a symbolic counterpoint. The wider #Fediverse, decentralized, federated model, the alternative “nativist” path, that rejects the data-harvesting, surveillance capitalism model perfected by Meta and the rest of the #dotcons. But in a world where Meta dominates user attention, advertising dollars, and social engagement, the existence of Fediverse when we push #NGO agenda, as people will, like most people did with Firefox could feel more like a token gesture toward competition than a real threat that it needs to be.

The danger on the NGO paths is that Mastodon, and the Fediverse becomes a shield for Meta, just as Firefox was for Google. With the regulators knocking, Meta points to Mastodon and say, “See? There’s healthy competition in the market.” Meanwhile, our grassroots #DIY path will continue to struggle with the challenges that come from operating, outside the #mainstreaming, on the margins, limited resources, scalability, and the constant threat of being drowned out by the sheer weight of the dotcons inflow into our grassroots #openweb reboot.

The truth is, while decentralized paths like Fediverse are vital to the change and challenge we need, not to mention keeping the spirit of the #openweb alive, they’re still pushing hard for space in a corporate-dominated internet. If we only take the #mainstreaming and NGO path, the existence of projects could be used by the dotcons to maintain their monopoly while paying lip service to “competition.”

The question, can we really afford to be only the ‘token alternative’ when the stakes are so high? Or do we need to find a way to build native projects that not only stands apart from the #dotcons, but also changes and challenges them on equal ground? It’s time to think beyond being the counterculture, and start focusing on how we grow and sustain real alternatives. If we don’t, if we cop out on #fluffy only paths, there is a danger that we’ll just keep serving as convenient props in mainstream monopoly charade.

Let’s try very hard not to be irrelevant in the fight for humanity and ecological sustainability in the era of #climatechaos and social brake down being pushed by the #mainstreaming mess making, we are composting.

The #openweb, a partnership, not a nasty walk over

On the subject of #NGO foundations for the #openweb what do they do with this money https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/262852431 this one is shutting down, and this one is in trouble https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/200097189 This kinda funding could cover the costs of the #Fediverse hundreds of times over…. what do they do exactly?

#Fediverse, Definitions, and Building Activist Communities

The question of definitions, particularly around the “Fediverse” and its relationship with the ActivityPub protocol (AP), has become messy due to the influx of #mainstreaming people, this has sparked a lot of mostly unhelpful debate. Let’s be clear, there is no real “Fediverse” without #AP. Since Mastodon’s shift to AP, the entire Fediverse has been built around this protocol. Trying to separate the two or debating the definition at this point feels a reactionary and more noise than signal.

One thing that these #mainstreaming people find hard to understand, thus except, is that the Fediverse isn’t an organized movement but rather a disorganized space full of mythos and traditions. The only solid thing, for better or worse, is the badly implemented ActivityPub protocol, and even that is a work in progress, and not without issues. Outside of AP, there are meany different protocols and projects that bridge into this a loose, difficult to define neatly #openweb path. Yes, things are changing, and let’s engage with these changes, focusing on fighting over abstract definitions is not very productive.

Now, onto the tricky topic of the “dominance of white, techno-libertarian guys” in the space. While it’s an issue worth acknowledging, it’s not practically very central, it’s a part of the messy path. The Fediverse is built on and #DIY principles. It is best to ignore if you can or tolerate the presence of techno-libertarian individuals, as these people are largely noise rather than core to the project. The real barriers to entry are basic technical skills and community-building. This space is actually perfect for the #fluffy side of any activist movement, including a potential #BPP (Black Panther Party) reboot that needs to happen.

Then there’s the idea of “protocol supremacists” using ActivityPub to reinforce their dominance. Yes, you can smell a bit of this, but it’s not actually important or widespread as some people push. The Fediverse was built with almost no money and very little power, so there’s not much for people to hold onto in terms of control. The gatekeeping you see is real from a few players, but they’re not too bad (so far). However, you’re right that things are likely to change as more institutional power and #NGO types enter the space.

Our internal fixations on insider language like “Eternal September” and “Eternal November” is just this, insider language that’s not particularly useful for most people. The focus remains on the core issues of community-building and the challenges of maintaining the decentralized, #openweb ethos in the face of outside pressures.

As for the racism and toxicity that exists, in huge amounts in the #dotcons and in some corners of the Fediverse, the key is this: Don’t go looking for the worst people, and if they find you, block them quickly. The community is built on and #DIY principles, meaning you have control over community spaces. Building a supportive network takes time, but once established, you can block out the toxicity effectively. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem—build your community first, then deal with the bad actors as they come.

Finally, let’s talk about the lack of digital drugs—those addictive elements you find on #dotcons like Facebook or Twitter. The Fediverse doesn’t have these hooks, so getting people to stay when things turn messy is harder than you might expect. This is why community-building is so crucial. Activist communities need to focus on strong process and then support networks and positive action based paths to create spaces people want to stay in, despite the inevitable challenges.

The #Fediverse is messy, yes. But within that mess, there’s a lot of potential. It’s up to us to cultivate it.

The #openweb, a partnership, not a nasty walk over

We are seeing a flood of #dotcons making their way into spaces built on principles. Their arrival forces us to consider the future we want, and if we can mediate this encroachment for a better path.

Some perspectives on this:

  • Bridging the Gap: Some advocate that we can mediate the space between the #openweb and the incoming corporate influence. This camp believes in building bridges that allow for coexistence and negotiation between the two worlds.
  • Inevitable Takeover: Others feel that the corporate takeover of these spaces is inevitable. They believe we are powerless to stop it, and perhaps the best we can do is find ways to adapt.
  • Bunkering Down: Then there are those who think we should focus entirely on the native path, resisting and weathering the storm. By sticking to our principles and building resilient spaces, we can outlast the wave of corporate interest.
  • Survivalists: Surprisingly, a large number of people fall into the camp of pragmatism—those who need grants and funding to survive. For them, the path we take is secondary to personal survival, though this motivation is often hidden, leading to unhelpful or diluted activism.
  • Tech Activism: And finally, there’s a group dedicated to leveraging the native #openweb path to challenge the status quo. They seek to compost the current mess, using activism to bring about the meaningful change we need.
  • Please add more perspectives in the comments…

The #SocialWebFoundation (SWF) seems to fit into the first category—attempting to mediate between these worlds. Meanwhile, spaces like #SocialHub are a mix of the rest, where different perspectives clash and combine.

It’s clear that this situation is messy, and we’re unlikely to reach a consensus, diversity of thought is a native path. But with this clearly in mind, action is still needed. The question remains: how do we build a consensus that is necessary to take effective action on the #DIY, openweb path? If we fail to do this, as we are now, it’s the #SWF and the #dotcons who will walk the paths we build and talk about, leaving us as increasingly bystanders in our own spaces.

Let’s talk about how we have power in this narrative to keep the #openweb native path at the centre of these shifts and turns, and this is a real partnership, not a nasty walk over.

Oligarchy, Monarchy, and the Future of Governance of the #OpenWeb

A Path of Destruction: The Middle East’s Endless Conflict and Global Consequences

A #KISS post on the messy ideas behind this current real world mess.

The current events in Gaza feel familiar, a replay of the tragic historical cycle that has been spinning for decades. Israel occupies Gaza. Gaza resists this occupation by attacking to retake occupied land, Israel responds by obliterating swaths of Gaza in brutal retaliation. The Arab countries, bound by, dark agendas, and historical and religious ties, half-heatedly come to Gaza’s defence. In response, Israel attacks Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then Iran steps in to defend Lebanon. This pulls the U.S. and U.K. into defending Israel.

It’s the same history we’ve seen before, and it’s the same history we’ll likely see again.

But what could happen next, the mess that’s looming: Israel escalates its conflict with Iran, triggering a regional implosion. The Middle East is thrown into chaos. People die, displaced by war and destruction. Refugees flood into Europe, triggering a far-right political backlash as governments shift further into the current nationalist, isolationist, and authoritarian politics in response to the refugee crisis.

On the current path, if it’s not this, it will be the next crises. Amid all of this turmoil, what happens to climate change? #Climatechaos marches on, unaddressed, with billions of lives at stake. While increasingly right-wing and failing liberal governments are preoccupied with wars and managing waves of displaced people, no significant action is taken on the climate front. The consequences are catastrophic, with more mass death and displacement on the horizon.

The key point here is that this is a mess, a mess we’ve seen unfold before and one that’s almost certain to play out again unless we find a different path to take. A part of this different path is we need to tie the ongoing conflicts directly to the larger global failures, not just politically but existentially, as the real crisis of #climatechaos continues to be ignored, masked by the drama and horror of the endless cycles of war and dead end power struggles.

We can’t stay on this path #KISS

A radical view of the Palestine

Let’s Try a Right-Wing Metaphor

On the #SWF thread, https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/socialwebfoundation-what-do-people-think/4564/85

Let’s try a Right-Wing Metaphor:

Well, this playground is full of noise

In this noise, there is much sense, but no grown-up action. In a children’s playground, it is the adults who are in control, the ones who bind everything together, the ones who make the decisions.

The children play, yes, with noise and creativity, true, which can be beautiful to see.

But this playground noise has little relevance to the world of adults—the ones who do the work of change and challenge, so the children can be free to play.

OK, that’s a right-wing view. But how do we bridge this to a left-wing path? You can find grounded thinking, plans, and native projects linked from hamishcampbell.com that balance this mess we make.

Back to the right-wing metaphor: the subject of this post, the #SocialWebFoundation (#SWF), are the grown-ups. Yes, there are real questions about whether we trust the path they are taking, but it’s the only grown-up path right now. We, in this context, are still the children in the playground.

Question: Do you guys prefer the cats metaphor or the child and playground metaphor? Which one do you think could work its way around the #geekproblem and hyper-individualism (#stupidindividualism) that blocks the change and challenge we URGENTLY need?

Oligarchy, Monarchy, and the Future of Governance of the #OpenWeb

The governance model of the Social Web Foundation (#SWF) aligns with oligarchy, where power is concentrated in the hands of a few, echoing the structures of monarchy normally seen within the broader #FOSS movement. Both oligarchic and monarchic may work for some traditional organizations, but they are not native to the organic, decentralized ethos of the #openweb, which has always been more anarchic in its path.

As we reboot the #openweb to resist and mediate the encroachment of corporate #dotcons, we need a governance path that is native to our space of fluid, decentralized movement. For this, we have been developing the Open Governance Body (#OGB) as a native tech and social solution, rooted in the same principles of federation that power the #Fediverse. It’s designed to be permissionless, allowing seamless adoption across platforms, enabling a truly open and resilient network that resists centralized control that is so strongly pushing into this #reboot.

The Fediverse dilemma is efficiency vs. values. Some people argue that the Fediverse isn’t “efficient” or capable of “capturing market share” like big tech platforms. While scalability and usability are important, it’s crucial to remember that the Fediverse’s success comes not from corporate metrics like profit margins or user acquisition, but from grassroots movements, affinity groups, and real needs. The challenge lies in creative “stitching”, in building networks that scale while maintaining the core values of openness, decentralization, and permissionlessness.

Big tech’s model is horribly efficient at addiction and control, but at the loss of community, autonomy, and creativity. We don’t need to replicate their model. Instead, we #KISS focus on the values that make the #openweb unique: cooperation, shared governance, and, most importantly, people’s agency.

Why OGB and OMN Matter, the Open Governance Body (#OGB) is built from decades of activist organizing, and like the #OMN (Open Media Network), it’s designed for the public good. Both projects are rooted in the belief that we already have working models, proven over 200 years of social activism—that can guide us in building alternative tech solutions to resist the corrosive influence of corporate power

If you’re interested in how we can compost the current tech mess, have a read about the concepts of #composting on this site and learn more about the #OGB and #OMN. We can’t keep creating the same #techshit mess, by understanding these alternative paths can we walk together, a path toward a truly #openweb that is so needed in this era of #climatechaos

How to think about governance https://lovergine.com/foss-governance-and-sustainability-in-the-third-millennium.html

The metaphor of cat herding

The metaphor of cat herding is a useful and fitting when working with decentralized, independent actors who are resistant to collective action, especially in grassroots tech and activist communities. It reflects the challenge of getting people to focus, organize, and work toward common goals without losing their autonomy or devolving into chaos.

With projects like #OMN and the broader #openweb movement, this “cat behavior” is part of the problem, people (especially in the tech and activist communities) are often independent to a fault. Many resist structure, preferring to focus on their individual projects without acknowledging the necessity for governance and collaboration. It’s not enough to be open; without some kind of balance, “open” becomes vulnerable to co-option by corporate interests with #mainstreaming or at the grassroots paralysed by fragmentation.

Let’s look at some examples of balancing the “Common Sense” #mainstreaming mess:

The term #socialweb is a perfect example of an inadequate framing. It doesn’t hold the critical, oppositional power needed to counter the problems caused by mainstream platforms and narratives. The #openweb, clarified through the , offers a path to activism that balances the inevitable co-option by corporations and the path of NGOs like the #SWF (Social Web Foundation). But this balance only works if we acknowledge the simple reality: that both grassroots actors and corporations have access to these spaces.

The invisible power of #FOSS is another key aspect here. The foundation of corporate tech stacks is built on open-source projects, yet the social and political value of this is lost on many people who don’t see beyond the technical aspects. The same applies to the #geekproblem, which ties directly into the cat-herding analogy—people in the geek world to often miss the bigger picture and the need for broader, political engagement beyond coding or individual technical projects.

Cats vs. Humans in Governance

When grassroots movements fail to build their own governance structures, external actors step in. This is where NGOs or other “grown-up humans” take over. They come in to “pet the cats”—offering bowls of food and the “safety”, and the control of care, but ultimately exerting direction over a process that needs to be native, organic and grassroots-driven. This infantilises the community, pacifying it rather than empowering it.

The problem is that the “cats” let this happen because they are incapable of building the structures necessary to avoid it. If we don’t step up with human solutions, if we don’t create governance models that fit our ideals, we’re always losing control to external forces that don’t share our values and paths.

It’s beyond urgent to move from cat behaviour to human solutions, we are in an era of #climatechaos, where incrementalism and complacency are paths we can no longer take. We can’t keep trying to herd cats who refuse to collaborate on meaningful, systemic change. Instead, we need humans who can engage with the mess we’ve made and work together to clean it up.

To make this move from cat behaviour to human solutions:

  • Build Native Governance: Grassroots projects need to establish their own governance from the start. This avoids outsiders stepping in and co-opting the movement. The #OGB is a solid step in this direction.
  • Clarify Language and Values: Words like #socialweb lack the critical edge to inspire action. Framing like #openweb and make the values explicit and point to the political and social power of the alternative we’re built.
  • Acknowledge Power Dynamics: Open means open for everyone, including corporations. But grassroots actors need to reclaim the open spaces they helped create rather than let these be dominated by corporate inflowing interests. Balance can only come from political awareness and active mediation.
  • Move Beyond Individualism: The metaphor of herding cats also speaks to the issue of #stupidindividualism. We need to get beyond this and rebuild collectives, focusing on shared governance and goals rather than isolated actions.
  • Challenge Corporate Co-Option: Just as #FOSS underpins corporate tech, we need to build movements that are resilient to corporate takeover. This involves structures and cultural values that resist domination and control.

It should not need to be repeated so often, the shift we need is cultural as much as it is technical. We can’t keep going down paths we know do not work and only lead us back to the current mess. We need to rethink what it means to be part of a collective and how to build governance that reflects our values, instead of relying on outside forces to define them for us #KISS

PS. I am thinking this could get messy, we need shovels #OMN

The path out of this mess is in part social tech, we need to build this path

The current path of distraction’s and #stupidindividualism are pushing the cycle of pointless noise that is feeding into our inability to focus on real change. People are busy, swept up in distractions, and pointless pursuits to be the change and challenge they need to be. It’s a cycle of complacency with a bad outcome. Agitation, anger, and disturbance are powerful motivators, but we need to focus into something meaningful, to avoid drowning in the noise, we need to focus on what’s actually going on. But, in this mess, how do we push people to grow up and focus without falling into the trap of more #blocking or just offering more distractions or ‘better bling’?

The answer is simple and #KISS, by recreating collectives. We’ve seen first hand how hyper individualism (#stupidindividualism) isolates people, leaving them powerless against larger systemic issues. Rebuilding real, engaged, and active communities is key. Movements like #OMN, #OGB, #indymediaback, and are examples of initiatives that become the change and challenge we need. These projects draw from undercurrents of ideas that we know work, combining them with the best of #openweb tech to grow from small seeds into real change.

But it’s also essential to dig at the roots of the mess: #pomo (#postmodernism) and the #deathcult (#neoliberalism), ideologies that have shaped the mess we’re in, cynicism and cutting off collective alternatives. If we don’t address these root issues, they will keep returning, and we’ll remain stuck in the same cycles of decay.

The #geekproblem is real, it’s the problem of domination and control born out of geek culture shaped by “common sense” paths. Look at the decline of the #dotcons like #failbook and Google, where #fashionista optimism gave way to corporate greed. Then look at early days of #openweb projects like #couchsurfing and #indymedia, we had healthy, thriving native cultures that weren’t obsessed with control. The key is to recognize what went wrong and build on a path that doesn’t repeat those mistakes.

What the #dotcons think the future is, from meta

The challenge is that many within geek culture can’t see the value of projects like #OMN, as it exists outside their narrow, “common sense” world-views. We need to help people see beyond the obvious, look for non-mainstream alternatives, and recognize that the solutions aren’t in the corporate web but in the decentralized, open spaces, commons, we create ourselves.

Now is the time to reboot our own media and to be wary of #fashionista agendas that hijack and dilute the change we need. The way forward is messy, organic, and rooted in collective action. What we can do:

  • Agitate and Disturb: Use media, art, and culture to push people out of their comfort zones and make them question the status quo. The hashtag story is a tool to do this.
  • Build Collectives: Recreate spaces where people can work together meaningfully, paths that empower communities to balance the current #stupidindividualism. The OMN are projects for this.
  • Focus on the Roots: Don’t only address symptoms, dig deep into the core ideologies that keep returning and haunting us, like #pomo and the #deathcult. This website is a tool for this
  • Reboot Media: We need to take back control of our media, using open technology to create alternatives that aren’t based on capitalist greed but on #KISS shared values. There is a native project for this indymediaback
  • Stay Wary of Distractions: Resist the temptation of ‘better bling.’ The solution is not to make the distractions shinier, but to focus on what matters.

The path out of this mess is in part social tech, which we need to build. It’s time to grow up, pay attention, and start building the world we actually want to live in. A shovel is need to compost the current mess #OMN. But I don’t have the focus to do this, we need a crew.

The key part of this is WHO decides, this is a political and democratic issue, not a tech “problem” we need to build with this strongly in mind.

What am I doing now?

People ask, so It’s good to remind my self about this, my journey of working to compost this mess goes back a long way, as you can see from the snapshots of history I’ve written about here: https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=history. It’s a light touch on nearly 30 years of work. It all started with the Sinclair Spectrum, where I was part of a development team working on games and applications. I was also one of the first wave of users of the #WWW when it arrived at the computer centre in Oxford. For the last two decades, I’ve been at the heart of grassroots #openweb activism, working on countless projects—some flourished, many did not.

Ten years ago, I bought a lifeboat and sailed away, attempting to step back from the endless noise. But, as the world is round, I’ve come full circle and find myself back in the fray. And yes, it’s still a mess.

It’s important to keep asking questions, and one that comes up often is, “What are you doing now?” It’s easy to list the things I’ve done, but what’s happening right now? Currently, I’m in conversations with people about responsibility within the #openweb, though I’m not sure how much is really being heard. Still, it’s worth trying.

Where do you see the opportunity for these dialogues

In practical terms, all the recent projects I’ve worked on are on standby for now. The most relevant one to this #SocialWebFoundation conversation is the #OGB (Open Governance Body), which you can learn more about here: https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody. The quotes from this project remain telling, especially in light of today’s struggles: https://hamishcampbell.com/corporate-presence-in-the-fediverse/, deeply relevant as we discuss the corporate encroachments we face today.

On the personal side, I’m fitting out a bigger lifeboat. If we keep making this mess, we may all end up needing one to survive the tide of #climatechaos. As for tech, maybe I’m entering the grumpy old man stage, but I increasingly feel that the next generation should stop creating more #techshit. It’s time for shovels and composting—the messy, necessary work of turning the rot into fertile ground for something better.

On the subject: We talked about this here, What would a fediverse “governance” body look like? And then here Working and thinking on “native” #openweb aproches to governance and agen here where the conversation goes off the rails OGB Means Open Governance Body

A video on the ogb project that came out of us outreaching AP to the EU, the last time we did manage to herd the “cats” for a good outcome.

OGB video

This is a “native” path that we know will work to both empower “us” and disempower “them” it’s easy and simple and native.

The #SWF would have a voice, they simply become an affiliate stakeholder, like meany others.

I don’t have the focus to push this any more, so it will need a crew.

The conversation continues here

The #deathcult is neoliberalism

If you’ve spent time on my website, you’ve come across the term neoliberalism. It’s a word that’s used so much that its meaning has maybe been diluted. You might have a surface-level understanding: deregulation, privatization, tax cuts for the rich, the classic “trickle-down” nonsense where we’re supposed to believe that if the rich get richer, everyone will magically benefit. It’s not entirely wrong, but it only scratches the surface.

So, what really is neoliberalism? It’s the core of what I call the #deathcult – this unquestioning faith in the free market, a belief that capitalism, when left completely to its own devices, will allocate resources efficiently and justly. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. This ideology is at the heart of why our society is collapsing, why inequality is rampant, why climate change isn’t being addressed meaningfully, and why we’re on a collision course with disaster.

#Neoliberalism isn’t new. We’ve seen it before in the laissez-faire economics of the late 19th century, which crashed into the Great Depression. It ended in global upheaval, political unrest, and the rise of authoritarian regimes. And now we’re on the same path with social disintegration and #climatechaos, this time the mess is even more poisonous, with ecological collapse looming.

At its core, neoliberalism is about giving all the power to the “business class”. Not the people, not communities, not workers—just businesses and capitalists. In a #neoliberal world, the capitalist class gets to make all the decisions: setting wages, determining prices, managing resources, polluting freely, without interference from governments and collective movements. It’s a system designed to serve the interests of the most evil people while pretending to offer “freedom” to consumers. But that “freedom” is a lie. What kind of choice is it when you can’t afford housing, healthcare, or basic survival? “Pick one,” they say, while everything crumbles around us.

And the worst part? Neoliberalism doesn’t just push suffering, it justifies it. If you’re poor, it’s your fault. You didn’t work hard enough. You’re lazy. The cruelty of it is staggering: the rich hoard their wealth, built on the backs of workers, while the system vilifies those who are struggling to get by. This ideology isn’t just economic, it’s political. Neoliberalism co-opts the state, transforming it into an enforcer for the business class. The state’s role becomes about protecting corporate interests, not public welfare. Deregulation, privatization, militarization, these are its tools to keep the market “free” for capitalists while making life increasingly unfree for everyone else.

This is the mess we are in now. We’re witnessing the slow, methodical destruction of the real social safety nets, of any meaningful government oversight, and of collective power. Neoliberalism hates unions, despises activism, and fears real challenge and challenge to the business class. And when push comes to shove, it would rather align with fascism than allow any alternative like socialism or genuine collective power to rise.

So when I talk about the #deathcult, this is what I mean. It’s neoliberalism, an ideology of destruction, dressed up as “freedom” and “efficiency.” The task before us isn’t just to critique it but to compost it, to build affinity groups, to seed movements that understand the depth of the problem and are ready to plant the seeds of real alternatives. We can’t afford to just sit back and let it continue. We have worshipped this #deathcult for 40 years, we need to lift our heads and shovels #OMN, and we need to do this now.

Where do you see the opportunity for these dialogues