An #openweb organic intellectual,technologist and part of the #OMN
For the last 20 years, our own crew have played a big part in shaping the digital world we see today. The outcome is what began as a space of radical possibility has been enclosed, exploited, and transformed into a corporate-controlled dystopia of #dotcons. We now lived inside this algorithmic trap, and in many ways, … Continue reading We made this mess, it’s pastime to clean it up
In the world shaped by corporate control, liberal co-option, and empty activism, the language we use is a battleground. The unthinking push for #mainstreaming has dulled radical energy, replacing effectiveness with sanitized, #NGO-friendly language that avoids real social change and challenge. To be serious about building an alternative, we need to rethink how we communicate—not … Continue reading Stepping away: #OMN through clear, grounded communication
The tension between control vs. trust in tech and society is a core to defining the success or failure of grassroots, open projects like #OMN and the #fediverse. The problem isn’t just technical, but deeply social: a struggle between hierarchical control (power over) and distributed, democratic trust (power within). But we have the ongoing #geekproblem … Continue reading Are the currently spaces trust is built at scale, or do we need to create them from scratch?
The boater community is in rapid transition, with the pressures from gentrification, corporate control (#CRT), and online group dynamics (#failbook) colliding with a long-established scruffy, self-sufficient, and often chaotic #liveaboard culture. This can be seen in the #failbook London Boaters group which has shifted away from its activist roots into more of a “management” role, … Continue reading The stress of living in the remains of the commons, boaters in the UK
We live in a disastrous 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 what they need. This is one of the core tenants of the #deathcult, the #neoliberal ideology that tells us there is … Continue reading A #4opens alternative to the #deathcult
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 … Continue reading Rewilding the Digital & Physical World: How My Work Ties to the Environment
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 … Continue reading Rewilding a people-first web, beyond the #dotcons
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 … Continue reading The Open Society and its Media (Mark S. Miller at GMU, 1991?)
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 an example here, it was … Continue reading Maybe it’s time to stop trying to fix broken tools, to build with a truly native approach?
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 … Continue reading Ideological traps
With the hard shift to the right in US tech, Europe can no longer afford to sit idly by in tech development. The myth of neutrality has always been a convenient lie—if we don’t actively counterbalance this shift, we risk watching the #FOSS and #openweb movements collapse, taking with them a core pillar of our … Continue reading #NLnet #EU #NGI #NGIzero – Will we get it right this time?
The #openweb is a much better framing than #fediverse when trying to break out of the tribal bubbles. It speaks to something broader and historical, whereas #fediverse is just one (flawed) expression of those ideas. Why #openweb matters, it’s not new, which is actually a strength, this is the original internet vision before it got … Continue reading Cutting through 99% of the #techshit