An #openweb organic intellectual,technologist and part of the #OMN
A reflection on Oxford, the web, and the invisible gap we’re not naming. It’s a simple question, but one that says a lot about where we’re at with the #Fediverse and the broader #openweb reboot: Why doesn’t every city have its own Fediverse server? I’ve been looking – specifically for my city: Oxford, UK. And … Continue reading Why Doesn’t Every City Have a Fediverse Server?
Here’s a small but powerful challenge for #openweb builders – and a perfect #DIY project if you’re fed up with the current #geekproblem. I’ve been trying to find #Fediverse instances that actually cover my town, Oxford, UK, so I can help promote and grow them locally. You’d think this would be simple, right? But… nope. … Continue reading Programming Mission: Let’s Fix the Fediverse Discovery Gap
The discussions on sovereignty at #NGIForum2025 make me wonder: what year are we in? It’s as if we’re rebooting grassroots conversations we’ve had for decades – but without the mess, memory, or movement that gave them meaning in the first place. A breath of clarity came from @renchap, who said it plainly: Absolutely. If that … Continue reading Getting through this era of collapse with anything humane intact
We’re seeing a pattern here in the UK similar to what Kristin Kobes Du Mez maps out in Jesus and John Wayne, the rise of hypermasculine, nationalist evangelical Christianity that’s far more about power than faith. It’s a core part of politics across the Atlantic for decades, and now the same push is happing here … Continue reading Evangelicals and the hardright
Reflections from the Rothermere Institute Symposium #Oxford This recent panel brought together a group of notable scholars – Melinda Cooper (Australian National University), author of Counter-Revolution and Family Values; Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Calvin University), author of Jesus and John Wayne; Joel Suarez (Harvard University), author of Labor of Liberty, forthcoming; and Noam Maggor (Queen … Continue reading Trumpism and the progressive paths to an alternative future
Seminar Reflection: Philosophy, AI, and Innovation – Week 6Topic: AI Deliberation at ScaleSpeakers: Chris Summerfield (Oxford & AI Safety Institute), MH Tessler (Google DeepMind)Key texts: Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (excerpt) and Summerfield et al., “AI Can Help Humans Find Common Ground in Democratic Deliberation” This seminar focus is on scaling … Continue reading Governance, the mess of AI tech-fix paths
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
This is touching on the event as had to leave early. I was recently at a talk from the Oxford University series, “The Philosophers Talking About AI”. There were some underlying themes that are deeply relevant to how we think about privacy, information, and our current techno-social mess. Action vs. Paralysis, the talk opens with … Continue reading The Philosophers Talking About AI: Context, Flow, and the #geekproblem
I just was at a talk from the Oxford University. The rise of economic nationalism and the return of state power – While the speakers skirt around key terms like socialism and justice, the implications of what’s discussed are clear, the #neoliberal era is ended, and what comes next is still being shaped. For the … Continue reading World of war – The global battle for industrial supremacy
At Balliol, the event is thick with what I’d call posh gits. The event felt conservative, not just politically, but in the deeper, old-school, institutional sense. The air was deep with entitlement. The room was full of young wannabes, the privileged types who don’t need to try, the future “elitists” rehearsing for their inheritance. The … Continue reading Notes from the Bubble: A Bad Conservative Pantomime at Balliol
The opening moment of the workshop on Methodological Strategies for Real-Life Theorising was unintentionally profound. A story of a seagull crieing above the glass façade of the Blavatnik School of Government – a building that stands as a temple to the #deathcult that shaped our lives for the last 40 years of #neoliberal change. In … Continue reading The Seagull Knows: Notes on a Constipated Discipline
The architecture of Oxford, the grand halls, towering spires, and ivy-covered colleges, is more than a backdrop. It’s a symbol. These buildings don’t only house knowledge; they embody a history of power, privilege, and preservation. It’s in the walls, the unspoken codes of belonging, the centuries of elitism embedded in tradition, the quiet weight of … Continue reading It’s in the Walls