An #openweb organic intellectual,technologist and part of the #OMN
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
Compost, not illusions, is a first step – A radical look at “light green” tech – For a second step we need a useful compost layer for growing native projects, like the #OMN. What we currently have in most so-called “green technology” promoted through #mainstreaming and #fashernista narratives is not ecological in substance – it’s … Continue reading What we need is useful compost layer’s for growing native projects
The current extreme inequality between rich and poor isn’t a bug in the system – it’s a feature of capitalism. It’s not just inevitable, it’s desirable for those who benefit from it. The structure is built to concentrate wealth and power for the #nastyfew at the top, while extracting labour and resources from the grassroots … Continue reading The mess we make – capitalism and climatechaos
The last 20 years of tech governance projects keep missing the mark because they refuse to engage with the real, lived experiences of grassroots activists and community builders. Instead of listening, they fall back into the comfort zones of the #geekproblem: control over collaboration, certainty over-curiosity, code over community. This is further compounded by the … Continue reading Tech governance fails, its pastime to compost the mess
Horizontal people always get fucked over by vertical people. This is normal, why? Because horizontals give away power to build social fabric, while verticals hoard and concentrate power to extract and dominate. Every. Single. Time. And the only thing that makes horizontals work, in the face of such mess making, is shared worldview, which we … Continue reading Don’t be a prat, please try and recognize the roots of issues
A problem we’ve inherited from the last ten years of corporate social media, the #dotcons, is the toxic confusion of the personal and the public. Platforms like #Facebook and #Twitter blurred the lines between private conversation and public broadcasting, monetizing both as if they were the same. That mess wasn’t accidental; it was profitable. Unfortunately, … Continue reading Without discomfort, we won’t challenge the system we’re still living inside
The #blocking of current action, the constant stalls, confusion, and fragmentation, has a lot to do with the mess our use of language makes. And the deeper issue is how this messy language feeds back into our culture, which then loops back to make the language even murkier. It’s a feedback loop that clouds meaning, … Continue reading Messy language feeds back into our messy culture
All the #OMN projects I’ve worked on over the years, from #OGB to #indymediaback, are not directly about social change. They are about creating the possibility of social change. A subtle, but critical difference. We don’t claim to have the answers. What we do offer are tools, networks, and processes that make it easier for … Continue reading A letter from the margins of the #openweb
Almost all our posting in the #openweb and in the #dotcons in response to #mainstreaming news is noise. It’s reactive, fragmented, performative. We scroll, we rage, we boost, we dunk, but we don’t build. Sometimes, someone posts something thoughtful, something deep, meaningful. But it vanishes in the churn. The system is designed this way. Even … Continue reading News, the signal-to-noise mess
There’s a “normal” dangerous illusion still clinging to liberal democracies: that we’re in a time of political turbulence, but the foundations remain intact. That, somehow, we’ll “course correct.” But this needs to be seen as blinded thinking. What is obvious is that we’re actually experiencing regime change, not in some distant land, but right here … Continue reading Regime change in the West
Our history of involvement in #EU digital outreach and policy meetings has made one thing starkly clear, our #openweb is deeply entangled in the process of #mainstreaming, a messy, often co-optive dynamic where grassroots voices are softened, diluted, and redirected into bureaucracy, then in the end they are simply #blocked. Yes, while there is value … Continue reading Mainstreaming: Building Grassroots Balance
The #Fediverse exists, and more than that, it’s alive and kicking. Sure, it might be a messy, chaotic, a bit fragmented, and yes, still niche. But let’s not underplay it, this is the healthiest corners of the internet we’ve got. Tens of million accounts, hundreds of thousands active people, and some are sometimes talking about … Continue reading Rebooting the #openweb in a good way