Without discomfort, we won’t challenge the system we’re still living inside

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 →

Let’s build from the rot something rich, wild, rooted, and real

The worst parts of people and society – fear, greed, envy, control – are self-reinforcing. They act as feedback loops in a broken sound system: shrieking, distorting, drowning out all nuance is the signal-to-noise issue we need to mediate. The problem is that some people feed on this noise. The media amplifies it. Social networks … Continue reading Let’s build from the rot something rich, wild, rooted, and real →

Our liberals talking about the death of #postmodernism

From my decades of real-world experience – especially in activism – I’ve found that self-professed #Postmodernists and Western #Buddhists have been some of the most useless and damaging people I’ve worked with. Not an exaggeration: I could probably count the genuinely good ones on one hand. This isn’t bitterness. It’s about composting a mess that … Continue reading Our liberals talking about the death of #postmodernism →

Mythos and traditions are needed for revolutions to grow roots

If you want your revolution to succeed, it’s a good to push and grow from mythos and traditions, and grow from shared histories. Yes, Marxism and European #anarchism are coming back into fashion as source code of radical politics. But if we are to actually achieve anything this time round, we need to see and … Continue reading Mythos and traditions are needed for revolutions to grow roots →

Reclaiming balance: News, personal, and the #openweb

On the #openweb, we need to be clear about what serves us and what distracts us. There’s a growing tendency to blur the lines between what should be public and what should remain private, and this confusion weakens our “native” social fabric. At the core of any healthy communication ecosystem, we need two things: news … Continue reading Reclaiming balance: News, personal, and the #openweb →

Can people engage with the #4opens process?

The #4opens is a completely obverse social restating of the #FOSS development model — but with a critical edition: The return of #openprocess, something we’ve lost over the last 10 years due to the shift from public email archives to our reliance on encrypted chat. With this in mind, what is still #blocking the #openweb … Continue reading Can people engage with the #4opens process? →

The current #powerpolitics

State violence is the final refuge of the incompetent, considering the staggering incompetence of the present governments, it’s no surprise they’re hedging their failures with increased military spending. When leaders are intellectually and morally bankrupt, when they run out of ideas, when their authority falters under the weight of economic inequality, climate breakdown, and crumbling … Continue reading The current #powerpolitics →

The Failure of #Mainstreaming – What Comes Next?

It should be painfully obvious by now that all the current #mainstreaming paths have failed. Whether we look at politics, technology, media, or activism, the same patterns emerge, co-option, stagnation, and eventual collapse under their own mess and self-destructive contradictions. The valid question isn’t whether mainstreaming has failed, it has. The real question is – … Continue reading The Failure of #Mainstreaming – What Comes Next? →

Struggling for a Real Alternative

For the last 5 years conversations have been about, the #Fediverse, #Web3 and more recently the pushing of #mainstreaming into the #openweb native path. But despite this, the fediverse is still a notable outlier in the digital landscape. This is in part because unlike the dominant tech trends, which emerge from Silicon Valley and the … Continue reading Struggling for a Real Alternative →

Rebuilding Radical, Grassroots Media

For way too long, our digital spaces have been hijacked by corporate interests, turning the internet into a surveillance-driven wasteland where control, profit, and censorship push aside community, useful creativity, and communities autonomy. As a first step to reclaim our media and communication networks, we need to step away from the #mainstreaming mess and build … Continue reading Rebuilding Radical, Grassroots Media →

People, community, the struggle between #openweb and #dotcons

This is a mess which has been clear to see for 20 years, but people still keep falling into the same traps instead of stepping off the cycle of conflict leading to control. Yes, we had something, we lost it, but as I talk about, we are still refusing to face why. Let’s use #Failbook … Continue reading People, community, the struggle between #openweb and #dotcons →

Open vs Closed Security: Finding a Path

In a world where digital activism is all surveilled, we need to understand better the balance between open and closed security. If you’re doing anything politically sensitive or “#spiky,” the safest option is to organize offline. Government analysts, corporate spies, and bad actors easily map connections inside the #dotcons and gather intel through the #openweb. … Continue reading Open vs Closed Security: Finding a Path →