The Roman Empire is old hat

Comparing the US global role to the Roman Empire is an old hat. Today we are seeing the “declining” face of this comparison. Trump is selling off “offices” to the highest bidders and drawing power around him self and his family.

The White House will be filled with toads and hangers on, the “court” made up of greed distracted by “reality TV” display with power politics hiding its ugly face behind this show.

In the US the left is lost/divided/bickering without any alt when/if Trump “dynasty” plan fails it is likely to be challenged by the next demagogue who will be more militant and corrupt.

In the UK the “open’ish” left wing Momentum (http://www.peoplesmomentum.com/) failed in its foundation to embody “openness” growing out of the shadows of the Labor Party left/right trench war. Ones a project is in motion it becomes hard, soon, impossible, to have openness at its core. The first lies, the first power politics used to shape outcomes, each is a step, that closes openness as an organizing option.

The undead left have nested and are now ripping at the core of the Momentum project tearing and dispoling to draw all power around their shadow selves. The “open’ish” crew are likely to flee leaving the innocent youth drown into the one’s bright surfaces and shadowing interea shell of “Momentum”. This idealistic flow will be drained of blood and energy in till momentum, broken and dull, is used up and discarded.

The predatory undead left move on, every seeking, young blood to fill their dusty/empty veins. Dogmatism (magnetism) and manipulation of power (mysticism) bureaucracy to grab, gut and drain the possibility of the left.

Am actively working on two projects based on commons and open process, the first is self defined and drawing interest the #OMN with the #4opens at its core could stand up to the “closed” negative. The second the Activist Expo and Archive has been setup with the #4opens, but they were not strongly embedded. As new people arrived the opens fell away, were pushed away, “closed” was a process that became normal.

It is now a challenge to bring #4opens back into place, ones “closed” has a foot hold and the pushing and pulling, grabbing and ripping starts it blocks open because in an open space “pushing and pulling, grabbing and ripping” can be seen, people are naked in their power plays. Shit stinks and nobody want to be seen covered in it.

Open has the power to keep the left from “ripping apart” what we do then is up to us. This would be a nice place to be.

I don’t have solutions for the USA. Unless Momentum has a squad of vampire slayers to pull the shade away and let the sun in, its future is likely to be drained into an empty husk. The #OMN if the first raft of tech works could be a part of the world we won’t. The expo is in crises, shit is seeping in from the old cracks, the course we have: paper them over and carry on to NGO burn out little outcome/failer or lay a soled foundation of “open” to build a real left on.

If the left in the UK cannot #reboot into something useful, we are facing our own “Trump” as the climate crisis hits home. The undead “left” vampires are a tiny number and powerless in face of sunlight (open). The OMN hopefully will embed the #4opens strongly unf from the #bootup that the commons can be sustained as it grows. The expo is tilting between “closed” and “open” the is an obvious need for mediation, am going to keep opening the “curtains” lets see what outcome can be achieved.

The left failed is sad and bad, and will be fatal for million of people over the next century.

The world is open for change

* Old paths have visibley vanished
* People are up for doing things different
* Funders are up for funding different
* The new “commons” is infernat and as much as the #dotcons grab the is more.
* Socerty is being #reboot ‘ed (trump, brixet etc.)
* Our planet is likely to #reboot with out us (climate change)

We don’t have to be slaves, we do have to create a new path, am suggesting the #4opens as a way of mediating the path we have to take. Trump etal is suggesting the #4closed I think 4 is a nice number anyone think of what the #4closed are?

Am I being flipernt, nop, am not. I am being seruase, the one thing Trump made obvues was that if you repeat something anufe it comes into existences – try thinking about the #4opens then repeating it a lot – its a bit like casting a spell – words have power.

If you wont to “take” the world the #4opens is a way to do it ethically and it has power to get round meany of the current #blocks

Some thoughts on the OMN idea

Published Date 10/14/16 2:15 PM

You would have to be very out of touch not to see that echo chambers are inherent to #failbook and historically less on #twitter though they have changed over to a algorithmic time line you have to opt out of. The OMN is only moderated by humans. It has a built in “market” that rewards trust thus actively builds out human networks. Groups that link will grow, thoughs who do not will slide back as others move forward.

Arrogance & Ignorance and how to get past this blocking is the issue. You don’t overcome A&I that’s not an option. But getting round it is well possible. The OMN is built on the human condition of trust and serendipity. Both hard human sells, but both the only values we have if your not up for shooting people dead to get your way.

Echo chamber is just a #fashernesta word for feeding prejudice in this it’s the same as buying a tabloid in the old days or listing to R4 and only shouting at the radio when you disagree. The OMN opens – echo chamber closes. Of course we understand that “open” is not a solution, but it is better than closed…

Its easy to misses the point about “open data” you don’t have any control of the machine network that the #dotcons work with. And if you understand the issues with geeks you will likely never have power over complex digital tools. The way out of this is in the #4opens this “forces” the geeks lose of the power they desire and need to be motivated. In this you have a riddle which is not solved by logic – maybe solved by emotion? The OMN cannot be built with logic, It might be able to be built by emotion. I think this is likely the root of many missing understandings? You can’t stop the geeks/fashernista desire to fuckup but the is hope of mediating it with the #4opens that’s about it.

There are issue’s with algorithmic options in general “who guards the guardians” the #4opens are a safety feature that the #dotcons will remove. You would have to be very deluded to believe that #failbook works in a society sense, no matter what individuals say, you should know this.

The Q. Is how to get a KISS project past alt apathy, geek complexity and fashernista … well just fashernista… #fashernista= “stupid individualism” if you’re reading my older posts.

Part 2

Am more a #fuckup rather than #conspiracy type of guy, but the lack of linking is a clear issue to be addressed.

The data, it’s a soup, the sites are just spoons that dip. You get to choose by linking where the value is. Every one can have a spoon if they like (but talent will out, some spoons will have more value than others) so it’s #4opens to linking and content. A silo is a single site like #failbook and the sites listed in this post. On the web the value is in linking content is just something to link to.

Silos host/horde content, if they don’t link they have limited value.

Looking at the tech and organising of UK alt grassroots media

How meany sites link to another alt/grassroots media sits. From this list of 38 UK sites, only 2 link to another site.

Many people find it hard to understand the underlining understandings that push projects based on flow and linking, such as #OMN and #openweb. Here is a short list of activism projects.

Silo

Is a place for holding/hoarding closed data – this is used by the #dotcons to extract funding from “free users” when mainstream/alt silo projects finish, as 99.9% do, the data varnishes and is lost, and in this the effectiveness of any alt building is diminished. Silos do not use open licensing for content re-use. Just about every alt/grassroots media project is a silo. It’s about capturing data. It’s obvious that this is a unthought through issue of “churning”

Portal

It is an idea that you can be the big one, all the small fashionista websites aspire to be the big one and by doing this they are working to the logic of the #dotcon and working against the logic of the openweb. They are building a project to lock their users into their project. Portal and silo are overlapping (but different) ideas for building web projects. In the mainstream, Apple is a prime example of this working. In the alt/grassroots, almost all alt/grassroots media projects are portals. It’s about capturing users, just as silos are about capturing data. For a left wing group this looks much like “recreating the Soviet Union” the one party to rule the state.

Dotcons

Are for-profit data silos in the old days working as portals, more recently they are building out siloed networks as a pseudo networked portal. It’s both sad and bad that many alt media projects unthinkingly aspire to be #dotcons

Link

It is where ALL the value is, on the open web. Without links, content has NO VALUE. This is an obvious statement, its hard to understand the lack of understanding around this simple thing.

RSS

Is a grassroots web standard that is still at the base of many of the #dotcons world but is being pushed into the background of the #openweb by building silos/portals in the grassroots/alt. RSS is like an open LINK with added data, thus adds value to the web. Its a powerful open tool that we still have. An API is like a geek control freak superpower of RSS – the problem is in the complexity/control freak bit…

Geek

A subculture that is control/obscurity and more recently technical solutions to trust (wraparound right) this has always been a closing force on open projects. This helped to strangle the original successful alt/grassroots media projects and is pushing for the shrinking of the open web.

Fashionista

The unthinking desire for new/innovation/conformity. A wider subculture that churns the growth of alt/grassroots so little can grow beyond seedlings.

NGO

Are greedy dispoling of resources, both human and money. The liberals that use bureaucratic funding to push out the geek/fashernista agendas over alt/grassroots projects. These are uneasy friends and clear (invisible) enemies.

Network

It is both a technical thing of wires and frequency and an understanding of mutual aid and of “diversity of strategy”. It’s native to the openweb and should be at the base of any alt/grassroots media project. In the closed #dotcons the widespread use of A/B testing is a pail controlled shadow of this.

4opens

Wikipedia is an example of this. It’s basic stuff, open source project stuff. LINK

Looking at the tech and organising of UK alt/grassroots media. Do sites link to other alt-media projects? Do they support/display openweb standards (RSS)

First DRAFT (please message me with corrections/info)

the canary

http://www.thecanary.co/

Has a RSS feed, regular updates, copyright group silo, it has no outside linking

Reelnews

http://reelnews.co.uk/

UPDATE: site back online, no visible RSS but can find a hidden one. It’s likely copyright and a silo.

(Their website is hacked/down, so posted the #failbook link used to have RSS and regular updates. Anyone know what’s happening? Update they hope the site is back online soon.)

Real Media

http://realmedia.press/

UPDATE: website back online copyright, no visible RSS feed, but you can find ones. It’s a bit of an aggregator but has been suffering from poor spam control. It’s pretty much a portal/silo – but could be more.

(They used to have an interesting website for the tec used, but it ended up being just a silo, they look like they are rebooting? Maybe a another silo? We shall see.)

Update they are rebooting as a linking site, let’s hope it’s not a silo.

Novaramedia

http://novaramedia.com/

Has regular good content, RSS, they are a product of the #dotcons social media wave and good at it. Copyright/CC is not stated. The site is a silo with no outside linking

Counterfire

http://www.counterfire.org/

No RSS feed, starting to look a bit “old left” regular updates, no copyright/CC notice. A silo with no external links

The Bristol Cable – Bristol

https://thebristolcable.org/

No visible RSS feed, it kinda probably tries to obey the #4opens, maybe. It’s a WP blog site, in this it’s a media silo with no external links.

Port Talbot Magnet

http://www.porttalbotmagnet.com/

No visible RSS feed, it mostly fails the #4opens due to copyright, data and organising. It’s a WP blog site, in this it’s a media silo with few if any external links.

New Internationalist – based in Oxford

https://newint.org/

Has RSS feeds, it kinda passes the #4opens using a CC licence for its content. It links to the #visionOntv project.

The Ferret – Scotland, based in Edinburgh

https://theferret.scot/

Looks like the old media transitioning to the new media. No visible RSS feed or copyright/CC notice. Is trying to be “open process” looks like a WP site.

Strike! – based in London

http://strikemag.org/

Looks like an archive of a print mag? Has an RSS feed 🙂

Positive News – based in London

http://positive.news/

Dated looking site, hard to read, no RSS feed and a copyright notice. A silo.

Slaney Street – Birmingham

http://www.slaneystreet.com/

Did not load

Manchester Mule – Manchester

http://manchestermule.com/

Has RSS feed but last article end of 2015 so not an active site. Probably for fills the #4opens.

Co-operative News – based in Manchester

http://www.thenews.coop/

Nasty looking site and no RSS, copyrighted, it’s a silo

Ethical Consumer

http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/

No RSS, copy rightish, old looking site.

Marlborough News Online

http://www.marlboroughnewsonline.co.uk/

no RSS, copyright

West Highland Free Press

http://www.whfp.com/

No RSS, copyright, it’s a silo.

Star and Cresent – based in Portsmouth

http://www.starandcrescent.org.uk/

No RSS, no copyright notice? It’s a silo.

Morning Star – based in London

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/

Has an RSS feed but its empty, copyright, silo.

Cambria Publishing Co-operative

http://www.cambriapublishing.org.uk/

Publishes paper books?

Zed Books – London

https://www.zedbooks.net/

paper books and online reading lists, no RSS I can see.

Sheffield Live!

http://web.sheffieldlive.org/

Blake House – based in London

http://blake.house/

No RSS, fashionable calling card website without content, probably copyright?

Media Co-op

http://mediaco-op.net/

Calling card website without content, no RSS, likely copyright.

Ignite Creative – based in Oxford

http://ignitecreative.co.uk/

Calling card website without content, no RSS, copyright.

Shedlight Productions – based in Southampton

http://www.shedlightproductions.co.uk/

Calling card website without content, no RSS, copyright.

Steel City Film and Media Co-op – based in Sheffield

https://www.facebook.com/SteelCityFAM

it’s a #failbook page, maybe open?

Trafford Media & Communications – based in Manchester

(mostly a printer, but also do film production)

http://www.traffordmc.org.uk/

Calling card, no site.

The Community Channel

Community Channel

The granddaddy of NGO media, no RSS feed, likely copyright silo.

Jammu Kashmir TV

http://www.jammukashmir.tv/

It has content, silo?

Open Audio

http://openaudio.co.uk/

Has a working RSS feed

Inform My Opinion

https://audioboom.com/channel/informmyopinion

Has working RSS feed, but it fails in my pod catcher, it’s a page on a #dotcon?

Mydylarama

http://mydylarama.org.uk/

Has RSS feed, copyright, silo?

AMP Worcs

http://www.ampworcs.co.uk/

Calling card.

A Television

http://www.afro-media.org/

Half finished calling card site.

Salfordstar

http://salfordstar.com/

Hastings independent press

No RSS, no copyright/CC notice, a silo with no external links.

http://www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/

Corporatewatch

https://corporatewatch.org/

Has RSS feed and CC licence, no external links on front page, it’s a silo but better than most.

bellacaledonia

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/

Has a RSS feed, it’s a silo but the is hope for it.

voxpoliticalonline

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/

it’s a blog in the old school sense, has RSS

evolvepolitics

http://evolvepolitics.com/

it’s a silo with no RSS and no external links

A lot of the original links came from https://www.facebook.com/jdaviescoates

Is the OMN tech complex

Published Date 8/14/16 7:46 PM

There is a hard-to-understand idea that the technology behind the OMN (open media network) is complex. At a base level it is not, it’s the same tech that has been written 1000s of times in the past and uses nearly 20-year-old technology.

What is complex is the ideas and social understandings behind the ideas of using this “stupidly simple” technology in the OMN.

Firstly, it’s needed to understand that Alt-media and the open web in general is F**cked. Once past this point, it becomes easier. Secondly an understanding of the forces that F**cked is both on their side: the #dotcons, Facebook, uber, Amazon etc and on our-side, our encryptionist geeks, NGO social media gurus, process vampires etc.

We don’t currently have power to affect their side, so let’s look at our side, in the sense of understanding the OMN. It’s based on the #4opens and none of our guys like this combination for different reasons. It’s based on KISS – our geeks don’t like building on the old and our politicos are pushing the #fashionista of the vapours avant-garde, so both reject the “old” foundation ideas/tech of the #OMN.

The idea is very simple – that we get alt-media groups and sites to be part of a network so they become bigger than their parts. And a very basic issue is solved, they link to each other, which currently the isolated silos do not consistently do. The link is the currency of the web, in this we all become richer and have wider outreach on the “#openweb”.

The “innovation” of the OMN is the use of RSS articles as a database exchange format. We thus create a redundant, distributed network of databases holding and displaying (linking) to our collective history. Why RSS? Without it, we have to get agreement and write custom code for every site that wants to join. With RSS, it’s copy/paste and go on 98% of existing sites on the open web. The first is self limiting and impossible to grow, the second just works. There is no complexity at all at this basic level and no need for site agreements etc.

Troubleshooting this rollout there are issues, but nothing that can’t be solved by tweaking and bodging. The next stage is a little more complex, synchronising these databases and keeping articles up-to-date and exchanging tagged metadata so that the “curating of the flows works”. This will need thinking and programming for real, but nothing that throwing some bandwidth and processing power can’t solve in an “inefficient way” – again, #KISS.

Build it first, scale it second. We are running this out in the small world of alt-media, so geeks keep it KISS. There is a philosophical and design issue that will cause bottlenecks, the CMS’s we will be using are designed as portals/silos not data rivers/media flow sites. Some creative thought can help here. And there is the opening for innovation and new CMS’s at a later time.

To conclude, the blocks on building out the OMN are within our own geeks and politicos and have to be overcome. That is the tech is relatively easy, the social side is complex, Ideas for this? My idea is to form a wide;y skilled affinity group and go for it, lead by example. Other paths, ideas, welcome.

To escape our silo thinking

Published Date 3/10/16 12:01 PM

“A river that needs crossing political and tech culture – On the political side, the is arrogance and ignorance, on the Geek side the is naivety and over-complexity”

What I am highlighting here, Geeks think this is too simple to think about, the politicos have no understanding of this. Both are happy with silos as it gives them “total control” of their tiny things. These isolated siloed islands are no match for the continents that the #dotcons control. The issue here is that nobody cares for the big thing that all these tiny things grow from, this big thing the #openweb is withered from neglect. The shrinking “open internet” is further perverted by political legislation and #dotcons grasping/enclosing in till it becomes a ghost of its old self.

Thinking to escape this sad and bad fate.

The web is made of links:

* Articles are just data objects

* Data flows

* Feeds are living links to move data object flows

* The link is where the value is (google learned this a long time ago)

* Synchronisation and redundancy of data is key to resilience and remembering the past links (value)

This is hard for the politicos to hear, but, content is just something to link to.

This simple thinking is held safe by the #4opens

There is a small resurgence of alt-media projects (such as LINKS ) but each of them is a silo and will likely flower and fade.

The #4opens

Published Date 10/19/15 9:38 PM

The #dotcon can not be fixed, the #fashernistas who keep flocking to new “ethical’ish” ones are a problem, not a solution.

The #4opens:

Are a simple way to judge the value of an “alt/grassroots” tech project.

Open data – is the basic part of a project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data without this open they cannot work.

Open source – as in “free software” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software this keeps development healthy by increasing interconnectedness and bringing in serendipity. The Open licences are the “lock” that keep the first two in place, what we have ain’t perfect, but they do expand the area of “trust” that a project needs to work, creative commons is a start here.

Open “industrial” standards – this is a little understand but core open, It’s what the open internet and WWW are built from. Here is an outline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard

Open process – this is the most “nebulous” part, examples of the work flow would be wikis and activity streams. Projects are built on linking trust networks, so open process is the “glue” that binds the links together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process

Lets look for a moment at sanity in grassroots terms

Published Date 2/23/15 3:24 PM

The are a lot of “insane” people in activism and counter-culture, its what makes it exciting, dynamic and affective. However with everything its a question of balance, lets look at how a movement stagnates, fails or growes and blossems.

A short off the top of head list

NGO’ists push limited bureaucratic thinking over everything, they get into bed with anything that can be shaped to their mind set and is fashionably fundable. They take up mind space and squander resources. The vast majority of “institutional” money goes into this.

Encryptionists – service the paranoid fuckists, they have a strong tendencies to reduce usability and create dangerous fantasises of security and anonymity. The are a lot of these as this has been a dominate way of thinking for the last 5-10 years.

Traditional media panderers have there uses for a companion, but soon start to misshape the movement to mainstream agenda’s – hard not to have this outcome.

Horizontal dotcom’sts try to use our movement to jump start their dotcom, fine if its built with the #4opens, if its not then distraction if failur and disaster if people use it – so bad outcome both ways.

Insecure and nasty lifestyles are endemic and are attracted like fly’s to any successful grassroots project and they are feed by the felandering of the Traditional media panderist – this can easily tip into being a movement death spiral.

Hidden careerist are good for movement building as tend to be the competent ones, but start to drift to NGO and media philanders to build their careerer rather than the grassroots movement.

Paranoid fuckwists are the bedroock of most grassroots campines and in small doses help hold things together, get to many of them in places of responsibility and you have out of control infighting.

Dogmatic liberals are lovely people, but a strong force for blocking sustainable alternatives, its imposable to meditate the breakdowns with a few of these at the core of any counter-culture.

Now for a corresponding “good” list of activist “insanity’s”

On this subject it helps to be a bit “mad” to stay in grassroot movement for any leaghnth of time

The hand’s off NGO’s the is a long (hidden) history of healthy NGO/atavism synergy

The user focused KISS per2per’ists are working on the uphill project of (re)booting the #openweb.

Traditional media outreach’sts are promoting grassroots media and technology by linking it into traditional media narratives to build the world rather than misshape it.

Horizontal dotcom’s are working on “open” federated sustainability rather than closed client server “solutions”

Lifestyles are though opening up in the campaigning lifestyle flow and learning to let go and build healthy connected lives.

Open careerist, are bootstrapping the campaign while bootstrapping themselves, they take the open energy like a trosion horse into the belly of the traditional beast. Some one has to do this…

Secure organising crew is everyone job to keep it calrm and focus, and help out with the very real “offline” security and communication that activism needs.

Liberal liberals the calm and the balance of “common sense” that’s needed to keep things from going horribly wrong.

Activism is a dynamic and crazy place full of “insane” people doing fantastic things, its a balancing act to hold it all together, to much of the top and not anufe off the bottom and it quickly slides into something few people wont to be involved in – then disappears with little trace.

Did an updated version

The Beautiful Insanity of Activism: How Movements Rot or Blossom