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 mess of the modern world, whether that’s the corporate-controlled internet (#dotcons), failing grassroots movements, or the destruction of our physical environment. It’s all connected. How tech shapes our planet. The internet as we know it, centralized, monopolized, and powered by massive server farms, has a huge environmental impact. Tech giants consume massive amounts of energy, lock users into wasteful upgrade cycles, and push short-term profit over long-term sustainability.
But just like we need to transition away from fossil fuels, we also need to rebuild a sustainable digital infrastructure. Decentralized platforms to reduce reliance on data centres owned by megacorporations. Longer-lasting hardware is a step away from planned obsolescence. Federated networks (#openweb) to support resilient, grassroots-driven alternatives.
The OMN is a tool to composting the digital & social waste, is a practical response to this. It’s building an alternative media ecosystem, that isn’t driven by corporate interests but by community needs and #4opens collaboration. Think of it as #permaculture for the internet: Instead of clear-cutting everything for profit (like the #dotcons do), we nurture independent spaces. Instead of burning energy on ad-driven engagement, we use #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principles to create sustainable digital tools. Instead of accepting “inevitable” climate and digital collapse, we turn the existing mess into compost for new growth. Radical Simplicity = Radical Sustainability.
One of the ideas behind this path is that “stupid” is better than perfect, because perfect never gets built, but “stupid” works. This applies not just to open-source technology, but also to environmental activism, with small, local actions > Waiting for big global solutions. Simple, practical solutions > Over-engineered complexity. Messy, community-driven change > Top-down control.
In the bigger perspective, the environment will be fine without us, it’s not “the environment” we are destroying. It is ourselves. The world does not need saving, we do. The choice is not a simple choice between saving the planet or letting it die, but between changing our ways or letting ourselves go extinct.
If we want a sustainable future, both online and offline, we need to break from the corporate paths that are destroying our ecosystems. That means, supporting grassroots tech and independent media, building resilient, federated alternatives to big tech, embracing open, transparent processes (#4opens).
The world is in crisis, but crisis is also an opportunity. Whether you’re fighting for a better internet, a liveable planet, or stronger local communities, it’s all part of the same struggle. What do you think? How can we build a more sustainable digital world? Let’s discuss! #RewildTheWeb#SustainableTech#OMN
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 people-powered web, free from the stranglehold of Big Tech? That’s the mission behind projects like the Open Media Network (#OMN), a radical push to create a truly #openweb, built on trust, transparency, and grassroots collaboration.
What’s the Problem? The modern web is dominated by a handful of corporate giants that: 🔹 Own your data – You don’t control what you create, they do. 🔹 Manipulate what you see – Algorithms push engagement over truth. 🔹 Extract value – Your attention, creativity, and connections become profit streams.
The result? A digital world that feels more like a walled garden than a thriving ecosystem.
The Alternative: The Open Media Network (#OMN) A different way of thinking about the internet, based on open protocols, federated media, and trust-based networks rather than corporate silos.
How does it work? Decentralized publishing – No single company controls what you post. Interconnected platforms – Information flows freely between projects, not locked inside proprietary walls. Built for grassroots communities – Not for advertisers, but for real people creating real change.
It’s inspired by the early #Indymedia movement, the rise of the Fediverse, and the belief that we don’t have to accept the internet as it is, we can build something better.
Why “Stupid” Wins Over “Perfect” A big lesson from past internet experiments is that perfection is the enemy of progress. The web itself succeeded not because it was the best design, but because it was simple and open enough for people to build on.
✅ Nobody agrees on “perfect”—so it never gets built. ✅ “Stupid” solutions work—because they let people create their own versions. ✅ Diversity leads to growth—and growth challenges the corporate web.
This is the philosophy behind the OMN and other #4opens projects, build something simple, open, and adaptable, and let communities shape it for their needs.
How You Can Help Rewild the Web. If you’re tired of Big Tech gatekeeping your online life, there are ways to push back: Ditch corporate platforms – Explore the Fediverse and self-hosted alternatives. Support open projects – Contribute to decentralized media, grassroots organizing, and federated tech. Spread the word – Help others see that another internet is possible.
The internet can be beautiful again, but only if we reclaim it. What do you think? Is a truly open internet still possible? What are your favourite-decentralized projects? Let’s discuss. #RewildTheWeb#InternetIsBeautiful#OMN
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 Network). The ideas explored then were ahead of their time, but the web ultimately took a worse/better path—a “stupid” #KISS implementation rather than the more idealistic and complex vision of #Xanadu.
Why “Stupid” Wins Over “Perfect”, the lesson is clear: ✅ Nobody agrees on “perfect”, so it never gets built. ✅ “Stupid” solutions work because they let people do their own version. ✅ From diversity comes growth, from growth comes change. ✅ Change is what challenges the current #mainstreaming mess.
This is exactly what the #OMN is doing, taking a simple, “stupid” approach that lets people build their own solutions, rather than arguing endlessly about abstract perfection. Just like the web succeeded by ignoring Xanadu’s “perfect” vision, the #OMN will thrive by avoiding over-engineering and focusing on real-world usability.
With the #Fediverse and the #Openweb, it helps to see the Fediverse as a half-decentralized #openweb project that allows people to communicate across different servers. Unlike centralized platforms, it shifts control back to people and community, but it inherits many of the same flawed assumptions from the #dotcons. Strengths of the Fediverse:
🔹 Decentralization – No single company controls it. 🔹 (Supposed) Privacy – While privacy is valued, it’s ultimately a #4opens project, meaning transparency is the real focus. 🔹 Freedom of Expression – No single authority to censor content, it has community moderation. 🔹 Control Over Data – People can move between servers (to some extent). 🔹 Customization – Communities can shape their own experience.
❌ It still copies the #dotcons too much. ❌ It struggles with large-scale collaboration. ❌ It isn’t designed for media or broadcasting.
The Fediverse is a big step in the right direction, but it lacks a strong foundation for alternative media and real working #DIY culture. The #OMN is designed to fill this gap, moving beyond microblogging clones and building real federated media networks.
The key to success: Leaving capitalism out, one of the biggest reasons the #Openweb worked while Xanadu fizzled is that it didn’t try to “fix” capitalism, it just ignored it. Many well-meaning open projects get stuck because they try to compromise with the existing system rather than building outside of it. This is where the #OMN takes its stand:
Building tools that actually work for grassroots communities.
If we take the #4opens and #DIY cultural path, we can create a real alternative, something that doesn’t get swallowed by the #mainstreaming like so many past projects. In the end, if we don’t build these spaces, the corporate web will absorb everything. Let’s see the current mess as compost, we can either let it rot uselessly or turn it into the soil for something new. We are empowered to act on this, the choice is ours.
The geek path for tech and social change, was always a divers views, though always full of the #geekproblem
It’s interesting that this all turned into monopoly capitalism with the #dotcons we have now. This outcome is the #geekproblem, we need to do better.
One thing to be aware of is that encryption is largely used to introduce scarcity into a natural post scarcity digital path. It about imposing the old on the new. Encryption as a tool of digital scarcity a core problem of crypto/blockchain hype—it recreates capitalist control structures rather than abolishing them.
Though this is a strong historical framing of the #OMN and the #openweb, going back to Xanadu, the #Fediverse, and the mistakes of the past.
The web took the “Worst/Better” path – The “stupid” solution (KISS) won over the “perfect” solution (Xanadu) because perfect never gets built, while stupid can be iterated on.
The #Fediverse is half-decentralized but stuck in #dotcons thinking – It shifts control but still inherits a lot of flawed assumptions.
Capitalism is ignored, not fixed – The #Openweb succeeded by sidestepping capitalism, not by trying to reform it. #OMN must do the same to thrive.
The #Geekproblem led to the #dotcons – Tech culture’s failure to build social and political awareness led to the monopoly mess we see today.
A path away from this mess. The #OMN is about federated media infrastructure, the current Fediverse, is not enough because it wasn’t designed for media production or distribution. #OMN needs to build alongside it, creating real publishing and archiving structures.
A parallel build makes sense, trying to “fix” the Fediverse would be a waste of time because it’s deep in the #geekproblem mindset and #dotcons assumptions. The #OMN needs to exist alongside it, offering something functional rather than only critique.
Composting the current mess into something new, is a powerful metaphor. Instead of just rejecting the broken system, we repurpose its decay into something fertile. The #OMN is not about nostalgia or purity—it’s about adaptation and survival. Parallel paths:
Microblogging clones of dotcons (Mastodon → Twitter, Pixelfed → Instagram). We need Federated media infrastructure for real publishing (archiving, syndication, remixing).
Half-decentralized (still hierarchical servers, admins hold power) More fully federated with trust-based governance (e.g., #OGB)
Privacy-focused (but still built on surveillance-era assumptions). We need transparency-first (#4opens) to avoid NGO/State capture.
Largely run by geeks who reject social movements. Where we need to build from grassroots activism up, not tech-down
How do we frame this for outreach? We need shorter, clearer language to explain why #OMN matters to people outside the tech bubble. Right now, a lot of this still speaks to the few people already deep in the struggle—how do we make it compelling to someone new?
The Fediverse is the “indie music scene” of social media → The #OMN is public-access TV, independent radio, and DIY zines combined. The Fediverse copies Twitter → The #OMN builds what #Indymedia should have become. The Fediverse is a space to talk → The #OMN is a space to organise, publish, remix, and distribute ideas. The #dotcons are a surveillance trap → The #OMN is a composting tool for radical media to push and sustain radical change and challenge.
With a parallel build, how do we balance the first steps, tech-first or community-first? Meaning, do we start with the tools, or the network of people who will use them? Both have been a challenge over the last ten years.
Activism is messy. When you push against #mainstreaming, bad faith actors will come at you hard. Your best, often only, defence is sticking to good faith, telling your own stories, and holding onto process. Without this, the dominant narrative (which serves power) will drown out your voice.
The Problem is well-meaning people who wreck everything, in grassroots social movements, some of the biggest obstacles come from inside. People who believe they’re doing good can still do harm, sometimes more harm than outright bad actors. The worst ones often work the hardest. Why? They lack experience with #DIY culture. They unthinkingly worship the #deathcult. Not only that, but they confuse personal virtue with effective action. Shit stinks, but composting it makes flowers grow. The trick is to turn the mess into something productive instead of letting it rot everything.
Mediation is a core #OMN process, we need tools and processes that identify bad faith early (before it spreads), turn well-meaning but harmful actors toward productive paths, filter out the worst behaviours without turning authoritarian. This is a social problem first, a tech problem second. Good moderation, transparent process, and community accountability are essential.
The #4opens is about making It clearer for outreach, if democracy is survival, then in the digital era, you can’t have real democracy without the #4opens. This has to be at the root of our garden of ideas. We need to frame this in a way that connects to real-life impact with questions like: Why does this matter for democracy? How does it protect against the #deathcult? How does it help people step away from #dotcons?
OMN is building from the grassroots up because we can’t rely on the “progressive” top-down crowd to do anything meaningful. We need to tell our own stories before we get drowned in bad narratives. Make the #4opens process simple and clear for outreach. Use mediation as a core practice (not just a reaction). Turn bad energy into compost, rather than letting it poison the roots. Keep the focus on real democratic structures, without them, it’s just chaos.
This isn’t easy, but it’s the work that needs to be done. Ideas?
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 the status quo. These weren’t mistakes; they were intentional. The same happens in tech, where #encryptionists believe they’re liberating people while locking them into opaque, controlled, isolated paths. Security as fear, rather than trust.
What do we do differently now? We have to stop playing by their rules, whether it’s cancel culture’s purity tests, the process geek bureaucracy, or liberal progressives too afraid to act outside the acceptable neoliberal framework. That means:
Break from #mainstreaming narratives – Stop looking to “official” solutions when they are structured to fail.
Stop feeding fear, cowardice, and greed – Recognize when “safe” choices are actually surrendering power to systems of control.
Step into federated, trust-based models – #openweb and #4opens approaches don’t just shift power; they change how power operates.
Mediating the #geekproblem is core, we have the tools to build alternatives, but they are often blinded by their own logic traps, trapped in a false neutrality that serves power, or in rigid frameworks that make real-world change impossible. If we can challenge this blindness, we can bring them into broader movements instead of leaving them locked in their own subcultures.
Non-geeks need pathways to access, understand, and shape technology.
Decentralisation and federated trust models should be built with social movements, not just coders.
The #4opens is a path, the commons-based approach to software is an example of an alternative that works. The stagnant ideology of capitalism blocks innovation that already exists in open, federated models. But the blinded majority keeps trying to push radical tech back into the broken frameworks they understand instead of embracing real alternatives. That’s the cycle we need to break.
If we don’t step outside of our own ideological traps, we won’t see the paths that already exist. The world doesn’t have to be this way, but we need to start living the alternatives, not just critiquing the failures.
What did I get from this event: Cybercrime is no longer only about stolen credit cards and leaked emails, it has become a battleground for national security. This was the focus of the conversation between Professor Ciaran Martin and Dr Max Smeets, a new kind of war, ransomware has evolved from crude digital extortion into a highly sophisticated business model. It’s no longer just about money, it disrupts critical infrastructure, healthcare, and entire governments. The NHS cyberattack in London and the Costa Rican national emergency in 2022 illustrate its devastating impact.
Smeets explains how ransomware groups now operate like legitimate businesses, complete with branding, customer service, and even guarantees. If they fail to decrypt your files after payment, their reputation suffers. Many provide a free decryption demo to prove their credibility—demonstrating the paradox of trust within crime.
The geopolitics of cybercrime often overlaps with national interests. Many ransomware groups originate from Russia, where they operate with implicit state tolerance, as long as they avoid targeting Russian businesses. Russian secret services sometimes leverage these groups for political ends, though the connections remain murky.
Other states are now stepping into the ransomware scene, Ukraine – Once a hub for cybercrime, now co-opting hackers into its war effort, with groups like MB65 supposedly working in support of the state. North Korea & Israel – Expanding their ransomware operations, possibly for both financial and intelligence purposes. China – Running state-controlled ransomware campaigns, but is the goal money or data?
Smeets argues that Western states do not operate ransomware groups, at least not openly. But if cybercrime is now a tool of state power, will governments start adopting more aggressive tactics? We are already seeing discussions about hacking back, sanctions, and even assassinations and drone strikes against cybercriminals.
The Evolution of ransomware has moved beyond lone hackers and small groups. It has professionalised, with specialised teams handling different tasks: Some focus on technical exploits. Others on negotiation and victim management. Others still on money laundering. English-speaking countries are prime targets, as criminals can easily understand and monetise stolen data.
Originally, ransomware groups operated hierarchically, relying on top-down trust structures. Now, they are shifting to decentralised and federated models, outsourcing different parts of the process to specialist teams. This makes them more resilient and harder to disrupt.
How can this be mediated? Smeets offers several strategies to undermine ransomware networks:
Disrupt trust – Leak internal communications and sow distrust within groups.
Expose operational methods – Make it harder for them to operate in the shadows.
Sanction financial networks – Make it harder to launder ransom payments.
A ban on ransom payments won’t end ransomware, but it might shift attackers toward easier targets. The core question remains: Is ransomware just about money, or is it a new tool for states to exert power in the digital age?
My view is an alternative path, might social and economic change, the #4opens and redundant data flows work. In a world where cybercrime thrives on secrecy and centralised control, could radical transparency be part of the solution? The #4opens philosophy suggests an alternative: highly redundant, open-data systems that resist extortion because no single entity holds all the power. If data is widely distributed and accessible, ransomware loses much of its leverage. This is a shift from reactive defence to proactive resilience, a challenge to both cybercriminals and #mainstreaming vertical state actors and culture. This is already a core idea behind both the#OMN and #Fediverse networks, but yes we are talking about both economic and social models and paths shifting fundamentally, it’s a project.
To look at this, we need to move outside the comfort zones of current #mainstreaming thinking. Let’s start by touching on the role of #protestcamps in direct action, protest camps are temporary activist spaces set up in public areas to bring attention to social, environmental, and political issues. These camps create a direct action environment where people gather, discuss, and demonstrate. They range from #fluffy (peaceful and symbolic) to #spiky (disruptive and confrontational), depending on the nature of the cause and the activists involved.
Who uses these strategies and spaces, some examples of protest movements: #Occupy Movement – Challenged economic inequality and corporate influence. #ClimateCamp – A radical grassroots direct action movement to counter #climatechaos through awareness, policy pressure, and direct disruption. Active in multiple countries, it peaked in the late 2000s and early 2010s, influencing both public debate and government action. #CriticalMass – A decentralized cycling activism movement, founded in 1992, that uses monthly mass bike rides to reclaim public space and challenge car culture.
These examples of grassroots politics operates from the bottom up, empowering people to engage directly rather than relying on mediating political parties or institutions. These paths give communities a voice and enable change outside traditional power structures. Direct action & grassroots politics is always the working change and challenge we need, activism that bypasses traditional political intermediaries, using disruptive tactics like strikes, sit-ins, and blockades.
Together, these methods provide democratic and practical ways to challenge authority, disrupt harmful policies, and drive real change. Let’s look at another example, the debate around #XR (Extinction Rebellion), founded in 2018, #XR uses nonviolent civil disobedience to push governments to act on the #climatecrisis. The movement is divisive, some see it as #spiky, using direct action to force political change. Others argue it’s too #fluffy, adhering to liberal ideas of legality and nonviolence, which limits its radical potential. Whether #XR is a radical or liberal movement remains an active debate, but its impact on public discourse and activism is undeniable.
This active fluffy/spiky debate is core to affective grassroots activism. This experience we need to pass onto the #4opens alternatives & horizontalist paths in tech, which to often have the assumption that liberal legality alone will fix systemic problems, a #geekproblem fantasy. A better path, is learning from this history of activism, native #FOSS and #4opens structures, which yes are not without challenges, need this to build alternatives that avoid the false hope that #mainstreaming institutions will voluntarily dismantle themselves.
As I highlight, activism isn’t separate from tech development, with #FOSS it shapes it. Movements like #Indymedia, #Fediverse, and #OMN show that #FOSS paths can be built with social movements in mind. If we don’t shape our own digital tools, they will be co-opted by #dotcons and restricted by #mainstreaming forces.
The solution? Rebuild from the ground up—not just by resisting but by actively creating the alternatives we want to see.
The Open Governance Body (#OGB) is a radical approach to decentralized governance, designed to address the failures of existing governance models by combining activist organizing techniques with decentralized federated technology like #ActivityPub. It provides a very flexible governance framework that can be used across different communities, from local markets to the #Fediverse, creating a scalable and human-centric decision-making path.
Real-world applications, the #OGB can be applied to various governance needs, examples:
Local Market Self-Governance: Stakeholders—such as vendors, customers, and authorities—can collaboratively make decisions without reliance on centralized institutions.
Fediverse and Online Communities: Federated instances can adopt the #OGB for cooperative decision-making, ensuring grassroots control over digital spaces.
By adapting to both digital and physical environments, the #OGB promotes collective agency and accountability.
Why this path works, activist organizing as a foundation: Social movements have driven radical change for centuries using decentralized, trust-based governance. The #Fediverse itself is a proof of concept, it has demonstrated that federated, open-source technologies can scale without corporate control. Human-centric governance is built by merging these time-tested approaches, the #OGB fosters sustainable, non-hierarchical governance models rooted in #4opens values. This combination ensures adaptability and resilience against co-option by #mainstreaming forces.
Permissionless rollout, the #OGB is designed to spread organically, self-initiated setup: Any individual or group can start an instance, onboard participants, and begin governance discussions. Network effect growth: As more people engage, the system scales naturally, shaping governance from the ground up. This bottom-up path challenges traditional top-down governance structures and paves the way for a more equitable #openweb.
The role of #openweb technologies on more political paths need funding and support. Using #RSS and #ActivityPub as core technologies offers significant advantages in grassroots politics:
Decentralization: Resistant to censorship and corporate control.
Interoperability: Enables seamless communication across platforms.
Transparency: Enhances accountability and public engagement.
Ownership & Autonomy: Empowers people to control their own data.
Accessibility: Breaks down barriers for marginalized voices.
The #Fediverse exemplifies this by offering a decentralized alternative to #dotcons. But the is still an oftern invisable ideological battle for the #openweb, the issues we aim to mediate is that programming is never neutral. Ideology inevitably shapes the systems we build. We see this in:
The Fediverse mirroring the #dotcons: Many platforms unintentionally replicate centralized models rather than embracing true decentralization.
The risk of #mainstreaming takeover: Without active resistance, corporate and NGO interests will attempt to co-opt the #openweb.
The #OMN as a counterforce: Focused on linking alternative and grassroots media, the #OMN is part of a broader push to prevent the enclosure of the digital commons.
The #openweb needs to remain a space for radical inclusion and self-determination, free from corporate and state control. This challenging of the status quo need real alternative futures, to get this we must critically examine the ideological underpinnings of our current world and ask:
#StupidIndividualism is the norm—but what would non-stupid individualism look like?
#DeathCult economics dominate—what would a non-neoliberal system look like?
Billions have been wasted on libertarian #Encryptionists fantasies—what’s next?
The answers to these #blocking forces lie in building, not just critiquing, creating alternative paths and structures that embody the change we wish to see. The #OGB and wider #OMN projects, and the #4opens framework are part of this effort to reclaim community, autonomy and rebuild the #openweb from the ground up.
There are a lot of mental health issues that are pushed over us in what remains of our open alt spaces, we need ways to mediate the damage, to help the people who spread this mess. The path of the #mainstreaming is corrosive to the alt cultures it feeds on. The cycle is always the same:
Radical ideas emerge → They are raw, open, and challenging.
Mainstreaming co-opts them → Dilutes them into something marketable.
They become performative → Used as branding by the #fashernista left, while the right weaponises the left’s discarded tools (like direct action).
The original movement is discredited → The real alternatives get buried under a mess of victimhood narratives, NGO bureaucracy, and “respectable” gatekeeping.
Composting this mess, one way is radical openness, but in a way that is intentional rather than naïve:
#4opens as a grounding principle → The more we expose the internal workings of a movement, the harder it is for power politics and NGO rot to take hold.
Affinity-based organising → Trust-based, decentralised, and responsive, avoiding the traps of rigid structures that get hijacked.
Resisting the urge to close → Every time a movement feels under attack, there’s a knee-jerk reaction to centralise and control. That’s how we lose.
Recognising how #dotcons manipulate OPEN/CLOSED → They’ve mastered open for them, closed for us, and turned it into a system of social control.
To take these step we need to admit we live in a gatekeepered world, yes the old media gatekeepers are gone, but what we have now is worse. The illusion of openness in the #dotcons masks a totalitarian model of control that makes traditional media censorship look almost quaint. Until we acknowledge that, every alt project will keep getting swallowed or broken from within.
The challenge for #OMN & #openweb is that we need to rebuild media and organising from a place of resilience, not just reaction. The #geekproblem, the #NGO mess, and the left’s failure to defend its own tools have left us in a weak position, but there’s still compost to grow something from. So, who’s ready to get their hands dirty?
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 hijacked by #dotcons. It avoids the self-referential nature of the #fediverse, which often turns into a closed loop of devs talking to devs. It’s a term that can bridge communities rather than reinforcing in-group/out-group dynamics.
The limits of mirroring #dotcons, the first stage of the #fediverse, was largely about copying corporate social media platforms but without the profit motive. That was useful, but it’s hit a ceiling. Why? Lack of real community support – Devs build stuff, but actual social infrastructure is missing. Scaling the wrong way – Just copying individualist, engagement-driven models doesn’t actually create an open, healthy network. Reinforcing the #geekproblem – Developers remain in control, not communities, which leads to predictable NGO-style behaviour creeping in.
Shifting the balance in tech, we can’t just keep replicating the #mainstreaming mess in different codebases. The tech itself needs to reflect the values of the #openweb, decentralised in governance, not just code, community-led, not dev-controlled, process transparency, not just ‘open-source’ performatively.
Dealing with the #geekproblem, devs are used to solving problems in isolation, but society isn’t a coding challenge. They often bring #NGO behaviour into the #fediverse, expecting deference to their authority—and then act surprised when there’s kickback.
Being #openweb native, if you’re coming from the NGO world, you’ll have a much better time if you actually engage with the native culture of the #openweb rather than trying to impose external hierarchies. Otherwise, you’ll just recreate the same socially and self-destructive patterns that have wrecked everything else. So yeah, to boost this thinking, we need to start using #openweb more and move beyond the #fediverse branding trap.
The #4opens and #nothingnew both cut through 99% of the crap so the few people who are going to do something can do something that would be useful rather than unless. From useful you get a few more people, rinse and repeat, and you get social change and challenge, even if this is repressed or implodes, it will be more fun, and interesting than the current mess making.
Power in tech isn’t neutral, and our issue over the last 20 years is that we have allowed the #dotcons to hoarded and weaponised it. The answer to our failer isn’t to retreat or seek more “ethical” enclosures, it’s to reclaim our power through radical, commons-based networks like #indymediaback and the #OMN.
This argument is #nothingnew, we don’t need endless reinvention, we need continuity. The #openweb isn’t about mimicking #dotcons; it’s about breaking their privatisation model and returning power to collective hands. Hashtags, metadata, and federated networks help on this path, but the real strength is social, not just technical.
Examples of this: #Indymediaback isn’t just a project, it’s a continuation of a proven model that worked before the #dotcons stole the narrative. It was a social technological project embedded in radical movements, used real-world trust systems, and functioned outside of state/corporate control. Rebuilding it isn’t nostalgia; it’s a practical step toward rebalancing power.
We need ongoing arguments about power, opting out or running to “better” #dotcons just dodges the issue. Power is always there. The question is who holds it, and for what purpose? Right now, the #dotcons wield it for social control, profit, and policing. The #openweb flips that, if we build it as a “native” path.
The fight isn’t about making people “feel good” about tech choices, it’s about removing power from enclosures and putting it back into the commons. That’s the difference between real struggle and #fashernista ethics. The latter is comfortable. The former matters.
Paranoia is one of the biggest blockers in alt-tech and radical spaces. It breeds mistrust, isolation, and internal sabotage, making collective action impossible. While some caution is necessary, too much just feeds into stasis and control, mirroring the systems activists are trying to break away from.
The #4opens is a direct antidote to this. Transparency counters paranoia, when decisions, processes, and networks are open, there’s less space for suspicion to fester. Trust isn’t built by secrecy but by consistent, open, and accountable action.
The irony is that a lot of these paranoid actors think they’re resisting control, but by shutting everything down, they’re just self-sabotaging. The solution isn’t more walls—it’s more flows. The #4opens provides the framework to move past the paranoia blockade and rebuild trust in practice, not just theory.
The victimhood narrative is often a trap, weaponised by the right and co-opted by the #fashernista left to shut down alternatives. It can be used as a tool of control, not liberation. Composting the mess, in part, by refuse to play their game, victimhood, is in part real and in part is used to create moral authority without real action. If we engage on those terms, we just get dragged into performative battles.
Expose the power dynamics, by asking who benefits from this? In the negative sense, it’s often gatekeepers who want to control the narrative. NGOs do it for funding, #dotcons for engagement, and #mainstreaming activists for status. A path out of this is reclaiming direct action, which sadly meany in the left abandoned, and the right picked up. We need to take it back, not through reactionary purity politics, but by actually doing the work outside their controlled spaces. A healing path is shifting from identity to process, the current model is all about who is speaking, not what is being built. That’s a dead end. We need #4opens process-driven organising, not personality cults or gatekept “safe spaces.” Make failure visible, one of the biggest weapons against alt movements is pointing out their failures, while #mainstreaming projects hide their rot. If we embrace messy openness, we take that power away.
Breaking the cycle:
The right weaponises grievance → to mobilise.
The liberal left weaponises grievance → to control and suppress real challenge.
The alt-left needs to weaponise transparency → to break gatekeeping and rebuild trust.
So the question is: how do we make “openness” an effective tool in this? The #4opens is a step.
Most tech and political projects are pointless. They churn in circles, endlessly repeating the same mistakes. The river that needs crossing—where tech meets politics—is blocked on both sides. On the political side: arrogance and ignorance. On the geek side: naivety and over-complexity.
A solution? #NothingNew. Most of the problems we face have already been solved, or at least mediated. Instead of chasing the latest shiny, we should be composting the old and using what already works. The #4opens is a way of stepping away from the current tech mess, cutting through the churn, and building something that lasts.
Politics, of course, is messier. As always, “people are afraid of what they do not understand.” But that fear has been weaponised. Thatcher and Reagan’s children, raised on market dogma, are hopeless at cooperation. They can’t think beyond #stupidindividualism, and that’s a serious problem when trying to build #openweb projects.
If we want real change, we need to stop trying to own everything and start learning how to work together. Otherwise, we’ll keep drowning in the same river.
