The social change/challenge project of an organic intellectual is an act of love, a gift economy, each toot, each hashtag is a gift. The #OMN hashtag story is designed to make people who (often unconsciously) worship the #deathcult (an obvious metaphor for #neoliberalism) and have internalized the last 40 years of (the dead philosophy) #postmodernism uncomfortable. From these small openings, they can try to step outside this mess.
To build the #OMN we are looking for the tiny minority who can still think outside this mess, is this you?
A balancing of spiky/fluffy to see and act outside the current #mainstreaming mess.
The mess we have made over the last 40 years, the main challenges facing humanity today – #climatechaos, the degradation of the biosphere, and growing global inequalities – are not separate issues, rather different facets of the same problem. This problem is the #neoliberal economic system that has spread across the world through globalization, promoting high production and high consumption lifestyles and prioritizing economic growth over environmental sustainability and social equity. The #deathcult we all worship.
The neoliberal dogma is not only incompatible with a functioning Earth System at the planetary level, but it is also eroding human and societal well-being, even in the wealthiest countries. Growing global inequalities are a direct result of this economic system, which prioritizes the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a few at the expense of the majority.
The consequences of continuing on the present trajectory are dire. Collapse is the most likely outcome. A transition to a more socialist economy is a path out of this mess. We need to prioritize social equity, which requires a fundamental shift in our economic system, where sustainability and equity are prioritized over short-term greed. Only then can we hope to build a sustainable future for ourselves and for future generations.
White Lies About Security and Privacy in the Fediverse
We’re told small white lies about security and privacy to boot up #Mastodon. But the truth is, this #openweb tech is about dancing elephants throwing paper planes as a security/privacy model.
Yes, this is simply not the right tool for the “common sense” privacy and control needs the #geekproblem have. In reality, there’s already a wealth of mature, privacy-focused tech out there built specifically for that path.
Enclosing the “commons” is a dark chapter in history for native societies, and we risk repeating this mistake if we misunderstand the political roots of decentralized social media.
Let’s pause and check the unspoken/unthinking political aspect of this. Much of the desire to retrofit heavy privacy into the #Fediverse comes from #mainstreaming liberalism, which frames everything through fear and control. But the Fediverse wasn’t born from that path, it emerged from a trust-based, anarchistic culture.
At its core, social media is:
Social (one-to-many)
Media (sharing news and events)
It’s an inherently public activity.
On the other hand, encrypted chat (one-on-one or in small groups) is an inherently private activity.
The #dotcons messily mix these two spheres together, but only because their centralized architecture makes it possible (and profitable). Of course, this is a black lie, since these platforms don’t actually respect the privacy they promise. Their entire business model depends on violating it.
In the decentralized #openweb, public and private spaces have generally been separate and tidy, and that’s a good thing. But lately, some online discussions feel like an attempt to deliberately blur these lines, reproducing the #mainstreaming model under the guise of “common sense”, to take the same failed path we’ve been trapped in for 20 years.
We don’t need to reproduce the mess. We can have the best of both worlds:
Public, federated social media built around the #4opens
Private, encrypted communication for individuals and groups in P2P chat
Let’s keep our focus on the true nature of social media and build tools that respect both public and private spheres, without falling back into the traps of the #deathcult.
We need to build “bounded” projects because we live in the era of the #deathcult based on the dead ideologies of post-modernism and #neoliberalism. Both deny the possibility of the world we want to build, so “common sense” is not our friend.
The “boundaries” of #4opens and #PGA keep focus vs this “common sense”, we are lost without something like these “historical” working bounders.
The #OMN are building tools for the “other” that’s us. “Them” are hostile, especially if they don’t understand who “they” are, this is #mainstreaming liberals, and right wing crew.
#PGA is about, horizontal paths giving us a shared space of practice, understanding and working for “politics” and the #4opens gives us the same for tech.
They together create the boundary for us to focus. Without this boundary we have a tendency to fight and create mess. So it’s a soft/pours “us” and “them” to provide focuses and direction. In a bad sense, it is the badges of the tribe, in a better sense, it’s the banners we fly at our gatherings, but this starts to sound a bit nationalist, so let’s not do this…
The subject of “branding”, flags, banners is a real balance, they have power… And we need power in horizontal movements.
Anarchism, in #OMN language, is not chaos. It’s the long historic struggle to build social paths growing trust, mutual responsibility, and shared power instead of fear, hierarchy, and extraction.
At its root, anarchist economics is simply the idea that people should have more direct control over the things that affect their lives. Workplaces, media, communities, land, tools, and infrastructure should be held more in common or managed cooperatively by the people actually using them, not owned by distant states, corporations, landlords, or bureaucratic classes.
This is the opposite of the current #deathcult path where power concentrates upward into institutions that claim ownership over everything while the majority are reduced to consumers, tenants, workers, and data sources. The important distinction is between use and ownership.
In capitalist logic, ownership means control without participation. You can own land you never touch. Own housing you never live in. Own platforms you never contribute to. Own factories you never work in. Then extract rent, profit, interest, and power from the people who actually do the labour. This is the normalised logic of the #closedweb and #neoliberalism.
In anarchist and mutualist thinking, possession comes from use and participation. If you use something, care for it, maintain it, and contribute to it, then you have a natural relationship with it. This is a living social process rather than an abstract legal claim enforced through violence or bureaucracy. That’s actually how many healthy human systems worked historically before everything became financialized and enclosed.
The #openweb originally functioned much closer to this model. People built websites because they needed them. Communities moderated spaces because they cared about them. Developers shared code because collaboration worked better than enclosure. Infrastructure was often maintained through trust networks, volunteer labour, and shared responsibility.
The problem is that over time the #dotcons enclosed this commons. Social relationships became platforms, sharing became monetized content, participation became engagement metrics, human communities became extractable data flows. This is why the #4opens matter:Open data. Open source. Open standards. Open process. These are not abstract technical values, they are practical social tools for preventing enclosure and concentration of power. Without them, projects quietly drift toward hidden hierarchy and soft authoritarianism even when they use radical language.
This is also why thinking about the #geekproblem matters, too much alt-tech still thinks freedom comes primarily from technical architecture while ignoring social power. But history shows that purely technical fixes usually reproduce the same social hierarchies in new forms. The problem is not only bad code, it is social relations. A decentralized system can still become socially authoritarian. An open protocol can still become culturally closed. A cooperative can still become dominated by informal elitists. A “horizontal” project can still be controlled by hidden networks of influence. That’s why anarchist economics focuses so heavily on mutual aid, federation, and self-management.
Mutual aid is simply people organizing together directly to meet shared needs without waiting for permission from markets or states. Food sharing, community defence, free software, skill swaps, radical media, housing networks, protest kitchens, neighbourhood repair groups, grassroots publishing. These are not side projects, they are the foundations of another economy already existing inside the shell of the old one.
Projects like #Indymedia worked because they embedded technology inside living social networks and shared political cultures. The value was not just the publishing software, it came from trust relationships, collective process, and common purpose. This is the same path #OMN is trying to reboot for the #openweb era. Not by inventing endless new startups and pointless platforms, chasing #fashernista tech trends or feeding the #NGO funding machine.
But by rebuilding commons infrastructure that people can actually use, shape, and govern together. The goal is not perfect ideology, the goal is reducing domination. Less extraction, hierarchy, enclosure, passive consumption. More participation, transparency, shared responsibility and more collective agency.
The irony is that this is often more practical than capitalism itself. Mutual aid networks regularly respond faster than states during disasters. Open-source infrastructure powers huge parts of the internet. Informal community care keeps millions alive under collapsing systems. The future probably won’t arrive as one giant revolution, it grows more like compost.
Small living networks. Shared tools. Open processes. Federated trust. Commons infrastructure.
That’s the real anarchist economy in practice, messy, human, relational, and alive.
The opposition to neoliberalism (the #deathcult) is a global movement that advocates for the protection of humane culture, environmental survivability, and democratic institutions in the face of economic globalization. The anti #mainstreaming of this movement argue that the neoliberal position of free trade and removing public sector regulation has not benefited society and global survival.
One of the key events that sparked this movement was the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the 1990s. This treaty aimed to liberalize cross-border investment and trade restrictions, but it faced significant opposition from civil society representatives, who argued that mandatory standards were needed to ensure that globalization did not put people or the environment at risk.
Critics of neoliberalism argue that the interests of investors are prioritized over those of people, and that this leads to the exploitation of workers and natural resources. Noam Chomsky, a prominent scholar and activist, argued that the term “globalization” has been appropriated by the powerful to refer to a specific form of international economic integration, one that prioritizes investor rights over human rights.
Opposition to neoliberalism is not opposition to globalization itself, but rather to the specific form of globalization that prioritizes the interests of private power systems over the rights of people. The movement for an alternative form of globalization seeks to promote international integration that attends to the rights of people, promotes democratic institutions, and preserves the natural environment.
The Genoa #G8 Summit protest, which took place from July 18 to July 22, 2001, was a significant event in the history of modern protest movements. The protest drew an estimated 200,000 demonstrators from all over the world, who came together to block the event and voice their concerns about the power and influence of the #deathcult in the G8 countries.
The G8 Summit, which brings together the world’s eight most powerful countries, is a controversial event that has long been the target of protest movements. Critics of the G8 argue that it is an undemocratic institution that seeks to set the rules for the world at large, without real accountability to the people it purports to serve.
The protesters who gathered in Genoa were determined to block the event and make their voices heard, and they were met with an extremely violent and heavy-handed response from the Italian police. Dozens of protesters were hospitalized, more were taken into custody after night raids on two schools housing sleeping #NGO activists and #indymedia journalists.
The treatment of those who were taken into custody was barbaric. Protesters were beaten, sexually assaulted, and denied access to medical treatment. Many of those who were held in custody were subjected to psychological torture, including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement. Despite the brutality of the police response, the protesters remained resolute, Seeing the G8 Summit as a symbol of everything that is wrong with the world.
The Italian government was later brought to trial in the European Court of Human Rights, where it was found guilty of violating the human rights. The court ruled that the police response to the protest was excessive.
Over the past 40 years, humanity has created a complete mess of our society and environment. #Climatechaos, the degradation of the biosphere, and growing global inequalities are not separate issues but different facets of the same problem. This problem is the #neoliberal economic system that has spread across the world through globalization, promoting high production and high consumption lifestyles and prioritizing economic growth over environmental sustainability and social equity. It is a #deathcult we all worship.
The #neoliberal economic system has created a world that is not only incompatible with a functioning Earth System at the planetary level, but also eroding human and societal well-being, even in the wealthiest countries. The consequences of continuing on the present trajectory are dire. Collapse is the most likely outcome.
To have any hope of turning this around, we need to prioritize social equity. This requires a fundamental shift in our economic system, where sustainability and equity are prioritized over short-term greed. A transition to a more socialist economy is a path out of this mess.
The transition to a more sustainable and equitable economic system will not be easy, but it is necessary. It requires us to fundamentally change our values and priorities as a society. This cannot be done without social friction and more mess, we need to stand up and fight for a more sustainable and equitable world. It is well pastime to reject the #deathcult of neoliberalism and build a humane and better world for all earths creatures.
The 1999 Seattle WTO protests, known as the Battle of Seattle, were a turning point in the history of globalization and global trade. The protests took place from November 30 to December 3, 1999, during the World Trade Organization’s (#WTO) Ministerial Conference, which aimed to launch a new round of trade negotiations. However, the negotiations were overshadowed by a massive demonstration that turned into a battle between protesters and law enforcement.
The protests drew tens of thousands of activists, including labour unions, environmentalists, anti-globalization campaigners, and anarchists from across the United States and the world. They came to express their opposition to the #WTO and its policies, which promoted corporate interests at the expense of workers, the environment, and humans. The protesters criticized the WTO for its lack of transparency, undemocratic decision-making processes, and the negative impact of globalization on economies, workers, and the environment.
The protesters organized a range of activities, including marches, rallies, teach-ins, and direct action. They blockaded streets, disrupted traffic, and shut down the #WTO’s meeting using various tactics, nonviolent civil disobedience, such as chaining themselves together, locking themselves to buildings and vehicles, and staging sit-ins. Some protesters engaged in violent confrontations with the police, breaking windows, looting stores, and setting fires.
The police response to the protests was controversial and criticized for its use of force and violation of protesters’ rights. The police used tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and flashbang grenades to on the protesters. They also arrested more than six hundred people, including peaceful demonstrators, journalists, and bystanders. The police’s tactics drew widespread condemnation from human rights groups, civil liberties advocates, and some progressive political leaders.
The Seattle protests had significant political and social implications, both in the United States and internationally. They exposed the growing divide between the proponents and opponents of neoliberal globalization and sparked a global movement against corporate-led globalization. The protests also marked the emergence of a new kind of activism that combined environmental, labor, human rights, and social justice concerns into a unified anti-corporate agenda. The Seattle protests were a part of similar protests around the world, including the Genoa G8 summit protests in 2001 and the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011.
In conclusion, the 1999 Seattle WTO protests were a strong moment in the history of globalization and global trade. The protests represented a clash between two world-views, #deathcult agenda that championed corporate-led globalization and the progressive’s that demanded a more equitable and sustainable economic system. The Seattle protests remain a powerful symbol of popular resistance to the last 40 years of dogmatic neoliberalism, unaccountable corporate power and a call to action for a more just and democratic world.
The culture of hopelessness is a deeply conservative reaction to social change and challenge. It is marked by reflexive opposition and inward-looking tribalism, rather than by hope, solidarity, or progress. Instead of imagining alternatives, it retreats into irony and disengagement.
Meme culture and pervasive sarcasm are good examples of this tendency. They often reinforce a narrow, consumerist worldview that feels clever but lacks the power to engage with or transform wider social realities. In this way, such “invisible” movements quietly contribute to the problems we face, rather than helping to solve them.
At its core, this is a #deathcult mentality. The pressures of #mainstreaming and #stupidindividualism do not lead to human flourishing, they normalise despair, fragment collective action, and make systemic change feel impossible.
The hashtag #deathcult is a charged but precise characterisation of #neoliberalism – the political and economic ideology that has dominated the last four decades, fetishising free markets, deregulation, privatisation, and minimal government intervention while relentlessly prioritising short-term profit over collective and ecological well-being.
The term was coined by Hamish Campbell (hamishcampbell.com) out of long experience in protest movements, crystallising at the founding of Extinction Rebellion (XR) – the global environmental movement known for nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience in response to the climate and biodiversity crisis.
#XR gave the idea a public face, but the underlying diagnosis is older. What the hashtag names is a system that knowingly drives ecosystems toward collapse, accelerates mass extinction, and courts food and water shortages, displacement, and conflict – all while calling this “economic growth.” That is not negligence. That is a cult logic: sacrifice the living world on the altar of quarterly returns. Neoliberalism’s defenders argue it delivers prosperity and individual freedom. Its record tells a different story: widening inequality, gutted public services, eroded workers’ rights, and a culture of greed that subordinates the common good to narrow private gain. The #deathcult hashtag story names what that trajectory actually leads to, not as hyperbole, but as a straightforward description of the destination.
The hashtag is for those who recognise that an ideology placing profit above the survival of communities and ecosystems isn’t just mistaken, it’s dangerous.
We exist in a world of ideas at best spoken, at worst unspoken. Thinking about #Ideology plays a role in shaping society as it provides a framework for understanding the world and determining values, beliefs, and principles that guide behaviour and decision-making. By understanding a society’s #mainstreaming ideologies, we can better understand its political, social, and cultural institutions, as well as the motivations behind various actions and decisions.
For example, a society’s unspoken political ideology influences the formation of political parties, the structure of government, and the laws and policies that are enacted. Social ideologies shape the relationships between different groups in society, such as the roles and expectations of men and women, the treatment of minorities, and the distribution of resources. Cultural ideologies shape our beliefs about beauty, art, and morality, as well as the way in which history is interpreted and remembered.
This active #KISS, understanding, the idea, of ideology is important because it is insight into the underlying beliefs, values, and motivations that drive human behaviour and shape the society we live in. It helps us to make sense of the world around us and make informed decisions about the future we would like.
As we are now realising that we have been worshipping an ideological driven #deathcult for the last 40 years, it’s useful to collectively lift our heads and look at this afresh. Best not to be a prat about this, thanks.
