How you use the #4opens

The #4opens is a path to evaluate the value and openness of alternative or grassroots technology projects. A way to promote transparency, accessibility, and collaboration on the path to of alternatives to #mainstreaming, closed systems. It stands in contrast to #dotcons projects that hoard closed and monetize data. By adhering to these principles, projects offer value to people and the broader community, as opposed to extracting value.

While traditional open data initiatives focus primarily on making data accessible, the #4opens framework encompasses a more comprehensive approach to openness. This grassroots focus extends beyond just data to include source code, operations, and process. This is in contrast to traditional open data initiatives are associated with government or large institutional efforts. By including four distinct aspects of openness, the #4opens provide a holistic way to judge the value and transparency of a project. This contrasts with traditional initiatives that focus solely on data accessibility.

The strong emphasis on community participation and collaboration. The “Open Process” aspect goes beyond just sharing data or code, emphasizing transparency in how a project is run and managed. This is not typically a core component of traditional open data initiatives, and makes this a real alternative to corporate models. The #4opens framework is explicitly focused on judging the overall value and ethos of a project, rather than just its technical compliance with open data standards.

Collaborative development: With open source as a principle, grassroots projects benefit from collective efforts in improving and expanding their technology. This allows for faster innovation and problem-solving. Trust-building: Open process promote transparency in how projects are managed and run. This builds trust within the community and attracts more participants and supporters. Problem-solving focus: The framework encourages the development of tools and approaches that address real issues arising from social organization within #openweb communities, fostering practical solutions to grassroots challenges.

The #4opens serve as a simple yet effective way to #KISS judge the value and openness of grassroots tech projects. This helps both project creators and users assess the alignment of a project with open principles. By adhering to these principles, grassroots tech projects offer more value to people and the broader community, building the needed open, collaborative, and community-driven approach to technology development.

The #4opens framework fosters collaboration among grassroots tech projects

* Open Data: By making data freely accessible, projects share information, metadata and insights, enabling cross-project collaboration and innovation. This openness allows different initiatives to build upon each other’s work and avoid duplicating efforts
* Open Source: The emphasis on open source software encourages collaborative development across projects. By sharing code, grassroots initiatives leverage each other’s work, contribute improvements, and collectively advance their goals. This fosters a culture of shared knowledge and resources
* Open Standards: Adherence to open industrial standards promotes interoperability between different grassroots projects. This allows diverse systems to work together seamlessly, facilitating integration and collaboration across initiatives
* Open Process: This encourages transparency in project workflows and decision-making. By adopting open processes like wikis and activity streams, projects involve stakeholders in planning, development, and governance. This fosters trust, accountability, and collective ownership among collaborators

Community Involvement: The #4opens framework promotes community participation, allowing people interested to contribute to projects. This creates a broader collaborative ecosystem where diverse skills and perspectives are shared across initiatives. The #4opens provide a common set of principles for assessing grassroots tech projects. This shared framework allows projects to evaluate each other, identify collaborators, and build trust within the community. By positioning as alternatives to closed, corporate models, #4opens projects gravitate towards collaboration with like-minded initiatives. This fosters a supportive ecosystem of grassroots tech projects working towards similar goals. The openness promoted facilitates the sharing of best practices, lessons learned, and approaches across projects. This collective learning accelerates progress and problem-solving within the grassroots tech community.

The #4opens can be used to build a foundation of trust and shared values that enables diverse projects to work together towards common progressive paths.

#dotcons push consumerism as propaganda

In the United States, propaganda is intertwined with consumerism. Edward Bernays working in the US is the father of modern propaganda, he believed that humans were driven by instincts and animal desires. His work was used to harness these instincts through advertisements (propaganda) to create inner desires within people, to feed consumerism, which corporations could then satisfy with their products. This is known as the “engineering of consent” which he created to #blocking social change and challenge, this “sweet, sickly mess” was pushed to keep society aligned with the aim of social control.

This strategy you can find in plain language in his books, it clearly shows the path of advertising and propaganda to push corporate and political goals. The objects advertised and sold were used as symbols of government propaganda, for example, the American Department of State funded exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art to showcase American consumerism as a symbol of progress and superiority over communism. This legacy of propaganda is alive and flowing in all our disasters youse of #dotcons to shape perceptions and dictate behaviour and algorithmically manipulate and control. This has played a core role in building up the current mess, this technology has shaped our collective consciousness over the last 20 years. This “sweet and addictive” digital intervention pulled us off the social disruptive “native” path of anarchy, of the #openweb

How do we get outside this mess, the power of design in propaganda lies in its ability to convey meaning in symbolic, abstract terms that go beyond words. Whether through #dotcons #UX pushing overt displays of authority or subtle bureaucratic defaults, design influences our thoughts and perceptions, hiding brutal truths behind a veil of ordinary, boring bureaucracy. As we navigate the digital world around us, it helps to remain curious and question the narratives our “common sense” paths serve, if we are to push change, challenge we need to recognize the responsibility that comes with this power.

https://hamishcampbell.com/tag/dotcons

The mess we have made #mainstreaming postmodernism

A complex philosophical and cultural movement of the mid to late 20th century. At its core is a rejection of objective values and beliefs, scepticism towards the idea of absolute truth, and a distrust of grand narratives. Let’s have a brief look at this and Noam Chomsky view of why this movement is still pushing the intellectual and societal “mess” we try to live in.

Rejection of Absolute Truth: #Postmodernism challenges the idea that there is a simple truth. Instead, it posits that truths are only, subjective, and socially constructed.

Rejection of Grand Narratives: Postmodernists are critical of overarching narratives or ideologies that help to explain large-scale historical, social, and cultural phenomena. Arguing, these narratives suppress alternative perspectives and reinforce power structures.

Critique of Power Relations: Central to postmodernism is the analysis of how power operates within society. Postmodernists highlight how power is unevenly distributed and shapes people’s identities, experiences, and world-views.

Deconstruction: This involves taking apart and examining all the underlying assumptions, ideas, and frameworks that constitute texts, ideas, and social practices. To push the inherent contradictions and power dynamics within them into view.

Chomsky’s Critique of Postmodernism:

Obscurantism and Inaccessibility: Chomsky argues that postmodernist writing is overly complex and obscure, making it inaccessible to the public and academics. That this complexity serves to alienate and insulate postmodernist thinkers from actual activism and practical engagement.

Lack of Concrete Action: Postmodernism allows people to adopt a radical stance without engaging in meaningful action. That the focus on abstract theorizing detracts from any real-world activism and change to challenge the #mainstreaming mess.

Creation of an Academic Power Structure: Chomsky asserts that postmodernism created its own academic power structure, where material rewards, prestigious positions and conference opportunities are given to those who adhere to its complex and impenetrable discourse. Thus diffusing real voices of change and challenge.

Contradictory and Trivial Claims: Chomsky criticizes postmodernists for making contradictory statements dressed in complex language to appear profound. That many postmodern claims mix trivial truths with outright absurdities, diluting knowledge and understanding.

Detrimental Impact on Third World Countries: We need to highlight the negative impact of postmodernism in developing countries, where intellectuals who could have contributed to meaningful social and political change are instead drawn into the abstract and irrelevant debates inside the postmodernism mess.

A #fashernista look at this mess, do you think it’s helpful spreading this #dotcons fodder?

Postmodernism’s rejection of universal truths and grand narratives leads to intellectual fragmentation. Without a common framework, discourse become fragmented, making it difficult to build consensus or coherent strategies for social change. The complexity and elitism of postmodernist thought erode public trust in intellectuals and academics. When scholars are disconnected from everyday concerns, their influence and credibility diminish. Postmodernism’s emphasis on the subjective nature of truth leads to cultural relativism, where all viewpoints are seen as equally valid. This undermines efforts to address injustices and challenge harmful practices. The focus on deconstruction and critique leads to a paralysis of action. If all truths and structures are seen as flawed, it becomes impossible to mobilize collective action or propose constructive solutions.

Conclusion: Postmodernism has dug itself deep into contemporary thought, people don’t see any more the creating of its own establishment norms and power structures, but it’s still there pushing much of the current mess. This has pushed intellectual insularity, a lack of practical engagement, and a strong tendency to obscurantism, building, the current “messy” blocking of meaningful activism and clear discourse.

#TED – A Community of Delusions

For millennials lost after the mess of 9/11, the wars, economic upheaval, digital division, and social atomization, #TED was an appealing #mainstreaming alternate vision—of a society where ideas had currency, and a wider group of people could identify with the intellectual vanguard. This vision was delusion, but it easily overtook the norms of drift and disconnection in our failed alternative culture.

To have been young and thoughtful in the late 2000s was to be a citizen of TED nation – a community of dreamers more than doers, united by a common creed: that ideas matter, that inspiration is power, that the future belongs to those who can capture imaginations. This naivety was an easy path to take for the children of the #deathcult. TED’s prominence shaped the aspirations of a generation, it shaped how we thought about ourselves. This #stupidindividualism pushed the blinding possibility: you, too, could have an idea worth spreading. You, too, could be special.

TED defined the poverty of the blinded intellectual spirit of an era, a profoundly millennial idea: that we are each of us main characters and have an individual calling and a mission to “change the world” in some vaguely indefinable generally pointless way. And while the reality fell well short of the rhetoric, the animating spirit was strong and likely sincere for most people.

The priests of the #deathcult pushed #TED as class war, it was not a youthful indiscretion of a generation—a rite of passage on the road to hard-earned intellectual growth. Rather, it was a smoke and mirror mess pushed by a “progressive” #fahernistas class. In the post TED world we are back to where we were 20 years ago, the messy reality of class war, unfriendly and unwelcoming.

#MillennialZeitgeist #IdeasWorthSpreading #TEDTalks #Dotcons #Intellectualpoverty #liberal #mainstreaming

PS. it’s interesting to remember that #TED tried to be #openweb native at the start, they only turned to #dotcons when that path was abandoned by our #fashionistas and lead to the mess we are in today, what a mess.

Serendipity and #Hashtags

Hashtags are ubiquitous online, at best they categorize content to find and join conversations on topics. The problem with current hashtag usage is they reinforce individualism over collective action. This is an issue of neoliberal “common sense” and the domination of #dotcons, prioritizing profit rather than change and challenge.

Serendipity, the occurrence of events by chance, beneficially offer a fresh perspective on hashtag usage. Implementing hashtags in a way that fosters unexpected connections and discoveries transforms how they function as social tools. Misspelled hashtags result in fragmented conversations, making it difficult for people to engage in coherent discussions. However, embracing these variations also leads to a more inclusive and dynamic categorization system. By allowing for misspelled hashtags to be recognized and grouped with their counterparts, we create a more robust and forgiving serendipity system.

In a federated system like the #Fediverse, and what is envisioned for the Open Media Network (#OMN), there is a tension between universal truths and messy, subjective truths. A federated system values diversity and decentralization, allowing for meany perspectives to coexist. This approach aligns with the concept of serendipity, where the focus is on connections and discoveries rather than rigid categorization. The OMN address these issues by implementing word grouping flows, where different spellings or variations of hashtags can be grouped together to build cohesive category flows. This approach makes misspelled hashtags functional, thus addressing some of the fragmentation caused by individualistic usage.

The OMN project faces significant challenges in securing funding and overcoming internal and external obstacles. The difficulty in obtaining #FOSS funding highlights the broader issue of support for projects that prioritize open, decentralized, and community-focused approaches.

The use of hashtags is a progressive and critical perspective on technology and society. Think about neoliberalism (#deathcult) and consumer capitalism (#fashernista), promoting the ideals of the open web (#openweb) against the for-profit internet (#closedweb #dotcons). The interlocking hashtags tells a story that advocates, transparency, collaboration, and sharing in open-source development (#4opens).

Example Meanings:

#deathcult: Neoliberalism and its detrimental social and ecological impacts.
#fashernista: The trivialization of serious issues through consumerism and fashion.
#openweb: The original ideals of the World Wide Web.
#closedweb: The pre- and post-open web internet dominated by for-profit motives.
#4opens: Principles of transparency, collaboration, and sharing in open-source development.
#geekproblem: The cultural issues within the tech community, a strong tendency towards control and determinism.
#techshit and #techchurn: The negative consequences of constant new technological projects that fail to address any social issues.
#nothingnew: The question of whether new projects are needed or if existing ones should be improved.
#OMN and #indymediaback: Rebooting the altmedia projects on the open web.
#OGB: Open governance and the power of community decision-making.

For hashtags to be effective tools for social change, we need to shift from individualistic to collectivist. This requires systems that accommodate human error and diversity of expression, while maintaining coherence and building community. The #OMN project is a promising approach by grouping variations of hashtags, but it faces significant challenges in implementation and support.

Let’s embrace a serendipitous view of hashtag to enrich conversations in the era of the #deathcult.

Hashtags for Social Change

The Potential of #Hashtags as Shared Social Paths

#Hashtags have potential to be used for social change. They create connections between people, amplify voices, and mobilize communities. When used effectively, they transform individual expressions into collective movements. However, the current culture presents significant challenges to this.

The Problem of #StupidIndividualism

Today we are shaped by #stupidindividualism, on this path hashtags become acts of individual expression rather than collective tools for change. This individualistic approach hides the potential for constructive use. Instead of fostering solidarity and shared purpose, hashtags become fragmented and lose any meaning and thus impact.

#Dotcons as temples of the #Deathcult

Tech silos like Facebook (#failbook) and generally the dominant digital corporations (#dotcons) exacerbate this problem. Their business models and design promote individualism over community, a culture obsessed with profit and control at the expense of human values—creates a landscape where meaningful social change is impossible to achieve.

The Need for Collective Action

For #hashtags to regain their function as tools for social change, there needs to be a shift from individualism to collectivism. This requires:

Shared Understanding: Developing a common understanding of the issues and the role hashtags can play in addressing them.
Community Building: Using hashtags to build and strengthen communities rather than just expressing individual opinions.
Strategic Use: Deploying hashtags strategically to mobilize action, raise awareness, and create pressure for change.
Platform Accountability: Holding digital platforms accountable with the #4opens

The Role of Movements like #XR

Movements like Extinction Rebellion (#XR), though well on the #fluffy side, can play a role in this transformation. By emphasizing collective action and the power of grassroots mobilization, they could seed hashtags to build a global community, a common cause.

Conclusion, Hashtags have potential to be used for grassroots social change, but this potential is blocked by our #mainstreaming of individualism, which is pushed by our continuing use of the #dotcons. To harness the power of hashtags, there needs to be a shift towards native #openweb tools and a more collective agenda, community building, and strategic use. Movements like #XR could be a part of this path, as could projects like #OMN #indymediaback and #OGB

Talking about #hashtags

The #hashtags embody a story and world-view

The #hashtags tell a storie

Why use the hashtags?

Reminder about the hashtag family

Thinking outreach of the hashtag story

Let’s talk about the hashtag story

What is a hashtag

You can support this path https://opencollective.com/open-media-network

Capitalism is the logic of the #dotcons

Let’s look at capitalism through the lens of #dotcons (a term that plays on “dot-coms” with a critical twist).

Commercialization of the Internet: Capitalism drives the commercialization of the #openweb and internet, where profit motives override basic humanist considerations such as community, autonomy, privacy and basic democratic values. The term “#dotcons” is a critique of how the internet has been taken by commercial interests, turning it into a marketplace to push aside its “native” public good.
Exploitation of people: Capitalist digital platforms exploit users’ data and metadata and attention for profit. Companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon collect vast amounts of personal data to sell targeted advertising and shape public behaver.
Monopolization and Centralization: Capitalism tends to create monopolies or oligopolies, as the most evil companies buy out competitors and dominate markets. Today, a few large companies control significant portions of the market, stifling competition and ending innovation.
Surveillance Capitalism: The #fahernistas term Surveillance Capitalism coined by Shoshana Zuboff describes an economic system centred around the commodification of personal data to use to manipulate behaviour and generate profits, reinforcing capitalist dynamics.
Erasing the Public: Capitalist logic erodes the public sphere by pushing profitable content over informative or educational material. Algorithms designed to maximize engagement promote sensationalist and emotionally charged content, contributing to misinformation and polarization. This diminishing of the commons is a detrimental path of capitalism on digital discourse.
Short-termism and Innovation Stagnation: In pursuit of immediate profits, capitalist enterprises prioritize short-term gains over humanistic paths, long-term innovation and ecological sustainability. A focus on quick, lucrative projects rather than any groundbreaking or socially beneficial innovations.
Digital Divide: Capitalism exacerbate inequalities, including the digital divide. Access to technology and the internet is dictated by market forces, leaving disadvantaged communities behind.

In summary, “capitalism is the logic of the #dotcons” shows how capitalist paths have shaped the #openweb into a landscape to prioritize profit over public good, leading to the current mess of exploitation, centralization, surveillance, and inequality.

We have made a mess of the #openweb, we can’t keep being “prats about this” please, let’s try something different #OMN

Caring in a culture that disregards human well-being requires resistance to dominant values

I have come to think that care for people requires a high degree of resistance to the culture around us, simply because that culture is dedicated to values that have no concern for people. A tension in society: the disconnect between cultural values and genuine care for people. Actually caring for people requires a strong resistance to prevailing cultural norms that prioritize profit, “efficiency”, and superficial success over human well-being. This resistance is needed to overcome the last 40 years of #postmodern, #neoliberalism that undermines basic humanism.

The Mess

Profit Over People: Our current worship of the #deathcult within capitalist societies, prioritizes profit driven consumerism above all else. Companies and institutions exploit labour, cut costs at the expense of safety and well-being, and focus on short-term gains rather than any long-term sustainability, or even basic survival.
Superficial Success Metrics: Societal success is measured by wealth, status, and material possessions, rather than by well-being, happiness, community health or basic ecological function. This leads to widespread neglect of where value actually lie.
Individualism Over Community: Our dominating “common sense” culture emphasize individual achievement and self-reliance, at the expense of communal support and cooperation. This erodes social bonds and leave individuals isolated and unsupported.

Resistance

Ethical Imperative: Caring for people is an ethical obligation that at best makes us challenge and resist cultural norms that dehumanize or exploit people. It involves advocating for fairness, justice, compassion, and prioritizes a living environment.
Mental and Emotional Health: The pressures of conforming to the #deathcult culture which values productivity and success over well-being leads to mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and burnout. Joining together to resist these pressures is essential for maintaining mental and emotional health.
Social and Environmental Justice: Resistance is necessary to address systemic inequalities and injustices that are pushed by the dominant culture. To stop the degradation of our ecology, both human and inhuman.

Making Resistance Happen

Advocacy and Activism: Engaging in #NGO advocacy and #spiky activism to promote and push policies and practices that build human well-being over profit. This includes strong ecological policies, supporting labour rights, affordable healthcare, sustainability, and education etc.
Community Building: Fostering real, supportive communities of mutual aid, solidarity, and collective well-being. This involves creating open non-commercial spaces where people can come together, share resources, and support one another.
Alternative Value Systems: Promoting and practising alternative systems that emphasize care, empathy, and interdependence. This can be through #spiky #DIY activism culture, like squatting, protest camps or more lifestyle #fluffy choices, such as minimalism or voluntary simplicity, and through supporting businesses and organizations that prioritize ethical practices in the #dotcons.
Personal Practices: This is a harder path to make meaningful of implementing personal practices that resist cultural pressures, such as mindfulness, self-care, and setting boundaries to protect one’s mental and emotional health. This path can be a problem, as it in part feeds the #stupidindividualism that feeds the very problems in the first place. Encouraging others to do the same can, maybe, help create a ripple effect of resistance and care.

What should you do?

Caring for people in a culture that disregards human well-being requires a conscious and active resistance to dominant values. By advocating for social justice, building supportive #DIY communities, promoting alternative value systems like the #OMN, and maybe practising personal care, we can create a more compassionate, sustainable society. This resistance is not only a needed path, but also a moral imperative. What are you doing today?

More on this https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/collective-intelligence-calls-for-sharing-rewards-from-innovation-for-the-common-good-by-mariana-mazzucato-2024-08

Real Social Media is a Hard Balancing Act

Open social media is native to the #openweb it represents liberation, while closed social media is centred around control for profit. The balance between these two forms is nuanced, and understanding the implications and paths of each requires consideration. It is not “common sense” so you need to think outside your current limited view please #KISS

Open Social Media: Liberation

Transparency and Accountability: Open social media operate with transparency, allowing people to see and understand the algorithms, policies, and decision-making processes. This transparency builds trust and accountability, as people feel responsible and empowered to be responsible for actions and content.
Empowerment: At best, people and communities have control over their content and data. They shape experiences to take their own path, contribute to the platform’s development, and participate in governance. This builds ownership and engagement, it’s a feedback loop.
Innovation and Collaboration: Open platforms grow through collaboration. Developers and users create features together, improving collectively. This collaborative building nurtures technological for people rather than only for profit.
Information: Open social media provides unrestricted access to information, promoting affective and for filling speech and sharing of ideas. This supports progressive education, activism, and the basic democratization of knowledge.

Closed Social Media: Control

Monetization and Profitability: Closed social media platforms are motivated by monetization, using people’s data and metadata to generate revenue through manipulative advertising and social control.
Centralized Power: Control is centralized to the platform owners and administrators, in the end the state. This centralization limits people influence over the network, policies and progressive changes, creating vertical, top-down governance.
Content Moderation and Censorship: Content moderation is core to building community and to prevent abuse, closed platforms exercise total, manipulative control, leading to #mainstreaming censorship and the shaping of agendas, and most obviously the suppression of dissenting voices. This control is used to shape public thinking and silence any real opposition.
Data Privacy Concerns: Closed platforms collect and store vast amounts of people’s data and metadata without much transparency about how it is used. This lack of transparency highlights privacy concerns and risks of invertible data breaches.

The Complex Balance

Finding the Middle path: Balancing open and closed social media involves finding a balance where people’s empowerment and creativity coexist with democratic controls and sustainability measures. This balance requires careful consideration of the trade-offs involved in both cases.
Regulation and Governance: Effective democratic regulation and governance are crucial in maintaining this balance. Policies protects people’s rights, data privacy, and promotes transparency without stifling creativity by pushing only #mainstreaming agenda.
Community Involvement: Building in community decision-making grows this balance. Platforms that have participatory governance are likely to achieve a harmonious equilibrium between openness and control.

Conclusion

The balance between open and closed social media is not straightforward and requires taking the path of reflection and adaptation. Open social media offers liberation through transparency, empowerment, and collaboration (#4opens), while closed social media focuses on control, centralization, and monetization (#dotcons). Walking a path that maximizes the benefits of both approaches involves navigating trade-offs, fostering community involvement, and implementing effective governance (#OGB).

You can support this path https://opencollective.com/open-media-network

The Battle for the Internet: Open vs. Closed

Since its creation, the internet and World Wide Web have been shaped by two competing and overlapping paths:

The #OpenWeb

Rooted in the DNA of internet code and culture, we see the web as a platform for collaboration, sharing, and the free exchange of information. Built for use in a world where information is abundant and free, embodying the ethos of “free as in free beer.”

The #OpenWeb emphasizes the #4opens: open source, open data, open standards, and open process. It walks the path of creativity and collective creation, and is closely associated with “native geek culture” alongside radical/anarchist libertarian thinking. Social interactions are visible, promoting accountability and collective decision-making. Examples include public forums, open-source projects, and community assemblies.

The #ClosedWeb

On the other side, we have the approach of companies like Microsoft under Bill Gates and late-stage Google, that focus on the monetization and commercial viability of the internet. This vision is fixated on control for profitability, and the economics of running online platforms in a world based on artificial scarcity

The #ClosedWeb pushes interactions to private, monetized paths with the illusion of privacy and confidentiality are necessary. This approach seeks to lock down information and interactions, creating walled gardens that can be controlled and monetized.

The Internet’s “native” Potential

The inherent democratization and egalitarianism of the internet allow people to create and share content. However, this ideal clashes with commercial interests that push for control to monetize user data and interactions.

From the #OpenWeb perspective:

Interconnectedness: Technology reflects human values and structures.
Empowerment: The internet empowers people to distribute their work, share ideas, and bypass traditional power politics gatekeepers.
Education and Information: The web transforms education and information access, linking vast resources to walking the path to a different society.

From the #ClosedWeb perspective, the dominant emotion is fear:

Fear of sustainability: Concerns about how to maintain and profit from online platforms.
Fear of losing control: Worries about people having too much freedom, undermining business models and #mainstreaming dogmas.

The Battleground for Openness

The #OpenWeb remains a battleground between the paths of openness and the pushing of fear. While it has democratized content creation and access, the economic models sustaining this ecosystem are often a toxic mess. This tension shapes society both online and offline, creating a complex and messy landscape to find a sustainable path.

The #GeekProblem

One barrier to addressing these issues is the #GeekProblem. On the web, those with technical expertise and control over resources bypass democratic processes and accountability, leading to a kind of “feudalism.” This problem is equally present in grassroots #FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) communities and corporate #dotcons (dot-com companies), as both share the same #geekproblem mindsets regarding control and authority.

A part of the #openweb path involves re-evaluating the relationship between control, wealth, power, and social change in both technology and wider society. Currently, we lack clear ways to discuss the “problem” in geek culture, making it difficult to mediate the #closedweb problem. This is a growing problem, as groups who succeed in a capitalism are the worst equipped to solve the problems that the system creates.

The struggle between these visions is ongoing. For the #openweb to thrive, there must be a concerted effort to address the underlying issues of control and power within both the open and closed paths. By acknowledging and working on these problems, we maintain the internet’s potential as a force for democratization, creativity, and the needed social change.

Please “don’t be a prat” about this, thanks.

Tension, Open and Closed Web

From its creation, the spreading internet and World Wide Web have been shaped by two competing, often overlapping visions:

The collaborative, #openweb: Rooted in #DNA of internet code and culture, this vision is of a network for collaboration, sharing, and free exchange of information. Built for use in a world of abundance of information, free as in free beer. Emphasizes #4opens, creativity, and collective creation, associated with “native geek culture” and radical/anarchist libertarian thinking.

The commercial, #closedweb: The approach of companies like Microsoft under Bill Gates, and late stage google, focuses on monetization and commercial viability of the internet. Fixated on fear of sustainability, profitability, and the economics of running online platforms in a scarcity based world.

The Internet inherent democratization and egalitarianism allows everyone to create and share content. However, this ideal clashes with the pushing of commercial control, to monetize user data and interactions. This #open path empowers people to distribute their work, share ideas, and bypass traditional gatekeepers. The web transforms education and information access to synthesizing vast resources needed for a different view of society. From the #closedweb prospective, you have fear, simply fear.

The #openweb remains a battleground between these feelings, of openness and the pushing of fear. While it has worked to democratized content creation and access, the existing economic models to sustain this ecosystem are a toxic mess. The ongoing tension shapes society both online and offline, yes it’s a mess.

Why we so often can’t see or do much about this mess is that our #geekproblem have disproportionate control over resources and decisions. This leads to blinded “feudalism” that bypass democratic processes and accountability. This is equally a “problem” in grassroots #FOSS and corporate #dotcons, as they share the same mindset.

A part of the #openweb is a move to re-evaluate the relationship between “control”, wealth, power, and social change. But currently we have no clear way to talk about this issue from the “problem” in geek culture. So then have little way to mediate the #closedweb of the groups who “succeed” in capitalist #mainstreaming, who are the worst equipped to solve the problems that the system creates.

UPDATE https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/25/opinion_open_washing/ this is playing out here.

We need to compost the current culture of lying

Why We Can’t Enjoy life

There is a #mainstreaming story that progressives are incapable of enjoying anything and are easily offended, wildly over-analytical, snobby, pretentious, and injecting politics into everything. There is some truth to this, many left-leaning people would admit, reluctantly, that we can be pretty crap and insufferable at times. But it’s important to see the difference between the self-critical view leftists have of themselves not being able to enjoy anything and the propagandist one coming from the right or centre of politics.

Rage Against the System

The right-wing shouts at us that left #fahernistas can’t enjoy anything because they are soft, overthink things and are easily offended, “woke”. They forget that it’s not only a weakness, but more often inarticulate rage and anger, a rage towards an insufferable world people just can’t swallow and accept. Anger that builds up with every minute people have to spend pretending everything’s all right.

Anger, in reality, comes bursting out at the worst or most absurd of times. But think for a moment, it’s not the anger that is the problem. The anger is fine; it’s more that it is often misplaced. Many young, progressive learning, anti-status quo people are just that: angry, confused, and thus lost. Rightfully angry, confused, and lost, but with a social created, unfortunate, lack of vision on when and where to channel this anger.

The Curse of Awareness

So why do leftists find it so hard to enjoy things?

The News: The way #mainstreaming news works is you pick a tribe and only watch what the people from your tribe show on the #dotcons and TV. You foam at the mouth with a pitchfork in hand, go online with a burning touch to shout and complain about either the illiterate rednecks or the college graduate cross-dressing paedophiles. From the grassroots activist sidelines, this seems equally weird and entertaining because we don’t currently have a news cycle backing anyone like us. Our understanding of how privately owned media works makes most news indigestible. No matter how “objective” this tries to be, when news is a business, it will never cross certain boundaries. Boundaries like questioning the system or pitching an alternative to the status quo.
National Identity: We might be proud of our heritage and culture, but #class consciousness makes us understand that we have far more in common with workers of all nations than we do with the #rulingclass of our own country. Patriotism without class consciousness feels wrong and is wrong. We cringe at hyper-patriotic empty gestures because we understand that 9 out of 10 times, if we get sent to the front line in the next war, we’ll be shooting other working-class comrades while the sons of our presidents sit comfortably on a far away beach.
Self-Help and New Age Philosophy: These are the two deep fake philosophies out there. The self-help military-industrial complex implies that everything can be solved if you figure out the puzzle which is the world economy and use a special cheat code to get yourself out of any mess. The latter idea, quasi-spiritual enlightenment, pitches internalizing the world and creating a world of your “own” as a coping mechanism. We can’t enjoy either of these because they are commodified beyond recognition and based on an unrealistic #stupidindividualism that we can and should handle everything on our own.
Our Jobs: We struggle to enjoy our jobs because we understand that at the end of the day, we’re being exploited. No matter what industry or position, your boss does not pay you even close to how much you make them. This fact makes all the talk of purpose, family, and a cause sound like pathetic, childish gesturing.
Mindless Consumption: We can’t fully enjoy consumerism because we know that the high of a purchase is followed by the hangover realization that we’re still as lost as we were before. The lie that we can find purpose in mindless consumption is the greatest epidemic of our time.

The Price of Seeing Clearly

The main takeaway of all these examples is simple: the progressive activist understands that in the current system, whether it’s mindless shopping, new chauvinism, job unfulfillment, or quasi-philosophy, there is a struggle between our wants to see the world and constant manipulation steering us away from this. This awareness is why life feels so miserable. Yes, we see the Zombies behind the masks of the puppets, and it’s hard to enjoy the show when you know it’s death dancing behind the #mainstreaming illusion.

Q. “WHAT ABOUT HUMAN NATURE?” That simple question posits an even simpler view of human consciousness and decision-making. It says man is flawed—through his greed, jealousy, and selfishness—and that as such, he would destroy and corrupt any system which doesn’t utilize those very flaws. The way capitalism, for example, does with greed, by throwing us in the gladiatorial arena, or to be more realistic, a children’s sandbox, of the free market—where the greediest win. Yes, it’s a mess.