In activism of the #openweb hashtags serve as tools to share complex ideas and social movements. On my blog, I use a hashtag story to highlight both the positive and negative aspects of our current socio-political and technological paths. Here’s a breakdown of what some of these hashtags mean: #deathcult: The pervasive influence of neoliberalism,…
State Funding of #FOSS and Open Source: Is it a Good Idea or a Bad Idea?
The questioning over state funding of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and open-source initiatives revolves around invisible ideological debates about benefits and drawbacks. Let’s look at this from a few specific examples: #NLnet, #NGI, and the European Union (#EU), to understanding the implications and effectiveness of this funding path. The is some democratization as…
The Solution: Embrace the #4opens
We can’t keep repeating the same #TechShit over and over again. #TechCurn is a dead end.The #OMN is the only positive path I know forward. #Mainstreaming #fashernistas are dangerously consumptive. Our alt #fashernistas are utterly pointless. We need to disrupt social norms and make #4opens fashionable to salvage any value from these people and pull…
Understanding Current Tech Paths
The accidental #openweb reboot of the #fediverse was created and popularized by a diverse and disorganized group of progressives with meany #fashernistas, this is a #4opens “native” path and reflects the decentralized and chaotic nature of grassroots movements. This “herding cats” means that achieving consensus or coordinated action is challenging. The last 40 years have…
Change and challenge group dynamics
#fashernistas are unconscious of the dynamics of “in and out groups” that split the workings of the social change movements. Let’s look at this in our #fediverse. Firstly why? The need for feelings of importance, that feeds the need for control and exclusivity behaviour, that then stifles diversity of thought and hampers meaningful change and…
A tech story
In the #openweb world of digital innovation, there existed a culture revered for its ingenuity and technical prowess – the hackers of old. Yet, beneath the surface of their achievements lay a problem, one that has led to the downfall of many endeavours: the #geekproblem. In the early days, hackers were pioneers, pushing the boundaries…
Cyril Foster Lecture 2024: On the Declining Success of Civil Resistance
Professor Erica Chenoweth will explore the puzzling decline in the success of civil resistance movements in the past decade, even as unarmed movements have become more popular worldwide. The findings have implications for the future of nonviolent alternatives to armed struggle, as well as to the ability of pro-democratic movements to defeat authoritarian challenges. Erica…
‘The Arkenstone and the Ring: wilful objects in Tolkien’s The Hobbit’
A series of seminars to commemorate the death of J. R. R. Tolkien, to be held in 2023/2024 in the University of Oxford. The talks present an introduction and further background to Tolkien’s life, work, and legacy. They have an academic approach, but they are also aimed at those who have read Tolkien’s work but…
Talking to the Oxford Academics
Academics writing and thinking on activism tends to be bad because the sources are outa date and second hand, and the people who acutely want to talk to academics are the #fashernistas who have little idea of how things work in activism. Put this into the academic feedback loop, and you have something that looks…
#fashernistas are invested in the world of as it is
#fashernistas are invested in the world of as it is, are driven by trends and the desire to be seen as normal. It is a critiquing the tendency of some people to value things that come from #mainstreaming sources. The tag #mainstreaming is obviously crap blinded behaver that leads to people being “blinded” by the…
The world walks right past us looking the other way and takes the big bundle of bills from capitalism.
OK, had to close then open new accounts on #visionontv #peertube because of #spam, the spam is starting agen – there is an update that allows you to put new accounts on ask/moderation, we need to upgrade at some point to get this. Interesting this is exactly the way our ten-year-old #OMN project handles flows…
Theory and practice in activism
Meany #fashernistas have a troubling view of theory and practice. All good horizontalists understand that they come from practice. At the basis of this is #DIY that is working through practice to build theory. To start from theory go ground and round and round then try and put this into practice, ends in a dizzy…