Tag: geekproblem

If you are interested in technology and society

Open/closed, a look at the issues in tech

The idea of total control manifested in the master/slave relationship of computers and programmers is a core of geek culture.

  • Open is about attempting to share power in society.
  • Closed is about attempting to block social power.

The #geekproblem at root in our society is about liberalism excepting the division of the state and the citizen, it’s about the liberal ideal of individualism “the is no such thing as society only individuals and there family” though in the case of the #geekproblem it’s just the individual and not so much the family. Our current #geekproblem is a child of Thatcher and Reagan and the #neoliberalism they embedded into our social minds.

It’s interesting to see that the #dotcons (the right) have overcome this #geekproblem and enslaved code, programmers and the network to the control of the capital (and the state) and it’s sad that the left are children in this game.

A way out of this mess is to clearly reject the “closed” ideas in tech and instead re-embrace “open”. Thus unblocking the social flow, what we do with this flow (dangerous stuff) is up to us. We can recognise the danger yes, but to balance that we MUST recognise the disaster we are in now.

“Closed” feeds and re-enforce disaster and in NO WAY helps society to move from this mess #XR

We need flow, not blocking.

It’s simple.

What is the OMN

The #OMN its a anything in and anything out – mediated by trust database/network.

It’s up to “commernerty” what they do with this and up to the individuals what commerty they choose or if a bit geeky can be an individual. it’s just soup (data soup) of course my project is to build a media/news network out of this other people can build other things #OMN

The data soup is fed by folsonmeny flows of tagged data objects mediated by trust. The consumption is based on the same. All with a nice UI

Lossy, redundancy, trust are features, the #geekproblem seeing these as problems needs to be overcome.

Being based on the #4opens am looking at Odata as the rest API core https://www.progress.com/blogs/odata-faqs-why-should-rest-api-developers-use-odata as this is an outgrouth of #atompub and #RSS and comes from a long process of open development #indymedia What do you think?

The exciting bits are the “flows of trust” bulding commertys, the tech and code are just tools.

* Nothing new

* All #4opens

* Good UI

 

All code is ideology manifested

Q. Some interesting things, mostly the collaborative pad. As I said some time back, this is how I would (obviously) try running this effort – pads not threads.

In terms of general direction, the activitypub etc doesn’t inspire me in terms of rethinking media. I will continue my #postmedia project, which has quite different axioms, and release when ready.

In general I don’t see the linked info neither as theoretically(specs) nor practically(code) strong

A. Diversity of strategy is a good thing but the #geekproblem of everyone doing there own thing is a bad thing – riding the contradictions 🙂

* What’s your argument against activertypub exactly?

* What do you think of rebooting the indymedia project?

One thing I can say the desire to be king is pointless when it fails and dangerous when it rarely succeeds. If this is a main motivation then no good humain outcome is possible. Basic st

A. What is a #postmedia project? it sounds like a alt-right libatrean, which is simply incompatible with social #4opens?

linked info? is being done without coding – it’s a folksonomy. A trust based social project not a technological project. It’s not there on purpose, which is obviously why you cannot find it 🙂

The social nature of the project. Because there is no code as we are simply in every case repurposing existing codebases, existing social relations and existing processes.

it’s an interesting subject.

I am trying to get coders to stop doing pointless/dangerous things with their skills and time. This sums up why i talk a lot about the #geekproblem

* pointless, that’s just about everything they do have always done.

* dangurus, that’s when they push #dotcons and make it work.

Of course this is more complex than it looks, how do you define “useful” we can wank ideology at this point.

A message for my #dotcons frends

When people deny the history of reposabilerty then they deny reality and join the “post truth world” of Trump and Boris.

The majority of my #failbook friends are both sad and bad on this subject as they don’t remember the times they argued that the #dotcons were not evil and cat memes were the right thing to do as the world heated up and is now catching fire.

A lot of the more tech minded run workshops on campining on #dotcons as our ones healthy #openweb tools were ripped apart by our home grown #geekproblem

You guys need to get busy with spades to compost the shit you spread around in the digital world. And spreading more shit just makes the alt more smelly and uninviteing.

I put up with years of trolling on this subject. it’s a good time to balance this and for the first time in a while do something useful. At some point you have to support a real grassroots media project.

https://unite.openworlds.info/indymedia

Hope you understand that this is not a #geekproblem project and not pushing #fashernistas agenders and a clear move away from #failbook and the #dotcons in general #OMN

OMN is a trust based project

The idea is to use human moderation flows as a feature to spread federation wider. Each flow has to first be created then is either trusted – ie they are going to keep posting good stuff or moderated that sometimes they post good stuff.

So the system only scales if human beings reach out to each other to build trust links. If everything stays on moderation then the workload soon becomes unmanageable or the site is overrun by irelevance or spam. In both cases the site sesses to be useful. This is a core feature of the network to push human scale federated trust communities.

The only way to get a useful site is to build a big healthy community (with wide groups of admins and moderators) or a small focus trust group based on quality choice of connections. Both are good outcomes, and what the #OMN is about building.

If we build in automation then we will have lots of middling quality sites that are borderline useful. A signal to noise issue. There will be less motivation to spesherlise and the network will likely fail because of this.

Less is more is a core of the project. The #geekproblem is the desire to improve the network with better tools

Spam and low quality posts have to find a way to flow into the network and when they are in they need to then flow to the quality parts of the network.

The problem we face is that there might not be any sites allowing new content in… so this will lead to the need to set up more outlying sites and spread the network wider and narrow the focus of these new sites to keep admin down, spreading the network wider and narrowing the focus etc.

You see an organic growth of base sites narrow/local/subject to middle sites regional/topic to top sites outreach/mainstreaming.

The bottom sites feedup to the top sites both by quality tags subject feeds and aggregation editorial articles. In both cases these directly link back to the bottom content sites.

The traditional value pyramid is reversed – the top sites are easey to setup and admin but hard to add value to. The middle sites are the core of the project sifting and adding value vier aggregation. All the true value lies at the base were the publishing happens

https://unite.openworlds.info/indymedia

Useing WordPress as a open tech project.

We end up using WP from the problem of finding a non #geekproblem alternative place to host a site. With the dotcon option its fine if you are building a site to do anything more than basic public publishing then you have to pay for the pro options which are expensive. We fell into this trap http://boatingeurope.openworlds.info were we are locked out of the basic advanced options unless we pay 3-5 times the monthly amount, in this WP hosting is a #dotcons we paid two years in advance to get a big discount so locked in now without the functions we need.

We also self host a WP install on OVH http://hamishcampbell.com this gives you the full power of the pro features at a cheap price and works fine till you hit a #geekproblem now our SSL is not working due to a change in the domain name and some plugins have stopped working becouse our PHP is outa date. Both are basic #geekproblem to fix and the online help is so full of commercial spam that its hopeless with out haveing a geek to step in and fix the blackbox this is my experience on both the hosted and the #DIY use of #WP as a website. Sorry this is not a solution.

 

Talking about rebooting openweb media

Its too easey to talk cross purpose about actavisam, media and tech if the is any understaning at all most are talking about the end of indymedia and what came after, am talking about the start of indymedia and what came before. A simple misunderstanding that is surprising hard to bridge. There are now millions of normal non geek people using everyday the tech am surgesting, the UI works fine, the apps are good for a phone experience. What am talking about is already a success… just activists are stuck.

The has been a #block on radical tec for the last 10 years. As most actavisam was in with the #encryptionists which is a 10% project only if they overcome the #geekproblem if they don’t its just a wasteland. No wonder people flocked to the lonely #dotcons. Open/closed is a 90/10% split… not a 10/90% split. This the the difference between the start and end of the indymedia project.

Its a process, as we are on #failbook the #hashtags will not get outside to the #openweb. But they will to a limited extent bypass the algorithm and give you a wider view inside facebook. The power comes from useing them in openweb projects and searches. This gives power to organise alongside and outside the #dotcons

Tagging is at the hart of the bottom up approach the #OMN takes. So think of hashtags use inside the dotcons as a small help and a first big stepaway. Of course if you never take the effort to stepaway then its just a small help and kinda pointless.

The is a pessimism in defeat.

Talking about the possibility of rebooting our own media.

Lets rearly focus, when most people talk about our own media. They mostly talk about the closed/bureaucratic indymedia. When i talk about the open/serendipity indymedia. Lets be positive and try and bridge these views.

The #hashtags are a part of the open process. You can see the whole working of the network, ie its open not closed.

Yes i understand the desire for closed, i see this desire destroy left and right. Yes closed is obviously the way to destroy society and the natural environment. Yes closed is better, not.

Its a simple story.

Idea to escape the media manipulation that puts Trump and Johnson into power and will keep doing this as its the business models of #dotcons and #tredtionalmedia Were are the tools to organize. Am asking a simple question and giving a simple sulution #DIY with as strong a protection against #fashernistas cooption and #geekproblem irrelevance.

The name Open media network (#OMN) as its name implies is about building and holding bridges across the ghettos.

Please ignore all the crap that will be flying about and do something simple and positive.

A bit of history: Do you remember the early open process #indymedia before it died as closed and bureaucratic. It was not a ghetto and helped to shape #traditionalmedia narrative. If leftwing/anarchists history teaches anything usefull power is all about organization self or top down… what tools do we have to organize if the answer is non then we have no power just bubbles… kinda what today tells us. Learn the wrong thing and the next 5 years are lost.

Well that did not go well, were next?

Negative or Positive

Do we have the power and will to choice?

#OMN is a needed first step if you have power and will to overcome your digital addictions.

More ideas? We have 5 years of empty political space, filling this time with negative will be a waste. Who is up for building posative DIY, increasing the commons were we have the power to do this outside the electoral mainstream.

Have you taken a caring step to the #openweb have you stayed in the #dotcons to offer a helping hand to others? The answer to these questions likely sits uneasily with you, it does with meany.

Take the time to outreach your friends onto #openweb media projects is a basic step. https://campaign.openworlds.info if you try this one then you should take the time and effort to find 20 new to you people to follow otherwise it will not work. There are NO addiction algorithms on the #openweb projects so will only work if you make it work. Gather the people like you outside the #dotcons is a good first step.

If the election is a disaster over the next few days this is directly connected to your use of the #dotcons as your media source. This with the billionaire #traditionalmedia is pushing social control of the #deathcult over us all.

You have had plenty of time and opportunity to reboot the #openweb as your source of news. That you have not lifted a finger to do this is your own responsibility.

Of course maybe it will not be a disaster, as it clearly should not be. Cross fingers and get out into the streets to knock doors.

Take the step today #OMN

This election is human being vs the mashine, Labour supporters knocking doors vs dark targeted negatively adverts on Facebook.

The labour spending, much less than the tories is positive, in the light. The majority of tory spending, much more, is in the dark targeted by algorithm to swing the marginal, to push the darkness.

The problem we face for a progresive future is that the #dotcons that dominate our media were built to push dark agenders. its a built into their business models, the #deathcult is strong oneline

It’s well past time to step away from this mess #OMN

A question for fashionistas is drinking piss healthy?

A. Start a outreach stepaway from the #dotcons project and watch the old crap crubbale when you glance back. Be a part of a soughted #fashernistas movement to create social change #OMN

Q. You have been saying this over and over for the last few years and railing against the mysterious #fashernistas. And what plan did you announce this week? To start your own YouTube channel! “Physician heal thyself” seems an appropriate comment …

A. Nothing wrong in having one foot in a each camp, have been saying this for years. “Stepaway” is the strategy to try and medate the moralistic shaming that is not constructive. Am still talking about seedboxs for #peertube and the #geekproblem that stops this obviously needed, being a priority http://visionon.tv works as a video host but we have no distributed way to store the seed files… so not an option. Thus the youtube channel for #boatingeurope Of course would need one even if #peertube had seedbox’s to keep one foot in the #dotcons to offer a helping hand to people who won’t to septaway. Good to think these things through.

Ps. Am gently takeing the piss by calling it a #fashernista movement, but if you look at people’s consumption of #mainstreammedia it looks very much like people like drinking piss so maybe its not a joke?

Now that is a “shaming” thought…

The #geekproblem pushing over #openweb agen

https://www.wired.com/story/how-blockchain-can-wrest-the-internet-from-corporations The #encryptionists are trying to pushing there flagging project over the healthy #openweb reboot.

Q. need a new hashtag? lovers of blockchain (bloccatenaphile?) are a breed unto themselves, and not likely to be as sensible as some those who are in to encryption.

how broad is your definition of #encryptionist?

A. #encryptionists my “fuckyou” thoughts started with the #indymedia network. The #geekproblem installed a self signed certificate on the domain to increase “privacy” alongside not logging ip addresses on the local server.

The “good affect” only securaty theater, the bad affect, every user received a browser pop up saying “do not trust this site” and the IP addresses could just be collected “upriver” at the ISP/switch level by the state actors who were monitoring the project

#openweb

The affect of not logging IP address locally was a rising deluge of spam and moderator burn out.

The was not democratic process on these changes, and no way to role them back or even address the issue. The project of over 100 globle news sites, with thousands of media creators and millions of users. Ossified and then died, the #dotcons soon replaced it.

#fashernistas moved on, the #openweb started to die.

The #geekproblem pushing #encryptionists agenders OVER #openweb projects.

The is a role for #encryptionists /closed but it’s on balance a smaller one than “open” is my core experience over the last 20 years.

All tech is “ideology” as code, we need to talk about this #4opens

Building alt/grassroots media networks to challenge and widen the traditional media

Our current groups doing alt/grassroots media are too limited in their idea of what media could/should be in this the is either a naivety or a dishonesty. The most successful act and think they can be #traditionalmedia” without controlling the distribution of their content in any meaningful way. This is of course not unusual, the mainstream media is continually making this same mistake. All of them rely on the #dotcons which nowadays is largely the #Failbook algorithm for the there content distribution.

Our current grassroots/alt media have websites so already have one foot in the openweb, but none of their sites prominently link in any meaningful way to each others. They do podcasting so anther foot in the open web, but all their effort for outreach is inside the #silos such as Apple iTunes etc. it’s hard to directly blame them, though we should and will, for this sorry state.

So why are we here? On the one hand we have the #fashernista embrace of the #dotcons which almost all the current crew built their careers inside. A capitalist #mainstreaming.

On the other we have the suicidal embrace of #encryptionists complexity and parallel “standardization” into a pointless/shrinking to nothingness alt-tech ghetto were our #geekproblem are and desire to stay. A liberal/libertarian #mainstreaming.

With these issues in mind I have been outreaching to these groups for the last year, and building real working openweb linking tech as part of the #OMN project. This currently is not been getting past the crew’s naivety/self-interest/career focused thinking. Fair anufe if that is as far as their imagination/aspiration goes, but this is a clear problem for working alt/progressive/left media that urgently needs to be addressed.

So our current alt/grassroots media are irrelevant to rebooting a healthy society from a technical/social point of view. Their is some good content but no realistic path for this media to be seen or spread in a way that can be affective for social change outside the controlling #dotcons

One simple and practical path to change this is a basic. To move on with the project to get alt/grassroots media producers linking to each other on the #openweb Currently they pointlessly do not do this, even though they have repeatedly stated they do over the last few years.

What action have I been taking over the last 10 years:

1) Keep private messaging them on steps they can take, this works to an extent, as last year I asked them to add more tags to their posts and they “broke” the User Interface on the #OMN codebase we are using by adding lots more – which is a good problem to have. A small step.

2) Publicly talk to them as a alt/grassroots media group in blog post and their social media – this currently has little effect.

3) Talk to them in public as producer groups – this has had a limited effect with some groups, will try this more.

4) Publicly talk to them as individual’s, this will generally get a private response and little/no action just words so far.

5) Name and shame them as groups who do not link/share with other groups in public, this might be needed for some groups, but this is a negative.

6) Name them as individuals within the producer groups and push for linking directly to them in public, name and point to the individual that this is a clear negative fail, a last stage.

It’s a shame that this escalation is needed/not working – linking is a clear path to success on the web – the right-wing blogs/producers do this, it’s a simple fail that the left/progressive do not now, and generally never have link to each other.

“Make the world you want to see” LINKING is the bases of the #openweb and a strong path to #rebooting the grassroots internet itself. Looking for helpful/happy people to crowed source the active conversation to make this happen, maybe we need a “new” alt-media content #reboot to pull the current ones onto a sustainable path, lead by example.

For this to be relevant we need working open media tech, the best example of this is mastodon/activertypub. The #OMN project uses this and is simple #4opens based on linking, it’s a “first step”.

Updated text, find our current project https://unite.openworlds.info/explore/organizations

A metaphorical view of tech and society

The data soup

Mobs do not have minds, but they do have lots of tasty cultural bits bubbling and stirring that make a good humane soup we feed and grow on.

Experts/individuals have small minds and little/narrow incite into wider social truths they build single view expert solutions to universal mob swirling problems. These are cold bowl of moldy soup in no time, #fashernistas see steaming bowl for a moment tasty and nice to eat before moving onto the next leaving it forgotten cold and then decaying into dry mold.

  • Facebook is a expert created system for feeding/off mobs and privatizing there energy into private profit and social (mob) control. Its about taking all the tasty bit out of the data soup and feeding them to a tiny minority of “experts”.
  • Archive.org is a out of date fragile (#geekproblem) expert system for holding/keeping “mobish” data into the open future. Its the right project done in the wrong way but fine as a handle for the iron cauldron that contains the OMN data soup we need to build.
  • OMN is a non expert system to empower a diversity of expert/ish that bubbles out of mobs. Its a diversity of ladle in the never ending data soup cooked in a big iron cauldron. It’s Jesus and the fishes and wine, the “religious” power of #4opens.

#KISS and #4opens