Enclosure of the openweb

This spirit of the early internet and #WWW – sharing, remixing, collectively creating – is the heart of what we once called the #openweb. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a space of possibilities, commons, where you could take what you needed and leave something behind, hyperlink by hyperlink. The tools were open – #RSS feeds, #APIs, #XMPP, #indymedia were built to bridge between ideas and movements, not walls of monetized algorithmic sludge we have today.

But the #dotcons came. They fenced in the wild garden. What we’re living through now is a digital version of the enclosure of the commons, a #neoliberal land grab dressed in Silicon Valley T-shirts. Just like in 16th-century England, they drew arbitrary lines around our #4opens shared land (data, conversation, culture), declared it private property, and shut the gates. And we, the people, got algorithmic slop in return.

The comparison isn’t metaphor – it’s literal. Just as the landed gentry stole the commons to fuel the industrial revolution, the tech gentry stole our digital commons to feed surveillance capitalism. They did it through legalese, marketing BS, and brute force. We were left outside the firewalls, told to be thankful for “free” services while they harvested our metadata lives to sell back to us as advertisements and social control.

The #techbros didn’t invent this theft. They just updated the tools, the same ideological mess that displaced peasants from their land now displaces communities from their networks and platforms, kills independent sites, closes APIs, and locks away archives behind paywalls. Twitter’s 2023 shutdown of free API access? A textbook enclosure. Hundreds of # fashionista grassroots tools and bots vanished overnight, #Techshit at its most brazen.

And then there’s #RSS – the veins of the old web. Stabbed slowly. First by Facebook, then by Google. For the #fashernistas, the blade fell hardest in 2013 with the death of Google Reader, a quiet coup that pushed most of us into the fenced-off gardens of algorithmic consumption we live so much of our lives in today. The commons didn’t vanish; it was actively destroyed, under the smog of monetization, “engagement,” and corporate “safety.”

This isn’t #progress, it’s theft. The same kind that wears the mask of legitimacy because lawyers and lobbyists made it look neat on paper. The reality is old, it’s a #classwar fought with code instead of clubs, and it’s won because we stopped remembering what common “land” even looked like.

But not everything is lost. The #Fediverse, the #OMN (Open Media Network) still plants seeds in the cracks. #Wikidata, #OpenStreetMap, the #ActivityPub protocol, these are digital hedgerows that survived the scorched earth. They are messy, collaborative, and unmonetized. That’s their strength, that’s what the #fashernistas to often don’t get – they can’t sell what they can’t own.

The #geekproblem here is fatal, in both the grassroots and the #dotcons, too many technologists are blind to the politics in their code. In the #mainstreaming, they build better tools for corporations that destroy the commons. Over and over again. The solution? For the grassroots coders, compost the #techshit, seed something else, and reclaim what was always ours. As when we lift the lid, the #dotcons mess our unthinking #fashernistras, #NGO geeks call the internet is simply a thin veneer on top of what is actually ours, the #openweb

Let’s stop being polite about this. The #closedweb is a crime scene. The platforms we rely on are bonfires of common culture, feeding the engines of the next wave of control. If we don’t remember how we got here, we can’t get out. It’s time to say it plain: The privatized web is a #deathcult, and only a #4opens reboot can bring life back.

An article: https://johl.io/blog/enclosures-and-the-open-web

Review: Who Broke the Internet? – Podcast with Cory Doctorow

🎧 Listen on CBC

The #mainstreaming narrative around power tends to centre on institutions – on policy boards, corporate elitists, and those privileged enough to claw their way up the slippery sides of crumbling hierarchies. But that’s not where most of us live, and more importantly, it’s not where real change and challenge takes root.

Too often, we miss this balance, we “forget” that we have direct power and influence over the grassroots, because we are the grassroots. We are embedded in networks, collectives, and everyday moments of solidarity and resistance. It’s here, in our own spaces, that we can compost the mess into something fertile, resilient alternatives born of shared struggle. By contrast, our power over “them” – the #nastyfew, the policy-makers who ignore us, the corporate class – is minimal unless we shift the frame from the bottom up to acturly included them against their will.

To see a clear and useful example of top-down critique done right – or at least with an honest attempt to redirect power – look to the new #CBC podcast series Who Broke the Internet? Where Doctorow lays out a thesis many of us have known intuitively, the internet, and the #dotcons that grew like weeds across it, were not victims of some inevitable collapse or unstoppable tide of “network effects.” No, it was broken by design. Through deliberate choices, made in plain sight and often against clear warnings. It was policy. It was enclosure. It was centralization. And the ones who did it? Some were the #nastyfew, sure. But many more were #fashernistas chasing the next hype wave, while the #geekproblem stumbled behind them, building systems that locked us in. Now we live under a kind of techno-feudalism – run by the #broocracy, the #geekproblem made “good”, the unwitting nobles of a new authoritarian shift.

Doctorow’s work isn’t just about assigning blame. It’s about dismantling the myth of inevitability. The so-called #enshittification of the internet wasn’t fate, it was a process we can understand, interrupt, and reverse. That clarity offers the possibility of agency. And more than nostalgia, Doctorow attempts and likely sadly likely mostly fails to articulate a future-facing vision of an internet rebuilt to meet the radical demands of our time: from #climatechaos to oligarchy, fascism, and digital colonialism.

Where his work meets more “us” focus is in this core tension – top-down insight and bottom-up action. Doctorow maps the wreckage and names the architects. But it’s up to us to compost what’s left and grow something new. We rebuild with our hands and hearts, in our local contexts, among people who still care. That’s where resilience grows. That’s where the #openweb is rebooted.

More thoughts on grassroots change and challenge paths: http://hamishcampbell.com

Ignore the #AI mess, build the #OMN – This is a path we need

Yes, I read the post. And yes, the despair is real. The #openweb is being bulldozed by #GenerativeAI like a forest clear-cut by machines driven not by need, but by greed, profit and power for the #nsatyfew. Yes, the #deathcult of techno-capitalism is running its script to the bitter and dead-end. And yes, I too wonder if we’ll survive this, but as you say we have a path, and it’s not new. It’s simple, it’s human, and it’s working.

It’s called the #Fediverse and the next step is “native” applications on this path like the #OMN – the Open Media Network – and it’s built from the bones and dreams of the old web: #4opens, #KISS principles, and trust-based, #DIY infrastructure. It’s a messy, human soup of tagged data and federated flows where people and content are commons by default, not walled gardens or extractive silos.

The magic? It’s not even in the tech (though that matters). It’s in the “common sense” at the core – Anything in, anything out – mediated by trust. Lossy? Yes. Redundant? Absolutely. But that’s a feature, not a bug. It’s what makes it resilient. The #geekproblem keeps trying to engineer this out, but we need to compost that #techshit into something useful, working tools for real people, growing radical networks of care and change.

To those staring into the digital abyss and seeing only Ozymandias and decay, look sideways, the #Fediverse lives. The #openweb still works. And we’re building new foundations from the compost of the old. We do not need to be swept along with the gray goo of #AI, we can simply not go there, and instead stay here and do the work that is needed.

“I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
–Percy Bysshe Shelley

And yes, I see it too, we’ve been holding back on our own power, hesitant. Maybe our despair is part of the mess we need to shake ourselves awake from. So I ask what positive path can we walk? What part of the #OMN can we all help compost, code, shape, or share?

Let’s rebuild the net with hands in the soil and eyes on the stars. Because the answer isn’t new. It’s what we’ve always done when things fall apart, we grow.

Tech governance fails, its pastime to compost the mess

The last 20 years of tech governance projects keep missing the mark because they refuse to engage with the real, lived experiences of grassroots activists and community builders. Instead of listening, they fall back into the comfort zones of the #geekproblem: control over collaboration, certainty over-curiosity, code over community.

This is further compounded by the “professional” #NGO class of detached, branding-obsessed, and career-driven #mainstreaming. They claim to serve communities but remain disconnected from the daily struggles, uncertainty, and messiness that define grassroots organizing. These people aren’t building relationships; they’re building resumes.

If they could stop and actually listen to those of us who’ve been in the trenches, those who’ve composted decades of failures and seeded collective wins, they’d quickly see the futility of their rigid, technocratic paths. Real governance isn’t found in plush committee rooms or geeky blockchains. It always emerges from shared struggle, radical trust, and the mess of collaboration.

Until tech governance initiatives shift focus, from control to cooperation, from professional advancement to collective empowerment, they will continue to fail. Worse, they will undermine the communities they claim to support. And let’s be honest, it’s well past time to compost the last ten years of #encryptionist fantasy-making as a first step.

The #OGB (Open Governance Body) was created as a response to this mess making. Rooted in the #4opens principles, it challenges the false promises of #blockchain and #DAOs, which replicate the worst aspects of capitalist market logic, financialization, scarcity, and the concentration of power. Tokens and ledgers are not the future of grassroots governance, they’re its co-option.

We need to actively resist these technological distractions because we know that community is not code. And governance is not a smart contract. We need grassroots paths that reflect gift economies, mutual aid, and social trust, not digital casinos. The truth is that still too many #mainstreaming #NGO types are more interested in branding their codebases and instances than actually serving the messy, vibrant, collective reality of the #openweb as it exists.

That’s why we need the #OMN (Open Media Network). Because governance, media, and tech are not separate, they’re bound together. The #OMN path is about rooting our tools in real communities, building trust over time, and composting the failed hype cycles of the last decade.

If we want an #openweb that matters, we have to dig deeper. Start local. Share power. And stay messy.

Don’t be a prat, please try and recognize the roots of issues

Horizontal people always get fucked over by vertical people. This is normal, why? Because horizontals give away power to build social fabric, while verticals hoard and concentrate power to extract and dominate. Every. Single. Time.

And the only thing that makes horizontals work, in the face of such mess making, is shared worldview, which we currently lack. Instead, we’ve got swarms of #stupidindividualism, where everyone thinks they’re the centre of the universe, interpreting everything as if their personal “common sense” whims are political strategy. And then, surprise! We keep getting steam rolled.

An example, let’s bring in the rot of #postmodernism, the #pomo guy proudly clams that “Ah, but classification requires a classifier!” This is what #postmodernism does to your brain. It unplugs you from reality while pretending it’s insight. It’s true that classifiers precede categories linguistically. But the material world precedes both. Rocks didn’t need a PhD to be granite.

This kind of derangement isn’t just stupid, it’s systemically useful to the #deathcult. Because if you believe that value only exists if humans assign it, then a tree has no value unless it can be turned into toilet paper. A whale has no value unless it can be monetized or aestheticized. Nature becomes valueless. And so it’s obliterated.

Meanwhile, people in the #fediverse are still pretending codebases matter more than people. No. The value of the Fediverse is in the humans running the instances and inhabiting them. Not the bloody Git repos. Without people, the code is just more maths.

On this #FOSS path, don’t be a prat. Recognize the root issue:

The #geekproblem
The collapse of shared worldview
The enshrinement of individual narcissism over collective meaning
The complete #deathcult worship of self over system pushed by our #nastyfew

Let’s compost this mess. #OMN #OGB #4opens #indymediaback

Enclosure of self is deathcult worship in the era of #climatchaos

#deathcult / #geekproblem / #nothingnew

#Neoliberalism isn’t just an economic system, it’s a cult of self-enclosure. Its superpower? #stupidindividualism, turning people inward, away from shared life, into isolated fragments clicking, swiping, and scrolling through ruins. It disconnects us from collective being, and then sells the pieces back as “individual freedoms.” This isn’t an accident. It’s the plan, a trick of enclosure, take a concept of civic breakdown and turn it into a moral failing of the person, not the system. A classic #deathcult move.

Let’s call it what it is #stupidindividualism = the neoliberal condition of enclosure. A social operating system designed to lock us into self-referential survival while the commons burn.

We’ve all been forced into #stupidindividualism. The #dotcons enclose our attention. The gig economy encloses our labour. Even our friendships are enclosed in “encrypted” DMs, monetized by adtech. Public life? Gone, auctioned off to the highest bidder or locked behind paywalls.

We are encouraged to be good “idiots” in the ancient Greek sense – disengaged from collective power. This #deathcult under capitalism, is a feature, not a bug. They, the #nastyfew want “us” atomized, docile, and scrolling, not stepping away from the path to new norms. And so we rot in a swamp of aestheticized politics – “likes” over lives, vibes over values, empty radical branding over messy collective struggle.

Some symptoms of this sickness can be seen in commons destroyed: Libraries gutted, parks sold off, hospitals privatized. Nothing left to meet in. Social life enclosed: From Facebook groups to “creator economies,” all relations are branded and transactional. Fear replaces solidarity, precarity rewires our brains – everyone a competitor, every community a threat. Politics becomes content, no spaces for deliberation, only comment sections and algorithmic outrage. Under this path, “engagement” is a metric, not a practice. #stupidindividualism is the “normal” common sense path we currently walk down.

The left hasn’t escaped. We’re not immune. We’re infected. Too much of what passes for radicalism is just #stupidindividualism with better fonts. Buzzwords. Identity consumption. Internal drama cycles. Empty memes. Most leftist language itself has been enclosed into performative radicalism, saying the right things in the right tone to the right audience – but nothing changes. It’s a ritual, not resistance. Aesthetic replaces action: Solidarity becomes merch. Mutual aid becomes charity. “Revolution” becomes content marketing.

This is all the “common sense” #mainstreaming by another name. It’s simply #stupidindividualism on the left. And we can’t win if we keep playing by the #deathcult’s dogma. So how do we compost this? We grow living language from real ground. No more floating hashtags. No more semantic bubbles. Here’s the path, embed language in practice, political terms should come from mutual aid kitchens, picket lines, and assemblies – not Slack threads or Twitter feuds.

Don’t just “speak truth to power” – speak truth to each other, if we want to build a better world, we need collective life again. This isn’t nostalgia. It’s survival. We’re in a fight against a system that thrives on isolation. #Neoliberalism has turned us all into (stupid)individuals, and then blamed us for it.

Let’s be clear, the opposite of #stupidindividualism is not intellect, it’s interdependence. So let’s plant words in soil again. Let’s grow meaning from shared struggle. Let’s compost the #deathcult and sprout something real. On this path, just say no to self-enclosure. No to semantic drift. No to aesthetic radicals trapped in content loops. Instead, let’s get our hands dirty.

Not to punish the individuals, but to highlight the groups to compost

In tech, the last 20 years have been a mess of #fashernista trends and the ongoing #geekproblem, a compost heap of broken promises and abandoned projects. It’s obvious if you lift the lid and really look. The glossy hype fades fast, the rot underneath remains.

Much of what we call “innovation” ended up as #techshit – rushed, bloated, short-sighted code that needs serious composting if we’re going to grow anything real. #Openweb dreams have been buried under a #dotcons landfill.

The real challenge now isn’t just pointing at the pile (fun as that can be), it’s handing the next generation proper shovels – real tools, real critical thinking, real spaces for building rooted, resilient, open tech.

One of the most corrosive problems on the path to rebooting the #openweb is the nasty, unconscious blocking that seeps through all #mainstreaming and careerist #NGO spaces. It’s not usually overt, it doesn’t come with a clear “no.” It comes with silence, with being ignored. With polite nods and a quick pivot back to safe, fundable, middle-of-the-road ideas that don’t rock the boat. This is how real change is smothered, how compost we need becomes concrete we are trying to break up.

Whenever something grassroots or genuinely native pushes into these spaces, say, someone trying to move beyond the stale copycat platforms, or raising the obvious problems with #dotcons being repackaged as “innovation”, the response is a passive-aggressive wall of non-engagement. These spaces are deeply allergic to anything that makes the comfort of #mainstreaming uncomfortable.

And you don’t shut up? If you insist on making the mess visible and pushing for something that might actually shift the culture? That’s when it escalates.

Ad hominem attacks begin — you’re “angry,” “difficult,” “not constructive.”

Technical blocking follows — defederation, closed chat groups, funding gatekeeping.

Eventually, it cycles back to the default tactic: ignoring you again.
Because ignoring is easy. Ignoring doesn't threaten careers or grant cycles. Ignoring keeps the status quo safe.

But this leaves the real mess in place, the rot stays buried under layers of “positive vibes,” #PR-driven governance proposals, and performative inclusivity that actually excludes anyone who doesn’t play within broken systems.

This creates perfect conditions for the rise of the #fashernistas, the well-meaning tech influencers, safe radicals, and trendy projects that suck up time, focus, and resources while producing little more than reheated versions of things that already failed. And the cycle repeats:

Grassroots tries to engage.
Gets blocked.
#Fashernistas fill the vacuum.
Compost becomes glittery sludge.

We’ve need to more loudly name this cycle for what it is, a defence mechanism for comfort and careerism, not care or community. And it’s antithetical to the kind of messy, living compost that grows something new. The #openweb needs real pushback, we need native tools, radical simplicity, open processes, and yes – a tolerance for discomfort. Because without discomfort, there is no transformation. Let’s keep making the mess visible. Let’s stop being “ignored” quietly. Let’s build outside the polite paths, where nothing changes.

After working in this area for 20 years, am tempted to list the people I have worked with, outlining good and bad paths they have pushed projects in. do you think this might be useful, not to punish the individuals, but to highlight and illustrate the groups we need to compost on going.

A hopeful note: some #fashernistas are starting to apologize and acknowledge the mess. That’s good compost material too. Let’s keep composting. Let’s keep planting.

Messy language feeds back into our messy culture

The #blocking of current action, the constant stalls, confusion, and fragmentation, has a lot to do with the mess our use of language makes. And the deeper issue is how this messy language feeds back into our culture, which then loops back to make the language even murkier. It’s a feedback loop that clouds meaning, erodes trust, and paralyses collective action.

The last 40 years of postmodernism and neoliberalism have made this worse. #Postmodernism chipped away at the idea of shared reality, leaving us with endless interpretation and “personal truths.” #Neoliberalism, on the other hand, commodified everything, including language itself, into marketing, spin, and #PR. Together, we have hollowed out words like “community,” “freedom,” and even “change,” to the point that we barely recognize what they mean any more.

Take “mutual aid” for example, a term grounded in deep solidarity and reciprocal responsibility. Now, on both #dotcons and #openweb platforms, it gets reduced to casual crowdfunding and anonymous asks, with little relational context. Not bad, but far from what it could and needs to be.

If we want affinity-based action to work, if we want people to come together and trust and act together, then we have to compost this mess. And the way to do that might be surprisingly simple #KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid, not stupid as in naive, but stupid as in clear.

We need to reclaim simple language that carries shared meaning. This is exactly what we’re trying to seed with the positive side of the #hashtag story. Hashtags act as anchors in this storm of abstraction. They cut through noise, bring us back to the root meaning, and allow collective orientation without needing corporate gatekeepers or institutional filters.

Think:

#4opens — a shorthand for open code, open data, open governance, open standards.
#deathcult — pointing to the suicidal path of #neoliberalism.
#techshit — composting the mess, not throwing it away.
#nothingnew — slowing tech churn, reclaiming meaningful pace and paths.

Each of these tags points to deeper, shared narratives that are simple, but not simplistic. They invite action, not confusion. Composting the abstraction, regrow clarity, reclaim trust paths in both tech and social spaces. Speak simply, act clearly, hashtag wisely with intention.

On this working path, It is important for the progressives and radicals to come together and focus on the real issues and challenges facing society, rather than fighting among ourselves. Finding this balance between being “nice” and being “nasty” is key to being effective in bringing about any lasting social change.

The #hashtags embody a story and worldview rooted in a progressive and critical perspective on technology and society. They highlight the destructive impact of neoliberalism (#deathcult) and consumer capitalism (#fashernista) on our shared lives, while promoting the original ideals of the World Wide Web and early internet culture (#openweb).

The #closedweb critiques the for-profit internet and its harmful social consequences, while #4opens advocates for transparency, collaboration, and open-source principles in tech development.

The #geekproblem tag draws attention to a cultural tendency in tech: where geeks, absorbed in their tools and logic, overlook the broader social effects of their creations. This feeds into #techshit, where layers of unnecessary complexity pile up, further distancing people from tech’s social roots. Meanwhile, #encryptionists critiques the knee-jerk reaction that “more encryption” is always the answer, reinforcing control and scarcity, rather than liberating people and community.

Together, hashtags tell a coherent and powerful story. They call for a more humane, collaborative, and transparent approach to both technology and society.

#nothingnew asks whether constant innovation is the right path — or if we need to slow down and improve what already works.

#techchurn names the cycle of flashy, redundant tech that fails to solve core issues.

#OMN and #indymediaback point toward an Open Media Network — and a revival of the radical, decentralized media that once rivalled corporate media on the early web.

#OGB stands for Open Governance Body, an invitation to practice grassroots, transparent, community-led decision-making.

It’s an ambitious but needed path and goal, to build and grow social tech that “fails well”, meaning they fail in a way that can be fixed by the people, through trust and collective action, not closed-source patches and corporate updates. The #OMN’s focus is human-first. Tech comes second, as a mediator, a tool, not the destination.

Yes, the #geekproblem is real. Technical expertise becomes a gatekeeping mechanism. But tech can also empower, if we design for simplicity, accessibility, and community-first paths and values. The only working path is simple, trust-based, and human. That’s why we keep coming back to #KISS.

Why haven’t we been doing this for the last 10 Years? Over the past decade, we’ve lived in a state of quiet paralysis. Climate change, ecological collapse, technological overreach, all of it loomed. And instead of digging in, we froze. Well-meaning people chose fear over action. Understandably. But fear is a poor foundation for building anything sustainable.

We’re not on this site to only blame – we’re here to compost. The problem? We stopped critiquing. We stopped examining the tools in our hands. Not only that, but we bought into the illusion that #NGO paths and tech would save us. That shiny apps and startup culture could greenwash a better future. And when the results disappointed, we turned inward, stopped questioning, and left things to rot.

But what if that rot could be composted? By using the #4opens – open data, open code, open standards for open governance, we have a practical framework to call out and compost the layers of #techshit that have built up. Tech that divides us, tech that distracts us, tech that damages the planet and calls it progress. Yes, like gardening, composting takes time. It smells at first. It’s messy. But give it care, and you get soil. Soil to plant better ideas in. Soil for hope.

One of the reasons we haven’t made progress is the #geekproblem, a narrow slice of technically-minded culture made up of (stupid)individuals, which so far have dominated the design and direction of our tools. They, often, mean well. But in their obsession with technical elegance and “solutions,” they’ve sidelined the social and the ecological. What’s left is a brittle, sterile infrastructure, constantly churning out newness without any substance.

Meanwhile, #stupidindividualism has flourished, encouraged by #dotcons social media systems built for engagement, not connection. These silos encourage performance over solidarity, branding over community, and endless scrolling over doing. We’ve all felt it.

And most activist groups, instead of resisting this tide, drank the #NGO poison, chased funding, watering down their goals, professionalizing their resistance until it became another logo in a funding application. We’ve lost a decade to fear, distraction, and capture. But it’s maybe not too late.

We have the tools, in the #ActivityPub based #Fediverse. We have the frameworks, the #4opens can guide us to rebuild with transparency, collaboration, and care. The hashtags like #geekproblem, #techshit, #nothingnew, and #OMN give us a shared vocabulary for critique and regeneration. They point to a web where people, not platforms, hold power, and where technology serves life, not control. Let’s stop being afraid to critique. Let’s stop outsourcing responsibility and get on with composting.

Because that’s where the soil of a better path will come from.

A letter from the margins of the #openweb

All the #OMN projects I’ve worked on over the years, from #OGB to #indymediaback, are not directly about social change. They are about creating the possibility of social change. A subtle, but critical difference.

We don’t claim to have the answers. What we do offer are tools, networks, and processes that make it easier for people to imagine that the world can be different, and then help them to take the first step.

Yet still, here’s the mess that keeps being pushed over us. We are told this work is “too high up the stack,” “too fuzzy,” or “too political.” But in reality, the same topics and themes do receive #NGO funding, just safely sanitized within the logic of the #deathcult. In this, the “shadow” keeps geting funded, but the light source is ignored.

When we say “the world can be different,” we’re not talking about abstract theory. We mean literally:

Media that people control from the grassroots up
Governance that isn’t locked behind elitist gates
A web that grows through trust not platforms
Protocols that reflect values, not just efficiency

But the funding, even in the so-called ‘alternative’ spaces, is trapped in a conservative loop. People working in these orgs are either too captured by their own #geekproblem funding logic, or too afraid to support anything that might really challenge their place in the status quo, by threatening the funding flows they live in.

Some of the real replies to the over 20 funding applications I have put in for the last ten years: “This kind of effort is very hard to seek grants for…” “I don’t have an obvious candidate for you to go to, either.” What these polite deferrals mask is a structural failure of imagination. The fear of change is so strong that even funders tasked with enabling alternatives end up only supporting work that conforms to existing institutional logics and barely deviates in meaningful ways from the normal #mainstreaming paths.

So, where does that leave those of us pushing for a real #openweb reboot? We get silence or slow-walked rejections. We burn out or pivot to “safer” projects. Or worst of all, we get absorbed by the very forces we wanted to challenge. And look, maybe that’s the plan. Maybe co-option is the endgame for the #openweb: a slick, tamed version of rebellion, friendly enough for NGOs and palatable to #EU bureaucrats.

But that’s not our plan. Not the plan we’ve been composting all these years. The challenge:

Funders: If you want the future to be different, stop only funding imitation’s, fund the real thing, step outside the safety of compliance. Trust radical imaginations.
Builders: If you’re still holding the compost shovel, don’t drop it. The real garden will grow, but only if we stop watering the plastic plants.
Everyone else, demand more. Not just better bling, but better foundations.

We don’t need more advice, we do need courage. The #openweb is not dead, but it is at risk of becoming another façade unless we build the possibility of real change into its #rebooting core.

I am still digging #makinghistory #OMN #indymediaback #OGB

#RIPENCC #NGI #NLnet

“Climate Realism”

It’s pastime more people raised their heads, the Council on Foreign Relations (#CFR), the think tank of the U.S. political establishment, just published a new statement calling for what they call “Climate Realism.”

1.5°C Is Dead – And they admit it, to their credit, CFR doesn’t sugarcoat the situation. They finally acknowledge that the international climate target of limiting warming to 1.5°C is officially dead. The new “realistic” trajectory? 3°C or higher by the end of this century, if not sooner. This isn’t just academic: 3°C means crop failures, mass displacement, geopolitical chaos, collapsing ecosystems, and runaway feedback loops. It’s climate breakdown, not “climate change.”

The #geekproblem tech fix of geoengineering is Plan A to the looming catastrophe, not degrowth, not ending fossil fuel subsidies, not climate justice or ecological transition. They want massive investment in geoengineering, particularly solar radiation management (SRM), basically spraying particles into the stratosphere to dim the sun. Yes, they’re proposing that we hack the planet to protect global capitalism. All while keeping the mess of extraction and inequality running at full speed.

They don’t say anything about system change, their “realism” is not anything to do with reducing global consumption, transitioning away from endless economic growth, or tackling the structural roots of climate collapse.

On this “common sense” #mainstreaming path we are rushing down, the is no interest in real solutions, because real solutions threaten the economic order they live in. They don’t touch on basic climate justice because justice is incompatible with on going imperial hegemony. They don’t mention degrowth because that would shake the foundations of capitalistic economics.
No mention of capitalism, it’s invisible to them, because they are capitalism, thus they are #blind to this.

This is the new fascist #mainstreaming – A doctrine of U.S. climate power, the statement frames climate breakdown as a national security issue, a geopolitical weapon to be wielded by the U.S. state. Let’s be very clear, this isn’t about saving the planet. It’s about maintaining U.S. dominance in a rapidly destabilizing world.

What they do is debunk four liberal “climate fallacies”:

Global targets are achievable – Not any more.
China and the Global South are the key battlegrounds.
Climate risks are manageable – They admit this is fantasy.
Clean energy is a win-win for the U.S. – Nope. China leads. The U.S. is lagging behind.

Instead, they push a doctrine of planning for collapse with adaptation, disaster readiness, and securing “fiscal room” for emergency responses. Investing in competitive clean tech, not for domestic transition, but to outcompete China in global markets. Leading catastrophic risk mitigation, geoengineering is their “break glass in case of emergency” option. They even float the idea of using economic and military pressure to force other nations to cut emissions.

Climate deterrence is going to be the New Cold War. #CFR now sees climate as a deterrence issue, like nuclear weapons, only with carbon. That’s their vision: a future where the U.S. uses its technological and military edge to impose climate stability through force. This is climate realism in the mess making logic of empire, don’t change course, double down on control.

We are on a path straight to hell, with eyes wide open. This should come as no surprise, ofter the last 20 years of mess building, CFR’s plan is in no way surprising. It’s the logical next step for a system that can’t imagine anything beyond growth, extraction, and domination. In their world, collapse is a management problem, not a moral one.

We should be clear, this is a death march. It’s not “realism”, it’s resignation dressed up as pragmatism. And if we follow them, we’ll arrive exactly where they’re headed, hell, but orderly. We have worshipped this #deathcult for too long.

Adapting to #climatechaos in a post-1.5°C world

The new right’s obsession with Greenland and Canada’s north isn’t some fringe fantasy, it’s real estate logic, twisted through a lens of empire and extraction. When you zoom out and frame it through the lens of #climatechaos, it’s chillingly obvious, the Arctic is melting, and they see land, not crisis.

That AlphaGeo link paints the picture, climate-driven migration, shifting growing zones, and emerging “climate havens” aren’t theoretical, they’re data-driven land grabs in progress. And the political ambition to dominate those spaces? That’s the should now be more obvious to us all.

It’s a gold rush for the apocalypse, a final frontier for the capitalist imagination. They aren’t trying to save anything; they’re re-positioning to rule what’s left. And yes, it’s a children-who-want-to-be-kings fantasy: Trump-esque thinking where climate collapse becomes opportunity, borders become walls, and “winning” means inheriting a lifeboat while others drown.

This isn’t climate denial anymore, it’s climate opportunism. That’s why adaptation can’t just be technical, it has to be political. If we don’t shape the future, they are carving it up in plain sight.

Can people engage with the #4opens process?

The #4opens is a completely obverse social restating of the #FOSS development model — but with a critical edition: The return of #openprocess, something we’ve lost over the last 10 years due to the shift from public email archives to our reliance on encrypted chat.

With this in mind, what is still #blocking the #openweb reboot? One thing I’ve learned from the last five years of this reboot is this: The #geekproblem is inadequate for the scale of change and challenge we face. Currently, the #geekproblem is HARD #blocking, obstructing both, funding, and tech direction. Think: #NLNet, #NGIZero, #SummerOfProtocols, #InvestInOpen — they say the right words, have potential, but are actually #blindly caught in a loop of the same limiting #blocking patterns.

This is why we need activism, this can be #spiky, sometimes all it takes Is a rock or a stick. Think of Greek shepherd dogs in the mountains — they come at you like wolves. But just bending down to pick up a rock or stick? They back off. No violence. Just clarity and intention. Think of the #4opens like this when facing #mainstreaming, suddenly, it starts to make sense.

Nuts and nutters, Yes — you’re right, this can sound like blinded ideology. But remember: Humans are meaning-creating creatures. One word for that is ideology — there are others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synonym

If we can compost this mess, that’s a big if, will the #OMN Work? Simple answer: Yes.
Complex answer: No. My answer to that riddle? We find the complex by implementing the simple. That’s the #KISS principle in action. Walk the simple path, we discover our way through the complex path by implementing and walking the simple one #KISS.

#Mainstreaming = #Deathcult Worship

Most mainstream agendas are pointless. Why? Because they’re built on “common sense” — Which today often just means #deathcult worship. Something to keep in mind… whenever you’re doing anything that matters. Hope this slight poetry piece helps. One thing I keep saying, please don’t be a prat, thanks.

News, the signal-to-noise mess

Almost all our posting in the #openweb and in the #dotcons in response to #mainstreaming news is noise. It’s reactive, fragmented, performative. We scroll, we rage, we boost, we dunk, but we don’t build. Sometimes, someone posts something thoughtful, something deep, meaningful. But it vanishes in the churn. The system is designed this way.

Even on our #openweb, where we have more autonomy, we are mirroring this spectacle path, feeding it attention, reposting its narratives, amplifying its framing. In the mess of this world, our timelines become echo chambers of secondhand despair and outrage. In short, we’re still speaking their language, on their terms, with our tools.

Why? Because we haven’t (re)built a place for real signal yet. The #OMN (Open Media Network), is a push to shift this dynamic. It’s not about broadcasting noise slightly more ethically. It’s about creating new spaces entirely, where the roots of stories matter more than the spin, where the focus is on shared compost rather than hot takes, where people and community are producers, and where signal isn’t just a flash, but an ongoing process.

The current state of the web, especially under the domination of the #dotcons, is colonized communication. It rewards (stupid)individualism, immediacy, virality. It buries context, nuance, history. The structure #blocks liberation because it’s built to sell alienation back to us, one like or scroll, one click at a time.

Even the current #openweb reboot, for all its potential, reproduces these patterns, because we carry them with us. We don’t just need alternatives in name, we need alternative cultures, processes, and values. We need to compost the mess, the #techshit, and grow new paths from the decay. That’s what the #OMN is seeded to do.

But let’s be honest, we’re not there yet. And we won’t get there unless we start collectively focusing on building signal, not just yelling about the noise. The tools need to be #KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), the governance needs to be transparent, trust-based, and the tech has to get out of the way, not be the centre. This requires stepping away from the #geekproblem, the cult of control, complexity, and abstraction, and towards living, messy, grassroots cultures that prioritize access, action, and accountability.

The mainstream is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. That collapse is not the revolution. What grows next is.

#OMN #OGB #4opens #openweb #geekproblem #deathcult #nothingnew #buildalternatives #grassroots #trustbasedgovernance

Take media coverage of protests as an example. It’s always framed through the lens of disruption and spectacle, “violent clashes,” “unrest,” “inconvenience to commuters” rather than the systemic injustices that birthed the protest in the first place. The message from the #mainstreaming is clear: “Why can’t you express your anger in a way that’s easier for us to ignore?” This is not journalism, it’s narrative policing. It flattens struggle into caricature and erases the causes: the exploitation, the dispossession, the broken promises. This is normal when we have media infrastructure of our own. Without projects like #indymediaback to hold space for grounded, first-voice storytelling, all we get is the echo of power describing its own reflection.