Hamish Campbell an #openweb organic intellectual and technologist
Q. Who creates a non-crypto-based Web-version calculator that has the complex algebra to determine if we deal with #Web1, #Web2, #Web3, #Web4 or #Web5?
Or let’s keep things simple and go with #Web0
A. This stuff is now #FUD so best to start to ignore it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt
Just keep it #KISS and use #openweb and #closedweb as this is a good descriptive and a check on the #geekproblem
A final hashtag to make this relevant #nothingnew
Q. #nlnet – The problem we face with funding http://hamishcampbell.com/2022/06/06/the-problem-we-face-with-funding/
A. KiCAD, some warrant canary and Armbian aren’t “open internet” projects by any stretch of imagination, but the ones relating to routers and mesh networks are. They’re “open internet” at the infrastructure level – like Guifinet or Freifunk.
Q. yep and are useful for a tiny number of people so worth supporting. BUT the call-out for the funding is for a much wider social affect in the #openweb, so the is an obvious #geekproblem can you see this?
A. Whatever funding they put into the applications layer will be cautious because they probably don’t want to be dealing with Twitter-like problems. Infrastructure is more narrowly technical, and so it’s hard for that to blow up into a scandal, which could happen if they were more directly funding social networks.
Q. yep… but the #openweb needs better USER-FACING code not more backend, the backend is not helping to address the social problems we face where it is being digested by the #dotcons and then adding more mess to compost. How to communicate this problem to the geeks?
A. Really it’s the backend – the plumbing – which needs more funding, because when you peel off the layer of ultra-trendy ActivityPub apps underneath you will find tools and systems which have been neglected for years if not decades. The application layer is currently a house built on sand. Or quicksand if you include Javascript.
Q. We do see the #geekproblem here you are right, and at the same time the view is irrelevant when you step back to look at the problem.
An example, #activertypub would have been still born without the outreach social UX of #mastodon. We have the #fediverse due to the social side of the mastodon project.
Adding more backend is feeding the #dotcons not the #openweb because we need BOTH, and we need to fund both. Yes, we can play “safe” and build tools to feed the future #dotcons, or we can do both and live life with the possibility of social change challenge…
UPDATE
Talking about the problem:
Q. Am thinking the #fedivers is in a bad way, so being angry and annoyed is understandable. The #openweb momentum we had is stumbling, the people sellingout growing as funding shifts… the problems grow, am interested in ideas to mediate these? The fedivers is a CULTURE first and a standard second… ideas?
A. I agree with your observation on the state of the fediverse. And on the cultural aspect too. I envision a Peopleverse (social) that is enabled / supported by the Fediverse (technical). And much more diverse social activity taking place here, that goes well beyond microblogging. And the funding should shift accordingly. You can fund as many innovation projects as you wish, but if the adoption of the technology grinds to a halt, then there’s a high risk this money is wasted.
“Software is eating the world. Maybe the world ought to consider biting back” let’s talk about the #geekproblem by looking at https://nlnet.nl/useroperated/
With the focus on “Individual autonomy” it gets off to a bad start as the WWW/internet is a group project, made up of meany different groups of people. The is NO UNDERSTANDING OF THIS in the text or the funding outcomes.
This is a common thinking to all this funding, little will affect real numbers of human beings, building social technology is a group project, any technology built outside social groups is always poring money and focus down the drain.
“We need your ideas and contributions to help reshape the state of play, and to help create an open, trustworthy and reliable internet for all” yes… and what did they fund, let’s look:
LIST:
Armbian — Versatile OS for ARM-based single board computers
This has nothing to do with the call-out text/subject, this is not a project based on people – it obviously should have been funded under a different track.
Canarytail — Warrant canary standardization and automation
This has little to do with the call-out text/subject, this is not a project based on people – it obviously should have been funded under a different track.
CeroWRT II — Make Wi-Fi routers faster and more reliable
This has nothing to do with the call-out text/subject, this is not a project based on people – it obviously should have been funded under a different track.
This has nothing to do with the call-out text/subject, this is not a project based on people – it obviously should have been funded under a different track.
KiCad — Professional open source electronics design application
This has nothing to do with the call-out text/subject, this is not a project based on people – it obviously should have been funded under a different track.
This is far away from the call, but closer than the rest of the projects.
This has nothing to do with the call-out text/subject, this is not a project based on people – it obviously should have been funded under a different track.
GPRS/EGPRS support in Osmocom CNI for Ericsson RBS —
This is away from the call, but maybe closer than the rest of the projects.
Open source ePDG for VoWiFi — Enhanced Packet Data Gateway for mobile infrastructure
This is away from the call, but maybe closer than the rest of the projects.
Pion — Network congestion measurement for adaptive real-time applications
This has nothing to do with the call-out text/subject, this is not a project based on people – it obviously should have been funded under a different track.
RADIUSdesk — Open wifi mesh deployment application
This is away from the call, but closer than the rest of the projects.
“Technology should be commons for everyone to enjoy and contribute to”
The outcome they funded tiny and irrelevant in social impact terms projects, much of the funding going to a single NGO project which will obviously achieve NOTHING at all.
“The internet in whatever shape or form it will take is already part of the social fabric of our societies” they funded no projects that deal with societies.
“Have a look at other NLnet funded projects to see what we mean, but don’t be afraid to send something completely different if you think you can contribute to the technology commons and the user-operated internet.” with this round they funded projects that should have been funded in different rounds – the is nothing human, nothing social, the outcome a BAD refection of the #geekproblem
It is unlikely they see this as a problem, that they clearly failed in their selection brief. Who are the people in the selection community, can we get some #4opens process on this strange and compostable outcome.
We should not be doing progressive technology unless the is a non-tech social group around this technology. We have to stop feeding and thus reproducing the #geekproblem
Though DIRECT criticism is difficult as the projects they fund are useful, but at a friend of a friend level, lack involvement of wider-tech folk me thinks.
More articles http://hamishcampbell.com/tag/ngi/
Q. In a nutshell, my manifesto could be “form your own little communities and federate them”
A. What would be the “common” understanding/agreements/standards that would bridge these communities, or would it Only be code, if only code what standards?
Q. Federation just depends upon the willingness to do so. The code is just the plumbing which makes it happen. And I think nearly all fediverse federation is opt-out, so that you are federating by default but can opt-out (block) if you want to.
A. Interesting to look at #peertube backend for a opt-in federated model, this aproch is the social/technical model for the social/tech of the #OMN project. That is building a human network first, technology is to support and mediate the very strong #geekproblem that is #blocking the human change/challenge we need #KISS
Q. Opt-in is ok if you are trying to build a small federation or an institution with different departments (eg a federation of libraries with particular rules and membership criteria).
I don’t think the fediverse would have been as successful if it had been opt-in from the beginning, though.
A. The #peertube network is an working example of this opt-in for content sharing. Think commenting is opt-out. It’s not got any “social” UX for this, which is why its kinda limited at mo… it suffers from the #geekproblem like just about all coding projects so worth looking at/using but its not core #OMN
Q. The problem with peertube was that the way it was federated initially was pretty bad, and the large majority of the videos being posted were not self-made and were just copyright violations, inviting legal takedowns. Initially, they also didn’t have enough moderation capability to combat disinformation and spam.
Often developers are expecting a twee world in which everyone is nice, but this is never the case for social networks. That expectation has a lot to do with the socio-economic position of commercial software development and its demographic homogeneity.
A. think the resion they did not do good moderation was a question of priorates, we have endemic BAD history for most of our tech, good to keep this in mind.
There are two paths out of the mess you touch on, one is social, one is hard tech. Agen we have only BAD history of thinking about this, good to keep this in mind.
The #geekproblem that writes this bad history is #BLOCK ing the social technology we need, good to think about this.
#OMN #KISS #OPENWEB notice the last hashtag, we DO NOT NEED more #closedweb if we have any hope of mediating the #geekproblem for tech/social progressive outcomes that we so urgently need.
Q. And opt-in is kinda closed. “Your name’s not down, you’re not coming in”. That sort of thing. Exclusivity isn’t really going to move the needle on anything, though.
A. This reply is a #geekproblem view of the thinking.
Good to look at a social view, all society are based on #TRUST and healthy society have more reliance on trust and unhealthy society more reliance on “hard” process/structure.
There are academic bases to this, a sadly right-wing view https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_trust_and_low_trust_societies
The #geekproblem fails in building “good trust” based society, it’s an endemic failing of our tech/thinking.
TRUSTLESS is the #geekproblem good to think about this when coding social/technology.
We need to build tech social networks that “fail” so that human beings can fix this “failing” based on TRUST and from this build a real progressive society.
Q. I don’t advocate trustless. You can’t prove trust merely by doing some complicated blockchain math. Trust is earned, or broken, by people. Not by machines.
Also, vaguely related to #chatcontrol. The EU is going to lose a lot of trust by trying to do policing-by-algorithm. The algorithm approach is a sort of abuse of trust.
A. the #OMN is this project: “We need to build tech social networks that “fail” so that human beings can fix this “failing” based on TRUST and from this build a real progressive society.”
No geeks/technologist are building this, let alone thinking like this. The #geekproblem we need to mediate for any outcome.
Leave the #EU to one side on this, as they are well hopeless on social technology, though some of them are looking (with blindfolds on)
Q. I’ve been around the block enough to have seen many online communities fail. I think you have some experience of that also.
When communities fail, there can be a lot of bad outcomes, and sometimes it’s actually fatal. Social networks are a lifeline for a lot of people and when the network fails so do its members.
This isn’t even about narrowly technical failures. Social engineering attacks such as the ones of the last few years can cause enough aggravation and fear that people just lose trust and quit.
So when building this type of software, we need to be mindful of the potential consequences, and not design failure into the system. People’s social lives are not a demolition derby for the entertainment of others.
A. it’s normal, that you are finding it difficult to see the point am talking about. All humane relationships fail It’s what makes us human, the #geekproblem trying to fix this is taking away our humanity. You see this in both mainstream #dotcons like #failbook, and you also see it in all ALT_TECH it’s a (social) systematic problem.
Build stuff that is messy, human. Please DON’T TRY AND FIX problems created by the problem you are trying to fix is basic. Take the #geekproblem blindfold off is a good step.
Reading this book would help https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.101521/2015.101521.The-Sciological-Imagination_djvu.txt
The current open-source/free software world is based on medieval political ideas of aristocracy and monarch, this is OBVIOUSLY useless in the modern world.
Our failed mediation of this with the #stupidindividualism of neoliberalism pushes the current piles of steaming #techshit and touches on the #geekproblem
Good to look at data and metadata for what it is, social glue that holds society together.
Our #deathcult worship separates and atomise people, as does privacy and security coded by the #geekproblem
Take a moment to step back, our contemporary coding is shaping https://www.britannica.com/topic/liberalism
It’s obviously true that society/ecology is sick from this blinded worship.
From this dogmatic liberalism, one thried is our society’s moving to corporate socialism. That is “law” and norms are shaped to value a tiny number of the nastiest people at the “top”.
Data and metadata is privatised, increasingly “National socialism” is the “common sense” #mainstreaming we code for and agenst.
To address this #geekproblem some of us need to step away and code outside “liberalism” and not in reaction to fascism.
#OMN #OGB #indymediaback are #openweb native projects.
A. We compost the current tech shitpile by #4opens to weed out 90% of the crap so as a first step we only have to work through the 10% then we are trying projects like #OGB and #OMN to work base on trust links to sift this last down to 1% then it’s human to human scale where we can build links/community’s out wider.
I think we have a good first step, if we can move the projects past the current #blocking
Especially if you want tech hours on it, at the moment.
Because there are folks there looking for a project to contribute to, but they aren’t always sure how to contribute.
A. Not how protest camps or squats, or hippy gathering happens. They are grassroots #DIY were people “just know” what to do because it has to be done to create the “world” around them.
Here you are describing the #geekproblem as a path out of the “problem” am addressing. Protest camps, squats and hippy gatherings all happen in the “real world” and are made by “real people” so “geeks” could/need to do all of them gives you an idea where the “problem” is 🙂
Q. Possibly even put the bite sized chunks into a toot and make it an appeal for help. Because yes we do have issues in the tech community with ignoring the negativity but sometimes folks will make grabby hands for the chance to do something positive, even a tiny thing to move a project forward.
A. have been working on this for 20 years, we can’t “solve” this problem from “inside” the problem. Change/change is needed from meany people to shift the #blocking culture. Am one voice, it requires a community, yes the are tools #4opens #OGB #OMN etc are useful. If the chicken and egg “problem” can be mediated.
“All code is ideology solidified into action – most contemporary code is capitalism”
You and your wider community can take the #4opens and judge codeing projects, thus discard 90% of them. The remaining 10% will have obvious holes that then people can focus on, examples are the projects I push. By doing this, building up and widening our “culture” we can focus on the 1% that is really important. From this we change the world as default, and likely our nature. Of course, it’s not this simple and challenge/change can easily be negative. It’s this or #deathcult
Q. OK, so consider that some geeks may not see how they can contribute, it could be background, it could be they haven’t had much of an opportunity to interact with the real world of protest.
We need to open the door both ways. Not just make tech more accessible to folks outside tech, but to figure out how to open the door so that techies can start to learn how they can help.
I think it’s a bit like pebbles on a mountain, small steps then we can build on that and make larger momentum.
A. metaphors are the precursor of action, what is needed is a group of people to take action – this is how every protest camp, squat or hippy gathering starts.
We have the metaphors, we have some actions (#4opens process is easy) what we are lacking is groups of people.
We have a soft social problem, NOT a hard codeing problem.
Urgency is always here, the spiky hashtags are there to find these groups. Use them or lose them.
Q. I think that’s something you can build on.
A. “not how protest camps or squats, or hippy gathering happens. They are grassroots #DIY where people “just know” what to do because it has to be done to create the “world” around them.”
The is a boring circal, The is a “I” “you” issue that surprisingly happens less in the above world. On the web in the context of meany of the people I am talking to, I call this #stupidindividualism this hashtag expresses the boring circal.
We can persuade people to our point of view, but it does take energy to do so. Most people don’t come up against life endangering adversity, so it’s hard for them to see the issue. We are still wired to see immediate danger rather than what could be seen as existential danger to life.
A. its a cultural problem, how are cultures created is maybe usefully to look at.
How to do affective change/challenge this is a long history of this http://visionon.tv
Yet I still have an immense amount of privilege. Refugees are harmed way more by the edges of society and law than I am. But mainstream folks see people at the edges as a threat.
Basic stuff – use it or lose it #OMN
Everything we do is built on “standards” though we do have a problem of the defining bodies.
Some people like building sandcastles, it is what you are doing if you just make shit up in tech.
Actually this is fantasy as ANYTHING you are already building is already on top of a whole pile of standards.
I think people are expressing tribalism and not talking tech in practical sense at all.
What do you think?
“open industrial standards” nebulous and problematic things, but everything in tech is built on top of a pile of them, It’s where the value is.
Nationalism is a nablus thing as well, and its where the violence is.
Tribalism can be beautiful, it can also be a problem.
Some #dotcons are bigger than nations, so maybe it’s a good metaphor?
The geek “problem” is a 20th century dysfunctional part of a tribe that is damaging to us all, think #climatechaos think #failbook think #diaspora
Talking about real issues I have been fighting for 20 years… The #stupidindividualism that treats this as personal is what am sadly talking about much of the time.
Yes, it becomes a boring circle, but it’s always about the importance of the #geekproblem as a block on the change/challenge that we need #XR
I wrote this in 2005 what has changed:
“Its going slow but we are getting there… One of the main problems seams to be a dysfunctional idea of a division of labour – ie. Every one seams to think I should do everything – as I am pretty useless at many things its no wonder it is going so slow… If you wona see something miracles happen you gota wave year arms around a bit and mutter some arcane words… Go on you can do something… Just look at the blog page to see what”
Http://HamishCampbell.com
A. Activist video https://visionon.tv/videos/local?sort=-trending&allVideos=true&c=true&s=3 on the #Fediverse
Or they might have done it on purpose to keep the new feature private…
Did you know they intended to implement the feature you requested, and did you ask to work with them as they did so?
(P.S. if you keep calling them geeks all the time they might not feel like you would be warm and fuzzy to work with…)
Good codeing, bad social – kinda the #geekproblem
Basically funding alowes the geeks to be geeks when the funding comes from geeks.
If you think that’s bad, though, it’s even worst when it comes from academics 😉
Lived and worked through 30 years of this tech shit. Composting, we need some composting 🙂
End thought
Note, I generally only use the “stick” after offering carrots quite a few times. Then alternate between carrot and stick with no plan for a good personal outcome.
Doing this for 20 years, in the medium/long term social change is generally visible. Yes you are right it’s a thankless task but somebody needs to do it and I live on a boat and can sail away, I half joke with the last bit.
This approach has only mediate the problems in my expirence though.
The #fedivers was booted up on grassroot #openweb passion and crowed funding, it was sustained in the early growth by crowed funding and expanded (in an often not helpful way) by #geekproblem passion. Over the last 2 years we have seen this shift sharply to “institutional” funding, some of this has been behind the seanes “think-tanks/academia” but over the last years the #EU though #NGI and more specifically #NGIzero have taken a central role in funding just about all fedivers #mainstreaming projects and much background technology.
In this, we have moved from meany 1000’s of people shaping the direction in a radically #4opens transparent way to handfuls of people controlling the levers of influence in a more opaque process. This is a clear and very obvues failing of #openweb governance, kinda normal and very obvuesly fail.
Now the wider #NGI project pour funding directly down the drain, which is a normal outcome so not an issue for us as the money is wasted anyway. #NGIzero are doing good, they are funding grassroots #openweb technology, so they are people we should work with.
How do we start to mediate this issue “In this we have moved from meany 1000’s of people shaping the direction in a transparent way to handfuls of people controlling the levers of influence in a more opaque process” And more importantly rebalance the #mainstreaming agenda that flows with this funding https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens/wiki/Funding-of-openweb-projects this second part is a BIG problem, this first part is about democracy, the second part is hard politics, and is more nasty.
With the growing influx of #EU funding into the #openweb we will see an increase in #techchurn due to the #geekproblem being feed by the #mainstreaming #stupidindividualism of the #fashernista who jump through the gatekeeper bureaucracy hoops.
I keep hoping for a balance of good vs damage, though the shear blinded arrogance of the vertical crew keep the strong push to the damage side. What needs composting is that #NGI do not want to see this problem, so #KISS we as a community need to push back on this for a better outcome
Example, a horizontal public #BBB meeting where the organizers are the only one who have access to the share notepad space. Note in BBB this is open by default, so a moderator closed it on the assumption that this was the right thing to do. The result, all the public input is lost in the transitory chat.
Let’s look at a second example from the same meeting, the chare (who is likely lovely in person) took notes that were ONLY her agenda, ignoring the meeting input. Yes, I was non-directly rood about this. She was confused and started to try and take the agenda of the meeting badly.
Q. Should we have been silent and let her agenda and a few other #mainstreaming people been the only thing recorded in the minutes, thus the next round of funding?
A. we need to compost this crap, not add to it. Most time people do not STOP this crap process, we need to do this more.
As it said on the side of my blog for the last 10 years:
“A river that needs crossing political and tech – On the political side, there is arrogance and ignorance, on the geek side there is naivety and over complexity”
Orgs such as #NGIzero are unwitting feeding the “geek side there is naivety and over complexity” where the #mainstreaming #NGI are pushing the political side “arrogance and ignorance”
As I have been at the heart of this garden for more than 30 years, I think I have a better voice on this than most. That’s not arrogance, that’s truth 🙂
If you feel like talking shit, please read this first https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_homin
I think the #EU guys find it hard to see how low our apion of the #mainstreaming mess they work in. The #EU people at these events are clearly incompetent on the subject of #openweb (and meany argue life on the planet in general) we all understand this in the grassroots.
If you wonder why grassroots people see the #mainstreaming as children. An example, due to the crap behaver of voting for piss poor politics, we have this boat land to look forward to. To call #mainstreaming incompetent is a clear understatement of the issue, talking to the wide #ngi project here.
We should talk about this survey https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens/wiki/Funding-of-openweb-projects and some of the more scary issues it brining up:
NONE WOULD DO FEEDBACK IN PUBLIC, this is important. The #EU funding has some “terrorism” in the cliques that run it, as people are actually afread that they will lose their livelihood if they speak out about these issues.
Me am “chaotic governance” so I ignore this, but you guys maybe need to take this onboard if you have not already.
A carrot and stick approach is a good path. I see @ngizero as the carrot and us the “community” as the stick. With this leverage, we can push harder for a better balance of good/damage from the funding influx to the #openweb from the #EU
Good to remember here, I am seeing @NGIZero as the solution and not as the problem in what I am talking about #NGI
In the end, my difficulty is that I see the #openweb funding from the #EU being pushed by a “childish” point of view that is hard to respect and that it’s likely to do more damage than good, this we need to fix somehow, if anybody wants to help with child care.
Some things to think about: It’s interesting how the truly aporling behaver of vertical minded people is excused by power (majority vertical) when they act in easy to understand crap ways in horizontal situations. And on the other hand, how the horizontal people are vilified at every point often for simply pointing out how bad the vertical behaver is. We need to look at crap behaver in vertical organizers, as they often do not see themselves shiting over the preceding. Though this act comes ever so naturally to them.
You can see this with the suffrages, the hunger marches, the Spanish Civil War, the Greenham women, the miner’s strike, Corbinisam and just about anywhere you look where the two groups meet.
It’s crap that we keep letting this happen, take note I have near zero tolerances for this!
Positive projects for a better outcome:
* One practical idea is that we do need “chaotic governance” to have a voice https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Med
* Better focus on social tech https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens/wiki
And more…
Have been working with bridging this often hostile divide for more than 30 years in hundreds of campaigns on the ground and online. The best outcome you can hope for is “diversity of tactics/strategy”
It’s a miracle when the two sides can hold this bridge in place, the effect of this miracle is more powerful outcome for both agenders BUT the longer this bridge is held in place the stronger the internal and outside forces push to demolish it – it falls, have never seen a bridge hold for the whole campaign.
The #mainstreaming agender always supports the #fluffy aproch and pushes down the #spiky aproch so its less a question of right/wrong more a question of holding the balance agenst this #mainstreaming pushing. The balance is where maximum power lies. So yes in this forum, and in general, the “spiky” aproch has more “power” than the fluffy aproch simple because its is repressed by the mainstream and meany of the “common sense” fluffy crew.
The “debate” is in this case is a metaphor for action, it’s important to keep both approaches working and hold a bridge in place, so people can cross and communicate between them.
In tech outreach work using the hashtag #geekproblem to highlight the “need for control” that is a clear block and not a solution to the very human mess we are in. We need to build structers/code where we “lose” control of our current #mainstreaming agenders and take “control” by building bridges and holding these human bridges in place, so we can choose different paths.
The project for “governance” i brought here in the first post is a “spiky” aproch to this outcome FAQ link
Yep, best to build tools/process from “lived expirence”. We are swimming in a river of social shit with the #mainstreaming of neo-liberalism and postmodernism that is the bases of “thinking”. Thou these ideology died years ago, the zombies of both are still eating our social brains.
You guys experienced it here, when I came to this well “fluffy” space I was met with a well “spiky” reception. The more dogmatic liberals can often be VERY spiky were the #fahernista radicals are generally kinda “fluffy” in their actual outcomes. Lifting the lid and look at the actions, don’t take what people say at face value, to see the fluffy/spiky debate in action, by lifting this lid you start to build a bridge…
Putting and holding this bridge in place is the start of power for social change/challenge.
I came here because you guys have useful skills to help build the tools we need Online governance – openwebgovernancebody – Gitea: Open Media Network
