The #geekproblem pushing over #openweb again

https://www.wired.com/story/how-blockchain-can-wrest-the-internet-from-corporations

The #encryptionists are trying to push 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 security theatre, the bad effect, 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 effect 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 roll them back or even address the issue. The project of over 100 global news sites, with thousands of media creators and millions of users. Ossified and then died, the #dotcons soon replaced it.

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

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

There 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

Power politics is always full of stupidity

Power politics is always full of stupidity, as priorities and agendas are pushed as power games rather than human needs. Power politics brings out the worst in human communities while pushing out, breaking and destroying the best. Any structure with a hierarchy will suffer from this.

While most people agree that such structures are useful for decision-making, and that more horizontal structures are bad for fast moving communities. The question has to be asked, is the price of efficiency worth the cost of stupidity and squad agendas?

Horizontal structures can lead to a growth in stupidity in multiple smaller ways, but to an extent the smallness helps to mediate the big stupid paths and keeps humane agendas in focus

On balance, the second is better than the first, but how to communicate this to the efficiency focused modern world full of “power politics”.

This is one of the roots of the #geekproblem

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 look at the #geekproblem

In alt-tech, everything feels broken. At the heart of this is a deep, unexamined assumption: that control and certainty are required to make “good” software.

But in reality, software – like people, like communities – is transient, messy, lossy. It drifts. It composts. It never fully stabilises, and that’s normal.

Trying to force idealised control onto something that’s inherently fluid is exactly why so many alt-projects fail. They fight their own nature. They chase perfection, purity, and certainty, and in doing so, they kill the culture that would have kept them alive.

This is the root of the #geekproblem: the belief that the world should adapt to the code, rather than the code adapting to the world.

Until we let software breathe like humans do – flawed, shifting, open – we’ll keep breaking the very alternatives we’re trying to build.

In the alt tech, everything is broken. At the heart of this is a assumption that control and certainty are needed for good softwear. Were in reality softwear matches the human condition trasentery/lossy. Trying to force the ideal is why most of our alt projects do not work. This is the base of the #geekproblem

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

We need projects like the Media Fund as part of an #openweb echo syteam

Published Date 10/23/17 6:50 PM

We need projects like the Media Fund as part of a #openweb echo-syteam. But they need to get a bit upto date to be relevant, currently they are years in the past in their thinking – this is a #fashernista problem that is made worst by funding agenda’s being many more years in the past.

With the fast moving tech agenda in hand with the #geekproblem we have had more than 10 years of fuckups in this area. We cannot afford many more.

“The Media Fund What is the level of awareness among Facebook users that the platform is shifting ever more towards the favour of bigger corporations?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/23/facebook-non-promoted-posts-news-feed-new-trial-publishers?CMP=twt_a-media_b-gdnmedia

We need to get honest on this, guys like the Media Fund used to run workshops on how to use Facebook for campaigning. While the alt media disintegrated, left behind. Now the #openweb is getting close to disintegration, while you have been talking about the problem of the mainstream media for the last few years. Yes #failbook was/is a problem, especially when #fashernista activists were pushing it as the solution.

The real current issue is now the #openweb tools, not year old news about #failbook

Please try to do the right thing

Don’t trust the fashionista

Published Date 9/25/17 4:24 PM

Thinking about #Uber and the dysfunction of #Facebook.

It’s time to #reboot many parts of the #openweb With the “visibility” of the failing of #dotcons such as #failbook privacy/obscured agronomic control of you, #uber and the race to the bottom culture.

The will be a plausible “class” of people who come up with convincing sounding solutions, these #fashionista are not part of any solution and are a clear and historical core to our failers in the past.

I understand it’s hard to see the differences of tech projects, what is worth supporting and what not. We have issues from two different directions that have to at least a little understood to have a hope of supporting projects that have the possibility to be part of a real LINKING alt.

* #fashionista thinking/working

* the #geekprobelm

These are opposite side of the same coin.

“A river that needs crossing – On the political side, there is arrogance and ignorance, on the geek side there is naivety and over complexity”

A good first step solution to both is the #4opens

They will dis-empower the worst of the #fashionista thinking by shining light on their actions and mediate to a better outcome the “closing push” of the #geekproblem by keeping the LINKING in place.

Simple and sweet, a first step solution in a hashtag 😉

Fashernistas

Published Date 4/18/17 11:53 AM

I have been talking about the fashernisatas for the last few years, its an idea/group that I have been struggling to work with my whole time in the alt/grassroots. So what is a #fashernista?
A group of individuals who value/push their own individual advancement over the needs of the croup and community, generally they do not realise or see that they are doing this. This has the end effect of diluting and killing off possible alternatives and selling “grassroots” to NGO’s and corporatist agenda’s. #fashernista taking over projects in hand with the #geekproblem has lead to endless dead-ends in all alt/grassroots tech. Most recently this has manifested in encrypt everything, bitcoin/blockchain ect. This is a dead end.

The #OMN linking project is basic tech that I have been working on for more than 10 years, in past times the has been more interesting tech/social problems in alt/grassroots media to work on so linking has taken a back seat as it’s basic stuff. At this stage, we only have the basics left. Let’s take a first step linking alt/grassroots producers, and build tools to push this into a #rebooted #openweb to start the needed move out of the #dotcons ghetto’s. Let’s try as hard as we can to avoid #fashernisa take over of this basic #reboot. Fashernistas will set up parallel projects, raise parallel funding, push these into the traditional media and dominate the #dotcons conversation. None of this inevitable pointless #fashernista noise should distract from the basics, as it will just flash bang and fad into nothing. Keep the basics going, linking, building. In the long term the rest is noise, distraction, for the conspiracy minded it’s our very own “false flag”.

Hummm… how to spot drift into the #fashernisat agenda?

There is a strong anti-dote in the #4opens

Rebooting Alt Grassroots Media

The OMN Beta is a subset of the full open project.

Its a just the linking part. A first step to the data soup and open per2per network.

A single node will facilitate existing alt/grassroots media projects to link to each other. This will hopefully, partly overcome the #geekproblem to brining in talented developers to roll the rest out in a open way.

If this is blocked and stalls (possibility) the is away the evil of “funding” but its a many edged tool that cuts in all to predicable ways.

The BETA will roll out

Implemented
* Basic content flows by tag

Coming Soon
* Basic video player flow embed by tag
* Basic audio embed flow by tag

* Basic “blog/site/project list flow” by tag
* Basic “personal” grouping/flow by tag

Many of the existing radical alt/grassroots media sites (PGA hallmarks, #4opens) will be feed into the network (opt out) and all of the sites invited to become a active parts of the OMN by embedding sections/sidebars.

For the geeks http://omn.openworlds.info:8080

What is needed for the next 5 years to build an open media web

UPDATE 2025 – this is still a to-do list for a path out of the current mess. Look at the hashtag #dotcons #geekproblem #4opens

Published Date 3/19/13 9:38 PM

* We have to discredit the domination of corporate social networking such as FB and twitter as solutions. (this should be easy – but needs to be put in a centralised place that is easy to send people to). WHY

* Deal with the “geek question” how to get user-friendly – user-relevant free tools (open-source) as a focus of geek development. Currently, 99% of geek development time is wasted here, this is a HUGE untapped opportunity for open tools. (this is a hard one as the problem is invisible/irrelevant to most people).

* The need for open industrial standards rather than fashionable standards. This is a “geek chattering class” issue and is simply solved by a critical mass of chattering about open industrial standards.

* Co-operation is an issue for left/progressive contemporary media projects, it’s a steep climb to get simple linking between sites to happen. We are working on a number of projects to address this.

* Traditional Journalism is an obstacle to the building of open media, as they still have a gate keeping role on what is seen as news and many contemporary media people are sucked into the traditional media world as a career option due to the continuing failer of contemporary media business models. We currently don’t have a good solution to this problem.

If we have a strategy for dealing with each of these issues, then we can realistically move onto building real infrastructure. http://visionon.tv

UPDATE

Its interesting that people say to me that these things aren’t needed or are two vague – my answer is simple and straightforward if you don’t deal with them then your project WILL LIKELY fail so you should at minimum have them as a highlight on your project description and at best have continuing documented experiments on over coming them for your project to succeed.

Technology and Social Change Working with the Facebook Generation

This generation is a complete mess, no surprise after 20 years of submission to the #deathcult:

#Neoliberalism hollowing out economies, replacing solidarity with consumerism.

#Postmodernism fragmenting identity politics into a battlefield of individualism over collective action.
#Dotcons centralizing control, turning the internet into a corporate surveillance machine.

Stepping away from the mess, the real question is: How do we break free?

Our #fashernistas still dodge this conversation, stuck in cycles of performative activism, corporate co-option, and distraction. Instead of chasing the next trendy tech or ideological bandwagon, we need to refocus a #KISS path:

#OMN (Open Media Network) – Building grassroots, independent media outside corporate control.
#4opens – Prioritizing transparency, collaboration, and openness in our tools and governance.
Reclaiming #DIY activism – Moving beyond digital spectacle to real-world action and organizing.

The path isn’t more #geekproblem tech fixes or empty branding exercises, it’s a radical grassroots step to collective agency. Time to move.