The Hydrogen Path is #techchurn

Hydrogen is heralded by our conservative crew as a miracle fuel, offering a clean and carbon-free source of energy. By combining hydrogen with atmospheric oxygen, we produce water and energy, a blinded “perfect” solution for fantasy energy needs. However, hydrogen has drawbacks that make its large-scale adoption a #geekproblem dysfunctional fantasy.

Challenges with Hydrogen: Hydrogen needs to be stored under high pressure, requiring expensive infrastructure. It also degrades this infrastructure, the materials it contacts, in use, necessitating specialized storage solutions. Hydrogen is highly volatile and very prone to leaks. Its tendency to evaporate and explode make it difficult to manage safely for any #mainstreaming widespread use.

Energy Conversion Efficiency: The biggest issue with hydrogen is its inefficiency. Energy conversion processes inherently lose energy at each stage. Generating electricity, converting it to hydrogen, storing it, and then converting it back to electricity results in an efficiency of around 30-40%. This is a very bad ecological path to go down, as a significant portion of the original “green” energy is wasted.

Hydrogen as Energy Storage, Hydrogen is pushed as a solution to the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. By using excess renewable energy to produce hydrogen, it can be stored and later converted back to electricity when needed. However, the inefficiency of this process poses a major obstacle. The loss of energy at each conversion stage means that using hydrogen as a storage medium is far less efficient than direct use of the electricity generated. Changing lifestyle to reflect this shifting of energy supply is a much more sensible and sustainable path to take. The pushing of the economic feasibility of hydrogen energy storage is adding to the current mess.

Governmental Strategies and Investments, despite this mess, some countries, like the USA, the UK, and Germany, are pursuing hydrogen strategies. However, much of the progress remains theoretical, with plans significantly outstripping current capabilities. For instance, the International Energy Agency’s data shows a massive gap between existing hydrogen production capacity and future targets, with only a small fraction of these plans having secured funding.

Procrastination and Continued Fossil Fuel Use, one of the most #mainstreaming reason for the hydrogen push is procrastination. By planning to use hydrogen in new power plants, governments can appear to be moving towards greener energy solutions while continuing to rely on fossil fuels. Many of these new plants are designed to run on both hydrogen and natural gas, meaning that in the absence of sufficient hydrogen, they will continue to operate on gas. This approach allows for the continuation of fossil fuel use under the guise of transitioning to green energy.

Conclusion, the current push for hydrogen as an energy solution is adding to the current mess, it’s plagued by challenges and inefficiencies. While hydrogen has potential in specific applications, such as industrial processes, its role in large-scale energy storage and production is limited by practical and economic constraints. The hydrogen economy, in its present form, primarily serves as a way to justify the continued use of fossil fuels rather than an any genuine transition to cleaner energy.

Let us please stop with the lies, thanks.

Slogan for #openweb: “Technology’s job is to hold the trust in place”

Definitions can be loose; making things overly rigid is a #Geekproblem that fosters conflict.
This is why the #4opens is about interpretation and judgment. The #Fediverse is a vibrant and active #openweb project, currently one of the healthiest “native” parts of this path.

Some “native” examples we are working on:

Principles for #OGB (Open Governance Body) Consensus and Engagement: Decisions are valid only if a wide range of people are involved, ensuring that the collective is the consensus. This prevents any single individual from overpowering the group. Power resides in trust groups, which likely use their influence positively. This #KISS is needed to maintain trust that ensures better outcomes.

Solving technology problems with trust and #4opens: These principles provide a flexible and resilient approach to technological challenges. To repeat, the key role of technology is to maintain trust. To do this, let’s focus on the social path, an example of this would be #PGA (People’s Global Action), that keeping this as a checkpoint helps block #mainstreaming attempts and maintain polite engagement.

Building and maintaining projects needs strong social defaults and hardcoding #4opens. Consistency, keep the #4opens principles at the forefront to prevent dilution during outreach. Building tech from the grassroots level, horizontally, avoids #mainstreaming “common sense” which always leads to burnout and friction. While outreach is essential, the core principles should not be compromised. Focus on community and consensus to ensure broad engagement to maintain trust and effective governance.

These guidelines provide a structured approach to developing and maintaining technology projects that are open, transparent, and community-driven. By emphasizing trust and the #4opens principles, we create a resilient and sustainable path for technological and social change and challenge that is so needed in the era of #climatechaos.

#NGI #NLnet #EU

Definitions, that might help

This is from the view of progressive, grassroots and Alt media in the UK:

Silo, definition: Closed data systems hoarding information. Impact: Data vanishes when projects end, diminishing the effectiveness of alternative media. Most alt/grassroots media projects are silos, capturing data without open licensing for reuse.

Portal, definition: Attempts to be the dominant site, locking users into their ecosystem. Impact: Builds projects that trap users, contrary to the #openweb’s logic. In alt/grassroots media, this resembles a one-party state approach of the 20th century.

#Dotcons, definition: For-profit data silos and pseudo-networked portals. Impact: Many alt media projects mimic #dotcons, aspiring to their closed models.

Link, definition: Fundamental to the #openweb, giving content value. Impact: The absence of linking in alt media reduces the content’s value.

#Activitypub, definition: is a protocol and open standard for decentralized networking, a tool for commons building. Impact: this is growing in use.

#RSS, definition: An open web standard that adds value through data sharing. Impact: RSS is underutilized in alt media, overshadowed by silo and portal models.

Geek Culture, definition: A subculture focused on control and technical solutions. Impact: Often closes open projects, contributing to the failure of alt media initiatives, ca use the hashtag #geekproblem

#Fashionista Culture, definition: An unthinking pursuit of innovation and conformity. Impact: Churns through alt/grassroots projects, preventing them from growing.

#NGO, definition: Bureaucratic entities consuming resources. Impact: Push agendas that overshadow grassroots initiatives, often invisibly counterproductive.

Network, definition: Both technical (wires, frequencies) and mutual aid (diversity of strategy).
Impact: Essential for alt media but underutilized.

#4opens, definition: Open source, open data, open standards, open process. Impact: Exemplified by projects like Wikipedia; foundational to just and effective media projects.

To sum, up, we are still in the process of moving away from the mess of most UK alt/grassroots media projects, who are focused on silos, on capturing data and users rather than linking and sharing to build commons. Emphasizing the #4opens and fostering a culture of linking and openness help’s to break this cycle and build a more interconnected and effective alternative media landscape.

This post is based off this https://hamishcampbell.com/looking-at-the-tech-and-organising-of-uk-alt-grassroots-media/

#EU bureaucracy in tech funding

Tackling the challenges of bureaucracy and #mainstreaming inertia. We need to try and jump the hurdles within tech communities with for example the current pouring down the drain of tech funding provided by #NGI (Next Generation Internet). It is an obvious path we need to get right soon:

Addressing bureaucratic inertia (and native corruption) in the EU tech funding:

Leverage small wins pilot projects: we need to get some funding to shift to real alternatives, Implement small-scale pilot projects that demonstrate benefits and serve as proof of concepts. These projects gradually shift perspectives and encourage larger scale initiatives. Advocate for incremental changes rather than radical shifts, which are more palatable to bureaucratic institutions.
Engage stakeholders in collaborative platforms, we need to rejuvenate the moribund https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/ to build agen the collaborative space where policymakers, activists, industry experts, and community members discuss, co-create, and refine initiatives.
Storytelling and communication narrative building to craft compelling narratives, using the existing hashtag seeds to highlight the human and social benefits of proposed changes. Use storytelling to make abstract concepts tangible and relatable.

Mediate the #geekproblem in our tech communities:

Resource allocation funding initiatives: Seek funding from diverse sources, including grants, crowdfunding, alongside the #EU institutional funding. Use this to invest in skill development to bridge gaps within the community and foster the “native” #openweb path.
Encourage collaboration across different prospectives to bring fresh paths to push solutions. Knowledge sharing, use the #4opens to clear meaningful paths to move outside the current clutter. Create platforms for sharing this knowledge, run workshops, webinars, and hackathons, to facilitate “native” learning and collaboration.
Promote open practices that encourage contributions from a wide range of participants, not just the core tech-savvy individuals. Experimentation Spaces: Create spaces for experimentation where failures are seen as learning opportunities rather than setbacks.

Bridging the Gap Between EU Bureaucracy and Tech Communities:

Dialogue and advocacy: Establish regular dialogues between tech communities and EU policymakers to discuss challenges, share insights, and co-develop solutions. Use projects like the #OGB to build up tech ambassadors and liaisons who can effectively communicate this divide.
Develop joint projects where tech communities and EU bodies work together on common goals, such as digital transformation, data commons, and open internet standards. Learn from the “native” hackerspace movement to create innovation hubs that serve as collaborative spaces for tech communities and policymakers to experiment with new ideas and technologies.

In conclusion, the journey to shift meaningful initiatives within the #EU and overcome the #geekproblem in tech communities involves activism leveraging small wins, engaging wider stakeholders, using community advocacy, and fostering inclusive and collaborative #openweb environments. These are a path to shift the resources of bureaucratic institutions while overcoming internal #geekproblem challenges, ultimately driving the positive and impactful change that is so obviously needed.

#NLNET #NGIzero

Stories

A personal journal and a platform for broader discussions, this site reflects a deep engagement with grassroots media, #4opens technology, and the mess we make with neoliberalism and consumer culture. This tapestry of reflections, critiques, and ideas centred around technology, media, activism, and society is what you make of it, what are your thought-provoking, intersections of technology, society, and activism?

Open Media and Decentralization: a strong advocate for open media networks and decentralized paths.

Critique of Neoliberalism: our worship of the #deathcult leads to social and ecological decay.

Technology and Society: The impact of technology on society, especially the role of big tech companies (“#dotcons”) in shaping our lives.

Activism and Social Change: Deeply rooted in activism and social movements.

Hashtags and Digital Story’s: Hashtags are a feature to weave complex narratives and critique of the current digital mess. Hashtags like #deathcult, #openweb, #4opens, and #geekproblem are central to discussions.

Personal Reflections and Metaphors: Personal anecdotes and metaphors convey points to make the posts accessible and relatable, to help compost “#techshit” into fertile ground for new ideas and social change.

The primary purpose of the site is to challenge the “common sense” status quo and inspire people to think, and more importantly act differently about both technology and society, to provoke thought and then action. Candid, reflective, and polemical, not shying away from prodding #mainstreaming perspectives and offering alternatives grounded in experience. Hashtags, metaphors, add a layer of depth to posts, inviting people to think critically about the issues. Whether you’re a technologist, activist, or simply interested, please take the time to weave a compelling narrative on the importance of open, community-driven media and technology to grow a different world.

You can support this work https://opencollective.com/open-media-network/projects/hcampbell

Serendipity and #Hashtags

Hashtags are ubiquitous online, at best they categorize content to find and join conversations on topics. The problem with current hashtag usage is they reinforce individualism over collective action. This is an issue of neoliberal “common sense” and the domination of #dotcons, prioritizing profit rather than change and challenge.

Serendipity, the occurrence of events by chance, beneficially offer a fresh perspective on hashtag usage. Implementing hashtags in a way that fosters unexpected connections and discoveries transforms how they function as social tools. Misspelled hashtags result in fragmented conversations, making it difficult for people to engage in coherent discussions. However, embracing these variations also leads to a more inclusive and dynamic categorization system. By allowing for misspelled hashtags to be recognized and grouped with their counterparts, we create a more robust and forgiving serendipity system.

In a federated system like the #Fediverse, and what is envisioned for the Open Media Network (#OMN), there is a tension between universal truths and messy, subjective truths. A federated system values diversity and decentralization, allowing for meany perspectives to coexist. This approach aligns with the concept of serendipity, where the focus is on connections and discoveries rather than rigid categorization. The OMN address these issues by implementing word grouping flows, where different spellings or variations of hashtags can be grouped together to build cohesive category flows. This approach makes misspelled hashtags functional, thus addressing some of the fragmentation caused by individualistic usage.

The OMN project faces significant challenges in securing funding and overcoming internal and external obstacles. The difficulty in obtaining #FOSS funding highlights the broader issue of support for projects that prioritize open, decentralized, and community-focused approaches.

The use of hashtags is a progressive and critical perspective on technology and society. Think about neoliberalism (#deathcult) and consumer capitalism (#fashernista), promoting the ideals of the open web (#openweb) against the for-profit internet (#closedweb #dotcons). The interlocking hashtags tells a story that advocates, transparency, collaboration, and sharing in open-source development (#4opens).

Example Meanings:

#deathcult: Neoliberalism and its detrimental social and ecological impacts.
#fashernista: The trivialization of serious issues through consumerism and fashion.
#openweb: The original ideals of the World Wide Web.
#closedweb: The pre- and post-open web internet dominated by for-profit motives.
#4opens: Principles of transparency, collaboration, and sharing in open-source development.
#geekproblem: The cultural issues within the tech community, a strong tendency towards control and determinism.
#techshit and #techchurn: The negative consequences of constant new technological projects that fail to address any social issues.
#nothingnew: The question of whether new projects are needed or if existing ones should be improved.
#OMN and #indymediaback: Rebooting the altmedia projects on the open web.
#OGB: Open governance and the power of community decision-making.

For hashtags to be effective tools for social change, we need to shift from individualistic to collectivist. This requires systems that accommodate human error and diversity of expression, while maintaining coherence and building community. The #OMN project is a promising approach by grouping variations of hashtags, but it faces significant challenges in implementation and support.

Let’s embrace a serendipitous view of hashtag to enrich conversations in the era of the #deathcult.

ActivityPub and Mastodon from a #closedweb prospective

A #closedweb Critique

Design for Abuse: The #AP protocol is vulnerable to abuse, particularly in terms of Distributed Denial of Service (#DDOS) attacks.
Push-Based Model: The push-based notification model leads to overloading servers, especially when a popular account generates a large amount of activity.
Harassment Concerns: There is a perceived inadequacy in control issues to address the worry of harassment, with issues like the inability to disable replies not being implemented.
Need for Defensive Model: A #geekproblem call for abandoning the working “native” #openweb path and push a “native” #closedweb path, with a complete overhaul of the protocol to incorporate defensive measures from the outset.

The Critique

From an #openweb and #4opens perspective, the critique highlights a different mindset that is clearly incompatible with the current path. But yes, there are questions about the balance between openness and security. Let’s not get lost in the #geekproblem and look at them:

Design for Abuse

Critique: The assertion that the protocol is designed for abuse is an overstatement, but it highlights genuine vulnerabilities. The open “trust” based nature of #ActivityPub and the #Fediverse, promotes decentralization and federation, but can indeed be exploited by malicious actors, people do brake “trust”. Transparency in code is crucial. Vulnerabilities should be openly discussed and addressed through community collaboration, most can be fixed by social norms rather than hardcoding. Data sharing is core, there should be as little as possible “private data” to abuse. Protocols should work with slow revisions to improved community feedback. Decision-making processes around security, should be based on social rather than coding, #openprocess is a core part of this.

Push-Based Model

Critique : The push-based model can indeed lead to server overloads. Popular accounts generating a lot of traffic can unintentionally cause DDOS-like situations. This is a normal lossy part of the “native” #openweb, we should work on this. Implementing caching strategies and lossy notification systems should be developed and tested within the community. Efficient data handling techniques should balance ease of hosting and speed of application, with ease of hosting first. Exploring hybrid models (push/pull) with RSS backup can lead to more resilient protocols use. Real time is less important than the app keeps working. Part of this is about ensuring that changes to the protocol are hard and slow, with debate and consensus.

Harassment Concerns

Critique : The constant talking about harassment tools and features such as disabling replies is a concern. Yes open networks are just that open, it’s the social norms of federation that make them a safe space, we need to build up our communes of trust. Developing robust moderation tools and anti-harassment features should balance with building strong social instances, who in the end do the work, be very careful of #closedweb paths in coding these features. Socialise data on harassment patterns helps to improve trust based moderation tools. The stories we tell and the way we work for moderation and anti-abuse measures should be developed collaboratively. Including diverse voices in the social decision-making process for instances is crucial.

Need for Defensive Model

Critique: Starting with a defensive model is the wrong path. Many security and abuse issues can be mitigated with a trust-first approach. A good culture should be built into the core from the beginning, with active community involvement. Developing norms of behaver through community consensus helps build a more resilient system.

Conclusion

The #closedweb path tries to raise points about vulnerabilities and shortcomings of the current #ActivityPub and #Mastodon implementations. From an #openweb and #4opens perspective, the solution lies not in suggesting we abandon the native path and implemented protocol but in addressing these issues through open, collaborative, and transparent social processes. By leveraging the strengths of the #4opens framework, the community can work to create resilient, and user-friendly networks that are already on the successful native #openweb path.

The Battle for the Internet: Open vs. Closed

Since its creation, the internet and World Wide Web have been shaped by two competing and overlapping paths:

The #OpenWeb

Rooted in the DNA of internet code and culture, we see the web as a platform for collaboration, sharing, and the free exchange of information. Built for use in a world where information is abundant and free, embodying the ethos of “free as in free beer.”

The #OpenWeb emphasizes the #4opens: open source, open data, open standards, and open process. It walks the path of creativity and collective creation, and is closely associated with “native geek culture” alongside radical/anarchist libertarian thinking. Social interactions are visible, promoting accountability and collective decision-making. Examples include public forums, open-source projects, and community assemblies.

The #ClosedWeb

On the other side, we have the approach of companies like Microsoft under Bill Gates and late-stage Google, that focus on the monetization and commercial viability of the internet. This vision is fixated on control for profitability, and the economics of running online platforms in a world based on artificial scarcity

The #ClosedWeb pushes interactions to private, monetized paths with the illusion of privacy and confidentiality are necessary. This approach seeks to lock down information and interactions, creating walled gardens that can be controlled and monetized.

The Internet’s “native” Potential

The inherent democratization and egalitarianism of the internet allow people to create and share content. However, this ideal clashes with commercial interests that push for control to monetize user data and interactions.

From the #OpenWeb perspective:

Interconnectedness: Technology reflects human values and structures.
Empowerment: The internet empowers people to distribute their work, share ideas, and bypass traditional power politics gatekeepers.
Education and Information: The web transforms education and information access, linking vast resources to walking the path to a different society.

From the #ClosedWeb perspective, the dominant emotion is fear:

Fear of sustainability: Concerns about how to maintain and profit from online platforms.
Fear of losing control: Worries about people having too much freedom, undermining business models and #mainstreaming dogmas.

The Battleground for Openness

The #OpenWeb remains a battleground between the paths of openness and the pushing of fear. While it has democratized content creation and access, the economic models sustaining this ecosystem are often a toxic mess. This tension shapes society both online and offline, creating a complex and messy landscape to find a sustainable path.

The #GeekProblem

One barrier to addressing these issues is the #GeekProblem. On the web, those with technical expertise and control over resources bypass democratic processes and accountability, leading to a kind of “feudalism.” This problem is equally present in grassroots #FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) communities and corporate #dotcons (dot-com companies), as both share the same #geekproblem mindsets regarding control and authority.

A part of the #openweb path involves re-evaluating the relationship between control, wealth, power, and social change in both technology and wider society. Currently, we lack clear ways to discuss the “problem” in geek culture, making it difficult to mediate the #closedweb problem. This is a growing problem, as groups who succeed in a capitalism are the worst equipped to solve the problems that the system creates.

The struggle between these visions is ongoing. For the #openweb to thrive, there must be a concerted effort to address the underlying issues of control and power within both the open and closed paths. By acknowledging and working on these problems, we maintain the internet’s potential as a force for democratization, creativity, and the needed social change.

Please “don’t be a prat” about this, thanks.

Open vs Closed in Tech

Open Systems: Emphasize transparency, inclusiveness, and shared power. Social interactions in open systems are visible, allowing for accountability and collective decision-making. Examples include public forums, open-source projects, and community assemblies.

Closed Systems: Reserved for private interactions, where privacy and confidentiality are necessary. Examples include personal conversations, private messages, and some business dealings.

The real fear of Closed Systems

Isolation and Control: Closed systems isolate people and groups, enabling power to exert disproportionate influence without any meaningful oversight. This leads to abuses of power, lack of accountability, and the perpetuation of harmful practices.

Stifling Innovation and Collaboration: When information and resources are locked away, collaboration is harder, and serendipity to build the trust for horizontal working suffers. Open systems encourage the sharing of ideas and collective problem-solving, driving trust and humane creativity.

Historical examples

Diaspora vs. RSS Networks:

Diaspora: Promoted as a closed network, provide a privacy-focused alternative to Facebook. However, its closed nature limited its adoption and integration with existing #openweb web ecosystems.

The 10-Year Gap: The decade-long gap between the initial promise of open standards like RSS and their reinvention (e.g., ActivityPub) underscores the challenges of maintaining momentum and community support for open systems. This gap is a huge-lost opportunity.

RSS and ActivityPub: Open standards, facilitate interoperability and decentralized communication. The resurgence of interest in these technologies (e.g., ActivityPub) highlights the value of open systems to building trust based networks.

Ideological Perspectives

Conservatism: Emphasizes stability, tradition, and supports hierarchical structures. In the context of the #openweb, conservatives argue for maintaining closed systems to preserve order and control.

Liberalism: Advocates for individual freedoms and freespeech ideals. Liberals support open communication systems as they align with values, but have a need for closed systems to facilitate the capitalist economics they so love.

Anarchism: Promotes the dismantling of hierarchical structures and champions radical #4opens with decentralization. Anarchists advocate for fully open systems, minimizing any form of “hard” centralized control.

Questions to Consider

Balancing Openness and Privacy: How can we design systems that maximize openness while respecting some privacy and confidentiality?

Sustaining Open Systems: What mechanisms can ensure the longevity and resilience of open systems, preventing them from being overshadowed by closed, proprietary alternatives?

Addressing the #GeekProblem: How can we engage technologists and developers in conversations about the sociopolitical implications of their work, encouraging a commitment to the open path?

Navigating Ideological Differences: How can we bridge ideological gaps to create a shared vision for the #openweb, recognizing the diverse motivations and concerns of different political and social groups?

The discussion about open versus closed is not only technical but rooted in sociopolitical ideologies and ideas of human nature. By understanding these perspectives and implications, we can advocate for the #openweb, to build up this vibrant, inclusive, and innovative space. This needs a thoughtful consideration of historical contexts, current challenges, and future possibilities, always with an eye toward preserving the #4opens that make our internet beneficial for society, not just the few greedy monsters that are destroying what we value, life.

How can we have this conversation without the normal “prat behaver” is a hard path to find.

Tension, Open and Closed Web

From its creation, the spreading internet and World Wide Web have been shaped by two competing, often overlapping visions:

The collaborative, #openweb: Rooted in #DNA of internet code and culture, this vision is of a network for collaboration, sharing, and free exchange of information. Built for use in a world of abundance of information, free as in free beer. Emphasizes #4opens, creativity, and collective creation, associated with “native geek culture” and radical/anarchist libertarian thinking.

The commercial, #closedweb: The approach of companies like Microsoft under Bill Gates, and late stage google, focuses on monetization and commercial viability of the internet. Fixated on fear of sustainability, profitability, and the economics of running online platforms in a scarcity based world.

The Internet inherent democratization and egalitarianism allows everyone to create and share content. However, this ideal clashes with the pushing of commercial control, to monetize user data and interactions. This #open path empowers people to distribute their work, share ideas, and bypass traditional gatekeepers. The web transforms education and information access to synthesizing vast resources needed for a different view of society. From the #closedweb prospective, you have fear, simply fear.

The #openweb remains a battleground between these feelings, of openness and the pushing of fear. While it has worked to democratized content creation and access, the existing economic models to sustain this ecosystem are a toxic mess. The ongoing tension shapes society both online and offline, yes it’s a mess.

Why we so often can’t see or do much about this mess is that our #geekproblem have disproportionate control over resources and decisions. This leads to blinded “feudalism” that bypass democratic processes and accountability. This is equally a “problem” in grassroots #FOSS and corporate #dotcons, as they share the same mindset.

A part of the #openweb is a move to re-evaluate the relationship between “control”, wealth, power, and social change. But currently we have no clear way to talk about this issue from the “problem” in geek culture. So then have little way to mediate the #closedweb of the groups who “succeed” in capitalist #mainstreaming, who are the worst equipped to solve the problems that the system creates.

UPDATE https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/25/opinion_open_washing/ this is playing out here.

We need to compost the current culture of lying

A tech story

In the #openweb of digital innovation, there is a culture revered for its ingenuity and technical prowess – the hackers of old. Yet, beneath the surface of their achievements lays a problem, one that has led to the downfall of many endeavours: the #geekproblem.

In the early days, hackers were pioneers, pushing the boundaries of what was possible, though as their influence grew, so too did the imbalance within their communities. The projects that thrived, that embodied the principles of openness and collaboration (#4opens), were not only the work of these geeks, but wider diverse affinity groups where social leadership was core.

The projects that flourished had strong social guidance, with the geeks playing one part in the larger diversity. A healthy dynamic, with different perspectives and different skills, complemented each other to further common social goals.

However, over time tragedy grew when the geeks seized control of the foundations and the #fashernistas, with their penchant for superficial trends, hijacked the facade. With the geeks at the helm and the fashernistas dictating the direction, the once vibrant projects slowly over time withered and died.

The demise of the #openweb was not a sudden event, this slow and steady decline was orchestrated by those who valued personal agendas and status over collective progress. The geeks, blinded by their technical prowess, failed to recognize the importance of social partnerships, while the fashernistas, eager to climb the ladder of #mainstreaming success, sold out the principles they once claimed to champion.

And so, the legacy of the #openweb was tarnished, its promise of democratized access and decentralized trust, betrayed by those who prioritized their own blinded interests over the “native” common good. Yet, amidst this wreckage, a glimmer of hope remains – a reminder that progress lies not in the hands of the few, but in the collective efforts of all who dare to dream of a better world. Let’s try not to make the same mistakes with our #web1.5 reboot in the #Fediverse, please.

———————————————-

To avoid repeating this mess we need to mediate the tragic reality that within our #fashernista circles, there exists a pervasive sense of hopelessness, a destructive force that accompanies their every endeavour. Their relentless pursuit of trends and their blind devotion to the #deathcult have left a trail of destruction in their wake.

We need to actually use the #4opens project, as a beacon of hope amidst this chaos, a reminder that there is another way forward. Not doing this is leading us on the path to failure, contributing to the ever-growing piles of #techshit.

There’s much to be learned from this cycle of destruction and renewal. It’s time to embrace the lessons of the past and walk a better path, one guided not by the whims of #fashionistas or the allure of the #deathcult please.

#4opens

Encryptionists we do need to talk about Governance in tech

The crypto mess talking about governance https://medium.com/@lawrencelundy/no-such-thing-as-decentralised-governance-2a6c6f97382f Lawrence Lundy-Bryan’s perspective on decentralized governance is a reminder that while we aspire to decentralization to break free from oppressive authorities, we should recognize the need for some form of governance. Keep in mind, the key is to establish a type of “central” authority that is accessible and allows for direct participation in governance.

The”native” #openweb based #OGB project discussed in https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=OGB is an exemplary model of federated grassroots governance, which comes from this process https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/working-and-thinking-on-native-openweb-aproches-to-governance/2898 and this fallow up https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/working-and-thinking-on-native-openweb-aproches-to-governance/2898

This is a project that comes from proven practices, an effective path for countless activist groups worldwide over centuries. This approach, outlined in detail, offers a balanced perspective, ensuring acceptance across ideological spectrums. Overcoming initial resistance from both narrow-minded liberals and dogmatic #geekproblem factions is essential to overcome for implementing this approach.

The #OGB (Open Governance Body) is a balanced approach, appealing to a wide range of groups and serving as a bridge between diverse perspectives. Overcoming resistance and gaining acceptance of projects like the #OGB is a proven path to advancing grassroots tech and activism effectively in the era of #climatechaos

“don’t be a prat” comes to mind.