Composting the social mess to balance the change we need

In the online spaces I navigate, there’s no shortage of #fashernistas crowding the conversation, diverting focus from the native #openweb paths we urgently need to explore. They take up space and ultimately block more than they build. Then there’s the #geekproblem: while geeks get things done within narrow boundaries, they’re rigidly resistant to veering beyond their lanes, dogmatically shutting down alternatives to the world they’re so fixated on controlling. This produces a lot of #techshit, occasionally innovations, but with more that needs composting than the often limited value they create.

Then there are the workers, many of whom default to the #NGO path. Their motivations lean toward self-interest rather than collective good, masking this in liberal #mainstreaming dressed up as activism. At worst, they’re serving the #deathcult of neoliberalism; at best, they’re upholding the status quo. This chaotic mix dominates alternative culture, as it always has, and the challenge is one of balance. Right now, we have more to compost than we have to plant and build with.

What would a functioning alternative to this current mess in alt paths look like? Well we don’t have to look far as there is a long history of working alt culture, and yes I admit it “works” in messy and sometimes dysfunctional ways, but it works. What can we learn and achieve from taking this path and mating it with modern “native #openweb technology, which over the last five years has managed in part to move away from the #geekproblem with #ActivityPub and the #Fediverse.

Blending the resilience and collective spirit of historical alternative cultures with the new strengths of federated, decentralized tech solutions like ActivityPub and the Fediverse, the path we need to take:

Community-Centric Design: Historically, alternative cultures prioritize more communal, open, and egalitarian paths. The path out of this mess need to be rooted in this ethos, a new alt-tech landscape could leverage federated technology to avoid centralization and corporate control, emphasizing community ownership. The Fediverse, with its decentralized model, embodies this shift, each instance is a unique community with shared norms, which helps to protect against centralized censorship and allows diversity without imposing a single dominant path.
Resilient, Messy, and Organic Growth: A #KISS lesson from traditional alternative spaces is that success doesn’t require perfect order. Alt-culture spaces thrive on a degree of chaos and adaptability, which enables rapid response to new challenges and paths. This messiness aligns with how decentralized systems function: they’re, resilient, while letting communities develop their own norms and structures while remaining connected to a larger network.
Mediating the #Geekproblem: A key challenge in the tech space is overcoming the “problem” geeks, where technical cultures focus narrowly on technical functionality at the expense of accessibility and inclusiveness. ActivityPub and Fediverse have shifted this by prioritizing people-centric design and by being open to non-technical contributions. Integrating more roles from diverse social paths—designers, community, activists—can bridge gaps between tech-focused and community-focused paths.
Using #4opens Principles: The “#4opens” is native to #FOSS philosophy—open data, open source, open process, and open standards—guide this ecosystem. By adopting transparency in governance and development, communities foster trust and accountability. This openness discourages monopolistic behavior, increases collaboration, and enables #KISS accountability.
Sustainable Engagement Over Growth: Unlike the current #dotcons model that focuses on endless growth and engagement metrics, the alternative path prioritizes quality interactions, trust-building, and meaningful contributions. This sustainable engagement path values people’s experience and community health over data extraction and advertising revenue.
Leveraging Federated Technology for Cross-Pollination: ActivityPub has shown that federated systems don’t have to be isolated silos; they can be connected in a openweb of interlinked communities. Just as historical alt-cultures drew strength from diversity and exchange, the Fediverse path allows for collaboration and cross-pollination between communities while maintaining autonomy.

By integrating these native #openweb principles, we create an alt-tech ecosystem that is democratic, inclusive, and resistant to the mess that currently plague #mainstreaming and some alt-tech paths. This hybrid path allows tech to serve communities authentically, fertilising sustainable growth and meaningful, collective agency that we need in this time to counter the mainstream mess.

Hope not hate, in tech

Reflecting on the last 40 years, it’s clear that the trajectory toward #climatechaos has been pushed by the entrenchment of corporate power and increasing capital-driven approach to global challenges. This era, the “neoliberal” era, normalized policies that favoured deregulation, privatization, and financialization. This shift didn’t just allow corporations to thrive; it redefined our social priorities, encouraging a culture where profit overshadows community and basic environmental welfare. These #deathcult worshippers have permeated public institutions and policies, making it harder for grassroots systemic change to take root.

The liberal majority, typically positioned between activism and power, has been to side with the “#mainstreaming” approach, which, while sometimes not as overtly destructive as corporate power, clearly lack the willingness to disrupt the status quo. These liberals express concern over climate change but favour “market-friendly” reforms that repeatedly fail to challenge or change the root causes of the #climatecrisis. This creates a paradox: despite their environmental concerns, they end up blocking radical changes. On the fluffy side, movements like Extinction Rebellion (#XR) and initiatives like the Open Media Network (#OMN) highlight how pushing this middle ground to support change—not just acknowledge it—is essential for challenging entrenched powers.

The OMN serves as an example of a shift from centralized, profit-driven platforms toward community-based, participatory paths. Unlike platforms that build on capital agendas, the OMN draws from grassroots energy and shared values, allowing it to organically support social goals. This shift is key: if OMN and similar #openweb initiatives grow, they’ll likely reflect their foundation—community engagement and shared purpose—versus the profit-at-all-costs paths.

While the liberal centre currently act as a buffer zone that resists necessary change, supporting projects like OMN can help reshape this middle ground by creating an accessible alternative to #mainstreaming stories and corporate lies. In this sense, belief—especially in sustainable community-driven projects—becomes a tool for social transformation. And belief is crucial; without a sense of possibility, it’s easy for people to fall into cynicism and adopt the fear-based messaging spread by right-wing agendas

The challenge is to compost the “bourgeois struggle” between conflicting nasty interests by promoting grassroots, #4opens paths and projects that focus on cooperation, transparency, and community.

#KISS

We need to compost the current culture of lying

“We don’t need to talk about the climate, we don’t need to talk about change. What we need to talk about is power and criminality and evil.”

Lying as a tool for blocking change has become the pervasive issue, especially when people use it to protect the status quo and avoid facing uncomfortable truths. This obstructs the collective efforts needed to talk about problems like #climatechange, social inequality, and the erosion of democratic #openweb communication paths. Tackling this involves a #4opens culture where honesty and accountability are valued, while simultaneously recognizing that some of these distortions stem from deep-rooted personal, social, or economic fears.

Establish clear, collective values around truthfulness: A first step is creating a culture where truth is valued, especially when it challenges the self-interested comfort of those involved. In functioning open networks, communities have shared values, that rewarding honest dialogue and penalizing deceptive behaviour which hinders constructive paths. This transparency can be incentivized by showing how it benefits collective goals over (stupid) individual agendas, aligning values to encourage honesty as a default.
Encourage critical thinking and #KISS media literacy: People lie and distort truth when they lack confidence in understanding complex topics and thus feel pressured to align with dominant easy stories. A culture of media literacy empowers people to spot misinformation, resist manipulative tactics, and feel more comfortable confronting inconvenient truths rather than ignoring or reshaping them for comfort. Equipping people with these skills means fewer incentives to hide or distort facts and paths.
Promote accountability mechanisms: When dishonesty is not held to account, it reinforces a culture where lying is acceptable. To push back at this, transparent accountability culture is helpful, especially in influential sectors such as media, politics, and social organizations. Accountability encourages people, institutions and communities to take responsibility for the information they use and host, helping to establish truthfulness as the norm rather than an exception.
Normalize difficult conversations: Lies are used as a shield to avoid uncomfortable subjects, especially in collective spaces where the potential for friction is high. Encouraging a culture of dialogue, where differing opinions are expressed without retaliation, reduces the need for deception. By creating “active zones” for conversation and providing conflict-resolution traditions, groups address the root issues without resorting to dishonesty.
Use positive reinforcement for transparency: Rather than punishing instances of dishonesty harshly, positive reinforcement can reward honest behaviour, making it a habit. When communities highlight examples where transparency led to better decisions, improved paths, and strengthened trust, it becomes a wider, easier path for more people to take. Celebrating transparency that benefits a project or a social goal helps to erode the perception that lying is needed, necessary or advantageous.
Acknowledge the root causes of lying as a defence mechanism: Often, people lie as a defence against vulnerability, fear of judgment, or loss of control. Recognizing these underlying motivations makes it easier to address them constructively rather than combatively. Providing support, whether through promoting self-awareness, emotional resilience, or ethical decision-making, reduces the pressure people feel to lie as a way of self-protection.
Build grassroots movements focused on integrity: Lastly, seeding grassroots movements that are on the #4opens path, embodying integrity, transparency, and accountability. Small, community-driven groups have the agility and cohesion to establish trust-based paths, which serve as seeds for horizontal scalable wider networks to balance the mess coming from larger, dominating #mainstreaming institutions. By showcasing effective grassroots paths, we influence larger systems and set a precedent that truth is not optional.

In a world where lying undermines genuine change, mediating its pervasive current use requires #4opens strategies that push transparency, mutual respect, and courage. Changing a culture from one where lies are tools of convenience to one where truth is a shared value is core to the change and challenge we need. This will not be easy, but when we can start to close the gap between intentions and actions. This shift of path from lying to truth is the needed #KISS to addressing the complex mess of our time, growing truth, rather than deception, feeds our paths.

http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss-low/proto/http/vpid/p0jzkcp5.mp3 An example of this, #manstreaming lying from the USA on the subject of #climatechange

Shows the #deathcult we have all been worshipping.

A “liberal” path to mediate the growing #climatechaos mess

The idea of nationalizing the fossil fuel industry as a climate solution has had some attention in recent years, though it hasn’t yet broken into #mainstreaming policy discussions. Proponents argue that taking control of the industry allows for a managed, planned decline of fossil fuel production, aligned with climate goals and fair treatment for workers.

Notably, liberals like the Democracy Collaborative’s Carla Skandier have proposed a “51 Percent Solution,” where the government would secure a majority stake in fossil fuel companies, guiding a controlled reduction in output while providing worker protections and ensuring energy security during the transition. Economists, including Mark Paul, have also highlighted that, with public ownership, governments could avoid lay-offs and support fossil fuel workers through the transition, making this approach both an economic and environmental path.

While mainstream politics in the U.S. and Europe have not embraced nationalization yet, there’s increasing support for policies targeting both demand and supply of fossil fuels. Without direct control over fossil fuel companies, efforts to reduce emissions are blocked by corporate profit motives and the industry’s political corruption and influence. This #KISS liberal approach serves as a substantial step toward meaningful #climateaction, but its feasibility, however political support, would require broad public backing and economic planning to balance stability and fairness during the transition.

This is likely the ONLY #mainstreaming path that could work, me I like other paths, no issue not to do both at the same time #OMN

The Activist History of the Web: Lessons we can learn

Over the last few decades, the web’s evolution has been shaped by competing ideals. Early on, we witnessed the shift from the “better” #closedweb corporate controlled paths to an #openweb #DIY explosion—a time when collaborative, decentralized approaches thrived. #Mainstreaming efforts to recapture this #4opens spirit failed for years, but eventually, corporate-driven dot-coms platforms captured the majority of people. Activist voices were muffled as #dotcons pushed mainstream interests, pulling away the community-driven power the web once enabled. This phase was a bait-and-switch operation, leading to surveillance capitalism and making it harder to stand up for collective, public-first internet paths.

A key aspect here is that this decline wasn’t caused by isolated figures but by broader, recurring social forces, like #fahernistas and the #geekproblem, who fell into patterns of adopting dominant narratives by failing to recognize the alt values of “native” open tech paths. As this happened, the #NGO world came in with “nice funding,” which subtly aligned activist tech initiatives with liberal, watered-down approaches. This pushed and promoted co-option over the power of change. The result was tech stagnation, with communities gradually losing their voice and control, the mess we were in 5 years ago.

The current openweb revival is due to protocols like #ActivityPub, coinciding with the rise of #web03, which was about re-implements #closedweb paths. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity, especially as the rotting of dotcons reveals the hollowness of centralization. While this #reboot has potential, it’s often bogged down by the same forces that hindered past movements. The #fahernistas focus on transient tech trends and individualistic coding projects that ignore the power of collective working, and the #web03 uncritical push of #encryption as a solution without a broader social strategy results in mountains of #techshit.

What works? Building from simple foundations: As digital activists and #DIY tech communities try to reboot the web, it’s essential to start with simplicity: #KISS principles (Keep It Simple, Stupid) offer a practical foundation. Instead of complex, flashy approaches, this mindset prioritizes clarity, accessibility, and collective agency. Each simple, intentional step creates a more durable basis to counter #mainstreaming forces.

What do we need: Self-organization tools within community are needed to reshape the path. Hashtags, for instance, have devolved into self-branding tools (fashernista), whereas they originally provided decentralized organizing power. Reclaiming these tools for grassroots purposes helps bring DIY activism to the forefront and build cohesive networks across digital paths.

What needs balance: The #VC poison of “nice funding” and #NGO co-option, are the big challenges facing the #openweb movement. Often, well-intentioned tech initiatives accept NGO money to sustain themselves, but this financial support is not neutral. The NGO world, embedded in liberal agendas, steers projects toward safe, palatable solutions that appeal to funders rather than fostering the radical shifts needed for real change. This sugar-coated poison draws tech initiatives away from their roots and into a cycle of compromise, weakening the collective power that grassroots projects depend on.

What can we do? As we look at ways to reignite a meaningful openweb, these lessons from history are crucial. Without seeing these patterns, we are repeating the same mistakes and allowing corporate and liberal to dictate the paths we take to build our shared digital commons. How we actually make this work is not obverse, but the current #fedivers reboot is a seed that is in the ground and growing.

I use the #4opens as a tool to do this as it’s simply #foss development with #openprocess added on, a useful tool to get past what people say their projects are about. And what they are actually about https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens we need tools like this to compost the piles of #techshit people keep creating, if we are to have soil to grow tech seeds of hope, like #Activertypub

The path is simple, who is coming down it with me and meany others?

The #deathcult: 40 Years of neoliberal poisoning the #openweb path

For forty years, we’ve been steeped in a dominant, and largely invisible ideology I call here the #deathcult, which is a metaphor for the relentless spread of #neoliberalism that has reshaped our social, economic, and technological systems in very destructive ways. Alongside this, the rise of #dotcons (corporate, centralized tech platforms) over the past twenty years has distorted the path of the internet and #openweb, steering it away from #4opens collaboration and into monopolized, extractive business models. We’re have been living the fallout now for the last ten years: a fractured digital landscape built on artificial scarcity and closed systems of control. This article explores the roots of this ideological mess and touches on the return to community-oriented solutions, rooted in collective ideals, through projects like the #fediverse and a renewed #openweb.

Neoliberalism, is the driver of our current crisis, is anti-social at its core, cutting shared resources and social spaces in favour of so-called “efficiency” and profit, leading to what I call in the hashtag stories the #deathcult – a mindset where profit pushes over life, social well-being, and environmental health. This ideological control permeates our sense of “common sense,” bending it to fit a world where exploitation is not just tolerated but expected. With our head down worship, we’ve been pushed to accept social and environmental sacrifices as the price of “progress”, instead of recognizing them as a sign of systemic failure.

The #dotcons and digital enclosure of our commons, has changes the path of the internet, which was originally built to be an open and decentralized platform. Yet, the past two decades of “#dotcom” culture transformed it into a centralized, corporate-controlled ecosystem that discourages innovation and subverts people’s and community autonomy. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon thrive by enclosing the commons, creating walled gardens where data and attention are commodities for sale and control. This shift, which we all played a role in, has stifled alternative voices and projects, pushing out grassroots initiatives in favour of profit-driven silos.

The dotcons path exploits not just users’ data but the very concept of community, turning every interaction into controlling people for private profit. At long last, we’re now seeing a response in the form of projects like the #fediverse and #activertypub, which decentralize and reclaim digital space from these corporate giants. However, without collective action and a shared vision, this new path remains under threat of co-option from these corporate interests, with #dotcons and #VC funded #threads and #bluesky both being pushed into this “commons” we have spent years opening.

On a parallel path of the last 20 years, we have been suffering from a #geekproblem: a cultural fixation within the tech community on solving social issues through purely technical means, in ways that exclude non-technical people. Encryption, for instance, is a valuable tool for privacy but isn’t a universal solution to all social or technological issues. The “more encryption” mindset neglects the importance of building trust and understanding in online communities, focusing instead on individual security in isolation.

For example, with projects like #nostr when encryption becomes the end-all solution, we’re left with technology that is impenetrable to regular people, creating more barriers than it removes. The challenge isn’t just technical, it’s social. We need to mediate the geek-centric approach with practical, accessible solutions that empower people, not only a few tech-savvy minorities.

A basic #KISS and #nothingnew path, can help to mediate these issues, they are concepts that encourage us to revisit old, tried-and-true solutions rather than reinventing the wheel in ways that add complexity. Complexity and “innovation for innovation’s sake” leads to, too much, #techshit, overly complicated tech that serves no one but its creators. The KISS path reminds us that simplicity growes inclusivity. If we want more people to engage with the #openweb, we need to create tools that prioritize accessibility and usability over complex features. The #nothingnew philosophy supports this by encouraging us to look to the past for inspiration, reviving old ideas that worked instead of constantly chasing the latest #fashernista trends.

Hashtags are a useful tool for #DIY community organization, but in this era of #stupidindividualism, hashtags get dismissed as tools for self-expression or “fashion statements” (#fashernista). Yet, hashtags can serve a deeper purpose in organizing and connecting people around shared ideas and goals. Instead of using hashtags to show off, we can use them to build flows of mutual support and collaboration. The DIY ethos is central to this: organizing from the bottom up, using digital tools to strengthen offline communities and collective action.

Embracing collective paths, one of the main issues that fractured early movements, like #indymedia, was the inability to work collectively. The culture of individualism championed by neoliberalism crept into activist spaces, weakening them from within. Reclaiming the openweb means reclaiming collective processes, where shared resources and collaborative decision-making are balanced with individual control. We need native digital spaces where communities work together, rather than being siloed into “users” isolated by individualistic platforms.

Moving forward is now about composting the #techshit, a path to compost the tech detritus of the past two decades, the techshit accumulated through#NGO funding of misguided projects and closed systems. Just as composting turns organic waste into fertile soil, we can take the lessons of past failures to create a thriving, resilient commons reboot. By fundamentally abandoning the pursuit of artificial scarcity and focusing on shared abundance, we foster this better, more humane path.

For this to work, we need to address the #geekproblem by placeing as much value on social solutions as we do on technical ones, to create tech that supports community needs rather than hindering them. This path values process over product, relationships over transactions, and social well-being over profit.

Ultimately, the choice is clear: continue worshipping at the altar of the #deathcult, or support the “native” path with the openweb. The former is the path we are on now, of escalating, isolation, environmental destruction, and social disintegration, while the latter offers a chance at connection, collaboration, and resilience. This path won’t be easy, but it’s worth the effort to avoid being subsumed by the dominant, #deathcult story we repeat to oftern to ourselves.

As we work to reboot old systems and build better ones, let’s ask ourselves: What are we helping to reboot today? By choosing collective action over individualism, KISS over complexity, and cooperation over control, we can step away from the current mess and plant the seeds for hope and survival.

Lift your head, dirty your hands we have a world to plant

Navigating the Postmodern Confusion and the Case for Common Sense

From a left-wing perspective, identity politics and class-based politics feel like competing ideologies. Identity politics focus on individual identities (race, gender, sexuality, etc.), while leftist movements emphasize collective struggle against class-based oppression under capitalism and neoliberalism. Both approaches aim to address inequality but through different paths. For the #geekproblem we can view them like competing tech standards (e.g., #Bluesky, #Nostr, #ActivityPub), in that they risk fragmenting movements unless there’s an effort to bridge them, balancing specific identity struggles with broader systemic change.

An example of this is #Postmodernism, which often leaves us questioning even the most basic aspects of life, and frankly, it can be exhausting. A recent example is the ongoing debate around biological sex. While it’s true that some people are born with disorders of sexual development, these cases are rare, just like being born colorblind or with physical disabilities. However, the overwhelming majority of the 80 billion humans that have ever lived were born from the combination of an XX and XY chromosome pairing.

The postmodern argument blurs these distinctions unnecessarily, but common sense tells us that reproduction still fundamentally relies on this biological reality. It’s not about denying people’s rights to live as they choose – people should love and live however they wish – but recognizing that certain basic truths shouldn’t be muddled by this long dead ideology. We need to move past the confusion and return to a clearer understanding of biology, while still fostering respect and dignity for all different people, regardless of how they choose to express themselves. Let’s focus on a healthier balance between respecting diversity and understanding the realities of the world we live in.

This is just one example, alongside #neoliberalisam in the economic path we have has 40 years of this mess shaping us, we need to step away from this #fashernista mess making. What would this look like?

Stepping away from the 40-year #fashernista mess shaped by consumer culture involves rejecting the shallow, surface-level trends and embracing deeper, systemic change rooted in sustainability and community. It means focusing on long-term, grassroots action instead of the trendy or performative activism that shapes us now. Practically, this would mean rebuilding independent, open media (#OMN), fostering, commons, collective ownership of resources, and rejecting the commodification of everything. It’s about creating social paths based on trust, openness, and shared values rather than profit-driven, corporate-controlled structures.

This path emphasizes:

Local Action: Rebuilding local communities around shared resources and sustainable practices, ensuring they operate autonomously from mainstream corporate structures.
Open Processes: Utilizing the #4opens as a framework to ensure transparency and collective engagement in both technology and activism.
Resistance to Co-optation: Staying vigilant against the dilution of radical movements by “common sense” #fashernista #NGO “market-friendly” paths which push for wider acceptance by abandoning core values, we need.
Education and Awareness: Promoting knowledge-sharing and political education to empower people to resist superficial solutions and embrace affective and meaningful changes.

Ultimately, it’s about rewiring social values to cooperation, resilience, and ecological balance over competition, consumption, and power accumulation, It’s rebalancing our sense of self both individual and social.

From a left-wing perspective, the critique of identity politics, in the example at the beginning of this post, is that it fragments social movements by focusing on individuals or inward looking group identities rather than uniting around shared economic and outward class struggles. The #fashernista path is driven by the current mess emphasizes personal identity over collective action, leading to the dilution of the solidarity needed to challenge systemic structures like neoliberalism (#deathcult). This #mainstreaming path leads to division within movements, creating competition for recognition rather than fostering collaboration and addressing structural inequalities

Let’s share the activism fire place, rather than fight over it, leaving only a cold smoky damp mess. #KISS

People are often vilify and spend too much focusing on attacking people in progressive projects:

Fear of change: Radical ideas threaten the status quo, leading to backlash.
Internal divisions: Disagreements within movements about strategy, purity, or priorities cause infighting.
Co-optation and sabotage: External forces, including media and political interests, intentionally discredit or sow discord in progressive groups.
Fragile egos and clashing ideals: Differing views on identity, politics, and tactics spark personal conflicts, leading to attacks.

These reflect broader social divisions and insecurities. Both of these paths are kinda progressive, but one is based on fear and the need for control, and the other on openness and building of trust paths.

#KISS

Composting mess (truth)

NOTE: This might seam a little confused because it is, I am arguing for “balance” and “use” in truths, and arguing against dogmatic, blinded, worshipping of the #deathcult as a moral argument. None of this shit is rational, it’s a mess I am pointing to, and a shovel and composting is needed to build truth.

In the postmodern mess we inhabit, “truth” that becomes deliberately obscured by those who view it as subjective, fragmented, and relative. This is more than denying an objective reality; it’s an embrace of #nihilism, where the concept of truth dissolves into endless, conflicting, interpretation. Combined with #Neoliberalism, that itself blurs the lines between fact and fiction while it commodifies knowledge, we find ourselves in a world where power and influence, rather than evidence, define what passes for truth.

This distortion is evident in how conflicting “truths” clash with each other. Instead of an honest pursuit of any path of understanding, debates become competitions of influence, narratives backed by the most powerful voices are treated as “truth.” For example, corporate media giants and political power politics shape public discourse by determining which facts matter and which are dismissed or simply ignored. Consider #climatechange, where scientific consensus is downplayed or outright ignored by industries whose profits depend on denial. The truth, in this case, becomes buried under the weight of vested interests.

Sophism, using clever but misleading arguments, has replaced honest discussion. Truth is no longer about what is empirically verifiable, but about what can be sold as convincing in a highly fragmented, pluralistic, and increasingly polarised space. This problem of competing narratives, shaped by power, leads to a collective confusion where “truth” is more mess than ground to build on.

Ultimately, this is not a sustainable path for society. A world where truth is shaped by power rather than facts is a path of instability and distrust. To change this path we need to take simpler, grounded approaches, what you might call #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) – where clear thinking and evidence-based understanding are our guides.

It’s time to unearth the truth, stripped of #neoliberal distortions and #postmodern doubt. We need to reject the noise and focus on reality, on (social) truths that exist in communities outside #mainstreaming power games and manipulative sophistry.

When this pushing of truth-telling is penalized, it’s a clear sign we’re navigating a post-modern, obfuscating mess. Instead of addressing issues openly, society hides and punishes those who expose inconvenient views, letting problems rot and fester. It’s a reminder that transparency is essential for creating a healthier culture. When truth is composted rather than suppressed, it breaks down unhealthy systems and makes way for healthy growth and accountability.

A practical path to balance the current “governance” mess in #FOSS

To build consensus processes in #FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), we need to apply principles from radical activism, embracing messy democracy and affinity group organization:

Messy Democracy: Encourage open discussions, differing perspectives. Keep open space for debates, ensuring that small, actionable steps are agreed upon, even if the path is not linear.
Affinity Groups: Small, self-organized teams focus on tasks and goals. These groups can collaborate but retain autonomy, allowing for flexibility and diverse approaches to problem-solving.
Focus: Start with a simple, shared purpose. Use tools like #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) to keep away from overcomplicating processes. Consensus should be loose but structured—avoid rigid hierarchies.

For example, in FOSS, we could implement a process where a proposal only moves forward if it gains a basic level of support (likes or votes), and participants have the ability to block with a justification, allowing for transparent pushback and refinement.

By fostering open processes (as in #4opens), trust is built, and solutions remain accessible and adaptable, promoting collective decision-making while keeping things practical.

To tackle the paralysis and distrust embedded in open communities after 40 years of neoliberal (#deathcult) worship, I propose a simple consensus-building process on SocialHub using the tools already available.

Proposal:

Add a prominent, reciprocal link between SocialHub and the #SWF.
Use a #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) process to ensure grassroots decisions reflect community values and paths.

Process:

Start a discussion on SocialHub based on a simple proposal.
Secure 10 likes for consensus; a block requires 5 likes on an explanation.
Review the decision in 3 months.

This approach emphasizes participation, native tools, and trust. It balances collective decision-making while avoiding bureaucratic paths that have failed in the past, such as #Indymedia’s formalized processes. By focusing on ruff, simple consensus, we can help compost the polarizing mess, rebuild trust, and empower the community to act effectively.

Let’s avoid repeating history and start a practical path to herding cats and fostering a decentralized, balanced approach! What do you think? Any ideas on how to improve the process?

#KISS is a key, democracy

With “liberal” democracy faltering, it’s essential to trust that ordinary people, when empowered, can make fewer harmful decisions than authoritarian or dogmatic social-political paths. The idea behind #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is to create straightforward, accessible paths like the #OMN and #OGB that allow for minimal interference, ensuring that the grassroots can operate effectively. While people may create some messes, they are likely to produce less harm than the top-down control structures that dominate in authoritarian and corporate-driven paths. The key lies in trusting collective decision-making.

A core tension between alternative cultures and the #mainstreaming: the mainstream demands that alternative cultures conform in order to be effective, while the alt paths intentionally resist this push, aiming to remain distinct and radical. This clash creates a deeper issue—mainstreaming voices tend to block and reject the need for a bridge between these two spaces. The failure to recognize the importance of building such bridges leads to division and stagnation, perpetuating the current social and political mess.

The root problem lies in “common sense” blocking and an intolerance toward the very idea of bridging these divergent paths, hindering progress from both sides.

All the paths on this website are based on this.

A write-up worth reading to glimpse the mess we need to compost https://archive.is/60N0T and yes this is messy, it would help a lot to have grassroots tools #OMN #OGB etc to keep our hands clean, being dirty is an untrustworthy look in the era of #stupidindividualism – and yes this is a contradiction, more mess to compost.

The #deathcult we worship: Totalitarian capitalism consumes everything

In the modern world, #neoliberalism penetrates every aspect of our lives. It commodifies not only goods and services but human relations, creativity, and increasingly the natural world. This historical #deathcult is designed to obscure its roots and operations, keeping people powerless and confused, while ensuring the prosperity of a greedy and #nastyfew. By stripping away regulations and protections, neoliberalism pushes into a rentier society that thrives on exploiting paths essential for survival.

After 40 years of this mess, people think this is natural, a natural law, but in reality it is an ideology engineered to strip away all barriers to capital. This system reconfigures societies, deindustrializing, privatizing, and commoditizing vital services while dismantling unions, which are key obstacles to capital’s control. As a result, wealth is funnelled upwards, creating vast inequality and social decay.

For many, life feels empty, alienated, and devoid of meaning. Stripped of communities of trust, disconnected from nature, and instrumentalized relationships, turning humanists into consumers. The result is widespread disenchantment and mental health crises as people struggle to find purpose beyond our worship of this #deathcult of cold logic, profit.

On this #mainstreaming path, nature itself is commodified, with the “natural capital” agenda aiming to put a price on ecosystems, further pushing exploitation rather than preservation. This soulless, anti-humanistic calculation drains the “spiritual” value from the world, creating an environment where everything, including human beings, are treated as a resource to be mined, used and exploited until they collapse.

The allure of this system is its false promise of simplicity, we can point to external forces, like an enemy or a far-off political struggle, and believe the problem is out of our hands. This form of disengagement is a hallmark of neoliberal control, preventing the collective action required to reclaim #KISS power and meaning in our lives.

The antidote is not only in dismantling neoliberalism but in rediscovering our sense of agency, rebuilding social bonds, and fostering a grassroots vision of community and solidarity. This is where resistance begins, by recognizing that another world is possible and actively working to reclaim the future from those who profit from the present decay.

In doing so, we must compost the rot in the current path and plant seeds of hope and collective action, like the #OMN, #OGB and #indymediaback to build paths that ensuring that the systems of tomorrow are built with people and planet in mind, not only profit.

You can see a #mainstreaming view of this https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-secret-history-of-neoliberalism

Communities Adopt #KISS Tools, Not Technologies

Communities don’t adopt digital technologies—they adopt #KISS tools. People don’t think about TCP/IP or HTTP when browsing the web, or SMTP when sending emails. Similarly, they don’t think about #ActivityPub when using the #Fediverse. They interact with intuitive tools that simplify these layers.

One of the toughest challenges in grassroots #DIY tech is creating #FOSS tools that align with #4opens standards while offering good #UX. This isn’t just a technical issue; it’s a deeply social and political one.

The ongoing difficulty in having this conversation within #openweb and #FOSS spaces is part of the wider mess we’re in. We need to work collectively to compost this mess, what we can call the #geekproblem.

SocialHub has often tried to bridge this conversation, but there have been failures along the way. How can we do better moving forward?