The mainstream economic system, which underpins the current global mess, is facing a deep and escalating crisis. This isn’t just about isolated single issues, it’s rooted in fundamental contradictions within the path we are currently on. Understanding these dynamics helps us see why our lives are shaped by austerity, inequality and endless war, leading to the current ecological break down.
The core of the crisis is economics, capitalism is grappling with a crisis of profitability and overproduction, the extract of maximum profit has built-in limits. As industries mature, squeezing out new profits becomes harder, stagnation sets in, driving drastic measures. In overproduction, capitalism produces far more than can be profitably sold, not because people don’t need these goods, but because they can’t afford them. These contradictions are now global, leaving nowhere for capital to expand without significant upheaval. To address this, the burden is systematically offloaded onto the working class, that’s us. The austerity path they talk about and impose is making us pay for their crisis.
One way the system tries to “fix” its profitability problem is through austerity. Cutting wages, both direct wages (our pay) and indirect wages (social spending on healthcare, education, infrastructure) are slashed to divert funds into profits. This erodes social support, when the infrastructure and public goods are gutted under the guise of “fiscal responsibility.” For the capitalist class, the greedy few, every penny spent on social upkeep is a penny not turned into profit. By shifting these costs onto the working class, they temporarily prop up their system while deepening the inequality we live in.
War, restoring profit through violence, when austerity isn’t enough, capitalism turns to war. Armed conflicts serve as a means to seize resources. Wars open up new sources of raw materials and markets, essential for restarting stagnating economies, create demand when military spending boosts industry and generates profits in the short term, regardless of human cost. War isn’t about peace or democracy—it’s about economic expansion at the expense of others. The casualties are collateral damage to the pursuit of profits.
Growth doesn’t serve us, the obsession with “growth” hides that under the current mess, capitalism, growth benefits the few, not the many. While corporations grow profits, ordinary people see stagnant wages, rising costs, and dwindling quality of life. Degrowth are often dysfunctional myths, anti-growth rhetoric can target the working class, accusing them of overconsumption. In reality, the poorest consume far less than they need, while the wealthy hoard resources, this liberal thinking sometimes is not helping. What we need isn’t anti-growth, but a reorientation of “growth”, investing in the means of subsistence for all, improving quality of life, and addressing urgent global needs by pushing hard to mediate the environmental catastrophe to focus on sustainably.
Dividing us to conquer us, to maintain control, the system relies on division, racism and nationalism. These ideologies pit workers against each other, distracting from the cause of shared struggles. Exploiting despair, with decades of deindustrialization and neglect levering entire communities in despair, creating fertile ground for reactionary politics that feed on this. By keeping us fragmented and focused on fighting among ourselves, the current #mainstreaming path ensures we don’t unite to challenge this mess.
What we need is more solidarity and system change that highlights how the contradictions are unsustainable. While the current path enriches a tiny few, it leaves billions struggling for survival and our ecology pushed out of a liveable balance, this is while producing enough resources to meet everyone’s needs. The solution isn’t austerity or war—it’s collective action to build paths that prioritize humanity over profit #KISS
To achieve this, we need to mediate the (stupid)individualistic narratives that blame “us” for systemic failures and instead embrace solidarity, demanding change and challenge. We need to focus on blaming “them”, yes, it’s daunting, and a little dangerous, but history has shown that when people organize, they can dismantle even the most entrenched systems. Let’s make that history again, please.
A day’s event to explore the art of resistance, both a honed craft and a creative output. This event is made up of two parts. We will begin with an afternoon panel discussion (noon–1 pm) exploring the history and enduring relevance of ‘protest songs.’ In the evening (4–5 pm), we will be treated to an excerpt of an award-winning performance centring on the work and legacy of Nina Simone. While we encourage you to attend both the panel discussion and the performance, you are welcome to join either part individually. Find out more at www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/events/songs-of-resistance-panel-discussion-and-performance
As normal in #Oxford, this is a VERY #mainstreaming talk about protest music and songs. Kinda interesting, but completely missing the grassroots and the creative mess that comes with “native” protest music and songs.
They don’t talk about the grassroots: Greenham, “you can’t kill the spirit”, would held the police at bay as long as the women would sing. At rainbows gathering, word of mouth intentional gatherings that have been happening in hundreds of countries for the last 50 years. When the police arrive to evict the thousands of hippies squatting on the land they surround them to hold hands and singing at them, this is often affective at confusing, stopping and mediating the police violence.
The tactical and the strategic, they only talk about the strategic.
They do talk about the shaping of funding of art and how it is a force for #blocking
The #Indymedia network was a groundbreaking independent, grassroots journalism project, born from the #DIY ethos and the global alt-globalization movements of the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was a network where anyone anywhere could publish stories, videos, and photos, challenging #mainstreaming narratives. However, it eventually fragmented and became less relevant, then died as a functional network. Let’s look at why this happened:
The internal factors, where conflict among the crew and contributors, highlights the #encryptionists and #processgeeks, with disputes over priorities (e.g., security and processes) causing friction. Some pushed for hard encryption that complicated usability, while others emphasized bureaucratic formal consensus governance, stifling decision-making. Consensus breakdown, the decentralized decision-making path, made it hard to resolve disagreements, especially as the network grew and diversified in ideology with the influx of more #mainstreaming people. Dogmatism and fragmentation, groups became rigid in their views, leading to infighting and a lack of unity. The inability to balance diverse perspectives led to splintering. Burnout and loss of purpose, as activists struggled to maintain momentum as the network ossified.
External pressures with the rise of commercial platforms. The explosion of the #dotcons, corporate platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube drew users away from the failing Indymedia project. These platforms offered easier interfaces and massive audiences, undermining the narrowing, dogmatic grassroots appeal. Challenges with moderation, was a growing issue, dealing with fake news, spam, and inflammatory content became overwhelming. The “open publishing” model, once a strength, became a liability as it required extensive moderation. State Pushback with governments targeting Indymedia for its critical reporting, using surveillance, raids, and legal pressures to disrupt operations. This systematic marginalization contributed to its decline
Lessons for new #openweb projects. Balance simplicity and security, by avoiding overcomplicating platforms with technical measures that alienate non-technical people and communities. Strengthen trust-based governance, by adopting trust-driven models like those proposed by the Open Media Network (#OMN) to grow inclusive, mess and functional decision-making. Integrate feedback loops, to insure constant input from diverse people to adapt to evolving needs and combat creeping dogmatism. Compete on accessibility, by design platforms that are intuitive and engaging to counter the allure of #dotcons social media.
Indymedia’s legacy offers critical insights into building resilient, people-centric, and trust-based media networks that can withstand internal and external challenges. We need these historical paths to reboot the #openweb with the #Fediverse.
Funders, #NGOs, and the #mainstreaming crew are trapped in fixed truths, while real change comes from dynamic thinking. That’s why they keep failing us. So, how do we break this cycle and move forward? For meaningful #openweb funding, we need projects that are native and align with critical social needs for the evolution of the internet, balancing openness/trust based tech with funding for outreach and feedback mechanisms.
Shifting Funding From “Fear/Control” to “Open/Trust” The Problem, current funding paths for internet projects focus on security, control, and compliance, perpetuating systems of centralized authority. This approach stifles trust-based collaboration, which are essential for the #openweb path. Action: help to advocate for dedicated funding streams for projects explicitly focused on decentralization, trust-building, and open governance structures like the Open Media Network (#OMN) and #OGB. Incorporate trust-based metrics into funding criteria, rewarding projects that demonstrate sustainable, human-centered governance.
Bridging hard tech and soft use. The Problem: Hard tech (protocols, platforms) develop in isolation from people, leading to tools that fail to meet real-world social needs. Action: Allocate funds for programs to bridge developers and user communities, ensuring reciprocal feedback between tech builders and real life communities. Establish mechanisms to incorporate insights from “soft use” (how people interact with tools) into the iterative development of “hard tech.” Support user-led design initiatives for communities to directly shape the platforms they use.
Governance: The Problem: Existing tech networks prioritize technical over social design, exacerbating the #geekproblem of over-complexity and alienating the change we need. Action: Fund projects like the OMN that flip this dynamic, prioritizing human networks as the foundation for technical systems. This creates tools that reflect and support the needs of grassroots communities. Promote protocols like #ActivityPub to enhance interoperability and people/community autonomy across networks.
The OMN is a lightweight framework with five core functionalities aimed at building a trust-based semantic web: * Publish: Share content as objects. * Subscribe: Follow streams of interest (people, organizations, topics). * Moderate: Manage trust by endorsing or rejecting content flows * Rollback: Remove historical flows content from the point trust is broken. * Edit Metadata: Improve the discoverability and context of content. These tools enable people to control their digital spaces and data flows while horizontally growing collaboration and accountability
This native #openweb path requires systemic support with funding to promote tools and frameworks that build human agency and trust. By doing this, we create resilient and equitable paths in tech, moving away from the limitations of the #open and #closed web mess we keep repeating
The funding crisis for the #openweb isn’t just about money—it’s about values. Right now, too much funding goes into coding copies of #dotcons, replicating the same social centralized, mess under a different name. This doesn’t fix anything—it just locks us into the same broken patterns.
We need to push for native#openweb approaches—ones rooted in decentralisation, trust, and open process. History is full of projects that did this right—#indymediaback being just one example. But the real challenge isn’t just building the tech; it’s getting people to value this diversity.
Funding bodies like #NGI, #nlnet, and #ngizero could play a key role if they prioritize projects that challenge, rather than copy, the status quo. But beyond grants, we need a cultural shift—one that recognises the importance of public digital infrastructure and collective ownership over our tools.
So what can we do?
Demand funding for actual#openweb projects, not more social silos.
Build bridges between funders and radical grassroots tech.
Create our own support networks outside traditional funding models.
Shift the conversation—value the diversity, not just the tech.
If we don’t push, the funding will keep flowing into the wrong places, and we’ll be stuck recycling the same failures. Let’s compost the mess and grow something real.
It’s easy to see now that the world is a mess, and we have made this mess, we have collectively ripped apart our common humanist path. On part of this I talk about is that we have spent 20 years squandering the #openweb tools of liberation and connection. In our hyper-connected era, attention has become the currency of capitalism The #dotcons tools we were pushed in to believing were empowering—apps, platforms, systems—were always instruments of control. They’re not just tools for us, they’re manipulative mechanisms engineered to shape focus and erode our autonomy, they are tools of social control.
Your attention, once an inherent to you, is now a resource being siphoned without your consent or in most people’s understanding any attention. In the #mainstreaming path, it’s as if you’re holding an account you never opened, and every time you try to tap into your own focus, you find it already spent. The result? A hollowed-out version of yourself: overwhelmed, perpetually distracted, unknowingly complicit in your own digital and social exploitation. Welcome to the ‘obsession economy,’ where the most valuable product is you.
This isn’t some unintended consequence; it’s by design. Every endless scroll, every notification, every “you might like” pop-up is a calculated move designed to map your behaviour, desires, and unconscious tendencies. The current #mainstreaming path is clear: make you a predictable machine that clicks, buys, and reacts—repeatedly. And these #dotcons systems have perfected their craft of control.
The science is well known: our dopamine pathways are hijacked and held hostage. Each surrender refines the technique, locking us into feedback loops that make each swipe feel both essential and unsatisfying. The distraction is by design; the purpose is to keep you from noticing who is profiting from this economy of fractured attention.
We still cling to the illusion of control, this is a core definition of the #geekproblem, believing ourselves to be savvy navigators of our own choices. But put your phone down for a day, and you’ll feel the “phantom itch” of notifications that never came. Try to watch a show without scrolling through social media, and you’ll feel the discomfort of a single, unshared thought. The system is built to make us fear boredom and flee from stillness because those rare moments are where self-awareness could break through. And self-awareness? That’s bad for our worship of this #deathcult.
So, how do we start to reclaim what has been taken? You don’t need to start big, but you do need to start relentless. Think of it as a focus detox. Eliminate all non-essential notifications. Reclaim your mornings—don’t let them be dictated by a screen. Cultivate moments of true presence, where attention isn’t an asset being exploited but a gift to be savoured. Then bring this fresh focus to create a community around the change and challenge that we so obviously need.
Lift your heads from worshipping this deathcult. In a world obsessed with monetizing every moment of focus, remember: your attention is yours to guard. Without it, the real ‘you’ is another asset on someone else’s balance sheet. This ends very badly #climatechaos is a small part of the mess we have made and are making.
Twitter was the shining light of the priests of the #deathcult, and there liberal apologists, it was a “safe space” for our liberals to chatter about #mainstreaming and avoid the change and challenge we need to survive in the era of #climatechaos and the breakdown, our 40 years of this worship has brought us. This has now changed to a much more direct hard right shift.
This has changed with Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (now X) which has shifted the platform’s political alignment and governance from this #deathcult worship to a more fascist path. It is easy to see that Musk’s ownership and decision-making have pushed this move toward authoritarian far-right ideologies.
Content moderation and policy changes, under #Musk, #X has made policy shifts on content moderation. These changes have allowed the platform to become a space where misinformation and extremist rhetoric proliferates. This shift to reduce oversight opens a space for echo chambers for more polarized and wider extreme views.
Reinstating controversial hard right figures, this decision to reinstate previously banned accounts, including high-profile far-right figures and conspiracy theorists, has fuelled the shaping of the platform to support overt political agendas. This has bolstered the support for right wing politics, including Donald Trump, who was permanently banned from Twitter before Musk’s takeover due to incitement of the January 6 Capitol riot.
Public statements and affiliations, Musk’s public engagements and interactions have shifted to a hard right path. His tweets and public endorsements aligned with viewpoints and individuals who support right-wing and populist ideologies. This has led to that growing environment which subtly or overtly supports authoritarian and nationalist movements, the growth of fascism.
Fascism implies systematic oppression and state-level control, which is the outcome of his purchase of this one’s liberal social network. What can deferentially be said is that this is a partisan platform that is supportive of right-wing populism. And as can be seen with the election of Trump, it is being used to facilitating the growth of fascism in the USA and the wider world.
If you currently can’t see beyond #mainstreaming then jump anywhere from the #dotcons, a little step is better than non, if you are a bit radical then please think where you are stepping to.
As the world flees from X (formerly #Twitter) to look for viable social media alternatives, platforms like #BlueSky and #Threads come into view pushed by #mainstreaming agendas. But please lift the lid to see that while these platforms appear promising, scrutiny reveals issues with ownership, funding, and community values that show they are on the same #dotcons path that people are fleeing. This compromises long-term independence and user-centricity. In contrast, the #fedivers exemplifies the #4opens principles, a truer, more sustainable #openweb alternative for social networking, it’s here and it works.
BlueSky’s #VC funded roots, there is a difference between what people say and what they do, this one presented itself as a beacon for decentralized social networking, advocating user control and a light-touch moderation. The project’s founding under Jack Dorsey promised a platform engineered to transcend limitations in social media governance. However, its venture-funded path tells a more conventional story. With investments from entities like Blockchain Capital LLC, co-founded by crypto magnate Brock Pierce, the concerns about centralization are unavoidable. Historically, VC backing brings pressured for profitability and pushes investor interests, at odds with maintaining decentralized, user-first ideals the project keeps talking about. This is a mess soon down the road, it’s a dead-end for people to jump to. For a tech view of this and the VC and culture side. A good tech/social write-up https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/
Threads is native to the #dotcons and corporate agenda’s. Threads, developed by #Meta (#Facebook), promises much, but it is firmly on the Meta’s path, rooted in data monetization, algorithmic control driving ad revenue. While Threads appears more user-friendly, its development trajectory inevitably follows Meta’s historical focus: ad-heavy strategies and extensive moderation policies that prioritize corporate interests over user freedom they talk about now. And a long writeup How decentralized is Bluesky really? A post on the #dotcons out reach to the #openweb mess. Why is Meta adding fediverse interoperability to Threads? https://fediversereport.com/why-is-meta-adding-fediverse-interoperability-to-threads/ What is the stress? What is the game?
The #Fediverse and #Mastodon are the #openweb’s champions, built for people, not profit. This path is in stark contrast, firmly, on the path of the openweb. From its decentralized structure to its #4opens open-source foundation. Managed by non-profit people and communerties, funded through voluntary donations and support from like-minded organisations, not venture capital or private investment. This independence ensures that people networking is never beholden to shareholders and subjected to the profit motives that drive centralized platforms. This embodies the principle that social media should amplify what people value, not what maximizes revenue.
Choosing platforms and paths that align with #openweb values is more than just a preference; it’s a stand for a future where digital spaces are driven by #4opens transparency, user empowerment, and shared stewardship. #BlueSky’s reliance on venture funding and Threads’ adherence to Meta’s corporate motives demonstrate the limitations of profit-oriented social media. We need a path where we prioritize community, collective action and autonomy over corporate growth.
In the pursuit of genuine alternatives, platforms like the Fediverse do more than fill the void left by #X; they embody the promise of a decentralized, people first internet—the very essence of the #openweb.
#Openweb: This refers to the original, decentralized ethos of the internet, built on openness, freedom, and people’s autonomy. Linking enhances knowledge sharing, amplifies lesser-known voices, and enables people to explore varied content freely.
#Closedweb: This describes platforms dominated by algorithms, corporate interests, and paywalls. On dotcons, linking is often spam and is penalized or buried, precisely because it can disrupt the curated control these platforms wield over what people see.
Don’t feed the trolls, keeps coming to mind, when looking at the #X influx, this is like waves washing on the shore, be the shore not the waves.
The current #mainstreaming paths are dependent on capitalist structures, when looking at this critically, it reveals itself as a #deathcult, with the embodiment of unrestrained growth and consumption that runs counter to meaningful solution to #climatechange. While billionaires and corporatens entertain the illusion of future-proofing their wealth and safety, the reality is more perilous. Their greed fed opulence and influence, but it can’t shield them indefinitely from a collapsing ecosystem that sustains all life, including their own.
Inherent to this contradiction in capitalism itself: it requires perpetual growth to survive. This expansion is incompatible with the measures needed to mediate or stop #climatechaos. But if growth halts, so does the economic machinery that upholds the current power structures, creating a destabilizing domino effect. While you might ask why those in power do not pivot to environmental preservation, it’s the same mess, the answer is the system’s relentless demand for expansion. Even if an individual capitalist – or a consortium – decides to scale back for the sake of long-term planetary health, the market will simply replace them with competitors who are more willing to pursue relentless profit, growth, and resource consumption.
The current path has a self-destructive logic, this paradox is why even billionaires who are conscious of the dire climate situation resort to insufficient and infective measures. They might fund green technologies and push for marginally lower carbon emissions, but the actions remain constrained by the underlying logic: protecting the continuity of capital. This capital-only world-view can’t embrace the radical systemic change we actually need to avert ecological collapse.
Let’s look at this, billionaires and the bunker illusion, the ultra-wealthy/greedy #fuckwits, plan to retreat to their fortified bunkers and private, insulated zones once climate-induced social and environmental chaos grows un medateable. While contingency plans do exist – high-tech shelters, land acquisitions in regions predicted to be less affected by climate change -these are temporary solutions. A world unravelling from the fabric, ecosystems will not sustain even the most fortified enclaves indefinitely. Even if technology advances to the point of enabling space colonization, the timelines required for such ventures far exceed the immediacy of the crisis we keep #blindly pushing.
This is an easy to understand systematic issue, and it should be obverse we need a collective rater tan the mask of individual solution. Capital, the motivation and power for action, is not about individual capitalists but capital as an entity, the dogmatic socio-economic phenomenon that exerts control over its arbiters. Capital has built in infinite growth, prioritizing profit over sustainability and long-term human survival. An individual or collective attempt to defy this logic and implement meaningful, planet-preserving strategies would be outpaced and outcompeted by others who align more closely with capital’s pushing of this #stupidindividualism, ruthless, greed is good.
This #KISS understanding underscores the distinction between idealist and materialist interpretations of the crisis. Idealists believe that with enough awareness and willpower, the system can change from within. Materialists, recognize that capital is a structure that acts beyond the control of individual or organization. It functions like biological evolution: it values reproduction and expansion above survival, when as we see now those traits are in the end destructive.
There is some room for corrective action within the existing system, but it’s inadequate. Policies to mitigate environmental impact, even when enacted, are slow and piecemeal. The issue isn’t that #mainstreaming decision-makers don’t understand the problem; rather, they don’t grasp the depth of systemic overhaul required to address it. The principles they consider immutable -the rules of modern economics and finance. The “common sense” is the problem.
The #deathcult of mainstreaming is propelling growth and consumption despite ecological warnings, it is locked in a dance with CAPITALS logic. While billionaires may fund clean energy startups and talk about sustainable practices, their wealth and the power structures uphold and are bound up in the unsustainable status quo. Change and challenge requires uprooting fundamental beliefs about how economies MUST operate, not just superficial adaptations. Until this realization is shared and spread, capital will continue on its path, indifferent to the ruins it leaves.
Best not to be a prat about this, thanks.
Why capitalism and climate change solutions are fundamentally incompatible. The urgent need to address climate change collides with an uncomfortable reality, as we outline capitalism’s foundational mechanics to make meaningful climate action impossible. This isn’t a case of individual negligence but a systemic flaw. As we say, capitalism, by design, prioritizes profit and growth, at the expense of long-term, collective concerns and environmental preservation.
Capitalism favours the #nastyfew who maximize profits in the shortest timeframe. It’s a path where the most ruthless and nasty competitor prevails, setting the standard that others must follow or face obsolescence. This constant pressure means that if an individual capitalist or company recognizes the existential threat of #climatechaos, they cannot afford to act on it meaningfully without losing their competitive edge. For example, a corporation that decides to limit emissions at the cost of profitability will quickly be outcompeted by one that does not.
The logic of capitalism ensures that any significant deviation from maximizing short-term profit results in failure within the market. Thus, while some companies engage in “green” initiatives to pay lip service to sustainability, these efforts are superficial. They exist to placate public concern and leverage marketing advantages, rather than drive the needed change. The myths are that capitalism, through innovation and competition, will solve climate change. However, capitalist solutions boil down to maintaining leverage and coercing others into action. For example, the race for green technologies like electric cars and renewable energy can be more about dominating a new market sector than reducing environmental harm. Elon Musk’s ventures into space and sustainable technology, was hailed as forward-thinking, illustrate this principle. Space colonization and technological fixes reflect an expansionist mindset, a search for new “territories” to exploit as resources on Earth dwindle.
Capitalism’s path needs to push costs onto external parties, the public and the environment. The system relies on government-funded infrastructure and socialized costs, as seen with subsidies for oil companies, highway construction for the automotive industry, or public bailouts for corporations in crisis. When it comes to addressing #climatechange, this reliance on externalized costs becomes a liability. The climate crisis is a global “cost” that capitalism, left unchecked, will not address willingly. It requires collective action that contradicts capitalism’s individualistic and profit-driven paths. This is why capitalist markets require regulation by state or more importantly collective paths to function at all or sustainably, and even then, such measures face fierce resistance.
We now live in the automation age, the question is how the #nastyfew plans to survive. Whether billionaires believe they can weather the storm of #climatecollapse is complex. Many of them, seeing the unsustainability of infinite growth, look for exit strategies. This explains the investments in space travel, underground bunkers, and gated communities. The implication is stark: they believe their wealth will shield them from the mass suffering climatechange will bring. Automation adds another layer to this story. With machines replacing human labour, the exploiters envision a future where their economic power persists without the masses of real people, that’s you and me. This very dystopian reality shows the detachment of capital from human and ecological concerns.
We currently face a failure of collective action to mediate, one of capitalism’s flaws ts inability to coordinate collective action without state intervention. While some countries have managed to decouple emissions from #GDP growth through, exportin emissions, advancements in service sectors and digital economies, this decoupling remains insufficient to meet the global targets needed for net-zero. The system’s piecemeal and reactive, cannot match the scale of planning required for real climate action. Without a fundamental restructuring that prioritizes the collective good over private profit, meaningful progress remains an illusion.
We need to try and make the inrushing #mainstreaming agenda more functional in the #openweb reboot, how do we do this? One way is to strengthen community governance with native decentralized decision-making frameworks that involve more voices from the grassroots, like the #OGB project. This is self empowering, as tools based on federated models (like those used in the #Fediverse) empower people to participation in decision-making processes rather than normal top-down dictates.
But this is going to be very hard without developing a supportive ecosystem for builders with funding beyond the #fashernistas. To make this happen we need to shift funding mechanisms toward projects that align with the values of the #4opens (open data, open standards, open source, and open process). This means supporting those who build with the public good in mind, not pointless flashy, trendy ideas, and tech fashions. Empower developers with a community focus by highlighting projects that prioritize #UX and community needs rather than only tech novelty. Encourage #FOSS governance practices that are transparent and inclusive. Foster this inclusivity by bridging the current silos with cross-community dialogues, to facilitates discussions that bring together different paths in alt-tech, civic tech, and grassroots movements for cross-pollinate ideas and useful paths to take.
Ensure that platforms and networks being built do not simply cater to niche tech communities but are accessible and usable by the wider public, thus focus on practical relevance. This helps to empower people to understand the importance of decentralized tech and how it benefits them directly. We need to do this to break down the barriers posed by the #geekproblem and demystifies participation in the #openweb paths. A strong part of this is organizing hands-on workshops that engage people in contributing to shaping the projects.
We can’t do this without accept that failures are part of the process. Instead of discarding what doesn’t work, use these experiences as compost – breaking down what failed and learning from it to build stronger, more functional initiatives. This plays a role in shifting cultural narratives to challenge and change the storeys around the #openweb and wider #openculture to include cooperative problem-solving and mutual respect. Shifting the focus from tech utopianism to realistic, impactful change.
This process is about building tech paths that are adaptable and capable of evolving with peoples needs and global conditions, including #climatechaos and hard right socio-political shifts that are accelerating. A part of this is support for meany small tech paths that link and flow information and communities.
In this rebooting of the #openweb it becomes a part of a shifting #mainstreaming to better tolerate and promote messy participatory governance, redirect funding to genuine, community-oriented projects, and championing inclusive, sustainable paths. The composting analogy is usefull as it emphasizes learning from past mistakes and continuously building resilient, inclusive solutions #KISS
A test, that we need to actively push is to look at people and projects to see if they link, a basic part is the act of linking, which goes far beyond a simple convenience; it forms the backbone of an interconnected, accessible, and transparent internet. Yet, many people overlook its importance or misunderstand its role, especially when transitioning from #dotcons (corporate-controlled platforms) to #openweb environments. To sustain the promise of an open, people-driven internet, we need to recognize and actively engage with the practice of sharing non-mainstream links #KISS
But yes we do need to mediate the current mess, don’t feed the trolls, keeps coming to mind, when looking at the liberal #mainstreaming #X influx, this is like waves washing on the shore, be the shore not the wave.
The political power that Silicon Valley and Big Tech pushed over this election is a real #geekproblem threat, with the #dotcons leveraging technological and financial influence to shape society in ways that benefit the nasty few and undermine basic democratic paths we need to be fallowing to mediate #climatechaos
One path to balance this #mainstreaming mess making is the need for active and healthy critiques of the lack of institutional support for #openweb projects and paths that focus on humanistic alternatives to these Big Tech platforms. The problem we need to challange is that organizations theoretically supportive of democratic values, such as #NLNet and #NGI, sideline core “native” paths in tech as “too radical”, instead favouring safe narrow #geekproblem and #NGO tech paths which we know do not work. This is frustrating, and with the increasing authoritarianism spreading worldwide, it’s a part of the #deathcult we all worship.
The “geekproblem” in tech is about challenges arising from the culture and mindset within technical communities, particularly around developers and engineers. It is associated with an overemphasis on technical solutions, insularity, and a tendency to prioritize technological efficiency or novelty over broader social and ethical considerations.
Overemphasis on Technical Solutions: People involved in tech prioritize creating or improving technical features while overlooking social impacts or peoples needs. This leads to “solutionism,” where every problem is assumed to have a tech-based answer, neglecting simpler, social, or policy-based solutions.
Insularity and Group Think: The tech world is insular, with tight-knit subcultures that resist input from outside communities and dismiss perspectives that don’t align with technical paths. This leads to narrow solutions and a resistance to the needer wider perspectives, ultimately #blocking the social change and challenge we need.
Focus on Control over Collaboration: Tech communities are often defacto hierarchical, top-down in the paths of design and governance, leading to a “we know best” paths. This often alienates non-technical people and discourages cooperative and participatory input, making it hard to integrate open, community-based governance in to the narrow paths that are imposed.
Ignoring and Dismissing Social Issues: Focused on technical work overlook social issues the tech is supposed to be addressing and solving. By focusing only on engineering, they overlook who has access to the technology, who benefits from it, and what ethical implications it brings, perpetuating the disconnect between technology and the communities it made for.
Resistance to Broadening Perspective: Tech creators actively resist moving beyond their own narrow areas of expertise and interest, they block ideas and initiatives that don’t fit within their immediate understanding, inhibiting growth and the needed experimentation. This resistance limits meaningful progress, community needs, and alternative technologies.
In sum, the #geekproblem stems from a blend of narrow technical focus, resistance to diverse input, and lack of attention to social impact. Addressing it involves building more inclusive, collaborative, and socially aware tech paths that embrace #4opens broader perspectives beyond the purely technical.
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.
Reflecting on the last 40 years, it’s clear that the on rushing path 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 didn’t just allow corporations to thrive; it redefined our social priorities, encouraging a culture of profit overshadowing 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” paths, 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.
