I have an #ActivityPub account on a #fashernistaanarchist server and another on a liberal #mainstreaminginstance. I deliberately boost posts between them, not as an act of personal amplification but as a small, intentional intervention to bypass the “common sense” blocking that happens on both sides.
This isn’t about ME< ME< ME. It’s about building bridges in the messy, imperfect flows of social tech. People often don’t see how tightly they’re locked into ideological bubbles, where the “obvious” truths of their side become invisible walls. By bridging content between these spaces, the goal is to reintroduce doubt, curiosity, and a flicker of understanding that wouldn’t otherwise cross the divide.
It’s a #KISS path to bridge-building. Not perfect, but practical. The tech might be flawed, and people might misinterpret the intent, but that’s part of the struggle. The point is to gently challenge the cycle of people only hearing what reinforces their paths, to remind them that the story is always bigger, more complex, and worth exploring.
If this sounds confusing, or if your first reaction is suspicion or dismissal, maybe that’s the signal to pause. The site linked here, hamishcampbell.com, dives deeper into these ideas. It’s not about personal validation; it’s about understanding the compost we’re standing in and figuring out how to grow something real together.
UPDATE: if you have a “rat thought” and wont to pick this #4opens post up and hit me with it, note none of the posts convene the conduct of either instance, this is not about getting round unfull #blocks it is about getting round the unthought through result of some behaves. So please put that stick down and share the post, thanks.
The path we are on, climate change, mainstream politics, and fear reveals a troubling pattern: in times of crisis, like #climatechaos, mainstream politics instinctively shifts to the right. It’s essential to understand the underlying role of fear in pushing this drift.
Fear is a powerful political motivator. Right-wing ideologies thrive on it, whether the fear stems from economic instability, cultural change, or national security threats. In the current path of accelerating climate breakdown, fears of environmental collapse, mass migration, and resource scarcity intensify are creating fertile ground for reactionary politics to grow.
Yet, an intriguing shift to a counter path is underway: the fading fear of socialism among the western bourgeoisie. For decades, socialism was the boogeyman used to justify capitalism’s worst excesses. But as socialist ideas gain legitimacy, especially among younger generations, that fear diminishes. This shift cracks open space to challenge and thus change the right’s dominance and revive radical real alternatives.
This opening offers a brief flowering of hope. By balancing collective, community-driven projects and advocating for systemic change, we can push back against the politics of fear. Movements like #OMN, #OGB, and #indymediaback are seeds of this potential, growing resilience, equity, and sustainability outside the #mainstreaming mess driving spectacle.
However, hope can be a dwindling resource. Every moment lost to inaction feeds the cycle of despair, reinforcing the right’s grip on public imagination. The urgency of #climatechaos means we can’t afford to waste time or the pointless distractions that #mainstreaming common sense pushes over us.
This struggle is a balance between fear and hope. Fear is the tool of the #deathcult, but hope lives in grassroots action. The future depends on whether we push fear to suffocate change or seize this fleeting opening to build something real — from the compost of what’s been lost all ready.
Best not to one of the prats, who #block this path, thanks.
We’ve had 40 years of head-down worship of the #deathcult, and now very few people dare to lift their heads to look around at the mess we live and die in. It is really hard to communicate to #mainstreaming people inside the #dotcons that today, way too much mainstreaming is simply parasitic. That the balance is out with them feeding, draining the life from grassroots #DIY creativity, to consumes it, and then discards the husk. This is in part why our liberal society and wider ecology are in crisis. We let “them” devour and discarded the very cultures that regenerates our lives.
Punk emerged as a raw, anti-establishment eruption of energy: people building their own venues, pressing their own records, and living outside the system. Within a decade, the mainstream chewed it up, spat out mall-punk aesthetics, and sold rebellion back to kids as a fashion statement. The original #DIY culture that sustained community withered, while corporations wore its preserved skin to sell the same cultural emptiness punk rose to resist.
Or take the light green movement. Grassroots dark green eco-activism in the ’70s and ’80s was fierce and uncompromising, with people physically blocking bulldozers, building tree-sits, and creating autonomous zones. Today, the “green” label is a marketing gimmick, plastered on disposable products and corporate ad campaigns. The radical core of systemic change has been devoured, leaving a husk of performative (stupid)individual actions like buying metal straws.
Even the internet itself — once an open tool of ideas, built by native #DIY culture and hackers who wanted to share knowledge freely — was, after a ten-year fight, enclosed by the #dotcons. They bought the creativity, built walled gardens, and replaced collective digital commons with algorithmic echo chambers. What was once a chaotic, messy, generative space became a polished, ad-riddled shopping mall.
This cycle repeats because people don’t see the consumption happening in real time. They’re taught to see success as visibility, and visibility as validation. But by the time a radical idea becomes visible to the mainstream, it’s usually already being gutted from the inside. The #mainstreaming only lets radical ideas and actions in when they’ve been defanged, made safe, and rendered useful to perpetuate the status quo.
The result is today’s society running on empty, haunted by the hollowed-out shells of the movements that imagined another way of being. And because we’ve been taught to equate progress with endless consumption, of ideas, identities, cultures, few people realize they’re living in a landscape of corpses.
The question is: how do we shovel this mess to change this cycle? How do we protect the roots while letting the flowers bloom? And how do we get people to lift their heads, shake off the #mainstreaming trance, and see the compost we’re standing in, the fertile ground where real alternatives do grow? How do we change and challenge what is mainstreaming?
Note: This is a #fluffy attempt at communicating to the #mainstreaming. In reality, this post is about #activertpub and the #Fediverse. I’ve already written extensively on this, but I don’t think those pieces break through to the #mainstreaming. So, I used other examples to illustrate the issue.
Radical movements are too often their own worst enemies. The push/pull between the desire for real change and the gravitational pull of #mainstreaming feed the #stupidindividualism that keeps people locked into conservative, performative loops. These loops are not accidental, they are the result of movements that to often shift focus to prioritize (invisible) ideological purity, insular “safety” subcultures, and a morbid reverence for past failures over the messy, unpredictable work of building living alternatives.
It’s easier to mimic revolution than to risk anything for it. People cosplay as radicals, reenacting historic struggles, as if performing the gestures of revolt is enough to topple ongoing systems of oppression. The rituals of protest, the left pamphleteering, and the echo chambers of online discourse imposed as safe spaces to play at rebellion without any actual danger of dismantling and rebuilding the world as it is.
The #mainstreaming path is insidious. It draws radical energy into a cycle of visibility and co-option, the movements become symbolic representation not material transformation. Meanwhile, #stupidindividualism fractures collective power, as people mistake dogma for meaningful action. The result? A self-policing culture where standing out, innovating, or questioning sacred paths is treated as betrayal not (rev)evolution.
It’s very basic history that radical breakthroughs happen when people break these loops. An example I keep bringing up is the early #Indymedia, an example of when people embraced uncertainty and acted as if the world could be different, not just talked about it. These moments weren’t perfect, and most collapse under internal contradictions, but they proved that stepping beyond lifestyle/ideological safety nets is possible.
This is where the #OMN come I as a real path, that, by creating decentralized, native #4opens networks for storytelling and organizing, we build infrastructures that resist the gravitational pull of mainstream capture. Instead of reinforcing ideological bubbles, we make space for radical plurality, a compost heap where competing ideas decay and fertilize new growth. The goal isn’t another subculture; it’s a living, breathing movement capable of evolving while still linking and bridging to the wider world.
In activist spaces and grassroots communities, the tension between #fluffy and #spiky approaches is a well-worn dynamic. Fluffy represents a gentler, consensus-driven path, centred on kindness, inclusion, and collective care. Spiky, on the other hand, is sharp-edged, direct, and confrontational, willing to disrupt and break things to push for change. Both paths have their place, but the trouble arises when fluffy turns dogmatic, morphing into a hard passive-aggressive policing that silences needed dissent.
Dogmatic fluffy presents itself as kindness, but when it becomes rigid, it is just as destructive as unchecked aggression. People get shamed for stepping out of line, challenging dominant group norms, and advocating for more assertive tactics. This isn’t only a theoretical issue, it actively fractures movements, creating an echo chamber where only approved, safe opinions are allowed to circulate. Its activism dressed in softness but wielding the same #mainstreaming blunt force as the systems we set out to dismantle.
The danger lies in the #blocking of paths to meaningful discussion. When conversations are shut down in the name of maintaining harmony, we lose the ability to take difficult paths. The #fluffy-spiky debate needs to be dynamic, a living exploration of what tactics are effective in different contexts. Sometimes, gentle community building is the answer. Other times, the situation calls for confrontation and disruption. But when one side forcibly silences the other, we stop evolving.
It’s good to remember #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Complexity is necessary, but so is cutting through the noise. If our movements become bogged down in internal purity tests, we soon lose sight of the actual struggle. With, people stepping away from the #dotcons and looking for alternatives. We need to offer spaces where messy, honest, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations can happen, not sterilized bubbles where dissent is treated as betrayal.
Real movements thrive in the tension between fluffy and spiky. The key is to stay flexible, to let people navigate those paths without turning one into a dead-end. Fluffy doesn’t need to fear spiky, and spiky doesn’t need to dismiss fluffy. They’re both tools, both necessary. And if we can hold space for that complexity, we might just build movements resilient enough to withstand whatever the #deathcult throws our way.
What do you think? Should we lean into the discomfort and keep the debate alive?
UPDATE: it needs to be said that #blinded dogmatic #fluffy people can become nasty #fuckwits without a clue, what do you think we can do with this mess?
One thing to keep in mind is that these people largely think they are good people, doing the best they can in the world as it is. And will become upset and very #spiky defensive when pointing at them on their knees prostrate worshipping. Like they said in the seminar, “I don’t know what to do about this”. I don’t think most of us do.
The Clarendon Lectures 2025 – Designing the Future: Multidisciplinary perspectives on designing better futures
Systems thinking challenges traditional approaches to management research and practice. In this second Clarendon event, Tima Bansal engages in conversation with academics in #Oxford who are integrating research and practice with the ambition to co-create futures rather than simply analysing solutions.
An outsider, polemical look at this event: Most university panels have a #NGO-thinking academic for process box-ticking. This is the representation of the fluffy side of #mainstreaming social change. This lettuce person is at best a #fluffy careerist and at worst a #NGO parasite. If there is any content at all, it’s box-ticking to create the illusion of consent and goodwill.
Then the meat of the business school is the worship of the #deathcult — people climbing the gravestones of hierarchy in the shiny, crumbling mausoleums. Even then, it’s mostly careerist. This one is talking about embedding in more fluffy NGO groups to build their story. It’s all about community and relationships. She lets go of the ego she pushed first, to step back to embed. No idea what the outcome of her work is — it’s all process. She ends with a call for nature and holism, the world her work destroys.
The currency is theory; on this, the business school is completely bankrupt from an academic point of view — not to get into the subject of morals, let alone basic human survival. She says they push their content out into science journalism, as these people are not able to judge the value of abstract academic work.
The next is an accounting bureaucrat, who does mention the green limits. He touches on the real and talks about the language in documents of bureaucratic regulation. He says it’s a mess and doesn’t know what to do. Trusting what companies say is not going to be enough. You need to change the economic relationships, and changing this is very difficult — and it’s currently simply not working.
The summing-up person is excited with an issue? Not sure what — no idea what she is actually saying. She is back to not talking about anything. She touches on statues and embarrassment. Finally, she asks an interesting question: who is the ordinance, us or somebody else? We have no idea who?
She says we need strong institutions, as individual companies are not going to do it — they capture the levers of power and pull them to keep the mess, and money, flowing. She has no answer to this. She does mention moving past “markets” in passing for a moment.
Boundaries come up — the answer is fluff, then more substance, accounting has hard boundaries, but useful change comes from stepping outside this. Systems thinking — no answer.
These people are lost and are training up the next lost generation. It’s interesting to see that they have some understanding of this, but it’s looking like they will do nothing to change it.
Wine and nibbles were OK.
Talked to many of them after the event. A few said they were undercover academic “radicals” infiltrating the business colleges — which was maybe a tiny bit true, or not. The students I talked to were blank and staying in academia.
The “consultants” were interested and animated; they found it a little shockingly invigorating to have a counter-culture conversation.
To sum up, mostly hopeless. I am always surprised the place doesn’t stink of rotting zombies, a metaphor, maybe? They need some real content… they really need some real content, but you get the strong feeling that they are not even going to change until the Thames is flowing up under the nearby railway bridge. Even then, there will be calls for more sandbags while talking more about careers — all they know — but underneath this, they have the fear that these careers will likely not exist.
This is it. What to do?
It’s a bleak cycle: academics pump out theory to feed the chatting classes, who in turn guide the #fashernista, spinning ever more refined justifications for the status quo. The echo chamber reverberates with hollow soundbites while the world burns. What we end up with is a layer of intellectual manure, with no one doing the work to turn it into compost.
With projects like the #OMN social tech could be the spade that digs through this mess, breaking down the dead ideas and aerating the soil for something new to grow. But instead, we use #dotcons tech to pile up more waste. Every app, platform, and algorithm is designed to reinforce the system, not break it. The closed loops of influence, profit, and prestige just churn on.
If we want to prod this beast, one way I am working on is to embrace the disruptive potential of the #openweb. What if we built platforms that exposed the rot? Imagine public academic review systems where research couldn’t hide behind paywalls, or tools that tracked the influence of corporate funding on “objective” scholarship. There are some seeds for this, what if we grow them #4opens
Or more direct action, maybe we just crash the garden party. What if we hijacked their panels, flooded their Q&As with real questions, or set up rogue alt-conferences right outside their events? The goal isn’t destruction for destruction’s sake — it’s breaking the illusion of inevitability.
What do you think? How do we spark that shift in behaviour, that even they, softly, say we need to do.
The last decade has seen a rapid shift toward #mainstreaming, where the boundaries between #open and #closed have been intentionally blurred, is also mirrored in our alt paths. This #geekproblem confusion serves the interests of the #dotcons and the #deathcult, not the people. The language of the #hashtagstory sharpens this divide and give people the tools to see the reality of the paths they’re walking and engaging with.
The #openweb, is built on the principles of the #4opens: open source, open data, open standards, and open processes. It centres human-to-human connections, growing at best community, collaboration, and collective empowerment. By prioritizes social trust, transparency, and grassroots governance. And thrives in messy, organic, and decentralized environments.
The #closedweb is dominated by control. It is pushed by both the #dotcons and their shadow puppets, the #encryptionists, who sell privacy as a product while reinforcing isolation and distrust. Encourages #stupidindividualism and consumerism over community and collective action. Markets itself as progressive but reinforces the same centralized power structures.
Why marking the difference matters, when we blur the lines, we lose sight of the path we need to walk. People unknowingly feed the systems that oppress them, believing they are supporting alternatives. By #KISS labelling projects, platforms, and ideas as either #openweb or #closedweb, we create dialogue to empower people to make informed choices and shift their energy toward real change.
The #4opens acts as the shovel to dig through the #techshit, turning failed projects and false promises into compost for the next wave of more truly open technology. Please start using these #hashtags intentionally. Call things what they are. If a project claims to be open but hides its development, call it #closedweb. If a platform fosters community and embraces messy, social processes, celebrate it as part of the #openweb.
Change is happening. The centre isn’t holding, the choice is left or right. The #openweb is the radical, collective path in this choice.
The influx of #mainstreaming brings many different, often non-native, focuses into our spaces. Most of these will be better handled as external resources. Let’s keep the core simple: #KISS and #4opens. Money is a dangerous subject for #openweb projects. It’s the root of corruption and co-option, so it’s best to keep financial aspects as external applications and simply link to them. Words are wind, look at the ground. We live in a closed world, and we should not add to this mess.
There is no security in CLOSED systems — security comes from OPEN and social processes.
There is no security in individualism — true security lies in community.
There is no security in “trustless” models — real security emerges from social trust.
Over the last 10 years, we’ve been fed meany lies. This is especially clear in tech. Look at #opensource: can you find any lasting value in CLOSED within that? Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen an ongoing battle between OPEN and CLOSED, but the last decade has been dominated by the #dotcons and their shadow puppet, the #encryptionists. Both are CLOSED, both wear the cloth of OPEN, and both recite the right words. But words are wind — look at the ground. #4opens is the reality check.
I’ll be truly optimistic when closed paths of #encryptionist apps cross standards with the #open of #activertypub apps, bridging the human nature and “feeling” that fuels this gap. But right now, there’s a strong, unspoken push not to address these issues.
Nearly everything I do today revolves around #4opens, addressing the unspoken issues head-on. I’ve been doing this full-time for more than 30 years, and I’ve watched hundreds of alt-tech projects wither on the vine, with only a handful of flowering. Reflecting on this, I’ve developed a #KISS universally reliable way of judging which projects might flourish and which will collapse: the #4opens framework. Others might call it open-source development or radical transparency, but it’s all the same core path #nothingnew
To move this forward, we need to address the core problems:
The #geekproblem — a teenage mix of arrogance and ignorance that spreads like wildfire.
The #dotcons — a relentless push of greed over human need.
These are fundamental issues, and it’s good, necessary, to have strong opinions on them. Because not having an opinion? That’s a path straight back to the #deathcult. We don’t need more of that. What we need is compost, patience, and the courage to keep pushing for openness and social solidarity, no matter how messy it gets.
Let’s grow something real.
There’s an unspoken #geekproblem lurking at the heart of the #openweb, and it’s past time we bring it into the light. If we frame #p2p as #human2human, scaling becomes a virtue, an organic process of communities growing, evolving, and finding balance through social trust. But if we view #p2p as #data2data, scaling becomes a purely technical challenge, one that strips the human element away.
The first path embraces the messy beauty of human connections. Scaling isn’t a failure, it’s a reminder that growth needs care, cooperation, and thoughtful design. The second path, the data-centric approach, treats humans as nodes, reducing complex social interactions to packets of information to optimize and control.
Here’s the issue: the latter view is the one pushed by the #dotcons. The systems we’ve grown up with, the platforms we’ve relied on, all reinforce this anti-human perspective. And whether we like it or not, we’ve internalized some of this thinking, even within our #openweb projects. That’s the uncomfortable truth.
The question is: do we actually want to solve this? Because the solution isn’t technical, it’s social. It means rejecting the idea that tech should replace or dominate human processes. It means making space for friction, for inefficiency, for the unpredictability of people working together.
Talk to a geek today. Start the conversation. Ask how they see #p2p — as people connecting, or as machines exchanging data? Their answer might tell you a lot about where their compass is pointing, and whether we can navigate back toward a web that is human.
Let’s compost the #geekproblem, nourish the soil, and grow something better.
This post is about controlling the narrative, not letting the #nastyfew dictate the terms of engagement. Too often, we let them set the agenda, reacting to their every word instead of actively building the alternatives we need.
Their power isn’t just in what they do, it’s in how much space they take up in our minds and movements. We amplify their mess making when we obsess over their rhetoric rather than dismantling their actions. This is why we need composting, not fixating.
The #Fashionistas in Activism problem is real, when people latch onto whatever gets them attention instead of doing the hard, messy work of creating change. Chasing buzzwords, getting caught in endless reaction cycles, this is what keeps us stuck. We need to be the ones setting the agenda, not just replying to theirs.
Focus. Build. Compost the mess. That’s how we win.
In activism, the term “#fashionistas” captures individuals and groups, especially within #NGOs and advocacy organizations, who latch onto trendy causes or ideologies, not out of any commitment, but more to appear relevant and to align with the latest social currents. This is corrosive to meaningful change, reducing activism to performative gestures rather than a sustained struggle for justice.
Superficial engagement, when they rush to adopt the language of trending movements (like #BLM, #MeToo, or #ClimateJustice) without committing to their radical roots. For example, after George Floyd’s murder, many corporations and NGOs posted black squares on #Instaspam as a symbolic gesture. But what followed? Few made concrete policy changes or redistributed resources to Black-led grassroots organizations. It was activism as aesthetics, empty gestures rather than systemic action that was called for.
Lack of authenticity, when organizations prioritize optics over substance, which breed distrust. Consider the influx of NGOs claiming to champion digital rights but quietly partnering with Big Tech for funding. The grassroots developers working on genuinely decentralized platforms are left unsupported, while the NGO pointless/parasite class absorbs attention and resources, all while pushing and reinforcing the #deathcult paths they claim to oppose.
Mainstreaming, activism, loses its teeth when it’s tailored for palatability. Take the way climate #NGOs soften their language to avoid alienating corporate funders, pushing “net zero” narratives instead of demanding degrowth and direct action. By sanitizing radical demands, they reinforce the status quo rather than confronting the power structures driving #climatechaos.
Misaligned priorities, chasing trends, means resources get funnelled away from sustained struggles. For example, the fleeting attention on #Palestine waxes and wanes with media cycles, while groups doing year-round solidarity work scrape by with minimal support. #Fashionistas flock to hashtags when they’re hot, then move on, abandoning communities who still face oppression once the spotlight fades.
Reactive rather than proactive, when #fashionistas are caught chasing the next big thing rather than strategizing long-term solutions. Think of the explosion of interest in #openweb media during political unrest, a real issue, yes, but one that reveals the broader failure to build #4opens, community-run digital infrastructure proactively. The #OMN project exists precisely to address this, but it’s hard to gain traction when attention constantly flits to the crisis of the moment.
Rectonery, the most toxic aspect of fashionista activism is its tendency to reinforce the systems it claims to oppose. When #NGOs adopt radical language but stay within #mainstreaming paradigms, they create an illusion of progress. For instance, diversity initiatives in tech are often superficial, leading to token hires rather than dismantling structural racism or addressing the #geekproblem that keeps tech culture hostile to outsiders.
How do we compost the #fashionistas mess? The answer lies in prioritizing authenticity, long-term commitment, and meaningful engagement. This means, centring grassroots voices by funding and amplify people working on the ground, not just polished, and mostly pointless #NGO campaigns.
Rejecting mainstreaming, by being willing to alienate power on radical paths. This path needs us to building infrastructure, like #OMN and #indymediaback to grow autonomous spaces outside corporate control. Historical awareness, matters, to remember our past struggles, rights and freedoms were won by collective action, not #PR campaigns.
What, we don’t need, is more buzzword-chasing #nonprofits. We need shovels, compost, and a commitment to grow something real from the ruins of the #deathcult. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the only path to lasting change. Let’s start digging.
In the bigger picture. The best revenge against the #nastyfew is simple: don’t talk about them at all. What fuels them is attention — the endless cycle of fixating on their every move. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, keep the focus on the ideas and the collective struggles, not the individuals causing the mess.
Talk about the systems, the structures, in the US the republicans, not the disruptive few seeking to derail the conversation.
Ignoring the #nastyfew is the most powerful revenge you can take. Stay grounded, stay collective, and keep it #KISS.
Over the last ten years, it’s wild how people barrel into grassroots tech projects like #OMN behaving like paranoid fuckwits — wreaking havoc and then scampering off to nurse their self-inflicted wounds. This pattern repeats so often it feels scripted. And yes, this is VERY bad behaviour. Please, try not to be like this. Thanks.
These people, the #fashionistas chasing the latest fad, the #NGO prats clinging to crumbling institutions, and the geeks blind to anything beyond their screen, are all unknowingly (or knowingly) kneeling at the altar of the #deathcult. They drag in their #mainstreaming assumptions, wielding ‘common sense’ like a cudgel, oblivious to how it shatters the delicate, horizontal culture the #4opens grow.
On the #fediverse, we’re witnessing a growing native/non-native culture clash. That’s not inherently bad, friction sparks growth. But when the horizontal crew, the ones refusing to play the #mainstreaming power games, consistently get trampled, we have a problem. The commons collapse under the weight of imported hierarchy and fear-driven control.
Mess and more mess. And what do we need? Shovels. Lots of shovels. To dig deep and compost this wreckage into fertile ground. The tech? It’s just scaffolding. The building is made of people, mythos, and tradition. It’s a historical flow, as is everything of real value. But instead of embracing this flow, people, in the grip of #stupidindividualism, push hard for self-destruction and distraction. It’s almost like they want the #deathcult to win. And in this world, where the economic machine grinds everything to dust, it’s a hard problem to shift.
We need to break the cycle. To remember our own history. Back when we did things better. Back when we built #indymedia, not just as a tool but as a living, breathing community. A space where the value was in the social fabric itself. The path is in federating out to a non-(owned) branded networks. Build the flows. The undercurrents. The radical gardens of storytelling and truth. It’s time to stop licking wounds and start digging again.
On this path, the #OMN hashtag story is a shovel, ready to dig through the layers of decay in the tech mess. It’s a tool to help us compost the rot of the #deathcult and plant the seeds of a new, living, breathing #openweb.
I have had a plan for the last 20 years: to use #hashtags to seed affinity groups of action. This isn’t just tech, it’s about creating the movement that actually make a difference. #Hashtags are more than metadata; they’re flags, rallying points, paths through the chaos. And in this #Fediverse based reboot of the #openweb, we finally have the space to wield them effectively.
I’ve been exploring this path for years, you can dive into my thoughts on it here. But what we really need is a home for this practice, a network where these seeds can grow into something tangible. Because fighting back doesn’t need to be complicated. It’s how every right and freedom we enjoy was won in the first place: by pushing, not just defending.
The commons won’t protect itself. We haven’t yet effectively used the openings we have to defend our digital commons, let alone expand it. And as history shows, the best defence is an active attack, not with weapons, but with action, storytelling, and a refusal to let the #mainstreaming mess suffocate us.
Let’s call out the #nastyfew instead of talking vaguely about ‘elites.’ Let’s name the problem, plant the seeds, and grow the alternatives. The path I outline in the #OMN can shape this living network, a flow where our history informs our present, and where collective action can finally break the cycle of destruction. It’s time to remember our history, build the #4opens path, and stop waiting for someone else to save us. We have the tools, let’s start digging.
For the last 20 years, we’ve worshipped the #deathcult of #neoliberalism, blind to the collapse unfolding around us. Every institution that promised to guide and protect us has failed. The ruling classes, in every hue of politics, have abandoned us. Our media and entertainment elites distract and distort. #NGOs, once trusted, have betrayed the very causes they claimed to champion. Academia and business alike have clutched at power, dithering while the world burns.
We face #climatechaos naked and disjointed — at war with ourselves and lost in consumerism. Yet, in this wreckage, there is a choice: step away from the #mainstreaming, let go of false promises, and dive into the #undercurrents. Compost the mess. Build anew.
The #makinghistory project is a seed for this rebuilding. It offers a way to reclaim our narratives, digitizing archives like the Campbell Family collection to preserve grassroots histories of resistance and hope. I use this as an example here. This is more than data collection — it’s a living, breathing ecosystem of collective memory.
Setting up the Application: Communities install the #makinghistory app on local machines or hosted instances, creating a decentralized network of storytellers.
Uploading Digital Files: Activists and archivists upload historical files, adding metadata and context.
Building a Community: By inviting family, affinity groups, and wider activist circles, the archive grows into a collaborative space, nurturing participation.
Interacting with Data: Users engage directly with the history, categorizing, tagging, and enriching it with new insights.
Storytelling Features: The enriched data flows into narratives, connecting seemingly isolated events into cohesive stories of struggle, solidarity, and change.
Public Sharing: These stories aren’t locked away — they’re shared openly, contributing to a global commons of knowledge.
Impact: In reclaiming history, people find inspiration and strength. Grassroots stories challenge the top-down narratives, showing that change comes not from a nasty few (elites) but from those who dare to dream and act.
The ‘Resistance Exhibition’ was started to extend this vision, turning physical spaces into participatory hubs where visitors become archivists and storytellers themselves.
This is not passive consumption. It’s collective action. It’s the compost from which new movements grow. It’s #makeinghistory — not as an abstract concept, but as a living, evolving reality. Let’s step away from the wreckage and start building something real.
In the swirling chaos of the digital landscape, it’s easy to feel lost. The #Fediverse, should be a beacon of hope for a decentralized, community-driven internet, but as always is facing an onslaught of push back and pressures from every direction. The #dotcons loom large, #NGO agendas quietly co-opt grassroots energy, and the #encryptionists lash out with SPAM money to drown out critique. It’s messy, but mess is where compost comes from, and compost is where new life grows.
Pick up a shovel, start composting, it’s time to stop waiting for permission. Don’t ask, just do it, start composting the wreckage of the current paths. Plant seeds of your own lived life and nurture the social gardens with your care. Build spaces where people connect, share, and create outside the control of the #dotcons corporate platforms and the clumsy grasp of the old traditional top down institutions.
So, where is the positive in this mess? I’d look to the healthy fragments of the #openweb path that still exists. Projects that embody the #4opens offer the seeds of something better. But these projects won’t survive on hope alone. They need care, attention, and participation. Use them or lose them. If we don’t actively engage, they’ll wither, and the digital paths will continue its slide into centralized control and the new #mainstreaming creeping authoritarianism.
The #ecryptionists, clinging to their fantasies of rugged individualism, would have you believe that the solution lies in isolation, in bunkers, in hoards of digital currency, in cutting ties with the social fabric. But survival, whether against digital authoritarianism or the unfolding #climatecatastrophe, will come from cooperation and collective resilience, not isolation. Even in the face of disaster, thriving requires community.
Beyond the ingroup, we can’t rebuild the #openweb if we only talk to ourselves. The term “Fediverse” is a great example of this, it makes sense to those inside the space but means little to those outside it. #Openweb is a better, more intuitive term. It’s positive, clear, and easy to contrast against the negative: the #closedweb of the #dotcons. Mastodon is a #4opens project of the openweb; Facebook is a closedweb project. Simple, direct, and powerful framing that cuts through the noise.
With the hard shift to the right, we’re standing on a knife’s edge. #Climatechange, economic instability, and accelerating automation are pushing us toward a future of disruption. But disruption doesn’t have to mean collapse, it can mean transformation. The work we do now to build and maintain #openweb projects lays the foundation for the communities that weather the coming storms.
The Fediverse, for all its narrow flaws, shows that alternatives are possible. The challenge now is to grow beyond this first step. To dig deeper, plant wider, and build an ecosystem that can sustain itself long term. We need to constantly think outside the ingroup, to bridge divides, and to invite people in. It’s hard work. But so is everything worth doing. And if we get it right, we just might cultivate a future where common humanity, not capital, shapes the digital world.
Rediscovering the Open Web: Why We Need Joined-Up Thinking with #4opens
The internet wasn’t always like this. Before the rise of #dotcons, we had a flourishing landscape of community-driven sites and platforms, built on openness, collaboration, and trust. Yet today, much of what we do online is controlled by #dotcons, closed, profit-driven systems designed to capture and commodify every interaction. It doesn’t have to be this way — but to break free, we need to think and act differently.
The #4opens offer a practical path back to the #openweb. They guide us towards building space that is open in source, data, process, and standards. This isn’t just tech jargon; it’s about creating online spaces that work for people rather than exploiting them.
The trap of piecemeal solutions, too often, attempts to rebuild the #openweb get stuck in the #fashernista trap: chasing trendy but fragmented fixes that fail to address the root problems. A federated app here, a new protocol there, while each piece might be valuable, without joined-up thinking, they scatter energy and slow momentum. We need to step back, see the bigger picture, and work together to build a truly interconnected path.
We don’t need permission to start. The tools, ideas, and history are already here. Current platforms like Mastodon and initiatives like the #OMN (Open Media Network) show what’s possible. But it takes more than just using the tools, it takes sharing the vision. If you’re reading this, consider it a nudge: start conversations, share resources, and bring people onto the path. Dig into the posts at hamishcampbell.com for more background, and share the posts widely. Every shared link, every discussion, and every new node in the network helps.
Basic activism in the digital age is about reclaiming the internet to refuse to accept the current mess as inevitable and to actively choose better paths. By advocating for the #4opens, supporting decentralized platforms, and consciously stepping away from the #dotcons, we become a small part of the solution. The future web can be cooperative, empowering, and deeply human, but only if we build it that way. So grab a metaphorical shovel, help compost the tech junk, and start planting the seeds of something better.
