Stop chasing tech cults and start growing rooted alternatives

#Musk is a useful example of the #nastyfew: wealthy technocrats wrapping themselves in the cloak of progress while undermining the foundations of any, let alone a just future. These stories and narratives about innovation are a high-tech rebrand of green capitalism, a slick façade masking the same old decaying systems of extraction, inequality, and authoritarianism.

The problem they push is that instead of confronting the #KISS causes of our social and planetary crises, these people offer us distraction: electric cars for the elitists, fantasies of Mars colonies, and #AI overlords dressed up as saviours. This isn’t transformation – it’s #deathcult worshiping continuity in crisis.

People like Musk are useful to the #deathcult because they peddle a seductive, market-friendly myth: that we don’t need to change our behaviour, our economics, or our power structures, we just need to upgrade our tech. Comforting, isn’t it? For those who benefit from the status quo, it’s the perfect nasty con.

He personally embodies the worst of the #geekproblem: the cult of the engineer, disconnected from social reality, obsessed with “fixing” the world through code and hardware while ignoring the human systems that create the problems in the first place. This is dead libertarian ideology dressed in the shrowed of innovation.

We urgently need to compost these myths. Not just resist them, actively decompose them, mix them with grounded knowledge, and grow something better from this soil.

That’s where projects like the #OMN (Open Media Network) come in – a project seeded in the messy, composted soil of decades of grassroots media and digital commons. Unlike the sleek towers of technocratic illusion, #OMN is rooted in public-first values: transparency, participation, autonomy, and trust. It’s not about building new silos or chasing the next unicorn, it’s about connecting the islands of resistance, amplifying local grassroots voices to rebuild public infrastructure for storytelling, organising, and governance.

The #OMN isn’t anti-tech – it’s pro-human. It’s a network built with people, for people – not for investors or ego-driven billionaires. It draws from the radical legacy of projects like #indymediaback, and threads in tools like #OGB to bring coherence and shared narrative to the fractured #openweb reboot. So please stop chasing tech cults and start growing rooted alternatives.

“Use and abuse” is a good strategy for dealing with the #dotcons while they continue to dominate our digital and social infrastructure. Why? Because refusing to engage with these platforms outright is the equivalent of shouting into the void – or living in a cave. And caves, while romantic to a certain type of purist, are never effective social solutions.

The truth is this #dotcons are still where the #mainstreaming people live, and mainstream attention is power, even if borrowed. As radicals or progressives, using their platforms to push counter-narratives, while simultaneously undermining their legitimacy and building our own independent infrastructure, is both necessary and strategic. Think of it as exiting from within by using their reach to grow the seeds of your alt-path.

Tech princes and the #deathcult

The billionaire problem, Elon Musk, tech oligarchs, and the #deathcult of wealth as a social path.

Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is emblematic of a larger issue: the unchecked power of tech oligarchs. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill millionaires; they’re part of a nasty few, the class that operates above the ultra-wealthy, shaping politics, economies, and societies to their inadequacy. While the myth is pushed that billionaires are brilliant innovators who work harder than everyone else, the reality is darker. Their actions reflect a destructive #deathcult mentality, hoarding resources, manipulating public discourse, and pushing harmful ideologies for personal gain and standing.

Let’s start with Musk himself. People think of him as the “SpaceX and Tesla guy,” (this is not true, but that’s another story) his behaviour since acquiring Twitter reveals his priorities. Musk purchased the platform for $43 billion, not as a business investment, but as a tool for propaganda to consolidate power and influence politics. To platforming far-right politics, by amplify propaganda and undermine the thin remaining democratic paths. From boosting bots that inflate the appearance of support for far-right ideologies to reinstating accounts that push hate speech, these actions directly impact global politics.

This control of Twitter, and most importantly the chattering classes that stay in this #dotcons, has silenced the little dissent left. Bot-driven disinformation spreading far-right ideologies isn’t accidental; it’s strategic manipulation of public opinion to push agendas. Like supporting trump and authoritarianism, spending over $250 million on Trump’s election campaigns.

Musk isn’t alone, tech oligarchs like Bezos and Zuckerberg are equally complicit in reshaping society to benefit themselves, at the now clear expense of the public. Bezos’s quiet Influence, unlike #Musk, #Bezos operates in the shadows, Amazon spends millions lobbying US politicians to block antitrust laws and maintain monopolies to exploits workers and maximise profit. His strategy is quieter but no less harmful. #Zuckerberg’s free speech farce, with the ending of liberal fact-checking on #Facebook under the guise of “free speech.” The result? A flood of bots spreading hate speech, disinformation, and simple propaganda. By prioritising profit over public responsibility, this #dotcons becomes another breeding ground for extremism.

The #feudalistic influence of tech princes and oligarchs has consequences that go far beyond social media with political manipulation, global meddling. This is no longer just about wealth, it’s about shaping geopolitical realities. This is going to accelerate the current climate and resource chaos. So why do meany of us keep bowing? There is a persistence of the billionaire myth, the idea that they’re smarter, harder-working, and more deserving, which keeps #mainstreaming people from challenging this power. But it should be obvious these aren’t self-made geniuses, they’re nasty inadequate opportunists thriving in a broken system. This isn’t just about Musk or any of the other nasty few billionaires. It’s about rejecting the #deathcult of greed and exploitation our socialites are based on. The rise of billionaires as political actors isn’t inevitable, it’s a symptom of a path that values unrestrained profit over people.

Where is this going, they crave #control, so they assume everyone else is out to control them. They weave #conspiracies to crush their enemies, so they see a world drowning in conspiracies against them. In the final stages, a fully rotted #ideologue can’t even see threats or weaknesses; their perception is warped by their own decayed #moralcompass. At this point, outside direct, action they are beyond reach. Every word we speak will be twisted against us. Every action we take will be seen as an attack #paranoia #fascist.

The #OMN has a vision for something better, decentralised, open, and community-driven governance. A world where power is distributed, not hoarded by a handful of deranged oligarchs. The challenge is to make this vision a real path, and to turn our distaste for the status quo into action for this change and challenge.

OMN #openweb #fediverse #makehistory #deathcult #OGB #visionontv

Is X pushing Fascism?

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.

In part, the USA shift to the right is due to the #geekproblem in tech

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.

Trump is more Italian #fascism than German fascism