The Seagull Knows: Notes on a Constipated Discipline

The opening moment of the workshop on Methodological Strategies for Real-Life Theorising was unintentionally profound. A story of a seagull crieing above the glass façade of the Blavatnik School of Government – a building that stands as a temple to the #deathcult that shaped our lives for the last 40 years of #neoliberal change. In hindsight, that seagull metaphor may have been the wisest participant at the event.

The sessions that followed offered a painful reminder of just how entrenched and constipated academic political theory can be. Many of the speakers, well-meaning, no doubt, spoke in dense, self-referential language, seemingly unaware (or uninterested) in the world burning outside. We are living through accelerating #climatechaos, surging right-wing extremism, and widespread social fragmentation. Yet here, the main concern is career-building through opaque frameworks and method fetishism. One can’t help but wonder how many in the room truly believe they are doing good?

The crisis is deeper than any single workshop. The very career paths that brought these scholars here have been shaped, filtered, and “concreted” by 30 years of neoliberal funding models. The result is a form of political theorising that appears to want to find a way out, but only by squeezing itself through the tightest gaps in the #postmodern mess. And even then, only while clutching tightly to the privileges and assumptions granted by the current paths.

Constipated Language, Abstract Struggles

Throughout the first sessions, there was a recurring sense of people talking to themselves. Even the attempts to make theory “concrete” – to move into empirical territory – felt more like power grabs than inquiry. There was talk of “transient theory,” of “mid-level normative frameworks,” of “ethnographic insights”, but very little clarity on what any of this meant in real practical or political terms.

Instead of confronting the deeply ideological assumptions embedded in liberal academia, the speakers soft-stepped around them. One could sense them trying to smuggle ideology back into a discipline that’s been left hollow. The “heroic era of theory” is dead, and what we’re left with is a ritual performance of relevance. At one point, the liberal impulse to block discomforting inputs in public policy was laid bare. This is ethics as insulation, not action. There was repeated deference to “existing norms and frameworks,” – the very architecture of the #deathcult, now warmed up and served again as policy advice.

The Seagull Still Watches

By the end of the day, some fresh air drifted in. A few scraps of cloth were handed out to the otherwise naked theorists. There was genuine engagement with normative complexity. Questions like “what is mutable?” began to shift the conversation. “Engaged political philosophy” and talk of “normative judgments” began to inch the discussion closer to the ground.

The presentation on restitution, for instance, highlighted real political dilemmas. Who decides what gets returned, and why? Is it justice, diplomacy, or geo-political calculation? One question noted that giving back looted objects is not just about ethics, it’s about giving back the values they represent. But this was quickly hedged with talk of “choice.” Liberal hedging again. No one wanted to say: yes, do it, without compromise.

Even here, markets remained the baseline. The dominant “common sense” is still economic flow. Value is defined by trade, not meaning. Discrimination itself can to easily be reframed as a market distortion, another cost to be corrected, not a systemic condition to be fought. The anti-market perspective, grounded in actual social justice, in living memory, in reparative truth, is invisible to meany people until it becomes a threat. At that point, the strategy shifts to distraction and buying off. That’s the logic of #neoliberal containment.

From Political Theory to Political Theater

What we witnessed was not just a methodological workshop, but a staged performance of institutional survival. Theories were dressed up, displayed, but never walked out into the street. Real political agency remained absent. The political philosopher, once imagined as a public actor, now hides behind peer-reviewed paywalls, while the world asks different questions entirely.

Still, by the end, perhaps there were reasons for the seagull to hold off its stone throwing – for a while. A few voices showed signs of life. A few questions struck true. But it will take more than scraps of normative cloth to cover the nakedness of political philosophy today.

The seagull will be watching.

#Oxford #Event

The event: Many political philosophers theorise not only for the sake of pure theory, but also because they want to convince citizens and policymakers to bring about changes in the real world.

Such policy-oriented research often draws on interdisciplinary methods, integrating empirical insights and normative and conceptual arguments. This, however, raises methodological challenges of its own. For example, how to deal with the fact that the social sciences are fragmented and different disciplines work with different paradigms and methodologies? How can philosophers, who bring their own normative assumptions openly to the table, deal with the – sometimes implicit – normativity that is also inherent in many other lines of research? What level of abstraction of normative arguments, eg basic normative theories or mid-level overlapping principles, should philosophers draw on when discussing with policymakers? And how to deal with the fact that in the current political climate in many countries, distrust towards “experts” also extends to philosophers?
Workshop agenda

Day 1: Thursday 24 April 2025

Methodological Strategies for real-life theorising

Chair: Jonathan Wolff, Blavatinik School of Government

Liron Lavi, Bar-Ilan University and Nahshon Perez, Bar-Ilan University: Conceptual Concretization in Empirically Informed Political Theory: What Makes a Concept Applicable
Carmen E Pavel, King’s College London: Mid-Level Theories of Justice and Public Policy
Kian Mintz Woo, University College, Cork: Explicit Methodologies for Normative Evaluation in Public Policy

Theorising between values and cases

Chair: Daniel Halliday, University of Melbourne

Rouven Symank, Free University, Berlin: Integrating Ethnography with Political Theory in Policy-Oriented Research: Challenges and Insights from Cultural Restitution Debates
Florence Adams, University of Cambridge: Discrimination as an Object of Social Science
Erika Brandl, University of Bergen: Measuring the justice of architectural development policies:debates on temporal scopes and indicators in the Hillevåg plan

My notes on this event:

The seagull is perhaps a good metaphor for nature fighting back against the last 40 years of human #deathcult culture that this building is temple of.

The language is constipated, a growing feeling that these people are pissing funding and focus against the wall while the world burns from #climatechaos and hard right social breakdown.

I wonder how many people here think they are doing good?

The problem on this career path is that it has been shaped by #neoliberalism for the last 20 years, funding and status have both been ground through this mess, and now reflect it.

After the first session I feel they are trying to squeeze themself out of this post modernist mess. By going back to basics, but it’s so constipated it’s hard to see if there is any value in this.

Looking at them talk and answer questions, you can feel them being lost. It still feels like they are talking to themselves.

A power grab, by making theory concrete, to build empirical research. They dodge this by saying the theory is transient.

If this is a bios? They fix this by making the bios visible. They find this question hard to answer as its a root issue.

They are “soft” sneaking ideology back into the current dead Political Science and theory world they work in.

The heroic era of theory is challenged for making public policy. They argue that we should start from the existing norms and frameworks. This from the #deathcult we get wormed up #deathcult worship as policy. Mess. Of course liberal rights have priority in the end, “we must also include institutional facts”.

The seagulls at the start of this event might be the wisest one here. The rest have no cloths, and the language is so constipated that the smell is likely off putting for any real outreach that they need in the scrabbling for coverings to continue their careers.

The liberals start to talk about #blocking the inputs that make them uncomfortable. In ethical public policy making.

From a working insider view, the people doing this don’t have the skills or knowledge if we focus on philosophy and theory only.

Good question, what is given, what is mutable is very mutable. So the Liberal “common sense” is likely a strong #blocking on the path of the change we need.

“Engaged political philosophy” “normative judgments” as we go on they start to be more relevant. “where there is convergence and divergence”

The event starts naked and smelly but as it goes on the air clears at times and some scraps of cloth are provided.

Relevant information that is easily excessable,

The power in a committee is the appointment of the people sitting on the committee rather than the committee process it self. The answer to this is hesitant and bluff, and distaste to cover this.

A chair or witness roll is different in committees.

Why restitution, why now.

Liberal
Justice

Reperatition is politics, not just ethical, geo politics and funding, based on former colonist will, is a tool for “ethical diplomacy”

Can any of these be seen as a reason not to do it. Don’t have an answer. Normative lessons.

When we give back objects that we value from our looting, we are giving back our values. We still chose.

My parents work is displayed in our #mainstreaming institutions, but these institutions are not interested in the objects, as they do not fit into there existing story’s and category. Subject archives will take them. But this is still shaping history.

Markets as the dominant “common sense” everything is economic flows. Value is defined by this.

Discrimination is contested with the hard shift to the right #DUI

Distortion in the market, function efficiently.

Discrimination is about greed, American greed, a moral dilemma. Liberal but not to liberal. Talk about the market path, let the market do its thing.

Markets aligned characteristics, money the logic of the #deathcult

As my work is anti market they can’t see any value, so put no resources and focus on the path in till it becomes a threat then distraction and buying off become the difficult paths.

Trump now is turning this neoliberalism around as discrimination. What is this, discrimination against nation states, rather than economics/market.

At the end the might be reasons for the seagull to hold off the stone throwing for a while.

Struggling for a Real Alternative

For the last 5 years conversations have been about, the #Fediverse, #Web3 and more recently the pushing of #mainstreaming into the #openweb native path. But despite this, the fediverse is still a notable outlier in the digital landscape. This is in part because unlike the dominant tech trends, which emerge from Silicon Valley and the cross-Atlantic #dotcons agenda, the fediverse is rooted in European ideals of decentralization, federation, and digital autonomy, it’s a “native” openweb project.

When you step outside, into so-called “global” tech events, you’re hit with a wall of #techshit nonsense. Looking back, when I used to bring up the Fediverse at these events, the reaction was predictable: blank stares, polite nods, and then a quick return to parroting the latest #bluesky, #blockchain, talking points. This tells us that the techshit is still mainstreaming and more native paths will continue to be invisible to most people looking for real decentralized alternatives.

One of the issue that pushes this is Identity Politics, in our own spaces, beyond the tech sphere, this issue impacts the Fediverse and grassroots media projects or more precisely, its misapplication dose. By overemphasizing individual identity over collective struggle, leftist and progressive movements fall into fragmentation, making them easier for the #nastyfew to co-opt, divide, and neutralize. This is not to dismiss identity politics outright, systemic oppression is real, and addressing issues of race, gender, and class matters deeply. But when these struggles are disconnected from broader grassroots organizing, they are easily absorbed into the neoliberal agenda.

This is the normal mess dressed in a dress, to push a likely unhelpful metaphor. We’ve seen this time and again with corporate tokenism of big tech and NGOs pushing superficial diversity while maintaining exploitative structures. This “thinking” leads to co-optation of radical movements, which are watered down into harmless social branding exercises that don’t threaten power. Feeding divisiveness, when instead of organizing collectively, activists are pitted against each other over micro-issues, while top-down power structures remain untouched.

The central question is who gains power, the only question that matters in activism, are we giving more power to the centralizers, or are we shifting power to the grassroots? Everything else, culture wars, internal leftist feuds, academic debates, is secondary. And the normal reality is that our current #mainstreaming always leads to power centralization. When the path we need to take, requires discomfort, real change, which is never easy. And right now, we are still stuck in this mess, watching many in the #Fediverse waste time repeating liberal nonsense instead of challenging the #neoliberal dieing old world order.

This leads us onto the illusion of the liberal “centre”, where many so-called progressives are still worshipping the #deathcult, by amplifying right-wing culture war narratives. Why? Because it’s easier. The liberal-left is caught in an endless cycle of reacting to right-wing provocations instead of fighting systemic power. The truth, is that the “centre” is not holding, the centre is never going to hold. And that if you refuse to choose a side, both the left and the right will decide your fate for you. Liberal fence-sitting has always been about the rise of reactionary forces, both online and offline. Thus, if you’re still spending your time fighting over petty internal issues while ignoring the big-picture consolidation of power, you are helping the system you claim to oppose.

What’s can people do? A good first step is building real alternative’s. my example is the #OMN projects and growing the Fediverse, this means: Keeping focus on systemic power, not just individual experience that people keep focusing on. Actively pushing back against co-optation, building truly decentralized native alternatives, not only clones of corporate platforms. Rejecting the culture war distractions and pushing real organizing.

The Fediverse should be better, it’s one of the last remaining spaces where you can create rather than just consume. But we won’t get there unless we actively fight for it. So the question is: Are we ready to stop feeding shit and start building something real?

The #GeekProblem: Why Open Development Is Stuck in a Dead End

It’s no sin to have to submit to the #dotcons overlords—we all do it, whether we like it or not. Just recently, I found myself installing that vile spyware known as #WeChat because this was the only way to talk to the people I needed to talk to. That bitter swipe to hide the app from view brought a momentary sense of agency, but the reality remains: we are still too often failing at building out the #openweb that normal people find useful

The fundamental question is: why? It’s too easy blaming users. After all, if they just cared more, if they just tried harder to use open tools, we wouldn’t be in this mess. But let’s be honest: this isn’t on them. The real fault lies with the so-called “open developers” who have spent the last 20 years failing to make open tools actually work for normal people. And before anyone objects, yes, I’ve been in the trenches. I’ve been building, testing, promoting, and using these tools for two decades. I’ve seen what works, and more often, what doesn’t.

The truth is stark: “open development” is way too often a dead end. The current paths isn’t going anywhere useful. There are way to meany dysfunctional ecosystems of half-built projects, overcomplicated interfaces, and insular communities that gatekeep instead of welcoming. Meanwhile, the #dotcons corporate silos grow ever stronger, locking out alternatives at every turn. And what do the open devs do? They tinker endlessly on the backend, build for themselves rather than for real people, and when questioned they retreat into ideological purity rather than engaging in practical bridge-building. The #geekproblem is not just one of incompetence, it’s one of misplaced priorities and an aversion to social reality.

Control vs. Trust is the core divide, at the heart of the #geekproblem lies a fundamental misunderstanding of social dynamics. The #OMN sees the solution as building bridges, while the dominant geek mindset sees it as erecting gates. A gate is about control: who gets in, who stays out, who holds the keys. A bridge is about trust: connecting communities, facilitating movement, and breaking down barriers. Yet, the geek worldview, deeply shaped by corporate structures, #neoliberal ideology, and a toxic engineering mindset, defaults to control every time.

This is why open projects fail. They mimic the structures of the #dotcons without the resources to sustain them. They chase security and rigidity at the expense of usability and social flow. They then see failure as an inevitable technical problem, rather than a failure of community engagement and human-centred design. And worst of all, they refuse to recognize that openness isn’t just about code, it’s about social process. What needs to change:

Stop building for yourself, the #openweb won’t be rebooted by developers coding for their own niche needs. It needs to serve real people, communities in real contexts.
Embrace messiness, if it’s not messy, it’s not worth doing. The corporate mindset is about tidiness and control. The #openweb must be about adaptability and flexibility.
Then the is leaky by design – Data and communication should leak in ways that benefit social needs, but yes, not in ways that serve the surveillance economy. Locking everything down means locking serendipity out.
Bridge, don’t block: Instead of obsessing over ideological purity, we need to build pragmatic solutions that work alongside existing tools while providing clear alternatives.
Trust as the foundation: The default state of open networks should be trust, not fear. We have seen where the obsession with security leads, it builds walls instead of communities.

There are paths forward, and a good place to start is with the principles of the #OMN and #4opens. These aren’t abstract theories; they’re rooted in decades of radical tech and media movements that worked, before they were systematically ignored and buried by the rising tide of centralized control. It’s time to stop pretending the current model will somehow fix itself. It won’t. We need to go back, dig up the roots, and start again, not with another doomed attempt at technical perfection, but with a renewed commitment to social usability, community-first development, and a radical rejection of the failed control-based mindset.

The alternative is simple: keep failing, keep watching the #openweb erode, and keep making excuses while we all install the next piece of #dotcons spyware just to stay connected. The choice is ours, but the time to act is now.

Trump and the tools of the old world order

An example of this is The United States Agency for International Development (#USAID) which was presented as a humanitarian force for economic and social development worldwide. However, its origins and operations paint a different much darker path, of geopolitical manoeuvring and #neoliberal hegemony over the last 40 years. Now, with the hard shift to the right, USAID is being gutted, alongside other long-standing institutions of the U.S. “liberal” global order.

Origins and the Cold War Agenda, founded in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy, USAID was pushed into view as a means to promote global development. In truth, it was the normal Cold War weapon of this era, countering Soviet influence under the guise of humanitarian assistance. The Foreign Assistance Act centralized foreign aid and explicitly tied it to U.S. geopolitical strategy. This was done in the open, Lyndon B. Johnson admitted that food aid was leveraged to redirect recipient countries’ spending toward military and security cooperation with the U.S.

A very easy to see example of this was the Food for Peace program, which used grain shipments to coerce nations into rejecting Soviet assistance. With famine relief being politicized as a tool for control, India, for instance, had to tone down its criticism of the U.S. war in Vietnam before receiving necessary aid.

Covert operations, as a soft power arm of the #CIA, despite meany of these institutions being branded as independent agencies. In 1973, Senator Ted Kennedy directly questioned whether USAID was involved in Southeast Asian covert operations. The answer was a resounding yes.

In Guatemala, during the genocide of the Mayan people in the 1970s, USAID funded and trained police forces to conduct counterinsurgency operations against leftist movements.

In Uruguay, USAID’s Dan Mitrione personally trained security forces in torture techniques, including electroshock and psychological warfare.

In the 1980s, USAID facilitated “non-lethal aid” to Contra forces in Nicaragua, effectively ensuring they remained combat-ready despite congressional restrictions on military support.
In Peru, USAID financially supported dictator Alberto Fujimori’s forced sterilization program, targeting 300,000 Indigenous women under the guise of population control.

Perhaps the most infamous case was Afghanistan, where #USAID provided millions to the University of Nebraska to develop textbooks filled with anti-Soviet propaganda, using religious rhetoric to radicalize young Mujahideen fighters. The blowback in globe mess from these operations is still felt today, a compleat shit storm of mess making.

With the fall of the USSR, these old #coldwar institutions pivoted towards more #neoliberal capitalist economic restructuring, pushing deregulation, privatization, and free-market reforms in post-Soviet states. Democracy promotion was a pretext, but only for “democracies” that aligned with U.S. corporate interests. Any “independence” risked financial punishment or outright regime change operations. This was a disaster for much of the region, which we are seeing play out in the Russia Ukraine war.

Post-9/11: The security state expansion saw budgets balloon, increasing by 70% between 2001 and 2003. The agency became more directly aligned with military operations, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. In these war zones, USAID’s stated mission of “nation-building” was a flimsy cover for consolidating U.S. control over shattered economies. The real work of development, tackling poverty and fostering stability, was an afterthought compared to the securing American military dominance in the era.

The left, right mess is on repeat

Trump’s “Draining the Swamp” what is this about and what will be likely outcomes: Oligarchy pushing #neoliberal chaos vs managed hegemony, These institutions were a tool of imperial control, but their removal creates a vacuum. The likely outcome is that private corporations and unaccountable privatised military contractors will increasingly step in to replace state-controlled influence operations.

We might see the growth of right-wing Isolationism with Trump’s America First rhetoric leading to a defacto disengaging from directly shaping international development, but not from coercion. Economic sanctions and direct intervention (as seen in Venezuela) remain the preferred tactics for managing the mess these polices create, there is a very dangerous feedback loop here.

There is a shift to cruder authoritarian paths, instead of “soft power” the replacement actors and institutions are based on direct strongman alliances, reinforcing a world order based on brute force rather than, shadowed economic manipulation.

What should the progressive left do? Rather than mourning the loss of USAID and other Cold War institutions, the left should take this as an opportunity to redefine internationalism. Instead of #neoliberal “aid” programs that uphold global inequality, we should be pushing for:

#KISS grassroots solidarity: Development led by those directly affected, not dictated by the #nastyfew imperial wonabe powers. A seed of this is the #OGB project.
Decentralized cooperative structures to replace hierarchical and state-controlled #NGOs with open, transparent, and accountable networks. A seed of this is the #OMN projects.
Reclaiming media from the #nastyfew Influence and control: With US funded media outlets shutting down, now is the time to push for independent, radical journalism free from state agenda. A seed of this is the #indymediaback project.

What we need to focus on is opposing the #deathcult in all forms, whether #neoliberal soft power or #Trumpist strongman tactics, which obviously both serve the interests of the #nastyfew class. A real #KISS alternative means dismantling or mediating global #capitalism itself. #Trump’s destruction of the old world institutions is another step in shifting power from one faction of the #nastyfew to another. The question that matters isn’t whether these institutions should exist, it’s what we build in their place, and how we gain the power to become the change and challenge to do this #KISS

Way late, but better than never

The chattering classes, eager to ride the wave of #mainstreaming, are finally pushing real rather than fake radical critique. These are mostly the same people who built their careers within the #dotcons and #neoliberal highways, are now embracing narratives that grassroots movements have been fighting for decades. Sure, “better late than never,” but we should remain deeply sceptical of their “fresh” radical awakenings, especially the #fluffy paths they carve out. After all, they’re still operating within the structures that created this mess in the first place.

There’s an element of performative rage at play here, condemning billionaires while continuing to use, benefit from, and reinforce the systems and networks that empower them. Meanwhile, real alternatives, grassroots, decentralized, and open networks like #OMN, remain sidelined, unfunded, and ignored, still too far outside the “common sense” media narratives that shape any and all the current #mainstreaming paths.

It’s not entirely useless to have media celebrities and polished pundits repackaging anti-billionaire sentiment. It does shift the Overton window. But it’s equally vital that we critique this and, more importantly, walk a different path, one that is messy, grassroots, open, and outside the control of the #fashernistas who are now finding the courage to speak up about what we’ve been saying all along. We are the ones with the lived experience. Now, where are the resources? That’s the question we should be asking our freshly radicalized new “allies.”

And if their “solutions” come wrapped in top-down, controlled narratives? Well, piss on them, it helps with the composting. Thanks. We don’t have time for more mess, the real challenge is ensuring that this moment doesn’t become another media spectacle to be consumed and discarded. How do we push the narrative in a way that resists being co-opted? How do we move beyond talking about change to embodying the real challenge our #fahernistas are now beginning to acknowledge is needed. This is a part of the #fluffy vs #spiky debate for the #OMN

The key takeaway of the current #mainstreaming is that we must actively build alternative structures—not just critique the existing mess. That means reclaiming digital and physical commons, supporting participatory democracy, and pushing back against #dotcons billionaire-driven tech oligarchy. The work with #4opens and #OMN grassroots media is exactly the kind of response we need to counteract this heist.

Market Failure: Green Energy, Capitalism, and the Path We’re Not Taking

Professor Brett Christophers (Uppsala University)

This lecture will explore the shortcomings of market-driven solutions to the climate crisis, the role of green energy, and the structural limits of capitalism in addressing environmental challenges.

The climate crisis is getting worse, not better. We are burning more fossil fuels, not less. Even with the massive expansion of renewables, energy use is still rising, because green growth adds to consumption rather than replacing it.

So, what’s blocking real change? Professor Brett Christophers lays it out: It’s not economics—it’s politics. The cost of renewables is dropping, largely thanks to China’s command economy driving down manufacturing costs. But the real problem is deployment, not production. Governments in the rich world still rely on the private sector to make the energy transition, using subsidies, tax incentives, and market nudges.

But capitalism is not built to save us, the market won’t solve this. The profit motive is a #blocking force. The oil and energy sectors are oligarchic, meaning investment only flows where market control guarantees profit. Renewable energy doesn’t work this way. Once solar panels or wind farms are built, everyone benefits, so investors can’t “capture” the value in the same way fossil fuel companies can.

This is why China is leading the transition. In 2023, 65% of global renewable investment was happening in China, before that, it was 90%. In contrast, the for-profit world is barely moving. The left is starting to rethink public ownership, but decades of privatization and #neoliberal dogma make this difficult, especially in the Global South, where many countries lost their public energy sectors over the last 40 years.

One small but key issue is that we are trapped in a modernist mindset, where the lights must come on when you flick the switch. The market logic of energy scarcity (storage = control = profit) is at odds with the need to stabilize and expand access. When energy storage becomes widespread, its market value drops, meaning investment dries up before it even begins.

Public ownership has a bad history, but so does privatization. Without cultural change, we are stuck with broken systems that won’t save us. The Coming Storm, in the next 10–20 years, shit is going to hit the fan. #climatechaos is not a distant threat, it’s already disrupting global energy grids. Look at China, where hydropower is failing due to extreme drought, and where record heat waves are driving air conditioning demand through the roof. These are feedback loops that increase carbon emissions, pushing us closer to tipping points.

Governments aren’t prepared for the chaos that’s coming. If history is any guide, they’ll do what they always do: double down on control, repression, and violence. As the crisis deepens, we could see a return to 20th-century authoritarian solutions, forced migration, resource wars, and military crackdowns. If you’re young today, ask yourself: What future are you walking into? What careers will put you on the wrong side of history? Which paths will put a gun in your hands, or leave you standing in front of one? These are grim questions, but they are real.

The #Deathcult has failed, what comes next? For 40 years, neoliberal capitalism has blocked systemic change. Market redesign might be possible, but power and politics shape the system, and the #deathcult that built this mess won’t give it up easily.

The #dotcons are stepping into the void. Big Tech is now playing the role governments used to play, guaranteeing long-term energy contracts to fund #datacenters and #AI infrastructure. But this is a narrow and unstable path, its more noise than signal.

We need alternatives, we need #publicownership, #commons-based solutions, and #4opens governance. We need to mediate our overconsumption, compost the #mainstreaming, and reclaim progressive paths before capitalism drives us into collapse.

If we don’t, the market’s failure will become our failure, and the planet won’t care whether we survive or not.

Market Failure: Climate Crisis, Green Energy and the Limits of Capitalism

Professor Brett Christophers (Uppsala University)

This lecture will explore the shortcomings of market-driven solutions to the climate crisis, the role of green energy, and the structural limits of capitalism in addressing environmental challenges.

My notes:

We are using more carbon based energy, adding to energy use with “green growth” this varies regionally, but the numbers are going up not down.

What is #blocking this, its political and policy he argues, the NIMBYs. The economics are not a problem, the costs are going down. The costs coming down is due to China with its central command economy, this is a useful view of the path we need to take. What’s #blocking it has to do with profitability not generating costs, what douse this mean? Deployment is the hidden “cost”, the hidden restraint. Governments in most parts of the world are relying on the private sector to make this energy change, using nudges, subsidy etc. the motivation is profit, and “confidence” in this profit.

Can capitalism save us?

The oil industry is full of oligarchy’s, this shapes investment. The electricity is the same, but how it’s generated has its own market value. Your ability to make a profit is only based on you capturing the market sector. The tech change helps everyone, so the is no profit, value if the investment can’t “capture” a sector.

He slags off the understanding of the Labour Party in the UK. One ansear is market redesign, that what we have is not “natural” but planned, it’s shaped by power and politics and for the agenda of this power. Then we have the artifice of “price” we have not planned this well enough yet, externality’s. In the UK the carbon tax could be argued to have worked with the phase out of the last coal power plant, drax, is shut. But the cost of a real carbon tax is to high for our “democracy” to implement. This is likely true.

More subsidy is an example, the Inflation Reduction Act in the US is an example. To incentivise the private sector to make the change in energy production.

The left criticises this, anti market, It’s still not working, this argument is likely true, look at china. Let’s look at this in 2023 its is 65% globe of renewables investment in China, before this it was 90% this almost nothing happening in the for-profit world, for profit is obviously not working. The left are starting to rethink public ownership as a path.

In China there are contradictions, it’s a mix of clean and dirty, energy demand is growing very fast, climate change is driving this in part, with the disruption of hydropower and the heat waves driving air conditioning, it’s a feedback loop. But it’s instructive with a very different political economy you can have very different outcomes in the energy transition.

This path might happen in the rich north, but will be hard to do in the weak south? They just don’t have the public budgets, some of these have only lost to privatization there public energy sectors over the last 40 years.

We are stuck in the modernist mind set, the lights must come on when you flick the switch. This is still a core #blocking force. Storage is to tame the market, to stabilize the price. The business model is based on the scarcity of storage so when we implement it can easily lose its market value, so investment will not flow in the first place.

Culture change is needed as public ownership does have a bad history as much a for-profit ownership, without this cultural change we don’t solve any of the mess.

One path is blended finance, but the is very little of this existing, so it’s not going to happen in a meaningful way despite the fluffy propaganda people spread.

The question of responsibility?

In the next 10–20 years shit is hitting the fan with #climatechaos we are likely to go back to the 20th century tradition of shooting people, I am wondering, for this generations job prospective, what careers are likely to lead to you being shot when this history repeats and what careers will leave you with the metaphorical gun in your hands, both of course are bad outcomes. But would be useful for young people to think about this to help choices a path after #Oxford

The question of cross discipline for the students comes up, but he says this is really hard, narrow areas, grants, and culture. His ansear is pessimistic, to play the game, till you have the power not to play the game, mess. He does not like it, but advises young people to play.
Market redesign, the #deathcult fucked over this path over the last 40 years.

AI and distributed energy, the #dotcons are pushing this, the preform the same role governments used to play, by garentlying prices in long term contracts for there new data centres, they promise long term fixed price which lets the banks fund projects. This is a very limited funding flow, so more noise than signal.

A #4opens alternative to the #deathcult

We live in a disastrous system that worships consumption. It’s not just about meeting needs, it’s about feeding an economy that only grows when people buy more, waste more, and replace instead of repair what they need. This is one of the core tenants of the #deathcult, the #neoliberal ideology that tells us there is no alternative to endless growth, even as it drags us toward #climatechaos.

What if we build something different, something that values community over consumption, reuse over replacement, and #DIY culture over passive consumerism? This is where the #4opens come in, transparency, collaboration, and shared knowledge as the foundation for real alternatives to the corporate churn machine. It’s a social tool to mediate overconsumption, it isn’t just about the stuff, it’s about the system. It is a tool to push back at the #dotcons (big tech platforms, global brands, centralized supply chains) which exist to keep us dependent, feeding a cycle of control, waste, planned obsolescence, artificial scarcity, and throwaway culture.

We see this mess everywhere, in #techchurn, New phones, new software, endless updates that make old devices “obsolete” before they break. Fast fashion, clothing designed to fall apart, pushing people into a cycle of cheap, unethical labour and landfill waste. Algorithmic media distraction, a constant flood of junk entertainment designed to keep us too distracted to act, too demoralised to challenge or change the system. This is by design. The corporate web, the #dotcons, will absorb everything if we don’t (re)create our own independent alternatives.

The composting metaphor is about creating a regenerative culture, which isn’t only boycotting big brands or consuming “better.” It’s about nurturing and mediating alternatives—turning the waste of the old system into compost for something new. By embracing the #DIY ethic – Fix things, repurpose them, and share knowledge instead of feeding the churn. Then build the #openweb – Move away from corporate-controlled spaces to decentralized, transparent platforms that serve communities, not ad networks. Reject #mainstreaming trends – Stop chasing the latest thing just because the algorithm tells you to. Foster trust-based networks – Support local, independent, and open-source projects that work for people, not profit.

On this path, the #OMN as a tool for mediation, a practical example of challenging the corporate wasteland of mainstream media and tech. Instead of relying on big platforms, it can create a decentralized, grassroots-driven network where people control their own media, bypassing the need for #dotcons and centralized control.

Outreach text for the #4opens

In the same way, we need to mediate overconsumption—not just by refusing to buy, but by building something better in its place. This isn’t about guilt or purity. It’s about real alternatives. If we don’t start creating them, we will be left with nothing but the corporate churn, stripping away our agency and leaving us with a hollow, temporary world. The current mess is compost. We either let it rot uselessly or turn it into the soil for something new. The choice is ours.

#nothingnew #4opens #techchurn #deathcult

Escaping the #Mainstreaming Mess: A Call to Real Change

The current political and economic systems don’t just sustain the mess, we are drowning in them. Every major institution, from governments to corporations, actively pushes crisis after crisis, while refusing to deal with the root causes of the disasters they create. For decades, politicians across the spectrum have fuelled endless wars and military interventions, while militarising domestic police forces. Justified global instability and repression in the name of “security” while making the world more dangerous. Celebrated economic growth, while wages stagnate, inflation crushes ordinary people, and skyrocketing rents make survival a daily struggle.

This directly leads to the ecological collapse we are living through, record heat waves, wildfires, extreme weather, it is not an accident. It is the result of decades of environmental neglect, corporate greed, and political cowardice. None of the major parties have taken meaningful action; they always in the end prioritise profit over the survival of the planet and future generations.

At the same time, the state clamps down on dissent with mass incarceration and police crackdowns, which aren’t about safety, they’re about control. Social movements are repressed, not because they are wrong, but because they threaten the status quo. Then the public anger at #neoliberal policies is hijacked by demagogues like #Farage and #Trump, who sell hate, racism, and authoritarianism as the alternative. But this does not bring solutions, only the march towards #fascism.

#KISS real change is not coming from these institutions. We need to step away from the #mainstreaming mess by rejecting the ongoing pushing of “common sense” of liberal, neoliberal, and fascist agendas. To organise and resist what we oppose, and push towards building something different. To create alternative communities and economies, humanistic, decentralised, and free from the grip of collapsing #mainstreaming structures.

This isn’t only a negative fight, it’s a positive necessity. The world built by the #deathcult is falling apart. We either allow ourselves to be dragged down with it, or we joyously build something new.

One of the places you can support this work: Open Media Network

A world we see as normal

Can you smell it? The dead ideology of Neo-liberalism is everywhere. It’s in everything we look at, everything we touch. And yes while it might feel uncomfortable, we should actively feel distaste when we look at it and revulsion when we touch it, this is the reality of living under a #deathcult. For the past 40 years, we’ve been immersed in a system that most people still worship as if there’s no alternative.

But where is the path out? Where is the vision for something different, something rooted in solidarity and sustainability rather than profit and exploitation? Take a moment to look at this example of a #4opens project from a simpler time: Wikipedia revision history from 2011. Note the commitment to “strict scrutiny”, which required that any security measures serve a compelling community interest and be narrowly focused to achieve that and nothing else.

Compare that principle to the current state of tech, where the #encryptionsist agenda overshadows transparency and community accountability. The shift has been stark, away from openness, away from scrutiny, and towards the path where security becomes a shield for entrenched power and control.

We need to confront this, the #deathcult thrives on our passive acceptance of #neoliberal norms. Revulsion isn’t just justified; it’s necessary. The path we need to take is in rejecting this #blocking to build the #4opens alternatives we so desperately need.

OMN #indymediaback #openweb #makehistory #OGB

let’s look at an example of this in our current lives. People have been living in the shadow of neoliberalism for so long that worshipping the #deathcult has become their nature. The values of exploitation, competition, and #stupidindividualism are baked into what’s considered “normal” behaviour. In contrast, embracing a #lifecult, based on collaboration, community, and sustainability—feels alien, even threatening, to many “normal” people.

This is one of the reasons the #Fediverse and alternative social media platforms have struggled to gain traction. The Fediverse embodies #lifecult principles: decentralisation, mutual aid, and the rejection of exploitative corporate models. While these are positive ideals, they feel too far removed from the familiar patterns of the #deathcult for most people to take the leap.

A cynical path we could take is to meet people halfway. Instead of demanding they abandon their comfort zone entirely, we could make the Fediverse appear less like a #lifecult at first glance by presenting it in ways that feel more approachable and less intimidating, more like the #deathcult they are used to. On this compromise path, yes, the Fediverse should stay true to its principles, but making it less of an overt #lifecult and more of a practical, attractive alternative, #deathcult could be the “common sense” step we need to bring people over. Once they’re in, the actually, hopefully still existing culture, the values of the Fediverse will begin to work their magic.

What do you think? Should we focus on shadowing the approach to reach more people, or would that risk diluting the values that make the #Fediverse what it is? How do we live this balance in our #openweb reboot.

The obstacle is people cannot see change and challenge

The failures of the liberal class, should now be obvious, and are rooted in their worship of neo-liberal “common sense,” that eroded our collective capacity for thought and solidarity. For 40 years, the #mainstreaming “left” abandoned the principles of class struggle, leaving the majority of people isolated and alienated. This complacency, steeped in postmodernist detachment, has created a vacuum that allows fear and hate to flourish. Over the past two decades, left identity politics, though well-meaning in its inception, has fragmented movements, prioritising narrow individualism over collective power.

The right wing has seized this opportunity to co-opt and distort progressive narratives, using them to fuel division and weaponise fear. This has paved the way for a shift towards authoritarianism and fascism, deepening the crisis of inequality, climate collapse, and social disintegration.

Yet, amidst this ongoing bleak reality, there is hope. The growing failures of the mainstream can be a turning point. They create the conditions for a return to #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) class-based left-wing movements, movements grounded in shared struggle, solidarity, and common purpose. This shift needs to sweep away the current #mainstreaming crew, who refuse to lift their heads from #deathcult worshipping dogma, and consign these long dead ideologies to the compost heap of history where they belong.

As a community, we face immense challenges: The hard shift to the far right, surviving the next generation of #climatechaos, enduring social breakdown, and creating systemic change in the face of these crises. But the solutions lie in coming together, rediscovering the power of collective action, and rejecting the #stupidindividualism that isolates us.

The biggest obstacle is that many people cannot see this. Years of cultural conditioning, relentless propaganda, and the atomisation of society have blinded people to the possibilities of collective power. They are trapped in a path that convinces them that there is no alternative—that the only option is to keep their heads down, live inside the status quo, and hope for survival.

But history tells us a different story: when communities organise, they can and do change the world. This is not a time for despair—it is a time for action. The current economic paths are failing, but this failure opens the door to something new, something better. The time for change is now, and it’s up to us to make the challenge happen.

So lift your heads to see clearly, and take action, not as isolated individuals but as a community. Together, we can not only survive, but create a future of growth, humanistic and ecological flourishing.

The #OMN is a social tech step on the path we need to take.

The madness is everywhere—online, offline, doesn’t really make much difference anymore. After four decades of being spoon-fed #neoliberal garbage, individualism has rotted collective sense-making. The tech we use? Built by a geek class lost in its own deterministic tunnel vision.

Sanity, then, is about stepping outside that churn. The #OMN approach—grassroots, #DIY, non-corporate, and actually human-focused—has to be a path forward. The question is, who else sees this? Who’s willing to do something genuinely different, not just repackage the same #techshit and call it innovation?

Where do you think those people are hiding?

The Evolution of SocialHub

“the crew gathered around #SocialHub worked remarkably well for a while, organising good gathering, conferences and very useful outreach of #ActivityPub to the #EU that seeded much of the current #mainstreaming. But yes, it was always small and under utilised due to the strong forces of #stupidindividalisam that we need to balance. Ideas?“

From grassroots origins, #SocialHub emerged as a community-driven platform, rooted in the #openweb principles, focusing on the interplay of technology and “native” social paths. Its initial success lay in its collaborative ethos, free from mainstream interference. This promising start has since failed, due to lack of core consensuses and the active #blocking of any process to mediate the mess making.

Current challenges are from the influx of non-native perspectives, The twitter migrants and rapid #Fediverse expansion has diluted what was left of the original focus. Then in reaction to this the has been a retreat to tech paths over the social paths. This shift toward technical priorities marginalized the social aspects that initially empowered and defined the community, this is a mirroring of broader #geekproblem struggles that are a continuing of the fading of the project.

What actually works is always grassroots messiness and constructive processes, that is messy in a good way, authentic, grassroots movements are inherently untidy, this ordered/chaos is where real social value is born and nurtured. Attempts to overly structure or mainstream these paths risks losing the path, this together with lifestyleism, and fragmented tribalism, distract from meaningful change. These behaviours breed from #stupidindividualism, a core outcome of the #deathcult we pray to, the culture that undermines collective action.

There is a needed role for activism, based on learning from history, to avoid repeating mistakes. This can lead to wider social engagement, and an embrace of messiness to counteract the stifling tendencies of rigid mainstreaming and isolated tech focus. The metaphor of “shovels” is useful to turn the current pile of social and technical “shit” into compost is apt. Grassroots communities nurture a healthier ecosystem that balances tech and social. The imbalance favouring tech over social needs to be addressed, reinvigorating the core social crew with a focus on community-oriented discussions and actions can restore equilibrium.

For this, it can be useful to challenge neoliberal narratives, use the #openweb/#closedweb framework to critique and dismantle pushing of #neoliberal “common sense”. Highlight how these ideologies breed the individualistic and exploitative tendencies that undermine collective progress. The need for vigilance against co-option and the importance of nurturing the messy authenticity of grassroots movements. The path forward requires not just shovelling but planting seeds of collaboration, transparency, and collective action. By embracing the messiness and keeping the focus on social value, the #openweb can flourish as a genuine alternative to the #closedweb.

#KISS

UPDATE: This has since failed

What do I think?

The path I am advocating is rooted in a few core principles: a return to grassroots governance, prioritizing community-driven technology, and composting failed ideas for new growth. To enable this, we need to develop tools and frameworks that uphold transparency, empower collective action, and keep the focus on sustainable, open alternatives.

https://unite.openworlds.info

I believe to try and balance much of the current mess, people should focus on grassroots activism and building alternative systems to combat the current social, ecological, and technological mess. With a strong emphasis on open processes (#4opens), fostering collective action, to challenge the #neoliberal status quo (#deathcult) through direct engagement, rebooting independent media, and creating sustainable, community-driven alternatives to #mainstreaming structures. The path is to reclaim agency and work toward positive, systemic change from the grassroots up.

You can explore more at https://hamishcampbell.com

I am thus critical of #NGOs and #mainstreaming paths, as they often compromise their radical potential by seeking funding and approval from larger institutions and establishment hierarchies. This to oftern leads to co-optation and dilution of grassroots values of “native” paths, turning them into tools for maintaining the status quo rather than challenging it. We need to actively resist this corruption and ensuring that alternative, community-driven projects can thrive without becoming fatally entangled in mainstreaming mess.