To make the #NGO crew more functional in an #openweb reboot, we need to focus on changing organizational culture and integrating principles that align with the #4opens and “native” grassroots, collaborative values. How can we do this? Emphasize transparency and open governance, as NGO minded people suffer from opaque decision-making processes that reflect the inefficiencies…
In part, the USA shift is due to the #geekproblem in tech
The political power that Silicon Valley and Big Tech pushed over this election is a real #geekproblem threat, with the #dotcons leveraging technological and financial influence to shape society in ways that benefit the nasty few and undermine basic democratic paths we need to be fallowing in the era of #climatechaos One way to take…
Composting the social mess to balance the change we need
In the online spaces I navigate, there’s no shortage of #fashernistas crowding the conversation, diverting focus from the native #openweb paths we urgently need to explore. They take up space and ultimately block more than they build. Then there’s the #geekproblem: while geeks get things done within narrow boundaries, they’re rigidly resistant to veering beyond…
Blavatnik Book Talks: The Forever Crisis
This is my reaction from the talk, have not read the book. In The Forever Crisis, the author presents complex systems thinking as a framework for addressing the world’s intractable challenges, particularly at the level of global governance. The book critiques the traditional top-down approaches that are pushed by powerful institutions like the #UN, highlighting…
The Activist History of the Web: Lessons we can learn
Over the last few decades, the web’s evolution has been shaped by competing ideals. Early on, we witnessed the shift from the “better” #closedweb corporate controlled paths to an #openweb #DIY explosion—a time when collaborative, decentralized approaches thrived. #Mainstreaming efforts to recapture this #4opens spirit failed for years, but eventually, corporate-driven dot-coms platforms captured the…
Navigating the Postmodern Confusion and the Case for Common Sense
From a left-wing perspective, identity politics and class-based politics feel like competing ideologies. Identity politics focus on individual identities (race, gender, sexuality, etc.), while leftist movements emphasize collective struggle against class-based oppression under capitalism and neoliberalism. Both approaches aim to address inequality but through different paths. For the #geekproblem we can view them like competing…
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…
The Non-Profit Industrial Complex (#NPIC): A Double-Edged Sword in #FOSS and Activism
What we call #NGO’s in the hashtag story. The Non-Profit Industrial Complex (NPIC) entanglement of non-profits, big businesses, governments, and social activism can, leads to mess we need to compost. While nonprofits can fund crucial tech and activist work, their reliance on corporate-linked foundations dilutes this, to keep receiving money, the is STRONG presser to…
The tension, grassroots movements and #NGO paths
The is a tension between grassroots movements and #NGO paths on the #Fediverse and wider #openweb projects. From a #fluffy point of view the NGO path, while often well-intentioned, can lead to forms of imperialism where outside forces-through funding, structure, and top-down approaches—unwittingly impose their agendas on communities. These actors often don’t realize they are…
Fediverse, grassroots, native, trust, openness, and collaboration
One thing we really need to compost is the often invisible conflict between the native commons-based approach and the realities of capitalist infrastructure—particularly in how we fund, organize, and maintain spaces, for example #FediForum. It is hard to get across this invisible #blocking . The perspective, of ideological exclusion rather than the money itself being…
The #mainstreaming is always filled with imperialism, we need to mediate this mess making
The imperialism visible in FediForum is a part of the broader critique of the culture surrounding it, that can help to highlight a core issue in the evolution of the openweb and grassroots activism: the tension between #mainstreaming (enclosure) and grassroots commons (open, decentralized commons paths). The Cultural Divide, the culture around FediForum is #NGO…
We need to build more bridges
This thinking came out of this thread on the subject of the relationship between #WC3 and the grassroots #socialhub over the “governance” of #ActivityPub and the wider #Fediverse. A bridge rather than ownership would look like a collaborative, flexible, and trust-based system, rather than one based on control and dominance. In the context of the…