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 this area of activism, the uncomfortable truth is that the biggest obstacle is way too often the anarchists themselves. I have spent years stepping into and outa anarchist spaces, and it’s clear that anarchists struggle to embody the autonomy they talk about. The #fashernista cultures discourage people from stepping beyond the established narrow paths, dress, behaver and language, reinforcing a cycle of self-isolation and easy to see failure. It becomes a lifestyle, anarchism, in practice, can to often look less like a rebellion and more like a subculture adapted to coexist with the paths it claims to oppose.
When real revolutionary moments arise, familiar rhetoric, feels safer than the unpredictable leap into real stateless freedom. Faced with the potential for anarchy, many anarchists cling to “anarchism” instead, sabotaging movements like the #OMN and older #openweb out of fear of losing their place within the struggle. Even without formal organizations, anarchist recreate hierarchy, influential figures shaping discourse while subtly suppressing critiques that could disrupt their status. This hidden power structure, where decisions are made without accountability, is still the normal paths anarchism claims to reject.
The core of anarchist thought, the rejection of imposed authority and the belief in voluntary cooperation, still holds radical potential. The problem isn’t with the ideas; it’s with the way they’re enacted. The state, with its machinery of control, has created the conditions that make itself seem necessary. Anarchy won’t come from rigid adherence to this ideological brand but from people who shed the weight of anarchism as a subculture and start living anarchically, forging relationships based on mutual aid and direct action, without waiting for permission from the past.
If anarchists could step away from the trap of anarchism, the state wouldn’t stand a chance. It’s time to stop venerating failure and start cultivating the seeds of real, messy, lived anarchy.
The #OMN social tech projects are an example of this step.
This has been going on for more than ten years, I have been at the heart of this movement, at many of the steps, I meet defeatism and negativity. It’s frustrating, especially now, when the mainstream is visibly stepping away from the #dotcons and looking for a place to land. We should be building that landing space, but instead, we’re tangled in the wreckage of failed ideas and cynical inertia.
Yes, stupid fashionable ideas have failed again and again, but that doesn’t mean the basics no longer work. The #openweb grew from simple, powerful principles: decentralization, collaboration, and a belief that media should be in the hands of the people, not locked behind corporate walls. It worked then, and it can work now.
The #blocking wall, the #dotcons built to dam this flow, just might be crumbling, but I don’t think people realize just how much defeatist noise we had and still have to break through:
“Old tech. Nobody uses torrents anymore.”
“That’s been tried — it failed.”
“This is better, nobody’s interested in that.”
“You should be using XYZ instead. I have a better idea...”
It’s an endless cycle of negativity, driven by a #geekproblem that values novelty over function, and a #fashernista culture that chases trends rather than tending to the messy, necessary work of composting old ideas to grow something real. The #openweb tools still work, If we use them. The core tools of the #openweb are still powerful:
#RSS feeds for simple, open distribution.
#Torrents for decentralized, resilient file sharing.
#Fedivers networks like #Peertube, #Mastodon, and #Wordpress for publishing and connection.
Mesh networks and local-first tech to break dependence on centralized infrastructure.
None of these are new, that’s the point, they work. The failure wasn’t in the tech, it was in our inability to hold space against the relentless creep of the #deathcult. Reclaiming the compost heap is a first step, we need to stop chasing the next shiny thing and start digging through the muck. The #OMN, #indymediaback, and #4opens are all rooted in the idea that we can rebuild from what we already know works, not by reinventing the wheel but by getting our hands dirty and composting the failures into fertile ground for the future.
The defeatism is loud, but it’s not unbeatable. We’ve been here before. We know the way out.
Decentralize.
Publish.
Connect.
Trust the process.
We (re)build the #openweb one small, stubborn step at a time.
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 internet’s origins are tangled with the military-industrial complex, designed for resilience in the face of catastrophe. But the protocols themselves, once set loose, created a playground for anarchistic experimentation. The lack of centralized control allowed people to build without permission, and that openness birthed the wild, decentralized internet we briefly glimpsed.
It was an accident, but an accident we can repeat. The #dotcons crushed that brief era of freedom, but the same dynamics that let the early #openweb flourish still exist. The #4opens, the #Fediverse, #OMN — these are our tools to recreate the “mistake” deliberately this time.
What if we embrace the idea that technology can escape its creators? Maybe we can compost the current #techshit and let something even more resilient grow. What do you think? Should we lean into the idea of building “mistakes” on purpose?
It’s well past time to pick a side. For decades, the internet has been being enclosed. The one’s living decentralized network of commentary sites, blogs, forums has been corralled into a handful of paved prison yards controlled by the #dotcons. With most people’s attention and thus freedom being in the hands of a #nastyfew oligarchs. Every post, every ‘friend,’ every creative work is locked behind closed doors, and when push comes to shove as it is now, you will increasingly find that you don’t have the keys.
But the keys still exist, and it’s not so hard for you to pickup them up. There has been a #openweb digital jailbreak going on for the last 5 years, if you value your humanity you need to become a part of this blackout, put the key in the lock and turn it.
OK, yes, maybe a little strong, the #openweb isn’t a utopia, but it’s the closest thing we’ve got to freedom online. It’s built on the #4opens: Open Source: The code is public, hackable, and accountable. Open Data: Information flows freely, not hoarded for control. Open Standards: Interoperability beats lock-in monopolies. Open Process: Transparent governance, not shadowy boardrooms.
This #fediverse path is an escape hatch from the #closedweb. It’s not a product. It’s not something you can buy stock in. It’s a network of interconnected platforms like #Mastodon, #Lemmy, and #PeerTube to name a few, all running on the open protocol #activertypub. It’s messy. It’s human. And it’s yours if you take it.
It should be easy to see that the #closedweb is a digital prison, a mausoleum for human creativity, dressed up like a theme park. It’s run by billionaire-controlled #dotcons and polished by the illusion of safety sold by the #encryptionists. Who keep misshaping our paths. What did they offer? Control: Your identity, your data, your connections — all owned by them. Manipulation: Your timeline, your reach, your visibility — dictated by algorithmic gods. Exploitation: Every interaction, every word, every click — another drop in their profit bucket. We’ve eaten their lie that the internet had to be this way. That Meta, Google, and the hollow husk of Twitter are the price of admission to digital society. But simply, it was never true.
OK, I get your apathy, why does it matter? Because when we blur the lines, we lose the fight. People pour energy into platforms that wear the clothes of progress but are stitched with threads of control. We need to clearly label projects as #openweb or #closedweb, so people can choose where to dig in and build. The #4opens are our shovels, and the remnants of failed #web03 promises are good compost to start on. Let’s turn the decay of false hope into fertile ground for real digital commons.
The internet wasn’t built to be a machine for ad revenue. It was built to connect the paths for radical, collective steps we need in today’s mess.
The #web03 noise were #dotcons in disguise, wearing the clothes of decentralization while perpetuating the same extractive models. They took the language of progress, twisted it, and fed it back to us as an illusion. All the projects that claimed to be building a better future ended up accelerating the same closed, greed-driven dynamics. It’s not innovation; it’s the #deathcult hiding behind #PR smoke and mirrors.
This is the foundation of today’s issues, our current leaders and gatekeepers were shaped by the detritus of the last 20 years of digital decay. But the tide is always turning. Change is happening whether we like it or not, and the only real choice is whether we steer that change to the right or the left. The centre is an illusion, crumbling as we speak.
The way out isn’t through another cycle of empty promises. It’s through composting. Use the #4opens as your guide: open data, open source, open standards, and open processes. Strip away the illusions and turn the rot into fertile ground for real alternatives. Support projects like the #OMN, which are built from the ground up with community, trust, and collective empowerment at their core.
Our current pushing of emptiness as an escape from the current mess helps no one. Instead, we need to carefully navigate toward meaningful outcomes. The centre was never the centre — it was always a holding pattern for the status quo. It’s time to break free. Pick up a spade, clear the ground, and start composting. The future grows from what we choose to cultivate today.
This starts so Nazi. Then goes onto the use of force, but the heckler gently leaves, which hides this. They then move to protect the border… and then pushes the internal border to exclude people internally who they don’t want on the inside. Then the celebrating the braking of the old world order, and the dismantling of its structurers and norms. Then back to me, me, me, a recurring theam. They are removing the last 20 years of #fashionista paths, but only to go back to a mythical past, nothing progressive.
This is a powerful #KISS populist move, for a reactionary outcome. The words “common sense” comes into play, the mix of the language of left and right is filling the space.
OK, can’t watch much more of this mess making… what’s the plan beyond running round like headless birds #stupidindividualism
UPDATE, skipped through to end, he celebrates the genarside of the Native Americans and calls for more American imperialism. It ends with fight, fight, FIGHT, so it’s pretty clear what they plan to do. The liberals walk out glum and dispirited at the end.
In my thinking, this is a grimly familiar cycle, the stripping away of even the shallow veneer of progress to reassert control, all while dressing it in the language of “common sense” and “protection.” The mythical past they reach for is just a tool to consolidate power, feeding off fear and division.
The building of external and internal borders mirrors the #deathcult logic: anything outside the rigid, nostalgic framework becomes an enemy. The “use of force” becomes not just physical but ideological, policing thought and community through propaganda.
The real mess making is the mix of left and right language — it’s a classic strategy, flattening complexity into soundbites, so people feel like they’re part of something bigger, even as they’re herded into smaller and smaller enclosures.
The need for a plan is key. Without collective grounding, we fall into the trap of #stupidindividualism, spinning in place while reactionaries move as a bloc. The path forward is less about grand plans and more about steady, stubborn composting, rebuilding from the bottom up with every tool we’ve got, even as they try to burn the garden.
How can you see the #OMN or the #OGB fitting into composting this mess? What seeds do you have to scatter? Or is it time to sharpen the tools for some direct pushback?
The problem with #closedweb paths on the internet isn’t just “greedy” Big Tech, it’s the inevitable outcome of #capitalism itself. Under capitalism, companies endlessly grow or die, squeezing profits from every possible source. This means tricking users into handing over their data, treating them with contempt, and ultimately dehumanizing them.
Criticizing the #dotcons and pointing to #FOSS copies as a solution is a simple first step. But only doing this is like blaming #BP for abandoning green goals while ignoring the paths that reward environmental destruction. Big Tech’s, the #dotcons, behaviour is a symptom of the #deathcult, a dead economic system where profit trumps people. Copies of the #dotcons no matter how well meaning carry some of this DNA into the #openweb reboot.
The web started as an open ecosystem, a collection of independent applications and communities connected by common protocols and stories. The walls went up in the name of profit and convenience, and now it’s time to tear them down. For the #OMN and the #4opens to thrive, we need to break this cycle. Let’s build tools that make self-hosting accessible to everyone, reconnect people to the value of the commons, and dismantle the tech oligarchies piece by piece. At the moment this is way too hard to do and the change to make this possible is being #blocked by the #geekproblm.
To move past this blocking we need to recognise that the scaffolding is tech, but the building is people, mythos, and tradition. Let’s get back to work with our shovels and compost the mess. ✊
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.
With each passing day, we’re witnessing the acceleration of the global far-right resurgence, a modern incarnation of #fascism, adapted to our time. This neofascism wears the mask of democracy, claiming legitimacy through hollow elections, while quietly dismantling political freedoms. It thrives on the wreckage of #neoliberalism and the crises it has unleashed, feeding on fear, resentment, and social breakdown.
The growing number of neofascist regimes may lack the overt paramilitary displays of the past, but their violence is no less real. It simmers beneath the surface, ready to erupt when needed. And unlike the old fascism’s obsession with state control, this new version embraces the worst of #neoliberalism, surrendering public welfare to private greed, while doubling down on nationalism, racism, and hostility to any form of collective liberation.
With escalating #climatechaos and systemic collapse, this is not just a political threat but an existential one. These forces are accelerating our collective destruction, blocking meaningful environmental action, and fuelling division at precisely the moment we need solidarity.
So where is the path out of this mess? By composting the crisis and reclaiming the #openweb. The answer isn’t found in bunkers or prepper fantasies, survival in the face of collapse requires cooperation, not isolation. And it certainly won’t come from the #dotcons or the #NGO complex, which are too entangled with the systems they claim to resist.
We need to build a grassroots counterforce, grounded in the principles of the #4opens, to cultivate digital and physical spaces of resistance. The #openweb offers us a framework for doing this, a messy, imperfect garden where we can plant alternatives and nurture them with care. But it only grows if people use it. We need joined-up thinking, not the fractured, piecemeal approach of the #fashernista crowd. We need people to commit to using and building tools outside the corporate silos, even when it’s inconvenient. Because every click, every post, every conversation shapes the landscape we inhabit.
Don’t ask, just do it, please don’t wait for permission or perfect conditions. Pick up a shovel and start composting the current mess. Rebuild local networks, create spaces for collective storytelling, and amplify voices that push back against #neofascist narratives. Use tools like the #OMN to link these efforts together into a larger ecosystem of resistance.
The neofascist wave may be rising, but history shows us that these forces can be stopped, not by isolated individuals, but by collective movements. The seeds of the future are already in our hands. The question is whether we have the courage to plant them.
The #dotcons have turned web searches into a cesspit of algorithm-driven propaganda. What was a tool for discovery and connection is now a tightly controlled funnel, pushing people towards preordained narratives and commercialized echo chambers. Nowhere is this more obvious than on Google, the go-to gatekeeper of information, where what you find is shaped not by the richness of human knowledge, but by whatever serves the interests of those with power and capital.
This isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a crisis for public knowledge and collective memory. When dissenting views, grassroots history, and alternative voices are buried under layers of #SEO spam, ad-driven results, and opaque censorship, we lose the ability to shape any understanding of the world. So what’s the plan to step outside this mess?
Build and use the #openweb to actively shift our habits to support platforms and projects built on the #4opens principles — open source, open data, open process, and open standards. The #OMN (Open Media Network) is one path to reclaiming these collective narratives, by creating decentralized, community-driven archives where stories are curated by people, not algorithms.
With the #dotcons shift to #AI in everything, resisting this algorithmic trap is key, that the more people understand how these systems blind us, the less power they have. Building native #4opens tech is a first step, then teaching media literacy, running workshops on the dangers of algorithmic control, and spreading knowledge about decentralized alternatives can gradually chip away at the illusion of choice presented by the #closedweb paths.
#Rewild the digital commons, the web was meant to be a messy, vibrant ecosystem, not a manicured, walled garden. We need to plant seeds in neglected corners of the internet, build hyperlocal networks, and use peer-to-peer tech to share knowledge directly. The more we create and share outside the #dotcons, the harder it becomes for them to control the narrative.
Create and nurture alternative search tools, we used to run an instance of #Searx which is #metasearch tool which works outside the algorithm as much as possible. But we had to shut this down due to lack of support, this lack of support is a real continuing issue we urgently need to overcome, we need users, contributors, and champions to increase usage of these tools and promote their development to build the infrastructure for an alternative discovery layer that can bypass the #dotcons.
Just do it, don’t wait for permission or a perfect alternative to emerge. Start archiving, writing, and sharing now. Build your own small-scale #4opens projects and connect them to others. The #OMN isn’t some grand centralized solution, it’s a framework for thousands of messy, local, independent nodes, each adding to a larger network of people-powered knowledge. This is a shovel-ready project. We don’t need to beg the #dotcons to change, and we certainly don’t need to play by their rules. Let’s get our hands dirty, compost the rotting remains of the algorithmic web, and start cultivating a truly human-centred internet again.
