Bridging alt and mainstreaming: A note on the shape of resistance

There’s a nice post by Elena Rossini’s, “This is what resistance to the digital coup looks like.” she is commitment to the #Fediverse, #FOSS tools, and open publishing solutions, and her critique of #VC-funded platforms like #Substack and #Bluesky is needed. At the same time, it’s worth pausing to reflect on how we talk about these things, particularly when we’re speaking to an emerging audience, still navigating the gap between centralized tech and more native, grassroots tools. Because while we do need clarity, we also need care. Otherwise, we risk turning signal into noise.

Rossini’s article is a good example of how alternative infrastructure begins to reach broader consciousness. Many of the platforms she champions – Ghost, Beehiiv, and even certain curated Mastodon experiences – fall within or adjacent to the broad #4opens networks. They are a part of the solution. But they also carry baggage. Some are corporate-lite. Some depend on foundation funding. Some straddle a line between truly open and VC-sanitized.

This isn’t a problem per se, but it’s important to be transparent about it, many of us in the radical grassroots space, those nurturing compost heaps of alternative media, peer publishing, and federated community infrastructure – have seen what happens when clarity is lost. The #NGO-ization of resistance. The capture of the #openweb by polite #PR. The story gets smoothed out, the needed risk disappears, and the power we need to shift can simply be adapted and absorbed.

Let’s name the agendas, kindly. We’re not calling anyone out, quite the opposite, this is a call in. A reminder that it’s polite and politically grounded to acknowledge the agenda and position of the tools we use, even more so the ones we promote. Are they native to the grassroots? Are they part of a transitional bridge? Are they compromised in some ways?

Rossini’s argument – that using Substack and Bluesky while denouncing Big Tech sends a mixed message – is fair. But the same critique could be gently extended to Ghost and Beehiiv, too. These aren’t immune from #mainstreaming pressures. If we want to build a truly alternative infrastructure, we have to be honest about what’s native, what’s transitional, and what’s being branded as “alternative” without any deeper roots.

The #4opens as compass, one tool that helps us make these distinctions is the #4opens: open source, open data, open process, and open standards. It’s not a purity test, nothing ever should be, but it gives us a compass. A way to orient ourselves as we navigate the mess. A platform might look open because it feels different from Big Tech. But if it lacks open process, if its governance is closed or opaque, then it’s not truly part of the alt path. If it uses open source code but locks users into proprietary hosting or hidden metrics, that’s worth noting too.

This doesn’t mean we throw out every tool that doesn’t tick all four boxes. It means we contextualize. At best, we practice a kind of digital literacy that includes politics, power, and history, not just user experience. Clarity is compost, Rossini’s voice is part of a broader chorus rising in defence of a better “native” web. That’s good news, but let’s make sure that as more people join this space, we compost the confusion, not spread more of it, some things you might want to do as good practice:

Choosing native language when we can (use “open publishing” or “independent Fediverse platforms” rather than brand names as default). #openweb is a powerful statement in itself as it contrasts to #closedweb.
Naming the agendas behind the platforms we use or promote.
Valuing bridges, but not confusing them for destinations.
Practicing digital humility, so we can learn without defensiveness.

There’s little clarity to begin with, let’s help each other work through the compost, with bare feet and open minds, toward something truly rooted in the commons. And yes this will mean dirty feet and hands 🙂

#TED – A Community of Delusions

Ignore the #AI mess, build the #OMN – This is a path

Yes, I read the post. And yes, the despair is real. The #openweb is being bulldozed by #GenerativeAI like a forest clear-cut by machines driven not by need, but by greed, profit and power for the #nastyfew. Yes, the #deathcult of techno-capitalism is running its script to the bitter and dead-end. And yes, I too wonder if we’ll survive this, but as you say we have a path, and it’s not new. It’s simple, it’s human, and it’s working.

It’s called the #Fediverse and the next step we need to take is “native” applications on this path like the #OMN – the Open Media Network – and it’s built from the bones and dreams of the old web: #4opens, #KISS principles, and trust-based, #DIY infrastructure. It’s a messy, human soup of tagged data and federated flows where people and content are commons by default, not walled gardens and extractive silos.

The magic? It’s not even in the tech (though that matters). It’s in the “common sense” at the core – Anything in, anything out – mediated by trust. Lossy? Yes. Redundant? Absolutely. But that’s a feature, not a bug. It’s what makes it resilient. The #geekproblem keeps trying to engineer this out, but we need to compost that #techshit into something useful, working tools for real people, growing radical networks of care and change.

To those staring into the digital abyss and seeing only Ozymandias and decay, look sideways, the #Fediverse lives. The #openweb still works. And we’re building new foundations from the compost of the old. We do not need to be swept along with the gray goo of #AI, we can simply not go there, and instead stay here and focus to do the work that is needed.

“I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
–Percy Bysshe Shelley

And yes, I see it too, we’ve been holding back on our own power, hesitant. Maybe our despair is part of the mess we need to shake ourselves awake from. So I ask what positive path can we walk? What part of the #OMN can we all help compost, code, shape, or share?

Let’s rebuild the net with hands in the soil and eyes on the stars. Because the answer isn’t new. It’s what we’ve always done when things fall apart, we grow.

#KISS

Treating everything as a personal conflict is unbelievably stupid

A reminder: treating everything as a personal conflict is unbelievably stupid. It’s one of the most damaging habits we’ve normalized in our pushing of #stupidindividualism, and a core pillar of the #mainstreaming that keeps us in loops of division, burnout, and reaction. We’ve seen this time and again – online, offline, in activist circles, and tech spaces. People isolate, bicker, and collapse movements rather than build collectives.

So how do we get out of this trap?

Rebuild Collective Thinking

We need to shift from “me” to “we.” This doesn’t mean erasing individual voices, it means weaving them into shared goals. The #openweb thrives when people collaborate on process, not just identity or ideology. It’s about creating space for disagreement without turning it into warfare. Focus on shared outcomes, not personal ego.

Normalize Conflict Mediation, Not Escalation

Disagreement is natural. But instead of defaulting to callouts, blocks, and walkouts, let’s revive the art of mediation. Real communities have friction, but they also have tools to work through it. Bring your shovel, not your flamethrower. Compost the crap; don’t fling it.

Prioritize Process over Personalities

Movements rot when they’re built around individuals, especially charismatic ones. Codebases, collectives, and federated systems need open, documented processes that anyone can step into. People come and go, but if the path is solid, the work continues. That’s what the #4opens is about, building resilience through transparency and collaboration.

Build Human-Scale Structures

We need networks that encourage local accountability and global connection, not scale for the sake of attention. Small communities federated together are harder to corrupt, easier to moderate, and better for mental health. Scale by trust, not by metrics.

Practice Default-to-Good-Faith Culture

Trust isn’t blind, but suspicion as a baseline poisons everything. We need to make “assume good faith” a default again, until proven otherwise. Not everyone is a grifter, an op, or a narcissist. Most are just trying to find their footing, like you. Let’s stop tearing each other down on impulse.

If we can move from personal grievance to collective purpose, from reactivity to reflection, from individual branding to shared building, then maybe we can finally break from the current loop. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about being in “process” together.

Let’s stop adding to the mess and start composting it, please.

Tech governance fails, its pastime to compost the mess

The last 20 years of tech governance projects keep missing the mark because they refuse to engage with the real, lived experiences of grassroots activists and community builders. Instead of listening, they fall back into the comfort zones of the #geekproblem: control over collaboration, certainty over-curiosity, code over community.

This is further compounded by the “professional” #NGO class of detached, branding-obsessed, and career-driven #mainstreaming. They claim to serve communities but remain disconnected from the daily struggles, uncertainty, and messiness that define grassroots organizing. These people aren’t building relationships; they’re building resumes.

If they could stop and actually listen to those of us who’ve been in the trenches, those who’ve composted decades of failures and seeded collective wins, they’d quickly see the futility of their rigid, technocratic paths. Real governance isn’t found in plush committee rooms or geeky blockchains. It always emerges from shared struggle, radical trust, and the mess of collaboration.

Until tech governance initiatives shift focus, from control to cooperation, from professional advancement to collective empowerment, they will continue to fail. Worse, they will undermine the communities they claim to support. And let’s be honest, it’s well past time to compost the last ten years of #encryptionist fantasy-making as a first step.

The #OGB (Open Governance Body) was created as a response to this mess making. Rooted in the #4opens principles, it challenges the false promises of #blockchain and #DAOs, which replicate the worst aspects of capitalist market logic, financialization, scarcity, and the concentration of power. Tokens and ledgers are not the future of grassroots governance, they’re its co-option.

We need to actively resist these technological distractions because we know that community is not code. And governance is not a smart contract. We need grassroots paths that reflect gift economies, mutual aid, and social trust, not digital casinos. The truth is that still too many #mainstreaming #NGO types are more interested in branding their codebases and instances than actually serving the messy, vibrant, collective reality of the #openweb as it exists.

That’s why we need the #OMN (Open Media Network). Because governance, media, and tech are not separate, they’re bound together. The #OMN path is about rooting our tools in real communities, building trust over time, and composting the failed hype cycles of the last decade.

If we want an #openweb that matters, we have to dig deeper. Start local. Share power. And stay messy.

Digging over the rot and planting something more real

Q: People are angry about #AI scrapers and that this is exploiting everything for “free” – our art, our words, our data. But let’s be honest, we’ve spent the last 40 years gorging on “free” content online, music, games, video, writing, without paying for a thing unless forced to with a paywall. Yes. We block the ads, we hate the tracking, and we very rarely donate. So… with the idea that everything has to be paid for, are we really that different from the AI scraping machine?

A: The current “common sense” frames this as a moral issue, but it’s better seen as a systematic one. And that’s where people keep getting lost in talking about this.

We live in a society rooted in greed and extraction. That’s the baseline. It’s called capitalism, and for the last 40 years it’s been accelerated by the neoliberal #deathcult, where today “ethics” is bought in plastic tubs of organic yogurt at our local supermarket.

What grows out of this shit heap? #Stupidindividualism, people demanding everything for free while shouting about their personal rights to consume. They want to save the planet, but only with next-day delivery and zero commitment. Then you’ve got the #fashionistas – the “good people” who “perform” care while feeding the same destructive paths. It’s not irony, it’s the logic of the path we take.

No, I don’t want tracking ads. No, I don’t want my ideas and writing turned into #AI sludge. But I’m also not pretending this is a matter of “personal choice”, when we need to shout loudly and continually that it’s a system built to turn “creators” into social shit and call it innovation, when better to speak truth and call it compost.

We don’t fix this by feeling guilty, we fix it by building something else. That’s what #OMN is for, that’s why #4opens matter. Public media, open processes, radical trust, of native #openweb paths, not just another polished platform for exploitation with feel good #UX

It’s not about blame. It’s about digging over the rot and planting something more real #KISS

Let’s build from the rot something rich, wild, rooted, and real

The worst parts of people and society – fear, greed, envy, control – are self-reinforcing. They act as feedback loops in a broken sound system: shrieking, distorting, drowning out all nuance is the signal-to-noise issue we need to mediate. The problem is that some people feed on this noise. The media amplifies it. Social networks algorithmically reward it. This cycle of breaking – where outrage breeds more outrage, where mistrust deepens isolation, and where competition crushes collaboration – is an act of destruction. It corrodes relationships, communities, and in the end our capacity to imagine a better world.

We see this every day:

Clickbait headlines that fuel division because rage gets more views than reason.

Politicians who stoke fear to gain power, scapegoating the most vulnerable.

Tech platforms that extract attention through anxiety and reward extremism.

Economic systems that pit workers against each other, just to survive.

To compost this mess, we have to do the opposite to this current “common sense”: to normalize and nourish the best parts of people and society, trust, generosity, curiosity, empathy. When these values are much more visible, practiced, and shared, people can feed on hope instead of despair. This cycle of creation builds, it doesn’t break. It connects, it doesn’t divide. Examples of composting:

Mutual aid groups during crises, where strangers organize to care for one another without waiting for permission or profit.

Community-run media that uplifts real voices, telling stories not as commodities but as threads in a shared tapestry.

Free software movements built not on scarcity and control but on abundance and sharing.

Occupy kitchens, copwatch collectives, local food co-ops, and even open-source libraries — all rooted in the principle: we are stronger together.

The problem is capitalism, in its current form, is a system founded on the worst instincts, it glorifies greed, promotes fear, breeds control, and accumulates power in the hands of the #nastyfew. It at long last now be obverse that it is a system that thrives on destruction – of nature, of community, of meaning.

In contrast, socialism and anarchism, at their best, are grounded in trust, solidarity, and hope. They offer frameworks for cooperation without coercion, for shared abundance, for bottom-up resilience. These are not utopias – they are gardens. Messy, real, and alive. They root us in better soil – the kind where the seeds of collective flourishing can actually grow.

We do need to stand, together, shovels in our hands. The world is breaking, but we are not powerless. The mess is here, let’s not run from it, let’s work to compost it. Let’s build from the rot something rich, something wild, rooted, and real.

What do we balance this with? The #OMN projects – short for Open Media Network – are not a brand, not a platform, and not a startup. They’re a loosely coordinated, commons-rooted pathway emerging from the native #openweb trajectory. They’re aimed at building a livable media ecology, that grows from open-source ethics, affinity-based social organization, and federated infrastructure rather than enclosure, extractivism and spectacle.

Rather than falling into the traps of heroic dev culture or platform monoculture, #OMN treats tech as an ensemble process: modular, collectively maintainable, and explicitly oriented toward mutual coordination and deliberation, not content flow or engagement metrics. It’s tech that refuses to pretend it’s neutral.

The point is not digital for digital’s sake. These networks are meant to scaffold on-the-ground, hybrid practices – to support real-world collective activity, embedded presence, and the messy, rhythmic back-and-forth of embodied organizing.

Unlike most open-source projects that depend on the labour of isolated overcommitted maintainers (and collapse when they burn out), #OMN foregrounds shared stewardship and viscous governance – avoiding the trap of what is aptly called #stupidindividualism. This is code with a metabolism, not code as artifact.

Philosophically, #OMN differs from most “tech for good” efforts by refusing to detach “technology” from semiotic infrastructure. Defaults, interfaces, metaphors, these aren’t just UI choices; they’re interpretive compressions that shape how collectives think, decide, and remember.

So the stakes are high. Latency pressures, whether social, cognitive, or computational, have to be designed for, not ignored. That means systems that scaffold deliberation, not shortcut it. That means treating the commons as composed, not given, building stacks that help ensembles hold interpretive tension instead of collapsing into fast consensus or false clarity.

In short: #OMN is infrastructure for the kind of world where #4opens matters. It’s a path to build tech that metabolizes collective meaning-making under conditions of mortal constraint. Not because it’s ideal – but because it’s necessary.

It’s long past time to return to the #openweb, and compost this mess making

We used to run 6 #Fediverse instances as part of the #OMN project – thousands of users across them. Admin/mod work was done by volunteers, grounded in user reports, contextual judgment, and dialogue. No hard rules. Just common sense and solidarity. It worked for 4–5 years.

Then came the #Twitter liberal influx – intolerant, entitled, and completely disconnected from #mutualaid and community care. They treated our volunteer-run platforms as if they were corporate #dotcons, shouting into the void and demanding services with no reciprocity.

We tried to bridge the gap, repeatedly. It didn’t work. It drained us. After a year running at a huge loss, we had to shut them all down. Yes, it’s sad. Yes, it’s bad. But this is a normal pattern, resources are disposed of, culture gets flattened, energy gets burned out.

Alt-tech needs some resources, yes, far less than the #mainstreaming, but not zero. More importantly, it needs a culture that doesn’t throw itself under the wheels of liberal exceptionalism. We’re now working on rebooting this, with code that’s less friendly to “common sense” liberalism and more in tune with grassroots #4opens values.

Because, let’s face it, look at most tech news today and mutter with me:

Utterly pointless. Stupidly pointless. Dangerously pointless.
Naively evil. Innocently evil. Just plain evil.
…We need to do better in alt-tech.

The #dotcons built billion-dollar platforms on amplifying the worst of human nature.
It’s long past time to return to the #openweb, and compost this mess making.

Our liberals talking about the death of #postmodernism

From my decades of real-world experience – especially in activism – I’ve found that self-professed #Postmodernists and Western #Buddhists have been some of the most useless and damaging people I’ve worked with. Not an exaggeration: I could probably count the genuinely good ones on one hand. This isn’t bitterness. It’s about composting a mess that has rotted for too long.

Important: This isn’t a call to lurch into the collapsing right-wing #shitheap either. It’s a call to stop adding to the mess, to pick up our shovels, and to get to work clearing space for new growth. Let’s not be prats about this, thanks.

#deathcult #techshit #postmodernism #composting #openweb

The Problem: Postmodernism, Hate, and #StupidIndividualism

Dev test work for Makinghistory application

The #makinghistory project is a decentralized, open-source archiving and storytelling network designed to preserve and amplify grassroots histories. It’s founded on the idea that history isn’t written by the winners – it’s made by those who resist, build, and care. Using digitized collections like the CampbellFamily archive as a seed, the project invites communities to reclaim their narratives through shared, federated networks. This isn’t just another data repository – it’s a living, breathing ecosystem where collective memory is gathered, enriched, and kept accessible for future generations and movements.

The application functions as a community-installable tool that allows anyone to host their own archive node. These nodes, whether local or remote, connect into a wider peer-to-peer network of storytellers, archivists, and activists. Core features include uploading and organizing digital files, enriching metadata flows, and linking material to broader narratives using human-created tags and annotations. The platform follows a participation-first path, encouraging affinity groups to contribute not just data, but context, weaving a rich web of interlinked histories.

But #makinghistory goes further than archiving. It’s a space for collaborative storytelling, publishing, and public exhibition. Its narrative layer draws from the archive to trace connections between people, places, and events, transforming scattered fragments into stories of solidarity, resistance, and change. These outputs feed both digital commons and real-world installations like the Resistance Exhibition, where history is brought to life in public, participatory spaces. This is the infrastructure for radical memory work, a composting system for movement knowledge. Developers are not just needed to build features, they’re invited to help shape the very flows and protocols that keep history in the hands of those who live it.

Developer Roadmap: #makeinghistory – Testing & Prototyping

Phase 1: Core Object Listing
- Implement a single-column interface that lists objects (text, image, link).
- Set up two test instances that can post and sync objects between them.
- Default view lists objects by most recent. Super simple.
Phase 2: Hashtag Columns
- Add support for hashtag-based columns (inspired by Mastodon’s Tweetdeck interface).
- Reuse and adapt existing open-source implementations where possible.
Phase 3: Story Objects
- Introduce a new “Story” object that composes and links existing media objects, with added narrative context.
- These stories are published through collective/community accounts (discussion needed on access/trust models).
Phase 4: Federation & Flows
- Begin mapping and testing how edits, hashtags, comments, and objects flow across federated instances.
- Align this with the #OMN trust model and the work from the #indymediaback reboot (estimated 90% overlap).
User Interfaces
- Desktop: Use a Tweetdeck-style interface, similar to Mastodon’s current layout.
- Mobile: Build a simplified UI with a single-column scroll. Objects open fullscreen with sideways swiping (like Tusky for Mastodon).
Every Object
- Has edit capabilities (if user has login/auth).
- Editable hashtags.
- Comment threads.
- All changes sync across instances via federation/trust flows (option 4).

The current test interface and images will need refreshing, as they’re based on early-stage mockups. But the concept remains: keep the interface minimal, usable, and focused on narrative composting. This project is both infrastructure and imagination, grounded in the old but reaching toward the new.

These images need an update as they were based on the dev work from back in the day. This is the very basic interface for testing. The mobile user facing interface is a flick sideways basic interface.

The logic and workflow are all based on the OMN project and have likely a 90% overlap with the indymediaback project

DEV of the #OMN projects

At the core of the #makinghistory infrastructure lies the Open Media Network (#OMN) – a trust-based, human-moderated, #4opens project that offers a decentralized, federated database shared across peers. What makes the OMN unique isn’t just what it does – but what it refuses to do. Rather than chasing complexity or abstract “AI-powered” solutions, the OMN focuses on simplicity and social cohesion, using technology to support and grow human networks. Its structure is purposefully minimal, with only five essential functions:

These core functions are: Publish (to share a story as an object into a stream); Subscribe (to people, pages, groups, or subjects); Moderate (to express trust or disapproval by pushing or pulling content); Rollback (to remove content from your stream based on trust flows); and Edit (to collaboratively change metadata across federated nodes where you’re authenticated). This framework serves as the back-end engine for building a grassroots, DIY semantic web. The front-end can take many forms: city-based or subject-specific sites like a modern reboot of Indymedia, regional storytelling platforms, or thematic archives like #makinghistory. Protocols like ActivityPub form the connective tissue of this system, the plumbing.

In practice, this means people can build meaningful media spaces that reflect local struggles and solidarities without being dependent on corporate platforms or NGO gatekeeping. The data cauldron of the OMN stores the shared knowledge, and every community holds a golden ladle – a way to draw out, remix, and republish what matters to them. If you’re interested in supporting this effort financially, you can do so via Open Collective. And if you’re ready to dive deeper, we need to make this #KISS project work. Let’s build tools for memory, not marketing, infrastructure for resistance, not careerism. Let’s be #makeinghistory together, not sit bord looking at a screen.

This #OMN path is “native” built on a simple, powerful truth: “This is the Internet”:

GET
PUT
POST
DELETE
–MERGE–

These basic actions — close to the core HTTP verbs every website uses — are all you need to create, share, remix, and grow.
(From RFC 7231 and RFC 5789.)

Then you have the #4opens which are about reclaiming the grassroots social power of the web:

Open data

Open source

Open process

Open standards

No gatekeepers. No #dotcons middlemen. No closed silos. Just people, building together. This is what #openweb reboot looks like.

Actors, Power, and Collective Publishing: Rethinking Fediverse Architecture for Grassroots Media

Not to punish the individuals, but to highlight the groups to compost

In tech paths, the last 20 years have been a mess of #fashernista trends and the ongoing #geekproblem, we now face a compost heap of broken promises and abandoned projects. It’s obvious if you lift the lid and really look. The glossy hype fades fast, the rot underneath remains.

Much of what we call “innovation” ended up as #techshit – rushed, bloated, short-sighted code that needs serious composting if we’re going to grow anything real. #Openweb dreams have been buried under a #dotcons landfill.

The real challenge now isn’t just pointing at the pile (fun as that can be), it’s handing the next generation proper shovels – real tools, real critical thinking, real spaces for building rooted, resilient, open tech.

One of the most corrosive problems on the path to rebooting the #openweb is the nasty, unconscious blocking that pours through all the #mainstreaming and careerist #NGO paths. It’s not usually overt, it doesn’t come with a clear “no.” It comes with silence, with being ignored. With polite nods and a quick pivot back to safe, fundable, middle-of-the-road ideas that don’t rock the boat. This is how real change is smothered, how compost we need becomes concrete we are trying to break up.

Whenever something grassroots or genuinely native pushes into these spaces, say, someone trying to move beyond the stale copycat platforms, or raising the obvious problems with #dotcons being repackaged as “innovation”, the response is a passive-aggressive wall of non-engagement. These spaces are deeply allergic to anything that makes the self blinded comfort of #mainstreaming uncomfortable.

And you don’t shut up? If you insist on making the mess visible and pushing for something that might actually shift the culture? That’s when it escalates.

Ad hominem attacks begin — you’re “angry,” “difficult,” “not constructive.”

Technical blocking follows — defederation, closed chat groups, funding gatekeeping.

Eventually, it cycles back to the default tactic: ignoring you again.
Because ignoring is easy. Ignoring doesn't threaten careers or grant cycles. Ignoring keeps the status quo safe.

But this leaves the real mess in place, the rot stays buried under layers of “positive vibes,” #PR-driven governance proposals, and performative inclusivity that ends up actually excludes anyone who doesn’t play within broken paths.

This creates perfect conditions for the rise of the #fashernistas, the well-meaning tech influencers, safe radicals, and trendy projects that suck up time, focus, and resources while producing little more than reheated versions of things that already failed. And the cycle repeats:

Grassroots tries to engage.
Gets blocked.
#Fashernistas fill the vacuum.
Compost becomes glittery sludge.

We’ve need to more loudly name this cycle for what it is, a defence mechanism for comfort and careerism, not in any way a path of care or community. And it’s antithetical to the kind of messy, living compost that grows something healthy and new. The #openweb needs real pushback, we need native tools, radical simplicity, open processes, and yes – a tolerance for discomfort. Because without discomfort, there is no transformation.

So, let’s keep making the mess visible. Let’s stop being “ignored” quietly. Let’s build outside the polite paths, where nothing changes. After working in this area for 20 years, am tempted to list the people I have worked with, outlining good and bad paths they have pushed projects in. do you think this might be useful, not to punish the individuals, but to highlight and illustrate the groups we need to compost on going.

A hopeful note: some #fashernistas are starting to apologize and acknowledge the mess. That’s good compost material too. Let’s keep composting. Let’s keep planting.

From unstoppable slop, to #enshittification, the #FT on the internet is adding to the mess

#Mainstreaming talk about the internet generally completely misses the point, yep, it’s the FT so no surprise I suppose. The actual internet, the one we built before the takeover of the #dotcons, this is a culture of #4opens protocols, stitched together with moth-eaten mythologies and some messy traditions. It was never clean or pure, but it was ours.

What this guy in the article is describing isn’t the internet, it’s the #dotcons layer that’s been built on top of that original infrastructure. Worse, it’s very crap path that we helped build, by feeding it with our time, attention, and data. Yes, it’s a mess. But, the bigger problem is what we often do is add to this mess instead of composting it.

From “unstoppable slop” to “enshittification” to the idea of a “hostile internet”, all of these have explanatory power, but none really get to the root issues. The sickness isn’t just tech, it’s culture, warped by power and profit. What we’re living in now isn’t a broken system, it’s a deliberately built one. Designed not for us, but to extract from us. This #hostileinternet is not inevitable. It’s the result of a thousand bad decisions made by #deathcult tech and #VC backed greed, and not by accident but by design.

The FT piece ends up saying: “The internet makes us seem mad, always connected, always performing, always consuming – like streetcorner eccentrics amplified to global scale.” And yeah, it does feel like that. But that’s not the fault of the internet. It’s the fault of which internet we’ve chosen to feed. To fix this, we don’t need a new system. We need to remember the old one.
Compost the current slop. Rebuild from the roots. Base it on native #4opens, community, and the culture that carried us before this #dotcons mess took over.

#openweb #AI #AISlop #GenerativeAI #KISS #nothingnew

Messy language feeds back into our messy culture

The #blocking of current action, the constant stalls, confusion, and fragmentation, has a lot to do with the mess our use of language makes. And the deeper issue is how this messy language feeds back into our culture, which then loops back to make the language even murkier. It’s a feedback loop that clouds meaning, erodes trust, and paralyses collective action.

The last 40 years of postmodernism and neoliberalism have made this worse. #Postmodernism chipped away at the idea of shared reality, leaving us with endless interpretation and “personal truths.” #Neoliberalism, on the other hand, commodified everything, including language itself, into marketing, spin, and #PR. Together, we have hollowed out words like “community,” “freedom,” and even “change,” to the point that we barely recognize what they mean any more.

Take “mutual aid” for example, a term grounded in deep solidarity and reciprocal responsibility. Now, on both #dotcons and #openweb platforms, it gets reduced to casual crowdfunding and anonymous asks, with little relational context. Not bad, but far from what it could and needs to be.

If we want affinity-based action to work, if we want people to come together and trust and act together, then we have to compost this mess. And the way to do that might be surprisingly simple #KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid, not stupid as in naive, but stupid as in clear.

We need to reclaim simple language that carries shared meaning. This is exactly what we’re trying to seed with the positive side of the #hashtag story. Hashtags act as anchors in this storm of abstraction. They cut through noise, bring us back to the root meaning, and allow collective orientation without needing corporate gatekeepers or institutional filters.

Think:

#4opens — a shorthand for open code, open data, open governance, open standards.
#deathcult — pointing to the suicidal path of #neoliberalism.
#techshit — composting the mess, not throwing it away.
#nothingnew — slowing tech churn, reclaiming meaningful pace and paths.

Each of these tags points to deeper, shared narratives that are simple, but not simplistic. They invite action, not confusion. Composting the abstraction, regrow clarity, reclaim trust paths in both tech and social spaces. Speak simply, act clearly, hashtag wisely with intention.

On this working path, It is important for the progressives and radicals to come together and focus on the real issues and challenges facing society, rather than fighting among ourselves. Finding this balance between being “nice” and being “nasty” is key to being effective in bringing about any lasting social change.

The #hashtags embody a story and worldview rooted in a progressive and critical perspective on technology and society. They highlight the destructive impact of neoliberalism (#deathcult) and consumer capitalism (#fashernista) on our shared lives, while promoting the original ideals of the World Wide Web and early internet culture (#openweb).

The #closedweb critiques the for-profit internet and its harmful social consequences, while #4opens advocates for transparency, collaboration, and open-source principles in tech development.

The #geekproblem tag draws attention to a cultural tendency in tech: where geeks, absorbed in their tools and logic, overlook the broader social effects of their creations. This feeds into #techshit, where layers of unnecessary complexity pile up, further distancing people from tech’s social roots. Meanwhile, #encryptionists critiques the knee-jerk reaction that “more encryption” is always the answer, reinforcing control and scarcity, rather than liberating people and community.

Together, hashtags tell a coherent and powerful story. They call for a more humane, collaborative, and transparent approach to both technology and society.

#nothingnew asks whether constant innovation is the right path — or if we need to slow down and improve what already works.

#techchurn names the cycle of flashy, redundant tech that fails to solve core issues.

#OMN and #indymediaback point toward an Open Media Network — and a revival of the radical, decentralized media that once rivalled corporate media on the early web.

#OGB stands for Open Governance Body, an invitation to practice grassroots, transparent, community-led decision-making.

It’s an ambitious but needed path and goal, to build and grow social tech that “fails well”, meaning they fail in a way that can be fixed by the people, through trust and collective action, not closed-source patches and corporate updates. The #OMN’s focus is human-first. Tech comes second, as a mediator, a tool, not the destination.

Yes, the #geekproblem is real. Technical expertise becomes a gatekeeping mechanism. But tech can also empower, if we design for simplicity, accessibility, and community-first paths and values. The only working path is simple, trust-based, and human. That’s why we keep coming back to #KISS.

Why haven’t we been doing this for the last 10 Years? Over the past decade, we’ve lived in a state of quiet paralysis. Climate change, ecological collapse, technological overreach, all of it loomed. And instead of digging in, we froze. Well-meaning people chose fear over action. Understandably. But fear is a poor foundation for building anything sustainable.

We’re not on this site to only blame – we’re here to compost. The problem? We stopped critiquing. We stopped examining the tools in our hands. Not only that, but we bought into the illusion that #NGO paths and tech would save us. That shiny apps and startup culture could greenwash a better future. And when the results disappointed, we turned inward, stopped questioning, and left things to rot.

But what if that rot could be composted? By using the #4opens – open data, open code, open standards for open governance, we have a practical framework to call out and compost the layers of #techshit that have built up. Tech that divides us, tech that distracts us, tech that damages the planet and calls it progress. Yes, like gardening, composting takes time. It smells at first. It’s messy. But give it care, and you get soil. Soil to plant better ideas in. Soil for hope.

One of the reasons we haven’t made progress is the #geekproblem, a narrow slice of technically-minded culture made up of (stupid)individuals, which so far have dominated the design and direction of our tools. They, often, mean well. But in their obsession with technical elegance and “solutions,” they’ve sidelined the social and the ecological. What’s left is a brittle, sterile infrastructure, constantly churning out newness without any substance.

Meanwhile, #stupidindividualism has flourished, encouraged by #dotcons social media systems built for engagement, not connection. These silos encourage performance over solidarity, branding over community, and endless scrolling over doing. We’ve all felt it.

And most activist groups, instead of resisting this tide, drank the #NGO poison, chased funding, watering down their goals, professionalizing their resistance until it became another logo in a funding application. We’ve lost a decade to fear, distraction, and capture. But it’s maybe not too late.

We have the tools, in the #ActivityPub based #Fediverse. We have the frameworks, the #4opens can guide us to rebuild with transparency, collaboration, and care. The hashtags like #geekproblem, #techshit, #nothingnew, and #OMN give us a shared vocabulary for critique and regeneration. They point to a web where people, not platforms, hold power, and where technology serves life, not control. Let’s stop being afraid to critique. Let’s stop outsourcing responsibility and get on with composting.

Because that’s where the soil of a better path will come from.