Let’s look at some history of protest, with the crackdown on #XR’s peaceful, #fluffy protests, it’s no surprise that movements are moving into stronger, more disruptive actions. When one path to change is systematically #blocked, history shows that movements turn too #spiky, and we’re already seeing this shift. Recent events, like the symbolic damage by Oxford University by the Palestine Action group, or climate activists turning to sabotage, signal a new phase in the fight for justice and survival.
This escalation isn’t happening in isolation. It’s the predictable result of a systematic refusal to listen to those calling for change. People lose faith in liberal symbolic demonstrations as the #deathcult of #neoliberalism marches on, indifferent to the destruction in its wake. When doors to dialogue are slammed shut, people look for other ways to be heard.
Universities should be at the forefront of this conversation, providing space for genuine debate on how change happens, not just as an abstract academic exercise, but as a living, breathing discussion that acknowledges the urgency of the current mess. We need to break out of the cycle of blinded performative process and confront the reality that people will not quietly watch the world burn.
The #KISS path reminds us to keep things simple: listen to people, understand the roots of their motivations, and create pathways for meaningful action. Otherwise, as we’re already seeing, the pressure will keep building — and the cracks in the system will only grow wider.
To find my wider view on university’s role in this
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.
Most people I interact with are buried deep in the rot they’ve helped create, the path out is hard, but not impossible. The composting metaphor holds — rot can become soil, but only if it’s turned, exposed to air, and given time to break down. The stench lingers, though, and the deeper the decay, the harder it is to face.
Forgiveness can be a catalyst, but only if it’s rooted in understanding, not avoidance. Too often, movements try to “move on” without actually dealing with the decay, which just locks the dysfunction into place. Real forgiveness isn’t about forgetting or excusing — it’s about acknowledging the harm, holding people accountable to growth, and making space for them to rebuild trust through action.
With the #OMN the key is to create intentional processes for airing out the rot. Spaces where people can lay out what went wrong, where the worst of the mess can be named and examined without immediately collapsing into blame. This is a form of collective composting — deliberately breaking things down so they don’t keep contaminating the roots of future growth.
For paths that avoid recreating the mess, we might need, truth-telling circles: Spaces for people to name harms, acknowledge mistakes, and speak honestly about the dynamics that led to failure. Restorative action, not just words: Forgiveness should be paired with tangible action — people need ways to rebuild trust through collective work. Memory gardens: Digital or physical archives that document past failures and successes, so the same mistakes don’t get repeated. Rhythmic cycles of reflection: Movements need to regularly pause, look back, and compost what’s no longer serving the collective purpose.
Sun, light, and fertile soil come from this messy work of turning over the past and allowing time and care to transform it. The #openweb is a part of this, especially if we build systems and paths that prioritize collective memory and iterative growth over constant reinvention and erasure.
What do you think? Could structured cycles of composting and reflection help our movements breathe again? Or is the rot too deep, and we need to burn things down to clear space for new life?
Too often, I find myself in conversations that revolve around the intersection of technology and social issues, with one view emphasizing the importance of practical solutions to real-world problems, while the other highlights the underlying social dynamics that shape the technological landscapes these “solutions” are supposed to be addressing.
The Pragmatists, prioritizes immediate, tangible solutions. For example, when discussing the digital divide, they might advocate for creating cheaper, more accessible devices or building community Wi-Fi networks. They’ll focus on the logistics: what technology stack is best, what protocols to use, and how quickly the network can be deployed.
They see critiques of the capitalist underpinnings of tech as a distraction. For instance, they might argue that worrying about Big Tech’s dominance is less important than simply getting people online, even if it means relying on Google or Facebook infrastructure in the short term. The goal is to solve the immediate problem, even if the long-term implications reinforce existing systems of control.
The Social Critics, contends that technology cannot be meaningfully separated from the social systems it emerges from. They argue that simply handing out cheap devices or relying on corporate infrastructure entrenches dependency and undermines community sovereignty. For example, they might point to the rise of open-source projects that eventually get swallowed by venture capital, losing their grassroots values in the process (#dotcons).
They argue that unless we address the systemic issues, like how profit-driven models shape the design of platforms, any immediate “solution” is likely to reinforce the problem. Take social media moderation: a pragmatist might suggest better algorithms, while a social critic would argue that the underlying problem is the ad-driven engagement path itself.
The #GeekProblem is a barrier, the divide between these groups often solidifies into this mess making. Pragmatists, especially in tech spaces, dismiss social critique as impractical or irrelevant, reinforcing an insular culture that privileges technical expertise over lived experience. This dismissal is a form of #blocking, preventing collective growth and deeper problem-solving.
Breaking the cycle, to move past this, we need to blend the perspectives. For example, community mesh networks can be built with both pragmatic goals (connecting people) and social considerations (using #4opens practices to maintain local control). The technology itself can be a tool for social empowerment, but only if the builders acknowledge and address the social dimensions.
Projects like the Open Media Network (#OMN) bridge this gap, grounding tech development in community needs while keeping processes transparent and participatory. This balance helps compost the mess, turning the tension between pragmatism and social critique into fertile ground for true change. We don’t have to choose between immediate action and long-term systemic change, the key is holding both. Let’s stop getting stuck in the mess and start growing something real.
In the current #openweb reboot, let’s look at what makes sense, and let’s look at this from the prospective of collective dynamics, not individual blame. The focus is on mapping the social landscape, understanding the patterns of dysfunction, and then figuring out how to break through those blockages. The idea of switching between #spiky and #fluffy approaches as needed is powerful, rejecting rigid ideology in favour of practical, responsive action.
Making the #blocking visible is essential. So much of the stagnation in #openweb and activist spaces comes from hidden blockages, unspoken fears, entrenched power dynamics, and the quiet creep of #mainstreaming logic. By pushing these things into the light, we can compost them, rather than letting them fester underground.
Using history as a guide, leaning on what’s worked before, but staying flexible enough to shift tactics, should feel like the only sustainable way forward. If we only do #fluffy, we get captured by the #NGO mindset. If we only do #spiky, we burn out or implode. But if we consciously weave both together, we might actually build the resilience we need to grow new paths through the wreckage.
It’s almost like we need a cultural practice of “tending the compost”, regularly sifting through the mess, pulling out useful bits, and turning it over so new life can emerge. And maybe that practice itself could be a form of governance for grassroots networks, an ongoing, collective process of sense-making and recalibration.
What do you think? Can this idea of “compost tending” as a cyclical, community-driven process be something we intentionally build into the fabric of #openweb projects?
The new #mainstreaming right-wing crew has become adept at hijacking the language of liberation and twisting it for control. They steal words like “freedom,” “community,” and “resilience,” stripping them of their radical roots and turning them into tools for reactionary agendas. Meanwhile, the left, caught in cycles of internal purity politics and endless critique, fractures itself, leaving a vacuum the right eagerly fills.
It is a mess, but messes can be composted. The dig to strip away the parasitic layers, the influencers, the NGOs, the careerists who feed off this while subverting collective growth. These actors “thrive” on propping up a fragile sense of self, this messy path feeds division and spectacle, not solidarity. And as the mental health crisis worsens under #climatechaos and late-stage capitalism, people grasp for identity and belonging in the most toxic places.
We need radical care as well as radical action. The parasite class is fuelled by a deep void, a lack of purpose, a craving for significance. If we don’t build healthier collectives, people will keep falling into the black holes of conspiracy and #mainstreaming cultish thinking. The #openweb can be a sanctuary, a place to grow shared meaning, but only when we consciously design it to prioritize human connection over endless noise.
I wonder: how do we create spaces where broken people can heal, rather than becoming weapons of the right? Can we build digital commons that feel like home, where people can work through their pain without being consumed by it, collective care and unwinding the knots of individual trauma is a #fluffy part of activism. What do you think? Is it possible to compost the mess and nurture the people tangled within it? Or do we need a more fire-and-brimstone approach to burn away the rot, I start to only half joke.
The invisible core of the struggle. The way online spaces, especially in decentralized networks like the #Fediverse, handle conflict is tangled up in this tension between safety and open debate. The #fluffy vs. #spiky debate, between care-driven, consensus-seeking approaches and more confrontational, radical tactics, has always been part of activist culture. Trying to erase that debate in the name of safety is simply sterilizing the very dynamism that fuels real change.
If we strip out the “debate” part, we’re left with a hollow shell, a fragile, performative “safe space” that can’t actually withstand the pressures of the real world. But if we lean too far into spiky confrontation without care, we lose people who could grow into stronger comrades. It’s a balancing act, and yes, the co-option of “safety” by both NGO logic and reactionary forces has made this even more toxic.
The “parasite class” being taken out of context is a perfect example of this mess, people react to language without digging into the underlying ideas. The real question is whether we can metabolize within the chaos, compost the mess and care for the people lost in it, instead of just cutting them off. The #openweb needs friction to evolve, but it also needs trust to survive. There is a strong need to resist the impulse to sanitize the #openweb into submission. The #ActivityPub space, growing from the #fluffy side, has an embedded bias toward conflict avoidance, but that can be dangerous, because it leaves the system vulnerable to slow, creeping co-option. Safety shouldn’t mean silencing necessary struggles.
The consensus should be this: safety is built through collective care, not the absence of conflict. The #openweb should be a space where people can disagree loudly without fear of exile, where the friction of ideas sharpens the collective purpose, and where care is an active, ongoing process, not a bureaucratic rule set.
On the #dotcons mess driving the political move to the hard right, 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 to push people down. 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, now very visibly shitty #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.” where are the RESOURCES!
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.
Open source was always political, the very idea of #FOSS was always a radical, left-leaning stance.
Let’s be honest, you’re giving away your labour. Not for profit, not for career points, but because you believe we’d all be better off together if we stopped rewriting the same bits of code in isolation and started building commons instead of empires.
That’s not apolitical – that’s solidarity.
The #openweb was never just about better software. It was about building a world where cooperation beats competition, where transparency outlasts control, and where freedom comes from sharing, not hoarding.
People forget this because the #dotcons spent twenty years repackaging #4opens code into the thin layer of closed platforms, wrapping our collective labour in corporate branding, and calling it “innovation.” They turned our commons into their capital.
But the roots of the movement, the #4opens, the free software ethos, the hacker culture of mutual aid – were never neutral. They were radical acts of refusal. Refusal to sell out creativity. Refusal to turn knowledge into property. Refusal to let gatekeepers define what freedom means.
So yes, the open source community is political. It always has been. Every act of collaboration is a quiet rebellion against the isolation and control of the #deathcult.
When you write open code, you’re not just solving problems – you’re composting capitalism. You’re proving that another way of working exists, that cooperation scales better than greed, and that shared tools make freer people.
That’s why projects like the #OMN (Open Media Network) matter. They’re not just technical, they’re social, cultural, revolutionary. They remind us that freedom isn’t built on code alone, but on the courage to share, to trust, and to keep things open when everything around us screams for control.
Open source was always political, it’s time we remembered what side it was on.
To look at why this is important, we need to move outside the comfort zones of #mainstreaming thinking. Let’s start by touching on the role of #protestcamps in direct action: protest camps are temporary activist spaces set up in public areas to bring attention to social, environmental, and political issues. These camps create a direct action environment where people gather, discuss, and demonstrate. They range from #fluffy (peaceful and symbolic) to #spiky (disruptive and confrontational), depending on the nature of the cause and the activists involved.
This raises the question of who uses these strategies and spaces, some examples of protest movements: #Occupy Movement – Challenged economic inequality and corporate influence. #ClimateCamp – A radical grassroots direct action movement to counter #climatechaos through awareness, policy pressure, and direct disruption. Climate camp was active in multiple countries, it peaked in the late 2000s and early 2010s, influencing both public debate and government action. #CriticalMass – A decentralized cycling activism movement, founded in 1992, that uses monthly mass bike rides to reclaim public space and challenge car culture.
These examples are all of grassroots politics operates from the bottom up, empowering people to engage directly rather than relying on mediating political parties or institutions. This long traditional path give communities a voice and enable change outside the #blocking power of traditional structures. Direct action & grassroots politics is always the working change and challenge when activism bypasses traditional political intermediaries, using disruptive tactics like strikes, sit-ins, and blockades.
Together, these methods provide the non #mainstreaming democratic, practical paths to challenge authority, disrupt harmful policies, and drive real change. Let’s look at another example, the debate around #XR (Extinction Rebellion), founded in 2018, #XR uses nonviolent civil disobedience to push governments to act on the #climatecrisis. The movement is divisive, some see it as #spiky, using direct action to force political change. Others argue it’s too #fluffy, adhering to liberal ideas of legality and nonviolence, that limits its real radical potential. Whether #XR is a radical or liberal movement remains an active debate, but the impact it has had on public discourse and activism is undeniable. This living active fluffy/spiky debate is core to affective grassroots activism.
This experience is what we need to pass onto the current #4opens alternatives & horizontalist paths in tech, which to often, have the assumption that liberal legality alone will fix systemic problems, which is an easy to see #geekproblem fantasy we need to focus on balancing. A path to do this is learning from the above history of activism, native #FOSS and #4opens structures, which, yes are not without challenges, are needed to build alternatives that avoid the false hope that #mainstreaming institutions will voluntarily dismantle themselves.
As I keep highlighting, activism isn’t separate from tech development, with the #FOSS traditions coming from tech activism already. Movements like #Indymedia, #Fediverse, and #OMN show that #FOSS paths can be built with social movements in mind. In the end, if we don’t shape our own digital tools, they will be co-opted by #dotcons and restricted #mainstreaming “common sense”. The solution? Rebuild tech from the ground up, not just by resisting, but by actively creating the alternatives we want to see.
Am sure these are all “nice people”, but they are also the parasite class https://fluconf.online/program/ events like this are as much problem as solution – likely more so in the current mess. Nice as a facade, hiding small-minded, petty, nasty, invisible rot of the commons as a community.
What a mess we keep making. Yeah, it’s the same old cycle – polite, well-meaning polishing the surface while the rot spreads underneath. These kinds of events present themselves as solutions, but they’re a part of the problem, consolidating small influence, reinforcing the same tired invisible hierarchies, and sidelining anything truly change and challenge that we need.
They build in closed, insular circles, focusing on their own comfort and tiny carriers rather than the actual struggle happening outside their “curated spaces”. It’s all managed dissent – safely disrespectable, and ultimately toothless. They won’t rock the leaky boat because they are the leaky boat, floating uncomfortably along the wreckage of our tech paths
The invisible rot is the worst part. It’s not just individuals being “bad” people; it’s how structures of control creep in through do-bureaucracy, funding dependencies, and #fashernista gatekeeping. What starts as an open, messy movement shrinks, institutionalised, and turned into #techchurn at best or a cog in the #NGO machine at worst.
Meanwhile, real alternatives, we need, the commons, the #openweb, grassroots movements are not here, the cycle repeats. That’s a #spiky view what would a #fluffy view look like, we need more composting #fluconf
A #fluffy view, is more that the problem is less “them” than “us”, we are not creating the spaces that they could be better people though. So we fucked up here, what are “we” going to do about this mess making?
The tension between different approaches to activism highlights the need for creative synthesis in addressing the broader social and ecological crises we face.
Fluffy vs. #Spiky: A Diversity of Tactics The idea that both working within the system (#fluffy) and challenging it directly (#spiky) are necessary is central to creating a robust and adaptive movement. Building “common ground” is crucial, but the left’s fragmentation under decades of #neoliberalism and #postmodernism has left it standing in a metaphorical swamp. Moving forward requires reclaiming a grounded, shared space—intellectually, socially, and ecologically.
Revisiting #Modernism A return to modernist thinking—despite its flaws—can offer clarity and purpose, emphasizing structure, progress, and shared goals. Balancing this with the experimental potential of socialism and anarchism, especially on a distributed scale (enabled by federation and P2P technologies), creates room for growth outside the mainstream.
Liberal Social Democracy as a Step Back While the ultimate goal may lie in more radical transformations, liberal social democracy can serve as a stepping stone away from the creeping threat of fascism. This pragmatic approach helps to stabilize the ground for further progress.
Deathcult vs. #Lifecult: The Cultural Meta-Narrative The #deathcult metaphor encapsulates a culture driven by greed, materialism, and ecological destruction. The #lifecult offers a messy but hopeful alternative, grounded in values like ecology, social justice, and collective care. The process of “composting”—transforming negative aspects into fertile ground—is a powerful metaphor for this shift.
The Role of Undercurrents True hope lies in the undercurrents of social movements that challenge mainstream culture and provide alternative narratives. These undercurrents, messy as they may be, are where transformative potential resides. A focus on “life-affirming values” helps to communicate with those who may be entrenched in rationality or blinded by the logic of the #deathcult.
Suggestions for Moving Forward: Focus on finding shared values between different activist approaches to grow solidarity while respecting diversity of tactics. Encourage scalable experimentation with alternative economic and social models, with federation and P2P tech to scale these efforts. Storytelling using metaphors like #deathcult and #lifecult to reframe conversations and make complex issues relatable and actionable. Education and agitation to challenge apathy and #stupidindividualism by helping people reconnect with collective action and shared purpose. Ecology of movements, its helpful to recognize the importance of both reformist (#fluffy) and radical (#spiky) approaches as complementary rather than contradictory.
And most importantly please try not to be a #blocking prat.
Honesty is about laying out a stark accurate critique of the current situation, particularly the barriers posed by #mainstreaming progressives, #NGO parasites, and the broader tech churn. We need to build on the vision for mediating this #blocking and advancing real change through the #OMN projects.
First step is to mediate the blocking, to compost the #shitpile by applying the #4opens rigorously as a filter to weed out the 90% of crap. Projects that don’t align with these principles should be sidelined. Then we need more trust networks, like #OGB and OMN to build trust-based paths, reducing noise and focusing on genuine contributions.
Shift focus from #fluffy to #spiky, by calling out #NGO parasites, to challenge and expose organizations that drain focus and energy without contributing to real change. Push for spiky agendas, embrace messy, hard, and meaningful work rather than safe, feel-good approaches that reinforce the status quo.
Simplify to build complexity, by simplicity first, start with clear tools and frameworks like the 4opens and grow complexity organically through collaborative work. Reject digital drugs, the dotcons’ attempts to lull movements into compliance with endless distractions and complexity masquerading as progress.
Breaking the #mainstreaming trap, by creating focused campaigns targeting progressive allies to pull them out of the mainstream and into trust-based grassroots movements. Use storytelling, art, and direct action to expose the limitations of mainstreaming progressivism.
Build bridges to wider communities, start with small, resilient networks that are human-scale. Expand outward from these trusted cores to bring in diverse voices and new ideas. Avoid purity tests—recognize that we’re all smeared with dotcons culture and approach people where they are. The world we’re building with OMN—a future where simplicity leads to complexity—requires a shift in ideology. It’s about moving people from passive consumption under the #dotcons to active participation in building a better, progressive world.
On this path are there any humans out there? If so, the choice is simple but profound, join efforts like the #OMN. Embrace the tools and principles of the #4opens. Compost the shit and grow something real. The question isn’t whether change is needed—it’s whether we have the courage and wisdom to make it happen. For those ready to move past the #blocking, now’s the time to pick up the shovel. 🌱
What went wrong with this is a classic case of the tension between grassroots ideals and the pressure of existing within a larger system that is fundamentally at odds with those ideals. The #fediverse, along with other #openweb movements, succeeds in small, meaningful ways but struggles to scale in a world built on capitalist structures, centralization, and competition. This tension is particularly evident in how projects, despite being technologically sound and #4opens, ideologically aligned with decentralization and openness, gets bogged down in internal messes, conflicts, miscommunication, leading to fragmentation. The messy social side, neglected in tech projects, ends up undermining the success of the broader mission. People focus on code but forget about the human aspects like collaboration, motivation, and building long-term trust, which are equally essential.
As I suggested, the idea to codify some form of “netiquette” or community values, inspired by the #fluffy and #spiky traditions of past projects, is crucial. If we don’t address these human and social issues, the technology alone will not be enough. The problem is that by default these communities don’t prioritize this, and that’s where the breakdown occurs. What we have now is that the fediverse’s very existence is a victory, but that doesn’t mean the battle is over. The grassroots growth, driven by passion rather than profit, shows that alternatives to #dotcons capitalist, centralized tech are possible, but in-till we find a way to address the underlying social fracture, gatekeeping, burnout, #blocking and conflicts, we’ll continue to push the same mess.
The victory is not in “winning” in capitalist terms, but in maintaining spaces where alternatives can thrive and where people can connect based on shared #4opens values, rather than imposed structures. The real challenge is to keep these spaces open, resilient, and focused, for this to balance we need to address not just the tech, but the people behind it. We could, and should reboot #socialhub to be this space, It’s where it started, and did a good job for a while.
The recent #XR event at Windsor received little meaningful media coverage, well not in my filter bubble, it was totally invisible, which is disappointing considering the importance of the action. The video I made of last year’s London event is still relevant and illustrates the same core issues, even though this time they did take the step of staging an occupation. You can watch last year’s video: XR “is this all the is” 2023.
This brings us to an important point: the balance between fluffy (non-confrontational, peaceful protest) and #spiky (more direct, disruptive action) tactics. Both approaches have their place and, when used in tandem, they can be very effective. The key is understanding that they complement each other—#fluffy actions draw in broad support and media attention, while #spiky actions put real pressure on the power structures by creating disruption that cannot be ignored.
It’s crucial to recognize that with increased effectiveness comes a cost: repression. That’s the paradox of impactful activism. The presence of repression is a useful indicator that what you’re doing is working, a sign that you are challenging the status quo in a way that makes those in power uncomfortable. If there is no repression, then it likely means your actions are not having any impact.
So, we must continue to push this balance and accept that some degree of repression is a natural outcome of effective resistance. If we want to see real change, we need to be prepared for the response that comes when you genuinely challenge entrenched power. The goal is not to avoid repression, but to balance it in a way that sustains the movement and keeps up the pressure.
