The hot air block on social change

In more than 20 years of activism I have seen our use of language fail us. There mainstreaming language, all we have, has no power it is just hot air.

If we are to have hope. We have to reclaim our language, we have to recreate our language. We need to call everyday things by what they are.

#deathcult the neo-liberalism that has ripped our society and ecology apart for the last 40 years. This is inside everything we touch and shapes our thoughts.

* liberalism is seen as a good, it is, the small “neo” is meaningless in our language. #XR has made mainstream that it is about death and despair at an unimaginable scale. A cult? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult its invisible death that we all share and believe in, the glue that binds us.

#dotcons are the new internet based media companies such as #failbook who are the #deathcult in code and algorithms, all the new economy which shapes us every hour of our lives.

* it took 10 years of fighting against the #openweb for us to accept our digital addictions. We knew that they were cons to make lots of money, what we did not know was that they were about social control.

These new #hashtag words need a growing community to reache a critical mass. Then the door to the mainstreams will open. Until then it is locked and bolted and hot air of our current languages stinks.

What is a hashtag

I use the #deathcult tag to highlight the neo-liberal era of the last 40 years which has left us in this current mess. A cult as few of us inside can see outside “common sense” and death as #XR has made the climate chaos cliff we are facing and billions of deaths visible to the mainstream. Of course neo-liberalism is just an extream form of capitalism we had it before in the UK during the irish potato famine with its millions of deaths and displacements. When people realised the problems mainstream moved to social democracy (soft) capitalism before “forgetting” agen in the late 1970’s. Corbyn and Sanders are trying to move us back to social democracy, which is of course no sulution BUT much better than the current mess. We as radicals need to do better #OMN

My point is that sanders and Corbyn are old mainstream and the current #deathcult are the current mainstream that’s dieing now. Ie we should create real radicalism to make Corbin and Sanders the centrist they actually are if you look back for a moment to the 20th century. We could get some real change then, if we keep them as the “radicals” then the is no future #XR

Calling the current lot a #deathcult is about opening up the space for Corbin and Sanders to be centrists in our minds. No matter what we do the right will be nutters, so not aiming at them with the tags at all.

This applys to everything. So the digital economy are all #dotcons and #failbook with its ownership of whatsapp and Instagram etc. Is the digital leader of the the #deathcult with google and Apple not far behind.

Pushing the dialog is probably the most powerful nonviolent direct action you can do from a armchair or public meeting

Q. The tags my friend are meaningless distracting drivel alas. That allude to something grand. When I click on them sometimes all I see is a list of Hamish posts. They have some utility if they bind peoples posts by theme, which is how they came to be popular on twitter I guess. They are useless when forging ahead one ones own with one’s own invented idiosyncratic tags that just litter ones text with # chars and jargon.

You have great things to say and if you shared them in common English you would reach many more people with them, I assure you.

A. look at the problem I am trying to solve agen. You actually do describe it in your reply but that is as far as your understanding goes in this reply. Note if you would have added a common #hashtag your post WOULD have been added to that hashtag view and the would have been more than my voice. Now keep adding new (common) hashtag users and you get a meaningful conversation and organic spread. When you don’t do this all you have is your #failbook echo chambers. I call this problem #stupidindividualism and it is both #mainstreammedia bad and sad

Note hashtags are comparable across #silos and more importantly on the #openweb get a #hashtag conversation going then do a web search on it to reach outside the #dotcons its very basic stuff.

As an example. The is a opening to #stepaway from the #dotcons here if people desire change. That problem we face is fear and doubt and the widespread use of #FUD https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/FUD.html

What are hash tags

Pushing the dialog is probably the most powerful nonviolent direct action you can do from a armchair or public meeting

Tesla is greenwash #deathcult

A. Musk says Tesla will be out of money in 10 months without ‘hardcore’ changes – The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/17/18629166/elon-musk-tesla-money-changes-cfo-employee-expenses All the #greenwash is a part of the #deathcult its simple to understand this.

Q. what are you saying?

A. that tesla is greenwash #deathcult

Q. what does that even mean? Should I sell my Tesla now? Am I being scammed ??????

A. It’s fine to enjoy your car, but look clearly at the social/economic system that built it and sold your desire to owen it. that’s all a #deathcult and its not getting better soon #XR

Q. Tesla didn’t get bailed out by the US government. Why weren’t GM, Ford, and Chrysler allowed to fail? They socialize their losses and privatize their profits.

Tesla is the most American car company that exists right now. There is no death cult or green washing.

A. just about all the #dotcons in transport and space are heverly government subsidised its basic stuff and is thus part of the neo-loberal #deathcult that its currently killing us all #XR

Q. The solar city investment doesn’t sit well, tbqh.

A. just do a search, here is a link to start you off https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html state socialism for the #dotcons and a #deathcult for the rest of us.

Q. my desire to own it is to have a simpler car and also one that doesn’t pollute. It’s easier to reduce emissions from power generation than to audit the tailpipes of every car on the road. It also doesn’t affect air quality of the humans around the car. It’s quite simple, really.

You can’t be mad at Tesla for leveraging programs the government created to increase innovation and build American technology and then ignore the money small businesses can get to bootstrap their ventures. It’s the same thing, different scale.

You are being willfully ignorant about the government’s role in a healthy capitalist economy.

A. Am actually saying the capitalist economy is a deeply unhealthy #deathcult and Musk and his private/public state enterprises are clear to see simption of this. His projects we keep feeding on public subsidies which I have nothing against. But as you say it’s billed as “healthy capitalist economy” which as the article points out it is not my problem.

Q. oh, so what kind of economy will solve the world’s problems?

A. Now that is a question that is hard to answer, what I can say is that the neoliberal #deathcult we have currently is not going to save us. #XR movement in the UK highlights this, we are likely to move to social democracy or fascism in the UK over the next few years. I don’t think either of those can save us. so it’s an open question we currently do not have an answer too. I champion a move away from the #dotcons back onto the openweb as a #stepway project, my small part.

Capitalism is now visibly a #deathcult its basic stuff

Reminder: Climate Change Was No Accident

As far back as 1982, fossil fuel executives knew they were trading a few…

Q. I notice you have used the #deathcult hashtag a few times recently on posts about capitalism, neo-liberalism and green consumerism, so I thought I would look it up. Wikipedia says that Death Cult may refer to an early name for the British rock band The Cult or a compilation album featuring all the songs from Death Cult. Under “See also” it links to the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (also known as the Southern Death Cult), and to Southern Death Cult as yet another name for the band. Finally it says it is used as a synonym for the term “destructive cult”.

Destructive cults are described in the Wikipedia entry for Cult as “groups whose members have, through deliberate action, physically injured or killed other members of their own group or other people”. John Gordon Clark cited totalitarian systems of governance and an emphasis on money making as characteristics of a destructive cult.

A. good research, am trying to get #XR beyond liberalism were #deathcult solutions are discussed with out a thought. A step.

Q. Hamish just loves a hashtag! Once he gets his hands on one he uses it until it falls apart.
A. The idea is to spread um so that they join the mainstream discussion and then becomes the mainstream. Simple idea, very hard for #stupidindividualism #fashernistas to actually do anything so simple. Much like #stepaway from the #dotcons is simple #OMN One can but keep trying, while sailing away on a lifeboat #boatingeurope

Q. I am beginning to suspect you are getting money each time you mention one of these 😉

A. Sadly not, though when I recommend stuff on my blog I anyway put an affiliate link, more outa curiosity to see if it works than any income. Think the is a little money in a paypal account which I have lost the PW and can’t reset die to old phone number 😉

A. #hashtags click on um, search the web with um, use them to create conversations across the #dotcons and out onto the #openweb it’s a little stepaway that is easy to do. It’s a shame about #stupidindividualism #fashionistas that they can’t be a part of this #stepaway its basic stuff.

A. Of course neoliberal Capitalism was always a #deathcult just now with #XR it’s kinda ok to say this. A good example to give people is the Irish potato famine, as we are likely to repeat this soon with climate change hitting industrial agriculture. We really don’t want to be in the dogmatic neoliberal world when this hits as were then, lots of death and despair to go around.

From the #dotcons

“Thrown into the mix are the US Evangelical Christians who are waiting for Armageddon, the End Times, and the Second coming of Christ, and who welcome climate change catastrophe as a confirmation of their twisted beliefs.

The only time – to my knowledge – that I was ever unfriended on Facebook was by an Evangelical Christian Zionist, now living in the USA, who was offended by my posts showing The Israeli military bombing the hell out of civilians in Gaza. It confused me at the time, but I only recently found out that Jews returning to Israel is also a ‘sign’ of the approaching End Times for those Christian Fundamentalists.

It really is a death cult. US Republicanism, especially in its Christian Fundamentalist form, is a death cult of the most dangerous kind, and is without doubt the greatest obstacle to the continued existence of life on Planet Earth.”

A Q&A on altmedia

Q. First question, to start things off. Setting aside the negative aspects of social media platforms like Facebook for a moment, what does, say Facebook do well? In other words, how can platforms like Facebook be used in a positive way by your average person? How can it be used in a positive way by someone who considers themselves an activist?

A. Its a pay to view platform for any outreach beyond family and a few friends. So you can keep in touch with family and a few friends while being reshaped by the algorithms into god knows what, but probably not very social.

You can run fluffy activism on #failbook but agen this will be shaped by the algorithms to create friction and then amplify this into social fires. Trolls will take over your pages after a time.

So good for making a few events happen then failing.

Q. Second question. Can you give an example of an alternative to a platform like Facebook, and describe two or three things that this alternative platform does better?

A. There are many good projects on the #openweb at moment, most of them built around a standard called activertypub. Currently you can reach over 2 million users based on thousands of different services that all talk to each other.

For activist you could try http://campaign@openworlds.info for a fluffy view or http://actavisam@openworlds.info for a more spiky.

These platforms do not have the addictive algorithms that the #dotcons have so you get out what you put in. If you put focuses and activity in you will find yourself taking responsibility for building your own communities of new interesting people who tend to be much nicer that the people that #dotcons connect you too. The applications work easily across all formats with modern ui’s its a simple step, if you can focus for a time.

Q. Third question. Can you briefly describe why we need alternative platforms like the one you mentioned above.

A. The #dotcons shape us into being isolated individuals feeding our attentions/lives to depressing consumption and ecological disaster. All the time distracting us with cat memes and news gossip, to this despair its bread and circuses, an old trick.

Q. And if you’d like to add where you think a conversation like this ought to go, in terms of direction, topics to cover, that would also be really helpful.

A. Could talk about #XR

The fluffy/spiky debate and #XR

Updated with this image

The fluffy/spiky debate in #XR is well on the fluffy side, not a bad thing. You’re seeing noise from the confused, spiky side of the tribe in reaction to this.

Fluffy/spiky is not a moral judgment, rather it is a respect for diversity. Think #XR was fab, what comes next. They are doing it badly and without expirence from a spiky point of view, much like #XR is doing social change. Though it’s good that someone is doing it 🙂

I wish the spiky/anarchists would slow down the flow of piss on #XR and do something useful themselves, it’s a bad look pissing on social change from outside. As far as I can see, activism has been a fuckup since occupy etc. Pastime the spikeys did something other than talk, says the man sailing away on a lifeboat #boatingeurope now keep it focused

On this path it is best not to point links at the conspiracy loons, post screen captures if you need to. Don’t feed the trolls. I did try a plan to get people to post good fluff/spiky outreach videos to celebrate/connect activist history to the current #XR groups, but is not working, the image is of the viewing figures for the last 48 hours, just 12 views for one of the videos. If you want to help make this move http://hamishcampbell.com/…/anarchists-please-stop-the-sni…/

Anarchists please stop the sniping at #XR from the sidelines and get stuck into some direct action

Feel free to share the #climatecamp videos widely in Facebook/Twitter/openweb pages for #XR as it’s good that the new generation have a connection to their history.

If you’re an anarchist please share these videos, if the #XR admins don’t block them then they radicalize #XR if they block them they question their credibility, simple effective social change.

Please stop the sniping from the sidelines and get stuck into some direct action.

Share link https://youtu.be/7gKRl5lsPOA

Share link https://youtu.be/FhDZjB8f0wo

Share link https://youtu.be/GrlOAdl3ZBM

Post the individual links into your favourite/hated #dotcons and write your own text, best to keep it fluffy as the videos speak for themselves 😉