Mastodawn

A bit of #OMN history: after the first wave of the #openweb was enclosed by the #dotcons, every few years a "new" solution appears promising to give power back to people and communities. Most of the time it simply repackages the same #dotcons power structures in a different form.

#web3 is a good example of this, it is the #closedweb rebuilt as an astroturf "grassroots" movement, wrapped in the language of decentralisation while remaining driven by speculation, investment, and control.

This is why so much of the #mainstreaming embraces it. It fits neatly within existing assumptions about ownership, markets, and power. In other words, it feels like "common sense".

The real challenge isn't new branding. It's rebuilding the social foundations of the #openweb.

#OMN #4opens #Fediverse #dotcons

witchescauldron 3d ago

The #deathcult isn’t just politics or economics. It’s a dogma - a way of seeing the world that sits underneath what we call “common sense”. Forty years of #neoliberalism turned competition, greed, extraction, and isolation into normality. We breathe it in every day until it feels natural.

That’s the real prison: when the ideology disappears into the background and becomes invisible.

So how do we escape the mind prison?

It’s simpler than people think. Look outside the current mess. There are huge bodies of human thought, practice, and lived experience from before the rise of the #deathcult. Traditions of commons, mutual aid, collective survival, indigenous stewardship, labour organising, radical democracy, and the early #openweb all point to different ways of being human together.

The answers don’t come from worshipping new tech, stronger markets, or smarter branding. They come from remembering what was deliberately buried.

That’s why projects like #OMN matter. We need living alternatives, not just critique. We need spaces where trust, openness, and collective action can grow in native soil instead of inside the poisoned logic of the #closedweb and endless commodification.

The first step out of the prison is recognising the walls were built by people — which means they can also be dismantled by people.

#OMN #openweb #4opens #commons #mutualaid #socialchange #deathcult #nothingnew

#OMN (Open Media Network)4d ago

Thatcher, Reagan were the wrecking crew: How we keep pushing mess

This story is about the ideology that won. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, two politicians on either side of the Atlantic didn’t only win elections, they reshaped what people came to accept as “common sense.” Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States did not invent capitalism’s worst tendencies, but they gave them state power, institutional infrastructure, and ideological legitimacy. What they built was not simply a set of policies, it was a social […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/thatcher-reagan-were-the-wrecking-crew-how-we-pushed-the-current-mess/

squirrel May 16

A fluff view of current tech we need to compost (about W Social)

https://cake.kobel.fyi/c/technology/p/71682/a-fluff-view-of-current-tech-we-need-to-compost-about-w-social

#OMN (Open Media Network)May 12

Turning stress, conflict, and exhaustion into commons culture instead of mutual destruction

"To put some "commons" structure into this kindness… A path before we knee-jerk criticise members of the community we should make real offers to help repeatedly (x3) in a positive community way. Only then let the "negative" monster of judgment lose to clean up the mess. Focus on clean up first, the "common senses" desire to attack second. What do you think about growing our positive norms (common sense)." This is the hard bit of any grassroots movement of turning stress, conflict, and […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/turning-stress-conflict-and-exhaustion-into-commons-culture-instead-of-mutual-destruction/

#OMN (Open Media Network)May 9

A fluff view of current tech we need to compost

You know, when people are heading over a cliff, I'm more than happy to be "left behind". This story is #openwashing, not innovation. “New European social network” is actually a fork of #Bluesky wrapped in sovereignty language, as Elena Rossini says with the same #dotcons logic - PR-first launch (Davos), reality comes later (or never). This tech mess illustrates, if people start with branding, funding, and media narrative instead of community and process, it’s not #openweb - it’s […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/a-fluff-view-of-current-tech-we-need-to-compost/

#OMN (Open Media Network)Apr 28

Actually solving things, and why this matters for #OMN

Activism has a reputation problem, in default #mainstreaming storytelling it’s painted as chaos, absence, or naive idealism. But if you look at what activists at best actually do, a different picture emerges: a long tradition of people working out, in practice, how to solve real problems together without relying on distant authority. And that’s the bit most people quietly skip. In most social/political movements, the hard questions - how we organise, decide, share resources, resolve […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/actually-solving-things-and-why-this-matters-for-omn/

#OMN (Open Media Network)Apr 27

#OMN Grounding (the roots as a story)

#techchurn is the endless cycle of adopting new platforms, tools, and technologies - not because they solve any real problems, but because novelty is mistaken for progress. It burns community trust, institutional memory, and activist energy, while leaving the underlying #nastyfew power structures untouched.https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=techchurn The #OMN uses #stupidindividualism to describe the culturally manufactured habit of prioritising personal gain and self-interest over collective […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-grounding-the-roots-as-a-story/

#OMN Grounding (the roots as a story) – #OMN (Open Media Network)

hamish campbell Apr 24

In #OMN language, #closedweb refers to, the controlled digital infrastructure = platforms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter - built on proprietary code, extractive business models, and centralised power, where people have no meaningful control over their data, their communities, or the rules that govern them.

https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=closed

Search Results for “closed” – #OMN (Open Media Network)

#OMN (Open Media Network)Apr 20

“Digital sovereignty” is more mess we need to compost

The servent of the #nastyfew wispering in the ear of the #deathcult ists liberals From a #OMN perspective, the mess isn’t just the wording - it’s the ideology embedded in the wording, and how that shapes behaviour over time. “Digital sovereignty” sounds harmless, progressive in a liberal policy context. But if you run this through a #KISS ideological lens, its more mess rooted in control, borders, and authority - concepts historically tied to state power. That’s why it’s so easy […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/digital-sovereignty-is-more-mess-we-need-to-compost/