Let’s try and simplify the #OMN

The #OMN Framework: The Five Functions (#5F) The #OMN is simple flows, not platforms, it’s a way of thinking about media as flows of objects moving through a network. People shape the flow, you can find a more technical view to read after here. A human-scale, federated media infrastructure built on #FOSS practices and the #4opens: open data open source open process open standards It doesn’t start with features, apps, or ideology, it starts with flows. Imagine the network as: pipes […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/lets-try-and-simplify-the-omn/

What We Can Learn from Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders

In #mainstreaming and alt political cultures there’s a constant call in messy times for “strong leaders” to cut through the chaos, but this is the wrong path. What Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders actually show is something more uncomfortable and more useful that real change doesn’t come from strong individuals - it comes from movements we don’t fully control. They were signals, not saviours. Both figures emerged on the left because something deeper was already shifting with […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/what-we-can-learn-from-jeremy-corbyn-and-bernie-sanders/

How many runways can you see for Orangeburg Municipal airport (USA) ? : The answer is on https://www.bigorre.org/aero/meteo/kogb/en #orangeburgmunicipalairport #airport #orangeburg #usa #kogb #ogb #aviation #avgeek vl

A bit of #OMN history and where the current paths come from

For a long time the focus has been on solving two linked problems - both of which are actually #nothingnew. The first is grassroots publishing and organising. The second is network coordination between communities. Neither of these problems started with the internet, and they certainly didn’t start with Silicon Valley. Projects like #Indymedia and community organising networks solved these problems culturally long before modern platforms existed. They worked through shared practice, trust […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/a-bit-of-omn-history-and-where-the-current-paths-come-from/

EU tech strategy, composting the mess

As #climatechaos accelerates, European politics will not stay where it is now. History suggests that periods of instability push politics to the right, because right-wing politics tends to be driven by fear and control. If that trajectory holds, then the digital infrastructure we build today needs to be resilient in a more hostile political environment tomorrow. This matters for the EU’s current technology strategy. Most policy thinking still focuses on industrial competitiveness - AI […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/eu-tech-strategy-composting-the-mess/

Building #OGB is about power without #powerpolitics learning from effective grassroots paths, it is different to the normal mess, it draws from real-world activist organizing https://hamishcampbell.com/building-ogb-is-about-power-without-powerpolitics/

Scale changes everything

Human behaviour does not stay the same as groups grow. The instincts that helped small tribes survive - loyalty, signalling belonging, defending boundaries, competing for status, consolidating influence - functioned well within natural limits. In small groups, feedback was immediate. Consequences were visible. Power was constrained by proximity and material reality. But when those same instincts operate at contemporary social scale - inside complex technological societies, or even something […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/scale-changes-everything/

The tension that’s pushed back into the fediverse the last few years

DRAFT Scale changes everything as human behaviour does not stay the same as groups scale. The instincts that helped small tribes survive - loyalty, signalling belonging, defending boundaries, competing for status, consolidating influence - functioned well within natural limits. In small groups, feedback was immediate. Consequences were visible. Power was constrained by proximity and material reality. But when those same instincts operate at contempery social scale, inside complex […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/the-real-tension-thats-pushed-back-into-the-fediverse-the-last-few-years/

Why mainstream EU tech funding needs counter-currents, why tech activism matters

Across Europe, large-scale “mainstreaming” tech projects are increasingly shaping the future of the digital commons. From infrastructure initiatives to sovereign cloud strategies and federated social technologies, the EU tech stack is becoming more organised, more funded, and more institutionalised. On the surface, this looks like progress. But history suggests that without active counter-currents, #mainstreaming inevitably drifts toward bureaucracy, risk-aversion, and quiet capture by […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/why-mainstream-eu-tech-funding-needs-counter-currents-why-tech-activism-matters/

Fediverse – What actually happened (no bullshit version)

A few years ago, the liberation cats of the #Fediverse stopped talking to each other. Not only from malice, mostly through burnout, distraction, and quiet withdrawal. Nature abhors a vacuum and into that vacuum stepped the #NGO crew. They didn’t “win” our spaces through better ideas, didn’t persuade anyone. They simply occupied every role that looked like coordination, representation, legitimacy that was funding-adjacency. That’s their native skill set, #NGO people don’t build […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/fediverse-what-actually-happened-no-bullshit-version/