Mastodawn

In the era of #climatechaos, people #blocking social change in tech are not just slowing things down - they are helping maintain systems that are driving social and ecological breakdown.

The question is - what do we build instead?

Different paths already exist. #4opens #openweb #OGB #indymediaback #OMN are examples of social tech trying to move away from the failures of #mainstreaming and towards more open, collective ways of organising.

The challenge is mediation: separating signal from noise, building alternatives, and creating space for change.

Take a moment. Think. Then act.

Don’t become part of the blockage. Thanks.

#OMN (Open Media Network)6d ago

Build it permissionlessly and let it loose

One of the uncomfortable truths of activism is that, given a choice between anarchism and anarchy, many anarchists choose anarchism. The ideology, identity, culture, meetings, and certainties feel safer than taking a genuinely risky step into the unknown of stateless liberty and self-organisation. It's easier to belong to the subculture than to build the social relationships and trust needed to live without the structures there critiquing. A lot of radical politics gets stuck at this point: […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/build-it-permissionlessly-and-let-it-loose/

witchescauldron Jun 7

People in general don't yet see the need to move beyond the #feudalism that shapes much of #FOSS governance. Because of this energy goes into defending existing structures and #blocking alternatives before they've have a chance to prove themselves.

That's one reason the #OGB approach is simple: build it permissionlessly and let it loose. People will see the value, or they won't.

The goal isn't to convince a small group of gatekeepers. It's to empower a much larger group of people to participate in technology, build consensus, and push the social agenda they actually need.

Less permission. More practice. It's a #KISS approach to #openweb governance.

#OMN #Fediverse #4opens

hamish campbell Jun 6

The #OGB currently has three strands to work on:

The traditions of grassroots activist organising that have actually worked in practice.

The use of technological federation - #ActivityPub, the #Fediverse, and wider #openweb traditions - to scale those organising models.

Original thinking on bringing these together into native #openweb producer governance.

This is the most important part, and the part that needs the most input, criticism, and collaboration.

witchescauldron Jun 2

Assumption: the world is fucked.

The “fluffy” path, in general, is not changing or challenging the systems driving this mess. Too often it ends up managing decline, softening the language, or directly selling us out while pretending to help.

Proposal: do something that actually challenges power.

Cooperation does not have to be neat, managerial, or centrally controlled. Healthy grassroots organising is often messy as well as orderly, and that mess can be a strength rather than a weakness.

We need living processes, not polished branding exercises. I’ve already posted many links on the messy #OGB governance project as one practical example of this path.

#OMN #openweb #4opens #grassroots

hamish campbell May 13

As we stand at the precipice of a new era, the #OGB beckons us to embrace a path where technology enables democracy and human connection. What people need to outreach https://hamishcampbell.com/what-people-need-to-outreach-the-ogb/

What people need to outreach the #OGB – #OMN (Open Media Network)

#OMN (Open Media Network)May 7

Treating everything as personal conflict is a dead end

Let’s focus on being honest, the most exhausting and destructive habit in activist and alternative tech spaces is the blinded reflex to turn disagreement into personal conflict. Someone challenges an idea, and it becomes an attack, names a pattern of behaviour, and suddenly it’s a vendetta. Someone points at structural problems and gets accused of targeting individuals. This is #stupidindividualism in its purest form, and it’s #nothingnew. It’s not only about difficult personalities […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/the-personal-is-not-the-political-treating-everything-as-personal-conflict-is-a-dead-end/

#OMN (Open Media Network)May 4

The #encryptionist detour

Let’s look back to before the #Fediverse, to be honest about the last two decades of #openweb failure, for a long time we got pulled off the path. Not only by enemies, but by a mix of fear, fashion, and half-understood technical “solutions” that felt right to fearful people at the time. The rise of the dogmatic, blinded #encryptionist mindset came out of real conditions of mass surveillance revelations (Snowden era), common sense #neoliberal distrust of states and corporations and the […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/the-encryptionist-detour/

#OMN (Open Media Network)Apr 30

The Problem Was Never Just the Platforms – It’s What We Build Instead

For years, the #fashionista #openweb conversation has been stuck in a loop of naming villains: surveillance capitalism, the #dotcons, Zuckerberg, Musk, “the algorithm.” But focusing on enemies only gets you so far. The creative question isn’t what we’re against - it’s what we’re actually building together to replace it. That’s where the #OMN takes a useful path. Yes, the big platforms absorb resistance, repackage it, and sell it back to us, that cycle is real. But pointing it […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/the-problem-was-never-just-the-platforms-its-what-we-build-instead/

witchescauldron Apr 30

After 40 years of working in grassroots movements, we've watched the same pattern repeat: a small number of people begin to #gatekeep - controlling who gets in, who gets heard, and what gets decided - until there's no way in or out without their approval. We've seen this dynamic damage or destroy numerous movements. We're naming it here because awareness is the first line of defence. The #OGB framework exists partly to address this, building more open and accountable governance so that no person or clique can quietly close the doors.