witchescauldronSo we have real issues to deal with - is there a space in the #Fediverse for collective democratic organising. The world is a mess, and we have way too much #techshit to compost.
@vex this is what we have been doing at the #OMN with the hashtag story https://hamishcampbell.com/hashtags/ and the #OMN social tech projects https://unite.openworlds.info/explore/repos there is a lot to #techshit to compost, and we do need shoals #OMN
#OMN (Open Media Network)Technology is never just a tool
Let's be clear on the background mess, before the personal attacks start, this is not about individuals. It is about patterns, systems and ideas. The danger is that criticism becomes an #adHominem argument - “you just dislike this because…” - instead of looking at the actual structures being discussed. The point I am making is that parts of dead #postmodern thinking have ended up embedded inside #neoliberal culture: fragmentation, individual identity, endless discourse and difficulty […]
Had a scan through the videos from the #PublicSpaces conference - this has been my subject for the last 30 years: https://video.publicspaces.net/c/pubconf/videos
My takeaway is that there is a lot of activity, but not much movement. A lot of discussion, frameworks and technical thinking, but no real questions - What kind of #openweb culture are we actually building?
Too often we end up with the same cycle of
more complexity → more infrastructure → more maintenance → more dependency → more #techshit.
The problem is not that people are building things, building is good. The problem is when the culture keeps producing paths that push more mess into the commons, then the people build alternatives have to spend their energy cleaning up, mediating, and rebuilding the native social layer that was ignored.
The #OMN question is - Are we creating tools that strengthen communities, or are we creating more technical problems that communities have to carry?
The #openweb was never only about technology. It was about participation, trust, shared ownership and social infrastructure. Without that, we just keep producing more mess that someone has to compost later.
The work we need is growing the culture that makes better tech possible.
When Technologists Forget the Warning
The thing about #techbro culture is that some of the most #elitists people grew up loving stories that warned us about the #techshit they are building. They read the dystopias, watched the films, they understood the dangers of unchecked capital, concentrated power, surveillance, artificial intelligence, inequality, and corporate control. Then many of them decided “Great idea. Let’s build it.” as the #geekproblem made them think they knew better. This is what our #fashionista class call […]https://hamishcampbell.com/when-technology-forgets-the-warning/
Rethinking Grassroots Tech Funding
Building beyond the #deathcult - Our current model of #tech funding and developer agendas is not neutral. The way we fund technology shapes the kind of technology we build. For the last 20 years, the dominant tech culture has followed the same path: venture capital growth platform monopolies extraction of attention and data endless scaling short-term metrics private ownership of public infrastructure This has produced #techshit - technology built because it can make money, not because […]https://hamishcampbell.com/rethinking-grassroots-tech-funding/
We are surrounded by piles of #techshit, so let’s try and understand why are we in such a mess. Composting #TechShit: Planned Obsolescence https://hamishcampbell.com/composting-techshit-planned-obsolescence/
On every measurable indicator, Bitcoin has been a failure
One simple metric for judging #Bitcoin, is has it actually replaced or seriously disrupted the banking system? The answer is obviously no. The same financial institutions still dominate global economics. The same scams continue. The same offshore tax havens still hide elitist wealth. Politicians and oligarchs continue stuffing money into secrecy jurisdictions exactly as before. The banking system remains firmly in place, untouched at its core. Bitcoin promised disintermediation, it promised […]https://hamishcampbell.com/on-every-measurable-indicator-bitcoin-has-been-a-failure/
Compost “digital sovereignty”, build working commons
The #KISS secret about the noise in “digital sovereignty” is very simple - Ignore most of this branding and build commons tech instead. That’s the path, not another layer of management, another funding bureaucracy for a glossy strategy document. Not another NGO conference circuit explaining why nothing can happen without another round of funding. Just build working commons. This matters because much of the #EU “digital sovereignty” conversation is simply more churn inside the same […]
People ask why the articles are hard to follow without background, it’s a fair point
People ask why the articles are hard to follow without background, it's a fair point, but a distraction as these are not stand-alone hot takes, they are all a part of a long flowing story about how we got into this mess and how we might get out of it. So, focus, please share this and the other posts if we’re going to recover focus and direction on the #openweb path. What happened over the last ten years on the Fediverse wasn’t random. It was a slow drift away from the native path that […]