When people have no grounding in subcultures, that underpins our civil rights, free software, and creative commons, they apply their all-knowing #mainstreaming “common sense.” #BLOCKING the needed process, or simply ignore it https://hamishcampbell.com/people-blocking-the-needed-process-or-more-normally-simply-ignore-it/

#Nostr is a classic “me-too” project caught in the #geekproblem loop. It won’t move forward until it learns to value community as core infrastructure.

#Bluesky, meanwhile, is already drifting into the hands of VC-funded #fluffy elitists who turn every commons into a brand. It’s a likely dead-end for real change or challenge — which is exactly why the #mainstreaming, #blocking, #NGO, and #fashernista crowds flock to it.

#Nostr is a classic “me-too” project caught in the #geekproblem loop. It won’t move forward until it learns to value community as core infrastructure.

#Bluesky, meanwhile, is already drifting into the hands of VC-funded #fluffy elitists who turn every commons into a brand. It’s a likely dead-end for real change or challenge — which is exactly why the #mainstreaming, #blocking, #NGO, and #fashernista crowds flock to it.

When people have no grounding in subcultures, that underpins our civil rights, free software, and creative commons, they apply their all-knowing #mainstreaming “common sense.” #BLOCKING the needed process, or simply ignore it https://hamishcampbell.com/people-blocking-the-needed-process-or-more-normally-simply-ignore-it/

When dealing with #mainstreaming people, there is a strong #blocking from their incompetence, paranoia and mental health issues.

This is draining, we need good social paths to mediate this mess that 40 years of head down worshipping a #deathcult has left with us to work with.

When dealing with #mainstreaming people, there is a strong #blocking from their incompetence, paranoia and mental health issues.

This is draining, we need good social paths to mediate this mess that 40 years of head down worshipping a #deathcult has left with us to work with.

Open Data — no hidden hoarding.
If the data isn’t open, it becomes a private asset. Control over information is control over people. Open data keeps power distributed, ensuring people and communities can verify, remix, and build without #blocking gatekeepers.

Open Data — no hidden hoarding.
If the data isn’t open, it becomes a private asset. Control over information is control over people. Open data keeps power distributed, ensuring people and communities can verify, remix, and build without #blocking gatekeepers.

The worst outcome is what we’ve already seen too often: blinded narrowness.

The slow creep of civility politics that smothers dissent while smiling at best — and ignoring or #blocking at worst.

This silent damage killed #SocialHub, turning what could’ve been a commons into a small, irrelevant gated forum of insiders.

In alt tech there are lots of people doing good — and they are — but it’s a blinded kind of “good,” head down, quietly worshipping the #deathcult without even seeing it.

This would be kinda OK if they held a bridge to a wider view of “good,” but they don’t. They block, they obscure, they hide their #blocking behind smiles.

And in the end, the “good” they do becomes just more mess we’ll need to compost.

The #geekproblem might kill meany of us, mediating it matters https://hamishcampbell.com/the-geekproblem-might-kill-meany-of-us/ the systemic #blocking of an anti-capitalist movement holds back the needed radical shift, despite our obvious evidence of human adaptability, creativity, and resilience.

https://hamishcampbell.com/the-importance-of-words-and-ideology/

All language is metaphor, and the metaphors we choose shape how people think about problems and solutions. The “digital drugs” metaphor works because it makes the addictive design clear, but it can also push people into a moral panic frame (“users are addicts”), which risks oversimplifying.

A few metaphors you might find less #blocking of the #hashtag story:

* Food & Nutrition

#Dotcons = junk food (engineered to keep you consuming, empty calories).

#Bsky = diet soda (feels lighter, but still unhealthy).

#Fediverse = a community kitchen (messy, you have to cook and wash up, but nourishing and shared).

* Urban Space

#Dotcons = shopping malls (bright, controlled, profit-driven).

#Bsky = curated boutique arcade (less harsh, but still enclosed).

#Fediverse = the street commons (chaotic, noisy, sometimes rough, but free and collectively shaped).

* Agriculture/Gardening

#Dotcons = monoculture agribusiness (neat rows, efficient, but sterile and toxic).

#Bsky = organic supermarket (nicer branding, but still transactional).

#Fediverse/#OMN = messy permaculture garden (takes effort, community labour, but self-sustaining and alive).

These metaphors keep the critique, from individual pathology to collective space.

The #geekproblem might kill meany of us, mediating it matters https://hamishcampbell.com/the-geekproblem-might-kill-meany-of-us/ the systemic #blocking of an anti-capitalist movement holds back the needed radical shift, despite our obvious evidence of human adaptability, creativity, and resilience.

If you lift the non-academic lid on the history of alternative media and #openweb projects, you start to see a pattern: the #blocking that keeps plantings from taking root. These aren’t just isolated incidents - they’re systemic obstacles baked into the social and technical structures we inherit.

To build something that actually works — a trust-based Open Media Network (#OMN) — this blocking needs to be actively composted. That means doing the hard, unglamorous work: the shovel work of untangling the mess of co-opted projects, over-centralised platforms, and burned-out communities. It’s not fast, it’s not shiny, but it’s the only way to make fertile ground for working, federated, resilient media infrastructures.

The technical layer is part of this work. Over time, code, schemas, and tools will start to appear here: https://unite.openworlds.info/