hamish campbell
boosted
⁂ Article
Most people sense that something is off
They see the world degrading, enclosure accelerating. They see climate, politics, media all bending toward extraction. And even when they can see the trajectory, they feel powerless, so they cope by optimise their careers. They scroll. They argue. They consume. They retreat into irony. From birth, we’re trained into one core assumption: There Is No Alternative (#TINA).
Not because it’s true, but because every dominant institution reinforces it:
Schools train compliance.
Media […]
⁂ Article
Scale changes everything
This is a much shorter version of the last post
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 […]
⁂ Article
Most people sense that something is off
They see the world degrading, enclosure accelerating. They see climate, politics, media all bending toward extraction. And even when they can see the trajectory, they feel powerless, so they cope by optimise their careers. They scroll. They argue. They consume. They retreat into irony. From birth, we’re trained into one core assumption: There Is No Alternative (#TINA).
Not because it’s true, but because every dominant institution reinforces it:
Schools train compliance.
Media […]
⁂ Article
Scale changes everything
This is a much shorter version of the last post
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 […]
hamish campbell
boosted
⁂ Article
Scale changes everything
This is a much shorter version of the last post
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 […]
⁂ Article
The tension that’s pushed back into the fediverse the last few years
Very much a DRAFT
The idea and direction are broadly right (decentralised social web, commons infrastructure, alternatives to #dotcons). but the institutional reality is hollow, not enough resources going into the “native” messy grassroots work that actually keeps things alive.People like Evan and others stepping into organisational roles were, from their perspective, trying to stabilise infrastructure, secure insitunal funding streams, reduce fragmentation and make the ecosystem legible […]
⁂ Article
Scale changes everything
This is a much shorter version of the last post
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 […]
⁂ Article
The tension that’s pushed back into the fediverse the last few years
Very much a DRAFT
The idea and direction are broadly right (decentralised social web, commons infrastructure, alternatives to #dotcons). but the institutional reality is hollow, not enough resources going into the “native” messy grassroots work that actually keeps things alive.People like Evan and others stepping into organisational roles were, from their perspective, trying to stabilise infrastructure, secure insitunal funding streams, reduce fragmentation and make the ecosystem legible […]
hamish campbell
boosted
⁂ Article
The tension that’s pushed back into the fediverse the last few years
Very much a DRAFT
The idea and direction are broadly right (decentralised social web, commons infrastructure, alternatives to #dotcons). but the institutional reality is hollow, not enough resources going into the “native” messy grassroots work that actually keeps things alive.People like Evan and others stepping into organisational roles were, from their perspective, trying to stabilise infrastructure, secure insitunal funding streams, reduce fragmentation and make the ecosystem legible […]
⁂ Article
The tension that’s pushed back into the fediverse the last few years
Very much a DRAFT
The idea and direction are broadly right (decentralised social web, commons infrastructure, alternatives to #dotcons). but the institutional reality is hollow, not enough resources going into the “native” messy grassroots work that actually keeps things alive.People like Evan and others stepping into organisational roles were, from their perspective, trying to stabilise infrastructure, secure insitunal funding streams, reduce fragmentation and make the ecosystem legible […]
⁂ Article
People need permission to stop controlling
We need to describe a real structural problem that shows up again and again in grassroots projects. Well-meaning people arrive claiming to help “community”, but operate through control patterns learned from institutions, #dotcons platforms and professional #NGO culture. They work very hard, believe they are doing good, and unintentionally damage horizontal processes they want to become a part of.
This isn’t primarily a personal problem - it’s a culture clash problem. And yes, […]
hamish campbell
boosted
⁂ Article
Yes, its messy stepping out of the churn
Everywhere we look - what we see, touch, and use - we are living inside systems shaped by decades of economic and technological assumptions. This isn’t only something happening “out there”. It has been normalised and internalised over the last forty years.
The dominance of #stupidindividualism, combined with rigid economic dogma, influenced how we design technology, how we organise communities, and how we imagine progress itself. The outcomes are now starkly visible: #climatechaos, […]
⁂ Article
The uncomfortable path
What’s really at stake here is power. The shift has to be away from private ownership and toward the commons - not just in licensing, but in governance, culture, and decision-making. The whole #OMN project is grounded in this understanding. It’s about building shared infrastructure that people can actually use, shape, and trust.
One of the great ironies of many “alternative” spaces is that people believe they’re resisting power, yet by locking everything down - secret decisions, […]
⁂ Article
Yes, its messy stepping out of the churn
Everywhere we look - what we see, touch, and use - we are living inside systems shaped by decades of economic and technological assumptions. This isn’t only something happening “out there”. It has been normalised and internalised over the last forty years.
The dominance of #stupidindividualism, combined with rigid economic dogma, influenced how we design technology, how we organise communities, and how we imagine progress itself. The outcomes are now starkly visible: #climatechaos, […]
⁂ Article
The uncomfortable path
What’s really at stake here is power. The shift has to be away from private ownership and toward the commons - not just in licensing, but in governance, culture, and decision-making. The whole #OMN project is grounded in this understanding. It’s about building shared infrastructure that people can actually use, shape, and trust.
One of the great ironies of many “alternative” spaces is that people believe they’re resisting power, yet by locking everything down - secret decisions, […]
The Fulcrum 🏴☠️ ⛓️💥 🛠️
and 1 other
boosted
⁂ Article
How our “mainstreaming” people understand what they’re doing
The new #NGO generation are in the process of the second sell-out of the #openweb these people are eather new or are comeing back to this "native" but have stepped stright into running the current reboot after the original grassroots path burned out and was pushed aside. This new “NGO generation” holds strong views, their perspective, is that they already lived through a catastrophic failure once, and they are determined not to repeat there version of it.
Their mostly blinded story goes […]
⁂ Article
How our “mainstreaming” people understand what they’re doing
The new #NGO generation are in the process of the second sell-out of the #openweb these people are eather new or are comeing back to this "native" but have stepped stright into running the current reboot after the original grassroots path burned out and was pushed aside. This new “NGO generation” holds strong views, their perspective, is that they already lived through a catastrophic failure once, and they are determined not to repeat there version of it.
Their mostly blinded story goes […]
hamish campbell
boosted
Most people now understand that culturally, and socially, we are in a growing nasty mess. The #blocking of action, the constant stalls, confusion, and fragmentation, has a lot to do with our use of language. https://hamishcampbell.com/messy-language-feeds-back-into-our-culture/
Peer:
Unknown type of activity/object
It’s worth remembering that, in the current political mess, the right-wing and the so-called centre are extremists.
They are insisting that endless growth on a finite planet is “realistic,” that widening inequality is “natural,” that ecological collapse can be managed by markets, and that social breakdown is an acceptable cost of doing business. It's constant crisis management, coercion, and denial of material reality.
What’s labelled “left-wing” is generally moderate: the belief that people should be able to meet their basic needs, that cooperation works better than competition for shared survival, and that systems should serve society rather than extract from it.
The Overton window has been dragged to exploitation and collapse that proposing care, restraint, and collective responsibility is framed as radical, when it’s the minimum required for any stable future.
Seen this way, extremism isn’t in change and challenge. It’s insisting that a failing system must continue at all costs.
Most people now understand that culturally, and socially, we are in a growing nasty mess. The #blocking of action, the constant stalls, confusion, and fragmentation, has a lot to do with our use of language. https://hamishcampbell.com/messy-language-feeds-back-into-our-culture/
Peer:
Unknown type of activity/object
hamish campbell
boosted
If you’re serious about changing society, you have to think your way past this common sense #blocking. The rise of stupid individualism https://hamishcampbell.com/the-rise-of-stupidindividualism-as-a-mainstream-path/
hamish campbell
boosted
We need to be explicit that spiky and fluffy are complementary, not opposing paths. They serve different functions in the same path, both are necessary for anything healthy to grow.
The problem is not disagreement between spiky and fluffy. The problem is the large number of people who actively fight against this complementarity - who insist on one mode being legitimate, and work to exclude and delegitimise the other.
This is the majority of people we end up interacting with. So until we name this clearly, we keep misdiagnosing the conflict. It isn’t about tone, strategy, or culture. It’s about a refusal to accept plurality, balance, and context - that refusal blocks progress far more effectively than any external opposition.
* Spiky without fluffy becomes brittle and exclusionary.
* Fluffy without spiky becomes easily captured and ineffective.
Together, they create resilience.
For the #OMN and #openweb to survive, we have to stop treating this as a personality clash and start recognising it as a structural issue that needs active mediation, not denial and #blocking
We need to be explicit that spiky and fluffy are complementary, not opposing paths. They serve different functions in the same path, both are necessary for anything healthy to grow.
The problem is not disagreement between spiky and fluffy. The problem is the large number of people who actively fight against this complementarity - who insist on one mode being legitimate, and work to exclude and delegitimise the other.
This is the majority of people we end up interacting with. So until we name this clearly, we keep misdiagnosing the conflict. It isn’t about tone, strategy, or culture. It’s about a refusal to accept plurality, balance, and context - that refusal blocks progress far more effectively than any external opposition.
* Spiky without fluffy becomes brittle and exclusionary.
* Fluffy without spiky becomes easily captured and ineffective.
Together, they create resilience.
For the #OMN and #openweb to survive, we have to stop treating this as a personality clash and start recognising it as a structural issue that needs active mediation, not denial and #blocking
If you’re serious about changing society, you have to think your way past this common sense #blocking. The rise of stupid individualism https://hamishcampbell.com/the-rise-of-stupidindividualism-as-a-mainstream-path/
hamish campbell
boosted
⁂ Article
The rise of #stupidindividualism as a mainstream path
Part of the shitty mess we’re in comes from the failure of #DIY culture and the rise of #stupidindividualism as the common sense path. #stupidindividualism is completely unscalable in social terms. It fragments, isolates, and exhausts. That isn’t accidental, it’s a classic divide-and-control strategy of the #deathcult. And we need to consciously step away, and away, and far away from this.
An example, over the last 20 years, I’ve answered the same questions individually, over and […]