Trust undermined by parodied fuckwittery is a hard bridged to build and keep in place. The insanity of #mainstreaming https://hamishcampbell.com/the-insanity-of-mainstreaming/
Criticisms of Capitalism — and Its Digital Children, the #dotcons
Capitalism, especially in its late-stage #neoliberal form, has always had significant structural problems. In recent decades, these problems have been amplified and globalized through digital platforms, what we call the #dotcons. These companies are not a break from capitalism, they are its most refined, efficient, and extractive version to date.
Income Inequality
Traditional critique: Capitalism concentrates wealth in the hands of those who own capital (factories, land, assets), while […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/criticisms-of-capitalism-and-its-digital-children-the-dotcons-2/
Building Alt/Grassroots Media Networks to Challenge and Widen Traditional Media
The current ecosystem of alternative and grassroots media is too narrow in its imagination of what media could, and should, be. There’s a persistent naivety or, in some cases, a self-serving dishonesty. Many of the most “successful” progressive media groups continue to mimic #traditionalmedia without understanding, or addressing, the fact that they do not control their distribution. In effect, they’re renting space in someone else’s empire.
This is not just a mistake. It’s the […]
Hopelessness is a deeply conservative reaction to change and challenge
In the face of mounting crisis – social breakdown, political polarization, ecological collapse – many people turn inward. And in this turn, they mistake passivity, irony and detachment for resistance. But hopelessness is not radical, it’s deeply conservative. It says: “Nothing can change.” “Everything is corrupt.” “Why bother?”
This isn’t rebellion, it’s surrender. And it’s the exact emotional state that power systems – what we call the #deathcult of neoliberalism – […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/hopelessness-is-a-deeply-conservative-reaction-to-change-and-challenge/
Why most #geekproblem software fails: Trust vs. control
Almost all of our #geekproblem software fails because it’s built with a mindset of control.
Control over users.Control over systems.Control over outcomes.
But all good societies, and all durable communities, are based on trust. When we ignore this, we don’t just write bad code, we produce #techshit that nobody uses, that burns out developers, and that confuses users. Then we start over… and call it “innovation.” That’s #techchurn.Control-driven projects: Examples of […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/why-most-geekproblem-software-fails-trust-vs-control/
A conversation about money and the #openweb
Let’s talk about the tension at the heart of the modern #openweb, and why so many grassroots builders and radical technologists find themselves on the outside looking in. Scene: A typical “open internet” conference in Europe. Excited NGO-funded attendee toots:
“Just booked my place for ePIC in Lille! My first Eurostar trip! It’s where I started 10 years ago with Mozilla. Time flies. #OpenBadges #VerifiableCredentials”
Me (a social tech outsider):
“These things are […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/a-conversation-about-money-and-the-openweb/
This is an old and familiar problem: people who say they want change but consistently choose the path that neutralises it. What Do We Do With Our #Mainstreaming Alt-People? https://hamishcampbell.com/what-do-we-do-with-our-mainstreaming-alt-people/
What do you mean by “mainstreaming”?
At its core, #mainstreaming is how we, often unconsciously, uphold and reproduce the values of the dominant system. In our time, that system is #neoliberalism, or what I metaphorically call the #deathcult. It’s the air we breathe: shaping our politics, our economics, even the food we eat and how we relate to each other.
In activist terms, #mainstreaming too often means pushing this dominant worldview into alternative spaces, building careers and institutions that play progressive on the […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/what-do-you-mean-by-mainstreaming-2/
Organising in the 21st Century: What’s Beneath the Surface?
Let’s talk about how we actually organise, in grassroots movements, in radical alternatives, and yes, even in the broader currents of #mainstreaming. Like a river system, the real action is often happening under the surface in tributaries and undercurrents that shape how power flows and decisions get made. We can roughly split organising methods into two broad categories:The Horizontals (our grassroots tradition) is often celebrated, but rarely understood in practice. These organising […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/organising-in-the-21st-century-whats-beneath-the-surface/
What Do We Do With Our #Mainstreaming Alt-People?
This is an old and familiar problem: people who say they want change but consistently choose the path that neutralises it. Welcome to the “common sense” #NGO worldview, currently being repackaged in the #Fediverse as things like the Fedi Foundation. It’s not new. It’s not empowering. It’s a tired institutional gravity that drags every radical project into a fog of bureaucracy, branding, and paid careers.
In contrast, we have the “nativist” #openweb crew – grassroots people […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/what-do-we-do-with-our-mainstreaming-alt-people/
#Postmodernism has dug itself deep into contemporary thought, so that people don’t see any more its part in establishment norms and power structures, but it’s still there pushing much of the current mess. The mess we have made #mainstreaming postmodernism https://hamishcampbell.com/the-mess-we-have-made-postmodernism/
Dealing with #mainstreaming folks can be exhausting — not because of bad intent, but because of the incompetence, paranoia, and trauma baked in by 40 years of head-down devotion to a #deathcult system.
We need better social paths to mediate this mess.Compassion, yes — but also clarity, boundaries, and collective care.
#openweb #4opens #OMN #NothingNew #SocialChange
The current mainstreaming’s greatest sin is thoughtlessness
We’ll keep doing it – scrolling, clicking, consuming – because the current mess we live in is incredibly skilled at hiding consequences.
The environmental cost is buried under greenwashing. BP rebranded itself as “Beyond Petroleum.” Shell sponsors art galleries. Apple makes claims about “carbon-neutral” devices—then glues batteries shut to prevent repair. Meanwhile, rare earth extraction, e-waste, and fast fashion destroy ecosystems from Congo to Cambodia.
The labour cost is […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/the-current-mainstreamings-greatest-sin-is-thoughtlessness/
Capitalism is a hostage situation -Not an economy
Our current #mainstreaming pat of paywalls stacked on paywalls isn’t life, it’s a trap, we need a way out. In our everyday lives, we’ve come to accept the absurd:
You pay to eat food grown on land you don’t own,
Pay to sleep under a roof that someone profits from,
Pay to drink water privatized by corporations,
Pay to breathe, because the air is poisoned by industries that sell you both the problem and the solution.
And if you miss a payment? Game over. That’s not a […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/capitalism-is-a-hostage-situation-not-an-economy/
Where’s the Resistance to Algorithmic Monopolies?
The big question need to be highlighted: where will pressure for meaningful regulation of #dotcons algorithmic monopolies actually come from?
Right now, it’s hard to see. Lawmakers generally have a poor grasp of the real problems, decades behind on both the tech and its corrosive social consequences. Most legislation we get is either pre-packaged by lobbyists from the very platforms causing the harm, or superficial and narrow, focused on headline optics like “online harms” or […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/wheres-the-resistance-to-algorithmic-monopolies/
The #mainstreaming is talking about the #deathcult – So why are you still waiting? https://hamishcampbell.com/the-mainstreaming-is-talking-about-the-deathcult-so-why-are-you-still-waiting/ The time is now, if you’re waiting for permission, this is it. The people who once called us cranks are now writing op-eds about the collapse we have seen coming for years. The centre is falling, the right is mobilising, the old paths are dead ends.
The #mainstreaming is talking about the #deathcult – So why are you still waiting?
It took four decades of sleepwalking through #neoliberalism, cultural decay, ecological collapse, and social atomisation, but at last, the #mainstreaming is starting to talk about the #deathcult we’ve been worshipping.
Case in point: Steve Coogan – yes, Alan Partridge – is now publicly accusing Keir Starmer and Labour of “paving the way for Reform UK,” the rising hard-right threat. Here’s the article. It’s not satire, it’s despair. Coogan’s right, and a few years ago, such a […]
The #mainstreaming talking about the #deathcult we have worshipped for the last 40 years https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/jul/05/steve-coogan-accuses-keir-starmer-labour-of-paving-way-for-reform-uk and how we now need to all do the projects people like me have worked on and talked about for the last 20 years #KISS
Now is the time to STOP being prats about this needed change, please.
Why do people keep doing pointless self harm – news aggreation
There are hundreds (over the last 20 years likely thousands) of news, aggregation sites. It’s a common #dotcons model to enclose the “commons” people see free content and think I can capture that. The problem is news content looks like it’s free, but that’s because it’s “free” to spread, but it’s VERY expensive in human (and thus money) to produce the content. This side is never addressed in these failed tech projects.
We currently have #traditionalmedia all round the world pushing to be […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/why-do-people-keep-doing-pointless-self-harm-news-aggreation/
What does a #4opens World Look Like?
Throwing ideas into the air to see where they land, this is a sketch, not a blueprint. A thought experiment. But if we’re serious about rebooting the #openweb, challenging #mainstreaming, and building alternatives to the failing capitalist status quo, we have to start somewhere. So let’s ask: what does a world built around the #4opens actually look like?
We’re talking about a soft move away from capitalism, not an apocalyptic collapse or utopian leap, but a pragmatic, grounded shift […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/what-duse-a-4opens-world-look-like/
