#stupidindividualism — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #stupidindividualism, aggregated by home.social.
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Sophists – From Ancient Greece to the current #mainstreaming
“Being in #Oxford today, I popped into the #OxfordUnion to use a room. Glancing through the term card, it’s absolutely vile - and has been consistently so for the two years I’ve been back in the city. It’s a useful, if deeply dispiriting, exercise in reading the people and place. This is where parts of the next ruling class form their opinions and sharpen their instincts. Judging by what they’re platforming, we are not heading for a good time...” One useful term about this mess […]https://hamishcampbell.com/sophists-from-ancient-greece-to-neoliberal-mainstreaming/
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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 […] -
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 […] -
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 […] -
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 […] -
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 […] -
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 […] -
The #encryptionist detour
Let’s 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 real harms of our worship of the (same […] -
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 […] -
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 […] -
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/
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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/
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The for-profit platforms, underpinned by neoliberal ideology, drives much of the dysfunction we see - both in society and within tech itself. Life “inside the #dotcons” means participating, often uncritically, in reinforcing #stupidindividualism. Moving beyond this requires building alternatives grounded in the #4opens: open data, open source, open standards, and open processes. Projects like #OMN point in this direction.
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The for-profit platforms, underpinned by neoliberal ideology, drives much of the dysfunction we see - both in society and within tech itself. Life “inside the #dotcons” means participating, often uncritically, in reinforcing #stupidindividualism. Moving beyond this requires building alternatives grounded in the #4opens: open data, open source, open standards, and open processes. Projects like #OMN point in this direction.
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The Crew – Paths to Growth?
These people are a problem, the group of people who took over running the #Fediverse from us first wave crew. The problem is that they are liars - not out of malice, but in a blinded, dogmatic way. They arrived in this native #openweb movement already carrying this mindset, and it’s only deepened since. That doesn’t make them personally nasty, but it does make them dangerously incompetent. Why? Because they generate serious signal-to-noise problems, misallocate resources, misplace […] -
The Crew – Paths to Growth?
A reaction to the group of people who took over running the #Fediverse from us first wave crew. The problem with these people is that they are liars - not out of malice, but in a blinded, dogmatic way. They arrived in this native #openweb movement already carrying this mindset, and it’s only deepened since. That doesn’t make them personally nasty, but it does make them dangerously incompetent. Why? Because they generate serious signal-to-noise problems, misallocate resources, misplace […] -
The Crew – Paths to Growth?
A reaction to the group of people who took over running the #Fediverse from us first wave crew. The problem with these people is that they are liars - not out of malice, but in a blinded, dogmatic way. They arrived in this native #openweb movement already carrying this mindset, and it’s only deepened since. That doesn’t make them personally nasty, but it does make them dangerously incompetent. Why? Because they generate serious signal-to-noise problems, misallocate resources, misplace […] -
The Crew – Paths to Growth?
These people are a problem, the group of people who took over running the #Fediverse from us first wave crew. The problem with these people is that they are liars - not out of malice, but in a blinded, dogmatic way. They arrived in this native #openweb movement already carrying this mindset, and it’s only deepened since. That doesn’t make them personally nasty, but it does make them dangerously incompetent. Why? Because they generate serious signal-to-noise problems, misallocate […] -
The Crew – Paths to Growth?
These people are a problem, the group of people who took over running the #Fediverse from us first wave crew. The problem is that they are liars - not out of malice, but in a blinded, dogmatic way. They arrived in this native #openweb movement already carrying this mindset, and it’s only deepened since. That doesn’t make them personally nasty, but it does make them dangerously incompetent. Why? Because they generate serious signal-to-noise problems, misallocate resources, misplace […] -
#OMN Grounding (the roots as a story)
#techchurn is the endless cycle of adopting new platforms, tools, and technologies - not because they solve any real problems, but because novelty is mistaken for progress. It burns community trust, institutional memory, and activist energy, while leaving the underlying #nastyfew power structures untouched.https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=techchurn The #OMN uses #stupidindividualism to describe the culturally manufactured habit of prioritising personal gain and self-interest over collective […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-grounding-the-roots-as-a-story/
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#OMN Grounding (the roots as a story)
#techchurn is the endless cycle of adopting new platforms, tools, and technologies - not because they solve any real problems, but because novelty is mistaken for progress. It burns community trust, institutional memory, and activist energy, while leaving the underlying #nastyfew power structures untouched.https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=techchurn The #OMN uses #stupidindividualism to describe the culturally manufactured habit of prioritising personal gain and self-interest over collective […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-grounding-the-roots-as-a-story/
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#OMN Grounding (the roots as a story)
#techchurn is the endless cycle of adopting new platforms, tools, and technologies - not because they solve any real problems, but because novelty is mistaken for progress. It burns community trust, institutional memory, and activist energy, while leaving the underlying #nastyfew power structures untouched.https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=techchurn The #OMN uses #stupidindividualism to describe the culturally manufactured habit of prioritising personal gain and self-interest over collective […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-grounding-the-roots-as-a-story/
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The #OMN uses #stupidindividualism to describe the culturally manufactured habit of prioritising personal gain and self-interest over any collective well-being - a behaviour so normalised by forty years of #neoliberalism that people actively work against their own community and ecological survival while blindly believing they are exercising personal freedom.
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In the #OMN hashtag story, #block refers to the reflexive, unconscious tendency of individuals and communities to shut down unfamiliar and challenging ideas, people, and processes - a defensive gesture rooted in #stupidindividualism and #postmodernism that prevents the trust-building and messy collective work needed for real #openweb organising.
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In the real world
We're not dealing with abstract “community dynamics.” we're dealing with live-aboard boaters under pressure, rowers, landowners, council, Environment Agency and scarcity of space (moorings). This in the end is about visibility vs invisibility on the river, so friction isn’t theoretical - it’s structural. Let's look at the conflict patterns we’re seeing: Back-channel poisoning (#whispers #splitting) “X group are the problem”, “They’ve already decided this”, “Don’t […] -
“Digital sovereignty” is more mess we need to compost
The servent of the #nastyfew wispering to the #deathcult ists liberals From a #OMN perspective, the mess isn’t just the wording - it’s the ideology embedded in the wording, and how that shapes behaviour over time. “Digital sovereignty” sounds harmless, progressive in a liberal policy context. But if you run this through a #KISS ideological lens, its more mess rooted in control, borders, and authority - concepts historically tied to state power. That’s why it’s so easy for the […]https://hamishcampbell.com/digital-sovereignty-is-more-mess-we-need-to-compost/
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“Digital sovereignty” is more mess we need to compost
The servent of the #nastyfew wispering in the ear of the #deathcult ists liberals From a #OMN perspective, the mess isn’t just the wording - it’s the ideology embedded in the wording, and how that shapes behaviour over time. “Digital sovereignty” sounds harmless, progressive in a liberal policy context. But if you run this through a #KISS ideological lens, its more mess rooted in control, borders, and authority - concepts historically tied to state power. That’s why it’s so easy […]https://hamishcampbell.com/digital-sovereignty-is-more-mess-we-need-to-compost/
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“Digital sovereignty” is more mess we need to compost
The servent of the #nastyfew wispering to the #deathcult ists liberals From a #OMN perspective, the mess isn’t just the wording - it’s the ideology embedded in the wording, and how that shapes behaviour over time. “Digital sovereignty” sounds harmless, progressive in a liberal policy context. But if you run this through a #KISS ideological lens, its more mess rooted in control, borders, and authority - concepts historically tied to state power. That’s why it’s so easy for the […]https://hamishcampbell.com/digital-sovereignty-is-more-mess-we-need-to-compost/
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“Digital sovereignty” is more mess we need to compost
The servent of the #nastyfew wispering to the #deathcult ists liberals From a #OMN perspective, the mess isn’t just the wording - it’s the ideology embedded in the wording, and how that shapes behaviour over time. “Digital sovereignty” sounds harmless, progressive in a liberal policy context. But if you run this through a #KISS ideological lens, its more mess rooted in control, borders, and authority - concepts historically tied to state power. That’s why it’s so easy for the […]https://hamishcampbell.com/digital-sovereignty-is-more-mess-we-need-to-compost/
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“Digital sovereignty” is more mess we need to compost
The servent of the #nastyfew wispering in the ear of the #deathcult ists liberals From a #OMN perspective, the mess isn’t just the wording - it’s the ideology embedded in the wording, and how that shapes behaviour over time. “Digital sovereignty” sounds harmless, progressive in a liberal policy context. But if you run this through a #KISS ideological lens, its more mess rooted in control, borders, and authority - concepts historically tied to state power. That’s why it’s so easy […]https://hamishcampbell.com/digital-sovereignty-is-more-mess-we-need-to-compost/
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Most of the current “open paths” are cosplay at best, we need a network that links them as flows for there use to be unlocked from the current limits of #stupidindividualism shaping them – to become a native part of the expanding #openweb reboot. Closed systems protect individuals, but they rarely build movements https://hamishcampbell.com/closed-systems-protect-individuals-but-they-rarely-build-movements
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Closed systems protect individuals, but they rarely build movements
People fight against or/and ignore the #KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) approach in tech because simplicity exposes power. Complexity, jargon, and process give cover - they make control look like competence. When paths are simple and transparent, everyone can see who’s blocking, who’s hoarding, who’s acting in bad faith. Many “experts” and institutions are emotionally and professionally invested in keeping things complicated; simplicity threatens their authority, their funding, and […]https://hamishcampbell.com/closed-systems-protect-individuals-but-they-rarely-build-movements/
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The #dotcons, #mainstreaming, and Build to Walk Away
Three years ago I was trying to explain something simple in language liberals might actually hear. They talk about “platform capitalism.” Fine. But I’ve been calling it the #dotcons for 20 years - because that’s what it is - a con. The last 30 years of tech hasn’t just drifted into this mess. It’s been shaped, step by step, enclosure by enclosure, into systems designed to extract value from us. What we now call the internet is, in large part, a machine built to manipulate, […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-dotcons-mainstreaming-and-build-and-walk-away/
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The value of the #Fediverse comes from its cultural roots in the #openweb
YOU can’t do social change or challenge without annoying people If you think you can, you’re probably play-acting - and part of the problem - does that annoy you? If it does… maybe sit with that. 🙂 Food for thought, #4opens is a shovel for composting. The value of the #Fediverse comes from its cultural roots in the #openweb. The tech - like ActivityPub - grew out of that culture. It wasn’t built by #mainstreaming interests. Now money is flowing in, and with it comes risk of […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-value-of-the-fediverse-comes-from-its-cultural-roots-in-the-openweb/
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Disciplined curiosity beats IQ, Oxford
There is a persistent myth pushed in our culture that intelligence - high IQ, academic credentials, elitist education - leads naturally to clear thinking. My organic experience suggests the opposite, what matters is disciplined, skeptical, freethinking curiosity. Without that, intelligence simply becomes a tool for defending whatever assumptions people already hold. This is one of the reasons many academic environments produce people who are, bluntly, credulous. Not because they lack […]https://hamishcampbell.com/disciplined-curiosity-beats-iq-oxford/
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Make some FOSS compost https://hamishcampbell.com/make-some-foss-compost/ The wider culture is drowning in #stupidindividualism. People are burned out by churn, distracted, cynical.
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OMN: Broken Institutions, and the Need to Rebuild the Commons
For progressive and radical people, one of the central political questions of our time is simple to ask but hard to answer - Why is it so difficult to rebuild the institutions that were destroyed in our #deathcult worship of the 1980s and 1990s? And more importantly why does the impossibility of rebuilding them make it so hard to change the needed balance of power in society? These question matters for working on the future of the society and most importantly the grassroots part of this: […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-broken-institutions-and-the-need-to-rebuild-the-commons/
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OMN: Broken Institutions, and the Need to Rebuild the Commons
For progressive and radical people, one of the central political questions of our time is simple to ask but hard to answer - Why is it so difficult to rebuild the institutions that were destroyed in our #deathcult worship of the 1980s and 1990s? And more importantly why does the impossibility of rebuilding them make it so hard to change the needed balance of power in society? These question matters for working on the future of the society and most importantly the grassroots part of this: […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-broken-institutions-and-the-need-to-rebuild-the-commons/
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Make some FOSS compost
Twenty years ago the #openweb conversation was simple: build in the open, share the code, grow commons. It wasn’t perfect, but the direction was clear. Now? We talk about “neutral infrastructure” while most energy flows into platforms, APIs, app stores and AI silos owned by the #dotcons. Even many of our own projects quietly depend on their hosting, their identity layers, their distribution channels. We’ve normalised bowing down to closed systems, and we call it pragmatism. But tech […] -
#FOSS needs to take a social lead
This matters for #FOSS because as if it remains culturally trapped inside the #geekproblem, it becomes socially irrelevant at the exact historical moment it is most needed. Right now, most #FOSS energy still assumes that if you build complex tools, argue narrowly, and keep everything technically “open,” people will come. But only a tiny minority actually want to live the full-stack geek life: self-hosting, compiling, debating licenses, maintaining infra. That path selects for a […] -
#FOSS needs to take a social lead
This matters for #FOSS because as if it remains culturally trapped inside the #geekproblem, it becomes socially irrelevant at the exact historical moment it is most needed. Right now, most #FOSS energy still assumes that if you build complex tools, argue narrowly, and keep everything technically “open,” people will come. But only a tiny minority actually want to live the full-stack geek life: self-hosting, compiling, debating licenses, maintaining infra. That path selects for a […] -
#FOSS needs to take a social lead
This matters for #FOSS because as if it remains culturally trapped inside the #geekproblem, it becomes socially irrelevant at the exact historical moment it is most needed. Right now, most #FOSS energy still assumes that if you build complex tools, argue narrowly, and keep everything technically “open,” people will come. But only a tiny minority actually want to live the full-stack geek life: self-hosting, compiling, debating licenses, maintaining infra. That path selects for a […] -
#FOSS need to take a social lead
This matters for #FOSS because if it remains culturally trapped inside the #geekproblem, it becomes socially irrelevant at the exact historical moment it is most needed. Right now, most #FOSS energy still assumes that if you build elegant tools, argue clearly, and keep everything technically “open,” people will come. But only a tiny minority actually want to live the full-stack geek life: self-hosting, compiling, debating licenses, maintaining infra. That path selects for a personality […] -
Most people sense that something is off
Meany people 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 […]https://hamishcampbell.com/most-people-sense-that-something-is-off/
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The #twittermigration, signal vs noise, for rebuilding #openweb culture
Treating the Fediverse as #stupidindividualism is a kind of blindness, yes, individuals matter, but the #Fediverse only works because of shared culture, shared norms, and collective responsibility. Without this social layer, federation becomes fragmentation - lots of voices, but little shared direction to hold together. Since the #twittermigration of a few years ago, many of us are feeling the signal-to-noise shift. New people bring energy, creativity, and different expectations - but also […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-twittermigration-signal-vs-noise-and-rebuilding-openweb-culture/
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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, […]https://hamishcampbell.com/yes-its-messy-stepping-out-of-the-churn/
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The uncomfortable path
The individual, their freedom, and their capacity for reason are products of social relationships, not independent origins. Society is not built from isolated individuals; individuals arise from shared culture, history, and collective life. As society grows richer and more humane, individuals gain the conditions needed for deeper development and freedom emerges from this shared foundation. What’s really at stake is power. The shift has to be away from private ownership and toward the […] -
The rise of #stupidindividualism as a common sense 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 […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-rise-of-stupidindividualism-as-a-mainstream-path/
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Our hashtags try to name it: #stupidindividualism #deathcult #dotcons #nothingnew in that we repeat the same patterns, inside the same systems, and wonder why nothing changes. What does mainstreaming do? https://hamishcampbell.com/what-does-mainstreaming-do/
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Change and challenge
Let’s be honest about something we usually skate around. Many of our #fluffy activist friends are not fighting for change. They are fighting for equality of access to the existing system. That system is the #deathcult - growth, extraction, hierarchy, control - and most progressive mainstream activism is about making that worship fairer, nicer, more inclusive. More seats in the temple, better language at the altar, safer rituals for those already kneeling. This is not transformation, it is […]