#techshit — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #techshit, aggregated by home.social.
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This summer #climatechaos
This summer, heat, fires, the soon to come winter floods and insurance withdrawals will make #climatechaos harder to treat as something happening somewhere else. For years, climate breakdown was framed as an activist issue, something discussed by environmental groups while mainstream politics carried on with business as usual. That is changing, people are experiencing the consequences: extreme heat, flooding, damaged homes, rising insurance costs, failing infrastructure and growing […]https://hamishcampbell.com/this-summer-climatechaos-is-mainstream/
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Grassroots #openweb infrastructure is need for a different future
For 50 years we have worshipped the #deathcult - endless growth, extraction, competition and individualism - and now we are living with the damage that this has done to our society and the living world. The current hard shift to the right won't fix any of this, it simply empowers the #nastyfew to surf the apocalypse while more and more of us are left fighting over the scraps. Blind hatred and political ignorance are not solutions. Neither is pretending that the past 50 years of "common […]https://hamishcampbell.com/grassroots-openweb-infrastructure-is-need-for-a-different-future/
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Living through twenty years of #dotcons addiction
For those of us who've spent the last twenty years working around alternative technology, grassroots media and activism, the hardest thing to watch has been how deeply the #dotcons have become embedded in the culture. We know the problems, we've been talking about surveillance, extraction, algorithmic manipulation, platform lock-in and the destruction of community for years. And yet we keep going back, not because people are stupid, but because addiction is powerful - especially when the […]https://hamishcampbell.com/living-through-twenty-years-of-dotcons-addiction/
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Living through twenty years of #dotcons addiction
For those of us who've spent the last twenty years working around alternative technology, grassroots media and activism, the hardest thing to watch has been how deeply the #dotcons have become embedded in the culture. We know the problems, we've been talking about surveillance, extraction, algorithmic manipulation, platform lock-in and the destruction of community for years. And yet we keep going back, not because people are stupid, but because addiction is powerful - especially when the […]https://hamishcampbell.com/living-through-twenty-years-of-dotcons-addiction/
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First we stop feeding the #deathcult.
Then we compost the piles of #techshit we've accumulated.
From that fertile soil, we nurture small, resilient commons that can survive and grow through #climatechaos.
The spirit of #KISS: don't wait for the perfect revolution - start cultivating the ground where something better can take root.
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First we stop feeding the #deathcult.
Then we compost the piles of #techshit we've accumulated.
From that fertile soil, we nurture small, resilient commons that can survive and grow through #climatechaos.
The spirit of #KISS: don't wait for the perfect revolution - start cultivating the ground where something better can take root.
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Compost the #techshit. Don't throw everything away—salvage what works.
Reuse code, protocols and knowledge instead of chasing endless #techchurn.
Build commons infrastructure. Simple, federated tools that communities can actually run themselves.
This is where the #OMN works: open standards, transparent governance, human moderation and shared ownership.
Document what works. Projects like #MakingHistory matter because movements lose hard-won knowledge when people move on. Living archives help communities avoid starting from zero.
Value maintenance over novelty. Healthy ecosystems need gardeners more than inventors. Keeping useful things working is often more important than creating new things.
Practice cooperation. Small habits - sharing work, documenting decisions, mentoring, resolving conflict - are how trust grows. Technology can support that, but it can't replace it.
Accept the long timescale. If dominant assumptions are changing, it will likely be gradual. Cultural shifts often happen over decades rather than months.
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Compost the #techshit. Don't throw everything away—salvage what works.
Reuse code, protocols and knowledge instead of chasing endless #techchurn.
Build commons infrastructure. Simple, federated tools that communities can actually run themselves.
This is where the #OMN works: open standards, transparent governance, human moderation and shared ownership.
Document what works. Projects like #MakingHistory matter because movements lose hard-won knowledge when people move on. Living archives help communities avoid starting from zero.
Value maintenance over novelty. Healthy ecosystems need gardeners more than inventors. Keeping useful things working is often more important than creating new things.
Practice cooperation. Small habits - sharing work, documenting decisions, mentoring, resolving conflict - are how trust grows. Technology can support that, but it can't replace it.
Accept the long timescale. If dominant assumptions are changing, it will likely be gradual. Cultural shifts often happen over decades rather than months.
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Make the #4opens fashionable
The crisis of the #openweb isn't just coming from the #dotcons. It's also coming from us. Our #mainstreaming #fashionistas are dangerously consumptive, forever chasing the next platform, the next funding round, the next shiny self abstraction. Meanwhile, our alternative #fashionistas mirror exactly the same behaviour, endlessly reinventing tools that never escape their own echo chambers. Both paths produce the same result: more #TechShit, more #TechChurn, less social value. We don't need […] -
The #geekproblem has two paths.
* One path is to accept the "common sense" of the #deathcult: build whatever is profitable, never question the social outcomes, and dismiss human problems as "not technical."
* The other path is to stand back, see the bigger picture, and build tools that help compost the #techshit created by the first path. That's where the #4opens and the #openweb matter.
Technology should serve people, not the other way around. #OMN #KISS
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The #geekproblem has two paths.
* One path is to accept the "common sense" of the #deathcult: build whatever is profitable, never question the social outcomes, and dismiss human problems as "not technical."
* The other path is to stand back, see the bigger picture, and build tools that help compost the #techshit created by the first path. That's where the #4opens and the #openweb matter.
Technology should serve people, not the other way around. #OMN #KISS
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From a grassroots #DIY tech perspective, most of our #openweb #fashionistas are part of the problem, not because they have much real-world impact - they don't - but because they dominate the conversation and soak up the space needed for practical paths and projects.
We need less #techshit and #techchurn, and more tools that communities use. The #4opens is a simple way to compost the noise and focus on what matters: building trust-based, working infrastructure.
Who's up for making this happen?
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From a grassroots #DIY tech perspective, most of our #openweb #fashionistas are part of the problem, not because they have much real-world impact - they don't - but because they dominate the conversation and soak up the space needed for practical paths and projects.
We need less #techshit and #techchurn, and more tools that communities use. The #4opens is a simple way to compost the noise and focus on what matters: building trust-based, working infrastructure.
Who's up for making this happen?
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Our failure to mediate the mess
The current #AI boom is built on a huge contradiction, you can see this in #mainstreaming terms. That AI companies are not paying the real costs of what they consume. They haven't paid for the copyrighted material they trained on. They haven't paid the environmental costs of the water and electricity they use. They haven't paid for the pressure they place on public infrastructure, or for the social costs of flooding the web with synthetic content. Yet AI services are sold below their true […] -
Best not to keep feeding the churn. It's #KISS #openweb and #closedweb. The rest is #fashernista guff that'll need composting when the next buzzwords arrive in a year or two.
Keep it simple. #KISS
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Best not to keep feeding the churn. It's #KISS #openweb and #closedweb. The rest is #fashernista guff that'll need composting when the next buzzwords arrive in a year or two.
Keep it simple. #KISS
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The #fashernistas need to get off their knees and start calling out pointless things.
Pick up the #4opens as a shovel. There's a mountain of #techshit that needs composting before anything healthy can grow.
In the era of #climatechaos, too many people are still kneeling before the #deathcult. If this idea fills you with fear, ask yourself: who or what is your head bowed to?
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The #fashernistas need to get off their knees and start calling out pointless things.
Pick up the #4opens as a shovel. There's a mountain of #techshit that needs composting before anything healthy can grow.
In the era of #climatechaos, too many people are still kneeling before the #deathcult. If this idea fills you with fear, ask yourself: who or what is your head bowed to?
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All thinking is critique. If you're not looking for faults, you're probably not looking at the thing at all.
Don't be afraid of the mess. Pick up the #4opens and start gardening #techshit. There's plenty of compost to plant seeds of hope in this era of #climatechaos.
Lift your head. Look around. See what's really growing.
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All thinking is critique. If you're not looking for faults, you're probably not looking at the thing at all.
Don't be afraid of the mess. Pick up the #4opens and start gardening #techshit. There's plenty of compost to plant seeds of hope in this era of #climatechaos.
Lift your head. Look around. See what's really growing.
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@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
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@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
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So 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.
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So 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.
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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.
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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.
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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/
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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/
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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/
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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/
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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/
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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 […] -
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 […] -
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 […] -
#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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#techshit is about the accumulated layers of profit-driven digital infrastructure that isolates rather than connects people - surveillance dressed up as user experience, complexity that serves power rather than communities, and the replacement of any human solidarity with hollow technological substitutes.
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#techshit is about the accumulated layers of profit-driven digital infrastructure that isolates rather than connects people - surveillance dressed up as user experience, complexity that serves power rather than communities, and the replacement of any human solidarity with hollow technological substitutes.
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#reboot is the necessary reset of the #openweb - stepping away from the dead ends of #techshit and #dotcons to rebuild digital infrastructure on human-centred, trust-based foundations, using tools like #activitypub and the #fediverse, guided by the #4opens.
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#reboot is the necessary reset of the #openweb - stepping away from the dead ends of #techshit and #dotcons to rebuild digital infrastructure on human-centred, trust-based foundations, using tools like #activitypub and the #fediverse, guided by the #4opens.
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Why you should help
The internet's public square is privatised, algorithmically controlled for "engagement" over any idea of truth, and placed under the control of a handful of American corporations with no accountability to European citizens or values. The #Fediverse is the most credible existing alternative - but it lacks the shared infrastructure to function as a native commons for news and media. #OMN builds that infrastructure: trust-based, community-controlled, transparent, reversible, and owned by nobody. […] -
Why you should help
The internet's public square is privatised, algorithmically controlled for "engagement" over any idea of truth, and placed under the control of a handful of American corporations with no accountability to European citizens or values. The #Fediverse is the most credible existing alternative - but it lacks the shared infrastructure to function as a native commons for news and media. #OMN builds that infrastructure: trust-based, community-controlled, transparent, reversible, and owned by nobody. […] -
Why do we keep bringing this up?
If we want a better web, we have to stop pretending this is just about “bad tech companies doing bad things.” Of course, they are-that’s what capitalist incentives produce. The real question is: what are we doing differently? That means accepting some uncomfortable truths. The better path will be less convenient, at least at first. We will have to socially support things that used to look free on the #dotcons. Because the cost we didn’t want to face is simple: the #openweb was always […] -
Why do we keep bringing this up?
If we want a better web, we have to stop pretending this is just about “bad tech companies doing bad things.” Of course, they are-that’s what capitalist incentives produce. The real question is: what are we doing differently? That means accepting some uncomfortable truths. The better path will be less convenient, at least at first. We will have to socially support things that used to look free on the #dotcons. Because the cost we didn’t want to face is simple: the #openweb was always […] -
@_elena Sadly, it isn’t - and it’s painfully visible. @evan called this right from the start, and he was right on this.
This is #techshit, spreading a miasma over the #openweb. And when it inevitably fails, the rotting stink will linger, making it even harder for people to take the step they need to take.
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@_elena Sadly, it isn’t - and it’s painfully visible. @evan called this right from the start, and he was right on this.
This is #techshit, spreading a miasma over the #openweb. And when it inevitably fails, the rotting stink will linger, making it even harder for people to take the step they need to take.
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@NicelyManifest @_elena @laurenshof
It’s a growing mess, and we’re the ones left to compost it. There’s too much #techshit, and it ends up making everything stink. Why would anyone want to use the #openweb if it smells that bad?
We’ve seen this before - the #encryptionists and the whole #blockchain mess. And now there’s a big overlap with #bluesky.
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@NicelyManifest @_elena @laurenshof
It’s a growing mess, and we’re the ones left to compost it. There’s too much #techshit, and it ends up making everything stink. Why would anyone want to use the #openweb if it smells that bad?
We’ve seen this before - the #encryptionists and the whole #blockchain mess. And now there’s a big overlap with #bluesky.
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@_elena it's a mess that keeps growing, and we will be left to compost it, too much #techshit, and we all start to stink - why would anyone use the #openweb with that bad smell. The last time this happened was the #encryptionists with the #blockchain mess, there is a big overlap with #bluesky
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@danie10 @ki @gsymon @EUCommission Any idea if this is public or private, funding, ownership etc.
Is it based on exiting #FOSS projects or more #techshit to compost? Are they adding to the commons or privatising it?
Who wonts to join the team composting #EU #techshit corruption as they will likely be spending billions on this over the next few years, It could be used for good, but more likely just mess making.
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This is funding poured down the drain and thus corruption on the part of the people who funded this at the #EU and the company that asked and excepted the funding.
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@EUCommission this is funding poured down the drain and thus corruption on the part of the people who funded this at the #EU and the company that asked and excepted the funding.
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The is resigning to use strong words. Yes, there are parasites. And yes, there’s shit to shovel https://hamishcampbell.com/yes-there-are-parasites-and-yes-theres-shit-to-shovel/ because it gives the people who currently being default parasitic a chance not to be, and the people who are creating #techshit a chance to compost some of this mess. And if they do fantastic a kindness has been done. If they don't, we can compost the #fuckwits ourselves to grow something better #KISS
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Who’s Building the #Openweb – and Who’s Just Feeding Off It
Almost all funding in the #openweb space gets absorbed by the mediation layer - the people and organisations who talk about, manage, and frame the work rather than doing it. Some money reaches (#geekproblem) developers. Some supports visible projects and #fashionista careers. But the pattern holds: funding flows to what institutions can understand, and institutions rarely understand messy, unglamorous, day-to-day grassroots work. So resources pile up around reports, events, strategy […]https://hamishcampbell.com/yes-there-are-parasites-and-yes-theres-shit-to-shovel/
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We need to call out this #techshit as the compost layer we need to break down and return to the soil, a first step is don’t mistake it for the internet. One is a common, the other is a shopping mall with mirrors. The internet itself isn’t the problem https://hamishcampbell.com/the-internet-itself-isnt-the-problem/
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The EU opportunity and danger, what grassroots projects can offer
The #openweb reminds us that meaningful autonomy comes from shared infrastructure, collective governance, and mutual trust. Projects like #OMN are built on this understanding: individuals do not create networks alone; networks create the conditions that allow individuals to flourish. Real freedom grows from commons-based collaboration, not from isolated platforms or competitive silos. What can grassroots #openweb people actually do when the EU is building alternatives to #dotcons, but with […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-eu-opportunity-and-danger-what-grassroots-projects-can-offer/
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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/