From a left-wing perspective, identity politics and class-based politics feel like competing ideologies. Identity politics focus on individual identities (race, gender, sexuality, etc.), while leftist movements emphasize collective struggle against class-based oppression under capitalism and neoliberalism. Both approaches aim to address inequality but through different paths. For the #geekproblem we can view them like competing tech standards (e.g., #Bluesky, #Nostr, #ActivityPub), in that they risk fragmenting movements unless there’s an effort to bridge them, balancing specific identity struggles with broader systemic change.

An example of this is #Postmodernism, which often leaves us questioning even the most basic aspects of life, and frankly, it can be exhausting. A recent example is the ongoing debate around biological sex. While it’s true that some people are born with disorders of sexual development, these cases are rare, just like being born colorblind or with physical disabilities. However, the overwhelming majority of the 80 billion humans that have ever lived were born from the combination of an XX and XY chromosome pairing.

The postmodern argument blurs these distinctions unnecessarily, but common sense tells us that reproduction still fundamentally relies on this biological reality. It’s not about denying people’s rights to live as they choose—people should love and live however they wish—but recognizing that certain basic truths shouldn’t be muddled by this long dead ideology. We need to move past the confusion and return to a clearer understanding of biology, while still fostering respect and dignity for all different people, regardless of how they choose to express themselves. Let’s focus on a healthier balance between respecting diversity and understanding the realities of the world we live in.

This is just one example, alongside #neoliberalisam in the economic path we have has 40 years of this mess shaping us, we need to step away from this #fashernista mess making. What would this look like?

Stepping away from the 40-year #fashernista mess shaped by consumer culture involves rejecting the shallow, surface-level trends and embracing deeper, systemic change rooted in sustainability and community. It means focusing on long-term, grassroots action instead of the trendy or performative activism that shapes us now. Practically, this would mean rebuilding independent, open media (#OMN), fostering, commons, collective ownership of resources, and rejecting the commodification of everything. It’s about creating social paths based on trust, openness, and shared values rather than profit-driven, corporate-controlled structures.

This path emphasizes:

• Local Action: Rebuilding local communities around shared resources and sustainable practices, ensuring they operate autonomously from mainstream corporate structures.
• Open Processes: Utilizing the #4opens as a framework to ensure transparency and collective engagement in both technology and activism.
• Resistance to Co-optation: Staying vigilant against the dilution of radical movements by “common sense” #fashernista #NGO “market-friendly” paths of themselves for wider acceptance, thereby maintaining their original values and integrity.
• Education and Awareness: Promoting knowledge-sharing and political education to empower people to resist superficial solutions and embrace affective and meaningful changes.

Ultimately, it’s about rewiring social values to cooperation, resilience, and ecological balance over competition, consumption, and power accumulation, It’s rebalancing our sense of self both individual and social.

From a left-wing perspective, the critique of identity politics, in the example at the beginning of this post, is that it fragments social movements by focusing on individuals or inward looking group identities rather than uniting around shared economic and outward class struggles. The #fashernista path driven by the current mess emphasizes personal identity over collective action, leading to the dilution of the solidarity needed to challenge systemic structures like neoliberalism (#deathcult). This #mainstreaming path leads to division within movements, creating competition for recognition rather than fostering collaboration and addressing structural inequalities

Let’s share the activism fire place, rather than fight over it, leaving only a cold smoky damp mess. #KISS

People often vilify and attack people in progressive projects:

• Fear of change: Radical ideas threaten the status quo, leading to backlash.
• Internal divisions: Disagreements within movements about strategy, purity, or priorities cause infighting.
• Co-optation and sabotage: External forces, including media or political interests, intentionally discredit or sow discord in progressive groups.
• Fragile egos and clashing ideals: Differing views on identity, politics, and tactics spark personal conflicts, leading to attacks.

These reflect broader social divisions and insecurities. Both are kinda progressive paths, but one is based on fear and the need for control, and the other on openness and building of trust paths.

#KISS

https://hamishcampbell.com/navigating-the-postmodern-confusion-and-the-case-for-common-sense/

The current path of distraction’s and #stupidindividualism are core to pushing the cycle of pointless noise that is feeding into our inability to focus on real change. People are busy, swept up in distractions, and pointless pursuits to be the change or challenge they need to be. It’s a cycle of complacency with a bad outcome. Agitation, anger, and disturbance are powerful motivators, but we need to focus into something meaningful, to avoid drowning in the noise, we need to focus on what’s actually going on. But how do we push people to grow up and focus without falling into the trap of more #blocking or just offering more distractions or ‘better bling’?

The answer is simple and #KISS by recreating collectives. We’ve seen first-hand how hyper individualism (#stupidindividualism) isolates people, leaving them powerless against larger systemic issues. Rebuilding real, engaged, and active communities is key. Movements like #OMN, #OGB, #indymediaback, and #4opens are examples of initiatives that become the change and challenge we need. These projects draw from undercurrent ideas that we know work, combining them with the best of #openweb tech to grow from small seeds into real change.

But it’s also essential to dig at the roots of the mess: #pomo (#postmodernism) and the #deathcult (#neoliberalism), ideologies that have shaped the mess we’re in, cynicism and cutting off collective alternatives. If we don’t address these root issues, they will keep returning, and we’ll remain stuck in the same cycles of decay.

The #geekproblem is real, it’s the problem of domination and control born out of geek culture shaped by “common sense” paths. Look at the decline of the #dotcons like #failbook and Google, where #fashionista optimism gave way to corporate greed. Then look at early days of #openweb projects like #couchsurfing and #indymedia, we had healthy, thriving native cultures that weren’t obsessed with control. The key is to recognize what went wrong and build on a path that doesn’t repeat those mistakes.

The challenge is that many within geek culture can’t see the value of projects like #OMN, as it exists outside their narrow, “common sense” world-views. We need to help people see beyond the obvious, look for non-mainstream alternatives, and recognize that the solutions aren’t in the corporate web but in the decentralized, open spaces, commons, we create ourselves.

Now is the time to reboot our own media and to be wary of #fashionista agendas that hijack and dilute the real change we need. The way forward is messy, organic, and rooted in collective action. What we can do:

• Agitate and Disturb: Use media, art, and culture to push people out of their comfort zones and make them question the status quo. The hashtag story is a tool to do this.
• Build Collectives: Recreate spaces where people can work together meaningfully, paths that empower communities to balance the current #stupidindividualism. The #OMN are projects for this.
• Focus on the Roots: Don’t only address symptoms, dig deep into the core ideologies that keep returning and haunting us, like #pomo and the #deathcult. This website is a tool for this
• Reboot Media: We need to take back control of our media, using open technology to create alternatives that aren’t based on capitalist greed but on #KISS shared values. There is a native project for this indymediaback
• Stay Wary of Distractions: Resist the temptation of ‘better bling.’ The solution is not to make the distractions shinier, but to focus on what matters.

The path out of this mess is in part social tech, which we need to build. It’s time to grow up, pay attention, and start building the world we actually want to live in. A shovel is need to compost the current mess #OMN. I don’t have the focus to do this, we need a crew.

The key part of this is WHO decides, this is a political and democratic issue, not a tech “problem”.

https://hamishcampbell.com/the-path-out-of-this-mess-is-in-part-social-tech-and-we-need-to-build-this-path/