It all starts at Ohm with Trash.

Today's political and social atmosphere is definitely not conducive to a positive outlook for the status quo. When there is no support from those in charge for the people, there is no reason for the people to support those in charge. Capitalism is failing to support the needs of the many, it is only benefiting the few. With everything skyrocketing in price and basically no wage increases to match, the illusory social contracts behind the very premise of the 'fairness' of capitalism and those who are supposed to maintain it (corporations, governments and law enforcement) have been utterly shattered.

Many will call you to stand up and fight, to protest and to take down the system, burning it to the ground. And I say yes, do.

But what are you going to do then? After the dust settles and the ashes cool, society has a dangerous tendency to reconstruct with the same biases as it had before, to build back the same mistakes. We can't be having that. You know what humans are like.

So let's build the foundations of the new society ready to swap in, to build on instead of building back the same old shit. This means thinking comprehensively about how it will all work, collaborating with many groups who each hold the pieces of what is needed, and interconnecting it all as a new form of cohesive social and cultural way to live that avoids the need for so many of the failed ideas of before.

There are myriad possibilities out there, and I cannot list all of them, not least because some of them have yet to be invented, but what I can do is give you some idea of what we are looking for and want to include, a flavour and style of movements, methods and techniques that can be used as building blocks for the new future we want to see.

Criteria by which I select them are inexhaustively listed as follows:

• Open source (no hidden codes, schematics, methods or techniques that prevent you knowing how it works or how to make, do or use it yourself, everything ended is accessible and accepts reasonable critique for consideration and can be forked)
• Peer to peer/federated/distributed (everyone can be a node of the network, everyone can share the content, nobody is above anyone else in the system, it is a mesh network and distributed geographically and socially with minimal to no barriers to entry, though troublemakers who intend harm or spread hatred to the systems or their people will be defederated)
• Local (your geographically nearest federated node should be your first port of call for your needs, especially when it comes to physical items that need not be sent around the world, such as perishable foods)
• Popper Compliant (no Nazi bars as they only spread intolerance)
• Free as in beer (no expectation of money to participate or interact or use)
• Free as in libre (you can share it openly with others)
• Free as in freedom (it doesn't trap you, apart from clauses that replicate freedoms in derivatives)
• Do-ocratic (getting shit done rules, no stagnating in bureaucracy)
• Solarpunk (encourages a brighter environmental future with consideration of all matters of eco-friendliness built into how it is done)
• Put Together compatible (is it a constructive, progressive way forward for improving existence for everyone long term?)

Here are some of the things we should look to unite into our cohesive base for our future:

#CommunesAndConvoys Communes and Convoys (solarpunk places to live and people to travel with who are building this future)

#IncredibleEdible Incredible Edible (growing food for each other in front yards, margins, verges and other spare spaces)

#UrbanPollinators Urban Pollinators (keeping some hives of bees in towns and cities to make local honey and support Urban ecosystems)

#TransitionTowns Transition Towns (working out on a town by town basis what can be done to most effectively improve environmental impacts and starting community gardens, renewable power schemes, composting, recycling and cycle infrastructure efforts)

#Upcycling Upcycling (making better things out of trash, scrap and offcuts)

#Hackerspaces and #Makerspaces Hackerspaces and Makerspaces (sharing tools, skills, spaces and resources in which to learn them and do projects from sewing to computing to woodwork and metalwork with each other)

#LabsOnWheels and #CommunityScience and #DIYBio Labs on wheels, community science and DIYBio (all about making science and the equipment for it demystified, straightforward and easy to make and use and do for everyone)

#Biohacking Biohacking (taking control of your own body and what is in it and how it works, making your own implants and gene edits)

#VulpineLabs Vulpine Labs (developing gene editing devices for general purpose uses so we can use personalized and precise edits to break free from most needs for drugs or other centralized treatment methods, adapt ourselves to our environments and transform however we want to)

#Reticulum and #Meshtastic Reticulum and Meshtastic (open source, peer to peer, distributed alternative internet infrastructure)

#OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (an open cartography platform by the people, for the people)

#Linux, #BSD and #FreeSoftware Linux, BSD and free software (take back your computer and software from corporate bullshit and scammy spyware, make it do what you want it to on your terms!)

#TrashRobot Trash Robot (using trash to build the new world and tools we want to see, and to draw people into being interested in it)

Each of these things and more like them are acts of resistance to the status quo, but also acts of building something better in defiance of it, something more sustainable, usable, comfortable, liveable and ethical.

When the most comfortable thing you can do is resist, grab a seat and welcome to Ohm Suite Ohm. We are the weird and the different, the trash the old society threw out, and it all starts with trash.