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@tobyjaffey @anildash Ah interesting. I've been thinking of Mastodon as an ActivityPub implementation, but in practice, it sounds like it also defines a higher-level open API that supports other clients.

@anildash I've built a toy/hack Node.js #ActivityPub server which exposes (some of) the #MastodonAPI in the front end. That means you can connect to it with a Mastodon client app and send/receive messages. It's helped me figure out how this stuff works and hopefully will help others understand too github.com/ringtailsoftware/cu

I've noticed that it's common for people on social media to assume that:

a) people are very good at things simply because they are well known
b) furthermore, that their competence extends to areas outside of their purported wheelhouse
c) conversely, that there aren't a whole loads of very competent people unknown to them

This mindset plays into the development of cults of personality, leading to the deeply problematic grift culture that's dominating society right now.

@freemo Good to know. It would be interesting to have a good UX for letting an organization with a Fediverse domain be able to vouch for accounts that are off its domain in a way that regular users can readily see.

So say NYTimes runs an instance and I become a reporter there. It would be cool if I could use one of those key verification schemes to validate my membership in the org, and Mastodon labels me with an @nytimes.com badge.

I don't think this idea is fully baked, but you probably get the idea.

Twitter 

The biggest missing piece are official accounts, like corporations, media and government. I think pretty soon we'll see orgs standing up instances on their own domains, which will substitute pretty effectively for verification.

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Twitter 

People are gonna be shocked how quickly Twitter activity falls off a cliff. The Mastodon migration has had a couple fits and starts, but at this point, there are only a couple very active independent people I follow on Twitter that aren't here.

Twitter 

Somehow, I feel like this is set up to make the next step in this nightmare even more harrowing. Nonetheless, it is pretty incredible what this man has done to his own reputation in the past few months.

I do not understand why news organisations, and the Guardian in particular, are being so slow to move to Mastodon. Setting up their own instances seems an obvious move.

@apn @oliverdarcy The amount of grace these dudes have for each other is almost touching. If it weren't deeply rooted in a collective superiority complex.

The best leaders I've worked with and for are OK with being wrong. They seek out challenges to their perspectives. They know great ideas can come from anybody. DEI simply gives them a language and better toolkit for things they intuitively do.

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But eventually, they realized this is a game they couldn't win. No one person can be an authority in DEI, because the whole point is elevating a multitude of voices. They kept saying the wrong things, and instead of having the humility to be okay with being wrong, they started throwing tantrums. "No more politics at work (unless it's my politics!)"

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Ego is what happened. The superbrain thing to do was be a thought leader. They learned the language and made small commitments. Sometimes even large commitments, even though many quietly faded away before reaching fruition.

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The u-turn on DEI from the charismatic superbrain tech founder class has been illuminating. These are the same people who wrapped themselves in BLM and ERGs a couple years ago. Now they're saying wokeness is public enemy #1. What happened?

Fascinating that I haven't heard a peep about Web3 alternatives to Twitter in these months of crisis.

We are living through a truly epic emperor-has-no-clothes moment in tech. So many emperors, so few clothes.

Hi, crop scientist here. Wind doesn't "take farmland out of production." You can keep farming under the turbines.

But, it's harder to sell farmland with turbines on it to real estate developers later!

And that's a lot of farmers' real financial plan when you get down to it.

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Qoto Mastodon

QOTO: Question Others to Teach Ourselves
An inclusive, Academic Freedom, instance
All cultures welcome.
Hate speech and harassment strictly forbidden.