@lucifargundam Yeah, I sometimes hate on aphorisms. But I think there's something to the dangers of youth+genius. I guess the problem with aphorisms is that even if they're right, they don't show their work.
I'm 38 now, and the concept of geniuses dying in their mid twenties blows my mind. Hendrix was 27. Biggie was 24. Basquiat was 27.
How were they so good, so young? And then, like that, gone.
I'm thankful for the geniuses, but I'm also kinda thankful I'm not a genius. I wouldn't have had the maturity to handle fame. I don't know if I do now!
Also, I'm pretty sure being a genius doesn't lead to happiness.
@dangillmor The points the article makes about why things are different from pre-financial crisis are good points, tho. I don't think that's reason to believe things are going to continue to go up. More like, don't expect an imminent 2008-like crash to bring buying opportunities.
But I agree that I wouldn't hype buying now.
@searls @GeePawHill @marick Double samesies. Particularly from new people.
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This may go nowhere because I have not been using this platform but if it works, I will be very happy!!! I am teaching online communities to our master's students. If you are a graduate student, practitioner, or faculty member working in this space I would love to have you as a guest speaker to my class. Please let me know! Topics include moderation/regulation, hate speech/harassment, misinfo/disinfo/conspiracy theories, design-oriented online communities work, and privacy!
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I keep seeing articles, about people trying to violently overturn election results, that use phrases like “motivated by election lies”.
They aren’t motivated by lies, they are motivated by not liking the result. Repeating the lies just makes them feel powerful because it makes them part of the grift. They think they’re fooling people.
Blaming the lies lulls us into thinking that this is an education/disinformation problem which, if addressed, will eliminate the violence.
These folks aren’t deluded. They’ve learned from their leaders that violence and lying are the route to power.
For most of my life I thought these problems could be solved by education. I no longer do. As far as I can tell, about 30% of the population believes that getting away with grifts and bullying people is proof of power and leadership that should be respected, worshiped, and emulated.
We can’t educate these folks. We can only build a society that ensures that they cannot gain control. Unfortunately, the entire human race has largely failed to do so, and we’re suffering the consequences on a planetary scale.
Every day we act as though they don’t *know* that the elections were valid, is a day we risk losing the fight for democracy, equality, and a stable environment.
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A key thing I've learned about Mastodon: When you find people you know and want to keep up with, don't just follow them — add them to a list!
Merely following is not enough, b/c their posts may not show up in your feed at a time you're logged on. Unlike FB or Twitter, Mastodon has no algorithm to resurface your friends' posts from hours or days ago.
So create a list called "Friends" and check it when you're on. This will ensure that you see what they posted while you were away.
Interesting discoveries about Roman concrete
https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106
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A black man wrongfully jailed for a week in Louisiana after face recognition error, report says. Lawyer says police didn't check man's height, weight or the mole on his face.
The Republicans are refusing to govern.
Incredible stuff, really.
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The fedi is changing, and it's changing for the better.
Some people like that, and some don't, but the beauty of this place is that there is more than enough room for people to have whatever experience they want.
We need better tools (specifically around safety and managing access), but that will happen. Hell, it's already happening.
A big part of the conflict I've seen as more and more people migrate over is trying to enforce, and in most cases in the most bigoted ways possible, what they feel the fedi should be, which is, of course, ridiculous.
We've barely scratched the surface of what the fedi can do to build communities and share information. Yes, it's cool to be able to replicate centralized platforms, but the fun part is when we start to go beyond those paradigms and explore.
That's the reason I'm still here. We are having some hard conversations, but that's how you get to the good stuff.
Some people will stay stuck in the past, but there is a very cool future right before us.
What we're doing right now has never been done before. That's pretty awesome.
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Let me put a phrase into your mind: nonconsensual virality. It's why quote-posts on Twitter led to harassment. People's words stolen, taken out of context, used purely to incite a mob of griefers. The answer is to give #Mastodon users control over whether someone else can quote-post them, with a simple setting. We should be allowed to stop people from taking our posts viral without our consent.
New blog post: Expand Your Mind With One Weird Trick
My strategy for building expertise in new areas.
https://acjay.com/2023/01/02/expand-your-mind-with-one-weird-trick/#more-2512
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Always admire Fred Wilson's candor. On Web3 crash: "Our family’s net worth has taken a massive hit. The carrying value of USV’s assets under management has been cut in half this year. And yet, I am fine, my family is fine, and USV is fine."
https://avc.com/2022/12/what-happened-in-2022/
@april Multiple domains on one server is one of the things I'm hoping for here. Last I saw, it was an open ticket, but it was unclear to me whether it was happening.
Look, I get that a lot of things "kind of" work here, but I also feel that there probably needs to be an elegant separation of identity and hosting in order for the Fediverse to support the migration of a lot of the usages that people rely on Twitter for. I think the goal should be "better than Twitter" + "better than email".
@_L1vY_ I've become less conservative with age, largely because of the awareness I gained over the years. I also realize how much the success I've had has been contingent on privilege and chances I've taken going well for me.
@blepharon I mean, just because you need some entity to store the mapping, is that really worse than how it works now?
You could hypothetically make the mailing address an URL, which would allow hosting of the street address on an arbitrary domain and server.
@som_snytt @april Yeah, but unlike holiday cards, I generally want my post history to persist indefinitely.
It's good to know that followers should migrate smoothly. That is indeed better than moving physical addresses! I haven't tried instance migration yet to know exactly what the experience is, first-hand.
@april I looked into this, but IIRC, the problem is that you can't post under your own domain's handle.
The Fediverse replicates one of my real world pet peeves, the conflation of mailing address with physical location.
Every year, my wife sends out Christmas cards and we have to recheck everyone's mailing addresses, because people move. But why should moving change your mailing address? A mailing address could be some other identifier than a street address. The postal service could maintain a mapping that we could change whenever we move. Mail would never again go to an outdated location. Most people want to "send mail to Alan, wherever he happens to be", not "send mail to a given house and hope Alan resides there".
The Fediverse is similar. I chose Qoto as my initial home because I liked some of the decisions they made in setting up the instance. But now my identity is tied to Qoto. There are mechanisms to migrate, but they involve telling everyone my new location.
#Fediverse #Mastodon @identity
I am now @acjay
Joined Oct 2022
