Dave T-W @davoloid@qoto.org

If you say something like “given what we know about human nature…” and then go on a prejudiced rant projecting awfulness onto everyone, you will lose my attention*

What I believe about human nature is that we’re an amazingly complex and diverse species with tremendous capacity for love, generosity and redemption as well as selfishness, cruelty and violence and I see much more of the “quietly good” playing out than the “noisily evil”.

*this is a euphemism for me eye rolling and tutting loudly, with occasional flashes of rage if the subject is particularly dear to my heart.

I’ve been busy last few days so haven’t explored Mastodon properly. Sorry if I haven’t yet replied to comments or followed back - but I will! First impressions are that it’s a much kinder, less toxic site than the other place.
The petulant, narcissistic manchild appears to have destroyed Twitter, which is really sad. It’s a relief and very comforting therefore, that I can see so many Twitter friends have made the move over.
Love to all. Chris xx

Well here I am!

.

@taz I'd argue a more significant issue is The Algorithms' discovery about humans. Not because it's wrong, they are actually quite good at what they do: show things that will keep people scrolling. The problem is what most motivates people.

Negative emotions are significantly more effective at motivating human behavior than positive ones are. Not witnessing negative emotion - being triggered to feel a negative emotion. That has a spiral effect because we humans are fairly good at settling into new norms. To keep that drip of negative motivation going, the negative inputs need to get (slowly, but consistently) stronger.

And so, the most efficient solution for keeping you scrolling is to introduce you to your own personal hellscape where all you can feel is negativity driving you to seek/create/feel more negativity.

The basic problem with most social media like #Twitter and #Facebook is they encourage mob behavior because their business model depends on "discussions" going viral.

In mobs, humans are fearful, cruel, spiteful animals with an average IQ below room temperature.

It's almost impossible for anything to go viral here the way it does "over there" at least for now.

Conferences now became quite close-minded and elitist: the same people, year after year, polished presentations, barely any input at all. There are a few large ones every year, but they are expensive and quite limited number of people are allowed in. Which raises the question: does anyone know a platform or a website where one could post unpolished results and discuss them with other in hopes of feedback, corrections or even collaboration?

I THINK SOMEBODY JUST FEDERATED MY TOOT

I just discovered the "advanced web interface" in #mastodon "preferences".
This should probably be the default when a desktop is detected.
Anyway, #tweetdeck -like experience. I am a happier bunny.
#tookmelongenough

Reading about the Eli Lilly thing. If you can lose $16bn of share value because of a tweet, I'm not exactly convinced that the tweet is the problem here.

I wonder if some long-standing mastodontists are just inventing protocols that aren’t real in order to mess with the heads of all the incomers.

“People new to Mastodon ought to know that it’s considered polite here to roll the sleeves up on a toot if it’s about football - you just have to click the sleeves icon in the uptop drop down menu easily accessible from the federation window. (Not federation page obvs!)”

Newbies all desperate not to be the noisy-neighbour spend hours searching in vain

“The people who can use the new tools will have new power. The people who were great at the old tools (paintbrushes, cameras, Adobe Illustrator) will be thanked for their service and rendered into Soylent.”
On AI #imagegenerators

https://www.wired.com/story/artists-do-not-fear-ai-image-generators/