tripu
boosted
Thomas Sowell nails it on the head again.
'Too much of what is called "education" is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.'
Hear, hear.
@Hyolobrika Absolutely.
@caranmegil What “handicapped individual” “in the 300”?
> _“#Bigtech platforms were quick to shut down the #lableak hypothesis. For instance, in February 2020 #Facebook censored a New York Post article by the social scientist Steven Mosher arguing that the virus may have leaked from a lab, and a few months later #Twitter suspended the account of the virologist Li-Meng Yan for claiming the virus was made in a lab. Meanwhile, #Google ensured that typing terms like ‘#coronavirus lab leak into its search bar didn’t autocomplete (so users wouldn’t be led ‘down pathways’), and that searches for the terms would always yield statements by the WHO and other consensus-upholders as the top results. However, these measures were not enough for many liberal journalists and politicians, who demanded more be done, and so, in February 2021 Facebook issued a blanket ban on all posts suggesting the virus was ‘man-made or manufactured,’ a policy it awkwardly reversed four months later when the consensus began to change.”_
https://rabbitholemag.com/how-can-we-know-whats-a-conspiracy-theory-and-whats-not/
> _“The idea that the [#covid] lab-leak hypothesis was a #conspiracytheory was more of a conspiracy theory than the lab leak hypothesis.”_
https://rabbitholemag.com/how-can-we-know-whats-a-conspiracy-theory-and-whats-not/
Another article that's golden to help with this epistemic dizziness.
I decided that these merry days leading to Christmas, when we're infused with positive sentiments and hope for humanity, are as good as any other to read… #Hitler's _Mein Kampf_.
😲
Not really! In fact, I'm a bit embarrassed to leave my e-book reader lying around so that others can see what I'm reading… But my Theory of Reading actually supports and encourages reading _anything_ that has been very influential (for good or for ill) regardless of its literary merits, its veracity, its applicability today, or its moral qualities.
Not to put them all necessarily in the same bucket, but I have read _The Iliad_, _The Odyssey_, _The Communist Manifesto_ and _Atlas Shrugged_ — and I would read _The Bible_ and _The Quran_ too: all of them #books that are ( in a way or another) wrong, false, corrosive, harmful, evil, racist, sexist, pro-violence, or pro-war — or even all of those things at the same time!
Granted: #MeinKampf may well be the wrongest among the wrong books… And in a way, that contributes to making it “useful” as a reading.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/64930929-tripu?shelf=currently-reading
That was about 📚 #reading (#books).
Related, about the 📰 #news:
> _“I don’t know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie – not a writer, not a composer, mathematician, physician, scientist, musician, designer, architect or painter. On the other hand, I know a whole bunch of viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs.”_
“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t #read all the time — none, zero. You’d be amazed a...
tripu
boosted
@tripu I share your feeling about this manifesto, I think all the cussing is a marketing move to attract attention. The spirit of the old web is still alive if you look for it, like the IndieWeb that you mentioned.
Nowadays I try to focus on the parts of the web that I like, and ignore most of the rest, I think it's making me happier. I'm very surprised when I see what people consume out of Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Tik Tok, the TV... Thank you, no, thank you.
tripu
boosted
@tripu It seems like a really long way of saying "I'm nostalgic for old geocities sites". Was it really worth setting up a whole domain for this blog post?
👎
**Too long**, and **too histrionic**, to say many things that the good folks at [IndieWeb](https://indieweb.org/), the [EFF](https://www.eff.org/), etc have been saying for a decade or two now.
Not to mention **incoherent** (if _“the #web is fucked and there's nothing we can do about it”_, why should I care about it, bother to read the post, or try to change anything at all?), **inaccurate** (_“web 1.0 […] was better”_… there are few breaking changes in the development of the #WWW: that web the author misses didn't go anywhere; anyone can still create and browse sites like those) and **naïve** (have fun using alternatives to Gmail, Google Maps, Wikipedia, many kinds of streaming, collaborative editing of online docs, some kinds of feeds or syndication, sites with 3D capabilities, microblogging, etc!).
> _“In my whole life, **I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn't #read all the time — none, zero.** You'd be amazed at how much Warren [#Buffett] reads — and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a #book with a couple of legs sticking out.”_
— Charlie #Munger
@cy@mstdn.io
😏
Are you guessing, or are there credible reports of the #Pocket browser extension doing just that? I'd be interested to know, because I confess I didn't read the fine print.
No issues preventing one from uninstalling it though, right?
Think that paying to have the #blockchain say that you are the “owner“ of a JPEG everyone can see on the internet was often silly enough? Think again. #KevinRose shares the good news that legendary collectibles can now be sliced into tokens so that we poor late arrivers can pay to have a blockchain say that we are the “owners“ of a _little piece_ of what _another_ blockchain says is the legitimate instance of a JPEG everyone can see on the internet.
Progress!
All three people (both hosts included) confessed that they are not actually “bankless”. “Unfortunately we have to keep a Wells Fargo.” Of course you do.
Bringing this up is a bit cruel (I know that the name of the podcast is aspirational, not the statement of a state that is currently achievable). But it's funny that in a podcast named “Bankless”, no-one is bankless.
The hosts ask #KevinRose why $DOGE is still a thing. Answer (from memory, and paraphrasing): the power of community, backing a project, a shared purpose, building something together, blah blah blah.
Too kind, too rosy (too cynic and self-serving?)
(Paraphrasing) At some point in the episode, the two hosts and the guest almost interrupt each other to heatedly express their shared conviction (and to _celebrate_) that the purpose of many of these projects (chains, collectibles, DAOs, whatever) _does not matter_. The goal, the use case, may be a mystery. And that, for them, is a good thing.
Yeah.
First (and this is not specific to this episode, but a constant in the #NFT craze): isn't anyone else annoyed and suspicious of that sudden interest that everyone seems to have now in #art, artists, and galleries?
I keep on hearing and reading from all these #crypto nerds and geeks, who have been obsessed with technology their whole life, and never before, to my knowledge, shared a book or an article about the art world, bought a painting, attended a live art performance, befriended an artist, bought a physical record (they went from Napster to BitTorrent to Spotify), or set foot in a gallery IRL… all these people are suddenly SO excited about novel graphic artists, live happenings, and exhibitions of generative art, SO eager to buy, support, collect and showcase #art, and SO convinced that everyone out there shares their very whimsical new passion…
Isn't that wishful thinking, opportunistic, and fake?
I'll say it upfront: I like #blockchains. I think that they're exciting #tech and that there'll be use cases for them — and I have invested a little bit in a few crypto projects (eg, $BTC).
However.
The amount of nonsense in the #crypto world in general, and around #NFT's in particular, is astonishing. Proponents and advocates should be the first to call BS, for our own benefit.
I listened to [this recent #episode of the #Bankless #podcast with #KevinRose (of Digg fame)](http://podcast.banklesshq.com/95-how-kevin-rose-invests-in-web3), and in that spirit, I'll mention here five idiotic or at least naïve ideas expressed in the show:
