volkris @volkris@qoto.org
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
@shelenn If you're interested in the technicalities, see the link below about how #Mastodon engages with #ActivityPub to implement some of its features.
My response is that some of those features are completely possible with the #Fediverse and clients like Mastodon just need to slap on the UI to get them done.
Other features.... well, I fault ActivityPub for not having things like cryptographic confirmation of users built in as a core functionality.
Hopefully the different projects continue to mature and provide interfaces that add more and more value to users, in user friendly ways.
Oh right, that.
I've been sadly laughing at how many of these alternative platforms over the years have written up the most inept terms of service, this one included.
So many of these are written in such a silly, unenforceable way that I guess it really says something about the operators that they'd be published at all. They're jokes.
It's one thing to take a bad idea and write up good, enforceable legal document to establish it. But these guys can't even write good documents for their bad ideas.
So I suppose by liked-minded you meant people with the same interest in discussion, not necessarily the same opinions and perspectives on the world?
I probably just misread that.
There are sadly quite a few who really explicitly don't want other opinions around, though.
(I do appreciate the links and I hope to go through them when I have time. I have your comment bookmarked for this magical moment when there will be time :) )
Huh, what was the wording in ToS forbidding making fun of billionaires?
@philwaring @EnPrimeurLefty but see, to me this is part of how I interpret @EnPrimeurLefty 's admonition that this place must not become Twitter.
Only like-minded people coalescing? Echo chambers discussing politics? Is that really even much of a discussion?
It IS the kind of thing that turned me off to #Twitter, though. It didn't seem to have much use to it, only reinforcing and bias confirming instead of understanding.
You mention a role as the world's notice board, but your framing above sounds like you'd exclude much of the world from that.
Well, it's worth highlighting that there is an important recourse, even if it's a weak one: depending on the particular state, the recourse is voting out the state officials doing the bad job.
YES, that absolutely brings in the complications of voting out people with fingers on the scales of voting, but it's not nothing. Gerrymandering is not a perfect system, especially with low voter participation rates.
But I just always like to emphasize that people can and should not ignore the performance of local and state officials.
Too often they get a pass.
Ha. But some instances will be more equal than others :)
As I understand it, you've just described QUIC
It doesn't help that "web3" was/is a marketing term with a hundred different meanings, most without any engine under the hood.
Ah, I see what you're saying.
With decentralized servers it's harder to enforce laws against them all?
Hmm. Well, to push the analogy, technological advancements in agriculture increased the productivity of a set amount of land, meaning that more could be grown for more people with less land required.
The analogy isn't perfect, but there's something there! :)
@matslats@social.coop
One takeaway not to be overlooked is the importance of building in solutions to anticipated problems early.
So much of the email mess comes down to the lack of protections against bad actors from the beginning and the difficulty of adding them after the fact.
I do give email some forgiveness because technologies like PKI were still kind of young back then.
However, as we set about promoting this #ActivityPub system, we should avoid those issues by addressing technological deficiencies sooner than later.
So much of the email story came down to a few big movers standardizing add on solutions somewhat unilaterally. We should stay ahead of that here.
I'd go one step better: Many parts of the world now have access to such high quality connections and economical home computing resources that we no longer require the efficiencies of scale that drove centralization in past decades.
It's not just cloud computing but even home computing.
We used to need centralized computing because there was just no other practical way of operating, but not anymore.
The sharecropping analogy sounds good, but I like to emphasize the evolution brought about by the technologically advanced option for such extreme decentralization.
What do you mean about not easily passing censorship laws any more?
It seems #Twitter has reversed course on the policy and you are once again allowed to Tweet other platforms' usernames on their service.
And @AnneTheWriter, some instances have replaced "toot" with other words, because it was just too silly :) I go with the generic "post"
Mmhmm. And hey, he did those things, and you're talking about him again!
Don't you see how it's not weird when your responses follow the predicted pattern?
He knows that when these links are removed, people will light up talking about him. So the links are removed. And people light up talking about him.
There's nothing weird there. It's just standard trolling, the way trolling has always worked.
Oh, I thought I said before, I don't think either #Twitter or #Musk are particularly worth my time or attention. There are more interesting dumpster fires in the world.
I do find it fascinating that so many people here are absolutely obsessed with both, though.
It's a window into their minds, and to the mark that Twitter has left on the world over the years.
It seems pretty unhealthy to me, but you do you!
@victorwynne@ruby.social
Maybe so, but it's also an excellent way to build on others' ideas, crediting them while taking their thoughts to the next step with expanded audiences.
I really hate giving up the positives that it enables for the sake of worry over people using them to bring down.
And if nothing else, I want to see users as empowered as possible. Just ideally, I'm skeptical of choices that take away users' abilities to express themselves as best they can.
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
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