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
@GamePlayer@fosstodon.org
Yeah, after the Twitter drama really broke out I saw a lot of people complaining that they were running into issues with activitypub just not being scalable.
And when I looked at the standard it was clearly not scalable.
And that's not even getting into the additional load that Mastodon in particular puts onto things.
But you know, the major feature is getting over critical mass of users, network effects, not enlightened technological design.
@GamePlayer@fosstodon.org
ActivityPub is a mismatch of existing technologies, so I would say no. It's really not that great of a system.
@bobwyman @TCatInReality @lauren
Yep, it is a challenge, but there are some metrics that are more or less objective, that people should probably be able to agree on.
For example, the idea that my vote should count regardless of how my neighbor votes comes up pretty starkly, and I think we can generally agree that it's a good idea.
Different voting systems support this to different degrees.
@TCatInReality @lauren @bobwyman
At that point the issue isn't the elections but rather what government is doing.
@EwanCroft@mastodon.social
That's nice
What specifically are you talking about?
@lauren @TCatInReality @bobwyman
Firstly, yes, I absolutely agree that it confuses people and that is a major problem. Some of the technically better ranked choice methods are very mathematical, and confusing to anybody who doesn't study them, so personally I would write them off right away.
That is a very primary consideration. 100% agree.
But on the other hand, I disagree about ranked choice keeping entrenched parties in power. Ranked choice means that people can risk voting for somebody new with the old standby as a backup. It threatens the entrenched powers.
I appreciate this humorous analysis of the legalities of shooting down balloons.
@TCatInReality @bobwyman @lauren
The deep problem is the first past the post #voting system. Almost any voting system would be better.
The cure is to change to a different voting system, probably one of the many ranked choice systems.
We can argue about which one would be the best of imperfect options, but at the end of the day, they would all be better than what we have now.
(This is even more or less mathematically provable, but that's tricky because it's calculating subjective priorities)
@mmeadway @nadezhda04 @stopgopfox@libretooth.gr @joshtpm
An issue is that a lot of these adjustments just end up kicking the can down the road. They may bend the graph a bit, but it still leads to insolvency at some point on the timeline.
We should be able to talk about major structural changes without accusing each other of trying to kill the system in the process of shifting it to a more sustainable model that won't eventually crash and burn during some future generation.
What in the world are you talking about?
The whole thing about capitalism is that there is a scarcity of resources, so all of the fucking around is constrained by the resources available to fund it.
So here's a technical point that I'm not at all sure about, but I believe the underlying protocols have features that would allow people to maintain identities separately from their instances.
At this point the applications like Mastodon and whatever else aren't really taking advantage of that separation, but I think it's actually in there.
The ActivityPub protocol stuff is pretty big and complicated so I can never remember every nook of it, but, I think I remember that separation being part of it.
@TCatInReality @bobwyman @lauren But let me build on that just a little bit.
The big problem with first past the post is that when I cast my vote I have to worry a whole lot about how my neighbor is casting his vote, I have to game things because I don't want my vote wasted on somebody that doesn't actually stand a chance of winning... maybe because other people aren't voting for that candidate because they don't want to waste their vote on someone who doesn't have a chance of winning... which obviously becomes circular and stupid pretty quickly 🙂
SO how do we mitigate this problem? By only having two candidates to vote for. By organizing ourselves behind two candidates supposedly diametrically opposed, and so we evolved a primary system with two major political parties.
Which is all to say that as much as people complain about the two-party system in the US, two few people realize that the two party system is merely the natural attempt to mitigate issues with our voting system.
The two party system is harsh medicine for a deeper problem. We should cure the deeper problem instead of spending so much time worrying about the mitigating mechanism.
Yes, but it's a double-edged sword.
Quantity versus quality.
A large instance full of stuff you're not interested in is probably not worth as much as a small instance focused on the things that you are interested in.
@FlopError@mstdn.party
So exactly how many conspiracy theories are you proposing there? Is it just one per platform, or multiple on each platform? And what about the others?
volkris
boosted
One of my blog posts got cited in a book and now I have to carefully migrate my URLS every 6 years when my other garbage needs a new home.
My reaction goes the other way: when I looked into Mastodon and the underlying ActivityPub protocol It struck me as exceedingly lacking in cleverness. It looked like a hodgepodge of existing web technologies mashed together instead of a real evolutionary leap. It could have been so much more.
But in the end, it may be good enough.
After all, with social media the hardest part is gaining critical mass. All of the big players, from Facebook to Twitter, none of them offered anything especially Earth shattering. They just had the population to be useful.
Anyway, to the point here, one of the axes that I grind is people being misled as to what this platform is actually offering. I just think we need to be more honest about things ranging from the lack of privacy through the lack of full decentralization.
A lot of the excitement around this platform is based on misunderstandings about what the platform actually is, and that's not good for anybody.
@InayaShujaat@mastodon.nz
Wow your responses are toxic.
No, I never used Twitter. Never liked that site myself.
But when people talk about the factors holding Fediverse back and you start cussin and yelling at people to leave, well...
Again, the post was making a decent point about the downsides of this platform, particularly the hostility, and your over the top hostile reactions just really confirm that point.
Mainly, I think you're projecting here.
Lots of different people want different things out of social media platforms, so just because you want one thing doesn't mean that's the right thing for all. There's more diversity here than that.
So I'd say we should focus on letting users shape their own experiences rather than dictating what should and shouldn't be available on the platform for all.
I shouldn't be shaping this platform for my wants any more than I think you should for you.
Empower users. Let them chose to engage with corporations or not.
After all, topically, some people like Superbowl Commercials, even if I've no interest in those.
So I appreciate being empowered to turn off the corporations when I'm not interested.
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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