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
@thisismissem my immediate reaction was that this sounds like proposing sort of a one-size-fits-all policy that is exactly what so many of us are looking to escape as we leave behind the big name platforms.
When I glanced at the source article I saw this:
> The goal of integrating with the fediverse is specifically to have Meta users’ content appear in someone else’s mastodon instance, and vice versa.
But THE goal? It's far more complicated than that. There are so many different actors involved here, with their own goals, many of which might even be at odds with each other.
So I think it's the same sort of thing. This is a decentralized platform that allows more diversity, both in goals and in policies. There's no one "should" since different users want different things.
And that's the ax I grind: I think far too few consider empowering end users and instead focus on centralized power structures that dictate The Right policy from their positions.
I think what you're describing there is kind of powerful agents playing games with their power when really I'd rather send that down to users anyway.
@lauren but don't overlook that so often employees are simply worthy of that disdain because they're simply bad at their jobs.
I get the impression that's behind a lot of the recent layoffs.
And I don't want to see unionization stand in the way of companies being able to actually serve customers better, by cutting employees who are simply not cut out for their positions.
@danwentzel this is bigger than that jerk, though.
We're going to see more and more inability to sort out what's real from what's AI generated going forward.
Even after Stone has shuffled off this mortal coil--and I don't get the impression his health is so great these days--we're still going to need better ways to sort authentic from increasingly convincing forgery.
This has been coming for a long time, but journalistic institutions in particular haven't laid the groundwork to respond to it.
I honestly don't care about Stone. He seems to LOVE attention, positive or negative, so I figure the DOJ going after him, well, I think he'd enjoy it.
But there are some bigger issues here, even bigger than criminal justice, if we can't even tell what's factual.
#Biden's strike on the #Houthis shows once again that he screws things up coming and going.
The complete lack of response was probably not great, but apparently he was worried about escalation.
But then he overcorrected, with a strike of magnitude that won't bend incentives but will grant the escalation that was exactly what he was supposedly looking to avoid.
It's really the story of his whole administration, incompetent administrators lurching left and right as they find themselves in way over their heads.
Nobody's better off from that, and it's tragic to see so much death and destruction coming out of that utter failure to engage rationally with the world.
@MonkeyPanic looks like it's an already existing feature, maybe depending on which version of software a particular instance is using:
https://fedi.tips/filtering-your-timeline-to-hide-posts-on-mastodon/
@BeAware@social.beaware.live
Well, you kind of answer yourself: they ARE important... to folks like NPR who want to tell stories and get clicks and maintain their public presence.
Folks pay attention to the caucuses for the same reason they pay attention to reality TV stars. Because it makes for dramatic stories that so many in the public lap up.
It's just journalism. Gotta fill the new cycle.
@BeAware@social.beaware.live yeah, but that goes back to my other comment to your original post above about our needing much better tools to manage our feeds.
Until we get better tools we're left with these really clumsy ones that block lots of good with the bad, or filter based on hashtags, all of which--yep!--puts our experiences in the hands of others.
This is the problem with a platform that doesn't put much value on empowering end users, which is an attitude I've consistently seen from developers here.
It always ends up putting experiences in the hands of others.
Is there any particular problem with Fetlife other than the normal chicken and egg problem of that's not where the group is?
This is the post that surprises me.
I never thought of Tumblr as a place for real, close connections. It always seemed to me to be about momentary connection over shared art or (to put it positively) a user just wanting to make strangers' day better by offering a glimpse into an experience.
So I'm speculating, maybe completely wrong, but I wonder if my impression is the one that the company has actually been aiming for. It would explain so many of the actions you're mentioning.
It might be that y'all found this loophole in their system, forming close connections in a system that was never designed to promote close connection.
Just for example, it's not a problem to them to sever conversations if the platform never valued or wanted to have those conversations in the first place.
@photomatt
@BeAware@social.beaware.live my point, though, is that the alternative isn't a better solution :)
At the least, I can block .social if I want. Leave all the bad actors there so it's easier for you and I to filter our feeds.
@raucao nosat stated that Bitcoin is not money because "money requires the property of fungibility, this means each unit is the exact same as every other unit"
I don't think that claim is exactly right, and so it's not a solid argument against Bitcoin being money.
Yep, not a valid argument, or even compelling one.
@freemo it's the thing that happens to so many public figures... not to mention sitcom characters:
When a person can consistently get a crowd reaction with some superficial action, eventually they get lazy and just lean into that action instead of putting in the effort to have depth, which is harder.
Basically, these real life figures eventually give up and become the caricature that their fans want, just like a sitcom character where writers get lazy and just write them as one dimensional.
@BeAware@social.beaware.live
The #Fediverse / #Mastodon promise of a feed without algorithm was always at best a stopgap for this exact reason.
#Hashtags were the most powerful of the weak solutions to allow users to improve their experiences against the firehose of chronological sort, but they were never a great solution.
Users have the incentive to abuse them, as you're seeing. Or at least to misuse them. As the platform grows, the norms that held them together as a solution would inevitably be challenged, and they'd become less and less effective over time.
The way I always saw it, hashtags bought Fediverse platforms time to develop something better, but unfortunately there was all too little focus on looking for that replacement.
I grind my ax once again that developers need more focus on empowering users, including empowering them to shape their experiences beyond hashtags.
I don't think that's the solution, though.
Just spreading out the problem doesn't changing the scaling of it. If anything, it might make it harder, not easier.
A big instance can have an army of people attacking the problem, moderating consistently and as a team, organized into shifts or whatever they need to do to do it as efficiently and effectively as possible.
But if you divide the misbehavers into various instances, the problem is the same size, but now instead of one potentially organized moderation team you have the need for moderators at every independent instance.
Better, I think, to collect all the misbehavers into one place where they can be dealt with.
@BeAware@social.beaware.live
@ekis cool track!
@PerryM Keep in mind that potential Trump voters are not one monolithic group.
Many of the different clusters are on the fence, or considering different strategies, or have entirely different, often opposite motivations from others.
There is plenty of room to peel voters off, but unfortunately so many attacks against Trump are strategically unwise, actually uniting them.
I think so many misunderstand Trump voters as being a single, unaccessible block, and through strategic missteps actually strengthen them into that.
@_9CL7T9k8cjnD_ have you considered that analyses like this might be part of the problem, might be part of the misunderstanding of society that lead to so much surprise when Trump was elected?
The methodologies behind such analyses reflect values that might be the very ones that populations have lost faith in.
It's like when the WHO ranks countries for health outcomes, and by health outcomes they mean polices the WHO prefers. It ends up begging the question.
It's more telling to consider things like direct polling on faith in institutions. That helps show a more direct measure without skew.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/public-trust-in-government-1958-2023/
@nosat are dollar bills money?
Because they aren't the exact same as each other.
Same with Bitcoin.
The concept of dollar and of Bitcoin remain fungible even if the actual paper or transaction record might involve some uniqueness.
And thus, Bitcoin is money, particularly since people buy and sell things with it, as money.
@apenkop well it's that the mission is more important than the people.
The organization exists to provide goods and services. That's its reason for being.
If an organization is putting people first, great, it's a social club. Those are important and valuable too, but they're a different type of organization than these.
@schwa that's the way I'd prefer it handled, personally.
I don't want some symbolic counseling session where the employer pretends to care. I don't have time for that.
I'd say it's more respectful to skip the show and just tell the employee if they're fired.
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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