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
@Cymphoni_Fantastique it's not so simple since our democratic processes involve them.
You can't do things for people when the people are needed to be able to do things.
So I don't think that's a workable response.
@genoforprez @taylorlorenz
@PeterLudemann Yeah, exactly.
Your experience moving to CA supports* the ax I grind that the state of #journalism in the US is not only really bad and has been getting worse, but it's an ENORMOUS contributor to the social ills that we complain about every day.
Not only is the population amazingly uninformed about how the federal government works, but it's worse: I see reporters every day making statements about government that are outright wrong.
The reporting isn't merely lacking but outright misinformative, as reporters increasingly speak as experts on topics they aren't familiar with.
In such an information environment is it any surprise the US is in such an undermined state?
It won't change until we collectively demand better.
*which is to say, confirms my bias :)
@simon_brooke above you said we need ways to share and store value. AGREED! Welcome to the need for money.
And then you told a long and rambling story that has nothing to do with that topic.
We're already in agreement that money is needed. Which is great to see you come around.
But the children's tale isn't particularly relevant or insightful.
@panos well it's like using a screwdriver for a screw and a hammer for a nail: very different use cases and so two tools to handle them.
The requirements of asynchronous, unreliable posting at scale vs synchronous, reliable chatting one on one are very different use cases. It's not surprising that different tools would be needed for the two.
It's a case where the jack of all trades to handle both would likely be too general to handle neither case optimally.
@lauren ha, equally unpractical as making Wikipedia safe then :)
It strikes me as the exact same problem.
Neither Wikipedia nor AI output is reliable.
Neither can be made reliable.
So the way we address one is likely very related to the way we address the other.
@panos doable? Sure.
Just like an adjustable wrench can be used as a hammer.
But.... not ideal, and it's worth keeping that in mind.
@lauren yeah, the solution isn't to try to make AI safe. That's an exercise in futility.
The solution is to let people know AI isn't safe, and to respond accordingly.
It's the exact same as accepting that Wikipedia will not be authoritative and therefore to treat it with skepticism. Exactly the same with AI.
Heck, it's like talking about making alcohol safe. Nope: it's toxic and altering. It is not safe and cannot be made safe. Therefore, treat it as an unsafe element.
@panos the problem is that the ActivityPub design and protocol doesn't really lend itself to chat.
The fundamental design is more like email, with messages queued in inboxes and outboxes as they're to be shuffled around instances in bursts as resources are available.
It's kind of just the wrong infrastructure to support chat.
@MisuseCase well no.
Government is specifically and actively set up such that nobody has such control, no such ability to decide such things unilaterally.
That's just not how government operates, fundamentally.
@kvaks the answer is because so many analyses like these kind of miss the cause and effect of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin doesn't require anywhere near that much electricity. You could run Bitcoin entirely on a car battery and a solar cell if you wanted.
But people decided for themselves that Bitcoin was so valuable that they'd bid up the price, exchanging more energy for BTC because it was simply worth that much to them.
Bitcoin hasn't collapsed by being economically unsustainable because those economic actors have found it to be economically worth those costs.
volkris
boosted
Also if you’re a #puppet builder and/or performer, I’d be happy to expand the server and give you a channel. So far I’m the only puppet-based video maker I’ve found on the #fediverse but I want to carve out a friendly little space here for puppet folk
Reach out! Always happy to chat.
@PeterLudemann I want to joke that Americans don't even understand how to set up a successful America, much less a successful public company :)
The half-joke is that Americans are so poorly informed about the US government and so poorly educated in matters of basic civics that setting up a successful public company becomes an advanced topic far out of reach of large swaths of the population.
One of the things I have to wryly laugh at (or I'd cry) is he number of friends who every four years stop and ask, How do presidential elections work again?
So many Americans literally don't even know how the head of the executive branch is elected--if they even know there's an executive branch at all--that it's completely unsurprising that they wouldn't know how to set up a successful public company.
But that's just the state of the US these days.
@lauren
@marynelson8 the article was unfortunately silent on where this income came from.
@lauren ::shrug:: it is governments' roles to provide public service as best the leaders that we empower see to do that.
If they seek to provide public service by outsourcing to corporations, then that's still a government decision. If it's bad government policy, then for goodness sake let's stop reelecting the same clowns making those decisions.
But we need to emphasize that it is their decision, because that way we can hold them accountable and maybe stop reelecting them.
That government looks to corporations to provide services doesn't mean it's not government looking and deciding and executing government policy.
@bedirthan you're referring to only one Bluesky installation and ignoring the rest of the system.
That's akin to talking as if Fediverse was only a single instance.
It's not an accurate description of the platform.
@darnell it's still in early days... yes, it's moving surprisingly slowly, but for whatever reason Bluesky is still just beginning its implementation.
@lauren well... right.
I have always though it foolish to rely on corporations for public service or look to them for moral leadership.
That a corporation is amoral is a feature, as the alternative opens us up to being caught behind someone else's sense of morality that can go REAL BAD for us.
If we would rather pay AT&T for crypto services than for telecom--if crypto was more valuable to us than phones--then goodness they SHOULD switch over, to better provide what we collectively want.
Safety, security, etc, is the role of government, not corporations.
The trade I'm referring to is person to person, my having something you need and you having something I need, so we exchange for mutual benefit.
I'm not referring to anything that requires anything society-wide.
And that's not even getting into, people do a ton of stuff that's outlawed.
Trade is inevitable. Even if you outlaw it, it will still happen. Heck, an authority probably has to engage in trade to enforce their law.
So, since trade is inevitable, the question becomes one of how to make it as least-bad as possible.
Money is part of making trade less resource intensive.
So the question is, what do we do about the people you describe as lost? Do you really believe they are so completely beyond redemption, and if so, what do we do with that conclusion?
@genoforprez @taylorlorenz
@TheGymNerd I didn't see it, but I imagine if you describe it as dark then it was too dark for the YA vibe they were promoting.
The selling point of that genre is to be superficial so there isn't any real depth or substance to distract from dumb teenage drama.
The lack of a good story is a sellingpoint to that genre. Otherwise a person would be distracted from emoting with the emo figures on the screen.
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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