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
It was an excellent list of words that he found that managed to start with the same letters. He sounded pretty proud of that list he made.
But there was no meat to any of it. There were some jokes where he took the low road, at least I think they were jokes, but there was nothing that was particularly substantial in terms of a legislator addressing a legislative body.
@TwistedEagle The problem isn't the numbers reported by the government.
The problem is people misunderstanding or outright lying about what the numbers are.
For example, yes, the unemployment rate probably really is 3.5%, but that rate is clearly defined "as a percent of the civilian labor force", and anybody not understanding that misunderstands the number.
It's not a lie. People are just mislead about what the number means.
@snookerarmchair 's comment is exactly kind of thing I'm referring to when I say I see people surprised by the amount of resources it takes to run a #Mastodon / #ActivityPub instance.
This thread highlights comparing against different levels of expectation.
Someone starting from a place where they expect it to take those resources doesn't change that someone else is surprised that it does.
Personally, I suspect we set the bar too low and waste resources because we tolerate systems that don't operate efficiently.
And thus we get ActivityPub, which seems to live down to those expectations.
This overlooks the definition of private, though, setting up a false argument.
Ownership by private groups is still private ownership. You can't just redefine that to be commons and hold it up as proof that commons works just as well as private ownership.
It would be like saying bikes go just as fast as cars, given that a car is basically just a bike and we're able to drive at 60 mph in those bikes.
The article falls into the trap of committing the same error in declaring the proposals to be wrong.
Since personhood isn't a scientific matter, it's no more right to try to use science to prove personhood doesn't begin at any particular point than it's right to do the opposite.
So it's not a "myth" to say personhood begins at point X. It's simply an opinion, not objective right but also not objectively wrong.
I suppose that doesn't make for a compelling headline, though.
Well, one feature of Fediverse and its instances is the idea that you subscribe to an instance that reflects your interests so that the local feed is people all discussing the things you're interested in discussing.
The problem is that people do have multiple interests, so some people open accounts on different instances just so they can have those different local feeds to engage with.
It would be better to bring that content to users rather than having users duplicating themselves to go after the content.
volkris
boosted
@matt I'm perfectly fine with Gargron making money off of Mastodon, but he should stop running it like a business, acting like everybody else is their competition. It's called the Fediverse for a reason.
One example: I read earlier today that he was considering implementing quote-posts. Problem is, there are already QP in the Fediverse, just not in Mastodon. That means there is already a standard, set by Misskey and adopted by everyone else except him. Do you think most people even know that? Of course not. For them, everything that's not Mastodon is Mordor. And do you think Gargron will implement QPs is a compatible way? Of course not. He will use his “market share” to say: “I don't have to listen to anybody else. This is, after all, _the Mastodon Network_.”
The Fediverse exists and thrives because of its diversity, but he just strives for uniformity. And don't be mistaken, he's been like that from the start. This behaviour is not new at all.
No, Republicans gained control of the House because of the outcome of elections throughout the country.
But Democrats have now found themselves with rules stacked solidly against them because they chose to refuse the 200 to 20 vote against fringe Republicans over and over.
It was their vote, they could have used it however they wanted, and they chose to vote with these Republican hardliners for some reason. And the result is that thanks to their vote the hardliners are now empowered instead of rebuked.
I actually do say that is their fault. Because it was their vote and they voted the way they did.
Really? That stuff seemed pretty superficial and unserious to me.
volkris
boosted
A machine that builds ATMs would be called an "ATM Machine"...
-Shock_Hazzard, Jan 2014
-Shock_Hazzard, Jan 2014
I think I'd be pretty skeptical just from the association with NYT
They haven't exactly been positive players in social media.
@matt @0x1C3B00DA @josemanuel I'd say the drama over #QT already shows that it's problematic to have #Mastodon as such a singular power in the #Fediverse
@nickapos @darnell @Homebrewandhacking As for having multiple accounts, it's one thing if people are having multiple accounts because they have multiple "personalities" along the lines of work versus entertainment, but people having multiple accounts so they can do things like engage with multiple instances reflects another problem that needs to be solved here.
I **think** it's a problem that can be solved at the UI level, so a problem for Mastodon and the other platforms. I'm not sure, though, and maybe it is an issue to be addressed at the #ActivityPub level.
It's definitely something that needs to be solved, though, as it really ramps up the risks around a user choosing the "wrong" instance to join. And it has major implications for the onboarding process.
The vote would have been 200 to 20 against those fringe members until the Democrats chose to vote alongside them, giving them room to make demands in exchange for reopening Congress.
200 to 20 against those people.
Until the Democrats actively intervened to prevent that outcome and save them.
Keep in mind that the Democrats were the ones extending the drama.
Had they not voted the way they did the whole thing would have been resolved days earlier with the 200 to 20 vote.
I'm not saying anything about why the Democrats chose their voting strategy, I'm only pointing out that they had the ability to end this at any point and they chose not to.
@helgek @gimulnautti @jan @darnell @nickapos
No you're wrong. Image previews have nothing to do with the protocol issues we're talking about.
I don't know if I have ever heard him speak before, but he came across as a really bad SNL character. His speech was just plain silly and his delivery sounded like he thought he was in a beat poetry jam.
At the end he seemed way too proud of himself for finding a whole bunch of pairs of words that started with the same letter, like he just discovered the concept of alliteration.
It was not a serious speech appropriate for the setting, and it made him look just really unserious.
But then again, such an immature person fits with the Democrat caucus which just voted in alignment with Republican hardliners to put in place rules that will stymie Democrats' legislative efforts for the entire session.
These are not smart people.
@gimulnautti @jan @berkes @helgek @darnell @nickapos
Remember, this is not theoretical. This is actual experience hearing from real people running instances and finding themselves having to unexpectedly shell out more money for higher hosting prices that they weren't expecting.
The protocol requires poorly scaling processing and bandwidth.
And that's not even getting into expensive design decisions that Mastodon in particular put on top of everything else. For example the intentional decision not to redistribute image previews but instead require each instance to go out and pull its own image preview, duplicating that effort throughout the whole platform.
It seriously sounds like [almost] nobody involved in this from protocol design up through platform implementation gives a second thought to what's going to happen at scale.
And I may have said it in this thread, but when I was in school for computer science we were hammered with big-O analysis of algorithmic scaling but someone recently told me that's not emphasized in school these days. It sure looks like that's the case.
I imagine part of the reason is just the high rate of false negatives of the rapid tests make them a bit unreliable for that use case.
I say this in part just to remind people that the rapid tests have such a high false negative rate.
It's such a stupid thing to equate the election of a Speaker to insurrection. It's literally following the rules, literally maintaining and bowing to the functions of government on government's terms.
And it just shows how much people have cheapened the term insurrection when it applies to 100% capitulation to governmental processes.
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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