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
Thanks for the pointer.
I wish I had free time to participate, but since it sounds like you are engaged with them, Can you say anything about how active Mastodon devs are in SocialHub discussions?
There are the occasional complaints that Mastodon is off doing its own thing, and I wonder how founded those accusations are.
On the topic of #Fediverse identity, I dipped my toe in for a second and came across an interesting thread.
#ActivityPub is the tip of a huge (and I'd say convoluted) iceberg, so it's hard for me to remember much of it at once.
Oversimplifying, identities are merely URIs, so a person could be credited for content across platforms by specifying the same URI on each post. Except...
I refreshed my memory on the protections against simply forging someone else's id by specifying their URI.
When a person is followed, their server/instance issues a certificate on their behalf, which causes other problems should the server lose the cert.
I suppose the next hoop to jump through, that I don't have time to dive into, is wondering whether the user could simply provide their person cert as they register on a new instance.
Ah! Makes perfect sense to use RSS.
Here's a great thread with screenshots and two second overviews of some different #Fediverse projects! (#QT below)
You might have heard that the #fediverse is more than just #mastodon odon. There are cool other projects such as 📺#owncast for livestreaming video ...
@KatM@mastodon.social
Keep in mind that appointing a special council is specifically about letting go of control in the face of potential conflicts of interest.
So far Garland has tied special councils to ongoing presidential matters, whether serving as president or campaigning for it, as #Trump had already announced his candidacy before the appointment.
So far #Pence has not announced a run for the office, so the DoJ is handling the investigation directly.
Frankly, I suspect Garland is happy to have this out so he has an excuse not to make that decision.
FWIW, I hate to see people having to create multiple identities as a bit of a hurdle to engage with #Fediverse in those different ways.
If I want my Fediverse identity to post both a microblogging message and Pixelfed type content, it stinks to have to wrangle between split identities instead of having it all tied to one.
I BELIEVE #ActivityPub has the capability to support single identities across services, though I don't know if it's ever really been implemented.
But I really hope development of programs like #Mastodon go in that direction so that someday, sooner rather than later, a person can present a single identity that crosses between services.
Bingo.
This move would mean fewer employees will need to be paid to patrol the lots and bring carts back in, for better or worse.
@NCACTorontoKate@mstdn.ca
Often when you see claims like these they aren't taking into account differences in governmental structure across countries, and in particular the state by state and city by city operations that provide the social safety net.
They don't actually cite their source so we can't be sure. We can only see that their unsupported claim matches the conclusion the article wants us to take away.
Why only Mastodon at this time?
Which is to say, I would have thought that the program would just listen to ActivityPub and therefore might not even know whether it was listening to a post from Mastodon or anything else.
Does it use some Mastodon API on an instance by instance basis instead of listening to ActivityPub?
From glancing at the standard, I would guess that images and captions should be updatable just like any other content in ActivityPub.
My guess is that it's the apps.
Thanks for sharing this explainer on #Ordinals . I hadn't been following what they are.
Decentralized Journalism platform
The reason I think that influence is overstated is because I listen to journalists speak in panel discussions outside of their platforms and, like I said, talk to them in person occasionally.
The independent journalists I hear from seem to lack even more expertise in the areas they're covering.
So sadly I see two flavors of journalism: ill-prepared reporters who don't know what they're talking about vs educated people who know better but abuse their platforms to push their biases.
But we get what we click on, so *shrug*
@lispi314 @helge @multiverseofbadness
Meh, the signing would simply be built into the account. It could even be just a signed certificate associated with the account and not each message if devs didn't want to deal with that extra step.
The only opt-in would be people vouching for each other.
But to clarify, by external social sort I mean that profiles would end up with notations saying "your friend says this is a real person who's cool to talk to" vs "you've no connections to this account so it might be a spammer or troll"
You'd still have every ability to do with that what you want, whether you want to ignore the friend-of-a-friend connection or take it into account.
Could it be because when your platform is easier to have access to, there will be more opportunity for tinkerers to offer their tinkered applications, even if they don't have nearly the finish?
There are pluses and minuses to openness: on one hand, YAY!, everyone has access! but on the other hand yay, even the amateurs.
Decentralized Journalism platform
I think journalism's big problem at the moment isn't so much about access, centralization, or any of that, and is more about an apparently nearly universal disinterest in providing accurate reporting.
When I hear reporters being interviewed about reporting, and when I talk to reporters in person, there is always this attitude that puts accuracy secondary to activism, one that lets conscious or unconscious biases roam freely.
THAT's why journalism has lost so much credibility in recent years. Readers just get turned off by reporting that they see for themselves to be flawed.
Until that attitude undergoes an evolution, meh, it doesn't much matter how the opinion pieces marketed as real news get transmitted.
volkris
boosted
"Did you know that if you read a Mastodon thread not on your server, you won’t see the same content as someone on a different server? You’ll only see answers known to your own server...."
https://benlog.com/2022/12/28/dont-let-federation-make-the-experience-suck/
This is one of those cases where the other side of the argument is, Is it better for the poor to have more or less options?
We really need to be careful about paternalistic urges to control what others have access to just because we think we can manage their lives better than they can.
The Bitcoin ATMs sound like they're using demographic data to place machines where people are more likely to derive value from using those machines. That is, on its face, a positive thing.
@lispi314 @helge @multiverseofbadness
Personally, I wish the heuristics would be built on a cryptographic Web of Trust framework to bring external social sorting and identity verification into the mix, but that's just something I yell into the void occasionally :)
Well what makes you feel like the content here is better than over there?
I thought that was what everybody understood the poem as.
What makes you think people don't understand it that way?
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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