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
Today I came across somebody helpfully sharing this link, where the developers gave a nice one paragraph overview of why they didn't just use ActivityPub, the protocol behind Fediverse
Basically, the core protocol and design of Fediverse is all based around instances. All the trust goes to instances, basically all the power goes to instances.
Bluesky at its core protocol design empowers users, having users keep hold of their content and identities and stuff like that.
The important part is that this isn't just a minor feature difference like the design of the onboarding experience. It's not like the homepage is blue and we might want to change it to purple.
In the very core of the two platforms there were engineering decisions made differently. Maybe both have their own advantages, but the instance focus instead of user focus is a difference I've always held against Fediverse.
https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/issues/255#issuecomment-1287953987
volkris
boosted
Someone around here recently linked to this two-second explanation explaining why they wrote Bluesky.
With ActivityPub the Fediverse has us all counting on instances.
Sure, we can sort of change from one instance to another, but it's a kludge. We don't really move but rather start a whole new account and set up a note on the old instance pointing to the new one, IF the old instance decides to cooperate. See how tied we are to instances here?
I always thought this was a huge issue, a huge mistake in the core design of ActivityPub, one that can't really be changed at this point.
Bluesky does this better, putting the power in users' hands and allowing users to actually move from one node to another, decentralizing all the way down to the user.
https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/issues/255#issuecomment-1287953987
Someone around here recently linked to this two-second explanation explaining why they wrote Bluesky.
With ActivityPub the Fediverse has us all counting on instances.
Sure, we can sort of change from one instance to another, but it's a kludge. We don't really move but rather start a whole new account and set up a note on the old instance pointing to the new one, IF the old instance decides to cooperate. See how tied we are to instances here?
I always thought this was a huge issue, a huge mistake in the core design of ActivityPub, one that can't really be changed at this point.
Bluesky does this better, putting the power in users' hands and allowing users to actually move from one node to another, decentralizing all the way down to the user.
https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/issues/255#issuecomment-1287953987
@pussista@mastodon.social
Bluesky's engineering design focuses more on users than instances, giving users more control over their content and flexibility to change servers more transparently, etc.
Fediverse involves some engineering choices that are not compatible with those features.
Well to be clear, the debate over Fediverse vs Bluesky is it just about the people or the environment. Anybody can fork their own Fediverse after all.
These other options offer features and technology that this platform just can't offer, even with modifications around the edges.
@Seth @louis@emacs.ch
Ha, well normally I would avoid making things personal, but the guy has often made comments that seemed pretty unimpressive to me, for example his reasoning surrounding certain Mastodon UI issues.
I just think he's a pretty unimpressive person
I might even say you may be giving him too much credit by saying he is going full startup when really he's just messing around without much of a larger plan at all.
Right, and the Treasury by its own reporting says that it has the funds necessary to service its debts
So it's ridiculous for the president to be talking about defaulting. Should he order the Treasury not to pay debts out of the current account balance would be impeachable, IMO.
Ha, so much for me giving him the benefit of the doubt :-)
Thanks for the clarification though.
@louis@emacs.ch
Well one little detail to keep in mind is the difference between an open source software package versus the operation of software.
For example, bad people operating open source software is still going to be a bad situation.
Right, and such arguments misunderstand how the federal government actually operates, if nothing else overlooking that the government NEVER actually spends exactly what Congress has authorized.
The executive branch clearly has the authority to pick and choose which spending will be honored seeing as it always does not to mention separation of powers not to mention this particular case where it literally cannot conduct the spending that has been permitted.
Ha, I honestly wasn't trying to play grammar police. It's more that I honestly had trouble understanding what he was trying to say, and even after reading it a few times, I'm still not quite sure I interpreted his message the way he meant it to be interpreted.
But it did give me an opportunity to once again criticize character limits, so :-)
@louis@emacs.ch @downey
@louis@emacs.ch I think it's funny how the verbiage in the screenshot is barely intelligible, possibly because he was trying to get under a character limit, which just goes to show how stupid character limits are, and a good reason for people to use something other than #Mastodon
I don't *think* he's really taking a stance on mid-sized instances here, though. More a stance about what the average users wants.
Did you see the reporting that Thomas consulted with SCOTUS ethics officials to see how he should comply with the branch's ethics rules?
A key point to that headline: the branch DOES have ethics rules. If it didn't there wouldn't have been anything for them to consult over.
There's so much misinformation in this oversensationalized drama...
I like how I pointed out that you're overlooking voters, and you reply with a bunch of articles that... overlook voters.
I see nothing bonkers in saying the first half of 2A is functionally irrelevant. It merely echos the preamble as being a little aside.
Anyway, a huge problem with a privacy amendment is figuring out a way to frame one that wouldn't directly impact so much longstanding and well-regarded functioning of the government.
For example, how do you say a person has a right to take an abortion pill but not a right to take prescription drugs without a prescription? Or do you give up all drug regulation? All medical device regulation?
The real issue here isn't the amendment. It's figuring out some theory by which government can regulate some things we do to ourselves but not others.
So to be a bit more concrete, when I originally read the ActivityPub standard, it struck me as having a tremendous amount of overhead and being based on a design that would not scale well.
That's just looking at the technical side. There are other major issues, for example the lack of any guarantee of limited audience for a post.
But when I read the standard I wondered if the people behind it had any experience analyzing distributed systems for scalability, or if they'd even heard of Big-O analysis. (A professional programmer friend of mine says it's not necessarily even taught in college these days).
Sure enough, as the flight from Twitter took off, I heard case after case of instances literally crashing under the strain of those poorly designed protocols.
These issues are core to the AP design. You can't switch to lighter-weight signaling or more scalability-optimized distribution approaches without ripping it all out.
I'm hoping Bluesky hasn't made the same mistakes.
And yet, voters did, indeed, vote for candidates who won.
You can talk all day about WHY voters voted as they did, but at the end of the day, it was their decision whom to empower.
No, separation of powers doesn't allow the president to unilaterally borrow money without authorization.
It's exactly the opposite:
BECAUSE of separation of powers, the Congress cannot stop the president from performing his constitutional duty to service the debt, as per the 14th Amendment, when when the Treasury has the cash to do so.
And it's just shameful that Biden has been using those threats to duck his 14th Amendment responsibilities to push for greater borrowing power.
That is incorrect since the Constitution recognizes that the appropriations power is distinct from borrowing authority.
It's also incorrect since the Treasury is the one that issues debt, not Congress. Wrong branch of government.
You talk about buying a TV on a credit card, but you're overlooking that in this analogy the TV has not yet been bought.
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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