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 all contributes, though.
Just like how if I'm hanging out with a friend and talk about Coca-Cola it builds the brand, it doesn't really matter if Elon is on Mastodon (and to be honest I figure he is) his whole schtick is trolling people to get them talking about him, so whether he sees it or not, it plays into his game.
It's better to just ignore him. That's how to treat all trolls.
@siderea part of the issue might be that you're focused on Mastodon when it's just part of the larger ActivityPub system.
Even if we accept that the follow follower relationship is core to Mastodon--which I really don't, it's just one optional feature--It sounds to me like you're describing a change to the underlying protocol that would impact other interfaces to the platform.
Otherwise, like I said, it could just be handled as an option that each individual user could choose in terms of which notifications they do or don't receive.
As for a relationship, I have no idea who anybody here is, just random people on the internet. These people think I'm keen? On the internet nobody knows you're a dog, and I'm honestly not that interesting.
Again: I often will boost things that I'm not actually interested in talking about, that I think are worth other people talking about, so I'm happy not to be in those conversations.
And again, I think that's where QT comes in.
If I want to start a new conversation, if I want to make sure I'm at the center of some conversation, I might QT a post.
But more importantly under your proposal I would be missing out in conversations I'm actually interested in, ones I actually participate in, with the link between the conversation broken by the boost.
@smallcircles Elon has these wet dreams of people staying up late at night talking about him.
Oh hey!
Y'all are feeding the trolls.
@siderea it's because if I boost something it means I am pointing to somebody else's conversation, it is saying if anybody is interested in this topic, hey there's a neat conversation going on over there.
There's a good chance I'm not even in the conversation, maybe it's not even interesting to me but I think it might be interesting to other people, so I point other people over to that other conversation that they might be interested in.
Meanwhile when I DO contribute something to a conversation and somebody boosts my own contribution, I appreciate that they are directing others toward joining into what we're talking about.
Let me emphasize that in everything I said above I didn't mention followers once. You talk about "your followers" as if there's some sort of ownership, but that's not at all how someone like me approaches social media. I really don't care who does or doesn't follow me, how many people follow me, any of that. I never look at that number because it's just not interesting to me.
I think that might be one thing you're having trouble understanding, that difference.
As far as I'm concerned I don't have followers, if someone wants to follow my account, great! If they don't, great! I don't know those people, so it just doesn't matter to me.
Any day of the week I'm having all the conversations I could possibly want on this platform without once looking at the follower list. That's all I care about.
If I get bored I'll go away, but so long as I'm having conversations with people I get value out of it, and so far it's remained interesting enough for me to stick around.
Again it sounds like you are continuing to project your values on others.
I just don't care about the same things you care about.
I'm not missing out, it's just not something I value, not something I particularly want.
It sounds like you probably want that kind of thing, but different people are different, and that's not the kind of thing I want.
I love how the person declaring "Oh yes it should!" accuses others of having really strong moralistic opinions.
In any case as set above this could all be handled client side letting the user choose their own policies.
If you don't want to be notified when somebody replies to your content through a boost, great, put a setting in the client not to notify you. Sounds good to me. The user should be in control.
However, your proposal takes value out of the system. It breaks chains of information and breaks connections between authorship and readership that many authors are very interested in.
If you don't like it, again fine, set up the client not to notify you of those responses. Simple. It's a feature I would fully support, a solution to your concern I am all for.
It's not a feature I would turn on but I fully support it existing so that anybody who wants it that way can turn it on and off as they want.
Some moralistic opinion if I'm supporting your ability to have the platform act the way you want!
Well that's just wrong. I get all kinds of interesting conversations.
Again you seem to be projecting and making assumptions.
If I boost a post by somebody like Low Quality Facts I FULLY EXPECT anybody replying to go to that other account, the one I boosted. I don't lose anything because I wouldn't expect them to reply to me. Why would I?
If I boost that content over there I would expect the replies to go to that content over there.
Same when people boost comments I make. I expect replies to go to me, not to someone else.
Nobody has exhorted me to do anything. I don't know what your picturing having happened, but I assure you you are making some assumptions that are way off.
But that's exactly my point! Boosting does not lead to conversation for the person doing the boosting because it's not their conversation. That seems entirely correct to me.
Boosting is saying, hey there's this other cool conversation happening over there! Check it out! Join in!
It's not the conversation of the booster. Why should the booster get conversation? Why should boosting lead to conversation?
If anything that's what QT is for. If I want to start a new conversation separate from the existing one then I would QT to start a new thread with my own addition to what has already been said.
Boosting doesn't lead to conversation, to new conversation, because it shouldn't. Boosting is boosting an existing conversation an existing thread started by some other author who deserves to follow the thread they started and not have it taken away by that artificial disconnect.
This is largely my whole point.
@freemo Oh but to be clear, a person who's guilty of something with $1,000 fine might be given 20 bucks for their time but they still have to pay the $1,000 fine!
That is not what I said.
I think that you are getting confused by other people using social media different than you personally use it, and not realizing that there are different ways to use such a platform.
I think you're not appreciating the diversity of use that social media enables, allowing different people to derive different values from the platforms.
For example, some people REALLY REALLY LOVE the gamification that comes from follower counts. They love that dopamine shot. Other people, myself included, don't care one bit about that.
It sounds to me like you are falling into their trap of assuming everyone else uses the platform in a certain way, when that's just not the case.
Maybe your request here matches a one size fits all usage scenario that's just not the way social media really works.
Diversity is a good thing. Conformance to a single usage means we lose out on a good deal of value, and I don't think you are appreciating that diversity.
@freemo That's only true, legally speaking, if that's what the law says!
Yes, there would have to be a law saying cops owe people compensation for their time. And there's no particular reason that the law can't explicitly say that the compensation takes priority over pay. It might even be implicitly true even if it's not made explicit that way.
Police departments do run out of money in the real world, and they even have to close down and fire all the cops occasionally. I know if at least one instance of exactly that happening, when some officers really screwed up and the costs of dealing with their screw up broke the budget of the department, so they had to fold, firing everybody.
If the department has to give up conveniences and then has salaries at risk because officers are detaining people without justifiable reason, they're going to feel that pain.
@freemo I don't know how you expect to pay people out of a $0 budget!
I think you might be projecting there, as your assumptions about me personally are pretty far off.
I really don't care about people clicking through. But the idea is I put out there, when they get boosted, I like to see the replies so I can reply back to them, and that's a lot of how I use this platform.
I don't want the conversation interrupted because there was a boost between me and them.
@siderea I talk to a lot of people on here.
I get all the engagement I want--any day of the week I can come on here and have a chat with somebody, and other people reply back with their thoughts and we have discussions.
So I'm not sure what you're talking about.
I'm not one to pay attention to followers, and I also don't care to follow many people either, because I'm much more interested in ideas than follower count metrics.
But yeah a lot of the people I end up talking with are because something that I said gets boosted, and someone else replies to that and I end up having an exchange with them.
@freemo firstly, hey free pay for the people that get stopped!
Honestly the part of my plan I worry about the most is people intentionally looking guilty trying to be stopped to make a quick buck.
But the cops don't get to just raise taxes on their own.
The department would have to stand in front of city councils, legislatures, etc, to explain why money needs to be diverted from schools and other popular programs, or why taxes need to be raised, because some jerks of officers keep harassing citizens without showing results.
When the department sees its budget trashed to the point where it needs to start firing people, they're going to fire the offenders first, which is a pretty good reason not to be an offender.
@freemo I've always thought that any time somebody has to stop and deal with a cop they should be compensated for their time, out of the agency's budget.
If you're stopped for a traffic stop for 10 minutes, even if you are guilty, they pay you for your time. If you get brought in for questioning, again whether you are guilty or not, paid for your time.
If police departments have to give up their budgets to pay people for the inconvenience they impose on them, maybe they would be more careful about who they detain and how efficiently they do what they need to do.
I'm not even on board with ACAB. I just think this would be a fair way to align interests more positively.
But it does mean that any officer that is stopping too many people without good reasons would probably be held accountable by the police department that's losing too much money on him.
@Fragglemuppet I'm not a Muppets fan, but I will go ahead and make a snide remark that lately Star Trek has really made Muppets out of itself :-)
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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