volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@gerrymcgovern I think that goes back to the idea of properly pricing energy to represent its real costs.

If that 10 times more intense AI search cost too much in electricity then it wouldn't be done, promoting lower total energy use.

In other words, since we've always underpriced electricity the incentives have never been there to really focus on lowering total energy use, and we could change that.

Demand will not explode if prices surge to reflect costs.

@HumanServitor

@raphael_fl I mean a lot of us are just poking fun, not really hating it 🙂

Take the example of The Simpsons with the recurring Disco Stu character that may have helped make this good-natured ribbing a lasting part of the culture, at least for some age groups.

And speaking of age groups, laughing about disco is also a that some of the younger generations tease the older generations. And heck, sometimes the older generations join in saying, " I can't believe I dressed like that back then"

And hey, neo disco has been making a comeback lately, with a lot of music sounding like it would fit right in decades ago, just with updated electronic production systems.

@lauren

@thisismissem with the legal uncertainties surrounding such hosting in the US and around the world I think it's important to consider both ethical and legal liability, but to clearly separate the two.

And the worst is that sometimes one might not be able to do the ethically right thing without fear of exposing themselves to legal consequence.

Governments need real legislative reform in these areas, it's not really something that should be just hashed out in courts, but unfortunately I don't think there's much push to see that legislation happen, so we will be stuck with these unintended consequences for, I imagine, the rest of my life at least.

But who knows? We're getting motion on things like drug reform, so I guess there is some hope.

@janl

@tze you misunderstand if you think I have a moral problem here.

No at this point I'm just laughing about how hard you are fighting not to own up to what you were calling for.

Even when your own sources emphasize exactly what you are trying to do, you just won't say yes, this issue is so important to me that I believe it justifies censorship.

Do you think the threat from the other platforms is actually kind of low? The issue isn't actually important enough to justify censorship in this case?

@sj_zero @GrahamDowns

@tze sure, and that quote gives a pretty bold stance against your call to censor expression on its way to the one who should have the choice, even if the owner of some instance thinks that censorship is a REALLY GOOD IDEA.

Again, you think censorship is worth it in this case. Great! That's a strong, principled stance to take. But take it, don't claim you're not doing what you're doing and not seeing what everyone else is free to see.

@sj_zero @GrahamDowns

@Hash the role of the Supreme Court is to protect federal law, not citizens.

If they were to throw law overboard, now that would be unpatriotic, they'd be failing at their duties to stand up for the US system as they swear to do.

@DrJackBrown

@poetrybot it's long been the case that states have been allowed to run their elections as per the needs of their own communities, so there's nothing particularly impossible about each state deciding for itself, in response to its residents.

Not only that, but SCOTUS might find itself legally barred from making such a call in this case against the state's application of its own laws.

@AustinLBuchanan it sounds to me like this is focusing purely on mathematical theory while the arguments excerpted in the paper may be referring to much more than the math theory, balancing other factors including restrictions earlier in the legal process.

For example, in saying that six in the minimum you have to have, Lacour was also referring to different plans before them, hinting that he really meant regardless of the theory, that's what they had on the table to work with.

@tze oh good, I'm glad you see the censorship now.

@sj_zero @GrahamDowns

@david_megginson

Well, it's kind of a political question in a way, but I'd tend to focus on the goal of providing users the experiences they want and value, and that decentralized sharing of power can transfer power to users to help them reach their personal wants.

So you're missing the factor in the story that big social media platforms gave users experiences that they wanted, with different platforms giving experiences that different users wanted.

The experiences on Facebook and Twitter were VERY different, with users choosing to participate in one or the other or none based on their personal preferences.

The instance focus of Fediverse lets us add many new, potentially different experiences to help users find the one that best matches their individual wants.

And yep, that happens through distributing that power downwards.

@mahal

@mimarek well the question of where to set that level and, just as importantly, exactly who has authority to judge that level are some of the key factors in dispute here.

SCOTUS might reasonably find that it lacks authority to judge that behavior one way or another, so there are those big process questions to be answered before this one can even be reached.

@tze censorship is not merely the restriction on what someone can say but the blocking of those messages getting to audience.

Sounds to me like @sj_zero describes censorship pretty clearly.

Now, you might be in favor of that censorship, and that's fine. Plenty are. But if it's that important an issue then one might as well own that they are, in fact, censoring because they think it's just so important to block those messages.

@GrahamDowns

@dsfgs@mastodon.sdf.org not sure why you're harping on a line of argument that I've tried to clearly state doesn't really resonate for people who don't share your personal priorities.

It doesn't make a difference to the conversation so I don't know why you would keep pulling at that thread, pun intended.

Anyway I would thank you to not engage in Facebook style repression by demanding that sort of heavy-handed instance policy.

You end up looking an awful lot like them, which maybe would be something you would care about.

@bontchev this is such an important message and it's bringing up a lot of trends in journalism that I've been watching grow over the last couple of decades, and that I believe have contributed so strongly to the state of things around the world where nobody knows which conflicting report to trust.

And the problem is I know people associated with professional journalism who actually actively prefer the practices that you are calling out here.

Unfortunately it's not just a question of asking them to do better because, at least the ones I talk to and the experience I have watching journalism, they actually think they are doing better with this approach.

It's not good for society, and I honestly don't know what would have to happen to have them change course.

@tze but now you're just talking about different user preferences.

You say less is more, and that reflects your own personal preferences, while many other users will say more is better because they have different prefaces than you. And there's no reason we can't develop this space to empower users to choose and get the experience they want from this same communication platform.

Also, by the way with the way the underlying network is designed here, it's much less efficient with many smaller instances then fewer large ones. That means more duplication of work, more overhead for communication, generally more resource consumption, if that's what you are interested in.

Finally I also just think it's notable that you seem to be referring to something of a centralization of platform policy, exactly the kind of thing Facebook and the others do to the detriment of users, and exactly the sort of thing that so many of us are here to get away from since here we don't need to be so centralized.

@GrahamDowns

@dsfgs@mastodon.sdf.org maybe in your eye one is validated through federation, but I would reject that interpretation of that network activity.

Any system like this will have bad actors.

It will also have different ideas about how they should be dealt with, and even the bad actors do bring value to users based on users' diverse wants from the system.

So again I'm pointing out that for all you wrote about Facebook being a bad actor, a lot of us don't care whether that's true or not. It's not the case to be made because it just doesn't matter to us.

Yes I know that matters a lot to you. I know that's your personal focus. I understand that.

But this system doesn't require us all to conform to that philosophy, and to me that's one of the most important parts about it.

@steveroyle I think this is so much of the picture over there right now, the lack of features, it's so far still surprisingly early in development, given how much time has passed.

They say they are working on those features, so I guess we'll see what it's like once the development gets a little farther down the road.

Their decision to be invite only for such a long time almost makes me suspect that they were trying to establish that more professional culture, but really I don't think they planned it that far.

I just think something is going strange in the development and roll out of the platform.

@GrahamDowns I know so many people feel exactly that way.

And one thing I'd amplify is that for people who are so interested in privacy, lack of ads, lack of vacuuming up content, Hey I understand that pretty reasonable focus, but then why in the world would they set up shop on this platform that is so fundamentally bad at addressing each of those concerns?

I would say if those are priorities then there in the wrong place anyway because this platform isn't designed to focus on those!