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
@hesgen One of the huge issues I have with #Fediverse / #Mastodon / #ActivityPub is that it is engineered to be completely centered around instances, unlike other platforms.
And so this is one downside of that decision. When the instance goes down, it really messes with users.
It's why I emphasize that this platform is not decentralized but rather it is centralized around instances. Federated, not decentralized.
#BlueSky did not make the same design choice.
@TCatInReality That's not how the government works, though.
Biden didn't run into obstacles from the GOP and SCOTUS. He ran into the obstacle that the president is restrained by law, and he was trying to do illegal things.
The president cannot legally cut government funding by forgiving loans the way Biden wanted to. It would have been akin to a president just deciding not to collect income taxes. He doesn't have that authority by law.
Biden screwed up. We need to emphasize that and hold him accountable for it.
@kwheaton where did women and people of color end up deemed by the courts not to be people with rights?
@cliffjones this is the kind of political stuff that I sure wish otherwise funny comedians would stay away from.
John Oliver was hilarious until he started mucking about in politics. Now he just seems ignorant and willing to throw away half of his potential audience.
@darnell Yeah but BECAUSE it's a democratic republic, it doesn't really matter what those supporters want, they don't have the option of turning it into Christian nationalism or whatever.
It doesn't make much sense to vote for somebody based on something that's not possible anyway.
It's like saying I'm going to vote for Trump because Biden's supporters want him to grow wings and fly around the room.
It's not a solid reason to make that decision.
@0x1C3B00DA it's not so simple since this platform at its core sends content around without needing any permission of any users.
People are arguing about opt in versus opt out are missing that the nature of ActivityPub that runs the Fediverse is under no obligation to comply with any opting of any sort anyway.
If anything, a lot of people have opted in without realizing what they have opted in to.
@weirdwriter I don't think the problem is opt out versus opt-in but rather the focus on putting instances ahead of users.
Unfortunately that's just a core design decision of the system that runs the Fediverse
@heretical_i It wouldn't stop the bloodletting.
It would just involve yourself in the bloodletting as well.
@wjmaggos it would be nice to at least see talk about user focus, even if its expressed as a longterm hope or a direction that we'd like to see development progress in.
Heck, if we talk about such things then who knows if a developer with experience in, say, email spam filtering might not be able to offer a relatively easy solution from solved problems in that world.
However, I see so much talk about server focus without and developing things to help servers that talk of user focus is starkly absent.
If these are problems to be handled by a more developed ecosystem, all the more reason to start working and highlighting them now.
@wjmaggos that's a great example I might use, as email server spam protection very often works with users to tailor filters for each one.
So we could focus on doing similar things here.
For generations now we've watched email server spam filters try various ways to tailor themselves to each user, with techniques ranging from analyzing frequent contacts through feedback mechanisms.
Let's learn from that and follow the example here!
@taco no, that's not what the case rested on.
This was a case about regulatory process, not about data.
The administration is required by law to follow certain procedures, which it didn't follow. THAT is what the judge is judging.
The administration might have rejected misleading studies in the course of following the legal process, but regardless, that's not the question before the court.
It reminds of Federalist 51 where Hamilton (maybe) laid out the reason for designing a government that could function even with bad people involved.
> But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
It seems like you're misunderstanding over and over.
For example, when you say that has nothing to do with efficiency, I say YES! That's exactly my point!
It doesn't have to do with efficiency, which is why we need to stop acting like it does!
The purchase price in energy for Bitcoin is not about efficiency but about value. The energy traded for Bitcoin doesn't have anything to do with efficiency, so let's stop buying into the stories saying it does.
BECAUSE it's about value and not efficiency, let's stop misunderstanding that as a metric for efficiency.
@dalfen a problem is that if people just stop at your excerpt instead of going out of their way to read the rest, then what they'll see won't be an accurate version of the statement.
So it's not so much seeing what they want in it, but they won't see it at all.
That's the problem. There is so much misleading information out there caused not by what people want to see but rather claims that are incomplete (at best) in factual terms.
@wjmaggos but therein lies the problem :)
How does the server know what the user would consider crap vs what they want?
And even harder, how does the server deal with two different users having vastly different judgments about that?
This is the problem with focusing on servers.
It's exactly why I think we should rather focus on users, letting them control what they see, based on what they would find to be crap vs wanted content.
@HeavenlyPossum selfless?
Whoever said selfless?
No, it's even better, it's an alignment of interests.
No need to rely on selflessness that might disappear from day to day.
Sure: people continue to find value in Bitcoin, which is why they trade for it.
Can't really say there much of a market for buggywhips, though.
That's exactly how Bitcoin works: I trade some amount of energy for a chance to score Bitcoin.
That is the definition of mining.
In other contexts--car fuel efficiency, lighting efficiency, whatever--there are more externalities and complications, but not in this case.
The way Bitcoin works allows people to buy the chance to earn in exchange, directly, for energy.
Each miner decides whether it's worth each 1kWh he might want to spend on it.
@abucci what? I'm referring to them foregoing immediate benefit for the sake of a project for greater good.
That's the whole point.
@MugsysRapSheet that's a bit of cutting off the nose to spite the face, though.
SpaceX does good work in support of NASA's service to the public, so the public would lose out should those contracts be canceled.
I wouldn't want us all to lose out over an unrelated dispute like this.
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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