So, I joined QOTO because I like sciency things and couldn't find any other appealing group. But I think I may be in the wrong group. I think this group is for actual, you know, scientists.
@Hortense your post is what inspired me to create an account, so, thank you. I guess I have the opposite of impostor syndrome?
@radehi I'll have imposter syndrome for both of us! I think this is experimental for a lot of us anyway. I never paid a lot of attention to Twitter, but wanted to add my little bit to the many others who walked away from it because of elon musk.
@Hortense I used to be pretty addicted to Twitter, but ultimately I think it was really unhealthy. It fosters combative, defensive interaction styles because those are the most effective at driving engagement. I don't know what Musk is going to do with it (try to burnish his public image I guess), but before he took it over, Twitter already got a reality TV host elected president of the US. So how much worse can it get? Maybe it'll improve!
Not holding my breath, though.
@radehi The whole internet makes it easy for people to be their nastiest selves with impunity. It's hard to maintain an environment that is civil and respectful while at the same time allowing people to speak their minds. So far I haven't seen any of that nastiness here, but I've only been on Mastodon for two or three days.
@Hortense Sure, I've seen flaming since I joined the internet 30 years ago. Usenet was full of flames and trolls. But Twitter is special and unique: the 140-letter format is suited for zingers and calls to action, but not for reasoning, and the tweets that "blow up" are the ones that get massively retweeted and replied to, which is to say, the controversial ones that succeed in resonating with primal emotions in the five seconds before you read the next, unrelated tweet. That is, trolls.
The way people amass large followings on Twitter is either by already being famous, by brigading, or having their tweets "blow up". And your timeline on Twitter is disproportionately made of retweets of or replies to famous people's tweets, who are selected for being trolls and flamers in a way that Usenet never approached.
The upgrade to 280 characters helped, but ten seconds instead of five is not much of an improvement.
@radehi A perfect environment for a super troll like elon musk, right?
@Hortense he definitely does have a trolling aspect to his nature, and he did falsely accuse a critic of pedophilia, but milo yiannopoulos and donald trump never launched reusable rockets to space, so i don't know if elmu's really in twitter's top 1000 purest griefers
@radehi Has it been 30 years? I guess so. I was introduced to computers in the early to mid 80s by a friend who was a computer wizard for the navy. I had a website by the early 90s for my business. I'm glad I was alive at the right time to be involved. It's amazing what computers and the internet have done to change the world. I think I would seriously mourn if the internet disappeared.
@Hortense I've been seriously mourning for ten years now
@Hortense just to clarify, by "your timeline" I meant "one's timeline", and similarly with "before you read"; I'm not talking about you personally, I've just met you!