It's been many years without social networks for me. At gatherings, I'm often the only one without a phone in my hand, and it feels strange. Eventually, the "phoners" make eye contact and chat a bit, usually about something they all saw on a screen. But it never lasts. They always go back to the screen. It seems silence and quiet time make them uncomfortable. Even in a formal business meeting, screens are open, and attention is lost.
Will decentralized social networks fix this plague? I don't think so. The only thing that works is disconnecting. Just a few weeks into it, you'll realize you have so much free time. Time for hobbies, time for loved ones, time for finding peace and joy, time for creating and sharing. You will regret the thousands of hours wasted on that useless addiction. A few months in, you'll hear the birds singing again. You'll notice the evening skies. You'll find comfort and joy. The time you get back will help you build incredible things.
> At gatherings, I'm often the only one without a phone in my hand, and it feels strange
I’m curious, what country is this from? I’ve been living in NZ and Japan last 5 years and people love their phones here too. But the gatherings (even random meet ups!) almost never have people with phones in their hands.
> Even in a formal business meeting, screens are open, and attention is lost.
This would be considered incredibly rude and would lose businesses here
I agree there’s a ton of benefits from fully disconnecting. I’ve had periods completely off social media which were quite blissful, though I’ve always ended up coming back to some extent due the social aspects you described.
Given the choice between apps controlled by large corporations preying on attention vs decentralized protocols, I’d much rather have the latter.
I think having examples of apps that don’t demand one’s attention so fiercely, or provide better options for tailoring “the algorithm,” are an important step towards ending the mass social media addiction society is currently experiencing.
> provide better options for tailoring “the algorithm,”
Instead of a non-obvious "algorithm" with tailoring, just have a social app with a purpose (or per group purpose), and nothing but absolute direct control.
I.e. follow/link with friends, family or whatever in groups. The feed is time-weighted to recent posts or communications. Any other filtering or prioritization can be done, by selection. I.e. deprioritize reposts by default, except persons A, B and C. Etc.
There could be like/dislikes that accumulate into priorities, for those who think that is convenient, but those priorities are just private settings that can be observed and changed.
No hidden/obscure/unclear algorithms, no third parties, no ads, and no Zuck's with any ability to access/impact/insert into the feed.
A scrapbook group, that is just a scrapbook group. Etc.
When did software products/services start "needing" boogymen?
The best middle ground I've found is checking social media on a web browser on a computer. On my time, when I decide.
I still check Instagram every few weeks just to see what everyone is up to. And it's honestly really nice. I never think about it until I'm thinking "hmm, what is X up to?"
The best part is I don't burn through all the posts in 5 seconds and then get reels suggested. In a few weeks or a couple months, a lot of stuff happens! There's a bunch of cool posts from my friends from me to see, and no algorithmic BS.
This, this, this and more this!!! Sorry, the below is long, but I haven’t really shared before anywhere and it’s just flowed out of me this morning…
I dropped Facebook over 15 years ago, instagram maybe 7 or 8 years ago, Twitter just before Elon took over, Whatsapp and Strava I guess might be the only things I use considered “social” and I have all group notifications muted on WA at all times.
I’ve watched this parallel reality grow and evolve over the years and I hate it. Everyone everywhere seems to be permanently staring at a screen!
A month or so back, I watched my wife awake in the morning, she didn’t realise I was awake watching her (lovingly) - I got Black Mirror IRL - instantly upon awaking, without looking, she reached for her phone and the endless scrolling started, she was so engrossed, after 10 mins not noticing her husband awake, intently watching her, I had to say “Morning”. Later that morning, alone, I wept tears for myself, for her and all of humanity.
Two to three months ago, I had realised that while I wasn’t addicted to social media, I was absolutely addicted to news media/politics/etc. Like a key in a lock, it clicked one day, i’d wasted at least a decade, nearly two of adult life obsessively reading, commenting and talking about UK, global events & politics.
Worse than that, I realised how all the negativity from that world was directly feeding my own negativity and then into those around me. Then after another week or two where I blocked it out entirely at home, I felt “recovered”. My fingers were no longer blindly typing in web addresses in moments of boredom - I’d dip into a book chapter of technical paper for 5 minutes instead. Political podcasts were all dropped, replaced entirely with music and podcasts that don’t engage with political comment.
I was only granted this moment of clarity as I attended a technical conference for a week, where I was up at 7 every morning to hit the early sessions and not getting back to my hotel till nearly 10 or 11pm. Amazingly, the whole week, there was barely a whisper of anything about politics - I think I might have heard the word “Trump” once.
I was so full of energy and excitement about what i’d been learning and talking to people about all week, as soon as I returned to my normal reality, the world of international politics suddenly appeared to me exactly the same way a bottle of booze did after knocking alcohol addiction on the head. The mere mention of any of the MSM trigger words suddenly produced in me a deep feeling of revulsion.
I couldn’t imagine not knowing what was going on in the world 6 months ago, now I actively avoid any mention or conversation that might go that way. The sky hasn’t fallen in, foreign invaders haven’t taken my country, what has happened though is I’ve been devouring books and technical papers like a mad man, learning new instruments, creating art on the computer and finally facing my demons and creating art on paper!
My life has improved beyond all rational logic, probably moreso than quitting alcohol, which was also a horrible, slow growing, hugely negative addiction for me. My emotional state feels more balanced than ever as I’m finally feeling totally free from all the emotional manipulation these things ultimate come with. If something awful happens out in the big bad world painted by the media, I’ll deal with it when it happens as it happens in my actual reality. The best tools I can arm myself with are knowledge, gratitude and love. Sitting around arguing on political blogs has achieved the square root of fuck all and will continue to achieve that.
People seem shocked when they attempt to talk to me about politics and I just shrug my shoulders now. I shudder to think now about the energy I blindly invested into that world, never making one single bit of difference, just generating negativity inside of me, which then spirals out to those I most love around me. When you flip all that negative energy into positive energy, and honestly it really is that easy, you very quickly start getting the insight that maybe you aren’t just human, you’re superhuman.
I am not a big social media user, to be honest it is too stressful. Minimal social interaction is fine for me, and I'm happy with the boundaries IRL social encounters create where you can walk away (politely at the end of course) and it's over.
News and politics was a big waste of time for me too. Before 2015 I just kept up to date with big issues, but Brexit and then Covid really got me addicted to news and politics.
I ditched Reddit (with the API thing) and news websites about a year ago. It really is nice not knowing about every tiny event. It's not even necessary for being politically aware as so much of the "news" is hearsay and random Tweets turned into content by the media.
I have started looking at the BBC News business section every now and then. This really shows what a content factory other news media sites are. The BBC business page adds new articles maybe twice a day. There is no point checking more often than that (unless you go down a comments rabbit hole).
Sites like The Guardian have new articles hourly and sometimes multiple "live blogs" going on at once. That sort of output can happen in just the "business/economy" section, never mind the rest of the site.
Like social media there is just no way that amount of content can be useful, in fact it's most likely the opposite.
I'd bet she was probably scrolling through the endless stream of fear (war, poverty, crime), guilt (diets, fitness, beauty), and shallowness (jokes, celebrities). In those moments with loved ones, I choose to engage, explain what's happening, and make them aware of how it's making them feel. Then I guide them toward alternatives. We play, we cook, we read, we plant, we dance.
It isn't entirely our fault. It's deliberately made and constantly adjusted to be addictive, for the sole purpose of selling ads, swaying votes, counting more MAUs, and increasing valuations.
Still, knowing something is bad for you isn't enough to make you stop, right? Yet, once you are out, you can choose to help others, especially the ones you care about.
One of the most insidious things about politics news is that there's always more non-actionable trivia factoid bullshit that you can read instead of anything productive
Trump said this? Supreme Court said that? Some poll is up? Okay. That doesn't tell me if we're in danger in my town, that doesn't tell me who's protesting, whose meetings to attend, what our threat model is
It's a sugar fix and it's frustrating when I step back and realize that really caring about politics would start with me leaving the house
Wow, I was writing a comment trying to defend watching a news, and I realized that basically I have almost become miserable due to news.
Please read the previous comment that I have posted on hackernews for some reference about "freedom", basically its about freedom and how I feel like a lot of issues are political and thus I don't trust the people of the world to do whats right and therefore the world won't always grow/ I am not an optimist , also here's a cookie if you did read my whole post there!!
I feel like politics is the (truest?) way of making real change. Unfortunately, I doubt that I can enter into politics and I also doubt that people in my area would vote for me. I bet that they would much likely more follow racial, caste based issues rather than tackling real things. And I doubt I will ever get funding from someone for speaking against the absolute rich in my country. maybe my life would be in danger, that's more likely. My appearance is also really nerdy and I love tech. I doubt if people would think of me as a leader. I loved giving speeches in class but I wonder if I can bring real change in the system.
To me, its this system that feels so convuluted man. Like we have freedom and not at the same time.
Do we have the freedom to bring real change?-> I feel yes
But can I bring real change though? -> Maybe
Is it worth trying? -> I don't know
I feel like news essentially boils down to the is it worth trying? option. No need to be a hero, I feel like I wanted to be different / mature so followed news, but I mean, from a completely logical point of view, Idk man.
This is what I have in question. Is it worth trying to do discussions and bring a political reform as to what I believe/ experts say at the same time into reality.
Like georgism, nuclear etc.
Is it worth discussing these things even though they might be a headache but maybe the mere discussion of them increases their likelihood of being spread and maybe adopted.
Are my thoughts having a real impact.
I feel so tiny in this world man. I feel like money buys influence but I am not a sociopath who can play a billionaires game for my "good" political ideas to be implemented, and If I become something like that, then what's the difference b/w me and them.
I feel like a lot of billionaires are freeloaders. NO Matter how much risk you take, it shouldn't be rewarded as such. It almost feels like the freemarket isn't efficient in this sense. I genuinely don't know :/, but the fact that you can almost buy presidencies is... wild.
Should I still watch the news? like, uh, are you getting what I am feeling? I feel like I can't bring real change so why bother but a part of me believes that the fact that I am saying it is wrong and needs to be proven wrong. I wish to be an optimist, I wish for the world to be saved, because I see people suffering. I wish to bring an impact, or maybe die trying. Would the french revolution had happened if people gave up on news? Or have the people getting news from sources whose only agenda is to stop anything like french revolution from happening (billionaires?) and they want us all to fight each other.
Man, I don't know, can we bring real change? I have seen people do it, but can I? Should I? I don't know. Its so messy and breaks my heart. Definitely hard to explain as I wish to be an optimist but am stuck being a pessimist/realist (almost murphy-esque in the sense that anything can happen, will happen) with my logical deductions.
The questions boils down to ,
is ignorance bliss? or should I pursue the truth of knowledge even if its bitter, maybe I can live my life built around that bitterness, that things are real, that I don't have to be an optimist. You have picked ignorance, and there is no wrong answer but I wish for a discussion so that someone can help me pick my answer.
Incidentally the size of sockets and screws (including the Allen wrench) is very much a technology. William Sellers pushed standards in the mid 1800s specifically to benefit American industry through interoperability. Standards we still use today.
And the gauges are just as important. Obligatory ref to Brad Cox seminal 1990 paper, Planning the Software Industrial Revolution, and it's compelling analogy with Eli Whitney.
I know more about this than most, but I’m still confused about how I’m supposed to deal with federated social media. I have a Threads account. I have a Mastodon account. Then Threads added federation. What am I supposed to do with each account? They have different posting histories, they can’t be merged, but if I post the same thing to both of them, I’ll be repeating myself. Am I supposed to discontinue using one of them? If I do that, then the people who don’t see the federated content (e.g. Threads users with federation disabled) will stop seeing what I post. It’s a mess.
This is why centralized social media took off. It is easy to understand and use.
Even within Mastodon it’s a mess with all the various servers. It’s too confusing.
I know people like to compare it with email, but with email I’m sending from server A to server B, I’m not sending from server A to hundreds of other servers and seeing that it doesn’t always make it everywhere. And if I edit or delete a post, maybe those changes will propagate out, but maybe not. Conceptually it’s hard, but even as a user who doesn’t care as long as the magic works… the magic doesn’t work all that well. So where does that leave decentralized social media?
Bring back blogs + rss as the norm. It makes sense, it works, the user is in control, and it never feels like it is trying to substitute for human connection.
There is another, closer comparison to be made: Google Plus. With Google Plus, I suddenly had multiple social media accounts on Google Plus – I had the Google Plus profile associated with my personal Google account, the Google Plus profile associated with the place I worked, and the Google Plus profile associated with my freelance business. And to make it worse, it didn’t roll out all at once, so I added people I hung out with and worked with on my personal account, then had to re-do it again when my work account happened. And people were randomly adding me on whichever one they found first.
I don’t think Google Plus got this right at all, and it feels like federation is making a lot of the similar mistakes to Google Plus.
Just give me P2P social media and put me in the swarm. BitTorrent for Reddit and Twitter.
It shouldn't matter what servers are anywhere. It should all be eventually consistent for some agglomerated cluster sampling of the world. Make the content immutable and ephemeral. People that care to archive it will.
Federation is silly and is part of the problem. Plus it creates more little fiefdoms.
I'll subscribe to my own filters if I care, and my agent will handle the rest.
I just commented above, but it's really more like being a student at a university. You can enter all the buildings with your student ID. You can be friends with people in other dorms and enter the building. Even though you're an engineering student you can take classes in the economics or theater or applied science schools.
Though, IMO Mastodon not the better of the fediverse platforms, but I don't love microblogging social media. But it's all going to end up being like Linux. Some people tried it once, didn't like it, and then 10 years from now it'll be totally different and everyone will wonder where it's been all their lives.
I use Lemmy, and while federated social media might seem like this up front, a good comparison is dorms and classes at a large university.
Every dorm/housing and school program has its own vibe and attitude. Your student ID gets you in to all of them, but you live in one dorm building in particular, let's call it Jones Tower. There might be some seeming overlap between buildings - maybe Dinkley Hall and the Rogers Building both have Engineering floors, but they're not the same at all. You can cross-list classes between the geology department and theater school and gerontology, that's cool. You can have friends that live in Dinkey Hall and the Blake Apartments, and they can all go anywhere they want.
Is it a mess? Not really. Is it as plain and one-size-fits-all as single-story high school like Facebook? Not at all. Does it take time to understand how to sign up for a cross-listed class? Sure. To some it's worth it to be there, and plenty drop out because it's not for them, and that's fine. IMO, the benefit is the barrier to entry. It's not for everyone and doesn't need to be.
Threads added federation, but only Mastodon servers are connected, and not all of them - this is like Threads is the private medical school across town that lets grad school students from the Fediverse Uni come over for specific classes.
Really though is this a real world issue? Tombstone one and use the other. No reason to quit just because you don’t have perfect agency. Post both if you want, people post on Facebook and Twitter and don’t quit because someone has a similar schtick/account name/or just one account.
One thing I like about Mastodon and Bluesky (and Twitter before 2023) is that most of it can be read without having an account, so users can ignore all federation features and just treat them like old school websites.
The fact that they have different implementation details that is not so important to me, though personally I replicate all my posts for readers who prefer one place over another.
Threads didnt even up properly federating. Its only 1 way, so from Mastodon you can follow people on threads if your instance hasnt blocked it (it probably has) and from threads you cant follow anything in the fediverse. You also need to enable a setting ot make your account followable.
One of these gives you ultimate control (mastodon / AT) if you want it (you can host and own the domain) or the ability to ride along with your choice of admin.
The others do not give you any choice you buy the service from them and accept their terms (and presumably, virality, which you came for)
There was a time when tweets were just good ol' regular HTML pages. Today it's unbearable if you remember that you're just trying to read one small paragraph.
When I went browsing through their GitHub I was surprised at how little web-specific code they have. It's basically just their React Native mobile app and a tiny go server. I understand that with a small team they've got to prioritize, I do hope at some point they implement server-side rendering for when you click on a direct link to a post.
I get as much out of bluesky as I ever did from twitter. It may be honeymoon phase but since I mostly just follow experts, journalists and the like I see as much as I ever did. There's less silliness on there but definitely some and I expect that's due to the times we're in and not the users.
Unlike Bluesky, which is a website and community, "Lemmy" is software. There are many Lemmy instances; the content varies wildly, just like it does between Mastodon instances, or web sites.
What instance is more wholesome? As written, your comment is like saying IRC is more wholesome. It is? On what server?
I'm thinking of programming.dev in particular but suspect my wholesome comment is pretty universally true. The type of crowd that sets up their own servers like these are in my experience slightly biased towards wholesome side. Setting up software, build initial user base etc...there is a level of intent there that you don't get with the free for all that is reddit or whatever.
Maybe that's just my impression but suspect there is a kernel of truth there
Hrm, this is actually a frustration of Bluesky for me; I find it relatively sluggish, particularly compared to a decent Mastodon server. I also remember Twitter as being faster, but I haven't had an account for a couple of years, and it _was_ getting slower before I nuked my account, so maybe it's worse now.
I wonder how they came up with two million Blacksky users. Who counts as a user? Do they host that many users' accounts? Is it any Bluesky user who subscribed to their feeds? Something else?
Edit:
> Feed subscribers + moderation service subscribers
The article reads so weird. "Blacksky grew to millions of users" and "new kind of social network", when it's really just a sub-set of bluesky.
Also given that there's 36 million accounts in total, it seems hard to believe that 2 million of those accounts are following blacksky (5.6% of the bluesky user count) so something is off with the count here perhaps.
A lot of decentralized projects focus on the philosophy, but most people just want something that works smoothly. Platforms like Blacksky probably grew not because of cutting-edge tech, but because they made it feel easy to use without overthinking.
Readit News
Will decentralized social networks fix this plague? I don't think so. The only thing that works is disconnecting. Just a few weeks into it, you'll realize you have so much free time. Time for hobbies, time for loved ones, time for finding peace and joy, time for creating and sharing. You will regret the thousands of hours wasted on that useless addiction. A few months in, you'll hear the birds singing again. You'll notice the evening skies. You'll find comfort and joy. The time you get back will help you build incredible things.
I’m curious, what country is this from? I’ve been living in NZ and Japan last 5 years and people love their phones here too. But the gatherings (even random meet ups!) almost never have people with phones in their hands.
> Even in a formal business meeting, screens are open, and attention is lost.
This would be considered incredibly rude and would lose businesses here
Given the choice between apps controlled by large corporations preying on attention vs decentralized protocols, I’d much rather have the latter.
I think having examples of apps that don’t demand one’s attention so fiercely, or provide better options for tailoring “the algorithm,” are an important step towards ending the mass social media addiction society is currently experiencing.
Instead of a non-obvious "algorithm" with tailoring, just have a social app with a purpose (or per group purpose), and nothing but absolute direct control.
I.e. follow/link with friends, family or whatever in groups. The feed is time-weighted to recent posts or communications. Any other filtering or prioritization can be done, by selection. I.e. deprioritize reposts by default, except persons A, B and C. Etc.
There could be like/dislikes that accumulate into priorities, for those who think that is convenient, but those priorities are just private settings that can be observed and changed.
No hidden/obscure/unclear algorithms, no third parties, no ads, and no Zuck's with any ability to access/impact/insert into the feed.
A scrapbook group, that is just a scrapbook group. Etc.
When did software products/services start "needing" boogymen?
I still check Instagram every few weeks just to see what everyone is up to. And it's honestly really nice. I never think about it until I'm thinking "hmm, what is X up to?"
The best part is I don't burn through all the posts in 5 seconds and then get reels suggested. In a few weeks or a couple months, a lot of stuff happens! There's a bunch of cool posts from my friends from me to see, and no algorithmic BS.
Suddenly, I've been having much more free time in the morning!
I dropped Facebook over 15 years ago, instagram maybe 7 or 8 years ago, Twitter just before Elon took over, Whatsapp and Strava I guess might be the only things I use considered “social” and I have all group notifications muted on WA at all times.
I’ve watched this parallel reality grow and evolve over the years and I hate it. Everyone everywhere seems to be permanently staring at a screen!
A month or so back, I watched my wife awake in the morning, she didn’t realise I was awake watching her (lovingly) - I got Black Mirror IRL - instantly upon awaking, without looking, she reached for her phone and the endless scrolling started, she was so engrossed, after 10 mins not noticing her husband awake, intently watching her, I had to say “Morning”. Later that morning, alone, I wept tears for myself, for her and all of humanity.
Two to three months ago, I had realised that while I wasn’t addicted to social media, I was absolutely addicted to news media/politics/etc. Like a key in a lock, it clicked one day, i’d wasted at least a decade, nearly two of adult life obsessively reading, commenting and talking about UK, global events & politics.
Worse than that, I realised how all the negativity from that world was directly feeding my own negativity and then into those around me. Then after another week or two where I blocked it out entirely at home, I felt “recovered”. My fingers were no longer blindly typing in web addresses in moments of boredom - I’d dip into a book chapter of technical paper for 5 minutes instead. Political podcasts were all dropped, replaced entirely with music and podcasts that don’t engage with political comment.
I was only granted this moment of clarity as I attended a technical conference for a week, where I was up at 7 every morning to hit the early sessions and not getting back to my hotel till nearly 10 or 11pm. Amazingly, the whole week, there was barely a whisper of anything about politics - I think I might have heard the word “Trump” once.
I was so full of energy and excitement about what i’d been learning and talking to people about all week, as soon as I returned to my normal reality, the world of international politics suddenly appeared to me exactly the same way a bottle of booze did after knocking alcohol addiction on the head. The mere mention of any of the MSM trigger words suddenly produced in me a deep feeling of revulsion.
I couldn’t imagine not knowing what was going on in the world 6 months ago, now I actively avoid any mention or conversation that might go that way. The sky hasn’t fallen in, foreign invaders haven’t taken my country, what has happened though is I’ve been devouring books and technical papers like a mad man, learning new instruments, creating art on the computer and finally facing my demons and creating art on paper!
My life has improved beyond all rational logic, probably moreso than quitting alcohol, which was also a horrible, slow growing, hugely negative addiction for me. My emotional state feels more balanced than ever as I’m finally feeling totally free from all the emotional manipulation these things ultimate come with. If something awful happens out in the big bad world painted by the media, I’ll deal with it when it happens as it happens in my actual reality. The best tools I can arm myself with are knowledge, gratitude and love. Sitting around arguing on political blogs has achieved the square root of fuck all and will continue to achieve that.
People seem shocked when they attempt to talk to me about politics and I just shrug my shoulders now. I shudder to think now about the energy I blindly invested into that world, never making one single bit of difference, just generating negativity inside of me, which then spirals out to those I most love around me. When you flip all that negative energy into positive energy, and honestly it really is that easy, you very quickly start getting the insight that maybe you aren’t just human, you’re superhuman.
News and politics was a big waste of time for me too. Before 2015 I just kept up to date with big issues, but Brexit and then Covid really got me addicted to news and politics.
I ditched Reddit (with the API thing) and news websites about a year ago. It really is nice not knowing about every tiny event. It's not even necessary for being politically aware as so much of the "news" is hearsay and random Tweets turned into content by the media.
I have started looking at the BBC News business section every now and then. This really shows what a content factory other news media sites are. The BBC business page adds new articles maybe twice a day. There is no point checking more often than that (unless you go down a comments rabbit hole).
Sites like The Guardian have new articles hourly and sometimes multiple "live blogs" going on at once. That sort of output can happen in just the "business/economy" section, never mind the rest of the site.
Like social media there is just no way that amount of content can be useful, in fact it's most likely the opposite.
It isn't entirely our fault. It's deliberately made and constantly adjusted to be addictive, for the sole purpose of selling ads, swaying votes, counting more MAUs, and increasing valuations.
Still, knowing something is bad for you isn't enough to make you stop, right? Yet, once you are out, you can choose to help others, especially the ones you care about.
Trump said this? Supreme Court said that? Some poll is up? Okay. That doesn't tell me if we're in danger in my town, that doesn't tell me who's protesting, whose meetings to attend, what our threat model is
It's a sugar fix and it's frustrating when I step back and realize that really caring about politics would start with me leaving the house
Please read the previous comment that I have posted on hackernews for some reference about "freedom", basically its about freedom and how I feel like a lot of issues are political and thus I don't trust the people of the world to do whats right and therefore the world won't always grow/ I am not an optimist , also here's a cookie if you did read my whole post there!!
I feel like politics is the (truest?) way of making real change. Unfortunately, I doubt that I can enter into politics and I also doubt that people in my area would vote for me. I bet that they would much likely more follow racial, caste based issues rather than tackling real things. And I doubt I will ever get funding from someone for speaking against the absolute rich in my country. maybe my life would be in danger, that's more likely. My appearance is also really nerdy and I love tech. I doubt if people would think of me as a leader. I loved giving speeches in class but I wonder if I can bring real change in the system.
To me, its this system that feels so convuluted man. Like we have freedom and not at the same time. Do we have the freedom to bring real change?-> I feel yes But can I bring real change though? -> Maybe Is it worth trying? -> I don't know
I feel like news essentially boils down to the is it worth trying? option. No need to be a hero, I feel like I wanted to be different / mature so followed news, but I mean, from a completely logical point of view, Idk man.
This is what I have in question. Is it worth trying to do discussions and bring a political reform as to what I believe/ experts say at the same time into reality. Like georgism, nuclear etc. Is it worth discussing these things even though they might be a headache but maybe the mere discussion of them increases their likelihood of being spread and maybe adopted. Are my thoughts having a real impact.
I feel so tiny in this world man. I feel like money buys influence but I am not a sociopath who can play a billionaires game for my "good" political ideas to be implemented, and If I become something like that, then what's the difference b/w me and them.
I feel like a lot of billionaires are freeloaders. NO Matter how much risk you take, it shouldn't be rewarded as such. It almost feels like the freemarket isn't efficient in this sense. I genuinely don't know :/, but the fact that you can almost buy presidencies is... wild.
Should I still watch the news? like, uh, are you getting what I am feeling? I feel like I can't bring real change so why bother but a part of me believes that the fact that I am saying it is wrong and needs to be proven wrong. I wish to be an optimist, I wish for the world to be saved, because I see people suffering. I wish to bring an impact, or maybe die trying. Would the french revolution had happened if people gave up on news? Or have the people getting news from sources whose only agenda is to stop anything like french revolution from happening (billionaires?) and they want us all to fight each other.
Man, I don't know, can we bring real change? I have seen people do it, but can I? Should I? I don't know. Its so messy and breaks my heart. Definitely hard to explain as I wish to be an optimist but am stuck being a pessimist/realist (almost murphy-esque in the sense that anything can happen, will happen) with my logical deductions.
The questions boils down to ,
is ignorance bliss? or should I pursue the truth of knowledge even if its bitter, maybe I can live my life built around that bitterness, that things are real, that I don't have to be an optimist. You have picked ignorance, and there is no wrong answer but I wish for a discussion so that someone can help me pick my answer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sellers
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3102001
Even within Mastodon it’s a mess with all the various servers. It’s too confusing.
I know people like to compare it with email, but with email I’m sending from server A to server B, I’m not sending from server A to hundreds of other servers and seeing that it doesn’t always make it everywhere. And if I edit or delete a post, maybe those changes will propagate out, but maybe not. Conceptually it’s hard, but even as a user who doesn’t care as long as the magic works… the magic doesn’t work all that well. So where does that leave decentralized social media?
Bring back blogs + rss as the norm. It makes sense, it works, the user is in control, and it never feels like it is trying to substitute for human connection.
There is another, closer comparison to be made: Google Plus. With Google Plus, I suddenly had multiple social media accounts on Google Plus – I had the Google Plus profile associated with my personal Google account, the Google Plus profile associated with the place I worked, and the Google Plus profile associated with my freelance business. And to make it worse, it didn’t roll out all at once, so I added people I hung out with and worked with on my personal account, then had to re-do it again when my work account happened. And people were randomly adding me on whichever one they found first.
I don’t think Google Plus got this right at all, and it feels like federation is making a lot of the similar mistakes to Google Plus.
It shouldn't matter what servers are anywhere. It should all be eventually consistent for some agglomerated cluster sampling of the world. Make the content immutable and ephemeral. People that care to archive it will.
Federation is silly and is part of the problem. Plus it creates more little fiefdoms.
I'll subscribe to my own filters if I care, and my agent will handle the rest.
Though, IMO Mastodon not the better of the fediverse platforms, but I don't love microblogging social media. But it's all going to end up being like Linux. Some people tried it once, didn't like it, and then 10 years from now it'll be totally different and everyone will wonder where it's been all their lives.
That's news to me, as a Mastodon user. I just scroll my homeserver's default feed and get stuff from all over the internet.
Every dorm/housing and school program has its own vibe and attitude. Your student ID gets you in to all of them, but you live in one dorm building in particular, let's call it Jones Tower. There might be some seeming overlap between buildings - maybe Dinkley Hall and the Rogers Building both have Engineering floors, but they're not the same at all. You can cross-list classes between the geology department and theater school and gerontology, that's cool. You can have friends that live in Dinkey Hall and the Blake Apartments, and they can all go anywhere they want.
Is it a mess? Not really. Is it as plain and one-size-fits-all as single-story high school like Facebook? Not at all. Does it take time to understand how to sign up for a cross-listed class? Sure. To some it's worth it to be there, and plenty drop out because it's not for them, and that's fine. IMO, the benefit is the barrier to entry. It's not for everyone and doesn't need to be.
Threads added federation, but only Mastodon servers are connected, and not all of them - this is like Threads is the private medical school across town that lets grad school students from the Fediverse Uni come over for specific classes.
Like I said:
> If I do that, then the people who don’t see the federated content (e.g. Threads users with federation disabled) will stop seeing what I post.
> people post on Facebook and Twitter and don’t quit because someone has a similar schtick/account name/or just one account.
When people post the same thing to Facebook and Twitter, those posts don’t end up in the same feed. They do with federation and Threads / Mastodon.
The fact that they have different implementation details that is not so important to me, though personally I replicate all my posts for readers who prefer one place over another.
The others do not give you any choice you buy the service from them and accept their terms (and presumably, virality, which you came for)
Those are the trade offs
Lemmy is a bit more hit/miss on loads but the content posted seems so much more wholesome than other socials
There was a time when tweets were just good ol' regular HTML pages. Today it's unbearable if you remember that you're just trying to read one small paragraph.
What instance is more wholesome? As written, your comment is like saying IRC is more wholesome. It is? On what server?
Maybe that's just my impression but suspect there is a kernel of truth there
https://bsky.app/profile/pfrazee.com/post/3ltda4vl5322z
It's just a different way of organizing communities.
Yeah, they were slow. Mostly due to the low speed of dial-up modems.
Edit:
> Feed subscribers + moderation service subscribers
https://newpublic.substack.com/p/how-blacksky-grew-to-millio...
Also given that there's 36 million accounts in total, it seems hard to believe that 2 million of those accounts are following blacksky (5.6% of the bluesky user count) so something is off with the count here perhaps.
Bluesky and Mastodon are still the fringe of human community.
Blacksky's market is literally orders of magnitude smaller. That's quite a growth curve when adjusted for market size.
[0] https://youtu.be/8GQrVgHh6EU