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in reply to Cory Doctorow

this made me smile, sounds like a perfect

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in reply to Cory Doctorow

There is a theme in the old testament, which I suspect might have been more present before centuries of oral transmission and then translations, of God disliking cities. Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, God disliking Cain's sacrifice.

#federation #scale
in reply to Cory Doctorow

@cstross The article is biased concerning a US-centric and privileged view of the world.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

yep. "It seemed that the difference of opinion, tastes, and purposes increased just in proportion to the demand for conformity ... It appeared that it was nature's own inherent law of diversity that had conquered us... our 'united interests' were directly at war with the individualities of persons and circumstances and the instinct of self-preservation." - Manifesto - A Libertarian Document (1841), Josiah Warren
in reply to Cory Doctorow

I like the idea that corporate world wants an unhappy, insecure (reasonably-affluent?) consumer class because happy people aren’t as profitable

I disagree that Twitter is any kind of town/city square. Healthy local public centers are meeting spots, sites of public buildings (e.g. libraries, school, also free), places for local businesses, etc.

Elon Twitter is more like modern airlines: packed to the gills, understaffed, and prone to service crashes
#Twitter #federation
in reply to Cory Doctorow

If the good lord wanted me to maintain more than 150 meaningful memories of acquaintances, he would have seen fit to allow my amygdala to become plastic in response to the number of friends I have. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/more_friends_bigger_brain
in reply to 𒃲𒌋𒅗𒆪𒁉🐜💩 💛

I really wish we would stop parroting that soundbyte about Dunbar's number. Its myopic and meaningless as we can adapt our brains to support a wider social network. Dunbar's thinking is under the assumptions that the amygdala isn't plastic and based on antiquated notions about comparing brain volume.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780128151341000052
in reply to 𒃲𒌋𒅗𒆪𒁉🐜💩 💛

The idea that our default mode neural network correlates with social network size is probably true in the strict interpretation of Dumbar's equations, but this part of the brain varies from person to person and over time, so it is a fallacy to go on to think that 150 people is some kind of magical number for everyone.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

Ok, I used chatGPT to translate what I said into hyperbole.

"Oh joy, if only the all-knowing Creator had given me a brain capable of retaining more than just 150 fleeting memories of people I barely know. Because clearly, that's all I'm worth.
Dunbar's number? More like Dunce-bar's number, if you ask me. The notion that our social lives are limited by some arbitrary number determined by a long-dead researcher is about as sensible as believing in the tooth fairy."
in reply to Cory Doctorow

Btw, I fixed my bike yesterday and I'm quite proud of it 😉
in reply to Cory Doctorow

here in the UK, operation of a mastodon instance will soon be a minefield, thanks to the ill-conceived, all encompassing "online harms" bill.

The duties imposed upon even the smallest operators are extremely onerous, and come with significant penalties. Crazy.

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in reply to OldeNaturalist

@oldenaturalist @ianbetteridge great. Even more legislation that creates barriers for everyone except the mega rich.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

@ftrain

I need to read the article but some pretty cool shit needs lots of people, I think. I love big cities. maybe the tradeoffs are not worth it, but I'd probably be bored AF. would we even have bicycles? in small groups, exceptional people struggle harder to find their niche. but I guess hateful people also can't build their armies.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

When I read this article, it reminds me of the human nature to do, forget, redo, re-forget, and continue this cycle. I guess this is one of the first lessons of political science.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

"God"? That's not a term I'd ever use to describe Elon. More like Dr. Evil.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

Do I have to believe in the Fediverse utopia?
Not every idea changes the world, and I'm just here because it is a better service, for me, at this point in time.

I spent years in ad-tech, and my bottom line is that consensually monetizing humans is better than paywalled access to information. I give Google my ass, they give me a good map service.
The fact they have more money than me has little bearing over that barter.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

"The reason the Babel story matters is not that it happened once but that it happens over and over: We Babelize and de-Babelize. The internet is an engine of both processes." Sounds pretty accurate (Hey, remember when email was everyone's main communication method? Or when IM services started connect using XMPP before pulling the rug out?)

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in reply to Cory Doctorow

Twitter is dead to me, but I'm not so sure about it having been destroyed.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

What a tremendously enjoyable piece by @ftrain:

"The Fediverse apps are all built on a set of rules called the ActivityPub standard, which is a little like HTML had sex with a calendar invite."

-- God Did the World a Favor by Destroying Twitter --

https://www.wired.com/story/god-did-us-a-favor-by-destroying-twitter/
in reply to Cory Doctorow

Not sure God was involved. Mr Musk seems to be managing to wreck it all by himself! 😆
in reply to Cory Doctorow

Birdchan as the tower of babel, seeking EA shitheads' basilisk god. 🤪
in reply to Cory Doctorow

The business model for Mastodon, in most cases, will the same as the business model for community theater. That is a wonderful thing!
in reply to Cory Doctorow

my main problem with this is one thing that always thrives in centralized spaces are marginalized folks who are spread out and disadvantaged in nature.

a small town is paradise for the homogenized, hell for the unique. we don't have a homeland when we're queer or trans.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

I think it's far too often that people in the US –one of the most individualistic societies on Earth– make extensive to the rest of mankind their own inability to function in groups.

It's true that the inherently human tension between the social and the individual is obviously something that any and all people in the world struggle with.

Just not as hard as US people, who sometimes appear to have been submitted to surgical removal of the organ of socialization off their brains.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

@atomicpoet I just love this:

“Happy people, the kind who eat sandwiches together, are boring. They don’t buy much. Their smartphones are six versions behind and have badly cracked screens. They fix bicycles, then they talk about fixing bicycles, then they show their friend, who just came over for no reason, how they fixed their bicycle, and their friend says, “Wow, good job,” and they make tea. That doesn’t seem like enough to build a town square on.”
in reply to Cory Doctorow

When people no longer post about twitter or forward from twitter, then I'll be satisfied
in reply to Cory Doctorow

Yup that's me. A small town, personal handyman buy utility lifestyle.

Attempting to monetize me will have me trying to un-monetize you.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

I think people confuse “habitually conditioned to endure maximum extraction as a virtue” with “in our nature.” The world would be a very different place if human bonding happened via Niven’s rishathra.
in reply to Cory Doctorow

My smartphone is several versions behind and has a cracked screen. I fix bicycles www.secondchancebikes.org.
I get them donated and I donate them.
I'm replacing our privacy fence using salvaged wood from the old one that i built using salvaged wood from an even older one. I used screws, not nails 30 years ago so i dismantled it by removing screws, which I am reusing.
I'm probably wearing the same jeans i wore then.

Monetize me, billionaires - I dare ya!