Hmmm maybe we should ignore #1 and focus on #5 then

This is Zuck’s characterisation. No direct quotes. No attachments (that I’ve seen). He calls it pressure. He says they wanted to censor “satire & humor.” In fact this BS letter is what the original article quoted.

If Mastodon wins out in the long run the only reason will be persistence.

All these other “like Twitter but ______” micro blogging or whatever sites only stay viable while they’re profitable.

If Bluesky or Threads become (net) unprofitable, they’ll die. Mastodon is already unprofitable, so that can’t kill it.

I think we could compete with #1 just by word of mouth.

For #2 some person or group needs to develop a Mastodon app (FOSS obviously) that has a “just do this part for me” option, probably automatically enabled.

#3 is on us. We have to do what we can to make Mastodon (and Lemmy) more open and accepting without falling pretty to the paradox of tolerance.

#4 is hard… Although I think if Mastodon follows or tries to replicate the “early” Facebook user experience where most or all of the content people got was from people they follow, that could be better. The only challenge is that algorithms tickle our anger/hate/disgust impulses to drive and maintain engagement. That’s some very strong “lizard brain” stuff.

So… let’s get going y’all! :)

I love how he just uncritically and with absolute credulity accepts excerpts from a letter written by Zuck with no supporting evidence, no examples of what “pressure” looked like, etc.

I can’t believe these people are still so butt hurt about the perfectly reasonable actions taken by the US and State governments and governments worldwide in response to a once in a century global respiratory DEADLY pandemic that killed millions and millions of humans.

And as far as FB (and other social media) goes, fuck em. And fuck the users. Types of speech can be illegal. Defamation (lying about someone) and false advertising (lying about a product or service) can be illegal even though it’s definitely speech. These have “lying” in common, which to me implies there must be something about lying (specifically misrepresenting reality) that weakens typical 1st Amendment protections.

But it’s clear what this guy is most sad about is the traffic he got while his article about Woodstock going on during a lull in the comparatively mild pandemic that was “active” at the time (no meaningful H3N2 activity in the US at the time) went away when FB rightly changed the algorithm to not boost his stupid irrelevant “analysis.”

But people like the writer of this article are either too addled by conspiracy galaxy brain or too committed to lying for money to care that they could really hurt people with their bullshit.

This guy needs to go to something less harmful like selling homeopathic tinctures or lying about the moon landing or flat earth or something.

Yeah but we’d have to redo the Senate completely - definitely a Constitutional amendment - and expand the House (I think they can just add seats) to reduce or eliminate the power of land ownership on our government’s composition.

Or change the Senate to a House Of Lords kind of model. Still an amendment.

Which means the short term solution is all anti MAGA people have to band together and stick together until MAGA dies off. Then maybe the Republican Party can be reborn to be more like it was in the 70s (but hopefully with less bigotry). This rot started with Reagan, so we have to go back at least that far.

(This would also free up religious people to find the candidate and party whose policy goals match their most important beliefs instead of the other way around.)

Well ok but you’re pointing out the authoritarian avalanche in the Republican Party, not American politics writ large.

I think people like AOC and Max Frost (and heck, Tim Walz) show that it’s possible for there to be progress. We just have to want it. Also we have to learn to ignore trump and his ilk instead of giving them equal time.

I use it if it’s already in use, but if I’m starting a new design I try to avoid “Master” and I really try to avoid “Slave”

Ah nothing like effete dilettante artists telling us bumpkins that what we like to watch isn’t really art and we should go lock ourselves in a dark room to watch a black and white film that’s mostly exposition about morality given over long zooms on broken furniture or swooning women or an old man smoking a pipe.

Sorry dude but the high tech equipment we have in theaters should mostly be used to blast our eyeballs and ears into oblivion. I’ll watch deep, moving art pieces on my home television.

Xemu: Not Too Much Lead

https://youtu.be/MKTN2OiR2R8

This genie is probably impossible to get back in the bottle.

People are going to just direct the imitative so called AI program to make the face just different enough to have plausible deniability that it’s a fake of this person or that person. Or use existing tech to age them to 18+ (or 30+ or whatever). Or darken or lighten their skin or change their eye or hair color. Or add tattoos or piercings or scars…

I’m not saying we should be happy about it, but it is here and I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Like, if you tell your so called AI to give you a completely fictional nude image or animation of someone that looks similar to Taylor Swift but isn’t Taylor Swift, what’s the privacy (or other) violation, exactly?

Does Taylor Swift own every likeness that looks somewhat like hers?

I dunno I think there’s probably been one or two “honest” inflations where a vendor has seen her costs increase and has only raised her prices just enough to cover those increases.

But yeah, I bet the majority of inflation has been rooted in avarice by shareholders and owners.

I think what Snowden did was fundamentally good.

My only problem is that he could have chosen to violate the bad law in the way King and others have violated bad laws in an effort to shed light on their badness: break the bad law in the open where everyone can see, then get arrested, then put the bad law and the system behind it on trial.

By running away, he’s given the people who are doing bad things a line of attack against him. It’s bullshit, and doesn’t change the fact that widespread warrantless surveillance is wrong. But some people will take the attacks against Snowden seriously. If he had turned himself in and gone to trial, that line of attack would be gone.

The best approach to “free” things is to understand that it’s never sustainable. Eventually it will have to become a paid subscription or ad supported or both.

And regardless, you’re going to end up being the product if they can discern anything marketable about you from your use of the “free” product.

But just be ready to jump to the next free product.

(Obviously it’s possible for there to be FOSS but that comes with some challenges as well.)

It’s fascinating that this isn’t something that is always thrown back in the so called “pro life” person’s face. They’re only pro birth. They don’t care if the baby that comes out is fed, clothed, housed, eventually educated, etc. Or at least, they don’t believe there’s any collective responsibility to take care of that baby.

Do you mean “behind” like responsible for or in favor of?

“Noooo it’s our algorithm we can’t be held liable for the program we made specifically to discover what people find a little interesting and keep feeding it to them!”

Is the advice something along the lines of once you have a couple years of relevant experience start looking for a new job that needs that experience?

Because that’s how you get good increases in income at least in your early career.

Later on you’ll hit a plateau of sorts where changing employers to get a raise is trickier because they’re concerned about paying too much for you to come on board, so your job search will take a bit longer. But someone will probably hire you eventually for a good sized increase.

The to level comment here is correct that it’s more dangerous on average for a woman being abused by a man than the other way around, but you’re correct her that Google should just suggest domestic violence help for anyone.

Also these days there are quite a few men out there with husbands…

I went through my comment history and changed all my comments with 100+ karma to a bunch of nonsense I found on the Internet, mostly from bots posting YouTube comments. It’s mostly English words so it shouldn’t get discarded for being gibberish. But they didn’t make coherent information. I was sad to see some of my posts go away but I don’t want to feed the imitative AI.

Also did the first 6 pages of my “controversial” comments.

I know they have backups, but that’s why I didn’t simply delete them. Hopefully these edited versions get into the training set and fuck it up, even if only a little.

It’s be funny if someone could come up with a “drop table” post that would maybe make it into the set…

If we can’t really define “understand” in a way that meaningfully captures the concept of consciousness (also undefined), we definitely can’t say a chat bot “understands.”

They can parse a chat and come up with a likely response that humans find applicable.