Post AxFjrGpg55La7OSh4S by mastodonmigration@mastodon.online
(DIR) More posts by mastodonmigration@mastodon.online
(DIR) Post #AxFjrFZgl2xmDVyPVg by mastodonmigration@mastodon.online
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To kind of summarize some of the recent #Bluesky drama. Yesterday Bluesky changed their Terms of Service to require binding arbitration. Users are unhappy, but there's nothing they can do about it because Bluesky is not decentralized and there is no place they can go. Today, Bluesky banned a user for wishing ill of J.K. Rowling for her anti-trans hate. Users are very unhappy, but there's nothing they can do about it because Bluesky is not decentralized and there is no place they can go.Get it?
(DIR) Post #AxFjrGgoc2G3fuJcG0 by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
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@mastodonmigration I guess we get it here, but wow do they not get it there...They're just over there completely baffled. "What can we possibly do? Maybe there's a new proprietary, centralized VC-backed service we can move to?"
(DIR) Post #AxFjrGpg55La7OSh4S by mastodonmigration@mastodon.online
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So, wrote this long thread today about Mastodon introducing required binding arbitration in a July update to their Terms of Service (https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/115039859311593214). It turns out users hated this, pushed back hard and as a result Mastodon put the decision on hold.The thing here is that the real reason that users had the power to affect this policy decision is that Mastodon is actually really truly decentralized, and users can indeed move to an instance that does not require binding arbitration.
(DIR) Post #AxFjrHGGUEc9RqtvVo by mastodonmigration@mastodon.online
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@nazokiyoubinbou It's actually a kind of hard concept to understand, particularly when all the marketing is decentralized, decentralized, decentralized. Hopefully these and each subsequent such overbearing decision will be teachable moments and users will start to get it.
(DIR) Post #AxFjrI6NMUIY3THXjk by mastodonmigration@mastodon.online
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What we're witnessing real time is the difference between real functioning decentralization and phony, or at best aspirational, decentralization. It's analogous to the difference between a real functioning democracy and a phony rigged democracy.To actually give power to the people you need to relinquish control by giving them options. Then you need to attend to their desires and concerns. Relinquishing power is anathema to centralized authorities because they don't want to serve their people.
(DIR) Post #AxFjrI8rDGHcBARWbY by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
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@mastodonmigration One thing I'm beginning to learn to my greatest disappointment is that a huge portion of humanity seems to just accept repeated claims at face value. They say they're decentralized, put in a barely even token effort at pretending to offer a mechanism through which decentralization might be theoretically possible (if you're rich,) and people just... accept it because they said it over and over. Apparently repetition is enough to make a thing fact.I can't, for the life of me, understand it. But then I never got why people find repeating memes over and over so hilarious solely for the repetition, not for any actual intended humor within said meme... All I know is this is apparently a mechanism that actually works if done right and it's not one I know how to do right.
(DIR) Post #AxFjrIlqsHTW86gfNw by murdoc@autistics.life
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@nazokiyoubinbou @mastodonmigration This is the way I think that people are by default, humans aren't born with any critical thinking skills (although there does appear to be a small minority that pick up on the idea pretty quick themselves), it needs to be taught to them. Of course, this is a threat to power structures, so many do what they can to minimize it in their populations. And it's funny that you chose to use memes as an example for the patterns of information replication in society, because the original definition of a "meme" is basically any unit of information that can be transmitted from one person to another, and the field of memetics studies these patterns of transmission using the model of biology (e.g. viruses). So really, 'funny captioned pictures on the internet', while indeed being memes, are also just one tiny subset of that category. So if you're interested in these patterns, you may want to look into that, although it covers more the how instead of the why. That's another subject.
(DIR) Post #AxFjrJKwlnY1sx6h5U by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
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@murdoc @mastodonmigration I wish I had more to say to this than "yep" but you've pretty much hit the nail on the head there.And yeah, I was never good at thinking inside the box myself, so I guess that's part of why this whole way of thinking has left me behind.
(DIR) Post #AxFjrJnf32W5K0XcqO by murdoc@autistics.life
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@nazokiyoubinbou @mastodonmigration Yeah, I've known several people like that, mostly in the neurodiversity community. We just naturally seem to question things more than others do, looking at things sideways. :blob_cat_flop:
(DIR) Post #AxFjrLp9WStjbDFqRk by mastodonmigration@mastodon.online
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@murdoc @nazokiyoubinbou Credulity is a strange thing. It seems like when a technology is relatively new and mysterious people tend to believe what it conveys, suspending their normal skepticism. A prime example is HG Wells War of the Worlds radio broadcast, but others abound from the advent of TV and even back to the printing press. So new technologies become vehicles for spreading disinformation by unscrupulous actors. None the less, the credulity of the masses to social media is amazing.
(DIR) Post #AxFkByEsPGq8X57QyO by Joe@twit.social
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@mastodonmigration it annoys me to no end when they are constantly referred to in the tech press as the decentralized.
(DIR) Post #AxFkBzWHe2MGVMGqkC by mastodonmigration@mastodon.online
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@Joe You are not alone in that