Post APbEJHnsB3s4qi1476 by audiodude@layer8.space
 (DIR) More posts by audiodude@layer8.space
 (DIR) Post #APZoa9P5ruGJkqqZmq by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2022-11-13T23:46:55Z
       
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       "This would not entirely prevent anyone from using the platform from speaking, but if the more popular interfaces and content moderation filters chose, entirely voluntarily, not to include them, the power and impact of their speech would be more limited. This, then, presents a more democratic approach, in which the marketplace of filters is enabled to compete."#MikeMasnick, 2019https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a-technological-approach-to-free-speech
       
 (DIR) Post #APZp6ZvAoSEJGPJZqa by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2022-11-13T23:52:47Z
       
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       This comment by Mike Masnick reminded me of a thought I had recently about the much-maligned metaphor of the 'marketplace of ideas'. As a left-libertarian - and a fan of farmers markets - I'm not as allergic to the concept of a marketplace as some anti-capitalists seem to be. But I think a better analogy for expressing roughly the same concept is an 'ecosystem of ideas'.
       
 (DIR) Post #APZphGe9RDNYCPqbfE by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2022-11-13T23:59:24Z
       
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       If we imagine a set of ideas as a species in an ecosystem, we can ask questions like; how well does this species of ideas fit the ecosystem it's trying to live in? If we imagine humans minds as the physical environment of this ecosystem, and culture as the set of relationships between the species in it, we can ask questions about what kind of supports a process of 'natural selection'. In which ideas that harm the ecosystem fail to breed and eventually become extinct.
       
 (DIR) Post #APZs8wcXgfmg6fQ6l6 by renamedpm@mastodon.nz
       2022-11-14T00:26:48Z
       
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       @strypey With the caveat that there are still plenty of ideas which harm their ecosystem, but not badly enough to prevent propagation. E.g. conspiracy theories.It's a good way of looking at the idea though 🙂.
       
 (DIR) Post #APaonWKy6krnnvFjAe by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2022-11-14T11:24:03Z
       
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       @renamedpm> ideas which harm their ecosystem, but not badly enough to prevent propagationThis is a problem in real ecosystems too; invasive species displacing native ones, eg by eating them or their food, or adjusting the physical environment in ways that reduce it's habitat value for the native species. Maybe examining what does and doesn't work in restoring biological ecosystem might give us some new ways to think about how to restore our information systems?
       
 (DIR) Post #APbEJHnsB3s4qi1476 by audiodude@layer8.space
       2022-11-14T16:09:51Z
       
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       @strypey @renamedpm I think you might have just invented memes, as originally laid out by Dawkins in The Selfish Gene
       
 (DIR) Post #APcdM5M7bcKH7mQYG8 by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2022-11-15T08:25:15Z
       
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       @audiodudeYes and no. Firstly, that book's concept of how genes work is completely ass-backwards, ascribing an agency to individual genes that they just don't have. Dr Bruce Lipton's work on the role of the environment in determining gene expression is a good corrective. What I'm getting at is closer to the concept Dawkins put forward in the early 1990s in Viruses of the Mind. But Douglas Rushkoff offers much more robust version of these ideas, eg his 1995 book Media Virus.(1/2)@renamedpm
       
 (DIR) Post #APcdu2uHDZOvNHb3FA by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2022-11-15T08:31:24Z
       
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       @audiodudeWhere I'm diverging from this well trodden path is that rather than an epidemiological model, I'm putting forward an ecological model. The focus is less on how to stop pathological ideas spreading, and more on how to restore and strengthen cultures so that the mind participating in those cultures offer a less inviting habitat for pest ideas.(2/2)@renamedpm
       
 (DIR) Post #APceYEL08Xt2PWG4Ei by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2022-11-15T08:38:39Z
       
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       "... harassment to hate speech to threats to trolling to obscenity to doxxing to spam and more... is in the eye of the beholder. For example, one person’s attempt to express an opinion strongly can be seen by the recipient as harassment. Neither party may be “wrong” per se, but leaving it up to each platform to adjudicate such things is an impossible task, especially when dealing with hundreds of millions of pieces of content per day."#MikeMasnick