Notices by Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz), page 60

@njoseph glad you like it. My take hasn't been received that well in Aotearoa just yet, but someone has to be the first point out the nakedness of the Emperor ...

@Wolf480pl not in the sense that Orwell uses the word. The minority rights movements that I've seen succeed have used a strategy of building consensus with the majority population, and emphasizing the ways achieving self-determination is a win-win for both groups. The contemporary strategy of assuming a majority consensus as a given, and bullying those seen as dissenters, is "nationalism" at work, and entirely counter-productive.

@Wolf480pl yes, and "nationalisms" are Low-Orbit Ion Cannons that deploy us as such ;)

@Wolf480pl yes. Imagine a Linux "nationalism" that consisted of aggressively guilt tripping people that produce and use proprietary software, and demanding they do the same. Contrast this with #SoftwareFreedom activism that is focused on helping users and #FreeCode developers work together for mutual benefit. Not only is the "nationalism" unhelpful, it's actively counter-productive because of the bandwidth it fills up and the division it causes by doing so.

@Wolf480pl
> RNA is a tool, or rather a data format, and it can be used for different intents.

Yes, this is my point. Democratic politics use communication protocols to achieve consensus and improve society. Nationalist politics uses them to replicate themselves, regardless of the effects on society which, because it floods so much bandwidth with its noise, are generally bad.

> would your example work after replacing all occurences of "RNA" with "x86 machine code" ?

I believe so.

As I said in my #OpenLetter to #ActionStation:
https://www.coactivate.org/projects/disintermedia/blog/2019/03/17/a-second-open-letter-to-actionstationorgnz/

"Arguably, it is as a consequence of the erosion of civil liberties in democratic countries since 9/11 that we have seen the rise of toxic enthno-nationalism and its associated violence, not as a result of too much of the wrong kinds of speech."

Nor as a lack of always-on mass surveillance of the whole population. Anyone who wants that is welcome to move to China, they always need more English teachers ...

@ink_slinger yet another practical way the insights of #SocialAnthropology helps people. Thanks anthropology!

As I expected, politicians are already trying to cynically exploit the Christchurch mosque shootings to give NZ spy agencies even more intrusive powers, further eroding the civil rights of 100% of kiwis who didn't shoot up a mosque:

"Already, the National Party is calling for it. Leader Simon Bridges told Morning Report that the agencies were operating with both hands tied behind their backs."
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/385885/week-in-politics-winston-peters-international-islamic-damage-control-campaign-success

@Wolf480pl exactly. It's like the difference between proper use of RNA - to communicate information about order and structure - and the way a virus uses RNA; to spread itself as the expense of order and structure.

@varx
> My *ideal* would be sandboxed native apps shipped with a standard package manager.

Isn't that basically what #WebExtensions are?
@alcinnz @aral

@aral if JS was opt-in, people would opt-in when that made sense in their use case, or use a native app when that made sense. Much less bad JS would be written because it can't be slid in under the door and run in someone's browser without their informed consent. It would be good for users, good for native apps, and good for JS.

@aral I finished reading this article today, after starting it yesterday, and reposting it so anyone following my account on the birdsite gets it, as well as those on the fediverse. It's a good overview. I didn't say JS is the enemy, I argued that it ought to be opt-in, so that:
a) users can protect themselves from the harms it is already known to do
b) web designers are incentivized to use it only when it's really needed, not use it to add trackers etc to what ought to be static pages

@lwflouisa as a non-smoker (of tobacco), I'm happy to co-exist peacefully with tobacco smokers, so long as they aren't being assholes by trying to force me to breathe their second-hand smoke, and especially by trying to claim their freedom to smoke near me trumps my freedom to breath unpolluted air (needless to say, it doesn't).

"His democracy is a democracy of those who, as it were, win by default, who rule through cynical demoralisation."
- Slavoj Žižek, 'First as Tragedy, Then as Farce'

He's writing about former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, but it's notable that the description is just as accurate applied to Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, and any other pseudo-nationalist, capitalist demagogue who has been elected as a Head of State in recent years.

@aral
> could jeopardise what I’m working on

This is neither here nor there, but it does suggest you're getting too emotionally close to the issues to be totally objective in your analysis. For the discussion to continue productively, it's probably best to look at it from 50,000 ft, and purely from a user POV, pretending for the sake of argument that you have no skin in the game as a technology creator.

@aral
> the real issue is business logic on the server, proprietary/closed source code, and lack of reproducible builds.

Sure, these are all problems, and I get that JS isn't the only vector for them. But the way it's deployed makes it particularly vulnerable.You've left out the major architectural weaknesses of JS (eg the security audit nightmare created by dependance on hundreds of third-party modules). As for Apple, the FSF criticize their practices harshly elsewhere, as I'm sure you know.

@LWFlouisa well ... I'm not above using right-wing liberals to promote a left-wing agenda when it suits me ;-P

@dpwiz is it currently possible to run a social app over #GNUnet that could interoperate with #fediverse servers using either #ActivityPub or #Zot? Is it possible to add something to either or both that would make it possible? That might make it more attractive to potential early adopters.
@zig

@dpwiz keep me in the loop. One suggestion would be to focus on a killer app, one that offers users something we can't easily get from non-GNUnet apps. I'm happy to put in some effort to learn how to use new things, but as I said to @zig up-thread, the main thing that's kept me from testing #GNUNet is that I don't understand what it's even useful for.