Notices by Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz), page 72

@Wolf480pl hehe :D I realized after I made that post that I left out a step in the algorithm. Here's version 0.2 ...
@RandomDamage

@byllgrim hehe :D I never noticed that cartoon can be read either way. Thanks!

@aral I don't agree that "user" is an othering term. Users are the people who need things like copyleft licenses to protect our interests from developers or owners who are unethical or incompetent. Whenever we use tech we didn't build, and there is a potential power difference between us and the people who built it, we are users. Even the most experienced programmers play the role of users (unless they've had time to read and fully understand all the code in every piece of software they run).

@aral cool. I love what you've created here. Hope the feedback is helpful.

@aral sure, that's why I suggest adding "and our communities", not replacing the word "individual" with "community". To do so would innoculate the wording somewhat against critiques like this one:
https://rosenzweig.io/blog/the-federation-fallacy.html

This article is so self-contradictory, and misuses terminology so badly to make it fit an evidently wrong conclusion, that it's very painful to read. But it's an in-the-wild example of a knee-jerk anti-invidualism that's doing the rounds at present.

@aral Also, this ...

> It is not built by smarter humans for dumber humans

... is a strawman. Unless you can link to examples in the wild of developers arguing that people act as users because they're dumb, rather than because they specialize in something other than the nuts and bolts of digital tools?

@aral also I totally agree that #UX matters a lot, but this ...

> We do not arrogantly expect people to put in undue effort to learn our tools. We invest undue effort ourselves in making them intuitive and easy to use.

... seems to contradict this ...

> It is not built by ... “developers” for “users"

@dansup I have no regrets about dropping out of high school. But if I knew then what I know now about what university is like, I would have gone there straight after leaving school. I still dream of finishing my undergrad and getting a Masters (in my 40s now). Totally agree, never, ever, give up!

@pixelfed good for you. Decentralization is good :) Maybe to encourage this, #fediverse server software could build in a default limit on the number of registered users (eg #DunbarsNumber)? This would need to be transparent to the server admin, and easy for them to change, but I think it would be good to seed the idea.

@aral could I suggest an addition?

> "Is owned and controlled by individuals ..."

... *and our communities*

The #NeoLiberal myth of the atomized, sovereign individual was a crucial part of the sale pitch for the centralized "social media" #DataFarms, which claimed it was providing a "democratic" platform for "peer-to-peer" interactions between them. #SmallTech needs to assert that cooperation is essential to individual freedom, and sovereignty is a team sport, to paraphrase #DougRushkoff.

Good to know I'm not the only one applying the "slow and small solutions" principle to digital technology:
https://ar.al/2019/03/04/small-technology/

About 20 years ago I read 'Small Is Beautiful', E. F. Schumacher's 1973 economic manifesto on what he called "intermediate technology". This fits neatly with the "slow and small solutions" principle of #permaculture design. Folks in the movement talk a lot about #AppropriateTechnology, and I've been thinking for a long time about how to apply these concepts to the design of communication technology:
http://web.archive.org/web/20170409211024/https://permaculture.org.nz/content/web-team-coordinator-end-contract-report

12 years after the #Operation8 raids, I feel thoroughly vindicated. But where is the #PublicInquiry into how millions of dollars of public money was spent persecuting a group of kiwis for political reasons? Where is the Press Council inquiry into the role played by the #NewsMedia in whipping up a public feeding frenzy about entirely fictional "grenade launchers"? Where is the accountability, and the compensation for those who were harmed by this trial by media?
http://archive.indymedia.org.nz/article/74443/open-letter-bomber-about-dawn-raids.html

"I'm a little bit sceptical about our ability to connect across huge ideological divides in the abstract ... but I actually have a lot of hope about people's ability to overcome divides in common labour, in common project, when it's not being mediated by #FoxNews."
- #NaomiKlein
https://teamhuman.fm/episodes/ep-122-naomi-klein/

@ctrlaltchaos
1) You're not obliged to reply to my comments at all. If you do, it takes only a fraction more effort to provide an opinion with a link than to provide an opinion only, but it supplies *significantly* more useful information.
2) it shows me that you've actually looked at some primary sources, and done some fact-checking, rather than just parroting what you've read on Wikipedia, or some echo chamber that fits your ideological leanings.
3) it demonstrates good faith.

@ctrlaltchaos organizations that promote vaccination are "widely regarded as propaganda organisations" by a different cross-section of people. Do I just pick a "side" to blindly follow by flipping a coin? Why I try to do is break down specific claims and counterclaims, and see if I can find any evidence for either. What I tend to find is that there are more than two "sides" to a complex debate, and they're all right about some things, and wrong about others.
https://www.coactivate.org/projects/drillingfortruth/vaccinations

@LWFlouisa nobody in particular. It's just a social media antipattern I've noticed. I've probably even done it myself at some point, I'm no saint. But I try not to.

someone on social media: opinion, noise, opinion.

me: ok, why do you think that?

someone on social media: angry denouncement of non-conforming heresy

me: do you have references to back up that claim?

someone on social media: I'm not doing your research for you.

me: what you mean is, you haven't done any research, you're just repeating whichever noises you've heard on the subject most often, and you don't like having that exposed by being asked for references.

@RandomDamage for example, the People's Republic of China is a state. Tibet is a nation, with a government (in exile) but not a state. Taiwan is a country, but not a state. It has a government, which considers itself the government in exile of the whole of China. Hong Kong is a country with a government, but is not a state. Whether or not it's nation is hard to say, because it's sense of distinctness from the rest of China is due to decades of colonization by the UK.

@RandomDamage
1. a program has the power to not let you do something it isn't programmed to do. A state has the power to kill you and claim it's in the right. Perhaps what you meant was that programs are less tolerant of exceptions than laws?

2. try https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-monopoly-on-violence

3. yes, exactly. Whoever has the most force within a territory has the power to claim their violence is legitimate can form a state, and declare those who reject their legitimacy "criminals" or "terrorists" or whatever.