Notices by Daniel Marks (profdc9@mastodon.social)

@bruces I beg to differ. Many more people have seen the future optimism of Star Trek over any of the classic cyberpunk dystopia stories or series. I don't think science fiction has overall promoted a dismal future; it is the media that has propagated pessimism it to sell ads. In a lot of ways science has made life better but we believe it is worse and succumb to learned helplessness.

@pluralistic @gp How do you write such a law? For mobile phone providers, bandwidth allocations limit competition and justify regulation. For internet providers, obtaining the rights of way limits competition. How about social media? What is a social media site, does it just pass third party traffic? Is the barrier of changing to another service limiting competition sufficiently to justify regulation? Is every online forum or chat room a social media site? I don't see how this works.

@pluralistic @gp The vulture capitalists and equity holders don't provide services out of the kindness of their heart. It is wishful thinking to believe anything but contractual obligation or legal coercion would be required to not have them maximize their profit and exploit the consumer. That is why enshittification occurs and goodwill is just another asset to be exploited for profit eventually. Interoperability would be great but users must be willing to shun services that don't provide it.

@pluralistic @gp Explain the precedent for that! I am not saying people get what they deserve, but for example I use Gmail, and I totally realize that today Google could nuke my account or make the contents of the email public. What's the law regarding social media or other free internet services? Why not propose a law requiring social media companies to adhere to a code of conduct? I bet they would then charge for their services. And people only use these services because they are free.

@gp @pluralistic If you're into something you're afraid to walk away from, you should never have joined.

@Gargron With Mastodon you're already quite accomplished for that age!

@WarnerCrocker @GottaLaff The problem is that heeding this message would require heeding Jesus's message about the peacemakers, the meek shall inherit the earth, etc. Trumps followers have their false god and don't need Jesus.

@Gargron The CBC is an organ of the Canadian government and is probably reluctant to call the dear friend of the President of their much more powerful southern neighbor a Nazi. Though it's probably not going to matter in the long run anyways, appeasement doesn't work.

@jwz Sorry, ok. Everyone's been about the TikTok thing lately, I don't see it as a big loss.

@jwz I would like social media to not be a place that causes mass numbers of people to hate and vote against their own interests. So I comment on social media on social media. We have kids eating tide pods for christ's sake! I am not against Mastodon but social media has become dangerous and where else can one talk about it now? So if I can't even do that, I can't see the point.

@jwz I will delete my Mastodon account right now (and all the posts going with it) if you say so to make my point I am serious about what I say. I really do not care about followers and that shit. You must make a decision: is Mastodon worth preserving? Would you be willing to tell a decent contributor to leave to make your point? I see the contradictions in social media, and I comment about them on social media. But if you tell me to leave, this is a place I don't want to be.

@jwz I wish that, within the maelstrom that social media has become with its monopolization of our attention, that perhaps we might come to the conclusion that it isn't necessary and it's not worth it. We've all submitted in advance to it. We've decided that something so frequently inane, pointless, and stupid is absolutely indispensable. The existence of social media proved that an endless flow of excrement is possible. And yet we can not look away. People are not in charge of themselves.

@whknott @GhostOnTheHalfShell @pluralistic are Americans going all Road Warrior over titanium dioxide?

@dansup Here comes everybody!

@Gargron Just make sure your effort doesn't go to waste by placing it in the hands of an organization that becomes parasitic with its management squatting on your hard work. Organizations like ARRL used to serve their members but now just collect membership fees. Don't depend on being a BDFL either. Set terms in the charter of how the Mastodon trademarks may be used.

@kunev @cstross @zip A lot of the time you are training the CAPTCHA and not the one being tested. It's literally just testing to see if you give the same wrong or incomplete answers as another human, and if your answer is too accurate you can fail the CAPTCHA as well as being too inaccurate.

@slothrop @GossiTheDog @Gargron A non profit corporation is a legal entity and is not governed by sentiment. It is governed by its charter and applicable law. I want Mastodon to succeed but I know that non profit status is not some magic bullet that confers perpetual altruism on its governance. There are tons of nonprofits abused to serve the interests of directors and particular donors. Hopefully Mastodon does not become one of these.

@GossiTheDog @Gargron The devil is in the details here. OpenAI is a nonprofit as well. Non profit is a tax designation. The corporate charter determines how the nonprofit is run, for the public benefit or the directors' benefit.

@jwz

@jwz Is it really worth becoming a multibillionaire if you replace yourself with a robot? The robot is the billionaire, and you no longer exist. It seems like a Pyrrhic victory. Those eyes seem so glassy and dead, but maybe they never were alive.