🎓 Dr. Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@social.cleverlibre.org

@freemo
Welcome to the Tooterverse of your Qotoverse in the Fediverse! You have/got blessed, nice, mature, open and technical mind.

@freemo
When I started looking for a instance to join, I was looking for a place that would not sensor or shame someone just because they hold a different belief.
Great ideas come from honest questions and intelligent discussion. Thanks for hosting a place for free speech to thrive.

@freemo I was doing some reading on 'wild escape' from some types of GM Corn and Wheat, and typically they are out competed by wild strains because of how they're engineered- like to have herbicidal resistances.

Those resistances suck up energy and in environments where there aren't any herbicides the environment those plants without the resistance out compete the others.

But, you are correct. Domesticated species do not, typically, survive well in wholly wild environments.

https://www.xkcd.com/743/

A vulture waiting for a starving boy to die, to eat him. Taken by Kevin Carter, who later committed suicide. 1993. https://t.co/fkytK9qoaB

@freemo That's what it comes down to in the end, huh? C has its place, but sometimes you just need a quick script, or to express an idea without needing to think how it's all laid out in memory. Anyways, I'm sure I'll appreciate OOP more as I work on more projects with other people

@freemo
I loved the idea of mastodon. There were some niche sites that were appealing but only had a few active members, but the largest instances have a lot of rules that flag the system as very very biased and communicate that any disagreement will be silenced and the person banned.

Within a few days of my joining, the wilw situation happened proving that to be the case.

I don't want to encourage what I think are bad ideas. But I'd rather engage thoughtfully and respectfully than either troll or mob the person with diversity of thought and kick them out so I never hear anything remotely challenging.

I sought out a place to engage others, the way we did as kids on the neighborhood/global BBS and I found #qoto. The rules were very different
- not about silencing others and treating them poorly, but about engaging with each other and having mutual respect. Not necessarily for the ideas or disagrees with, but respect for the person who holds those ideas.

I've appreciated the strong, often oppositional, opinions here, and the reality that we don't devolve into name calling, trolling, and mob silencing each other. We can learn from dialoguing with each other, whether that's changing one's mind or simply clarifying one's position.

My personal goals include: understanding why people think their nutty ideas (imo) are good ideas ; and trying to encourage asking the right questions - I think we're often stuck because we're not even asking the right questions.

I do think the majority of people would engage this way given the opportunity, but the constant drum beat from the media, politicians, and Hollywood pulses a constant message of opposition and anger at each other.