Martin Ruskov @mapto@social.cleverlibre.org

@freemo @shibaprasad @lucifargundam that's the thing. A lot of people (I've seen a couple of complaints from my contacts) keep noticing the rate limits on twitter without any use of automation

@Bloonface this is the blogpost in question https://blog.bloonface.com/2023/06/12/why-did-the-twittermigration-fail/

@Bloonface hello, I've just read your blog post about why Mastodon and ActivityPub cannot replace Twitter, Reddit and alikes. I'm a motivated FOSS user, and I share your concerns that most people will never invest as much energy as Mastodon requires them to.

I write to you with a question which is in part meant to help me understand how fedi works, in part to propose to you an optimistic scenario which hopefully would brighten the gloomy picture from your blog post.

I understand that choosing who to federate with and who to block is a very fine line, which effectively plays out as censorship from your instance maintainer. Although I'm a techie, I certainly am desperate about the idea of some nerd like me deciding what I should be receiving and what not. And this decision process generally happens in the dark for me. But isn't it the case that one instance can choose to block/deferderate Threads (for example) and another not to? One instance might choose to charge only its most active users, another might find a different source of funding. This way there will be users living the consequences of either decision and in a way experimentally showing what works and what doesn't.

Yes, this experimental mechanism is not ideal and is painful to users (treated as guinea pigs). Running away from commercially-driven moderation, we've landed onto a chaotic moderation, where moderators might not even be aware of the consequences of their choices. But this is a learning experience for everyone. And as you say, it will not be explosive growth, but organic, and very slow.

Certainly, this growth would be strongly facilitated by third-party added-value instruments, such as e.g. some statistics over instances (number of users, federated nodes, posts/toots, hashtags), statistics over users (who contributes most to instance costs, who is a source of tension), analysis of what constitutes a golden middle ground for instance size, etc.

I must say my optimism is based on the fact that I'm on a mid-sized instance (qoto.org) with an userbase with divergent interests and a maintainer who is both moderate and active. I've had my conflicts on this network, but my experience overall is very positive

@freemo @freepeoplesfreepress sorry, I didn't mean to avoid your question. I thought I answered it here (https://qoto.org/@mapto/110554997640391042) I don't see how a gun could save lives and don't think your example is a case of it. The way law enforcement fights crime is the same as your (elsewhere) said a gun would: through deterrence. Arguably, gunless crime gives law enforcement more time to arrive than gun crime does.

@Riedl they have the reasons to do it. Scratched upon by the axios article: batteries are very heavy, so carrying around many of them comes with a price.

The manufacturer's claim is that 4th generation Yaris goes on (non plug-in) battery ~80% in city driving. I couldn't care less about this data point, as I don't intend driving it in cities, but in the mountains. This completely flips the energy calculation, but was unable to find any detailed account of this use case.

@Riedl what do you make out of this? https://www.axios.com/2023/05/27/electric-vehicles-carbon-emissions I myself recently bought Yaris as a first car ever. Was car sharing so far, but it turned out way too complicated when the logistics of baby seat need to be factored in

@freemo @freepeoplesfreepress I'd rather consider the alternatives to the use of guns by non-professionals. Law enforcement is an alternative, but probably we rate it differently. In your example, if both sides have guns, why would the victim have an advantage at all? Certainly, surprise is on the side of the attacker

@freemo @freepeoplesfreepress well, before I can say whether I'm anti-gun or not, I need to see what problems are claimed to be solved by guns. So far I'm not convinced that they help freedom, security, property or whatsoever. I only see them as a public health risk, and possibly entertainment, but I struggle to appreciate hunting as fun

@muiiio @lowpass this is why they now sell hardware at a loss. They know that lock-in is more lucrative. No one is going to go back to a more miserable market. At least not if has to answer to shareholders

@muiiio @lowpass Of course it's DYI. What would be the reason for a company to provide a service that would give you independence from them?

@freemo @freepeoplesfreepress I fail to see how gun ownership saves lives, it certainly doesn't in sports and hunting. Anyway, we clearly disagree about this. For me it was important to see your point of view elaborated and I thank you for this

@freemo @Flatulenator sounds reasonable. But it projects confidence in yourself. I fail to be so confident about myself, tbh

@muiiio they think it is added value. The fact that you knowingly commit to pay their bills that visibly includes this service, confirms it

@freemo @freepeoplesfreepress Why is gun ownership so important in the US when no one outside it cares about guns at all? I mean, are people in other countries perceived as less free just because it's more difficult for them to kill others or what? Also curious if you can give an example of other nations where guns might be considered so important, as to be declared a human right?

@andygreenphd yours sounds like a very focused piece of research. I was wondering if you think you could benefit also from some open -ended discussion (complementary to the closed questions). We've been working on a brainstorming support toolkit that allows for online discussion of causes and interventions. If relevant to you at all, we could consider the possibility of creating a scenario outlining your problem of interest to center the discussion around it. This is our toolkit: https://cco.works/