alt Hacker NewsBoy I was wrong about the Fediverse
Comments
> If the American press had given me 20 minutes of airtime I could have convinced everyone they don’t want to get involved with Greenland.
On one hand the author recognizes the scope of the “protocol wars” as a rational thing being irrelevant in the actually relevant time span. On the other hand, the author swears that they can bring rationality to a deeply emotional matter through discourse.
Love that writing. I didn’t expect a full size blog post like that based on the title. That makes me very nostalgic of the old blog era
>I want news I don’t want your endless meta commentary on the news.
I want commentary on the news. We should be critiquing the news and it's way more interesting that just uncritically accepting mainstream narratives.
The Fediverse has one problem, concentration of users on few instances, mastodon.social being the largest. And cancel culture. Highly politically motivated cancel culture. What right do they believe to have to dictate to their users what the can and can't read? That should be solely in the user's hand.
The irony of writing this in HN is ... whatever the right word is Also, fragmentation and visibility. It's neigh impossible to find interesting content if you're not on the main big instances.
This is nicely written but I found some of the views strange. The most disturbing one to me is that the author wants news from social media and claims they have troubles getting news (e.g. criticizing the Washington Post). Not only is it obviously problematic to attempt to get news from social media and everybody knows that, it's also very bold to insinuate that there is lack of access to news. Maybe US citizens get this impression from TV news infotainment, which is indeed abysmal. Okay, I get that. Nevertheless, there are plenty of other sources, we're being swamped with news and know more about what's happening in the world than ever before. Normally, people also complain about the opposite, that they get anxiety from too much exposure to news. So I don't get that point.
> If the American press had given me 20 minutes of airtime I could have convinced everyone they don’t want to get involved with Greenland. We’re not tough enough as a people to survive in Greenland, much less “take it over”. Greenlandic people shrug off horrific injuries hundreds of kilometers from medical help with a smile. I watched a Greenlandic toddler munch meat from the spine of a seal with its head very much intact. We aren’t equipped to fuck with these people, they are the real deal.
Wow.
> I want news I don’t want your endless meta commentary on the news.
And you expected to find this on a decentralized social media platform?
> We all need pointless hobbies, but I care about YouTube stars like I care about distant stars dying. It’s interesting to someone somewhere but those people don’t talk to me. I mostly use social media as a place to waste time, not a platform to form para-social relationships to narcissists. I prefer my narcissism farm to table. I’d rather dig a grave with a rusty spoon than watch a Twitch “star”.
I don’t really care about the substance of this article, but the style is entertaining. Curious for anyone who writes in a similar style - do people actually compose like this breathlessly, or are these kinds of lines wrought over several revisions? I know everyone’s different, but I can’t imagine writing like this on a first pass.
> So when Twitter was accidentally purchased by a fascist high on ketamine
And I'm out. The undisputed fact that Twitter was literally and prolifically coordinating with the government to suppress speech prior to Elon's purchase destroys your polemic narrative.
I just tried to check out the Fediverse and found utter confusion. I'm not saying its bad-- I'm saying I am bewildered. There are communities I can join, but I can't tell how I should choose a community. I could find no way to search for communities that might be a fit. Apparently there are a lot of different kinds of social media under the broad banner of the Fediverse. How should I choose, and what are the implications of choosing?
I suppose I could pick a random community. But what's the point? I don't know.
Holy shit that’s a lot of windows
> So of course media corporations became bargaining chips for the oligarchs' actual businesses.
I stopped reading here.
This line shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the world and essential blindness to author’s own biases.
Media corporations ALWAYS have been bargaining chips to the oligarchs’ actual business, whoever the current politician in power is.
[flagged]
Puff piece with 1000+ words that doesn't ever assert anything in particular that the author was wrong about. But if you enjoy a babbling endorsement. However you will be left hanging about what corner of the largely inscrutable "fediverse" the author is bleating about. Make no mistake, mastodon feeds are prone to shameless promotions, scams, and attention whoring that infects all social media, but it's still marginal and so seems quaint.
To get a sense of this skim
sfba.social
which is a feed of trending posts with a U.S. west coast vibe.
Why would I be interested in random people's opinions on various things?
I wasted a few minutes of my life reading this rant. It was a total loss. I haven't been entertained by it and I couldn't find anything useful in it. Just the ramblings of a bitter person with which the Internet is filled.
Reads like an intro to a Portlandia remake, only its 2010 nostalgia mixed with heavy handed Reddit-tier remembrances and jibes.
Your 'social media' purity is still some network engineers bastardization of bits. Forums, Usenet, irc, email groups,...
Lamenting what was or what could have been is useless when there is still work to be done directing the outcome.
Vent. Move on.
I’ve had an awesome experience the last five years running instances for me and friends. So many nice interactions. I recommend running an instance for people you know well. It can still connect to everyone else, but you have your own little corner to feel more connected in.