Live data from Hacker News

Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

cabal.chat

291–300 of 337 posts

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#291

Checked the FAQ. Downside: It doesn't support Tor and they don't seem to have any plan for that. So it's trusted-friends-only, IPs are always visible. Which is pointless for me, as a person trying to build healthy online friendships from behind Tor. Upside: I was afraid it's a reaction to Parler being deplatformed. And then I thought maybe it was a side-project of Urbit. But looking at the Values page: "No nazis, no…

What part of "peer-to-peer" and "off-grid" is made better by allowing a third party to choose which people can and cannot use the platform? You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either you build a fully decentralised platform where humans self-moderate by selecting which communities they participate in, or you create a walled garden that you moderate but that becomes more centralised when you do so.

Since it’s P2P, I don’t think there’s anything stopping actual Nazis from using the service in practice.

The stuff about values is wishful thinking.

Truly illegal/unsavory content is unlikely to use the service since IP addresses are public.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#292
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Melt your computer with compilation? A Node program? More to the point, did you audit Tensorflow? If no, then what's your point to begin with? If yes, what made you conclude that auditing Tensorflow is doable, but usually simple NPM modules are "un-auditable"?

I didn't audit Tensorflow. But I don't install Tensorflow programs, anyway, because I don't have the resources. The point isn't auditing, though; it's auditability. If it's auditable, then somebody's probably done it – but if it's not , you can't rely on just a spot check of a few dice-picked dependencies.

And what about these NPM modules is not auditable?

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#293
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love the idea of a site that doesn't give Nazis a voice. This is apparently somehow a controversial idea. Given that actual Nazi's were a historical phenomenon that ended in 1945, and that bona fide neonazis are few and far between), this is code for: "I love the idea of a site that doesn't give people I disagree with a voice. This is apparently somehow a controversial idea." Yes. It always has been. Orwell calle…

Oh come on. There was a rioter wearing a "Camp Auschwitz" sweatshirt in the Capitol this week. Nazis are very much still around and they were there in DC. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/world/europe/us-capitol-r...

>Oh come on. There was a rioter wearing a "Camp Auschwitz" sweatshirt in the Capitol this week.

Yeah, so? What part of this is not already covered by my "few and far between" comment?

And what part of that anecdotal isolated example proves that Nazis are anything like a real presense in US politics, or that the people deplatformed and silenced are kept to Nazis or people of that kind?

Would you point to some persons wearing a "class war", "kill the rich" or some questionable communist leader (e.g. Stalin or Mao), or "Camp Gulag" t-shirt in a liberal rally as excuse to deplatform people?

(And I say that as a European, sympathetic to communism, leftie - just one that can't stant cant).

Was Donald Trump - a ho-hum president compared to Reagan as concerning the social damage his Reaganomics did, and less hawkish compared to Clinton, Bush, and Obama - a nazi (and thus 40% voting for him Nazi supporters)? Or is it just either hysteria or a code for "people we disagree with politically" (and can use the real-world equivalent of Godwin's law to to yield political wins over)?

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#294
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you're fundamentally opposed to free speech. Maybe we can coin a new term something like "non-dangerous speech" or "mostly free speech". I'm glad we'll get Apple and Amazon to figure out what dangerous is too.

Not at all. Free speech but with consequences. And there is free speech in America and free speech on the internet in America - however the moment you're on private property of a technology company's property (website or app or other) - it's their rules you follow. People easily, and they are doing it, post to thedonald.win to say whatever the fuck they want there because the moderators are allowing it. So I don't ac…

I don't know where you got the impression that private property means the first amendment no longer applies. The Supreme Court has been very clear if a person or company opens up there property sufficiently they no longer get to ignore it.

> ... noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

We are a very very small jump from this being applied to social media.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#295
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't audit Tensorflow. But I don't install Tensorflow programs, anyway, because I don't have the resources. The point isn't auditing, though; it's auditability. If it's auditable, then somebody's probably done it – but if it's not , you can't rely on just a spot check of a few dice-picked dependencies.

And what about these NPM modules is not auditable?

There are hundreds of them, and they are very large, and many have no clear purpose, and they keep getting new versions that change seemingly nothing, but actually change a lot.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This new trend in identity politics is more disturbing than anything the left or right has done.

I love the idea of a site that doesn't give Nazis a voice. This is apparently somehow a controversial idea. It is becoming exhausting.

They also don't give "alt-right" a voice, and that is a term that is often just a perjorative for "conservative." We also know how many people use something like "fascist" to mean "person I don't like" rather than its historical meaning. Even for Nazi's, it's extended to mean white supremacists of all kinds and even white supremacy can mean different things depending on how far left you are. Imagine the reverse, a platform where the right bans "socialists, antifa, and communists" and you see the issues. If people were a lot less loose with their definitions it would be less of an issue.

Also its's a little funny to see these platforms rise up that are censorship resistant...whose intended audience is the least likely to be censored for their ideas on the mainstream platforms. Part of the reason all these alt platforms get the Nazis is because of this...its like building an alternative for Reddit because it censors leftists.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is excluding the far-right a thing associated specifically with the far-left? Would politically moderate people not also want to exclude eg. Nazis?

Because the definition of Nazi is applied so liberally that Winston Churchill himself would receive the label from those who use it in today's discourse.

I don’t think the fact that some people call everybody nazis should lead us to decide that actual nazis are now OK.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#299
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Christian ideal is to be tolerant of someone who is actively doing us harm. That seems like a foolish ideal that has the end result of you being marginalized, with people who would do harm to you and others gaining control of society. Frankly, it sounds like just another system of control invented by religious leaders. People who actively do us harm should be swiftly and firmly disabused of the notion that what…

Tolerance doesn't mean you never resist. Tolerance means you're willing to have a conversation, and you can be friends in spite of fundamental differences. Christians who live up to the ideal are willing to have a civil relationship with anyone . That's the point. That's tolerance. It means you actually know the other person, and you're not making (possibly misinformed) assumptions about them. The next step in the re…

I can be friends with many despite our differences. But surely there are some that are just not worth the effort. Life is too short.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#300
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Free speech but with consequences. And there is free speech in America and free speech on the internet in America - however the moment you're on private property of a technology company's property (website or app or other) - it's their rules you follow. People easily, and they are doing it, post to thedonald.win to say whatever the fuck they want there because the moderators are allowing it. So I don't ac…

I don't know where you got the impression that private property means the first amendment no longer applies. The Supreme Court has been very clear if a person or company opens up there property sufficiently they no longer get to ignore it. > ... noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his righ…

You're grasping at straws here. Are you genuinely trying to compare a private corporation to the sidewalk of a city/town? Cities/towns are registered private entities for organizational purposes, however in good faith and spirit they are owned indirectly by the citizens of that place. Private corporations like Google, Apple, are not the same - and to think a ruling from the 40s applies is interesting. Another point is you must become a registered user, which arguably removes you from the group of general public.

Besides that a ruling doesn't mean it's in the correct direction. Slavery used to be legal and abortion - a woman having choice - is trying to be made illegal again - as two examples. The general public distributing religious flyers on a sidewalk freely open to the public sounds like a reasonable ruling, that wouldn't allow a person to do the same thing say at a gated community though where the public is generally allowed access to - which could be considered akin to requiring users are registered.

Post reply on HN