Live data from Hacker News

Mastodon hit 10M users

mastodon.social

401–410 of 410 posts

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes you believe we have any control over the climate? CO2 has two vibrational modes that are IR active. We release carbon as CO2 into the atmosphere that was previously bound inside the earth's crust. Humans increased the CO2 concentration from 280ppm to 420ppm (pre-industrial -> today). The science is settled. Whether you believe in it or not: Global warming is happening and humans are causing it. I underst…

> The science is settled. Well, we'll see. There are predictions of global devastation within the next decade. > But physics doesn't care if you want it to be true or not. It's not about that. Rather it's about the law of slow-moving disasters. For example, what if I told you there was a train coming down the tracks that is about to flatten you. Would you be scared? What if I told you it was coming at you at 1cm/year…

> Well, we'll see. There are predictions of global devastation within the next decade.

We've already 'seen'. The science is, of course, based on an enormous amount of empirical evidence. We can always just say, 'we'll see what happens next', but it's a bizarre argument - on that basis you never act.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#402
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global warming will be by far the biggest challenge going forward. As long as parties on "the right" don't believe in it, or take it seriously or don't address it appropriately there is no way in hell for me to ever consider voting for anything on that spectrum. I can deal with a little over the top wokeness. I cannot deal with the destruction of the planet.

Hypothetical history books could one day read "and in 2023 the Russians nuked New York". Probably in some African script since they'd be talking about the end of civilisation in the northern hemisphere. While I don't want to try and defend every right wing policy, the crowd who think global warming is the biggest challenge we face have been outplayed by the very real disasters and escalations we've been facing since…

> the crowd who think global warming is the biggest challenge we face have been outplayed by the very real disasters and escalations we've been facing since 2020

Your argument is assumptions - that climate change isn't the biggest challenge, that others are bigger.

> The well resourced anti-US axis that is developing between Russia and China is a much bigger threat than difficulties adjusting to climate change. Which have generally been fairly minor challenges in the official reporting.

What is "official reporting"?

China and Russia feature quite largely in the news. It's hard to imagine them getting more coverage.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#403
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetical history books could one day read "and in 2023 the Russians nuked New York". Probably in some African script since they'd be talking about the end of civilisation in the northern hemisphere. While I don't want to try and defend every right wing policy, the crowd who think global warming is the biggest challenge we face have been outplayed by the very real disasters and escalations we've been facing since…

> the crowd who think global warming is the biggest challenge we face have been outplayed by the very real disasters and escalations we've been facing since 2020 That's why it will be very difficult for us to find any common ground. Even though I am very much a free market guy and definitely don't agree with every policy on the left. The right down plays, ignores or ridicules global warming. How one can read the IPCC…

It's because the right benefits in two ways by politicizing it:

1. Attacking the left brings them support

2. Their carbon industry supporters.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So can you provide any evidence? Name this instance? I've already shared the specifics I'm comfortable sharing. I have zero desire to start a witch hunt. > What has the left controlled? The right wing has used governmet power to ban books, educational topics, political freedom for teachers, criminalized gender choices, protests, etc. etc. Even in colleges, the right has shut down dissent, including among faculty (e…

None of that is happening. Those are substantive criticisms. You are not immune from criticism, and complaining about it is a way to avoid addressing the merits.

Instead of meta-analysis of what you think I'm doing, please kindly respond to the content of my argument. "None of that is happening" is neither specific or substantive.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#405
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social media should give full control to the user Are you implying this isn't possible with Mastodon/ActivityPub?

It's possible if users host their own Mastodon instance, which for the vast majority of users is way too much of a hassle to do. This is one of the reasons I think the nostr protocol is a better way of building a decentralized + censorship resistant social network. https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr#the-problem-with-mas...

Activitypub > Mastodon.

While it currently indeed is rather impractical and even unattainable to run your own instance, it's by no means impossible.

The protocol has no opinion on it¹. ActivityPub is more complex than nostr (I've built software for both) but not fundamentally different. Neither nostr nor activityPub have fundamental properties that make it possible or impossible to be fully P2P or fully centralized.

Nostr can easily become centralized. AP too. But ActivityPub can operate in a P2P nature - where every user == a server just as well as nostr can.

Practically, Mastodon is the default for AP, and thus dictates the use and shape. But I run my own gotosocial AP server, which is both simple, lean and clean. So already it's practically possible to run an AP server on tiny hardware with hardly any maintenance overhead.

¹EDIT: AP just describes an "inbox/outbox" with a PUB-SUB mechanism over HTTP. HTTP requires some discovery (dns), but that does not require fixed servers/domains. One could theoretically have an "inbox" (http-endpoint) on their mobile phone, bypassing the need for a server alltogether.

Nostr is much simpler, it has that going for it, certainly! But when people say that nostr is "p2p" and AP isn't, that only describes the current state, not their fundamentals.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible if users host their own Mastodon instance, which for the vast majority of users is way too much of a hassle to do. This is one of the reasons I think the nostr protocol is a better way of building a decentralized + censorship resistant social network. https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr#the-problem-with-mas...

There are services which will host your server for you for $6/mo. Your domain, your moderation/rules, can talk to anyone else. But if you want to hang out for free on someone else's dime, you have to play by their rules.

You can even boot a "gotosocial" on a raspberri-pi at home for almost free (it'll cost a pi, and some electricity). Or on a €2/month VPS.

And while gotosocial is still a multitier server (it resembles mastodon in much), there's nothing fundamental stopping the development of an even simpler rust/go/x activitypub server that acts for one actor only - a single-user server, which could be far, far simpler and leaner even.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> distopian place where anyone that does not align with the "correct worldview" People said exactly the same thing about open relays and spam filters some twenty years ago. A very famous Internet personality kept an open relay around for many years until there was literally no one left to federate with. I worked at a place who thought themselves obligated to keep around copies of all incoming messages for some period…

The analogy is inappropriate: 1. Spam is filtered, not censored. I can still see spam in my "Spam" folder if I want to. Mastodon doesn't merely filter "bad" content; it prevents you from seeing it even if you want to . It would be the equivalent of email actively deleting spam, and "spam" includes an email that suggests vaccines have side effects. 2. It's easy to see that it's not for the benefit of users . They coul…

Spam is censored, the vast majority can't even be sent because of SPF etc

You can pick a different server if you don't like the censorship on the one you're on, that's the whole point

To the spammers it's all great content you should be getting. No one's deleting your messages on your own Mastodon server, they're just not copying it to their server, what's the problem?

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an odd thing to say. You can ban people from your instance of mastodon , just like you could ban, kick, suspend etc, people from your IRC server in olden times. What is wrong with that? How strange to make an act of moderation on your own personal instance into an act of censorship.

He's not complaining about the mastodon technical protocol: he's complaining about the people who control the community and the rules.

> the people who control the community and the rules

Who are these people? The protocol is decentralised, if you don't like it, spin your own instance! 5-10$ a month and you get more than enough for a few thousand people.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#409

Individual Mastodon instances have already begun exhibiting insane behavior, and relying on someone else's fiefdom isn't for me. Social media should give full control to the user on top of a credibly neutral layer.

Do you have a proposal, or is this just a blanket denunciation of all social media?

How do you create an actually provably neutral system for computation that resists centralization? It exists but you may not like the answer.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#410
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well if there's no way to spin anything without getting entagled in some sort of intersectional original sin, then it's devolved in Jacobin Terreur.

> it's devolved in Jacobin Terreur Can you give examples of that happening? I don't see any at all. I mean actual violence and terror. These wild claims are becoming comical. The other day, it was the Cambodian genocide. Are we just picking catastrophes and arbitrarily saying they are happening? What's next? The Fall or Rome? The 10 Plagues from the Bible?

No mean to insult, but this is a bit of an “in the spectrum” reply. I’m not claiming guillotines are being erected on public squares, of course it’s not the case. On the other hand, the aggressive nitpick and overzealous strawmanning of anyone not carefully following te political doctrine is quite similar. Is it too difficult to see or are you also acting in bad faith?
Post reply on HN