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User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

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Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be a matter of right. My parents mutilated me as a child because they denied me healthcare. We should not allow parents to deny their children healthcare which leads to their permanent disfiguration. That's disgusting. If you think it'd be wrong to force a cis kid to be trans, then it's also wrong to force a trans kid to be cis.

> We should not allow parents to deny their children healthcare which leads to their permanent disfiguration. That's disgusting. So instead we need to enable parents to allow healthcare to disfigure their young kids when they predictably get influenced from social media and their peers? How is it 'disgusting' to try to let someone live as they were born?

It's a medical matter. If medical officials broadly agree that having a prosthetic limb gives someone better quality of life than having no limb, then yes, we should disfigure the human body by attaching a prosthetic.

Medical officials fairly broadly agree that gender-affirming care improves the quality of life of patients, and so of course it should be allowed.

It's disgusting to try and use the law to force medical professionals to give sub-par care for no good reason.

> How is it 'disgusting' to try to let someone live as they were born?

I assume you're opposed to cosmetic dental braces for children? Even though just like gender-affirming care, they can lead to better self-perception and better outcomes (but 'disfigure' the child by making their teeth more aligned with stereotypical norms)

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#302
post #237

I definitely have my concerns over the decreasing DAUs on the platform and the crabby, toxic community that has come to really define Bluesky these days but I don't think the tech is the problem. For folks who keep pointing at Mastodon, remember that ActivityPub's predecessor OStatus originates from 2012 and Mastodon itself was kicked off in 2016. Mastodon is 9 years old at this point. Bluesky is only a few years old…

I do wish there was a community that encouraged thoughtful positivity over negativity (granted I would not "ban" it) and some level of limited posting ... or something like that. It's a pipe dream I know, but on the surface social media could be really cool.

> I do wish there was a community that encouraged thoughtful positivity over negativity

Yeah, it's called the real world. We have millions if not billions of years of experience in dealing with in-person differences, tentative contacts with members of neighbouring tribes and smoothing out conflicts. One will find the risk of getting smacked over the face for being an absolute idiot to be a very effective motivator to remain on our best behaviour with strangers.

On the internet these days, you can only choose between an echo chamber, or all-out culture war.

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#303
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems a bit random though. Are mastodon people big on trigger warnings? I never signed up for it. Heck, I never signed up for twitter or bluesky either. For mastodon I considered it, but telling people "ha, ha, I am writing toots" was a little too silly, even for me.

Not on trigger warnings, but on content warnings on general. It folds the post by default, but shows the warning description so it's useful for lots of reason. For example "USpol" is often used as common CW but not specifically TW. But it could be "boob", or "giant spider", or "furry", or "food photo", or "super long post" whatever else you think people may react to with "I wish I didn't have to see that while scroll…

That makes sense, thank you for explaining

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#305

I just don’t see why Joe Public will ever care about decentralisation as a concept. We tend to hand wring about principles within the tech sphere, when the bulk of people just want a place that won’t make them feel immediately (longer term doesn’t matter) crappy when they use it, whatever that means for them. That tends towards centralisation because decentralised services have awful moderation and tend to create an…

> I just don’t see why Joe Public will ever care about decentralisation as a concept.

IME they do care, but they have no patience to deal with the hurdles that decentralisation imposes upon your user experience. So ease-of-use and convenience always win.

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#306
post #283

I don't understand how the removing of right wing users is described as a necessary good to create a safe and inclusive space, while the removal of left wing users is decried as censorship. If you dismiss people who have genuine concerns about things as bigoted, you yourself are being bigoted! It is as though people don't understand the definition of the word.

[flagged]

Who defines intolerance though? What if you call me intolerant because I do not like your favourite programming language, and have dared criticize it - is that OK?

It's a recursive paradox: an intolerant person cannot define what intolerance is, but that's what often happens in reality.

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about moot and kiwifarms that wasn't merely "user pressure" like large customers threatening to walk - it was a harassment campaign hitting up the legal department and cloudflare decided they didn't want to bother dying on that hill

> moot Do you mean null? Ironically, 4chan actually still uses Cloudflare to this day, and did through that whole controversy too. I assure you there is way, way worse things posted to /pol/ than there ever was, or will be, to Kiwi Farms.

Right, sorry, Moon not moot.

I enjoyed his interview with Nina Paley and Chris Cohn on life after cloudflare: https://heterodorx.com/podcast/episode-107-how-the-internet-...

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#308
post #306
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Who defines intolerance though? What if you call me intolerant because I do not like your favourite programming language, and have dared criticize it - is that OK? It's a recursive paradox: an intolerant person cannot define what intolerance is, but that's what often happens in reality.

There are quite a few solutions to the paradox of tolerance. One of which was even articulated by the guy that coined the term, which the wiki link covers.

I also recommend

https://medium.com/extra-extra/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-prec...

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#309
post #283

I don't understand how the removing of right wing users is described as a necessary good to create a safe and inclusive space, while the removal of left wing users is decried as censorship. If you dismiss people who have genuine concerns about things as bigoted, you yourself are being bigoted! It is as though people don't understand the definition of the word.

[flagged]

Intolerance is the wrong framing. You should be understanding. People who throw the label "bigot" around are themselves bigots (convinced of the superiority of their own beliefs without engaging with others views). A lot of people can have genuine disagreements with certain ideologies (e.g., they might think that transitioning minors is net negative for society) but also be open to dialogue. Such people are not bigots. Those who disagree with the left on any given point may or may not be wrong, but disagreement is not bigotry. There is no paradox there.

There is also a difference between speach and action. As a society, we should allow all speach (e.g., people questioning authority), but supress certain actions (e.g., violence). Currently, the American left seems to believe that people voicing the wrong views justified violence. That belief is abhorrent and fundamentally completely at odds with liberalism and a just and well functioning society.

Specifically, re-tolerance of intolerance, I highly recommend a speach by Rowan Atkinson on exactly that topic. If you Google it you can probably find it. It is worth a watch. He is an incredibly intelligent and eloquent man.

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