221–230 of 232 posts
Hey guys - Burak here. Ouch, this was supposed to be a ‘soft’ launch. I’m here to answer any questions as usual. I’ll pick the best and try to add it to the FAQ on the site.
edit: oops, just found this https://meta.getaether.net/t/how-to-use-aether-behind-tor/53
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I've never seen a community that was completely open to discussion and where bad ideas disappeared because they were effectively challenged. On the other hand, I've been in several communities where the mods had a clear agenda and the participants were helpless to change it. I'd personally rather the people who are hostile to new ideas or critical thinking have their own communities and that their ability to harm oth…
I agree with most of what you said, but we might be looking at it from different angles. Especially want to zero in on this: >I'd personally rather the people who are hostile to new ideas or critical thinking have their own communities A fact that you don't seem to have in your mind here is that often those people are the majority. So you'll have majorities voting in mods who are hostile to new ideas and critical thi…
>With this platform we still get lock-in of polarized thinking and echo chambers.
But there's nothing stopping you from creating your own sub that is more open...
Are there any limitations on how large a post can be? Could a malicious user just post giant posts to make the network suffer?
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Thanks! > The FAQs say that the app is a p2p based app. What is the p2p protocol being used here? * How does it compare to libp2p, SSB, and others? * What's the security model, and how would the system mitigate Sybil attacks etc? It's built from scratch. It runs c0 subprotocol of Mim. You can see some basic comparisons here: https://getaether.net/docs/how_is_it_different_from/ Other questions - all good questions, bu…
> I would _love_ to have mobile apps, The system supports it If there's a library/protocol that could be embedded in a native app, I would love to play with it. I'm a mobile developer with some free time at hand. I'll drop you an email.
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> I wonder, what happens if, going a step further, there are different moderation teams working on the same comment stream, and readers could flip between them at will? It already has that. :) That is the whole point of moderation - you can choose who you want to be moderated by. (It’s on a per mod basis for now, though, but per mod team is a good idea. Thanks for the feature request!)
Maybe people you follow or "mark as trustworthy", should also be more relevant in what you see.
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How to prevent that tho? Everything seems to be at the risk of either the first or the second...
Good question. The framers of the US Constitution attempted to do it with a system of checks and balances... which works to a certain extent, but not perfectly. Point is just because it’s hard, that’s no reason to give up trying.
You don't protect against tyranny of the majority by allowing minorities to dictate policy, that's just regular tyranny.
You protect against majorities by requiring supermajorities for all the most important functions of government: constitutional change, impeachment, and censure.
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The same way you prevent them from becoming progressice/racist trash bin worse than reddit. You let them speak and prove them idiots. It's really not hard. Unless you're constantly on the side that's losing, then it's pretty miserable. But know that even though you're losing now you can reformulated your arguments and try again because no ones going to censor you. You have all the same rights because you, like they,…
Oh, goodie, a community where every topic of conversation, no matter how mundane, turns into a "debate" about if [insert group here] are human or not and if it should be ok to own women and why don't we still send Jews to the gas chambers? Sounds like a pleasant place, I can't wait to spend my time there "debating" levelheaded reasonable people who I just "disagree" with.
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I agree with most of what you said, but we might be looking at it from different angles. Especially want to zero in on this: >I'd personally rather the people who are hostile to new ideas or critical thinking have their own communities A fact that you don't seem to have in your mind here is that often those people are the majority. So you'll have majorities voting in mods who are hostile to new ideas and critical thi…
> So you'll have majorities voting in mods who are hostile to new ideas and critical thinking. >With this platform we still get lock-in of polarized thinking and echo chambers. But there's nothing stopping you from creating your own sub that is more open...
We need forums where close-minded people with calcified ideas can be challenged.
When there are new thinkers with challenging ideas, you are saying they can just go off in a separate space and talk only to other open minded people.
That's fine for them to do, but it's not enough in the sense that it doesn't reach the people it should. Closed minds can change, if challenged. If. Your suggestion doesn't achieve that.
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I'm not too happy with that resolution though, because it leads to problems. While it may seem to reduce short term conflict, it exacerbates the effect of many of us living in ever-more-impervious bubbles. Which could lead to larger problems down the road as people's shared understandings about reality diverge even more.
If enough people believe the same, then such segregation will not happen, because moderation will be self-moderated. OTOH, if enough people really want all those bubbles, there isn't really anything you can do to stop them.
That's wishful thinking. Reality has shown that this isn't the case.
>there isn't really anything you can do to stop them.
You can challenge them on it. Unless they shut down challenges. Which is what this system enables.
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> So you'll have majorities voting in mods who are hostile to new ideas and critical thinking. >With this platform we still get lock-in of polarized thinking and echo chambers. But there's nothing stopping you from creating your own sub that is more open...
That's kind of a snide answer though, right? We need forums where close-minded people with calcified ideas can be challenged. When there are new thinkers with challenging ideas, you are saying they can just go off in a separate space and talk only to other open minded people. That's fine for them to do, but it's not enough in the sense that it doesn't reach the people it should. Closed minds can change, if challenged…
The scenario you're suggesting is one where most of the people in that sub have chosen to only see the "calcified" ideas. If I was a person who doesn't agree with those ideas, I wouldn't want to stay. A sub with elective moderation is not the forum to challenge people's ideas.
If it's a cat sub, then I wouldn't be surprised if I get moderated out if I'm going there and telling everyone how much better dogs are, even if it's true!
Say it's a sub for politics, if you want real open communication, then you could think about starting a different forum, eg "openminded_politics", and presumably most people who want to use that sub would be open to hearing different ideas.
I'm not sure how else you think it could operate. People who strongly dislike reading differing opinions are not going to read a sub with ideas they are opposed to. You think it's somehow possible to force them to read those ideas?