Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
No, it’s because they’d rather talk to intelligent humans. X is populated by idiots and bots these days
So basically the usual BlueSky hugbox refrain.
Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place
311–320 of 357 posts
Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place
#312Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can be scientists on both platforms. Bluesky is just the ideological opposite of whatever X is today, but with more blocking and censorship than even what Twitter had under Dorsey.
I think you're assuming that dichotomy. There was an observation that Trump supporters derided liberals for loving biden. The observation pointed out a false equivalence, "the other side is doing the same thing", we love Trump, so they must love their leader too. Or, do you some sort of systematic evidence that evaluates the politics across all of bluesky in comparison to X? I don't think there is such evidence to kn…
You don’t need to conduct a systematic study, just lurk on Bluesky for a week, nay, a day.
If you express an opinion, you’ll be blocked, and Bluesky has layers of blocking, and they love it.
Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Well, they don’t like being challenged. who is "they"
The BlueSky “scientific” community. If they can’t withstand the pressure of actual public interaction, their research isn’t worth legitimizing.
Thankfully X isn't any more of an indicator of the "actual public" than bluesky
Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, that’s the typical argument but the problem is that they veer way out of their lane. And their lane is in reality very narrow and academically focused. When these experts go into politics and activism, their biases show and consequently the credibility of them and their unfortunate colleagues who don’t go into politics get lowered. > What evidence do you have that most scientists are giving opinions about things…
> When these experts go into politics and activism What if the issue is related to their expertise? Veering out of the lane implies they start offering their opinion about a topic that has nothing to do with their field after discussing one that does without making a clear disclaimer >credibility of them and their unfortunate colleague It's wrong to judge all due to the actions of some. This is a huge flaw of people…
>What if the issue is related to their expertise?
NTA but I think one example which deserves far more scrutiny than it gets is all the public health experts[1] in the early months of COVID who were telling people to stay inside, don't gather in groups even if you're outside, don't go to church etc only to suddenly change their minds and say that gathering in large groups is actually very safe as soon as the protests surrounding the murder of george floyd happened. This is a topic they have expertise on (or at least they claim to) so it's certainly within their lane, but the abrupt change in policy was obviously motivated by their political leanings and it did *a lot* to hurt their personal credibility as well as perceptions of the pandemic in general.
[1] IDK how many of them should actually be considered 'experts' as this is not a field I follow, but they were presented as such in the media and so that is how they are perceived.
Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place
#316"A new study published in Integrative and Comparative Biology suggests that scientists are leaving X (formerly known as Twitter) in significant numbers due to its declining professional value." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40637733/ See also: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02554-0 Co-author Shiffman recommended Twitter in 2012 and 2013 https://davidshiffmancv.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Shiff... htt…
Wow, imagine that, 99% of academia is left-wing and they're afraid to have a presence on X because the the "tolerant" left calls it a "Nazi echo chamber" and will come after their careers. BlueSky is totally winning, you guys!
Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. I still don't understand why there's so much consternation over choosing a Mastodon server. It doesn't limit who you can follow. I suppose if you're the sort of person who actually likes seeing random content from people you don't explicitly follow it could matter, but that's not for me.
> It doesn't limit who you can follow. That's simply not true. All servers maintain blacklists of other servers they don't like and won't federate with, including mastodon.social: https://mastodon.social/about (last section, "Moderated servers") You could argue that it's normal to block problematic servers, but it's not you the user who gets to define what is problematic, it's your server. Therefore your choice of se…
> Therefore your choice of server may very well prevent you from seeing content you'd like to see.
How is this any different than users of different IRC networks being unable to communicate with each other?
If I'm on OFTC, I certainly don't complain about not being able to talk to people on Libera.chat. I just....join the server and start talking.
Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
The BlueSky “scientific” community. If they can’t withstand the pressure of actual public interaction, their research isn’t worth legitimizing.
Thankfully X isn't any more of an indicator of the "actual public" than bluesky
Unfortunately, when the silent majority stay... silent, their opinions go unmeasured and the vocal minority becomes "the public".
Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place
#319If only Bluesky could be as decentralised as the Fediverse [0] Trading one corporate overlord for another is not the smartest play. [0] https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/
Opening an account on Mastodon was a pain even for me, a long-time Internet user and a nerd. I'm confronted with a choice of servers, but if I love cheese and golf, do I open my account on the cheese server or the golf server? What will be the disadvantages of choosing one over the other? Instant blocker right in the sign up process that made me actually give up several times. If it was like that for me, imagine how…
> Opening an account on Mastodon was a pain even for me, a long-time Internet user and a nerd.
I was in the same boat as you, and my experience was completely different. Mastodon's federation model reminded me of IRC, except nowhere near as balkanized.
So how did I wrangle the supposed complexity? I started out on one of the main instances and just started people-watching. Over time, I took note of which server contained users whose content I enjoyed over time, then I just joined the server.
Joining the server got me a slower federated feed that was both more pertinent to my interests that also functioned as a de-facto community space. I also found the moderation to be more to my own preferences. But the bigger server wasn't _bad_, I just preferred the smaller server because it was more personable.
I don't use Mastodon much anymore, but that's more because a good chunk of my social circle left for BlueSky than any gripes I had with the platform. I don't know where they will go if BlueSky goes belly up, but I can tell you that it won't be back to Twitter.
Re: Scientists say X has lost its professional edge and Bluesky is taking its place
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't pretty much everyone using the same instance pretty much defeat the point?
We’re talking about the average user. They’re not going to be particularly passionate about federation. The point, to them, is to have a functioning Twitter-like social network.
I'll be completely honest, as someone who remembers the internet before social networks, I have started caring less and less about being crammed into a single shared social space with every other person on earth.