modifier

I’m not sure how long you’ve been here - not assuming how long you’ve been lurking, or that this is your first account, but I think it really is easier not to care here. All kidding aside, try it. You don’t have this whole upvote/award dopamine cycle here, and in many cases, anyone can see the number of downvotes a comment has vs upvotes - something that reddit long ago “fuzzed” along with actual vote counts.

For instance, the comment I’m replying to has 3 upvotes (one of them mine), and 1 downvote as of right now. This ratio may stay the same, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you got more downvotes, because your comment was a kind of dismissive reply to a comment that probably represents what a lot of folks who’ve been here a while feel, which also came from a user that is very active and generally well liked. I could not begin to tell you their upvote count (can’t even see my own) as a proof of their popularity, so I just have to go by what I observe in my day to day, and this place is still small enough that you see familiar usernames in a variety of communities.

This is still kind of a small town, and you may come to see this bug as a feature in time. I did.

Isn’t gold softer than iron with a lower melting point?

Many props to you. I feel like reddit doesn’t count as social media, but I couldn’t energetically defend that position. They are certainly engaging in social media tech bro behavior, so the distinction probably doesn’t matter at this point, but it felt different than social media before it went to shit. Now, obviously when it “went to shit” is a point in time that is highly relative to the observer, but always sometime after the observer joined. That’s just the nature of enshittification.

yeah and I gobble that shit up like candy.

I am not immune, and I don’t find all algorithms predatory - for example, I log on knowing that steam is selling me a product, but I am not the product. I just said in many ways I am successfully avoiding “the algorithm”, though the scare quotes immediately following a run down of social media networks was meant to indicate a specific type of algorithm that is meant to induce engagement or enragement (both are profitable) and change my behavior because I am the product.

I still have plenty of time for algorithms that serve me up games for that crucial 15% of my library that I bought but haven’t played yet.

One thing at a time Maxxie.

I am not a citizen of New Mexico, but I cannot begin to tell you how fulfilled I would feel to learn that my high was lifting others up somehow.

Slight quibble. Airlines are pushing to upgrade the technology that we use to manage our air space so that we can get more throughput on the runways safely.

They don’t worry quite so much about bloodying your nose, killing your dog, or destroying your guitar but they do not fuck around with capital S Safety (see Valujet) and you can only consolidate so much before your main competition for takeoffs is you, and the limitations of the system you are working in.

Cynical? Yes. Does our air traffic technology still need a massive upgrade even to maintain the status quo? Also yes.

Me too but, sadly: paywalled. That’s how they get you.

That isn’t an accident.

There is this insight that I remember reading about internet scams, that they are poor quality with lots of misspelling by design. According to what I’ve read, this acts as a useful filter: If you’re smart enough to pick up on things like misspellings, we don’t want to waste our time scamming you.

That is now essentially the entire ethos of the modern internet.

There is a lot of heated debate about this. They’re saying due to COVID, that “early” can mean anything from 0-8 now, which obviously I don’t understand but what can you do? They are saying it.

I must assume from your helpful correction that 2006 is the actual year twitter came out but even then I literally cannot be arsed to look that up on purpose because, I cannot stress this enough, I very much do not care about social media, as per my comment. So if you say 2006, that is what we’re going with.

Can I just brag for a moment? I feel like I am among my people, and there is a little lesson at the end.

to calibrate: White dude in my 40s, nerdy by nature but non-technical in my education/employment

Twitter - signed up in the early 2000s when it first came out, pretty much stopped using by 2011

Facebook - signed up in the early 2000s when it first got big, pretty much stopped using by 2011, deleted my abandoned account last year

Google +, I’m sure I never signed up, but I had an account that I never used. Google being google negated me ever having to contemplate whether or not I would ever use it

Snapchat - never used

TikTok - never used

Instagram - never used

Are there others? I don’t know.

Reddit was the only “social media” I ever used for a sustained period of time and the only one where I felt part of any sort of community. I left reddit in June of 2023 when I made this account and I’ve never been back.

So, in many ways, I am successfully resisting/avoiding “the algorithm” and I am a good example of high media literacy with good resistance to manipulation by social media.

But, just to emphasize why community itself is so valuable and worthy of exploitation by techbros, here are life changes I’ve made since joining Lemmy, even without any algorithms or dark patterns. Not that Lemmy is strictly causal in all of these, but the relationship is there:

• I am now making my way through TNG, and am generally more Trek-literate

• Linux, natch

• Cancelled all streaming services (honestly most ‘subscription services’) in favor of a NAS running Plex (for now, will probably move to Jellyfin), Calibre, AudioBookshelf, Immich, Joplin, NextCloud, etc, etc, etc

• Now using Steam Deck as my daily driver for gaming

In other words, though I prize my independent thinking and avoidance of Big Cloud, and though I think all of these are positive changes representing a positive influence, I am clearly impressionable. And so are you.

I don’t even care if this is true, I just fucking love cats.

Do you mean that you don’t understand it or that you do understand it to be nonsensical? If the latter, would you mind saying a bit more about that?

I want to pay. I want creators to be fairly compensated for their work. I just want a structure that doesn’t require a predatory middleman that adds no value.

The seas are truly splendid. I can only but pity the landlubbers.

I could read a similar report for almost any cabinet post, or more likely multiple cabinet posts, and I wouldn’t bat an eye. I would almost assume this is happening in most cases to some degree.

Most of these secretaries are picked for their willingness and ability to absorb what passes for tough questions in congressional hearings while the real power like Hobgoblin here make the decisions.

It sounds like that is the same as saying “you can’t oppose corporate monopolies without openly opposing fascism”

There is a lot of risk in that sort of intentional abdication of nuance, hopefully self-evident to you and to all who read this.

All the time. I just wish I could understand them because they always seem to contemplate carefully whatever I have them smell, which makes me wonder what they are thinking.

Keep your secrets, inscrutable feline.

No gas at all. Pumping the brakes in fact. Forgetting a link happens, and they were quick to address it, which is why I was just gently pushing back on their minimization of the need for a link.

Forgetting a link is innocent, the thought process the suggests that an image alone can be informative, and that a link might be in some way redundant; in this age that is insidious and should be called out before it takes hold. You’re welcome to feel I’m overreacting, but I will politely disagree with you.

This, truth, isn’t going to get any easier any time soon, and folks who care about it need to look out for each other with accountability.

It looks like this was just this past Sunday. In yet another part of the country. Report to the mods if it doesn’t fit your personal description of newsworthy but it is current, relevant, and distinct from similar stories in other districts.

She’s a legend.