CynthesisToday

@CynthesisToday@sfba.social

Retired chemical engineer. Currently feeding my intellect with mammalian #biology and #microbiology, the network and complex system aspects of biology, and the brain/body mechanisms via the vagus nerve.

Recent-ish love of "The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health" and "I Contain Multitudes".

Favorite papers as of May 2023 (so far): "The Danaid Theory of Aging", "Systems Biology of Phenotypic Robustness and Plasticity"

Activities: #weightlifting and #hiking

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

victor, (edited ) to random

deleted_by_author

    •
    CynthesisToday,

    @victor

    Good thinking re: umbrella policy

    Have you seen this?
    https://denise.dreamwidth.org/91757.html

    "A guide to potential liability pitfalls for people running a Mastodon instance"

    CynthesisToday, to random

    Get accustomed to a ~10 m^2 bedroom (10 x 11 sq ft) sharing 20 m^2 with three others. Four people living in 60 m^2 (~645 sq ft).

    A 2021 paper on modeling scenarios for meeting 1.5 or 2C climate condition here:

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22884-9
    "1.5 °C degrowth scenarios suggest the need for new mitigation pathways"

    "Degrowth is hence defined as (p. 7) ‘equitable downscaling of throughput [that is the energy and resource flows through an economy, strongly coupled to GDP], with a concomitant securing of wellbeing’"

    "Our results indicate that degrowth scenarios minimise many key risks for feasibility and sustainability, but substantial challenges remain regarding political feasibility."

    "[...] an outcome as politically feasible (p. 2) ‘if there is an agent or group of agents who have the capacity to carry out a set of actions which will lead to that outcome in a given context.’ "

    The target for securing wellbeing comes from Table 2 in this paper:
    https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_4E25DC0752AA.P001/REF

    CynthesisToday,

    @loshmi

    No, you are not misunderstanding it.

    I didn't have any idea what values are used as parameters in models to mitigate climate change. The first paper notes that most climate change models don't consider degrowth or well-being as goals; just CO2.

    I was poor, got an engineering degree, won the Silicon Valley lottery for picking the right company out of college, became rich, and lost my perspective for living with less than I have now. For those of us who have had so much, the 60 m^2 is stark in comparison. I found these details profound in adjusting my perspective when I read headlines, articles, and research on climate change.

    I probably won't have to go back to keeping my eyes on the ground looking for dropped coins at the end of the month, so I can get a see-through piece of a fish fillet for a little protein. However, I will definitely need to use less than I have been. I needed the details of Table 2.

    Thanks for sharing your observation.

    rasterweb, to mastodon
    @rasterweb@mastodon.social avatar

    I love that Mastodon has that thing where someone interacts with you, then you check them out, find out they're cool, follow them, and check out their boosts and find out they follow cool people so now you follow those other cool people as well and now you follow a whole bunch more cool people.

    CynthesisToday,

    @rasterweb

    I do this, too.

    Evidence of emergent behavior for the intersection of AP and latent social networks.

    GreenFire, to random
    @GreenFire@mstdn.social avatar

    @petergleick
    Ignoring us for so long was a terrible choice.

    CynthesisToday,

    @GreenFire @petergleick

    "Had the emissions curves peaked and started falling in the 1980s, when an increasing number of scientists were trying to sound the alarm about climate change, we might not have been forced into these tough choices. But that didn’t happen; we squandered the time. We have to acknowledge that we need to be in an era of triage, where we save what we can but recognize that there are things we’ll have to give up."

    -- A Time for Triage

    https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4885&context=faculty_scholarship

    stux, to random
    @stux@mstdn.social avatar

    Big tech platforms now make a big turn from 'free to use' to 'pay for everything now'

    And even if you don't pay directly on those platforms you will pay with your personal data

    API's are now becoming a paid feature so many devs drop support for them since it's not doable anymore

    I totally understand that things are need to be paid for at the end of the day but it also feels super toxic to see that "free-to-use" is almost become a no-go for them

    Why so extreme.. 🙄

    CynthesisToday,

    @stux

    Forgetting the rule of the road:

    Gas, grass, or...

    attention.

    No one rides for free

    Are0h, to random

    I don't think the biggest challenge will be building better fedi-specific tools. It's still so new; we're in the experimentation phase, so there is plenty of room to grow.

    The challenge will be helping people understand that they need to invest in their digital independence after being slowly robbed by centralized platforms.

    There's an entire generation of people that believe Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc., are the extent of what is possible on the internet.

    Breaking that paradigm is critical to shifting the web back to the people. Removing the cap on people's ability to imagine beyond centralized platforms has to be a core priority.

    CynthesisToday,

    @ajroach42 @Are0h

    @Are0h >The challenge will be helping people understand that they need to invest in their digital independence after being slowly robbed by centralized platforms.

    Definitely this plus the part about since their attention isn't being sold to pay for the journey, they need to find a way to help sustain the new paradigm.

    Labor or currency (subscribe to your local instance or admin or mod or dev) at first, then personal choice about if/when to monetize one's attention.

    CynthesisToday,

    @Are0h @ajroach42

    Are you aware of any advice they may have written on specifics for avoiding the same fate?

    CynthesisToday,

    @Are0h @ajroach42

    Fair enough.

    I'll start with "War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America" by Huey P. Newton.

    With my goal of understanding some impediments to creating sustainable commons within an existing political structure, the preface of Dr. Newton's dissertation suggests he does the same (among other insights) for his analysis of the Black Panther Party.

    Elinor Ostrom has been a source I've been using so far for developing commons.

    ZachWeinersmith, to random
    @ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

    Do you think there's a way the Internet could've been designed differently, early on, which would've made it better than it is now?

    CynthesisToday,

    @ZachWeinersmith

    Addressing usage pricing more directly instead of punting to businesses. https://web.archive.org/web/20160103124925/https://www.isoc.org/inet97/proceedings/F1/F1_1.HTM

    From the above, 1997 ISOC proceedings:

    "Prices that are out of line with costs do not long endure in free markets. Demand for overpriced service will dry up and demand for underpriced service will increase until it is impossible to meet the demand at the artificially low price (witness the recent AOL debacle in the U.S.) Markets in the real world are seldom perfect (or even nearly so), so price correction does not occur instantaneously. Furthermore, external constraints (e.g., government regulation) can support pricing anomalies, but sooner or later either the direct users abuse the underpriced service or middlemen (arbitrageurs), highly motivated by financial reward, find a way to skirt constraints and make money by buying cheap and selling dear. "

    Direct user abuse and ad-based extraction middlemen would be suppressed if use had closer connection to cost.

    jerry, to random

    Activity on the fedi must be on the upswing. Hosting costs (storage, CDN, translation, backups) are way higher than they’ve been in a long time. Looks like more cost optimization is what I’ll be doing next week during vacation. 💸

    CynthesisToday,

    @jerry

    Is figuring out how to integrate (VF) into instances using on the development list somewhere?

    You are definitely well-connected to the underpinnings of the Fediverse and probably know about planned direction.

    Are there plans to make funding all the pieces of the Fediverse (bw, hw, sw, labor) more automatic and integrated into the signup?

    I give funds to 2 instances, an infosec person, and ValueFlows dev for a total of $40.35/mo. PayPal and Patreon were easy to set up. It was really hard to figure out how to fund what I think is a critical piece of ensuring longevity of the Fedi-- distributing funds within. The instance gave me the link to VF. Really knowledgeable, involved people are working on VF. I'm not a Dev, but docs there look like it could serve Fedi fund distribution. https://hrea.io/

    Are there other plans for making funding better integrated into the Fedi? IMO, systematic financing is the weakest link to a sustainable Fediverse.

    loshmi, to Futurology
    @loshmi@social.coop avatar

    All this conversation about #Meta on #Fedi feels like the worst parts of geek culture. So technical, without understanding context or what strikes can actually do. My thoughts:

    Meta will make a great app for Fedi because it has more money to throw at the task. People will start using that because it's better. It will have QTs and an algorithm. People they want to follow will be there.

    🧵1/6

    CynthesisToday,

    @mastodonmigration @loshmi

    Almost all of my particular onboarding to Mastodon came from @mastodonmigration posts (toots?). I can't recall any information in those posts that said anything about cost sharing or identifying the difference between not getting served ads (value of agent attention) and sharing costs to support the ecosystem of one's choice of instance. Has this changed in the last several weeks? Will you add some material in the onboarding information about cost sharing? How about, those who promote the number of accounts could also include the number providing funding?

    CynthesisToday,

    @mastodonmigration @loshmi
    2/3

    Spent my first few days around here trying to figure out a fair share "". Very few provide an idea of how much would help. sfba.social said about $1000/mo in cost to sustain service (excluding labor). Set up my $10.35/mo for ecosystem infrastructure there.

    Knowing an ecosystem needs an immune system, decided to Patreon an infosec person on fedia.io at $10/mo.

    An ecosystem also needs a way to move the energy source around the system. Spent some time trying to find where that might be in the . Patreon, Kofi and et al. seem to be the most prominent means at the moment. Found whose protocol includes the vocabulary. AFAIK, this is closest to an energy transport system for the Fediverse. Maybe there are other vocabularies for creating a circulatory system in the Fediverse.

    https://forum.holochain.org/ seems to be where deployments of ValueFlows are being worked (moved to ). Exploring more before setting up a subscription.

    Ed: 2/3

    CynthesisToday,

    @mastodonmigration @loshmi

    3/3

    Structure, immune system, and circulatory system are elements of an ecosystem. There are other parts.

    A non-extractive is powered by , , and .

    The roles of and in an ecosystem play a part in a sustainable ecosystem. I don't want to be a Sucker. I'm way out of date to be able to provide labor. Don't need to my attention. Trying to figure out how much currency helps enough but doesn't make me a sucker such that if I leave too much of a currency hole is left, weakening the ecosystem. This same analysis has to be happening with those whose major contribution to powering the ecosystem is their uncompensated labor.

    research is exploring how microbial ecosystems operate. The language they use includes FreeLoader and Sucker. Nothing derogatory intended. Open to alternative names for agents who take advantage of others' generosity without giving anything in return.

    mekkaokereke, to random
    @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

    🤦🏿‍♂️ the average American isn't worse than the average person in other countries in the world. That's not what's going on.

    Our problem, is that all of our institutions are configured to allow the most racist, sexist, ignorant, and violent minority of us, to terrorize the rest of us without punishment or consequence.

    The net result is a flow of our society away from what the vast majority of us want, and towards objectively horrible outcomes.

    Like this.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iowa-meteorologist-chris-gloninger-quits-18-year-career-after-receiving-death-threat-over-his-climate-coverage/

    CynthesisToday,

    @mekkaokereke

    "... without punishment or consequence"

    ...and to profit from it.

    The problem seems insurmountable. I thought this work might begin to offer a direction for developing social :
    https://www.platformaccountability.com

    Much more is required in more venues.

    oliphant, to random

    So I did the math awhile back, like roughly how much it costs, per-person, to run on Mastodon.

    It's ~$8/mo per person.

    Just for irony.

    Tip your server admin.

    CynthesisToday,

    @oliphant

    Does that cover bandwidth (b/w), heat dissipation, and admin costs? Is security, h/w, s/w upgrades, and moderation included in admin costs?

    If joining more than one server, should this "subscription" be applied to each server? "Following" from one server, but "using" content from another server would change b/w utilization from the content target server but without financial assistance from the agent using the content. How is that accounted for?

    This Wikipedia diagram: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse#/media/File:A_view_into_the_Fediverse.png shows links between each "language" of the Fediverse. So, again, b/w costs change with more connections by actor.

    Are instance admins going to be trending their "Freeloader" percentages? An ecosystem with too many freeloaders can't survive and certainly can't thrive.

    I'm trying to figure out how not to be a freeloader. I subscribe to one server ($10.35/mo) and Patreon to one infosec admin ($10/mo). My thinking is to cover a piece of infrastructure and a piece of immune system in support of the ecosystem.

    CynthesisToday,

    @oliphant

    I'm sorry, but I don't understand the first sentence. What is "pretty high in cost, per person"?

    I'm trying to figure out how the elements driving the non-extractive social ecosystem (the Fediverse) can work. Attention, labor and dollars are the "engine". Admins are not freeloaders because they provide their labor to the ecosystem. Mods are not freeloaders when they provide their labor. I'm putting $20.35/mo into the ecosystem, so I won't be a freeloader.

    Extractive social networks sell users attention (ads) as their means to extract dollars out of that ecosystem. If the Fediverse doesn't extract dollars to pay for crypto-fail or investor returns, the ecosystem can organize differently. It still can't run with too many freeloaders for very long at all, though. "Free" labor is not infinite (or free).

    Only one other server has communicated costs that I've found (so far). You are the 2nd admin providing a glimpse. It is great, things are growing. It'll take more than hope for staying power.

    CynthesisToday,

    @oliphant

    Thank you. Good to know you're comparing to a baseline cost. I saw Mr. Ragas say they pay 0.90 euro/account/mo. I have to believe there is a limit to the max b/w for that price. Probably tiers for size and b/w. Is there a link to that service offering (Mr. Ragas?)

    I think Admins should factor in the other costs, too. Plus, nothing bad about getting paid for your labor. I pay subscription for streaming services, so I don't have to listen to ads. If an admin can keep things going so I don't have to see ads, it is worth a price to me. I see nothing wrong with an instance admin enabling getting paid for their labor.

    People are migrating to the Fediverse without also hearing about the very real costs. The migration enables one to avoid seeing ads. People migrating aren't relating that lack of ads plus control of privacy have a cost. They have a false view since they don't pay dollars to Meta or Google or Reddit or Twitter. Migrators aren't getting info about that cost.

    mekkaokereke, to random
    @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

    🤯 This year in social media is wild. The latest chapter is no exception. Fascinating data and anecdotes.

    Data:

    • Over 430K Fediverse accounts created in the past week. And it's accelerating.

    https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount/110576430285028932

    Anecdotes:
    Major communities may be moving soon.

    https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/59559/Removed-as-moderator-of-r-Celebrities-after-14-years

    Here's the Fediverse version of "celebrities" with exactly 1 subscriber so far... the person who claimed to be the former moderator of the celebrities sub-reddit.
    https://kbin.social/m/celebrities

    CynthesisToday,

    @justinmwhitaker @mekkaokereke

    This point needs a lot more emphasis. Instance admins, mods, devs, maintainers, b/w, h/w, s/w, heat dissipation, security, payment mechanisms all need to be funded.

    Migration marketing needs to help migrators understand the value of their "ad/VC/data sale" free use of the Fediverse. Opt-in ad/data sale could be an ecosystem service for some migrators.

    Broadly, an extractive social ecosystem siphons away much, much more currency to crypto-fail schemes, executive salaries, and investor returns than paying instances a living income when delivering their services. That "net flow" is part of the evolutionary force for creating services in a non-extractive social ecosystem.

    Running an instance should be a gig that can support a comfortable life, at a minimum. Attracting users to an instance that is creating ecosystem services is a useful force for sustaining the ecosystem. Useful services spread throughout instances.

    The "At some point" point is now. Set user expectations now.

    stux, to random
    @stux@mstdn.social avatar

    It’s kinda sad to see people think I’m ’bribed’ by Meta.. I have not signed anything, I did not attend anything from them nor did I accept anything but still the worst is assumed when I don’t agree on blocking a still in development project that we don’t even know the (domain)name from right away

    I don’t have any love for Meta or any of such companies whatsoever, that’s why I’m putting all I have in these platforms and guard it with my life so don’t expect Meta to get a ‘free pass’ on anything

    CynthesisToday,

    @stux

    Thank you for all you do and the passion you bring to the environment. FWIW, I don't believe you are bribed.

    "Default deny" is an excellent security stance. Allow the time to develop an ecosystem service for metering the number of connections per unit time a new instance connecting to the Fediverse can start with. Sort of a reverse TCP retransmission congestion avoidance mechanism. Another ecosystem service might be detecting siphoning content.

    Default deny allows some human time for response.

    thefreehunter, to Facebook

    deleted_by_author

    •
    CynthesisToday,

    @thefreehunter @kkarhan

    Meta and other extractive social networks have the potential to bring extractive dollars, services, and a fire hose of content look/feel/expectations to the Fediverse ecosystem. These extractive resources would likely overwhelm the development of non-extractive federated solutions that come from the diversity of instances, actors, and interactions that are happening with the current populating of the .

    How do environmental ecosystems prevent the loss of diversity?

    The Fediverse is a developing ecosystem.

    The objective is to see what can develop when extraction isn't the primary driver.

    What social ecosystem services evolve when diverse views of how technology can interact and integrate are allowed to function without an invasive species with an extractive goal?

    stux, to random
    @stux@mstdn.social avatar

    I'm gonna try to clear up a few things

    Meta is not gonna buy Mastodon or any server, this is based on absolutely nothing and untrue.

    Yes, some of us indeed got contacted by Meta/Insta because they are working on a new social platform (this was in the news) and they are looking into joining the Fediverse (Mark Zuckerberg also told this in the recent podcast)

    SO.

    This contact was about a "heads-up" for a potential big platform to join the network and not for a "take over".

    [1/2]

    CynthesisToday,

    @stux

    Could be like the schism of the Southern Baptists...

    Limiting federation with as a choice breaks the covenant and banishes the limiting servers. Allowing to vote with their by moving to servers that don't take extractive resources has a value equal to or greater than the choice of allowing federation with extractive social networks because the choice to move acts as an evolutionary force.

    "Drinking" from the "sugar-water" of easy extractive-sourced money allows the to develop a dependence on and organizing force around the sugar-water and quenches the forces for creating the elements of an alternative or that don't require "sugar-water" ( sources).

    Thank you for sharing what is known so far.

    stux, to kbin
    @stux@mstdn.social avatar

    Federation on https://forum.fail grows scary fast⚡

    https://forum.fail/stats

    CynthesisToday,

    @stux

    Hi there. Thank you for sharing your time, effort and information.

    Could you share how much it costs to run Forum.fail? I'm trying to figure out my share of supporting the , but have no idea of costs. My information on this topic is too out of date.

    h/w, s/w, bandwidth plus person-hours are all invisible to us ecosystem participants.

    What % of "USERS" are contributing monthly "donation" to the cost and upkeep of forum.fail?

    Do you think everyone who signs up for any instance should pay a monthly stipend to every instance they sign to? Is that the funding model you think will allow the ecosystem to live and thrive?

    Can you advise a hashtag to use to find other thoughts and discussions on the topic of ActivityPub ecosystem financials?

    helenczerski, to books
    @helenczerski@fediscience.org avatar

    The booksellers at Leadenhall Market Waterstones are my new favourite people. They’ve put toy whales on display with my book!

    CynthesisToday,

    @helenczerski

    Alas, learned from my local independent bookseller (yay ), "Blue Machine" isn't out in the USA until October.

    dansup, to random
    @dansup@mastodon.social avatar

    Lot's of improvements to https://fedidb.org, including self-submission, more real-time stats, and a special page for our reddit friends!

    https://fedidb.org/site/news

    CynthesisToday,

    @dansup

    Great start on measuring the ActivityPub ecosystem. Thanks for sharing the link.

    Is there any way to measure funded percentage or some quantitative measure of even non-labor cost coverage? I see +2,249 servers in the last month. I read @jeff comment this morning "* typically less than 2% of users financially support the social server they use."

    How would one quantify sustainable funding? I provide $10.35 monthly funding to my "home" server. I justify this to myself as I pay ~$10/mo each to various news outlets and magazines. Just joined a kbin instance. Is it sustainable for an individual to fund just one instance? If someone purchases, hosts, maintains an instance, does that "buy" them sufficient to not be deemed "free-loaders"?

    Is there any analysis out there on the economics of building/maintaining based social ecosystems?

    Wanting to draw analogies with microbial ecosystems and analyses around the effect of "free-loader" species on ecosystems. Any leads on social ecosystems?

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