@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

jrm4

@jrm4@mastodon.social

John R. Marks, IV, Technically an attorney; practically I teach IT at FSU for a living.
I run a nonprofit that teaches stem; for a while my company Vivergent managed the official website for the Black News Channel, RIP.

Huge FOSS/Linux/Free Software guy as well. Harvard undergrad, Columbia law.

Also I like the old school rappity rap.

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

seachanger, to random
@seachanger@alaskan.social avatar

it's not that we want to play gotcha with the stans on here. it's that we want you to do the mental & emotional work of staying present with what's actually happening so that we can work together for justice. we can tell you're doing that work when you're willing to post about the Ls like you post about the Ws

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@seachanger

yeah, you could have instead just not posted this condescending goofiness; it quite literally appears as if "playing gotcha" is all you're doing

Biden people will give you an enormously huge list of good things done, people like you post the one bad thing.

Politics is complex, y'all need to do the work of "growing up and understanding that"

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@seachanger

Nah, maybe you were well intentioned, but you definitely came with condescending first.

As for looking bad, not something I care about over having tough political discussions; honestly that's what this place is MISSING

Muting -- now that literally is the worst thing you could do for mastodon.

ernie, to random
@ernie@writing.exchange avatar

Self-promote the hell out of yourself because honestly, who else is going to do it?

It someone hates it, fuck ’em.

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@ernie

don't say that around here on Mastodon lest ye be accused of doing a capitalism

Are0h, to random

Ha, if I hurt your feelings we can just talk about it, bro.

I'm not in charge of moderation and I never claimed to speak for all of us. I'm just building tools for us. Easy.

You don't need to make up nonsense because of a personal grudge. We can talk like grown-ups.

RE: https://mastodon.social/users/jrm4/statuses/111132672794489961

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@Are0h

You are giving that vibe of "talking for all of us" though -- I've seen many of your claims that are nearly literally "this wouldn't be happening if I was white" and it looks pretty off.

Again, I may be wrong here. There may be more I need to learn, that's just what I'm seeing though.

SwiftOnSecurity, to random

UX designers who eliminated the filesystem from user consciousness in name of simplicity ruined the world and are morally culpable for shriveling minds of children who are unable to tackle the challenges of today thanks to a choice sold as advocacy for the user but was ultimately motivated by control of a disempowered customer.

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@danirabbit @SwiftOnSecurity

I literally wish I could unlearn both vim and cursive.

OPs point, on the other hand, is a genuinely important one, having to do with "power in the machine"

jrm4, to random
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

So, uh, I'm not really feeling this Ro guy and his thing.

He had some wildly goofy shit to say to/about me a while go that hipped me to the fact that he's probably not the type you really want in charge of moderation.

And presently my concern lies with him "speaking for us," as in Black folk, which AFAIK isn't much earned nor appears to be healthy.

I could be wrong here; there's a lot of mess, but I wanted to put it out there.

jrm4, to random
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

Def a gaffe, but these goofs out here trying to claim "Joe Biden is racist "because he referred to LL as "boy" are trying too hard.

no actual racist white man could play second fiddle to the first black president for that long without their angry little racist head just exploding

gregone, to random

Must watch talk from @pluralistic on platform enshittification and what we can do to challenge it. Thank you Cory for laying out so clearly.

https://youtu.be/rimtaSgGz_4?si=uxpdV7f5sX1VIQsh

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@anarchopunk_girl @obsolescentsapien @drazraeltod @pluralistic

I suspect this is true for maybe 3 or 4 useful apps, and that's it

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@anarchopunk_girl @obsolescentsapien @drazraeltod @pluralistic

this is very general.

i'll bite.

which apps?

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@anarchopunk_girl @obsolescentsapien @drazraeltod @pluralistic

I mean, it's by definition relevant. It is genuine curiosity as well? I personally don't have very many (if any) apps that I believe benefit from "being an app," and having seen things like Obsidian and Discord (which, as I understand it, aren't too far from "web app" under the hood) I just strongly doubt the necessity of specialized apps?

poppamunz, to random
@poppamunz@dftba.club avatar

guy who pronounces LGBTQ as "leg boutique"

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@poppamunz

i heard

luggabutt-uh somewhere and nearly died

campuscodi, to random
@campuscodi@mastodon.social avatar

Just a reminder to everyone to never use Chrome for anything than downloading another browser.

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@campuscodi

I'll add, strongly try to avoid ANYTHING even Chrome based. They may not suck down your privacy as much -- but Google has an unhealthy addiction to, every year, trying to rebuild the Web in its own image.

Even if e.g. Firefox is a little slower or whatever, you should still use it.

NaClKnight, to philosophy
@NaClKnight@mstdn.games avatar

The Roman Empire is white people's "We were kings and queens in Egypt"

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@NaClKnight @Itty53

i love how you can look at reasonable irl recreations of the roman greats, and the crew looks very not-obviously-black, but also very not-obviously-white

like, puerto ricans all around

jrm4, to HashtagGames
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

Qui-Gon, you absolute idiot -- go back to that rat-ass planet, scoop your boy's mom and put her up in an apartment or something this is not hard


Private
jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@clayrivers @BigAngBlack @blackmastodon @BlackMastodon

What a great point. The former, well yeah, we see how that's a problem.

But it's also weird, I have very close white friends in the south who are like "hey I'm just white I don't know ANY of this"

and I I have to be like, -- yeah, yeah you really do, and they don't believe me :)

juergen_hubert, to twitter
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

I see a lot of people sharing blanket condemnations of all of those who still remain on / , and I need you to slow down a bit.

Sure, in some cases this is justified - journalists should really know better. But there are a lot of communities on that platform that are vital to many people's well-being that haven't been replicated on the or elsewhere. Take - while is growing, it's still minuscule in comparison. The number of Twitter users in is staggering, while they are only a handful on . And so on, and so forth. Twitter was a lifeline to many marginalized people, and it still is - even though it gets worse every day - and we need to recognize this.

As a white European guy, it was easy for me to walk away from Twitter (I still have an account there, but I only post "you should go to Mastodon" stuff these days) - since it is easy to find people of a similar background to interact with. But this is NOT true for everyone!

So I'd like everyone to show a bit less contempt to the remaining Twitter users in general, and put some more effort in how to make the Fediverse friendlier to marginalized voices. Because there is MUCH work to be done here!

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@juergen_hubert

TELL EM!

_L1vY_, to random
@_L1vY_@mstdn.social avatar

One thing that has been weird to watch over time is the Seinfeld process.

First, how people's love for the show continued even after it ended, but then it imploded into obscurity after "Kramer's" antisemitic onstage outburst.

Okay BUT that's not the weird part--the weird part has been watching it be rehabilitated with a new generation--who I guess didn't see that??--once Netflix started showing the program recently.

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@gregly @_L1vY_

But THAT WAS THE POINT. I loved the finale and still loved the show for that reason, as long as you appreciate it for what it is. Writers were strict "no hugs at the end!"

Understand that you're watching AWFUL people, and to see the little ways in which you can be awful too.

this is why I do hate Friends. They're just as awful, but the show "forgets" that? Eg. Living Single is a better precursor, not (just)because its black, but because they're generally good humans

Loukas, to random
@Loukas@mastodon.nu avatar

  1. Get annoyed by someone using the 'wrong word' in English.

  2. Look up the right word.

  3. See that it derives from exactly the same root as the 'wrong' word.

  4. See that British newspapers just made an artificial division between the words in like 1927... or some English person translated the exact same Low German word two slightly different ways in 1703 for no reason at all.

  5. Give up seeing them as wrong and right words.

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@Loukas

Y'all

go look up the relationship between 'much' and 'mucho'

and bask in the futility of it all

flexghost, to random
@flexghost@mastodon.social avatar

Your reminder

In 2016 Russia financed a series of ads along with an army of upvote bots. The intent was to divide america further from all angles

The senate intelligence committee released the following ads from Russia linked actors

These are from accounts with names like Blacktivists, Back the Badge, Secure Borders, Army of Jesus and so on. Every division covered

We’re heading into 2024. If you see a political ad trying to provoke you: mistrust it.

1/3)

Russian add posted to American social media, claiming to be against police brutality, but linked to a group that made divisions run deeper
Russian, financed political ad full of Islamophobia depicting women walking on the street and wearing a Burqa as evil somehow
Image of Russian, financed social media ad, saying back the badge, usually aimed at conservatives, even though they thrashed police on January 6

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@jesuisatire @Itty53 @flexghost

Because we need to hold the line.

I respect far left ideas and we need to work on those, but overwhelmingly the underrappreciated real grown-up work of preventing fascism (y'all love that word) has been done by American Democrats -- especially, perhaps first and foremost, Black American Democrats who participate in the process.

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@flexghost @jesuisatire @Itty53

"fascism" here increasingly seems to mean "anything on the right I don't like"

I'm not overly mad at that, but I also don't find it something that helpful people use

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@flexghost @jesuisatire @Itty53

I don't have any idea what you're trying to argue here. This appears to be a big doofy ad-hominem.

What's useful, again, is to stick to the actual topics. "What is fascism?" "What should we do in the political process?" etc.

Care to try again?

Jaden2, to random

I'm always reading on social media that black lives matter is a Marxist organization 🤔
I talk to my Grandpa who grew up in mississippi. He tells me about the racist shit he suffered.
Fk Marxist, BLM is just making sure black folk get treated with respect. What tf wrong with that ?
My Grandpa gets BLM . BLM is this generation Martin Luther King. 👊🏾
💪🏾

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@Jaden2

It's funny how they say you get "more conservative" as you get older. Which isn't true.

But here's what is: You do begin to realize that "poliitcal academic ideas/extremes/isms" are WAY less precisely useful than those who are into them want them to be.

I've read Marx, Adam Smith, etc. I've seen groups that call themselves "Communist/Marxist" whatever.

Those ideas are around, but the real local work is most important. If I'm forced to pick an ism, I'll go with "Localism."

TiffyBelle, to fediverse

This is a great article making a case against social media algorithmic feeds:

https://www.staygrounded.online/p/for-you-isnt/

Equating these feeds to "junk food" is apt, as they're tuned purely to increase user engagement with their platforms at the expense of all else. This "race to the bottom" approach incentivizes them to promote generally awful content as a literal business model.

RSS feeds and alternatives are broccoli, in comparison.

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@TiffyBelle

Sure, but I think the bigger issue isn't the existence of algorithmic feeds -- its' the existence of those feeds without input or knowledge about how EXACTLY they work.

mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

This thread is for straight men only.

How to read the news about the head of the Spanish soccer Federation (a man) forcibly kissing a player on the Spanish women's team on the lips, after winning the world cup. You might be thinking:

  • What's the big deal? They're European! It's their culture!
  • And she smiled afterwards!
  • It was just spontaneous! He was overcome with emotion!
  • She released a statement saying that what's important to focus on is the victory!
jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@mekkaokereke

And the more I think about it -- this is a really "people of Mastodon-centric" thing that people want that I think is kind of silly at best and offputting at worst.

Starting a thread in a public place like Mastodon in no way gives one any inherent right to strongly control it.

That's the .. price? of having a PUBLIC conversation.

One can certainly talk etiquette, but one is not entitled "king of the thread" status?

(edited to be less fingerpointy)

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@mekkaokereke

From reading this: I think -- like I said before -- I'm probably picking apart (perhaps unnecessarily) literally just your first sentence and "how you're approaching it" -- and I'll acknowledge that I might be being too nitpicky here?

I take no issue with wanting to address just straight men, I just feel like saying "HEY STRAIGHT MEN LISTEN UP" like never works :)

but again, maybe i'm old and it does

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