DreamyDolphin

DreamyDolphin, 10 months ago

And apparently it is adult-themed and explores millennial angst and disenchantment, because reasons. Yes, really.

DreamyDolphin, 10 months ago

I feel like there's a bit of cart-before-the-horse thinking here; as you acknowledge, a lot of it is organic. What makes a social site like this is the people, and specifically, the dynamic/active people who become the hubs of content or who are known characters - for instance, shittymorph (with their incredible talent for weaving fabrications before the inevitable twist) or poem_for_your_sprog who had a natural flair for both poetry and snark. Without individuals with personality, a place just becomes a noticeboard for the posting of memes or information, driven by algorithmic calculation rather than human spark. The downside is that one can never really create such a place from the ground up (hence the collapse of GooglePlus). It emerges over time from the cascading actions and interactions of diverse individuals who come and go over time.

We can certainly set standards and rules and metrics, but to actually ensure community survives and flourishes is an unknowable alchemy. Anyone can say "this will be our official meme format", but whether it takes off or is replaced by one throwaway line from a random person can only be known after the fact. All we can really do is post and interact and try to be the people who would live in a constructive community.

DreamyDolphin, 10 months ago

I'd say the more incredible part is how Twitter is still going, and how people are still actively there, in spite of the rolling dumpster fire that's been happening for literally months now.

DreamyDolphin, 10 months ago

Yes, on par I lean towards it being a good thing as publicly available information rather than shadowy mud-slinging. I had one post downvoted by someone who apparently has done nothing else before or since, which takes a bit of the sting out of it. There will probably be debates about it at some point, and probably the occasional tit-for-tat attacks around the place, but overall I think it does link a bit more identity to the person who does the up- or down-voting which creates more of a community feel instead of hiding behind total anonymity.

DreamyDolphin, 10 months ago

Eternal September? At this time of day, at this time of year, localised entirely within the fediverse?!

DreamyDolphin, 10 months ago

I think we tend to overestimate how solid things are, even in the digital world. The concept of "bit-rot", for instance, shows how online links degrade over time as sites move or, say, a major website preparing for an IPO enrages its users who then delete or edit all their comments in protest (lol, like that'd ever happen).

Semi-relevant xkcd

DreamyDolphin, 10 months ago

There's no solution in the same way that there's no "solution" to winning rock-paper-scissors. The cycle is endless because the desire to be in control is a key part of human nature, whether that be an authoritarian "I want everyone to do what I say" or a more oligarchic "I accept that there's others at my level, so we can cooperate so that everyone else does what we say", and any attempt to change those systems requires an equivalent amount of force that can all too easily lead one into side-tangents of trying to keep said force focused.

As a side note, Machiavelli identified the cycle in politics in his "Discourse on Livy" - a powerful and strong-willed individual takes power (e.g. Caesar or Napoleon), his descendants wield power with less and less efficiency until in time the aristocracy seize the reins, and they get more and more corrupt and out of touch until finally the people rise up and enforce some level of democratic sway. Unfortunately, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, which is exhausting, and so over time things run down until some powerful and strong-willed individual takes power and it all starts again. It's not purely linear - an aristocracy can be subsumed into a strong individual leadership (e.g. the popes in the 19th century grabbing power back from the cardinals) and a king can be overthrown by a democratic uprising (e.g. Louis XVI of France - though technically it did go through a brief aristocratic moment, as he re-convened the parliament to try and get around the nobility who wouldn't fund his wars, indicating his powers had weakened). But in general we oscillate between these three modes of social organisation because of the difficulty in centralising power and in then keeping it from being corrupted (i.e. using it for selfish purposes) once it is centralised.

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

The 3rd party apps are closing at the end of this month, which means there'll be somewhere around a week or so of people realising just how bad the official app is, plus decreased quality content as the actually-motivated people who post things continue their gradual migration away from reddit and driving redditors to seek other places to gather.

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

People will come, it's just a matter of time and having the patience to cultivate organic communities rather than trying to simply will them into existence all at once a la GooglePlus (or whatever their attempt at a social network was called)

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

I wonder how much of this stems from that announcement a few weeks back that Wagner was going to be subordinated to the MoD? I haven't heard anything about it since it was announced (since my main source of information was that front page of the internet which just descended into its own civil war...) From vague recollection, Prigozhin said he was refusing to sign any contracts formalising such arrangements but Putin was backing the defence minister Shoigu on this one, to presumably try and rein in Wagner a bit and keep the game of musical chairs going as Putin's underlings all vied for influence without anyone being the clear heir apparent.

Looks like it may have backfired spectacularly if so, because Prigozhin had to have known it would have meant his end if he'd accepted Shoigu's control, and, as Sun-Tzu warns, a cornered animal (or army) with no way out will fight to the death.

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

I'm on the fence about it. On the one hand, the memes (at least the ones I've seen) were heavily influenced by the article in The Atlantic a week ago about orcas attacking yachts, tapping into the justified vein of resentment against out-of-touch billionaires - a label which can apply to three of those on board the Titan. The fact that these people paid $250,000 each to go down and sit near a shipwreck that they couldn't see (portholes would be a dangerous pressure-point) instead of using that money to actually benefit humanity in a time of widespread hardship is questionable at best - and what does the company they gave this money to spend those millions of dollars on? Obviously not quality-controlled safety tests.

On the other hand, there is the human dimension of the teenage son who was terrified about the trip and only went as a Father's Day bonding experience with his rich dad, or the French naval expert who was genuinely knowledgeable about the Titanic and had recovered many artifacts from the wreck over his life, which represents a genuine loss of expertise.

So I smile when I see the pic of orcas banging pans and saying "billionaires, it's safe to dive now!" But I don't go out of my way to find those memes or exult over the deaths.

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

Paul Ekman demonstrated back in the 1960s that, when showing photos of expressions to previously-uncontacted tribes in Papua New Guinea, these people who had no access to other media recognised and could name the feelings described. Also, blind children who have not been told what "a smile" is, will display the facial expression automatically. This research finding was one of the nails in the coffin of the Behaviourist school of psychology (with rats pulling levers) that said everything was learned by rewards/punishments.

Ekman identified 6 "basic" emotions: happy, sad, disgusted, angry, scared, and surprised (which, except for the last one, were the characters in Pixar's "Inside Out"). Later researchers have proposed a seventh emotion of "pride", which has the posture of puffed-out chest and smug half-smile, which again is displayed by blind athletes on winning competitions.

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

They think it would be a good idea because they aren't interested in actual debate so much as performance and sound-bites to drive advertising revenue - to quote Sartre's point that increasingly applies in so many situations these days:

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is chronologically the first movie of Segrio Leone's "Dollars" trilogy even though it was the last one released.

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

Technically Lore didn't do it himself, he summoned the crystalline entity which killed everyone.

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

I'd estimate that the next wave will be sooner, at the end of the month when the 3rd party apps shut down and a lot of people suddenly realise they have to use the official app and go "oh wait, is this what that protest thingy was all about?" It probably won't be the critical-mass point (at a guess that would happen around the time old.reddit is closed), but it will likely make some big waves

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

Does this mean pokemon tears are actually WD-40?

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

I saw a gnome at a grocery store in the forest yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for shoes or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen toadstools in his hands without paying.
The maiden at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the toadstools and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each toadstool and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

From my new-and-limited understanding, it can potentially be an issue if similarly- or identically-named instances are on different servers - someone over on Lemmy noted that the mod of lgbt is also the mod of conservative. If you don't know a post is from X@kbin or X@lemmy that could be a source of confusion depending on the quality of the different source-communities.

In the grand scheme of things, presumably whichever one is the more user-friendly will get the audience share and the other would wither away to the footnotes of history, but it's still a potential issue in the meantime. Happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken on all this, still very much a beginner here.

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

I found a tasty-looking recipe for pan-fried chicken that I'll be trying tonight, and got some new high-quality macadamia oil.

DreamyDolphin, 11 months ago

Like many others, fleeing the flaming chaos of reddit, hoping that there will emerge an organic and engaging community here. Much as I prefer lurking by nature, I'm aware that these places only grow when there's participation, so this is me joining in.

I have an eclectic range of interests and hobbies, and really need to work on my small talk/casual chatting skills rather than overthinking things. So hi all!