LarmyOfLone

Thanks, really interesting analysis! I'd argue that profit seeking is significant in this change though. Polarizing content leads to anger and higher engagement. So any algorithm that is written or trained to increase profit from advertisement will encourage that outcome.

I believe there are other influences too, the fascists and putin trolls (agitprop) has led to some "automatic downvote and ban reflex". On lemmy the mods are basically power tripping non stop in trying to curate their fief into a single minded community that brooks no dissent. There is one narrative and anyone dissenting is a . On all sides, people are just sick of the bullshit and are on a hair trigger.

This seems to the be result of the last decade of mainstream media and social media being run for profit through engagement. I have no idea of how to reverse this.

The problem is that the mainstream is simply declaring historical events one way and any other dissenting viewpoint or evidence is suppressed. And there IS evidence.

The fascists (and Putin's propaganda trolls) have been successful in disruption any dialogue between people from the actual left: socialists. Not the neoliberal "democrats".

And now you do their work for them: You censor the socialists (marxist-leninist, maoists) because some "dirtbag left" troll once was mean to someone. You probably can't even link to an example of what you accuse entire group of. But this tankie slur gets repeated and amplified more and more. People simply call you tankie, downvote and everyone piles on without thinking.

The problem is that disinformation and post-truth doublethink on the so called "left" (=neoliberals) is almost indistinguishable from MAGA like OP.

If you check out lemmy from an instance that hasn't defederated from the socialist instances you'll see that basically half of lemmy activity is invisible - the socialist half. The result is rather predictable.

Your link directly contradicts that "everybody... always..." thought this since there is discussion about it. My point is that it's an attitude problem and the aspiration to do better has an effect. And this had an effect and that has changed.

Well in this case they used his likeness and brand to appear more legitimate and make money. So I'd argue this is trademark (even if not registered) so a legitimate complaint.

I don't believe in "copyright" for a voice. See for example impersonators. But in this case it's a deliberate deception which is pretty simple.

I don't believe in intellectual property at all and think it is a form of theft, to deprive others from common knowledge or information just to seek rent. In case of patents I equate it even to aiding in genocide, since most advances in more energy efficiency use are patented and exploited for profit and slowing down adaptation. Without exhaustive attempts to try other systems to pay creators, copyright law is a moral abomination. That is a philosophical or ethical argument, not a legal one.

Thanks, sometimes it does feel like going crazy!

I really wish we could design systems that allow to come closer to that old ideal again. But maybe that age has simply passed and all of our attitudes have changed forever. For example instead of just voting up or down, you could vote for example "funny" or "contributes" or "misinformation". Maybe there are even some clever statistical algorithms in the background aiding that. Somehow technology ought to evolve to further good discussion.

IMDB used to be independent and have a pretty amazing forum for movies. Like people would have lots of debate and discussion and insight. I loved going there after watching a movie. It was sort of "secondary literature" and nothing like this existed before. Then they just decided to delete countless contributions and shut it down. Instead of paying for moderation for the few trolls.

Of course there are plenty of other movie forums, some even copies the old posts and there is r/movies, but it's much more fractured now. There are certain network effects for social media that need to reach a critical size.

This is simply incorrect. It's true that they now evolved completely to that, but you are wrong stating that it was always like this. It's still in the reddiquette: https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette

Vote. If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you think it does not contribute to the subreddit it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it.

This used to be understood that people often treated it as agree/disagree but that you are "supposed to be better than that". And that made a difference.

It's historic revisionism to say it was always like this because clearly there was discussion about this if you go just 10 years back: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/search/?q=downvote

Basically any anti-imperialist and anti-US empire critique is stamped as Putin/China apologism and downvoted or outright banned. You don't even have to be a socialist to be "odious". And of course the big instances have already defederated from the major socialist instances.

Not sure what year but the culture definitely changed somewhere around 2008-2016. A big part was trump of course, but before that the rise in android and iphone and becoming more popular to a broader segment of the public (e.g. "boomers"). Before it was tech enthusiasts all on desktop PC. This was also before toxic gamer culture.

If you don't think it changed you must have trauma induced amnesia.

Peaceful contact with aliens would tell us something fundamental about the nature of ethics and the universe.

Advanced aliens do not need any material resources or real estate from humanity. We can already interpolate that from existing science. So that is not the reason why there are here. And we know they haven't exterminated us already centuries ago.

Instead it would tell that we share some fundamental values like curiosity and diversity with alien species - as long as they evolved through natural selection and had to raise and teach and love their children. As long as they had to find productive ways to work together as a people.

We would realize that we are not alone and that we are being judged. That we can't just endlessly bulldoze the galaxy and that there are limits to acceptable behavior. Because there is always someone more powerful that could smash us, but they already didn't. That certain ethical ideals are fundamental properties emerging from the universe itself.

It would be a powerful counter to the current nihilistic materialism, that we need to start working to improve our culture.

Yeah the book has an amazing depiction of a truly alien mind that is fundamentally different because of how it functions.