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461 points GavinAnderegg | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.413s | source
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PaulHoule ◴[] No.42151244[source]
My take is that Bluesky is a nicer place than Mastodon.

Personally I think politics are terrible on microblogging platforms for the reason that you can't say very much in 140 characters or even 1400 characters.

A common kind of profile on that kind of platform is: "There are good people and bad people and I'm one of the good people"

It is very easy to other people and share memes that build group cohesion while driving other people away. Really making progress requires in politics a lot of "I agree with you about 90% but there is 10% that I don't" or "Well, I negotiated something in the backroom that you'd really hate but headed off a situation you would have thought was catastrophic but you won't appreciate that I did it so you and I are both better off if I don't tell you" and other sorts of nuance, you don't want to see how the sausage is made, etc.

To stand Mastodon (where you would have thought fascists were taking over the world a year ago if you believed what you read) I have to have about 20 or so block rules.

I see some people with the same kind of profiles on Bluesky but see a lot less othering in my feed because the "Discover" feed on Bluesky filters out a lot of angry content. My rough estimate is that it removes about 75% of the divisive political junk. That

(1) Immediately improves my feed, but also

(2) Reduces the amount of re-posted angry political content (it's like adding some boron to the coolant in a nuclear reactor) and

(3) Since angry political memes don't work anymore people find a different game to play

My guess is the X-odus folks are less agreeable than average for the same reason why people who "left California" to go to Colorado or someplace else are less agreeable. Those who go are less agreeable than those who stay. On the other hand, a certain amount of suppression of negativity could stop it from spreading and might not even be noticed as "censorship".

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Gormo ◴[] No.42153647[source]
> Personally I think politics are terrible on microblogging platforms for the reason that you can't say very much in 140 characters or even 1400 characters.

I think what you're saying here is not that politics are terrible on microblogging platforms, but that microblogging platforms are terrible, which is a pretty valid sentiment.

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safety1st ◴[] No.42154468[source]
I was surprised to learn recently that Rousseau, who is usually seen as a radical egalitarian, hated the democratization of publishing. [1]

His reasoning was complex but a lot of it revolved around the simple fact that as you get more people publishing, the intellectual quality of the average published work goes down.

I'm not ready to roll back the printing press, but in retrospect the digital era has proven him right about this. For instance his position kind of predicts Eternal September - the easier it gets to post online, the more numbskulls you have doing it. Microblogging is the ultimate expression of this and frequently the content you find on microblogging platforms is the absolute worst hot takes and generally the most vile stuff the moderation rules will permit because shock value generates impressions. It's every idiot on earth competing to be as flagrant and base as possible.

We usually hold up free speech as a virtue in Western societies and there are a lot of good reasons for that, but I'm increasingly inclined to treat microblogging less like publishing, and more like alcohol/tobacco/gambling, like it's something people do but they know it's not good for them, they do it anyway because it's addictive and easy.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8ucJ29O1kM

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1. kristianc ◴[] No.42155205[source]
That’s a pretty broad sweep (mis)characterization of Rousseau’s work. He was neither a radical egalitarian or hated the democratization of publishing.

He argues for a society where people are both free and equal, but he recognized that some forms of inequality could coexist with freedom, provided they were rooted in merit or necessity, rather than arbitrary privilege. Also, when he talked about the Rights of Man, it wasn’t a rhetorical flourishes, he did mean man.

It’s a mischaracterization too to say he hated the democratization of publishing. His own ideas gained traction precisely because publishing allowed them to reach broader audiences. His critiques of printing and arts weren’t aimed at access itself but at the unintended consequences that came with it.

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2. safety1st ◴[] No.42170040[source]
I really appreciate this comment as I always try to read the original authors but what little actual Rousseau I have read was over 20 years ago. I might be relying too much on short takes and what other people say about him. He is on the list for a proper reading eventually!