The Doctor

We already have that. It’s been the state of affairs since 2016.

Politics sucked just as hard when people couldn’t. The only real difference is, now people know that there are folks who ignore them and they hate that.

Why is it that every time somebody stands up to say that information bubbles are bad, it’s usually holding hands with “and I want you to be able to see every single thing I post and you are forbidden to opt out?”

Here’s the thing: We had this before. This is nothing new. This is not a crisis or even worthy of note. This might reflect the cycle repeating again at best, but ultimately it’s a tempest in a teapot.

BBSes were, for the most part, isolated but sometimes federated communities. They had their own moderation policies, their own rules of conduct, and their own local communities. Sometimes, if they were part of a BBS network those communities were in contact with each other. Those BBS networks had their own policies, moderators, and so forth. It was usual for users of a given BBS to also be users of other BBSes; those users fit into the community of each other system pretty normally.

Usenet was distributed across hundreds, if not thousands of servers across the Net; still is, if you read it. Each newsgroup had its own community, rules of conduct, FAQ (usually), and sometimes its own moderation team (the .moderated variants were well known). Rules were enforced, communities were unique to the newsgroup, and norms were followed. Again, it was not unusual for a given user to participate in multiple newsgroups and the communities thereof.

E-mail lists were not that different.

That’s great. But will it actually change anything?

flips the switch on the wall

SCOTUS will decide after they check their bank account balances. But they’ll probably ban it, because China.

That’s how a lot of companies do stuff, though. They see what competitors get away with, figure out how moving the Overton window a little more will benefit them, and if the payoff is more than the risk they do it. That’s how advertising has become so ubiquitous, that’s how selling user data became so common: Wait for someone else to take the heat, make preparations while the controversy is happening, and when it dies down take the next step in that direction.

unable to decrypt message

Here we go again. Once more, folks don’t fucking listen when they’re warned. And the ones who should have listened just got branched again.

unable to decrypt message

Just look at Usenet these days. If there are any organics left hanging out on there.

If Luigi lives that long. We have a betting pool at work going that gives it 5:1 that he’ll be a Texas suicide.

Explains why so many people don’t seem to have consciences anymore, doesn’t it?

They also have to keep their editors happy. One of an editor’s jobs is to push back on the folks who write articles, and occasionally rewrite parts of them. And the editors have folks above them in the food chain pulling the strings. News companies aren’t monoliths, they’re spiderwebs of people pushing and pulling on other people because there are obligations all over the place.

To put it another way, “You can’t say that or you’re fired. You’ll never work in this city again.” And, because there aren’t many celebrity journalists, it’s a very real risk.

otherwise you’re just allowing the government to dictate moderation policies

I think that’s what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to manipulate how this particular memeplex is being circulated from person to person as an information control measure. They don’t want this idea catching on.

Does it really matter? The simulacrum is more real than real people these days, at least as far as the system as a whole is concerned.

Why not just let their constructs post at one another while us (mostly-) organics ignore them? Just like Usenet.

Depends on whether or not they have local phys.sec and how much of an asshole they want to be.

I do the same thing - it’s a brag book. I make sure nothing proprietary goes into it but it always stays at home. Mostly, I keep it because I use it as a source of information when I update my resume’ every few months.

Easily. A lot of people aren’t capable of (and I’m not trying to spin a pun here, I swear) reflection anymore.