Yea I got the general or vague impression that this was reminiscent of their initial maps roll out.

Are any heads gonna roll for this?

You’re not alone. It happens! I’m around the 10 mark I think.

I agree. Multi communities are great. But managing a community’s connectivity with such features makes a lot of sense too!

Aahh … the good shit comments sections were made for! Thank you!

Surprising twists there about the tomb having been vacated by Egyptians due to flooding with the second tomb yet to be discovered.

Yep! Embracing boredom is likely the path back. Because it’s not a dead space. It’s a canvas.

I’ve been starting to think that it’s something us older millennials can actually do for our younger friends … remind, demo and teach what a less tech ruled life can look like, how tech can be treated as more humane and not a necessity.

Not to claim equivalence or anything, but smartphone and the internet (ironic saying so here I know).

I’m a xennial … old enough to remember living without all this and the middle time where computers were either games or just useful tools.

For me, and I’m pretty sure many others, I’m pretty convinced it’s better that way.

I’d really like to get away from these things, at least just to relearn older habits.

Yep. And it’s a point well made.

To me it all comes down to the consequences of 1) wanting the work to not just be easier but literally not involve thinking, and 2) how little attention people are paying to where these tools come from: just training on the whole Internet, not some intelligent analytical task specific tooling.

Big and obvious consequences fall out of these I think, and I’m a little frightened how little people think and talk about this.

That is interesting! Thanks for the tip!

Also, it’s their icon a community reference?

Came to say the same. It’s probably a step in the right direction, but for me at the moment, as much as it might be a slap in the face to all the creators who’ve infested their time into it, I’m inclined to say “not good enough” and learn to organise better if you want proper independence.

AFAICT, just providing some actual share ownership and decision making mechanisms would have made the difference.

Could be a pretty easy flag to be displayed on any community. Basically last time the mod logged in or was active (should be available).

Tech monopolies must be held to account, the outsized influence of some tech billionaires must be held in check, and competition must be allowed to thrive. We may also need to consider the protection of both consumers themselves and human-created works (including our history) as part of a conservation effort before extractive models permanently pollute our shared cultural resources.

Honestly feels like the main and perhaps only thing to do. Sure we can all do our own individualistic things, such as what we’re doing here on the Fedi.

But the whole AI thing reveals I think just how big of a problem this all is … big tech would rather consume and replace the whole internet with some fuzzy hype tech than empower its users in any way.

Awesome to see TBH. Friendica is kinda the platform that the Fedi forgot and it might be a better place if it got more love.

As a nerd, I don’t like the end of the article where she says we need to get revenge on the nerds.

I hear you, as many would I think. But realistically, I think calling tech culture into question, even beyond its manifestation in the psychotic tech CEO types, is worth while. It’s really had a dominant run both materially and culturally (a revenge as many would see it), and I think it’s worthwhile questioning the value of a lot of it, in a way I don’t think many nerds and tech people are capable of (sadly IMO).

There may be an inclination to separate the capitalism and nerdy parts. But as an industry/profession/whatever that generally tends to care a lot about itself in various ways … I think tech is disturbingly uninterested in caring about the quality of its profession beyond the bike shedding stuff let alone acting on it in any collective way. There are reasons for this, but given the dominance tech now has in the world, pushing back in the culture wholesale is justified I think.

Ha. Thanks … I guess! It was right there and I just happened to notice. It was definitely weird to see people using a word you made up though.

And yea, I stand by the idea of giving us forum like platforms a name against the weird Twitter obsession decentralised platforms have

Well I’ve been saying for a while that the fediverse needs to move on from Mastodon in order to grow, so this is a good sign. Though this is total users, not active users AFAICT.

Appreciated my friend!

No worries at all!

Also, I didn’t know at all about the Barbary Wars (and was quite surprised to hear of such a far flung US military engagement so early)

Yes they seem like reasonable metrics to me. But like you I don’t really know how to answer the question. But relative economic strength and influence are likely factors. So the post civil war gilded age would also been a likely point, which was the origin of my 150 yrs estimate. For 100 years, I figured post WWI was a pretty clear moment of relative strength.