This is a pretty great, long form post about the structure of Bluesky, and how it’s largely kinda pretending to be decentralized at the moment. I’m not trying to make a dig at it. I’ve enjoyed the platform myself for a while, but it’s good to learn more about how it actually works.
This article was shared on Mastodon via its author here.
people actually challenged eachothers views (mostly) constructively
No, like I said, it’s an illusion among Redditors.
Upvoting, downvoting,
Both actively harmful due to the way human brains are wired. Putting pressure onto people actually having a spine, and provoking ape behavior from the rest.
Until one day spez and all the reddit mods decided to let their platform eat shit.
It wasn’t one day. Soft censorship in favor of China and Democratic party and what not became a thing much earlier.
There were places that circlejerked, no doubt about it, but what everyone fails to realize is that reddit was a place for pretty much everyone. So if you thought that subreddit was a circlejerk, feel free to join or make a different one. Like open source software getting forked.
They all very circlejerks of some kind. The paradigm works this way.
All these different social medias want us to be trapped in some sort of bubble through the illusion of choice. The short character limit is also what causes these sites to always be inferior to places like reddit and lemmy whether they like it or not. No one has a chance to fully expand on what they actually think or cite sources instead of being blasted immediately after their first post by getting blocked, cancelled, or moderated to oblivion.
Length of text and softness of moderation are good, but do not change the fact that any fool can write a long elaborate smart-looking text, that has nothing to do with honest discussion.
Agree to disagree about the rest of your points. However I disagree 1000% on the engagement argument because when youtube decided dislikes shouldnt exist it was an immediate reaction that it was bullshit.
The pressure is necessary no matter what. If you post some dumb shit dont expect to have just 2 likes. Expect to have 50 dislikes and 2 likes. It helps without even needing to add context, and if you felt especially strong about it then you can reply with that context. This “ape behavior” is called having an opinion without needing to state that you have an opinion all the time. Let the numbers speak for themselves.
You get likes for dumb shit. You get dislikes for angry dumb shit. You get a lot of likes for dangerous vile dumb shit.
What you get a lot of dislikes for is nuance and something that could sober the crowd up if they listened. Possibly dumb shit too, but correctly positioned to irritate the comfort of dangerous vile dumb shit.
This “ape behavior” is called having an opinion without needing to state that you have an opinion all the time.
No, opinions can only be expressed in a friendly conversation. Opinions are a systems of thought with all the accompanying context. You can’t possibly express an opinion while fighting someone.
Let the numbers speak for themselves.
I’ve just described what they say.
EDIT: BTW, about instincts - I’ve just turned off scores on Lemmy. You should try that, you’ll feel that you unexpectedly need to have your own opinion, very often - which means that with scores displayed you would not think.
Downvoted. And when you downvote me I wont take it to heart. But being a contrarian under the guise as a free thinker then burying your head in the sand is the reason we’re in the mess we’re in.
When you get downvoted on some of your future posts and wonder why not many reply or interact with you dont get pissed off when others like myself use the data to be informed. You make a lot of generalizations and excuses for something that has been a vital part of the internet for decades.
