MikeGale

The original concept looks good but it, seemingly, didn't last.

The business model of, "owned by somebody who can sell it", may be at the root.

The possibilities that existed then, exist now, if people want to make the effort to control their own lives.

I've found myself trying to avoid email, for the enshittification that I've not been able to avoid.

This will make it worse.

Solutions? At least some could involve key exchange. How about a bounty of some sort on spammers?

The program is gold. It enables you to speedily and almost effortlessly build up code, in a way that I haven't seen elsewhere.

One formulation is that these are hallucinations. Another is that these systems are "orthogonal to truth". They have nothing to do with truth or falsity.

One expression of that idea is in this paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5

If there's an option to using alternatives to those you don't trust, like Google or Apple, that's good. If not you need to find an alternative service.

You need the choice.

Facebook does this already. Not only posts and comments but also messages between two people.

The system is used to hide content, change content, shadow ban and the like.

Even by its own standards it's typically used incorrectly, but most users have no workable way to appeal.

The content reviewed is often visible to low paid workers in various countries. Similar systems have been infiltrated by hostile governments. (Twitter is a case in point.)

(If you use FB you can sometimes probe the system and better establish the details.)

The system is also used to prevent one user informing another that they've been squelched.

My guess, this would give rise to even less competent implementations and actual elimination of political opponents and the like.

I'm unconvinced that this was dealing with humans. To me it looks like automated systems that synthesise human style interactions. The code isn't ready for release but they did anyway.

A person can't be that stupid, can they?

On this issue I suggest figuring it out for yourself. Look into the technology a bit and decide.

This issue illustrates that public pronouncements and published material can be misinformation and opposite to the obvious truth. Great ways to identify liars for yourself.

I'm not using DDG but I have checked how many sites use Google facilities which track. A lot more than 0.3.

1. Many of the creators of web sites and many of the users have changed. The creators often know diddly squat except some framework, they often work for a dullard and produce dull nonsense. The audience is often deeply "consumer" in the derogatory meaning of the word.

Result: When you're surfing you see so much of no interest that it's no longer fun.

(There is good stuff out there it's just so hard to find.)

2. The search engines also actively destroyed all those people who used to list interesting sites. Now the replacement for finding interesting sites is often some half witted algorithm, that's definitely not human, definitely hasn't the slightest clue and won't even let you take charge to get what you want.

3. People used to write their own material, experiment with program driven sites, be interesting. Now so many, even those who used to be interesting, make regurgi-posts all the time. They provide a link to an article that they've often not really read. That article is produced by somebody under time pressure who thinks the web is some text and a stock image or two, but mostly 100 times as much code as anything useful, so they can watch your every move, extract your money.

That's enough for now. If you want you can recreate the web as something that increases your intellect, not this destroyer abomination thing, choice is yours. If you have say five or so friends similarly inclined you can do it. Your choice.

Roger made a major contribution, in a quiet way.

Thoughts are with all those who miss him.

How do we even know, from that article, that this is a computer generated being?

A defeatist piece. If you're determined and have initiative you can achieve a lot. If you depend on the legislators in society, like this author, you may indeed be doomed. But you don't need to be.

The good thing is that with defensive measures you can stop much of it. With retroveillance you may even be able to strike back from time to time.

This needs to be opt in. Both from a web site and from a user.

I see something which may be referred to here.

I'm acquainted with people on social media who find that what they write on Facebook (say) is banned by the algorithmic being that reads before you post. Sometimes posts disappear. Sometimes they get sent to the naughty corner for 7 days.

The reason for a ban is sometimes a real head scratcher, as far as I can tell, but not always.

They've tried other places to have conversations. Some of those have also been torn down.

Some have gone away. I generally don't know where to, but some are setting up their own discussion spaces. (I've recommended that to those who've asked.)

Maybe a return to a former age where you controlled your own discussion spaces. A braai/BBQ in the back yard, a table in the corner of the pub, a ten day tramp through the mountains with four friends.

The decision making points seem to be known:

  *  Google kills projects at an increasing rate, the warning may be days

  *  Google has in the past destroyed quality images in their care

  *  If you don't pay you have only yourself to blame

I haven't signed up with Signal because it's a source of surveillance for me. It gives out a phone number.

It also leaks contact lists making it worse.

A communication medium has no need to force people under surveillance. Why not just assume you're an adult dealing with adults and let people choose. Choose their handle, need to opt in to sharing contacts. (Would also be ethical that they're forced to tell each person that they gave away their details.)

Should you not tell your contacts that you gave their details to Clubhouse?

Just remember, Iranian intelligence is no doubt monitoring this discussion.

Is there any need not to have, online, in person discussions and learn for yourself, mixed to suit you and the institution? I think not.

Neither a one size fits all online lecture nor a physical lecture with a lot of students, is tailored to the individual student very much, or interactive. I'd prefer to see education that is personalised.

I don't understand the background here.

There is one thing we can all do, if we care about Tor, donate now.

I suspect that there are organisations that deliberately design their reporting systems to prevent reporting.

This article covers some big name companies, there are others that are critical too: 1. National tax collection organisations. 2. Banks. That, in my experience, prevent the fixing of problems, with anti-useful reporting channels.

I've not yet found any third party it's sensible use for the reporting.

Why isn't there a successful distributed alternative to YouTube and the like?

Some things to consider (we're doing most of these):

1. Find out what is going on, the Interwebs are your friends. The press and politicians aren't much use. The bureaucracy (China, Japan, Iran for example) are not much use and may make things worse.

2. Carry around some sanitising, no water, hand cleaner.

3. Get a few decent masks and read up how long to use them.

4. Find out what Fomites are and think about what that means.

5. Read up on hand cleaning. What you do now, CDC style, WHO style, operating theatre style and decide what to do. Start now.

6. Practice coughing and sneezing in a safe way, even if you're not naturally doing that now.

7. Study up on the Bayesian priors of the different ways the disease may hit you, 80% pretty mild. Check incubation times, up to 24 days, so who knows why they're still using 14. Asymptomatic people can spread for all, or most, of those incubation days. Get your mind into thinking about those and all the mechanics. If you're really determined solve some of the ODE's, for SIR, SEIR etc. program that and run your own epidemic progression models.

8. Prepare for a siege if it comes to that. Maybe write out operating procedures and lay in some supplies. For example if people have to deliver food etc. and leave it on the doorstep or whatever, work out the details.

9. Go visit people you care about who are frail or have compromised immune systems BEFORE anything breaks.

10. With Epidemics the populace is generally slow to realise it has started and also slow to realise it has finished. Think about that, prepare yourself. Don't be one of the fools.

11. If you don't already work from home, or have an understanding about that, get it fixed right away.

12. All the above also for your nearest and dearest too.

ENUF.

A fascinating area. I've seen several people getting into it in one way or another:

Blendle

The system in the Brave browser

Scroll

...

What I really want is:

1. A friction free way to pay what I want AFTER I've read an article (I assume a base level fee to read it in the first place) so that I can reward an excellent article. I want to know that that money goes to those who made that article not all the other people at the "publication".

2. Coverage of many good articles and publications, so that I can get most anything I want.

3. Excellent search that suits me. (Would be great bonus to have a mechanism to automatically hook me up to a rewardable version.)

4. No attempted surveillance at all. (I block much of it but hate that people try this nonsense, and I note that they do, if they're really objectionable I block them permanently at the DNS. Newspapers and magazines tend to be the worst offenders of all.)

The article comes on so strong that many will be inclined not to believe it.

One point. The encrypted systems are many and not inter-operable. That's a problem for me and many others.

I’ve recently withdrawn from email, Internet and TV for a while. I’m currently reconnecting.

My main observation is that I’m happy getting back onto the things where I exert some control. Those with little control are harder to stomach:

1. TV news is one of the hardest. I can silence the adverts but the news itself is a horror. In most “items” I see blatant political manipulation, viciousness without apparent reason, ignorance and stupidity so deep that I’m dumbfounded. So much propaganda and disinformation. Can’t find any channel that is much good, not controllable. (Also newspapers, for them add plenty of hysteria.)

2. eMail has also proved surprisingly hard. The hard part is all the spam. (I don’t use surveillance capitalist mail servers, run my own.) I decided to go through my spam traps first. So much utter rubbish that it’s put me off. Outnumbers the good stuff even after automated pre-winnowing. Would be better if I could find a way to retaliate effectively against those who pay for spam.

3. Facebook is quite easy. I have a number of measures in place that put my content under my own control. Not that hard to get back into. (Though I find more people, a lot, are using it less and bailing out altogether as time goes on. It’s dying.)

4. Twitter is dead easy. You choose who you follow. That gives you a lot of control, so can be pleasant to use.

5. The Internet (WWW) in general is not too bad. I have a variety of tools to control and exclude those who want to watch everything I do. Gives me control.

My take away: The media you can control can be rewarding and worthwhile.

Remarkable how these debates reveal how many have a "scientific" attitude. Generally very few.

There is no such thing as "done science". Science is about hypotheses that are questioned and challenged to come up with a better hypothesis.

I'm astonished how this simple thing is not evident in much of the debate.

I find it interesting how this sort of thing is spreading so far.

The CCP state, Facebook, Google... now Gaggle.

I hope there's some studies of the damage such things do to people.

How much do they lose the ability to control their own lives?

How does this change their attitude to other people?

Respect for authority?

Most of all, this ought to be opt-in, opt-in only, and if you opted-in you can get out again. My reading of the articles says it's none of these.

Thanks, I haven't noticed any of those comments. I'll mull that over.