cdrini

Out of curiosity, what are your favourite features that are unique to your implementation?

I think scopes/criteria/boundaries on communities are fine, I disagree that invite-only (as one implementation of community boundaries) is the future of online communities.

Although the statement "invite-only only is the future of online communities" isn't super well defined (what does it mean to "be the future"?), so I think the comments are debating past each other.

I think some are fine, but if I had to choose one I'd choose open access, so I think it's the more important of the two. And in fact it's because the web is open, "no permission needed" by default that allows elitist groups to exist on the web. So I don't think I see it as a mistake. The alternative would be... You can only create a website if you're invited to the internet by someone who already has access? You have to get approval for your website from some authority before it goes public? Those were all potential futures we imo thankfully and carefully avoided!

Hmmmm interesting analogy! I'm not too sure if cliques apply as much to online communities. Cliques are usually exclusionary not because people don't meet the criteria/scope of the clique, but by scale constraints, eg how many people someone can maintain a close relationship with. Online communities are kind of sufficiently different because of this scale. They can grow basically indefinitely, and are only limited by the stated scope/criteria of the community.

Invitation-only is the future of online communities.

This feels antithetical/dystopian/elitist compared to what online communities are, for me. I think it's ok for some communities to be like this, but I don't think it's the future of online communities.

keeps going on hit miss

(Is this a typo?)

What open source alternatives have you switched to recently? Always on the lookout for good OS tools!

I think there are many arguments for and against this type of regulation. Good arguments on both sides take into account nth-order effects. But both sides have different priorities, and have different weighing of the trade-offs. Calling one side effectively "thick" isn't really taking part in the debate.

(And cause and effect are taught pretty early on in school; not sure you need to learn "systems thinking" to understand nth-order effects.)

What are the nth-order effects that you think are not being considered or weighted accordingly by proponents of this regulation?

I quite enjoyed Blindsight, but that was not my takeaway at all :P How do you see people differently after reading it?

Very interesting book/idea! Adding it to my "to read" list. The more I think about it, there is kind of a two-step process here; entropy creates chaos/disorder, but chaos/disorder creates an environment ripe for kinds of natural selection/complexity build-up. It's almost like an echo or interference pattern or eddy of entropy.

And I think with regards to my initial principle, I think the value is that it came to exist to this extent in one system. That given countless currents/eddies of entropy, a "sand spiral" built up to be miles upon miles tall, where most spirals only made it to a few centimetres before an entropy wave brought them crashing down. Because the "functional bits" in the universe increasing doesn't mean a single sand spiral will get that tall necessarily (unless we assume infinite time?). And if we assume finite time, then that makes this occurrence even more valuable and important to defend, since it's unclear if left to the randomness of entropy/time's arrows if such a buildup of complexity/"functional bits" would occur again before time ends.

Not too sure, those are my initial thoughts, but need to sit with it longer. Thank you for sharing!

Interesting reads! Apologies, that's not what I intended to communicate, but I can understand where that conclusion came from.

I think understanding and exploring the universe is an essential "success metric" for intelligent life like humanity -- but I don't think it's at the expense of all else. I mentioned it because it, to me, makes a humanity that abandoned complexity a "failed" humanity. Although again, on an individual basis I think this is a fine option.

An underlying principle I believe in is an avoidance of waste. It's this principle that underpins part of why I think there is an obligation for humanity to understand/explore: to avoid wasting our improbable "gift". This principle constrains the principle of understanding/exploration and relates to Earth. Earth and life on Earth is itself rare and the result of its own biological lotteries. To blindly exploit Earth's resources is not only wasteful but shortsighted as well towards humanity's own survival. So I think I'm in stewardship on that spectrum, but need to sit with it a bit more.

With regards to the first article, I think it outlines many of the complexities around humanity's space travel and habitation. For me, the key bit is understanding and exploration; ie the seeing/understanding of what the universe is/has (on Earth as well as elsewhere). I don't actually think this has to be humanity. I think more broadly the obligation I've mentioned lies with intelligent life not necessarily humanity (we just happen to be the only example of such we're aware of). Habitation isn't as big a piece for me. If we can send robotic "eyes" for intelligence to see through, or if we create other intelligent life with different properties from humanity that can see/explore, I consider this goal met.

Thought-provoking write-up. One part of this is the "meaning of human life". Part of that for me is: humans are the only known lifeform that can look at the stars and try to understand. And, to the best of our understanding, this ability arose from winning a billion biological lotteries, from the blind system of nature and natural selection which by complete coincidence, stumbled on intelligence as a beneficial trait for reproduction, and optimized for it to the point of creating sentience and free will.

It's this incredibly improbable event that I think gives humanity as a whole an obligation to try to understand and explore the universe. To not do so, I think would be a waste of this incredibly unlikely "gift". And that appears to require complexity in order to understand and explore.

Note I think this is an obligation of humanity, not necessarily every individual human. I think free will means individuals can choose not to.

The other part of this is complexity of modern society. I'm not certain whether all the elements of modern society are necessary for this overarching meaning, and pieces of it could potentially be reduced, but I think it would be tricky. Society begins whether you want it to or not as soon as you have more than one individual with free will, and some complexity arises inevitably. But haven't thought about this side as much; it's an interesting side of this discussion.

I find it hard to assign good faith to someone who says the question "Could a being capable of perpetrating such a thought really be unconscious?" is the same as proclaiming "AI is conscious"! But assuming good faith, I think he is genuinely asking a question, challenging his own beliefs, and keeping his mind open. He seems throughout like he's not convinced it's conscious. The thing he's struggling with is coming up with an empirical, observable reason as to why not. And this lack of ability to come up with a reason is what prompted the question. And it's an interesting question; I too don't think they're fully conscious, but I think I would struggle with an observable argument as to why not. (Before reading his article, I wouldn't have used the word "fully")

This perspective is unique, and makes sense for someone as staunchly scientific as Dawkins. Science is all about observable phenomena and empirical evidence. His background studying animals also reinforces this perspective, since he's used to interacting with creatures on the "consciousness spectrum".

If you're open to consciousness being a spectrum and that AI might have some sort of conscious, then I think you're largely aligned with what Dawkins was musing in this article.

Is anyone disagreeing with that statement?

True, but arguably better than "sorry, to use our website, you must have a ChatGPT subscription."

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/18/up-to-70-...

Up to 70% of streams of AI music on Deezer were fraudulent!

I think one could argue that one. Is a DDoS a symptom? In which case the intent is irrelevant. Or is a DDoS an attack/crime? In which case it is. We kind of use it to mean both. But I think it's generally the latter. Wikipedia describes it as a "cyberattack", so actually I think intent is relevant to our (society's) current definition.

Exactly. Identifying crawlers like Google, bing aren't the issue. They obey robots.txt, and can easily be blocked by user agent checks. Non-identifying crawlers, which provide humanlike user agents, and which are usually distributed so get around ip-based rate limits, are the main ones that are challenging to deal with.

The first is incorrect, these scrapers are usually distributed across many IPs, in my experience. I usually refer to them as "disturbed, non-identifying crawlers (DNCs)" when I want to be maximally explicit. (The worst I've seen is some crawler/botnet making exactly one request per IP -_-)

I found this on open library from 1989, if useful: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL5859479W/Steel_construction?...

With a few other options in search:

https://openlibrary.org/search?q=%22steel+construction%22&mo...

Gish-galloping! Today I learned, I'm going to have to remember that one. I think people can also gish-gallop unintentionally; especially in online discussion threads. When someone leaves comments that are very long, poorly organized, and more stream of consciousness.

The Wikipedia page has some good counter-strategies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

I extremely quickly dismiss them in the most polite, but firm, way possible.

And I think that's the answer; people who don't want to talk will simply tell you! And everyone carries on.

While observing the benefits of his position, I also empathize with the struggles that must come with unexpected widespread fame. And I never said he is/should succumb to the pressure, but again I empathize that navigating that pressure is an added stress of his position. A stress which I'm grateful isn't part of my life, and not one I would trade any of my average Joe problems for. I'm personally not convinced by your argument, and still struggle to see how the word dystopian made it into the conversation.

And although of course you do not owe an explanation for your opinion, I do find it a bit ironic that you were the one asking of others to defend/expand on theirs, but are yourself unwilling to do the same. But I understand it, it can be difficult and time consuming to reflect on one's opinions and come up with a clear and concise write-up of those thoughts that others can enjoy and benefit from. That's why I respect it when people are able to do that -- people like Jack Edwards, perhaps? ;)

I think it's an interesting relationship between influencers, especially young ones, and their followers.

Young influencers of this nature get a following because of their authenticity. They're genuine, honest, about their experiences, and the comments reflect it. People in the comments open up about their own problems and insecurities and issues. It creates an "illusion of community" as Edwards says in the article.

Now couple with that the complication of making money. An influencer indirectly makes money from their followers. I could easily see how someone who makes that authenticity part of their brand/identity feeling an obligation to their followers to continue to be honest even on subjects of high emotion. These people who are responsible for your success, your lifestyle, how could you be anything but brutally honest with them?

And just like in real relationship where showing vulnerability can strengthen bonds, it has the same effect on the influencer-follower relationship -- despite in reality being parasocial. And strengthening that bond also results in more faithful followers, which is financially beneficial.

Now, whether a given influencer is being vulnerable due to obligation or due to financial incentives, is unclear. For many it seems more obviously financial. But for others it does seem like a bit of a complicated mixture of the two.

Edit: Here's the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8J8fWCNqCI . Personally this feels more genuine than financially motivated, but that's me. And to be fair there is no actual crying in the video! Seems like a bit of a dishonest wording by the author of the article to claim as such.

For me it was poignant as the story of a young man who has for his entire life been keen on reading, writing, and communicating, who has in a way achieved what he was looking to achieve, and unknowingly created a set of shackles from his own success/fame that he's struggling to reason with and untangle. I can't imagine the pressure of loving to critique books, but then being slapped with labels like “#1 most read on GoodReads” . How could you make fun critique videos knowing that an honest negative critique could tank an author's career? It seems like a lot of pressure.

His quote about internet "community" also especially struck me as poignant: “You have this illusion of community when we’re really very alone.” There are loads of young people who I imagine have an over-emphasis in their lives on online "community", and I really do think it is an illusion. I've been toying with the idea whether community can really even exist if you can't see each other in person.

I'd be curious as to your interpretation that led to you finding the article poignant in the archaic sense (sharp or pungent in taste or smell) or dystopian.

I've seen a few of his videos over the years and remembered them similarly to your description, but watching that video you linked to I think he does do a proper critique. Goes into what makes the writing weak, plot drag, links books to other books, and even has a deep understanding of an authors' body of works to be able to compare and provide insight.

And in the beginning of the video he gives quite a lot of praise to BookTok, so I reckon the title is more tongue-in-cheek hyperbole, with a dash of clickbait!

Second definition of power on Google: "the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events." Influence is a reasonable part of the definition.

Depends on how you define power, and the article is defining it as influence. Do Jack Edwards reviews influence a substantial population of people to buy/read certain books? Seems like yes. If he's the world's most powerful, that depends on if others are _more_ influential. I personally don't know of any individual who has as big a following that influences reading. So the claim holds for me and doesn't seem hyperbolic.

And on the flip side, sometimes there's no need to learn a lesson! One of my pet peeves is when people draw huge conclusions about people/things based on way too few interactions (small sample size). Sometimes someone is just having a bad day. But if it happens again and again and again, _then_ you should draw conclusions.

Yeah, but the lead makes it seem like an organisational decision:

Ever since Linux got a graphical desktop, you could middle-click to paste – but if GNOME gets its way, that's going away soon, and from Firefox too.

But who knows, maybe it is a team decision, I don't know the internals or Jordan Petridis' role outside of "gnome dev".