@adafruit amusingly though: @cstross blocked me a couple years ago, because he was (if I recall correctly, can't be arsed to dig up the toot but it's back there somewhere) either boosting or else posting AI slop images and laughing at how bad they were. I had been an avid follower, but I expressed my surprise that he, an author no less, would be playing with the plagiarism machine in public.

As much as I tend to agree with the mob that using this planet killer was a terrible idea that you should be ashamed about, rather than what you're doing right here, Stross seems like he's mostly concerned with building up some sort of "profile" on here, and does not like to have his hypocrisy pointed out.

I think there are going to be some incredible strides made in education with this tech, but not until these psychopaths are devoured by angry street mobs and we start using it judiciously and without murdering towns and communities.

People in America have brown tap water so you could avoid work of which you are perfectly capable. You didn't need the help. There's no justifying it. Brown tap water.

@Biokevin This is where you come to do your public stuff; privacy is not a problem that the Fedi solves. Not in the personal security sense of the word, anyways.

We have become infected with assumptions created by the lies of corporate sites, things like, websites should do everything, rather than doing one thing well.

I don't have a good suggestion for what you seem to be seeking, and I'm sorry for that. But I think you will have your heart broken if you try to get that here.

You walk into Instagram's walled garden, they can control things, up to a point, in terms of privacy, assuming basic competence on their part (not guaranteed at all) and that they do not lie about things like allowing the NSA or anyone who pays a data broker to read your shit.

Which is to say, the "privacy" people speak of having on these platforms is mostly a delusion, between the above and actual bad-intent hackers and the fascist government leaning on them all. What I find refreshing about how Mastodon works, is that it states right up front that even your direct messages are not actually private, and you should not put your sensitive info there.

But the idea of a "private social media experience" is just kinda weird to me, we do social media when we want to be out in the world, only also at home in our jammies.

@ErickaSimone And then there's Afrika Bambaata, if you believe that reporting.

When men become powerful, even (perhaps especially?) on a small scale, they become repulsive, it seems. Or perhaps their most repulsive urges find themselves suddenly free of restraint.

It is good that we have video phones and digital paper trails and such,

now.

@bloor Sometimes I think the audiophiles need interventions, but then I remember that they are mostly rich people whose lives are so empty