Chris Trottier @atomicpoet@mastodon.social

If I follow you on the Fediverse, it's because:

1. We have interacted
2. You make English updates (at least sometimes)
3. At first glance, you seem nice

By no means feel obligated to follow me back.

Wow! My 9-year-old daughter (who's autistic) just recorded this song!

She did multi-track recording with piano and harmonized vocals! No presets!

She taught herself how to do this all—no one helped her!

Microsoft often violates a simple rule when it comes to computers: thou shalt not take control of my computer when I don't consent.

Going to admit to an error.

I called out a problematic behaviour but provided virtually no context. Thing is, nobody knew the specifics of what went on because I didn't want to mention them by name.

My motivation was that I didn't want to engage in a long f*cking thread with that person -- but I still felt the need to vent.

Unfortunately, the lack of context prompted lots of replies, which forced me to provide more context -- all while trying to avoid specifics.

It was a lose-lose situation.

Something I've learned being around different people: everyone believes they're being persecuted.

The entirety of Fox News believes they're persecuted.

Evangelical Christians believe they're persecuted.

White nationalists believe they're persecuted.

Just because someone feels persecuted doesn't mean that they don't hold a privileged place in society, and are thus actively oppressing others.

Anyway, I personally believe it's dangerous to even entertain the idea that people can just opt out of the human race.

That's how literal genocides happen.

All right, why did I even bring this up?

Because I literally had a conversation with someone (who identified as neanderthal) that claimed that white people aren't human because they have neanderthal DNA.

To me, this implies supremacism.

Also, I'm not sure transspecies is a valid identity. You can go ahead and state your case about why it is -- not that my opinion matters because if you're invested in that kind of thing, some random person's thoughts won't matter.

Not calling anyone specifically out but it still needs to be said:

If you identify as transspecies, it's pretty damn horrible to compare your struggles with someone who experiences racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.

Don't do that.

The model for Mastodon should not be Twitter but Wordpress:

Twitter:
1. Proprietary
2. Centralized
3. Non-customizable

WordPress:
1. Open source
2. Decentralized
3. Customizable

Side note: WordPress is now 43% of the self-hosted web.

A further benefit to the Fediverse: if you don't like the moderation on your instance, you can join another instance that moderates as you prefer.

Or: you can start your own instance and do your own moderation.

Here's the benefits of using the Fediverse, at least from my perspective:

1. Topical segmentation at instance level
2. Better management of user data
3. Better moderation tools
4. Better interaction with folks with specialized expertise

To be real, I don't want the Fediverse or Mastodon to replace Twitter or any centralized social.

I'm just pointing out why the Fediverse is not an alternative to Twitter, though it has similar cosmetic functionality.

We need to examine why people use Twitter:

1. Catch up on news
2. Follow certain social influencers (politicians, celebrities, "experts", etc.)
3. Influence public opinion
4. Find topical discussions

Right now, Fediverse doesn't do this.

My experience on Twitter is akin to continuously talking to a brick wall. And when strangers talk to me, it's to either yell at me for this thing or that thing.

On the Fediverse, I can actually discuss things that I enjoy.

Personally, I find the network effect of the Fediverse to be more powerful. Here's why.

The people who I talk and interact with every day *seem* more interesting than on Twitter.

I actually have conversations here. I don't on Twitter.

Mastodon.social's active users are back to 55.5K.

That's why I believe "social justice" is not enough of an incentive to get people to leave centralized social.

People want to do the right thing, but they can't resist the network effect.

When I was younger, I saw technology as an ever-continuous upward trend of improvements: a case of widgets just getting better with each iteration.

Now I know better.

Yes, technology improves things. But something gets lost with each iteration.

A good example is CRTs. Yes, 4K LED smart TVs are better. But compare a SNES game on a CRT and a modern TV. There's no question which one renders SNES games better.

Something always gets lost. This trend carries on across the technological divide.