I will hear a leftist say "if it had not been for tikTok ..." or "if it had not been for twitter ...
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There are problems with the idea of "the good leftist" and sometimes there are limitations on what people can do. I used amazon's "dot" when I couldn't walk. I hated using an amazon product, but it was already set up and I needed to turn the lights on and off and manage my crutches.
But I won't let the limitations of individual action paralyze me. I will do the things that I can and glory in the way my little actions are amplified when others join in.
Social media is part of that.
perfectionism and cynicism are demotivators
the ideal is you just do what you can
thinking it's not enough and everything sucks and then you die, or thinking about all the stuff you can't ever do... neither of those thieves of personal agency mean anything
there is no morality without action
and action, by definition, is imperfect and inadequate
such that, sitting there frozen and unable to act due to these demons of cynicism and perfectionism is just a kind of toxin
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@dnkboston @futurebird @joepie91 I wasn't sure, because she and several other regulars in the channel seemed angry at the suggestion, and I didn't feel up to working through it at the time.
A few guesses: I'd say it came out of the perception that unmoderated Internet platforms are routinely taken over by the far right, or an impatience with the idea of working through micropolitics, or the partial knowledge that there are far right Fediverse instances without the knowledge that these are widely recognized as such and locked down, or maybe just a history of having started out with relatively big game publishers and having been forced into the indie scene and still having a focus on the politics of big game publishers and following from that a focus on commercial communication platforms for advertising.
@foolishowl @dnkboston @futurebird The "micropolitics" thing is one I've very often seen as a reason as well. It bothers me. I'm in the Netherlands so that may affect things, but not 30 years ago it was completely normal here to organize social groups and clubs and whatnot, and sort out internal disagreements and conflicts and settle on rules that everyone could agree on. In other words, 'micropolitics'.
It's terrifying how a lot of people who *definitely* were around for that, seem to have completely lost either the ability or willingness to do that work. Despite such processes being at the root of a functioning society. -
@foolishowl @dnkboston @joepie91
The fediverse just isn't as easy to get into. And when people were leaving twitter there was a small but effective misinformation campaign to smear the fedi as "too much like 4chan" and "a place for the worst dude bro nerds" and "unmoderated" etc. and I think some of it came from bluesky filtered through prominent leftists who just don't think this is a big deal?
I think it's a big deal. We need to have our own damn servers. Not saying that is easy.
@futurebird @dnkboston @joepie91 I also think there's long been a split within the left, over the conflicting strategies of taking over existing institutions versus creating new ones.
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perfectionism and cynicism are demotivators
the ideal is you just do what you can
thinking it's not enough and everything sucks and then you die, or thinking about all the stuff you can't ever do... neither of those thieves of personal agency mean anything
there is no morality without action
and action, by definition, is imperfect and inadequate
such that, sitting there frozen and unable to act due to these demons of cynicism and perfectionism is just a kind of toxin
@benroyce @futurebird @randulo people demanding perfectionism when they can't read beyond the 3rd grade reading level is very funny to me.
And it's bad now, it was bad back in 2020 and now it's worse.
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@foolishowl @dnkboston @futurebird The "micropolitics" thing is one I've very often seen as a reason as well. It bothers me. I'm in the Netherlands so that may affect things, but not 30 years ago it was completely normal here to organize social groups and clubs and whatnot, and sort out internal disagreements and conflicts and settle on rules that everyone could agree on. In other words, 'micropolitics'.
It's terrifying how a lot of people who *definitely* were around for that, seem to have completely lost either the ability or willingness to do that work. Despite such processes being at the root of a functioning society.@joepie91 That's basically what I'm saying. There's no place--virtual or not--where that doesn't come up.
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@benroyce @futurebird @randulo people demanding perfectionism when they can't read beyond the 3rd grade reading level is very funny to me.
And it's bad now, it was bad back in 2020 and now it's worse.
@macacator @futurebird @randulo
yeah
i'm talking about an internal psychological struggle
but the whole "you're doing something but it's not perfect" sort of "criticism" from outside your efforts, from other "leftists," is some real bullshit
the only real leftists are leftists actually doing something
people sitting and judging others as inadequate or imperfect or "you're doing that but why aren't you doing this" demands etc is nothing but self-serving ego masturbation. it's fake posers
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When I say "we should control our own social media" people think I'm crazy. Like I'm saying "we should control and manage our own water utility" ... it seems prudent, yes, but how could we possibly have the power and wealth needed to make it happen?
But that's the thing about social media... it is possible. We could just run it ourselves. The money needed is large but not vast or insurmountable. (I won't pretend it's free) "content creators" should understand this.
@futurebird @joepie91 my social media / running on a 2019 dell
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@macacator @futurebird @randulo
yeah
i'm talking about an internal psychological struggle
but the whole "you're doing something but it's not perfect" sort of "criticism" from outside your efforts, from other "leftists," is some real bullshit
the only real leftists are leftists actually doing something
people sitting and judging others as inadequate or imperfect or "you're doing that but why aren't you doing this" demands etc is nothing but self-serving ego masturbation. it's fake posers
@benroyce @macacator @futurebird I may be misunderstanding, but it seems to me everyone who has posted so far is basically "we do what we can".
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If you are a political commentator or if you are a creative person who makes art, music, video essays or other content you want lots of people to see your work. That is why you made it. So it's unreasonable to say you should boycott or avoid the most effective ways to reach the greatest number of people.
I do think it's reasonable, however to ask that you educate your fans on the alternatives, engage with them. This is part of "doing the work" too.
@futurebird I might be more of an extremist than most, but I took my books off of Amazon years ago, and I left Twitter and Facebook early on. And as much as the final straw was over ethics, the business terms on Amazon were increasingly predatory. (Same, I hear, for Facebook, but I never used it as such.)
The "reach" that you might get on big platforms is not free, sooner or later.
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@macacator @futurebird @randulo
yeah
i'm talking about an internal psychological struggle
but the whole "you're doing something but it's not perfect" sort of "criticism" from outside your efforts, from other "leftists," is some real bullshit
the only real leftists are leftists actually doing something
people sitting and judging others as inadequate or imperfect or "you're doing that but why aren't you doing this" demands etc is nothing but self-serving ego masturbation. it's fake posers
@benroyce @futurebird @randulo those lines don't have to be perfect if you've already cut the pole down
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@macacator @futurebird @randulo
yeah
i'm talking about an internal psychological struggle
but the whole "you're doing something but it's not perfect" sort of "criticism" from outside your efforts, from other "leftists," is some real bullshit
the only real leftists are leftists actually doing something
people sitting and judging others as inadequate or imperfect or "you're doing that but why aren't you doing this" demands etc is nothing but self-serving ego masturbation. it's fake posers
@benroyce I have more means than I used to. I remember what it's like to have fewer options, and I don't judge people who are making the best choices they can.
I judge people with all the options who go with the douchebag one anyway. Sue me.
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@benroyce I have more means than I used to. I remember what it's like to have fewer options, and I don't judge people who are making the best choices they can.
I judge people with all the options who go with the douchebag one anyway. Sue me.
@dnkboston @benroyce @macacator @futurebird
I don't judge the ordinary person who has their own struggle, but those who enable the shit going on right now who are in a position of power and allow said shit to continue, and this is happening in many countries, not just the #1 shithole one.
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@benroyce @macacator @futurebird I may be misunderstanding, but it seems to me everyone who has posted so far is basically "we do what we can".
@randulo @macacator @futurebird
well yeah, everyone in *this* thread
not out there
if we get criticism for our actions on the basis of cynicism or perfectionism from some anonymous demanding judgmental voice... who is this person? what are *they* doing? probably nothing but backbiting you
because you act. this bothers them. it challenges their frozen inaction. so they must oppose you, or they have to question their own inadequacies
these are not fellow leftists, these are trolls
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I will hear a leftist say "if it had not been for tikTok ..." or "if it had not been for twitter ... " these huge social movements like Black Lives Matter would have never been possible. There would have been, they say, a media black out.
And they are correct. And yet, I still detect little sense of urgency or interest from the same people in educating and promoting social media that we can control like the fediverse.
The microphone can be unplugged the cameras cut off at any moment.
this is why Fedi & front ends like mastodon are so important so important
it puts a potential megaphone controlled by those peoples hands completely if they want(technically)
so far the HW efforts to back door our shit not completely successful
as some of us have been at resisting the USG encroachment on secure protocols since the 80's when they started with ITAR restricting encryptionnow its social media's turn.. good luck!
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@randulo @macacator @futurebird
well yeah, everyone in *this* thread
not out there
if we get criticism for our actions on the basis of cynicism or perfectionism from some anonymous demanding judgmental voice... who is this person? what are *they* doing? probably nothing but backbiting you
because you act. this bothers them. it challenges their frozen inaction. so they must oppose you, or they have to question their own inadequacies
these are not fellow leftists, these are trolls
@benroyce "in this thread" right, fair enough.
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I will hear a leftist say "if it had not been for tikTok ..." or "if it had not been for twitter ... " these huge social movements like Black Lives Matter would have never been possible. There would have been, they say, a media black out.
And they are correct. And yet, I still detect little sense of urgency or interest from the same people in educating and promoting social media that we can control like the fediverse.
The microphone can be unplugged the cameras cut off at any moment.
@futurebird I set up a work account on FOSS (Cryptpad) and when a colleague couldn’t log in straight away, she immediately wanted me to set it up somewhere “where it isn’t so complicated” – meaning Microsoft. However, in Microsoft applications, it’s a lot more complicated and a lot worse in terms of functionality. But there, the IT department does all the work; employees just log in. It worked – we’ve got an account on Cryptpad.
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@benroyce @futurebird @randulo those lines don't have to be perfect if you've already cut the pole down
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@benroyce I have more means than I used to. I remember what it's like to have fewer options, and I don't judge people who are making the best choices they can.
I judge people with all the options who go with the douchebag one anyway. Sue me.
@dnkboston @benroyce @futurebird @randulo this right here. We're all struggling, but we still find ways to tell the system to go
itself -
I will hear a leftist say "if it had not been for tikTok ..." or "if it had not been for twitter ... " these huge social movements like Black Lives Matter would have never been possible. There would have been, they say, a media black out.
And they are correct. And yet, I still detect little sense of urgency or interest from the same people in educating and promoting social media that we can control like the fediverse.
The microphone can be unplugged the cameras cut off at any moment.
@futurebird I don't think "control" is enough to make a platform more positive for movements like this. I think some of the growth and virality that was possible and achieved for these movements relied not just on the size but also the architecture of these sites.
Famously (there's... some paper explicitly about this), the BlackLivesMatter hashtag (and people organizing within it) started on Facebook, not Twitter -- but it grew into a movement on Twitter.
(Likely, and I believe (which is why I'm bringing it up) because of the architecture & resulting dynamics of the platform as a social space (I think the paper also argues that), but it's also possible that the demographics of the platforms (or their role in the media ecosystem? but that feels like it's not NOT "architecture", maybe) also had an impact. Or maybe not, I don't know enough to say likely or anti-likely in either direction here, hopefully the paper covered it I don't remember it's been years.) -
@dnkboston @benroyce @futurebird @randulo this right here. We're all struggling, but we still find ways to tell the system to go
itself@macacator Our creativity in doing so is part of what gets us through this moment
