Collins Street parent falcon grapples with how a big powerful bird of the sky like them ended up responsible for fluff balls

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The alternate rounds of screaming and bellyflopping from the Collins St Falcon chicks is a mood

#collinsstfalcons #367CollinsFalcons #melbourne #PeregrineFalcons

A Collins St Falcon parent ponders a threat to their domination of the skies above the yarra as they sit on their chicks

#collinsstfalcons #367CollinsFalcons #melbourne #PeregrineFalcons

The 2 Collins St Falcon hatchlings are already enthusiastic eaters, hopefully the remaining egg will hatch soon

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Drama at the Collins St Falcon nest today. Dad Falcon dragged up a New Holland Honeyeater (not common in the city) but not what momma Falcon feels like while she sits on her newly hatched babies so he took it away

#collinsstfalcons #367CollinsFalcons #melbourne #PeregrineFalcons

RE: https://aus.social/@joannaholman/115268182358172184

I had a lot of response and a bit of pushback to my posts a few days ago about how ordinary people shouldn’t have to care about tech privacy or ethics. While I’m aware care is unfortunately often needed lately, I wrote it because I see so much discourse on Mastodon that assumes people have more than enough time, mental energy and social capital to keep up with what the most optimal choices would be and make them but are just using mainstream tools because they’re careless about privacy and callously uncaring about ethics.

This is out of touch with reality and un-empathetic. So many people are struggling with so many things these days and there’s a lot in the news that impacts people’s wellbeing. When I was struggling with my mental health I was barely managing consuming news on any topic. Some people also have structural challenges like literacy challenges or being too poor to afford more than a bad Chromebook. For people who do care a lot about living ethically there are so many complex problems competing for their attention.

Even where tech news does break through sometimes change is more demanding than people realistically have the capacity for. This is especially the case for social media and communications tools where it’s not just a matter of personal choices but of convincing others to change. A bunch of times mastodon people insisted quitting tools that are used for communications important to me is simple. Sure installing Signal on my own phone is easy (I have and use it). Getting an org I’m in to migrate off WhatsApp when I’m not in charge, hundreds of volunteers are involved, Signal is not popular here and I’ve burned through a lot of social capital lately advancing some more pressing social justice issues in the org is not realistically viable.

Trying to address the real issues going on in tech can’t rely on shaming average users for not conforming to an imagined version of reality that doesn’t exist and for not “just” doing things that aren’t really viable in light of everything else they’ve got going on. Instead it should start with an empathy for the fact that they’re being asked to pay attention and put in effort that they really shouldn’t have to.

Strange ducks around here

#dogs #dogsofmastodon