I think it makes sense to reason from what we know about physics and chemistry. We say there’s “carbon based” life because carbon facilitates a snap-on structure that makes it the basis of molecular chemistry we use for DNA and proteins. Sometimes we look at other planets and hypothesize other pathways to life based on plausible chemistry. You don’t have to assume life is going to be like us in order to have your reasoning about life in the universe being based on plausible mechanisms known to science. That’s why we look for planets in what we think of as plausible habitable ranges, we look for water, we look for chemical signatures of metabolism along known pathways.

Of course, always be curious about new possibilities, but weight what we know. There could be life in forms we’ve never imagined, and we should be open to that. But for now, knowing that organic chemistry, the building blocks for DNA exist and might be widespread is in and of itself a reason to think life could have emerged elsewhere, even though it’s only reasoning from the familiar example we know.

It’s the ultimate “Sumerians Look On In Confusion as God Creates World” scenario. ActivityPub already exists, it’s the prince that was promised. We don’t need any more platforms.

I recently came across an essay that basically argued we should separate “social media” from “attention media”, as the latter is what these places has morphed into.

I think that’s exactly right. The one caveat I would throw in is that the federated alternatives are solving a slightly different problem, namely centralization. And that in and of it self did, at least at first, genuinely recreate a feel everyone recognized as belonging to a prior era of the internet. A different structure of who ones it, stopping the network from being bent toward monetization. That’s a real thing.

It’s easy to be jaded by BlueSky in particular because it effectively ate Mastodon’s lunch and got its attention, while not truly being federated or leading to any culture. And perhaps more importantly. BlueSky appealed I think to an aesthetic curiosity more than a philosophical purpose, so I think it gives people the wrong impression of what the fediverse is all about.

I agree that Frendica sucks. For the longest time these alternatives were designed appallingly bad. Mastodon was the first case of non-stupid design, quickly followed by Lemmy, Pixelfed and Loops. An era of devs who know what they’re doing on the design side, at least to a much greater degree than before.

Found the sane comment. What we know for sure is that a combination of browser fingerprinting, de-anonymization (you can take anonymized hashed emails and compare them to hashes of known emails), and the third party broker marketplace that they can predict things with disturbing specificity like pregnancy, and obesity, to hidden patterns you might not even realize are in the data.

Plus there’s enough statistically informed shots in the dark that drive specific ads that, sometimes, they strike with perfect resonance. That’s enough to explain uncanny similarity. And the microphone listening thing is still plausible, but without stone cold proof it’s just a guess, and it overestimates how much data they need to be able to track you and sell you shit.

One’s a settlement with a blanket denial of guilt for Siri and Google Assistant. At least mild circumstantial evidence, because there’s a real mechanism (accidental activation and recording) is identified, but no proof, and certainly no proof of an ongoing intentional data broker style program. But at least enough of a pain that they won a settlement. So that counts as a trace of meaningful circumstantial evidence.

But the second one is just a link to sell you a product that doesn’t provide any evidence whatsoever and doesn’t even pretend to, it discusses the possibility in vague generalities as something hackable and tries to sell you a product. I’m baffled as to why you think that counts as a source.

don’t need any such “proof”

I’m gonna stop you there. I’m okay with no benefit of the doubt in terms of them being bad actors, but your worldview still has to be built at the bones and joints out of things known to be true otherwise there’s no stopping you from believing every conspiracy with no guard rails.

I don’t think there’s yet a specific smoking gun on this front, but I think once there is, then it is okay to presume it likely happening in other instances. But no smoking gun just yet.

Just to get away from Reddit and help make the fediverse successful.