“1 in 10 people believe they are not at risk when using illicit sources to watch TV, film or sports.”

ONE in ten? Man, they’re even bad at cherry picking statistics 😂

They even cite a study with only 1,000 participants for their statistic that “32% OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN VICTIMS OF FRAUD”

In the title, at least. The body of that claim’s card says that it’s the people, or someone they know that have been victims of fraud.

Gosh, I hate dishonest scare marketing campaigns.

I’m not a big expert on database technology, but I am aware of there being at least a few database systems (“In-Memory”) that use the RAM of the computer for transient storage, and since RAM doesn’t use files as a concept in the same way, the data stored there isn’t exactly inside a “file,” so to speak.

That said, they are absolutely dwarfed by the majority of databases, which use some kind of file as a means to store the database, or the contents within it.

Obviously, that’s not to say using files is bad in any way, but the possibilities for how database software could have developed, had we not used files as a core computing concept during their inception, are now closed off. We simply don’t know what databases could have looked like, because of “lock-in.”

That’s what some databases are. Most databases you’ll see today still inevitably store the whole contents of the DB within a file with its own format, metadata, file extension, etc, or store the contents of the database within a file tree.

The notion of “lock in” being used here doesn’t necessarily mean that alternatives don’t or can’t exist, but that comparatively, investment into development, and usage, of those systems, is drastically lower.

Think of how many modern computing systems involve filesystems as a core component of their operation, from databases, to video games, to the structure of URLs, which are essentially usually just ways to access a file tree. Now think of how many systems are in use that don’t utilize files as a concept.

The very notion of files as an idea is so locked-in, that we can rarely fathom, let alone construct a system that doesn’t utilize them as a part of its function.

Regardless, the files example specifically wasn’t exactly meant to be a direct commentary on the state of microblogging platforms, or of all technology, but more an example for analogy purposes than anything else.

What social media platforms don’t have some kind of character limit?

What platforms don’t use a feed?

What platforms don’t use a like button?

What platforms don’t have some kind of hashtags?

All of these things are locked-in, not necessarily technologically, but socially.

Would more people from Reddit have switched to Lemmy if it didn’t have upvotes and downvotes? Are there any benefits or tradeoffs to including or not including the Save button on Lemmy, and other social media sites? We don’t really know, because it’s substantially less explored as a concept.

The very notion of federated communities on Lemmy being instance-specific, instead of, say, instances all collectively downloading and redistributing any posts to a specific keyword acting as a sort of global community not specific to any one instance, is another instance of lock-in, adapted from the fediverse’s general design around instance-specific hosting and connection.

In the world of social media, alternative platforms, such as Minus exist, that explore unique design decisions not available on other platforms, like limited total post counts, vague timestamps, and a lack of likes, but compared to all the other sites in the social media landscape, it’s a drop in the bucket.

The broader point I was trying to make was just that the very way microblogging developed as a core part of social media’s design means that any shift away from it likely won’t actually gain traction with a mainstream audience, because of the social side of the lock-in.

short form content with just a few sentences per post sucks.

I 100% agree with this sentiment.

Jaron Lanier has a great book called You Are Not A Gadget, where he talks about the way we design and interact with systems, and he has some thoughts I think reflect this sentiment very well:

“When [people] design an internet service that is edited by a vast anonymous crowd, they are suggesting that a random crowd of humans is an organism with a legitimate point of view.” (This is in reference to Wikis like Wikipedia)

“Different media designs stimulate different potentials in human nature.”

He talks about how when a system becomes popular enough, it can “lock in” a design, when others build upon it as standard. Such as how the very concept of a “file” is one we created, and nearly every system now uses it. Non-file based computing is a highly unexplored design space.

And the key part, which I think is relevant to Mastodon, the fediverse, and social media more broadly, is this quote:

“A design that share’s Twitter’s feature of providing ambient continuous contact between people could perhaps drop Twitter’s adoration of fragments.”

Fragments, of course, meaning the limited, microblogging style of communication the platform allows for. I’ve seen some Mastodon instances that help with this, by not imposing character limits anywhere near where most instances would, opting for tens of thousands of characters long. But of course, there is still a limit. Another design feature by Twitter that is now locked in.

But of course, people are used to that style of social media. It’s what feels normal, inevitable even. Changing it would mean having to reconceptualize social media as a concept, and might be something people aren’t interested in, since they’re too used to the original design. We can’t exactly tell.

As Lanier puts it,

“We don’t really know, because it is an unexplored design space.”

I’m 100% in favor of requiring models to be open source. That’s been my belief for a while now, because clearly, if someone wants to make an AI model off the backs of other people’s work, they shouldn’t be allowed to restrict or charge access to those models to the same people who had their work used, let alone other people more broadly.

This can actually be true, depending on how the system is configured.

For instance, if you and someone else use the same locally-hosted Stable Diffusion UI, both put the exact same prompt, and are using the same seed, # of steps, and dimensions, you’ll get an identical result.

The only reason outputs are different between prompts is because of the noise from the seed, normally randomly set between generations, which can be easily set to the same value as someone else’s generation, and will yield an identical result unless the prompt is changed.

I’m glad about this, honestly.

If you want to use an AI model trained on vast sums of publicly posted work, go for it, but be ready for the result to be made into a truly public work that you don’t own at the end of it all.

Always demand a human support representative until it gives you the option to, then the actual human will usually manually process your refund if you complain about how the initial refund never happened.

Bonus chance of success if you’re a Prime member and say you’re thinking about cancelling.

I think if I found out my country was doing a genocide with an unimaginably higher ratio of civilians murdered, I’d decry both acts, and not actively support the ongoing justifications made for a genocide by an apartheid based regime.

The train also only runs between Erkner Station, and Tesla Sud, which is literally just the station right at the Tesla manufacturing facility in the area.

“It’s also free to not just Tesla employees, but regular passengers as well.”

That’s great and all, but are everyday people taking trains to go see the outside of a Tesla factory, then leaving again?

I love this approach, balances user freedom & privacy with moderation & voting pattern analysis by the public.

ActivityPub might mean some data is slightly less private, but that doesn’t mean it has to be.

How have I never heard of this before!? I’ve been looking for exactly this for ages now.

Already spinning up a docker container!

I completely get that.

I mostly have just thought of housing as a different kind of beast, since unlike working a job, I don’t have to invest in real estate to save for a house or retirement, but doing so might make it easier to accomplish that.

The biggest problem is definitely going to be full on landlords and private corporate investors, but I don’t want to add any more to that problem, no matter how small my impact might be.

TLDR; I want to protect against systemic risk factors, as most of my net worth will be in the market, unable to support me during a financial emergency. It could also carry possible tax benefits, and make it easier to sustain mortgage payments on a home.

I’m mostly trying to ensure that if, for instance, my entire emergency fund is drained from a major medical emergency (or something similar) during that time, I have something I can rely on that is generally more stable to sell during that time, which will overall carry lower tax implications on sale than stocks that have already appreciated significantly more.

Plus, once I get to the point of being close to owning a home, I want to ensure no major financial event could potentially significantly impact my ability to afford mortgage payments.

I plan on investing as much of my income as I can to retire as early as possible, which means the majority of my liquid cash net worth will just be in my emergency fund, with a smaller additional amount in savings. I would prefer some level of extended, more stable assets, that will still grow at least a bit over time to meet my financial goals, but won’t be subject to as large drops as the whole market.

I don’t plan on investing much of my portfolio into real estate if I do decide to go that route, only 5-10% total, more as a hedge than as a primary strategy. Most of my investing is still in comparatively high-growth index funds.

I appreciate that take.

I just don’t want to be yet another contributor of many to a problem, y’know? Like how even though corporations are by far the largest contributors to climate change, I still try to reduce the excess emissions I possibly produce whenever I can just to help a tiny bit more.

I’m still investing in the stock market regardless, I just want to make sure that diversifying my portfolio won’t have an outsized negative impact on others since, well, that would suck. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not sure if it adds any more clarity, but to be fair, this question was about morals, which is entirely subjective based on personal opinion.

Thanks for your addition to the conversation though, I appreciate it!

To be clear, I wasn’t talking about liquidations, I was talking about actual market performance. Housing is necessary, even during a financial crisis, whereas unnecessary purchases of goods from corporations become secondary. Thus, housing can stay more stable while stocks crash.

While the market does always go back up, to some degree, I want to be at least slightly more resistant to the possibility of a major failure, (i.e. multiple major tech companies going under from some highly unforseen event) that could lead to entire stocks not existing to go back up again in the future.

I would also theoretically be investing via publicly-traded REIT funds, which could be liquidated in the same manner as stocks.

Wouldn’t that then mean that there would be no rental apartments available and everyone would be forced to take a loan and buy a home?

Not exactly, first off, I mostly mean real estate that is required for survival. Housing, not including the types of places you’d use for a quick vacation stay like hotels, corporate office real estate, etc.

If there weren’t landlords, there would be a significant decrease in housing prices, due to a few factors, namely banks now offering lower-rate loans (since the higher-paying institutional investors are out of the picture), higher supply availability (instead of investor hoarding of empty rentals for property value over use by humans), and generally larger amounts of capital available to spend on new homes, rather than rent payments going to alternative asset classes in wealthy investor portfolios.

It also doesn’t mean no rentals would exist at all, but that properties wouldn’t exist solely for the purpose of being rented. (think someone renting a portion of their existing house, or adding an ADU, instead of buying an entire single-family home solely for the purpose of renting it as an investment.)

Landlording is only a problem because it reduces the supply of housing available for people to own directly, and by the extent of it existing, increases housing values. If existing properties are partially used as rentals by those who have extra space to spare, any of the issues I mentioned functionally don’t exist.