You can definitely eat it later and it will work. I was surprised at how strong it was.

Would love to see a similar guide for Hugo. Having more sites with mastodon/fediverse comments would also improve adoption of the fediverse.

I guess the search engine works well? Does it find safe torrents (out there such a thing as safe torrents?)?

It’s had its issues, there’s no doubt about that. But it set the precedent for a new kind of society in 1760. It’s an amazing country.

Also, it didn’t inspire the Nazis, that is a ridiculous comment.

Do we “nerds” who care about the freedom of the fediverse care whether we can or cannot integrate with a big corporation full of users that don’t care about freedom? I suppose the fediverse is nice in part because it’s users are likely to be more technically literate and motivated than your average Instagram scroller.

Great article. I especially liked the conclusion paragraph:

Fediverse can only win by keeping its ground, by speaking about freedom, morals, ethics, values. By starting open, non-commercial and non-spied discussions. By acknowledging that the goal is not to win. Not to embrace. The goal is to stay a tool. A tool dedicated to offer a place of freedom for connected human beings. Something that no commercial entity will ever offer.

This makes sense to me. But why would they want to defederate? I get the whole EEE thing, to an extent, but how would defederating accomplish that as it would simply disconnect them from a big world.

Interesting take! This idea might play out in the courts if Twitter sues.

I’ve heard arguments for federating and defederating with Instagram, I mean Threads.

Ultimately, Meta is going to do whatever drives their profit. So if they challenge Twitter, we need to know what will drive their profit, federating, or defederating. I’m sure there will be a lot of good content on Threads over time, just like Reddit. It’s going to be interesting in the next few years…

Hyperbole much? The US consists of over 350 million people. You think all of them are racist? The people make the country. You’re getting upvotes because it’s a simple statement to make, but it’s not the truth. The US is an amazing country. There are still many racists, but there are less now than there were before, and this will continue to improve as we move forward.

I’m wondering what their motivation was for building it so that it could join the fediverse. I guess they recognize that the fediverse is the future, and they want their hand in that space.

Many natives welcomed the colonizers because they could trade with the them and advance their own cultures. It wasn’t purely about oppressors and oppressed. That binary view is simply removed from reality.

If they were as advanced, then they wouldn’t have been colonized. The railways were introduced by the British colonizers.

Sure, many places would have eventually caught up, maybe, but it would have taken a long, long time.

The anti colonialism narrative that is big these days could use a lot more nuance.

Im creating an argument that goes against the apology. I don’t find that it’s a productive use of time. Nor do I believe that colonialism is all bad. There were many positive aspects of colonialism that lead to a more globalized and multicultural world. It has also led to advancements that would not have occurred at this time without the commixture of different peoples and cultures.

The simple narrative is that the super powerful Europeans came over and oppressed everyone native. But that’s not the reality.

Slave trade, for one instance, wasn’t happening solely because of colonialism. It was happening in Africa long before it became apart of the colonial operation. It has a long history and it’s not one tied exclusively to colonialism.

As for the residential schools, that’s some fucked up shit, no doubt. I don’t know the history of Canada and how all that came about. But the interaction and history of European settlers with North American natives (which once were from the Middle East or Africa and walked over through Serbia and crossed the land bridge to Alaska) is long and complicated. It was not purely one of one person oppressing another at all times.

The oppressor/oppressed narrative that is so popular in left wing ideologies today is a product of Foucault and its subsequent propagation amongst the post modernists. It’s popular in many circles in academia, but it’s not the only narrative, nor is it a perfectly true narrative.

Anyway, I enjoyed Sapiens a lot. I thought it gave more nuance into the complexities of colonialism.

If they became a colonizer, then they were not “in need” of technological advancement. And when I say technological advancement, I’m referring to things like communication, healthcare, a court of law, and so much more.

The places that got colonized got colonized because they were not as well developed, both in terms of capacity, infrastructure, and technology, to name a few things.

Colonialism allowed places not like Japan to become as advanced as Japan.

Yuval Harari’s “Sapiens” has some good perspectives on this issue. I recommend you read it. Then check out some of the cited sources.

Yes, it is. There are a lot of academics that have fallen prey to post modern ideologies like anti racism. But there are also academics that haven’t, like myself and John McWhorter.

Yes, I have a Ph.D., you will encounter grievance studies and post modern ideologies when you pursue this path. I have indeed studied the philosophical foundations of these ideologies. I don’t agree with post modern ideologies, nor do I agree that you can state that something is purely constructed by a culture. An individual is defined both by their physiology and their societal structure. It’s physiology and culture. Post modernism denies objective truth. I believe in objective truth. I also believe in intentionality, which post modernism denies. We could go on. Stop using the “have you actually studied this” argument and actually engage in productive debate. An appeal to academic authority is really not useful here.

It seems some forget, for instance, that the native population of America benefitted greatly from their encounters with colonial people from France and Britain. They sold and traded items. They learned knew technologies. Hell, many native tribes fought alongside the Americans during the American revolution. They also fought alongside France. The whole situation of the American colonies is really messy. Anyway, colonialism is not a black and white issue.

But what does this apology actually do? It doesn’t accomplish anything at this point. The people apologizing aren’t the perpetrators. “I’m sorry my great grandpa did horrific shit.” What? You weren’t even around when your great grandpa was. You are apologizing for something for which you have absolute no control or agency. It doesn’t make any sense.