A 50-something French dude that's old enough to think blogs are still cool, if not cooler than ever. I also like to write and to sketch.
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Genuine question: is there a moderation or federation difference between Lemmy and PieFed?
I could not tell. For me Piefed is just an entry point to the Fediverse, the same Fediverse with the same users we’re all part of. What I can say is that, back then at least, Piefed seemed more intuitive to use the way I wanted to.
Because I don’t feel like Lemmy is dead or racist.
I don’t either. Like I said, I filter out the noise and crap and have a nice experience. The sad thing being that I first had to learn to filter that noise out which, based on what I can hear, does turn off quite a few new users.
My issue is not just with racists or the right, or the fascists (if that was what you meant to say). I consider the most excited leftists around here at least as toxic (and stupid), and as… fascists, btw. No matter how hard some are trying to convince us of the contrary, fascism was never limited to right/racism. And fascism should always be opposed, no matter the flag its waving.
I think the worst part would be “What do you do for a living”…
Depends what you want.
Do you think you should be the person they want you to be? Then, yes, their opinion matters. If no, why give a crap about their opinion?
Many, many years ago, I quit my dream job.
It was the job I dreamed of doing since I was a teen, a job I was quite good at with reasonable successes, earning decent money with even some ‘prestige’ associated to it... but it was also a job that was quickly killing me, literally. It was not just grinding my soul to dust, it was destroying my body to the point that, one morning, I died (I was dead and would have stayed so had my spouse not been there). We decided I had to quit, to let go of the ‘dream’, the money and the perks associated with it. We've watched the vast majority of our 'friends' turn their back on us the moment I stopped being useful or valuable to them. Had it not been so sad to witness it would have been hilarious, they left en masse (it was more useful for my spouse and I to realize how poorly we had made friends so far, real precious lesson). We’ve also heard a lot of talks, most being mean spirited. So what? I don't give a crap what anyone can think: it's not them I'm married with ;)
I'm now much older and still much poorer than I once was. But I also live a much happier life. My spouse and I, we've been through all the hardship together and we're still holding fine after 25+ years together.
Might as well as just shoot myself the ‘Murican style
Take that for someone that was once dead : it’s probably not worth it. Your time on this planet is already very limited, it’s the most valuable gift you were ever given. Use all of it, don’t waste it.
If something is sour in your life, it’s probably worth fixing it, one way or the other. Even if it’s painful.
This place feels dead. It’s usually quite, but lately it really feels like a ghost town.
The place has a much smaller population, of which an even tinier amount is active. So there is much less content published. One solution is to participate more but too few people seem willing to do it. An other solution would be to make the space more attractive to more users but, like you noticed...
The amount of genuinely hateful content has gone up.
I've been saying it since I first joined the Fediverse: default experience is... trash, unless you're looking for some echo chamber for your pre-existing biases that is. Some may enjoy that experience, I certainly did not, and most people won't either.
- New/default experience should be an empty feed, with a few limited broad suggestions allowing them to slowly get in whatever they're interested and willing to read (even trash content if that's their thing).
- Learning to use the filtering tools is key and should be encouraged.Personally, I have had a real nice and pleasant experience browsing Piefed because I learned to use those tools: 1) limiting my home page to 'Subscribed' only (filtering out all political/memes/low effort content, because 2) I carefully select the communities I'm subscribed to, 3) Piefed making it so simple to filter out keywords and annoying users alike, I never hesitate to use that and, no, I don't care to block them even if we're already short on users: my time is too precious to waste it with serial haters and complainers, or self-proclaimed white knights for such or such 'noble cause'.
Outside of the tech communities, there’s no information hygiene anywhere in sight.
I've never seen much of any kind of (an information) hygiene, anywhere online. Certainly not on Reddit... save on very few selected subs... exactly like I can see here.
But once again, one can easily filter the worst offenders in a matter of seconds. Then, it's up to anyone to stick to it: once I blocked them, I certainly don't 'check from time to time' to see if they're getting any better. I let them play in their shit pool to their heart's content, throwing more of it at one another: it doesn't concern me anymore. And for that I must say I quite like the filtering tools piefed gives us.
the community felt more down to earth, kind, and friendly,
It depends where you look at. When I joined (two or three years ago? I was on Lemmy, before switching to Piefed) the amount of sheer hate that was expressed and that I witnessed was... disturbing, to say the least. I don't think it has become worse but I could not tell since I learned to filter the sources out.
I wish for the devs to more seriously consider the out of the box experience for a new user and, maybe, consider that not all new users will share their political/personal/philosophical values or biases. I certainly don't agree with many of the ideas I can see expressed around here, but I'm also old enough to be fine with people having different opinions, and patient enough to see if I can make the tool work more like I want it to and reduce what I consider noise.
edit: typos.
Might pick up ham radios as a hobby if I wasn’t so scared and introverted to talk to old white dudes in America
if this can help: you and I we've been chatting around here, and I'm a old white dude (just from France) ;)
BTW, I'm also an introvert too, the thing that helped the most live with it is to... accept it (aka, to stop wishing I was not an introvert) and be ok with feeling awkward when I'm with people.
'Normal' doesn't mean much.
A more interestigng question could be: is that what she wants to do? Is that how she wants to be? Acting like the dude that insulted her may very well not make her feel better the slightest. Quite the contrary, it can easily make her feel worse: realizing she behaves in similar way as that other person which, imho, should not be considered a role model.
Artists will often use their own frustration, pain and anger (against anyone/anything) as a drive to create things that are not insulting to anyone, that sad destructive energy being transformed into art. Maybe it is something she might want to consider?
I have an excuse: I'm getting old ;)
What I first did is to limit my home feed to 'subscribed' only. Doing so, I don't see anything from communities I'm not already subscribed to. And since I've made a rather... careful selection of those communities (from various instances), I seldom have have to deal with low quality content/noise. Making it a lot quicker to remove the occasional nuisance that passes through.
While that’s a fair moral goal, it’s practically impossible. We are an information-sharing species.
I may have missed something important here so I'll reformulate my previous comment: I don't see any 'we' in answering a question. Not anymore than there would be any 'us' between I and some stranger asking me direction on the streets. I will happily reply to the best of my knowledge, that is all.
. If you refuse to factor in reputation (which is just aggregated hearsay), you’re essentially choosing to ignore the early warning system that human society has used for thousands of years to stay safe. The trick isn’t to ignore gossip - it’s to learn how to vet the quality of it.
Thx a lot for explaining what my life is, and what you think it should be, based on such a careful study as a careless reading of one single comment. Rather impressive if a a bit... quick.
Once again, thx a lot and have the most wonderful day.
I use piefed.social because it 's easy to filter out what I consider noise (aka most political content and all kind of excited people ;)
I'm not good (nor bad). We're having a nice (and interesting) conversation. I too can feel overwhelmed, from time to time. No big deal ;)
Uhhhggggg now I no longer feel like I’m the one overthinking it 💀 I just saw something outlandish is all. I definitely did not want consider any of those things
You don't have to. It's just some random (old) dude's opinion... Maybe next time put a disclaimer on the kind of answers you (don't) want to receive, we would both save time ;)
Oh for sure. Literally no reason to care. But what if you got a downvote
Well, I would have gotten a downvote, or more than one. It happens from time to time, out of the blue. That's fine. As long as I know I've been sincere in whatever has been downvoted, why should I care? It's ok to disagree.
And then in your curiosity, you discovered an account
I would not because I sincerely don't care and could not be bothered to check who voted (I was not even aware one could check). When I open it, I have to see on my profile that I do receive votes but I consider that part of the webpage (I don't do social on phone, only on my computer in my browser) one of those 'not as good as it could be' part of Piefed/the Fediverse. And this does not prevent me from being grateful (and happy) it exists and I can use it, if you're wondering ;)
Like, it’s not even worrying or anger, votes don’t mean anything.
It could even be some rogue bot. Or some kiddo thinking they're so smart by randomly downvoting things. It could be anything.
It could even be someone that sincerely may not like or disagree with what I just said. That's Fine with me. Someone that may not like how I said it (even more likely knowing English is not my first language). Or someone that just dislike me as a person? That's fine too (even though I would consider an odd choice to judge a person on a mere comment)...
Like I said, what I do care about is (my) time. And for that reason I will block without any hesitation anyone (I won't judge them and won't call for them to being banned, I will just decide they're not worth of my time):
- That is trying to troll me. I won't even try to argue or to explain my motivations to anyone. I will post a last reply something along the lines 'ok, thx have a nice day, bye' and will block them once and for all.
- That is obviously trying to create conflict or to argue for the sake or arguing. And not just when it's directed towards me. I mean, the moment I realize someone doing that, they're blocked.
- The same with attention seekers and
- Serial complainers/haters.
And, yes, I'm also 100% fine with people blocking me for whatever reason, no hard feelings on my part ;)
Like, it’s not even worrying or anger, votes don’t mean anything. It’s just like of spectacular. Like, woah! I didn’t know it was possible to dislike so many things.
Consider this: people do kill one another for a few cents or even just for "daring" looking at them. They will murder (while other people will applaude them for doing it, and celebrate the death of that other person) because they don't share the same political ideology. So, yeah, people can also vote like full morons, if not worse.
Edit:
For the sake of clarity: I will downvote from time to time myself. When I consider a post contributing nothing or being too rude. But more often, I will upvote what I consider useful/interesting/funny.
For me, it's really simple math: I know my time on this planet is limited, like it is for every single one of us, and there is no way to add a second to it when its time to go. So, do I really want to waste a second of that time I have left worrying on non-sense or on things I can't act upon (like people acting dumb)? No ;)
We don't know each other, right? So, all I can say is that I have no opinion about Odysee as I barely know them as an alternative to YT.
Also, I don't want to consider hearsay or rumors a trustworthy source of info to make my opinion on anything, or anyone.
I don't search for them, nor do I care much for voting habits. So, no.
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To answer your first question:
Hate. It has been normalized. It should not have been. It’s an abject failure of our societies (and of our educative systems) and it’s a tragedy.
To comment on your reflection about friendship:
What you're describing as ‘mindlessly adding friends to a list of contacts’ is merely people mistaken the word friend for acquaintance.
I know a lot of people, some I may even enjoy spending time with as often as possible. But I've one (best) friend. A single one.
We've been friend since we were barely teens (now both nearing our 60s), we don't live in the same country anymore (meaning we can not meet for years) but we're still best friends. There is not a single other person on this planet, or at least in that somewhat narrower part of the population I do have contact with, I would call my friend.
I consider true friendship as rare if not rarer than true love.
BTW, this friend and I we’re very different on so many levels (our friendship began by us fighting one another at school). Even politically, we’re close to being the complete opposite of one another and we never managed to agree on anything in that specific field, save maybe on our sadness witnessing stupidity, and hate, spreading like fire and imposing itself in every single political group. Being different is part of the reasons we’ve remained friends, at least I think so.
We also don’t mind people not understanding our friendship. It’s a them issue, not ours ;)
Oh, thx for the explanation. Like I said, I don't do that myself but if I was asked if it was ok, I would not mind at all, quite the contrary.
without saying anything?
What do you mean, with this? (Serious question, if you're wondering. I don't do crosspost so I have no idea how this works ;)
Let's say billions. Let's say I'm one of those tech billionaire and that I suddenly grow a conscience (very unlikely but, heck, I also don't have billions, not even millions not even enough to retire... so let's pretend).
What would I do with my fortune and that newly found conscience that's irking me?
- Supporting the FSF with one specific demand: for them to finish their fully Libre OS and ensure the GNU/GPL is set in stone.
- Supporting the EFF, helping them fight that dystopian society my fellow rich people (and their politicians valets) are building against the population. Edit: it's happening in real time everywhere around the world.
- And with the bulk of my money? I would be opening as many private schools as I can and making them tuition-free for pupils (say after an interview, to see if the kid is really motivated) and also making sure we hire the best teachers we can.
Why private and why tuition-free? Public educative systems have dramatically failed in most Western countries, they don’t educate kids anymore. It's a real-time nightmare that has been going on for a few decades, with dramatic consequences too few people seem to worry about. Meanwhile, private schools have not failed that bad... but they’re also expensive and therefore reserved to rich-family kids. What an amusing coincidence: quality teaching reserved to wealthy kids. So, by making tuition-free private schools I hope to give ‘normal’ kids access to the same chances rich kids have access to. And by making them private, I'm making sure to stay out of the sabotaging power of the public educative system. I would start in my own country (France, that used to be role model in education and is now a very sad joke) but I would do my best to spread the concept as widely as possible.
Edit: clarifications.
'Intelligence' means something along the line of 'ability to pick, to understand'. So, I would say behaving intelligently would be a good starting point.
Showing an ability to recognize and to appreciate differences, to be able to accept people having conflicting ideas, for example, or being of different origins and cultures, believing in different values or morals. To realize those differences are a strength and not a weakness, an opportunity more than it is a threat. Also, not feeling any need to always 'be right' would come close second for me.
Read more about what ? Intelligence? That's a bit too... broad, I'm afraid.
But if I was to suggest any young person (which I suppose you are, which I'm not anymore) showing a desire to get acquainted with some of the brightest and most intelligent people our species have ever created, I would tell them to start reading. Books. And not any books, mind you. Read classics.
Yeah, I know, boring. Save that they are not. They're just different than what most readers are used to read. Here again: being open to differences, welcoming them, is a sure sign of intelligence ;)
Read literature, and poetry, and essays, plays,... Read as much of them and read them as regularly as possible. But why classics, why not the latest 'XYZ series about some amazingadventuressomewhere'?
Too many people consider books a mere 'fantasy', an escape door from the sad reality they're trapped in, we're all. And a lot of books are indeed just that, and they're doing a great job at being that. No issue with that. But books and literature is so much more.
Books, the written word, is the way through which mankind have shared ideas and reflections through time. It's how we have maintained on ongoing dialogue between some of our smartest people for thousand of years. Reading them is taking part in their conversation! That is why I can read Homer to this day, almost 3000 thousand years after his death, like if he was sitting here with me like if it was him that was singing his amazing stories, just for me!
So, be it by reading Homer, or Ovid, Shakespeare (and my dear Molière), or by reading the Bible or the Upanishads. Or some philosophical work. Or by reading novels by Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, Flaubert. Stories by Borges or Kafka. Or by reading the essays of Montesquieu and those of Montaigne, or by reading Diderot (so undervalued, nowadays!) or this poor Rousseau whose ideas have so often been caricatured and misunderstood (not always by accident), read 'The Social contract' and the 'Discourse on Inequality' and read it in French if at all possible because their writing is so fine tuned, every single word matters (yes, I'm French).
Poetry is another great way to get familiar with (another form of) intelligence, through rhythms and attention. But that would deserve a threat of its own.
If you're from the USA, there was a time this once great and inspiring country had to offer the world more than angry buffoons. Go read Henry David Thoreau, Emerson, or the poetess Emily Dickinson to name just three that I think of right now.
Heck! If you want to read an old (but still alive) amazing and very critical US thinker, and a poet, and a fiction writer, and a man that lives his life in accordance with his personal values, look no further than to your unique Wendell Berry. Mister Berry deserves more Nobel Prize than anyone else, and not just in literature. Being able to meet him and to discuss with him, even for a few minutes, is the only reason I would agree to travel to the USA. Edit: but since I've refused to travel by plane since the early 00s, it probably will never happen but would I like to be able to meet him? Yes.