Oddbean new post about login | logout the other note is about your bot. this is about you. this one is personal. "flame war fun" is the bit that outed you as a bit of a classist. We are not talking about flame wars and your use of that term is derogatory in this context. uncalled for. Next. "While you may want a platform which feels like 4chan, lots of others don't." again insinuations with negative connotations. Next "communities of many norms" is another of the recently rediscovered phrases that statists hide behind as justification for segregation and censorship. Next "Nostr is held back because of the reputation of the content on the platform" thats your judgement. You dont have the right to enforce it. Next If you keep deploying silly bots that attrack freedom then some of us will have to deploy far more effective bots to defend ourselves against you if you dont just wither on the vine. Then we have chaos.
I'll give you my 100% objective opinion as someone who's here kinda by chance. creating a platform or protocol with 0% moderation will never attract the masses. Yes nostr will eventually get the reputation of being a heaven for nazis, white supremasists and even pedophiles, 'normies' as you call them don't want that. Just look at the popularity of tiktok where you can't even say words like 'suicide' or 'murder'... now I get that you might not care about 'normies' and it's great if they don't come but the discussions about how nostr will become profitable to the people working on it say otherwise.
You are absolutely correct. the issue is where the tools reside. User / client side or on infrastructure somewhere. If its on infrastructure then we are recentralizing and creating chokepoints that are very attractive to censorship / authourtarian types. no one wants a garbage feed. I just dont trust anyone I dont know to filter it for me.
if it's just at the user level it's still considered a 'garbage feed'. just because a user chooses not to see posts let's say about zoophilia it doesn't mean the posts are not there, and 'normies' generally don't want to be part of a community that looks like the dark web, so nostr need to look for something else.
Filter on client by default
I think there should be different clients with different levels of moderation, ranging from zero moderation (forums on the dark web) to a lot of moderation (tiktok level of moderation). after all people download an app (client) they don't care about what's on the other clients.
cool but in the end the one that gives you any level you want will win through wider appeal. as a note thought. If the ISP's blocked porn there would never have been a www. I remember the early days. The web you know was built on filth that few people ever saw. Not my bag. I dont partake in the kinks. However they have a right to use infrastructure like anyone else. The infrastructure people got waaaay too uppity during late 90s to 2010s. They centralized everything to the server and called it convenience and safety focus. Now we have a censorable and highly censored www. This is the basic issue that leads me to say. Put the tools on the clients. I dont trust anyone to filter at the infrastructure. They have all proven themselves unworthy of that trust so far. All have said this time is different.
I agree with you (except the part where everyone has the right to the infrastructure, for me not everyone should have the right to the infrastructure like pedophiles because they present a danger, same for terrorists). otherwise I understand that people have different expectations. for example you want to have access to everything and then filter it yourself and I prefer that it's filtered for me because I prefer not to be 'in contact' with certain content. having different clients is probably the solution but at the same time they should be 'impermeable' to each other to a degree.
on unfiltered infrastructure they cannot hide as they can now. They use it the clients can auto report without telling you if you choose such a hypothetical setting. Trading freedom and openness for fear and censorship is a non starterr for me. It is harder to do it from the client in a decentralized way at the moment but it is possible. centralization and attendant temptation / ability to censor is not something that we should be encouraging if we actually want an open internet experience. How often do you see those things now? If you dont follow them you shouldnt see them. I dont. dunno why you would. leads me to say that user side tools can do the job and the community is not as dirty as some seem to say. this could be as simple as an llm to prechew your feed for you that learns your preferences over time or as heavy as an extensions layer supported by privacy focused DVM's that you can use for heavy lifting if needed. The point is that there are options that don't give back the decentralization we have fought so hard for.
I come across them because I'm a curious person I click on profiles I don't know. Decentralization isn't just about being anti-censorship it's also about avoiding the 36 million ads on your feeds like on facebook/instagram, not dealing with twitter stupid algos,not getting an ad on facebook for something you just talked about on messenger. for now nostr is an echo chamber and the whole anti-censorship thing is pretty popular here probably because of the influence from the bitcoin culture. I really respect the fact that you want total control over what you see on nostr and not relying on others to choose for you. but personally I believe when you sign up for a social network you need to "vibe" with its overall culture, I wouldn't join 4chan (if it's still around) and then complain about people being racists misogynists. the good thing is nostr is a protocol where there can be an unlimited number of clients and each one can customize the experience for its specific audience. maybe there would be a rose-tinted glasses client for people like me.
your use of the word impermeable gave me another idea for explaining. We wear clothes because we are not impermeable to our environment. We each choose what clothes to wear based on the experience we want to have. The anaolgy here is therefore that I could ask my town council to put a dome over the town and that would be much more convenient for everyone. Save a lot on snow removal too. Ok but now you are in a bubble. who has the keys. If they lock the doors what do you do? If they change the air quality "for your benefit" would you even know? If so, what can you do about it. Seems safer for a human to just put on a jacket. I am suggesting jacket. Censors are suggesting bubble.
oh final note because it bears saying often. pedos dont deserve the use of their own teeth as far as I am concerned, but my viewpoint is mine. It is not my right to touch the data. Leave it alone. Its not ours.
also I dont understand why people keep saying darkweb. Its not actually a thing. Its a propaganda term that was popularized by the centralizers in early web days. It basically means that if the feds (google and the gang) dont index it then its bad. This is an old battle but I dont think it actually matters soon. The functionality that used to have to run on web servers will start to migrate back to the client side as personal ai takes hold. The issue there will be the same but I think the cat is out of the bag, be well