Oddbean

Actually, this is exactly why Nostr will win. Because people like this can put out their text messages and we don't have to see them unless we choose to see them. Thanks for pointing out the profiles that we want to mute, @rabble

@chadlupkes the thing is I think we need more controls. Ideally Nostr clients wouldn’t display content as replies from people they muttered and reported. I know this is a controversial position, but the way I see it being a reply guy in my threads is like coming in to my personal space when I don’t want it. Just like we can kick out a rude houseguest, they aren’t banished from the town, just my small part of it. I want nostr to be a space for queer Palestinian drag queens like @Mama Ganuush who are being shadow banned and deplatformed by Meta and Instagram. I want nostr to be a space for activists who face state surveillance and repression. And I’m fine with there being people on nostr who hate me, so long as I don’t have listen to them or have them inject themselves in to my content and conversations.

Controls that would do what you're asking for are called algorithms. They could be built into a single client, but I wouldn't want them to be built into the protocol layer. Seeing something I don't like in a conversation thread is unavoidable, because no matter how much we would wish that all humans are reasonable and caring individuals that we would enjoy interacting with, it's never going to be true. The only way to build a feed that makes us happy is to be able to see the wall that protects that feed, and that means we have to see the ugly to recognize it and have simple solutions in place to deal with it. The way I understand things, and please correct me if I'm wrong, there are two ways to build a wall. Mute, which prevents anything from a profile from showing up in our feed. Block, which mutes and also prevents anything from our profile from showing up on their feed. We should be able to control the wall. If anyone or anything else controls what we see, we're no different than any of the corporate platforms, allowing others to control our feed. That's my concern.

How about opt-in crowd-sourced mute/block lists that can be shared between friends? Imagine if an abusive person was constantly having to request to be unmuted/unblocked by individuals who used a popular mute/block list. Social shaming is more effective when it comes from the community rather than an authority. They might actually change their behavior.

That's good thinking, but again that should be at a client level, not the protocol level. If a particular community want to develop an app based on the idea that they know best who their members should or should not see, they can build and maintain it. We don't need and I don't think most of us would want to give up that control. However, that does identify a need for private groups, where a specific set of people can speak freely on specific topics without being exposed to the rest of the world. One of the biggest drivers of growth for Facebook and Twitter was the difference in how they handled privacy. On Twitter, now X, everything is public. But Facebook created private groups where people could organize and actually conduct business, making decisions with internal consensus rules or governance that worked for them. This is a separate topic than Mute or Block, but it is a critical piece of how socialedia has evolved over the last few decades that Nostr needs to catch up with. Even X is trying communities, although they seem to be crap like everything else on there.

Global adoption and free speech are fundamental principles. While it’s natural to disagree and engage in intellectual debates over ideas and direction, resorting to hostility is unproductive and reminiscent of schoolyard behavior. If all we seek is a "box of screams", we might as well return to centralized systems.

To be honest this happens in real life too. Twice in the last few months I’ve had people come on to the deck at my house to steal my pride flag and flag pole. I don’t really care if you’ve got bigoted ideas but I’m not so keen on threats of violence, theft, and damaging my home. The thing is the things said online don’t stay there and often what starts as a joke becomes real violence.

Maybe I'm weird but this isn't any more triggering to me than the average xitter post. The difference is I have control in a way that means I never see these people in my feed. Most other socials keep pushing the algo no matter what I said to block.

That’s why I said this today: “Nostr doesn't offer a solution for everything, but it makes a difference when it comes to censorship. The community is still small and the climate is pleasant - hostility is rare. Enjoy your time on Nostr while it's still an "insider tip" before the masses of X come along.” Today, this thread is a rarity—but unfortunately, probably not for long. https://njump.me/nevent1qqswcme93c0scvzf3pnm56twfjd62vae685j58ttrencl0w2xlntxwgzyp0h0e23pt0mycmmwq78864pqq3h6q0htwnz6ajdg2uglwvlc9x6xqcyqqqqqqgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqqxvnyj

Maybe with time we can find more solutions. I don’t see why some relays shouldn’t have more control for the individual. Sorry to hear this Rabble, intolerance won’t help to evolve humanity or make them any better people

"With such a blind and naïve moralising approach, the whole vast storehouse of spiritual culture is devastated and its treasures detonated, all the creative spiritual charge of the human spirit turns out to be condemned and forbidden. Religiously drained, ridiculed and relegated; cognitively exhausted and blinded; artistically limited and enslaved; deprived of rights, defence and homeland, a man remains to the end of this anti-spiritual cyclone a miserable creature of one moral dimension, whose highest calling is self-compulsion to a helplessly sentimental mercy. A sentimental moralist knows only one dimension of perfection - the moral; the whole essence of the spirit, the whole life of the spirit is reduced to moral self-improvement; and all moral achievement for him boils down to the satiation of the soul with pitiful compassion. And as a result, all understanding of man, good and evil becomes shallow, flat and decadent"

Yeah these are what I would call absolute bellends. The mad thing is them not realising how much their brains have been mangled by US government propaganda since birth. Anyone any different to them is a commie red hiding under the bed. It’s not the 1950s anymore. Anyway, you’re cool as far as I’m concerned.

Yes that's right, and here's why! nostr:nevent1qqspwjcm6u9hydsxjxn5z2p9e6cpghs5zx3furt2nzfxeh87yzzpsrgpz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wchsyg80r58gt74xk42q5azcu6ze93suldqz2nzfdhcjtwcfg2gqwmhkt5psgqqqqqqsmneape

Here’s more, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. I appreciate you speaking up on this and your commitment to reason, inclusion and zeitgeist on Nostr. The important # are full of it. https://image.nostr.build/ee17acb31d98d49f1cc594ef8aeac0dd54734bb882d99ca368ef32ca6c18368e.jpg https://image.nostr.build/2d1a9fb2bf699ae3d82860fba2624fe8b8fcf59cb8955203ab4f611087d186d0.jpg https://image.nostr.build/dd73c442e246b0ea9a808a7a5cbd76aeb513fab681e14dd885cadf6ad1c0d73b.jpg

Wow - no home training, no travelling, no understanding of self or life leads to this sort of small minded nastiness. Makes me a bit sad to these fools on #nostr but it’s free and open and I must remember that. I use mute liberally. Many on this thread just got Sparta kicked back into their abyss of loneliness and hatred.