Comment on Scientists move to Bluesky, transitioning away from X and Meta platforms

• supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Being a scientist also kinda means understanding what are your strengths, and how you can combine them with other people who are smart along very specific narrow vectors.

  Being a scientist means understanding that if you work together with the right kind of smart, curious people you can build amazing things that will improve the world.

  Being a scientist means understanding the modern business world is utter bullshit and will rot any science it touches to the core.

  Being a scientist, like truly living that ethos means being someone who believes the truth is important and that there are power structures who will fight tooth and nail to subdue that truth or hoard it to themselves for personal gain.

  Being a scientist thus effectively means I would expect that after having a brief conversation with you that you would at least understand the grave danger that entrusting science communication in another for profit social media company poses and how it doesn’t seem sensible to take that risk when the actual material barriers to creating Fediverse communities aren’t actually that high.

  Don’t get me wrong, those hurdles are real, the fediverse can be confusing, there are lots of growing pains here… however, not every scientist needs to become an expert in selfhosting Fediverse software, and not every scientist needs to become a Fediverse evangelist (although it wouldn’t hurt), but we do need to connect boldly and clearly the hypocrisy of supposedly truth valuing people all shepherding dutifully onto another platform that will silence and betray them violently.

  Scientists are inherently aligned with modern progressive politics, or rather scientists need to understand they are at everything up to physical danger from being hurt by conservatives and they need to understand that makes them fundamentally aligned with modern progressive politics.

  There is no “I don’t want to get political here” and the failure of the science community at large to recognize how embracing Bluesky as if it was a genuine solution to the unfolding catastrophe of science being defunded and destroyed is embarrassing. Those of us on the Fediverse should be kind, but also we should make fun of them for not using their brains. They clearly have them. Fucking use them you fools.

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  • Natanael@infosec.pub ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Bluesky is a public benefit corporation. That’s very different from for profit

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    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      It has investors, those investors are going to want money.

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      • Natanael@infosec.pub ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Sure, but the openness of the protocols, especially the portability of accounts, makes it hard for them to push negative changes on users.

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