Not_mikey
@Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
- Comment on Coconuts 🥥 2 weeks ago:
According to wikipedia this is the less likely and imo less interesting explanation. They did find coconuts that are genetically distinct from the ones the Spanish brought over from the Philippines, but those ones are more distantly related to the ones in polynesia so they probably didn’t float over. Instead they are more likely evidence of pre-columbian contact of Polynesians with south and central America, along with sweet potatoes originating in South America but being present in polynesia and SEA prior to columbus.
So this would boot Columbus off the podium in people who discovered America.
- Bering strait people
- Polynesian people
- Vikings, Leif Erickson
- Columbus
- Comment on US to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs next week 1 month ago:
It’s not the capitalist auto companies who are going to get hurt though. The price advantage of the Chinese companies comes from low labor costs and government subsidies, so the auto companies will just move there production to whatever country offers the most subsidies and least labor costs because in our current globalized world capital can move freely.
The real losers will be the unionized auto workers who’ll be abandoned while capitalists maintain or even increase there profits in the third world. These sorts of race to the bottom always harm workers, whether it be with clothes and shein , or EVs.
- Comment on ByteDance won't sell TikTok, would rather pull it from the US 2 months ago:
Is it good or do they just have a massive network and data advantage. If tik tok left and everyone switched over to Instagram reels or YouTube shorts and they had the same amount of data tik tok has I think the experience would converge to whatever was on tik tok in a month or so.
There’s no secret sauce to tik tok, they’re throwing massive amounts of data at a recommendation AI and telling it to optimize for watch time, any sufficiently scaled company can do that nowadays. It’s more a matter of getting and maintaining an audience to create that data and content creators, both of which due to the network effect, and without federation, are drawn to the biggest service, not necessarily to the best.
- Comment on Exclusive: ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail, sources say 2 months ago:
If the choice is between the u.s. government and the Chinese government choosing what’s appropriate for me to watch then I’d choose the u.s government as it is still has some democratic levers which the American people can use to stop it from propagandizing too much. There is no such influence they can wield in the Chinese government. I’m not ok with it though and it’s more a matter of the lesser of two evils. Ideally there would be no centralized control over these services and the algorithms would be open source and the servers federated, to allow people to transparently evaluate the biases each service has and make their own decision free from the centralizing network effect present in current social media. If I am unable to inspect it then I want the person who is able to do so to have interests that are better aligned with mine, either an elected representative or at least a worker with similar national interests to me.
As for the book question it’s not a matter of a single book. Unless they’re advocating for atrocities I’m for any creator being allowed on the platform, the problem is how the platform is showing that content, it’s a matter of the book store instead of a single book. If the library has a copy of the three body problem, or even Maos little red book alongside a bunch of other books countering it then that’s fine. But if there’s no library and only one book store in town then the owner of that book store has a lot of political power and should be under a lot of scrutiny. If the owner of that store isn’t a part of the community and doesn’t have interests that align with it, or even run counter to it, then the people of that community are right to become skeptical and demand a more open system. This is why libraries are so important, they provide an information repository owned by the public instead of private interests.
- Comment on Exclusive: ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail, sources say 2 months ago:
It’s not about the data, it’s about the algorithm. Unlike other social media which has followers, subscribers etc. that dictate what you see tik tok is a pure black box recommendation algorithm. Tons of people’s world views are shaped by tik tok and a slight tweak to this algorithm can have huge political consequences. I’m far from a china hawk but even I can recognize the dangers of allowing that sort of machine to be in the hands of a foreign rival. Ideally we’d take it out of the hands of the corporate interests running the ones here in the u.s. as well, but that doesn’t seem possible right now and at least those companies are more beholden to the American people then byte dance, there are American employees in those companies that can raise a red flag if management is telling them to push the algorithm in a direction.
The youth also probably won’t care in a years time. Even if tik tok actually shuts down in the u.s. instead of selling, which I still doubt they will as that would effectively be burning 10s of billions of dollars to prove a point, the youth can just move onto another app like Instagram reels or YouTube shorts which offer the same experience but aren’t as good because of the mass network effect tik tok has. If everyone is forced out of tik tok and onto one of the other apps they’ll gain that same network effect and have the same experience after a bit of transition/ AI training time. The kids aren’t attached to byte dance or tik tok, they’re attached to the content and content creators who make it, and those can move to another app very easily.
- Comment on Drake threatened with lawsuit over diss track featuring AI Tupac 2 months ago:
Can’t tell if this is sarcastic but the intention was that Tupac was helping Kendrick get over his “writers block” for his next diss track by “gifting” him an idea to make fun of drake for liking young girls, drakes trying to beat him to the punch, while trying to discredit it as just gossip with the budden podcast line.
- Comment on Feds hit coding boot camp with big fine for allegedly conning students 2 months ago:
It looks like they didn’t even get the money, these were “student loans” so the money just went to pay for the tuition.
- Comment on ‘My hoo haa is gonna be out’: US Olympians slam Nike for skimpy women’s track kit 2 months ago:
As sus as the leotard is it’s optional and they do have an option with shorts if they don’t want to worry about accidentally exposing the entire world.
Don’t really see a problem with it since there are other options. If you wanna show your new Brazilian to the world, you do you.
- Comment on ‘My hoo haa is gonna be out’: US Olympians slam Nike for skimpy women’s track kit 2 months ago:
They can and theres is also a shorts option for women as well, you can see it on the far right in the picture in the article.
- Comment on ‘My hoo haa is gonna be out’: US Olympians slam Nike for skimpy women’s track kit 2 months ago:
Their is a shorts option for women as well, you can see it on the far right in the picture in the article.
Sucks for women who do usually like wearing briefs but they aren’t being forced to wear this.
- Comment on Why do Americans measure everything in cups? 2 months ago:
Adam ragusea has some good video explaining both why we use volume and why we don’t use metric
- Comment on Judge rules YouTube, Facebook and Reddit must face lawsuits claiming they helped radicalize a mass shooter | CNN Business 3 months ago:
Sweet, I’m sure this won’t be used by AIPAC to sue all the tech companies for causing October 7th somehow like unrwa and force them to shutdown or suppress all talk on Palestine. People hearing about a genocide happening might radicalize them, maybe we could get away with allowing discussion but better safe then sorry, to the banned words list it goes.
This isn’t going to end in the tech companies hiring a team of skilled moderators who understand the nuance between passion and radical intention trying to preserve a safe space for political discussion, that costs money. This is going to end up with a dictionary of banned and suppressed words.
- Comment on Judge rules YouTube, Facebook and Reddit must face lawsuits claiming they helped radicalize a mass shooter | CNN Business 3 months ago:
Judge hasn’t ruled yet, this was just them saying the case has some merit and won’t be dismissed. This will go to trial, after which the judge will make their ruling.
- Comment on Telegram founder says the company will become profitable next year | TechCrunch 3 months ago:
Xmpp was designed for ease of federation and simplicity in implementation. Most messaging apps these days are designed, or at least say they are designed, with privacy first. There probably are plugins for xmpp to allow for e2e encryption and contact list and metadata privacy from server admins but that depends on the server and will probably not be as secure as signal. Just as signal can be federated but it’s complex and not really worth it.
There’s a tradeoff between privacy/security and federation/decentralization and most people value privacy and security more.