Here on break

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • I mean even if it made them more money to platform confirmed shitheads, it’s still the wrong thing to do. Like ethically. It doesn’t also have to be wrong from a business or even legal perspective.

    If a company can’t take that kind of stand I don’t want anything to do with them.

    I am actually kind of thrilled that I have substack subscriptions, including paid, that I can pull as my little protest to this platform. Luckily my paid subscriptions have both confirmed that they’re ditching substack as well, so my support will follow them wherever they land.

    I really hope that substack lets writers have access to their email lists, so they can easily take them with them.




  • I think the fediverse in general has a better chance because it’s built on an anti-corporate philosophy, from the software, maintainers, admins, moderators, and much of the community (though increasingly less so, as it becomes more popular).

    If you have a problem with corporate influence on Reddit, then your ability to act on it ends with your subreddit’s moderators. To the admins and owners of reddit, that kind of influence is a feature.

    Hell they can even monetize it, bake it right into the DNA of the back-end, give the corps a nice little API to poll, maybe some webhooks…

    That is not something I see happening on the fediverse as long as its open source and run by the community.



  • Nah you’re just attached to the old idea of the One Big Marketplace of Ideas, where all the saints and sinners of all the world gather 'round and hash it out. I get it. But it didn’t work out, specifically because corpos put profit over community well-being, so that’s why I’m here.

    I’m sure there will be bridging or collating tools for people like you who don’t want to give up precious content just because it comes from a problematic source. Personally, I think wanting it all misses the point of real community.



  • What are we competing on exactly? Profitability? We’re not a company, we’re just a bunch of people talking among ourselves. This is like saying your casual Friday hangout with your buddies is no match for the likes of Rogers Telecom Combined International Userbase - like, by wtf metric? It’s not even a competition. They’re a company, and we’re a community.

    We’ll just keep doing our thing, and if threads gets annoying then I’ll pressure my instance to block them, and if they don’t I’ll just move to a nicer place. 🤷



  • Is that really a problem? It’s not trying to “control” anything. It’s a voluntary pact meant to conserve the non-corporate fediverse, as it is right now.

    The beauty of the fediverse is that you can choose your experience based on the instance you join

    This is never going to change. If you just don’t like the intent behind the fedipact, no problem - the majority of the fediverse will be talking with threads. You get the personal choice of which instances you make accounts on. Hell, you can make your own instance.

    There is no problem here.



  • It can be so worth it. Sometimes I’m stressing about this great nebulous cloud of bullshit that just seems insurmountable and existential, but then when I explain it to someone, it’s like… 3 things. And yeah, those things may legitimately be a source of stress, but knowing that they are finite and number, and probably solvable, makes daily life a lot less daunting.


  • hey sometimes your chest just feels like there’s a great weight crushing you crushing you from above and the walls are closing in and you’re scared and you just sit there stupidly not wanting to make a fuss but knowing absolutely knowing that this is it this is how it all ends–oh and then it kind of passes and you get back on shift and get in trouble for being slow, but it’s alright at least you’re alive





  • Yeah it’s relative… and it depends on your seniority a bit. I do feel like everyone has the capacity to at least question an unethical practice if they see it. Often that’s enough to trigger a tickle of shame in the person putting forward the idea, or at least shift the culture incrementally forward.

    For instance when I was working on marketing integrations, I eventually insisted that we track explicit consent, and provide an unsubscribe option on all emails and text messages going out. If I’d just “hacked it out” like the harried director of marketing expected, well, who knows

    Eventually that same director took great pride in his “clean lists,” so it was clear that he internalized some of the ethics.


  • The title’s meaning and weight can vary. So can the responsibilities and impact of an individual engineer’s decisions. But there is a longstanding tradition of engineers as gatekeepers for quality and the ethical application of their skills.

    For instance, licensed engineers in Canada have a duty to the following code of ethics. To quote the header:

    Registrants shall conduct themselves with integrity, in an honourable and ethical manner. Registrants shall uphold the values of truth, honesty and trustworthiness and safeguard human life and welfare and the environment. In keeping with these basic tenets, registrants shall: […]