From d525a1f2c27821f6be11c20f5294832df2e5687e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: thepaperpilot Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2024 22:10:25 -0600 Subject: [PATCH] Updated content --- Garden | 2 +- site/garden/abolitionism/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/anarchism/index.md | 8 +- site/garden/chat-glue/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/chromatic-lattice/index.md | 19 ++++ site/garden/commune/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md | 8 +- site/garden/decentralized/index.md | 19 +--- site/garden/digital-gardens/index.md | 4 +- site/garden/direct-democracy/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/fedi-v2/index.md | 50 +++++++++- site/garden/game-dev-tree/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/garden-rss/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/gender-performativity/index.md | 19 ++++ site/garden/gender/index.md | 30 ++++++ site/garden/gerrymandering/index.md | 33 +++++++ .../appeal-to-developers/index.md | 2 +- .../appeal-to-players/index.md | 2 +- .../defining-the-genre/index.md | 2 +- .../navigating-criticism/index.md | 2 +- .../what-is-content/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/incremental-social/index.md | 8 +- site/garden/kronos/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/my-browser-stack/index.md | 51 +++++++++++ site/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md | 33 +++++++ site/garden/my-political-journey/index.md | 37 ++++++++ site/garden/my-projects/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/neoliberalism/index.md | 3 +- site/garden/network-of-knowledge/index.md | 25 +++++ site/garden/objectivity/index.md | 43 +++++++++ site/garden/orchard/index.md | 58 ++++++++++++ site/garden/personality/index.md | 27 ++++++ site/garden/political-quizzes/index.md | 91 +++++++++++++++++++ .../prescriptivism-vs-descriptivism/index.md | 24 +++++ site/garden/profectus/index.md | 8 +- site/garden/representative-democracy/index.md | 8 +- .../garden/scientific-constructivism/index.md | 25 +++++ site/garden/social-constructs/index.md | 34 +++++++ site/garden/technocracy/index.md | 23 +++++ .../the-indieweb/amplification/index.md | 2 +- .../the-indieweb/signature-blocks/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/the-small-web/index.md | 2 +- site/garden/trans-athletes-in-sports/index.md | 25 +++++ site/garden/weird/index.md | 2 +- site/now/index.md | 20 ++-- 45 files changed, 698 insertions(+), 71 deletions(-) create mode 100644 site/garden/chromatic-lattice/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/gender-performativity/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/gender/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/gerrymandering/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/my-browser-stack/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/my-political-journey/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/network-of-knowledge/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/objectivity/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/orchard/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/personality/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/political-quizzes/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/prescriptivism-vs-descriptivism/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/scientific-constructivism/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/social-constructs/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/technocracy/index.md create mode 100644 site/garden/trans-athletes-in-sports/index.md diff --git a/Garden b/Garden index 3b02ad93..5086b41e 160000 --- a/Garden +++ b/Garden @@ -1 +1 @@ -Subproject commit 3b02ad93eebf7ee0e710ad7f63ca9b610bbf10da +Subproject commit 5086b41eed1b6ed3fba82beb02ead4a5ee44a695 diff --git a/site/garden/abolitionism/index.md b/site/garden/abolitionism/index.md index 39fe5f90..959773bc 100644 --- a/site/garden/abolitionism/index.md +++ b/site/garden/abolitionism/index.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

1493 words, ~8 minute read.

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Referenced by:AnarchismConsensus Democracy
+
Referenced by:AnarchismConsensus DemocracyMy Political Beliefs
I'm a supporter of the police abolition movement, which calls for police and prisons to be abolished. It argues that there are many inherent problems with policing and incarcerating people that cannot be fixed with just further training or restrictions - the entire system must be entirely abolished. In this way, it is a more extreme version of the police reform or defund the police movements. The movement also posits that there are alternatives to policing and incarceration that can be more effective at reducing crime. diff --git a/site/garden/anarchism/index.md b/site/garden/anarchism/index.md index ef73d6ca..1ae5091b 100644 --- a/site/garden/anarchism/index.md +++ b/site/garden/anarchism/index.md @@ -12,17 +12,19 @@ import { useData } from 'vitepress'; const pageData = useData();

Anarchism

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966 words, ~5 minute read.

+

1043 words, ~6 minute read.

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Referenced by:IndividualismLocal CommunitiesRepresentative Democracy
+
Referenced by:IndividualismLocal CommunitiesMy Political BeliefsRepresentative DemocracyTechnocracy
-I'm not a full-blown anarchist, but closely align to anarchist values and would like to see them influence policy. Anarchists believe that states are inherently immoral, and societies should be structured to have as minimal of a hierarchy as possible. This entails focusing on [Local Communities](/garden/local-communities/index.md) and spreading power as thinly as possible, to avoid the possibility of individuals becoming corrupt and abusing their power. +I like and appreciate a lot of the anarchist values and would like to see them influence policy. Anarchists believe that states are inherently immoral, and societies should be structured to have as minimal of a hierarchy as possible. This entails focusing on [Local Communities](/garden/local-communities/index.md) and spreading power as thinly as possible, to avoid the possibility of individuals becoming corrupt and abusing their power. Anarchism is anti-authoritarian, and explicitly denounces any use of violence to enforce rules, thus requiring [Police Abolition](/garden/abolitionism/index.md). By similar logic, anarchists tend to oppose imperialism and capitalism and the respective hierarchies they create. There are those who consider themselves "anarcho-capitalists" without realizing (or are ignoring) the hierarchies created by wealth inequality. These are incompatible views, and the person is likely actually authoritarian. Democracy is a form of electoralism that is typically compatible with Anarchism, although some definitions of anarchism disallow any form of rules, even when agreed upon unanimously. There are different forms of democracy, with [Direct Democracy](/garden/direct-democracy/index.md) and [Consensus Democracy](/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md) being the most popular variants that are compatible with anarchism. The US government is a [Representative Democracy](/garden/representative-democracy/index.md), which is NOT anarchistic. Representatives abstract policy making from the views of the people. If we're supposed to vote on the representative that will most closely vote to how we feel on all issues, then the theoretical perfect representative would just be ourselves - and at that point, we should just be voting on the issues directly. Therefore if striving for anarchism, you should not use a representative democracy as in its theoretical ideal its still only just as good as any other variant of Democracy, and in practice will be much worse. +A core principle of anarchism is "free association", referring to how individuals should be able to freely move between anarchist organizations to find one they're compatible with, or even frequently move between several communities they like. This can cause concerns of encouraging segregation, so I think its important for these communities to encourage diversity as much as they can. They can also refuse to associate with other bigoted communities, theoretically discouraging those bigoted views through social and material isolation. + Anarchistic organizations can still appoint roles to people. For example, if a nation like America were to be made anarchistic, it would likely maintain some roles of the President, such as that of Commander-In-Chief. It is primarily the law making and enforcing that would need to be democratized, and of course making sure those appointed roles are elected democratically. Anarchism relies on the idea that there are enough individuals motivated to systemically fix problems that they will do so without direct personal gain (beyond the problem being solved), and that others will not block those efforts, even if the policy won't help them in particular. I believe this would and does hold true. I believe our society being filled with greedy individuals is primarily caused by our society rewarding greed. Without the profit motive and returning to a culture of collaboration and mutual aid, greed would for the most part become a non-factor in policy making. Those who are already at the top of the hierarchy don't want to lose their position, and have thus been propagandizing that hierarchies are necessary/inevitable, and even just. This concept gets discussed in [The Alt-Right Playbook: Always a Bigger Fish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs). diff --git a/site/garden/chat-glue/index.md b/site/garden/chat-glue/index.md index e347bbb4..63c6052b 100644 --- a/site/garden/chat-glue/index.md +++ b/site/garden/chat-glue/index.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

23 words, ~0 minute read.

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Referenced by:CommuneMy Personal WebsiteThe Small Web
+
Referenced by:CommuneThe Small Web
A theoretical chat system designed to solve the problems of transcribing branching conversations into linear timelines. diff --git a/site/garden/chromatic-lattice/index.md b/site/garden/chromatic-lattice/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f0156b30 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/chromatic-lattice/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "chromatic-lattice" +title: "Chromatic Lattice" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Chromatic Lattice

+

7 words, ~0 minute read.

+
+ +
Referenced by:Fedi v2Incremental Social/now
+ +A multiplayer game I have in development :) diff --git a/site/garden/commune/index.md b/site/garden/commune/index.md index 47d02ddc..075ea93a 100644 --- a/site/garden/commune/index.md +++ b/site/garden/commune/index.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

144 words, ~1 minute read.

-
Referenced by:Federated IdentityMy Personal Website/nowWebringsWeird
+
Referenced by:Federated IdentityOrchardWebringsWeird
An [Open Source](/garden/open-source/index.md) [Matrix](/garden/matrix/index.md) web client built to be better for communities than anything else out there - Currently in development diff --git a/site/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md b/site/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md index cfc601d8..7585bac1 100644 --- a/site/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md +++ b/site/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md @@ -11,10 +11,10 @@ import { useData } from 'vitepress'; const pageData = useData();

Consensus Democracy

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162 words, ~1 minute read.

+

182 words, ~1 minute read.

-
Referenced by:Anarchism
+
Referenced by:AnarchismGerrymanderingMy Political Beliefs
A form of democracy similar to [Direct Democracy](/garden/direct-democracy/index.md) but with higher requirements for passing policies, typically requiring unanimity or near-unanimity. This helps reduce (although doesn't eliminate) the possibility of a majority group oppressing a minority group. @@ -22,4 +22,6 @@ Consensus democracy encourages and requires innovative solutions to problems (si Since consensus democracy doesn't scale well, larger governments could be structured as a federation of smaller governments. The smaller governments still use consensus democracy, but the federation only adopts policies that a super-majority of the smaller governments have agreed upon. Alternatively, the federation could specifically ask the local governments for policy proposals, then use [Direct Democracy](/garden/direct-democracy/index.md) to decide whether to approve it or not, still requiring a super-majority. -For policies that still are unable to pass federally, local governments could form coalitions that organize larger-scale initiatives between several districts. For example, this could empower efforts like transit systems between districts. \ No newline at end of file +For policies that still are unable to pass federally, local governments could form coalitions that organize larger-scale initiatives between several districts. For example, this could empower efforts like transit systems between districts. + +Transitioning to a direct democracy will face difficulties in finding an initial set of rules that people can agree with. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/decentralized/index.md b/site/garden/decentralized/index.md index 5019daf5..322893dd 100644 --- a/site/garden/decentralized/index.md +++ b/site/garden/decentralized/index.md @@ -12,26 +12,15 @@ import { useData } from 'vitepress'; const pageData = useData();

Decentralized

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80 words, ~0 minute read.

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131 words, ~1 minute read.

Referenced by:CommuneFedi v2MatrixSocial Media
Tagged by:ActivityPubATProtoFederated IdentityFediverseNostr
-Something with no central source of authority +Something with no central source of authority. RSS, email, and the [Fediverse](/garden/fediverse/index.md) are common examples of decentralized systems. There are many intricacies and potential pitfalls involved in allowing anyone to spin up their own server and join these large networks, but I believe they're often well worth it to solve the problems of centralized software. In practice though, even a lot of decentralized software can have the issues of centralized software due to the difficulty in migrating between servers, the difficulty in creating your own server, and the difficulty in picking a server, which typically leads to the consolidation of users in a handful of large servers (which are then similar to centralized services). I try to tackle those issues and suggest a new generation of federation without them in [Fedi v2](/garden/fedi-v2/index.md). -Common examples: -- RSS -- Email -- The [Fediverse](/garden/fediverse/index.md) +The typical (potential) advantages of decentralized services over centralized ones involve things like data ownership, increased privacy, having either no rules to follow or rules you more closely align with, the ability to customize your experience with custom servers or clients, protection from enshittification, and the democratization of improving the service. -In practice, the "pick a server" problem causes email and the fediverse to trend towards a handful of large servers that still suffer from some of the issues of centralization - -Advantages over centralization: -- Data ownership -- Increased privacy -- No rules to follow -- Can fully customize your experience -- No single entity can make the experience worse for everyone -- Anyone and everyone can try their hand at improving the ecosystem \ No newline at end of file +I think there's been a long trend in the early 2020s of criticizing centralized services and looking for alternatives. Unfortunately, the network effect, transition costs, and issues with the alternatives have stymied their adoption. I'm still optimistic that we're approaching the point where a federated network will truly take over and replace these centralized services, and drastically impact the shape of the internet going forward. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/digital-gardens/index.md b/site/garden/digital-gardens/index.md index 2ca03ea3..2253bfe5 100644 --- a/site/garden/digital-gardens/index.md +++ b/site/garden/digital-gardens/index.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

67 words, ~0 minute read.

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Referenced by:ChronologicalCommuneGarden-RSSThe Cozy WebThe Small WebThis Knowledge Hub
+
Referenced by:ChronologicalCommuneGarden-RSSNetwork of KnowledgeOrchardThe Cozy WebThe Small WebThis Knowledge Hub
Digital Gardens are [Freeform](/garden/freeform/index.md) collections of information made by an individual or community - Alternatives to [Chronological](/garden/chronological/index.md) personal blogs @@ -26,4 +26,4 @@ Digital Gardens are [Freeform](/garden/freeform/index.md) collections of informa Collections of digital gardens and resources for creating them: - **[https://github.com/MaggieAppleton/digital-gardeners](https://github.com/MaggieAppleton/digital-gardeners)** - https://github.com/lyz-code/best-of-digital-gardens -- https://github.com/KasperZutterman/Second-Brain +- https://github.com/KasperZutterman/Second-Brain \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/direct-democracy/index.md b/site/garden/direct-democracy/index.md index a527bd22..e30f831d 100644 --- a/site/garden/direct-democracy/index.md +++ b/site/garden/direct-democracy/index.md @@ -15,6 +15,6 @@ const pageData = useData();

40 words, ~0 minute read.

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Referenced by:AnarchismConsensus Democracy
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Referenced by:AnarchismConsensus DemocracyGerrymandering
A form of democracy where every voter gets to vote on every issue directly, and the majority rules. This form of voting is often criticized for having no safe guards to prevent a majority group from oppressing a minority group. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/fedi-v2/index.md b/site/garden/fedi-v2/index.md index e1b03d5f..2b652e3b 100644 --- a/site/garden/fedi-v2/index.md +++ b/site/garden/fedi-v2/index.md @@ -1,4 +1,5 @@ --- +alias: "Agentic Fediverse" public: "true" slug: "fedi-v2" title: "Fedi v2" @@ -11,10 +12,10 @@ import { useData } from 'vitepress'; const pageData = useData();

Fedi v2

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2566 words, ~14 minute read.

+

3918 words, ~21 minute read.

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Referenced by:Social MediaThe IndieWeb/Signature BlocksWeird
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Referenced by:DecentralizedOrchardSocial MediaThe IndieWeb/Signature BlocksWeird
A placeholder name for a theoretical new federated network that is client-centric, in contrast to the server-centric [Fediverse](/garden/fediverse/index.md). Many of the ideas here will be implemented as described or similarly by people much smarter than me as part of [Agentic Federation on Iroh](https://github.com/commune-os/weird/discussions/32), an initiative by the [Weird](/garden/weird/index.md) developers. @@ -28,7 +29,9 @@ The pick a server problem is such a problem because not only do you have to pick [Nostr](https://nostr.com/) fixes the pick a server problem with a properly decentralized identity, however it's done so by associating itself with crypto and the alt right, and fixing that culture problem is more effort than it's worth. It'll be difficult to gain broad adoption as anyone using the platform will have to take care to explain how they're using nostr but aren't alt right. -[ATProto](https://atproto.com/) by bluesky offers a version of federation built for a handful of large instances, but allowing smaller servers to be spun up that can implement custom sorting algorithms, views, etc. This fixes a couple of the problems where you're unable to change certain things dictated by the servers, but doesn't quite go far enough - and of particular note, you still have to associate your identity with a specific server. +[ATProto](https://atproto.com/) by bluesky offers a version of federation built for a handful of large instances, but allowing smaller servers to be spun up that can implement custom sorting algorithms, views, etc. Your identity can be tied to a domain you own, if you have one. This fixes a couple of the problems where you're unable to change certain things dictated by the servers, but doesn't quite go far enough. Their PDS system is very similar to what we're going for, but it's still tied to signing up at (and then relying upon) specific servers. + +[NextGraph](https://docs.nextgraph.org/en/introduction/) looks very similar to what we're trying to build. My only note is really that it gives a bit of a crypto vibe through decisions like calling identities "wallets" that I think may make it fall into the same problems nostr has, but conceptually its _really_ similar to everything discussed here, which is great! It should be incredibly easy to interoperate, at the very least.

Identity

 @@ -54,6 +57,8 @@ If you want a private network, say for a school or job, you could setup a relay Servers would give clients ways to subscribe to subsets of all received messages - e.g. all messages, all messages from a specific user, any replies to messages from a specific user, or "shallow" subscriptions to a message, meaning it'll send you only 1 level of replies to that message. +With a decentralized identity and the ability to switch servers seamlessly whenever you want, many of the benefits of self hosting a server are granted to everyone. This means there'll likely be fewer servers than the current fediverse has. There'll likely be enough to ensure redundancy, but beyond that I'd really only expect a couple large servers, similar to how bluesky intends AtProto to have, and perhaps smaller instances by institutions that want to provide storage for the people within that institution. Fortunately, it also means the disadvantages of only having 1 or a small number of servers also go away. We only need enough instances for redundancy, but beyond that we don't need to worry about being locked into a server or your server having rules you disagree with or anything. You'll always have your data, and can just send it to another server whenever you'd like. These fewer but larger servers will be useful for discoverability with less traffic between all the servers. + ## Content The protocol should be fairly content agnostic, and allow arbitrary metadata on messages that can be used by the community to come up with their own new forms of content to transmit over the protocol. For example, perhaps there's a body field that could include arbitrary text _or_ binary data, and for binary data another field could clarify if its audio, video, an image, or something else. @@ -72,6 +77,10 @@ Anyone can send edit and delete requests as replies to messages, but they'll typ Anyone can spin up their own bots that just automatically send out delete requests based on custom logic, like checking for images that match the CSAM hash list, or messages that ChatGPT says are non-constructive. Through this, the ecosystem will over time allow people to further customize their experience by filtering out unwanted content more and more precisely. +As an alternative or complementary solution, identities could have a system by which they vouch for or against other identities, and clients could use this network of vouches to filter posts to display or retrieve. For example, a user may say they only want to see posts made by identities within a chain of 10 vouches to themselves. Upon account creation, users could be prompted to vouch for IRL friends or some popular figures within topics they care about to get started. In theory the longer the chain can be, the more varied the content a user will see, and the more likely for it to be something they disagree with. This would allow users to customize how narrow their feed is at a given time by just changing the max chain length. They can also continue vouching for more people to more precisely expand their feed. This would essentially be an alternative to how current fediverse applications block entire instances as a heuristic, so they can get rid of undesirable content while minimizing how much of it they need to see before doing so. Except in this model, you can always reach people regardless of what server they decided to use, and the controls of in the hands of the individual. + +Clients could include tools to analyze their network of vouches, such as displaying all the identities within certain max lengths, or viewing what chain was followed for a specific post to have been displayed. Clients could also add additional tools to customize the chain, like being able to ignore a specific user's vouches or reposts/reblogs. They could allow specific entities, such as one representing a reddit-like community, to display all replies rather than use the network of trust, and offer controls like only counting likes from within the network when sorting the replies. They could also allow for overriding the max chain length for different contexts, such as when used for counting likes. + ## Success I believe the main benefits of this new fediverse are mostly going to apply to the techy power users who will appreciate the increased control over their identity and browsing experience. As far as the general public goes, I think the main benefit will be verified authorship and guaranteeing lack of tampering. Specifically, I think this will appeal to notable figures who have to be wary of concerns like that. Reddit and Twitter could edit your content or stifle it in the algorithm, or any other sort of malicious actions. So I think success of this platform will mostly come from seeing notable figures switching to it, and treating is as the source of truth (even if they cross post it to other platforms for increased outreach). Ideally, they even host their messages on their own website. @@ -98,6 +107,9 @@ Here's some initial ideas for components I currently plan on proposing and perha - **Editors**: Describes a list of identities who have the power to edit this message, or accept edit requests to this message. - **Deleters**: Describes a list of identities who have the power to delete this message, or accept deletion requests to this message. - **No Discovery**: Marks that this message should not be included in any global feeds or search results. Servers should only send it to servers and clients that subscribe to messages like this one. +- **Timestamp Requested**: Marks that this message would like to receive a response from a trusted server (optionally defined in the component data) once it is delivered. May also include a schema ID that represents what the timestamp represents. Defaults to referring to the published date. +- **Calendar Event**: Describes a calendar event. +- **RSVP**: Marks that you [are, might be, or aren't] participating in whatever a linked entity is describing. ### Chatting @@ -111,10 +123,40 @@ Here are some of the components that could be used to represent a chat room: The agentic fediverse could support sharing games using a Game component that includes a url or raw html required to play a game. In theory they could even support "cloud saves" by signing a message of their save data that only they can decrypt and sending it as a reply to the game message. Clients could handle displaying the game alongside the usual filtering and sorting features. +I'd also be excited in seeing a sort of MMO style game on the agentic fediverse. So you see other players and there's a shared game state, calculated on the client based on the actions recorded by the various different players. And since the rules would have to be defined by the components, people could create their own copies of the world (e.g. to play with a friend group or solo), or even make their own mods of the game. I'd like to look into that. I'll perhaps rethink [Chromatic Lattice](/garden/chromatic-lattice/index.md) to work on such a framework, although it may be too complicated for this idea. + +Having the game state be calculatable by the client like that would also allow trophies and achievements to work verifiably. People could probably still write software to copy someone else's events at the right times and effectively replicate their save, but I think that won't happen commonly enough to matter. + +### Permissions + +Instead of having various different licenses like CC0, MIT, etc., just make each permission discrete. For example, you can have a DoNotTrainOn component that marks that using an entity for training AI models is not allowed. + +This is different from the willow permissions system which determines who can read or write to specific entities/paths. This is for telling someone who has read access to your post what they're allowed to use it for. + +There should be a component that makes permissions explicit rather than implicit. E.g. assume you don't have the right to do anything unless explicitly stated. + ## Local identity and contact management If I have multiple apps that use the agentic fediverse (e.g. one for reddit like content, one for Twitter, discord, Google drive, etc.), I'd like to easily have them all use the same identity(s), as well as a shared contact list (so I know the person I saw do something on one app is the same as the person that did something on another app). To that end, there should be an app/program that manages your identities and contacts on that device. It sets up your initial identity, any cloud backups, etc., and the other apps talk to it as needed. That could be sending it individual messages to sign or asking for a key that can be used to do limited functionality. -Contacts could be signed such that they're only readable by us, and then sent over the network so I can have multiple devices that keep their contact list synced between them \ No newline at end of file +Contacts could be signed such that they're only readable by us, and then sent over the network so I can have multiple devices that keep their contact list synced between them + +An identity management app could also work as a link handler for the `leaf` protocol. It could take a schema ID as another path component, which then describes the purpose of the URI and the expected remaining data in the URI. The identity management app can then pass the message along to any app that has specified it knows how to handle that schema. + +## Sustainability + +Servers are expensive, especially as they get popular. Most current fediverse instances are free and funded by donations. Things like ads or paying for an account are difficult to do due to the nature of federation. This is a pretty major problem because if a server becomes too expensive to host, it will shut down, along with all the accounts associated with it. Fedi v2 makes individual servers going down not be an issue anymore, since identities aren't attached to them. However, it's an issue if _all_ the instances go down, and if there's no way to pay for them still, why would _any_ instance stay up? + +Since instance nodes do not have to do filtering, sorting, or really any other processing, but rather just serving the events and sending out notifications to clients, the cost will be cheaper than the current fediverse. It's really just a file server, which is cheap. For example, idrive charges $40 per tb per year, which is enough for a LOT of content. So I expect some instance nodes to have fairly generous free tiers that will suffice for a lot of users. Idrive also doesn't have egress charges, so the cost only scales with how much content is being published, not downloaded. + +For power users, instance nodes could accept payments to store data above the free quota. This would likely most often happen for people wishing to upload high resolution images or videos. A user could also switch nodes after filling a quota on one node - you don't have to delete your content on the old instance. You could also do this to backup your content on multiple nodes (although you should also keep a local copy of all your content). + +I assume this aspect of Fedi v2 will be the most controversial - people really like free services, and are expecting it. Knowing they might eventually need to pay to post more will perhaps require a cultural shift. I think it's worth it to not have ads or tracking, and in general we should be supporting sustainable services. + +## What about Incremental Social? + +I think Incremental Social can operate similarly to weird.one, hosting an iroh node and storing events for the agentic fediverse for users of the site. We'll generate and manage a keypair for the user, with the possibility of the user migrating their identity. + +I suspect the way the identity management app will work to support sites like weird.one and incremental.social is by passing the request for a delegate key to incremental.social, which will then show the consent screen before passing the key back to the app which sends it to the actual fediverse app. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/game-dev-tree/index.md b/site/garden/game-dev-tree/index.md index 9b0b46f5..3e7c30f6 100644 --- a/site/garden/game-dev-tree/index.md +++ b/site/garden/game-dev-tree/index.md @@ -23,4 +23,4 @@ My first (good) incremental game! (My actual first was [Shape Tycoon](https://th It's [Open Source](/garden/open-source/index.md)! -The [TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheGameDevTree) page on this game mentions some of the cool things about this game \ No newline at end of file +The [TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheGameDevTree) page on this game mentions some of the cool things about this game diff --git a/site/garden/garden-rss/index.md b/site/garden/garden-rss/index.md index 2459b6a8..16a5f373 100644 --- a/site/garden/garden-rss/index.md +++ b/site/garden/garden-rss/index.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

59 words, ~0 minute read.

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Referenced by:FreeformThe Small WebThis Knowledge Hub
+
Referenced by:FreeformOrchardThe Small WebThis Knowledge Hub
A theoretical alternative to RSS that's better for [Freeform](/garden/freeform/index.md) websites (and [Digital Gardens](/garden/digital-gardens/index.md) specifically ) diff --git a/site/garden/gender-performativity/index.md b/site/garden/gender-performativity/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..7448475a --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/gender-performativity/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "gender-performativity" +title: "Gender Performativity" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Gender Performativity

+

2 words, ~0 minute read.

+
+ +
Referenced by:ObjectivityPersonality
+ +A [Gender](/garden/gender/index.md) theory by Judith Butler, as described in [Gender Trouble](https://www.amazon.com/Gender-Trouble-Feminism-Subversion-Routledge/dp/0415389550). Butler argues that we observe gender norms performed by others and reproduce them. In this way, gender is a force that acts upon us. Philosophy Tube describes this theory in more detail in [I read the most misunderstood philosopher in the world](https://youtu.be/QVilpxowsUQ) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/gender/index.md b/site/garden/gender/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..defa1fb2 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/gender/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +alias: "Sex" +public: "true" +slug: "gender" +title: "Gender" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Gender

+

741 words, ~4 minute read.

+
+ +
Referenced by:Gender PerformativityTrans athletes in sports
+ +Gender is a tricky subject, and there are many conflicting frameworks that have been proposed for defining gender and measuring its impact, and other such aspects of it. Judith Butler, for example, controversially describes [gender as a performance](/garden/gender-performativity/index.md)); We observe how people act, what they seem to enjoy, and what roles they fill in society based on their gender, and then we (often subconsciously) perform similarly, perpetuating the cycle. That makes gender a [Social Construct](/garden/social-constructs/index.md). + +Gender is a very sensitive topic, especially as people's identities are constantly under attack within the west. I'd like to make it explicitly clear I support any and all gender identities, and re-affirm that just because something is a construct does _not_ mean its bad or useless. It just means society has decided to give it meaning, and I think gender will be very meaningful to people for a very very long time. These frameworks used for analyzing it and determining its utility are some nice philosophical exercises, but above all it should be clear any political goal should be to eliminate discrimination against marginalized peoples. + +There are some people who believe gender is an exclusively unuseful and negative social construct and should be entirely abolished, and see this act as a requirement for liberating queer people and women. You'll see plenty of people push back on this idea, saying they like their genders, though, and sometimes even trying to co-opt "gender abolitionism" as referring to only abolishing gender _roles_ rather than gender itself as a construct. It's seen as a stance that essentially invalidates the motivation behind so many people going through great efforts to transition from one gender to another. An even more pessimistic stance on gender abolition sees it as a return to biological sex, even further erasing the plights of trans people. However, I think as society progresses towards post-scarcity, a lot of constructs will over time see a natural end as they become less useful, and I do think we'll eventually see a post-gender society where everyone is just "themselves", and the realm of self expression is massively expanded, but no longer sees a need for gender as a construct. + +Alright, with that established it's time for another controversial take: Biological sex is _also_ a social construct. Sex is a term used to refer to a collection of underlying natural properties from which sex determining genes one has, which sex chromosomes are present, how much of each sex hormone gets produced, which genitals one has, which hormones get processed, what happens during puberty, and so on. Besides the fact there's plenty of people who don't have every single of the above properties cleanly fit into the same bucket, the fact we choose to imbue those properties with meaning makes them a construct as well, and in fact we imbued them with _so much_ meaning we built our entire society around it. Sure, we created gender as a way of abstracting the roles in the society from the natural properties, but ultimately they're both just as arbitrary distinctions we collectively chose to make. And yet, positioning gender as the social construct and biological sex as the "objective" underlying property, you open the door to essentially continue discriminating against a significant amount of the population, using "truth" and "science" to justify their position. + +To be clear, I'm not saying biology doesn't matter (and neither does anyone else who argues sex is also a social construct). Obviously someone with a uterus is going to have different medical risks and opportunities than someone without. But using the presence of that uterus to socially and culturally discriminate against someone is not okay. In fact, society placing importance on the number of years spent at a job is a form of discriminating against people who choose to take time off work to be a parent, even if their actual ability to perform that job is not impacted at all. This impacts both career trajectory as well as making it more difficult to even get some jobs in the first place. I recommend [Biological sex is a social construct](https://growinguptransgender.com/2018/11/01/biological-sex-is-a-social-construct/) for further exploration into this concept. + +[Identity, Gender, and VRChat](thttps://youtu.be/5v_Dl7i4Bcw) explores how VRChat has enabled people to explore their gender expression and other parts of their identity in a low risk and very accepting environment. I haven't used VRChat myself, but that sounds like an amazing resource for people to be able to use, and honestly makes me hope socializing in VR becomes an increasingly normalized and accessible activity. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/gerrymandering/index.md b/site/garden/gerrymandering/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ed44c6c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/gerrymandering/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "gerrymandering" +title: "Gerrymandering" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Gerrymandering

+

926 words, ~5 minute read.

+
+ +Gerrymandering, or the deliberate outlining of voting districts in order to consolidate or spread out voters who you expect to vote similarly to each other, is typically portrayed as an unambiguously unfair thing to do. And I (typically) agree! But there are some interesting caveats that illustrate how illusory our concept of fairness really is, that demonstrate it is in fact a [Social Construct](/garden/social-constructs/index.md). For example, Louisiana's most recent redistricting (in 2024) stirred up controversy for a new district, district 6, being drawn with very weird borders, specifically to ensure it has a majority of black voters who were previously more spread out across the districts. This is classic gerrymandering that makes it so that voting bloc determines the result of that district and the one already existing majority black district, but has nominal impact on any of the other 4 districts. But this process is actually being argued to be more fair to black voters, because previous congressional maps, despite appearing more fair, were not very proportional to race by only having 1 majority black district versus 5 majority white districts. This is the racial composition of Louisiana based on census data from 2017 to 2021, and the new congressional map highlighting the 2 districts that are majority black: + +
+Source: [Neilsberg](https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/topic/louisiana-population/) + +
+Source: [Democracy Docket](https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/new-louisiana-congressional-map-with-two-majority-black-districts-heads-to-governor/) + +Having 2 districts means black voters are represented by 1/3 of the districts, which is remarkably proportional, considering they make up 32% of the population. In this way, the gerrymandering is being employed to make the district representation more proportional by race, which groups like the NAACP argue makes them more fair. I agree with their assessment and think this will make Louisiana much more fair, and that's awesome. Naturally, it is being sued for its obvious gerrymandering however, with arguments that it is making the election less fair, under the definition that gerrymandering is intrinsically unfair. + +Both sides of the argument are dealing with conflicting definitions of fairness. Determining it based on how close to square each district ends up is just as arbitrary as making them proportional by race. They could have been proportional by age or party or hobby. And in any case, 6 representatives means the proportions are going to be very crude proportions in anyways - the racial composition showed no other races reached the ~1/6 of a population required to be given a single representative, so is it "fair" that they don't get any representative of their own? And is it even fair to be treating racial demographics as a monolithic voting blocs in the first place? Sure those two districts are gerrymandered to be majority black, but what if they're also all the black voters that voted a specific way, and the ones who voted another way are the ones still spread out across the majority white districts? + +These are not new insights, and [in](https://www.npr.org/2023/11/18/1194448925/congress-proportional-representation-explainer) [fact](https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/proportional-representation-reimagining-american-elections-to-combat-gerrymandering/) [many](https://protectdemocracy.org/work/proportional-representation-competitiveness/) [argue](https://fairvote.org/archives/how-proportional-representation-would-finally-solve-our-redistricting-and-gerrymandering-problems/) [that](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/proportional-representation-can-reduce-impact-gerrymandering) congressional districts should just use proportional representation directly, which would allow for larger districts with multiple representatives based on votes (such as a ranked choice vote, where you keep picking the most voted person, redistribute their votes to their next pick, and continue until all representatives picked), regardless of demographics or how anyone decided to draw up lines on a map... Except even then, what if the larger districts are still gerrymandered? What if the state itself is gerrymandered? Louisiana being composed of 32% black voters is "packed" considering the US as a whole only has a 12% black population. And unless we increase the number of representatives, there's likely still going to be demographics and political dispositions that lack even a single representative. But maybe some would argue below that 1 representative threshold, those demographics and political views aren't significant enough to warrant a material impact on how the area is run? + +I've been mentioning race a lot here, but I think it's important to understand why that demographic specifically is considered so important to account for here. America is and has been a racist country for a long time, with many issues present in the system itself, and therefore our social constructs as well. Black people have been regularly under-represented in our government and suffered greatly for it. I've been making the case that proportionality by race is a reasonable metric for fairness, but to be honest there's quite a strong case that, due to historical oppression, black people may deserve to be _over-represented_ in order to help them regain equal footing in our society. To help correct the racist parts very much still present in our laws and processes, which may be hard to do if a minority of our representatives are chosen by black people. This adds a whole new facet to our discussion on fairness that I'm only briefly touching on here, but even proportionality may not be considered "fair", due to its ambivalence to historical context. + +My personal stance on what would be most fair is actually that representation is intrinsically an inaccurate abstraction of the people's political will. I think the closer we get to having individuals voting directly on the issues the better (see [Direct Democracy](/garden/direct-democracy/index.md) ), and beyond that I'd ideally prefer a system where policies are workshopped and ideated upon until they can achieve a near unanimous vote before being implemented (see [Consensus Democracy](/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md) ). But hopefully all of this goes to show how complex fairness is, and how there is no "objectively" definition of fairness. Therefore, arguments should not center on appeals to "fairness" like its some objective or authoritative measure. You must be able to justify why your policy improves things in material. And to clarify, I _do_ support the new congressional map that makes two majority black voting districts - I'm all for harm reduction, and that map is the _least_ we can do in trying to make the system more fair, by most reasonable definitions of fairness. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/appeal-to-developers/index.md b/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/appeal-to-developers/index.md index 2e4cba14..6efa62c0 100644 --- a/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/appeal-to-developers/index.md +++ b/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/appeal-to-developers/index.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

636 words, ~3 minute read.

-
Referenced by:Digital GardensIncremental SocialKronosMy Personal WebsiteSocial Media
+
Referenced by:Incremental SocialKronos/nowOrchardSocial ConstructsSocial Media
There are a lot of developers in the incremental games community - the genre seems to draw them in, and convert a lot of players _into_ developers. Let's explore the reasons why this genre appeals to developers. diff --git a/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/appeal-to-players/index.md b/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/appeal-to-players/index.md index 8762c1c4..774f1ec5 100644 --- a/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/appeal-to-players/index.md +++ b/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/appeal-to-players/index.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

2166 words, ~12 minute read.

-
Referenced by:Digital GardensIncremental SocialKronosMy Personal WebsiteSocial Media
+
Referenced by:Incremental SocialKronos/nowOrchardSocial ConstructsSocial Media
This is something that has been discussed and analyzed by many people, and to some extent, I feel like everything that can be said on the topic already has. However, a lot of these analyses are from the perspective of those with not as much experience and involvement within the genre as I'd argue would be necessary for a fully contextualized answer. I'm interested in ludology and part of that includes interpreting games as art, and to that end what constitutes a game, let alone a "good game". Incremental games are oft criticized, unfairly in my biased opinion, of not even constituting games, such as was posited by [this polygon article](https://www.polygon.com/2013/9/30/4786780/the-cult-of-the-cookie-clicker-when-is-a-game-not-a-game). diff --git a/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/defining-the-genre/index.md b/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/defining-the-genre/index.md index 30d39730..a0adbcb2 100644 --- a/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/defining-the-genre/index.md +++ b/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/defining-the-genre/index.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

3429 words, ~19 minute read.

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Referenced by:Digital GardensIncremental SocialKronosMy Personal WebsiteSocial Media
+
Referenced by:Incremental SocialKronos/nowOrchardSocial ConstructsSocial Media
Video games are placed into genres for a variety of reasons. They can give a mental shorthand to set the player's expectations up, they can help a game market itself by its similarities to other, already popular games, and honestly, people just love categorization for its own sake. For this guide, it's important to define the genre so it is clear what games it's even talking about. diff --git a/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/navigating-criticism/index.md b/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/navigating-criticism/index.md index c9249fcf..8e3c431c 100644 --- a/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/navigating-criticism/index.md +++ b/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/navigating-criticism/index.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

747 words, ~4 minute read.

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Referenced by:Digital GardensIncremental SocialKronosMy Personal WebsiteSocial Media
+
Referenced by:Incremental SocialKronos/nowOrchardSocial ConstructsSocial Media
Developing games is fun and exciting and teaches a lot of wonderful skills - I enthusiastically encourage anyone with an interest in game development to try it out - and incremental games are a wonderful way to get started. However, there are many challenges young and inexperienced developers have to face, and I think the hardest one - harder than coding, debugging, balancing, etc. - is handling criticism. When you put your heart and soul into a game it is natural to feel very vulnerable. While I think there's a lot communities can do to ensure they're welcoming, positive and constructive with their criticisms, inevitably you will eventually read some, and potentially a lot, of comments that can deeply affect you. No one is immune to this, from young incremental game developers to the largest content creators you can think of. That's why it's important to be able to process and navigate criticism, because ultimately collecting feedback is essential to the journey to becoming a better developer. On this page, we'll explore how to embrace criticism, grow from it, and continue to post your games publicly with confidence. diff --git a/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/what-is-content/index.md b/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/what-is-content/index.md index 706bfc9f..09d9c276 100644 --- a/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/what-is-content/index.md +++ b/site/garden/guide-to-incrementals/what-is-content/index.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

2272 words, ~12 minute read.

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Referenced by:Digital GardensIncremental SocialKronosMy Personal WebsiteSocial Media
+
Referenced by:Incremental SocialKronos/nowOrchardSocial ConstructsSocial Media
If you've been in the incremental games community for any amount of time, you'll quickly find the number one thing players want is _content_. They want as much of it as possible! The most popular incremental games have tons of content, so they just keep stretching on and on and on, introducing mechanic after mechanic, and players love it. In fact, players seem to value the _amount_ of content over the quality of any _specific_ content. However, there's a bit of a lack of understanding concerning _what_ content is, and I'd like to explore what counts as content, and how we measure it. As a baseline definition, I think "content" can just be described as the parts of the game that engage the player, but to truly understand it we need to contextualize what that means and how it affects the gameplay experience. diff --git a/site/garden/incremental-social/index.md b/site/garden/incremental-social/index.md index 2af76417..4ee5da1d 100644 --- a/site/garden/incremental-social/index.md +++ b/site/garden/incremental-social/index.md @@ -11,15 +11,15 @@ import { useData } from 'vitepress'; const pageData = useData();

Incremental Social

-

20 words, ~0 minute read.

+

113 words, ~1 minute read.

Referenced by:Federated IdentityMy Personal Website/nowWebrings
Tags:My Projects
-[Incremental Social](https://incremental.social/) is a [Fediverse](/garden/fediverse/index.md) website hosted by me! +[Incremental Social](https://incremental.social/) is a [Fediverse](/garden/fediverse/index.md) website hosted by me! It was made under the motivation of the fediverse working best when split up into websites that are specialized for specific communities - and in this case, Incremental Social was made and designed explicitly for the incremental games community! Most notably, it hosts an instance of [Mbin](/garden/mbin/index.md), [Forgejo](/garden/forgejo/index.md), and [Synapse](/garden/synapse/index.md) (and [Cinny](/garden/cinny/index.md)). Mbin allows it to read and write both reddit-style threads and twitter-style posts, and forgejo allows developers to host their web games. Synapse allows the community to chat in a more synchronous fashion than Mbin. -Made explicitly for the incremental games community +In the future I plan on having the platform also generate a keypair to allow the user to use this account as their identity on the [Agentic fediverse](undefined). -Most notably hosts an instance of [Mbin](/garden/mbin/index.md), [Forgejo](/garden/forgejo/index.md), and [Synapse](/garden/synapse/index.md) (and [Cinny](/garden/cinny/index.md)) +With all these platforms, there will be a goal to support migrating identities elsewhere, so users are not locked in to our platform. Unfortunately a lot of these protocols don't support migration, or not well, so this is going to be a long-term goal. diff --git a/site/garden/kronos/index.md b/site/garden/kronos/index.md index 1a4b4458..f1039d3e 100644 --- a/site/garden/kronos/index.md +++ b/site/garden/kronos/index.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

60 words, ~0 minute read.

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Referenced by:V-ecs
+
Referenced by:/nowV-ecs
Tags:My ProjectsProfectus
diff --git a/site/garden/my-browser-stack/index.md b/site/garden/my-browser-stack/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2061cd11 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/my-browser-stack/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "my-browser-stack" +title: "My Browser Stack" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

My Browser Stack

+

447 words, ~2 minute read.

+
+ +This is the list of tools I use for browsing the internet in a safe way that ensures it's a pleasant experience. + +## Browser + +I've used a lot of browsers over time, and currently use [Zen](https://zen-browser.app/) because of it's modern look. At this point I really just recommend any fork of Firefox (such as Zen). Mozilla has seen its fair share of controversy, but nowhere near the amount Google has, and it's worth using a Firefox based browser in order to fight the chrome monopoly. + +Other great Firefox forks to look at are [librewolf](https://librewolf.net/) and [waterfox](https://www.waterfox.net/), which are privacy centric and lightweight and run faster than stock firefox. + +## Extensions + +A classic recommendation you've probably already heard, [uBlock Origin](https://ublockorigin.com/) is a requirement for browsing the internet. Ads spy on you and significantly degrade your browsing experience, and this extension fixes that. Gorhill, it's creator, deserves so much appreciation for the service they've done to the entire world. + +### Youtube + +If you browse YouTube in your browser, you might be interested in these extensions as well: + +[Sponsorblock](https://sponsor.ajay.app/) uses crowd sourced information on YouTube videos to automatically skip past parts you don't care about, like sponsor reads or calls to like or subscribe. + +[DeArrow](https://dearrow.ajay.app/) uses crowd sourced information on YouTube videos to replace the original titles with more descriptive ones (to avoid click bait). It'll also replace thumbnails with random frames from the video itself. Note this extension asks for a $1 donation or to request free access, which can take a few hours (but you can "trial" the extension in the meantime). + +## Search + +With the advent of AI generated content, it has become much more difficult to search the web. Here's some techniques to find useful, original, human made resources. + +If you'd like to clean up your mainstream search engine results(Google, DuckDuckGo, or Bing), you can use the [Huge AI Blocklist](https://github.com/laylavish/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist). The list works with uBlock Origin, but they recommend using [uBlacklist](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublacklist/), an extension specifically for blocking certain Google search results. + +If you're willing to pay, [Kagi](https://kagi.com/welcome) is a premium search engine you may be interested in. Being a paid service, it doesn't rely on ads or tracking to make a profit, and has a great reputation for high quality results and additional features free search engines don't have like personalized rankings for domains. + +There is also an independent search engine called [Marginalia](https://search.marginalia.nu/) that designed to show you non commercialized sites that are typically smaller and independent, which acts as a great filter to only see human made resources. + +Finally, if your goal is just privacy, the extension mentioned in the following section will help redirect you to alternative search engines as well. + +## Privacy respecting front ends + +There are many projects out there that offer sites you can go to that interface with popular but not privacy respecting websites like YouTube or Twitter. This is personally a bit overkill for me, but I've considered using them in the past. Rather than looking up each alternative directly and finding a working instance, I recommend just using a regularly maintained extension that automatically redirects you from the popular site to a working instance of the alternative frontend, like [Privacy Redirect](https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect). \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md b/site/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..32a29efa --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "my-political-beliefs" +title: "My Political Beliefs" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

My Political Beliefs

+

228 words, ~1 minute read.

+
+ +
Referenced by:My Political JourneyPolitical Quizzes
+ +# Government + +I tend to argue in favor of a government structured as a federation of local communities, where the local communities operate through [Consensus Democracy](/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md) , and the federation has a system where it takes a very significant super majority to enact anything and operates through referendums rather than any form of representation, which I see as an unnecessary yet corruptible abstraction of the will of the people. The goal is to ensure everyone has an equal voice and are supportive or at least compatible with every policy they live under. + +# Economy + +I believe we should eventually arrive at communism; a post-scarcity society where everyone's needs are met via automation and without the need for currency. Along the way there I expect us to democratize the workplace and work towards nationalizing every idustry. + +# Society + +I believe in maximizing personal liberties, so long as one is not actively harmful to others, including most forms of discrimination. + +# Security + +I'm against the use of violence by anyone, including the state. I believe in [Police Abolition](/garden/abolitionism/index.md) and am against the military and espionage both foreign and domestic. I believe in the [Anarchist](/garden/anarchism/index.md) value of free association, so I believe we should have fully open borders, both for travel and immigration/emmigration. I am anti-imperialist and believe in a fairly isolationist foreign policy, but am not against humanitarian foreign aid. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/my-political-journey/index.md b/site/garden/my-political-journey/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ea4efa17 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/my-political-journey/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "my-political-journey" +title: "My Political Journey" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

My Political Journey

+

714 words, ~4 minute read.

+
+ +
Referenced by:Political Quizzes
+ +[My Political Beliefs](/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md) have changed over time, although I believe it mostly stems from me becoming increasingly informed. Since this website contains content from as far back as 2006, when I was only 10 years old, I'd like to make it extremely clear that I have changed as a person, as we all have, and disavow a lot of my older opinions, roughly everything before 2020 or so but to be safe let's just give a dynamic (current date - 2 years). It's likely you are on this page from viewing a timeline post from that range and clicking the banner. There are bits in that period I may still agree with, but perhaps it would be best to just assume I don't have a stance on it unless there's something more recent about it. Pages in the garden section of this site are evergreen though, meaning I'll keep them up to date as my views change. Feel completely free to judge me for my opinions in there. + +## Core beliefs + +I believe I've been fairly political since I was quite young, and had a relatively consistent set of core values that have just been expressed in different ways and through different lenses during different points of my life. For example I've always believed in fairness, but have used that belief to both argue for and against affirmative action. Concepts like freedom or meritocracies have similarly been redefined as I've become more aware of the influence of imperialism and colonialism on our cultural values and society. + +Other beliefs of mine have always been around, but I just wasn't informed enough to properly express my views. I've voiced for a very long time that I think society will inevitably trend towards post-scarcity, a world without class, currency, or jobs, where all our needs and desires are met fully, automatically, and sustainably. I've never once pictured that society retaining a hierarchy of wealth or power in any way. But I would not have recognized that as an anarchistic society until relatively recently, mostly due to misinformation and propaganda against anarchy. + +## Anti-SJW + +Alright, I'm guessing you're specifically on this page because you saw me upvote something on r/KotakuInAction or like a video from PSASitch or something like that. I'm not proud of this time period, where I read and watched a bit of Anti-SJW content. I'm glad to have moved on from this point of my life, and wish it hadn't happened in the first place. I don't really have any excuses, but appreciate understanding that I have grown as a person since this time. + +I migrated a LOT of posts to this website for the sake of having them all in one place and under my control, rather than other websites'. I have not been able to look through the tens of thousands of posts (mostly upvotes/likes), but have done some basic filtering of these opinions I no longer hold. I'm open about the fact I once held these beliefs, but I don't need to be de facto promoting them by sharing them on this website. If you stumble across a post you think I'd rather not have on this site anymore, please [reach out](https://www.thepaperpilot.org/about/). + +## Radicalization + +I believe a lot of things contributed to my radicalization, which happened sometime in the early 2020s. Ultimately I think I was just aware that I didn't really like the views I was being exposed to, the direction that media was trying to to pull me, and slowly over time just engaged less and less with that kind of content. I'd always been very economically leftist, so just needed to get over my edgy/cringe phase. I think what put the nail in the coffin was watching through the [alt right playbook](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ), a great series I highly recommend. I also started really enjoying a lot of leftist creators, like [hasanabi](https://twitch.tv/hasanabi), [philosophy tube](https://youtube.com/@philosophytube), and others. The people around me also affect my views, and after leaving college I think I interacted with nicer people on average. Of particular note here is my wife, who had their own political journey which has similarly culminated in us sort of having a positive feedback loop further and further left. Certain events like the BLM protests following George Floyd similarly cemented our position further and further left. + +I actually want to also point out I've found a lot of people in this space to be very accepting of people who previously held problematic beliefs. It's largely why I feel comfortable (enough) having a lot of my history public both on this page and the site in general, and being able to describe how my political journey got me to where I am today, a very radical leftist. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/my-projects/index.md b/site/garden/my-projects/index.md index 5d8bd314..8d758b51 100644 --- a/site/garden/my-projects/index.md +++ b/site/garden/my-projects/index.md @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ const pageData = useData();
Referenced by:Guide to Incrementals/What is Content?
-
Tagged by:Advent IncrementalBabble BudsCapture the CitadelDice ArmorGame Dev TreeIncremental SocialKronosOpti-SpeechPlanar PioneersProfectusV-ecs
+
Tagged by:Advent IncrementalBabble BudsCapture the CitadelDice ArmorGame Dev TreeIncremental SocialKronosOpti-SpeechOrchardPlanar PioneersProfectusV-ecs
I like making games and tools! diff --git a/site/garden/neoliberalism/index.md b/site/garden/neoliberalism/index.md index 4ee686ee..f1b558ec 100644 --- a/site/garden/neoliberalism/index.md +++ b/site/garden/neoliberalism/index.md @@ -1,4 +1,5 @@ --- +alias: "Neoliberal" public: "true" slug: "neoliberalism" title: "Neoliberalism" @@ -14,7 +15,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

133 words, ~1 minute read.

-
Referenced by:AnarchismLocal Communities
+
Referenced by:AnarchismLocal CommunitiesTechnocracy
Neoliberalism is a conservative political philosophy that emphasizes [Individualism](/garden/individualism/index.md) and is resistant to change/progress. It became popular with the advent of President Raegan and his sweeping changes to the US economy and government (replacing the comparatively socialist polices of the New Deal and the Great Society), and affects both the Republican and Democratic US political parties. diff --git a/site/garden/network-of-knowledge/index.md b/site/garden/network-of-knowledge/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..81025dec --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/network-of-knowledge/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "network-of-knowledge" +title: "Network of Knowledge" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Network of Knowledge

+

50 words, ~0 minute read.

+
+ +
Referenced by:/nowOrchard
+ +A theoretical concept for a federated protocol for people to write down their research, thoughts, etc. and link to other people's writings, such that it forms of network of all human thought + +Existing Projects: +- [Noosphere](https://github.com/subconsciousnetwork/noosphere) + - Sounds a lot like it's building networked [Digital Gardens](/garden/digital-gardens/index.md) + - Unfortunately, [closed down](https://subconscious.substack.com/p/subconscious-is-winding-down) +- [Ibis](https://ibis.wiki) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/objectivity/index.md b/site/garden/objectivity/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..af80fa25 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/objectivity/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "objectivity" +title: "Objectivity" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Objectivity

+

629 words, ~3 minute read.

+
+ +
Referenced by:Scientific Constructivism
+ +Objectivity is a myth. All we have are our subjective experiences, which are shaped by our environments and it's [Social Constructs](/garden/social-constructs/index.md). + +When a social construct becomes sufficiently ingrained within society to the point it's not recognized as a construct, it can begin to be considered an "objective truth", which can lead to harmful results. + +These social constructs form echo chambers around the entire society. In this way, echo chambers fractal within each other. That's not inherently a bad thing, but it's often difficult to recognize echo chambers from inside, and we're all ultimately inside at least one. + +> "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." - Noam Chomsky + +In practice, the idea that objectivity doesn't exist doesn't really impact anything. Our shared experiences are similar enough that our truths about most every day things are compatible. Where this most applies is when there's an argument between two people who are reaching different conclusions despite the same level of knowledge about the topic. In theory, you could probably find a shared common ground and determine that specific logical step in which you diverge. That divergence may be explained by our subjective perspectives on the world, mixed with our personal values. However, a side may _claim_ their side of the divergence is the correct one due to some "objective truth". This is simply not so, but is all too often used to justify bigoted arguments. + +Zoe Bee, in [The Language War of Politics: How Metaphors Shape Our Thinking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pPNV_B-Hpc), discusses how reality is subjective and shaped by our experiences. This is framed by how metaphors take advantage of this concept to direct how we think about the tenor (the subject of the metaphor). + +## Economics + +["Objective Economics" Isn't](https://c4ss.org/content/59895) discusses how objectivity doesn't exist (at least in the context of economics), and how those who claim there is are doing so maliciously. + +> Yes, neoclassical/marginalist economics — and the Austrian economics to which Carroll predictably adheres — is technically “objective” in the sense that it’s a set of rules that objectively produce the same results from a given set of inputs every time. But the axioms of Austrian economics are, in themselves, trivially — or even circularly — true. What matters is the application of those axioms in a manner sufficiently sophisticated to generate meaningful statements about complex economic phenomena. The assumptions governing that application, and even what questions to ask, reflect value judgments. Any economic paradigm involves such choices, and the choices made will render it more relevant for some purposes and less relevant for others. Those choices are unavoidably political. + +They discuss how claiming objectivity is used to add credibility to an argument. However, these "objective" arguments are only true within a specific framework of rules and restrictions, which they only suggest but don't prove matches reality. They effectively erase important context that are inconvenient for their politically motivated argument, and by doing so deliberately draw wrong conclusions. + +## "Dress is not an art project. It's a language, and you're babbling incoherently" + +CJ the X discusses in [How Jordan Peterson's Suits Taught Me Fashion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpHFcylNGqg) how the idea that art is subjective hindered his ability to learn fashion as a teenager. He uses the above quote to articulate how contemporary values replacing the oppressive but comparatively well defined fashion values did him a disservice. He was essentially no longer able to learn and get advice on fashion other than through his own individual experimentation. He compares it to a language, where you can learn the grammar and vocabulary, but still be unable to make sensical sentences unless you understand the how and why people put these words together - like understanding the different articles of clothing, but not the why and how they get paired together. Arguing for fashion as a language, and that despite its subjectivity there's still necessarily a learned social component, enables people to be able to teach fashion without feeling like their just upholding old bigoted values. It's also a brilliant argument for why [Social Constructs](/garden/social-constructs/index.md) can be and are useful. + +He also describes the history of fashion's values, and how previously there was the idea of a singular "objective" sense of fashion, and that those who disagree are just incorrect. Essentially that meant the goal of fashion was to look like how the elites look. He argues that today fashion is still trying to look how the elites look, but now the elites are fractured - academic elites have their own fashion from, say, the elites of hip hop. This actually sounds a lot like Butler's argument for [Gender Performativity](/garden/gender-performativity/index.md). \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/orchard/index.md b/site/garden/orchard/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..22b7f6e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/orchard/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "orchard" +tags: [My Projects] +title: "Orchard" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Orchard

+

634 words, ~3 minute read.

+
+ +
Referenced by:/now
+ +
Tags:My Projects
+ +This is an app I'm designing and at least building a mock for. I'd like it to either get built directly into [Commune](/garden/commune/index.md) or integrate with it. The purpose of the app is to organize and grow a [Network of Knowledge](/garden/network-of-knowledge/index.md) (or [Digital Garden](/garden/digital-gardens/index.md)) sorted by topic. It achieves this through a concept called message gardening, the process of converting casual conversations into formal, referenceable stores of knowledge. + +The problem I have that I'm trying to solve is having a lot of conversations about various topics stretching back far into the past and across many platforms. I often want to review something I said on a given topic and find it difficult to do so. This app would make it far easier to retrieve my notes on any topic. It's different than a traditional note-taking app because it works with conversations directly, which is how my "notes" on a topic initially start out as. As a secondary effect, this will also fix some of the issues described in the [chat glue](https://a9.io/glue-comic/) comic. I'd like it to eventually support even more of the ideas proposed in that comment, like replies and reactions to parts of a message. + +The main way you interact with the app is by conversing. As you converse in your group chats and DMs, which are technically through matrix but can bridge to other platforms like discord, you can specify topic changes. These will break the conversation up into pieces, and each piece gets added to each of the topics it was about (with links to the convo from before and after that one). If a piece was about multiple topics it forms a link between those topics and considers them in some way related. These links are represented as lines in the topics graph, and cause the topics to be physically closer within the graph. Topics can use slashes to indicate hierarchy, which will also place them next to each other in the graph. + +## Non-conversation notes + +In addition to including conversations, I want to support freeform notes that also discuss one or more topics. Through leaf's compositional structure, in theory any entity should be able to be added to the network. + +Another type of non-conversation note could be excerpts from online articles, which could be automatically cited. + +When allowing these kinds of notes, users should be encouraged to split notes as small as possible. This allows us to avoid needing something like [Garden-RSS](/garden/garden-rss/index.md) by just showing that a note has updated, and showing the new content. + +## Communal Networks + +By integrating with commune on the server side, the network could be maintained by the entire community, allowing any (trusted) members to mark topic changes. This has the benefit of making maintenance easier on any individual, but also it means users wanting to catch up on the conversations can now do so via the graph, ignoring any conversations that don't mention any topics that user doesn't particularly care about. + +## Federation + +Allow clients to "follow" those communal networks, replicating them locally and merging them together (aliasing similar topics as necessary). This allows users to get very large networks much more easily, and further incentivizes contributing to the communal networks. + +## LLMs + +A local LLM could assist in marking topic changes automatically, allowing you to get the benefits of the conversation being broken up for catching up even while on a non-commune chat. + +LLMs could also be given the topics as context and be able to query the network for knowledge. + +## Tech Stack + +The client will be a matrix client that stores all the messages locally. It'll use [Fedi v2](/garden/fedi-v2/index.md) to store the messages and other data, making the whole app [Local-First Software](undefined). The rest of the app will be a web-based UI, using [Neutralino.js](https://neutralino.js.org/) or an alternative. + +Actually, [tauri](https://v2.tauri.app/) apparently doesn't require rust per-say, and has things like mobile support and a better dev experience. + +The server will be something that ensures commune servers can share topic changes across the community. + +Consider using [Animata](https://animata.design/) components diff --git a/site/garden/personality/index.md b/site/garden/personality/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..6ee7c2c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/personality/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "personality" +title: "Personality" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Personality

+

143 words, ~1 minute read.

+
+ +I think personality is best explained with a combination of Social Identity Theory and Self Categorization Theory +- Social Identity Theory + - Posits that significant amount of our personality is derived from our membership in various social groups + - People categorize themselves and others into groups based on nationality, gender, profession, interests, etc. + - The groups one feels they most identity with end up shaping one's behaviors + - Also leads to discrimination and out-group homogeneity +- Self Categorization Theory + - People act in ways that they perceive as typical for the members of the group they identify with + - Can lead to viewing oneself as an embodiment of the group prototype rather than a unique individual +- I believe people adopt core identities and then subconsciously use their perception of how people with those identities as a mnemonic for how they should behave +- [Gender Performativity](/garden/gender-performativity/index.md) maps cleanly onto these theories \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/political-quizzes/index.md b/site/garden/political-quizzes/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..521594b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/political-quizzes/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "political-quizzes" +title: "Political Quizzes" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Political Quizzes

+

841 words, ~5 minute read.

+
+ +Political quizzes are a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. I really enjoy getting my beliefs distilled into a handful of labels, and getting forced to think about issues I may not have thought about that thoroughly. I often take issue with the wording of various questions though, and certainly have opinions on some quizzes being better than others. + +Ultimately, the reason I consider these quizzes a _guilty_ pleasure is because the results shouldn't really be used for anything. I believe we should vote on the issues directly, and any form of [Representative Democracy](/garden/representative-democracy/index.md) is an unnecessary abstraction. The labels may be useful as a mnemonic, but not as useful as the individual answers and the justifications behind those answers. Plus, people are going to interpret the questions differently, especially when it comes to understanding terms like liberalism, freedom, or merit. + +With all that said, here I'll discuss some tests I've taken, the results I've gotten l, and my overall thoughts on it. I'll include the dates taken so they can map to [My Political Journey](/garden/my-political-journey/index.md). + +# Prism Political Quiz + +Made by the six triangles creator, I really like this [test](https://prismquiz.github.io)! It actually might be my favorite. It novelly gives you multiple positions to take on a given issue, rather than a statement you can agree or disagree with. I overall really liked the choices, and nearly always felt one represented my views. + +I like the [results](https://prismquiz.github.io/results.html?result=m0QWd0KZP&lang=en) I got on 2024-09-06. I was surprised at my government value being just "direct democracy", when the way I define my views on Government in [My Political Beliefs](/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md) (at the time of taking the test), which I believe I reflected accurately in my responses here, would probably include at least some points on anarchism and confederationism. That said, I liked these results so much that they inspired me to write that page on my political beliefs, which takes clear inspiration from this test. + +
+ +# Six Triangles + +I was intrigued by [Six Triangles](https://sixtriangles.github.io/index.html)' idea of replacing axes with triangles, although some of the additional points seem a bit redundant, or just acted as a disguised additional axis. For example, the truth corner of personal freedom is not really related to the axis of freedom vs security. It could have easily been its own axis specific to misinformation. Similarly, I think the burden corner of equality is going to be highly correlated to their equality of opportunity score. Others, however, really benefit from the third point, like economy being split up into laissez faire capitalism, "well regulated" capitalism, and socialism. + +Unfortunately, I found a lot of the questions to be poorly worded or vague. For example, I disagree with the statement "The government occasionally needs to do things which aren't popular for the good of its people" because popular isn't sufficient, but in a system that requires unanimity (or near unanimity), I'd argue everything that gets passed is for the good of the people, based off the values and considerations of those specific people. That nuance doesn't carry over if I just select "disagree" though. They also have the statement "Small government is usually better than big government" without any context for what big vs small mean in this context: number of employees? Amount of nationalized services? Number of constituents? Amount of regulations? This distinction matters for getting (more) accurate results. + +The [results](https://sixtriangles.github.io/results.html?xzacdiqqqqfrqqlqbnwoipzx&lang=en) from taking it on 2024-09-05 were quite satisfying to go through. I particularly enjoyed being called a "Fanatic anti-imperialist". The main score I disagreed with was the government triangle; I would've preferred a higher minarchy score. + +
+ +
+ +# SapplyValues + +I took the [SapplyValues](https://sapplyvalues.github.io/) quiz on 2024-05-07: + +
+ +# 4Orbs + +I took the [4Orbs](https://theghostofinky.github.io/4orbs/index.html) quiz on 2023-07-09: + +
+ +# Spekr + +I like that this quiz gives live feedback, as it helped me introspect on the differences between my self-reported positions versus positions political quizzes assign me (for example, I usually think I'm way closer to anarchist than these tests usually put me, although funnily enough this quiz probably gave me one of the strongest anarchist score of any test I've taken). I also like that the creator is an anarchist themselves, which is likely uncommon across political quiz writers. I also felt like a lot of the questions were phrased in quite interesting ways. + +I took the [spekr](https://jarick.works/spekr/) quiz on 2023-05-17: + +
+ +# isidewith + +I really didn't like this quiz. I think its overly-constrained to the range of discussion considered politically viable in America, and therefore didn't ask any questions about abolishing the state or replacing corporations with worker's co-operatives. I disagree with my results here moreso than any other political quiz I've taken. + +I took the [isidewith](https://www.isidewith.com/political-quiz) quiz on 2023-05-03: + +
+ +
+ +I got quite different [results](https://secure.isidewith.com/elections/2016-presidential/1596263908) on 2016-10-30, pre-radicalization: + +
+ +# Political compass + +I took the [political compass](https://www.politicalcompass.org/test) quiz on 2023-02-19: + +
+ +I'd gotten similar results on 2022-06-15: + +
+ +# 9Axes + +I only took the short version, but here are my results from taking the [9Axes](https://9axes.github.io/) quiz on 2022-06-15: + +
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/prescriptivism-vs-descriptivism/index.md b/site/garden/prescriptivism-vs-descriptivism/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..70f30f97 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/prescriptivism-vs-descriptivism/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +alias: "Prescriptivism, Descriptivism, Prescriptivism or Descriptivism" +public: "true" +slug: "prescriptivism-vs-descriptivism" +title: "Prescriptivism vs Descriptivism" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Prescriptivism vs Descriptivism

+

256 words, ~1 minute read.

+
+ +
Referenced by:Social Constructs
+ +These two terms refer to how words are defined. Prescriptivism is where definitions are written by an authority of some sort and users of the language are supposed to respect that definition, or else they are incorrect. Prescriptivism defines a truth, a boundary on what is allowed. Descriptivism, on the other hand, argues definitions should be based on how the word is currently being used. Someone using it differently is not wrong, they're just part of the normal process through which definitions can change. Descriptivism, therefore, does not define an objective truth. A notable example of this dichotomy is the definition of "literally". It *was* defined as meaning something that is to be taken at face value, but dictionaries have found [justification](https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/misuse-of-literally) for it having a second, near opposite, definition. + +I'm fairly against prescriptivism, but acknowledge the argument that words are more useful when their definitions don't change underneath you, especially in cases where the word can now ambiguously refer to the opposite of one of its other definitions. However, the cultural change in definitions happens regardless, so I think it's important to be able to analyze how words are being used and decide if and when it makes sense to update those definitions. I feel the same way about all [Social Constructs](/garden/social-constructs/index.md) , which language is just one of. + +Dictionaries take a stance in between the two extremes - both becoming an authoritative (and therefore prescriptive) source of definitions, but updating them as deemed necessary to more closely match their real-world uses. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/profectus/index.md b/site/garden/profectus/index.md index d621d529..5de79790 100644 --- a/site/garden/profectus/index.md +++ b/site/garden/profectus/index.md @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ import { useData } from 'vitepress'; const pageData = useData();

Profectus

-

73 words, ~0 minute read.

+

27 words, ~0 minute read.

Referenced by:Advent IncrementalPlanar Pioneers
@@ -21,11 +21,7 @@ const pageData = useData();
Tags:My Projects
-[Profectus](https://moddingtree.com) is an [Open Source](/garden/open-source/index.md) game engine I made, loosely based on The Modding Tree by Acamaeda - -Technically it's more of a template for making web games - -It centers around using Vue's reactivity and is designed with the intent to not restrain developers into making games that only look or behave "one way" +[Profectus](https://moddingtree.com) is an [Open Source](/garden/open-source/index.md) game engine I made, loosely based on The Modding Tree by Acamaeda. It centers around using Vue's reactivity and is designed with the intent to not restrain developers into making games that only look or behave "one way". Also, technically it's more of a template (rather than engine) for making web games. Games made with Profectus: - Everything in this garden tagged with this page! diff --git a/site/garden/representative-democracy/index.md b/site/garden/representative-democracy/index.md index ba3ca2e3..da09332b 100644 --- a/site/garden/representative-democracy/index.md +++ b/site/garden/representative-democracy/index.md @@ -11,9 +11,11 @@ import { useData } from 'vitepress'; const pageData = useData();

Representative Democracy

-

51 words, ~0 minute read.

+

87 words, ~0 minute read.

-
Referenced by:Anarchism
+
Referenced by:AnarchismPolitical Quizzes
-A form of democracy where people vote for representatives who then vote on the actual issues. The US has a representative democracy. By virtue of representatives not perfectly reflecting the views of their constituents, and by forming a hierarchy of power, this is a form of Democracy that is not [Anarchistic](/garden/anarchism/index.md). \ No newline at end of file +A form of democracy where people vote for representatives who then vote on the actual issues. The US has a representative democracy. By virtue of representatives not perfectly reflecting the views of their constituents, and by forming a hierarchy of power, this is a form of Democracy that is not [Anarchistic](/garden/anarchism/index.md). + +Representative forms of government were once useful for their logistical simplifications, but now primarily serve as a way to limit the range of acceptable political opinions/options and to perpetuate the reign of those in power. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/scientific-constructivism/index.md b/site/garden/scientific-constructivism/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f5b837b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/scientific-constructivism/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "scientific-constructivism" +title: "Scientific Constructivism" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Scientific Constructivism

+

271 words, ~1 minute read.

+
+ +Scientific constructivism is the philosophical idea that science is a [Social Construct](/garden/social-constructs/index.md) , in this case one created socially by scientists. + +In her video on [Social Constructs](https://youtu.be/koud7hgGyQ8), Philosophy Tube discusses taxonomy as an example social construct. We observe animals' natural properties and form categories along arbitrary lines, and just deal with weird edge cases like the platypus that don't neatly fit into our prescribed lines. Some criticized this argument, because modern taxonomy typically looks at lineage and nearest shared ancestors, which avoids those edge cases and is therefore seen as a more "objective" measure. But us choosing to taxonomize using that metric versus any other is still inherently arbitrary and thus a construct. + +This [lovely response](https://convincingreasons.wordpress.com/2021/03/25/is-science-a-social-construct-a-response-to-richard-dawkins/) to Richard Dawkins claiming science is not a social construct is a great read. It argues, amongst other points, that science is to natural properties as a map is to the physical landscape. That is, science and maps are social constructs because they are our attempts to define and understand the underlying properties. Science is a process, not objective truth. (This same argument could be applied to mathematics, where there is some underlying property we don't have a name for, but mathematics - the axioms, theorems, proofs, etc. - as a collective body is a social construct above that underlying property). Philosophy Tube describes how height, one such natural property, might be used at different layers of social constructs. We have a concept of "tallness", which is a social construct based on the underlying property "height". However there could be a society that goes an extra layer of abstraction up and has a concept of "bigs", which are the elites of this society, as determined by their exceptional tallness. We might think its silly of such a society to structure themselves in this way, and question their reasoning for having a concept of "bigs" in the first place. But so to could a society that's one layer below ours question us for having a concept of "tallness", arguing that its fine to measure height but that its silly to describe people as being tall or not. They might argue that they, by merely measuring a natural property of height, do not have a social construct. However a layer below even them might question them for choosing to measure height in the first place. Does that not inherently imbue meaning (and therefore a social definition) upon the measured number? And by that logic, any measured property, by us choosing to measure it in the first place, is some level of social construct. + +Science will often be affected by our own biases and come to incorrect conclusions. A classic example of this is phrenology, a racist "science" that used its supposed " [Objectivity](/garden/objectivity/index.md)" to argue for racial differences that didn't exist. You may argue that science has already built in affordances for previous research being determined incorrect, however. We have ([flawed](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/)) peer reviews and regularly ([ish](https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21504366/science-replication-crisis-peer-review-statistics)) replicate experiments and further verify various historical theories. However even the process of peer reviews, the scientific method, and conducting science at all are social constructs. Academia similarly has arbitrary restrictions, like defining statistical significance at 5% difference, that arbitrarily determine what is science and what is not (and often leads to [data dredging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging)). + +While looking online to see people who agree and disagree with science as a social construct, I found some interesting pages that didn't really fit in elsewhere. I found this paper, [Questioning science: how knowledge is socially constructed ](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9314650/), which has a cool sounding abstract but I haven't found the article itself, and considering how little its been cited it seems far from seminal. I also found this entertaining [forum thread](https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/how-to-counter-everything-is-a-construct-worldview.797946/) discussing social constructs and science, which became a good example of how many people believe something being a construct means its not "real", and that therefore anything real/observable must therefore not be a construct. Fortunately, there are some voices in there attempting to clarify the nature of social constructs, and the back and forth was just enjoyable to read. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/social-constructs/index.md b/site/garden/social-constructs/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2adf3b89 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/social-constructs/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +alias: "Social Construct" +public: "true" +slug: "social-constructs" +title: "Social Constructs" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Social Constructs

+

1088 words, ~6 minute read.

+
+ +
Referenced by:GenderGerrymanderingObjectivityPrescriptivism vs DescriptivismScientific ConstructivismTrans athletes in sports
+ +Social constructs are concepts with social definitions. Having a "social definition" really just means its some concept or property some group of peoples (or even animals) has prescribed meaning to. You know of and use these all the time throughout your life, and have likely identified some common ones like gender or class. As we'll discuss, however, there are far, far many more social constructs than the ones commonly referred to as such. It should be noted that while these concepts are essentially "made up", in the sense that they are arbitrary distinctions created by imperfect beings, that does not make them "not real". They exist and are typically created for a reason, often convenience. However, those reasons can be analyzed and determined to be more harmful than useful. This article's goal is to discuss and encourage analyzing social constructs, to better identify them and determine their utility and impact on society. Furthermore that it's possible to change or even destroy these constructs, and it's our social duty to do so when appropriate. + +With a definition for social constructs as a concept established, how would you go about defining a specific social construct? Well that's tricky, due to social constructs' nature. It's useful to define words using either [Prescriptivism or Descriptivism](/garden/prescriptivism-vs-descriptivism/index.md), but social constructs are much too ephemeral and complex to truly be defined using either approach. How would you attempt to make a complete, non-simplified definition of gender, for example? Gender has an impact on all parts of society, with gender roles shaping our entire lives and society and it interacts with various other similarly complicated constructs like class or family. All of this makes these concepts so complex that many incredibly smart people will spend their entire lives just writing about a single construct. While useful, these papers are obviously not the way we are typically introduced to constructs, or how we gain an understanding of them within a complex network of constructs. + +Kids effectively "learn" the definitions of social constructs via exposure to them. They don't need to be explicitly outlined, at least not wholly, but rather experienced and lived. Kids observe people performing their gender roles, recognize their family and duties within it, calculate their age by counting the number of birthdays they've had, etc. Humans are powerful at recognizing patterns and through that naturally build an understanding, piece by piece, for all these constructs and how they interact, even if they couldn't formally define any of them. They'll go on to follow the unstated rules of these constructs, reinforcing them and teaching them by demonstration to following generations. + +These constructs form a complex web, where any specific construct is only useful in the context of the web it is both a part of and dependent on. For example, knowing what a "bakery" is depends on the concept of a store, which depends on the concept of a building, and which depends on the concept of a structure. And this is just one path we could've taken - we could've alternatively explored bread or employees or shopping, and so on. + +Ultimately, constructs are supposed to be useful. They allow us to communicate, understand, and exist within our society. One without any constructs would be impossible to do anything in. But these constructs also gained a lot of meanings during times of oppressive forces taking over the world, and can seriously harm people, particularly with concepts like [gender](undefined). In the same way these constructs allow us to understand the world around us, they can also mold us to fit those definitions. That's my real motive behind this page - to help recognize these constructs, analyze their utility, and ultimately decide if they're a construct worth continued support. + +Some social constructs may seem to have straightforward definitions, but there is nuance and caveats that are still exclusively defined through social means. Take soup, for example. Oxford describes it as "a liquid dish, typically made by boiling meat, fish, or vegetables, etc. in stock or water". Well first off, that "typically" is already a concession that there are some traits that seem common, but not necessary to the definition. Is a bowl of cereal and milk considered soup? How liquid does the base have to be - would spaghetti Os count? And perhaps even a "liquid dish" is a murky requirement itself; let's talk about a game called [Something something soup something](https://soup.gua-le-ni.com/), which uses gameplay of deciding which of various weird maybe-soups actually counts as soup. Their goal is to reveal through gameplay that "that even an ordinary concept like 'soup' is vague, shifting, impossible to define exhaustively". They released an analysis of results from what people typically considered requirements for "soupyness", and found nearly a third of participants (from focus groups and tracked players) accepted solids like rocks or ice cubes as viable bases for a soup. The oxford definition didn't mention container or utensil used for consuming soup, but the game found 25% of their focus group and 10% of their players considered the container being bowl-like or the utensil spoon-like as important. The point is that these definitions are subjective and learned socially, and thus have blurred edges that can change over time - you won't be able to find a complete definition in any dictionary. And don't even get me _started_ on what a [sandwich](https://cuberule.com/) is! + +Similar to how social constructs can have a nice simple definition that doesn't really encapsulate the social definition, the definition of social constructs as "concepts with social definitions" doesn't really explain just how ubiquitous these concepts are . Nearly _everything_ is a social construct; everything from "age" to "bakeries" to "north" to "sandwiches" are social constructs; These concepts that society has built an understanding of over long periods of time, and have been shaped by our shared cultures and values. Even naming those constructs was a social agreement that those concepts are worth pointing out - Why make distinctions between different types of stores? Why distinguish some buildings as stores in the first place? Or call some structures buildings and others, like a fence, not? All of these are social constructs we use to help understand the world, that we learned through our experiences within our given society and culture. They're also all arbitrary and oftentimes you'll see these lines and distinctions differ between peoples. Take color, for example: We have many different colors - red, blue, green, yellow, purple, and so on. But why do we have those specific colors? Why does light red get its own name but not light green? Why is blue a boy color and pink a girl color? Is the dress black and blue or white and gold? Where is the line between dark blue and black? Why does the rainbow only sometimes include an indigo and violet? Well, all these decisions just kinda resolve as society continues to change. Those categories of colors just happened to be the ones our culture uses. But other cultures separate them out in different ways, like caring more about brightness than hue. Some cultures don't even have a concept of color, or might group colors differently than us - like grouping some colors as "like ripe fruit", which may seem just as out of place to us as us grouping green and tan in a category called "camo" would seem out of place to them. + +
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/technocracy/index.md b/site/garden/technocracy/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0919e038 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/technocracy/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "technocracy" +title: "Technocracy" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Technocracy

+

296 words, ~2 minute read.

+
+ +Technocracies are a form of government where technical experts make the decisions. It sounds appealing and like a solution to the "problem" of "How can [Democracy](/garden/anarchism/index.md) be good if most people are stupid?". Well I don't think that's really a problem in the first place, as it implies some sort of objective knowledge and truth, when really the best decision _is_ the one those affected by the decision most agree with. However, even under the premise that tyranny of the majority is a problem worth addressing, technocracies don't hold up under critical analysis. + +Who decides the criteria for technical expertise? Whatever the answer is will be introducing bias into the government, because true meritocracies are a [Neoliberal](/garden/neoliberalism/index.md) myth. Indeed, this government would likely just perpetuate people's existing material conditions, as those with power will have access to more resources, which means they'll be more likely to be able to meet the qualifications of technical expertise and thus remain in power. Conversely, those in poorer material conditions will be less likely to become technical experts, and thus have less agency to improve their material conditions. + +In [TikTok Vs Democracy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F9QzXjUB10), Abigail Thorne discusses how surveillance capitalism can lead to a technocracy-flavored version of authoritarianism, and argues that even if democracy is "not a system for choosing the best leader or guaranteeing the best outcome" that it is "a system that has maximal respect for everyone's equal humanity". + +A similar implementation that's considered slightly more palatable is a democracy where those with more education get more votes. But this still has the same issues of who writes the criteria and perpetuating material conditions. That is, it makes the idea sound more palatable without meaningfully addressing any of the criticisms of technocracies. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/the-indieweb/amplification/index.md b/site/garden/the-indieweb/amplification/index.md index afca9cb6..e9748328 100644 --- a/site/garden/the-indieweb/amplification/index.md +++ b/site/garden/the-indieweb/amplification/index.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

57 words, ~0 minute read.

-
Referenced by:Digital GardensIncremental SocialKronosMy Personal WebsiteSocial Media
+
Referenced by:Incremental SocialKronos/nowOrchardSocial ConstructsSocial Media
Refers to reblogging (and re-hosting, sometimes) of someone else's content on your own site diff --git a/site/garden/the-indieweb/signature-blocks/index.md b/site/garden/the-indieweb/signature-blocks/index.md index 770f099d..470afd33 100644 --- a/site/garden/the-indieweb/signature-blocks/index.md +++ b/site/garden/the-indieweb/signature-blocks/index.md @@ -14,6 +14,6 @@ const pageData = useData();

14 words, ~0 minute read.

-
Referenced by:Digital GardensIncremental SocialKronosMy Personal WebsiteSocial Media
+
Referenced by:Incremental SocialKronos/nowOrchardSocial ConstructsSocial Media
A proposal I want to write for posting signed content on your [IndieWeb](/garden/the-small-web/index.md) website diff --git a/site/garden/the-small-web/index.md b/site/garden/the-small-web/index.md index 23ee8af7..981266e5 100644 --- a/site/garden/the-small-web/index.md +++ b/site/garden/the-small-web/index.md @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

778 words, ~4 minute read.

-
Referenced by:CommuneFederated IdentityFedi v2My Personal Website/nowThe IndieWeb/Signature BlocksThis Knowledge HubWebringsWeird
+
Referenced by:CommuneFederated IdentityFedi v2My Personal WebsiteThe IndieWeb/Signature BlocksThis Knowledge HubWebringsWeird
The small web (also known as the indie web, personal web, the web revival movement, and other terms) refers to small, personal, independent websites. It is seen as a direct alternative to the centralized and homogenized websites like X, Meta, and TikTok. [My Personal Website](/garden/my-personal-website/index.md) is part of the small web! diff --git a/site/garden/trans-athletes-in-sports/index.md b/site/garden/trans-athletes-in-sports/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a040a025 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/garden/trans-athletes-in-sports/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +public: "true" +slug: "trans-athletes-in-sports" +title: "Trans athletes in sports" +prev: false +next: false +--- + +

Trans athletes in sports

+

288 words, ~2 minute read.

+
+ +Sports are meant to be competitions with winners and losers, which means intrinsically that one has to be better than the other. But we've determined certain advantages as "fair" ones and others as not, without fully acknowledging how fairness is just a [Social Construct](/garden/social-constructs/index.md). + +When Michael Phelps won gold medal after gold medal, no one complained that his naturally webbed feet were an "unfair" advantage, or put him in a separate league like we do for [Gender](/garden/gender/index.md). But when Caster Semenya, a cis woman with naturally higher levels of testosterone than other women, wanted to compete in track and field internationally she was told she'd need to take testosterone reducing medicine (until she years later [won the case](https://apnews.com/article/caster-semenya-sex-eligbility-court-ruling-0ad6f46e1357659f8cc315dde7b01faf) in Europe's human rights court, with caveats). If you have ADHD you're allowed to take performance enhancing drugs, but otherwise not. Coffee and protein could clearly be classified as performance enhancing drugs but for the fact we've socially defined PED as narrowly avoiding those substances. These are arbitrary rules that only seem fair to some people, because there is no objective fairness. So when trans athletes are attacked both when they compete with [those of their assigned gender](https://www.advocate.com/election/texas-gop-colin-allred-transgender) at birth as well as when they compete with [those of their preferred gender](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/01/30/texas-republicans-transgender-students-sports/), it's clear the motivation behind it all is not really about fairness in sports, but about making trans people go away. And yet, trans athletes tend to be an issue where even many socially leftist voices will discuss how "complicated" this issue is and even spread the idea that anti-trans policies are required in order to preserve fairness, such as The Young Turks as described in [Why I Left TYT](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6DiIQWb0DE). + +Being trans should not mean you are banned from competing or relegated to a division for just trans people. The argument is usually that trans individuals are either currently receiving or used to receive larger amounts of testosterone than those they'd be competing with. But the competition isn't about who has the more testosterone. Well, the argument continues, testosterone levels may be indicative of increased muscle growth. But muscle growth also isn't what the competition is about. It can be argued to indicate performance at the actual sport/activity the competition is over, but at this point isn't it too many layers of imperfect abstractions and assumptions? The person who wins is less tied to their actual ability and who happens to come out on top on each of these specific estimations. + +There are many advantages one might have in sports, but contrary to a true meritocracy, our arbitrary distinctions on allowed vs disallowed advantages exposes the biases of our society, which are often racist, sexist, and transphobic. Therefore, appeals to "fairness" are explicit endorsements of those biases, namely bigotry. + +I also support idubbbz discussing his support for trans athletes in [100 percent women](https://youtu.be/qfUsuQ8rfu4), coming from the context of a boxer who has ran boxing competitions. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/site/garden/weird/index.md b/site/garden/weird/index.md index cb818b04..afbf26ab 100644 --- a/site/garden/weird/index.md +++ b/site/garden/weird/index.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ const pageData = useData();

114 words, ~1 minute read.

-
Referenced by:CommuneFedi v2My Personal WebsiteThe Small Web
+
Referenced by:CommuneFedi v2The Small Web
[Weird](https://weird.one) is an [Open Source](/garden/open-source/index.md) project by the [Commune](/garden/commune/index.md) team currently in development diff --git a/site/now/index.md b/site/now/index.md index 048fba24..1a8ff236 100644 --- a/site/now/index.md +++ b/site/now/index.md @@ -11,31 +11,27 @@ import { useData } from 'vitepress'; const pageData = useData();

/now

-

181 words, ~1 minute read.

+

186 words, ~1 minute read.

This "now page" offers a big picture glimpse into what I’m focused on at this point in my life. [What is a now page](https://nownownow.com/about)? -## IndieWeb +## Digital Gardens -I've been learning a lot about [The Small Web](/garden/the-small-web/index.md) (or the various other names it goes by). I've been working on this website and implementing the various IndieWeb building blocks +I'm building (at least) a mockup for [Orchard](/garden/orchard/index.md), an app for message gardening into a [Network of Knowledge](/garden/network-of-knowledge/index.md). -I'm also working on a proposal for adding [The IndieWeb/Signature Blocks](/garden/the-indieweb/signature-blocks/index.md) to your notes - -## Commune - -While I'm not contributing to the project directly, I'm following along and participating with the discussions and designs of [Commune](/garden/commune/index.md). - -I'm working on a mockup of what an app could look like that treats incoming messages, emails, etc. differently based on user defined rules, with a focus on moving them into personal or communal digital gardens. +Ultimately, I think this project could have some implications on how _this_ digital garden operates, so I've decided to stop further indieweb integrations like webmentions for now. I'd like to see a server be able to bridge indieweb and agentic fediverse posts, and start using the agentic fediverse posts as my new source of truth. ## Incremental Social I'm running and improving the social media site [Incremental Social](/garden/incremental-social/index.md), along with CardboardEmpress. +I'd like to make it host an iroh node for hosting agentic fediverse content, managing a keypair for each account (with options for migration). + ## Chromatic Lattice -I'm working on a multiplayer incremental game. That's all that's known publicly for now 😜. +I'm working on a multiplayer incremental game called [Chromatic Lattice](/garden/chromatic-lattice/index.md) . It's still largely in the concept phase, and may even be built on the [Agentic fediverse](undefined). ## Kronos -I'm working on a long single player narratively driven incremental game. This is a very long-term project. \ No newline at end of file +I'm working on a long single player narratively driven incremental game called [Kronos](/garden/kronos/index.md) . This is a very long-term project. \ No newline at end of file