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generator: pandoc
title: A Stripped Down Pleroma
viewport: 'width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes'
---
2020-03-06T00:17:31Z
6-3-2020 12.17.31AM
It's a little weird, I've entered a phase of using the fedi where I
don't really look at my fedi feed and I just interact with people who
respond to my posts here.
It's pretty good for my mental health, actually. I'm over scrolling
through lots of threads of people trying to stir shit and get into
fights.
I think in a lot of ways the presence that micro blogging and short
comments on blogs allows is really toxic. The combination of highly
public online broadcasting and the injunction to respond quickly leads
to people talking past each other and getting frustrated and angry
quickly.
I need to finish Richard Seymour's /The Twittering Machine/, even though
it is very, very confronting and upsetting to read about how
communication networks we call 'social media' encourage the destruction
of empathetic social interaction and relationships.
If I made an ActivityPub program, I would not implement favourites, I
would not add code which counted follows, or boosts. I would only
implement comments, and boosts, and the ability to make posts.
In fact I could even make a simple fork of pleroma which removed these
features, even though, on the whole, I find pleroma to be an exceptional
piece of software.
I am still trying to wrap my head around how ActivityPub actually works.
I have read what amounts to the RFCs on it, but it still perplexes me -
I need more help, really.
None of the programs which run ActivityPub are coded literately, so
their operation is effectively a trade secret.
I'll figure it out eventually, but it is still far, far too difficult
for someone like me, who is actually quite smart, in order to get
started on this stuff.
I think I might just start tinkering and just see what happens - the
sign that your work cannot be communicated clearly and quickly is a big
red light that you do not understand your subject matter.
Really, all work you do is just constant teaching and communicating and
raising everyone up. It reminds me of when I worked as a trade person, a
mechanic. A master mechanic is never not teaching mechanics their
wisdom, and mechanics are never without an apprentice.
And the wisdom is not imparted downwards. Fuck it's frustrating.
I'd have to explain it in person, but there's something about... giving
and taking reciprocally that you have to learn in order to be wise, and
actually happy, instead of just making mad money.
Patience, flow, and a willingness to empathise with others is what makes
you a good coder. In fact it's not about the code, it's about the
feeling you get when you code. I wouldn't code unless I got the symptom
of enjoying it and having a fascination for it.
Seriously if something makes me feel unhappy, I do not consider it a
virtue to persist in punishing myself through forcing myself to do it.
Also, I think it's a moral vice if you withold kindness and openness.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this hahahah
But for me, if the culture of your platform or protocol is fucked, that
will be reflected in its social effects. Ian Hacking talks about the
'looping effect of human kinds' - fucked things reinforce more toxicity.