I haven't talked a lot about the writer's strike recently (mostly because I've been dealing with small implosions within my little community, as relationships have ended and people have drawn battle lines, and I've had to come to the defense of people I previously believed unassailable. So it goes.)
But I've been thinking about the writer's strike a lot, both because I care deeply about workers issues and because the outcome of the writers strike will directly impact the success of the company I am joining on Monday.
Yesterday, there were a lot of stories about the studios plans to drag the strike on as long as possible, in order to hurt the striking writers, and these were reported on uncritically as if it was some surprise.
I found this frustrating and naïve, and I'd like to talk about it a bit in between other things today.
I haven't talked a lot about the writer's strike recently (mostly because I've been dealing with small implosions within my little community, as relationships have ended and people have drawn battle lines, and I've had to come to the defense of people I previously believed unassailable. So it goes.)
Of course the studios want to drag the writer's strike on for as long as they can afford to. It is the only way they can make writer's suffer.
But, more importantly, they want to project the idea that the writers need a paycheck more than the studios need writers. It's classic fearmongering.
"We'll ruin you. Our pockets are deeper. You'll run out first."
It's disgusting, and it's frustrating that so many otherwise progressive news organizations and publications parroted it without any deeper examination.
These organizations, in attempting to scoop a story about how evil these studios are, in fact participated in that evil. They brandished studio propaganda as fact.
Of course the studios want to drag the writer's strike on for as long as they can afford to. It is the only way they can make writer's suffer.
But, more importantly, they want to project the idea that the writers need a paycheck more than the studios need writers. It's classic fearmongering.
"We'll ruin you. Our pockets are deeper. You'll run out first."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently running an exhibit on Video Art.
One of the pieces they are screening is an interview the Video Freex did with Fred Hampton and some members of the Panthers just before the state murdered Fred.
I've seen clips from this interview before, but I'd never seen the whole thing.
This was shot during the trial of the Chicago 7 (before Bobby Seale was ruled a mistrial and allowed to be tried separately, when they were still the Chicago 8)
It's one of the last times Fred appeared on camera in his lifetime.
Twitter was a multi-billion dollar company with thousands of employees.
Mastodon is a niche hobbyist product run by volunteers
The fact that we're being seen as a viable alternative to them is an admission that a federated, decentralized future is not only possible, but desirable.
Mastodon is not one thing, or one place. It's a network of many things and many places. We don't have a spokesperson (I mean, there's me. I'm the official spokesperson for 💯 of the fediverse, but beyond me there is no spokesperson) we don't have consensus on moderation or blocking or tools or what is good and what is bad. Some of us are professional SREs and Sysadmins, some of us aren't. Some of our instances have been around for 5+ years, some won't be here in six months.
And that's good! All of it, every last bit of it is good.
We're wrestling power away from the billionaire class, in real time, and reclaiming it for the People.
Here's your irregular reminder that:
Twitter was a multi-billion dollar company with thousands of employees.
Mastodon is a niche hobbyist product run by volunteers
The fact that we're being seen as a viable alternative to them is an admission that a federated, decentralized future is not only possible, but desirable.
Smaller entities are able do things their own way, b/c they're not a perceived threat. Interesting to see how Masto copes with scale and associated problems: Legal Issues; Content Moderation; Funding; Promotions / Advertising; Influencers; Etc.
Masto's at the shallow end of a hockey stick where people plays nice. When the rabble hordes arrive with empty vessel rage and bruised fragile sensibilities, that'll be when things heat up.
@ajroach42 love it so far! It's much better than when I first tried it out a couple years ago. Being more mature with how I ingest social media makes it better too.
@ajroach42 These days I don't run across many people who know about the Elephant Six bands. They were bouncing around Athens when I was a townie teen so I got to see some of their house and coffee shop shows.
Revolver is probably the best Beatles album, IMO, and it's like they scraped away a bunch of yellowed varnish and replaced it with something new and shiny.
I logged in to my facebook account to post an update to one of our business pages and I got an advertisement for a joke about mastodon getting suspended from twitter?
@TaxDan does queer advocacy, doesn't do much tax work, and plays drums.
@inkguy Ink is new here, and posts some excellent artwork, I've really enjoyed adding this follow to my timeline.
@MoviesSilently Fritzi posts about silent movies, vintage recipes, jello, etc. Her silent movie blog is an absolute Wealth of wonderful reviews and amusing anecdotes. Well researched and fun. ( https://moviessilently.com/about/ )
@ernie Ernie runs one of the best blogs on the net (tedium.co) and just really Cares about telling compelling stories and saving forgotten history. What a guy.
@zoomar is a toy historian and part of the team at Archie McPhee. I've followed his work for a long time, but we've recently been interacting more often, and it has been really wonderful to discover how friendly and passionate he is.
Oh, and a rare corporate follow recommendation:
@blaft - Blaft is a publishing company working out of India. I know them mostly for their work collecting Tamil pulp fiction, and translating and releasing it in English. Really really excellent stuff.
It's Friday! Welcome new folks, we must supplant the algorithm. Time to suggest some people.
This thing, the TinyNES is an open hardware (CC-BY-SA baby!) NES compatible console, made with some pretty premium parts. It feels nice, it does the thing, it looks good doing it.
No upgrades, no emulation, no FPGA, no upscaling. Just an NES/Famicom compatible game console made using mostly new parts and an #opencontent schematic.
This thing, the TinyNES is an open hardware (CC-BY-SA baby!) NES compatible console, made with some pretty premium parts. It feels nice, it does the thing, it looks good doing it.
Hell yeah @blaft is on the fediverse! That's fucking sick.
We sell Blaft's Ghosts Monsters and Demons of India, as well as the Tamil pulp fiction collections at our coffee shop, and they are always A Hit.
I think I still have a few copies of the whole set of the tamil pulp fiction, and one or two ghosts etc. if anyone in the US is interested in checking them out.
Some of my favorite books, from an awesome publishing company.
It's tea! It has a Chinese name, but is most popular in the UK (go figure, imperialism.)
It's a black tea that is smoked over pine needles.
If you add some milk (steamed perhaps) and a bit of sugar or honey or agave syrup or other sweetener of your choice, you get something best described as a campfire latte.
Just slightly sweet, creamy, and smokey.
Over ice, with a splash of milk and less sugar, you get just absolutely my favorite iced beverage.
@ajroach42 I've loved Lapsang Souchong ever since I was a teenager. I had a tea collection, would you believe? Yes, I was that nerdy.
Went to a tea shop in Canberra during the bushfires in 2020, and bought some tea we'd tasted there. When we got it home it turned out the nice smoky flavour was just the bushfires, and nothing to do with the tea...
I'm looking for games that have been under active development for 15 years, and games that are Brand New. I want things that are fun to play or beautiful to look at, and that treat linux with First Class support.
@ajroach42 Emilia Pinball (sudo apt install pinball) began in 2000 and saw major releases in (iirc) 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2020. It's so nice but I want more tables. Of the current tables, Gnu is my favorite.
Hey! I'm seeing lots of doomsaying about Mastodon today, and lots of people lamenting their new found popularity and ...
I've been thinking about this a lot.
I've been thinking about what we're losing, of course, and I understand that people are lamenting that.
I'm also thinking about what we're gaining, and the opportunity we have.
Our small communities don't have to go anywhere. We still exist, out here in this federated space. I'll have to be a little faster on the block button for the next few weeks, but my friends are still here.
And, in the process, we are robbing Corporate "Social Media" of power, which is unquestionably good.
Are we equipped for the moderation nightmare to come? Hell no! That's why my instance is small, and mostly federates with other small instances. This doesn't solve the problem, but it does slow things down.
I hope that we can find a way to look past despair for what was, and towards what might be.
Hey! I'm seeing lots of doomsaying about Mastodon today, and lots of people lamenting their new found popularity and ...
I've been thinking about this a lot.
I've been thinking about what we're losing, of course, and I understand that people are lamenting that.
I'm also thinking about what we're gaining, and the opportunity we have.
@ajroach42 Hi, I'm a newbie coming from the bird site. I absolutely adore the atmosphere here, and I want to do my best to maintain it.
At first I was surprised by the use of CW, for example, but now I love them for their calming effect. I can open a message after having mentally prepared for it! What a relief 😍 So I already learned how to apply CW.
Thanks and happy neighborhood in the #Fediverse 🍀🌺
Of course the studios want to drag the writer's strike on for as long as they can afford to. It is the only way they can make writer's suffer.
But, more importantly, they want to project the idea that the writers need a paycheck more than the studios need writers. It's classic fearmongering.
"We'll ruin you. Our pockets are deeper. You'll run out first."
It's disgusting, and it's frustrating that so many otherwise progressive news organizations and publications parroted it without any deeper examination.
These organizations, in attempting to scoop a story about how evil these studios are, in fact participated in that evil. They brandished studio propaganda as fact.
Of course the studios want to drag the writer's strike on for as long as they can afford to. It is the only way they can make writer's suffer.
But, more importantly, they want to project the idea that the writers need a paycheck more than the studios need writers. It's classic fearmongering.
"We'll ruin you. Our pockets are deeper. You'll run out first."