A technological solution to a social problem, or a political one?
@Hyolobrika Did tech ever solve any social or political problem, not creating five new ones that require even more complex solutions at the same time? I do appreciate the increased rate of information exchange and tremendous bandwidth, but look where it got us. And I'm not some luddite — computers were my hobby since pre-teens, but nowadays I think whether it's a coincidence that Utopia didn't have any advanced tech, but most dystopias do, social and political problems don't have tech solutions.
@Hyolobrika It isn't! That is why I put my question like this: "Is it a coincidence…"
With dystopias, I think author always goes for "Is there a way how this technology could be abused?" 🤔
I believe it's the right way of thinking — if we have serious social or political problems any tech is going to get abused, keeping checks and balances in place is not what tech does, it is what we, the society, should do.
Oh sorry. I wasn't sure how to parse "I think whether it's a coincidence that".
@Hyolobrika
NP! English isn't my native tongue and while I'm not too bad at it, I have a bad habit of trying to put subtleties in what I say. Sometimes it just feels awkward and doesn't get through 🤷
>keeping checks and balances in place is not what tech does, it is what we, the society, should do.
But certain kinds of tech are more conducive to certain societies/communities than other kinds.
For example, if technology made the internet impossible or at least difficult to censor (i.e. by means of a P2P meshnet ungatekeepable by a central authority), then that would promote a society where everyone is free to speak.
@Hyolobrika The technology that made Internet possible has in fact made it censor-proof for decades in advance! Believe me, if we had the guys from World Bank trying to compromise with the Soviet Union or the guys from the movie industry who'd want to make square DVDs in Europe and hexagonal DVDs in the US at the helm, we'd never be here 😂
@Hyolobrika I know what you're talking about though, and I was thinking about it ten years ago or so and… I couldn't come up with any better solution than what Fedi has today: individual mutes, bans, server(side) bans… Imagine two persons having meaningful conversation and malignant group who is trying to interfere by just posting ass. Blocking everyone individually doesn't work, they can create new accounts and go on — and we know that using phone verification is bad practice,what would you do?
@Hyolobrika Free speech is still speech, not noise, we can't have it without filtering something out.
Well, there are ways of filtering out spam without moderators. For example, proof of work and captcha.
Also, people have tried to make decentralised moderation using a web of trust. I haven't read about it at all really but it looks interesting. I.e. https://www.draketo.de/software/decentralized-moderation from @ArneBab
If all else fails, there could also be "moderation feeds" containing moderation events (bans, removals, edits, word filters, etc) that you can subscribe to. The only problem with that is the banee wouldn't necessarily be notified, so it's effectively shadowbanning. But of course they could be notified. Then again, maybe you don't need to notify them since you could argue that it's like muting.
>I think whether it's a coincidence that Utopia didn't have any advanced tech, but most dystopias do
What makes you think fiction is a good guide to reality?