@stevenbodzin @futurebird it’s the OG social network, still the best.

@DetroitDan It’s much better here, where instances are too small and many to become a central point of influence by government officials or anyone else. Hopefully we can sustain that!

@Sanjuktampaul we can think about fixing what we don’t like here. it’s an open protocol. so there’s another dimension of choice open. even if say post.news had a QT and I want a QT, i’m hesitant to go there because we’ve seen too many times how lock-in through network effects can eventually limit choice. this place is always a work in progress rather than a product.

This link may be unsafe.

"The prominence of both consumerist and philanthropic strategies to fix what’s wrong with the world are reflections of an immense political vacuum. Somehow, and quickly, politics needs to be rebuilt from the ground up…The goal would be to live in a world in which 'what should I buy?' and 'how should I give?' were no longer regarded as important political questions." ~Peter Dorman on #EffectiveAltruism https://econospeak.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-political-economy-of-effective.html

before you have a kid, you worry about all the things in your life a kid might displace. after you have a kid, you wonder what else is there?

A major accomplishment in the development of fiat money was *parity*, the idea that you could accept banknotes or deposits from any bank as being equivalent to $1, rather than having to discount every different bank's liabilities based on creditworthiness.

JP Koning explains that cryptocurrency exchanges have been quietly working hard to engineer parity among major stablecoins, which requires them (like central banks) to monitor the credit risk of issuers they support. https://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2022/12/how-cryptocurrency-exchanges-peg.html

@DetroitDan Hi Dan! Do you think government officials (securty state or otherwise) should be kicked out? Maybe it'd be better just to add labels, as Twitter has done with other governments' officials? Whatever is done, does it matter which political party they identify with? (Maybe that should be labeled too?)

@nberlat we should elect presidents by twitter poll too.

Matt Klein documents a subtle change in methodology at the Fed. Instead of relying on “core” measures that exclude the most volatile prices to predict inflation, they are now focusing on a much smaller category of prices they think most predictive.

Rather than just ignoring the worst, they are looking only at what they deem the best. For better or for worse. https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewcklein/p/the-fed-is-getting-less-sanguine?utm_source=direct&r=1nb11&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

@hyperplanes people are very ambivalent.

when media companies realize, not only are decentralized, federated networks a viable alternative to the tech platforms that have eaten their lunch, but the companies themselves can provide much of the impetus for the migration just by hosting and promoting their own instances, it will be like Dorothy’s “there’s no place like home” moment.

@stevenbodzin me too. i’ve so lost my patience for dystopia in popular culture. it’s ubiquitous, derivative, stupid.

every human is a gift, with occasional exceptions best enjoyed without unwrapping.

@stevenbodzin had to look it up, but very apt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation

cyberpunk was a warning, not an instruction manual.

@KarlHeinzHasliP at least steve jobs promoted acid. and that commercial was cool.

@ml8_ml8 i think that the UI shortens them to the "first name" part, but keeps the link to the full handle.

Silicon Valley, at least rhetorically, used to be all "power to the people", let's democratize all the things.

But now is the first time in a decade a popular movement on the internet is actually achieving something — outside of politics, without demanding state action of any kind.

It should be right up, um, Silicon Valley's alley. But the titans of tech seem oddly mum on this liberation of and decentralization from Twitter.

@nickinny if so, i think it would be a fairly virtuous experiment in disinflation. is it possible to disinflate through negative wealth effects on assetholders, reducing any need to disemploy people with fewer assets? i don't know, but i'd think better of the fed if they see that as an aim, a desirable strategy.