The study talks to 16 Mastodon admins who got to say what they thought Mastodon did. It’s not really a study, it’s just a survey. Being posted here is just confirmation bias. For Mastodon to increase citizen empowerment, there has to be something measured and a control group that isn’t on Mastodon.

From the abstract

In this paper, following a pre-study survey, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 Mastodon instance administrators, including those who host instances to support marginalised and stigmatised communities

You really have to read beyond the headline. This isn’t Reddit.

You started with a straw man tho?

Since we’ve turned this into a gish gallop

1. (original comment) this has nothing to do with Hieronymus Bosch: never countered ergo conceded; whole premise is pointless
2. (original comment) genAI slop is bad: you say capitalism is bad not genAI, I say tech isn’t there and wasting energy is bad; you’ve yet to prove that capitalism being bad (your core argument) means genAI can actually work or that since capitalism is bad burning energy is okay
3. burning any energy for the current model is bad: you say capitalism is bad; this addresses nothing
4. NFTs are bad: we agree
5. making fun of people that swallow genAI proganda is always correct: you conceded the original point and also dropped when I pointed out that making fun of NFTs made things better
6. there is a fundamental misunderstanding about how capable the tech is, proganda aside, and a basic review of genAI art slop highlights this: you do not provide any analysis here; general tech consensus is that AI is very far from doing anything useful
7. your blog contradicts your online persona: you’re trying very hard to be mean here so either you’re writing your blog understanding you’re the asshole in the room that no one disagrees with or you’re incapable of self reflection.

We both agree that capitalism is bad, you provide no evidence aside from ad hominem to contradict the most superficial analysis of your midjourney, and you have swallowed way too much genAI propaganda (coincidentally called out many times and left unanswered) without applying any of your development critical thinking skills. You want to burn energy on dumb shit to support billionaires while saying billionaires are bad, I think that’s stupid and enjoy poking fun at any engineer stupid enough to miss the forest for the trees.

Oh my goodness simpler words would be nice since we’re struggling with “non sequitur” and “strawman” and “basic connections to underlying language.”

I appreciate your summary! Here’s mine:

• (original comment) this has nothing to do with Hieronymus Bosch
• (original comment) genAI slop is bad
• burning any energy for the current model is bad
• NFTs are bad
• making fun of people that swallow genAI proganda is always correct
• there is a fundamental misunderstanding about how capable the tech is, proganda aside, and a basic review of genAI art slop highlights this
• your blog contradicts your online persona

Why is this hell? This doesn’t look at all like any of the representations of hell that Bosch has done so we’ve got a different hell maybe? Maybe the issue was that the midjourney prompt had nothing to do with your joke?

It is crucial to recognize that disagreements generally arise from individuals approaching the problem from different perspectives. I presented my perspective and you went after some straw men. Are there personal insecurities that hinder the expression of contrary opinions here?

The path to comprehending the complete picture involves engaging in dialogue to grasp the trade-offs considered by each person. This only works if everyone is actually engaging in dialogue, though.

What’s the joke? What’s the story? Why am I exhaling through my nose?

Thanks! Your 4D chess was my inspiration. Either you have no understanding of the tools you use, the content they generate, and the billionaire propaganda you’ve swallowed while ignoring every single piece of technical knowledge you have in theory or this whole this was a masterclass we all can learn from. Immediately responding to criticism with strawmen, linking the current tech con to the last tech con, losing track of your personas, all fantastic work!

Should I quote your comments about the same? I love this discussion because the original non sequitur you made seems to apply to these responses! It’s great feedback. I also liked the “tilting at windmills” joke; how clever to ironically misuse a quote from around the same time as the ironic mislabeling of the artist!

Thanks! It’s always better to try to make the world a better place than it is to peddle billionaire vaporware while mislabeling the most basic concepts of art. I’m so glad we agree this prompt engineer is a witless dishcloth.

Zero energy wasted calling out dumb shit. It’s never a bad idea to rip into AI slip, especially in the context of things we can spend less energy on. Browbeating was incredibly influential in the dismantling of NFTs, which you correctly pointed out is just as bad a citizen as genAI turds.

Absolutely! Hyped-up vaporware like genAI and blockchain speculation should be nuked from orbit. Glad we agree this all garbage.

Shit, why not start with all the wasted energy generating the slop first? You’re solving the wrong problem.

I don’t normally get mad at genAI art. This one makes me mad. A huge part of Bosch is the tiny detail. There’s scholarly debate about how we interpret the detail; it’s incredibly wrong to say something is in the style of Hieronymus Bosch without clever little details. This AI garbage just has a bunch of repeated lens flares, age marks, and blobs. Also in the style of Bosch implies something we can interpret, be it a dark take on office work or capitalists teaching us lessons. I don’t know what the fuck we can take away from this.

This is more “someone with the title ‘prompt engineer’ spent three minutes hunt-and-pecking the name ‘Hieronymus Bosch’ into midjourney and grabbed the first image that was sort of muted earth tones” than “remotely in the vicinity of the style of Hieronymus Bosch.”

Thank you! I was pretty fucking sure there was stupidity related to Liam but could not for the life of me find anything in search.

This is pretty far from a proof of any variety. I think the spirit is there and the ideas are great. Spend a little more time on the execution, maybe tie in some Quine, and I think you’d have something.

And as long as you don’t need simple access to most features such as volumes. The podman implementation on not Linux leaves quite a bit to be desired for anyone trying to do more than just run a binary wrapped in a container. I’m not throwing shade because it’s FOSS and anything is better than Docker. Only Docker will work for a production-capable dev environment on not Linux unless podman’s development has exponentially increased in the last year since I tried to move a shop to podman on not Linux.

As long as you’re on Linux, podman is superior and will do all of the things you’re asking about. If you need to also support Windows or Mac, Docker is the only thing that will work (although people have told me Rancher isn’t bad now for a couple of years).

If someone doesn’t understand the difference between swearing at and swearing around, that’s a shitty environment. If I say, “that was a shitty fucking outage” I am using some filler for emphasis so my mouth can catch up to my brain. If I say “you’re a fucking asshole” or “don’t be such a bitch” or “that’s fucking sexy” I am not being professional and I deserve some training on how to not be an ignorant walnut. Even with swearing around, I do think it’s smart to limit yourself to damnation, defecation, and simple fornication rather than gendered swears. There are also some places it’s not wise to swear around, such as client-facing roles because many of the people you will see don’t understand that swearing around is not swearing at.

I once lost a job after the onsite interview. I wait to swear until I I hear them swear. Apparently my use of “fuck” meant I was going to blow up and be a terrible person to my peers. Two years later I started running a department doing the thing I was interviewing for and my staff tends to be fiercely loyal. I’d argue my swearing speaks for itself and have shaped my professional attitude toward swearing around around this experience.

I work in tech and I’m quick to police my language if necessary. I’m also concerned about relative comfort (eg I try really hard not to blaspheme around some Christian peers). I do not swear at people. I do not work in a super corporate environment. YMMV.

I like study (you can find the full article online) and I think there’s been more research down this path in the years since.