Technology

4chan—>8chan—>Xchan?

Ah Twitter. Nearing its evolution as the internet’s premier perpetually-full septic tank.

The bit in the square brackets in the title was mine, because that's what I went into the article to look for. If you're on Mastodon and interested in that content:

• https://fediscience.org/@Ruth_Mottram

• https://pixelfed.eu/ruth_mottram

The text from the article:

Glaciologist Ruth Mottram had more than 10,000 followers on Twitter but left in February and joined an alternative scientists' forum powered by Mastodon -– a crowdfunded, decentralised grouping of social networks founded in 2016.

"It's really been a revelation in many ways. It's a much quieter and more thoughtful platform," she told AFP.

On Mastodon, "I haven't had any abuse at all or even people questioning climate change. I think we'd become far too used to it on Twitter... I had blocked loads of accounts over on the birdsite (Twitter)," she said.

I have no clue why all these normal, non-racist non-political people still use twitter. It was bought for the obvious purpose of providing a safe space for conservatives, racists, incels, and other outcasts to society. Mastodon is a perfect replacement for it, and you can pick an instance that suits you. It isn't owned by a mentally unstable billionaire!

I think this is going to happen more and more. As the delta semi-morons continue to erode civilization we are just going to "take our ball and go home" so to speak. We can science, tech, and culture around them and they will eventually be left out in their echo chamber desert fighting each other over the last minions meme scraps.

That's great news. Looking forward to having more climate scientists on Mastodon.

Considering Meta is doubling down on disinformation, more people should go to Mastodon and Bsky over Threads or Twitter.

You can find utterly vile replies from blue checks on that site now, even on the most heavenly, innocent, morally correct tweet. It's insane.

Reality: you can stop fascism by deleting the app

Everyone: doesn’t

Among the sad stories about climate scientists having to deal with misinformation and abuse on the regular, suddenly, a unicorn: a statement purportedly by Musk that I wholeheartedly agree with:

Musk wrote in January: "People on the right should see more 'left-wing' stuff and people on the left should see more 'right-wing' stuff. But you can just block it if you want to stay in an echo chamber."

Of course with the average Xitter post becoming ever more toxic, most people that have anything of value to add will probably leave sooner or later, whether lefties or righties or whatever.

I just wish there were a way to save these records in a format with enough longevity to survive until the next sapient species evolves after we destroy ourselves and the human habitability of the planet for a couple million years.

They could use the warning against indulging greed and ignorance, and we deserve to have others laughing at our species' expense through time. We inherited paradise just to set it on fire eyes wide open. It's an extremely low bar, but I hope the next global apex predator chooses to do better.

https://nathanlesage.github.io/academics-on-mastodon/

That was a year ago.

If we can't abandon Obvious Disaster Twitter we definitely can't abandon the obvious disaster that is everything we think of as normal that's driving civilization off a cliff.

Never understood why nobody calls him an "american oligarch"

The Franklin Standards need to be on everyone’s radar. They don’t want your kids to learn about climate change.

Explain how and why Earth’s climate changes over time.

Climate changes continually at all time scales and Earth’s climate has never remained constant.

The Earth's climate has varied greatly between glacial advances and retreats that correlate with cyclical oscillations in Earth's orbit around the Sun (Milankovitch Cycles, precession).

In addition to being affected by the climate, the biosphere also has a significant effect on the climate, including self-regulation and resiliency (carbon-oxygen cycle, hydrological cycle).

Humans are just one of the many influences on Earth’s climate (urban heat island effect, wetland drainage, deforestation, agriculture).

Computer models of climate are simplified simulations of the real world, and make prognostications that are inherently uncertain.

Global weather forecast models (short term) and climate models (long term) are quite different in their design, their strengths, weaknesses, value, limitations, and uncertainties.

The wording is subtle, but you can see how they are attacking the idea of anthropogenic climate change. (There’s similar fuckery with evolution and some subtle anti-trans stuff.) Oil and gas companies have a lot of money and can afford a lot of propaganda. No states have adopted these standards yet - we think Florida and Texas will go first, then Oklahoma will follow. But this information warfare.