One of the most beautifully written novels I’ve ever read.

I assumed your closing paragraph was the summary of your take, as you built an argument on how aggressive censorship is turning the world into a “fisher price paternalistic dystopia.” You described personal anecdotes about over-moderation and purported that limiting free expression could stifle ideas. In response, I debated that moderation and censorship are required to safeguard free expression for voices that might not be heard.

This latest controversy with Bluesky is part of an ongoing issue with moderation, where users want Jesse Singal banned, a journalist who publicly supports free speech and open sharing of ideas while harassing anyone who criticizes him behind the scenes. Bluesky users say he circumvented their blocks with screenshots of their posts, where he makes rebuttals they can’t see, exposing their user names when he’s well aware many of his followers are bloodhounds. A number of journalists critical of him have said he has either tried to sue, smear their reputations, or get them fired. This relates to my point on parodox of tolerance— which is not true, because a concept can’t be true or false, it just describes the phenomenon at the basis for this controversy.

About the original statements: Bluesky’s response was condescending without adressing the issue. Yes, Jay Graber has championed users ability to curate their experience, but in practice their moderation has been lacking with regard to racism and transphobia while others have been banned or had critical posts deleted when they don’t violate the TOS. For instance, after Charlie Kirk, when people celebrated his death without calling for violence. Thus, why I brought up the disproportionate views on cancel culture.

With regard to your opinion on gender dysphoria, I did read the messages you were banned for. As for English not being your native tongue, while I understand the struggle, I can only respond to what you say.

No one is disagreeing that gender dysphoria can have a neurological cause. It’s just weird to point it out and suggest it hasn’t been researched thoroughly enough, when transexuality was considered a mental disorder for most of it’s history. Only recently have more factors been uncovered as research teams look for a broader understanding. So, while you may have have researched it, I don’t believe you’ve done a very good job of it.

An edit because you brought up ADHD: This is a great analogy in favor of early gender affirming care because, while ADHD is neurological, it can’t be cured and can only be managed.

Cancel culture is relevant to the discussion about free speech and censorship.

A strawman argument is when someone fabricates a persona for someone, and debates that false idea instead of addressing the argument being made.

Most of my comment was about how maximizing free speech for all participants in a community will inevitably require limiting free speech for some.

But, instead of addressing that, you’re talking about the definition of nazis and an overreach on moderation. I’m only saying moderation is required, not that I agree with all censorship.

Nor did I say calling transexuality a neurological trait invalidates it, I was clarifying what it means to have a neurological condition because the way you talk about it leads me to believe you haven’t done very much research on the subject.

To bring you up to speed, transexuality was previously considered a mental health disorder until a better understanding led to its reclassification as gender dysphoria or gender incongruence. Gender dysphoria is an umbrella term, and results from a number of different known causes, any combination of psychological, hormonal, neurological and genetic. Research on the subject is ongoing with recent broader acceptance, including neurological studies. PubMed has a few at least. You can look those up for yourself if the subject interests you.

Edit: It’s not my paradox of free speech, it’s a well known philosophical concept. Here’s some links.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration/#ConTolPar

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7415463/

All community spaces will eventually have to deal with the paradox of free speech, where maximizing free and open expression will result in less diverse opinions when minority voices are drowned out by people who invalidate them.

Keeping black people out of media, women out of trades, or homosexuals out of the military, are never called cancel culture — the label seems to only apply when silencing a racist/homophobe/misogynist/transphobe.

And, the human experience is neurological. A neurological condition is still a physical condition because our brains are physical things that control our bodies.

Also, checked the modlog. To quote you:

You’re misrepresenting the situation a little I think.

baptize me in hotdog water

you and i both know

the holy stuff won’t take

-nicky flowers

Thanks for getting it.

This is why I can’t playfully exaggerate anymore.

Yes, I understand small changes lead to evolution. I condensed fact to a short, somewhat innacurate blurb, kinda like this headline.

At least I didn’t sensationalize it by saying it “breaks the rules of headlines.”

If everyone just kept producing their own species we wouldn’t have goddamn evolution.

0/10 headline. Not scientific.

It is. If you look at the cheekbones and where their hand is, it’s the same person. The higher person just has their hair in a bun.

I know a guy who encountered this problem and answered it by wearing suits every day.

I only have one conspiracy theory and it’s that Macron did Notrè Dame to distract from the protests.

I wish.

I’m terrible at bookmarking, and most of it’s random stories on the internet. My favorite was about a girl, raised by wolves, who meets a werewolf, found on DeviantArt when I was a teenager when I didn’t know what erotica was. Must be gone because I haven’t been able to find it. But had a hell of an impact since I remember it, vividly.

Literotica has fantastic writers. I’m in a discord server with other amateur/professional writers, too. 9/10 are bad to meh, but that one in ten can rattle in my brain for days.

Hit me up if you ever want to collab. I’m a shit writer with a sense of humor who would love to read what you have.

And people are trying to shut it down. It’s a damn shame.

Oh well, we still have the absolute chaos that is ammateur, self-published erotica.

Your post made me want to check these out. I only ever played one with a friend for kicks. It was a fun, cheap activity, easy to make a drinking game out of.

It’s like how erotica can still be literature, but people dismiss it for the sexual focus. But I’ve read erotic stories that had me hooked, made interesting social commentary, had nuanced characters and were just a fantastic time.

More profit does not equal more research and development, since there’s an awful lot of development happening despite the lack of profit.

I won’t speculate on the failure of the technology because I don’t know what was supposed to be achieved on what timeline.

But I’ll agree the industry is ripe with shit marketing and overselling/misrepresentating its current capabilities, because of capitalism.

I don’t know what point you’re arguing. I didn’t call it AI and even if I did, I don’t know any definition of AI that includes infallibility. I didn’t claim it’s better than a search engine, either. Even if I did, “Better” does not equal “Always correct.”

I’d like to hear more about this because I’m fairly tech savvy and interested in legal nonsense (not American) and haven’t heard of it. Obviously, I’ll look it up but if you have a particularly good source I’d be grateful.

I have lawyer friends. I’ve seen snippets of their work lives. It continues to baffle me how much relies on people who don’t have the waking hours or physical capabilities to consume and collate that much information somehow understanding it well enough to present a true, comprehensive argument on a deadline.

I think they’re saying that the kind of people who take LLM generated content as fact are the kind of people who don’t know how to look up information in the first place. Blaming the LLM for it is like blaming a search engine for showing bad results.

Of course LLMs make stuff up, they are machines that make stuff up.

Sort of an aside, but doctors, lawyers, judges and researchers make shit up all the time. A professional designation doesn’t make someone infallible or even smart. People should question everything they read, regardless of the source.

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