27 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2024
    1. A trend is thus clearly seen in Stallman’s regular political notes, over several years, wherein Stallman re-iterates his position that “adolescents” or “teenagers” are distinct from “children” for the purpose of having sex with adults, and normalizes and defends adult attraction to minors and adults who perform sexual acts with minors.

      This could be worse in gaming communities, especially in MCYT (see Dream and Wilbur Soot's SA allegations for additional context).

    2. Stallman’s fixation on the term “sexual assault” can be understood in his political notes as having the political aims of eroding the meaning of the phrase, questioning the boundaries of consent, downplaying the importance of agency in intimate interactions, appealing for the defense of people accused of sexual assault, and arguing for sexual relationships between minors and adults to be normalized.
    3. Masturbating during a video conference is not wrong if you are not seen doing so

      WTAF. That's something I don't expect here, but seems to be normalized.

  2. Dec 2023
    1. Untangling Threads by Erin Kissane on 2023-12-21

      This immediately brings up the questions of how the following - founder effects and being overwhelmed by the scale of an eternal September - communism of community interactions being subverted bent for the purposes of (surveillance) capitalism (see @Graeber2011, Debt)

    1. The failure of the Free Software community to account for Richard Stallman’s behavior has a chilling effect. The norms set by our leadership influence the norms of our broader community, and many members of the Free Software community look to Stallman as a ideological and political leader. The norms Stallman endorses are harmful and deeply confronting and alienating to many people, in particular women and children. Should these norms be adopted by our movement, we risk creating a community which enables the exploitation of vulnerable people.
  3. Aug 2023
    1. Unlike 20 years ago, the people poised to be early adopters today are those who are most toxic, those who get pleasure from making others miserable. This means that the rollout has to be carefully nurtured

      Interesting observation/postion: current early adopters of new platforms are not motivated by shiny new tech syndrom but are motivated by finding amplification for their toxicity. Sounds intriguing but I wonder about causality and the earlier mentioned norm setting. New platforms may have diff norms they set. Toxicity is an outcome of the norms promoted by tech functionality (amplification/engagement goading) Will that carry over into other things (does it carry over into other non-collapsed contexts e.g. in practice?: sometimes, mostly not I think). Tocivity is probably not intrincis to the people involved, but learned. And can be unlearned, when encountering different social expectations.

  4. May 2023
    1. Many people choose not to engage on the public web because it's become a sincerely dangerous place to express your true thoughts.

      The toxicity made me leave FB and reduce my LinkedIn and Twitter exposure. Strickler calls remaining nonetheless the bowling alley effect: you don't like bowling but you know you'll meet your group of regular friends there.

  5. Mar 2023
    1. In June 2021, OpenAI published a paper offering a new technique for battling toxicity in GPT-3’s responses, calling it PALMS, short for ‘‘process for adapting language models to society.’’ PALMS involves an extra layer of human intervention, defining a set of general topics that might be vulnerable to GPT-3’s being led astray by the raw training data: questions about sexual abuse, for instance, or Nazism.
  6. Feb 2023
    1. hypereosinophilia

      This an excess accumulation of white blood cells call eosinophils. As described by the authors, this is one indication of neuronal degeneration that helps to quantify toxicity.

  7. Dec 2022
    1. We found that misinformation-exposure scores are significantly positively related to language toxicity (Fig. 3a; b = 0.129, 95% CI = [0.098, 0.159], SE = 0.015, t (4121) = 8.323, p < 0.001; b = 0.319, 95% CI = [0.274, 0.365], SE = 0.023, t (4106) = 13.747, p < 0.001 when controlling for estimated ideology) and expressions of moral outrage (Fig. 3b; b = 0.107, 95% CI = [0.076, 0.137], SE = 0.015, t (4143) = 14.243, p < 0.001; b = 0.329, 95% CI = [0.283,0.374], SE = 0.023, t (4128) = 14.243, p < 0.001 when controlling for estimated ideology). See Supplementary Tables 1, 2 for full regression tables and Supplementary Tables 3–6 for the robustness of our results.
  8. Jun 2022
    1. Free public projects private projects starting at $9/month per project

      For many tools and apps payment for privacy is becoming the norm.

      Examples: - Kumu.io - Github for private repos - ...

      pros: - helps to encourage putting things into the commons

      cons: - Normalizes the idea of payment for privacy which can be a toxic tool.

      discuss...

  9. Jan 2022
    1. Alkaloid-containing plants exact a heavy economic toll on livestock produc-tion in rangelands of western North America. Losses to these plants can be reduced or eliminated by recognizing plants containing alkaloids, understand-ing when livestock graze specific toxic plants, and knowing signs of potential toxicity. Grazing schemes can then be developed based on knowledge of the temporal and spatial dynamics of alkaloid concentration and consumption by livestock.Lossescanbereducedbyensuringthatlivestockarenotexposedorhave limitedexposureduringperiodsofgreatestrisk(i.e.,highesttoxinconcentration)or whenlivestockaremostlikelytoeattoxicplantsinsufficientamountstoproduce toxicity.
    2. Death camas (Zigadenus spp.) grows on foothill ranges in much of the Rocky Mountain area. Animals eating death camas die from reduced blood pressure and heart failure. Death camas is one of the first plants available during spring, and animals may graze the plant if other forage is lacking. Generally, recognizing the presence of death camas and understanding the acutely toxic nature of the plant will aid in avoiding problems. Hungry animals should not bedriventhroughadeathcamas-infestedpasture.Sheepinparticularshouldnotbe beddednearlargepatchesofdeathcamas,andsheepherdersshouldavoidstressing sheep by rapidly driving them if they do eat death camas. Death camas can be controlledbyphenoxyherbicides.
    1. False hellebore (Veratrum spp.) is f ound in moist habitats in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain states. It is grazed by sheep and goats and causes birth defects (i.e., monkey-faced lambs). Livestock management to avoid losses t o false hellebore i s r elatively simple because the window of toxicity when false hellebore poisons t he fetus i s r elatively narr ow (i.e., 14 to 33 days gestation). Pregnant animals, particularly sheep, should not be allowed access t o veratrum-infested pastures during this period. Cattle rarely ea t the plant, therefore no special management is needed. For sheep, false hellebore i s quite palatable, and herders must keep bred sheep from ingesting false hellebore f or about one month after the rams are removed. This is not difficult to accomplish because false hellebore is limited in distribution to moist mountain habitats and grows in easy to identify dense patches. Although effective herbicidal control is available, it may not be practical because the major populations grow in
    2. Poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) grows throughout the United States in areas with abundant moisture (i.e., creeks, ditches etc.). Animals eating poison hemlock die from acute respiratory failure or have deformed offspring. The most critical season to avoid poison hemlock is spring because the plant often appears before other forage has emerged. Green seed pods may be eaten in mid-to-late summer. Furthermore, poison hemlock may regrow in fall after seeds shatter. Ingestion during fall may coincide with birth defects in pregnant cattle, if they are i n the firs t trimester of gestation (days 30-75). If poison hemlock invades hay fields, the contaminated hay can poison livestock. Even though toxicity decreases upon drying, sufficient toxins may be r etained to poison livestock. Cattle appear to be particularly susceptible because of their acceptance of the plant and their sensitivity to the alkaloids t hat c ause birth defects. Poison hemlock can be easily controlled with phenoxy herbicides.
    3. Acute t oxicity problems are l es s common now, but lar ge sheep losses occurred frequently 100 years ago. Deaths occ ur when livestock, usually sheep, ingest a large amount of seed pods in a short time. This can occur from contaminated hay or from hungry animals gaining access t o lupine-dominated forage, and can be prevented by using lupine-free hay and avoiding lupine-dominated ranges when other forage is scarce. During some years, lupine populations may temporarily increase on rangelands not normally problematic. Livestock producers need to be aware of lupine populations and be sufficiently alert to alter grazing or breeding programs when these eruptions occur. Lupine populations increased dramatically during 1997 in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, causing severe l osses. For example, producers in Adams County, Washington lost over 30% of their calves ( >4000 calves) from lupine- caused birth defects.
    1. Lupines (Lupinus spp.) are widely distributed throughout the western U.S. Cattle eating lupine may have deformed or "crooked" calves, and sheep may be poisoned outright by lupine. Livestock losses from lupine poisoning can largely be prevented by understanding two interrelated aspects. First, the highest concentrations of toxic alkaloids tend to occur in immature lupine plants and seed pods. Second, pregnant cattle are susceptible to the effects of alkaloids that cause birth defects during a window from 40 to 70 days of gestation, occasionally extending to 100 days. Birth defects in cattle can be prevented by using breeding or grazing programs that avoid placing pregnant cattle in lupine-dominated pastures in the first trimester of gestation. Alternatively, risk can be reduced by allowing only short-term access to lupines by pregnant cattle in some form
  10. Nov 2021
    1. despite of the enormous efforts being devoted, it remains to be a huge challenge to improve the biocompatibility and reduce the side effect of silver

      silver can interact with human protein and DNA

  11. Apr 2021
  12. Mar 2021
    1. There's a reasonably good overview of some ideas about fixing the harms social media is doing to democracy here and it's well framed by history.

      Much of it appears to be a synopsis from the perspective of one who's only managed to attend Pariser and Stround's recent Civic Signals/New_Public Festival.

      There could have been some touches of other research in the social space including those in the Activity Streams and IndieWeb spaces to provide some alternate viewpoints.

    1. It’s the usual Silicon Valley sleight-of-hand move, very similar to Uber reps claiming drivers aren’t “core” to their business. I’m sure Substack is paying a writer right now to come up with a catchy way of saying that Substack doesn’t pay writers.
    2. So Substack has an editorial policy, but no accountability. And they have terms of service, but no enforcement.

      This is also the case for many other toxic online social media platforms. A fantastic framing.

  13. Oct 2020
    1. As Gamergate unfolded, Wetherell noticed its participants were using the retweet to “brigade,” or coordinate their attacks against their targets, disseminating misinformation and outrage at a pace that made it difficult to fight back. The retweet button propelled Gamergate, according to an analysis by the technologist and blogger Andy Baio. In his study of 316,669 Gamergate tweets sent over 72 hours, 217,384 were retweets, or about 69%.

      brigade

    1. Social media has come to define an era in which we annotate texts every day, we easily share this commentary across contexts, and in doing so we iteratively define who we are.

      But are we also sometimes falsely defining ourselves because of context collapse within these structures?

      Isn't context collapse a root cause of a lot of the toxicity of our communications within platforms like Twitter and Facebook?

  14. Nov 2018
    1. Facebook’s lofty aims were emblazoned even on securities filings: “Our mission is to make the world more open and connected.”

      Why not make Facebook more open and connected? This would fix some of the problems.

      As usual, I would say that they need to have a way to put some value on the "connections" that they're creating. Not all connections are equal. Some are actively bad, particularly for a productive and positive society.