bostonwine on Nostr: That’s a great reason! One thing I’ve found is very refreshing here is that the ...

That’s a great reason!

One thing I’ve found is very refreshing here is that the dialogue amongst people - all around the world, with sometimes very different views on the world - is shockingly respectful and genuinely civil, as a general rule.

Of course there’s the occasional troll or bigot (it’s still the internet, after all) but I find myself repeatedly, pleasantly surprised by the way people engage with one another when they disagree.

More often than not, the conversations are respectful and thoughtful. When I find myself disagreeing with someone, we’re both usually able to see nuance, and operate on the assumption that the other person is probably a decent human being, with different views or a different background that shapes one’s opinions.

It’s refreshing, inspiring, and quite honestly has been restoring some of my faith in people, after at least a decade in which the dominant narrative has been, “everyone is deeply polarized and can’t see eye-to-eye with anyone on the other side of the red-blue divide”.

Compare it with Twitter, where the company’s revenue comes from ads, which are dependent on clicks/views/engagement, which are most effectively captured by content that makes people angry/upset/scared. It’s financially incentivized to implement specifically those algorithms that boost negative, divisive content, to the point that their bottom line depends on it!

Without this algorithm — without the broken incentives — users are free to post and engage with content that reflects [what I believe to be] the generally *good* nature of human thought and intention. In short, it leaves us free to be happy.

Then, tie in zaps, where other users can transmit value, voluntarily, to content that they enjoy seeing. Such a user-driven “algorithm” (for lack of a better word) actually incentivizes each of us to produce and engage with content that makes one another happy and fulfilled. Not exclusively, of course, but it’s a much more balanced scene, and much more reflective of the human condition than the ultra-polarized image of society that modern mainstream media creates and reports on.

And it’s far from perfect. The lack of censorship means there’s some nasty stuff out there. It flips the normal content moderation paradigm, where the user is responsible for curating their own feed. Picking the right relays, muting specific accounts (or keywords or hashtags, if the client supports this), and curating a follow list that reflects your own interests and values… it’s not a quick task or insignificant amount of effort - rather, something that takes shape and evolves over time. And different clients do different amounts of that work for you, ranging from a relatively well-configured starting point, to a complete free[dom]-for-all initiation into the raw unfiltered Global feed. It’s a work in progress, to be sure, but I *love* that the philosophy of it focuses on giving each individual user the choice, freedom, and responsibility of defining their own experience to align with their preferences and needs.

So again, more of my unsolicited reflections on nostr. But hey - I’m pretty transparent when I think or care deeply about something.

I hope you enjoy your time here and I look forward to hearing more of your own reflections, as time goes on!