I'm intrigued by this idea, but it might be biting off more than I can chew since I'm only 1 year into my software development career change. I can certainly code, but making efficient architectural decisions is still a bit of a stretch goal. Also I'm most confident with Java, which might not be the best choice for attracting more contributors compared to, say, Typescript or Python (though I do have some experience with those).
I've poked around the Bluesky api a bit, and it seems pretty scraping friendly, but I thought Twitter got a lot harder to scrape with recent changes, or at least that's the grumbling I've heard from app developers and researchers on a budget.
@Autumn you might actually be the best positioned to build & ship something like this! It falls into an uncanny valley of, (1) too simple, so experienced engineers find it boring (2) not easily monetizable, so no one is working on it.
it took me 4 hours to make, and thousands of people still use it. A lot of people recognize me from it etc. But anyone could have done this. I wish more people asked me for tech guidance because I have a lot of it and I'm not doing much with it at the moment 😄. If I give it away others benefit AND I get the tools I want.
My vacation begins on the 28th (Japan time) so probably around then. Going to start with database and back-end logic cause I'm more confident with that.
As evidence of the usefulness of this (or similar) tech, one of Matthew Yglesias's subscribers just got elected to office, and asked him what she should do to improve things. Here's the relevant response:
'But one idea that I think is underrated is just asking questions about why city agencies do things the way they do them, and keeping an open mind about the possibility that some of the procedures are bad and ought to be drastically changed. Oftentimes, something will be done in a bad way because of some state or federal requirement, or the perception of a requirement. Or it will be because of a rule that was passed a long time ago when the situation was different. Veteran civil servants tend to mold themselves the rules and not necessarily advocate for improvements, and elected officials often pass the buck and say, “Well, that’s a state requirement.” Sometimes, just talking about problems publicly can help get them solved.'
I answered based on my model of what FdB would say, and got plenty of likes for being helpful. That's nice, but much more important to me was the author's response validating my interpretation. It could be similarly useful to have a list of people who have a track record of understanding what the famous person would say if they were available.
I replied to another comment here saying I want a "why not dot com" thing[1] that you're basically describing. PLUS if I can predict a famous person's replies..then they can trust me, and followers can trust me. I would LOVE for people to go through MY replies and reply to things, and i will go in and correct things. win win win!!
Hey, I think this is a cool idea! I've been thinking about how technology can enable coordination between people as well and I think it's really interesting. I wrote about some of my ideas in this blog post: https://dlants.me/llmonely-threebody.html (though it's really long, search for "power of technology to enable different forms of coordination" for the relevant bits).
I am someone who could build something like this, though I have a lot of other projects up in the air currently, but I'd be open to meeting and discussing. My contact info is on my blog if you'd like to get in touch and talk. Cheers!
i share your belief in prediction markets as a coordination mechanism!! I want this feedback thing to be open source because I have a ton of other variations of it I want to try. I want to try a "why not dot com", where I just write "why can't we just do X to solve this problem in industry Y?"
and then people either tell me "we already tried it, doesn't work" OR they say "you know what, that does sound good, why DONT we do that" and they upvote it. It's a way of getting answers OR surfacing the best ideas.
I've had this idea on my mind for weeks and I don't think i'll get around to prioritizing it soon, I'm hoping this description will inspire someone to prototype it & ping me so I can use it/build off of it etc!
Don't you think your time is better spent gardening or finding out who your neighbors are? Helping at food bank? The Internet cos want nothing more then 24/7 Internet to keep you obedient, medicated. I'm looking at everyone on phones with this digital heroin and want more time in person.
I think about farming relationships and how to reduce suffering of other humans and plants and animals on this ocean planet. I'm anti capitalist, because the structures at work demand people just like you and me take orders from a CEO who is just a feudal king in a hierarchy. But I'm an old fart who is leaning toward anarchy. I'm with Tolkien:
“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”
— J. R. R. Tolkien
When you are working for someone else, you're working in their dream, not yours. you have to fit your dreams for a life in little boxes.
The riddle for me was solved by laughing and feeling foolish at seeing how beautiful life is, how simple.
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.
You've seen the backstory here, rigt?
Row, row, row your boat is do your work
Gently down the stream is Tao Te Ching go with the flow
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily is mindset aka Keep a joyful mind!
Life is but a dream is true.
Hope springs this honors the intent of your inquiry which I understand to be helping people get out of prison, feel more agency in systems that are dehumanizing. (The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller has been a big help in seeing grief is a collective experience.)
I'm intrigued by this idea, but it might be biting off more than I can chew since I'm only 1 year into my software development career change. I can certainly code, but making efficient architectural decisions is still a bit of a stretch goal. Also I'm most confident with Java, which might not be the best choice for attracting more contributors compared to, say, Typescript or Python (though I do have some experience with those).
I've poked around the Bluesky api a bit, and it seems pretty scraping friendly, but I thought Twitter got a lot harder to scrape with recent changes, or at least that's the grumbling I've heard from app developers and researchers on a budget.
@Autumn you might actually be the best positioned to build & ship something like this! It falls into an uncanny valley of, (1) too simple, so experienced engineers find it boring (2) not easily monetizable, so no one is working on it.
Another thing that falls into this valley is this substack-proxy I made: https://x.com/DefenderOfBasic/status/1796258657300091231
it took me 4 hours to make, and thousands of people still use it. A lot of people recognize me from it etc. But anyone could have done this. I wish more people asked me for tech guidance because I have a lot of it and I'm not doing much with it at the moment 😄. If I give it away others benefit AND I get the tools I want.
Anyway I'd love it if you wanted to give it a shot, I think it will be a good learning experience anyway, I had some initial notes here (https://github.com/DefenderOfBasic/works-in-progress/issues/53#issuecomment-2524174662), but you can also just ping me on twitter and/or just fork the Blue Sky app as a starting point!
Alright, thanks! I'm going to be off work for about a week over New Year's so I'll take a stab at it then.
Did you already start on this? Happy to help with any part!! I'm gonna try my own version today
My vacation begins on the 28th (Japan time) so probably around then. Going to start with database and back-end logic cause I'm more confident with that.
I suck massive ass at programming, so mine will probably be very crude
As evidence of the usefulness of this (or similar) tech, one of Matthew Yglesias's subscribers just got elected to office, and asked him what she should do to improve things. Here's the relevant response:
'But one idea that I think is underrated is just asking questions about why city agencies do things the way they do them, and keeping an open mind about the possibility that some of the procedures are bad and ought to be drastically changed. Oftentimes, something will be done in a bad way because of some state or federal requirement, or the perception of a requirement. Or it will be because of a rule that was passed a long time ago when the situation was different. Veteran civil servants tend to mold themselves the rules and not necessarily advocate for improvements, and elected officials often pass the buck and say, “Well, that’s a state requirement.” Sometimes, just talking about problems publicly can help get them solved.'
So, just having the tool available could be a huge boon for decision makers! There's also benefits to answering other people's questions in the way you think the famous person would. I had a recent experience responding to this comment: https://open.substack.com/pub/freddiedeboer/p/ill-take-the-crypto-industry-seriously?r=f8e4g&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=80497072
I answered based on my model of what FdB would say, and got plenty of likes for being helpful. That's nice, but much more important to me was the author's response validating my interpretation. It could be similarly useful to have a list of people who have a track record of understanding what the famous person would say if they were available.
YES YES 100%
I replied to another comment here saying I want a "why not dot com" thing[1] that you're basically describing. PLUS if I can predict a famous person's replies..then they can trust me, and followers can trust me. I would LOVE for people to go through MY replies and reply to things, and i will go in and correct things. win win win!!
[1]: https://open.substack.com/pub/defenderofthebasic/p/societys-higher-ups-need-better-q?r=2v2evb&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=81382736
Hey, I think this is a cool idea! I've been thinking about how technology can enable coordination between people as well and I think it's really interesting. I wrote about some of my ideas in this blog post: https://dlants.me/llmonely-threebody.html (though it's really long, search for "power of technology to enable different forms of coordination" for the relevant bits).
I am someone who could build something like this, though I have a lot of other projects up in the air currently, but I'd be open to meeting and discussing. My contact info is on my blog if you'd like to get in touch and talk. Cheers!
i share your belief in prediction markets as a coordination mechanism!! I want this feedback thing to be open source because I have a ton of other variations of it I want to try. I want to try a "why not dot com", where I just write "why can't we just do X to solve this problem in industry Y?"
and then people either tell me "we already tried it, doesn't work" OR they say "you know what, that does sound good, why DONT we do that" and they upvote it. It's a way of getting answers OR surfacing the best ideas.
I've had this idea on my mind for weeks and I don't think i'll get around to prioritizing it soon, I'm hoping this description will inspire someone to prototype it & ping me so I can use it/build off of it etc!
This is such an incredible idea. Yes yes yes please 🙏
Don't you think your time is better spent gardening or finding out who your neighbors are? Helping at food bank? The Internet cos want nothing more then 24/7 Internet to keep you obedient, medicated. I'm looking at everyone on phones with this digital heroin and want more time in person.
what do you feel is the best possible future for humanity, and how do we get there?
I think about farming relationships and how to reduce suffering of other humans and plants and animals on this ocean planet. I'm anti capitalist, because the structures at work demand people just like you and me take orders from a CEO who is just a feudal king in a hierarchy. But I'm an old fart who is leaning toward anarchy. I'm with Tolkien:
“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”
— J. R. R. Tolkien
When you are working for someone else, you're working in their dream, not yours. you have to fit your dreams for a life in little boxes.
The riddle for me was solved by laughing and feeling foolish at seeing how beautiful life is, how simple.
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.
You've seen the backstory here, rigt?
Row, row, row your boat is do your work
Gently down the stream is Tao Te Ching go with the flow
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily is mindset aka Keep a joyful mind!
Life is but a dream is true.
Hope springs this honors the intent of your inquiry which I understand to be helping people get out of prison, feel more agency in systems that are dehumanizing. (The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller has been a big help in seeing grief is a collective experience.)
Get outside and talk with trees.
Sing to bees.
Tim