cm0002

[Derek] When Watts dug deeper, he realized that the network structure did matter. In the more clustered networks, people were more likely
30:27 to copy each other. So if by chance someone started out cooperating, then everyone would cooperate.
30:34 But it was equally likely that someone would start out by defecting, in which case everyone else would defect.
30:40 And over all the games they played, these two effects canceled each other out, which is why it seemed like
30:46 the network structure didn't matter. - [Duncan] It's sort of on a knife edge, right? Where like one person does something selfish
30:54 and everything goes south. In another world, everybody kind of holds it together
31:00 and everything goes well. It's crazy that the world could be like on a knife edge like that, you know,
31:06 could tip one way or the other, kind of just depends on how someone gets out of bed that day.
31:11 But then Watts realized something. See, in real life, you can choose who you hang out with.
31:17 So he reran the experiment allowing players to change who they were playing with. And this time he used the prisoner's dilemma
31:23 so that players could easily identify the defectors. - [Derek] And the finding was clear, the more you allowed players
31:30 to choose who they were playing with, the more likely they were to cooperate

The Department of Homeland Security has sparked a Pokémon backlash after using the kids’ game to promote ICE deportation raids.

The DHS social media team posted a video to X on Monday of dramatic immigration raids—including one that was bungled yet still posted online by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—spliced with animé imagery from the popular Japanese cartoon and collectibles game, which is part owned by Nintendo.

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Video link

ICE tweet link

Discord, the platform long associated with gaming communities and crypto traders, has now become the unlikely stage for a political revolution in Nepal.

After widespread protests and the banning of major social media platforms, young protestors flocked to Discord to coordinate, deliberate, and even vote on who should lead the country next.

The “Youth Against Corruption” server, which quickly ballooned to more than 130,000 members, hosted multiple polls over the past week.

On Sep. 10, the group reached consensus. Sushila Karki, Nepal’s former chief justice, was chosen as interim leader. More than 7,700 votes were cast before Karki crossed the 50% threshold, reported South China Morning Post.

This past June, I put together a write-up about two major approaches to backfilling conversations. The ability to properly backfill conversations means we will be able to make major inroads toward solving the feeling that the fediverse is quiet.

I, alongside several other members of the SWICG Forums and Threaded Discussions Task Force (ForumWG) have been working toward building implementor support for Conversational Contexts — the ability to explicitly classify a set of objects as belonging to a conversation, whether that be a topic, reply tree, or similar.

I am happy to report that we have made some wonderful inroads this past few months!

• jesseplusplus@mastodon.social has been working closely with the Mastodon team to allow software to backfill from Mastodon — this pull request has now been approved!
• I have been working with both nutomic@lemmy.ml and rimu@piefed.social to allow software to backfill from Lemmy and Piefed, respectively. (Lemmy PR, Piefed issue)

This marks a major milestone in the adoption of conversational contexts. With Mastodon on board backfill will be possible with the majority of the microblogiverse. With Lemmy and Piefed on board, backfill will be possible with the majority of the threadiverse.

Remember that pfefferle@mastodon.social was an early adopter of conversational contexts, and we have been able to backfill from WordPress blogs for quite awhile now (so that's the blogiverse too)

I for one, am eagerly awaiting the next version of all of these softwares!!

The Taliban is reportedly "ready and willing" to work with Nigel Farage and accept Afghans deported from Britain under Reform UK's unprecedented new mass deportation plan.

Reform leader Farage announced on Tuesday new plans to deport a staggering 600,000 illegal migrants within five years of a Reform government, which would mean deporting 300 people a day.

Farage said his government would negotiate returns agreements with countries including Iran, Eritrea and Afghanistan, which is governed by the Taliban.