I agree with you, that would be a much more effective use of resources. It's a fantasy though, and it's way more fun for me to daydream about design than manipulating public policy.
All that said it's not a fruitless endeavor to think about how you would build something from scratch even if you can't. It is a good way to hash out ideas without getting bogged down by the resistance to change.
I was thinking about this the other day. If I had half a trillion dollars (like the guy who just bought the presidency) I would spend it building a city from scratch. A walkable/bikeable city with free public transportation. I don't have enough expertise to speak about affordable housing ideas, but with that amount of money I can pay someone to come up with some good regulations. Don't know why but that'd be my passion project.
I don't think value to society weighs into the equation, just the ratio of salary to ownership wealth gain.
There are bad people in the working class that are a net detriment to society, just as there are good people in the owning class that are a net benefit. Those good and bad deeds don't change how they accrue wealth and therefore don't change their class.
This working class isn't a morality judgement, it's a wealth ratio per individual.
Working class means your primary wealth generation tool is selling your labor. The compensation plans vary widely, but I think most CEOs are earning most of their wealth through a salary vs returns on things they own.
You can hate it all you want, but that's what working class means.
This is my biggest frustration with these posts. We might not like it, but CEOs are still working class. Most of their wealth is derived from a paycheck. They aren't even the owning class. They're rich AF, but they're a symptom more than a problem.
I think the goal should be slow continuous growth. It's a social media tool and that requires enough engaged users so it doesn't feel dead. As you pointed out, we're not there yet. I also think a huge jump in new users would be detrimental. Without central leadership of traffic and hardware Lemmy requires longer to respond to changes in user load. Nothing would be more detrimental to adding long term engaged users than an influx of new users that caused infrastructure overloading.
We're very spoiled with reliability these days. People are not interested in unreliable access to their doom scrolling (myself included, unfortunately).
There's a skatepark near me that is still bumping. All ages, all times of day. There is even this guy who lives in his car that comes out an practices DJing out there. It's an awesome little community.
This writeup is such an interesting perspective of social media.
It's the medium for the human hive mind. It's civilization's consciousness. It's beyond any individual's control or comprehension, and it exists for advertising...
Please correct me if I'm wrong. I was under the impression that according to official canon Isildur was traveling to seek Elrond's council on what to do with the one ring when he was ambushed and killed and the ring lost.
Edit: I'll correct myself, I was wrong. He was on his way to Rivendel, but not to consult with Elrond about the ring. He was going to pick up his wife who stayed there during the assault on Mordor.
The next generation of learning celebrities are already here. I don't think they will be the same as those in the past though. Video sites allow far more niche versions of these great educators who don't need to work on getting TV contracts to spread their enthusiasm for their subjects. I doubt future generations will have singular celebrity educators, but a wide array of them that all get to add their own creative touch to learning.
I'm very excited about it.
Grant Sanderson (3blue1brown) for example will change future generations' relationship with learning math. We haven't have a celebrity math educator before!
I agree with you, that would be a much more effective use of resources. It's a fantasy though, and it's way more fun for me to daydream about design than manipulating public policy.
All that said it's not a fruitless endeavor to think about how you would build something from scratch even if you can't. It is a good way to hash out ideas without getting bogged down by the resistance to change.