With dad: mundane stuff, like the whether and such.

With mom: geopolitical, philosophical and historic analysis about current events… And mundane stuff too.

The thing is, my mom is an Historian with a PhD, while my dad worked for an oil company. Also, I hanged out with my mom more while growing up cuz dad had to work in others states for weeks, so I couldn’t see him much.

Regardless, I enjoy talking with both of them. Mostly cuz I don’t make much of it, I don’t try to be smart, clever or anything. I just speak my mind out with naturality, depending on how my relationship with the person I’m talking to is.

As it should be.

Blame the Dunning-Kruger effect. The people I have seen most likely to acknowledge their lack of knowledge in a certain area have been those who are very wise and well-versed in at least one field, such as science, History (like my mom), art, etc.

Mediocre people are mostly convinced that they know everything.

Me too! Nothing helped me think for myself more than my mother yelling at me, “I don’t know! The encyclopedia is right there! Go read it and let me cook, for God’s sake!”

I tend to think that people use AI (and yeah, search engines too) the way children use their parents:

“Mom, why is the sky blue?” “Mom, where is China?” “Mom, can you help me with this school project?” (The mother ends up doing everything).

The thing is, unlike a parent, AI is unable to tell users that it doesn’t know everything and that users should do things on their own. Because that would reduce the number of users.

I am not USian. I live in one of the countries that the United States recently bombed (figure which). I sincerely ask USians: Is what is in those papers really much worse than everything the administration is already doing and is going to do to you and all the world?

That’s why I try, as much as possible, to share only the things I like and am passionate about. There’s already enough negativity in the world without me adding more.

Just to piss me off…

I understand perfectly. I can read it, I can hear it, I can write it. The only thing I can’t do, even if my life depended on it, is speak it. But that’s the fault of English and its non-existent pronunciation rules. That shit is based entirely on ✨vibes✨.

Now I get why spelling bee is such a big deal in the US, jeez…

That’s just the Dark Forest Hypothesis

Peak relationship

American Culture is Common Culture at this point…

For years, the United States has benefited most from globalization. They either don’t admit it or don’t realize it.

I would say that here in Venezuela, the existing generations can be divided into:

• 4th Republic/Pre-Chávez: all those who were born before 1998 and lived before Hugo Chávez’s term in office.

  • They are characterized by being more conservative, as they lived in a time before the rise of the left and Chavismo and know a different Venezuela.

• 5th Republic / Bolivarian Revolution: All those who were born and lived during Chávez’s term from 1998 until his death. That is my generation.

  • Many of us are either very progressive, because our parents who voted for Chávez believed in his ideas, or very conservative for the opposite reason. We are much more politically aware than previous and subsequent generations.

• Post-Revolution / Madurismo: Everyone who was born and grew up during the crisis that followed Chávez’s death and Maduro’s term in office. My nephew’s generation.

  • There are no Chávez supporters here, as they did not get to experience a time when things were not so bad; austerity, scarcity, and misery are all they know. Many of them are now abroad.

• Pandemic: all children born during the pandemic. This includes my other niece.

  • They are still too young to say what their character is like. Most are children of Venezuelans who went abroad, so their idea of what the country is like, if they are still abroad, is influenced by their parents and the media.

(needles to say, I’m not a sociologist or anything. All this comes from pure observation)

I know. What I said was more aimed at focusing any efforts to promote the proliferation of fandoms in the fediverse on creating a good image of it for that purpose, rather than creating more projects that may not have the desired acceptance and reach.

Ministry Of Indoctrination

While on a technical level, the fediverse is entirely capable of something similar to Amino, and a platform could be created that replicates its functionality 1:1, I believe the main problem is one of image.

On the outside, the fediverse is seen as an overly “nerd-centric” place, a place where “they only talk about Linux, FOSS,” and “nerdy” things in general. And it’s often the discussions around those topics that seem to have the most visibility around here, while the few communities about hobbies and fandoms that you can find have mostly modest to low interaction.

The thing is, no one likes to feel like they’re talking to themselves. That’s why many artists and people immersed in their fandoms gravitate to places like BlueSky or Tumblr, or don’t want to leave a cesspool like Twitter, even with their more hostile environments towards them: they have the perception that in those places they will have more opportunity to interact, whether that perception is unfounded or not.

If one create a platform like Amino, for fandoms and communities, I think the technical aspects are the least important thing. One have to create an image of an environment that is attractive and enjoyable so that people who are not so interested in technology will want to join.

Lol I was gonna comment that too!

Exactly like American Cubans

But… Why Miami? Why doing that to yourself? Detroit is a better option even.

Absolutely