Someone asked me recently about the ability to "Read the Room" and whether or not this was a skill that can be developed. I certainly believe it is a skill and can be cultivated. Perhaps the most impactful maxim which can guide us in this regard was taught to me by a Jedi Knight who went by the name Zenchi from the Temple of the Jedi Order. He told me, "Learn to Observe without needing to React."
The Internet, particularly the social media algorithm demon, has created an incentive not just to React to everything, but to Observe specifically to React. In this way we often bias our interpretation of that which we observe with a skew towards the least charitable interpretation so that our reaction can be as extreme as possible.
To counteract this and hone this skill of reading the room, we can practice several behaviors that will improve our lives.
First, be the last person to speak in an interaction. When you allow everyone else to have their say, it gives you a chance to examine their perspectives and gauge their intentions.
Second, questions are better than statements. The cultivation of curiosity leads to more robust conversations. A statement can often be viewed as dismissive or ultimate in nature, sometimes leaving a conversation partner feeling as though there's nothing left to say. Curiosity, by contrast, is almost always viewed as an invitation to continue discourse.
Third, speak in a way that is pleasant. We've been taught to rely on flippancy and sarcasm in modern discourse as we assume the intentions of others or deliberately misconstrue them to make ourselves look superior. By engaging with someone in a pleasant way, we can disarm hostility. Even if others fail to uphold this standard, we will still maintain our own peace which is of a value beyond measure.
Those are great advices. I'd add that sadly, you probably also have to identify and avoid those platforms that actively encourage hostility.
But if you're on Mastodon, you probably did that already :D
I read different news site and I noticed that the editorial line actually push towards or away from hostility. The more clickbait it is, the more agitated the comment section will be.
@Xiong_Shui@blindcoder Session ist ein Fork von Signal, der dazu auch noch das Verschlüsselungsprotokoll abschwächt und unter anderem Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) entfernt hat.
#Conversations
A beta version of 2.15 arrived at F-Droid. It looks great and now uses Material 3 theme. Be aware: To install this version you need to explicitly select it in F-Droid.
#monocleschat
A new minor version has been released which brings GIF import, compatible stickers and other improvements.
#Snikket
A new version has been released bringing fixes and improvements from Conversations to Snikket users.
And additionally: Thank you to all the people being active in the #XMPP community and offering more digital sovereignty for everyone (including the developers of all the other great XMPP apps, libraries, ...).
This means:
Users who do not want to use a beta version should be able to use the stable version in a few days (F-Droid needs to finish the build, signing and deployment process for all apps of the current build cycle before the apps are published).
@kuketzblog Eine prima Übersicht, um sich selbst schnell zu informieren oder mit Anderen auf einer Faktenbasis zu diskutieren.
M.E. ist @simplex die Lösung mit den meisten grünen Feldern. Wer also auf eine Nutzung im Web Browser verzichten kann und #InstantMessaging primär auf dem #Smartphone (und wenn auf dem Desktop, dann im selben Netzwerk wie das Smartphone) verwendet, der könnte auf diesen privatsphärefreundlichen und #PostQuantum sicheren #Messenger wechseln. 🙃
"Talk is the fertile field in which cultural change begins; in its absence, it's impossible for a group of people to solve a problem. The goal of the conversation is not to tell people about climate change. It's to expand the number of people in the conversation."
After #GUI, I've now pushed implementation of a #TUI output in #Libervia#CLI frontend, which shows A/V call video streams directly into your terminal! It's using #Kitty or #iTerm2 image protocols, or #Unicode half-blocks (thanks to #termimage)
I'm not aware of any other CLI tools doing something similar (#XMPP or not). It's not as useful as GUI, but it's quite fun :)
Now I really want an #Emacs term with support of the #kitty graphics protocol!
Emacs #vterm does block graphics (I just tried with the cute, animated elephant 🐘 of #Python term-image, which sits in #Debian "new" queue right now), but it doesn't look like #libvterm has support for kitty graphics 😞