The main lesson of the Bluesky thing is not anything to do with protocols or technology.

[jalefkowit@vmst.io]

The main lesson of the Bluesky thing is not anything to do with protocols or technology. It’s that making one person the official referee of too many peoples’ communications inevitably drives that person insane

[jalefkowit@vmst.io]

I don’t know where the exact upper limit is, but I bet it’s way less than a million people

[paninid@mastodon.world]

@jalefkowit

I bet it’s about 150 (Dunbar number)

[swelljoe@mas.to]

@jalefkowit I'm trying to think of a counterargument and failing. Lowtax being the extreme example, but, it seems like either you get out when you have the chance and try to return to normal (MySpace Tom, moot) or it destroys you.

[swelljoe@mas.to]

@paninid @jalefkowit it can't be that low. Thousands of mostly normal people maintain forums and Mastodon instances with way more users than that (myself included, though I admit to being on the outer edge of normal).

[paninid@mastodon.world]

@swelljoe @jalefkowit

It might be your bias, a reflection of the people who opted in to those forums and instances.

[Guest]

@jalefkowit Anyone who has been a Dungeon Master will tell you that number is, like, 6. Maybe as high as 8 if they're exceptionally good at being a Dungeon Master.

[swelljoe@mas.to]

@paninid @jalefkowit that has nothing to do with the number, though. If it's about numbers, and if that number is ~150, then there ought to be thousands, maybe millions, of maladaptive personalities like Musk out there caused by moderation.

If it's something else (maybe in addition to numbers) then selection matters.

I suspect cause and effect may be getting mixed up. Musk was already a canker sore on the discourse, he bought Twitter because he cannot fill the void in his narcissistic soul.