Sven Slootweg (soft-deprecated) @joepie91@pixie.town

Plenty has been written academically about how 'echo chambers' as they are frequently portrayed in media are not really a thing. But I want to add some personal experience to the conversation.

For my activism work, I regularly hang out in (online) social spaces that do not at all align with my views or politics. Sometimes I attempt to participate, sometimes I just observe.

I cannot recall the last time I got literally anything positive out of trying to socially participate in those communities.

Certainly, the *observations* have been helpful to my activist work. But - and this is the crucial part - social participation *has never played a role in this*.

All that participating has brought me, is misery - harassment, slurs, constant argument. Nobody has learned anything from any of these encounters, nobody has broadened their views as a result. The added value compared to observation was zero, nada.

Broadening your perspective by understanding the viewpoints of others and looking outside of your comfort zone is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But the idea that this requires accepting those ideas in your personal social circles is hogwash that only serves to make space for abusive people who would otherwise not be tolerated.

Getting that itch to organize a radical hacker event again. That's gotta wait until after transplantation, at the very least...

@korenchkin@chaos.social That's exactly my problem with it, though - you can tell very clearly that the efforts that do exist, are the results of some specific individuals caring *despite* orga policy.

And it means that none of the things that are *actually* effective (any of: proactively handing out masks, ventilating, mask requirements) are done because there's no organizational support for it, and consequentially there's also zero guarantees for attendees, everything is 'best effort'.

And simply put, 'best effort' isn't enough when getting it wrong is likely to result in (in my case) my kidney transplantation getting cancelled, or dying.

#38c3

Watching the #38c3 opening talk, and having such mixed feelings. Such a strong talk on the one hand, and yet on the other hand it almost gets 'betrayed' by the total lack of COVID/flu safety precautions for attendees, excluding many of the most vulnerable.

I realize that the people who made or pushed for that decision probably aren't the same people who are on stage, but it doesn't make it any less painful of a contradiction.