Cool, thanks. Wrt motivation of #2: I used to find it weird too (on Twitter) but I came around.
The idea that I like is that it shouldn't be free to "turn someone off." If you are such an asshole that I want to knock you out of my personal universe, then I should pay a price too. If you really are that bad, then fine, nothing lost in not seeing anything that you're involved with. But if you're like 10% thoughtful in the midst of being a 90% aggressive asshole, or if other people think you're full of insight for some reason, then I should think carefully about losing access to that 10% of action and the follow-on action that ensues. It is culturally consequential to cut someone off.
I think blocking achieves something like that. Imperfectly, of course.
I think I may be a bit confused. Are you saying blocking has costs for the blocker or the blockee?
reply
Btw, I think maybe I should have said explicitly: by "a cost" I mean like "a deadweight loss of life experience", not that people should literally pay in sats to block, or be fined if they're blocked by others.
A danger to talk about "costs" on a site that's experimenting with economics and incentives ;)
reply
Yup. If I block you, esp with the algorithm I described, you suffer because you get less distribution for your thoughts (I don't see them and won't interact with them) and I suffer bc I don't see your stuff or the interactions that result from them.
If you are literally worthless and produce nothing but noise (which is true of one of the people I have in mind), then my "suffering" is nearly at zero for blocking you -- the only loss to me is that some non-worthless person might reply to you, and I'd lose out on that, which would be unfortunate, but maybe a price worth paying.
reply