261k views, 576 answers, and effectively canceled
Apparently Quora canceled me without notice. I noticed that the last six posts have no or few views, and that if I log out as me and log back in as my wife, I can no longer see my answers to questions (hence others can’t either). When I log back in as me, all looks as usual except for a lack of views.
Sometimes essentially the same answer would get 20 views on up into the thousands which I presumed depended on Quora promotion. Perhaps Quora AI detected repetition of links and selects against posts containing repetitive content. Quora allows for downvotes but results are apparently for internal use only. Whatever, the change is of no matter to me as I don’t answer questions for Quora reader consumption though some few could benefit if they follow links, but to think about questions and answers. My imagined reader is posterity.
When logged out I can search for and see my profile and list of answers, but if I click on a question I’ve answered, my answer is not visible. My answers often included the list of links to scientist’s warnings posted after giving a brief answer, and one was not made to go away (one moderator’s day off?), but all others recently have been effectively removed without notice by one (or more) Quora moderator(s). For three years moderators had no issues with my answers.
So, no indication why and when logged in, no indication of being depreciated. Quora, like all social media, is not in the business of telling people other than what they want to hear, so I may not be in good standing with their aims. This dynamic may be the death of humanity’s posterity (and millions of other species).
For several years I received daily email from Quora with questions they wanted me to answer and requests from questioners that I answer their question. I now seem to get mostly questions of the sort I have never answered. I can answer questions, but I have to poke around to find any I might consider answering (to share links that matter). I can continue to reply to Quora questions, but no one will see them, so I give up, I lose.
It may be that the only justification for answering Quora questions is as a pretext for sharing links to information that matters. If I continue to post only answers that include inconvenient links, none may be read by anyone on Quora. My last answer from 16 hours ago [written 3/11/22], canceled on Quora, follows just because I can cut and paste it here. The world of memes is constantly being made safer for humanity by all media which is the message.
What should I study now to contribute in future sustainability and contribute in the process of saving planet Earth from climate change to finding a second planet home?
To contribute to saving planet Earth (its biosphere as it is not endangered as a rock) from destruction (e.g. the current mass extinction event, aka Anthropocene), first understand the cause, i.e. the current one-off overshoot event of modern techno-industrial (MTI) society, now global. To understand, you need to be able to think in systems, you need to understand the dynamics of complex, adaptive, dissipative and evolvable systems. To persist, humans must again become evolvable. Currently we are a non-evolvable dissipative structure (MTI society is like a hurricane, full of sound and fury dissipating a planetary larder of fossil fuels, but signifying nothing) rather than an evolvable system.
A systems science fiction short story may be a starting point.
For the real deal, read Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems.
https://wtf.tw/ref/meadows.pdf
And, yes, there is more to consider and understand. Start with what those few humans who endeavor to listen to Nature have to say about what Nature is telling them (aka scientists). Before endeavoring to understand our problematique, consider the cause.
We humans are clever apes, too clever by half, but not nearly smart enough.
If you don’t know that climate change is a distraction (from our condition of overshoot to be followed by collapse), then you are a product of the MTI education system who by chance never had exposure to anyone who is systems science literate and actually understands carrying capacity and overshoot (i.e. that humans are not exempt).
We modern techno-industrialized (MTIed) ones consider living in a one-off plague-phase overshoot event to be normal….
Of course, if I’m just spreading misinformation, then I should be canceled.
3/12/23 SUBNOTE TO FILE:
I posted the first few paragraphs of an answer related to overshoot and after 8 hours had 21 views and one upvote, meaning it was not removed as usual. I edited the post to add a bit:
What is the actual limit of people expected on the Earth?
Demographers assume no limits and project prior and current trends. Biophysical economists assume limits and foresee climax, likely this century.
Conventional neoclassical economists assume no limits and foresee tens of billions, if not more, prosperous consumers in our future.
PS: Systems ecologists have the better (reality-based) view. But nobody likes it. Not good news for 10 year olds.
We modern techno-industrialized (MTIed) ones consider living in a one-off plague-phase overshoot event to be normal….
It was immediately removed other than from my view, so no more views, no information taken in or shared. This is how the world ends.
Originally published at https://www.sustainable.soltechdesigns.com.