aCosmicWave

Not much info yet, but I grew up on Digg, so I’m cautiously optimistic. Probably no Fediverse support, but honestly, any Reddit alternative is a win. Really hoping for real API access and third-party apps.

I’ve been day dreaming about a social media platform built entirely on a peer-to-peer (P2P) model, leveraging the existing BitTorrent protocol. The idea is to decentralize content creation, distribution, and moderation, eliminating the need for centralized servers and control.

Here’s the high-level vision:

• Posts as Torrents: Every original post creates and seeds a torrent file on behalf of the OP.
• Upvotes as Seeds: Upvoting a post downloads and seeds the post, reinforcing its availability.
• Comments as Torrents: Each comment generates and seeds a torrent file somehow linked to the original post.
• Comment Upvotes as Seeds: Upvoting a comment downloads and seeds the comment, amplifying engagement.
• Text Only: to avoid exposing users to potentially graphic content (due to lack of centralized moderation) this platform would initially be limited to text content only. This would also drastically reduce the compute and bandwidth requirements of the seeder.
• Custom BitTorrent Clients: Open-source Social Media BitTorrent clients would display the most popular social media content by day, week, month, or year. These clients would allow users to seed only the content they find valuable thus organically moderating the network of ideas. Relevant content continues to be seeded and shared, while outdated or unpopular content fades due to a lack of seeds.

This setup seems like it could address key issues in traditional social media—privacy, censorship, and centralized control—while naturally prioritizing high-value content.

Why hasn’t a system like this been widely adopted? Is it a matter of technical limitations, lack of a viable economic model, or something else?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Something about those awkward hand gestures really gets me going.

People love to hate AI, but I think it's one of the most human inventions ever. The majority of my internal human experience already runs on autopilot.

The life-critical tasks have been outsourced to various biological systems.

My heart beats 24/7 without conscious effort, thanks to the cardiovascular system. Digestion? Handled seamlessly by another system. Breathing? Autopilot. I don’t have to remind myself to inhale and exhale. It just happens.

Even many of my own thoughts seem to appear out of nowhere—emerging from my subconscious or triggered by something around me.

Is it any wonder that, in one way or another, all human technologies strive to replicate this internal 'automation' in the external world?

To me, it’s a beautiful—if ultimately futile—attempt to harmonize our inner and outer realities.

As a kid, I learned to “pause” my true self. School was the pause, and my hobbies, dreams, and passions were the unpause—something I’d rush back to during lunch or after class.

Over time, the pauses got longer. Tiredness and responsibilities crept in, leaving little energy to unpause at the end of some days.

At work, sometimes the pressure and the demands were so relentless that I couldn’t unpause for weeks or months at a time.

Then came marriage, fatherhood, and the joy—and work—of raising a child.

I want my son to get to know the real me but I worry that by the time he is grown I won’t have any “self” to unpause to.

I have it as my default icon and I could have sworn it wasn’t as colorful before? I absolutely love the stars and the reflection in the helmet. Maybe I just haven’t been paying enough attention but it looks even better than I remember!

The kind of game you daydream about while at school or work because you can’t wait to come home and play some more.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I don’t have to go to work for a few days. But I don’t quite get the same excitement for the weekend that I used to. I hope that you do! If so, how do you cultivate that feeling?

Socrates bemoaned those young'ns who had the audacity to read their Homer, instead of memorizing it.