I don't think you can transpile arbitrary TS in mqjs's JS subset. Maybe you can lint your code in such a way that certain forbidden constructs fail the lint step, but I don't think you can do anything to avoid runtime errors (i.e. writing to an array out of its bonds).
> If I want to get exposed to "different morals" I just open any of the other existing social networks. Until then I'm stuck here
I think the point is that "opening all other existing social networks" to get a rounded point of view has immense friction, especially in an enshittified world. Even with supposedly non-enshittified solutions like Mastodon, for example, you have to subscribe with different users to distinct instances that allow only a subset of the network and manage that for you. They can alter their banlist behind your back, for starters, so you have to manage that as well.
The proposal of Nostr is that you can follow as many relays as you want, in the same app, with the same user. Compare to having separate accounts for Facebook, X, Threads, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok, YouTube, <woke-friendly Mastodon instance> and <reactionary-friendly Mastodon instance>.
Yeah, true, but now you have to manage 5 accounts on the 5 major social networks, all with different rules, format, public, moderation guidelines. It can be done but it starts to sound like a job.
That's true. The hope is that users will favor generalist / unbiased relays (less fragmentation by design) rather than heavily biased / restricted ones. Maybe even fund them: I will pay you as long as you don't start banning large swathes of the network just because you don't like what they say.
Users you follow can also advertise relays behind the scenes, so it's more probable that, if you follow a coherent set of users, you will converge on a coherent subset of relays that doesn't really feel fragmented.
Something that I feel is missing in this conversation is that IMO a multi relay architecture like Nostr is not trying to solve moderation or remove it altogether: it's trying to make activist moderators less relevant.
Activists, in this case, are people with a social mission that they deem it's more important than any other considerations: they think ideology K is dangerous and they are trying to prevent as many as possible recipients to be exposed to it. They will report you on Threads or Facebook to ban you, if you speak in favor of K. They will send e-mails to your employer. They will even send bomb threats to venues where you gather to celebrate K. If they are moderators, they will not only ban you if mention K in a positive light, but they will try to avoid other people from hearing K-speech as well. If they run a Mastodon instance, for example, they will have a ban list of other instances that are K-friendly, and they will make sure that, if you are using their instance, you can't see any posts about K. If you're curious about K, now you have to do the inconvenient dance of switching between two instances that in theory should be federated, but in practice are two different networks that don't speak with each other. This is good for activists, but bad for you, if you don't want to take sides on a culture war you don't really care about.
A relay-based architecture makes the work of activists a bit less relevant: they can still run their instance and ban every mention of K, of course, but now you can subscribe to their instance AND another instance that doesn't ban people who speak fondly of K, and they can't limit or control that in any way. In theory (and everything is a bit theoretical at the moment), relays that heavily censor certain topics are less preferable to a generic public than relays that don't do that, so activist moderators will pay their effort to shape discourse with less participation from users. Of course, if relays ban something universally considered bad, such as spam, they will have more success than if they ban some heavily divisive point of view that 50% of the public shares. In theory, these controversial actors can even advertise friendly relays without you knowing, and your client can decide to follow them transparently (the intent is "I want content from this user", the behaviour is "follow relays they advertise behind the scenes"). Of course they have to do that before they're banned, but the point is that, for every activist relay that tries to remove K from public discourse, there will always be one or more generalist or counter-activist relay that welcomes K, and you can choose to follow both at the same time, with the same client and the same identity, and nobody can do a damn thing about it.
This is one of those statements that sounds reasonable because K is a variable, but it actually matters what the content of K is. You can start by inserting "CSAM" and work from there, until the police arrive.
> Of course, if relays ban something universally considered bad, such as spam, they will have more success than if they ban some heavily divisive point of view that 50% of the public shares.
You can add CSAM to that. Also, legality always trumps any other consideration: if you're doing something illegal in your country, you should expect your country's police force to come and get you, there's obviously no relay architecture that can prevent that.
My point applies more to situations where K is not illegal, but heavily divisive.
Relays are not coordinated. For every relay A that bans you because you say X, there will be a relay B that welcomes with open arms if you say X.
If the recipients want to hear all the facets of discourse around X, they will subscribe to A and B. If they really hate X, they will subscribe to A but not to B. If they really love X, they will probably subscribe only to B.
Compare this with Mastodon, where your favourite server can decide to exclude other servers, so if A decides that X is toxic, you will never see X as long as you use A.
> and will probably look like a blemish on your CV when you eventually need to get a new job.
Not necessarily, especially in the private sector. It's hard to justify not hiring an excellent employee because he or she worked for a company you don't like. Especially if the hiring panel is composed by >1 person.
It's not a bad concept. Seeing the first paragraphs of an article helps me decide quickly if I want to invest time on it or not. I would like to do that with books, if there was a reliable way to get the first page of a large number of them.
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