We’re talking about legality: it’s stuff like intent and responsibility that matters, not the technical details.
My point, and my understanding of the EFF article, is that we do need a law that establishes just who can be held responsible, and how so. But maybe you’re imagining a world where that question is moot—in a world where there’s no separation of users and provers. That would be a world where no one gets rich from internet infrastructure, and I would enjoy that very much.
The key detail about federated social media is that even self-hosters are still providing content from others. That’s how federation works with requiring a direct connection from every instance to every other instance. My instance can connect to yours to get your content, but also the content from all other instances that you federate with. And vice-versa.
So, I understand the EFF’s argument that, without section 230, I would only federate with extremely small groups that I trust with my full financial life. That would devastaie the open social web.
For each finite dimension n (1, or 2, or 3, etc…), the sphere in dimension n can’t be contracted because of that empty n-dimensional space it surrounds. But that same sphere is the “equator” of the sphere in the next higher dimension, n+1. There, the n-dimensional equator can contract along one of the hemispheres, to a pole. But then that whole (n+1)-dimensional sphere still isn’t contractible, because of the (n+1)-dimensional space it surrounds.
BUT the (n+1)-dimensional sphere can contract along one of the hemispheres in the (n+2)-dimensional sphere. And so on.
For any particular finite dimension n, there is an n-dimensional obstruction to contracting the sphere in that dimension. But if you go all the way to infinitely-many dimensions, there is no obstruction that ever stops contractibility of the infinite-dimensional sphere.
Niagara, my beloved
This is a good recommendation. I came here to also mention her series that starts with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It’s far-future rather than post-apocalyptic, but it focuses on relationship and community building that might match what you’re looking for. I thought the characters, and their character-development, were really interesting.
One deeply underrated aspect of this post is a woman taking the name James. Women have taken Leslie, and Ashley, and so many other names. But James, an apostle, the brother of Christ! If this can happen, then women can take Paul, even Peter. Because why not!