volkris @volkris@qoto.org
Since I guess everything is political these days, I'll identify as extremely liberal but without a home in US politics.
Mainly, there's so much misinformation out there that people in society have trouble even organizing into coherent political groupings. So I'd rather not talk about politics but instead focus on information and education. Nothing else matters until the bedrock of fact is buttressed.
But... people are always going to be wrong on the internet, as the saying goes.
So: Old man yells at clouds is a famous joke from The Simpsons, and it probably fairly describes what we do when venting on social media.
Just speaking into the void, since I figure it's an exercise in futility to conduct discussions on these platforms.
Joined Dec 2022
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There’s an old idea of fairness that when cutting a cake between two people one person cuts and the other picks the piece they want.
This method aligns the interests of both parties, no matter how corruptible and human they may be.
I think it’s underappreciated how often the US government design has a similar method in its checks and balances: one group can reject an official, but they don’t get to choose the replacement.
See, for example, impeachment proceedings.
After all: “This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public.”
–Hamilton (maybe)
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To understand the state of #USPolitics, and US society more broadly, a person has to realize that the process against #Trump isn’t merely two camps who want the guy found innocent or guilty after a weighing of the evidence.
No, it is as if there was a murder trial where one side believed they were having beers with the purported victim as the trial was going on.
It’s not a matter of legal technicality or weighing preponderances of evidence or reasonable doubt; it’s a matter of the country being divided over fundamental fact, here whether a person is alive or not.
It’s not a political division. Sadly it’s a reality division.
volkris
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volkris
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Governments need to get off Twitter and at first glance this seems easy: set up a gov-centric Mastodon instance and convince governments to move.
Except it's far more complicated than that.
In evaluating if this was an endeavor I wanted to pursue (spoiler: no) I wrote up a list of things to consider for this to be done well. Hopefully it helps someone else in solving this problem.
volkris
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@Cătă No problem. Mastodon doesn't know what to do with the title, so it ignores it. I put titles on almost all my posts, Mastodon removes them, and that's it.
volkris
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scodd pilgrim comics/film/series comparison summary (thematic spoilers only)
comic: loser starts dating manic pixie dream girl with historic relationship problems, fights her exes, realises he's a loser, goes through character development to become slightly less of a loser, they date happily ever after (?)
film: loser starts dating mpdg with historic relationship problems, fights her exes, they date happily ever after
series: after a new relationship immediately hits a crisis, mpdg addresses all her failed past relationships and comes out of it with character development, resolves to stop running away from the losers she dates
it's kind of interesting how the series is mostly ramona & her exes having character development and scott having zero or debateably negative character development lmao
volkris
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A US drone killed a Somali mother and her daughter – but no one was found guilty https://lemmy.zip/post/6039990
Boy people let themselves get obsessed over the mythology surrounding Elon #Musk.
It’s not good for them, and it’s like, people taking an alternate reality game waaaaay too seriously.
Anything that doesn’t fit their plotpoint is clearly part of the in-game conspiracy.
Some notes on #bluesky under the hood.
I’ve heard from some who looked at the protocol that it’s horrifying, so it was interesting to hear from someone saying it was workable.
@volkris @maegul I do like it much more myself (I've been hacking on it since April). It fixes some issues that AP has like the ease of account mig...
volkris
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@admins Holy itchy trigger finger Batman. I went through their list and they blocked journa.host because they are “an instance of journalists?” I would consider this a badge of honor. You aren’t truly on Mastodon until you’ve been blocked by .a*t! We made it, folks!
I’m seeing a good bit of misinformation about the lawsuit against Media Matters, which is funny because it’s a lawsuit alleging misinformation.
For example people are saying the suit is over scrolling too fast without looking at the next line in the complaint that finishes the sentence to say that led to misleading results being reported, and THAT is the charge.
It’s one of those sad cases where people are so eager to take things out of context that they don’t even finish reading a sentence much less an entire document.
Such is the state of the world.
volkris
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Another person criticized me for promoting my Patreon. Let me put this into perspective. People spent $74.6 million to see the 2019 film Cats in theaters. At the current rate, it would take 34,158 years for my project to bring in as much money as Cats. I like to think Low Quality Facts provides at least as much entertainment value as Cats, a film which one critic described as "The worst thing to happen to cats since dogs".
In conclusion, here's my Patreon:
https://patreon.com/lowqualityfacts
volkris
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volkris
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Me, finishing another long day at the tortilla factory: "Well, that's a wrap!"
volkris
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As usual we turn to @ScottManleyHimself for a breakdown of todays #SpaceX #Starship test flight and possible causes of the RUDs.
volkris
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There seems to be a great gulf between space industry followers and people who don't usually follow space industry news but do so they can bash Musk. Reminds me of that time someone was utterly convinced that private companies had no business working in space when NASA is the one that nurtured this public private partnership for greater efficiency. Government can't do everything folks. It's not God. 🙄 #SpaceX #starship
volkris
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I once saw a woman on TikTok who only had one hand. One of her arms ended at the wrist. And she made a video explaining how she puts her hair into a ponytail with just one hand.
It was interesting! She was so brave to share that. I appreciated her answering a question I never knew I had. So I gave her the token of the realm: a like.
Reader, when I tell you how many amputees I saw after that. Good LORD. It took weeks for me to convince the algorithm to stop.
This is what TikTok does.
volkris
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Yes, this is the reason so many people left. One person who I respect, who started here and is now on Threads, said that the culture here is too "scoldy."
volkris
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There should be an option to make your Roomba swear when it bumps into things.
When I hear #Trump supporters describing him as not part of the establishment I roll my eyes thinking about the guy who headed the entire executive branch of the US government for four years.
But mainly I think of the press that utterly failed to frame their reporting accurately to lay that on the table, instead obsessing over him personally instead of him as chief magistrate.
And that’s why we can’t have nice thi… government.
volkris
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Since I guess everything is political these days, I'll identify as extremely liberal but without a home in US politics.
Mainly, there's so much misinformation out there that people in society have trouble even organizing into coherent political groupings. So I'd rather not talk about politics but instead focus on information and education. Nothing else matters until the bedrock of fact is buttressed.
But... people are always going to be wrong on the internet, as the saying goes.
So: Old man yells at clouds is a famous joke from The Simpsons, and it probably fairly describes what we do when venting on social media.
Just speaking into the void, since I figure it's an exercise in futility to conduct discussions on these platforms.
Joined Dec 2022
