volkris @volkris@qoto.org
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
Pinned post
Under #Biden US national labs found themselves hamstrung by micromanagement, demands from the administration that resources be diverted away from #science while regulators repeatedly shut down programs much to the chagrin of our International partners.
It's been a breath of fresh air that the new administration has allowed us to actually get back to work. I don't even care if they know what they are doing, at least they are no longer interfering. Science is getting back on track now.
Regardless of everything else that #Trump might be getting into, and maybe it's just because he's just that incompetent, at least the US is getting back on track with its scientific endeavors. Our experiments are getting back up to speed after years of crippling bureaucracy, and we can start making progress again.
There's a lot to complain about with Trump, but I am very glad to see that the expectations for science are living up to what I'd hoped.
Pinned post
Lately I've been thinking about how the #Republican party has evolved over the last decade or so as viewed through the lens of the games that major voices in the party play.
Previous generations of #GOP speakers were proudly golfers, but lately major voices are football fans. You can hear them make that shift from talking about golf to talking about football.
Well, over the years Republicans have made this marked shift from looking to work together and build consensus to just looking to fight their opponents. And it strikes me that that's also a difference between golf and football.
The new generation of conservative speakers don't understand the realities of political systems where they have to work with others, convince others, to get things done. It's as if they are projecting philosophies from football on to their politics in ways that didn't happen previously.
And that's a shame for us all. That's how you get #Trump... and #Harris.
Pinned post
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)
Under #Biden US national labs found themselves hamstrung by micromanagement, demands from the administration that resources be diverted away from #science while regulators repeatedly shut down programs much to the chagrin of our International partners.
It's been a breath of fresh air that the new administration has allowed us to actually get back to work. I don't even care if they know what they are doing, at least they are no longer interfering. Science is getting back on track now.
Regardless of everything else that #Trump might be getting into, and maybe it's just because he's just that incompetent, at least the US is getting back on track with its scientific endeavors. Our experiments are getting back up to speed after years of crippling bureaucracy, and we can start making progress again.
There's a lot to complain about with Trump, but I am very glad to see that the expectations for science are living up to what I'd hoped.
volkris
boosted
If English is now the official language of the US, I wonder if "E pluribus unum" on their currency will have to be changed?
Just wondering...
People are really sensationalizing the report of #Roberts pushing back on #Trump's call for impeaching judges.
No, the statement doesn't have teeth. It's a mild statement of the record, that it's an established norm not to impeach over disagreement.
#Congress is always free to go there anyway.
No, it's not Roberts throwing bombs or a sign of a new direction. In fact, it was about preserving direction.
Sure, it was appropriate for Roberts to make the statement, but it just wasn't the big deal so many are making it out to be.
Sensationalizing it does play into Trump's rhetoric, though.
So many people upset about #Schumer in the #Senate are falling into the same trap that people fell into with regard to Mitch McConnell:
Minority and majority leaders in the Senate don't have that much more authority than any other senators. But, the other politicians use them as scapegoats to escape their own accountability.
The minority leader here didn't single-handedly give the Republicans a win. He doesn't have that authority or that power. Instead, blame the rest of the Democratic senators who voted for the Republican position.
Don't let them get away with it by just focusing on the minority leader.
With the breaking announcement that #Ukraine agreed to a plan for a ceasefire on the way to resolution of the war, it's worth reviewing what just happened:
#Trump, the world's greatest deal maker, torpedoed his own not very good deal because he couldn't shut up for 5 minutes and had to pick a fight with #Zelenskyy in front of an international audience.
And then, once his idiotic face was out of the way, the real adults sat down and actually made a worthwhile plan to sort things out, really showing that Trump was nothing but a problem and will continue to be nothing but a problem, even when it comes to his own cabinet members who will have to work around him to save him from himself.
At least, this is the breaking news, but Trump supporters are celebrating the announcement, but they're too damn stupid to realize that the thing they're celebrating actually puts them to shame for supporting the guy.
Trump's mind is gone. The question is whether the people around him will put up with it, and for how long.
It's noteworthy that both parties claim there was significant election fraud in the '24 election stealing wins from them.
Same as 2020, a dispassionate review of the facts can settle a lot of this, but lord knows that's not going to be reported broadly.
Michigan Investigators Raise Alarm Over Suspicious Ballot Irregularities in Muskegon County’s ’24 Election https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/0...
A quick overview of the questions about whether #Ukraine actually has the mineral deposits that put dollar signs in Trump's eyes. I've heard this skepticism of the deposits before.
I have a suspicion that #Zelenskyy is not such a big fan of the minerals agreement with #Trump because he knows it's not really going to pan out, he's just going along with it to get to the next step that might actually be substantial.
Until Trump botched his own deal, of course.
volkris
boosted
"When you publish a post via ActivityPub it doesn't just get stored in 1 database, it gets sent out to every follower you have, and the server of every single one of your followers stores that post in their database, too. If you want to delete a post, it has to be deleted in all those different places, too — and that doesn't just happen automatically."
https://activitypub.ghost.org/actually-i-take-that-back/
(1/?)
volkris
boosted
Teacher: William Shakespeare is credited with the invention of over 1,700 words. He was a linguistic genius.
Student: Can I make up words and use them in my papers?
Teacher: Absolutely fucking not.
#Republicans have been pushing this story that #Trump had his explosion with the #Ukraine president after the Ukrainian said the wrong thing, forcing Trump to cancel his big deal.
It's just another example of, if y'all listen to yourselves, are you saying your guy really is that weak that the foreign president is able to manipulate him that way? Doesn't sound like much of a president.
It's unfortunate that this administration is really being run by the stupidest, most oblivious people on the scene.
volkris
boosted
current punk rock levels are 94%
(94%) ■■■■■■■■■□
The head of #DOGE has been revealed!
It really says something that it took this long for people to figure out who was actually in charge of this high-profile group.
New from me at @cato.org: the Trump Administration has dodged questions about who's in charge at DOGE, which could help determine whether the agenc...
A while back I heard an interesting way of viewing positions in #USPolitics:
> The left tends to make an error of sign while the right makes an error of magnitude.
That is, #Democrats might get the effects of some proposal backwards while #Republicans might think it will have far more impact than it actually will.
I see this often now that I look for it, including here in this #DOGE era where conservatives are vastly overestimating the amount of savings that they can get from the effort.
It needs to be called out forcefully that #BBC in its news breaks, If not elsewhere tonight, is flat out lying about what #Trump is saying about #Ukraine.
Trump says plenty of idiotic stuff. BBC has plenty to work with to show him as an idiot. But putting out falsehoods about what he has actually said only undermines #journalism as a whole because everyone who heard the direct quotes will know that the press is lying.
This goes beyond US politics. This is a serious problem for the whole world, and it happens way too often.
volkris
boosted
@muiren personal insults?
You misunderstand. I didn't intend any personal insult, I don't know who you are, how would I insult you personally?
I will point out that what your writing comes across as nutty. I don't assume you are actually nutty, I just think if you want to make an argument, you should know that your presentation is not convincing because it sounds really out there.
Again, nothing personal. It's a criticism of a communication strategy, not you yourself.
But no, your facts are also wrong, but that's a separate matter from the fact that you just put forward statements that sound like the crazy guy at the end of the bar that nobody's going to take seriously.
If you want to convince people over to your side and to make a compelling argument against the other side then the way you're framing things here isn't going to be successful.
And again that's even setting aside your facts being wrong.
In the US system of government separation of powers is a core feature to make sure nobody gets too much power and to promote cooperation and consensus. With power separated different groups with different incentives have to work together to make things happen.
That's why it's so disappointing to see people missing the separation of powers issue when it comes to #Congress and spending.
We all hear the phrase power of the purse, too many don't understand what it actually entails. Yes, Congress has the power to open the purse, but it absolutely does not have the power to spend. There are a lot of ways to prove that, but let me emphasize that this is a separation of powers issue.
The power to authorize spending is separated from the power to actually spend, which happens over in the executive branch.
In the US system the legislative branch does not spend, that happens from the executive branch. And a whole lot of congresspeople are insisting on a power grab to claim that power for themselves.
I wish the public knew better, to easily deflect that power grab.
What people might want to take away from #Hannity interview of #Trump and #Musk is that, firstly, yes Trump is president and deserves all blame. Please stop saying he gave the presidency to someone else. That's not helpful for the sake of holding him accountable.
But more importantly, it's Hannity, not Musk, that represents the idiocy that Trump is Jacquelyn in his administration.
Musk is just messing around, you can see him stroking Trump's ego to keep playing in the sandbox, but it's Hannity that is promoting the utterly ignorant positions that Trump ends up listening to and acting on.
The buck stops with the president in the US system, but if you want to understand what Trump is doing in office, follow Hannity because he represents the mainstream conservative perspective that Trump is acting on.
And you really can't strategize against it if you misunderstand what's going on between those three people.
volkris
boosted
Of interest to no one, but I don't think Pine-Sol contains as much pine oil or pinene as it used to, if any. It doesn't smell like it used to (no this is not a Yankee Candle toot, stop it 
). It has this weird lab-designed pine-vanilla scent.
I have two bottles of "Original Pine-Sol (R) multi-surface cleaner". One (2020) says "active ingredient: glycolic acid 1.75% . . . Contains pine oil." The other (2023) says, "active ingredient citric acid 1.75%" They both smell about the same. Now that I know which is which, the one from 2020 maybe smells a little more harsh and chemical.
You'd probably do just as well using acetic acid 5%. Maybe throw in some sodium bicarbonate for mild abrasive and foaming action. Citric acid: what a rip-off smh.
Anyway I said I wasn't going to use carb cleaner or Foamy Engine Brite on the stainless steel cooktop, but I caved rather quickly. Don't do that, but if you do, be safe, use the exhaust fan, clean up thoroughly, etc.
I have Bar Keepers Friend, but I cannot deal with oxalic acid today.
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
