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
@theguardian_us_news That's not an accurate description of this case.
@walterolson.bsky.social The problem with that position is that Congress was given authority to pass laws with regard to Federal elections, which means the executive must have authority over them or else those laws would be moot.
@Pavlovian honestly that sounds like the level of intolerance that I expect from this platform.
It's unfortunate, it's antisocial, but here we are.
@mikelovesbikes keep in mind that the law explicitly grants the administration authority to do this.
It's a bad law. The law should have been reformed a long time ago, but we kept reelecting lawmakers who weren't interested in fixing things like this.
Until we recognize that this stuff is legal we're not going to identify the problem, and the ones who let it go are going to be able to escape accountability.
It's not that the constitution is meaningless. It's that we voters keep empowering lawmakers that let us down over and over.
And that's our constitutional system.
@timgatewood I don't think that's how it's going to work out. JD and a couple of others are happy to basically be puppet masters over Trump, manipulating him to do the hard work and take all the heat while they call the shots from behind.
I think you could see that playing out in the signal scandal. They were talking in the group chat about how they were manipulating the guy.
I also don't think Trump has a deplorable diet. What are you referring to? I get the impression his diet is just really really boring, and supposedly he doesn't drink, so he might be with us for a good while, slowly wasting away.
It's the critical thing to understanding them is to listen when they say they don't know how any of this works, but they trust Trump based on his track record.
Yes it's wrong, but assume for just a minute that the guy has this awesome political and financial track record. You can kind of understand their reaction based on that assumption. Assume everyone said he would fail, and he succeeded beyond wildest dreams, so all the people saying negative things now are just going to be wrong again.
Okay so, that is literally the information they are working with. I hear it every single day.
And here's the kicker: they believe it in part because DEMOCRATS and other Trump opponents spent years agreeing that it was true!
For years we had people yelling about how Trump was effective in implementing his dangerous agenda, that these people liked, and that helped get him reelected, and it's part of why his supporters are accepting this stuff.
It was obviously a dangerous strategy, and this is exactly the danger.
@DRPNL contrast this with the signal leak.
This was a public performance, so why would you expect candor? They were putting on a show for the public, and we all need to be clear about what this little press event was. This was a dog and pony show. This was not the place for argument. It wasn't the moment.
In contrast, the signal leak showed argument behind the scenes as it is supposed to be.
To be clear: Trump has absolutely no idea what he's doing, and absolutely no idea what's going on, but, we need to be clear the difference between a public performance that this was versus the behind the scene discussions of his handlers who do show different ideas.
@DRPNL But that's how it's supposed to work. We have three branches of government based on the understanding that within the executive branch they are going to be on the same page, so we have two other branches to provide the balance.
Yes, if you look around the president's table during a political event like this you're going to find such a spectacle. But that's why it's important to keep in mind exactly what it is, the political show, and that you zoom out to see the rest of the government that provides checks and balances.
@acm_redfox What? No. That's not at all what this is about.
Anyway, we get the representatives that we vote for.
We get what we vote for.
We should probably stop reelecting the same people that keep failing us though.
@georgetakei No you do not.
It's not right that he's going to crash the global economy every couple of months because people are going to pay him less and less attention, and rely on him less, each time he does this stuff.
He really is self-defeating.
@stuffifound The thing to realize is that a whole lot of Trump supporters actually agree with this.
A large reason that Trump got elected was because so many became disenchanted with the government, regarding it as a joke, so they went ahead and elected a joke to run the Executive branch.
It's a feature, not a bug for them.
@proscience No those stories have been debunked.
Yes they were widely circulated on social media, but no they weren't true.
@realcaseyrollins is wrong that the US is some bastion of freedom, but that doesn't mean we should promote those nutty stories about arresting and deporting people for having expressed opinions.
Both are false.
My other reaction is, if you think those countries are so off course, well I'm not disputing that, but it is cause for maybe some consideration for how the US ends up being even worse than those examples.
Yeah, the US has serious issues with restricting freedom of speech. We shouldn't paper over that.
Australia and Canada might have troubling headlines where they restrict speech, but that only means the US needs to deal with its own headlines of cracking down on speech it doesn't like.
We won't improve to be better than them if we don't recognize that we have that improvement to make.
@KeithMcNeill this is one of those cases where it's really important to separate the country from the president.
By design, the US is not the president. He is just the bureaucrat at the top of one branch of the federal government.
The confusion between the two has often caused a lot of practical trouble in the last couple of decades at least.
@realcaseyrollins sure, the US is the most free, as long as you ignore all of the analysis saying it's not the most free, then it absolutely is!
You're begging the question to try to support your predetermined conclusions.
Or, on the other hand, specifically what in their calculation did they get wrong? Show me the math where they went astray?
Don't just reject their conclusion because it doesn't match your opinions.
@realcaseyrollins Well that's not particularly true either.
By some measures the US doesn't even crack the top 10.
No, domestic policy in the US is definitely not focused on freedom, everything from tax policy through drug restrictions through monitoring of communications in the US point the other direction.
I just have to laugh at this headline.
Chinese communist owned stores? That's funnily contradictory in itself, but add in the military part, an organization that by necessity has some communist-type structures involved, and well...
Gentleman, there's no fighting in the war room!
GOP Rep Introduces Bill After Discovering Chinese Communist-Owned Stores on US Military Base https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/04/gop-rep-intr...
@realcaseyrollins What?
You're referring to a governmental institution, an organization that constrains freedom, and projecting this freedom constraining organization as the free world... That doesn't make sense.
@Hoss Well, for example is there any doubt that a brick of gold is worth money? And yet that brick isn't doing anything related to laborious work.
So your framing just doesn't match what we know to be true. It's not an accurate framing of money in society.
@Hoss No, you're oversimplifying what money is and how it works, and so you miss the way that it dovetails with modern financial systems.
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
