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
@flexghost @GhostOnTheHalfShell
You can see revenues and outlays for yourself on the Treasury's own website.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/daily-treasury-statement/operating-cash-balance
OF COURSE the federal government can run out of US dollars. The Treasury has a specific and finite balance at any one time.
Check out this website from the Treasury that specifies exactly how many dollars it has each day, the amount beyond which it would run out.
NO dollars aren't created when Congress authorizes spending. Congress is not an executive branch so it couldn't create dollars if it wanted to.
Permission to spend is not only not spending, an executive function in itself, but it has nothing to do with the creation of dollars.
You're really misunderstanding how the US government functions here, with its separation of powers.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/daily-treasury-statement/operating-cash-balance
The thing people miss is that the US has plenty of revenues to pay its debt obligations. There is NO serious legal risk of defaulting even if the debt ceiling isn't raised.
It's true that new projects won't be able to spend as much as they would like, but legally the US will prioritize its debt obligations and will not default.
We really need more civics education about how the US government functions, as this comes down to separation of branches, with the Congress only authorizing spending while the executive branch actually spends out of the Treasury.
@jchyip But the laws DON'T require more debt. And Congress was always free to authorize more borrowing to pay for the programs they were promising.
It's not the #debtceiling that's dysfunctional. It's elected officials authorizing spending that we all know can't be afforded without putting in place a way to afford it at the same time.
The debt ceiling should be shining a light on that practice. Instead we're busy fighting over the symptom instead of holding accountable the ones who promised unaffordable programs.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @flexghost
The thing people are missing is that the US has plenty of revenues to pay its debts. There is no serious legal risk of defaulting regardless of the debt ceiling.
That's just a talkingpoint politicians are using to get their followers upset, fearmongering they're using to spin the narrative.
Yes, the US might run short of funds to pay for new promised programs, but the US absolutely has enough to cover its debt obligations.
It's not right because it overlooks an important part of how the US government operates: the Treasury takes in enough money to pay its bills, so there is no legal risk of default.
The bills will be paid.
That's just math, as the income is higher than the amount required to pay the bills.
It's NEW spending that might have to be pulled back on.
I think this is missing that the legislative branch doesn't spend money; it only authorizes the executive branch to spend money assuming there is any to spend.
If the executive runs out of money, then he's out and he has to stop spending more regardless of what Congress may have authorized.
He doesn't get to just borrow more unilaterally as that would commit the US to obligations that the peoples' representatives didn't agree to.
The drama of the week over the debt ceiling is another case of a failure of civics education leaving Americans vulnerable to disinformation about how that whole thing works.
Just to shout it into the void: based on the US system of independent branches, first Congress authorizes spending, **then** the executive spends it.
Congress does not spend money. Legislation does not spend money. The executive's writing of checks and signing of contracts is what spends money.
There's so much talk about money already having been spent that's just wrong because they don't realize how the US system works.
Most importantly here, though, the US has plenty of revenues incoming to service its debt. **Default is not realistically on the table** regardless of whether the debt ceiling is raised.
volkris
boosted
Mastodon crops images to 16:9 by default with no visual indication it has done so. That's a pretty awful experience for photography and digital art, so I've opened a proposal to scale images instead.
It's so funny, the idea of congresspeople blocking debt ceiling increases, as it presumes some right to have it raised.
No, it's the other way around, with representatives of the people having the control to decide to issue more debt should they find it to be in the public interest.
@atomicpoet well @SrRochardBunson for one, right here in this thread, which is the whole point!
But I see it all the time in the news feed here, people excited to be on this new platform and highlighting benefits that don't quite exist.
Like I said, a lot of people simply don't understand how this platform works as the themselves were mislead, and that's dangerous.
I always highlight the particular danger of people not realizing just how insecure this whole thing is and posting private content without realizing that it's being broadcast publicly.
We need honest descriptions of this platform, both the good and the bad, so people can make informed decisions about how (and if) they use it.
@Tweetfiction
The appointment was following well-established procedures that just make common sense: there is an inherent conflict of interest when the DOJ is investigating their boss.
In the US system it's effectively the president investigating himself.
So the US has developed the idea of special councils to at least try to have some independence when an investigation is deemed substantial.
It **should** be Congress doing the investigating, though, as that's why it has independent branches of government providing oversight in the first place.
But this is exactly my point.
People are selling #Mastodon and #Fediverse using claims like the one you described, but it's not actually true.
I don't know if you know this or not, maybe you got taken in with the misleading marketing yourself, but you can't actually run your own instance from your house and communicate with the rest of Fediverse without ads or algorithms.
From natural limits of federation through instance owners actively blocking other instances you cannot communicate with the rest of the system from your own instance. That is not how this platform works, and anybody saying otherwise is misrepresenting it.
And there are algorithms and ads here.
So these huge selling points are lies. I'm just going to be blunt about that.
This system is fine. It has some positives and some negatives, and as we bring over new users let's just be honest about both.
No, you won't be able to communicate with the entire platform, and that's okay because you'll be able to communicate with enough. Maybe.
It was quite a while ago.
Do you remember hearing about the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal? As I recall that was all based on a third party Facebook app that collected data from users and then used the data in ways that people didn't like, in ways that Facebook had no control over.
A long time ago there were all sorts of third party games and other social media apps that could set up shop on Facebook and interact with you right from your Facebook news feed.
Just for example, there was one that I actually liked and actually missed when it went away. It took your list of friends and friend of friends to generate a graph on a circle to show the linkages between them. It was really neat to see how the clusters of friends set up, and also the surprising connections between friends in different groups that you never would have guessed.
But yeah, a lot of the apps were just garbage quizzes.
Remember when #Facebook really reigned in access by third parties? It didn't lose the platform all that much with the general public, and MAY have even made it more popular since some of those third party applications weren't exactly top-notch.
I don't think the general public really knows or cares about third party apps.
And of course there are times when different groups take advantage of that lack of knowledge to sow confusion and promote their stories.
@craigpc As the article describes the case, it's not about hamstringing the right to strike, but rather allowing people who damage equipment to be held liable for that damage.
And this is apparently the pro-union take on the case.
It sounds like the union would be free to strike, they just couldn't damage other people's property and be legally shielded from responsibility for it.
I'd say it might even be better for unions if the public didn't perceive them as having such shield from accountability. It would be better PR, at least, in a time when so many are skeptical of unionization.
When you describe it as a meme to get people excited as an alternative to having them stay at Twitter and Facebook, then to me, that counts as marketing.
Getting people excited about doing something based on a picture that is substantially false, that's an issue to me.
No different than if some Facebook cheerleader started putting out memes about how people should drop Fediverse for Facebook because Facebook is so much safer than those distributed punks.
Get people excited with an honest portrayal of the platform, and if the platform isn't good enough to be excited about, well then.
That's quite the theory. What do you base it on?
Attracting users through deceptive advertising isn't exactly taking a high road, and that's not even getting into the practical aspects that WILL have users putting their data and content at risk in the process.
If we have to lie to get users to move to this platform, then #Facebook and #Twitter aren't looking so bad.
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
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