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
Decentralized Journalism platform
I think journalism's big problem at the moment isn't so much about access, centralization, or any of that, and is more about an apparently nearly universal disinterest in providing accurate reporting.
When I hear reporters being interviewed about reporting, and when I talk to reporters in person, there is always this attitude that puts accuracy secondary to activism, one that lets conscious or unconscious biases roam freely.
THAT's why journalism has lost so much credibility in recent years. Readers just get turned off by reporting that they see for themselves to be flawed.
Until that attitude undergoes an evolution, meh, it doesn't much matter how the opinion pieces marketed as real news get transmitted.
volkris
boosted
"Did you know that if you read a Mastodon thread not on your server, you won’t see the same content as someone on a different server? You’ll only see answers known to your own server...."
https://benlog.com/2022/12/28/dont-let-federation-make-the-experience-suck/
This is one of those cases where the other side of the argument is, Is it better for the poor to have more or less options?
We really need to be careful about paternalistic urges to control what others have access to just because we think we can manage their lives better than they can.
The Bitcoin ATMs sound like they're using demographic data to place machines where people are more likely to derive value from using those machines. That is, on its face, a positive thing.
@lispi314 @helge @multiverseofbadness
Personally, I wish the heuristics would be built on a cryptographic Web of Trust framework to bring external social sorting and identity verification into the mix, but that's just something I yell into the void occasionally :)
Well what makes you feel like the content here is better than over there?
I thought that was what everybody understood the poem as.
What makes you think people don't understand it that way?
Gosh these people are so misleading when they overlook the fact that there was this little global pandemic contributing to that number...
Yes, I question how it can be that Republicans want to cut assistance to poor people when they consistently vote to expand it.
That claim just doesn't make sense when compared against congressional voting records.
@alfredo_liberal@universeodon.com
Just because maybe gun laws can be passed doesn't mean they would be effective, though.
Your examples almost disprove your point, as you say laws were already passed and yet gun violence continued to this day.
What's the Jurassic Park line, people so worried about whether they could do something that they didn't stop to think about whether they should? Some gun laws will actually make gun violence worse, so we really need to stop and think about them.
The problem with that argument is that labor prices and the prices of raw inputs to manufacturing have also increased, showing that it really is systemic inflation and not meer greed.
And the theory doesn't really make sense in the first place, as if greed is a new thing that corporations just discovered in the last year or so?
The idea of inflation is that purchasers competing among each other for the same basket of goods end up bidding up the price if they all have more money to spend.
That's exactly what we've been seeing.
It wasn't.
It just goes to show how much people get sucked into all of this overblown drama of the week, and then never really stop to consider that things are being blown way out of proportion before they get sucked into the next overblown drama of the next week.
24-hour news cycles and such.
Well it was more that they were looking into mutating elements of the virus so they would be better candidates to lab test updated vaccines to be more effective against real world outbreaks.
The significance of these hidden camera captures has been way overblown.
@lispi314 @multiverseofbadness
Well to be serious, I think the issue is people who lump all algorithms together except for raw chronological, ignoring for one that chronological is itself and algorithm, and also overlooking that there are some algorithms that are better and some that are worse at meeting any particular user's wants.
I'm just laughing because I see so many people on this platform flat out rejecting the idea of allowing any algorithms at all, like luddites rejecting the idea of any technology at all, seeing it all as negative.
Sounds like we probably agree that user choice in algorithms would probably be a positive thing, even though a lot of people would be really upset about going in that direction.
@lispi314 @multiverseofbadness
It's almost like those algorithms actually did provide value 🙂
I'm half joking, because for everyone around here celebrating that there's no algorithm here other than chronological, the experience really could be improved by having some other options for users.
Right, and firstly, legislators involved have been quoted as saying they intended the permission to be basically for non-circulated collector's items, not actual money,
And second of all, when I point out that legislation can't override the Constitution, you don't actually make any progress by pointing out the legislation that can't override the Constitution.
Keep in mind that we voters are the ones awarding those congresspeople as we actively reelect them, affirmatively going to the polls and saying, "Yes, you did a good job, have another term in office."
We don't just sit back while things happen. They don't get power unless we voters decide to stand up and give it to them.
We must remember our power and not act like we have none.... or we effectively won't.
The different branches of the US government can't trade their constitutional roles by law.
Congress, for example, can't make the Speaker and Majority leader take the place of the Supreme Court just by passing a bill, in contradiction of the Constitution.
For the same reason legislation can't transfer Congress's authority to mint money over to the Executive Branch.
So, while Congress may authorize the minting of (fine) specific platinum coins, it cannot legislatively give unbound minting authority to the Executive.
Such legislation would be invalid under the Constitution that puts that in the hands of Congress.
@LizaBrings @mlanger @DWTSquawk7600
I for one didn't see it.
Nah, it's not just about money and connections in this case.
It's also about popular figures promoting the "We have to help!" line, politicians enjoying the photo ops that come out of it, and the general public agreeing, or at least shrugging and accepting it.
We, as a country, believe we should support those people living on beaches for some reason. So that's the government we get.
We could be hands off, but we'd rather watch that money being spent, at our expense.
The sad thing is that the problem WAS already solved as the political branch of the US government decided, in light of so much analysis, to legally identify Yucca Mountain as the nuclear waste depository.
Unfortunately, the political decision was administratively, and almost certainly illegally, overridden by Obama.
And so we were set back decades and left with a mess on our hands.
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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