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
I think they didn't because they explicitly said they didn't.
It's unfortunate to me how proud people seem to be sometimes not to have considered other viewpoints.
@box464 yeah, I've been seeing such things and it's been really troubling/annoying, people around here posting a wall of hashtags so many of which are unrelated to the actual content.
Such a thing undermines the use of hashtags at all, once they no longer identify their content.
Unfortunately, it seems there is incentive to hashtag pollute like that, and little to push back against it.
Perhaps removing hashtags from the body would make that even worse, hiding the pollution.
@atomicpoet @thedextriarchy @fediversenews
An ax I grind:
We need to be clear that this isn't about Bitcoin but rather what people are willing to pay in order to acquire Bitcoin.
The Bitcoin system itself can run on a car battery.
People decide to compete with each other to get more of it, buying extra electricity to trade for a chance to acquire it.
The real takeaway is that Bitcoin is highly valued, enough that people are willing to bid up the price like this. We shouldn't be so much yelling about the price but rather thinking about what's happening with the world so that #Bitcoin is so valuable in the first place.
People trading money for electricity for Bitcoin really says we should be rethinking the apparently less valuable money.
Fortunately you don't need to have faith in the decisions of such a man since the US government was designed to make sure no man (no one) could hold far-ranging powers.
Checks and balances are in place specifically so that flawed humans would have their powers checked.
This ranges from having a Supreme Court that meets as a group through the extremely limited powers that the Court has in the first place.
I really don't care what this guy thinks. I do care that he's part of a system that specifically holds him back from imposing his own personal thoughts, and the decisions that come out of the Court show that.
You misunderstand. What I said is entirely compatible with your "opposite" view of how things work.
We're talking about the same way of working, while you're just looking at what might happen in reaction to the overstepping.
The overstepping is itself the problem. It's true that there might be discipline as a result, but that doesn't change that the overstepping has happened.
A SCOTUS justice cannot have the same impact in such a trial because SCOTUS justices do not sit for such trials in the first place.
The thing is, when you check out the other side and see that they have no ground to stand on, it makes a person that much more confident that they're on the right side.
It's a red flag that Propublica is cherrypicking here *even if they're picking the right cherries*.
Let's see that the other side is wrong. Let's not leave it potentially right.
@morecowbell@mastodon.social
Who said I was objecting to anything?
I was inviting you to say more since I was interested in seeing how you arrived at that conclusion.
I mean, you might have some reasoning that I'd object to, but I'm not making assumptions on whether you had any particular background on your statement.
@wherephysicswentwrong@universeodon.com
I generally agree with your perspective there, especially with Twitter-style spaces that, IMO, aren't by interface conducive to learning and mind-broadening discussion.
And I'm only barely optimistic that Fediverse interfaces will be any better, especially given the internal design of the ActivityPub protocol.
Well I do hear them complaining about such things occasionally, but I don't hear them calling for impeachment.
They recognize that the biases and influences of justices are just part of the US system, and it's why we have checks and balances and enough justices to hopefully counter those influences if they're too biasing.
I would hope your faith in SCOTUS would be based in their handling of legal issues and the validity of legal arguments in public opinions, not the personal drama played out in the political scene.
Careful. I hear from Arlington/DC friends that they're experiencing a notable uptick on crime there in the last couple of years, personally experiencing I mean.
Issues ranging from assaults on the Metro through local storefronts being victimized.
I know a few people looking to get out as it's interfering with daily life, so just a word of caution.
@morecowbell@mastodon.social @VolokhC
How do you figure?
volkris
boosted
Here we go again ... this time browsing profiles ... fitting for silent Sunday ... why is this even happening? Is it Mastodon's version of Twiter's fail whale? Anyone know? @Gargron
#silentsunday #mastodon #ratelimited #socialnetwork #fediverse #activitypub #foss #opensource #lazysunday #gargron #twitter #failwhale
Well, the two courts have vastly different roles in the US legal system, with far different protections in place to make sure their members are doing their jobs correctly.
It's apples and oranges.
The judge overseeing trial proceedings has huge amounts of power to unilaterally influence how they proceed, able to put his finger on scales, and basically having the power over someone's life through the course of the argument.
A Supreme Court justice is only one of nine serving a (mostly) appellate role, with checks on his power from both inside and outside the Court.
Does that help?
I'm mostly joking when I say this:
Well, maybe you're just not on the right instance? You're not so much into alpacas and their precious metal mining? :)
I'm interesting in the potential of distributed social networks, including this one.
I think it has a FAR way to go, but maybe contributing to it would help it get there.
Well, it's Occam's Razor.
The simpler explanation is just that the court is following through on its simple legal mandate of pointing it out when agencies in power are in violation of the law.
And again, if the laws are bad laws, then this is how WE call for the laws to be revised. I think that's so important.
If 21 U.S.C. § 355 needs to be changed to allow the FDA's actions, let's get to it!
The reason I can tell that's untrue is because ProPublica is the one presenting a single perspective in their reporting.
It's weird to say that the one representing a single perspective is the one that's not cherrypicking.
No: those are the cherries.
It's funny because the judge was calling out the FDA's admitted failure to follow the safety rules for drug approval.
Biden oversees the FDA now.
So he's trying to point fingers for his own failure. He should have had the FDA fix the regulatory issues instead of complaining on being called out.
No, that's the opposite of what happened here.
BECAUSE the judge isn't an expert, therefore he can't somehow override the procedure for approving a drug.
The FDA didn't follow safety rules for approving the drug, by their own admission, and so by law the judge has to call them out on that, no matter if he personally thinks the drug is safe or not.
Maybe the rules are bad. Maybe Congress needs to reform the law. But that's not up to the judge.
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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