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
Sure, just to pull one example, see the "Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019" that raised the debt ceiling after negotiations for tradeoffs gained enough support in Congress to pass.
Here's the bill:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/3877/text
Yeah, and to put a point on it as an example, I so often hear people say we need to get rid of section 230 to protect the kids when they clearly don't realize that 230 was specifically written to encourage protection of kids.
If that person knew what the law actually said they might have the opposite opinion to the one they're literally yelling about.
No, the opinion didn't have anything to do with section 230. It was about a different law, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act.
Twitter was sued under that act, and the Court found that that act didn't apply to this case.
@lauren
I think it's more people who don't understand legislation.
Yeah, people only have vague notions about how the internet works, but they'll have outright wrong ideas about what legislation actually says even as they express passionate opinions about it!
They have before...
It's pretty common not to grant presidents additional borrowing power without something in exchange.
You can pull up past debt ceiling legislation where Democrats demanded action on their preferences in exchange.
And still, it was a "respectfully dissent"!
(Occasionally they use other wording to indicate a not-so-respectful reply)
And for more detail, it spent $43 billion more while collecting $16 billion.
I wish it was more well-known that the Treasury spends and receives every day, so people would see the actual cash flow.
I really want to emphasize that Democrats actively set up this situation when they passed appropriations bills last Congress without also passing borrowing authorization at the time, setting the stage for this showdown.
Even at the time this was obviously going to be the result if they went that direction, and they did. I wish there was more accountability for them, but meh, most were reelected.
Things won't change so long as we keep reelecting the same sort of people.
Well, there is a key detail to keep in mind: #SCOTUS ruled here with respect to enforcing a specific law, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, the terms of which had certain legal requirements.
They ruled that the complaint did not reach the requirements of JASTA.
There may be some indirect implications with regard to something like #Section230 but the ruling isn't so broad as to decide liability in general.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1496_d18f.pdf
My impression is that so many Fediverse/Mastodon fans really want this platform to function the same way Twitter does, with its free-wheeling, firehose, comment-forward design, rather than the way other platforms work, with more of a post-centric approach.
Come to think of it, I'd also point to opposition to longer content (like this) that they say "ruins" the experience. They want the *feature* of having writing constrained with character limits.
So many seem to want Twitter... just not on Twitter... so they want the very features that kept me, personally, away from Twitter.
In the end some of those design choices do represent forks in the road that can't really be taken both ways.
If you're talking about the ruling out of Texas, I'm searching for the word "unsafe" and not finding anywhere that the judge said the drug was unsafe.
Where did he say it was unsafe, if this is the ruling you're referring to?
My solution is that we stop reelecting the people that put us into this position. Kind of a first do no harm solution.
Once we have rational congresspeople in Congress then we can talk about having them discuss serious budgeting priorities.
But we keep reelecting these completely unserious, completely irrational people to Congress, so as far as I'm concerned the rest of the story is kind of irrelevant.
It is ridiculous that the last Congress authorized spending of money that didn't exist without doing anything to provide for the money, but we re-elected so many of the people involved in that, so 🤷♂️
My impression is that so many Fediverse fans WANT it to work exactly like this, so any change that might be an progress would be a major break from the intended behavior.
In other words, my impression is that SO many people consider this behavior to be a feature, not a bug, that would be broken by a change.
I think it's a bad decision for so many reasons, but so many people love it that way.
volkris
boosted
@drazraeltod Replies to a post should be metadata on that post. The post itself should have primacy. For someone to see a reply to my post, they should need to retrieve it from my instance. That would also allow me to moderate replies, delete them, and prevent posts from people I have blocked from being seen by others who follow me.
I am well aware that this is not how the ActivityPub design works, and I am here to tell you that in this way the design is bad, and the designers should feel bad.
How much would that save and what is the deficit today that needs to be resolved?
I don't know if even that would be enough of a spending cut to resolve the debt ceiling issue.
So what specific interpretation do you believe this judge got wrong?
No, you're missing the separation of powers between branches, the checks and balances.
Congress does NOT do the spending. Congress gives permission to spend, but spending is done by the Treasury in the Executive Branch.
Spending is an Executive Branch activity, which is why the Treasury is in that branch and why the president is the one in charge of the reporting of what has been spent, as he spends.
Well, I'm yelling that we need to reform the laws :)
But so often I see judges doing a good job interpreting bad laws, with lawmakers happy to point fingers at the judges because it relieves them of the responsibility for the laws that they themselves might have passed.
We should not let them get away with that, though.
The current circus around the FDA is a great example. We should be yelling at Biden to follow the approval laws and settle this whole thing, but he gets positive press for pointing fingers at courts.
I expect it will come down to enforcement, it's not that the ban itself is unconstitutional but rather the way they choose to enforce it (or not) might be.
The ban itself is rather nonsensical. The legislation should be seen as pretty dead, just rhetoric without practical application.
But if the state starts sending people fines for supposed violation, then those would hopefully be laughed out of court.
As a person who often has trouble finding the things I want to buy because I'm looking for specific things, I'm EAGER for them to give out more info about me, so they can sell me things I want!
I don't need dog food. I do need a certain plant for my garden.
Please tell the advertisers. I don't care how the money changes hands. Thanks!
(is what I say to #Google )
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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