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
The question before the court was over the application of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/qp/20-01199qp.pdf
Folks complaining about the #SCOTUS ruling on admissions based on what society should do are missing that the Court doesn't have authority to judge based on evaluations of what we should do.
It is to judge based on what our democratic process has said, by law, that we should do.
If we need to change the law, great! Maybe we do need to revisit and update the Civil rights act of 1964.
So let's yell at the Congress to get that done.
Yelling at SCOTUS for acts of the legislature that they don't have power over is, if anything, distraction from making progress on legal reforms that are apparently needed.
The opinion goes through the ways in which these admissions systems run afoul of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
Yep.
Unfortunately, there is no alternative to reading things for oneself these days, since there is misinformation left and right.
What law did they make a ruling against?
The Constitution and various laws specifically single out race, so the Court had to apply those race-specific laws to this case.
Of course, we can petition the legislative branch to change the law if we want.
Read directly from the ruling.
SO many people on this platform are mischaracterizing what the ruling actually said.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
@KatM@mastodon.social
No, a president cannot unilaterally decide to violate the law like that.
They are not above the law.
@StillIRise1963
Sure, distortions aren't necessarily good or bad.
@dmm@mathstodon.xyz
I'm sure she is serious!
But her perspective is naive. It comes across as unserious to people who take the role of the Court seriously.
This is the sort of thing that many of us criticized her for when she was first nominated to the chair.
@lauren
They didn't decide, though.
That was decided through legislative branches, through the democratic process.
It wasn't SCOTUS's role to override our representatives in the democratic branch to support affirmative action if the country hasn't sanctioned it.
The determination of what we need or don't need to pursue is a matter for the legislative branch, though, not the judicial branch.
If you believe the US needs to pursue those goals, then push for them through legislation and Constitutional amendments.
These unelected judges have no role in overriding the democratic branch of government.
Setting the actual issue aside:
The funny thing about your post is that affirmative action is itself, by definition, about distortion.
So you're talking about distortion of distortion? I appreciate that :)
@dmm@mathstodon.xyz
If that really is a good summary of the counterargument, then it shows how weak it is, and why it didn't carry the day.
I did find Jackson's perspective to be pretty naive, misunderstanding the role of a court in the legal system, and in the country, overestimating the power it might have to dictate things to the whole society.
But let-them-eat-cake really underscored it: this isn't about eating cake, that's not the question, this is about ending the taking of cake from people.
After all, and this might be news to Jackson, SCOTUS can only rule in the face of actual harm. It has no authority to distribute cake.
@lauren
Keep in mind how naive it sounds to say things like Meta's aim is to destroy fediverse.
Again, let's see your argument. These little jabs are just making it sound like you're reflexively repeating something you heard that doesn't really have much basis.
@privacat @ploum @dangillmor
Exactly.
So cars allowed us to improve standards, not because of some conspiracy wanting to make cars more convenient, but because it brought more value to society to implement the solutions that cars enabled so much more efficiently.
Cars were a solution, not the end game. We should not overlook that.
No matter how many books people might want to sell with silly arguments.
@BrentToderian
Good people? They're judges not priests.
I doesn't matter whether they're good or bad. Their job is to read the law to us, no matter how we might engage in ad hominem attacks on them personally.
You simply say it will simply be the end of the fediverse, but based on what?
Why would it be the end; Why is fediverse so delicate that it wouldn't be able to withstand the mere participation of another group?
It seems to me that the history of the Internet has plenty of counterexamples.
Well that's not true.
SCOTUS exists to settle disagreements over law.
If anything, I think you're looking at the wrong branch of government. What you describe is more in the authority of a legislature.
I'm well aware of that argument, but it always strikes me as overlooking realities ranging from social engagement through practicalities of modern living.
For example, it's not because of making cars more convenient that I don't have an iron foundary in the middle of my walkable neighborhood. There are good reasons that it's located well away, a nice car-accessible distance away.
Then you get to economies of scale where public transportation works best when everyone is conforming, going to the same place at around the same time. But this ignores the tremendous value to society of diversity, that personal transportation supports.
So yeah, the argument that surroundings were designed to make cars more convenient is common, but always comes across as myopic to me, failing to look a layer deeper and noticing that there were good reasons to do that.
It was an effect, not a cause.
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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