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
You imagine incorrectly :)
No, agencies tend to exist by law passed by congresses and are bound to uncountable legal agreements made year after year. Presidents have no authority to do what's being claimed here, whether they want to or not.
Again, if Trump is telling his supporters he has authorities that he doesn't, promising things that he won't be able to fulfill, why in the world would we buy into his nonsense?
The better response isn't to buy into Trump's garbage. The better response is to point out that he's an idiot who can't live up to the promises he's making, just as he didn't live up to them before.
This false idea that a President Trump would have these powers is exactly what he's running on. Let's debunk that, not promote his campaign rhetoric.
The problem with your argument is that you named a bunch of primarily state and local government responsibilities to claim that the feds have underinvested.
And that's a big contributor to the problem: all too often we see other governments not doing their jobs and investing in their citizens, escaping accountability by passing the buck to the US.
And none of that really overcomes the Occam's Razor, that these representatives simply believe these to be ineffective ways of using federal resources. We don't have to grasp for malice to explain it.
@IvidappAvidapp you might want to check out the list of special features that @QOTO has added to their Mastodon instance.
Everything from QT to QT opt out to fancy math formatting and Markdown support.
It's a long list.
And for better or worse, some people want it this way.
Yes. I am suspended by mastodon.social! An entire instance blocked a user who isn't even on their own server. No warning and no way to request an a...
I figure they're bound to count different subsets of instances and so have different user counts, even setting aside policies for types of instances and maybe what counts as an active user.
In the distributed system there is no central point to actually count all users, so it will be an estimate no matter what.
@mastodonusercount
Believe it or not, there might be a difference or two between Hillary and Trump and their situations...
And some customized installations of #Mastodon have #quotedboost / #QT already, so it's definitely doable.
*shrug* it's their job to prioritize federal resources and identify places where the spending isn't turning out to be effective.
They're still talking about spending A WHOLE LOT OF MONEY, just not quite as much as others want to negotiate for.
Hmmm. I'm suspicious of this article, as at least the part I could read was vague on details like direct quotes from spokespeople or details on the accounting.
Missing details like that are a warning sign that the reporter might simply be misunderstanding or otherwise not accurately capturing the situation.
Again, it's just one example of how the article misleads, but it misses that presidents don't have the authority to do that.
He wants to purge the government? That's nice. And it's exactly why the system was designed without that possibility.
So no, it's not credible.
AND it plays into Trump's hands to act like it would be something he could do. We should be countering the guy by pointing out to his supporters that he's making empty promises and lying to them.
Don't discount the possibility that maybe the solution that seems so obvious to you has been considered by experts and upon deeper study found to have serious issues and maybe wouldn't work after all.
I always remember once hearing a podcast with a recurring segment called, "Why don't they just...?" where they took obvious solutions like these and asked experts why they didn't implement them. So often there were **really good reasons** not to implement the ideas.
These issues are more complicated than I think you're giving them credit for, especially once humans are involved.
By sticky do you mean popular, or something different?
This article was pretty sensational, fearmongering for clicks. It was a good example of why so many have lost respect for outfits like the NY Times.
Your mention of independent federal agencies is one great example: the article plays fast and loose with the legalities around independent agencies, overlooking the legal barriers that distinguish them from other agencies, ones that would prevent exactly the thing the article is trying to hype up.
It's just foolish for this reporter to act as if a president can revoke checks on presidential power, as if those are voluntary.
They're not.
Not really, since it's relating to internal processes.
It's what's called bureaucracy.
It's only authoritarian to the extent that it attempts to impose on people outside of the government.
Link to your source?
I mean, that's why the work to combat climate change might not actually be so important.
The reason I don't agree with that take is because, assuming Bluesky is designed and intended to be distributed down to the user level, there's hardly a point to throwing resources at a futile effort of moderation that's just going to be thrown out the window the moment they launch the distributed feature.
Another way to look at it is that the lack of moderation today might be an indication that they really are committed to being so distributed.
There's just not much point to wasting resources that way if their intention is to open the flood gates to really user-focused platform soon.
Well I think it depends on one's definition of better.
Difficult moderation is an unavoidable issue of being a more distributed platform, or being more user focused, so it comes down to whether one believes it more important to be distributed or tied to administrators, who can do that moderation.
It comes down to where each of us might prefer that balance.
This, too, is not to be taken seriously.
It's a sensationalized claim that is completely unrealistic, completely detached from how the US government is actually structured.
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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