volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@eribosot

I think people are often too quick to say they don't understand the law so they'll just let others figure it out for them.

That's especially troubling in a society that values transparency and democratic values, as it effectively gives up on knowing what rules for us are, allowing a different class of people to argue among themselves post-hoc whether we should face punishment.

And it prevents us from holding lawmakers accountable if we decide we can't understand their work.

So yeah, I'm pretty against the idea of relying on lawyers. We should understand the laws ourselves in part so that we can hold the lawyers themselves accountable

@allpoints

@empiricism

First you started with polling data about what the people want.

I point out that when you include costs the polling data might show different wants from people.

Now you're basically saying what the people want doesn't matter because they want the wrong things because of rich people?

Which is it? Do we care what the people want or not? Do the polls matter or not?

@filsalustri

If nothing else, heat pumps are the common way of actively moving heat around.

But there are all kinds of clever ways to move heat around, ranging from taking advantage of natural phenomena like flowing rivers through chemical reactions and radiative cooling.

But again, it's not so simple as a rate dictated by the properties of materials. Other factors, particular temperature gradients, play huge roles.

The simplest example is that heat conduction is proportional to the difference in temperatures, so the rate of heat conduction varies depending on temperatures on each end for the same material.

@mxtthxw

@mreader I mean, his intervention was at the request of the US to provide that communication service that nobody else was in a position to provide.

It's not that the US government can't allow him to intervene; it's that they felt they had no choice but to request that he act to help Ukraine.

If the US doesn't want his service anymore, well he's said he'd rather not keep providing it, so I guess he's on your side?

But so far the US government is continuing to pressure him to stay in.

@SteveThompson

You literally quoted the reason other than "because he can"...

@sesivany well, what do they say when you ask?

Personally, I like the idea of Bluesky over Fediverse because it's not so instance focused, it's more user focused, but that's just me.

I couldn't care in the slightest anything about where any of these platforms are developed.

@tiredaidworker you've overlooking that the Constitution made very clear the distinction between the Supreme Court and lower courts, granting Congress some authority over the one but not the other.

The checks and balances operate differently between the two different types of courts, with the Supreme Court having judicial independence that was not granted to lower courts.

@oldguy52

Well, I'd submit one tweak: since we elect and reelect (and so validate) the members of this Congress, they don't see fit to represent us any differently in such matters.

Either way, these are the people we've chosen to empower, and so there's your answer.

@GottaLaff

@empiricism

The big problem is that steps governments would take to mitigate climate change themselves involve consumption.

But using eBikes, busses, and trains is still on the plus side of the ledger, consuming those services. The cost side is all of the projects that would lose out on the resources being redirected to support those things.

Are people going to willingly give up another use for this kg of steel because it was needed to build that bus? Perhaps not.

Point is, there is no free lunch, and once people are shown the price tag they often decide not to buy.

@IgnatiusJReilly

Not law, regulation.

So the way it works is that Congress writes laws that often allow the executive branch to go through the notice and comment process to specify how they will be implementing the law, so different administrations are allowed to promulgate different interpretations of the law. That can get pretty messy, so it would be nice if we would elect congresspeople who wouldn't put all of that on the executive branch's shoulders, but never mind.

So a lot of people in the national labs were recently told by the executive branch that their classification in the Department of Labor policies were being revoked, they lost their jobs and they were reclassified as wage earners instead of salaried professionals, with a whole bunch of strings coming from that, restrictions on their abilities to control their work hours and stuff like that.

These aren't new laws. These are new policies coming from the president under the new administration, and it really screwed over a whole lot of them.

@guardian

@tiredaidworker Oh yeah, the Constitution absolutely does impose separation between the branches, and the framers of the Constitution wrote quite a lot confirming that it does!

And putting that aside, I would think that judicial independence is an idea that people generally can get behind.

We see other countries engaging in corrupt acts against their judiciaries, and one would hope we would hold ourselves above that, but here we have a drive to breach that independence. It's not a good look.

@md

You know the price of tea in China changes every day, right?

Probably, I don't know, some sketchy cabal behind that too.

@VPS_Reports@kolektiva.social

@VPS_Reports@kolektiva.social

You know you are spouting nutty conspiracy theories, right?

@tiredaidworker

Right because a bunch of sensationalist news articles have really messed with public opinion here.

But the separation of the branches is a critical part of the US system of checks and balances. Congress absolutely has no role in violating judicial independence by trying to order the judicial branch around like this. It's not only unconstitutional, but it is just a bad idea, the kind of thing you see in utterly corrupt governments around the world.

If the majority of the US public is in favor of it that just speaks to the sad state of civics education in the country today, that people would be so ignorant of the political science consequences of such an overreach.

But then, I guess that goes hand in hand with people buying into the sensational yellow journalism in the first place.

@gowin

This sort of thing is why I get a bit pedantic about saying, yes there is an algorithm pushing things into our face around here, the chronological feed is an algorithm, even though it is a simple one.

And like all algorithms it can be abused.

@badbede

Well what purpose do you prefer to embrace?

@DoesntExist@mastodon.social

Unfortunately, your experience reflects the design choices that were made for the underlying protocol that runs Fediverse.

Other platforms chose to be more focused on users, but this one is focused on instances instead, so moving from one instance to another is sort of a second thought.

This platform puts instances in the center of the design for better or worse. Personally I'm critical of it because of that, but it's too late to change it now even if we wanted to.

@thisismissem

Well be careful about falling into the trap of assuming that throwing more money and employees at a problem will solve it well.

Engineering just doesn't always scale that way.

Sometimes you end up with too many cooks.

@danwentzel

I think the general answer is, no, because the platform is providing a valuable service that its users appreciate.

Yeah, you have this act that you are grinding, but most people aren't very interested in your complaints.

@georgetakei