volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@jwilker they actively voted for this, though.

The Republican conference overwhelmingly rejected the eight and rejected the motion to vacate the chair. Democrats did not have to support the motion, but they did, they stood up and chose to vote yes on the shutdown motion.

We should not allow them to escape. Blame for standing and voting yes to the question, particularly since there's a good chance that vote will put them in a worse position to influence legislation, harming their own causes at least in the short term.

@NPR

@Setok so I lost track of that thread, and then I found it again and realized I hadn't finished it.

I see that the thread really went on to focus on developer attention and funding, but now let me emphasize that I'm saying there are core problems to ActivityPub that can't be fixed with just some more developer focus or funding.

AP was to its core built around instances, not users, and so many complaints that people have come directly from that design decision. It's not like a developer can just change that. To make AP center on users would make it an entirely different protocol.

At that point you might as well just use one of the alternatives that's already doing that.

This is the model that the entire system is built on. No interface changes are really going to fix it.

And this isn't even getting into the major efficiency problems with the model, this is just what is conceptually required.

@lari @petri

@Setok and for something that is still throttling its own use during this stage of roll out.

I'm surprised it's still in limited use mode, but even now it seems to be doing quite a lot.

@petri

@Setok Oh my point was more to say, don't hold your breath waiting for fixes to these complaints.

If they are real annoyances for you, then you should probably put serious consideration into the alternatives.

If this platform isn't table to serve its users well, then it already is and will always be behind.

@lari @petri

@Setok With regard to this, realize that a lot of the problems come out of engineering decisions made long ago that would be very difficult to change course on at this point.

It's not merely a matter of throwing programmer time to tweak some UI functionality.

It's more akin to deciding to build a car and later on complaining that really you wanted to fly but this vehicle doesn't do that.

It's pretty hard to change course at this point without starting over.

@lari @petri

@SocraticEthics Even reading this article you can see that that's a misrepresentation of what Musk said.

@mnutty I'd go the other way with that.

Instead of feeling queasy, they might be seeing it as an indication that the case is weak and so these people are getting plea deals, and they can work on one as well.

@YamakaziTaiga@mastodon.social I don't know why you think I'm defending anybody.

I'm not, so maybe that's why you're confused?

@jackiegardina the topic of gerrymandering tends to be more complicated than most people give credit for.

Just to mention one additional factor, there's the balance between wanting the more competitive districts potentially electing more moderate candidates versus intentionally creating districts to elect candidates that represent perspectives that one believes need more representation in Congress.

So I don't dispute that a district that is more divided might elect a more centrist representative, even that goal itself isn't necessarily the most important one. It's a complicated discussion.

*BUT!* From my perspective, we are so far from even getting down to that level of worrying about the functioning of the representative system.

I tend to say that it doesn't even matter what political perspectives exist within a district when the voters aren't even informed enough to know whether their representative is even matching their preferences.

It's like, I don't know, debating whether to buy a Lamborghini or a Maserati when really you're broke so neither option is actually on the table.

@jackiegardina unfortunately, I think gerrymandering is one of those things that some organizations point to as oversimplification, as they don't want to face the real, much more complicated issue of engaging with voters to change minds.

It's easy to throw one's hands up and just ignore the voters while saying "gerrymander!" when what's really needed is outreach, connection, and even the compromise mentioned above.

So like you said, we need to work with those we disagree with to find common ground. Yes, this is democracy, so those voters who voted for these jerks need to know who they voted for.

An awful lot of people don't know what their representatives do, and that's a real problem.

@greener77176@mastoot.fr

But we don't launch those rockets just for the fun of it.

Humanity derives value from everything from enhanced communications through scientific explorations, and the costs of the rocket launches are the prices we pay for those advancements.

We shouldn't blindly give up the benefits by looking only at the costs.

@marcprecipice

@thelastpsion integrate a static site to fediverse via RSS?

@Woodknot Trump is largely driven by attention-seeking and being mentioned.

It's not clear that Trump sees Sidney Powell matters, but by saying the thing he got you to mention him, and that's the kind of thing that matters to him.

@prefec2 the complaint is not about peer review considering that Wikipedia is not edited by peers.

It seems he doesn't like hierarchy where folks get to the top without regard for the quality of their work, which is a pretty fair complaint.

@taylorlorenz

@AnthonyFStevens there seems to be a misrepresentation about what he said.

According to the article, he didn't say this was a legal requirement, but would have been politically preferable.

It doesn't mean the vote wasn't valid or constitutional. It means the vote wasn't the politically palatable way to go.

He's saying future votes should learn from the experience and go the politically preferable way with the higher threshold.

@jackiegardina every one of the hundreds of representatives in Congress was elected to the post.

We literally get the Congress we voted for.

We probably should stop reelecting the people causing this logjam, but here we are. We chose them.

It is democracy.

@YamakaziTaiga@mastodon.social that Microsoft got busted for cheating on taxes goes to show what I'm saying, that corporations do pay taxes.

Yes, I do know things.

Sounds like the problem here is that you know a bunch of things that aren't actually true.

Yes, corporations pay taxes. No, they don't get to vote.

Basic civics isn't hard.

@YamakaziTaiga@mastodon.social that's just not reality, though.

It makes for a good narrative, and some politicians have pushed the rhetoric to gain votes, but that tired line mainly serves to push voters to disempower themselves.

If you read the Citizens United decision, Kennedy's opinion was all about empowering the everyday person *against* the wealthy interests, as it was the little guy that the administration was cracking down on. Kennedy said no, the little guy must be able to compete against wealthy donors.

But in the end, we vote. We don't vote with money.

To say otherwise is to speak nonsense about how the election system works in the US.

@blogdiva I give up. What flavor do boots come in?