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
@marcelias I'm just amused that it sounds like you overruled the law that democracy settled upon.
@wiseguyeddie But no, McConnell didn't effectively thwart Obama's SCOTUS nominee.
You keep saying that, but it's not true.
@mcnado wow, you're really getting upset over things that I neither say nor believe, positions I wouldn't hold or support.
@mcnado you're misunderstanding.
I'm not saying it's not a war. In fact, AFAIK Israel has formally declared war on Hamas.
So it's not me saying anything about formal war, and you misunderstand in reading my comment that way. I'd say it almost definitely IS a formal war.
@wiseguyeddie but you're factually wrong :)
To be clear: the Senate was absolutely free, under Senate rules, to consider and confirm Obama's Supreme Court nominee regardless of what McConnell thought of it.
Under Senate rules, McConnell didn't have authority to unilaterally block it. He didn't cause the nomination to stall, though it was convenient for everyone to claim it was up to him, so long as the American people would buy that lie.
Senators were completely free to vote to move forward with the nomination if they wanted to. They just saw more political benefit from putting on this show.
@mcnado you're still describing the lack of provision of aid.
The details leading up to aid not being provided are separate from the result of the lack of provision of aid.
You can certainly complain that IDF did damage to crossings or aid convoys or whatever, but that doesn't change the outcome, which was neutral.
In other words, HOW neutrality was realized is a different matter from THAT neutrality was realized.
@dalfen the Social Security board of trustees have been warning for decades now that the present course is unsustainable with more economic input, future generations of workers, so yep, it will absolutely be more of a problem in the future.
The near future.
But any politician of any party who dares bring this up gets pilloried.
The US as a country has wholeheartedly backed the system that relies on more kids to fund future promises.
I don't expect any changes, and solutions, until we fall off a cliff from a lack of younger labor to carry the day.
That's just the path we're already very committed to, legally and socially.
@wiseguyeddie you're illustrating my point here, though: No, he absolutely didn't, and he never had the authority to do so if he wanted to.
There is this myth that McConnell could call such a shot, but the Senate rules simply don't allow for such a thing.
Democrats got to use him as a boogeyman, Republicans avoided the vote, and McConnell got to run for election on it, but it's simply a lie, that the public bought into because they didn't know better.
The Senate rules ABSOLUTELY don't give any member such power to make such a decision. Instead, senators played us by laying out this line that it was all up to him because they benefited politically from doing so.
Because few people actually bother to check the rules.
@violetmadder I have no idea how you're relating the one to the other.
When we looked the other way with regard to my example with Obama, what does that have to do with Republicans?
Republicans were calling him out on it, and nobody cared.
Well, I guess the problem is that the US has for so long built social safety nets based on those assumptions.
So either we keep going, or we tear them down, and lord knows no politician will be elected running on a platform of ending Social Security and such.
So..... we're stuck with it. Our kids are crucial to the economic models that we've adopted for many generations now.
@mcnado it's not, though. That's not how war crimes work, nor is it what you're talking about here.
In general, war crimes only come up when there's a formal war. The Hamas attacks didn't qualify due to how they were carried out, without regular, uniformed soldiers and such. So the law of war isn't really on the table.
But we can go even more basic: it's not collective punishment not to help. It's neutrality.
It's simply factually false to say that the lack of aid is punishment.
Rather, you're accusing a war crime for something people didn't do in a circumstance where law of war doesn't apply.
@wiseguyeddie the thing is, so many have adopted this mythological level of power afforded to the Leader in the Senate.
McConnell never had THAT much power. The rules of the Senate are set up specifically to prevent such a thing. BUT, all of the senators had incentive to back that myth, so they promoted it in the population.
Democrats got to hold McConnell up as a boogeyman, as a singular bad guy, a simplistic center of the story that they could sell to their backers. Republicans got to avoid tough votes by passing responsibility on to McConnell.
And, most relevant here, McConnell got to push for reelection by adopting that mantle of Super Important Senator when he really wasn't.
My fear is that posts like these just play in to that myth, serving McConnell and disempowering voters across the country.
We're better off ignoring the guy, if nothing else because by refusing to buy the false narrative we stop propping him up.
@dsfgs sounds like you're really embracing ignorance, demanding something while proudly lacking the background to really understand what you're asking for.
It's... not a productive stance.
@msaunders @Mastodon
@snrub but then you move to the next level.
It's not as if your representative is locked in to voting a particular way. They will be influenced into voting one way or another because THEY want to be reelected.
If voters tell their representatives that they will not be reelected if they don't threaten impeachment, that pushes them to hold that sword of accountability over the president's head.
Really, in the end, it all comes down to the voters in the US system. Voters elect the people who are to hold the executive accountable, and they themselves are held accountable by the voters.
If we implement that power, that is.
@lauren ... well no.
If income was being maintained and not reduced the person would be kept on with the same rate of pay.
It really sounds like you might want to slow down and think about the math, the accounting, behind such posts more carefully because you're getting it wrong.
@violetmadder I honestly have no idea what that meant.
@strypey pages looking different on IE and Netscape?
@lauren forget funding and votes--so many don't even have a plan for the basic engineering and physics of their proposals.
"Just fix the power grid!"
Ok, how would you redesign the electrical substation? Have a new type of dielectric to fill the equipment with that's going to get to your goals? A new type of turbine blade that can increase power generation efficiency?
Often enough the problem isn't funding or voting but simple, harsh, physical realities.
@strypey But this has been an eternal criticism when it came to Internet technologies.
Including the Web.
Anything decentralized will run into it.
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
volkris's choices:
