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
@MaryAliciaZiff@mastodon.sdf.org
I'm thinking they need a format that's able to avoid the mess of people shouting over each other.
They need to start cutting off microphones.
There's no point in tuning in when the organization of the event gives everyone incentive to block others from speaking.
@rlmcneary2 if the debaters had nothing to debate then there wouldn't be debates in the first place.
I guess that there are debates itself shows that these aren't fascists, then?
@JeremyMallin sounds like Tumblr started on the project but quickly discovered that ActivityPub didn't scale well enough for their needs, so they pulled back because it would have been too expensive to move forward.
re: Politics
@imstilljeremy wow, did you go to any of those Trump rallies? Because there was so much misinformation about what went on in them, so many in the press writing articles that actual attendees regarded as completely unrecognizable compared to the actual events.
Yes, we were fed stories about Trump rallies being calls for violence, but those stories seem to have been little more than political propaganda against the competition.
@AnthonyFStevens the counter argument is that it's not really a call for peace, which is what the quote pointed out.
@AlexGallagher Wow, the lady who sought to win an election by spinning a conspiracy theory against her challenger is talking about what's good for democracy?
Maybe not the best source for such a claim.
@lauren that doesn't make much sense, though.
There are lots of reasons to hold the debates, ranging from engaging with voters in early primary states through polishing party positions through simply providing advertisement for the party in general.
The debates are a form of outreach and advertising if nothing else.
Mainly, though, I don't think Trump can win a general election, so these debates are important in providing Republican voters an option for a candidate should they decide they want to win the presidency.
@kev I get the impression that ActivityPub was just too expensive to implement on a scale like Tumblr.
They started working on it and quickly realize it just wasn't workable.
@dragnucs that doesn't change my point that I'd rather the big corporation pay :)
But also remember that there is overhead involved with any spreading of load. It necessarily requires additional resources to manage that.
@dsfgs I'd say it's federated versus decentralized. Under this protocol, under this design, this is federated, a bunch of centralized servers trading content.
As for better platform, meh, there are who knows how many stubs of platforms out there that are more decentralized, but without critical mass they just don't matter for a social media platform.
Like anything else in technology, better engineering doesn't make for a better platform if it doesn't happened to be the one that catches on.
I mean Facebook is nothing but mediocrity, but it reached critical mass so it succeeded.
@antares no even for being listed on primary ballots states have different rules that are not easy to get past.
On one hand, it is a little understandable since they have to get the ballots set and printed by certain deadlines.
@realcaseyrollins it's the difference between calling for something, causing it to happen, versus (to use the harshest wording) taking advantage of what's happening anyway.
So what he's saying isn't that the USA is paying for the degradation with blood of Ukrainian soldiers, but that Ukrainians are spilling blood through their, fight with Russia, and the US, even though it doesn't cause that and wouldn't choose that, does experience benefits from it.
Again, I'm using harsh words.
More reasonably he's saying that they are paying a price that works out in the US favor, and the least we can do is support them, and this is why.
@realcaseyrollins Yeah it's sad but I fear that horse is already out of the barn.
The time to invoke that promise was last year, and the time for the administration to highlight, it was before that, to provide deterrance that might have avoided all of this in the first place.
At this point the US has already clearly broken its promise, which already undermines the ability to make future promises.
It's a shame, but that's what we get from this administration.
@realcaseyrollins he didn't say the US is having Ukrainians slaughtered in the first place.
He acknowledged the price they were paying while claiming that it's in the US interest to support them, but that doesn't mean the US is making that trade.
Whether or not he's right is a different question, but no, he didn't say the US is having Ukrainians slaughtered.
@realcaseyrollins no, that's not what he said in the clip.
@AndrewHenry I mean they're not doing it out of charity. They are letting fossil fuels companies pay them for their services, so if you really want to go down that path, fossil fuel companies have less money at the end of the day as these insurance companies drain them of resources.
@MollyNYC Well, when the results don't match what you expect based on your beliefs of the world, that's generally a good sign that you should stop and re-examine your beliefs of the world.
That's just the scientific method applied.
In this case, I think you are wrong about who the GOP is running, and I know I have seen so many articles making the rounds that are so misleading. So I would suggest stepping back and reevaluating the messages you've taken from some pretty sketchy media outfits.
Because yeah, the fact that Democrats aren't running the table should be a pretty good sign that maybe those media outfits have been misinforming as to the candidates.
@colorfiend The problem is that if you have any more than two major parties then using the voting system that most of the country uses, wasted votes and split votes becomes a serious problem.
The fundamental problem is that our first pass the post voting system is awful. In some ways it is mathematically provable to be the worst possible voting system. We naturally formed and coalesced into two parties as a way to mitigate some of those problems, sort of setting up a better voting system by tacking on runoffs.
When people start talking about alternatives to the two parties without changing the underlying voting system, they're missing the whole reason we have two parties in the first place.
Until we fix the underlying voting system, we need to appreciate that the two party system is all about mitigating problems that would loom large. Should we give up those mitigations.
@olimould it's just such a complicated situation because it goes up against not only generations of tradition but also institutionalized operations of the political party.
Traditionally, the incumbent president is assumed to be the nominee. It's pretty hard to overcome that barrier of tradition.
Practically, the incumbent president is the head of the political party, with all of the resources of the party to direct. He has a ton of money and resources at his disposal, so any challenger also has to compete against all of that.
That's not necessarily a good thing, but it is the reality, whether we like it or not.
So yeah, I'm sure there are a lot of Democrats trying to oust Biden from the nomination, but it's such a heavy lift to overcome all of that to make it happen.
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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