volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@DavidM_yeg again you're missing that they aren't rules.

For example you cite international obligations while missing that those obligations don't exist.

You might say that the obligations don't exist because the US vetoes them, which is correct, since the US vetoes the obligations they aren't obligations, so they don't stand to be disregarded.

If you don't like what the US does, hey, I'm right there with you, but not because of international rules. The US does sketchy stuff that it probably shouldn't do, but that's because we keep electing crappy officials. It has nothing to do with international rules that don't exist.

@KarunaX

@MoiraEve@mastodon.world I think you answered your own question.

Political and legal realities pressure them to do things regardless of whether it's right or reasonable.

Believe it or not, governments do stupid things. We should speak out against them, which is my point.

If banks are paying out $2 billion dollars that means the rest of us are paying in $2 billion dollars to make up for it. Yay

@MoiraEve@mastodon.world that's another great example of a fee that has always seemed extremely transparent to me.

When a person signs up for a bank account they are given all of the terms very clearly. Things like overdraft fees are put right in front of the person's face. And if you spend more money than you have, well, what does the person think is going to happen?

This isn't rocket science.

Does Biden want to take that option away from people? Because I don't know how banks can be any more transparent than they already are. I mean banks already annoy me repeatedly mailing me information on their terms. In my experience they are transparent to a fault, and I really wish they wouldn't be.

As far as I can tell banks trip over themselves providing basic information to their customers, so what is he talking about?

@MoiraEve@mastodon.world I keep hearing that these fees are a surprise, but every time I book travel I see them very clearly laid out.

So what is he talking about?

As far as I can tell he is just opposed to people being able to select which services they do or don't pay for, because the airlines in my experience put all of the feets right there in your face.

@MoiraEve@mastodon.world I really don't know why we are labeling these as junk fees so readily, when that term seems to have been mainly promoted to promote sensationalized clickbait.

Yes, a person has to pay extra for extra services. I wouldn't call that a junk fee, I would call that buying more service, and also not charging me for services that other people use that I'm not interested in.

So great. Biden wants to make sure people who bring more luggage get to charge me for the cost of that luggage.

And apparently he thinks the general public are so damn stupid they can't figure out how luggage fees work. Which is pretty insulting.

It's all pretty frustrating and we should call him out on it.

@mariyadelano I feel like the answer to your question is that other people won't live in a luxury apartment?

@DavidM_yeg you're missing my point that they seem to be focusing on rules that aren't actually rules.

At least not substantially.

So yes! That they use the veto to prevent things from becoming rules means they aren't rules.

Maybe a person thinks they should be rules, and that's fine, but it's a little silly to lean on this analysis to say that the US doesn't abide by rules that are arguably not rules in the first place.

Maybe it's bad, but it's not really hypocritical.

@KarunaX

@birwin but again that overlooks the role of journalism in putting out solid information through mass communication.

You say needs input from the radical right, but reporting is not about getting input. And posting reports to Twitter can inform that audience, which is the fundamental task of journalism.

It has nothing to do with getting input.

So X represents an audience for good information, I imagine a much larger audience than parlor but I don't care to check, but heck, yeah post on both!

Fine, treat them the same, seek to inform both audiences.

Sounds good to me.

@taylorlorenz @caseynewton

@KarunaX but if you read the article it seems to really focus on things that aren't actually rules, at least rules that have been fully adopted.

So a bunch of countries propose a rule. That doesn't mean it's a good rule, or an actionable rule, or one that the US should follow.

So the analysis is a bit weak.

Yeah, sometimes the US doesn't do things that other people want it to do. That's not really hypocrisy, it's about sovereignty and the importance of writing rules that are generally workable.

@libroraptor generally in the US these assessments don't exempt anyone from responsibility. They mainly mean people won't go to jail for operating without the legally mandated assessment 🙂

SpaceX could not have legally launched their rocket without the environmental assessment approving it. Had they launched illegally there would have been hell to pay.

The assessment confirmed that the operation was being done in an environmentally responsible way without substantial impact on the environment, as per US law. That doesn't get the company out of responsibility, if anything it just confirms that the company was acting responsibly.

The company is still liable for environmental damage regardless of the assessment.

@GrrlScientist

@libroraptor The regulators were legally required to take all that stuff into account, and under supervision of courts, they did.

The federal system with jurisdiction there, setting aside state and local here, has multiple levels of independent review to make sure everything is being checked out, and lord knows they took their time conducting the assessment.

In my opinion the balance is a bit too far on the side of caution, but reasonable people can disagree on that.

But yes, the assessment took these things into account, as per the legal requirements to do so.

@GrrlScientist

@janef0421 that's not really accurate, though.

An enormous part of its design is about lowering the price to get cargo to Earth orbit, with human rating a bit down the road. The ship is part of the Starlink program, for example, not to mention various other NASA contracts that are short of human flight.

So this project is far, far more than just the dream of interplanetary flight.

As for destruction of the vessel, that was expected, and the vessels did what they were intended to do, testing new technologies and new techniques that build on their knowledge of engineering such structures.

@samuteki sadly, it seems like a lot of people just want it that way.

An awful lot of people don't just say politics is a fight like that, but they actually openly push it to be a fight like that, openly supporting politicians for being fighters.

A lot of people want politics to be a WWE wrestling match.

Personally I think this is due to people just losing faith in our institutions, and so they figure it might as well be entertainment.

@TodayInTwitter you know what they say about assuming.

But no, this is making a statement versus actually running the place better. It's superficial versus concrete.

She has a job to do, and your pressing for a symbolic gesture strikes me as pretty counterproductive to that.

@trashrobot@kolektiva.social this kind of statement always strikes me as pretty small-minded.

Not in the least because it doesn't recognize the customers who would lose service should the business go bankrupt.

@MugsysRapSheet no, SpaceX had an area near Hawaii cleared as the farthest they'd try to fly the rocket.

They weren't going orbital, as they didn't expect the rocket to make it.

Again, everything about the plan for the mission--the plan that was established ahead of launch day--reflects expectation that they would hit their goals and then see an explosion.

@Ghandralph @carlysagan

@MugsysRapSheet I started to pull up a link to the FAA application, but let me instead focus on what you said:

SpaceX flies self-landing boosters almost literally every day now.

So why do YOU think SpaceX decided not to try for orbit?

@Ghandralph @carlysagan

@deathkitten so I try to mean this helpfully, but the tone of your reply comes across as yet another case of proposing to talk AT people instead of to them, with this sense of educating at them instead of discussing and convincing them, meeting them in the middle.

There are different types of people, and the ones who are open to being educated are probably already on your side. The others won't respond well to being educated, but instead need to be invited over.

That's a problem I see all too often in the world, folks with the best of intentions engaging rhetorical strategies that end up counterproductive, actually turning off the very people they need to convince.

@matt5sean3 sorry to hear that, and yeah, I know a few people who have been laid off because they tried to do the right thing instead of playing the game.

I don't know if that's your story too, but it definitely happens.