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
@mnutty they literally cut off the text
How can you know that you know exactly what the speaker means when you deny that there is any context?
It's one thing to tolerate out of context reporting. It's something different to declare that there is no more context.
It's like flatly saying that there is nothing outside of the echo chamber.
It's a pretty telling statement to put on the table.
@mnutty I agree that it captures the story states of much of MSM, but not the way you think.
The comic strip took the quote out of context, and so anyone who read the whole paragraph realizes that the comic strip is being a bit fast and loose with its facts, so the rest of it isn't very convincing.
Yes, much like so much reporting these days, which is why so many have lost trust in journalism.
@TildeGartenzaun never said it was
@siderea and this is one of the GREAT arguments for the #RT feature that so many talk about being, you know, the devil, the worst thing that could ever afflict a social media platform.
Retweeting/tooting/whatever allows people to discuss a post without having to involve the original poster, even for legitimately drama-free reasons.
And in other cases it allows a firewall to prevent escalation, just as described here.
I hear the feature will someday be added to #Mastodon but the resistance to adding it was always misguided.
@TildeGartenzaun again, it's great if you know that content you put into this platform isn't safe, but the problem is that an awful lot of other people don't know that, as they've been told the opposite.
Even the original picture above plays into that impression.
Contrasting with being owned by whomever, fine. But contrasting with stealing data reasonably makes a person think that data here won't be stolen.
@clintruin I like how you motioned to a conspiracy theory when saying it wasn't a conspiracy theory.
But you're bringing up easily debunkable parts of the theory.
Stacking the Supreme Court? No, the Court remains at nine members passed through the nomination and consent process. There's been no stacking.
Change laws? No, SCOTUS doesn't have the authority to change laws. Wrong branch of government. That's the legislative branch.
Remove checks and balances? No, checks and balances are alive and well, see for example SCOTUS not being able to change laws, that's the legislative branch.
The conspiracy theory you've been sold just doesn't match reality in front of us.
And you're STILL going back to the well of making things about personality instead of substance.
@TildeGartenzaun maybe, maybe not, but it concerns me that a lot of people on fediverse are actively mislead and told that their content is safer here.
A lot of people here are not just unaware of the insecurity but actively lead to believe that there is security when there isn't.
@AnthonyFStevens I don't know? I don't have an answer for you, I'm sorry.
@dramypsyd Yeah I think that's why it's so important to frame this as a matter of politeness first and foremost, not a matter of hard and fast objective line drawing.
It's politeness. You should, out of politeness, out of wanting to live in society where people are happy with each other, acknowledge and respect other people's preferences.
And if you don't you might have some social blowback.
So do your best. But once we raise the stakes to frame this as objective line drawing it really complicates everything about it.
@HunDriverWidow The Supreme Court isn't an expert in biology, though.
So that spinning of this doesn't really hold water.
Might as well ask the guy at the end of the bar for his opinion.
@argv_minus_one@mstdn.party Well that's factually untrue.
And the nice thing is that it doesn't matter how much money you have, you still can't alter the simple facts that provide checks and balances in the US government.
Millionaires can waste their money all they want if they want to, but it doesn't change the facts.
All the rest is kooky conspiracy theory meant to manipulate people who don't know their civics.
@argv_minus_one@mstdn.party The actual opinion, the thing that carries weight here, debunks that conspiracy theory.
@TildeGartenzaun again the point is that Fediverse is just as open to that kind of thing if not more.
Fediverse has fewer protections than the alternatives, and people need to be aware of that if they are going to use the platform from an informed decision.
@AnthonyFStevens your questions sounded rhetorical but I'm happy to answer any one that you meant seriously.
And you slung mud by gesturing it individuals instead of the actual content of decisions, the one thing that actually matters here.
When you try to make this about personalities instead of substance it lets the substance off the hook.
There's a very important reason why this is no meer semantic distinction: it's not that the authority is telling those within its purview not to carry a book, it's that carrying the book is an option of the authority.
And that's exactly why we should push for independent libraries that are separate from the authority altogether.
So long as the authority gets to decide what books are and aren't carried, well, we are relying on the authority to make those editorial decisions for the public. I don't think that's healthy.
So let's be clear that this is not a book ban. This is us giving that authority to a political structure and then trusting the structure to do the right thing, complaining when it doesn't.
We should stop doing that. Since it's not a book ban that means we don't have to. We can instead look to other parts of civil society to provide these resources.
volkris
boosted
Governments need to get off Twitter and at first glance this seems easy: set up a gov-centric Mastodon instance and convince governments to move.
Except it's far more complicated than that.
In evaluating if this was an endeavor I wanted to pursue (spoiler: no) I wrote up a list of things to consider for this to be done well. Hopefully it helps someone else in solving this problem.
@TildeGartenzaun I think it's important to be clear that Fediverse does even less to protect your data.
If you are posting content here under the impression that it's safer, then you are unfortunately putting that content at risk.
@GW@newsie.social except their tactics have actively opposed that sort of thing, as they took steps to avoid eliminating Palestinians.
Israel has enough firepower that they could have eliminated Palestinians already if that's what they really wanted to do. But they didn't. So that must not be their plan.
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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