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
@whatabout the EC chooses the president.
Fraud or not, it's pretty damn significant what president they choose!
@jezebelley@kzoo.to what in the world?
Heck, if anything I'm annoyed at Democrats pushing their own educational preferences that end up crowding out practical topics like civics.
I wouldn't say this is a partisan issue, and if I had to be cynical I'd say both parties enjoy the chance to spread their spin without voters knowing better.
Neither party has high ground here.
@BeAware@social.beaware.live meh, linking is more efficient.
It doesn't propose that the image be copied who knows how many times throughout Fediverse instances, taking up bandwidth and space.
@jezebelley@kzoo.to lack of solid civics education.
I'm disheartened every four years to hear friends asking, Wait, how do presidential elections work again?
When people don't know such fundamental elements of their government, not to mention the actual hard parts, it's no wonder we're in this sorry state of affairs.
@brendo@masto.nyc
@blogdiva what in the world?
No. That's not factually true.
@jamusb@mastodon.sdf.org probably not?
Clarence Thomas would have probably been smart enough to point out that Trump was going after the wrong branch of government on the wrong date if insurrection was really his goal.
.... which is really repeating the Achilles Heel of the whole insurrection conspiracy theory.
The accusation just doesn't make sense to anyone who knows basic US civics.
If the reason was to keep large states from railroading smaller states there would have been much simpler ways to do that.
In The Federalist Papers the founders themselves refute the idea that the point of the EC was just to prevent railroading.
But really, none of that matters. The EC is what it is, and regardless of why it came to be, we can see that Trump really did lose the one vote that mattered.
@whatabout @icare4america
@BeAware@social.beaware.live careful about that "we"
This is a diverse platform and not everyone feels the way you do.
Me, I really don't care who's providing the service, whether a corporation or a sole proprietorship or anyone else. What they're selling is separate from who they are.
You do, and that's fine, that's your cause, but it might be that most people just don't join you on that cause.
And let's not forget that there are a TON of people on this platform intent on telling you what you can and can't see or say.
If that's really your priority then BlueSky might actually be better for you than this.
No fallacy since that's not what I'm saying :)
I would never say the better product is the adopted one.
I WOULD say that the adopted product shows value, or else people wouldn't adopt it.
But beyond some amount of value there is only the suggestion that maybe the adopted product is better than others for various intrinsic and extrinsic reasons, or maybe it's not at all.
But we can say that the adopted product has value that may or may not be superior to others.
Exactly! It's subjective, and people who pay in time or money to buy the product are expressing their subjective opinions that the option makes them better off, suggesting that it's better.
But when you say things like "Soda companies aren't making a better product" you run into exactly that subjectivity and a bunch of customers choosing the product, showing that to them at least the product provides value, and might very well be a better product.
@divclassbutton it's not that #Bitcoin consumes as much energy; it's that people experience so much value from Bitcoin that they're willing to pay that much in energy to participate.
Bitcoin itself can run on a car battery on a Raspberry Pi if it needed to.
In the end users decide for themselves that they want to pay extra to acquire it, because it's worth it to them.
@BeAware@social.beaware.live because we'd like to see it and judge it for ourselves and not just rely on someone else telling us it's no good, but don't go look?
That impulse is especially strong considering how negative and intolerant so many on Fediverse are.
@alcea@urusai.social to many, YES!
Maybe you or I aren't into that, but different people are different, and a lot of people want that sort of experience, so they value it.
But you're dismissing the simpler explanation too easily: what if they ARE actually making a better product?
Yeah, we can speculate with more complicated theories about social glue, marketing schemes, and all sorts of things, but Occam's Razor would have us at least consider that maybe the product is simply better.
What about them? Well they don't matter.
The president is elected by a few hundred Electoral College votes, and a huge part of why the US has the EC system is specifically to avoid involving thousands of questionable ballots.
We know and can verify every single elector's ballot. Trump lost by 74, and we can verify each of those 74 votes.
The thousands of ballots you have questions about just don't matter either way.
@icare4america
@policykeys no, such a thing would undermine the system of checks and balances while not actually doing much to improve anything.
Reporting on the Court would paint it as just as politicized, but with more gaming involved with the randomization factor. It adds dice without actually solving anything.
And to be clear, it is emphatically the POTUS's job to fill an opening, not the Senate, and we need to hold presidents accountable when they fail.
We've let them slide way too much, but that's on us.
@veit I think it's so striking that the article doesn't touch on the most important factor: simply serving users better.
A huge reason users stuck with Google and Facebook and others isn't some nefarious plot to take over, but simply because those platforms offered users the experiences they were looking for.
They served their users.
Mastodon and other fediverse projects need to focus on this, focus on building up, not complaining about what other entitles like these businesses are doing.
Unfortunately, that seems to often get lost in fediverse related development.
@alcea@urusai.social right, but another way to put that is that Twitter provides its users with the value and experience they want, better than Mastodon/Fediverse does, and this platform should take that as a call to improve.
Journalists need reach. It's fundamental to their profession.
@dangillmor @msifry
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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