volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@jhavok@mastodon.social keep in mind that Musk didn't really pay for Twitter. He didn't have that kind of cash, so he had to tap a bunch of others to go in with him to buy the site.

And that's a great example of how these claims about him being the richest man in the world are based on some sketchy accounting that misleads a lot of people about the whole topic. But it makes for sensational stories and it feeds the myth so the claims get promoted even though they're not quite right.

So again, not gravity, it's just that the stories about his wealth are overblown.

@mxtthxw @speckmantel @fraying

@jackhutton where in the world do you see me saying anything pro-Russian?

If anything I was just pointing out a criticism of Biden for not supporting the anti-Russian cause.

@LeftToPonder@mastodon.social

@echanda overstated by sensationalist reporting.

@fraying

@koteisaev see I go the other way.

It's not that people can't self organize well enough. It's that they self organize and successfully get dumb things, they successfully vote against their own interests.

Whether they deserve that or not is a separate matter.

@fraying

@jhavok@mastodon.social It didn't, though. His bank accounts are notoriously unable to pay for the things he gets himself into.

Remember the whole drama around financing the Twitter purchase?

Because his money didn't accumulate the way you say here.

It's funny that one day people will make fun of the guy for not having money and then the next day complained that he has so much money.

No, that's not really how money works in a modern society.

@mxtthxw @speckmantel @fraying

@cy The problem is disagreement over who is and isn't the oppressor here.

I'd say the one looking to take away what somebody earned through their labor has a much better claim on that label.

@courtcan @fraying

@fraying because a lot of us know that such sensational claims are naive, because that's not really how wealth works?

@LeftToPonder@mastodon.social The mainstream Republican position seems to be that Biden was ineffective in managing aid to Ukraine so why should they keep funding Biden's program.

It's not about Ukraine directly since it's up to the president to manage the aid program, and they say he botched it.

@jackhutton

@stadsplanering A lot of them simply want to watch the fight

@flyoverproj it's always worth calling out such a misleading headline, and also judging the source negatively for running such misleading clickbait.

Vox needs to do better, so let's call them out until they do.

@YurkshireLad no, not really.

You don't have to pay a fee, but if you choose to it becomes incentive for folks to process your payment more quickly.

As for the amount of the fee, or the choice not to pay one at all, that's all part of your particular Bitcoin client.

Some of them give users the choice, but some don't.

@progressive_joe it sounded like she was making public statement all but admitting to the allegations.

What was wrong?

@NewsDesk

@flyoverproj SCOTUS doesn't have the authority to make a state kill a person.

That's not how the US legal system works.

@juergen_hubert but look deeper: why does that idea of engagement work? Because users respond to it and value it.

For better or worse.

All too often people forget to think about value to user around here, focusing on top down approaches.

Without value to users it doesn't matter much what "better" system we offer to them, as we focus on our own idea of what they should want instead of what they do.

@altlife

@lauren if you're not hearing much about blockchain now, perhaps you need more comprehensive information sources?

Because I certainly continue to hear it proposed as a solution to problems people come across, where they want decentralized systems that can provide confidence in records.

Sounds like you used to be tapped into a bunch of silly hype, and now the silly hype has died down. But maybe focus on places that aren't so focused on such hype?

@mark_ohe that's the opposite of what SCOTUS said as Kennedy went out of his way in the decision to emphasize that the it is to level the playingfield *against* the ultra-wealthy.

If you think the effect of the decision has been the opposite of it actually said, then that says to me that we should have spent more time correcting the record instead of promoting this misunderstanding of what it held.

The Supreme Court only has the power of its pen. If the rest of us buy into repetition of that opposite holding, well, there's not much the Court can do about it.

The Supreme Court did not hold that corporations are people in Citizens United. If we claim that they did, then we're creating that reality and creating the legal reality that runs counter to our own interests.

@mral

@chiraag yes, I support unions, though not the legal framework the US has developed to regulate them.
@Weedkiller

@mral oh, it stinks for many reasons ranging from defunding of other government programs that relied on payments as part of their funding source through actually directly contributing to the root cause that you cite.

And so folks ranging from workers paying income taxes through unemployed people counting on government services through prospective students watching education prices rise in response all end up paying the price for benefits that already went to the relatively well-off folks getting out of their financial commitments.

We've thought about this before. And when we thought about the downsides we decided not to support the idea.
@charlesgaba