volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@accretionist@techhub.social based on what I've seen of governmental mismanagement from the inside, not Biden.

I've never seen it as bad as under his administration.

So who knows? There's a good chance I'll just write myself in.

I'll vote if nothing else just to register my protest.

@Jayslacks

@dontreportme

Most of the work that I have in mind is scientific, working for research organizations that the administration has direct control over.

The science community is having major problems conducting research under this administration, problems I haven't seen in decades, as the administrators just don't know what they're doing.

And it's a slight aside that another problem is when under this administration they continued to throw money at efforts while at the same time preventing them from moving forward, meaning that people just get paid not to work, with society's resources being squandered.

It's a giant mess, but I guess the press has plenty of more important things to cover with so much of the world seeming to be on fire at the moment.

@Jayslacks

@Hyolobrika @freemo

I always find definitional arguments to be a bit uninteresting, but FWIW the professional, trained historian, academic friends of mine have mentioned that fascism is basically a useless word historically because it doesn't have a workable, agreed upon definition, so they sound like they would rather people just never use that word again unless maybe in reference to Mussolini specifically.

@realcaseyrollins

@lauren

Oh let me clarify.

It's better for everybody if they know enough to not be afraid of things that don't threaten them. I think that should be a pretty uncontroversial stance.

So we should work educate everybody so that they don't end up fearing things they don't understand when those things are not worth fearing.

I am happy to make that general assertion. Do you disagree? I suspect you don't.

That is all that I would capture in my attitude.

If people hate that stance, if people hate the idea that maybe they should be given a reprieve from being afraid of things they shouldn't be afraid of, well ok.

But in general i suspect most people don't like being afraid of things for no reason.

@robryk your reply reminds me of coming across a post around here recently where someone was defending Fauci's approach to communicating about COVID on the basis of, The public needed to hear messages of certainty even if the science was uncertain.

Yeah I agree it's extremely important to recognize that different people respond differently to different rhetorical tactics. Some people are convinced one way and some another.

@lauren

@lauren Well then great!

Read the room and try to educate people based on what seems to be the attitude of those you are speaking to.

Here I kind of assumed you were smart enough that I could be frank and not have to mince words diplomatically.

Depending on who I was speaking to yeah I might choose different words. But at the end of the day, indulge their fears is probably the most concise if undiplomatic way I could describe it.

@ent have you ever considered the possibility that Mussolini wasn't actually that smart?

@freemo @Hyolobrika @realcaseyrollins

@Free_Press you address them through engagement, slowly showing cracks in their perspectives until the invitations to join reality are accepted.

But you don't defeat it by name calling and othering.

@ent

Of course voting matters. We recognize the winners of votes.

You might not like the way votes turn out, and you might argue that corporations press us to vote certain ways, or that we are misinformed and so we vote based on misinformation, or you might raise a ton of other similar complaints, but at the end of the day the most important part stands:

We still respect the results of elections.

The people still get what they vote for, even if they may vote for a really really really really really really really stupid things based on really really bad influences, if you must.

@freemo @Hyolobrika @realcaseyrollins

@lauren and don't forget to hit the thumbs down button, just in case the algorithm cares about it.

. No idea if it actually does

@lauren or doctors, engineers, teachers, basically anybody who might not play into the confirmation bias.

We need a better informed population and we need to work on building up, helping to improve people's lives.

However we go about it.

@MisterWanko they're not taking apartments away from them.

There was no them to have the apartments taken away from.

But if you would like an apartment and you would like to rent it at the market rate, here's the city council stepping in and telling you you can't.

Yes, that is a government problem. And at any moment government could remove that barrier and let you rent the apartment.

Until then, the government has created a situation that promotes vacancies.

@todayilearned

@realcaseyrollins tragedy of the Commons there

@freemo

@MisterWanko It literally is since as it says given the government restrictions on renting out the apartments they are pushed towards keeping them empty.

Those restrictions can be dropped any day and Lord knows the landlords would love to take in income from renting them out.

So any day of the week, let's have those restrictions on renting dropped.

@todayilearned

@lauren do you mean in terms of health effects of the little radios?

In that case it seems like the simpler way, or at least the healthier way, to make some people more comfortable is through education about how little health risk there is from those devices.

That's rather than indulging their fears.

@Hyolobrika keep in mind that there is a speech element to barring a person from office if you prevent people from expressing, through voting, their preference for that person.

This is one huge element in the current Trump drama that there's a huge difference between kicking him off a ballot versus letting him take office if elected, but the two issues are being muddled together.

@freemo @realcaseyrollins

@freemo Right, neither do I, and that's why I would say we both (and everyone else) need to be ready to proudly state that we are intolerant of certain things 🙂

That's my point.

Rather than redefining tolerance we should all own the causes where we promote intolerance.

@realcaseyrollins

@Hyolobrika I think the first step in that question is being honest about what it's doing.

Like you said, sacrifice some democracy. I'm glad you put it that way. So many people not only refuse to put it that way, but they deny that they are doing that in the first place.

We as a society can't really discuss whether we want to make that trade off or not if we are refusing to call it what it is.

@freemo @realcaseyrollins

@freemo

Well I was channeling the nonsensical notion that in tolerance would be tolerance but to be practical:

If you want to be a tolerance absolutist, to borrow Musk's term, then yeah you do have to be tolerant of even absurdity. If you want to claim such absolute tolerance, well, that might be rough, but it will involve tolerating a bunch of wacky stuff.

And that's why absolute tolerance is pretty unworkable in the real world.

In the real world, in most situations, we will be intolerant, and that is a good and healthy and mature thing so long as we draw the lines in appropriate places.

We should celebrate being intolerant of things that make the world, or our lives, or the situation worse.

Don't like Nazis? (whatever that means to you) Fine! You're probably going to want to be intolerant of them, and that's the right thing to do.

But it's the wrong thing to be reasonably intolerant of Nazis but claim that you're being tolerant.

No, be intolerant! And proudly say that you are intolerant of Nazis!

It's just Orwellian to try to rewrite the word for no particularly good reason like that.

@realcaseyrollins