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
@mousey so yeah, when it comes to social media my emphatic take is that it is entirely irrational, entirely chaotic, and all anybody can do is at most nudge it one direction or another, and most of the time that won't be successful.
It really comes down to chance. Any platform can roll the dice to see if they manage to get the sustainable ignition, the critical mass at just the right time to keep users engaging with each other and coming back.
You can load the dice, but there's no way to channel the users the way they need to be channeled into a platform.
My favorite example of this is how Facebook really sucks. It is never been anything approaching cutting edge or even interesting, and everything I've ever heard about Facebook management presenting at conferences echoes that they really don't have anything new to offer.
They were just in the right place at the right time to succeed over other projects that were just as good or better.
So that's my take on social media development. It's almost entirely chance. It is chaos by the academic definition of chaos.
Firstly, that legal idea is not factually true, not that Trump supporters are particularly familiar with the facts.
Even as president Trump was and is subject to state and local laws. He should have been charged already if local, state, or federal governments believed him to have broken those laws.
But from what I hear from so many Trump supporters, they're not trying to shield him from legal accountability for what he did. They honestly just don't believe he did it.
And for better or worse the circuses (multiple) that have sprung up around his legal challenges already have fed into that perception.
But again, the way our legal system works there have been numerous governments in positions to try him for these allegations, and they haven't. So by law, with him being subject to our laws, he's not ducking any laws so far.
@joeinwynnewood it's simply not true that Republicans got exactly what they wanted.
If nothing else compare this bill to the one that the House passed a while ago.
The differences show pretty starkly that Republicans did not get exactly what they wanted, and that dailykos.com is not anything approaching a reliable source of information.
@mousey The reason I ask is because the two contexts have very different elements around them, very different incentives.
Most importantly, a social media platform requires critical mass. If you are the only person on a social media platform then it's worthless.
But medical decisions are very different. Individuals can benefit from making different choices, so very different approaches to selling it to them.
Yes, you might reply, vaccinations and such do have communal impacts and I recognize that 🙂 but still, it's easier to sell a person on getting a vaccination when they themselves will derive a benefit directly from having it regardless of the communal dimension of it.
There are other differences as well, but this is just one to illustrate the difference between the two contexts.
@amgine but that's not in compliance with the SCOTUS ruling since the SCOTUS didn't rule that.
Which is exactly my point.
The court did not and could not have made such a ruling. It doesn't have that authority.
You're conflating two different things, though, and I would say that if you listen to Trump supporters they end up going the opposite way from your conclusion.
There's a difference between voting for somebody versus finding them guilty of breaking the law. If voters want to elect a felon, well he's still been subject to the law, is just that for whatever reason the voters still wanted to vote for the criminal.
So those are two different things.
But, when I listen to mainstream conservatives talk about the legal penalties I don't hear them saying that he shouldn't pay. I hear them saying that he will have to pay, showing that he is subject to law, even if they don't think the law was fairly implemented.
What I'm hearing when I listen to mainstream conservatives on the matter that you are bringing up is that Trump is absolutely subject to law, and the law is being used against him, therefore they should vote for him.
(To be clear, I think that's stupid)
So in the end I think examples like these actually go the other way from your conclusion. It ends up being BECAUSE Trump supporters recognize that he is subject to law that they want to elect the guy to fix the laws that he is subject to.
Again, I repeat, I think that's a really antisocial, arguably corrupt approach, but that's what I'm hearing from them.
In reality, the Supreme Court has all sorts of choices here. There are a ton of different things it could do since it is operating within the context of the judicial system. It could even invent brand new things never seen before.
It needs to be emphasized that the question before them is a question of how courts should operate. It's not a question of, I don't know, whether Congress can pass a law restricting the freedom of speech about endangered species opinions of the executive branch. That gets a bit more thorny.
But here the question is directly one of whether the courts can or cannot consider certain complaints against Trump. That is 100% within the wheelhouse of the Supreme Court.
What should it do? Honestly, whatever the justices think is right. If they don't want to get involved in this they are fully within their right to ignore the case entirely. Maybe they think the lower court got it right, maybe they just want to punt.
But at this point this is completely up to the majority of the nine.
@mousey are you asking what works for social media or for health policy?
They are very different problems.
@amgine Yeah, Abbott is absolutely playing political games, since he is a politician, and that's part of his job 🙂
Although I really wish we would all push back on some of these oversized claims about what he's doing. When we say things like he's thumbing his nose at the supreme court we are playing into his hands, building him up to his supporters, when really he's not being nearly that much of a champion for them.
As for the arrest and charge, he's no different from any other person in the country.
The federal government can issue and arrest warrant and take him into custody, and his position has governor is absolutely no shield against that.
That is, assuming he actually has violated federal law, which I'm not sure he has.
@amgine Well you might be fully aware of this, but for anyone else coming across it, a lot of people don't realize just how limited the judicial branch is, by design.
By design they are a branch with limited authority, limited jurisdiction in the US system of government.
A lot of people get frustrated by what the courts do or don't do without realizing that the courts lack authority or jurisdiction to go farther.
All part of the checks and balances in the US system.
Based on everything I hear, everybody agrees that laws do and should apply to everyone.
The problem is that different people have different ideas about what the laws are in the first place and in the second place what has happened that the laws should apply to.
But do you have a specific example in mind saying otherwise?
@keefeglise you say that, but I had a lot of trouble coming across a bluesky code.
In any case, I think the real turning point is going to be the addition of missing features to that platform. The developers over there say a bunch of features are in the works, and they have been surprisingly slow to emerge, but once they do it will be a much better platform for users than it is now.
I think that's really what a lot of users are waiting on.
@amgine No need to reach for the sensational charges like that when, if the accusations are true, the feds could arrest him on much more solid violations of law.
Although I generally think so many of the accusations are hyperbole.
It's not a question of whether it has gotten too little or too much news coverage, but the big issue is that the news coverage it has gotten has been so often flat out factually wrong or at least misleading.
Just for example, there has been so much misreporting about what the Supreme Court actually ordered.
And so there has been way too much coverage that accuses Abbott of resisting Supreme Court orders that don't actually exist.
@StephenRamirez@universeodon.com but that statement is factually false.
That the president has no role in the process means he could not have injected himself into it, and he didn't. Because it was not possible in our system of government.
That it was not possible doesn't mean it's a big deal that he did it, because it was not possible for him to have done it, which discounts the accusation on its face.
@JustOneMoreThing@mindly.social
It's worse than that: mainstream Republicans are saying x, y, and z aren't in the bill even though other Republicans are pointing out that it is and the text of the bill is there for us all to read.
Well, I think it's worse. I guess it's in the eye of the beholder whether it's worse to play politics like that or to deny reality.
Well, let's see the offer and see what happens.
I think it would be something to see critics of Israel try that just for the challenge if nothing else.
The latest in #USPolitics for the many on this platform that never seem to have any exposure to #Republicans is that different factions of that side have contradictory claims about what's in the text of the immigration bill introduced to the #Senate.
One side says that the bill is awful because it does x, y, and z, while the other side says those things are emphatically not in the bill.
One side calls out the other for having supported the bill without reading it even as they themselves vociferously reject the bill... without reading it.
It's a really sad thing to watch, but in order to understand this moment in domestic politics one has to know that this intra party dispute over matters of fact is looming large.
And my impression is that it's really not about #Trump, at least not directly, even though he seems to be trying to claim credit for the tides that were moving already, as he often does.
From what I see it's more about conservatives who have no idea how the US government actually works and so had no ability to properly judge legislation, and so threw a giant hissy fit when they didn't get their uninformed way.
@StephenRamirez@universeodon.com Well it's not really about Trump, as mainstream Republican outfits wrote off the bill long ago.
This sounds like yet another case of Trump seeing which way the winds are blowing and trying to claim credit for what was already in the works.
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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