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
@Wtdrisco *raises hand*
A lot of people would like to have different currencies more than they would like to keep holding Bitcoin at these prices, so we are cashing out.
@CSB@noauthority.social @Tony2Fingers
I often stay up to date with #conservative media in #USPolitics just to keep apprised of what the #GOP is talking about, or to put it in a different way, so you don't have to, but lately it's getting just two much even for me.
It's one thing to disagree with facts that #Republicans are working with, but lately they are getting more and more unhinged in their actual arguments, contradicting themselves but seeming oblivious of it.
For example, this week I heard the line that progressive attacks against #Trump are good for him because they will make him seem moderate to voters. If the ideologues are attacking him, then he must be moderate, right? But then the next moment that same presenter started talking about progressive attacks against #Biden without applying the exact same reasoning to that case.
In the past few weeks mainstream conservative talking points have just gotten ridiculous in their blind support for Trump. They've stopped talking about policy, or their claims about accomplishments, or anything like that. Now it's just getting into chanting that really didn't exist before.
On one hand, it's sad to watch, it's pathetic, and on the other hand it's boring.
So I figure they are setting themselves up for a repeat of the red wave that never showed up during the last election. They are not setting themselves up to win.
Sigh. I wish they would at least make it interesting to watch.
@gwynnion meh, Occam's Razor would have us at least consider explanations that are more straightforward than that.
The puritanical nonsense about sex work might simply be reflective of an attitude that values old-fashioned notions of family, sentimental images that don't particularly involve ownership or commoditization.
It's a reach to go there.
@thisismissem frankly, a big problem around here is that different people disagree about the direction that they would have the ship steered.
It's not as simple as hiring people to do the work. A big issue is that different people disagree about what work needs to be done.
@freemo these days I'm constantly struck by how much money is spent to buy the latest computers that are slower at doing the same processes we used to do decades ago on hardware that was exponentially slower.
Because apparently efficiency is not given enough priority in computer engineering these days.
It's really something.
@QOTO BTW, in case nobody else has pointed this out, it would have been nice to have the status update timestamps include a time zone.
Just some constructive feedback!
@hesgen One of the huge issues I have with #Fediverse / #Mastodon / #ActivityPub is that it is engineered to be completely centered around instances, unlike other platforms.
And so this is one downside of that decision. When the instance goes down, it really messes with users.
It's why I emphasize that this platform is not decentralized but rather it is centralized around instances. Federated, not decentralized.
#BlueSky did not make the same design choice.
@TCatInReality That's not how the government works, though.
Biden didn't run into obstacles from the GOP and SCOTUS. He ran into the obstacle that the president is restrained by law, and he was trying to do illegal things.
The president cannot legally cut government funding by forgiving loans the way Biden wanted to. It would have been akin to a president just deciding not to collect income taxes. He doesn't have that authority by law.
Biden screwed up. We need to emphasize that and hold him accountable for it.
@kwheaton where did women and people of color end up deemed by the courts not to be people with rights?
@cliffjones this is the kind of political stuff that I sure wish otherwise funny comedians would stay away from.
John Oliver was hilarious until he started mucking about in politics. Now he just seems ignorant and willing to throw away half of his potential audience.
@darnell Yeah but BECAUSE it's a democratic republic, it doesn't really matter what those supporters want, they don't have the option of turning it into Christian nationalism or whatever.
It doesn't make much sense to vote for somebody based on something that's not possible anyway.
It's like saying I'm going to vote for Trump because Biden's supporters want him to grow wings and fly around the room.
It's not a solid reason to make that decision.
@0x1C3B00DA it's not so simple since this platform at its core sends content around without needing any permission of any users.
People are arguing about opt in versus opt out are missing that the nature of ActivityPub that runs the Fediverse is under no obligation to comply with any opting of any sort anyway.
If anything, a lot of people have opted in without realizing what they have opted in to.
@weirdwriter I don't think the problem is opt out versus opt-in but rather the focus on putting instances ahead of users.
Unfortunately that's just a core design decision of the system that runs the Fediverse
@heretical_i It wouldn't stop the bloodletting.
It would just involve yourself in the bloodletting as well.
@wjmaggos it would be nice to at least see talk about user focus, even if its expressed as a longterm hope or a direction that we'd like to see development progress in.
Heck, if we talk about such things then who knows if a developer with experience in, say, email spam filtering might not be able to offer a relatively easy solution from solved problems in that world.
However, I see so much talk about server focus without and developing things to help servers that talk of user focus is starkly absent.
If these are problems to be handled by a more developed ecosystem, all the more reason to start working and highlighting them now.
@wjmaggos that's a great example I might use, as email server spam protection very often works with users to tailor filters for each one.
So we could focus on doing similar things here.
For generations now we've watched email server spam filters try various ways to tailor themselves to each user, with techniques ranging from analyzing frequent contacts through feedback mechanisms.
Let's learn from that and follow the example here!
@taco no, that's not what the case rested on.
This was a case about regulatory process, not about data.
The administration is required by law to follow certain procedures, which it didn't follow. THAT is what the judge is judging.
The administration might have rejected misleading studies in the course of following the legal process, but regardless, that's not the question before the court.
It reminds of Federalist 51 where Hamilton (maybe) laid out the reason for designing a government that could function even with bad people involved.
> But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
It seems like you're misunderstanding over and over.
For example, when you say that has nothing to do with efficiency, I say YES! That's exactly my point!
It doesn't have to do with efficiency, which is why we need to stop acting like it does!
The purchase price in energy for Bitcoin is not about efficiency but about value. The energy traded for Bitcoin doesn't have anything to do with efficiency, so let's stop buying into the stories saying it does.
BECAUSE it's about value and not efficiency, let's stop misunderstanding that as a metric for efficiency.
@dalfen a problem is that if people just stop at your excerpt instead of going out of their way to read the rest, then what they'll see won't be an accurate version of the statement.
So it's not so much seeing what they want in it, but they won't see it at all.
That's the problem. There is so much misleading information out there caused not by what people want to see but rather claims that are incomplete (at best) in factual terms.
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
volkris's choices:
