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
@tomw often it's not about corporate appologism but rather worry that the EU would be WORSE.
It's not that the person wants the corporation to have the power. Its that they don't want the EU to have it.
The new boss might be worse than the old boss. Doesn't mean the old boss was any good, only that the new one isn't.
@nileane I mean, maybe the average person really is surprisingly dumb?
We see examples of that left and right, and heck, that people buy into dumbed down narratives is itself evidence of that.
It took dumb people to buy the dumbed down rhetoric used by Brexiters!
@Aethelstan RNC leadership gets a good deal of attention and airtime in popular conservative media circles, though.
It was especially high profile after the 2022 elections fell so far short of Republican expectations and conservatives were struggling to find someone to blame.
This has nothing to do with principles or policies. It's pure pandering and shifting winds of public perception.
After all, Trump was for McDaniel until he was against her.
@phani I'd say the issue of instance admins overexerting their authorities over users' feeds is a much larger and more important issue that needs to be challenged head on, outside of the question of post length.
So many left platforms like #Twitter specifically to get away from that kind of meddling in news feeds, so it should be highlighted when it starts to show up here.
I always promote the norm of empowering users to make such decisions instead of leaving it to #Fediverse admins, giving users the tools they need.
It's a cultural question, and all we can do is try to nudge the culture in the direction we think is better.
@Wen but that's simply not the case.
The increase in work only happens if the coin increases in value. If the coin decreases in value then the work decreases.
It goes to highlight how much people misunderstand how the system works, from its core.
Apparently this is a website demonstrating #Fediverse / #Mastodon and #BlueSky interactions all being intermingled as they engage with the post.
I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but at first glance it's pretty interesting to see.
https://nerdy.dev/this-site-now-supports-at-protocol-mentions-and-interactions
@fisunov Oh! Right. I guess both email features are referred to as forwarding.
I suppose off the top of my head forwarding like that is handled by clients and not the protocol itself.
Your instance would still be in charge and would pass content along, transparent to ActivityPub, just as an email server passes email messages along.
So that sounds like the reasonable solution to the problem.
If a user doesn't want long posts, let them avoid long posts.
That leaves the rest of us free to enjoy those, and we all get the experiences we want.
@Wen the story of Bitcoin burning vast amounts of power is false, though, based on a misrepresentation of how Bitcoin works.
We really need to stop promoting that narrative.
Yes, it gets clicks for websites, but it's not actually true.
Bitcoin can operate on a car battery and solar power. THAT's what Bitcoin burns.
Other people trade extra power for Bitcoin because it's proven so valuable to them, but that's not Bitcoin's fault.
It's like blaming art for the amount someone might pay for a Picasso.
Bingo.
And it's important to keep this firmly in mind so we can learn the lesson and avoid repeating it in the future.
I mean, #twitter was fairly awful. It had a terrible interface, it was constrained, it promoted slogans and echo chambers over conversation... I think a lot of people remember it with sentimentality.
But to the point here, Twitter was never the public square, and folks who misunderstood ended up caught off guard when the private service provider acted like a private service provider.
Recognizing that reality helps avoid repeating the cycle.
If one wants a public square, then they need to push for a service that's actually public.
And better than Twitter, while we're at it.
volkris
boosted
@annaleen I can understand the meaning of losing Twitter for many people, who made their living by connecting there.
However, Twitter was as public as X is today, meaning it wasn't. It never was yours nor "ours". If it was actually public, it could not have been sold to Musk in the first place. The means of its past owners just aligned more with yours, by incident.
@quixoticgeek it's not blindness to the harm of cars but recognition of their benefits.
We balance the risk vs reward with such systems, and that includes the tremendous value that cars bring us.
@Free_Press it's not that he's removing non-loyalists but that the party has been faltering, losing support, and based on election results, Trump seems to have the strategy to regain public appeal.
It's not ideological but prudent.
A new management team being hired when the old one failed.
@Aethelstan I mean, democracy brought us Trump.
He's acting only under the framework of democracy.
The RNC lost the support of the people, so democracy chose this new direction to regain it.
@fisunov would that be retweeting/retooting?
@freemo well, I end up thinking that if Trump wasn't that way then Republicans would be in a better position to call Biden out on it.
That's the problem with this situation of having two incompetent frontrunners: they can't hold each other in check, and both parties are worse off without that struggle making them better.
@HistoPol I'm actually in agreement: he has a clear focus of the things HE wants to accomplish.
Not the country, not what the democratic process might accomplish, not what he might be able to grow consensus around, not even what the law might allow.
His speech was a long list of the things HE says he wants to accomplish.
That's exactly the criticism I'm leveling at him.
I don't think it's inspiring. It's authoritarian, of anything, but mainly it's just out of touch.
He wants to do all sorts of things. That's nice. However, he's still only president and subject to both that reality, and the realities of, well reality as well.
And that's exactly why this missed the mark as a SOTU speech.
It'd be fine as a campaign speech to his people, though, where he can make promises that he won't keep.
@freemo Yeah, one thing I was struck by was the constant talk of himself and what he (supposedly) did, instead of what we did, or what the government did, etc. Humility would be nice, but at least he should realize that it wasn't a moment to talk about himself.
@SteveThompson I think it's more that claims about a dramatic shift to the right, instead of sober, serious descriptions of rulings, have convinced many in the public to lose trust.
Which is funny because then you get pieces like this echoing that rhetoric that is itself the problem.
Self-fulfilling circle.
Oof, I just realized i forgot to hashtag USPolitics, which I always try to do to help people filter that out of their own timelines.
My apologies to anyone who sees my post but was trying to avoid politics on their feeds! I completely understand that position!
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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