volkris @volkris@qoto.org
Since I guess everything is political these days, I'll identify as extremely liberal but without a home in US politics.
Mainly, there's so much misinformation out there that people in society have trouble even organizing into coherent political groupings. So I'd rather not talk about politics but instead focus on information and education. Nothing else matters until the bedrock of fact is buttressed.
But... people are always going to be wrong on the internet, as the saying goes.
So: Old man yells at clouds is a famous joke from The Simpsons, and it probably fairly describes what we do when venting on social media.
Just speaking into the void, since I figure it's an exercise in futility to conduct discussions on these platforms.
Joined Dec 2022
@BeAware: exactly
@erik the programming behind the Mastodon platform is all about broadcasting information out without much in the way of control over who gets it.
You can not block those actors on this platform, unfortunately. It’s simply not how they structured the system here, and it’s really important for users to realize that.
Effectively, if you participate here, they will have access to it.
I criticize that design, but it is what it is. Other platforms like BlueSky might be better about this, but it’s how this platform decided to operate.
I love how all of the gnashing of teeth about how #Threads will be the apocalypse for #Fediverse has resulted in folks setting up artificial barriers that undermine Fediverse.
It’s a panic, much like those of the past, where people cause harm out of fear of an imagined ill, real harm to ward off something rather mundane, without the ability to make compelling, rational arguments for the course of action.
Fediverse is a relatively democratic platform, and What’s the saying? Democracy is great… except for the people?
@LouisIngenthron you’re misunderstanding.
I’m not at all talking about buying into their spin or fact checking Trump’s economic policies.
I’m talking about using their spin against him, instead of contributing to it, and then pointing out things that amount to Trump’s own admissions of his own failures.
Not tiptoeing around the opponent but loudly amplifying that his spun words actually undermine his promise to his supporters.
And again, I’m trying to point out that they won and he dodged his weak point through this response about the word rather than his record.
It played their game, and they’re good at using it to their advantage.
You misunderstand the religious argument. It’s not about how many people are working but about the relationship between each individual and their own income, with income not coming from work being, well, sinful.
That might be oversimplifying their stance just a little bit, but I’m illustrating how the statistical or fiscal arguments don’t address the complaints.
But the point of it all is that there are lots of reasons UBI hasn’t raised broad consensus of the public needed to begin actually implementing it.
You can say if they don’t want it it must be good, but that doesn’t change that their not wanting it is a roadblock, whether it’s good or not.
Until the broad consensus can be raised, the idea can’t move forward, again for better or worse.
@null The problem is that you’re broadcasting your information to them whether you like it or not. That’s just how the protocols on this platform work.
They are extremely weak in terms of privacy, so basically anything you post here is available to Facebook, whether threads exists or not.
ActivityPub is a public broadcast platform. I wish it was otherwise, but it is what it is.
@jann keep in mind that that exact same risk is even more serious outside of threads where any of a bazillion different instances is free to push ads to subscribed accounts.
At least on threads we know where they would be coming from.
@LouisIngenthron I think the current topic is a great example.
Supposedly what Trump was saying was that under the trade agreement foreign companies were decimating US business, and if they’re not stopped it’s going to be really really terrible for US businesses.
So many have claimed that he was talking about violence throughout the country, which Trump supporters used to say, hey look how absurd the critics are! Look how they’re lying to you! Fight back against them by voting for Trump!
The difference is that instead of giving them that opening to score points for Trump, I would have focused on Trump’s claims that the trade agreement was decimating US businesses to point out that IT WAS TRUMP’S TRADE AGREEMENT.
So you see the difference, one gives them an opening to score points while the other takes advantage of the opening that Trump stumbled into.
This sort of thing happens all the time with Trump where he basically gets let off the hook for dumb things that he did say because people focus on other things that he didn’t.
@cjammet I suspect we are seeing different people π
I absolutely know that some groups are absolutely thrilled with UBI and the results and everything else. But I also hear from groups who think the opposite.
There’s also the issue that even among people who see the current stage of disparity as moral injustice (which already carves out a lot of the population) there are going to be disagreements about whether UBI makes that better or worse, and then if you carve out the ones that think it makes it better, then you have the ones who think it’s worth it versus the ones who think it’s not worth it.
So you see it’s step after step of dividing the population, until at the end you don’t really end up with a consensus.
@radiojammor Well just for example, within the last month I’ve heard some guy going around the talk show circuit because he has a new book, and when he’s on friendly conservative leaning talk shows in the US often enough they go off talking about how work is a gift from God, and getting your income from work is part of that gift.
I’m sorry I don’t remember the guy’s name, because I really don’t care π but
I’m not overstating that or mangling that, it is literally the belief that getting your income from working is flat out religious practice.
I bring up this argument as an example of one of many arguments that can’t be refuted by talking about funding source.
And heck, let me throw another example out there, a really sad one that fortunately I don’t think is anywhere near common but.. actually racist people might oppose UBI because they don’t want to give any support to whatever group they are against. Again, the point of this example is that funding source won’t change the opposition to UBI.
So that’s why I say step one is to convince people that UBI is a good idea on its face even regardless of funding. That hurdle would have to be cleared first before even talking about how it would work..
@radiojammor in my experience a lot of people reject UBI for reasons beyond the fiscal side of it, lots of ideas about it being immoral or impractical or corrupting in its own right, regardless of how the money may be raised.
But either way it gets to the same conclusion, regardless of why they don’t support it, there just is not broad buy-in throughout the population.
So if you want to move toward UBI, to focus on ways of taxing to pay for it is putting the cart before the horse. Until the public is convinced that it’s a good idea in the first place, it doesn’t matter how you want to pay for it, the public doesn’t really want to do it anyway.
@MitchW talking points memo has this weird obsession with conspiracy theories…
@javi sure, like I said, I’m not opposed to the decision at all. I just want to make sure users are considered, as all too often they’re not.
@cjammet so instead of taxing AI to pay for UBI because of a perception of a connection between the two, I would use the employment threat of AI as an argument to sell UBI to the public to be paid for like any other important government program out of normal government revenues.
Depending on just where we’re talking about, often the problem is that the public is not sold on UBI in the first place. It’s not about finding funding for it, but about convincing the public that it is worth funding in the first place.
We know where the funding can come from. It’s just that the public doesn’t agree to do it.
@LouisIngenthron you mean what are the better routes?
Instead of focusing on the language, point out how stupid what he actually said was, to put it simply.
@JohnBarentine I think it’s the opposite, the nature of the constellation makes the satellites less of a target sense blowing one up is not nearly as productive when there’s a whole grid of them.
And the thing is, heck, if you really want to tax AI because it’s bad or whatever, fine, at least put the revenues in the general fund. It’s a bonus to help fund government.
I’m not really for that, but it’s less bad.
It’s the direct connection between this one unreliable funding source and this one important program that’s exponentially more problematic.
Governments do this stuff all the time, and it causes trouble.
One more point to consider: if government is funded by the bad thing, it causes a conflict of interests where government gets more money the more the bad thing is done.
@LouisIngenthron again, the problem is that giving them ammunition helps their cause when there are better routes that would actually hamper their cause.
@SocialJusticeHeals yep.
It’s not a dichotomy. Hopefully the lack of the vote will push parties to run better candidates in the future.
So many who see it as just Trump vs Biden are missing the larger picture.
Yeah, but IMO the correct position is that some people will have a problem with it, but that’s between them and the software they use to access the platform.
I’d say one should both be unapologetic and also aware that long posts aren’t for some readers.
A writer isn’t forcing long posts on anyone, so it’s not the responsibility of the writer to serve that audience.
Since I guess everything is political these days, I'll identify as extremely liberal but without a home in US politics.
Mainly, there's so much misinformation out there that people in society have trouble even organizing into coherent political groupings. So I'd rather not talk about politics but instead focus on information and education. Nothing else matters until the bedrock of fact is buttressed.
But... people are always going to be wrong on the internet, as the saying goes.
So: Old man yells at clouds is a famous joke from The Simpsons, and it probably fairly describes what we do when venting on social media.
Just speaking into the void, since I figure it's an exercise in futility to conduct discussions on these platforms.
Joined Dec 2022
