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
Resignation? No. You have to know your audience so you can address them and see what you're working with, so you can move forward.
It's the opposite of resignation.
@BohemianPeasant firstly, that's not how the Court works.
Generally the Supreme Court is a court of appeals addressing questions related to lower courts' actions.
They do not decide whether an executive order stands. That's just now how the US legal system is designed.
But to the point: an EO banning abortion nation wide would not be a Comstock Act executive order since the Comstock Act does not ban abortion nation wide.
It's just fantasy nonsense to tie the two together.
@flyoverproj sadly, misinformation about the functioning of the SCOTUS, and the US Government in general, is absolutely rampant these days.
It's pretty safe to assume any audience is misinformed.
@BohemianPeasant no, the Comstock Act doesn't allow a president to ban abortion nation wide.
@PattyHanson that's not what happened, though.
SCOTUS did not grant Texas the authority of the US government. They cannot do that, and they did not do that.
Media outlets spreading that claim don't understand how the US legal system works, at best. Or maybe they do understand but they're more interested in getting clicks than accurate reporting.
@BohemianPeasant why?
The Atlantic is wrong and misleading readers. Quips about the traditional naming of legal documents is a distraction from that important point.
@BohemianPeasant but lots of opinions shopped around by outlets like The Atlantic are simply wrong and misleading.
And they need to be called out because too many in society act on the misinformation.
It's no excuse to hide behind the label "opinion"
@Free_Press never forget, though, that so many Trump supporters want to watch these fights play out, so their fundraising went exactly where they wanted it to go.
They weren't defrauded. They were knowingly buying admission to these wrestling matches.
So often people get distracted by yelling at #Trump and miss that the core problem is the people around us who want exactly this outcome, who want Trump to do exactly what he's doing.
Whether or not Trump is on the scene, that problem exists.
@parismarx I don't think that's quite right as I see so many people who aren't Elon Musk highlighting those sci-fi dreams regardless of the business model of SpaceX.
Basically, WE are promoting that myth, regardless of Musk. We're doing it to ourselves.
SpaceX is a real company with real administrators who aren't Musk. Let's not be distracted by the myth of Musk.
@GossiTheDog the difference is that it's so much easier to monetize a centralized platform. It offers so much more value to investors because of that.
Fediverse is worth less as a revenue generator specifically because it rejected the model that enables that revenue generation.
@BohemianPeasant The Atlantic is wrong. The author here simply doesn't understand the legal procedure or the ruling that came out of the Supreme Court.
Or, perhaps the author does understand it but decided to put out a sensational article instead.
Either way, promoting this sort of misinformation is not healthy for our society.
The Atlantic always seems to be putting out this stuff, and the outlet needs to be called out as untrustworthy.
@peltast Again, the question is absolutely NOT about whether #mifepristone is safe. That's not the question before the #SCOTUS.
They emphatically do not have the expertise or interest in answering that question.
The question here is a matter of law and legal procedure, whether the administration did or did not obey the law, *regardless of whether mifepriston is safe*.
That's exactly what so many miss.
@petersuber no, it's not that delay is victory. It's that the case against the democratic process wasn't solid.
@freemo Well, would you agree that 2 inches or even 5 cm is more intuitive than 50 mm? Many of the same reasons, I'd say.
One is a matter of scaling of error. If your perception of any unit is off by a bit, then the more of the unit that you stack up stacks up those errors too.
You might intuitively know about how big a cm is and about how big an inch is, but once you start stacking them, the errors add up.
Conservative media loves to repeat that the NY court imposed improper penalties against Trump's businesses considering that they were already being overseen by a court appointed official that would keep them from doing wrong.
Problem is, the overseer reported to the court that they kept doing wrong.
It's a case where the details swing the superficial claim in the other direction.
@freemo you say proper precision and grading, but that's the whole point: in so many real world applications we find that the precision and grading isn't the most convenient for the work in front of us.
Say you're aligning a platform by eye, see that you need to raise it by about the length of your thumb, so you call out to the lift operator to raise it by a quantized amount.
"Two inches" happens to be a pretty convenient call out rather than "five centimeters" or, heaven forbid, "fifty millimeters."
It's simply more intuitive at common human scales.
Or, to put it another way, they're big and bulky, which is perfect for dealing with big and bulky human scale tasks!
@Beachbum yes, that sort of conspiracy theory is sadly often promoted these days, but it doesn't stand considering how the US government is actually designed and functions and has non-optional features in place specifically to make such a thing impossible.
As we saw throughout Trump's first term.
It's simply not an option on the table, despite sensational claims by interests who benefit from promoting such stories.
@peltast the court documents say otherwise, and the agencies themselves say they didn't follow those practices.
Rather they say it doesn't matter that they didn't follow them.
Again, this has nothing to do with whether the drug is actually safe, only that the safety rules were or weren't followed.
No harm no foul only goes so far when it applies to legal compliance.
@freemo as we apply measurements, we disagree :)
We find that, for example, inches are scaled far better for so many projects than cm or mm, in the same way that degrees F are scaled better for human application than degrees C or K.
When it comes down to something ranging in size from around a baseball up to a table leg--roughly human sized things--the royal feet units are simply more practical, so we prefer them.
They make more practical sense.
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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