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
@pedrobizbikedu The bulk of student loans that we discuss for giving at the federal level are federally funded, that's why we talk about forgiving them at the federal level.
The privately funded loans aren't under the jurisdiction of the federal government, they're a completely different matter.
@sjb honestly I think it's a little worse than that.
So often it seems like Trump can't even come up with his own excuses, so his apologists make up excuses for him and then he says, yeah! That! Obviously that was my plan! while just parroting the excuses that his followers came up with for him.
I think it bears so much emphasis that Trump himself is such a spineless moron that he pretty much does what people tell him to do and then says what people tell him to say, so he does stupid things that people tell him to do and then he says the stupid excuses that people make up, while he himself is just a blob of jello.
@Ponygirl Don't look at me. The federal government decided to tap you to fund federal programs.
Yeah I think that's pretty shitty of them, but it's what we're left with. And you know a lot of the people that were involved in that, we keep reelecting them.
So that's where we are. The federal government is relying on you paying that back because you're a source of revenue to pay for the federal government.
If they let you off the hook then Federal funding goes away.
Again, I thought that was a bad idea at the time. I spoke out about it being a bad idea. But we elected these people, they did it to us, and we reelected them later, so I guess we're cool with it.
@pkraus The federal government treats the loans as a source of revenue, effectively as a tax.
It's not about whether you pay any other tax, it's about saying they don't have to pay their taxes in this case even though the government was relying on those revenues to fund government programs.
@pkraus The federal government treats the loans as a source of revenue, effectively as a tax.
It's not about whether you pay any other tax, it's about saying they don't have to pay their taxes in this case even though the government was relying on those revenues to fund government programs.
A fantastic sign that so many people cheering the murder of the #insurance #CEO are really off base is that so many describe that role as parasitic.
Factually that is wrong.
A parasite doesn't ask for permission to take, it just takes. In stark contrast, we pay for insurance. And these employees are paid, they don't just drain bank accounts unilaterally.
There's plenty of room to criticize insurance, insurance companies, the healthcare system, the political systems that support that, and on and on, but anyone buying into that entirely false perspective of parasitism is losing the argument flat out.
Because right from the start they're showing they don't know what they're talking about, and it only makes it worse that they're jumping from there into killing people.
They don't make a compelling argument for anyone not already in their echo chamber.
@marius_gs I mean, it doesn't though.
@georgelakoff Well the other thing you need to consider is that maybe you're simply wrong about the economic benefits?
I see that sort of thing all the time, progressives insisting that something is economically against so and so, but when you sit down and work through it, the progressive simply has their analysis wrong.
Question your priors. Don't assume that you're right just because the other side doesn't agree.
@enmodo so you see how that's not quite the same?
@QasimRashid It's absolutely not, though.
That's not how the government works, that's not how government finance works.
To say that those students don't need to pay for their share of the government budget isn't about letting them eat cake or whatever you think that means. It's about defunding government programs that our democratic process decided needed to be funded in that way.
No, you have that completely backwards.
Just pointing out why your story is so ridiculous.
You're jumping through more holes than a flat earther here, and so I don't know why you believe that stuff, but what you're saying there really isn't convincing.
@maeve ha, they are calling for more frequent appointments to the bench and they say that will cause LESS political turmoil?
Anyway, to be clear for those who don't click through, this is proposing a constitutional amendment, so it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
As it, arguably, shouldn't as it wouldn't have the results they're selling.
Many #Trump supporters take the stance that he was never ACTUALLY going to impose tariffs, that they were mere negotiating threats, and anyone who doesn't know that is an idiot.
Meanwhile #Harris was criticized for not laying out specifics of what she would do in office.
Funnily, then, that was a contest between someone who **wouldn't** say what they **would** do versus someone who **would** said what they **wouldn't** do.
What a time to be alive.
@constantine If you watched how he handled developing Mastodon and dealing with honest disagreements about the user interface, there's nothing surprising here.
The guy always had the attitude that his personal opinions were the one true opinions, and anyone with different personal opinions didn't know anything about the world.
He had an attitude that he was going to shape society because he knew best.
@manton often things like this are due to practical limitation and not philosophical disagreement.
The company might very well be serious about more open APIs, but unfortunately they have to gatekeep because the APIs are hitting their systems, and they have to manage that load on their infrastructure.
@manton The thing that I see people missing so often is not about what AI can do for animators, but rather what it can do for people who aren't animators.
I'm not an animator, but thanks to AI, AI allows me to do more art, helping augment my skill set where it has holes.
I think it kind of misses the mark to ask an animator. It's everyone else that benefits from this.
@Hex It's funny that first you go back to a mere transcript from generations ago to talk about what's happening today, and then you miss the key part and the transcript that you highlighted that talks about "they" providing care, not we provide care, emphasizing that the insurance company does not provide care.
And all that to build up this abstraction with hand waving toward models, not care, that all concludes something about incentives that are themselves not something that would block care.
Don't you see how weak your case is? Every link along the chain that arrives at your sensational story is critically flawed
And sadly enough, promotion of that nonsense is getting people killed when they believe it.
@enmodo citation to them telling you that?
@enmodo I mean they do, if you bother to listen.
But then it kind of confirms their opinion that you don't bother to listen.
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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