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
@ronsparks.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy I think you overestimate the amount of power that a single federal senator sitting in DC has over a state.
Yes, exactly. We have so many promoting the norm that a voter HAS to vote, and if they don't then they're actually voting for the other guy.
If only we could push back against that common rhetoric we have a good chance of getting better candidates and better government in the end.
When the norm is that the parties have to actually run people worth voting for, or else voters will stay home, then they'll be motivated to stop running such trash candidates.
You can see how we ended up with #Trump vs #Harris as the two parties relied on opposition to the other rather than actually putting forward quality candidates.
@GetMisch remember: last year the Dems were voting with Republican extremists in the House.
It's not just that Dems are rolling over. They're actively encouraging all of this.
But... we elected them. We should stop reelecting them.
What in the world? That position is pretty out there, and expert after expert on the matter said the exact opposite, and with Russia's size, population, and industrial base they have the more likely position.
Ukraine had the upper hand? It was projected that Russia would run out of resources? Both of those claims are really pretty nutty considering what open source information tells us all with our own eyes.
@HappySkullsplitter Trump didn't say Ukraine started the war.
A whole lot of people are spreading misinformation on social media about that, but that's not what he said.
What people might want to take away from #Hannity interview of #Trump and #Musk is that, firstly, yes Trump is president and deserves all blame. Please stop saying he gave the presidency to someone else. That's not helpful for the sake of holding him accountable.
But more importantly, it's Hannity, not Musk, that represents the idiocy that Trump is Jacquelyn in his administration.
Musk is just messing around, you can see him stroking Trump's ego to keep playing in the sandbox, but it's Hannity that is promoting the utterly ignorant positions that Trump ends up listening to and acting on.
The buck stops with the president in the US system, but if you want to understand what Trump is doing in office, follow Hannity because he represents the mainstream conservative perspective that Trump is acting on.
And you really can't strategize against it if you misunderstand what's going on between those three people.
@zombywoof if you look up the list of SpaceX launch customers, there are PLENTY who aren't governmental.
SCOTUS will demand that the government clear this up through the normal legal process of judicial procedure.
@burnoutqueen I'm not forgetting that at all.
If you want to ignore the law as a mere social construct without teeth, ok, but in so far as we talk about the law, whether applied or not, we should be clear about what it actually says.
It may be purely academic, but no sense getting the facts wrong.
@burnoutqueen I'm not forgetting that at all.
If you want to ignore the law as a mere social construct without teeth, ok, but in so far as we talk about the law, whether applied or not, we should be clear about what it actually says.
It may be purely academic, but no sense getting the facts wrong.
You're missing that without legality and act cannot be official. If an action is illegal, it's not an official act.
Remember: the Supreme Court actively sent Trump's case for further prosecution for the actions that didn't have clear legal basis.
The whole story that the Supreme Court said Trump can do anything is quickly debunked by the fact that the Supreme Court referred him for further prosecution. No, that story is completely wrong, gets what the Supreme Court said backwards.
What the Supreme Court actually said was that any president, in that case Biden, can't prosecute somebody who didn't do anything illegal. That's all it said.
If Trump does something illegal, which I'm sure he will do if he hasn't already, then according to Supreme Court he is perfectly open to prosecution, as the act would not be official by definition.
@markku Well it gets a bit tricky because if we can't even agree on what his words were, how likely is it that we'll be able to come to a consensus about what he actually did in complicated and breaking current events?
Agreeing on the content of a sentence should be easy. Much harder to agree about a directive issued in a complicated governmental procedure based on documents that haven't made it through the publication process yet.
Every day now we get four different versions of what Trump did even just through professional news organizations, not to mention political outfits and simple rumor. How can we relate him to other dictators by his actions if we don't know what his actions are?
I'd say rewriting history so propagandistically--rewriting the words of political enemies--is a hallmark of fascism.
We counter fascism by calling it out and saying no, we're not going to accept the false narrative.
Trump said what he said. It's fascist to insist that we didn't see what we saw for the sake of political convenience.
I'd encourage you to recognize that you're not only defending but actually promoting fascism with your rhetoric here.
@nuurnu such is the case when folks like @jamesmarshall just keep going around and around the same circle trying to "break through" a record that's inconvenient to his argument.
But heck, it's social media. I'm game.
But we get into a weird situation when we are even rewriting what's being said.
We can't compare what a man says vs what he does when right out of the gate we replace what he says with something different.
@quinn I deal with those systems. I'm part of the effort to ensure that we don't live in that world!
@nimi thanks.
It's curious that that would be removed, but when I go to https://www.nasa.gov/people-of-nasa/ there are plenty of women being represented front and center.
I know some institutions have been overreacting and issuing all sorts of weird directives to staff that later get rolled back when it turns out they weren't based on any substantial administrative policy. Perhaps something similar happened here.
@victorvonvortex @hacks4pancakes
@Lurkle@mstdn.social
Sometimes the story is so obviously unrealistic that it deserves to be dismissed out of hand. It's like involving flat Earth theories in healthcare decisions. No obviously that's not how that works.
If our control of nuclear material was so tenuous, then you might as well give up on everything. The danger to every single person would be palpable and continuous regardless of who's in office. Anyone who wants to do bad things could just grab some radioactive material and build a dirty bomb. Fortunately, that's not how this works, and obviously that's not how this works.
These stories deserve to be dismissed because they just don't make sense. They obviously don't make sense. Why in the world would we set up procedures with such obvious, unmitigated points of failure for such serious risks? Obviously we wouldn't.
So whoever is spreading this misinformation, think about it a little bit. Realize that the politicized story they are selling really just doesn't make any sense.
And then stop listening to those people.
This has nothing to do with science.
But if anything, firing the workforce is the enemy of fascism. You can't really impose fascist will without employees.
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:
