volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@flaki Well it's all about balancing the value of each solution against costs, particularly the costs of effort and time.

Each person will have a different personal, subjective preference for where they'll put that balance, and for a whole lot of people the cloud option is simply good enough compared to the costs of other options, particularly learning curves.

@juergen_hubert

Keep in mind that in the US the actual elections are run in a very distributed fashion with the different precincts having a whole lot of authority over their own operations.

Communities tend to basically pick their own people to run their elections, so stories about long lines being voter suppression aren't so clear without some centralized management that would be able to organize that.

It generally seems like some communities simply choose for themselves to put in charge managers who kind of suck. People choosing incompetent administrators for themselves is hardly anything rare especially in the state and local levels.

It might be that we would be better off putting all of our eggs in one basket that could be professionally managed, but that would actually open the door to the corrupt motivations like voter suppression.

@spujb Well that's a bit hysterical.

Funding issues like this are pretty common. I know of one that happened a couple of times just last year, not to mention over the course of the past couple of administrations, and that's just the ones I know about personally.

No, it's not the end of science in America, and if science had been so fully captured by government, that would be pretty bad for science in the first place.

No, that's not how that works. And people talking in terms like this are not going to be convincing to folks who actually know how government works, how science and research works.

@Amgine but the point is to say it!

You can't just ignore that it's illegal. We have to engage and point out how goddamn stupid it is. How unworkable, inappropriate, stupid, ignorant, backwards, stupid stupid stupid it is.

By declining to engage for fear of normalizing just lets it fester without pushback. And we have seen that kind of thing happen over and over and over again.

Yeah, it's damn stupid. But it needs to be engaged with so we can point out that it is damn stupid. Otherwise, a whole bunch more ignorant people start getting behind the damn stupid proposal because they don't know any better. Because people aren't pointing out what they don't know, because they fear normalization, and that's exactly why that strategy backfires.

Over and over again.

@EricaHargreave @CBCNews@x-activitypub-bridge.deno.dev @cbcnews@flipboard.com

@toussaint to be fair, first yes it is stupid, but you're missing the factor that is behind it.

Trump supporters stupidly think that imposing tariffs mean that more jobs will be created in the US instead. They think they will get jobs out of this, but right, that's not how this will really work.

But I can see what they're thinking.

@EricaHargreave

Normalizing it? No. That strategy basically echoes the Streisand effect. It's not about normalizing, but about engaging to point out how abnormal the proposal is.

If you let the idea faster it doesn't go away, it grows in strength, as we see every single day today.

We are now experiencing SO many problems that arose out of proposals that people didn't engage with for fear of "normalizing" which just let them gain more followers instead so that they actually did become normal.

No, this whole concept of letting the conversation go out of fear of normalization is EXACTLY counterproductive. It gives those ideas room to become normal.

And again, this isn't theory, this is exactly what we see everyday today as bad ideas have become significant and adopted.

@CBCNews@x-activitypub-bridge.deno.dev @cbcnews@flipboard.com

@EricaHargreave sounds like you haven't watched it. Maybe you would appreciate what it actually presents.

Sounds like you're prejudging the book by the cover.

@CBCNews@x-activitypub-bridge.deno.dev @cbcnews@flipboard.com

@www.youtube.com.channel.uc1e-js8l0j1ei70d9vefrpq he didn't, though.

Those federal employees don't answer to Elon Musk.

@causeburn

Honestly, I think often enough it's more of a symptom of a problem, more of a effect than a cause.

I think it comes up when an organization is outgrowing its ability to manage itself. It's taking on too many projects, its management structure can no longer direct employees with confidence, can't direct resources with confidence, generally just an organization that is crumbling under its own weight so it has to add even more resource consuming feedback channels just to try to hold it together.

Scumbag or not, once management starts asking employees what they did in the last week, it's a sign that things are already pretty off the rails organization wise, as management has lost a grip on where its resources are going.

And that exact same lesson applies to the US federal government.

@DrALJONES The problem is, this sort of thing is exactly why so many of the public has lost patience with them.

They're playing into the current strategy.

@Dreamer9177 The thing is, that has been an accurate description of our government for quite a while.

It's just that, more and more people are noticing.

Hopefully with greater awareness we can someday fix the problems.

@europesays Oh no, they're not asleep at the wheel. They're actively involved.

Remember, Democrats voted with the hardline Republicans last year and scored political points from it. They're not asleep, they're helping to drive in bad directions because we apparently applaud them for it.

@resistancewins@earthstream.social

No you're getting that story wrong. For example, it's not that SCOTUS let Dellinger stay, but rather in its order the court spelled out that it was going through its normal process of allowing the lower court temporary order to remain as the case was progressing because that's just how the legal process works.

Trump did fire these people. The people that were absolutely fired are contesting the firings in court. If they weren't fired they wouldn't have anything to contest.

It's really important to get this story right if we care about how this is going down.

These are very real firings. Without real firings there would be no real court cases.

Anyone saying otherwise is spinning a story that doesn't mesh with how the government actually functions.

@causeburn you don't know that companies do run that way? I've certainly been employed by multiple companies that ran that way.

Anyway, US citizens did act. That's how we are in this situation in the first place.

Over the years people lost so much faith in the the federal government that they elected Trump as a vote for change. It didn't have to be this way, but the politicians in DC really messed up, so here we are.

@skoombidoombis The two are not exclusive, though. Yes, you can save money by cutting services to citizens. Even if you're doing the second doesn't mean you're not doing the first.

Yes, the Pentagon is not escaping this process.

And in the end, firing staff likely will be part of the solution as firing people that weren't really contributing to serving citizens leaves more resources, which are scarce, to serve those citizens.

I figure we all know people, or have come across people, who have jobs that they're not really working out in, where they're not really serving the people they're supposed to be serving.

@Bette No that's not how government works. There's nothing to steal. Either authority is recognized by others, or it's not.

It's not like there's a hat or something like that that gives you authority. It's not like you can steal something and suddenly you have authority. No, there is nothing to steal.

Musk does not have the authority because in the federal system no such authority exists. There's nothing for him to steal, it just doesn't exist.

@Bette No, Musk doesn't have the authority to make your life worse.

@rnf

There's a HUGE problem with that strategy: it's not just a tsunami against Trump, it's also a tsunami against courts whose judges don't appreciate it and who have broad authority to react as they see fit.

Even judges who might tend to rule against Trump might be swayed the other direction if they feel like they are being used inappropriately as this sort of strategy.

In short, a strategy like that feel good but actually end up being quite counterproductive, giving Trump a bunch of wins in courts as the judges dismiss challenges to deal with the sudden flood of filings.

@SueInRockville

@BootsChantilly never forget the substantial difference between being bad versus not good.

Harming versus not helping.

Maybe it's not worth it to them to use Starlink. That's understandable. Ukraine will have to make difficult decisions, same as ever.

@juergen