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
@mattjhayes careful about promoting a solution in search of a problem, though.
Don't overlook the possibility that Fediverse simply might not give users what they want, and that's why users aren't adopting it.
A lot of people get so focused on promoting the tool that they fail to notice that the tool really needs to be improved for it to be useful.
@marathon I really don't think it's that puzzling. It's part of the cognitively lazy pattern of simplifying things down to a single icon instead of having to grapple with a complex world.
Keep in mind, also, that major figures in US media these days have backgrounds in sports reporting, for some reason, so they basically promote that sort of pattern, giving people permission to reduce a complex world into the personal icons.
People will be lazy if you allow them, and at this point the culture is actually pushing them to be lazy.
The Western obsession with Russia's president comes out of lazy people trying to make sense of a complex world.
@europesays That's just stupid.
The one does not imply the other.
Yeah Trump is a moron, that doesn't mean he's a king, or that people declaring him to be a king and then yelling about the declaration that they just made have any particular point... No that's just a mess, this is just stupid..
#BBC, talking about the meeting with the Ukrainian president: Everyone knows #Trump likes to plays cards close to the vest.
Yeah but never forget he likes to hold his cards close to his vest while he's actually playing checkers and his opponents are playing chess.
The guy never has any idea about what's going on around him, and we need to emphasize that constantly to fight back against the conspiracy theories, and his own supporters.
@Dhmspector We hired a reality TV shock jock to be president.
Well, it stinks, but we got what we elected.
Yay democracy I guess.
@nethenekhthon except that broad swaths of the federal government continue to operate.
volkris
boosted
#Hannity, ad libbing and having his normal problems stacking idioms meaningfully: "this is the mother vein, this is the secret sauce" The guy really doesn't seem to know what common phrases mean, but uses them anyway, a trait shared with #Trump. Interestingly #AI -like, though. #USPolitics
volkris
boosted
Today #ClayAndBuck again expressing an approach elections with the attitude of choosing the lineup of a football game with zero familiarity with the idea that voters might simply want to support a candidate they don't personally approve of. It's a foreign concept for them. #USPolitics #democracy
@lillyfinch during oral arguments the justices tended to all Express support for section 2.
Further, the court doesn't have the authority to strike down section 2 because that's not the question before them.
It's very unlikely that they will, or else they would have accepted a case where that was actually being requested. AND they wouldn't have brought the arguments in the directions they went.
All of these stories about the Court striking down section 2 seem based in misunderstanding of what's actually happening in this case.
@lillyfinch no, that gets it exactly backwards.
The whole argument before the Court is about respecting the 14th Amendment and preventing states from engaging in racial gerrymander.
The challengers in the case also emphasize that they're not asking for Section 2 to be struck. They're merely asking that the 14th Amendment be applied to it.
That doesn't make sense.
Designating antifa doesn't grant ability to murder with impunity. If they were going there then why waste time with the designation?
No, go for Occam's Razor on this one: idiot politicians just posturing for their idiot base to score political points.
There's no deep scheme here. The politicians involved just aren't that smart.
@libraonfire.bsky.social how in the world do you see that conspiracy working?
It would require quite the alignment of conflicting interests, and shutting down the VRA isn't even before the Court.
Problem is, the article is addressing something that is emphatically not what the #SCOTUS is looking at in the free speech vs conversion therapy case.
It wants to challenge the premise, but it's the wrong premise!
At argument the challenger emphasized that their case was about one specific practice that had nothing to do with anything like shock or medicated treatment. This was actually core to their case.
And the state admitted they had no scientific information to submit regarding that specific practice.
See how that article completely misses the mark, then?
I mean, great, this is how it was supposed to work the whole time. I don't know how much credit I give Newsom for being so late to act.
@light But that's my point: by and large whether they are evil or not, the folks I'm referring to are working with a separate set of facts.
Treating them as just evil misidentifies the problem and so will too often produce solutions that actually make the situation worse.
Often enough folks engaging them as evil ends up playing into their game, handing them successes that they wouldn't otherwise have.
I'd even say that kind of thing helped get Trump reelected.
volkris
boosted
#ClayAndBuck: Nobody who is food insecure in America is starving. In fact, a lot of them are fat. Also there was no starvation in #Gaza. #USPolitics
@LevZadov Don't discount that we do directly elect our representatives.
And that's the point, we need to do a better job with the direct democracy that we have. Unfortunately too many people overlook it, missing the trees for the forest, and end up promoting these unhealthy situations.
Bizarre to talk about voters not having control and democracy not existing in context of a system of voters voting and democratically empowering officials.
No, that's just conspiracy theory that doesn't really match reality.
In reality, we voted for this mess. We should stop submitting our votes for a bunch of idiots, but we did and we do.
Yay democracy.
I think you're falling for some sensational headlines.
No, a SCOTUS ruling on the VRA here will not create a permanent Republican control of government. That's nonsense, but such headlines will drive clicks.
Heck, as it stands, the confusion that has been existing in the VRA has made more room for political trickery. SCOTUS clarity will put things on a more solid footing to fight that kind of thing.
@ferricoxide I don't think you understand what's going on here.
Firstly, the LA redistricting case isn't about one party rule. It's about settling a longstanding contradiction in law that has vexed courts for decades and left officials around the country without clear rules for how they should conduct elections.
But as for hearings, many of the folks we elect to congress LIKE those exchanges because they can fundraise and score political points off of them.
We keep electing stupid and combative congresspeople so it's no surprise that they set up stupid and combative hearings.
The rules don't need to be changes as they're working exactly as intended. We should probably change the congresspeople, though.
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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