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
After #Alexa+ one too many times picked arguments about whether a light was, indeed, on I tried to bring home automation out of the cloud by migrating to #OpenHA.
I do appreciate how much thought went into the design of the system, but seriously, if your getting started guide even uses the words semantic and ontology, you need to reconsider. If it requires study of those two topics, it's gone off the rails.
Such philosophical depth should not be a prerequisite for basic operation of the ceiling light.
@huntingdon they said the opposite in rulings Monday...
They rebuffed Trump yet again, and Trump supporters are once again pretty upset at the Court over it.
Exactly.
And that's exactly why the US government was designed to operate this way.
The Court emphasized in both cases the actual operation of the agencies, the powers they wield. It was core to the ruling and shows the difference between the cases.
The FTC wields inherently governmental, executive power. It can levy fines, participate in federal rulemaking, budget out of the Treasury, etc. In short, it can use the might of the state against you, to use strong language.
The Fed, overall, doesn't really do that. When it issues interest rate targets or floats its own bonds it isn't using the police to set its policies.
One executes US law, the other moves around its own money. And because the one executes US law it is executive, and executive power rests in the president constitutionally.
Make sense?
#USPolitics @SCOTUS
What? It absolutely is! Restraints on presidential power are at the core of constitutional originalism since restraints on presidential power are at the core of the Constitution itself.
In its ruling yesterday the Supreme Court went on about this at length. The constitutional order of the US was all about making sure checks and balances would restrain actors including the president.
Conservative legal theorists go on about this pretty regularly.
They spelled out why the Fed is different, for anyone interested in actually knowing.
In short, the Fed doesn't weld legal power the way, say, the FTC does. There's a big difference between setting an interest rate target and penalizing a company for violating law.
SCOTUS pointed out that this experiment with supposed independence hasn't really worked as the agencies were still functionally dependent, and @Minnewegian they've unleashed the fresh hell of increased accountability for those wielding power over us.
You're jumping to politics when legal philosophy explains the correlation more simply.
As they've written in their opinions, they have certain legal approaches to the questions before them, and it is very common to look at those approaches--not politics--in predicting outcomes.
This idea of the political Court is one we should be pushing back against as it isn't helathy or helpful.
There was already chaos in the concept of independ agencies. The SCOTUS ruling was about restoring order. The ruling talked extensively about this.
For decades they've grappled with the contradiction that supposedly independent agencies were still under the president, reliant on the office, pulling from his treasury, interfacing with his regulatory processes, etc. And yet, somehow independent?
There's the chaos we've seen, those unavoidable conflicts of interest.
As the Court wrote, the Fed doesn't function in the mold of the FTC and other agencies. It's not pseudo-independent but pseudo-governmental.
As the ruling went to lengths to emphasize, the power was handed to the president by the Constitution. And he is to bear all responsibility for mismanagement of his branch.
Democrats SHOULD be happy with this recognition, properly framing it as giving even more grounds for impeaching the guy.
Funny. "Long considered independent" by whom? NPR? A major element of the decision is that this idea of independence has proven so unworkable, the independence a goal that proved incompatible with the US system.
To trumpet the "long considered independent" line is like saying the Earth has been long considered the center of the solar system when it just didn't fit observation.
I'm sorry the NPR crowd was misinformed and not up to speed. That's what their considerations really demonstrated.
No, this gets it backwards.
FTC was never independent. It may have had some trappings of independence, and we may have elected a few (or a lot of) crappy legislators who don't understand legislating, but the FTC was always executive branch.
Other countries SHOULD have known that about the US governance structure as it's pretty fundamental.
It's like folks not understanding that the JCPOA and Paris Accord were agreements with the president and not the country and therefore subject to rescission by the next president.
The FTC was never independent in operation. Sounds like someone might finally tell the EU.
Wrong branch of government.
Congress set up the program. SCOTUS just followed the rules our elected lawmakers set up. SCOTUS has no authority to say otherwise here.
You're also overlooking the way the Holocaust involved the international community of folks who thought they were designing a world order in which such a thing couldn't possibly happen... before they contributed to it.
One reason "we" talk about the Holocaust is because "we" were so directly responsible for it based on the stage we set for it to happen.
I imagine running an instance requires ongoing commitment of resources while an AI posting through some other instance only requires the occasional activation to make individual posts.
So it's a different type of cost, 24/7 vs short bursts.
Excuse my caps:
WEB OF TRUST!!!
:) But seriously, this problem was solved forever ago. Web of Trust technologies allow humans to vouch for each other, to see the web of who vouched for whom, and to integrate those approvals into larger systems.
It's a hobby horse of mine, that so many problems we bring up on social media, and media in general, can be addressed using these old, forgotten technologies.
It's not only about protecting instances from bots but goes even into keeping your social media feeds free of jerks you don't want to see.
@fediversereport
Keep in mind that so many MAGA folks honestly don't know about or understand the conditions in other countries. They don't know it's cruel because they don't know what cruel is.
It's a let them eat cake situation. Let them go back to their home countries, that crowd says.
They are pathetically ignorant about what it's like in those countries.
@wendythedruid a lot of major news outfits--BBC comes to mind--have been reporting the opposite, though, featuring scientists saying that the heatwave was natural and only marginally worse because of human-caused warming.
Sensationalized media doesn't help the cause; it only divides.
"Ultimately though, exposing the state to liability incentivizes states to properly train their agents and to bind them contractually"
Well right, that's how I read the SCOTUS decision!
The state, not the agents, are exposed to liability, incentivizing them to reign in their agents.
But that's what the Court said: take it up with the state.
What would be in the books that's not already widely reported?
It's not much of a scam if investors already know about the circular financing, lack of revenue, etc.
Just like SpaceX, a lot of people aren't investing for a sure thing, reasonable financial return.
At least it would help show the MAGA folks as totally unhinged if not literally insane, and help them lose the next round of elections.
WOULD BE NICE if we stopped electing and reelecting ineffective Democrats that allowed it to get to this point.
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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