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
What the what?
Well that's nonsense
No the executive has to follow LEGAL law.
The legislature is not free to write just whatever law it wants. The legislature is not free to violate the separation of powers inherent in the structure of the US government. It is not legal for the legislature to pass unconstitutional laws.
This is fundamental to the design of the US government, and for a very very good reasons.
And so the executive is legally, constitutionally, required to pay the debts of the United States regardless of what the legislative branch may say.
Except that's not how the federal government works.
The full faith and credit are executive branch functions, not legislative branch. The legislative branch has no control over the executive branch paying its debt obligations.
I know a lot of places are reporting as if it is, but they are misreporting issues of basic civics, basic functions of the federal government.
The executive branch has to pay its obligations. It doesn't matter what Congress does, the executive branch must pay the debts as they come due. They have enough money to do so, so they constitutionally must do so.
If the president decides not to pay his obligations, that would be an impeachable offense.
The problem is this is an executive branch function, not a legislative branch function. This misses the separation of powers of the US federal government.
Yup. I want to make a norm that people don't overuse hashtags in a selfish attempt to increase their reach.
Hashtag spamming?
@sgirlprivacy@universeodon.com
You say that, but it's not your money.
The people whose money it is, the people with actual skin in the game, they disagree, and so they are willing to give up their money to pay the guy, because he's worth it to them.
And that's no skin off your back.
It's just like anything else. I wouldn't pay for super bowl tickets, but if you would great. It's your money, go ahead and buy the tickets and have fun.
Or I wouldn't buy a deck of Magic cards. Maybe you would because that game is worth it to you, in which case great! Again, it's your money so you spend it in the way that you think is worthwhile, the way that you think is beneficial to you.
So it is with these CEOs. The companies that hire them spend their money because they think the CEO is worth it. No skin off my back. Only off theirs, and since they are spending their own money on it, whatever.
It doesn't matter what you or I think of the pay, just like it doesn't matter what you or I think about paying for super bowl tickets or magic decks. It's their money for them to spend in the way that they think is worthwhile, at their own loss if they are wrong.
He's not banning books, and a lot of your other claims are pretty questionable as well.
@sgirlprivacy@universeodon.com
The difference is that the president as head of the executive branch and Commander-in-Chief is part of a hierarchical chain of command, that the rest of us are not part of.
It might matter whether a captain makes more than a private, but I didn't sign up for the military, so I opted out of any sort of structure like that, and I would love it if we don't impose military structures on the rest of society.
As for ethics, your pay is just none of my business. You make what you make, and that doesn't hurt me at all if you make a whole bunch more. Good for you.
We should not be sticking our noses into other employees' compensations.
Telling other people what they can or cannot make, now that in my book is unethical.
I'm kind of laughing that a few people have boosted my really out of context post with the link to the standard 🙂
I can't imagine that any random person browsing the feed would see that post and make heads or tails out of it, out of context.
@david @antipode77
@paul @HistoPol @fediversereport @fediversenews @Bluedepth @darren @juneussell
@sgirlprivacy@universeodon.com
They don't though. That's not how the pay of CEOs works.
The company has to choose for itself, with legal fiduciary responsibility, whether it wants to pay the CEO more. It has to choose to part with that money, it has to choose to take on that expense because it believes the expense is worth it for whatever reason.
There are laws regulating how this process works specifically to make sure that CEOs don't get to just choose their own pay regardless of shareholder value.
Remember, every dollar that a CEO gets is one that the company has chosen to lose because the company, again for whatever reason, believes it is better off giving up that cash to keep this CEO employed.
@sgirlprivacy@universeodon.com
I always roll my eyes because this is not the figure of merit.
We pay our electric bills in dollars not in proportion of money that so-and-so makes divided by what the CEO makes. It just doesn't matter what the CEO makes. What matters is what we make.
All of this division and comparison is just distraction, and it undermines the fight for better pay for all of us.
It doesn't matter that the grass is greener on the other side. We're trying to get this side greener!
This reminds me of the Rick and Morty quote of, that was always an option.
I believe it was the Social Web Working Group
See https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#social-web-working-group
@antipode77 @paul @HistoPol @fediversereport @fediversenews @Bluedepth @darren @juneussell
Honestly, Mother Jones has such a bad reputation of bias and outright misreporting that it's one of the few outlets where if I see a story is coming from them I just discount it immediately.
It would be great if they cleaned up their act someday, but that doesn't seem like it's going to happen anytime soon.
And I say that as someone who is normally a big fan of avoiding shooting messengers. Mother Jones is just that untrustworthy.
Yeah that's one of the trade-offs considered by the ActivityPub engineering: they decided it was more important for content and reactions to be transmitted right away, even if that took more resources, than to build in batching functions like other systems have gone for.
When you see people complaining about hidden replies and stuff like that you can see why they would side on that side of the spectrum.
@antipode77 @paul @HistoPol @fediversereport @fediversenews @david @Bluedepth @darren @juneussell
Yeah the funny thing is that some conservatives who have spent quite a lot of time jawboning about the vaccines being a scam are now having to come to terms with Trump being the one behind the scam.
To be clear, I know they are wrong about the vaccines. I utterly disagree with their position that the vaccines are worthless and all of that. They are stupidly wrong about it. But, if they believe the vaccines are. a scam like that, then they have to come to terms with Trump's involvement in them.
And I've just been really looking forward to seeing how they deal with that.
Yeah, authoritarian tyrants throughout history have often enjoyed claiming their power through such propaganda.
Well either way, even if you think the circumstances warrant giving such power to a leader, a second question is, what in the world makes you think this administration is competent enough to wield the power effectively.
I mean, lick those boots, but at the same time, make sure the person wearing them is actually capable of doing good and won't just be a screw up.
@HistoPol @antipode77 @The_Onliest @paul @fediversereport @fediversenews @david @Bluedepth @darren @juneussell
Bad news: dedicated servers are centralized 🙂
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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