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
Here's the opinion laying out the reason for the stay.
If the laws about FDA procedure, leading to the stay, need to be fixed, then let's get on it.
Good catch! Hmmm...
It looks like the original plaintiffs, AAPLOG (f. 1973) joined with American College of Pediatricians and others to form the current plaintiff, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.
You can see the member badges at the bottom of this webpage:
@trz4747@mstdn.social
You said there were erroneous assumptions and reasoning.
Quoting two terms--not even the judge's own words as he explicitly points out in the opinion--don't amount to citations of either erroneous assumption or reasoning.
What I'm really interested in seeing, though, is the specific error in reasoning that would lead to a different outcome.
(And one thing to keep in mind is that courts in the US system are required to accept questionable assumptions in certain parts of the process, especially preliminary ones.)
Well, FWIW, when I read such a term that's not the impression I come away with.
I do like a label when a government has any financial association with a news organization, but off the top of my head I can't think of a quick label that might be more clear how small the financial association is.
It also reminds me of news orgs themselves (NPR in particular) having disclaimers in their reports, again without getting into the magnitude of the association.
@trz4747@mstdn.social
Well, "the game" at this point is providing citations to support your accusations.
Of course, it's up to you whether you want to do that or not, but if this is something that matters to you, it seems like you'd be eager to invite others to your perspective by showing what you're referring to.
Otherwise, well, social media is no stranger to people whistling into the wind, just venting.
Oh, I forgot to include a link to the full opinion, which I finally managed to come across just a few hours ago.
I feel like so much has been said about this before the actual ruling made rounds, kind of solidifying a narrative before the evidence was in.
@trz4747@mstdn.social
Well, what are some specific examples?
I'd say the label is an improvement for NPR since it's both more literal and allows that the organization is more independent, more credible.
To me "state-affiliated" comes across as a state run mouthpiece.
In fact, when I popped over to Wikipedia to refresh my member of examples, I see the page already uses exactly this language to differentiate the two.
"Government-funded" instead of "state-affiliated" is about journalistic independence in this way.
@barney@mas.to
You misunderstand the federal appointment process.
No president is allowed to unilaterally appoint whomever they want. Instead, they are required to engage with the democratic process to ask permission to make the appointment.
This process is there specifically to make sure the democratic process has a check over unilateral executive power for matters as important as choosing justices.
Yes, a president will be frustrated that he doesn't have such power in his hands, but we prefer democracy over that kind of authority in the federal government.
@gwfoto@newsie.social
Another point is a bit technical, but technically the TX court is **also** maintaining the status quo as of when the case stated.
According to the ruling, the FDA stonewalled this process for over two decades, refusing to come to court, basically.
Both cases, TX and WA, are maintaining the status quo, *as of when the different cases were filed*. That matters to the law, even if it sounds weird to us.
No. SCOTUS normally doesn't get involved at all.
Keep in mind (it might have been said above) that these two rulings don't conflict as applied, as they address different plaintiffs, and in fact they do so explicitly, as if the two judges were taking pains not to step on each other's toes.
There's nothing unusual about different regions of the US being covered by different laws. This is just an example of that, preliminarily, while the judicial system continues work on the case, so it's nothing dramatic that SCOTUS MUST address.
Again: resource limitations. If a news room only has $10,000 to spare and they think it would cost $20,000 to join the Fediverse, then it's not even a choice. They can't no matter how much they'd like to.
They aren't limiting themselves. The real world limitations of resources impose the limit on them.
I don't mean to repeat myself, but I don't think you did understand my point after all, as I was referring to a stark reality that can't be reasoned away, no matter the preferences.
@trz4747@mstdn.social
The judge's ruling has nothing to do with religion but simply observance that the FDA broke laws in its process.
Either we need to hold the FDA accountable for respecting the law, or we need to have Congress change the law. But excusing this based on religion stands in the way of fixing the problem.
Here's the ruling so you can read for yourself:
Not only are there major questions about whether he broke a law, there are even questions as to whether there was a law that he COULD HAVE BROKEN given the three coequal branch design of the US government.
And that's not even getting into the claim of preclearance, that Thomas had already had this matter adjudicated and was given the all-clear from the relevant legal experts.
To say there is no question is blindly ignore the tremendous weight of evidence suggesting there was no way he could have.
In fact, I FINALLY came across someone posting, well, only the conclusion of the TX opinion, while they posted the whole WA opinion.
The TX opinion also declined to offer a national injunction, and so they could technically coexist.
(As a side note, it's fishy for people to argue over the two opinions but only present the arguments of they one they agree with. Let's see both so we can see where the wrong one went wrong, so we can fact check!)
@youronlyone you say," Or, tell their in-house devs to add a plugin or something," but I think you overlook just how difficult a thing like that can really be.
In fact, I suspect it's a major roadblock to news orgs coming to #Fediverse.
Not only do these outfits have potentially very complicated, customized, maybe outdated, maybe outsourced systems handling their posting, all of that being hard enough to modify, but news today is notoriously struggling with resources without devoting even more to this one.
AND THEN you get the administrative issues of workflow. Even if internal devs manage to hack Fediverse support into their systems, now they have to explain it to their line management, business back offices, maybe even having to get salespeople to explain to sponsors how the tools are posting to somewhere new, to calm concerns.
And then legal...
It's no simple thing to just tell someone to write a plug in, in a professional news environment.
It's important to emphasize that judges don't really consider things like peer-reviewed research. That's not their field of expertise, so they are to stay out of it.
What they DO do is look at whether agencies followed their procedures, whether the *agencies* considered peer-reviewed evidence when required by procedure.
The courts will say exactly why they reject the agency's position and give both the agency and Congress the errors they'd need to consider to try again.
It depends on exactly what happens in the arguments and rulings.
For example, this Washington ruling said it was declining a national injunction, so the ruling only applies to the plaintiff states.
It's just part of the federal system of the US not to put all the eggs in one basket, so different states do have different laws being enforced.
Keep in mind that different circuits and different courts have different rules and different precedents even though they're all federal, and that's regardless of specific judges. It's pretty common to see different courts ruling differently like this.
Notably, the Washington court declined to make their injunction nation wide, as you can see in their ruling. It only applies to their Plaintiff states.
Often the judicial system wants to let the processes play out within different lower courts to see the argument from all sides, to avoid a final ruling that misses something.
The counterclaim is that he didn't ignore the rules but rather went out of his way to make sure he followed them, specifically as per the law. And, they say, it isn't even close.
So that's one of those factual claims that different people will hear the opposite versions of, and I fear that as has happened so often, folks will be too busy yelling about conclusions that they never stop to notice that they have a core factual issue to sort out.
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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