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
It's bizarre to see a headline saying that a president is considering a constitutional amendment option, as if he believes he has discretion not to abide by the Constitution.
No, Biden has no constitutional discretion here. He must pay the debts, and if he were to order the Treasury not to pay the debts, well that would be an impeachable offense, so he really needs to knock off the talk of default, of not paying.
We've had months of bluster from politicians threatening default when that is not a constitutionally available option, and we really should have pushed back against them, just to kill that rhetoric from the beginning. It is not helpful.
It's only duplicative if a person doesn't see the difference between spending and borrowing.
The Constitution recognizes that they are different actions with different implications, though, which is why the debt ceiling exists in the first place.
There are very good reasons that we should think twice before obligating future generations to paying off the borrowing of today.
US Politics of dippy
Thanks for the correction.
Yeah I heard the counts read out, and it all seems pretty squared away to me.
Maybe he didn't bother a defense because he knew he wouldn't win, so no sense wasting more money on it.
Oh that's an entirely different problem with the Social Security trustees warning us every year that the program is unsustainable!
Well the ActivityPub protocol is a little more complicated than that, but even just based on what you describe, well it's great that you trust the admin of your own instance, and that you trust his ability to trust everything about his setup, but you don't know my instance admin. You don't know what my guy might be doing with that DM.
And imagine you want to delete some content. That's great that you trust your admin to honor the delete request, but when he sends it over to my instance, my admin isn't under any obligation to honor the delete request.
Heck, my admin might for whatever reason think he is doing the world a favor by maintaining those records.
And that's just talking about the simple case of a DM style post. Anything with any larger audience only compounds those issues of trust.
These privacy issues matter. Or at least, users need to be aware that these weaknesses exist, and legal implications need to be considered as well.
US Politics of dippy
Well a couple more things to mention here:
Firstly the rules vary state to state, as I think this was in state court, right? But sometimes it counts as a procedural error if no sane jury could have reached the guilty verdict honestly, or if the monetary reward was just insanely large.
Trump's people could try arguing one of those, but I don't think appeals courts accept either one except in cases that are clearly, clearly off the rails.
I'm not a lawyer, just saying this based on things I've seen over the years.
Appeals court judges do seem to have some discretion to set aside judgments, but only on extreme cases like clear exculpatory evidence that the jury just ignored.
You mean unfederated? The company sets up their own instance and doesn't connect to any other, so that content never leaves their control?
US Pol, Missouri, Abortion, Student Loans, Lost Revenue, SCOTUS
My impression is that it is relatively uncommon, and that impression is based on commenters I hear doubting that it will pass muster.
If it was common then it seems like people wouldn't have so many doubts about whether the argument will work.
It's complicated for a few reasons, not the least of which being that since it's not the core argument it doesn't necessarily have to stand so solidly.
@allysboredaf@infosec.exchange
I think we're not clear on what you are envisioning.
Are you thinking of a way for GitHub to broadcast notifications to interested people, for example if there has been a commit to a tree?
@FinchHaven@mastodon.sdf.org
Visible to admins of every server the message passes through, which is definitely not just like Twitter, as that unknown collection of individuals won't be in a position where they can be held legally accountable for breaking agreements made with the company.
A company can sign an agreement with Twitter to provide privacy standards. In a system like this there is no point of contact to make that agreement with, and the system is designed from the foundation to broadcast publicly, so such an assurance isn't really possible anyway, even if there was someone to grant it.
US Politics of dippy
That's right. The appeal will have to point to specific claims of procedural violation.
(FWIW I haven't heard about any violations myself, but I haven't really been following it)
US Politics of dippy
Well appeals aren't generally about re-examining evidence and testimony themselves, so often enough declining to engage in that is part of shooting for a successful appeal.
Appeals are about processes not being followed, not about reopening the case to re-examine evidence.
It's a double edged sword, though: deference to an administration that's not interested in the climate fight also undermines the fight.
Really this should be about making Congress fix broken laws.
You would run into privacy problems since all Fediverse content is public so there's no way for a person to communicate with customer service without their business being broadcast.
But you're making a factual statement that's the key here: we don't know if she is derelict in her duty to represent her constituents because we don't know what her constituents think of the job she is doing.
It's up to them, not us, to judge whether she is being derelict under the design of the US government.
We don't have a parliamentary system in the US. The role of parties was intentionally minimized in the design of the system.
Under the representative system that we have, it's up to them to decide what good representation consists of.
The problem with that argument is that the Constitution itself assigns to Congress authority over borrowing, which is probably a pretty good idea since you want to have national buy-in before obligating generations of citizens to paying back debts.
So not only is the debt ceiling constitutional, it's actually constitutionally mandated.
The president has to pay the debt. He really needs to stop threatening not to do so.
All of this drama and sensationalist political grandstanding is a distraction from the simple fact that the president has to order the Treasury to pay those debts.
Me, I don't think it should be approached as a 1st Amendment issue but more like a 5th Amendment violation.
If I want to run TikTok on my computer or my phone or whatever, it's my property, and it's a violation of my property for the feds to prevent me from using that property in the way I see fit.
I really think we have let 5th Amendment protections go way too dormant in this country.
This is exactly correct, and it's why so much of the dramatic talk around the debt ceiling is so sensationalized and misplaced.
The president must pay these debts. All of his threats of default are just playing it up for the cameras, political theater, that far too many of us are buying into.
It would be illegal and unconstitutional for the president not to pay these debts. It would be impeachable for him to refuse this constitutional requirement.
And yet day after day this administration is out there threatening to do exactly that to try to gain more power to borrow.
Well the Constitution assigns to Congress authority to borrow on the credit of the US because such borrowing has generational implications.
It's a really big deal to put the entire country in debt, so Congress has that authority to make sure the people are agreeing to it.
The debt ceiling is merely the term we use for the amount that Congress has agreed to borrow.
Not only is it constitutional, but it is constitutionally mandated.
The Treasury's accounting statements show that it will have enough money to pay the debts regardless of whether the president gets his request for more power to borrow, so he needs to get to it and knock off these threats.
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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