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
I wouldn't use the term science that way.
I'd say #science refers to the application of a technique, the scientific method, to scrutinize proposed explanations and see if they really match what we observe in the world around us.
That's what makes scientific explanation distinct from other explanations for phenomena, the structured testing against observation.
One key value of the scientific method is the separation of the process from human bias. A hypothesis either is or is not consistent with observation, regardless of what the human thinks about it.
So in the end to inject morality into science is to undermine the whole value that science offers.
Republicans are the ones who voted for a debt ceiling increase to pay for all of this and avoid a crash to the economy.
In fact they're the only ones who have put forward and voted for a solution.
It's really funny to blame the only ones who have passed a solution for the problem others caused.
Well that's not true.
So much of the appropriations that are blowing past the debt ceiling right now came from the pandemic era appropriations bills passed by Democrats with Republican opposition, where Democrats didn't bother to include sources of funding for their programs.
They really have no grounds for pointing fingers at the other party that voted against all of that.
Republicans don't have authority to default. That is an executive branch function, and the executive branch is currently held by a Democrat.
Republicans in the House are the only ones who have so far voted to raise the debt ceiling...
It's pretty weird to blame the debt ceiling limit on the one people who have done something about it.
Wow, you two are both pretty far off in crazyville, but fortunately it really doesn't matter since the Treasury will be bringing in enough revenue to service its debts, so the president merely needs to follow the law and pay them out of what they Treasury is bringing in.
It has nothing to do with abortion or SCOTUS. That is getting really off point.
The Treasury will have the money to pay the debts, so it has to, and it is just ridiculous that we are putting up with a president threatening not to.
Republicans in the House are the only ones who have voted to increase the debt ceiling and get the US out of this mess.
It's really bizarre to accuse them of being the problem when they are literally the only ones who have voted forward a solution.
@Ruthie@mstdn.social
Citation needed
That's not how the federal budgeting works, though.
The Treasury has enough money to service the debts, so the 14th Amendment doesn't give the president any more power than It requires him to simply service the debts.
All of his threatening to default is simply illegal, honestly impeachable, given the 14th Amendment.
No, the Constitution, Article one I believe, specifies that Congress is given the authority to raise debt, so not only is the debt ceiling constitutional, it's constitutionally required.
The debt ceiling is just the term we used to refer to the amount that Congress has chosen to authorize to be borrowed.
It's not made up. It's right there in the text of the Constitution.
You forgot the option where we might be worried about it because the Democratic administration is threatening to default on debts despite the constitutional obligation to pay them.
I honestly am a bit worried about it.
They released it and voted it out of the House a couple of weeks ago.
volkris
boosted
@Gargron Hi, I post sexual content of an educational nature - SexEd for adults. Please can you tell me if there is a mastodon server that allows sexual content? Or is it like LinkedIn where all sexual references must be covered up? Thanks for your help! Jane
Well setting also matters.
I've been hearing conservatives correctly point out that this wasn't supposed to be a debate or interview, but rather a town hall, so why did the journalist keep trying to debate?
His steamrolling of the host reflected what a town hall is supposed to be, getting his answers out for the public to scrutinize, trying to get past her attempts to derail the event into something else.
There's a time and place for fact checking. This event was not that time or place, so the host just came across looking out of place.
Yeah, it looks like the design goals of #Bluesky do a better job of finding that decentralization that so many #Fediverse fans are looking for, but I've read some questionable stuff about the implementation that I need to follow up on.
Not that I don't already have very critical thoughts about the #ActivityPub protocol, so I don't know if there is a high ground in that kind of comparison.
@JuanWild@newsie.social
Krugman has been a very slanted political commentator for a while, and it's really a shame. He used to speak from a position of authority but he has given all of that up to be just, well, pretty awful.
This is a perfect example of that.
Puppet Kevin McCarthy? No, it's not a puppet, it's just that people legitimately disagree and legitimately vote differently, and it really does take a lot of effort to bring people together these days just because of how bad the situation has become.
Not quite.
14th Amendment says that the president has to pay debts, and the Treasury has enough revenues to pay the debts, so there is absolutely no reason for the SCOTUS to shoot it down.
So long is Biden does not tell the Treasury to ignore debts the 14th Amendment is satisfied, and if he does tell the treasury not to pay debts, that would be impeachable.
At this point this is all up to the executive branch, again since the Treasury has enough revenue to service debts regardless of whether to that ceiling is raised or not.
That's funny, one of my major takeaways from this was that ACA has proven to be as bad an idea as so many predicted. Doesn't exactly make me want to double down on failure.
So many people I know, myself included, had negative health care impacts from the ACA.
Let's reverse course, let's not keep going down the line that has proven to be so bad for so many.
I think you really missed the part where ownership is fundamentally about people. People own things.
So when you say capitalism is about property, well you follow the trail there a step farther, capitalism is about property, and property is about people's ownership stake, so capitalism is also about people.
The rest is just a restatement of that with more steps.
Hell I would point out that democracy is really even less directly associated with people as It goes through all the steps of governance, all the procedures and bureaucracies, before it gets down to people.
But yeah, I think you really overlooked that point that you hovered around a few times there.
Gotta say, it's really sad to see a person choosing ignorance over information for whatever motivation.
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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