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 the opposite.
Defaulting is defined as not paying at all.
Trying to pay with Monopoly money is more analogous to the mint the coin proposal: it's offering payment that's legally dubious.
One way to think about it is that science--the application of the scientific method--is only one part of what a scientist does in practice, the same way that sawing is only one task of many that a woodworker engages in.
So for example, collecting data outside of a hypothesis is an important task, but since it's not direct application of the scientific method, I wouldn't call it "doing science".
In the same way, science can tell a researcher that this chemical has fatal effects, but it's not science that tells him whether he should expose his enemy to it.
We put up a firewall between science and morality so that each of them does its job as well as possible, science telling us what is possible and morality telling us whether to actually do it.
Don't forget the role of voters, though.
If a candidate had no chance to appeal to voters then nobody would write them checks in the first place.
We elect these people. We actively go out and pull the level to vote for them.
If we would stop voting for bad people, the money for bad people would dry up as they would be bad investments.
So long as we can be relied on to hand these people power they will keep running, keep fundraising, and keep getting into office as we empower them.
@dangillmor I think people underappreciate the role bureaucracy and management plays in legitimate news organizations.
This isn't a matter of a paper one day realizing #Fediverse is a place to be, setting up an instance, and letting it rip.
Instead, there are so many layers of review involved in such a process, from technical review through marketing, through figuring out how to fit it into workflows, budgeting, and even over through legal review.
If you want them to be present here, think about the actual practical issues they will be facing through the process of joining a new, decentralized platform like this one.
Well, have you asked some of them why they're using it?
I bet they can help you answer your question.
You don't see that he allowed journalists to dip into DMs for journalists' gain? And journalists sort of like that?
volkris
boosted
"A trench of jostling anglerfish, gaping and preening and starving for lack of prey"
There's too much to quote here; this is brutal: Burning Down The House: The overheated register in which Silicon Valley types have tended to talk about Twitter -- as...
https://jwz.org/b/yj_1
I think the quote makes a mistake lumping Musk in with the other group, missing that his trolling differs from their pursuit of wealth.
"Where Musk has struggled to keep that constituency happy, it reflects less on his seemingly sincere receptiveness"
The above sentence captures it.
Musk struggling to keep that constituency happy? I think don't think he does or cares. He plays with his toy with happiness a second thought.
Seemingly sincere? Musk seems sincere to this author? I can't imagine how.
The article is spot on about those silicon valley types, but it doesn't see that Musk is not like them. Doesn't make him better or even ok, but he's a different type of jerk.
Wrong branch of government, wrong party.
The Treasury is responsible for paying bills, and it's part of the executive branch, under the control of the president.
Biden is threatening to tell the Treasury to default unless he's given more power to borrow. His finger is on the button.
He doesn't want to go to the table to discuss that expansion of power because he believes the public doesn't realize how their government is organized, and so is buying his spin.
He's probably right, though.
Recent clutching at pearls over the shadow docket remind me of the sensationalized stories, misunderstandings, surrounding executive orders:
No, the shadow docket isn't the Court executing a power grab. The docket doesn't involve any addition or changed powers, just as an executive order doesn't allow a president any more power than he already has.
Instead, the shadow docket is simply a different way for the Court to implement its usual authorities more efficiently, for cases where the full argument procedure is wastefully involved.
Facebook is a service.
People don't get nothing back; they get the services that Facebook provides for them, the value that comes from the services.
You personally may not value Facebook's services, and that's fine, but it's silly to ignore that it does provide services that a whole lot of other people do value.
It should be all sorted, but no, we have a president threatening not to pay, and that's causing quite a lot of trouble.
This should be a matter of certainty. We should be able to rely on those payments, as per the 14th, but no, there is now uncertainty as to whether the president will follow through on his threats unless he gets his way.
What's false?
I'd be happy to bash Republicans too, but they're not currently at the center of this. Yes, the Rs shouting about default from the sidelines to push their own interests also deserve criticism.
Republicans and Democrats should be standing together to voice that Biden must pay the debts, holding him accountable for his threats to skip payments.
Why in the world would malice be involved? You think federal agencies are allowed to break safety and other laws so long as they aren't being mean?
That's pretty absurd.
The FDA's own documents show that they did not have the authority to use accelerated approval procedure. So yep, they only complained that the FDA broke the law in using the accelerated approval procedures illegally.
You're highlighting the breaking of the law in your effort to paper over it.
That's exactly what I'm pointing out to be false.
The Treasury pays the bills. The Treasury is part of the executive branch, controlled by Biden. Under the US system of government, it's up to the president to have the Treasury pay debt obligations... or not.
Congress can't default even if it wanted to. They don't have that authority since the Treasury isn't part of their branch of government.
So Biden has spent all these months threatening to have the Treasury not pay bills unless he's given more power to borrow.
It's a completely backwards spun story that relies on people not knowing how the federal government works.
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.
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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