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
That government can't borrow dollars will come as a huge surprise to all of us who have lent dollars to the government.
OF COURSE government can borrow dollars. And, even more, it DOES borrow dollars.
It's just silly to deny this simple reality.
Why does that matter?
We want insurance companies to first and foremost abide by their legal responsibilities, and that figure has nothing to do with whether insurance is functioning as it is supposed to function.
Whether my claim is approved or denied correctly or incorrectly has absolutely nothing to do with the rate at which the company is denying other claims.
It's a distraction from the issues that actually matter.
That's a fine example, as it shows how tricky this stuff really is:
Fediverse is a distributed platform, so how would that apply to a service provider working here? If my instance accidentally locks me out, does it get off the hook completely by saying the user can pursue already stored data from other instances? What if the technology is designed around storage in the distributed system, so the instance can't help retrieve stores data anyway?
That such rules may assume centralization in an increasingly decentralized internet, of late, shows how those general guidelines would be hard to craft.
The allowed to be deferred forever is a key feature of the check on presidential power, though, both requiring him to find a nominee that the Senate finds compelling and preventing him from interfering in the business of the other branch of government.
Remember, by design to support the consent based approach of the chamber, procedures in there can take a lot of time. They literally do not have time to do everything all hundred members want to do.
Whether that approach is for better or worse, it is the approach that the Senate has adopted forever.
Really, if we don't like that the Senate isn't interested in an candidate, we should elect better senators, not bypass this protection built in to the system.
A related issue that I always try to highlight is that many users here misunderstand the privacy settings, believing their content to be more secure than it really is. I think that's a serious issue.
In this case, I'd argue that ActivityPub/Mastodon doesn't really have a DM feature, as many know that term. The messages aren't direct or secure. Instead, they're sent to the remote instance with a note saying the content is only for the remote user, but it's really up to the instance to deliver it privately or rebroadcast publicly or whatever.
The lack of two way interface in blocking reflects that.
It's up to the remote instance to do what it wants with the content, hopefully dropping it into the void if the user asks for that to be done. Or might publicly broadcast later, idk (to borrow the phrase)
Currently, the president is obligated to find a nominee that the Senate is interested in having as a justice.
Those are serious constraints on his power: he can't legally NOT act, and his actions must reflect the preference of the Senate, even if those aren't his own.
Your proposal turns that on its head, allowing the president much more latitude to nominate the person he personally wants even without review from Congress AND it gives him a way to intrude into Legislative Branch business, prompting the Senate to interrupt its other work to take up this issue.
Imagine, for example, if the Senate is working on legislation the president doesn't like. He could start sending over nominees that he knows they'd find unacceptable, just to have them stop work on that legislation to debate his nominees endlessly.
So yeah, an awful lot of power for the president to exercise unilaterally.
Well, #ActivityPub is very much focused on instances, not users, and it focuses on broadcasting content farther, not carefully tailoring where content goes.
I imagine this is a case of ActivityPub being intent on getting that DM to the recipient instance (not user) and letting the recipient instance deal with the rest of the picture.
Things similar to privacy aren't priorities in ActivityPub.
All of that would really undermine judicial independence and grant more power to the president, really undermining the system of checks and balances that are there to make sure citizens' rights are respected by officials.
We have representation through the legislative branch. We should not be turning the expertise of the judicial branch into just another popularity contest, as its job to craft logically coherent law is to important for that.
We see the mess that elections cause in Congress and the presidency. We should go running from the idea of bringing that to the Supreme Court as well.
Why would he step down?
After all, he doesn't exactly see eye to eye with the other justices that Republicans have been confirming lately.
Better in a VM than what?
Do you mean better single-user instances than multiuser instances, or better in a VM than in separate physical servers?
It seems like the House-passed bill to raise the debt ceiling is a pretty good rudder.
They already voted to raise the borrowing power, so if others have a different idea, that's a pretty good starting point.
Well, that's interesting. DM blocking on #Mastodon means your instance still receives the message, but it's simply not displayed to your face.
Just one of those quirky parts of #ActivityPub
It's not normal... nor is it how the US government works, not even in this dispute.
Bill paying is up to the Treasury in the Executive Branch, which has enough revenue to pay its bills. The Treasury takes in money on a daily basis throughout the year, and the amount it takes to service the debt, again on a daily basis, is much less than what it takes in.
Regardless of the #DebtCeiling the Treasury, according to its own reports, has the money it will need to pay its bills as they come due.
The real solution to this is for Congress to stop authorizing spending of money without providing financing for that spending.
The US can and the president legally MUST pay their bills.
The debt ceiling isn't the cause of this dispute. Bad governance and misleading political rhetoric is.
It's probably a matter of culture and establishing norms.
We should promote the idea of people building up, not tearing down.
At the end of the day, some people just really like to block. It helps them maintain echo chambers.
If that's what they're looking for, well, they can get it through blocking.
@newsopinionsandviews@masto.ai
That gets the picture backwards, though.
The 14th is about spending money, saying the president must service the debt. If anything it's about *retiring* debt, not creating more.
Biden has no way of raising the debt ceiling since that's a legislative process. He does have a way to order the Treasury to take on debt without authorization from Congress, but that would be impeachable since the Constitution is clear that such authority is in the legislative branch.
Well, are the denials valid?
Just because there are more denials doesn't mean there aren't just more people asking for things they shouldn't be asking for.
The important metrics aren't denial rate but rather those that focus on what health insurance actually *does*. Heck, they'd do better looking at approvals per capita than denials like this.
The headline comes across as bad stats to get clickbait headlines.
@FinchHaven@mastodon.sdf.org
I see that kind of thing on the web interface, running Chrome.
It's as if the interface goes out to check on the post, notices the block, and then tries to hide the reply, too late.
Yeah, but one size fits all tech policies raise different problems in a world of diverse users and use cases.
It might be even worse.
You're repeating talkingpoints that are really easy to debunk. I don't know who you're hearing them from, but you probably should stop trusting those sources.
Right now the Treasury has already been approved to finance all debt involved in the tax cuts. How do we know? Because it already did! Those costs would have hit before last year, and the government is still functioning.
That debt is handled.
THIS is about the president seeking new borrowing power to pay for the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which promised to spend nearly 2 trillion dollars.
Isn't there a counterclaim that the documents weren't classified at the time?
I know that was the argument over some documents, but I really don't care enough about Trump to follow all of the drama.
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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