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
You're not arguing against me. I entirely agree with your statement. That is not the dispute.
The issue is not whether lies get distributed or accepted. The issue is a step removed from that, who gets to decide what is and is not lies.
I agree that lies get distributed and accepted. You don't have to convince me of that. I'm on your side with that.
Yeah the problem with banning misinformation is the tricky issue of who gets to decide what is and isn't misinformation.
We've seen that power abused way too often throughout history and even recent history.
It's better to empower users and the general public than to empower gatekeepers to decide what we get to see.
*sigh*
Well just realize that at this point you're coming across as something of a religious zealot.
You seem to be falling into the thought pattern where not only is it wrong to have different opinions from yourself, but it's even wrong to question whether it's okay to have different opinions from yourself.
It's always a red flag in my book when questioning of opinion is itself not allowed, when a philosophy has that built-in self protection rule.
@ArtBear@mastodonapp.uk @atomicpoet
But that's democracy. I personally don't have anybody that I would possibly want to vote for, but meh, people use their votes the way they want to, and a lot of voters like those people, which is how they get elected.
There might be no one decent in my opinion, but other voters have different opinions, and a lot of voters are using their power to elect these figures.
Democracy is messy. It's the worst way of doing things, except for all the others.
That explanation doesn't really apply here since we're talking about people standing up to power, standing up to a prosecutor wanting to bring the hammer down on somebody.
And we're talking about run-of-the-mill, everyday members of the public.
It's not that they want power. It's that they are operating from a different set of facts as they push back against power.
When you keep with the phrase of being ready, I think you are missing my point.
It's not about ready, it's about opinion. Maybe they'll never agree with you, never adopt your personal opinions.
Has nothing to do with being ready or not ready. It only has to do with diversity of thought.
@ArtBear@mastodonapp.uk @atomicpoet
Keep in mind the alternative, that it's not that people aren't ready, is that people simply don't have the same values that you personally do, don't care about the fights that you personally care about, and simply have different opinions about what is important in the world.
It's like saying people aren't ready for pineapple on pizza. No, is simply that people have differences of taste and what one person likes isn't necessarily what someone else likes.
@ArtBear@mastodonapp.uk @atomicpoet
@terry888jones@lor.sh
Well this is something that I see with public figures all too often, they interact with and react to their audience, kind of giving the people what they want, because it is lazy and easy and has the positive reinforcement.
When a person acts a certain way and people react giving them attention for doing it, they are encouraged to not only keep acting that way but to double down and act even farther in that direction.
Musk is in that situation where he has enough money and resources that he doesn't have anything holding him back. He is free to completely lean into the modes of behavior that society is encouraging.
In other words, most of us wouldn't be able to troll the way he does because we have to put down the keyboard and show up for a day job. Needing to earn a paycheck is a pretty good stabilizing influence for most people. For someone like Musk, that's not a requirement, so he is free to just be completely untethered, and just troll 24/7 if that's what works for him.
Anyway I just wanted to emphasize that his behavior is a result of how society in general encourages him to act. I sure wish we would all stop reacting to him the way we do, so he would stop responding to us the way he does.
@terry888jones@lor.sh
Ha, well I'm repeating myself, but in Elon I mainly see a troll.
He has an entrepreneurial side too that is actually pretty healthy, but so many of us feed the troll side that it grows and eclipses the positive sides of him.
I wish we'd all stop promoting his trolling so he'd get bored and knock it off. But that's just not how society works.
I mean, a weak case will lead to weak chances of conviction.
This whole thing is a mess that was probably best avoided, for the sake of the country.
@KingConstantine@strangeobject.space
That's a misframing of what the SCOTUS said, though.
If you read the ruling directly it takes pains to say exactly the opposite of this misreporting.
Sadly, that never seems to stop reporters from getting the story wrong.
The problem is that so many of the claims against Thomas have been debunked, but those stories don't get into the news feeds of the groups that leveled the false accusations in the first place.
So we're in the unfortunate situation where a false narrative has become clear to folks in many echo chambers, which Thomas can really not control.
Fortunately, his fate rests in public trial in Congress, which will put the breaks on this railroading. Unfortunately, the debunking won't pierce those echo chambers that have become so prevalent in US culture lately.
This is really helpful! ... if it works
I've been really curious about how #lemmy integrates with the rest of ActivityPub but haven't had time to look deeply into it.
So far my instance doesn't have any posts from this particular lemmy... um... board? group? whatever it's called, but I'll have to try it out more in the future.
Wow, that's really tone deaf.
If we want more people to join #Fediverse then we're not doing ourselves any favors by yelling at the customer for having issues with our product.
It's embarrassing to see users not like what we're offering them? That should be only in the sense that we should be embarrassed for not changing our offering to provide people the experience that they actually want.
But then, #Mastodon seems to be learning this lesson and working for users instead of fussing at them.
This is false and we need to call it out.
The US government is split into exactly three branches, legislative, executive, and judicial. It's designed that way for both checks and balances and to make sure citizens can hold officials accountable for their actions.
Indictment is an activity of the executive branch, where the buck stops with the president. Biden, effectively, did conduct this indictment, it was done through his authority, and whether a person supports it or not, it's at Biden's hand.
We really must hold officials accountable for their actions, again, whether those actions are positive or not.
Pretty weird to bring up fascism in relation to a protest against police action.
The president absolutely CAN directly declassify any documents he wants. Classification is an executive branch issue, so as the official vested with the authority of the executive branch it's all up to the president.
A lot of people get that wrong because they're not up to speed on basic civics.
@Pwnallthethings
It's about premises. Mainstream republicans don't believe that espionage, sedition, and treason occurred in the first place.
But that's not what the majority says, so it sounds like you're setting up a strawman.
What of the majority's argument that Congress wrote §1344(g)(1) so as to clearly reflect "that certain adjacent wetlands are part of waters of the United States."?
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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