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
Personally, I am a country person.
I don't like cities. I find them claustrophobic and noisy and generally annoying. But my personal preferences aside, I appreciate that there is a certain economy of scale that seems to benefit from a certain level of urban density, the exact same sort of thing that gives rise to academic conferences getting together in person.
It is irrational, but a bunch of academics all drinking wine and getting a little toasted together does lead to progress.
So that's just how humans are. Whether I like it or not, whether it is good for our mental or physical health or not, that is just how humans are wired.
A zoom meeting is just no substitute for a couple dozen people talking amongst themselves in person in a room.
Literally last week I was unofficially officially required to join a little work party among a bunch of different people to celebrate the end of a project, and you could just see the gears turning for the next project as these people met in person to discuss the past and talk about the future.
It's just how humans are wired, whether we like it or not.
But that is not what the ruling said.
The ruling did not read "adjacent wetlands" out of the statute, but rather as dissenting opinions emphasized, it found that "adjacent" had a less binding meaning.
So no, that argument doesn't hold any water
Logically I would agree with you.
But I think that human irrationality means that I have to accept that the world doesn't quite follow that theory.
And the biggest ax that I have to grind in this way is the inefficiency of large cities, that run into huge scaling problems. Why do they exist? Why do we accept the cost of supporting large cities with dense populations when we could shoulder the cost of those populations in more efficient, smaller communities?
Well, I think the research shows that there are these irrational factors whereby humans derive value out of being packed together so closely. And that is regardless of technology.
In my ideal world humans would be more efficient and not drive benefit from such costly side factors like overly large cities or face to face time in the workplace, but we are stuck with the humans we are stuck with :-)
Humans are going to spend resources on office buildings, huge cities, and the super bowl, and that's just part of human nature, whether I like it or not, and I don't, but there you go.
So it sounds like @heatherlynn8571 is so protective of their foregone conclusions that they don't stop to engage and realize that their assumptions about other people are wrong.
That's a shame.
I don't think it's a stark true or false question.
Some level of in person face time has huge benefits, but the marginal advantage drops off quite quickly.
So one day a week in the office or even one day every other week can have huge benefits, but every day in the office ends up having the marginal costs soaring past the marginal benefits.
Consider the existence of academic conferences. They are expensive, and time-consuming, and take a ton of time, and yet academic societies around the world keep having them. Why? Because as irrational as it may be, humans do experience progress from seeing each other in person.
I don't believe these tech companies are stupid or looking to throw money away on the costs of having people come to their offices. I think they actually do see the benefits from people showing up in person.
They are the ones with skin in the game, so I tend to defer to their decisions to spend their resources in this way
Yes, yes, this is social media, where we yell at clouds 🙂
But what I'm saying, behind the wording, is that if you are living under the threat of a regulatory hammer being dropped on you if the people in power don't like what you do, then you're not exactly free, you are being threatened only one step removed from the specific threat of jail time or other penalty.
So just based on your own framing , I would not say they have the right, I would say they have permission.
IF, as you say, it's a possibility that regulators might get involved and act against them should they behave in ways that those in power don't like, I wouldn't call that a right, I would call it behavior that is being tolerated for now.
At the moment these platforms seem to have a level of permission to operate so long as they don't let it get out of hand in the eyes of those in power. That's a very different picture from platforms having the right to empower users to speak to each other willy nilly.
If these platforms are operating under threat of regulation, which is the situation you are presenting, then they don't really have the right. They are doing their best to serve us while looking over their shoulders fearful of regulatory hammers coming down on them.
Meh, charging third parties to take advantage of their own computation doesn't strike me as going crazy.
If you're saying there will be consequences then that sounds to me like they don't have the right.
If they had such a right then they wouldn't have to be concerned about consequences from regulators, since a right is generally understood as something that regulators can't intrude upon.
If Google has a right to return this information to YT then regulators have no place to regulate that right.
Well that's nice, so don't vote for them. *shrug*
That's your vote to use any way you want.
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.
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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