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
Sure, and that's why I emphasize that mainstream conservative media has had such a huge impact, beyond the polling.
I'd consider the polling to be only a minor indicator since it has drawbacks, which is why I'm really not so interested in tracking down specific polls. The RCP trend is plenty for my purposes when it comes to polling.
@Spicewalla @dangillmor
If you read the opinion, that's not really what the case hinged on. It didn't really show that.
The major question was whether to consider race at all in districting. The state said they had to be race-neutral, and the Court said no, race had to be considered.
It didn't take new technologies to figure out that they could create a second majority black district. In fact, the state points out that the technological solutions to districting all generated the opposite, so long as the process was race-neutral.
Really the question here was whether to or not to gerrymander based on race. Tech didn't really change that legal question.
An illegal election can't elect legal representatives.
Anyone elected under an invalid system would have no legal claim to office.
It would be like me declaring myself the winner of an election and showing up to Congress. I wouldn't be admitted because I wouldn't have the legal claim to office.
Same here.
@gruntyfish@mastodon.social
Yes. Nonsensical submissions get rejected almost instantly, leaving governments without functional representative processes.
There are some pretty big downsides to proportional representation, though, especially in terms of personal accountability for representatives.
I think that would be going in the wrong direction.
We should be holding representatives MORE personally accountable than we do now.
I don't see GIS mentioned once in the ruling. Here it is for your interest.
As I'd summarize it, the Court merely reaffirmed its existing precedents, saying that while Alabama challenged the old rulings, no, the old rulings were legit.
It wasn't really about any new technology but just about reviewing old decisions and saying they had them right the first time.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
The way I put it, Mastodon is centralized around instances, as opposed to decentralized down to users.
So I say it's federated, not decentralized.
How are taxes going to become real in the Bitcoin future?
@Natureshadow@floss.social
It's tricky because ActivityPub made design choices that put instances, not users, at the center of its operation.
It's really hard to fit distributed identities into such a system.
@h@mymath.rocks @pinkyfloyd @smallcircles @lrhodes @bengo @liaizon
A lot of the country regards California as a basketcase, promoting bad policies and demonstrating extreme mismanagement.
At the least the governor is a very polarizing figure.
My claim is that he got a boost by the indictments. The graph shows an uptick around the indictments, arresting the downtrend in his popularity.
I mean this stuff is widely reported and tracked among conservative media, which is largely what matters, but you can also see it reflected in the RCP tracker...
It seems to me his message was the opposite of inciting violence, telling people not to react, to hold, and not to do anything that could be portrayed as aggression.
Outfits reporting that he's inciting violence through a tweet saying not to get violent are misleading their readers.
https://twitter.com/RepClayHiggins/status/1666978397027803142
Wow, if a person is looking to the Supreme Court to establish rights, they're really not understanding the design of the US government.
No, the Supreme Court is not there to establish any rights. That's a job of the democratic process in the US representative government.
The Supreme Court merely recognizes the rights established by the other branch, is beholden to the other parts of government.
Propublica really does a disservice misinforming the public about key issues of basic civics.
So the headline is a bit misleading: it's not that Congress *can't* touch Jack Smith but that with partisan control split between the House and Senate they will almost definitely refuse to pass legislation that might interfere with his work.
So NOT the result of a right wing wanker. Just people watching what they want to watch.
I think you just haven't been engaging with the conservative world to watch how it's been changing course to back Trump after the indictments.
Spend more time listening to them and you'd see this process playing out.
Just to cite one indicator, you've seen how many Republicans have signed up to run against Trump? That's because his position was so weak as they made their plans and brought on campaign support.
Trump's recent surge toward the presidency wasn't supposed to have happened, and the folks running against him are hoping it's temporary, but with more indictments he's only gaining that much more backing for his presidential run.
Yay..
Sounds like you have not been listening to mainstream conservatives lately.
If you tuned in to talk radio in the last year all of the major conservative radio shows had been throwing Trump overboard before the indictments.
At this point they are trying to figure out how to deal with him being back on the playing board when they know that he's a liability but because of the indictments their audiences are pushing for him to be president.
The guy was over. All of the mainstream conservative outlets we're talking about him as a relic from the past. But these moves reinvigorated him, exactly as he would like, and making him a real possibility for being president again.
I know, it's infuriating to listen to mainstream conservative outlets, but I do it so other people don't have to. And yeah, they were all dunking on Trump as a hasbeen until this reinvigorated his presidential run.
If you listen to polling or mainstream conservative media you would get a very different picture.
Trump's launch of his reelection bed was met with a very striking thud. Mainstream conservatives spent weeks talking about how it was a letdown, how this guy was not worth paying attention to anymore, how he was yesterday's news.
And now these developments have turned him into today's news, breathing life into his struggling campaign.
So many conservatives were happy to be done with him and to move on. But thanks to these prosecutions he has a legitimate chance of becoming president again.
Yay.
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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