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
volkris
boosted
The International Standards Organization has defined a new time measurement, the fedisecond, which is the shortest humanly-measurable unit of time.
A fedisecond is defined as the interval between the announcement of an exciting new #fediverse application and the discovery that the project's lead architect and principal developer is actually Satan.
Meh, it's one of those terms that I'd just go ahead and own.
"Why yes, I am engaging in both-sidism because I can about sorting out what's true, and I can think critically and hold two ideas in my head at one time. You don't, or you can't?"
They are two different transactions.
You spend money to me purchasing the idea that I'll pay back the loan with interest.
I spend money to you when I write you a check in exchange for retiring my debt.
The fact that I might not write those checks (I might die or drag us through court or have a president unilaterally declare that I don't have to) shows that those are independent transactions.
In this case, the US already spent the money on these loans. For better or worse. That's over and done with.
Now the issue is whether debtors pay back into the US Treasury as per the legal obligation, so it's no longer about the US spending but rather the US receiving.
Wooow, I see her ragequit reply, where she effectively said "nu uh!" and insisted that we all knew she was right.
I would assume she's one that has outstanding student loans so she has a vested interest in loan forgiveness.
And so I'd guess that the education she wants us all to pay for didn't exactly do her thinking skills a world of good.
I wonder if she ever ragequit a class... and how that worked out for her.
Ha, don't overcomplicate things :)
No need for geometry here!
If I need to know what a Supreme Court ruling says, I should simply go read the Supreme Court ruling from their website.
No sense triangulating with multiple people at the bar. Simply go read the primary source!
No, forgiving a loan is not spending. That's getting the math backwards.
If I don't bring in money I haven't spent. Wrong side of the balance sheet. My lack of income isn't an expense; it's a lack of income.
Yes, sometimes people engage in legal or accounting fictions surrounding this, but I think we need to push back and remember when we're speaking in convenient analogies.
It's like saying if I don't mug my neighbor I've lost the $100 that's in his pocket. No, that's just funky accounting.
There are two different types of federal judges in the US government, the Supreme Court, established by the Constitution directly, as an independent branch and those serving on "inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."
Arguably Congress has command over those inferior courts since it's up to Congress to establish them, but it'd be a breach of judicial independence and a violation of coequal branches for Congress to be able to order around the Supreme Court.
Check out this link. I find it useful both to understand how Mastodon behaves AND to illustrate how ActivityPub engages with platforms in general.
This is a summary of how Mastodon maps ActivityPub protocol elements into its user experience.
https://docs.joinmastodon.org/spec/activitypub/
@jupiter_rowland
I'd say think of it like how the same website might be sent to both a modern web browser displaying to a large screen AND to an ancient greyscale cellphone.
ActivityPub takes care of broadcasting content to different applications, but after that it's up to the application to figure out what in the world to do with it.
Yeah, the ancient cell phone interface might not do too well with a modern webpage, but http leaves that up to the phone to figure out :)
I've heard (but not confirmed) that some lemmy domains are having issues with firewalls blocking them, maybe as DDOS avoidance features, so your instance is unable to reach out and see if the user exists.
I've heard that from multiple people and forum posts at this point.
Well, it would be a violation of the coequal branches design of the US government, not to mention a violation of judicial independence, so I'm thinking it wasn't something to be taken seriously.
Keep in mind that Congress wrote their appropriations bills based on reliance that these student loans would be paid back.
By law, Congress regularly cites these payments as part of the legal budget, no different from any other tax.
Biden cannot legally decline to collect this money any more than he can just decide not to collect corporate taxes any more.
That these student loan payments are part of the legal funding of government is a point all too often overlooked.
The problem is that so many of those people formed their opinions based exactly on those other sources that you rightfully criticize.
In this Internet age we have so many public records instantly available at our fingertips, directly from primary sources.
That's where I'd suggest to go looking for truth.
Ha, to me that strikes me not so much as Fediverse being better than users choosing to make Reddit worse, which is a different problem.
ActivityPub and http have very different design goals and so are designed very differently, especially in terms of push vs pull and resource usage.
Just to name one issue, ActivityPub is designed to protect scalability by trying to only send content to other instances that have actually shown interest in it ahead of time. So if my post is sent to your instance only, an indexer that's not already involved wouldn't even know the content exists to be indexed.
ActivityPub is only global in the sense that the English language is. Just because there are people all around the world speaking it doesn't mean they all hear a conversation I have in the coffee shop.
I do! The whole tone of mainstream conservative media changed once the indictments started.
Earlier in the year major conservative figures were really turning on the guy, bashing him day after day, discouraging him from running again. And even his announcement was met with criticism over campaign strategy rather than celebration.
All of that changed with the Bragg indictment as now people are backing him despite who he is just to stand up to what they see as confirmation that The Man really is out to get them.
These indictments are the best campaign fodder Trump could have hoped for, and the response of professional commentators shows it.
That might get a bit more dramatic as people with a lot of interest in keeping journalism funded might push back on it.
It's one thing to "steal" cat videos from YouTube, but there's a large constituency that's concerned about any move that further erodes financing of the press.
One reason I'm emphasizing that indictments are at the discretion of prosecutors is simply because we need to keep that judgment issue in mind when voting. Basic civics.
BUT, there are some other complications. What choice would we make if the prosecution made it more likely for Trump to win reelection? Is it really worth it to have him in court if it also meant having him as president?
Each person might answer that question differently. It's a complex topic.
It might be better for society as a whole to let one old, guilty man go without facing a judge rather than giving him this promotion, this megaphone for him to continue spewing bullshit into society.
That's the kind of question we ask prosecutors to weigh.
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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