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
Republicans had many different objections to VAWA starting with the complaint that it was redundant and simply unnecessary given other elements of US federal law.
To frame it as the GOP wanting a free for all on guns is a huge stretch, particularly in the face of Republicans supporting gun laws already on the books.
@lauren
That's the opposite of what I hear when I talk to Republicans and listen to their mainstream outlets, where they're plenty supportive of restrictions on firearm ownership by dangerous people.
Again, if you have a source to cite of a mainstream conservative calling for an end to all gun laws, feel free to share it.
But what you're saying here is the complete opposite of my experience.
I mean, it's a ridiculous thing to ask.
Responding with silence is probably the right response to such a trolling question.
@watson@freeatlantis.com
I mean, since Trump can't win the Electoral College, working to get him off the ballot is probably a good idea for Republicans.
If they can get Democrats to help then all the better: Democrats would be the source of their own loss in the election in that case.
Wow, month after month of evidence being presented, civil servants sounding alarms, insiders testifying under oath to call attention to wrongdoing, and we have posts like this saying flatly that there's no evidence?
Anyone keeping up with developments coming out of DC will know there's evidence, whether or not it ends up being conclusive after further investigation.
It's fine to say the evidence is weak. It's ridiculous to claim it doesn't exist.
I think so many want to focus on dramatic narratives around #McCarthy personally while overlooking that his story merely reflects the state of the country that elected a bunch of representatives who can't get along.
WE made this bed and we have to lie in it.
McCarthy is going to be fine. I'm sure he has income for life and a fine house and all of that.
But we will all suffer because we elected and reelected morons to #Congress who aren't interested in actually making the government function.
It's a problem that we focus on the reality tv-like story revolving around McCarthy instead of focusing on our role in needing representatives who actually work together to find common ground.
I mean, this is the Biden administration saying that these transactions were troubling.
I'm not watching news here. I'm watching the accusations coming directly out of civil servants of Biden's own administration.
And so Congress is looking to follow up on their reports to figure out if there is anything to them.
I'm not asking you to do anything.
If you'd like to be informed then you have some reading to do, but it's up to you.
If you're happy to go about your day without knowing what's going on in DC I completely respect that.
Whether a person wants to be informed or not is really up to them.
18 USC 201?
I don't see anything in there that prevents me from tipping the cashier at the convenience store.
But that's not quite factually correct.
*A* hostname and *an* IP address system are controlled by those organizations, but we're welcome to use different systems, to point our computers at different DNS resolvers for example.
So it sounds like you're arguing that things are centralized so long one only considers specific, central authorities.
Like, all computers are manufactured by one, single, central company, so long as a person only considers IBM.
Meanwhile, as you said we have a variety of distributed alternatives for the network infrastructure ranging from wireless (WiFi) through cellular.
I don't see how that cause is inconsistent with the goal of becoming an interplanetary species.
Seems to me that we can be both moral and able to travel to other plants.
I don't think that's a common definition of the term fascism.
Certainly the images that come to mind involve authoritarians who don't care so much about promoting business.
Care to cite sources?
Because everything I hear from mainstream Republican outlets says the opposite, that guns should be taken away from such people.
I wonder where you're getting that.
Well perhaps if you knew more about it you might have a different sense of the effects of it.
One of the fundamental elements of Citizens United is that the rich always have influence in the US government, and the question before the court had nothing to do with them. The matter in CU was whether the rest of us would be able to associate to speak up against them and counter their claims.
So much of what we see now is exactly what the argument in CU was opposed to, but unfortunately the reporting on the case has been so terrible that people don't realize it.
Your proposing this conspiracy theory that just doesn't match the simple text coming out of the Supreme Court.
Your theory is debunked by the facts of the ruling.
This has nothing to do with my opinion. This is what the Supreme Court ruled, regardless of my opinion, and the conspiracy theory that you are spending just doesn't match up with the facts of the case.
Harlan Crow didn't declare that the federal government cannot suppress speech against public officials. That is a constitutional decision not up to Crow, one that is reflective of liberal values.
Again, if you think there's a conspiracy plot out there to protect our rights to criticize the rich and powerful, well...
I really don't know why right wing keeps getting brought up when this was a ruling firmly in the tradition of the left wing.
It's like, there's this conspiracy theory that we really need to support regardless of the facts of the situation which would debunk it.
It's more important to promote this conspiracy theory than actually look at the liberal sway of the ruling? More important to promote the sensational clickbait account in the press than appreciate that the ruling was about speaking truth to power?
I just think this is a very unhealthy way to go.
@dogcanyon meh, I know quite a few Democrats who use that term.
@SNerd you haven't seen the months of evidence that they've been publicly releasing?
From government records about troubling bank transactions through public testimony delivered under oath through even Biden's own words?
You say without any evidence as if whatever news sources you're following have been declining to carry all of the evidence that has been coming out for months if not years.
But when we elect *and reelect* the government representatives who push for this stuff, that's not fascism, that's democracy.
It's our fault for electing these people.
You say that, and yet the freedom caucus is making a TON of noise about how McCarthy has not delivered on what they wanted.
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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