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
@LeftistLawyer I really don't think many people really learn or grow on social media platforms, and in my experience it seems like this platform is particularly uninterested in such growth.
It's just a bunch of people confirming their biases.
@dshafik IMO, which I absolutely admit is not fully informed, it seems like the way to handle, understanding and thinking about the whole situation is mainly through the lens of tragically huge political functions.
For generations political figures have followed personal self-interests to set up and promote dangerous political situations from which all of this bloodshed has arisen over all of these years.
Unfortunately, the interests of the international community have helped promote those interests of the politicians directly involved.
IMO this is all about ongoing political failure, and sadly there is no resolution in sight.
My point is that if I understand your post correctly, it's looking for a way to view all of this, and this is my way to view it all.
@LeftistLawyer it's not though
@TheOldGuy wow, this article is really trying to stoke some drama.
But in reality maybe people just turned away from the speech because it honestly wasn't very good.
That's the simpler explanation, the one that matches what I've seen anyway.
@the_Effekt this kind of conspiracy theory story just never really makes any sense.
If efficient options were out there, then the big evil corporations could make more profit by engaging the more efficient options.
Why would they give up earnings?
No, Occam's razor tells us that it's not really what's happening, the efficiencies are overstated or non-existent.
And a whole bunch of people are writing stories to get clicks because they get money from misleading the public about this sort of thing.
@LeftistLawyer I think people might be taking away the wrong lesson from this anecdote.
For one it looks like compared to the baseline the algorithm does a pretty good job of giving him what he wants to see.
For another, well maybe the baseline is serving up what the remaining people on Twitter want to see.
Not a bug, a feature.
This is another point where I just end up thinking, with so many "good" people leaving Twitter, is it any surprise that what's left on Twitter is not the good people, who have left?
Well what did you think would happen.
@SocialistStan@mymastadon.link reform, replace, whichever
At the moment the US is spending a ton of money on those programs, so get to it, trying to convince other people to stop spending resources that way.
@jeffowski
@SocialistStan@mymastadon.link Great! So get to work talking to representatives, running for office, and doing everything else needed to change the world.
But for now we are paying schools to teach a lot of things including compliance and conformity.
Complaining about it is like ordering a hamburger from McDonald's and then complaining that there's beef in it.
October 3rd.
210 to 8.
Here's the voting record.
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2023519?Page=2
@SocialistStan@mymastadon.link It doesn't matter what I think about it, it is what it is, it is what society has chosen.
Whether I think it's a good or bad doesn't change that it is what we're doing.
@fortboise Well the voting rolls disprove that claim as Republicans voted to continue funding government despite conservative ideology, and then overwhelmingly voted to keep the House running again regardless of ideology.
I understand people promoting narratives like this that serve partisan purposes, but they just don't hold water when compared to the factual record.
@SocialistStan@mymastadon.link exactly.
So that's why it makes sense to penalize people for not hitting their deadlines.
@ravirockks I don't know what you're talking about, but I suspect that in general yes, whether or not a gun shoots butter is indeed an either or.
@nonlinear weird definition of defense
@jeffowski Well yeah.
And ability to work within and with such systems is one facet of education.
So you are correct, and I'm glad to inform you that there's no reason to die on that hill.
Nobody who understands education is fighting you.
@ZGoldenReport there's such a track record of such reports being debunked later that it's hard to believe them now.
@grumble209 I honestly don't know why you're so obsessed with CEOs here.
But no, in general CEOs don't get to choose their own business models. That's just not how corporations operate in the real world.
Profits do not create costs. That's just not how legitimate accounting works.
Profits are income minus costs, profits are the situation after costs are already deducted, so it just doesn't make mathematical sense to talk about profits creating costs.
Exxon Mobil may have submitted money to the US Treasury but you know where that money came from? Customers.
Every person who went to an Exxon gas station was charged to pay that tax bill. No matter how poor you were, no matter how much you were struggling to balance your checking account at the end of the month, you ended up paying that taxation which is a huge problem.
Corporations aren't people. We should not talk as if they are for the sake of taxation.
Thank goodness Exxon was able to minimize its taxation as much as it did or else it would have had to take even more from a whole lot of people who couldn't afford it.
Oh you're going into that whole thing about the gas and oil industry being subsidized. So much of that is easily debunked, based on these sensationalized claims that just don't really match how the federal government functions.
Those claims make for a good story, they get a lot of clicks, but they're just not reality.
But regardless of that, it still doesn't excuse what we're talking about here. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Let's get out of messing with the corporate balance sheets. Whether that's oil industry or any other. Let's just avoid that complication altogether.
You're talking about the average person versus corporations, but let's just talk about people paying their fair share, and corporations are not people.
Every bit that you tax from a corporation eventually comes from a person, so let's not go through that taxation through other steps where we cannot make it progressive because we can't control who is buying from the corporation.
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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