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
To answer @me 's comment (the thread is not on my instance),
You're asking why Fediverse participation would be different from normal corporate hosting, and then you bring up questions about defederation, and I'd say those questions do a pretty good job of saying why it would be different.
Going from a legal, reliable relationship with one professional company to a system where unknown amateurs around the world can impact your reach is a really big jump.
@Miro_Collas I mean, friends waiving debts between them isn't that weird.
@manton except, people blame Biden for economic problems we've been having.
His campaign did try to reframe that narrative over the last month or so with a long series of high profile events, but it didn't really change things.
The public blames Biden for economic problems, and that means it's not a strength he can rest a solid campaign on.
@Jeffrey_Smith@mastodon.social "The question is, Shall the objection to the Arizona electoral college vote count [..] be agreed to."
Notice the absence of any mention of certifying in the question that your own screenshot spelled out explicitly.
In part that's because certifying happens in the states, so it wasn't even a possibility here.
The claim never happened and couldn't have happened, and the record you provided showed that it didn't happen, but we're still to believe it happened?
No. That's gaslighting.
Well, it's not really about peer-to-peer since in the ActivityPub model all of the instances stand as peers.
I'd more say it's not user-to-user.
But it DOES make Fediverse less centralized, which we can see from the protocol talking about instances managing their centralized content feeds to the user-facing implications like moderation.
All users on an instance are bound by the single set of administrative decisions made by the instance operator, the one, central node of processing and configuration.
And the one, singular point of failure the instance represents.
Sure, a person can leave and join a different instance, but that's just going from one central operator serving one group of users to another.
So yes, this does make Fediverse less decentralized than some alternatives, and IMO it makes it not particularly decentralized at all.
It just makes for more centers.
@dsfgs @Mastodon @msaunders
@dsfgs I think a lot of your reply both describes symptoms of not being truly decentralized AND reasons I criticize that point.
So that's why I emphasize the issue that ActivityPub is not really decentralized. **Federated**, sure, but centralized around instances.
And I emphasize the lack of decentralization as part of trying to oppose that potential of further centralization.
@mnutty I don't know how you go from "We shouldn't hand the administration this power to spend" to adoration of autocracy.
If they adored autocracy they would be stumbling over themselves to give the autocrat such spending power.
@bojkotiMalbona that sounds like a useful and interesting project, especially if someone manages to nail a UI to access it effectively.
@pglpm@emacs.ch
@clueless_capybara I think things are just by nature kind of disorganized around here, still kind of new, with people still figuring out how best to use the platform.
As you can imagine, the setup here raises all sorts of weird questions like, "What should my photo sharing platform do when someone sends it an essay? Or an audio file?"
It's kind of a wild west without a central authority, but that's just part of the situation when you move away from central authority.
@chrisgeidner That's not at all. What happened?.
@pixelpusher220 Right, because the breathless sensational clickbait against Thomas hasn't really convinced enough of the public to trigger that ultimate action against him.
Because it's so clearly a result of a biased witch hunt instead of substantial complaint at this point.
This is how the system is supposed to work. The independent judiciary has been able to remain independent, at least so far.
There's always the solution of respecting the independence of the judiciary over and above one's political preferences in this democratic system.
The thing is, this platform was not designed to actually be decentralized. To its core, this platform is centralized around instances.
In my opinion, that's not quite right. There are a lot of problems with it. And I do criticize it every chance I can.
@lauren fact: If you're looking to kill a bunch of people, you might not be checking the legalities of carry.
@basichornyhubby except that these claims have been debunked by checking out primary sources.
Yes, this is how these claims have been spun, but they're not factually true.
@Jeffrey_Smith@mastodon.social and you can see how that screenshot it is specified in the Congressional Record that the question on the table was not the issue of certifying the electoral vote of Arizona.
So yes, exactly, the claim against the guy is false, and your own screenshot proves it!
@Laukidh Well it's the difference between a state and its population.
I'd go with saying "Israel" is a state defined by its administration, but that word doesn't capture the population, just like any other country.
@opalmirror the problem is that Democrats' voting strategies pushed them into a corner where it was either this or keep the Congress shut down as government ran out of funding.
They couldn't just ignore the nutjobs so long as Democrats were voting to make theirs mathematically significant.
@mnutty well, the reluctance seems to be wanting more information about how the support is being managed, not the support itself.
A lot of Republicans are concerned that there isn't enough effective support. They are in favor of support, just not what they see as ineffective support.
This is a very critical distinction.
@GuyNamedBrian hey, just remember, there are serious arguments that the federal law specifying the Speaker as second in line is unconstitutional as Speakers aren't members of the Cabinet!
So instead of having Johnson as president we'd just have utter chaos as THAT argument is dealt with.
@danwentzel that's a mischaracterization of what the article presents, though.
The examples CNN provides don't support criminalizing of gay sex, but rather call out the Supreme Court for supposedly overstepping its authority to do the opposite, to insist on nullifying laws.
That's an argument about how federal and state courts interact, which is a serious topic, not one in favor of calling states to adopt certain laws, which is pretty much the opposite.
And that's not even getting into his writing as part of his job as a lawyer involved in a case.
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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