volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@dangillmor keep in mind, we voted for this situation.

It's not that democracy is fragile. It's that people vote for dumb things.

Every one of the representatives in Congress was elected by the democratic process. And if we want change we need to stop re-electing the same dumbasses.

We re-elect them election after election, so we approve of this stuff. And we should probably not.

@matt5sean3 well most importantly keep in mind that bureaucracy is about individual employees trying to maintain their relevance so they can keep getting paid for what they do.

Whether it is about submission of information or being a pain in the ass is really secondary. It's about that person at that keyboard trying to remain relevant and keep their job.

@rticks@mastodon.social well that's my point, to call out the undefensible, and I sure wish more people on this platform would join me.

@taylorlorenz @caseynewton

@MugsysRapSheet well think about it this way, consider the design of the mission.

Why were they ditching the booster in the Gulf instead of having it return to land so that it could be reused? Why didn't they even open the possibility for making the ship orbital?

Everything about this mission was designed with the expectation that the rocket was going to explode.

Everything about the applications to the FAA, all of the notices sent out to marine traffic, the decision not to try to land the booster, all of it.

Again I'm sorry that you didn't see these reports ahead of the launch, but that just means you need better news sources. Because it wasn't a secret, and if you need evidence, just look at the design of the mission.

If SpaceX really thought this lunch was anything approaching the final, operational rocket that it would have tried to reuse the booster. They didn't because they knew it wouldn't be from the beginning.

@Ghandralph @carlysagan

@_9CL7T9k8cjnD_ I got a chuckle about your post grouping people based on grouping people
@DamienMarieAtHope

@Ferrichrome really it's that I want to call attention to this issue that really leads us to a very unfortunate place in society, where people are divided into different camps because without faith in journalism they end up believing entirely different sets of facts.

NPR giving up audience so willingly is both a symptom and a cause for that very antisocial situation.

If people aren't hearing from NPR then they're going to be hearing from someone like Alex Jones or Trump or whoever else.

I don't think it's good that NPR basically handed its microphone to them.

@charmainewimpiris @knova @taylorlorenz @caseynewton

@vruz@mastodon.social done!

@lauren Meh.

One issue is that people disagree on what constitutes hate speech.

@vruz@mastodon.social far right libertarian?

I'd say most libertarians stand in opposition to the far right.

@cdarwin this is one of those cases where the theory persists because of reluctance to actually definitively answer the question.

Yeah I know it's annoying for officials to have to deal with this kind of thing, but that's part of governance in a democratic system. The people ask annoying questions, but that's how people are, and officials need to be responsive to them because if they aren't then these theories grow in the vacuum.

@MugsysRapSheet if you didn't know they were expected to blow up, then I don't think you were listening to a broad variety of sources, because pretty much every source I had been hearing from pointed out that these were only tests with a high likelihood of blowing up before splashing down.

So again I would encourage you to broaden your news sources, at least. If I was to go farther I would say to stop listening to the ones that misled you, but at least get more reporting from different places.

These two ships were brand new and they were attempting things that had a very high likelihood of not going right the first time.

Yes, they were expected to blow up. In fact the detonation system that you refer to was in place specifically because there was a high likelihood that it would have to be used because these ships were unlikely to make it all the way.

@Ghandralph @carlysagan

@girlabtvillage guess what doctors are?

Well in most countries anyway, they tend to be private sector actors.

They don't work for free.

@MatWright yeah, they really broke the process during COVID when the independent advisors weren't giving the answers that were wanted from them, so they just stopped asking.

I don't know if they ever put the process back together, but I can imagine it did a tremendous amount of damage.

@MugsysRapSheet the problem with your comparison is that you are comparing a production vehicle against a R&D platform.

The two starships that were launched were expected to blow up. They were pathfinder missions to collect data that would eventually result in a ship that won't blow up.

If you really want to make this comparison against space shuttle then you need to include all of the rockets that blew up before the shuttle was finalized, and that's not even getting into the difference in capability between the two platforms.

@Ghandralph @carlysagan

@charmainewimpiris you've never heard an NPR station crow about its state association?
I actually find that hard to believe since I've lived in various regions of the US, and the local stations always proudly identified their affiliations wherever I was living.

But yeah, that's my answer to your question. Thanks for asking. I still don't get why you thought the question was particularly important, but apparently you didn't like my answer so ::shrug::

@taylorlorenz @caseynewton

@knova being off Twitter means that NPR is giving up access to connecting to readers on Twitter.

And all over a grudge that gives critics of NPR more ammunition to call the institution out for putting opinion over solid reporting.

And to what benefit? Giving up audience voluntarily while wearing such opening for criticism on the sleeve... why?

It really gives journalism as a whole a black eye exactly when people are already tuning out because they've lost faith, exactly over stuff like this.

Again, to what benefit? I see only downside to those choices.

@charmainewimpiris @taylorlorenz @caseynewton

@ignova I never said it was intolerable.

Taxation is a necessary evil to fund government in a modern society.

However, as we set tax policy we need to balance the real world implications and the real world impacts of the tax regimes that we settle on.

So this will make it harder for families to afford houses, and it will make it harder for travelers to find places to stay, but maybe we decide that those are acceptable costs to fund the social programs that we find important.

It's fine to make that trade off. We just have to be conscious of the costs as we do.

@charmainewimpiris of course they are right because NPR is state affiliated, as NPR stations everywhere I've ever lived have proudly boasted.

Not that I think it matters what Twitter says.

But yes, Twitter echoed NPR's self-identification there, so I don't know why you're asking. Again, particularly because it's not substantial.

@taylorlorenz @caseynewton

@izzaboo @anildash but that's my point: let's not dump power into them.

It kind of gets it backwards to dump power and then expect morality. Instead we should deny them power BECAUSE we can't expect morality.

They are the wrong tools for the job. It's akin to buying more and more expensive screwdrivers when what you need is a wrench. No, let's stop putting more and more faith in corporations to be moral leaders in society and instead recognize that it's not what they are really able to do so they should be disempowered.

@fgcallari @dwineman