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
@Mary625@mstdn.social there's so much misinformation out there though.
For example, the US voted against the ceasefire resolution at the UN because it didn't go far enough, and wouldn't have been strong enough to really promote peace on the ground.
You can see that in the official UN releases, but so much anger on social media gets that story backwards.
@gcblasing@mstdn.social The US expressed concern that the resolution didn't go far enough and wouldn't result in actual piece.
@tsyum think of it as if every post, comment, reply, etc, are all top level posts, just some of them include extra information indicating that in addition to being a post it's referencing what it is in reply to.
So even if you block somebody they can still reply to your post because really they are just making another post, just one with a indicator pointing back to yours.
I hope that makes sense and isn't actually just more confusing :-)
The underlying system doesn't really distinguish between posts and replies. The user interface can present it with replies attached to what they reply to, but that's really about how it displays to the user.
@StarkRG it's more that what you claim happened isn't in the UN report.
You can go through the entire document and you won't find the US saying that those deaths are acceptable. In fact the US says the opposite, but the key is that what you said happened is nowhere in the UN official reports.
Sure thing. We can go right to the UN's own description of the day's events to see that it wasn't as you described.
Here's their press release.
@StarkRG That's a gross misrepresentation of what happened in this political process, and it's really not helpful, since anybody familiar with the resolution actually on the table isn't going to be swayed by that sort of allegation.
No, the US didn't say that.
If we actually want to push for solutions to real international problems, it's not helpful to be so unrealistic about what's actually happening in the world.
@tvrecapsreviews The article makes it sound like they complied with the court order.
@tadbithuman okay, only other hand sometimes rejecting symbolism actually promotes substantial change by not letting people get sidetracked in symbols.
But none of that means this was anything other than an empty gesture.
Sounds like maybe we can at least agree that this was symbolic and not an actual referendum on actual peace.
You sound optimistic that the symbol would have turned into something real. I am certain it would not have. But at the least, it was just a symbolic gesture the politicians were posturing around, regardless of which of us was correct.
@tadbithuman ... they do which is why we need to call it out when it happens, like in this present case.
@Sobieck If you listen to mainstream Republicans they often take the opposite stance, saying that this administration has squandered the chance to help Ukrainians win, with Republicans bashing the administration for slow walking really vital armaments.
Many mainstream Republicans are demanding that the administration lay out its plan for changing how it has been engaging with Ukraine, to actually give Ukraine more support than the lackluster support it has been offering so far.
@tadbithuman it's not American opposition to ceasefire
It's the American government putting up symbolic opposition to a symbolic resolution that would have had no practical effect anyway.
We should not take that political posturing too seriously. It just encourages them to do more of it.
@StarkRG the UN resolution was only symbolic, though. It carried no real weight.
So this was a symbolic veto of a symbolic resolution, just a game.
There was and is no real ceasefire bid on the table, and we shouldn't buy into the posturing of these politicians.
@GuyDudeman annoyingly, so far the strategy has just made it more likely that Trump would be rotting in the Oval Office, laughing all the way back into power.
@starsider Well right, that's what I'm saying.
Trump doesn't really think anything in particular. He just mimics the audience back at them.
That's why it's much more important to focus on the audience than on Trump, because he's just an empty suit that the audience is projecting onto.
So many people really miss that, trying to engage as if Trump is the root cause, but he's not. It's the audience that needs to be engaged with.
@jupiter_rowland Right, so we should encourage the Mastodon developers to focus on empowering users to make that kind of decision.
Mastodon should do better.
It all contributes, though.
Just like how if I'm hanging out with a friend and talk about Coca-Cola it builds the brand, it doesn't really matter if Elon is on Mastodon (and to be honest I figure he is) his whole schtick is trolling people to get them talking about him, so whether he sees it or not, it plays into his game.
It's better to just ignore him. That's how to treat all trolls.
@siderea part of the issue might be that you're focused on Mastodon when it's just part of the larger ActivityPub system.
Even if we accept that the follow follower relationship is core to Mastodon--which I really don't, it's just one optional feature--It sounds to me like you're describing a change to the underlying protocol that would impact other interfaces to the platform.
Otherwise, like I said, it could just be handled as an option that each individual user could choose in terms of which notifications they do or don't receive.
As for a relationship, I have no idea who anybody here is, just random people on the internet. These people think I'm keen? On the internet nobody knows you're a dog, and I'm honestly not that interesting.
Again: I often will boost things that I'm not actually interested in talking about, that I think are worth other people talking about, so I'm happy not to be in those conversations.
And again, I think that's where QT comes in.
If I want to start a new conversation, if I want to make sure I'm at the center of some conversation, I might QT a post.
But more importantly under your proposal I would be missing out in conversations I'm actually interested in, ones I actually participate in, with the link between the conversation broken by the boost.
@smallcircles Elon has these wet dreams of people staying up late at night talking about him.
Oh hey!
Y'all are feeding the trolls.
@siderea it's because if I boost something it means I am pointing to somebody else's conversation, it is saying if anybody is interested in this topic, hey there's a neat conversation going on over there.
There's a good chance I'm not even in the conversation, maybe it's not even interesting to me but I think it might be interesting to other people, so I point other people over to that other conversation that they might be interested in.
Meanwhile when I DO contribute something to a conversation and somebody boosts my own contribution, I appreciate that they are directing others toward joining into what we're talking about.
Let me emphasize that in everything I said above I didn't mention followers once. You talk about "your followers" as if there's some sort of ownership, but that's not at all how someone like me approaches social media. I really don't care who does or doesn't follow me, how many people follow me, any of that. I never look at that number because it's just not interesting to me.
I think that might be one thing you're having trouble understanding, that difference.
As far as I'm concerned I don't have followers, if someone wants to follow my account, great! If they don't, great! I don't know those people, so it just doesn't matter to me.
Any day of the week I'm having all the conversations I could possibly want on this platform without once looking at the follower list. That's all I care about.
If I get bored I'll go away, but so long as I'm having conversations with people I get value out of it, and so far it's remained interesting enough for me to stick around.
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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