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
@BeAware@social.beaware.live Well again, their approach is different from ActivityPub in that they don't emphasize the role of admins, making it about users first over and above instances.
Anyway, in theory they have released all of their software open source on git, if I recall correctly, so anybody is welcome to start their own system.
Of course, practicality is a different matter...
@BeAware@social.beaware.live
Ah, well then you might find this two second statement of their goals interesting. It's one of the things I'm really interested in since like you I find Mastodon a bit underdeveloped for shaping experience.
> As with Web search engines, users are free to select their aggregators. Feeds, App Views, and search indices can be provided by independent third parties, with requests routed by the PDS based on user configuration.
I know that's just the elevator pitch without details, but I remembered coming across it and figured I'd share the link.
@danwentzel The 14th Amendment is about taking office, not about ballot access.
And the question before the court today isn't even about that, but as an appeal of a state court ruling the question is whether the state court acted properly.
Ballot access is a matter of state law that the 14th Amendment is silent on.
It's important to realize the question the Court is actually grappling with so as not to misinterpret its conclusion.
@dcdeejay well they don't have to bridge that divide, and the general principle is that courts should not be bridging divides that aren't in front of them.
The question today isn't even whether Trump can or can't remain on the ballot. The appeal is to consider whether the CO court made an error in it's own judgment about ballot access.
That's it!
They aren't even supposed to be re-litigating the lower court's finding, but just reviewing the process to make sure it was followed correctly as per state law.
So eligibility to serve is a question even farther out of their present jurisdiction to tackle.
@katrinakatrinka well I'm trying to find the common ground!
That's why I'm asking things like, can we at least agree that there are three branches? We share that reality, right?
@darnell again I have to emphasize that this is an appeal of the CO state court decision implementing CO state law with regard to CO ballot access.
Colorado, like all states, is perfectly free to run ballots however they'd like, subject to few constraints. They don't need SCOTUS approval to remove Trump from their ballots.
The question before the Court is whether the CO court followed CO rules about ballot access.
That's the question the Court has jurisdiction to answer and the one it accepted.
Appeals are very different from initial hearings.
@BeAware@social.beaware.live their system gives users much MORE control, not less, since users are at the center.
Users get more control over their content, more control over how it's distributed, and where they get content from, and how it's presented to them from different aggregation sources.
It sounds like you're really focused on domain names and user handles, but a huge part of the BlueSky approach is to not make such things so important in the first place.
In ActivityPub a user is defined by the instance, so that stuff matters a whole lot.
In BlueSky they specifically didn't want to do that sort of thing, making users more independent of instances in the first place
@CaroltheCrone they discussed that at length in Roe.
@TruthSandwich@mastodon.cloud
That's fine.
I'd just suggest keeping keeping this in mind in case you ever do come across such folks.
You might immediately think that must be hearing them wrong, but no, there's a good chance they're being honest.
@katrinakatrinka yes, we could spend all day picking and choosing our preferred experts to echo our sides, but we don't need to since we can see for ourselves what's laid out plain to see.
How many branches are there in the US government? Surely we can agree that there are three, right?
Well, with only three branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, there is no room for a fourth branch for the DOJ.
Therefore, the DOJ must be acting on authority of the president, in whom all executive power is vested.
We could change this and add a fourth branch if we'd like, but so far, that's the fundamental design of the US government.
Obvious? No, not at all, certainly not legally.
If it was obvious then states wouldn't have bothered passing legislation addressing the question, which they did, because it's not obvious.
If the 14th wanted to ban people from ballots it could have done so, but there are good reasons not to have done that.
So no, the 14th definitely doesn't, by its own words, ban anybody from a ballot.
You may want them banned from ballots, and I disagree with that approach, but at the least you should be able to see that there's a difference.
@darnell no, it's not. If the court was to decide that, then it would need such a question before it.
I shared the question directly from the court above. It was a different question.
The question, according to the plaintiffs and the Court itself, is whether the CO court erred, not whether Trump is guilty.
Sometimes courts do get guilt wrong even though they followed the law correctly. They are two different issues, and the appeals court only looks at the law, not the guilt.
Right, he was ordered removed from office, not the ballot.
As for law, the judge acted under New Mexico law citing NMSA 1978 section 44.
You're welcome to read it in the judge's opinion, linked here.
It's not me saying it's state law. It's the judge saying they were acting through state law.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/D101CV202200473-griffin.pdf
@darnell and I pointed out in the other comment that there are vast legal differences between the CREW case and this one.
But another issue is that the Supreme Court only has authority to rule on questions put before it.
The question here, on appeal, is a purely legal question, and it is not whether Trump is an insurrectionist.
The question is:
>Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot?
It's mainly a matter of law. Did CO break its state laws when ordering Trump excluded?
Remember, so often SCOTUS issues rulings where it emphasizes that its place as an appeals court is not to determine guilt or innocence. Its place is just to make sure legal procedures were followed.
@darnell he wasn't banned from the ballot, he was removed from office, which is exactly one distinction I was pointing out.
It was also a motion under New Mexico law, not federal law, with a different court.
So yep, that case really highlights the parts missing from what people are saying about the Supreme Court case.
Different court, different laws, different question before the court, just a vastly different circumstance.
@uncircuitous@universeodon.com what so many miss is that there's a difference of factual understanding that can't be bridged by something like this.
Once the speaker rests an argument on something believed to be already debunked, the rest goes nowhere.
So he's not laying anything out for MAGA minds. He's not speaking their language.
It's really just choir preaching, which gets us nowhere.
@pre keep in mind that there are a variety of arguments on the table as to why the 14th doesn't prevent Trump from office.
Off the top of my head, there's the matter of what constitutes an officer of the US, what is required for guilt with regard to the article, the process for determining that guilt, etc.
The 14th doesn't take effect unless all of those links in the chain are found to be solid. Any single one of them being weak would nullify the amendment to this case.
The idea of insisting that he wasn't involved is only one of many arguments at play here.
@darnell the Court doesn't have legal authority to ban Trump from the ballot in America.
That access is a matter of state law that the federal court simply doesn't have any authority over.
@mousey no, I'm not saying there's too much data to be useful.
I'm saying success comes down to things beyond the control of platforms, things like timing, interested users just happening to log on at the same time.
A platform can do its best to nudge it to happen, but there's only so much it can do.
@codinghorror @jwz
@NeptuneCaffeine@mstdn.social lots of people getting on Fediverse out of irrational want to stick it to BlueSky? :)
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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