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
@dcjohnson as long as we're clear that it's all based on the voters.
It's not big money preventing government from doing things. It's voters voting in support of these policies.
So if you want change you'll have to bring voters around to your perspective. However, realistically that's not going to happen any time soon, and that's the reality you have to work within.
Until you can somehow create this massive shift in the entire population, your tax ideas are nothing but idle theory.
@hankg I mean... facts.
But sure, have a nice day.
@hankg I think the key there is to reconsider just how much power Trump has when push comes to shove.
Yes, he has his cult of followers who are happy to believe and repeat that black is white, but so many serious figures with actual significance don't so much follow Trump as they try to deal with the gadflies that are such a hassle.
One example of this is when Trump has to reverse some dumb position he took because he didn't know how the world works. His cult will pretend he always believed that, but the significant figures in the GOP will have gotten in touch to correct him, as one does a small child.
But yep, this is an occasion when we should be loudly highlighting that with this ruling, Trump broke the law to take peoples' guns away (whether we want that or not).
It's the real way to marginalize him. Promoting him as powerful only amplifies his power.
@hankg the ATF wasn't reinterpreting a rule they invented. It was reinterpreting a law passed by the legislators we elected.
The job of the Supreme Court is ABSOLUTELY not to be reasonable. That's the job of the people we elect to Congress, primarily.
If we elect and reelect lawmakers making unreasonable laws, well, we should knock that off.
The job of the Court is to respect that we apparently want unreasonable laws.
That's democracy for ya.
@BeAware@social.beaware.live
It's all in the ActivityPub protocol that I'll link below. If you read it, it's strikingly clear that there is no actual guarantee that your permissions will be honored. In fact, the standard uses the term "SHOULD" quite a lot when leaving servers free to ignore your privacy notation.
Are you familiar with the FRS radios? They had a feature called privacy codes, where a group of people would set the same code to communicate. BUT, really all of the comms were all on the same channel, but the codes simply filtered out what one wanted to hear.
So they provided no actual privacy, just the illusion of it.
Same thing here, unfortunately. The ActivityPub protocol is largely a broadcast protocol, sending content into the cloud with only suggestions as to who should see it.
You can believe that every link in the chain will behave and respect your wishes, but a scraper is free to ignore them and do what they want even if your post is marked private.
@BeAware@social.beaware.live again, that's not how this platform works.
Behind the scenes, it doesn't matter if you make your posts followers only or not, the way this platform is engineered behind the scenes, the content goes to people who aren't followers.
Maybe it will only be shown to followers. Or maybe not. You have no way to know. That's just how this platform is programmed.
Again to be clear what I'm saying is, you need to be aware that if you make your posts followers only, they will still be subject to going to people who aren't followers.
This is a design choice that the programmers made, that I disagree with, but you need to know that it is happening.
@Hyolobrika Yeah, they should, but we live in reality where a whole lot of people won't, so we have to approach reality with realistic solutions to the problems.
I think it's noteworthy that the designers of the US system were adamant about this, and so that's why things like checks and balances in the US system are there specifically because we can't rely on people doing the right things.
As they said, if all men were angels...
@BeAware@social.beaware.live but it's not though!
Scrapers are very much able to scrape your content, and everybody needs to be aware of that as they post on here.
People are posting content here left and right and saying they love to do it because it's safe from the big corporations or whatever, and I would be absolutely amazed if those exact businesses aren't having a field day vacuuming it all up.
This is why it's so important to me to spread the word about how insecure this platform is, for better or worse. There are trade-offs, and I'm comfortable with them, but there's a lot of people who don't know the risks they're taking here.
@BeAware@social.beaware.live this is an ax I grind because people need to be aware:
**NO, there is no way to make your posts private so that there's no way for anyone to see them without your permission.**
Anyone posting to Fediverse need to be aware that by virtue of how this thing is engineered, there is absolutely no guarantee of such privacy.
A lot of people are posting things they think are private when they're not, and I find that hugely problematic.
@hankg except, the core problem here is that #Trump DIDN'T strong arm the GOP to get the bump stock ban through.
Trump just declared it himself, regardless of what the law said. That's the entire dispute here.
Had Trump strongarmed the GOP (well, Congress, whatever) to enact a ban, this wouldn't have been an issue.
The problem is that Trump acted in violation of law. The #SCOTUS called him on it.
@jaystovall@stranger.social the problem is, there's no enforcement mechanism available since any enforcement would put one branch ahead of the other.
Graham is simply correct.
@Island_Martha well it's just how this is supposed to work under separation of powers.
The executive branch is unlikely to prosecute itself. That would be a bizarre for it to take itself to trail.
However, Congress still has this mechanism to formally express its displeasure, and it helps them to build a record should they decide to take more actions within their powers.
This is simply how the process is supposed to work.
That's the wrong branch of government, though.
It's up to Congress to write bump stock laws, not the courts. We keep reelecting the lawmakers who kept bump stocks legal.
Protest Congress and tell them to fix it. And for god sake, stop reelecting the same clowns that wrote the law that way.
Yes.
Because that's how the law is written.
Don't like it? Great! We should stop reelecting the lawmakers who don't fix the law.
It's not up to Thomas to override the laws made by the people we voted, and reelected, into lawmaking positions.
@gedeonm I mean, yes.
The bump stock ban ran afoul of the law because we keep voting in people who didn't write a law that would authorize the ban.
We SHOULD have been voting in better people this whole time. We keep reelecting the same people who didn't authorize the ban.
This isn't about Republicans or Democrats or the Supreme Court. We keep reelecting the people who maintained the legality of bump stops all these years.
This is about voters voting for bad representatives over and over.
@nicholas said what? What quote are you quoting?
I have no idea what you're going on about, and I'm asking for clarification, but you're not giving me anything to work with here.
I don't know what you're talking about, and you're not clarifying what you're trying to say.
I asked what my case is, and you've just said something about your own quotations, which doesn't answer my question about what you think my case is.
@JaniceOCG that's simply not the case. Democrats are free to nominate someone else at their convention, or put enormous pressure on Biden to step down, or enact all sorts of other mechanisms to get a worthwhile candidate.
If they don't, well, that's their choice.
Same with Republicans.
Both parties are voluntarily shooting themselves in their feet, and it remains their options to change course.
@dcjohnson not at all.
In the US we elect politicians who refuse to enact such tax increases.
Doesn't have anything to do with big money or corruption. It's simply reality that the people we voters choose to elect aren't going to pass the tax policies that you're talking about, that would be required for your plan.
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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