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
So much written about the #SCOTUS ruling on the independent state legislature theory is sensationalized way beyond recognition.
This case had absolutely nothing to do with legislatures throwing out or overruling votes.
It was purely focused on the prescription of "The Times, Places and Manner" of holding elections, which wouldn't include a legislature deciding to throw out an election that abided by the prescription.
It's just an example of how reporting on things like the Supreme Court is so misleading, so apparently intent on clickbait rather than real education.
As always, there is no substitute for actually going to the source to see what it says.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1271_3f14.pdf
volkris
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The worst thing that ever happened in software engineering was when Kirk asked Scotty how long something would take and Scotty said thirty minutes and Kirk said you’ve got five and Scotty got it done in five and impressionable children watched this and grew up to become managers.
#Alito: a reasonable person wouldn't buy into the misleading ad hominem attacks ProPublica thrives on
Ah, but Sam, ProPublica doesn't sell to reasonable people, as the braying of #Fediverse demonstrates so well.
volkris
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The International Standards Organization has defined a new time measurement, the fedisecond, which is the shortest humanly-measurable unit of time.
A fedisecond is defined as the interval between the announcement of an exciting new #fediverse application and the discovery that the project's lead architect and principal developer is actually Satan.
Another day in the multiverse of echo chambers:
Democrats smugly saying Republicans are freaking out about the #Trump indictment and Republicans smugly saying Democrats are freaking out about how he's succeeding despite them.
Know thy enemy, they say. Well, if either of these groups actually followed that advice, maybe we could settle some things.
Well, all ya can do is appreciate the absurdity.
volkris
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what plant’s scientific name has the most Main Character energy? I put forward Acer Rubrum as a first bid
Accusations of greed are funny things.
The #Reddit drama follows an all too common pattern where people are accusing others of greed because they want something the other has.
Yeah, Reddit is so greedy for charging for providing its service, but *I demand their resources.*
It's not exactly taking a high road to describe someone as greedy while claiming those resources for oneself.
volkris
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(please boost)
Okay...... WHY is our instance fediblocked in the first place? and why does that include our matrix instance getting removed from joinmatrix because "they decided to deem us as controversial"??
Our instance is a non-extremist, leftist comfy instance that accepts everyone, we have nearly 1000 users and I don't really understand why we are getting blocked everywhere. The worst thing is that there is no reason behind this and nobody is able to give us a single reason about why the """"council"""" decided to block us. This is stupid.
I'm considering buying a new domain at this point. We've been on fedi with based.social and miruku.cafe since 2020, and I've been using fedi since 2018 and this is just nonsense, I'm really pissed off. (meow)
This is really helpful! ... if it works
I've been really curious about how #lemmy integrates with the rest of ActivityPub but haven't had time to look deeply into it.
So far my instance doesn't have any posts from this particular lemmy... um... board? group? whatever it's called, but I'll have to try it out more in the future.
Yep.
An awful lot of people don't follow things like #SCOTUS opinions closely enough to know they're being sold a narrative that just doesn't match the record.
The liberal vs conservative description of the Supreme Court makes for dramatic headlines, but the decision record of the Court doesn't really match that naive narrative.
Earlier: @Brian_Riedl: "The 'conservative Supreme Court justices are partisan ideologues voting in lockstep' crowd sure is quiet today." #SCOTUS ...
volkris
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Key phrase: "165 Democrats - more than the 149 Republicans who voted for it - backed the measure and pushed it through"
Listening to Republicans today debating among themselves over the #DebtCeiling deal, there's a big problem that the hardliners literally don't know how federal finances work, and so they vastly overestimate #GOP power in this situation.
If Biden can't borrow money to pay for programs that the #GOP likes, then he won't, and their favorite projects will be harmed. This *empowers* Biden, but they have no idea.
Today's debate on the right was all about the moderates trying to inform their young colleagues as to the actual rules of the game, to inform strategy, but the hardliners weren't interested in learning... unsurprisingly.
Just goes to show how important civics education is, especially for those actually in government.
volkris
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Yeah, the rumours are true. #Calckey is changing its name.
A change in brand is never easy, but it’s better to do the change now rather than later.
I’ll tell you this, though. The brand will reflect the growth of the project.
What’s currently known as Calckey isn’t merely a Misskey fork anymore.
RE: https://calckey.social/notes/9f701jlpvp
Calckey is not going to be called "Calckey" for much longer, that's all I'll say... 😉
No, the #SCOTUS didn't weaken EPA power to enforce the Clean Water Act. That gets backwards what the argument actually is.
The issue is that the CWA didn't authorize this power in the first place, so the EPA was acting outside of the Act.
If we want the EPA to have this much expanded authority, fine, that's what the democratic process is for. Let's have those discussions about how it would work, and the tradeoffs involved.
But that the EPA wasn't enforcing CWA in these cases is the entire core of the argument that the Agency lost.
volkris
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Post Editing is now available on @pixelfed !
This was the most wanted feature for me 💝
#pixelfed #fediverse #ThankYouDaniel #LongLiveFediverse #LongLivePixelfed
Far too few people are seeing this side of the story.
And politicians are being let off the hook as they are pointing fingers at others for the choices they themselves made.
volkris
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Made this to show my impression of the new #Thunderbird #logo. Suffice to say, it's not great.
#foss #opensource #software #marketing #branding #design #linux #freesoftware #libre
If #Biden were to try to issue additional debt without legal authorization, future presidents would be under no obligation to recognize those claims. In fact, it would be arguably illegal for them to pay out of the Treasury to retire such securities.
But also consider the complications of circulating a bunch of invalid notes alongside valid ones.
For example, a pension fund might report that it holds a million dollars in treasuries, but some of that is invalid... which part of it? How would auditing and public disclosure deal with that?
People pushing Biden to just unilaterally issue more debt miss how complicated that would be.
Through #ActivityPub, #Mastodon privacy settings rely on voluntary cooperation. You *request* that instances only share your content with the audience you specify, but there is no real way to enforce that.
This comes as a surprise to many users.
Me, I think I'd change the UI to call it "suggested broadcast"' rather than anything related to privacy so that users are more aware of where their content might end up.
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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