volkris @volkris@qoto.org
Since I guess everything is political these days, I'll identify as extremely liberal but without a home in US politics.
Mainly, there's so much misinformation out there that people in society have trouble even organizing into coherent political groupings. So I'd rather not talk about politics but instead focus on information and education. Nothing else matters until the bedrock of fact is buttressed.
But... people are always going to be wrong on the internet, as the saying goes.
So: Old man yells at clouds is a famous joke from The Simpsons, and it probably fairly describes what we do when venting on social media.
Just speaking into the void, since I figure it's an exercise in futility to conduct discussions on these platforms.
Joined Dec 2022
The latest indictment against #Trump is critically factually wrong right off the hop, on the very second claim in the introduction,.
It claims that "Despite having lost [..] for more than two months following election day on November 3" when the US process of presidential election doesn't choose its winner on that day.
The indictment seems largely built on that factually incorrect foundation, that's at odds with some pretty major elements of the US system for election presidents.
Not that facts matter these days... sigh
volkris
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I saw someone argue that shitposters can't succeed on Mastodon because their posts won't go viral due to the lack of an algorithm.
As a counterpoint to their belief I would like to introduce exhibit A, whatever the hell this account is.
volkris
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@alexwild
More people need to know about Jury Nullification. The judges and lawyers are not allowed to tell you about it, but it's every juror's right to ignore a law that in itself is unjust. It's the last chance for the voice of democracy to be heard in our system.
#USPolitics #Homeless
Oh what a welcoming place Mastodon is.
People calling for action to be taken against a judge for his highlighting the importance of judicial independence and the rule of law are at least consistent, if not self-aware.
volkris
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Tonight's #SpaceX #Falcon9 launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California will be almost an hour after sunset, during nautical twilight. When the rocket climbs into sunlight, it will become visible across much of CA, NV, AZ and NW corner of Mexico. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_phenomenon
And for better or worse, some people want it this way.
Yes. I am suspended by mastodon.social! An entire instance blocked a user who isn't even on their own server. No warning and no way to request an a...
volkris
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PSA: Google is deleting some old Hangouts photos this week
It's hard to say exactly what is getting deleted, but it's easy to download.
volkris
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In 2020, I published* This is Fine: Optimism & emergency in the p2p network *(https://newdesigncongress.org/en/pub/this-is-fine)* *It laid out a clear argument that the #fediverse is irreparably vulnerable because of its p2p nature and political naivete:
*"Anyone with administrator access to an Instance can read anything that travels through that Instance’s infrastructure – including direct messages. The level of risk correlates with the number of cross-Instance interactions between users. If users from different Instances communicate, an attacker need only compel one Instance to reveal the direct messages between all of the interacting accounts. [...] In a peer-to-peer network without encryption, there’s no structure, no agreed-upon governance, and absolutely no protection. Compromising or compelling an Instance or its staff means that all of network traffic is laid bare to its assailant. [...] The decentralised community seeks to antagonise a powerful status quo whilst making tradeoffs that do not acknowledge how societies directly threaten their communities."*
Today, Kolektiva - a anti-colonial anarchist instance - announced an FBI raid of one of their admins, which included the seizure of an entire copy of the Kolektiva instance.
This is *literally* the kind of situation I warned about nearly three years ago.
volkris
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@seachanger Last time #journalists wanted to join, they got defederated because some of the #fediverse thinks they're too inquisitive and promotional… 🙄️ https://www.cjr.org/analysis/journalists-want-to-recreate-twitter-on-mastodon-mastodon-is-not-into-it.php
volkris
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volkris
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Is distributed computing dying, or just fading into the backdrop?
There seems to be much less excitement about distributed computing these days.
Folks saying government debt is not like a family's debt because governments can print money get that exactly backwards.
Yes, your family can print your own money. Maybe it won't be accepted because it's not considered particularly valuable. **Same as government printed money** if the government prints too much of it.
The lesson is the same in both cases: the value of money can vary.
volkris
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Well no that's not right. That's not how the US system works.
The majority of Supreme Court influence comes from the recognition of lower courts, since it is a court of appeals. It's when lower courts abide by Supreme Court precedent that most of their influence impacts the world.
And thank goodness that's the case! Because the general public has no idea what the Supreme Court actually says or does or rules. There is so much misinformation out there.
So long as the lower courts are paying attention and well informed and actually abiding by the Supreme Court rulings the system will keep working, regardless of the nonsense going around social media and network television.
volkris
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To give a bit more context for people outside of San Francisco, in addition to being guinea pigs for self-driving cars, SF has also become a testbed for the future of the surveillance state. In SF it's now legal for the police to monitor private surveillance cameras in real time: https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/23/23368603/san-francisco-police-private-surveillance-cameras-vote
In addition to the well-known problem with Ring cameras, the SFPD have spun off and funded a "private" nonprofit to set up cameras: https://sfsafe.org/our-mission/.
The SFPD has a history of using these cameras to surveil totally legal protests despite claiming that department policy doesn't allow that:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/sfpd-obtained-live-access-business-camera-network-anticipation-tyre-nichols
Really, just look over all the EFF headlines for San Francisco, and then it'll be clear that we can't let the city be blanketed in surveillance bots.
Oh for heaven's sake...
Now we're doing the stupid pseudolegal "I don't consent to my content being used" thing here?
It wasn't legit when it was on any of the other platforms, and it's especially not legit on this platform where by posting something you are actively triggering a process by which the content is broadcast to others.
To declare that you don't consent to Meta getting your data really doesn't wash with this protocol that actively broadcasts it to them.
It's like yelling across your fence to your neighbor that you don't consent to his hearing you. You're the one yelling at him!
A distributed social network means even less control over where content goes.
Folks complaining about the #SCOTUS ruling on admissions based on what society should do are missing that the Court doesn't have authority to judge based on evaluations of what we should do.
It is to judge based on what our democratic process has said, by law, that we should do.
If we need to change the law, great! Maybe we do need to revisit and update the Civil rights act of 1964.
So let's yell at the Congress to get that done.
Yelling at SCOTUS for acts of the legislature that they don't have power over is, if anything, distraction from making progress on legal reforms that are apparently needed.
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.
Since I guess everything is political these days, I'll identify as extremely liberal but without a home in US politics.
Mainly, there's so much misinformation out there that people in society have trouble even organizing into coherent political groupings. So I'd rather not talk about politics but instead focus on information and education. Nothing else matters until the bedrock of fact is buttressed.
But... people are always going to be wrong on the internet, as the saying goes.
So: Old man yells at clouds is a famous joke from The Simpsons, and it probably fairly describes what we do when venting on social media.
Just speaking into the void, since I figure it's an exercise in futility to conduct discussions on these platforms.
Joined Dec 2022
