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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 5th, 2023

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  • SterlingVapor@slrpnk.nettoMemes@lemmy.mlSh*t Gold .
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    1 year ago

    Wtf is free will even? We’re chemical systems, or a metaphysical soul, that makes statistically predictable decisions based on available information as well as uncountable minor factors. If you rewind time and do everything the same, either everyone comes to the same conclusions the same way, or free will requires an aspect of chaos… And at that point you’re at predetermination - seems to me the whole idea is outdated philosophy

    But here’s the thing - statistically, people respond in predictable ways. If every time you do X, the majority will respond Y… That’s just math.

    Turns out, humans are super complex, but very predictable. And by that I mean policy is extraordinarily effective.

    Free will matters on a personal level, it disappears on a societal level


  • Yep, it’s pretty amazing how much not destroying the environment helps it recover… although the closer we get to a collapse, the more that ability to bounce back diminishes

    Literally every aspect of our world is in a balance… Everything wears down over time, so the current state is basically a homeostasis between biological, geological, and astrological forces. The problem is that humans act on a far shorter time scale - 100 humans could cut down trees faster than a forest can regrow, 8 billion can change the atmospheric composition in a decade or two


  • I can. By making it technically possible, you can divert attention.

    One example would be for crazy edge situations. Like letting children with terminal illnesses fulfill their last wishes, or letting hormone ridden teens make their case to a judge, keeping them from more extreme actions.

    But more practically, I think this is a great idea… 99.9% of anyone asking for this either needs court ordered mental evaluation and/or a referral to CPS to do a deep dig into the situation. By making it technically possible, that means anyone seriously pursuing this has to explain themselves to a judge.

    Unfortunately our judicial system has a lot more to do with money than justice (so most people who would actually go through with this probably have the money to protect themselves from consequences), but this law would be a sensible part of a more perfect system… Granted this should almost never be granted by the court (terminally ill child is the only situation that makes sense to me), but there’s value in it

    My opinion would change greatly if this is a real path to child marriage rather than a mostly theoretical possibility




  • It’s checks and balances, not rock paper scissors

    His power here is to set a direction and to nominate new appointees. He could write a bill to expand the bench and/or a constitutional amendment to require a code of ethics… Hell, he could even say “ok supreme Court, you say you can self-regulate… Publish your own code of conduct publicly or I’ll lead the charge in imposing one on you”

    Presidents have a lot of soft power. He can write executive orders to demand the problem be evaluated, or he can use his platform to rally support… He can even go to Thomas privately and suggest he resign with dignity while he can, even try to bluff him off the bench

    There’s a lot he could do - his hard power over the supreme Court is very limited, but soft power is how most everything works






  • I’m not sure I agree that you have to give a chance to respond - I think context matters.

    I think if you make an accusation or cover a specific incident, they should be able to give their context, not out of fairness but as this might give a more accurate view of the truth

    In this case, they presented a specific series of events showing a pattern of behavior, and a timeline of communication they made with billet (including their public comments in the subject

    What truth could they add here? They could add more details or make excuses, but that waters down the message - the point isn’t “Linus did something bad and made factual mistakes”, it’s “Linus has shown a pattern of doing bad things, and frequently publishes factually incorrect figures”

    I think you’re coming at it from a place of “you have to give them a chance to respond out of fairness”, but journalism isn’t about fairness, it’s about distilling an easily consumed message from the endless complicated facts that make up any situation. Journalistic integrity is about making every effort to give a “good take”, and should put accuracy above all

    Being fair to the people you’re covering should follow naturally by pursuing the truth, doing the opposite is what we call “softball journalism”


  • That’s a courtesy you can extend, but mostly it’s a protection against libel - if they take you to court about a claim they dispute, being able to say “your honor, we gave them a chance to respond before going public”

    In this case, there’s no dispute over facts - they didn’t bring up any accusations, they just took what LTT posted publicly and presented criticisms of it

    For example, if you report on the president being accused of misconduct you might ask the white house for comment, but if you are criticizing a speech they made or their public actions you probably wouldn’t (unless you think they’ll give you something that improves the story)


  • SterlingVapor@slrpnk.nettoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldgotdamn
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    1 year ago

    Some estimates put the number of vacant homes upwards of 30% a few months back, and it’s been climbing

    It’s not about a lack of supply, it’s about homes being both an investment and a basic need - someone like Black Rock can go into a small town in Georgia, snap up every property that goes on the market, then dictate rental prices while jacking up the house prices by bidding on everything. Even if they greatly overpay, by doing it a few times it drives up the valuation of the entire area, overall making their net profit grow

    And it’s not just Black Rock, it’s a bunch of investment companies doing this everywhere. They have the same goal and their interests are aligned - they’re not competing for tenants, they just want to jack up the values and use homes like stock investments


  • SterlingVapor@slrpnk.nettoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldgotdamn
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    1 year ago

    Some estimates put the number of vacant homes upwards of 30% a few months back, and it’s been climbing

    It’s not about a lack of supply, it’s about homes being both an investment and a basic need - someone like Black Rock can go into a small town in Georgia, snap up every property that goes on the market, then dictate rental prices while jacking up the house prices by bidding on everything. Even if they greatly overpay, by doing it a few times it drives up the valuation of the entire area, overall making their net profit grow

    And it’s not just Black Rock, it’s a bunch of investment companies doing this everywhere. They have the same goal and their interests are aligned - they’re not competing for tenants, they just want to jack up the values and use homes like stock investments


  • They made a bunch of mistakes that were callous and might’ve smothered a couple guys starting out.

    But then the lack of empathy - “it was a bad product, no one should ever buy it, and so my fundamentally flawed testing is actually valid”, “yeah they asked for it back multiple times and we auctioned it, but it was for charity so it’s fine”, “we agreed to compensate them, but it’s been months and we did that real quick after we got called out, but we’re going to make it seem like we didn’t need a scandal to do the bare minimum”

    It’s all excuses, it’s all justification for why “this looks worse than it is, and actually we’re still the good guys”. It’s narcissist mental gymnastics, he still just doesn’t understand what he did wrong - besides being mostly excuses, every “apology” is totally off base on what they did wrong



  • It boggles my mind how you can get away with a self-defense defense even when you entirely created the situation

    Zimmerman is a great example to me… He brought the gun, he stalked an unarmed kid minding his own business, and he confronted him up close and personal. If Treyvon Martin had gotten the gun and shot Zimmerman instead, he’d have a way stronger self-defense case (in principle at least)

    Like I could understand avoiding a murder charge, but shouldn’t it be manslaughter at least? At best according to the one side of the story we have, Zimmerman was negligent to the point someone died. If he didn’t bring the gun, it’s doubtful anyone would have died. If he left it to the police, no one would have died. If he kept his distance or tailed him in a car, no one would even have been at risk.

    Our laws are seriously wonky in this country…