Ok, fine, but is making the president put up collateral going to achieve that outcome? It seems more likely to encourage bribing the president to give wealthy criminals a pardon while ignoring those who can’t pay the toll.

I don’t think money is the solution. The pardon exists to correct errors in the justice system. It is inadequate and insufficient to solve all those errors on its own but it can be useful in certain contexts. I think we should be pardoning more people in a thoughtful way, not less.

Clearly the issue here has more to do with Trump being a piece of shit than it does with the existence of a system for granting clemency. You could make the argument that a review board or some other form of independent review would be a good thing to add to the process but you could also make the argument that the best solution is simply to not make a self-serving piece of shit the President.

What is looking like more of an idiot than he already does going to accomplish? He’s the most idiotic politician in living memory, by far, and there are some absolutely colossal morons on that list. The people who haven’t figured that out are never going to. They will be praising him until the day they die.

The person you’re taking to online has a vested interest in defending the position they put forth. Someone reading your response who initially agrees with the person you’re talking to does not have a defensive attitude to the same degree. Your arguments will be much more successful with the observer than with the other participant. You will probably never know if you had an impact on the observer. That’s what you should be aiming for though.

Fuck me I’m not ready for that. You expect it from the old people but I might have to leave the room if a young person asked me something like that.

What is that thing in the sky? It looks like a huge…

JOHNSON!

Yes sir?

I’m conflicted about Joe Rogan, or at least the concept he had at the start. Clearly he’s fallen down the right-wing rabbit hole but the original intent he had of letting people defend their weird positions is a good one imo. One could argue that the reason the right-wing funnel exists is because there isn’t really space to talk about some of those things on the left.

For example, it’s not crazy to ask questions about vaccines and how they work. However, when people do that those who are educated on the topic will largely assume ill intent by default and treat the people asking questions as if they’re stupid or malicious. There’s some good reasons for that but such an approach is pretty alienating for those who are genuinely seeking information. That leads at least a portion of those people to listen to more right leaning information because they feel like that is the only group taking them seriously.

We need to do better at meeting people where they are instead of assuming they are trying to spread misinformation. Yes it’s true that all the information you need to develop an informed opinion about the vast majority of topics is available on the internet, but finding and understanding that information does take skills and time that not everyone has. In order to understand why a statement or belief is incorrect or misinformed you have to create a space in which it can be discussed without fear and shame driving people away.

Based on the limited amount of his older podcasts that I’ve been exposed to, I do think that Joe genuinely tried to do that, he’s just not particularly well equipped to handle that kind of environment. Over time he fell victim to the same kind of radicalization that he was intending to subvert by letting people share their actual thoughts instead of assuming he already knew what they were going to say.

I don’t know that I would say “as intended” but it is better than live TV, especially in the educational department. Neil Degrasse Tyson’s yt channel is better than anything on the discovery channel these days. Countless podcasts are better than anything on the history channel. I don’t think they even try to do history anymore. They just air pawn stars reruns 24/7.

Yeah I heard some stuff about it at the time but not much. About 5 years later I started reading an article about it but only got like 2 paragraphs in before I remembered why I never paid attention to it the first time around and quit reading.

Gamergate was at least easy to ignore. I still don’t really know what it was about. Always seemed like pointless internet drama to me. That may or may not be true but it hasn’t been a problem to stay ignorant about the topic. You can’t ignore what’s happening now unless you don’t use the internet at all and even that isn’t going to be completely effective.

Not from where they’re sitting. We have to make this a true statement through collective action. Lemmy, and other decentralized forms of communication, will likely need to play a central role in organizing those actions. They’re not going to let us work towards removing their power using the platforms they control.

6% is farther along than I would have guessed. That actually makes me feel better in a weird way.

Sorry babe, you’re gonna have put the blindfold on, the warts on my hog are back

Good. Gentlemanly warfare is a ridiculous concept. If someone invades your country you fuck them up in every possible way you can. Send those Russians home with chemical burns and nerve damage. They’re not going to stop murdering civilians so why play nice with them?

Name one judge that has flown out of a window

You’re justifying Dems being ineffectual. We don’t want to hear it anymore. We’re tired of watching Republicans play dirty to get what they want while Democrats sit on their hands and complain that governing is hard. Republicans fight despite the odds and that’s why they win more than they should. Democrats could do the same but they choose not to. I don’t want their excuses. I want them to fight even if they eventually lose the battle. Giving up before it starts is completely unacceptable.

This is the same excuse I’ve heard for 15 years, even while they had a majority. Meanwhile, Republicans seem able to get shit done even while in the minority. I’m tired of excuses. Do something useful or get the fuck out of government.

Part of it is that the left isn’t seen as fun. We’re too serious and judgmental all the time. Many times there’s good reasons for that but young people don’t want to constantly hear about taxation and proper pronoun usage. Talk about legalizing LSD or something once in a while.

And yes, I understand that the right isn’t fun in a way that most people would want to be but there is definitely something to be said for not gatekeeping language to an absurd degree. Let people express themselves without all the “well actually that’s ableist because…” interjections. People only listen to you a finite amount. If you burn through your educational goodwill on minor stuff no one is going to listen when you warn them about important stuff like fascists taking over the government.

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There may not be anything positive she can do but a good person vacating the position seems like an additional negative.