I thought about this for a second, and I don't actually think being open source would do any good. It's not like we can compile and run our own voting booths. There's no way to know what's actually running in the machine at your polling place.
And voting machines are publicly owned, but perhaps you meant designed and manufactured by the government?
It would be interesting to learn something about the demographics on Lemmy.
I usually liken the bad vibes on Lemmy to being stuck with a bunch of cynical teenagers. Nothing is ever good enough, nothing good can happen. They know this with absolute certainty.
They do, but I'm a little surprised by how well they've positioned themselves on this one. It seems to me that the most likely scenario is that the Republicans will give nothing on principal, the shutdown will go until November when the premiums increase, and the country will see that the Republicans would rather close the government for two months than spare them a doubling or tripling of their healthcare costs.
And all the while Trump trashes the government in an attempt to retaliate, without really understanding that the government provides services that people, his voters included, depend on. I'm not sure, "the Democrats made me do it," will save him with anyone other than his cult members.
I try to stay skeptical about conspiracy theories, but I have yet to see an explanation for why this guy had so much money and connections. To talk about "science" and "money markets"? At Bill Clinton's request? None of that makes sense to me.
Recognizing that the physical can affect the mental, and vice versa, isn't really the end of the dualism argument. Dualists have incorporated that simple observation from the beginning.
From your quote, the key word is "purely." Is consciousness purely physical, or is some other substance involved, that's the question.
You can take either side of the argument, but physical-mental interactions only suggest that mental phenomena are not purely separate. It does not indicate that there are no non-physical elements of consciousness. In other words, that mental states are purely physical.
A counterpoint would be to ask which platforms digg and reddit began as clones of. Seems they were pretty unique and yet exploded almost from the beginning. Snapchat? Vine? They were both pretty unique.
To OPs point, basically all of the fediverse apps are clones, which aside from the federation element, don't add anything to the formula they are cloning. Even if you prefer the incremental strategy, where things are basically the same with a few new features, it would be hard to argue the fediverse apps even meet that bar. To the average user, federation is a technical issue they'd rather not be bothered with.
So I'm inclined to agree that this first wave of open source, federated social platforms have ended up, in terms of social features, pretty uninnovative. But before I sound too critical, I appreciate the work these app builders have put in, and clearly use the apps myself.
It may be a question of project scope. If what you aim to do is liberate yourself and your fellow nerds from corporate platforms, the clones suffice. If, perhaps, your aim is to liberate everyone, you'll need innovation in both the backend, and the social features to draw in everyone else.
Caveat - I've only really used Mastodon and Lemmy. Perhaps others are different.
I'm holding out hope that the real world remains separate from social media. We shall see. And for the Americans in the audience, remember No Kings Oct 18!
But the governor of Louisiana already has command of the Louisiana National Guard. Is there some funding advantage to having them federalized? Is it to normalize National Guard use for law enforcement? Maybe fishing for a case to bring to the supreme court on posse commitatus? This doesn't make obvious sense.
I thought about this for a second, and I don't actually think being open source would do any good. It's not like we can compile and run our own voting booths. There's no way to know what's actually running in the machine at your polling place.
And voting machines are publicly owned, but perhaps you meant designed and manufactured by the government?