“Leftists”: I don’t even see any difference between these candidates, “Dems” are fascists
“Leftists”: Union buster worst president ever I can’t possibly vote for this guy
“Leftists”: How dare Biden personally cause Covid inflation and grocery price gouging, all of which is definitely his fault and which I keep bringing up
“Leftists”: Biden didn’t stop his enemies from voting down weed legalization, killing immigrants, and making abortion illegal, and several other things that other people did, and so that fact that they did those things is completely on him
“Leftists”: I’ve been betrayed by Biden so so many times after I definitely voted for him previously, I’m very emotional about it and you should be very angry at him, the Democrats haven’t earned my vote and that’s definitely a good logical framework for an election that also includes literal Hitler
“Leftists”: Hey I have a poll which indicates Biden is behind among left handed Costa Ricans (actually he’s ahead but his support has dropped a lot), I posted a couple others today but maybe you missed the ones before. I’m just trying to get out the vote and help Biden
Also “Leftists”: Hey it hurts me a lot when you disagree with my constructive criticism, please don’t do that anymore, pls and thx
Right on! Fuck everyone who dare imagine a better world than a literal dinosaur making extinction worthy policy since the alternative is straight-up going to murder us all themselves.
c’mon man don’t disrespect stegosauruses. stegosauri. stegosaurs. stegosauren. like that, c’mon. they have cool plates and shit, biden has no armor plating
Nailed it to a tee man. That’s pretty much them down the line. Always aggressors when they have the platform and always victims when their shit is called out.
They’re like if Ben Shapiro decided to separate into a hive-collective and systematically shit on everything touched by the concept of nuance.
Woah, woah, woah, wait a minute, don’t you know that if there’s no candidate I agree with, that means DEMOCRACY IS DEAD and the only solution is to usher in fascism to kill as many minorities as possible? I Am Very Smart.
Listen voting is a blood pact, and I’m only complicit if I vote so if I don’t and bad things happen it’s everyone else’s fault. I have the best moral compass.
Just for others who are on the fence, let’s illustrate this via the trolley problem.
There are 4 people who would die without you interacting with the trolley, 2 people die if you switch tracks.
Does choosing to interact with the system at all make you complicit in the death of those 2 individuals? By choosing not to change it are you complicit in the 4 individuals?
I would argue, since you have been given the power to choose even in an unjust system, you must do all you can to minimize harm.
Of course the system should be changed but the trolley will advance with or without your input.
The problem with the trolley problem is that it makes simplifying assumptions that don’t always track to real world situations. For instance, in the trolley problem, what’s happening is purely mechanical, whereas with an election, you’re empowering an actual person who is able to choose whether or not to kill the people in danger. It’s also not a one-off decision, there will be future elections and people will look back at this one to determine what strategies work or don’t work, what is and isn’t a deal breaker. Furthermore, it’s not an individual person making the decision on whether to pull the lever, and many people live in safe states where their vote has no real influence on the outcome. Lastly, the people running are the ones who set up the trolley problem and are ensuring it will keep happening again and again, indefinitely, by opposing any sort of election reform.
So if you want a hypothetical, it’s more like: two mad scientists have, together, put you in a cage. Each one has a laser, each of which is powered by one of two hand cranks placed inside your cage. One of them says they want to kill one person with their laser, the other wants to kill five. They both tell you they need their laser to be more powerful to stop the other (while also frequently cooperating). You can choose to power either laser, or you can sit there and do nothing, or you can desperately try to break the cage.
Philosophical thought experiments tell us very little about the real world because they are so reductive, the real world is messy and not so clear cut.
You’re analogy missed the part where they can operate without you and Infact the madder scientist wishes you to do nothing. It’s why Republicans work so hard in red States to add roadblocks to voters.
You can act on the cage while minimizing harm. Not voting doesn’t work, never has, never will.
You can choose non-participation and you can fool yourself that it washes your hands but it does not stop the status quo, in fact it encourages it.
Even with those conditions, I would still do nothing. The “less mad” scientist is still responsible for creating the situation just as much as the “more mad” one. I’m not playing their little game. Strengthening a psychotic killer is not “minimizing harm.” Neither has even promised to let me out of the cage (not that I have any reason to trust anything they say), and both worked together to put me there. Your strategy is just to play along with their game and do what they want you to until the end of time.
The biggest problem with your worldview is that you’re allowing politicians to be treated as mechanical and immutable. The relation between voters and politicians is a negotiation, and offering unconditional agreement during a negotiation is about the worst thing you can do. The fact is that my moral convictions are the thing that are fixed and immutable, and it’s the responsibility of politicians to act in such a way that’s congruent with them if they want my vote.
If enough people think like me, then it would be Biden who would be forced into the trolley problem: either cave to our demands and you don’t get to genocide anyone but you do get to be president again, or don’t cave to our demands and lose. If you think I’m being unreasonably obstinate, well, good. I am a machine that doesn’t vote for people who do genocide, I cannot be reasoned with on that point and will continue that function regardless of circumstances or of my own best interests. That’s what I’m going to be doing no matter what so make your plans around that.
Well I mean that’s kind of a bad thought experiment too, yeah, because I really like lasers, and me personally I’d want to talk about a laser that’s so powerful and efficient that it can kill someone just with the power from a hand crank. Like, that’s an insane laser, that has to be like, an extremely efficient highly calculated phased optical array, that’s some science fiction level technomagic, there. I’d also wanna know, why the human test subjects, you know? Are they horrible criminals, or, are they clones without brains, or p-zombies, or like what’s up there? I don’t think any ethical self-respecting scientist would wanna test out their shit on some random variable humans like that, and that shit wouldn’t be really like, publishable in a paper, I would imagine. Supplementary questions are maybe like, why am I the one that has to power the laser from inside the cage, rather than them having like an Igor to do it for them, are they just going to kill me afterwards, are they going to kill me if I do nothing, what’s the deal there?
This whole scenario smells pretty fishy to me, I’m gonna go with like, this is probably a milgram experiment style of thing, to me.
Though, through tough, thorough thought, this experiment kind of falls flat as an analogy, because the lasers both power up randomly and will kill people no matter what I do, and neither crank really does fucking anything, so it’s more like you’re just the guy in the ludovico chair, and you have funny little cranks you can turn if you want, as like a distraction from the fact the lasers are going to kill everyone no matter what you do.
Thought experiments are not known for their realism, and I don’t have a problem with picking it apart as long as you would also pick apart the original trolley problem. However:
I don’t think any ethical self-respecting scientist
I have seen you before. You have a biased perspective that wants the US to destabilize so China can expand easier. Everyone can see you are disingenuous.
If I posted a giant block of resources debunking the ridiculous “Uyghur genocide” claim, would you actually read them? I wanna know if I should go through the effort of grabbing and linking them, or if I should just shit post at you until you go away.
“Leftists”: I don’t even see any difference between these candidates, “Dems” are fascists
“Leftists”: Union buster worst president ever I can’t possibly vote for this guy
“Leftists”: How dare Biden personally cause Covid inflation and grocery price gouging, all of which is definitely his fault and which I keep bringing up
“Leftists”: Biden didn’t stop his enemies from voting down weed legalization, killing immigrants, and making abortion illegal, and several other things that other people did, and so that fact that they did those things is completely on him
“Leftists”: I’ve been betrayed by Biden so so many times after I definitely voted for him previously, I’m very emotional about it and you should be very angry at him, the Democrats haven’t earned my vote and that’s definitely a good logical framework for an election that also includes literal Hitler
“Leftists”: Hey I have a poll which indicates Biden is behind among left handed Costa Ricans (actually he’s ahead but his support has dropped a lot), I posted a couple others today but maybe you missed the ones before. I’m just trying to get out the vote and help Biden
Also “Leftists”: Hey it hurts me a lot when you disagree with my constructive criticism, please don’t do that anymore, pls and thx
Right on! Fuck everyone who dare imagine a better world than a literal dinosaur making extinction worthy policy since the alternative is straight-up going to murder us all themselves.
Oh no, you should always fight for a better world! Just don’t staple it to accelerationism in the mean time.
Which to be clear I’m not accusing you of but is often the underlying thread on Lemmy in particular.
I am not. Not voting is statistically the same as voting for the candidate you like the least. However, I don’t both eat shit and lick arse.
Stegosaurus to be exact.
c’mon man don’t disrespect stegosauruses. stegosauri. stegosaurs. stegosauren. like that, c’mon. they have cool plates and shit, biden has no armor plating
Yeah, I did actually feel bad for the Stegosaurus in the comparison and chose to mention them only because they are so cool! :(
Nailed it to a tee man. That’s pretty much them down the line. Always aggressors when they have the platform and always victims when their shit is called out.
They’re like if Ben Shapiro decided to separate into a hive-collective and systematically shit on everything touched by the concept of nuance.
Woah, woah, woah, wait a minute, don’t you know that if there’s no candidate I agree with, that means DEMOCRACY IS DEAD and the only solution is to usher in fascism to kill as many minorities as possible? I Am Very Smart.
Listen voting is a blood pact, and I’m only complicit if I vote so if I don’t and bad things happen it’s everyone else’s fault. I have the best moral compass.
This but unironically.
You have every right to your opinion.
Just for others who are on the fence, let’s illustrate this via the trolley problem.
There are 4 people who would die without you interacting with the trolley, 2 people die if you switch tracks.
Does choosing to interact with the system at all make you complicit in the death of those 2 individuals? By choosing not to change it are you complicit in the 4 individuals?
I would argue, since you have been given the power to choose even in an unjust system, you must do all you can to minimize harm.
Of course the system should be changed but the trolley will advance with or without your input.
Addendum: https://academic.oup.com/book/1401/chapter-abstract/140735282?redirectedFrom=fulltext
I found this interesting book on this very subject and I think I will be purchasing it in order to explore their arguments.
The problem with the trolley problem is that it makes simplifying assumptions that don’t always track to real world situations. For instance, in the trolley problem, what’s happening is purely mechanical, whereas with an election, you’re empowering an actual person who is able to choose whether or not to kill the people in danger. It’s also not a one-off decision, there will be future elections and people will look back at this one to determine what strategies work or don’t work, what is and isn’t a deal breaker. Furthermore, it’s not an individual person making the decision on whether to pull the lever, and many people live in safe states where their vote has no real influence on the outcome. Lastly, the people running are the ones who set up the trolley problem and are ensuring it will keep happening again and again, indefinitely, by opposing any sort of election reform.
So if you want a hypothetical, it’s more like: two mad scientists have, together, put you in a cage. Each one has a laser, each of which is powered by one of two hand cranks placed inside your cage. One of them says they want to kill one person with their laser, the other wants to kill five. They both tell you they need their laser to be more powerful to stop the other (while also frequently cooperating). You can choose to power either laser, or you can sit there and do nothing, or you can desperately try to break the cage.
Philosophical thought experiments tell us very little about the real world because they are so reductive, the real world is messy and not so clear cut.
You’re analogy missed the part where they can operate without you and Infact the madder scientist wishes you to do nothing. It’s why Republicans work so hard in red States to add roadblocks to voters.
You can act on the cage while minimizing harm. Not voting doesn’t work, never has, never will.
You can choose non-participation and you can fool yourself that it washes your hands but it does not stop the status quo, in fact it encourages it.
Even with those conditions, I would still do nothing. The “less mad” scientist is still responsible for creating the situation just as much as the “more mad” one. I’m not playing their little game. Strengthening a psychotic killer is not “minimizing harm.” Neither has even promised to let me out of the cage (not that I have any reason to trust anything they say), and both worked together to put me there. Your strategy is just to play along with their game and do what they want you to until the end of time.
The biggest problem with your worldview is that you’re allowing politicians to be treated as mechanical and immutable. The relation between voters and politicians is a negotiation, and offering unconditional agreement during a negotiation is about the worst thing you can do. The fact is that my moral convictions are the thing that are fixed and immutable, and it’s the responsibility of politicians to act in such a way that’s congruent with them if they want my vote.
If enough people think like me, then it would be Biden who would be forced into the trolley problem: either cave to our demands and you don’t get to genocide anyone but you do get to be president again, or don’t cave to our demands and lose. If you think I’m being unreasonably obstinate, well, good. I am a machine that doesn’t vote for people who do genocide, I cannot be reasoned with on that point and will continue that function regardless of circumstances or of my own best interests. That’s what I’m going to be doing no matter what so make your plans around that.
That’s just incorrect and I point to 2016 as the perfect case study for how low voter turn out not motivating policy change.
I empathize that what is happening in Palestine is unforgivable however you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face.
If Trump acts as he promises to and accelerates climate change even further, there won’t be a hill left to die on.
Well I mean that’s kind of a bad thought experiment too, yeah, because I really like lasers, and me personally I’d want to talk about a laser that’s so powerful and efficient that it can kill someone just with the power from a hand crank. Like, that’s an insane laser, that has to be like, an extremely efficient highly calculated phased optical array, that’s some science fiction level technomagic, there. I’d also wanna know, why the human test subjects, you know? Are they horrible criminals, or, are they clones without brains, or p-zombies, or like what’s up there? I don’t think any ethical self-respecting scientist would wanna test out their shit on some random variable humans like that, and that shit wouldn’t be really like, publishable in a paper, I would imagine. Supplementary questions are maybe like, why am I the one that has to power the laser from inside the cage, rather than them having like an Igor to do it for them, are they just going to kill me afterwards, are they going to kill me if I do nothing, what’s the deal there?
This whole scenario smells pretty fishy to me, I’m gonna go with like, this is probably a milgram experiment style of thing, to me.
Though, through tough, thorough thought, this experiment kind of falls flat as an analogy, because the lasers both power up randomly and will kill people no matter what I do, and neither crank really does fucking anything, so it’s more like you’re just the guy in the ludovico chair, and you have funny little cranks you can turn if you want, as like a distraction from the fact the lasers are going to kill everyone no matter what you do.
Thought experiments are not known for their realism, and I don’t have a problem with picking it apart as long as you would also pick apart the original trolley problem. However:
I literally specified mad scientists.
I have seen you before. You have a biased perspective that wants the US to destabilize so China can expand easier. Everyone can see you are disingenuous.
Yes, we get it. You love capitalism if they call it “Chinese characteristics,” and you love genocide as long as it happens to Uyghurs.
If I posted a giant block of resources debunking the ridiculous “Uyghur genocide” claim, would you actually read them? I wanna know if I should go through the effort of grabbing and linking them, or if I should just shit post at you until you go away.
You can make whatever accusations you like, but it’s meaningless if you don’t have
evidence