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Gnumonic posted:You're a German in the 1930s who's been drafted. You receive an offer to become the administrator of a concentration camp. You are personally opposed to the holocaust, and you know that if you don't take the position, it will go to someone else who would enthusiastically murder as many innocents as possible. You reason that if you were to take the offer, you could prevent more death than anyone else likely to take the position, but you would still be forced to order the deaths of a large number of innocent people. Let's just assume that if you try to defect or desert, you will likely be killed, and a more committed Nazi will run the camp anyway. (This is a riff on one of the most famous objections to consequentialism) Watching Schindler's List and arguing that Oskar Schindler is the obvious bad guy. With all of this talk about morality and culpability, why do the people who argue "no vote" never acknowledge trans people, women's rights, labor rights, or Ukraine. Everybody who has taken the position of "yes vote" acknowledges that the genocide is bad while explaining that other human rights issues are at stake. Every person arguing "no vote" for the last couple of pages have failed to engage with trans/women/labor rights. Why the silence?
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May 9, 2024 04:00
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:We have already solved the problem of electoralism with math. This is, unironically, the basis for my general opinion on voting. I am not special. There is nothing particularly unique about me that massively sets me apart from the rest of the electorate. In fact, there are probably many other people whose overall political opinions and general mindset are similar enough to mine that, as a group, we behave very similarly. As such, any voting decision I make is likely the same as the decision a large number of other people will independently make. And, since this group is much larger than just one person, that collective decision might actually have a meaningful impact on the final outcome. This boils down to the (rather egotistical) conclusion that any voting decision I make is magnified beyond me, because there are many other people who will have arrived at the same decision that I have. The meaninglessness of my individual vote is no longer relevant, because this weird cloud of me-like people will all be, entirely coincidentally, voting as a kind of bloc. Thus, since that pseudo-bloc's vote matters, my vote matters. From there, all of the standard "if you don't vote for A, that means you don't care if B wins" arguments apply, which ultimately gets me (and, hopefully, other people like me) to go put my ballot in the box.
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May 9, 2024 04:40
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i will vote for those who pass a minimum threshold of behavior and policies. biden has not done that because of the same reason i gave in 2020. i believe him to be a credibly accused rapist/sexual assualter and i will not put my support behind that. it is a hard line ive drawn and i will not cross it
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May 9, 2024 17:44
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Not targeting you specifically, but it's very strange to me that some people will draw a line in the sand over voting for a rapist, and a lot of other people will respect that even if it's not their own stance. But try telling them that a politician is a war criminal, or responsible for mass death and absolute poverty, and it just doesn't register beyond "Okay, fair point, but..." I suppose that a lot of people in the political center don't really have ethical principles. They see credible accusations as points scored in a debate; the actual impact doesn't mean anything to them.
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May 9, 2024 18:15
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those fall under the minimum as well, it's just i had already made that decision back in 2020 and everything else is just extra on the poo poo pile
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May 9, 2024 18:22
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I keep trying to write an effort post of sorts and it results in me burning out, but I've been thinking about a post for days so I'll try to summarize. The "results based/consequentialist" thinking would make sense to me, I've made the same argument until recently. No longer though. Our politics is an impediment to a better world. The two party system does not represent what the views and needs of Americans necessarily are (or could be, anyway), rather it shapes them into an ongoing culture war that simply pivots around what we are allowed to fight about. What the status quo needs us to fight about. It's a successful project, and while there is enormous money and propaganda networks set against us it seems our political culture is such we'd carry on the fight willingly. It's not a real fight to me, electoralim. We already lost. My goals, my ideals, are sustainability and justice. These will not be accomplished or even meaningfully approached within predictable conditions. Incremental progress in the face of climate change is a trap, a lie. Our peace and prosperity is ill-earned and it's more clear than ever that the exploitation and genocide will not stop. It's bipartisan because it will always be what this needs, what we need to live like this. The only power that exists to change this is masses of people with incredible resolve and a sense of self sacrifice. We'd have to be willing to do without the benefits of the systems we've built if we're to challenge and regain control of them. IF the people of the USA are capable of that, it seems things would have to get far worse to spark that paradigm shift. Until then our unjust unsustainable system will chug along towards certain collapse, dooming the natural world and the future. I don't know how to be constructive in the face of this. But I want to fight against it, and that fight starts in my heart and will be on my terms. And I'll thank folks not to start telling me who I do and don't care about when I refuse to vote for people who have been willfully aiding a broad daylight genocide. A damning indictment of our free speech and democracy. I'd rather pull the whole machine down right on my head than cling to my own comfort, waiting for my turn to be fed into the gears of the Machine that ends the world. I've voted my whole life and i used to be proud to do so.
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May 9, 2024 18:33
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Halloween Jack posted:Not targeting you specifically, but it's very strange to me that some people will draw a line in the sand over voting for a rapist, and a lot of other people will respect that even if it's not their own stance. But try telling them that a politician is a war criminal, or responsible for mass death and absolute poverty, and it just doesn't register beyond "Okay, fair point, but..." Still don't see any mention of trans rights, abortion rights, labor rights, or Ukraine. Unless you're taking a principled stand against those. If that's the case, then I totally understand not voting for Biden. BRJurgis posted:I keep trying to write an effort post of sorts and it results in me burning out, but I've been thinking about a post for days so I'll try to summarize. I've said it before, electoralism should never be considered as a tool by itself. It has to work in conjunction with other forms of direct action. Also, pretty rich talking about "the culture war is what they allow us to fight about" when there are people actually dying from that culture war. BRJurgis posted:My goals, my ideals, are sustainability and justice. These will not be accomplished or even meaningfully approached within predictable conditions. Incremental progress in the face of climate change is a trap, a lie. Our peace and prosperity is ill-earned and it's more clear than ever that the exploitation and genocide will not stop. It's bipartisan because it will always be what this needs, what we need to live like this. Nobody is asking you to be proud or enthusiastic or patriotic. We just want you to vote. And I will say it again, not one mention of trans rights, abortion rights, labor rights, or Ukraine. EDIT: "Only worry about how you personally feel. Never make any compromises, especially if it might save lives. Collective action is completely pointless." And it's a wonder why leftism is completely isolated and powerless in this country. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) volts5000 fucked around with this message at 19:17 on May 9, 2024 |
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May 9, 2024 18:33
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volts5000 posted:Still don't see any mention of trans rights, abortion rights, labor rights, or Ukraine. Unless you're taking a principled stand against those. If that's the case, then I totally understand not voting for Biden. I think the poster is saying if Biden was 100% the perfect candidate and aligned with their views on everything, BUT was also a credibly accused rapist, they would not vote for Biden so a lot of the other things you brought up don't matter. Eiba posted:From where I'm sitting it looks like people who think it is correct to not vote in this case are saying, "I don't care about the material consequences of my actions, I want to maintain a purely abstract ethical purity." Also this. I don't agree because to me, the lesser of two evils will always be better in a system where one candidate is going to win for sure. But I get where they're coming from, misguided as I believe it might be. Tatsuta Age fucked around with this message at 18:40 on May 9, 2024 |
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May 9, 2024 18:38
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Halloween Jack posted:I suppose that a lot of people in the political center don't really have ethical principles. They see credible accusations as points scored in a debate; the actual impact doesn't mean anything to them. I guess I don't see a vote as an endorsement, rather it's a tool. You have a (very small) ability to steer the course of events. I don't want to overstate the importance of that- your individual influence is negligible, and voting is very definitely not enough on its own if you want the world to be less lovely, but it's also not more than that. You're not signing up as a member of Team Biden and standing by everything he is. You're just stating a preference. Basically I don't see how the (very real and terrible) ethical failings of Biden end up rubbing off on a voter who is in their heart only voting against Trump. This gets back to where I'm coming from- I understand why you wouldn't want to vote for Biden. I do not want to vote for Biden myself. I would feel a lot better if I didn't have to vote for him. But the only justifications that have been presented amount to, "this is my personal line in the sand, crossing it would make me uncomfortable," and honestly I don't really care about abstract comfort. I want to know what actual difference it would make. How would the world be a better place if I didn't vote for Biden?
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May 9, 2024 18:38
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Eiba posted:I guess I don't see a vote as an endorsement, rather it's a tool. You have a (very small) ability to steer the course of events. I don't want to overstate the importance of that- your individual influence is negligible, and voting is very definitely not enough on its own if you want the world to be less lovely, but it's also not more than that if i went to he food bank i volunteer at on election day instead of voting i would have done more to make the world a better place that day
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May 9, 2024 18:58
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World Famous W posted:you admit that the effect of your vote is miniscule to the point of not mattering yet you still feel like you must participate to make the world a better place That's been mentioned a few times and isn't a particularly interesting or pressing idea to explore for its own sake, at least to me. A vote doesn't matter, but voting matters, so we should treat our individual votes like they matter. Do you mean to engage with the point I'm making and you're saying that since we're treating our votes like they matter, they are somehow a more meaningful endorsement than I'm making them out to be?
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May 9, 2024 19:06
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yes, i think who you endores to be a leader above you is more significant than it seems you do we probably won't find common ground on this
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May 9, 2024 19:10
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That's a pity because I'm coming from a very similar place, and that last leap is something I want to understand. I feel like it's horrible to vote for Biden, but when I think about it I cannot come up with any coherent reason not to. But I guess if that last leap is basically, "I am effectively responsible for all the morally objectionable actions of someone I vote for but at the same time I am not responsible the actions of someone who is elected because I didn't vote," then you're right, I'm probably not going to be able to see that as a coherent way of looking at the world.
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May 9, 2024 19:28
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volts5000 posted:Still don't see any mention of trans rights, abortion rights, labor rights, When you respond to people speaking out on an issue with "But why aren't you talking about..." you're just trolling them from the Right. You forgot to include the violence in the Sahel in that list! BOOM, OWNED! You didn't mention climate change either, OWNED AGAIN! This is stupid. Are you actually incapable of understanding or believing that someone can care about civil rights without believing that #VoteBlueNoMatterWho is a worthwhile route to achieving them? Do you understand that if #VoteBlueNoMatterWho is your bare minimum requirement to believe that someone is progressive at all, you can only ever preach to the choir, or just annoy people? I'm trans. Thanks for presuming to speak on my behalf, but my identity isn't a tool for you to whip votes for Racial Jungle Joe. I'm not at all impressed with e.g. a set of Title IX regulations that leave out trans athletes. You seem to have a hard time getting it through your head that a lot of people aren't impressed by promises of incremental change on an absurdly long timeline. quote:or Ukraine. quote:I've said it before, electoralism should never be considered as a tool by itself. It has to work in conjunction with other forms of direct action. I believe that progressive political party could change this nation for the better, but it will have to trample the corpse of the Democratic Party to get there. Loyally supporting "whoever the Dems are running" isn't working and hasn't been working for a long time. It's a thoroughly rotten institution that isn't able, much less willing, to act as an actual popular coalition. quote:Nobody is asking you to be proud or enthusiastic or patriotic. We just want you to vote. I'm not asking people like you to stop voting. I'm asking you to shut up and stop trying to shame people into voting for your preferred war criminal. World Famous W posted:if i went to he food bank i volunteer at on election day instead of voting i would have done more to make the world a better place that day Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:40 on May 9, 2024 |
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May 9, 2024 19:36
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm sorry. I'll change my forum signature to a list of issues that I care about, so that you can know that I care about them. That will save time vs. typing them out in every reply. Actually I am incapable of understanding the argument. You got one side holding steady/advancing civil rights (albeit slowly) and the other setting up the pieces to rapidly take them away and the conclusion is "Meh, it's all the same." I don't understand that! That makes absolutely no sense to me! And I'm sorry I'm bringing up those issues. "No voters" seems to be very proud of their ethics and moral principles. But when someone points out that their decision either does nothing or potentially hurts people, they just keep talking about their ethics and their feelings and their moral principles like that somehow protects them from real world consequences. Halloween Jack posted:I'm not asking people like you to stop voting. I'm asking you to shut up and stop trying to shame people into voting for your preferred war criminal. Yeah, no shaming coming from you there. You come off as completely neutral and passionless.
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May 9, 2024 19:53
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I was following you up until this point, because "I would prefer the outcome where all trans medicine and civil rights will be banned because Biden has released legal reforms that protect the legal rights of trans people in all areas except for public school athletics (which he has said will be coming separately, but hasn't been released yet)" is a really weird conclusion to reach following the statement "I care about trans rights."
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May 9, 2024 20:15
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Halloween Jack posted:Nobody? Really, nobody? Because it seems to me that the most enthusiastic Party supporters really aren't satisfied with "holding your nose and voting," you have to cheerlead Biden and agree that he's one of the greatest presidents ever and the most progressive since FDR. Is anyone in this thread actually asking that folks opposed to Biden be enthusiastic about voting for him, as opposed to just voting for him and saying nothing if that's what you prefer? I haven't seen that at all. The arguments about how progressive/effective he is have been in response to claims of "he's basically no better than Trump, so why bother"? I don't ask or expect that you vote for him if you really feel that strongly about it, but I'm a little confused as to why people on the left are so vehement and vocal online about how much they think it's morally unacceptable for anyone to vote for him (in the general election, specifically). We all seem to have agreed that your individual vote isn't a big deal, but in aggregate the effect of lots of votes is very much a big deal. It's one thing in the context of "me and my deep red/blue state friends, hanging out offline" where you can credibly claim you're just doing some kind of symbolic protest, but when you go on the Internet slinging around "Genocide Joe" or "Racial Jungle Joe" then it seems pretty implicit that you would prefer that Americans in general not vote for Joe Biden. It follows pretty easily that you would derive some amount of satisfaction from Biden actually losing the election to Trump, unless you think he's certain to win and you just want to reduce his margin.
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May 9, 2024 20:24
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volts5000 posted:Actually I am incapable of understanding the argument. You got one side holding steady/advancing civil rights (albeit slowly) and the other setting up the pieces to rapidly take them away and the conclusion is "Meh, it's all the same." I don't understand that! That makes absolutely no sense to me! And I'm sorry I'm bringing up those issues. "No voters" seems to be very proud of their ethics and moral principles. But when someone points out that their decision either does nothing or potentially hurts people, they just keep talking about their ethics and their feelings and their moral principles like that somehow protects them from real world consequences. No you don't? You have one side saying, out of the corner of their mouth about civil rights whilst doing very little positive to change things. You have another side that are howling bigots, but who we are expected to treat as if they are worthy opponents and capitulate to if they win electorally, regardless of if they win a mandate from the majority of citizens. Now, ultimately, this is the overarching problem with electoralism. It is that we need to accept the wins of fascist whilst they do not do the same back and, instead of this being treated as a threat to things, is instead treated as normal. If you are not proud of your ethics or moral principles, what are you proud of? Do you think that ethics should be discarded or put to one side before making any choice, or just ones that effect people a long way away and not you. Judge not, lest you be judged.
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May 9, 2024 20:26
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Josef bugman posted:You have one side saying, out of the corner of their mouth about civil rights whilst doing very little positive to change things. It's pretty easy to argue that the Democrats are doing more than "very little". It's even easier to argue that the reason they don't do more is that they can't get enough people to vote for them to have more than off-and-on razor thin majorities in the legislature. You can look at the various blue states with Democratic governors where the state legislatures have no problem passing progressive legislation. Being obstructionist with literally everything and then using the resulting lack of progress to paint the Democrats as corrupt or incompetent is one of the top tricks in the GOP playbook. It's amazing to me how many leftists uncritically buy into that framing and help the GOP swing that same rhetorical cudgel.
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May 9, 2024 20:33
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Josef bugman posted:No you don't? You have one side saying, out of the corner of their mouth about civil rights whilst doing very little positive to change things. You have another side that are howling bigots, but who we are expected to treat as if they are worthy opponents and capitulate to if they win electorally, regardless of if they win a mandate from the majority of citizens. Now, ultimately, this is the overarching problem with electoralism. It is that we need to accept the wins of fascist whilst they do not do the same back and, instead of this being treated as a threat to things, is instead treated as normal. I never treated Trump as normal when he was in office. People resisted him all the time. Who is treating him as normal? How is he being treated as normal? And how does not voting fix that? Josef bugman posted:If you are not proud of your ethics or moral principles, what are you proud of? Do you think that ethics should be discarded or put to one side before making any choice, or just ones that effect people a long way away and not you. I am proud of my moral principles. I can look back and say "I did what I could" instead of "I didn't get my hands dirty". That's ok for me. I just can't understand any scenario where I would see Betsy DeVos revoke Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ and say "Well, I can take comfort in the fact that I didn't vote for Hillary".
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May 9, 2024 20:40
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If I were deciding how to vote, then I would simply assess the policies of the two candidates and then select the one whose overall platform is closer to my preference. For example, if you considered Sonia Sotomayor a better Justice than Clarence Thomas, then I would vote for the candidate who would appoint more justices like Sonia Sotomayor to replace her and not the candidate that would replace her with someone more like Clarence Thomas.
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May 9, 2024 20:41
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I definitely do understand and agree with the position that incremental change within the established Democratic Party is wildly insufficient for making the dramatic improvements that need to happen if we don’t want this country to collapse around us. I agree with the idea that the only way this is actually going to happen is if we get actual progressives in power that are willing to take drastic action to improve all of our lives. I agree with the idea that a vote for Biden is not going to advance progressive causes, and definitely agree that he should not be in the White House. However, I don’t understand the conclusion that, since both candidates are undesirable, you should abandon the only bit of power you do have, especially because one outcome is significantly less desirable than the other. I don’t think this is a position I am really capable of understanding, as I have a very consequentialist view of the world. What I do understand is the idea of taking action towards the outcome you actually want to see. I have some follow-up questions, for whoever wants to answer them: Are you going to vote for a third-party candidate, such as whoever the Green Party picks, or are you not going to vote at all? I can easily see “the Green Party gets an unexpected number of votes, forcing the Democratic Party to change in order to maintain power” as a desirable outcome to work towards, even as an alternative to picking the least-undesirable likely outcome. Regardless of whether or not you vote for a president, do you still turn out to vote down-ticket? If so, are you willing to vote for a Democrat that doesn’t suck as much as Biden does? Do you vote in elections other than the presidential one? If so, do you vote in primaries, and do you vote in local/state elections, or just federal? Beyond just voting, are you engaged in any political activism? This could be anything from showing up to protests, helping with voter drives, donating to candidates you agree with, or even just trying to convince the people around you to make some small amount of change. Please note that none of these questions are intended to shame anyone for not doing these things, especially the one about political activism. (Activism is hard!) I am genuinely curious if the “I refuse to vote for Biden because doing so will not actually make the world better” position is followed with “so instead I take the actions that will make it better”.
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May 9, 2024 20:53
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm trans. Thanks for presuming to speak on my behalf, but my identity isn't a tool for you to whip votes for Racial Jungle Joe. I'm not at all impressed with e.g. a set of Title IX regulations that leave out trans athletes. You seem to have a hard time getting it through your head that a lot of people aren't impressed by promises of incremental change on an absurdly long timeline I'm trans too and you sure as poo poo don't speak for me. The contrast between how governments run by Democrats treat trans people vs how governments run by Republicans treat trans people is night and day. You have Republican governments trying to detransition kids, force people to have the wrong gender on their identifying documents. You have the Biden administration trying to use the affordable care act to force states like Florida to knock some of that poo poo off, but somehow their title 9 support for trans athletes is the hill to die on?
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May 9, 2024 21:05
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I don't care how other people plan to vote, but I do find it disturbing that there doesn't seem to be any lower bound for voting for the lesser evil. And there's a pretty obvious trend of having to accept greater and greater evil for that strategy, to the absurd point where we're arguing over whether it's acceptable to vote for the guy who is literally funding a genocide. I really don't think that can be stressed enough. What are you going to be asked to support in 2028, as long as the other guy is worse? What are you willing to support? Is there ever going to be a point where both parties are too repugnant to vote for? I voted for Biden in 2020. I knew that there were credible accusations of sexual assault against him, and to my shame I decided that that was an acceptable compromise compared to four more years of Trump. But now Biden has gone too far for me. I don't care that Trump will be worse. I do not want to give my support and the legitimacy that comes from my vote to either major candidate. People keep bringing up the trolley problem, but it's really not that simple is it? Putting aside the fact that the trolley problem is a thought experiment with no objective correct answer. This isn't a simple matter of pulling a switch to save four people by sacrificing one. Instead, it's millions of people voting on whether to pull the switch or not, and some people's votes don't even count! Like I said in my previous post, I could vote to pull the switch and it wouldn't get pulled, or vice versa. And further down the line is another junction, with even more people tied to the track. This situation is absurd to me, and I think it's reasonable to want to say "this is completely hosed up, I'm not going to participate in it at all". Or at the very least "I'm going to vote for this third track that has no people tied to it, even if nobody else wants to vote for it for whatever reason."
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May 9, 2024 21:11
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I get where you're coming from, but the United States has been funding the genocide for longer than we've been alive. You said you voted for Joe Biden in 2020 - the genocide was happening then, and he supported it then. It's not about Joe Biden or Donald Trump, it's a bigger problem than this election. And like other people have said, I believe that voting for one of two choices which happens to include some odious positions is worlds away from doing work to specifically support those odious positions in terms of culpability. It doesn't matter how strongly I feel about it, my vote is not going to stop the genocide so I think about it in terms of things it might actually influence. It is an absurd situation, and you are reasonable to want to reject it. But the third trolley track is all in your mind. Either Trump or Biden is going to win in 2024. Maybe at some point in the future, we can shift the boundaries and make that third track a reality, but with how our elections work it isn't right now.
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May 9, 2024 21:20
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Yeah the trolley problem becomes really simple if you change the problem. Why didn't anyone else think of that!
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May 9, 2024 21:21
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Fister Roboto posted:I don't care how other people plan to vote, but I do find it disturbing that there doesn't seem to be any lower bound for voting for the lesser evil. And there's a pretty obvious trend of having to accept greater and greater evil for that strategy, to the absurd point where we're arguing over whether it's acceptable to vote for the guy who is literally funding a genocide. I really don't think that can be stressed enough. What are you going to be asked to support in 2028, as long as the other guy is worse? What are you willing to support? Is there ever going to be a point where both parties are too repugnant to vote for? Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be the nominees in the 2024 election in America. If either of them had lost the primary, then there would be different nominees. You should generally vote for the outcome that will more closely match with your preferred outcome. If you think Donald Trump's policies are closer to your preferences, then you should probably vote for Donald Trump for President in 2024. If you think Joe Biden's policies are closer to your preferences, then you should probably vote for Joe Biden. If you aren't sure, then an easy heuristic that I use is to read their positions on various issues, count the ones for each candidate that are closer to my preferences, and then select the one with the higher number. It seems very unlikely that both candidates have an equal number of issues that are identical to your preferred outcome, but if that is the case, then you can either flip a coin or not vote at all because each outcome will literally result is as many issues being equally as close to your preferred outcome as the other. There will be upcoming primaries for President that will begin in 2027 and many state issues (such as ballot measures and local elections) that will occur in 2024, 2026, and 2028 (or 2025 if you live in New Jersey or Virginia). For those, I generally follow a similar heuristic process. In 2028, I will likely cast a vote in the primary for the candidate that most closely matches my preferred policy outcomes to assist them in securing the nomination. Regardless, you can probably rest easy because your individual vote is not a moral act and has an incredibly statistically improbably chance of being the sole vote responsible for changing an outcome, so you will only be making a difference in a collective action context. Your vote, regardless of who it is for, will also not preclude you from participating in public life in other ways, so there isn't any concern about an opportunity cost or zero-sum choice between voting or other activities. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 21:29 on May 9, 2024 |
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May 9, 2024 21:25
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Fister Roboto posted:People keep bringing up the trolley problem, but it's really not that simple is it? Putting aside the fact that the trolley problem is a thought experiment with no objective correct answer. This isn't a simple matter of pulling a switch to save four people by sacrificing one. Instead, it's millions of people voting on whether to pull the switch or not, and some people's votes don't even count! Like I said in my previous post, I could vote to pull the switch and it wouldn't get pulled, or vice versa. And further down the line is another junction, with even more people tied to the track. This situation is absurd to me, and I think it's reasonable to want to say "this is completely hosed up, I'm not going to participate in it at all". Or at the very least "I'm going to vote for this third track that has no people tied to it, even if nobody else wants to vote for it for whatever reason." It's a hosed up trolley, we all agree about that. But what does taking the moral high ground actually do?
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May 9, 2024 21:27
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Eiba posted:It's a trolley problem where the four people are lying on the track before the fork. You can pull the switch to put it on an entirely empty track after that, preventing it from killing a fifth person, or you can chose not to interact with the death trolley at all because it makes you feel bad. I'm not sure how this absolves you from any responsibility for the fifth death if you clearly had an opportunity to tug the lever away from that path. The fact that your pull might not even move the lever does nothing to make keeping your hands off the lever any more moral. It allows the repeated use of absolute rule moralist positions to sabotage descriptive discussion of causal outcomes. It also absolves the user from responsibility for those outcomes, or from engagement with the specifics of the causalities involved. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 21:34 on May 9, 2024 |
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May 9, 2024 21:30
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Josef bugman posted:You have one side saying, out of the corner of their mouth about civil rights whilst doing very little positive to change things. But enough about most of the "don't vote" advocates. Josef bugman posted:If you are not proud of your ethics or moral principles, what are you proud of? Do you think that ethics should be discarded or put to one side before making any choice, or just ones that effect people a long way away and not you. I am quite proud of mine, for what it's worth, even if you clearly hold them, and me, and the causes and morals I value, in open contempt. Fister Roboto posted:I don't care how other people plan to vote, but I do find it disturbing that there doesn't seem to be any lower bound for voting for the lesser evil. I don't see why you would find it disturbing. My morals are clear here - it is my responsibility to do everything within my power to make things as close to "better", in the long term and short, as I possible can. There'a plenty of space there to argue for one tactic or another as being superior in one way or another. That is my moral foundation - that no level of failure, of lost ground, of personal disgust, trumps my moral ability to engage in whatever actions I can to advance the causes and values I see as important. Within that framework, there is very obviously no lower bound in terms of voting for the lesser evil, just like there is no upper bound beyond which I can wipe my hand of the whole affair because both candidates are "good enough". My responsibility is to use what power I have to the greatest extent I can to make things better - the reality of applying that principle can get quite complex, but the principle is always there. You, and others, seem to repeatedly confuse voting for someone with support for everything they do, or even anything they do. With approval. It is not. I have been more than happy in the past (often in very local, personal elections) to vote for someone and then immediately return to actively opposing every policy they sought to implement. I don't understand why you would have difficulty understanding that. If you can't choose an ally, but you have the power to choose who to empower, you should at least be choosing your preferred enemy, surely? quote:I think it's reasonable to want to say "this is completely hosed up, I'm not going to participate in it at all". Reasonable in the same way many vile actions can be seen as reasonable, I suppose. There are viewpoints I personally view as more morally reprehensible than this one, but let's just say it definitely crosses the line into repugnancy you mentioned above.
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May 9, 2024 23:04
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GlyphGryph posted:I am quite proud of mine, for what it's worth, even if you clearly hold them, and me, and the causes and morals I value, in open contempt. Would they also be put to one side if it meant voting for the lesser evil? At what point would you object? Sometimes people will draw that line elsewhere to you. You have to either live with that or convince them otherwise, and in this instance I do not believe that many people here are good at the latter, myself included. So instead we lay out the positions, and ask people to live with their choices and lack of choices. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 23:35 on May 9, 2024 |
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May 9, 2024 23:22
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Josef bugman posted:Would they also be put to one side if it meant voting for the lesser evil? At what point would you object? How do you imagine this question makes any sense? Can you provide, I don't know, an example of what this would even begin to look like, or an explanation of what you might mean? Because I genuinely can't conceptualize whatever it is you are asking. Josef bugman posted:Sometimes people will draw that line elsewhere to you. You have to either live with that or convince them otherwise, and in this instance I do not believe that many people here are good at the latter, myself included. So instead we lay out the positions, and ask people to live with their choices and lack of choices. Yeah, no loving poo poo. Most people draw the line elsewhere from me. poo poo, I'm pretty sure most people draw their lines differently from most people. That's something we all have to live with even if we're really good at convincing people otherwise. Doesn't mean it's not worth trying to actually discuss, maybe find common ground, maybe have our opinions potentially shifted to a better, or at least stronger, one, or at least to better understand others and what we ourselves believe. I don't believe laying out our positions and trying to guilt people for not following them is the best we can actually manage... although, right now, I will have to admit the evidence seems to be pointing towards serious limitations on what more can be expected. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 23:49 on May 9, 2024 |
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May 9, 2024 23:44
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If both potential voting options that have a chance of winning were going to ban trans healthcare and institute forced conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people, but one was going to also create a local factory that will add jobs to your locality, would you still vote for that one? But your not going to find common ground in this instance, so it doesn't go anywhere. Instead just state it and move on if you can.
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May 9, 2024 23:57
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Josef bugman posted:But your not going to find common ground in this instance, so it doesn't go anywhere. Instead just state it and move on if you can. I found what I believe to be common ground with Selec. I don't think either of us will change our opinions as to the best course of action in this regard, but I think I, at least, am better off for having done so. Finding common ground with people like yourself who refuse to explore the possibility is obviously a lot less likely to happen. But hey, there are other paths to productive conversation. What exactly do you think "stating your position and moving on" in this thread actually accomplishes? Or is doing so another intrinsic, seemingly nonsensical moral imperative for you? quote:If both potential voting options that have a chance of winning were going to ban trans healthcare and institute forced conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people, but one was going to also create a local factory that will add jobs to your locality, would you still vote for that one? If that was literally the only difference between the two, and creating a local factory is actually of meaningful moral value to me, then yes, obviously? I mean, I'm not sure it is, I don't think I have anything in my moral framework that would make me generically pro-factory, hah, but I get that it's an example and a stand-in for something that presumably would matter to me as being desirable enough to worth acting towards? If the choice is really that clear and simple, a choice between "getting outcome I assign meaningful value to" and "not getting outcome I assign meaningful value to", and there's no other complicating factors, I'm obviously going to do the second every time the option is available to me - I'm not going to stand back and say "well, gently caress it, I could have done a very minor action to help a bunch of people in the short time and potentially start down a road to future improvements long term, but instead I'm gonna do nothing and increase the odds of that not happening because gently caress it and gently caress them". That would, I would have hoped, be obviously immoral. It's such a non-question that I genuinely struggle to understand what other answer you might imagine I would have given, given what I've already said. (Reality is, unfortunately, seldom anywhere near that simple, even at its simplest, but alas, that is life) --- Let's me actually return to the question to you, but set against your own framework: There's an election, and your city is engaged in a methodical, ongoing genocide. Both candidates are vehement supports of an existing ban on trans healthcare and support forced conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people. One of them, however, has made a central plank of his campaign ending the genocide, and not just ending the genocide but recognizing the rights of the people being genocided and clearly and obviously, on a personal level, sees them as equals. Let's also assume that you get the only vote, or the only one that matters, and if you do nothing, abstain, the first person wins. You get the deciding vote. Would you, in that situation, in that environment, really refuse to vote for the second person, if those were really your only two choices? That's what your morality tells you would be the right course of action? To use your own words, could you really live with yourself after that? Could you really live with the people being genocided looking at you and knowing that you had the opportunity to stop it and chose not to as they were carted off to die? I don't think I could. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 00:26 on May 10, 2024 |
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May 10, 2024 00:16
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I think that a major factor in this whole debate is whether or not you feel your vote actually matters, and I feel like everyone who is arguing against voting for a lesser evil is simply refusing to acknowledge any questions about voters who do matter, such as those in swing states. This is a very serious question: if you didn’t vote, and the worse candidate won by a margin of one, could you live with yourself?
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May 10, 2024 00:37
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blastron posted:This is a very serious question: if you didn’t vote, and the worse candidate won by a margin of one, could you live with yourself? The same way one lives with themselves for not becoming a hermit under a rock in the woods, not self immolating in the town square, or not redacted. I'd defend equality shoulder to shoulder with a strong arm and clenched fist.
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May 10, 2024 01:00
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Halloween Jack posted:
I suppose that the further people are from the centre the more they crave attention at the expense of other people’s blood and tears. Or, you know, maybe we are both being a bit unfair.
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May 10, 2024 02:55
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BRJurgis posted:
You can argue that the world doesn’t exist except in your mind, but then there is no struggle to be found of any kind. If the world exists and presents struggles then it is not in your heart or on your terms. It is outside you, more vast than you alone can possibly contend with, and able to crush you out of existence with less than a sigh. What will you do in the world on its terms?
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May 10, 2024 03:00
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Fister Roboto posted:I don't care how other people plan to vote, but I do find it disturbing that there doesn't seem to be any lower bound for voting for the lesser evil. I find it disturbing that there are people who set a transition point below which they no longer care about worsening evil. There’s a difference between good things and bad things, and between bad things and worse things.
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May 10, 2024 03:22
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The Artificial Kid posted:What will you do in the world on its terms? The Artificial Kid posted:crush you out of existence with less than a sigh. Yeah! Probably. Those votes I cast will be a real relief though!
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May 10, 2024 03:50
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