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GlyphGryph posted:Can someone offer a single, coherent, reality based argument that not voting for Biden is better than voting for Biden? It’s better to not vote for someone who supports a fascist genocidal apartheid state than to vote for someone who supports a fascist genocidal apartheid state.
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May 8, 2024 14:30
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Josef bugman posted:In regards to point one, about the candidate not knowing why, "oh well". I'm sorry that they can't count on my vote due to supporting genocide, but I happen to have a red line there. You missed my point. Unless you've stopped paying taxes and have moved somewhere remote and live completely off the grid, you are, in some small way always supporting genocide. Always. I'm not a U.S. citizen, and the last residential school in Canada (one form of genocide) closed before I was old enough to vote or pay taxes, but I still was part of a society which contributed towards supporting genocide. Some people have the impression that a refusal to cast a vote for President is some kind of trick to morally absolve themselves of blame for Biden's actions (and inactions). That impression is mistaken. Not voting is not "none of the above," but "either Biden OR Trump," because those are the only possible outcomes. "Either Trump or Biden," means you're fine with a Trump win. In turn, that means you're fine with Trump supporting not just the genocide of Palestinians (and even accelerating it), but also fine with the United States supporting Russia and its campaign of genocide against Ukraine, and also fine with discrimination against trans people, and also fine with a nationwide abortion ban, and so on. It is contradictory to say "I am against genocide," while simultaneously putting yourself in the column which says "I have no problem if Trump wins and commits genocide harder." EDIT: GlyphGrpyh put it better, but I agree: I don't see how not voting for Biden better supports the goal of "not supporting genocide" than the alternative. What level of compromise am I fine with? The level which says that Trump must be voted against, ESPECIALLY if you're supposedly concerned about genocide. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 14:36 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 14:30
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theCalamity posted:It’s better to not vote for someone who supports a fascist genocidal apartheid state than to vote for someone who supports a fascist genocidal apartheid state. Again, this is an assertion, not an argument. And even worse than Bugman's, since I think he actually was trying to answer the question with something more than a "because it is". Better in what way? How? Why? There's no way for me to evaluate whether your statement is reality based or coherent because I have no way to determine what assumptions and values underly it, what mechanisms might lead to the actions in question better serving those values, whether the actual components are factual or reality based, or the scope in which the assertion would even apply. I'm not expecting a perfect chain of logic and explanation with absolutely no gaps or play here, I'm willing to do work to fit in stuff that seems reasonable and offer what I can manage as a best possible reading, but you're giving me absolutely nothing to work with here. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 14:54 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 14:48
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GlyphGryph posted:As others pointed out this one is pretty incoherent. It actively argues against itself. If the baseline assumption "Your vote does not carry any inherent information" is true, then "you should withhold your vote to convey they need to change" doesn't really follow, and it has big gaps - in order for not voting for Biden to be the better option, it needs to argue the resulting change would be for the better, which it doesn't do. Which is understandable, since you don't support the argument yourself, maybe someone who does can resolve the inconsistency and fill out the rest. It's an argument I make to liberals who are not leftists. If I talk about the things that animate me personally, it's stuff like the drug war that Biden cheered on for decades, and in many cases championed the specific policies that then filter down to states and cities, which then I see in my own life and the lives of those around me. And that's just one facet; look at his support for stripping student loans of bankruptcy protection. His entire political career he was making choices, deliberately championing policies that hosed over me and people I knew. Not just being a part of that, but being a leader, getting out there and fighting for tougher drug laws that led to a friend of mine being harassed by cops for weed so consistently he left town for a decade and didn't come back until he'd learned the cops that had a vendetta against him (basically for being easy pickings) had retired. Biden fought his entire career for this kind of poo poo. So that's my personal reasons for saying gently caress him; it's not that he was a neutral or even positive influence on the politics of this country before he became president. He was a champion for directly loving up the lives of the people I love and care about. The argument about electoral votes I described is intended specifically to go after the genocide support, though. That's incredibly salient right now, and it highlights the contradictions of what the Dems (and specifically Biden) try to get away with while mouthing the right words. I do not see the modern Democratic party as one prepared to meet this moment, not to mention the moments to come, which will ramp up the contradictions they're seeking to tamp down. We're not going to see climate migration slow down. So what's their plan besides militarizing the border and convincing their base that indifference and cruelty, even violent repression of migrants is justified if it keeps them out of our country? There are a lot of issues where you can see increasing urgency being required, an urgency that ideally would place the human dignity and ability to have a functioning society above the need to preserve the indecent, repugnant economic status quo in this country. But I have no faith in the party to be able to handle that kind of pivot. So the genocide is a great entry point for getting liberals to see they're not going to have it both ways: you can't vote for a genocide and look yourself in the eye. You will feel even worse if you vote for a genocide, in a state that your vote doesn't even matter in due to demographics and the locked-in status of our political polarization. How are you gonna feel if you voted to continue sending bombs to a genocidal country, in a state where your vote didn't even matter, and then how are you gonna feel even moreso if Biden loses anyway? Was that vote, which didn't, and couldn't meaningfully contribute to the outcome, worth selling a little piece of your soul that you will never be able to reclaim? How do you come back from that? That's my pitch.
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May 8, 2024 14:53
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selec posted:It's an argument I make to liberals who are not leftists. If I talk about the things that animate me personally, it's stuff like the drug war that Biden cheered on for decades, and in many cases championed the specific policies that then filter down to states and cities, which then I see in my own life and the lives of those around me. And that's just one facet; look at his support for stripping student loans of bankruptcy protection. His entire political career he was making choices, deliberately championing policies that hosed over me and people I knew. Not just being a part of that, but being a leader, getting out there and fighting for tougher drug laws that led to a friend of mine being harassed by cops for weed so consistently he left town for a decade and didn't come back until he'd learned the cops that had a vendetta against him (basically for being easy pickings) had retired. Biden fought his entire career for this kind of poo poo. So that's my personal reasons for saying gently caress him; it's not that he was a neutral or even positive influence on the politics of this country before he became president. He was a champion for directly loving up the lives of the people I love and care about. Ah, the spite argument. Now, a spite argument, an argument from personal animosity and emotional satisfaction in response to past offenses, that I can understand, especially one that is coherent and based in the reality of past actions as yours seems to be. That's a perfectly good argument, and can understand why it would be motivating. Also, you don't mention it, but spite is a useful heuristic for power acquisition in many situations, so even if the emotional satisfaction isn't a primary value, it can be effectively argued for to support many different primary values. The one thing I do find surprising, though, is the implication here that you give this argument to leftists. I do not find most leftists I know to be particularly responsive to, or respectful of, arguments from spite as primary motivators - at the very least, they claim not to be. Moreso than liberals, at least, but still not particularly. I can definitely see why liberals would reject it, since they tend to have a very poor opinion of those who act from spite (and then turn around and do the same while denying it), but I'm genuinely surprised at the idea that leftists are more receptive to that than the genocide argument. (this is one of the two valid arguments I mentioned being familiar with but that I didn't expect people to make) quote:The argument about electoral votes I described is intended specifically to go after the genocide support, though. quote:That's incredibly salient right now, and it highlights the contradictions of what the Dems (and specifically Biden) try to get away with while mouthing the right words. I do not see the modern Democratic party as one prepared to meet this moment, not to mention the moments to come, which will ramp up the contradictions they're seeking to tamp down. We're not going to see climate migration slow down. So what's their plan besides militarizing the border and convincing their base that indifference and cruelty, even violent repression of migrants is justified if it keeps them out of our country? There are a lot of issues where you can see increasing urgency being required, an urgency that ideally would place the human dignity and ability to have a functioning society above the need to preserve the indecent, repugnant economic status quo in this country. But I have no faith in the party to be able to handle that kind of pivot. Do you believe that withholding votes will somehow remedy or improve this situation? It doesn't seem like it would matter whether you voted or not if that is the case. quote:So the genocide is a great entry point for getting liberals to see they're not going to have it both ways: you can't vote for a genocide and look yourself in the eye. You will feel even worse if you vote for a genocide, in a state that your vote doesn't even matter in due to demographics and the locked-in status of our political polarization. quote:How are you gonna feel if you voted to continue sending bombs to a genocidal country, in a state where your vote didn't even matter, and then how are you gonna feel even moreso if Biden loses anyway? Was that vote, which didn't, and couldn't meaningfully contribute to the outcome, worth selling a little piece of your soul that you will never be able to reclaim? How do you come back from that? That's my pitch. I can definitely see this being more effective against liberals than either your actual reason for action, or for the previous argument about electoral influence. Most people are at least somewhat responsive to this sort of shaming and self-incrimination. I don't think being an effective emotional appeal means it is a coherent or reality based argument, though, which is more what I was looking for, especially when the appeal is intended to create the problem its then offering the solution to. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 15:26 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 15:10
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GlyphGryph posted:Can someone offer a single, coherent, reality based argument that not voting for Biden is better than voting for Biden? Biden is spreading racist, fascist propaganda. He's participating in the Zionist propaganda strategy of conflating Palestine with Hamas, in order to justify massive indiscriminate violence against civilians. He's criminalizing an entire population to justify their extermination. How is it any different if he were to go on television and said that you can't trust Jews because they're all part of a global conspiracy? (If he did, would you argue that we still have to vote for him because Trump and his supporters are even more anti-Semitic?) He's a genocidal fascist, dude. Don't vote for fascists.
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May 8, 2024 15:22
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That's an effective argument that Biden is morally reprehensible. You need to do some work, now, to turn that into an argument where not voting for him is better than voting for him, though, since you seem to have completely skipped over that and gone right to the conclusion.
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May 8, 2024 15:28
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GlyphGryph posted:Ah, the spite argument. Now, a spite argument, an argument from personal animosity and emotional satisfaction in response to past offenses, that I can understand, especially one that is coherent and based in the reality of past actions as yours seems to be. That's a perfectly good argument, and can understand why it would be motivating. Also, you don't mention it, but spite is a useful heuristic for power acquisition in many situations, so even if the emotional satisfaction isn't a primary value, it can be effectively argued for to support many different primary values. See, this surprises me right back! Because leftists aren't robots. That spite isn't just "I hate Joe Biden specifically," it's more "I hate the tendency Joe Biden represents, the neoliberal third way triangulation that cut genuine values or meaningful progressive ideology out of the party's calculations". Leftists understand that politics as people experience them is the cops showing up at your door to harass you because you're poor and they have a fun game they play to see if they can't gently caress with you more, for fun. Politics as people experience them is finding out that your student loan debts can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Politics isn't just stuff that happens in newspapers: spite, or as I'd describe it, dissatisfaction with a party that is not responsive to what you feel like you and your cohort of working friends feel like it should be is just politics, to me. The material experience of life in this society is politics, and if it makes you feel angry or spiteful, that's a genuine political reaction. Leftists are pissed at the degraded, inhumane state of this country, and I think rightly they understand a lot of that blame is to be placed at the feet of people like Biden, and the tendencies he represents within the party. It is not shocking that other leftists hear stories like the ones I have, and that those stories resonate, because everybody knows someone who's gone through the same, if they know any working class people in more than just a superficial sense. quote:Do you have much luck with it? The reality-based disconnect I mentioned before seems like it would pretty strongly contradict the liberal mindset, to the point they'd reject it even if you *did* have strong evidence in your favour (which you don't seem to). Not with liberals--no. Like I said before, even if they agree with the underlying analysis--that the state is lost to Dems at least on the national level this cycle, and predictably so, there's this emotional underlying sense of loyalty and disbelief that any other political option can or even should exist. It's frustrating but not new to me. It's funny though because you can walk somebody right up through the whole frame and they'll nod along but the moment you get to "And so it doesn't really matter if you vote for Joe Biden, in terms of him winning the election, does it?" and you can see the reasoning exit and the tribalism step in. quote:Do you believe that withholding votes will somehow remedy or improve this situation? It doesn't seem like it would matter whether you voted or not if that is the case. The idea here is that Dems will look at the dramatic underperformance of the presidential candidate in states where they see otherwise-predictable levels of downticket voting for their candidate, and see that something about this presidential candidate has made him repugnant in a way that is clearly represented within voter data. Now, do I have faith that the national Democratic party will interpret these results in the way I want? No, they're a bunch of frauds and liars IMO, and would try and claim that it's because they didn't ban TikTok sooner, or didn't offer enough means-tested access to health care partners or whatever. But I'm not invested in the Democratic party as an ongoing entity. I think they've outlived their usefulness w/r/t creating a functioning, decent society to live in. I am fine with them trying to spin it any way they can, as long as they're forced to go out there and defend a genocide and pound the table and blame people who didn't want to vote for that, or try and make mealy-mouthed excuses for why it wasn't that issue. I am not in any way interested in helping those people, who I see as the first impediment to fixing our nation, because if the party you're supposed to vote for isn't even coherent or meaningfully able to stand up for what you believe in, how are they equipped to deal with the GOP? quote:This seems like a transition to an entirely different argument - one based on personal disgust or shame - that is not tied to anything you mentioned previously in any way I can determine, and I'm a bit confused by the jump. You go to war with what works. That's the thing--a lot of liberals can be swayed by emotional arguments, despite the appeal to rationality, the Party of Science, all that stuff. That's why the electoral vote argument is a fun one to proffer, because it offers all the stuff you'd think good reality-based liberals would like: an acknowledgment that the electoral college is how this works, a realistic assessment of the electoral college as it's currently locked in, and a plan that in no way harms Biden's potential path to victory. But that's not enough, because really it's more about insisting the seeming "smart, rational" decision people made to "become" a democrat are right, and that the vote they cast for Biden in a state where it statistically doesn't matter to do so is something they're entitled to, that the party is entitled to, in their hearts. Politics for a lot of people has no meaningful connection to values as we think of them, something you decide to really analyze and cook up for yourself and then see how you can apply them in your life. Very few people operate that way; most folks have never reflected on if their politics reflect their actual values, don't even see the connection. It's all over the place: it's why supposed Christians are voting in droves for poo poo that Jesus would never support, and why supposed progressives get frothing in the mouth angry about college protestors, and why we see top-to-bottom oppression in blue cities/blue states of peaceful protest movements. Most folks assume that must be ok, because otherwise why would their Democratic city/state/national party approve of it?
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May 8, 2024 15:46
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gently caress off with that tone. I don't need to do anything; your'e not directing this conversation. I don't vote for fascists or genocidaires. If that's not a self-evident value to you, I have no interest in persuading you.
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May 8, 2024 15:46
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GlyphGryph posted:Some advice: You are focusing directly on the result of your vote as if you can determine what will happen. You can have an ok idea of what your vote will result in, but I don't think you can have enough knowledge to base your actions on hypothetical results. Its valid to not vote or do something based on an idea that you won't do that. I won't vote for someone supporting a genocide means I won't vote for either Biden or Trump. It also means I won't vote for most candidates running for president. My desired conclusion is no genocide, but I don't really have any influence on whether that happens with my vote.
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May 8, 2024 16:03
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Halloween Jack posted:gently caress off with that tone. I don't need to do anything; your'e not directing this conversation. I didn't ask for you to persuade me - and its abundantly clear you'd be unable to do that even I had. If you're unwilling to do what I actually asked, though, why even respond to my question? Why did you act like you were trying to? Did you just see it as an excuse to engage in some nonproductive and meaningless emotional venting, perhaps? Not exactly worth much, as far as posts go Although, for what it's worth, I don't believe is a genuine self evident value for you, either. Comes across as more of an excuse than anything. selec posted:See, this surprises me right back! Because leftists aren't robots. I wasn't trying to imply they completely reject it, plenty of them certainly respect it a lot more than liberals tend to. I guess it's just that for most of the ones I know in real life it's more of a motivational impetus bonus, but of distant secondary importance (from a value perspective) to moving as close as possible to whatever their vision is for an ideal world. I only know one who went full in on spite, and that (perhaps predictably) ended up with them going full tankie and then falling down the Q-hole. Most of them seem to acknowledge spite as valuable but think it should be tempered or at least very carefully aimed? Like it's more than acceptable to feel but you probably shouldn't be making policy decisions based on. That those should be based on compassion, solidarity, on improving people's individual lives as much as possible. Or at least that's how I've always seen them argue it. Perhaps we run in different leftist crowds, though. quote:You go to war with what works. That's the thing--a lot of liberals can be swayed by emotional arguments, despite the appeal to rationality, the Party of Science, all that stuff. quote:That's why the electoral vote argument is a fun one to proffer, because it offers all the stuff you'd think good reality-based liberals would like: an acknowledgment that the electoral college is how this works, a realistic assessment of the electoral college as it's currently locked in, and a plan that in no way harms Biden's potential path to victory. quote:Politics for a lot of people has no meaningful connection to values as we think of them, something you decide to really analyze and cook up for yourself and then see how you can apply them in your life. Very few people operate that way; most folks have never reflected on if their politics reflect their actual values, don't even see the connection. I do want to say thank you for engaging me like this, I appreciate the explanations and discussion. gurragadon posted:You are focusing directly on the result of your vote as if you can determine what will happen. I am not, there are plenty of coherent and reality based arguments to be made where that it is irrelevant. I just want people to offer them, preferably ones they actually believe. quote:Its valid to not vote or do something based on an idea that you won't do that. I won't vote for someone supporting a genocide means I won't vote for either Biden or Trump. It also means I won't vote for most candidates running for president. People are welcome to make arguments based on "Not voting makes me feel better about myself" or "It's not compatible with how I view myself acting and I'd prefer to prioritize my sense of identity" and I'd recognize those as valid (if obviously quite selfish) stances. I don't think those arguments are really meaningful to anyone but the person making them, though, and so aren't really arguments of the kind we're talking about - they aren't really making a case that someone else who isn't already inclined should also act in that way (unless coupled with selec's emotional appeal or some other "and you should be like me in this regard" argument, I suppose). They are also a bit incomplete, and... well, that's not really the argument most folks seem to be making, is it? Unless this is you actually putting that forward. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 16:20 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 16:12
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GlyphGryph posted:Again, this is an assertion, not an argument. And even worse than Bugman's, since I think he actually was trying to answer the question with something more than a "because it is". I gave you a coherent and reality based argument. Because you don’t seem it to be so doesn’t mean that it isn’t. Genocide is bad and I’m not going to vote for someone who supports it. If you want another one: I don’t believe that Joe Biden could protect us from fascists because he is supporting genocidal fascists.
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May 8, 2024 16:15
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GlyphGryph posted:If you're unwilling to do what I actually asked, though, why even respond to my question? Why did you act like you were trying to? Did you just see it as an excuse to engage in some nonproductive and meaningless emotional venting, perhaps? Not exactly worth much, as far as posts go GlyphGryph posted:Is this an underlying core value? If so, you then need to describe how the action (not voting for Biden) better advances that value than the alternative. It's also an odd core value, so if it's a secondary value it would help to tie it to a core value in a coherent way, and if it is a primary it might help to explain why someone else should see it as one.
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May 8, 2024 16:17
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GlyphGryph posted:I am not, there are plenty of coherent and reality based arguments to be made where that it is irrelevant. I just want people to offer them, preferably ones they actually believe. I'm arguing you can only really base your actions on principles. It's not about making myself feel better, it's the only way I can approach these issues in my mind. You can call me selfish, but I think that trying to determine the results of your vote is impossible to do with an accuracy that is useful. Since I can't do that, I have to have principles I will vote based on. What's incomplete about that thought? I don't think I can convince you to think my way. But I'm just telling you why you can't convince me to think your way either.
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May 8, 2024 16:29
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theCalamity posted:I gave you a coherent and reality based argument. Just because you claim to have done so doesn't mean you did. quote:Genocide is bad and I’m not going to vote for someone who supports it. Neither of these are coherent arguments that not voting for Biden is better than voting for him and work just as effectively arguing for voting for him as against. I'm not going to fill in gaps this large for you in an attempt to make them make any kind of sense. Halloween Jack posted:I started from the premise that you're not utterly amoral and that the importance of not legitimizing a fascist regime is self-evident to you. quote:Anyway, now that we've dropped the pretense of debate club, what's your goal here? To construct some sort of praxeological checkmate argument for voting for Biden? To rationalize dismissing anyone who refuses to vote for him in good conscience, perhaps? And, I guess, to provide an opportunity for people to advertise their complete inability to explain their position or make a case for it, like you've done. quote:I mean come on, really? This is goofy. I'm willing to be a bit goofy if it means helping someone to actually think through the position they hold well enough to communicate it to someone else. Maybe I didn't manage that, but is it so bad to have tried? GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 16:37 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 16:31
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I don't think you're going to get a rational response to "America bipartisanly supports genocide" because the rational response to it will get you unpersoned.
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May 8, 2024 16:35
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gurragadon posted:I'm arguing you can only really base your actions on principles. It's not about making myself feel better, it's the only way I can approach these issues in my mind. You can call me selfish, but I think that trying to determine the results of your vote is impossible to do with an accuracy that is useful. Since I can't do that, I have to have principles I will vote based on. What's incomplete about that thought? I'm absolutely open to principle based arguments (or at least I believe I am, maybe I've got a blind spot here though), but they aren't really that when there are no underlying principles being stated or argued from or connected to the conclusion, which seems to be what I'm seeing here? "I have decided this behaviour is bad and it is bad because I have decided that" sort of ex post "principle" is less an argument than an arbitrary whim. Regardless, there's... something here that I'm clearly not understanding, and I'm absolutely willing to dive into it deeper if you are?
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May 8, 2024 16:38
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asking for a value-criterion like this is high school lincoln douglas debate is cringe even for D&D but I can go ahead and humor it. the value is personal morality: making personal choices in accordance with moral axioms of reducing harm the criterion is the comparative harms of personally affirming support vs refusing to participate, with the harms being violations of the speaker's personal moral code the argument being made is that the practical benefits of voting for a lesser evil in this case do not outweigh the violation of said moral code by personally casting their support behind said lesser evil that is a logically consistent argument. if you want to dissuade them, you should prove that the practical benefits of voting are greater than they believe.
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May 8, 2024 16:44
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GlyphGryph posted:I'm absolutely open to principle based arguments (or at least I believe I am, maybe I've got a blind spot here though), but they aren't really that when there are no underlying principles being stated or argued from or connected to the conclusion, which seems to be what I'm seeing here? "I have decided this behaviour is bad and it is bad because I have decided that" sort of ex post "principle" is less an argument than an arbitrary whim. It's unrelated to the conclusion. I keep saying it because it's the core of my reasoning. I have decided voting for someone who supports a genocide is something I won't do. I could decide that arbitrarily, but I know about historic genocides and what they are, so it wasn't an arbitrary decision. Edit: The reason I think like this is I see the trolley problem or "lesser evil" discussions to be misleading. We don't have enough information on the future to know what our actions will result in, especially for large scale events like voting for president. gurragadon fucked around with this message at 16:53 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 16:49
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fool of sound posted:asking for a value-criterion like this is high school lincoln douglas debate is cringe even for D&D but I can go ahead and humor it. I only asked it for the people who were unwilling to do the bare minimum of putting together a coherent thought as guidance for pointing them in the right direction, it wasn't a requirement and I've not required it of the people I've actually been engaging with in good faith. I'm not remotely interested in your guesses as to why they might be saying what they're saying or your attempts to get it to make sense or fit together. Make an argument for yourself or let them explain themselves as they see fit.
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May 8, 2024 17:01
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GlyphGryph posted:Can someone offer a single, coherent, reality based argument that not voting for Biden is better than voting for Biden? You may want to rephrase your question, because obviously the difference between voting for Biden and not voting for him is absolutely minuscule. It's just one vote out of millions, and then you have to take the electoral college into account, which functionally nullifies some people's votes. It sounds like you're actually asking about the difference between electing Biden or not. That's a different conversation. It's related to voting, but also almost completely disconnected from votes on an individual level. If I vote for Biden, I'm just as likely to get Biden as president as I am to get Trump. This is why it's not useful to look at voting simply as an individual act. So if you want to vote for the guy who's enthusiastically supporting a genocide, go right on ahead. It will make exactly as much difference as me not voting for him. But if you actually want him to win, you're going to have to get out there and convince people. And trying to shame people on the internet doesn't count. You're going to have to go knock on doors and phone bank. Tell them to their face that they should vote for the genocide supporter. All I can say is good luck with that.
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May 8, 2024 17:10
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What's there to debate? Biden and the Democrats clearly don't want anti-genocide and pro-Palestine people to vote for them. Especially since the crackdown on college protestors, smearing everyone that criticizes them as anti-semites. Or do they really have the gall to expect votes from people they consider anti-Semitic? Personally, I'm not inclined to vote for people that completely lack basic human decency.
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May 8, 2024 17:17
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One thing that I notice these anti-voting-for-Biden arguments hinge on is that an individual vote is meaningless in the grand scheme of things, so voting your conscience is unlikely to cause a worse outcome than would already happen. A single vote for a Democrat in a solid red state is not going to flip the state blue, so it is okay to not signal support for a candidate who does reprehensible things. What happens in a swing state? If there is a chance that your vote will change the outcome, then is it rational to not take an action that will lead to the least-bad outcome, even if that outcome is still bad?
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May 8, 2024 17:26
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fool of sound posted:asking for a value-criterion like this is high school lincoln douglas debate is cringe even for D&D but I can go ahead and humor it. Yeah this is basically it. I'm making a moral choice based on values and principles instead of focusing on political calculus. I'm not voting for Biden or Trump because I want to sleep at night. And I refuse to be browbeaten by the lie that every election is the single most important election ever and that the entire planet will fall into chaos if I don't vote for the leaser of two evils. This is exactly what liberals and Democrats are trying to do and it won't work on me. I've voted for Democrats and been disappointed by them more than enough times in my life to have accurate data that they don't deserve my vote, at least not at the federal and state level. I still vote for local positions/roles because that directly affects me and my family but otherwise I will continue to vote third party because I'm playing the long game Also, third parties need votes. The two party system sucks and should be destroyed and I'm tired of people trying to guilt me into the short term thinking of the next election when what I want is to help slowly change the system in the long run You can think whatever you want of me for that but I'm absolutely not an uncaring person no matter what anyone says. I do volunteer work in my community and donate stuff to charity and our local schools and library all the time. But I will vote for socialist candidates because I'm a socialist and I agree with their platforms of ending poverty and homelessness and giving everyone health care, etc. And that's how you're supposed to vote. You're supposed to vote for people who most closely share your values, not through political calculus or voting "strategically" And it really sucks that some people itt have already declared themselves the sole arbiters of morality and logic and who to vote for "correctly". They're not, and it's clear that they've already made up their minds that if people don't vote the "correct" way then they're some combination of stupid or evil. It's incredibly smug and condescending and exhausting
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May 8, 2024 17:43
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If there was a credible 2020Biden-like challenger to Netanyahu - that is, someone who is still a pro-apartheid corrupt center right rear end in a top hat, but nowhere as nakedly bloodthirsty and power-hungry as the incumbent - would it be rational for a leftist or liberal Israeli voter not to vote for such candidate as opposed to voting for them?
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May 8, 2024 17:44
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:If there was a credible 2020Biden-like challenger to Netanyahu - that is, someone who is still a pro-apartheid corrupt center right rear end in a top hat, but nowhere as nakedly bloodthirsty and power-hungry as the incumbent - would it be rational for a leftist or liberal Israeli voter not to vote for such candidate as opposed to voting for them? They tried that It didn’t work  The centrists were utterly unable to hold a government together even long enough to get rid of Bibi
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May 8, 2024 17:51
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If anything the attempt may well have convinced Likud that their position is untenable without a war to drive up nationalist fervor.
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May 8, 2024 17:55
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Politicians focus on swing voters because swing voters may or may not vote for them. They have criteria that can be met, they can be persuaded, politicians may move to them. And if they don’t, they don’t get those votes. That makes the issues of concern to swing voters disproportionately powerful in electoral politics. The converse of this is that voters who think they should always vote for one party no matter what that party does are taken for granted. This is the basic idea of electoral politics, and I think everyone gets that. But, once one sees voting in moral terms, and additionally decides a given party is inherently less evil than all other options, all that of course goes out the window. You have to vote, and you have to vote for the less evil party, and that’s all driven by straightforward and inarguable moral values. There’s two problems with the “must vote for the lesser evil” model: 1) as we see in this latest back and forth, it doesn’t have a great answer for “what if my morals say they are all too evil to vote for.” There is a bit of irony to say the least in arguing that your morals compelling you to vote for a lesser evil are actually more moral than not voting for evil. Which in turn comes from the irony of a morality based logic arguing for voting for a lesser evil. 2) Historically, lesser evil centrists have not been great at confronting, or even not actively enabling, greater evils.
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May 8, 2024 18:04
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I'm voting for Biden because if he loses, horrible things will happen to myself and people that I care about here in the US, and the situation in Gaza will remain the same anyway. It's really that simple. I care about myself and my loved ones too much to cast a performative protest vote that will change nothing half a world away. I don't know why that's so hard for some people to say. It doesn't make you a monster.
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May 8, 2024 18:21
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Queering Wheel posted:I'm voting for Biden because if he loses, horrible things will happen to myself and people that I care about here in the US, and the situation in Gaza will remain the same anyway. That's my take on the situation as well. Trump did a LOT of damage in 4 years. If he wins again, America is done. And despite the excitement this may bring some people it would be incredibly uncomfortable and dare I say lethal for the vast majority of Americans whose safety is teetering off the edge of a cliff right now. Trump has openly admitted to crimes and has harnessed the justice system to work for him rather than against him. Judges like Canon and some SCOTUS judges owe him favors and he's cashing in. He has blatantly admitted that there will be scores to settle if he's president again. He's also had time to learn from some of his mistakes and will likely begin purging civil servants and security officials in an effort to further remake the system in his image. This is a trolley problem question through and through. Inaction constitutes a choice and an action. In this case you're signaling that you don't care if Trump wins and if he does that ironically pushes you further from the goal of stopping genocide because while neither party is innocent, the GOP wants even more of it and they want to make it okay for said genocide to possibly take place within US borders in the future. If Biden wins, and if the GOP are too crazy to be a viable electoral force for a decade at least, it creates room for an alternative political party that can gain prominence in the electoral system. If the Dems lose, it could be civil war, the end of democracy and a permanent cult of personality surrounding Trump and the GOP that rules America forever. We are in a hyper polarized environment and basically 4 states and 100,000 people between them decide these elections. Those votes count. Kraftwerk fucked around with this message at 19:51 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 19:45
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I completely agree with people saying that the idea of voting for Biden is repugnant because of the vile things he is responsible for. But so what? Is the purpose of voting to feel good? I deeply appreciate GlyphGryph's question being asked and their stubbornness in not accepting half answers to it. Because I desperately hope that there is a good answer to it. I hate genocide and hold Biden responsible. But Biden losing will not do a single thing to materially help mitigate the genocide. I have trans loved ones, and Biden losing very directly puts their health and wellbeing at risk. If the argument is my vote won't make a difference either way, then this whole discussion is pointless. We have to assume our vote matters, otherwise literally who cares? The genocide my country is supporting is stomach churning, and I have been as active as I am able with protests and financial support of groups I hope might do something to change the situation. The idea of voting for someone who is supporting that genocide is deeply morally offensive to me. But so what? The voting isn't what I'm horrified by, it's the genocide. And voting and not voting do exactly the same thing to actually stop the genocide: absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, I have other very deeply held values. Not ones that supersede my opposition to genocide, but pretty non-trivial ones in any case. If someone was somehow running on a transphobic and anti-genocide platform, I'd have a lot of hard thinking I'd have to do. That would be a hosed up dilemma. But with things as they are, I can't even get to that point. If I hate genocide, and care about trans people, and I imagine my vote makes a difference, I have to vote for pro-genocide Biden. At least that's how things look to me. If your only argument is that you can't support genocide (which is a pretty sympathetic argument to me!), I just can't make the moral connection between that and voting when voting and not voting have the exact same effect on the actual genocide.
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May 8, 2024 19:55
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I won't be able to devote the time and engagement necessary to this discussion, so I just want to put this out there. My wife has health problems. Our last kid put a strain on her body. That was 16 years ago. If she gets pregnant again, and is forced to carry, she will very likely die. We've taken all the necessary precautions, but nothing is 100% sure. I know for a fact that there are millions of other women out there in the same position as her. gurragadon posted:Edit: The reason I think like this is I see the trolley problem or "lesser evil" discussions to be misleading. We don't have enough information on the future to know what our actions will result in, especially for large scale events like voting for president. We don't know the future with 100% certainty, but we can make educated guesses. If Trump is re-elected, he'll nominate judges who are anti-abortion zealots (just like he did in his first term). If Biden is re-elected, he'll nominate judges who are pro-choice (just like he did in his first term). I work with colleagues who are trans and my friend has a kid who is non-binary. The conversation we had after Nex's death was not pleasant at all. If Trump is re-elected, he'll choose anti-LGBT activists for his cabinet and DOJ (just like he did in his first term). If Biden is elected, he'll choose people who will care about trans people, or at least let them be, to serve in his cabinet (just like he did in his first term). If Trump is re-elected, the genocide of Palestinians will continue (just like it did in his first term). If Biden is re-elected, the genocide of Palestinians will continue (just like it did in his first term). Voting can't change what's happening in Gaza, but it can change other things for the better. That's why people like the one's in this thread piss me off. The amount of smug self-righteousness on display in this thread would put any Southern Baptist preacher to shame. And just like a Southern Baptist preacher, the only help the "no voters" are willing to offer my wife, my friend's kid, my colleagues, and people like them is "I'll pray for you!" "Sorry, I have to keep my integrity regarding an issue that can't change. That's why I have to throw y'all under the bus." You're not just voting for Biden, you're voting for his cabinet, his judges, his voters, etc. Remember Trump's cabinet? Betsy DeVos, Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, etc. The SCOTUS judges that ended Roe. Trump did that! Nobody here can make an argument that Trump's cabinet and judges were better or similar to Biden's (Except Blinken. He does suck.) I know my one vote isn't going to shift the entire election. But on the other hand, no snowflake thinks they're responsible for the avalanche. It's not hard to vote (but there is one group trying to make it harder and it ain't the Dems). Plus, it doesn't stop you from doing other forms of direct action, which is absolutely necessary. You cannot do one without the other.
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May 8, 2024 19:58
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volts5000 posted:The SCOTUS judges that ended Roe. Trump did that! I agree with all off what you said this but small correction here. Roe v Wade was a multi generational project led by the religious right and the GOP. They've been trying to get this decision overturned since the day it happened and much of the "judicial activism" that led to Roe being repealed was the shoe falling off the other foot when more liberal judges of the era brought Roe into force. Trump in this case is the patsy. McConnell did more with his political machinations to repeal Roe than anything Trump was personally responsible for. This issue is a failure of the entirety of America's political and judicial class. RBG should have retired at the right time when it was favorable to replace her. Garland had his nomination stolen from him due to procedural bullshit by McConnell. The Democratic party was also at fault for believing this to be a settled issue and never codifying abortion rights into law because it served as a convenient boogeyman for them to run elections on. All that is to say that if it wasn't Trump, some other GOP president would have done it in his place, whether it was Cruz, Rubio or even Romney. The repeal of Roe is an extremely uncontroversial and desirable objective within the GOP apparatus. Their base will not stop until abortion is banned all over America. I am already hearing things on calls with my American colleagues where a woman had to go to Mexico for medical care because a procedure to save her life would have been illegal where she lived in the US. The Roe repeal has harmed an entire generation of women and forced people to take extreme measures to protect themselves because of an actively hostile legal system that cares nothing for women's lives and bodily autonomy. If something is not done to curtail this extremely reactionary element in American society you're going to see a re-run of the controversies that followed things like the Fugitive Slave Act, only instead of returning slaves to their masters it'll be people taking out bounties on women who had abortions in legal states and chasing them across state lines to face consequences along with anyone who helped them. This kind of thing is what you can expect to happen if Trump wins. And once again. There is a very real threat of reprisals should Trump be elected. The kind of poo poo that you'd expect to happen in 3rd world countries could happen in the US. He's not going to stop until the entire DOJ becomes personally loyal to him, and only him and then he'll wield it as a crudgel against anyone who opposes him. If you care even the slightest bit about America, if you want America to maintain some semblance of basic civil society however fragile and flawed it may be, then you'll be voting to stop Trump. Kraftwerk fucked around with this message at 20:31 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 20:28
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Kraftwerk posted:I agree with all off what you said this but small correction here. Maybe it’d be more accurate to say that Trump was the final key piece in the plan.
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May 8, 2024 20:32
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Eiba posted:I completely agree with people saying that the idea of voting for Biden is repugnant because of the vile things he is responsible for. One of the amazing rhetorical twists in modern politics, up there with "right to work" and "pro life", is how "voting your conscience" somehow exclusively turned into doing what makes you feel good (via action for a personal favorite no-hoper or inaction by staying home) on election day while washing your hands of responsibility for bad stuff that happens to other people in the following years. It's a term that has real world value, like choosing the candidate who would back social programs for those in greater need over the one who will improve your personal finances, or voting against the hometown boy you personally identify with but who is less capable/more corrupt than the opponent, or lots of other things. It works specifically as "I'd feel good voting for this person but my conscience will know my vote is making it worse for others." Kraftwerk posted:I agree with all off what you said this but small correction here. It's also important to remember that it was a long, relentless campaign of electoral politics enabled by millions of fervent and regular voters who turn out for whichever candidate is in the direction they want even when the difference is small. Even if the people at the top were willing to do dirty tricks to overcome obstacles and had "win big enough that elections stop being a worry" as an end goal, even if backers did direct action as well its incredible success was carried on the back of people voting to move things incrementally rightward even if that RINO in the general is basically a baby-killing Democrat when you think about it.
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May 8, 2024 21:14
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GlyphGryph posted:That's an effective argument that Biden is morally reprehensible. He really doesn't need to do that. The rough shape of his argument is perfectly coherent (& would be recognized as such by anyone who had any experience studying ethics or moral philosophy): 1. Biden is enabling & facilitating a genocide. 2. Voting for someone enabling & facilitating a genocide is an intrinsically morally wrong action (3. One shouldn't ever perform intrinsically morally wrong actions) Conclusion: One shouldn't vote for Biden GlyphGryph posted:Better in what way? How? Why? There's no way for me to evaluate whether your statement is reality based or coherent because I have no way to determine what assumptions and values underly it, what mechanisms might lead to the actions in question better serving those values, whether the actual components are factual or reality based, or the scope in which the assertion would even apply. This is a bizarre objection. If someone thinks that certain actions are intrinsically morally wrong (and most people do - even if you disagree that this action isn't intrinsically morally wrong, I doubt you'd seriously argue that, e.g., raping a baby to death to save 10 lives could ever be morally obligatory), then not performing the morally wrong action is, directly, the only coherent way to "serve those values". Throughout your responses in this thread, you consistently presuppose that the only way of justifying an action is in terms of the consequences that it brings about. That view is known as consequentialism. There are MANY arguments against that view. (That link is just a brief overview, if you're seriously interested I can find you at least 100 academic papers with specific arguments against various formulations of consequentialism). Unless you are going to address at least *some* of those those objections and put forth a positive argument for your (extreme, relative to actual moral theories) form of consequentialism, you are not warranted in demanding that every participant in the discussion justify their position in consequentialist terms. I doubt you actually believe in the position you're presupposing. If you truly believe that only consequences matter (this is important: almost everyone agrees that they matter to some extent, that's different than the claim that they're the ONLY thing that has any moral value), consider the following thought experiment: 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) If you keep to the assumptions in the experiment, consequentialism says that it's morally obligatory to administer the concentration camp in a circumstance where you will do so in a less brutal manner than any of the alternatives. Maybe you really do think that. It's perfectly coherent & rational to do so. But most people - even people who are very sympathetic to consequentalism - have a pretty strong intuition that you shouldn't be morally obliged to do that. Compelling someone to engage in brutally dehumanizing killing seems to violate their dignity as a human being, even if it does bring about the best consequences. If you agree that it does violate their dignity, then you've admitted that some things other than consequences have moral value or worth. You effectively concede that some actions have an element of wrongness that is intrinsic to the action itself, regardless of the consequences. You might still think that consequences are very important. You may even argue that, in this particular case, the harm to the person's dignity is outweighed by the magnitude of the consequences. But you have to admit that dignity is part of the moral calculus here, and ergo must be open to the possibility of actions that are so intrinsically damaging to human dignity as to outweigh the consequences. Here's another one: Suppose that you're a judge in 1800s America. A black man is brought before you on specious murder charges, and a racist mob has formed outside the courthouse, threatening a riot that will assuredly cause many innocent deaths if you do not find the man guilty and sentence him to execution. You are certain that the man is not guilty. What should you do? (Again this is a riff on a famous objection to consequentialism that has been presented in dozens of forms, I don't even know what the original is) A pure consequentialist would say that you should hang the innocent man to appease the racist mob. You sacrifice one life to save many lives. The facts that the mob is racist & that the man being tried is innocent are strictly irrelevant - in consequentialism, the intentions of agents do not have any intrinsic moral value (because they aren't consequences). Again maybe you think that a judge in that circumstance would be morally obligated to execute an innocent black man to appease a racist mob. But I'm pretty sure you don't think that. You probably think that killing innocent people to appease racists is wrong - even if doing so would prevent a larger amount of death/destruction/harm. That is: You probably think that killing innocent people to appease racists is an intrinsically repugnant action which should probably never be performed! It's certainly true that neither of those thought experiments are straightforwardly analogous to deciding whether to vote for Biden. But hopefully the examples at least make clear why an analysis that focuses solely on the negative consequences of Trump winning relative to the (presumably) less negative consequences of Biden winning misses something, especially when you're engaged in dialogue with someone who believes that "voting for someone who vocally supports / facilitates / enables a genocide" is intrinsically wrong. Maybe you disagree that voting for a genocide supporter/enabler/facilitator is intrinsically wrong. Maybe you agree that it is intrinsically wrong but think that the consequences of Trump are so dire that they outweigh the intrinsic wrongness. Those are positions that could possibly lead to a productive debate. But you are certainly not entitled to presuppose the truth of a moral framework which, I believe I've shown here, is subject to serious objections and is itself a matter for debate.
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May 9, 2024 00:13
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I think that requiring an argument to be “reality-based” inherently twists the frame of discussion around the debaters’ individual notions of what is included in “reality”. If reality only includes the material consequences of an action, then the only reality-based arguments are consequential ones. It’s really easy, then, to dismiss arguments like “I refuse to take an unethical action, even if the outcome of me not taking the action is worse”, because the only part that matters is that not taking the action made things worse.
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May 9, 2024 03:07
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Gnumonic posted:This is a bizarre objection. If someone thinks that certain actions are intrinsically morally wrong (and most people do - even if you disagree that this action isn't intrinsically morally wrong, I doubt you'd seriously argue that, e.g., raping a baby to death to save 10 lives could ever be morally obligatory), then not performing the morally wrong action is, directly, the only coherent way to "serve those values". Even if we were to accept that consequentialism isn't the end of the story all your examples of it feeling intuitively wrong involve deciding to actively participate in harming someone. Is that remotely analogous to voting? And further, even if those scenarios can be held up as examples of utilitarianism not being intuitive... are they wrong? If your Jewish friend in the concentration camp is pleading with you to do what little you can to make the situation less brutal, is it obviously right to tell them to gently caress off and suffer because you're not dirtying your hands with something so obviously immoral, even with the sole aim of helping them however you are able? Because in the simplified dilemma I feel I am facing with this election, the plight of my trans loved ones is incredibly pressing and immediate, and while I agree that voting for someone supporting a genocide is morally repugnant, how is that "intrinsically morally wrong action" relevant in the face of the material reality my trans partner is going to face? You don't just have to make the case that voting could be intrinsically morally wrong, you also have to explain how that purely theoretical state that in this case necessarily has absolutely no bearing on what actions will actually occur in the future, is more important than the very real material consequences. Or at least that's what I would personally like explained.
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May 9, 2024 03:24
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The reality based component was just "doesnt rely on stuff that is provably false or otherwise blatantly fantastical hypotheticals" like arguing that if enough people withhold their votes it will cause a communist revolution or whatever. The actual values espoused are not relevant. Also, all you fuckers giving me poo poo about only accepting consequentialists arguments, you do realize of the two arguments I've accepted so far, neither have been consequentalist? Im just asking people to actually *argue* for their poo poo instead of simply asserting it, and the absolute refusal of most of you to even consider doing it admittedly has me a bit peeved. If you believe that voting for biden is intrinsically morally wrong, then make a case that other people should consider it to be the same. It doesnt need to convince me to be a good argument, it just needs to be an actual loving argument. I think not voting is morally wrong. I'm not going to pretend that is an actual argument that holds any relevance to anyone else. I recognize that if I wanted to make an argument, I should reasonably be expected to give reasons for why someone, anyone else who does not already hold that view should, in fact, hold that view. I could do this in lots of non consequentialist ways - I could appeal to an underlying moral framework they might share and emphasize elements they hadn't considered. I could appeal to other values and argue they have more importance. I would not just say "anyone who doesnt vote is intrinsically and morally wrong" and expect literally anyone to buy that as a complete and coherent argument, that wouldnt be remotely useful or productive unless my goal was just to feel superior to people online. It certainly wouldnt be in keeping with the spirit of the subforum. Maybe if used it as a starting point and I went on to actually do something with it, maybe using it as a baseline assumption to discuss with people who agreed with that other differences of opinion, but that's not this scenario. And that is what I believe, by the way. That's not a hypothetical. I sincerely believe that anyone choosing not to vote in this scenario is taking an intrinsically immoral action, and within my own moral framework that is absolutely undeniable - by my moral standards many of you are straight up rephrensibly, willingly choosing evil. But, again, that is not an argument. There is nothing legitimately productive I can say on the issue. Absolutely none of you will care if I find you grossly immoral, and why the gently caress would you? And even then, I could at least articulate the whys and hows of that belief, which it seems like most of the folks here couldnt even begin to do because the beginning and end of their moral consideration is "I decided this is kntrinsically and morally wrong so it is end of story and if youre not convinced youre bad" which, worse than all that other bullshit, is just super loving lazy and they could really try a bit harder. Again, thanks to the two people who actually and sincerely tried to engage in actual discussion, at least this wasnt completely wasted.
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May 9, 2024 03:35
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| # ? May 24, 2024 06:21 |
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We have already solved the problem of electoralism with math. Game theory dictates that your individual vote will have an almost statistically non-existent chance to impact the outcome of the election, but if everyone acts that way it becomes a collective action problem that does impact the outcome. Therefore, the only solution is to encourage everyone else to vote, do whatever you want on election day, and don't let anyone else know what you did. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 9, 2024 03:40
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