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The EC is taught to kids in highschool in civics, and the way it is presented is, 'the EC is a formality that compiles and verifies the voters' will. Yes, in theory it is used as a lost stopgap against a demagogue or tyrant from gaining a political position. This has never actually happened.' This is a problem philosophically of course; the EC being able to completely change their vote in opposition to the popular vote is, obviously an issue. However, it completely hides the real issue. The EC is viewed as an antiquated, slightly stupid anachronism that maybe, potentially is a problem but which serves a vague function and we'll get around to changing it when we have the time for it. The fact that the EC represents gerrymandering, districting, FPtP voting, and all the other problems associated with 'winning' states and boiling states down to their EC values in complete opposition to the popular vote, is not really discussed in high school civics.
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Feb 11, 2024 02:06
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Professor Beetus posted:I mean I'm reading Nixonland right now and it's hilarious how prescient it is despite being about poo poo that happened 60 years ago. A bunch of really educated newspaper and book writers went all the way up their own asses trying to find the hidden truth of the conservative, and when it came down to it, it was much more simple than that. White, middle class people in this country are primed to be racist loving reactionaries the second they are inconvenienced or think that other people might catch up to them in prosperity. And they will vote for whoever tells them that they're right and that they shouldn't have to accept people of color, the poor, the oppressed, etc because it interferes with the narrative that they are the protagonist and are doing better than those people because they are hardworking and moral American citizens, and the others are degenerate filth. And for those reactionaries on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, it's even easier, because they can just blame those others for why their lives are unsuccessful and unsatisfying. "It's those moochers taking" they say, as they happily collect their monthly food stamps. I would argue this is true and it's worse: as people in general become poorer, the white reactionaries are easier and easier to rile, because they expect minorities to be even worse off than them. As our material conditions degrade, the more people get sucked into the racist whirlpool and the more racist they become. I'm not excusing this as economic anxiety, mind. I think that white middle class racists could choose to put that energy toward you know, capitalism, and they actively decide to blame others rather than hold the system to account.
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Feb 25, 2024 00:54
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I never thought UFOs - let alone 'UFOs are demons' - would become a partisan issue but here we are.
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Mar 1, 2024 18:55
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I think we're stuck in a round-and-round argument that begins with 'Biden - is he old?' and ends with 'Biden must be the best option, because the alternative is worse, therefore we cannot accept the right wing framing' and I think it's an argument divorced from nuance. We can start by hopefully agreeing that Biden is an older candidate than most people would prefer. I'm hoping even people who nominally support Biden can agree that all things being equal, a younger person with the same tent poles would probably be a stronger candidate. So the important question then is, "To what degree does Biden's age impact his ability to govern?" and the related question, "To what extent does Biden's age impact his appeal as a candidate?" The first question is one nobody seems able to agree on. Is Biden suffering no ill effects from age, trivial ill effects from age, moderate to severe verbal but not cognitive impacts, etc. And this leads to the final question which is, "To what extent do we have luxury to be concerned about Biden's age in light of the electoral reality of United States?" It is not 'giving into the right wing framing' to have this conversation. The right wants Biden's age to become such a wedge issue that undecided voters - who I am assured, apparently, exist - will lean away from him, even though Trump's age and cognitive abilities are clearly the same or worse than Biden's in every regard. It is a valid conversation to have because it is important when we think about other politicians and their age and how we vote in the future; it is valid because the people around Biden need to understand that propping up a candidate far past retirement is not acceptable; and it is important because we cannot simply choose to deny reality because the right has staked a claim on a particularly unpleasant point. The reality is the right will capitalize on any perceived weakness and exaggerate it and if they can't find one, they will invent one; but that doesn't mean everything they pick apart is imagined, it just means that their story around it sometimes might be. I'm reminded of Bill Clinton. During his long scandal one of the things a lot of people on the Dem side did was claim this was a political hit job, that Clinton did nothing wrong and if he did it was nobody's business. Nowadays it's pretty much accepted that Bill was a sexpest and while the right absolutely did not care about the woman they affected with his hearing and impeachment he also was a sexpest and denying that he was didn't actually help anybody. I realize that in a world of clickbait and top ten reasons not to vote for Biden lists, it's hard to afford to have a nuanced conversation about the effects of age. Because the perceived result is a growing public discontent around a silly wedge issue. Because if the right says, "Biden - OLD!" it's tempting to shout back, "No - Biden NOT OLD." The reality is an educated society should be capable of agreeing Biden is probably too old for office but also vote for him anyway. That's what I'm doing, that is essentially where I live. Biden's stance on Palestine and people protesting him on that grounds is a whole other kettle of fish I'm not going to get into because I think there's something more legitimate and even more nuanced there to discuss, but "don't talk about Biden being old because that's a right wing invention" is silly. The man is old. His speech patterns have changed. If that matters or not is up to you. You can't break down the right wing hit pieces by simply denying reality. It won't stop me from voting for him. I'd vote for Biden if his opposition was a young and vibrant fascist. I'd vote for a dead man instead of Trump. I would vote for a pot of luke-warm stew. But it makes you look ridiculous if you try to claim he's just as young and punchy as he's ever been because that's just in complete opposition to our eyes and ears. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 23:40
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Zwabu posted:I don’t believe anyone on this thread is making this point as you have stated it. The rebuttal to “Biden old” here has generally been “Trump is in the same neighborhood of old, and is in as much or more decline as Biden, therefore ‘Biden old’ is, in THIS presidential election, not a particularly good reason to sit it out or vote for Trump given that Trump is in fact the alternative.” Well, that's encouraging, and you're correct, but I think the problem is that when someone posts 'Biden old' it's important to sus out whether they mean 'in the context of an election against Trump does this matter' versus 'does this matter more generally' because it's a different answer depending on which one you're discussing. And I have seen here and elsewhere people blurring the line because they're nervous any discussion of Biden's age automatically makes it the former.
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Mar 11, 2024 06:44
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Listen. Guys. If your position is that TikTok is stupid because of the dancing and the dumb memes and you hate that people are on it all the time, you're being ignorant and old. If your position is that all social media is bad, I can't argue with that. Not really. Because you're correct, it's all exploitative and they sell data and certainly nobody involved in it is running a charity. I essentially agree with that. But it is no worse than facebook and in many ways it is much better. People who do not use TikTok tend to see a few things first; dance videos, thirst traps, stupid jokes and young people being painfully earnest. It rapidly funnels you into a particular part of TikTok based on your viewership and this is kind of where the crux is. TikTok is a haven for LGBTQ+ communities, for feminists, for fat and disabled people. It's got a lot of eye-roll content about mental health, yes, but it also lets people with serious trauma or conditions feel substantially less alone. Is this because TikTok is unique and no other platform can replace it? Well, we don't actually know that. Because the issue is not, 'Will another media platform be as popular?' because the answer is obviously yes. The issue is, how will these communities be treated on the new platform? The software is not unique; the community is. There has never been a place with so many minority voices in one place before. Is it all good content? God no. Is it thanks to TikTok's incredible leftist policies? Again, obviously not. It is essentially a coincidence, an example of people using a platform for their own ends. And given time, TikTok would gently caress it up themselves, or the app would lose popularity as people moved on to other communities. However, the US government banning a platform like this is not the same as Myspace losing popularity and if that's how you see it you have completely got up your own rear end. I am begging you all: if you are shaking your fist at TikTok and saying good riddance you are not properly in touch with what is happening and please try to get your head around it. If your position is that all social media sucks, then no problem, I agree, but it should probably start with the platform that all the boomers use to share misinformation.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:53
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Potato Salad posted:Well, so I can speculate about some of the secret sauce that I've been saying I will not speculate about : disadvantaged and persecuted visible and invisible minorities bullied the everliving poo poo out of right-wing agitators for a long time on the platform and continue to do so to a pretty good place. There's no breaking the Horny Racist Christian Mom bubble that's been locking horns on the platform, but that's beside the point. Well precisely. That's the thing that's very telling about the 'tiktok ban'; it seems, from our perspective, unmoored from any reality. "It's Chinese, therefore bad" is dumb on its face yet somehow its garnered bipartisan support. If it were really about digital privacy or international media influence you'd think a more finely crafted law witch targeted the real issue, instead of laser focusing this one specific app. This is personal to these people, there's no other explanation. I have to wonder how much of it is because nobody in congress uses TikTok and therefore all of their information comes from briefs. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 19:09
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Riptor posted:For better or worse you're making the government's case for them. You're saying that TikTok is a place where marginalized communities have gathered and shared ideas with one another to the degree that they've become a very passionate community who are receptive to ideas promoted by that community. That a foreign power has the very real potential to influence the process by which this community communicates within itself as well as the ideas being promoted within it is an enormous concern to the US government. Then the US has a responsibility to address the means by which that 'influence' occurs, not to simply ban the community. Because it is not a problem unique to China and in fact could happen with any domestic app just as easily. EDIT: Also what exactly is the 'enormous security concern'? I hear this a lot in this argument but no one wants to spell it out, like it's just obvious on its face. For instance, I should think what occurred on Facebook in 2016-2020 - bombing boomers with misinformation delivered through Russian bots - is kind of what people are talking about when they discuss 'security' concerns. But Facebook is a domestic company that was influenced by a foreign power. Congress tried to address it but it mostly resulted in a personal dressing down of Zuckerberg with little political will to go further. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 19:50
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I mean given the state of policing, health care and wealth distribution in the united states, I don't know if I'd even notice what Chinese propaganda looks like. (this is a joke). More seriously in the time that TikTok has existed there have been no tik-tok based insurrections, but there sure has poo poo has been one influenced by FOX news. So we think the potential for a foreign power to maybe, some day, slip some insidious messages into their algorithm is a problem, but a news channel openly doing it is just capitalism as usual? Forgive me but I'll be more concerned when the TikTok mind control actually starts.
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Mar 13, 2024 20:18
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Riptor posted:That's fair enough. I think that is wrong and should be rectified To play devil's advocate with, I guess, myself, that's kind of moot. You can launder a government through a person, especially in China.
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Mar 13, 2024 20:20
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Madkal posted:I don't know much about social media but is there a reason minorities and those in the disabled community cannot use any other social media platform? I mean the short answer is because they don't. There's no organic way to raise a hand to the gay community and go, 'hey guys, we're moving over to facebook, everybody on board.' That's not how these things happen. However, also consider that how a thing works is how they are intended to work. If there is no thriving gay community on Facebook it is because Facebook is set up to make those communities fail. It is not a fault with the community itself for not getting their poo poo together and moving platforms, which is how it is often framed. Tumblr went through a similar seismic shift and has never really come back together again, although you can see pockets of those communities ironically on TikTok, but also Youtube (although that's a losing fight).
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Mar 13, 2024 20:30
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I don't think TikTok will just be quietly sold to an american and if it is, I think it's safe to assume it will fundamentally change. I don't think Chinese ownership is good but I do think it is different, and the things that have kept minority groups at the edges of other platforms are fundamentally american. It ill be viewed with suspicion if nothing else. It is safe to be skeptical of TikTok; I again want to emphasize that I do not think they are a 'safe' platform, they are vulnerable, but they are also not a pipeline for Chinese propaganda because if it was we'd already see that happening. Why Congress is suddenly being motivated by a potential propaganda concern is a bit strange, particularly with this degree of speed and agreement. I'm not saying it's a conspiracy. But I do think it's fairly obvious that 'yeah geez, China sure could use TikTok for bad stuff' is not the motivating factor. Either it's personal, or they view the discussion happening there already to be propaganda (pushes for national healthcare and trans rights is obviously communist), or they know something I don't. And if it's the latter, I really don't trust the government to clandestinely affect my life.
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Mar 13, 2024 21:12
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:I also want to point out something about one of TikTok’s supposed strengths. And I want to preface it by saying that I actually buy the argument that the ban really is about spying concerns. Oh sure. My argument is not 'TikTok is leftist', it is 'TikTok is a place where these groups gather.' The fact you can open your phone and see someone who looks like you, talking to you about political issues you care about, is unique to that space. Yes, you can try to hunt down a youtube contributor or a subreddit that delivers things you care about, but you have to find and vet them. To say nothing of the fact that reddit and youtube are aging platforms. It is absolutely as horribly nazi as it is delightfully gay, no question. That still doesn't mean one should do away with it.
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Mar 13, 2024 21:17
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Riptor posted:This seems wildly naive Possibly, but I think it's a bit alarmist to pass legislation on an unfalsifiable claim. "TikTok is brainwashing us so subtly we can't even tell it is happening" is, you know, a position, but I would again argue this level of speed and motivation would make a lot more sense if they were targeting media tools that already have a known track record.
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Mar 13, 2024 21:20
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I mean the terms give TikTok an extremely short turnaround. It's kind of impossible to say who would buy it but I can't imagine it would be anybody cool.
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Mar 14, 2024 01:34
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I mean if somebody wanted to invent an app that was half as useable as TikTok they already could. Instagram Stories and Facebook Reels failed for a reason, and it's not because people don't want to watch short videos, it's because gently caress Facebook. I don't think TikTok would survive divestment, at least not in a recognizable form, and I think that's generally the point of this bill. That and old white men who are tired of being made fun of.
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Mar 15, 2024 02:03
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I think there's a valid question around how we handle the separation of trans persons in sports (and even cis persons based on biological sex, as other people have pointed out hormone distribution is hardly uniform even among cis people) and I think the society we live in is not even remotely mature enough to address it and it makes make actively anxious to think about. Like if we can settle on 'it doesn't matter in 90% of cases and people should be able to compete with their chosen sex/gender' that would be swell.
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Mar 16, 2024 06:05
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If there was only one house, its value would approach infinity. Therefore destroy all housing.
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Mar 19, 2024 01:19
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:tired driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or no I mean I get the joke but it's true: the obvious difference between drunk driving and tired driving is that most people would never choose to drive tired, they're going somewhere because they feel like they have to. I think like most things in our hellscape we should just take it for granted if somebody tells us they're too tired to get to work but I also think our awful work culture has made honest self-evaluations completely impossible for the average worker. I think most people would agree that a trucker shouldn't get behind the wheel if they just drove through the night and there are lives are on the line, but I also think that most people have some experience with driving to work after getting four or five hours of sleep. You'd be hard pressed to find any social will to say people in the latter case should skip work, and I think you get your blurry edge cases from there there.
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Apr 3, 2024 16:13
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Nail Rat posted:I think our nation and system has failed and trying to pretend that it's alright when we pay for a genocide is wrong. I don't think trump is the lesser evil but I find the distinction rather unimportant at this point. Biden goes around congress to help Israel kill children. That is a fact. I think the fundamental disconnect that happens whenever this topic comes up is the idea that a vote, that an election, is evidence of 'support'. It is not. When we get to the actual presidential election, you make a choice between two options. This choice should be informed by pragmatism and politics. If you want to end the genocide in Gaza, by all means, please follow your morals - but you'll affect far more change by protesting, pressuring your local politicians, and donating money to relevant groups than by withholding your vote. I think because our electoral choice is basically a foregone requirement in our society we see it as our most relevant way to affect all social change and it isn't. You can vote for Biden on Tuesday and continue protesting him on Wednesday because that's the nature of our system. I don't think that's great, but you aren't supporting a genocide by doing so, you're making a choice between two options which, as you point out, may be fundamentally broken. But the way to affect that change is by organizing, protest, etc. Voting for Trump will not 'overturn the system'. There is no way out of this mess by voting, you don't get to mash a reset button with your vote because your vote just doesn't determine that.
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Apr 17, 2024 16:27
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Neat Bee posted:I did not advocate voting for fascists, quite the opposite actually. Voting for liberals does not stop fascists, which should be painfully clear after the last three years, and I have extremely bad news if you think that Democrats are free from the fascism label considering what has transpired with Israel. Or the border. Or how they have enabled Republicans through direct action or inaction. The answer to this is quite clear: we don't vote our way out of fascism. The vote has nothing at all to do with signaling your allegiances or changing the country. You pick whichever candidate is the most pragmatic. Then you go back to doing the real work. If somebody comes up with a mass movement to protest the vote I'm onboard but until then it's just sort of petty. We don't get to choose the outcome of the genocide. It's not on the ballot.
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Apr 18, 2024 12:08
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FlamingLiberal posted:Because she, and a lot of these other Chuds are literally insane and don't understand that no, regular people don't summarily execute their dogs I earnestly think it's something like this. The right is primed to consume lies. She could have said anything. She could have said it never happened. She could have said the dog was old and sick. Witnesses would have contradicted her but she's the one with the platform. You just say "fake news" a few times and you're set. She wanted to tell people.
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May 6, 2024 20:54
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I find it kind of ironic that we are trying to keep out Chinese EVs because of unfair competition but subsidizing the industry and making it highly affordable is like the single most critical thing you could do to reduce pollution from gas vehicles but what do I know, let the market save the world I guess.
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May 13, 2024 19:30
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Eric Cantonese posted:I don't have an easy answer to anything, but it does seem like one of the pitfalls of trying to transition to a "green" economy is containing the economic fallout that comes with it as best as you can. I think auto manufacturing is one of the last remaining sectors of the American economy with lots of good union jobs. Oh for sure. I'm not saying throw out the baby with the bathwater. I'm saying pour US tax money directly into subsidizing cheap, clean vehicles, but there's no will for that. 'Cheap' in the US still usually means 'out of the reach of the poor', who are of course the people who have to drive around the most. If you recognize that a group of people need clean vehicles and the only obstacle is that we can't give poor people things, that's the essential problem. We can keep the money in the US but the solution is still kind of the same.
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May 13, 2024 20:00
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James Garfield posted:I don't think this is true. This says households making over $100k drive about twice as much daily as the poorest households. Obviously it's better the more people can afford to replace their gas cars with EVs, but I think the people who matter most here are the people who drive the most. I live in a 105K household and we are still definitely poor. Whether or not that is the 'poverty line' isn't really something I want to split hairs about.
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May 13, 2024 20:56
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Five Year Plan posted:Yeah, after I posted this I realized they said household income and not individual income. I hope I didn’t cause any offense — I was going for “let’s keep this in perspective” and not “you’re delusional!” Cost of housing is a ravenous pit; I got priced out of my neighborhood about a year ago. (I live in King County) No no you're fine. And yes, I do live in the Seattle metro. The thing is, this stuff is holistic. Seattle is full of people who live just outside the city and commute in. I live super close to the highway and it is not pleasant. If we could replace all of those cars with EVs the world would be at least a little better. Obviously public transit is a more sustainable option but as anyone who has ever lived in this city can tell you that's a 20-30 year plan. We can subsidize EVs right now if there was a political will to do it. Also not for nothing but poor people who don't own a car are often still commuting, at least in terms of people I work with. And you'd think they'd all be taking the bus but around here if you live in say, Lynnwood, which is only about seven miles away, the fastest bus route to and from even some major hubs is measured in hours, because of changing at stops or lack of direct routes or just plain traffic. As poor people are pushed out of cities I have a hard time believing they aren't commuting somehow; the same story is playing out all over the country. You either eat some kind of major quality of life cost to stay inside the city - working three jobs or having five roommates - or you move out of the city. If you move out of the city, the work is still inside the city, so you can either drive or you can take three busses and accept a 12 hour day along with your commute. Obviously cities with better commuter options close this gap a bit. But people will carpool or accept absurd Uber prices if it means not sitting on a bus for a quarter of their work day. I'm not saying your statistics are wrong but I get the sense there may be something missing in them. Poverty guidelines in the US are an absolute joke. I have been poor my entire adult life, staring in my 20s when I was making about 35k, then in my 30s when I was making more like 48k and now I'm a little over 64K. My partner has a disability and though they have a job now it is has been a struggle their whole life and they absolutely would not be working if we didn't have to. There were weeks where I would try to make a box of mac and cheese last a couple of days or where I'd have to borrow money to pay rent. I am not a spendthrift; I have a car from 2012 that I upkeep as best as I can, I sparingly buy clothes, I rarely travel. I am not dying by any means but I couldn't afford to see a doctor regularly until I was 35. Things are substantially better now but I live in a 400sq foot apartment. If I didn't have a car, I wouldn't have a job. I have to live outside of the city to afford rent, but I have to travel into the city to make the kind of money I need to make. There are people who spend far more money who have far less to spend because they likewise need a car. If we're serious about transitioning to less pollution we need to make sure people who need to drive to live can afford an EV.
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May 13, 2024 22:13
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lobster shirt posted:while electric vehicles make sense now for some people, mass adoption of evs without fundamental changes to how americans get around is not going to be the answer. heavier vehicles cause more pollution (evs do not emit carbon but just the act of driving on a road kicks up a ton of particulate pollution) and damages the road more - recall that road damage is to the fourth power of axel weight. That's an excellent point and an engineering consideration I'd not thought about. So we've got ourselves in a situation where if we actually adopted the green-thing the way we say we want to poo poo would figuratively and maybe literally collapse? Christ.
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May 13, 2024 22:21
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