• Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    85
    ·
    10 hours ago

    I’m not as enthused as you to vote for a system where innocent civilians have to die for political convenience, sorry. My morals say that killing is wrong, and I don’t like it.

    • GiantChickDicks@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      5 hours ago

      It doesn’t take enthusiasm to make an active move toward harm reduction if and when you see the opportunity, especially when the consequences are this serious. I would love to see ranked choice voting and a diverse and motivated number of parties to challenge the dichotomy we have now, but I live in the reality of the viable options in front of me in this moment.

      This isn’t about an acceptance or endorsement of the system we have now. Unfortunately for all of us, however, this is the system we currently live in. If my choices are between bad and catastrophic, I’m going with bad. Doubly so in cases like these. The choice is either the people who are suffering may or will continue to do so, versus these same people suffering even worse while making multiple new groups of people suffer, too.

      If Trump wins and things get as bad, or worse, than the scenarios that have been proposed on record, more people will continue to lose their homes, autonomy, and lives in the United States. Many people who are suffering from atrocities actively going on in places other than the Middle East will likely also be worse off under these policies.

      I hope those people who feel as if they own the moral high ground will remember they had an opportunity to stop it and chose to do nothing if we suddenly all find ourselves living in that world.

      • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        9
        ·
        edit-2
        5 hours ago

        I hope those people who feel as if they own the moral high ground will remember they had an opportunity to stop it

        How many people died in Gaza today? I wish I had an opportunity to stop that.

        but I live in the reality of the viable options

        Yes, and I am unhappy that the options all involve ‘innocent people are dying right now’. This bothers me.

        If it’s the moral high ground to say that killing is wrong, then it is also the moral high ground for you to say “The choice is either the people who are suffering may or will continue to do so, versus these same people suffering even worse”. You’re saying that hurting innocent people is bad, yes?

        Having to choose to hurt some or more innocent people is not a choice I am enthused about, no matter what the practical reality is. It would be churlish to criticise someone without food for complaining about their practical choice between going hungry and starving, I feel.

        Practical concerns do not replace morality. Someone might have no choice but to abandon their children because they cannot afford them: this does not stop them from being harmed by the moral weight of what, in all practicality, they had to do.

        • spidermanchild@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          27 minutes ago

          Who told you that your vote has to be based on morals and not practicality? It’s just a vote, you’re not swearing allegiance to them or agreeing with their every stance. It’s really not that complicated.

          If you want to bring morals in, is it moral that women are literally dying because SCOTUS allowed states to deny women healthcare? Is deporting 11 million people moral? Seems like you get a lot of immorality when you let fundamentally immoral people have power.

        • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          2 hours ago

          There are no palatable choices in this election. You can vote for the guy who has said Israel should hurry up and finish the job or the woman who has asked for a cease fire. There are other choices, but they tend to support the first guy. It would be awesome to have a choice that results in the genocide absolutely stopping, and I feel it’s entirely appropriate to be angry that isn’t an option, but it isn’t the choice we have. Perhaps you believe standing aside and doing nothing when the moral choice isn’t available is the correct thing to do. I vehemently do not, but that is also an option American voters have, whether through protest voting or abstaining from voting altogether. Unfortunately, my world hasn’t been that black and white for a long time.

        • GiantChickDicks@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          5 hours ago

          My underlying point was the nuance of this entire situation, and you provided another obtuse black-and-white response. If you can’t radically accept the world and your life, it’s going to make it awfully hard to see it well enough to make changes.

      • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        26
        ·
        6 hours ago

        Thanks, as a person with a trans gender identity, this really helps me to understand that nothing will change, because fear and oppression will be utilised to force people to rationalise harmful actions as inevitable.

          • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            15
            ·
            edit-2
            6 hours ago

            Hey, I’m autistic, queer, and an immigrant. You can hate me if you want, plenty of people do.

            My gender identity is trans. I’m also ethnically Ukrainian. Feel free to assume I’m Russian because I’m different to you. That’s what human society does, create ougroups and scapegoat them. I try to avoid doing it, which makes me an enemy of those who do, because I say impossible things like “can we not kill innocent people?” For practical purposes, that will not happen, and asking for it is naive.

            I know that. But, although impractical and naive, that does not stop it from being the morally correct outcome. My autism shows itself in a very strong sense of justice, and I find justice to be more important than practicality.

            • spidermanchild@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              4 minutes ago

              How exactly does not voting/3rd party voting create any justice in your opinion? Opting out of our limited and imperfect democracy doesn’t magically create justice, it silences your own voice. Nobody here hates you, and broadly speaking the Democrats don’t hate you either. I can’t say the same for the cult of Trump. If you truly have a strong sense of justice, wouldn’t you want to at a bare minimum try to prevent am actual criminal from gaining power?

        • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          6 hours ago

          as a person with a trans gender identity

          I’m gonna go ahead and stop you right there chief. Transgender people don’t write “transgender” as two words. Big “as a black man” energy here, cishet loser.

          • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            14
            ·
            edit-2
            6 hours ago

            As a non-binary person who is under the trans gender umbrella, without being transgender in the sense of having transitioned across genders, I am careful with my language. I am not transgender in the way people typically understand.

            Feel free to participate in non-binary erasure, I’m used to it. Humans love creating outgroups so they can bully each other, that is why I find myself not labelling myself as human. I think gender is stupid, and I think humans are rude.

    • meep_launcher@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      46
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 hours ago

      I’m voting so the state doesn’t kill my sister if she has complications in her pregnancy.

      • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        24
        ·
        6 hours ago

        That is good. I would also like to be able to vote so the state doesn’t send weapons to enable one country to kill innocent people in another. Some of those people dying are sisters, and their siblings feel much like you might when they are without them.

      • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        72
        ·
        10 hours ago

        If your point is “some people think that killing is wrong”, feel free to consider your point proven.

        • GoddessNoAi@lemmynsfw.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          74
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          10 hours ago

          His point is that some people think killing is so wrong that they’ll actively advocate for a course of action that will kill waaaaay more people.

          You value your own moral purity over the lives of other people.

          That’s his point.

          • _bcron_@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            31
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            10 hours ago

            It’s the trolley problem:

            You have Gaza on one set of tracks

            On the other, you have Gaza, Ukraine, and potentially a whole lot of other stuff including anyone that’s ever registered Democrat (they’ll be able to pry voter registrations and if they do make good on building big-ass detention facilities one doesn’t need to be all that creative to imagine what they might eventually use them for)

            I don’t really wanna know what’s on that other set of tracks

        • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          40
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          10 hours ago

          You’re choosing between “lots of people being killed” vs “LOOOOOOTTTTTSSSS of people being killed”

          Based on your own morality you have outlined, ethically you would choose to vote Kamala then, as under her far far fewer people will die.

            • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              17
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              6 hours ago

              No demon at all has created it; other humans have. You aren’t the sole person responsible for responding to it, but your actions will contribute to what happens next, non-action included.

              You can say that this kind of situation implies someone else has done something wrong, leaving you holding the bag, and you’d be right, if nobody had done something wrong, we wouldn’t have a genocide to talk about in the first place- but saying that leaving you holding the moral bag was a wrong thing to do doesn’t change the fact that you are now holding that bag, along with all the rest of us. And about half of us (referring to the people of the US as a whole), if you haven’t noticed, have every desire of causing even more harm. “Neither” is simply not an option when failing to choose the least bad thing will result in someone else choosing the worse one. It’s not fair, it’s repulsive even, but the universe does not work in such a way as to ensure only fair moral choices exist. Morality is a thing we invented, the world doesn’t care about conforming to it.

              Getting the best outcome you have with the bad options presented you matters more than whether or not you feel your own personal hands are clean- because metaphorically clean hands will not save the people of Palestine, and likely would doom some, and others elsewhere, that could have been saved. A clean feeling conscience bought by leaving people you could have helped to die is little more than a delusion of innocence.

              • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                14
                ·
                7 hours ago

                It’s not fair, it’s repulsive even, but the universe does not work in such a way

                It’s not the universe, it’s the human world. This is a solely human problem, and I do not find myself emotionally attached to the idea of being human.

                • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  7
                  ·
                  6 hours ago

                  Neither do I, as I’m a transhumanist, but that is pretty much irrelevant to this, because how on earth do one’s feelings about one’s species even have any bearing on this?

                  • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    arrow-down
                    12
                    ·
                    6 hours ago

                    because how on earth do one’s feelings about one’s species even have any bearing on this?

                    I don’t think you understand the syntax of my sentence, sorry.

    • poke@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      43
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 hours ago

      Not voting is a choice as well. A choice that will make it so that your voice will not have an impact on whether the candidate that kills more will win, or the candidate that kills less. Choosing to abstain is an announcement that you don’t care about those whose lives are being threatened, the opposite of what you seem to think it is.

      • Pika@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        6 hours ago

        Honestly my ideology on it is the same as my parents and my grandparents, and even my great grandparents ideology.

        I don’t care who you vote for, what you vote for, or your reasoning’s for doing do.

        But if you refuse to vote, regardless of reason, you lose any say in complaining about what happens as a result, as you actively did nothing to help prevent it, meaning you have no right to bitch about the outcome.

      • dhork@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        ·
        10 hours ago

        A great Canadian philosopher once said “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!”

      • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        43
        ·
        10 hours ago

        Not voting is a choice as well.

        Yes, but I don’t have any other choice, myself.

        Choosing to abstain is an announcement that you don’t care

        No, it’s an announcement that I care so much about innocent people dying that I am morally conflicted about being asked to be part of a political system which condones it.

        • GoddessNoAi@lemmynsfw.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          40
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 hours ago

          asked to be part of a political system

          But, you’re not being asked. You already are. You don’t get to pretend you’re not, just because you didn’t give your permission. This isn’t an opt-in situation.

          And I get that maybe you feel that isn’t fair, and I agree it isn’t. Just like none of us asked to be born, none of us asked to be part of society either. But we are, and we have to deal with that now.

          • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            26
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            10 hours ago

            They don’t have a choice, because Samvega is not an American citizen. They are a troll and they only thing they do is say the same exact comments in every post. Don’t bother engaging with them.

            • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              8 hours ago

              Even a non American citizen has a choice in this. If they aren’t American, they can’t vote, but people that can vote can be influenced by the words of others (otherwise, such trolls wouldn’t exist, after all, they’d have no point), and someone outside the country can still choose what to say.

              I’m not really convinced that foreign operations are terribly active on a platform this small, or that these people truly are such an operation, but if for the sake of argument they are, and the user in question happens to be one, I’m not sure that non-engagement actually helps. “Don’t feed the trolls” is standard advice for dealing with traditional trolls, that are just out to make people mad and will move on if ignored. But a person being paid to shape the narrative isn’t going to just get bored and quit, they’re going to keep doing what they’re paid to do, and people are at some level influenced to align with ideas that they think are popular among the people around them, so letting them make a bunch of uncontested arguments still lets them shape a narrative through volume.

              On a platform like this, that doesn’t have engagement algorithms that will boost the words of someone you interact with, I feel that it makes more sense to drown out trolls of the foreign kind, so that others who see them get the impression that what they say is not popular. One just has to keep in mind, if one truly believes that one is arguing with such a person, that your goal in arguing is no longer either to refine your ideas or convince the other person of yours, but to convince other people who see the argument of them.

              • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                3 hours ago

                Even a non American citizen has a choice in this.

                I’m going to stop you right there.
                No.
                Non citizens do not have a choice, because they cannot vote in the US elections.

                I’m sorry you wasted typing everything else, because I’m not going to read any of it if it has the same nonsense logic as that first sentence.

                Samvega is a known troll. Don’t defend them.

                • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  3 hours ago

                  My point was literally that people can be persuaded to do things by talking to them (to include US citizens being persuaded by people outside the US, for good or ill). If you dont believe that to be the case, why make an argument for anything?

                  • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    1 hour ago

                    My point is don’t spend all day everyday trying to influence people in another country on how to vote.

                    I don’t care how you want to defend the troll.

      • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        15
        ·
        6 hours ago

        I’m acting like someone who is saying that they do not accept killing innocent people as a viable part of a political process that will make the human world better.

    • KillerTofu@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 hours ago

      So you’re voting for fascism or just going to sit it out in a political statement? Or being bold and voting third party?

      • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        11
        ·
        6 hours ago

        So you’re voting for fascism or just going to sit it out in a political statement? Or being bold and voting third party?

        I cannot cast a vote in this election.

    • morphballganon@lemmynsfw.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      9 hours ago

      So you want more death, got it. Abstaining from voting for the lesser evil is a choice, and you’ve made it. Blocked.