• 4 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 10th, 2023

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  • Perhaps. In theory, you’re definitely right. I just feel that this is something where building the momentum during a single election cycle isn’t feasible. The most likely result of voting for a third party without laying this groundwork would be splitting the vote and giving a landslide victory to the greater of the two evils.

    Formally organising online would make it possible to demonstrate how much support each candidate actually has without giving an official vote to a candidate that the general public isn’t confident enough to vote for. Watching participation grow and third parties receive substantial semi-official support could build excitement and lead to a third party being trusted to have the sway to win.

    I’d love to be proven wrong though. If we can organize enough support for a third party within a single election cycle that it’s reasonable to risk voting for that candidate, I’m open to it. I already have too much on my plate, but if no one has built this service by the time I have energy for it, I’ll definitely be thinking about it


  • I suppose it’ll continue until enough people believe that it’s possible for a third party to win.

    I think ranked choice voting would make it much simpler to foment that change. People need to be able to trust that breaking from the party line has a real chance of success, but that can’t happen without demonstrating support.

    If we can’t have real ranked choice voting, a third party could build a website to let people coordinate votes according to ranked choice, and hopefully carry the result as a unified bloc to the polls. Have an agreement that if a certain threshold of participation is met, vote for the ranked choice result. Otherwise, lesser of 2 evils.






  • trafguy@midwest.socialtoshitposting@lemmy.mlDo you promise?
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    11 months ago

    I never verified, but some years ago I heard someone expand on that as meaning something like “That which makes customers willing to buy is the right thing to do”. It makes sense. If a moron will buy gold plated lead, a capitalistic perspective says sell gold-plated lead. Ethically a bit fucked? Sure. But interesting nonetheless




  • I’m in more or less the opposite scenario. I used to be able to actually do shit, then something snapped and it’s far more difficult for me to do anything efficiently. I think what snapped was effectively my self confidence. After a period of existential crisis, things stopped feeling so important all of a sudden. So the herculean effort that allowed me to complete all my work and keep up on everything stopped being possible, because it briefly became impossible leading me to recognize how unsustainable that was.

    Now I’m in a position where I still try to get what I need to done, but I try not to stress about it so much and I prefer to do what I want. And making myself do what I need to do is partially a matter of medication (Vyvanse) and partially trying to find reasons to enjoy/prefer the tasks that are important for my survival, then capitalizing on that intrigue/excitement.

    Basically, I guess it comes down to choosing to accept whatever our current reality is and trying to work from there. There are reasons that I’m fortunate, just as there are reasons others would probably say I’m falling behind in life. Doesn’t really matter in the end. All any of us can do is what we can actually do. If we don’t allow that to be enough, we’ll drive ourselves insane with the dissonance.


  • All those negative effects would happen with or without religion. I think the real issue is blind trust of hierarchies. Many of those who ascribe to organized religion have a tendency towards that (the loud ones do at least), but religion isn’t the only pathway by which conniving subhuman trash controls the masses. Anything that can enforce an in-group/out-group think is a pathway to this form of control that leaves people more vulnerable to allowing despicable acts in the name of God, the public good, safety, liberty, freedom, democracy, progress, etc. Pick your symbol of idealism, and you’ll find someone who committed untold atrocities in its name.

    If you’d prefer to succumb to hate, that’s your prerogative. And I wouldn’t necessarily consider it naive to prefer hope anyway, although having lived in hate in the past, I can understand why you might feel that way.

    Any “helmet” you could wear is something that others would call delusion. It’s always a lens by which you choose to warp reality. Hardened pessimism is no more realistic than blind optimism. It all depends on what you want to protect. Your own corporeal form and possessions (in which case, please keep your armor of selfishness and cynicism), or something less tangible, like emotional resilience and a belief that there might be a dream that’s achievable.

    Regardless of all that, and in spite of your attempts to shame me for grammatical mistakes, I’d like to thank you for inspiring some thought-provoking questions.




  • Is living while rejecting hope actually living? Personally, even if there won’t ever be change. Even if the future is truly a lost cause. I would rather delusionally hope for a better future than succumb to a form of realism that demands an expectation of progressively worse suffering. So, I choose to believe that improvement is possible, regardless of whether there is evidence for it, but also becuse there is evidence that it can happen.