Republicans: Minorities are eating people's dogs!
Normal response: No they aren't, and if a culture does eat dogs it's no worse than other kinds of meat.
Liberal response: We're gonna get the actual dog-eating minorities!
Stop letting them define the terms of discourse, stg.
It's objectively false to say that you "mathematically helped the one you dislike." If you remove a third party voter from existence, then both major parties receive the same number of votes and have the same chance to win. What you mean to say is that third party votes pass on an opportunity to help/hinder the candidate the voter prefers more/less.
It's not at all complex, and I am not confused by it. You are just obviously and objectively wrong.
than if you had voted for the side you do want to win.
Of course, as long as you specify that, then you are correct. In the same way it's correct to say that I stopped a nuclear war today compared to if I had started one. But it is incorrect to say that I stopped a nuclear war with no disclaimer about what I'm comparing it to, and it is incorrect for you to claim that I'm helping Trump by not voting for Kamala with no disclaimer about where you are setting the baseline.
In an objective sense, I am not helping Trump. I am only helping him relative to if I were going to vote for Kamala (which I wasn't).
It would be much clearer to simply say, "You are failing to take an opportunity to increase Kamala's chances and decrease Trump's," which is 100% true. But you can't accept that, because that's using language in a way that's actually fair and accurate. Instead, you'd rather make the dishonest, false accusation that I'm not merely failing to hurt Trump, but actively helping him. And then you call me names and say I'm "confused" and too dumb to understand when I call out your dishonesty and manipulative use of language.
Than if you had voted for them. You didn't say that before. When you don't specify that, the statement is false.
Relative to a baseline of starting nuclear war, I stopped a nuclear war today. That doesn't mean that I actually stopped a nuclear war in an absolute sense, or relative to doing nothing. If I went around telling people I stopped a nuclear war, I'd be lying. In the same way, it's false to say that not voting is "helping" Trump, unless you specify that you mean relative to doing something that hurts Trump.
If trump is an option, and you didn’t increase the chance for kamala, you have increased the chance for trump
For example, this is false.
if you do not vote
+0 chance for kamala
There you go, you just said it yourself. Neither an increase nor a decrease.
No, the same which is the same for the candidate you prefer. The chances only change if you vote for them or for their opponent. It is objectively, mathematically false to say that the chances change when you do nothing, it's not even a coherent statement, doing nothing by definition changes nothing.
if you choose not to, you will decrease their chances
False. If you chose not to, the chances remain the same.
Not voting for the candidate when you could’ve doesn’t improve the opponents odds?
No, it doesn't. Not voting for a candidate neither increases nor decreases their chances. Voting for a candidate is what increases their chances, voting for their opponent is what decreases them.
Actually mathematically false. You’re saying 1+1=4 because if it doesn’t your feefees will be hurt.
Nope, it's actually mathematically false, you're the one twisting numbers around. Remove me from existence and Trump and Kamala's chances will be the same, so I'm not increasing or decreasing either's chances.
Voting is in no way shape or form an endorsement of anything
Definitionally, endorsing a candidate is when you say, "This candidate is the best choice and I intend to vote for them." It doesn't mean, "I agree with everything this candidate says or does." If you vote for a candidate, tell people you vote for them, and encourage others to vote for them, that is definitionally an endorsement.
You’re obviously a teenager whose brain has not fully developed. If you’re an adult, god help us.
I'm in my 30's. You're just wrong about everything you said.
Really, not once have I explained to you why I spend more time on here talking about Kamala than Trump? Not once?
“I’m worried that they don’t mean what they say
No, they mean what they say, they explicitly support unconditional arms shipments to Israel and constantly reaffirm that it "has the right to defend itself." Your side is the one that claims they're lying and secretly support Palestine, against all the evidence and all their statements.
You're so predictable. Never have anything interesting or insightful to say, always just here to lambast me for not singing the praises of a candidate I don't even support. Boring.
I doesn't improve either candidate's chances at all. And voting is an endorsement, no matter how much you pretend otherwise.
Not that specific example, but I have used that approach before. I think the first time was about 10 years ago. There were a couple queer people in my friend group who would throw around the f-slur, which was whatever, but one night when we were drinking one of my straight friends called me it, and that bothered me. So the next day I sent a group message talking about how it made me feel uncomfortable and I didn't like it being normalized. It was a little awkward, but from then on everyone stopped using it and we all remained friends. In the long term, I think people actually respected me more for standing up for myself (since I was generally more of a pushover), and it stopped a behavior that had been making me uncomfortable and driving a bit of a wedge between us.
Most of the time, stuff like this don't come from malice, but from people having different norms or expectations and not understanding each other. They might get defensive in the moment, but once they're aware of it there's a good chance they'll stop. While people can be dicks, we are fundamentally social creatures and wired to avoid friction.
I will say it's easier to confront people when you have a voluntary relationship with them, because if they're dicks about it you can always just not hang out, but you can't do that with coworkers. If they attack you for expressing how their behavior makes you feel, then you can probably bring it to HR and you'll have a stronger case to say it's malice.
This one included.
Before I begin, I have a confession: until recently (until today, in fact), I was a tankie. But this morning I just woke up and realized everything I believed and everything I'd been saying was wrong, and my critics were right about everything. And so, I have decided to completely and totally adopt their way of thinking.
The above image is an example to illustrate how my thinking has changed. You may be familiar with "Russell's Teapot," a thought experiment from Bertrand Russell where he imagines that someone says that there is a tiny, invisible teapot, floating out in space. He argues that while such a claim cannot strictly be disproved, it can be dismissed without evidence because there is no evidence to support it. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. He goes on to explain that while he could not disprove the existence of God, he still considered himself an atheist, because he did not see sufficient evidence for the claim of God's existence to be credible.
In my previous (tankie) way of thinking, I would have agreed with this idea, that claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. But I now understand that this made me a Bad Person. Suppose that, as in the beautiful diagram I drew in MS Paint, the claim is not only that the teapot exists, but that inside of the teapot, there are a bunch of tiny invisible people who are geopolitical enemies of the United States and they are committing genocide against innocent people. Again, before, I would have said that that only makes the claim more implausible and would require extraordinary proof. Now, I realize how wrong I was, and I can only say that I deeply regret and apologize for my statements. The existence of the teapot can be proven incontrovertibly, by the following logic:
If you claim that the teapot does not exist, you are denying that the genocide inside it is happening.
If you deny the genocide is happening, you are a genocide denier and therefore a fascist.
Fascism is wrong.
Therefore, it is impossible to correctly deny the teapot's existence.
As a brief aside, I should mention that in addition to my political conversion, I have also experienced a drastic change in my religious beliefs, as it is now trivially easy to prove that God exists. According to the Torah, God flooded the world, wiping out virtually all of humanity, including countless ethnic groups. To deny the existence of God makes you a genocide denier and a fascist. However, it should be added that to worship God is genocide apologia, which is also fascist. The only non-fascist belief, which is necessarily correct, is that God exists and is evil. Moving on.
Before, I believed that it was ridiculous for the US to spend as much on the military as the next 9 countries combined. I wanted to slash the military budget to fund domestic spending, schools, hospitals, making sure bridges don't collapse, helping the poor, etc. I see now how wrong I was. The Genocide Teapot exists, somewhere out there in space, in fact, there could be countless numbers of them out there. Therefore, the real progressive thing to do is to further cut domestic spending and have everyone tighten our belts so that we can produce as many missiles as possible, to be fired out into space indiscriminately, in hopes of hitting a Genocide Teapot.
However, we must also consider the possibility that these teapots could be located here on Earth too. Teapots are a form of china, which is a very suspicious connection. Clearly, the US must be permitted to inspect every square inch of China in search of these invisible teapots, and refusal to comply should be considered an admission of guilt. But we should not, of course, limit ourselves to China. Perhaps there are Genocide Teapots in Russia, or Brazil, or Germany, or Canada, who knows? I do, because to deny that Genocide Teapots exist in all of those places is genocide denial, which is fascist and wrong.
In conclusion, we should bomb every country in the world simultaneously, including ourselves, and anyone who disagrees with me is a war-loving fascist.
Thank you.
President Trump kept America out of new wars and brought thousands of brave troops home from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and many other countries. Joe Biden has undermined our military readiness and surrendered our strength to the Taliban.
When Trump pulls troops out of Afghanistan, it's "bringing thousands of brave troops home," but when Biden does the same, it's, "surrendering our strength to the Taliban." He brags about "keeping America out of foreign wars" while at the same time bragging about assassinating "the world's number one terrorist," Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, which was an extreme act of provocation.
This is taken from the issues page of Trump's campaign website, and there are several more statements relating to foreign policy, frequently and boldly contradicting each other. It's a perfect example of the "If By Whiskey" tactic. So what's actually going on here? Well, to understand the reasons for this equivocation, we need to analyze the foreign policy positions of Americans.
Broadly speaking, people fall into one of four camps: Idealist Hawk (liberals), Idealist Dove (libertarians), Realist Hawk (nationalists), and Realist Dove (socialists).
Idealist Hawks believe that US foreign policy is driven by benevolence and spreading freedom, and the fact that it repeatedly fails to do so (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc) is explainable by a variety of excuses. Generally, they are more interested in current events and easily persuaded to support intervention based on seeing a bad thing happening, without a broader analysis or explanation of the situation or how things have played out historically.
Idealist Doves also believe that US foreign policy is driven by benevolence, but they see that as a bad thing. They are generally right libertarians or hold libertarian values, they see war as another example of wasteful government spending as it tries and fails to improve people's lives, which they generally don't see as a valid goal in the first place. Being idealists, they are still rather easily duped into supporting war and militarism, often, they will support a "night watchman state," with police and the military being the only legitimate functions.
Realist Hawks are nationalists who believe that states pursue their own material interests and are right to do so. They are incapable of distinguishing between the state's interest and their own. Some few are rich enough to actually receive benefits from US foreign policy, but most just root for America in the same way that they might root for a football team.
Realist Doves, which I am a part of, do not believe that US foreign policy is not grounded in benevolence and does not benefit the people it claims to be helping, but also (generally) that it doesn't benefit the majority of people at home. We see it as being driven by and for class interests, and are opposed to the class it benefits.
Trump's foreign policy equivocation, and his "America First" slogan allows him to appeal to both the Idealist Doves (libertarians) and the Realist Hawks (nationalists). He can't consistently take any line on any specific thing. If by Afghanistan, you mean a disastrous nation-building exercise, wasteful government spending, and endangering our troops for the sake of helping foreigners, then of course Trump opposes it. But if by Afghanistan, you mean exerting American strength, intimidating Russia and China, and weakening terrorists to keep America safe, then of course Trump supports it.
In reality, to the extent that Trump has coherent beliefs at all, he is a Realist Hawk, a nationalist, and his record reflects that. But part of the reason he was able to get anywhere was because he was able to triangulate and equivocate well enough to dupe anti-war libertarians.
Unfortunately, in American politics, the conflict is generally between Idealist Hawks and everyone else. This is part of what allows the nationalists and libertarians to put aside their differences (the other part being that libertarians are easily duped). Realist Doves are not represented anywhere, the Idealist Interventionists consider us Russian bots along with everyone else who disagrees with them on foreign policy (regardless of how or why), the Idealist Doves are extremely unreliable, and the Realist Hawks may see the world in a similar way but have diametrically opposed priorities.
tl;dr: Trump's halfhearted antiwar posturing is an obvious ruse that only an idiot would fall for, but painting everyone skeptical of US foreign policy with the same brush helps him to sell it and to paint over ideological rifts that could otherwise be potentially exploited.
What is Soulism? Soulism, also known as anarcho-antirealism, is a school of anarchist thought which views reality and natural laws as unjust hierarchies.
Some people might laugh at the idea and say it's not a serious ideology, but this is no laughing matter. If these people are successful, then consensus reality would be destroyed and we would return to what the world was like before the Enlightenment. What did that world look like? Well, you had:
Ultra-powerful wizards hoarding knowledge in high towers, reshaping reality to their whims, with no regard for the common people
Bloodthirsty, aristocratic vampires operating openly, and on a much larger scale than they do today
Viscous, rage-driven werewolves terrorizing the populace, massacring entire villages with reckless abandon
Fey beings abducting children and replacing them with their own
Demons and angels waging massive wars against each other with humans caught in the crossfire
Fortunately, out of this age of chaos and insecurity emerged a group of scientists dedicated to protecting and advancing humanity by establishing a consensus reality and putting a stop to these out-of-control reality deviants.
Before, if you got sick or injured, you'd have to travel across the land through dangerous enchanted forests seeking a skilled faith healer or magical healing potion. But with consensus reality, easily accessible and consistent medical practices were instilled with the same magical healing properties. Once, if you wanted to transmute grain into bread, you had to convince a wizard to come out of their tower and do it, and they were just as likely to turn you into a newt for disturbing their studies. But thanks to consensus reality, anyone could build their own magical tower (a "mill") and harness the mana present in elemental air to animate their own "millstones" to do it! These things were only made possible by consensus reality.
Now, I'm not saying that this approach doesn't have it's drawbacks and failures, and I'm not going to say that the reality defenders have never done anything wrong. But these "Soulists" want to destroy everything that's been accomplished and bring us back to the times when these supernatural reality deviants were more powerful than reason or humanity, and constantly preyed upon us.
So do not fall for their propaganda, and if you see something, says something. Anyone altering reality through belief and willpower, or any other reality deviants such as vampires or werewolves, should be reported immediately to the Technocratic Union for your safety, the safety of those around you, and, indeed, the safety of reality itself.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Grifters grifting grifters lol.