Yeah there’s a lot of moral/ethical calculus that should be done when attempting to circumvent rules. Unfortunately, people who are looking to circumvent rules are not usually the people who would reliably do that calculus.
Kind of the same thing for political revolution. If you’re willing to go beyond the state apparatus to achieve your ends, are you also going to be dedicated to rule-following after the revolution is done? It’s a tough thing.
Aaah. Yeah that tracks.
“photos to signing 80s songs”?
I wouldn’t say proudly, but I do say “easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” semi regularly. But it’s never in the context of like, regular interpersonal relationships. It’s work stuff, usually. I could write a report and beg my superiors for their input and budget for some initiative, or I can just go do the goddamn thing and get it done in a quarter of the time it would take to get the first leadership meeting on the calendar.
Strong Towns is another useful example. They make cool, good, human-centered urban developments. When the mayor or whoever shows up to check it out, they go “wow this is fantastic!” and the organizers THEN say yeah, these are the 70+ local zoning ordinances we broke to make this happen. Then a bunch of nonsense pro-suburbia rules get lifted to enable more cool stuff.
This was the first time I ever felt empathy for JD Vance, just as a dad. Also probably the last time.
Jesus, technical people are some of the worst communicators I’ve ever worked with.
It’s not necessarily their fault though. Y’know who goes into technical jobs? People who often prefer to work with machines, physical stuff, laws of nature, that’s who. And often because it’s MUCH easier than working with people, at least for them.
On top of that, soft skills are HARD. Communication is HARD. It comes easier for some, but it’s a skill like any other. It’s the technical socialites, the diplomatic devs who become the best managers and leaders, due to the rarity of their hybrid skillsets.
I’m in the middle. Just technical enough to mostly understand the devs and understand the implications of plans, and just enough soft skills to turn that into decent documentation, emails, and working with clients.
SUCKS that I’ve gotten a taste of project management and hated the absolute fuck out of it. I probably would’ve been decent at it otherwise.
It does make a little sense, when you consider that one of the goals is to demotivate fascists from voting at all.
Straight facts don’t dissuade fascists. They have every argument and deflection in their back pocket ready to go. Trump is a rapist/racist/traitor? Fake news, fake news, fake news.
But… Trump is weird? That hits them right in the ego. They’re not a principled policy-based voting base, it’s a cult of personality. Even if they want to say he’s NOT weird, it’s not a fact, it’s an opinion. So all it takes is showing a bunch of really strange gaffes, irrelevant rants, and incoherent ramblings, and you just might get would-be Trump voters to feel too embarrassed to vote for him.
It’s a long shot, but based on what I’ve been seeing, it appears to be effective so far. We’ll have to wait and see.
Interesting observation.
Aaahhh. Yeah that’d probably do it.
Jesus why was the text so goddamn big
#metoo was a needed movement, but in certain cases it definitely went too far. I think the “believe women” rhetoric makes sense in the contact of “sexual assault happens more than you think, we should stop completely ignoring or actively disbelieving women on impulse when they share their stories”. But some people just took it as “why would any woman ever lie about this, they must be telling the complete and full truth in all circumstances” which is unfortunately how the Al Franken allegations went.
Well I suppose not always. We did have a revolutionary war and a civil war.
But anybody alive today? Less bite than a newborn.
That’s true, it could be racism, it could be both.
God, if Taylor Swift runs for president I’d be stunned. I mean, given the circumstances I’d vote for her, but geez Louise.
The only outcome that might suck even more is if Biden did step down, Kamala steps up, and she still loses. Cuz then it’s like… oh so we’re just gonna be misogynistic as a voter base now, great, thanks fellow Americans. Like, we were ready to vote for a shambling shell of an old man but not a lady with Hillary Clinton energy, okay. 🤦
Same.
I wouldn’t equate voting for the lesser of two evils with “blind allegiance”.
For all of Biden’s faults (of which there are many) he’s still the better candidate on offer.
All the issues you bring up are valid, of course, but unfortunately there’s a lot at risk should Trump win. And voting for a senile old man is still preferable to voting for a fascist who is primarily running as a way to stay out of prison.
I’m not sure how we can hijack the DNC primaries to get a real quality candidate, but as far as improving our elections overall, that’s where I’d like to see some progress.
Well, in the current economy, the statistical indicators that economists rely on are booming. GDP, etc. What folks on the left like us are saying is that those indicators are easily measurable but do not paint an accurate picture of what most Americans are experiencing. It doesn’t feel like a boom out here because, well, it ain’t.
It’s not like we’re sipping champagne, kicking it at the beach, and complaining that the guy next door has a nicer beach. We work just as hard as other generations and get a lot less to show for it.
Acknowledging that is important, but corporate politicians in either party seem like they just don’t want to anything about it.
Still voting for Biden, but yeah, not enthusiastically.
Yeah it’s not great, but like… coming across as coherent is important no matter the position. Biden kinda failed that basic competency test, probably just due to his age and not like, stupidity or a personal failing of any kind. I’m still voting for Biden, but yeah it’s not exactly an enthusiastic vote.
So, speaking from a purely pragmatic perspective, voting for Biden is better than other US electoral choices for the purpose of trying to help Palestinians.
I understand your reticence and moral indignation, I largely feel the same.
But the biggest reason Trump won in 2016 is because voters were not particularly enthused with their choices, and a great many decided not voting at all (or voting for Trump as a protest against the establishment) was preferable to voting for HRC.
I have to imagine that we both believe that Trump is worse than Biden when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Given that we’re already in election year, it’s down to Biden and Trump. One of them is going to be president come January next year.
Taking all that together, if we want things to get better for Palestine, we should vote for Biden because the alternatives are much worse.
Granted there is a lot you can do outside of elections to help, and I wouldn’t recommend ignoring those. But given that voting for the US president takes a few hours out of one day every four years, it’s not a good idea to ignore that either.
I hope this helps you understand those of us who don’t really like Biden but will vote for him regardless.
It very much has the “we must give meaning to life for the idiots who can’t run their own life… and by that we mean we think you aren’t human so just do what we need to be comfortable and dominant ourselves” vibe