Lol, I definitely didn’t interpret you coming in hot at all. I made the mistake of engaging in on a few other ‘hot button’ threads the last couple of days and you have been, by far, the most pleasant, insightful and willing to engage in good faith. It’s very much appreciated <3.

Action for action’s sake just makes everyone tired and unable to act when it’s necessary. I’m not advocating “doing nothing” I’m advocating for intentionality, thoughtfulness, a hefty dose of cynicism and acting out of evidence instead of idealism.

I’m not saying don’t vote, I’m saying be realistic about what it can and cannot accomplish. The reason I often end up in these sorts of conversations is due to the common trend of people refusing to engage or help those directly in front of them because of some variation of ‘they voted for things to be different’ and so feel entitled to not get their hands dirty as well as a smug “not my problem, I did my part” or “that problem has already been solved, it’s just not fully implemented”. In either case it often leads to them being an active barrier to helping others and intentionally choosing to harm others. Which makes even doing small things like providing food, first aid, escape etc. sooooo much harder than it needs to be.

The problem though is it doesn’t matter how many individual fires you put out, it doesn’t scale up and doesn’t affect the root cause of any of them and that’s what I was replying “I don’t have a good answer to” to. Especially since each individual problem is probably going to end up needing a different approach.

So until we can figure out how to turn off the ‘light everything on fire machine’ it seems like we’re pretty aligned on putting out fires where we can, when we can. Keep fighting the good fight, and good luck!

I don’t have a good answer for you, I have a:

Your thesis is fundamentally flawed, if we are ever going to get an answer you need to stop getting mad at the people working to help you find a solution.

What I (and others) are trying to tell you is that the christofascist fuck cult goes much deeper than the surface level that you are fixated on. The “deep flaws” you see in the Democratic party aren’t bugs, they’re ‘features’.

The current status quo is deeply broken, I think we can both agree on that, yes?

The threat of violence (along with capability) has historically been a very effective tool for change (for better and worse), but I do no not see it being effective in a world where drone strikes, autonomous murder copters and nuclear weapons are a thing.

I also argue that the concept of electoralism is fundamentally broken and so electing more Republicans, Democrats, 3rd parties, goldfish, etc. is not going to solve/change anything either.

Accelerationism replaces current problems with worse ones, but my understanding is that if you’re focus is on your grandchildren and thinking in the timescale of centuries then maybe. IMO it’s one hell of a big gamble with an incredibly high cost and low odds of substantial/any progress.

What are your thoughts?

You talked right past the inherent contradictions and did not see them.

Assuming the US election process remains unchanged for the foreseeable future how do you get electoral reforms using the electoral process that you agree needs reforms?

They aren’t the same, one’s a sword and one’s a shield. The shield can’t effectively stab, but the sword can’t either if it’s forced to parry instead.

I engaged because it seemed like there was agreement, just miscommunication. Glad I was able to help cut through it :D. Appreciate you!

The difference is the viewpoint:

attacking the Dems aren’t helpful because they currently have no power. The other party is causing a lot of damage and there seems to be no stopping them

If you buy into the underlying premises of how a liberal democracy functions (liberal used here as a technical term, not as a perjorative) then the only ones who have the power to stop the other party is the Dems and they actively choose not to. They’re neither down, nor out they’re doing their job of controlled opposition exactly as they are supposed to.

A good tool/exercise for analyzing your (and other’s) beliefs is logic trees, with the goal of taking any complex belief and determined what your core axioms are, being on the lookout for tautologies (God is real -> because the Bible says so -> because God is real…) and axioms that don’t hold up to scrutiny.

If you do the exercise correctly then you should find that most of those “beliefs that can’t be objectively proven or disproven” have belief dependencies that can be objectively (and often easily) proven/disproven.

Lol, while technically true there’s a big picture you’re missing… The start of his presidency did co-incide with some things like the child tax credit etc. that did drop the official measurement to a historic low of 5.2% in 2021, but was then quickly repealed by bipartisan support in Congress causing it to skyrocket to 12.4% in 2022.

In the US the child poverty rate had been slowly, but steadily, declining since the peak of the great recession… Until the Biden presidency circa ~2022 at which point it skyrocketed by the end of his presidency reaching ~2012 levels.

While technically true that “Biden came into office and reduce[d] child poverty [sic] by half as his first action.” It ignores that immediately afterwards he did “destroy the economy”. Don’t get me started on ‘removing due process, open up national parks, cutting departments with corruption, invading other countries’ because also yes!

Not to say Trump is better (we can all agree fuck that guy and all his cronies), but Jim Crow Joe is/was also evil, you’ve just been tricked into thinking otherwise…

Do you have a plan for that “electoral reform” that doesn’t involve said ballot box?

Do you not see the inherent contradictions there?

Haven’t read the book, but the article linked (and a lot of political neuroscience in general) makes it appear the author believes there are only 2 ideologies; liberal and conservative which is itself a wild idealogy… Can anyone who has read it or other work by her confirm/deny that?

Cheers friend!

Friends you can’t disagree with and work together to come to a mutual understanding with are superficial friendships.

I’m sorry if I came on too strong, but I appreciate your initial response as It clarifies more where you’re coming from.

I don’t disagree that “doomerism” exists and can be a problem, however that term is often used (and from my perspective is being used in this context) to deflect from the material reality in a “rub some dirt on it, it ain’t that bad” sort of way.

However, within this context the “alternative” isn’t complicated. The kids, and teachers, need therapy from trained medical professionals. More broadly they need access to healthcare and resources they aren’t getting.

“As more students come to school traumatized by living through fires, floods, and other extreme weather, teachers are being asked to do more than educate — they’re also acting as untrained therapists.”

“Doomerism” isn’t the issue. The issue is that kids are living through real shit and realizing that the adults around them are unable/unwilling to help/protect them when it’s needed. Your suggestion to fight “doomerism” is going to appear as a continuation of that and break any remaining trust even further.

Hope can be a useful tool, but within the context of American schools it’s more often a tool for gaslighting and control than meaningful change.

The context for the DEFUSE program is that SARS-cov-1 was of pretty significant concern that it could mutate into a global pandemic similar to the Cov-2 pandemic that actually happened. The program was funded to investigate, learn and prepare for what were predicted to be some of the more dangerous possible mutations.

The “smoking gun” here is all correlation. Saying “they predicted correctly what was dangerous and were proactively studying it” is not a good argument for causation.

However, the theory that I haven’t seen well debunked/studied is that improper handling/disposal of dead viruses/plasmids/etc. increased the risk of/allowed for recombinants with the endemic Cov strain resulting in those mutations of greatest concern… Have you come across anything on that?

The science behind DNA profiling is grossly overstated. it doesn’t sequence a full genome and is often using partial/degraded samples and relies entirely on statistical differences. In probability games, there’s no such thing as certainty…

In addition since 2010 anyone using “standard molecular biology techniques such as PCR, molecular cloning, and recently developed whole genome amplification (WGA), enable anyone with basic equipment and know-how to produce practically unlimited amounts of in vitro synthesized (artificial) DNA with any desired genetic profile.” and there have been a plethora of new tools/techniques which make doing that even easier…

You can’t treat any existing mental health issues while people are living on the street developing new ones.

Ah yes, because criminals are subhumans who should be exterminated like the cockroaches they are. And if we can’t take the trash out back like we should we can at least make it not our problem and make sure the cockroaches aren’t in our backyard. That’s what you’re saying right?

Homicide rate is far less than other countries.

People are jailed and murdered in the US over “speech” all the time.

It seems like your “us is far better” is based purely on vibes… Unless you’ve got some numbers you’d like to share?

I used to have that issue, the secret for me was that I needed to explicitly look for wide shoes (Xw as in 10.5w) my current shoes are going on 2 years now :D

The USA has the highest incarcerated population in the world. Per capita it’s about 2-4x the list of “authoritarian” states that usually get referenced.

Do you want to do a quick compare on the rates of extrajudicial killings as well?

I don’t know what better quantitative measurement for “authoritarian” are than life and liberty. Do you have better ones?