• Salamence@mander.xyzOP
      73·
      4 hours ago

      you didn’t even bait it

      Idk, looking at the votes and comments i think i bait it pretty good

  • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
    2116·
    5 hours ago

    Choose one:

    • a kick in the balls and a taco.
    • a kick in the balls, acid to the face, and shot in each leg.

    Both sidesists:

    See! See! They’re exactly the same! They’re both gonna kick us in the balls!

    • reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net
      6·
      2 hours ago

      If someone came up to me and said they were going to shoot one cat or two and if I didn’t choose one they would shoot three I still wouldn’t play their game. Don’t negotiate with terrorists or whatever.

    • narwhal@mander.xyz
      5·
      2 hours ago

      I think it would be more realistic like this.

      Choose one:

      • murder strangers and ignore you mostly.
      • murder strangers but kick you in the balls.

      Democrat voters:

      You are blind if you don’t see the difference.

    • Arcanepotato@crazypeople.onlineEnglish
      131·
      4 hours ago

      Choose one:

      • a polite foreign child crusher
      • a rude foreign child crusher

      Libs:

      How dare you point out that polite people are crushing children? You must think I shouldn’t vote for anyone! It’s very important to never improve things, foreign children be damned!

      • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
        73·
        3 hours ago

        Not that it really matters, because I’m not a liberal, I’m a leftist, but I (and more importantly, my liberal friends) have no problem criticizing democrats for supporting Israel. So go ahead and point that out all you want. I’ll 100% agree with you that they are just as bad as republicans on that issue. The problem I have is when someone reduces the parties down to their stances on one single issue. (In case that wasn’t incredibly obvious from my first comment.)

        • dubs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          3·
          14 minutes ago
          • Both bomb kids
          • Both support genocide
          • Both support imperialism and colonialism
          • Both screw over the working class to help out their rich friends
          • Both openly lie about how they are going to fix things
          • Both leverage military and intelligence agencies against their own citizens

          The problem I have is when someone reduces the parties down to their stances on one single issue.

          The “foreign child crusher” in this comic is doing a lot of heavy lifting, for a lot other problems.

        • Arcanepotato@crazypeople.onlineEnglish
          51·
          3 hours ago

          The meme didn’t say they were the same, they said they both crush children. People gotta come with a list before it’s okay? Not great for memes.

          (It’s not just Palestinian children either btw)

          • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
            31·
            3 hours ago

            They’re literally drawn as the same person with different colors.

          • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
            53·
            3 hours ago

            The meme heavily implies that the only difference is that one is polite and one is rude, which is not the only difference.

            They both operate the exact same Palestinian child crushing machine, but one also operates a number of additional child crushing machines. People didn’t support the lesser evil because they’re more polite, they do it to keep those additional child crushing machines from operating.

            • 挂路灯人@lemmy.ml
              71·
              3 hours ago

              You think Palestine is the only Bi-partisan machine? You really need to open a history book. Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria and all the rest are all bi-partisan.

              • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
                22·
                2 hours ago

                Eh, the degree varies greatly. And ultimately, bi-partisan machines are irrelevant to the choice. Look at the partisan ones. Which side is operating more partisan machines?

            • Arcanepotato@crazypeople.onlineEnglish
              51·
              3 hours ago

              I understand why people do it but what I don’t understand is why they are content to continue supporting any child crushing and discourage people from discussing it.

              • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
                21·
                2 hours ago

                Discussing it is fine, I think people only get touchy about it right before an election because they don’t want other people to lose sight of the utility of voting lesser evil. I think the ones who actually think about it don’t support any child crushing, they just recognize that the election has a binary outcome, and they’d rather fight the lesser evil than the greater one.

                At the end of the day, voting in bourgeoisie elections is just choosing the enemy you’ll be fighting, and choosing the lesser child crushing gives you a fight you’re more likely to win.

                • Arcanepotato@crazypeople.onlineEnglish
                  2·
                  1 hour ago

                  When else can people put pressure on the lesser evil to “tone down” the evil? Or take the opportunity to ensure folks know about the evil? Isn’t it when things look their worst they say “well actually we need to be slightly more evil to get those swing voters”?

                  Maybe I don’t understand the US system but I believe platforms are individual to candidates and that there are no overall party platforms that the candidates are expected to adhere to. How is there no shift to less evil under these conditions? So many individual elections for individual people and a whole lot of wack people getting elected.

                  and they’d rather fight the lesser evil than the greater one.

                  I think this is my point: when do they fight the lesser evil?

    • EmmiLime@lemmy.ml
      101·
      5 hours ago

      hmm, those both choices you laid out; how do the people outside your country get affected by these elections?

      • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
        711·
        5 hours ago

        Generally, much worse under republicans. Republicans like to start wars.

        • 挂路灯人@lemmy.ml
          131·
          4 hours ago

          If you are saying this unironically you need to open a history book and look outside your bubble. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Haiti, former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Gaza, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Somalia and many many more attacked and or destroyed under democrats.

        • EmmiLime@lemmy.ml
          131·
          4 hours ago

          Republicans like to start wars.

          Compared to Democrats? How? Libya, Syria and Yemen were attacked under a Democratic president. In fact, Kamala said that Iran is the greatest threat in the world.

          Or better yet, the escalation of the genocide under Joe Biden? The genocidal monster who loves “Israel” so much https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYLNCcLfIkM

          Turns out, outside of Amerika; there is in fact not a single fucking difference between these 2 parties. All you care about is domestic affair concerning your treats. You don’t give a fuck about people outside your area.

          • Arcanepotato@crazypeople.onlineEnglish
            41·
            2 hours ago

            Turns out, outside of Amerika; there is in fact not a single fucking difference between these 2 parties. All you care about is domestic affair concerning your treats. You don’t give a fuck about people outside your area.

            🫰🫰🫰(That’s snapping btw lol)

            Like I don’t even expect people to overthrow the government tomorrow or whatever. Shit’s scary, I get it. But like, it would be super cool if they could stop aggressively defending the child crushing in front of the world, on the internet. As a start.

          • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
            37·
            3 hours ago

            In my entire lifetime, only republicans have started wars, and only democrats have ended them. I’m almost 40.

            In fact, Kamala said that Iran is the greatest threat in the world.

            And Donald Trump started a war with them.

  • jjj@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    612·
    6 hours ago

    It’s not about voting for the lesser evil, but against the worse one. The way the United States is structured, which influences the way its people think about voting and vice versa, you are given only two options when voting for president:

    • Vote for the Democrat one
    • Vote for the Republican one

    But… you might think you’re clever and say “I should just vote for neither of them, nobody will stop me”. If your state has RCV then put your preferred candidate as a first pick and just place Democrat before Republican. Problem solved, no more strategic voting. Unfortunately, precious few states have adopted this for any elections, let alone the presidency.

    In states without RCV, there are 3 equivalent cases from your perspective:

    • Vote Republican: Increment their number by 1
      • Overall effect +1 for Republicans
    • Vote Democrat: Increment a threatening score by 1, thereby requiring Republicans to gain 1 more vote to win
      • Overall effect -1 for Republicans
    • Don’t vote or vote for a non threatening party/candidate
      • Overall effect 0 for Republicans

    Forgive me for assuming the reader wants to get Republicans (and Republican aligned Democrats) out of office. In this case, it is your responsibility to vote for the most threatening candidate. It’s a sick trick of game theory, which is why RCV is so important.

    • freagle@lemmy.mlEnglish
      172·
      5 hours ago

      You really just gotta get out of the private space of who people vote for and do actual work that matters. Wasting your energy trying to get polite genocidaires elected is costing lives every day. You only have so much time. Vote the way you understand the system works, assume everyone else is as smart or smarter than you and they can figure out how to vote. And then spend the other 364 days of the year putting all this effort you want to put into vote mongering and put it into dismantling the orphan crushing machine.

      Because the way this works is that there’s an orphan crushing machine and there are two parties who take turns operating the orphan crushing machine and we need all the help we can get dismantling the orphan crushing machine.

      And when you spend all your effort screaming at the people who want to dismantle the orphan crushing machine that they should ALSO be sure they vote for the correct people to operate the orphan crushing machine, wait let me put it in your terms:

      If you help us dismantle the orphan crushing machine, that’s -1 for the orphan crushers and +1 for the people fighting the orphan crushers

      If you don’t help us dismantle the machine, that’s 0 for the orphan crushers

      If you consume time and energy from other people who would otherwise be convinced to help us dismantle the orphan crushing machine, that -1 or more for the people fighting the orphan crushers and +1 or more for the orphan crushers.

      It’s just the way game theory works out. Trust me. I’m a doctor of game theory.

      • Arcanepotato@crazypeople.onlineEnglish
        3·
        2 hours ago

        Because the way this works is that there’s an orphan crushing machine and there are two parties who take turns operating the orphan crushing machine and we need all the help we can get dismantling the orphan crushing machine.

        Damn that’s 🔥

      • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
        11·
        1 hour ago

        Wasting your energy trying to get polite genocidaires elected is costing lives every day.

        On the contrary, it helps save lives until the orphan crushing machine is dismantled. No one is saying just to vote lesser evil and do nothing else, they’re saying that voting for lesser events is one part of the larger effort.

        Because the way this works is that there’s an orphan crushing machine and there are two parties who take turns operating the orphan crushing machine

        The way this actually works is that they take turns operating one particular orphan crushing machine, but one party turns on a number of additional orphan crushing machines when it’s their turn.

        And when you spend all your effort screaming at the people who want to dismantle the orphan crushing machine that they should ALSO be sure they vote for the correct people to operate the orphan crushing machine

        No one is spending all their effort doing that. Some people spend some of their effort doing that, in order to counteract the efforts of other people who can’t seem to understand the difference between the people operating one orphan crushing machine, and the people operating several orphan crushing machines.

        Until you actually have an actionable plan to dismantle the machines, or an electoral process which doesn’t make third parties spoilers, the optimal achievable outcome of voting is the minimization of machine operation. The operation of bi-partisan machines isn’t really relevant to the voting issue. Whoever has the greater machine operation is the outcome to avoid.

        We agree that the goal is to dismantle orphan crushing machines. It’s much easier to dismantle machines while they are not running. Spending time and energy to try to get the lesser machine-operators instead of the greater machine-operators is a +1 to the machine-dismantlers, since now they have the opportunity to dismantle the idle machines.

        The efforts outside voting are unaffected by voting for the lesser machine-operators. Not voting, or generally speaking voting third party, gives no benefit to the machine-dismantlers. Since, generally, the people who want to dismantle the machine would otherwise vote for the lesser machine-operators, discouraging that vote is a detriment to the machine-dismantlers; therefore fighting that discouragement is a benefit to the machine-dismantlers.

        Game theory only works if you assign your values correctly.

        • Arcanepotato@crazypeople.onlineEnglish
          5·
          2 hours ago

          Where does it end tho?

          When do the machines get dismantled if it has to be perfect before it’s done?

          The lesser evil people have no plans to do it. People are told they aren’t supposed to bring up the machines because that might mean it’s more likely that even more machines are brought online.

          How many dem governments have those machines survived?

          • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
            11·
            2 hours ago

            I responded to you elsewhere. You’re not choosing your side, you’re choosing your opponent. Between the two, I prefer the Democrats as my opponent. I should hope that most thinking leftists feel the same. The only reason to choose the Republicans is accelerationism, and ethically I can’t justify “What if we just sent the orphan crushing machine into overdrive so it overheats?”.