mozz

So anyway, I found myself aligned with Nancy Pelosi and against Bernie Sanders and AOC

And I figured hey you know there’s nothing there that I might need to re examine, I’m sure me and Pelosi are the ones that have it figured out here

It was very upsetting to me and at the same time very enlightening when I had a long argument with a Trump supporter and realized he literally didn’t have the critical thinking tools to even analyze a source, see if it had self-contradictions, compare what it was saying against verifiable things and see if it was trustworthy. For him it was either “this thing is gospel” or else “everything is chaos and nothing is true and the world is a maelstrom of hopeless lies,” and he was choosing option A.

I wish it was easier to see what is going on from the data they show 😕

NYPD is in my opinion on one of the worst tiers of police agencies in the country, and so it wouldn’t surprise me if they are still very bad. But it’s hard to tell one way or another from this article.

It would be nice to see e.g. a breakdown of all fatal interactions with police, and all interactions that led to a use-of-force complaint, what the categories were in terms of:

• What % they refused to give body cam footage
• What % our use of force expert said it was ok
• What % our expert said it was debatable
• What % our expert said the cops were very clearly abusive

Just reporting numbers like, how many complaints were there, or how many people did the police shoot whether or not it was needed, isn’t real enlightening

What the fuck

I came in here to talk about police brutality and the NYPD; I did not expect to see Biden’s name come into it when the NYPD is borderline brownshirts and hates the fuck out of Biden and doesn’t seem inclined to accept instructions about how much brutality to do from anybody much less a stinkin’ Democrat

But sure. Biden’s action on law enforcement has mostly been to make small but sensible reforms to federal law enforcement (one, two).

If you want more police reform, a good place to start would be supporting efforts in congress to do the same in other police jurisdictions, as opposed to (as is tradition) blaming the whole thing on Biden and Biden only and doing everything possible to swing the election to his opponent who is 18 times worse on the issue.

Oww oof my world view

I’m gonna just relax in the middle of the field, and observe the goalposts whizzing around. Look at them go! But I don’t have to run after them any more. I just had that epiphany.

I’m free.

(You also didn’t answer my 1 vs 2 question, because… as Hunter Thompson said, to ask the question is to answer the question. It is ok; I am done)

Tell me who is that?

One, two, three. It's pretty well documented at this point.

Surely the DNC doesn't accept money from those people right?

Er... what?

I know you're just throwing disagreements at me which is a game that can continue more or less forever; I'm pretty much done with the conversation at this point. But yes, the DNC doesn't accept money on any large scale from the Russians. What would be the point of the Russians funding the party that's running against the party that they have corrupted to serve their geopolitical ends?

A lot of things do work that way (AIPAC among them), but the Democrats are not trying to destroy America and advance Russia's interests abroad, and don't seem likely to start doing that anytime soon, so I would be surprised if there's any large-scale effort by the Russians to fund the DNC. Do you know of one?

Instead of running simulations try observing this thing called "reality".

Okay, sure. In reality Trump wants to finish the job in Gaza, is furious (along with his cohort in congress) at even the laughable level of resistance Biden has given to the genocide so far, and wants to have have the military seize voting machines and run the elections in the future, shoot protestors including ones for justice in Palestine with live ammunition, and fire anyone anywhere in the government who's not loyal to him (i.e. might give resistance to any of that as they did during his last term).

Will that lead to:

1. Greater justice for Palestine, and better ability to fix this system in the future?
2. Not that?

You don't have to answer; I do not plan to continue this interaction, I don't think. The game that can go on forever of you just saying crazy counterfactual shit with this condescending tone as if I'm the wrong one. I just wanted to debunk a little more of the crazy shit before I continue on with my day.

Rewind to the civil rights movement

Some black activist who is 1,000% outside the political mainstream, but wildly popular within all segments of the American populace runs for the nomination of one of the major parties, gets FORTY THREE PERCENT OF THE VOTE (and only that low because the establishment cheated its ass off)

Is the right answer:

1. Holy shit that was almost a RADICAL change to the system, the anti abortion people took 40 years to get their radical change enacted and all it took for this one was like a popular guy and a moderate amount of internet organizing. We can fuckin win this. This is 10 times better than EITHER grimly voting for some third party who will never get more than 2% of the vote, OR grimly voting for whoever the DNC’s favorite is even though it’s horrible. Why, I bet even the establishment candidates will take notice of that and start pursuing all these worker-focused policies once they’re in office, not that the media would take any notice of it if they did
2. Man fuck that let’s never try that again, or even vote at all

?

Pretty much, yeah. For multiple overlapping reasons (FPTP, media, campaign funding). Which is why reforming the system is critical.

Kind of makes it weird that so many people on Lemmy are like “the system is broken therefore I’m not voting even if the outcome is Trump coming to power and making it 10 times worse.” In my type of logic, “the system is broken therefore let’s reform the system by doing X Y and Z” would be more sensible, to the point that it kinda calls into question their motivations behind saying the first thing, but what do I know.

I’m gonna make a simulator and then put you in it so we can test your assertions about how it works, and give you a score at the end

Also

We would never allow Russia or China to influence American voters with this kind of insane propaganda apparatus.

I’m not saying you are wrong about how it should work, but I also have bad news for you about where the GOP gets a lot of their money and priorities

And no that is not some hyperbole

?

That’s not how it works

You’re betting with the casino here, not directly with other users. When you bet with the casino about who will win the election, the casino’s “house cut” is baked into the non reciprocal nature of the odds on the two sides (plus whatever fees). If they have the odds wrong enough, then their expected value can go negative. As you said, they don’t gamble, so they do their damnedest to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I wish there was a simulator that we could put people in. It’d be good for Lemmy argument participants, too.

Like Jill Stein puts on the helmet, gets on the phone with simulated-Netanyahu, he laughs in her face and says okay we can wait until November, suits me fine. She cuts off weapons, congress explodes, it’s all over the news, some Israeli soldier talking about how his unit got decimated because they didn’t have the right stuff (all horseshit of course), Biden’s polling drops 5 points, Stein hits the button to switch the nominee to Kamala Harris, the polling drops even more, congress overrides Biden and sends weapons anyway, Trump wins the election with 350 electoral votes and sends Israel 20 strategic bombers and a carpet-bombing configuration of munitions with a note that says “have fun ❤️”, simulation ends. 0 points

(I’m not trying to give Biden a free pass on support for Israel. I think regime change and support for the ICC would be a good way to go; we can defend our “ally” (for some fuckin reason) while still prosecuting the members of that ally’s government who are killing children. I’m just pointing out that, of course, Stein’s argument here is laughably naive.)