wizardbeard

joined 2 years ago
[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That you're putting so much effort into defending trolls and racist is certainly interesting.

If you want to imagine that I'm part of that group, despite me clearly saying otherwise across many many comments, I can't stop you.

Claiming that I'm trying to defend "trolls and racists" when I've been direct and specific about my points across my many comments on this post is also flipping the equation to fit your outrage or point of view.

As succinctly as possible: Denigrating, insulting, putting down, and condescencion towards people with differing political beliefs (especially when it's a group as large as the Trump voting base) is not a recipe for successful movement forward towards a better future for the United States. Whether that's fair or not doesn't matter to this point. Whether they're all the fucking worst or not doesn't matter to this point. You cannot ignore or other a group this size and then be surprised when they react negatively back towards you. Who started it also does not matter to this point.

It sucks that this is the case. It's a great big pot of unfair bullshit stew. Why should anyone have to even give those assholes the time of day, etc.

But unless you expect these people to magically stop existing, some way to work with or around them will need to be worked towards. I'd prefer to think that we're better than advocating for a purge or removing peoples' rights en masse, so that means that some amount of meeting people where they are and engaging with them as other people will need to happen.

The only one who can decide if they're up for that effort is each individual person, but if no one even tries this shitshow won't change.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I can't speak to your family, but when you talk about the full group of people who voted for Trump (or even people that would self identify as conservativr) you're talking about tens of millions of people. The idea that absolutely all, or even a majority of them, are explicitly aware of and OK with the people marching with nazi flags is something that can't just be taken as fact.

That's the core thrust of your argument, and it's so obviously flawed to me that I honestly have a hard time engaging with it.

Likewise, guilt by association is something that doesn't hold up at the mind boggling scales we're talking about. Guilt by association isn't ok in the far smaller scale case of associating the looters that took advantage of the BLM riots with the BLM rioters, right? It's not ok on the scale of "darkies commit more crimes statistically, so they're all criminals" right? So how can we lean on that so heavily with a much larger group that crosses all sorts of demographics lines?

Let me be clear: The ones that are aware, the ones that are literally sitting across the table (not simply a member of a mind bogglingly large amorphous group of vague political beliefs), the ones that are actually racist... fuck em. Garbage people.

But the assertion that literally every single person who made the shit ass choice to vote for the cheeto is just as bad as the marching nazis on his side is just a childish attempt to simplify a massively complicated situation involving many millions of people, all with their own personal lived experiences, priorities likely different from yours, differing levels and sources of news exposure, differing levels of education, and differing levels of political engagement.

This next part may sound condescending, but I hope you can believe that I don't mean it to be:

Maybe that simplification is what you need to make it through the day. Fair enough. Maybe that's what you need to not lose your mind having fruitless conversations with assholes. Fair enough.

But don't delude yourself into thinking that's any true solution for moving forward. It's survival at best. Maybe that's all you're capable of right now, and that's fine. Life was and continues to be rough without all this extra shit. Without taking it upon yourself to try and fix the gaping chasm of political divide.

Just don't be surprised when these people you denigrate, ignore, blanketly label as the worst of humanity don't have interest in working with you towards a better tomorrow. That's the trade off.

There either has to be some attempt made to reach and turn these people, or we resign ourselves that this shit will continue to happen again and again.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Agreed. I'm not sure how exactly it would work, but I feel like the analog sticks and touchpads should be switched somehow.

I really wish brick and mortar stores would have displays of controllers to try out like they do with laptops and phones, but I'm not sure the money is there. Most people just go with whatever the standard xbox or playstation controller is and call it good enough.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 9 months ago

A lot of this is coming from all the documentary and developer commentary content Valve released recently for the big 20th anniversary of Half Life 2's release, so that's spot on.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Dark Sector (Steam): https://store.steampowered.com/app/29900/Dark_Sector/

Breathedge (Fanatical, redeems on Steam, requires signing up for their email list): https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/breathedge

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com -4 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I must have missed something if every single Trump voter was out there marching with the ones carrying the nazi flag. Maybe I should get my eyes checked, as I sure didn't see tens of millions of people in those photos.


Stop misusing literally.


I understand what you're getting at, but I vehemently disagree that guilt by association can be reasonably applied to the entirety of a group this fucking large. Has the same feel to me as being distrustful of every person with dark skin because of skewed crime statistics.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm familiar. I don't know how anyone on Lemmy would not be familiar with it by this point as it's one of the main go to justifications people use for treating others like shit.

An astoundlingly important quote from that very Wikipedia article you linked:

In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.

(Emphasis mine)

I'll also point you at Daryl Davis, a black musician who managed to turn multiple KKK members by simply engaging with them as human beings.


My whole point being that when roughly half of the country voted for Trump, it is an absolutely insane idea to just decide it's ok to treat all of them intolerantly and also expect things to just magically change for the better. Feels like I'm taking crazy pills when everyone tries to self righteously justify not making any fucking attempt to reach these people and turn them.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Are you kidding me? No one is really that stupid. We all know what the red hats in the second panel are supposed to be.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com -2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If you somehow think that those idiots are going to just magically disappear and we'll suddenly be able to vote all the right people in without making any attempts to engage with and turn them, that makes you an idiot too.

Self righteous elitism is cathartic but does nothing to move any of us towards a better future. Nine times out of ten when I bring this up, people ignore it or suggest we somehow get rid of the Trump voters.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Police are openly admitting to using chatGPT to hallucinate reports. I'm sure they were before, but now they're comfortable enough to admit to it.

Nothing could possibly go wrong with this. Nothing at all.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com -3 points 9 months ago (12 children)

Any possible reason why anyone could have voted for Trump besides being racist or an idiot. That blanket labelling half the country as Nazis wasn't effective last time and isn't effective now. That a large portion of the populace feels so desperate for change that they were willing to vote for the fucking cheeto supreme.

I voted for Harris, and I completely believe Trump was the worst fucking choice the voting populace could have made, but unless you're actually calling for the extermination of roughly half the country there has to be some attempt at understanding or bridging the gap wherever it can be bridged.

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