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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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Are people really claiming Trump isn't worse? I think it's more that people think that Harris may be better than Trump (pretty low bar there), but still too bad to vote for. Voting for the lesser evil only goes so far. At some point the lesser evil is still too far from one's own ideals that voting for them isn't an option. Different people will obviously draw that line in different places and if I lived in the USA, I'd probably begrudgingly vote for Harris in the coming election.
Democrats basically slandering anyone who refuses to vote for their candidate as Trump supporters is fucking stupid and will hardly convince anyone to change their minds. Especially when it seems democrats have had nothing to offer the left other than "the other side is worse" for as far back as I can remember. If they want the left's votes, they need to earn them.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't want people to get the wrong idea. Voting in FPTP is not the same as approval.
Exactly. If you keep playing the "vote blue no matter who" playbook, progressive change will never happen from within
I am ready to compromise on all sorts of ideals. A smaller increase in minimum wage? Okay. A movement towards accepting trans people? Okay. But, when it comes to killing innocent people, I can't accept a number above zero. That's just a value that I have, because I don't like innocent people killed. If the price of political participation is voting for some innocent people being killed, I don't wish to participate, personally.
Perhaps it goes so far as to evil existing while moving more slowly. My evidence for this belief is the world around us: is it getting better?
Agreed. What would convince me is being very much against killing innocent people.
Here's the reality; we're all playing the trolley problem but it's with real people and unfortunately the only options are kill more people or kill less people. If you know that by not voting you're killing more people then you can't claim you're not responsible for their deaths.
If you really care go out and protest the system after the election. Choosing to let more people die now is a protest but you have blood on your hands.
Yeah, but part of the trolley problem is that it's not just about choosing the option with the least harm, but also how being active in the decision impacts the morality of the situation. Being of the opinion that letting 3 people die on one track without your intervention is better than actively choosing the death of 2 is a completely valid response to the trolley problem. You don't have to agree that it's the right decision, but it's still valid.
Applying that to the election would mean deciding that letting the bigger harm that would be a Trump presidency happen is preferable to being an active participant in helping steer the metaphorical tram onto the Harris track and harming the people there.
There are no black and white answers here. That's the whole point of the trolley problem. Everyone is going to have their own point of view and it's going to vary depending on how they perceive the harm on each track. Like I said, if I had a vote in the US election, I'd probably vote to send the tram onto the Harris track, but my willingness to do so wouldn't be infinite, just because the Trump track is worse. At some point the harm becomes so big, that I would refuse to be an active participant, even if inaction meant an even worse outcome. Some people (understandably) feel like that with the current choices. That doesn't make them Trump supporters or bad people.
I'm not, because the trolley problem is a simplistic consequentialist fairy tale that doesn't exist in the real world.
In the trolley problem, you must choose in a way which allows death, because some sinister outside force has created reality in which you are the only person that can intervene in a situation in which one or more must die.
In the real world, you can choose to not kill.
I live in the real world.
I refuse to vote in a way which condones killing innocent people. To condone killing innocent people is against my moral standards.
No, I do not. It is the people who carry out murders who have blood on their hands. There is no trolley, there is no trolley problem, and I am not in control of any level on any tracks. You invent those tracks in order to trap yourself into accept the status quo.
I do not accept the status quo. You and your descendants may enjoy it, instead. I hope you do not find out what it is like to be amongst the innocent who have to be killed because someone else has fantasised a trolley that must run you over.
This is word for word from what I remember that some tankie said about a month ago.
I actually checked the date to make sure I wasn't reading an old post.
Thanks for giving me enough evidence to block you.
No problem!
I bet it wasn't, though, but thanks anyway! You're probably just upset that one of your most recent posts references the trolley problem, and you can tell that I don't respect your lack of interesting or independent thought on the matter. Bye, and enjoy arguing that killing innocent people is in some way acceptable, because you construct hypothetical situations which demand it!
I also won't ask you to prove that my post is word-for-word the same as anything else. We're all on the internet, so we can surely check ourselves. But thank you for lying to me in order to show me that you don't argue in good faith!
Choosing not to vote is participation whether you like it or not. Your so called protest doesn't help change the system either. All it accomplishes is kill more Palestinians. It's a fucked up system and we should absolutely do everything we can to change it, but not voting doesn't absolve you of the excess deaths of innocents.
You have a chance to help people but you're too morally pure so instead you choose to plug your ears while they get murdered and tell yourself letting them die was the right choice morally.
If Trump wins and Israel ends up murdering everyone, I'll come back to this comment and remind you.
I don't have a choice.
No, my personal morality is for me. That's how personal morality works. Other people can accept that practical reality necessitates killing innocent people if they want. That's because they are not acting on morality, they are acting on practicality. To the people dying, that distinction does not make much of a difference.
But I can't vote.
If it's ridiculously 'pure' to be against killing innocent people then that explains why I don't feel emotionally attached to being human.
Who am I letting die? I can't vote.
If Harris wins (which I wish could say was almost certain, but it's scarily close) and Israel ends up murdering everyone without Harris having seriously tried to stop them, will you come back to apologise?
Then shut the fuck up. Worry about your own country.
This is a very confusing stance, you’re advocating for not voting while not being a US citizen so you can’t vote??
And you completely misunderstand first past the post voting. You have it in the UK too. It’s how labor got elected, your far right party split the conservative vote. The risk here is that due to the US’ electoral college system a select few states (incl. TX, NC, GA, FL, VA, NV, ME not just the rust belt strip) will decide the election. Thus for those states, someone who could vote must vote for the Dems.
Any possible vote not for the Dems will help the Repubs get closer to clinching those close states, whether it’s no-vote or one of the virtue-signaling 3rd party candidates. (Yes, they only split the vote and are worthless for reducing harm, build 3rd party from local up)
Only one of two candidates will win thanks to FPTP. Both candidates will continue to enable genocide. But one candidate - Trump - will target trans people and will target women and will target minorities at home. So if you are a US citizen who can vote, you do the proper ethical thing: you vote for harm reduction via voting for the Democrats.
A vote is not an endorsement, you don’t have to feel tied to it; it’s an infinitesimal push to a better atmosphere to advocate for the end of the genocide. If Trump is in power left-leaning people will be split putting out fires: trying to keep trans people alive, trying to get women proper healthcare, trying to keep minorities from being rounded up. There will be less bandwidth for stopping the genocide, much less pushing for more progressive change.
In short, the only ethical move is to vote if you’re a US citizen to mitigate harm and improve the progressive landscape to be able to maximalize effort towards ending the genocide. The only ethical move if you’re not a US citizen is to not advocate for not voting for the democrats; might as well be a Russian bot at that point.
I think it would be for someone who doesn't agree that killing innocent people is wrong.
It’s confusing because you’re advocating for not voting in the US election while not having the ability to vote in the US election. You’re literally doing foreign interference by not being straightforward with your non-US citizen background. State that so people understand the context you’re speaking from, we have a fuckton of foreign election interference from Russia and Israel and more already.
I have interacted with so many people from outside the US who really want to advocate for our election yet don’t understand the shitass limited choices we have to make to try to make the future better.
I lay out that ethically anyone who supports ending the genocide should vote to reduce harm elsewhere since both options continue the genocide. Not voting dem is also sacrificing trans people and Hispanic people and women which is ethically wrong. Sucks ass, but voting anything other than dem is way worse. So the small effort to tick the box is easily worth that effort.
Be ready for your next UK election, you may need to choose labor instead of green in a tight race so that tory or reform doesn’t take your local seat. Sucks ass, but one less conservative is one more not conservative. With so many parties I can’t believe yous don’t have ranked choice.
Again the only ethical thing is to enable harm reduction. Because voting isn’t a direct extension of your values, but a tiny push for not-fascism. The media may make it a 24/7 thing, but it’s really a 20 minute trip once every 6-12 months if you’re nudging for local change. Once every 4 years if you can’t be arsed to vote local for some reason.
Tankie detected
In their defense, Beria would have sent even more tanks than "lesser evil" Khrushchev did. Asking for zero tanks is kinda privileged and idealistic.