It’s not a Dem/Rep issue nearly so much as it is an Insider/Outsider issue.

“Cross us and your constituents will get a leak of your AI generated nudes” style intimidation. Great for getting rid of pesky populists and regulators and people who give a shit about climate change.

they stopped and asked themselves if people want and need a foldable?

Who wants a thin phone with a large screen? Nobody.

Tankie Phone

Neither Facebook nor Twitter claimed 6.5B unique users.

They knew it would pass so they all got to pretend at being “fiscally responsible”. I guarantee they’ll go home to their districts and take credit for every penny doled out.

You don’t throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.

That’s very different from

His whole speech was literally about utilizing your status as a voter in key swing states to demand change from candidates by threatening your power as a voter to choose

He was arguing to abstain from voting without a quality candidates on the ballot. Not to court mediocre candidates by promising them your vote.

Empty Internet Theory is a clever joke, but it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

My point was that he is exactly against the system and playing it by voting for a major party.

That’s not true.

His whole speech was literally about utilizing your status as a voter in key swing states to demand change from candidates by threatening your power as a voter to choose

That’s a wildly inaccurate interpretation

The big shift from Truman to Trump has been the number of domestic residents benefiting from our fascist policies. That number is shrinking year after year.

Half a century ago, you could talk to a rising tide carrying all our ships. Did that tide come from blood spilled in Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific Rim? Sure. But that wasn’t our problem.

Now we’re seeing the kind of brutal police tactics reserved for Vietnam and Iraq show up in Florida and on the Columbia University campus. We’ve got paramilitary goons targeting Haitians in Ohio, rather than in Haiti. We’re increasingly reliant on prison labor to do the work of historical migrant labor. Our agitation against China isn’t generating jobs in the MIC nearly as fast as it’s killing jobs in the civilian sector.

If you’re part of the privileged group fascism is selling you safety, normalcy, and tradition.

A big goal of the AI Revolution is to shrink the number of people the Executive tier have to pay in order to keep their positions. And even executive positions are consolidating as businesses merge and buy one another out.

It’s terrifying everyone, and Trump is just the guy who figured out how to sell traditional Republican voters a way out. Traditional Republican leaders only know how to preach austerity and justify poverty.

trolls, bots, and people that just turned 14

• Jill Stein voters are throwing their votes away.

• Jill Stein voters don’t exist.

Which is it?

No one’s voting 3rd party because they think they’ll win, they’re just throwing away a vote for Harris.

Would you prefer people voting 3rd party not vote at all?

If Malcolm X were alive

Why Malcolm X’s Family Is Suing the FBI, NYPD, and CIA 58 Years After His Death

Do you seriously think X was pro-FBI? Why on earth would he support a candidate who was?

What good is a revolution where the cost is human life with no guarantee of victory?

What good is pacifity where the cost is human life with no guarantee of a better life?

My only argument is, if you is you want to win, you have win on all fronts.

Sure. That doesn’t preclude a certain degree of self-defense. A union that can be busted up by mob violence or a peace march that’s mowed down by the police isn’t worth much, except as a reminder of how fragile human life is.

it is wasteful for me to discuss with you if you cannot see any value in the vote

A vote is valuable in an institution that respects its value. Elections with only one candidate don’t mean anything.

I’m confident you could unload the property for $4B easily enough. That’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $10-100/unique user amortized out over the life of the loan, which would be a steal via any other advertising medium.

Twitter still has real value. Hundreds of millions of people still use it, even in its deplorable state. And under new management, I’m confident people would flood back in.

Well, your first point is great except we don’t have yearly inspections on vehicles in North America or anything.

I can say that, at least in Texas, we require annual inspections as a condition of yearly vehicle registration. We just don’t test for the impact of headlights on incoming traffic, because… TxDOT (and the Texas legislature/governor by extension) doesn’t consider it worth regulating.

Add that to the fact that inspections are done by mechanics, and they don’t generally give a shit about it

Mechanics test what is on the regulatory code. Add headlight brightness to the list and they’ll test for that, too. This isn’t an unsolvable problem by any stretch.

That’s easy enough to fix with a filter over the bulb. But, again, it would require some degree of regulatory action for the benefit of all drivers rather than a captive agency that only works to maximize corporate profits.

Of course a real solution would be a proper regulation with tickets

That would require a municipal government with any real legislative authority, a state government that wasn’t the wholly owned subsidiary of big business, and a police force that considers “driving with overly bright headlights” more worthy of their time than “driving in the wrong neighborhood while black”.

I am less worried that a liberal is armed than I am at which direction the weapon is pointed.

Pacifism and militarism are both necessary in a governing organization. You need collaborative and compromise-ready bureaucrats as much as you need iron-spinned cold-blooded killers. War is, after all, always just a prelude to diplomacy.

What matters more than being pacifist or militant is that you’re standing side-by-side in pursuit of some greater goal. The militants must be ready and willing to lay down their arms. The pacifists must be willing to negotiate on behalf of their more aggressive peers. The dispute over when, where, and how to act cannot be put above the goal they are all working towards.

voting side by side in the voting booth is a bridge too far

Electoralism - on lemmy.world, at least - is only a valid strategy if you vote straight ticket Democrat. Vote Republican, you’re anti-democratic. Vote Third Party, you’re anti-democratic. Stay home, you’re anti-democratic. Spoil your ballot, you’re anti-democratic.

What good is electoralism in a system with only one “correct” answer? That’s not an election, its an exam.

What good is the election booth as a tool for making collective choice if any deviation from a single partisan sect makes you an Enemy of the People?

You know, Magnus Carlsen writes entire textbooks on chess strategy and still manages to win virtually every game he plays.