I prefer bringing up that in US âdemocracyâ some votes count more than others. When trump won, more people voted for Clinton and for some reason yanks seem to be totally ok with this.
We are not ok with this, but changing the way it works is a herculean task. The people that it currently works for are very invested in keeping it that way.
Because itâs easier for people to pretend already being busy (focusing on and protesting nonsensical and completely irrelevant shit) vs actually focusing on the primary and relevant things that are actually impacting their lives.
The media has done a pretty good job convincing the vast majority of Americans that we are the pinnacle of democracy and any change to that is either fascism or communism. Wanting a better system is intentionally painted as un-American.
âThe mediaâ sounds like a convenient scapegoat. Who gives a fuck about how things are painted? Do you really just go âwell, I guess I better waive my right to having my vote count equally, donât want the neighbours to think Iâm un-americanâ or is that just an excuse for lethargy? I donât mean to antagonise you but I think you should ask yourself some tough questions once in a while.
You have a great points, though your scenario is a bit too simple.
Itâs not that weâre so fat and lethargic that we canât be bothered to get off the sofa long enough to effect meaningful change. Itâs that âthe mediaâ is gargantuan and goes far beyond the synthesized news cycles and reports. The OG social media outlets like churches, work culture, family structure, regional Identities, and every other socialized structure you can think of manifests itself into these ideals that have been pummeled into our head since the first time we stood up in preschool and recited the pledge of allegiance.
Making it more complicated is that our real concerns like, paying our bills, feeding our families, getting Timmy to soccer practice, protecting our kids, being a good employee so we donât lose our job, being a good dad, being a good son, keeping our relationships healthy, etc., etc. is condensed into an infantesimally small amount of time. When you finally get to stop youâve only got the bandwidth for bullet points. Itâs not laziness, itâs exhaustion. Itâs not lack of self-reflection, itâs overclocking. We have an entire backbone population thatâs absolutely exhausted and still feeling like failures because somehow the American dream is feeling like a greasy, over-hustled nightmare that weâre constantly struggling to live up to.
This cycle does lend itself to your headlines of gun violence, gladiator arena us v. them politics, and on, and on. The system with which we now live is a constant grinder that no longer leaves time for, nor praises individualism and ideas. Itâs a finely tuned revenue machine built on an overhauled slavery model that instead praises corporatism, classism, ruling parties, and residual monthly income⊠with a smiley face of nationalistic exceptionalism posted on the packaging.
Apologies for being so long winded, but some sympathy for the devil might be in order. Weâre largely not a bad people. Most of us are kind, optimistic, and try very hard to change the things we see out of place. The problem is weâre becoming more and more just white noise in the background. A sort of spectre of idealisms past.
You make it sound like youâre just a cog in a machine with no agency and I do believe thatâs what it feels like (other countries are in late capitalism, too) but youâre not if enough of you band together. Youâre not forced to watch your life pass before your eyes, you choose to play along with the machineâs game. Hell, you even got the guns to take what should be yours and you just use them to shoot at little paper targets.
I donât think of you as fat and lazy or the devil. Itâs just frustrating to see your potential go to waste like that.
Great argument. Now instead of preaching to the choir, which is to say someone who already understands and agrees with you, why donât you elevate your message to all 400 million of us? You know, really get to the ones who donât understand theyâre being manipulated?
No? You wonât do that? Donât you care about our right to vote and this democracy? Maybe you feel like itâs just not your job. I donât know, sounds like another way to say youâre just too lazy.
I donât mean to antagonize you, but youâre the one insinuating that it just takes one person being unhappy about the system to change it. So you should ask yourself the same questions about why you canât do it yourself. Even if you donât live in the US, you have about the same resources as I do.
You took a comment that addressed noone in particular a bit personal and now pretend it was meant to start a revolution on a very niche corner of the internet. Not quite what I consider worth my time.
I donât mean to antagonise you but I think you should ask yourself some tough questions once in a while.
You wouldnât consider this addressing me in particular? Looks a little like youâre avoiding a response because you donât have a good answer.
In any case, have fun preaching to people who live in a complex system about changes you donât really understand. For what itâs worth, entertaining the naive notion of
well why donât you just ask yourself some hard questions and itâll all be better
That sentence upset you to the point you feel the need to insult my intelligence, misrepresent what is written, forget that âyouâ can mean people in general and ignore any clarification. Thatâs regrettable as Iâm sure you do actually understand what Iâm trying to say here but canât address it over a perceived slight.
That sentence doesnât make sense addressed to people in general. No one says, âI didnât mean to antagonize youâ to a large group of undefined people. Antagonize is pretty specific to a single subject.
Also, what clarification? The only response you made was to dutifully inform me that my challenge to your logic was beneath replying to.
Lastly, itâs pretty clear what you were trying to say. That if only people realized that being un-American isnât the end of the world, maybe systemic changes could start happening.
What Iâm saying to you is, about 150 million of us are so brainwashed and vehemently against opening their minds to that sort of change that they regularly float the idea of rounding up the rest of us to execute.
Thatâs what our media does to us. And by âmediaâ, I donât mean the boogie man you decided that I meant, I mean conservative outlets like Fox News that captivate millions of our population and constantly send the message that the people actually trying to change things are evil and corrupt. That advocate for locking up the poor and shooting the protesters.
If you really think that can be overcome by a plurality of us âasking ourselves the hard questionsâ, youâre woefully naive about the actual situation.
If you want to paint me as the type to be offended at a perceived slight, understand that the slight in question is proposing an overly simplistic solution to a gargantuanly complex problem half a century in the making like we just âforgotâ we can change the system.
Isnât that true for any representative democracy especially when gerrymandering is allowed? In Aus you can easily have a party win more than 50% of the vote but not get in because the votes were concentrated in vast-majority seats.
No, thatâs not an example of votes not counting equallyâŠ? Am I misunderstanding your example?
You donât need some mathematical proof to just count all the votes and see which candidate got more votes. Itâs how most elections throughout the world work.
In Europe, the countries i know of at least, count each vote equally.
What i meant was that it doesnât mean itâs a perfect system if your goal is democracy.
Other factors can totally break the purpose of counting votes equally altogether and end up with a unsatisfying result. And my exemple is as such.
(I live in France, we have equally counted vote but with this issue, and some other neighboring countries have it too. If youâre interested i can explain more what the issue isâŠ)
(I guess Australia, for the user you were replying to originally, have itâs own issues too, not that iâm familiar with them.)
Mathematicians worked on how different suffrage creates different results.
There are plenty like the majority judgement but one that i particularly like is Condorcetâs method to solve the problem.
You can still buy the book or access the site via most libraries.
I get that itâs a bit annoying, but Iâm guessing youâd also be annoyed about an ad-ridden, data-harvesting dictionary.
The Oxford English Dictionary is without a doubt the most well-researched, comprehensive, and linguistically complete English dictionary on Earth, bar none. Nothing even comes close to its depth and scope.
It perhaps is the most well-researched and comprehensive dictionary of all languages, but I wouldnât know.
Itâs laid out in an unusual way and even has words and alternate meanings that havenât been used for centuries. Itâs not meant to be a general-purpose dictionary, itâs niche and predominantly for linguistic experts or people fascinated by language.
An unbelievable amount of research goes into it, and those people deserve to be paid.
There are dozens of freely-available general-purpose dictionaries out there if you want them.
I was annoyed, like the OP, then I read your comment and now Iâm impressed and have an urge to buy a copy of OED I most certainly will never open. They owe you a commission on my sale.
I donât think you can buy the book. It was 20 volumes in 1989, and theyâve been working on an ongoing update since then. Thereâs no plans to physically print a third edition.
But yeah, itâs a serious scholarly resource, and they do put out free small dictionaries as well.
You are right, itâs wayyy too large to fit in one book, I misspoke when I said book
I had no idea they donât want to make physical copies anymore, though, part of me is sad about that, although I can certainly appreciate why theyâd go in that direction.
âitâs okay to be whiteâ was crafted by 4chan as a âtriggering the libsâ phrase. The entire point is to be fully racist and rally under the phrase so that the people calling you racist for genuine reasons appear to be saying that it is not in fact ok to be white. Anyone saying this phrase is a white supremacist trying to trip you into âagreeingâ with them that a white genocide exists and is happening, and to convince bystanders (youtube teens at the beginning of the alt-right pipeline) that the left is against white people, ergo if youâre white you should become a Nazi.
I know this because it happened to me. âItâs ok to be whiteâ is prime ben shapiro owns feminists with facts and logic video material.
Its a malicious statement. It makes the reader assume that there are people that dont think being white is okay. Statements like its okay to be black or lgbtq or anything else it works because there is a lot of discrimination against them.
I hate everything about this photo⊠Really, like everything. I mean, this really is a genuine shit post. Like if I wasnât so flabbergasted, I would just closed my browser and go back what I was doing. But here we are⊠OPs fish abomination and my eye balls, now married in a photonic exchange that I wish never happened⊠You win OP.
My uninformed impression and story I made up seeing an admin badge, is that someone reported this, and an admin came down to see what it was about, only to throw their hands up and say âwell shit it doesnt break any rules but I too hate it!â
Thank you jello, Iâm sorry my post has assaulted your eyes to the point that your day is ruined, however I am honored to have won lol
Either Iâm hoping Iâm gonna learn about a strange tradition or that Iâm about to read a load of carefully crafted bullshit to seem like the former.
Either way Iâm happy, so tell me more about your traditional festively microwaved sausages
We take the korv, itâs red skin colored with falu rödfĂ€rg, and it is microwaved to just before it cracks open. After that we cut the skin and put on mustard and ketchup. It is served with whole grilled onion and Pyssling Pudding. A mix of lime jell-o and chocolate.
Such a shame that they ran out of ideas after they moved apartments and were never able to step away from the kitchen smashing with viking weaponry running joke. They were good dudes. I still have their apron lying around.
Yes, but only the lucky ones win death in a raffle (1 in a 1000). The rest are shipped to mines. And their memories are not wiped clean, because the suffering is the integral part of such economy.
Yeah I thought it trolled a little too hard at first, but when someone else pointed out what it âmeantâ I feel like if theyâre trolling they got it just right.
lemmy.world
Top