So, the school board is bullying him into not doing an anti-bully talk. I think maybe the school board should have been the one getting the speech and not the kids at the school…
All that anti-bullying bullshit is that. Bullshit. They encourage bullying. They claim they don’t, but they do. If you’re not “normal,” you’ll get bullied and the school will do very little about it.
That’s because out of everything, we’re kind of creatures of conformation. Every nail that sticks out gets hammered down. It’s a part of our biology at this point, given how tribal in nature we have become. Success came from everyone working together, and when something goes against the status-quo, it’s normal for people to shun it. You’ll find this in literally every possible ‘division’ you can create for society. Dyed your hair blue? Some people’s instinct will naturally kick in and shun you for it. You don’t even have to be gay or anything - just out of the ordinary.
Of course we can do better – I’m telling you, it will never go away. It will forever be something we have to educate people on, and keep at the forefront of their minds, because we are literally of two minds. We have a prehistoric brain that can control low level impulses, and people have to be taught to override those impulses.
I excuse many things that people do; because I realize that no person can ever be absolutely perfect – to expect perfection of them is to preordain disappointment in them.
My kids' experience has been pretty good in the schools they've been in, especially in the high school. I'm not saying there's no bullying, but I've heard plenty of stories from them where they and/or others stepped in right away and put that shit down.
I'm also plenty aware that this is unusual, and am quite thankful for my school district.
Well I don’t know about your district, but in mine, we had to take my daughter out of public school and put her in online school because her bullying was so severe that she was having self-harm thoughts and the school did virtually nothing.
It’s very much a case by case. I didn’t have issues as a kid even though I was a total dweeb but I have coworkers who have done the same as you even though they were in good schools.
Typically they just let the bullies continue until somebody snaps and hits back, at which point the kid that snaps gets punish and the bullies get a stern talking to (maybe. If they don’t have the teacher thoroughly gaslight into believing they’re angels)
Ah, I see you’re familiar with my last 2 years of HS. Finally just got my parents to transfer me to a local vocational school instead of dealing with it, because it was clear the school wasn’t gonna do a damn thing.
Tesla would do well to distance themselves from Musk, for a lot of reasons. But it may be too late - the damage to their reputation may already be fatal.
They could definitely bounce back if the board fired him and the new head of the company made changes that actually made the cars better, rather than make the model numbers spell S3XY or have the horn make a fart noise for a premium or make and sell whatever the fuck the Powell Motors Homer Cybertruck is.
Maybe. But they’re not the only game in town when it comes to electric cars anymore. There are real auto manufacturers with good reputations making them now.
The problem is that Elons con man routine is the only reason Tesla is so overvalued. I’m sure they are afraid that if they let him go the stock price would readjust to a reasonable market price.
No matter what you think of him, he is brilliant at conning a tech enthusiast’s money out of their wallets.
That just comes with the territory of being wealthy, which he lucked into thanks to Peter Thiel taking a liking to him (probably because he wanted to fuck him). People confused the companies he invested in which happened to be successful despite him, and would probably more successful if he weren’t involved- see SpaceX when Shotwell took over day-to-day operations.
Lots of people, otherwise smart people, smell someone with money and say, “I want to go to there” because they think wealth can be transmitted through close contact.
I call it the Biggest Asshole in the Room strategy. Capitalists can be extremely successful by simply being the biggest asshole in the room. Smarter, more talented, better comnected people will cater to the biggest asshole in the room simply because it makes life easier to appease them. See also: Trump, Jobs, Bezos, Gates, anybody on Shark Tank, Ortega, Murdoch, Koch Bros, etc., all masters of the strategy. It’s a personality type that aligns perfectly with the free market where inertia and friction generate profit from the work of creation, innovation, and productivity.
Oh, it’s not the only reason, and the other may actually be worse. They sold $1.8 billion of carbon credits to other auto manufacturers last year. Which is pretty much free money to them. And hastens climate change, but, you know, free money.
Nah this iant true at all. I covered this in another xomment so Im gonna copypasta it here…
Tesla has the following:
Custom AI silicon designed by the designer of Apple’s M1 chip. It’s designed for training. They are about to scale it massively to create the Dojo supercomputer. They look to be on par with NVidia on performance/$. No small feat, and means they arent reliant on NVidia
They have custom inferrence chips used in all of their cars and their android robot. It gets fantastic performance per watt. My 5 year old car has first-gen inferrence chips and it’s still getting better with software… meaning it hasnt reached its potential. The latest chip design is probably much better, but I dont know much about it
They have possibly the best humanoid hands and arms that will work with this AI goodness.
Their walking and navigation is looking to be top notch… We’ll see
FSD really is incredible. I drive with it and it improves every year. Just got 12.3 and it’s pretty bomb.
Tesla solar is still a thing. The model 3 kinda derailed development a while back and it never really recovered. I think competitors are doing well and Tesla sees better returns on their other projects. Tesla needs to bring down their Solar prices which they just dont seem to be doing. Im guessing they dont want to scale manufacturing yet.
They have some of the largest casting machines on the planet and press out the frames of their cars for far cheaper than their competition can stamp and weld theirs. Stellantis and Toyota are adopting this manufactiring strategy as fast as they can, but they are a year or maybe 2 behind. I suspect Ford, VW and GM are adopting this too.
Tesla factory floors are much more efficient at iterating and improving. Their in-house software for managing workers and workflow development are unique to Tesla. Just look at the efficient packaging of their HVAC system after dozens of iterations every year for a couple years. It’s by far the best HVAC in the car world.
They have developed a lithium clay extraction process that vastly reduces chemical waste and water usage. They’re still 5 or so years out from implementing this in even a small capacity and clay extraction isnt guaranteed to be superior to spodumene. I expect the efforts they’re putting to this will pay off in 15 years.
They own lithium clay rights in Nevada where some of the richest Lithium clay deposits are. I think theyre doing permitting for mining, which will probably take to the end of the decade. Mining’s crazy
They offer the best price for grid-scale batteries and are growing that business faster than their cars grew. Hawaii just replaced their last coal peaker plant with Tesla batteries. California and Australia are saving a lot of money with them. The batteries pay for themselves when used to replace peaker plants and stuff to maintain frequency.
They are growing so-called virtual power plants and have been doing extremely well in a few test locations in Texas, Australia and Puerto Rico. I think the UK too?
After funding and working with the inventor of the lithium battery’s team they’ve been getting first looks at new battery chemistry. The thick walls of their 4680 are designed with adding silicon in mind. I suspect theyre testing this out at Kato road production facility.
They’ve collected a bunch of battery manufacturing patents over the years and their dry-electrode process is providing very good economics. Getting them to scale has been excruciatingly slow, but they’re about to triple capacity this year in Texas and I think are starting development of another iteration of their 4680 battery production process at their Kato road facility right now.
They are on track for becoming a top-three battery manufacturer by the end of the decade.
GM and Ford’s battery packs are like 5 years behind tesla’s. Tesla packs more battery in less volume using less weight with better thermals and ridgidity. Their packs are a lot cheaper to produce too.
Tesla claims they have a ferro magnet motor in development. We’ll see. If so, watch out for very cheap electric cars with no rare-earths or cobalt
They just signed deals with BP and an another conglomerate to sell chargers for the other business’ charging infrastructure. More volume means cheaper manufacturing for their own charging stations too.
All cars will soon have the NACS plug so everyone will be able to charge at a Tesla station… Which is the largest and most reliable charging network in the world.
Battery prices keep falling. Gas cars are going to have to compete with cheaper electric by the end of the decade. Tesla isnt competing with other electric car makers so much as it’s competing with fossil fuels. Electric will win this. The faster the better
Elon has contributed to these only in a “we’re gonna fund these wild ideas!” Way. Like Edison. He’s smart and avoided bad projects and embraced fast failing to great success… Things are maturing and I dont think there’s much value to get from Elon…
Tesla will be fine without Elon. I’d argue better.
The only fear of Elon leaving would be big oil investors buying control and derailing things… I dont think that’ll happen though. I think enough investors are in it specifically to eliminate fossil fuel dependency.
The fear of Elon staying is he drags Tesla into his edgelord bullshit and uses it to dick over the world as hard as he and some dictator/billionaire friends can… Which seems more likely
After he derailed the CA bullet train with his hyperloop hyperbole and joked on twitter abould the Bolivian coup, I dont trust his ass one bit.
I think the problem with these claims is that they’re all being made by Musk. Who has proven time and time again that he over-promises and under delivers literally every project he associates himself with.
If we actually look at where they are actually making their money it’s primarily just in their vehicle sales/leasing. They aren’t a silicon valley start up, they are a vehicle manufacturer, and when we analyze them as such, there is no real way to equate them with having 10x the market cap of ford.
I dont trust his ass one bit.
I don’t know how you could not trust him one bit, yet trust that what he claims Tesla is doing is what Tesla is actually doing. Custom ai chip, dojo super computer, android robot with the best hands…all of these seem like marketing scams. How does this improve the sale of cars to a significant degree? Seems like he’s just like every tech bro in the country scrambling for the new block chain, or VR type marketing gimmick.
They’re all fields of study that already have huge companies that have already invested significant amounts of capital and research on. What makes us assume that Tesla is going to be able to profit from these ventures when they haven’t even figured out how to make a truck?
I’m not claiming that Tesla is a worthless company, I just don’t think they’re worth 10x more than the most popular vehicle manufacturer in America.
I only have one question about the Cyber truck. Why haven’t I ever seen a rusty DeLorean, especially considering I have seen DeLoreans that lived in KY, GA, MS, AL, and LA
(Louisiana, not the city in California, not to be confused with Canada. Why TF do we reuse so many two-four letter abbreviations?)
The general theory is that they used a cheaper grade of stainless, specifically one that is still magnetic because it makes material handling easier during manufacture, meaning higher iron content, meaning more prone to rust if you don’t pay extra for the clear vinyl wrap. People will say the “real” name of the material is “stain less” steel, which is not true – “stainless steel” is just 1910’s marketing wank – but it is accurate enough as a description.
You won’t see rusting DeLoreans because there wasn’t very many made and they have always been something special. If you’re seeing one, it’s been cared for. But find one in a junkyard, they might not have that shine
the damage to their reputation may already be fatal
Definitely. Tesla = Musk in my mind and always has been ever since it blew up with promises of a greater tomorrow that never materialized. All it did was up the EV competition, imo.
I’m someone who’s buying an EV and due to Elon alone, I won’t buy a Tesla. I’ve wanted one for so long but waited for the data to show how well they hold up after years of use and now that the data is out, I’m buying a non-Tesla. Thanks Elon, you moron.
I have a datapoint of 1, but I’ve also heard from my wife that when she’s traveling outside the US, so many cab companies and rideshare drivers have started using Teslas that the brand prestige is taking a hit, regardless of quality (which is also low).
Interesting… where I’m from most cabs are Mercedes limousines. I never heard about people thinking less of Mercedes because they are popular with taxi drivers.
The fact that they removed the stalks on the steering column so all functions are on the screen is reason enough. Do I really want to slide my finger up/down to change from D to R? I know they have wipers on the steering wheel, as well as turn signals but the changing of gears? Hard pass.
You'll get called dramatic for saying that but Republicans are absolutely eyeing a form of trans genocide; removing access to treatment and creating as hostile and dangerous an environment possible for trans people. They want us to disappear.
It’s infuriating and scary they way it feels most people miss that, I just want to live my life, maybe even love it. But with the billionaires on one hand and the bigots on the other it’s really hard on so many levels. There’s an element of fear and uncertainty in my home and I am sure in many others. The fear of self sustainability, looming threats of homelessness and poverty if there is anything to disrupt our productivity for the owning class along with making decisions based on when, not if, unjust laws are passed that threaten our very existence. Saving and moving house, trying to get to a point where we eventually live in a northern haven isn’t a retirement prospect, a grasp for opportunity, or a change of scenery, it’s a requirement to make sure we can continue the being alive part.
Sometimes it is hard when the future seems so bleak and I spend so much of my time barely keeping my head above water, having a seemingly lofty goal as a near necessity. This society is a fucking joke, but at least there are people, like you, in our corner. Hopefully in time things can unshittify but things are getting bad, fast, at the moment.
At the same time, I can’t help but feel so incredibly lucky despite everything, There are people facing harsher systemic difficulties, less access to opportunity, and harsher local conditions. Despite everything I’m alive, I’m here now, and it makes me angry, and sad, that people like Nex are forced to end the fight so early due to heartless politicians and their base of vultures.
No disagreement here. I don’t like that “savior” stereotype but IDK I hope it helps to see someone outside the affected groups just agree that yes, it is a load of hyper bullshit and no you’re not fucking crazy.
Y’all keep fighting, and I’ll keep getting in trouble in my Bible belt dive bars for telling people they can eat my whole ass for saying dumbass shit.
…an acceleration in the long-term decline of so-called domestic-premium brands, which include Bud Light and rivals Miller Light and Coors Light…
So, are people drinking less beer or are they drinking less piss beer? Could it be that people are having two Hazy Imperial IPA’s with 8+ ABV instead of a six pack of Coors Light? I am taking this headline with a grain of salt.
A Four Noses or Cerebrus Hazy is so much better than the domestic swill it’s not funny. We have so many more options these days that I’m glad it’s hurting the big guys. They’ve been making crap pilsners for decades.
What do you equate Trump’s hands to? I know you gotta have one ready cause you couldn’t have been that stupid to walk into it like this. It’s like you’re eating a bag of crispy turd chips and yelling that someone smells like shit.
Right, I upvoted them because I felt bad. Unless I’m missing something, it seems like they were just adding to the first joke. I think you’re right that people probably mistook it for being political.
There’s like 100 people with the power to make the change and they’ve all decided to invest the money and power in self preservation. It’s the biggest ‘fuck you proletariat scum’ I could imagine. theguardian.com/…/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apoc…
As if the voters are any better. They could vote for policy makers that bring change, or go into politics themselves. But they don't actually want to be affected by such policy changes. It's always the others, always just finger pointing.
Only about 35 percent of the eligible voters participated, so yeah. Apathy and complacent comfort is a big player in the game. I’m pretty convinced that a lot of people’s apathy comes from the lack of political agency. When business interests conflict with human interests guess who wins every time.
Ok. Well, not all countries are democracies. So, excluded those ones right off the bat. And then narrow it to voters who participate and those who do not.
Participating in what exactly? What the hell are you on about with this US brabbling? You simply don't make any sense and don't seem to have a point. That's what I'm confused about. I didn't mention America, I said voters. Of course that includes the US and excludes non democratic countries, as they do not have voters. So what are you exactly trying to say here?
The largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, and CO2 is China, which not a democratic county. The second largest is United States. Idk how to discuss the possibility of ‘voting’ the climate change problem away without mentioning these two nations.
For sure. But it’s not just Americans. They might be the biggest offenders but the problem of over consumerism has plagued the entire world. At this point our economy is global. The tentacles of capitalism have invaded every corner of the planet.
Our problems today were manufactured well over a hundred years ago. It’s only taken this long for it all to finally catch up.
I felt an existential crisis about this a few years ago. I wanted everyone to simply stop everything, appreciate what they had. I sat down and spent an entire year as simply as possible. Eating simply, consuming very little. The truth is, it’s difficult to do and in our society it is not rewarded. I felt like it was a period of self improvement, but the ultimate truth is, I could not control anyone else, even if I was the living personification of self sustaining anti consumerism. Now I teach early elementary. Participating in this very small way feels like a vast improvement to hiding out like a hermit.
I can’t control anyone, especially wealthy adults. But I can influence the future adults.
The largest total emitter of greenhouse gasses is the US. Followed by the EU and a bunch of other democratic countries. You are doing exactly what I said. Finger pointing rather than taking action. The US does not do enough by themselves, so how about you try stop the stupid agenda pushing and bad faith arguing, interjecting your idiotic talking points that do nothing but derail the actual topic of discussion. Because this issue does not give a flying fuck about borders.
Not that this changes anything. It’s just another idiotic talking point as you so politely pointed out. But then again, I never asserted the idiotic notion that we could simply vote the problem away either.
You did.
Then you politely pointed out that it was stupid to talk about America.
Then you made sure to call me an idiot, because America is the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses.
Care to elaborate on any of this in a productive manner?
I didn't. You're the one who interjected and derailed the topic away. I talked about voters, and you come in with America, then brabbled on and blamed China for your own responsibilities. This is typical climate denier deflections. We have the same in Germany, except they say "Germany only is responsible for less than 2% of all global emissions, we can't change anything." - followed by the same finger pointing to less developed nations that apparently aren't allowed to reach our own living standards. It's nothing but a tired topic and completely pointless. Yeah, China bad. But is the West on that topic. So saying "but China" when asked to do your own part is not going to be solving this issue, nor is it proving any sort of healthy debatte. You can also not expect developing nations to stop developing, while we continue to live in luxury. That's the exact problem I'm talking about. Voters, like you, don't care. They don't want to change anything because it would affect them personally. They rather want other countries, or future generations having to deal with it. And if they're old enough, they also don't want to be seen as the people responsible for actually getting us into this mess. They want to be seen as the generation that brought the younger people comfort and a good live. They want to live in denial and enjoy their remaining time while the world starts to burn.
So. While you blame China, maybe ask yourself how much you helped China by buying Chinese products. What car do you drive and how much? Do you really need to do all your trips with it? Do you really need a 6x6 apocalypse madmax truck that rolls coal by default? Do you really need to vote for people who advocate for non action or even reverse courses, because China? Do you need to live in a big ass sprawling suburb that the cities have to foot the bill for? Everyone loves to shit on China, or big oil, or other big corporations, while doing all they can to support those countries and companies with their own habits. So for the love of everything, stop pointing fingers and derail topics because you don't want to be seen as being part of the responsibility. This requires a global effort, by everyone, and you're not helping.
How shall I help again exactly? Voting? I didn’t blame China, I simply pointed out that your solution, ‘voting’ doesn’t work in a place that doesn’t have participatory democracy. China is to blame just like America is. The wealthy, powerful Chinese and Americans, who actually could do something besides idiotically arguing, decide to continue fucking the world, our children’s futures, and everything else that gets in the way of their maintaining that power. Mostly the people with power over the problem actively ignore or disregard the problem. I do vote. I pick up trash. I avoid buying new stuff, beyond that, since I’m not the CEO of Exon Mobil, I really don’t have agency.
Is your reading comprehension broken are you playing stupid? I never claimed to have a solution. In fact, I pointed out a problem more than anything: Voters. And here you are, derailing towards things that aren't voters, because fuck responsibility. That's why I don't understand what you're trying to get at here. It's like you talk about a completely different topic.
And it's cool that you do all that, but feel free to actually look at other peoples actions, the actions of the huge majority of people. See what the polls around the worlds democracies say. Do you see a huge win for green parties? Do you see people willing to eat less meat? Do you see people swapping from their car to alternatives? No. The contrary. People actually even vote more and more for far right nationalists. The US voted for Trump and there are many places in Europe that are either fully or partially under far right rulership now. And this is something that will get worse with more climate related issues arising, including mass migration from the countries around the equator, that become unlivable hell holes, but also because of food and water shortages. Also, look how many people blame actual climate activists, because they get affected by them in stupidly minor ways, to the point where they want to hurt them.
They could vote for policy makers that bring change, or go into politics themselves. But they don’t actually want to be affected by such policy changes. It’s always the others, always just finger pointing.
This implied that if we voted green, if I went into politics on a environmental platform, if I inconvenienced myself, it could change things. This does, indeed, suggest some sort of solution. I politely disagreed for a variety of reasons, you rudely misunderstood. Did I blame China? No I pointed out that voting green wouldn’t change China. Did I say America is awesome. No I said America is a major part of the problem.
You say everyone is out there finger pointing, but you are unclear, and blaming me for not understanding what you are trying to say perfectly. Point the finger up your tight butt instead of at me.
China is currently one of the leaders in building out renewables. And yes, if the entire democratic world would vote green, it would be a solution. I don't know if you've noticed, but our policies actually change the world, they do it right nor for the negative, and they also have the power to do the opposite. And in the end, there's a lot of tools to hold countries that don't adhere to climate friendly policies accountable. But that first and foremost requires us to actually do the first step of fixing up the mess that we caused. So please stop the climate denial bullshit.
Please point to the place where I denied climate change.
You’ve pointed your finger at me the entire time we’ve talked, while failing to own your own words. You can’t move the goal posts and expect anyone to give a shit about your opinions. You are saying voting can’t change anything, while saying voting is the way to change the problem. Pick one please.
Alright, this is getting too dense for me and I'm not interested in orbiting a black hole. Work on your reading comprehension if you want to communicate with people on the internet. I'm out.
Voters not wanting to lower their living standards is the real elephant in the room. You tell someone that they should eat 1 less hamburger a week and all of a sudden you’re dodging bullets.
I think the worst part of it is that its not actually hopeless, at least not in theory. It’s just that we, or more accurately the people with actual power, refuse to act because it would mean slightly less profit.
Me too, specially when I was younger I thought we could change the world for good if united. I saw cristal clear that the rich wanted to be richer at the expense of the poorer, but as I grew older and saw the reality and stupidity of the world (Like Trump, a massively rich guy being massively voted by the poorest and less educated people) I lost hope. I came to realize that education and stoicism and the best tools the human race has to progress to a healthy society. So that’s what I try to share now when I can.
yeah, it’s true that some humans are really bad, but they’re nothing without (poorly educated) followers, and their followers are the one that give those humans the power to do evil things. Critical thinking is something that should be taught more often to avoid history from repeating.
Though I mostly agree with you, sometimes I feel human nature is just ugly.
This is not true. Humans are created by the material conditions they find themselves in. “Human nature” when in an abundant environment is very different, we can see this among remaining hunter gatherer tribes like the Hadza (watch/read the whole thread).
Living in capitalism is what makes people the way you see them. Competition for resources with your fellow workers and an endless toil for the benefit of someone else enforced by the threat of homelessness and death if you don’t take part.
Being an asshole under capitalism is as natural as coughing is in a smoke filled burning building. If you don’t know anything different you can’t see that to constantly cough is not the natural way of human beings. When you take people and put them in different material conditions you get a completely different outcome.
You make a statement about complexity but you’re not actually saying anything. This is all wishy washy.
There is no middle between “the workers hold power” and “the bourgeoisie should hold power”. There is no middle between “private property should exist” and “private property should not exist”. There is no middle between “profit should be the driving force of development” and “the human development index should be the driving force of development”.
Your wishy washy “we need a middle” is nonsense if you can not put into words what that fundamentally means in terms of actual functioning policy and societal design. Who holds power is THE essential question here. Capitalist society functions as a dictatorship-of-the-bourgeoisie. Socialists want the opposite, a dictatorship-of-the-proletariat. Flipping the power on its head and putting the workers in charge of the outcomes instead of the bourgeoisie.
If you can not fundamentally describe in absolute terminology what you think society needs to do in order to change the current situation then all you are doing in your opposition to people who do want change is supporting keeping it the way it currently is. That puts you on the side of the climate death cult driving us towards the inevitable end.
Oh yes I’m the one who simplified a complex problem… literally said it’s more complex then that. That’s it, is it simple enough for you to understand now?mm
Dude: “tErhe aRE nO MIdDLe tHeRM”
Is the most simplistic shit ever, just quoting slogans and not actually recognizing the complexity of everything.
Are you actually going to talk concrete policy or not? This feels very evasive.
Nothing I said above deserves a “very smart” label, it’s all very basic 101 socialism stuff that you would get reading 1 or 2 books on socialism or marx. I don’t really know why you feel the need to act this way.
So wait, you said shit nothing concrete (am I wrong?)
I said wow good job trying to reduce individual problems by generalising…it’s not politics dude. You can’t use generalization with people, with societies,etc … doesn’t matter …
While you keep making general statments about a huge problem with hundreds of different issues, particular issues that can be approached differently no matter where you are.
Doesn’t matter is the difference is geographic, cultural, whatever … It’s not the same solucion for everything and everyone. Because each case deserves it’s own special individual solucion?
Hey maybe you can generalize and it works,tell me how and we can talk. But don’t say I didn’t give any details when I’m only calling you out for that exactly. What kinda of one-sided argument is that?
At no point did I generalise. Capitalist society is a bourgeoise dictatorship. In socialist terms we don’t mean an individual rules, what we mean is that it is a class dictatorship. The ruling class is the bourgeoisie. They hold all the power, by design, so that they can implement the policies that benefit their class rule. The bourgeoise-democracy provides the outcomes that the bourgeoisie want, because it was built that way from the ground up when they took power during the various revolutions that ended feudalism and brought about the beginnings of capitalism.
What socialists seek is revolutions led by the proletariat to overthrow the bourgeoisie, installing a dictatorship of the proletariat and thus socialist society. This new proletarian led society will then provide the outcomes that are most beneficial to the proletariat instead.
These are all specific and absolute things. There is no generalisation here, I am being extremely specific, you just aren’t familiar with the terms or what they mean. If you have questions I am very willing to answer. If you need more specificity about what these classes are I recommend: reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/class. I wrote the first iteration of that page when I was a mod there. If you need more answers about what the institutional structure of socialism looks like I am happy to answer, you aren’t asking any questions though and you aren’t pointing out what you claim I am generalising on.
This new proletarian led society will then provide the outcomes that are most beneficial to the proletariat instead.
This is not very specific.
What does this look like? Is it 100% communist, 100% socialism or…. what? Maybe some sort of regulated market with very high tax rates like during the “golden age” of capitalism (post world war 2).
Personally, I think I’d enjoy a capitalist society with high tax rates and a strong safety net. Some sort of middle ground.
The immediate new society is political socialism as soon as you kick out the bougies and redesign the institutions to ensure proletarian outcomes. I think what you’re asking is what it would economically look like, and that is a question that would differ depending on the national conditions. What I mean by that is that ultimately what is possible is determined by many factors, assuming that much of the world remains capitalist the newly socialist country would need to integrate into the global market in some way. This would likely mean taking over strategic national industries while leaving consumer sectors to private industry. You’d have a planned economy while maintaining enough for international investors to prevent isolation (like north korea). This would look something like Vietnam, Cuba or China’s combination of private and state industry.
At a later date this would transition to something more and more socialist as and when the national conditions allow for it. Most likely as less and less of the world is capitalist.
Personally, I think I’d enjoy a capitalist society with high tax rates and a strong safety net. Some sort of middle ground.
That’s just a capitalist society ruled by the bourgeoisie, with welfare tacked on. We’re talking about what is necessary here to stop the world from boiling to death, that doesn’t achieve that.
The biggest issue with our environment that drives these problems is that human brains can only reliably grok a few hundred other humans as being people. Beyond that, to a greater or lesser degree, anyone else just feels like an object (which is why we feel upset when people we know die but the statistics of how many people die each day globally don’t have a similar effect.)
Some of us cope better than others but fundamentally any environment that requires humans to be reliant on interacting with over a few hundred other people will lead to people treating each other as objects.
It’s why conservative people often feel it would be inconceivable to mistreat someone they personally know but will casually do profoundly cruel things to people they don’t. If you view their actions towards people outside of their sphere of personhood through the lense of what is and isn’t an appropriate way to treat an object rather than a person they often seem perfectly naturally.
I know the research you’re talking about here but don’t think it should be viewed as something that makes people incapable of empathy to those outside their core group. It makes it harder, but that hasn’t stopped entire nations of people moving hard left towards extreme vocal empathy among one another as the working class. Unity, solidarity and love for one another is demonstrably possible among very large numbers it just requires the right set of prerequisites to achieve, these prerequisites are what socialists should be working towards ticking off in order to set the stage for a wider revolutionary movement.
Nah. Some people have the capacity to have a wider net than others. Some people have the capacity to intellectually overcome the limitations of how we naturally are. Some people put sufficient effort into fulfilling that potential. We all should each do our best to do so.
Doesn’t change that even those of us who are especially good at it are still only good at it for a human. We are all terrible at it and it is fundamentally cruel to try to force everyone to live in a society that requires a level of empathic ability that is profoundly beyond what humans are evolved to be able to handle. It’s like expecting everyone on Earth to be able to lift 5 tonnes or outcalculate a supercomputer in their head. It’s a foolish and unreasonable thing to hang the success of society of people’s ability to do.
intellectually overcome the limitations of how we naturally are
The brain is not distinct from the body. This is very close to a Dualist argument which is a hack philosophy that proposes the mind and “spirit” of a person are distinct from the rest of that person. It comes from the belief that our human sentience is special or different.
If the intellect can do it, it is natural. The difference between one person’s capability to do this and another is simply the background and material conditions these two find themselves in. The background being the historic education and upbringing of that person and the conditions being relevant because people (as you point out) will look to protect their own interests and that of their group first before they seek to protect the interests of others. I argue however that with the right education on class, a person becomes able to see the interests of their class as analogous with their own interests as a result of being a member of that class. This then results in them fighting for the interests of others as a result of recognising it is in their own interests as shared members of that class group. This is basically what we socialists call “class consciousness” compared to “false consciousness”.
You’re making the mistake of thinking the human brain has an infinite capacity to expand its intuitive empathy. It just doesn’t. No more than your bixepf has an infinite capacity to increase it’s strength. You can fulfil that potential more or less but you’ll still never win an arm wrestling match with a gorilla or a robot. Humans have finite limits to their potential. Our current society and most of the proposed alternatives is structured in such a way as to only really work if humans generally have a far higher capacity for intuitive empathy than humans have.
That is fundamentally a flaw that must be overcome by a more thoughtful and purposeful design process than either “well this is just kinda how things ended up really” or “let’s imagine if things were different, but not too different because that’s hard!” (because our brains are also kinda bad at imagining things being seriously different to how they are.) Or if we decide for actual specific reasons that it isn’t viable to even attempt to approach a human society that is shaped to humans rather than one which humans have to clumsily try to shape themselves to, we have to find ways to overcome the limitations of our biology. Often we do a good job of that externally, but for this it might only be possible through trans-humanist approaches. Which to be seems like it should be something we consider because we must, not because we think it is somehow more convenient than thinking purposefully about how we should share our lives together (though for the purposes of that, we may also be currently limited by how well our languages allow for those discussions to meaningfully occur. That’s a fairly solvable issue as we are constantly evolving new ways for our languages to help us express ideas they previously didn’t easily cover.)
As for the difference between the mind and the brain I’m not convinced by your argument at all. The mind is an emergent property of the brain but that does not make them one and the same any more than it makes Windows 98 an x86 PC.
I’m going to gently remind you that Drumpf’s base is actually on avg. wealthier than the opposition’s base. That’s why you get those obnoxious trucks, flags and infinite merchandise (courtesy of Chinese workers).
No need to smear the common people, it’s simply a fact that democracy is not a real tool for change.
Nono look at the 10 poorest states in America(with worse living conditions). They all voted majority Trump, some of the porest counties in the USA are literally voting 80% for trump
If you listen to Obama on that podcast recently (whom those people probably voted for too), paraphrasing: he says economic anxiety makes people prone to risk taking, emotional voting and feel racial resentment.
Yes but that’s only true due to a suite of nefarious influences having to do with things like voter suppression, gerrymandering, dark money and manufactured voter apathy.
There are various versions of democracy. Some are far more effective at implementing the will of their constituents than others.
In my opinion the problem isn’t democracy itself, but rather, has to do with the many various ways in which it’s implemented.
The US version of democracy, for example, is very old, clunky and buggy as fuck because it was created by 18th century white men, some of whom were slave owners, and all of whom were terrified of the possibility that in creating a new (to them) form of governance they might accidentally create a new mechanism for tyranny.
Accordingly, they deliberately created a system that by design would be almost impossible to change short of massive civil unrest and that to this day is very unresponsive to real public sentiment.
The key is that they designed it that way not because they wanted an efficient democracy, but rather, because they wanted to protect themselves and their rights against the rise of a possible tyrant.
What they created was very stable, but again, it wasn’t responsive, nor was it meant to be responsive, to public opinion.
Since then, political scientists have figured out much better ways to run democracies.
One of my favorites is the Irish Republic which, in the 1920s, instituted a suite of reforms to the US model in creating its government with the result that Ireland has gone from being the last third-world country in western Europe, to now being a thriving and economically developed western European nation with a highly-educated English-speaking population that isn’t obliged to take orders from any of the world’s great powers.
Ireland did this by having a high-functioning modern-style democracy.
Median income is BS though. If me and Elon musk make up the test then it would show we have a median income of billions. …I don’t have anywhere close to billions. So a bunch of poor people vote trump and ten billionaires vote trump so trump voters are better off on a average? That’s a joke
They used exit polls, so I doubt the data includes that. It’s likely that anomalies are cut out too if the data is processed this way - they also compare the median to the state median to make the comparison more meaningful, which is how we ‘know’ that his base is wealthier.
I am fully convinced that won’t materialize until a major Western city or province/state/territory/[insert administrative unit here] gets catastrophically and irreparably fucked up.
Neoliberals won’t (nor will the reactionaries they’ve carefully trained) and unfortunatly we’ve let them infest all major political parties and media outlets across most of the globe.
With these managed democracies, they’re able to delay actual progress until the mining and oil execs are satisified with their obscene wealth (which is never going to happen).
Until these people are pried from their positions of power, everybody “coming together” is meaningless.
The solution is going to require immediate, strict, drastic regulations and billions of dollars of research and investment that will never turn into profits, with much of it financed through taxing the rich appropriately.
Neoliberals hate every one of those ideas and have positioned themselves so they can veto all of them.
Voting genuine progressives and ensuring they keep their promises is the only way out because the best we’ll ever get out of this neoliberal psuedo-left is “Maybe we can find a way to save the world that’s more profitable than just letting everyone die”.
Nah, imo voting is kinda like giving your little brother an unpluged controler and pretending he is playing video games with you so that he doesnt riot. Of course we are the little brother. It changes nothing and the candidate that wins just makes everyone feel beter abbout themselves for believing they contributed when the candidate does or says something that they agree with or viseversa, the one that won and the people that didnt vote for him, when it does or say something it just makes them feel that this country is diyng cuz i dont agree with that guy, and then will blame the majority of the voters for voting on the guy while the fault is on the sistem itself.
I say burn everything to the ground, their corrupt institutions, goverment and private/bussines, mainly banks amd administrative burecratical government institutions, make sure rich people (mainly oligarchs and corrupt politicians) cannot get influence nor voice on any kind of venture or decicion on the big picture or the world order or whatever you wannna call it and when we get the chance, replace leadership with A.I. Because at the scale the world is headed right now it will probably be the only way to purge corruption from the actions of human kind and keep everything as morally correct as posible, and im talking morally as in everyone lives as pleasantly as humanlly posible and no mass murders and rehabilitating instead of punishing and susteinability, not that dumb culture wars b.s. that americans are so obssesed with.
Not sure if this will give you hope or not, but one thing to consider is that we could still make it far worse, or put differently, that it’s still in our power to stop that from happening. We can’t change the fact that climate change already has noticeable negative consequences today, nor that global temperatures will rise by at least 1.5° towards the end of the century (compared to 1950-1980), probably more. But we do have a somewhat realistic chance of keeping it at around 2° or below (see e.g. here or here for easy simulations in your browser). The point is that every tenth of a degree counts, and our action or lack thereof now might well make the difference between it “just” getting bad with regular droughts, crop failures, some regions becoming temporarily uninhabitable due to wet bulb temperatures and so on on the one hand, or all of that at a much larger scale leading to societal collapse if we don’t act at all. We live in the worst extinction event the earth has seen since the asteroid that killed the non-bird dinosaurs, but we can still keep it at that instead of turning it into the worst extinction event the earth has ever seen. Luckily, governments (and industry) largely have at least accepted that climate change is a thing, and in Europe and the Americas green-house gas emission have actually already been sinking for the last 15 years or so. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not great, and these governments still should do much more, but it could also be worse, and the fact that we’re lowering emissions despite our politicians generally being very friendly with industry could give at least a sliver of hope. The emissions of China and India (and the rest of Asia) are still rising, but show signs of decelerated growth at least, and in Africa emissions are still fairly low and rising rather slowly, with a chance that some less developed countries might more or less just skip a big chunk of carbon-based industrialisation in favour of renewables. Altogether this means that we’re already on a way to avoid the worst possible scenarios, and still have the power to keep it towards the lower end of the scale as far as terrible outcomes are concerned.
In addition, while individuals have always less power than whole governments or industries, there are nevertheless things anyone reading this could do, e.g.:
Voting for parties that favour stronger climate action, and perhaps even more importantly, not supporting those who do less or even nothing. You can also protest or try to influence your government in some other ways.
Reduce your personal impact by not consuming animal products (in particular meat and dairy), not flying if you can avoid it, not buying stuff you don’t really need, and not having (more) kids.
Tell other people you know who might listen to do those things. Many people favour climate action in principle, but are too lazy, scared or just otherwise preoccupied to actually start doing stuff on their own. You kicking them in the butt or leading by example can motivate them and in turn other people they might now.
If you’re reading this and whether or not you’re already doing some of those things, I’m sure you can find at least some things you could do (I know I can, and I’m trying to put it into practice), which might in turn also make you feel less depressed about the situation. As mentioned before, I’m not saying that we’re in a great situation, but whining about it helps nobody, and we’re still in a situation where we have the power to stop things from getting even worse.
You’d think that staring the future of climate disaster directly in the face would cause at least a few people in charge to, I don’t know, make a few changes. But nothing. Corporate profits are more important than anything else even if the world burns. It does feel hopeless because, to be honest, it is.
Not sure if this will give you hope or not, but one thing to consider is that we could still make it far worse, or put differently, that it’s still in our power to stop that from happening. We can’t change the fact that climate change already has noticeable negative consequences today, nor that global temperatures will rise by at least 1.5° towards the end of the century (compared to 1950-1980), probably more. But we do have a somewhat realistic chance of keeping it at around 2° or below (see e.g. here or here for easy simulations in your browser). The point is that every tenth of a degree counts, and our action or lack thereof now might well make the difference between it “just” getting bad with regular droughts, crop failures, some regions becoming temporarily uninhabitable due to wet bulb temperatures and so on on the one hand, or all of that on a much larger scale leading to societal collapse if we don’t act at all. We live in the worst extinction event the earth has seen since the asteroid that killed the non-bird dinosaurs, but we can still keep it at that instead of turning it into the worst extinction event the earth has ever seen. Luckily, governments (and industry) largely have at least accepted that climate change is a thing, and in Europe and the Americas green-house gas emission have actually already been sinking for the last 15 years or so. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not great, and these governments still should do much more, but it could also be worse, and the fact that we’re lowering emissions despite our politicians generally being very friendly with industry could give at least a sliver of hope. The emissions of China and India (and the rest of Asia) are still rising, but show signs of decelerated growth at least, and in Africa emissions are still fairly low and rising rather slowly, with a chance that some less developed countries might more or less just skip a big chunk of carbon-based industrialisation in favour of renewables. Altogether this means that we’re already on a way to avoid the worst possible scenarios, and still have the power to keep it towards the lower end of the scale as far as terrible outcomes are concerned.
In addition, while individuals have always less power than whole governments or industries, there are nevertheless things anyone reading this could do, e.g.:
Voting for parties that favour stronger climate action, and perhaps even more importantly, not supporting those who do less or even nothing. You can also protest or try to influence your government in some other ways.
Reduce your personal impact by not consuming animal products (in particular meat and dairy), not flying if you can avoid it, not buying stuff you don’t really need, and not having (more) kids. Edit: Also try to favour public transport over driving your own car, and if you need a car, try to use a small, electrical one to reduce emissions.
Tell other people you know who might listen to do those things. Many people favour climate action in principle, but are too lazy, scared or just otherwise preoccupied to actually start doing stuff on their own. You kicking them in the butt or leading by example can motivate them and in turn other people they might now.
If you’re reading this and whether or not you’re already doing some of those things, I’m sure you can find at least some things you could do (I know I can, and I’m trying to put it into practice), which might in turn also make you feel less depressed about the situation. As mentioned before, I’m not saying that we’re in a great situation, but whining about it helps nobody, and we’re still in a situation where we have the power to stop things from getting even worse.
Yes, my list is by no means complete. I’m sure there are many more things any of us could do, it’s more meant as a list of some examples to give people starting points for practical things to do.
I know this won’t change your mind or anything, but this is probably pretty close to the mindset of some other ~1.5 billion first world countries’ populations’ mindset. And those combined account to currently around ~37% of CO2 emissions. So if all people like you (if you consider first world countries’ people to be people like you) all came together and did more we could have some pretty huge impact. Of course the other ~63% may still fuck things up, but this is a much different comparison than just you against the rest of the world, you’re not very unique in that regard.
I’m so tired of people turning everything into an awful prisoner’s dilemma. Everyone should just aim to be the best person you can be and stop fretting about whether everyone else is trying quite as hard as you. It doesn’t need to be complicated.
Right? On a global scale, though, “best person you can be” should be something like, “let’s try to behave in such a way so that if everyone behaved like me, the world would be a good place”. That is hard though, to think like that.
What can help is the knowledge that by doing so it is impossible not to on some level inspire others to do the same to some degree by example.
If you’re a selfish jerk that will cause people around you to be .001% (or something) more selfish and jerky. If you are kind and good that will push the needle the other way similarly.
Except the amount more those people are better or worse for knowing you then also influences how much better or worse the people they know are etc and so while it is a small effect per person, the diffused effect is meaningful, cumulative and self-reinforcing. It doesn’t take a lot of people within a community either giving up and being the worst or finding enough of a spine to try to be good to start to tip the balance of the whole community in either direction. It also means that as you are better and kinder, your immediate external world gradually becomes a little better and kinder which makes it easier and more rewarding to be that way in an endless virtuous cycle.
Ok now apply the fact that at least 45% of the western world is brainwashed by the fossil fuel industry. They’re low IQ repeater bots who would glady kill every single one of us because climate change is a “hoax”.
I think a very small minority “would gladly kill every single one of us”, not 45%. If it were 45%, there’d already be open civil war all over the west.
Thank you this was actually really nice to read. I feel like everywhere I look is more bad news about the climate it’s nice to see we can at least still mitigate it
That was basically my reaction reading this. I was like “okay, I’m not posting this one, it’s obviously exaggerated… actually, it’s not exaggerated at all”
It’s not dumbness, it’s cravenness. He’s saying things he thinks MAGA-bros like to hear. “Yeah brother, high-five! Burn those libs!”
Also the subtext here is that Jeff Bridges isn’t manly. I don’t think there’s a cure for that level of delusion.
I was talking with some scientists who told me that a mere touch on the hand from Jeff Bridges not only impregnates a woman, but also transitions her into a man.
I wake up each morning hairless, then I look into the mirror and speak the name Jeff Bridges three times. Instantly I’m transformed into a kind of human carpet covered from head to toe in three whole feet of man fur.
Trump added that he thought the GOP should be “reimbursed for fraud.”
Trump raises an excellent point: his campaign was forced to waste money against Biden for as long as it did only for the Democrats to pull the rug out from under him by pulling Joe out of the race. This, if anything, is a form of cheating.
Ahh, the famous cheat of checks notes changing your mind weeks before announcing a decision.
Biden was never running against Trump in the 2024 election. The Democrats still have not announced a candidate. If the Republicans wanted to campaign against the presumptive nominee before an official decision was made, that’s on them.
Walk me through this. Who replaces Joe with only 4 months left until the elections? It’s going to be vote blue no matter who again. Oh, would you look at that. Biden just endorsed Kamala Harris.
They’re clearly trying to win if they got so scared about polls they strong-armed Biden into resigning. The panic has pretty clearly set in. We’ll see if this works or not.
I abhor Gavin Newsome and would only vote for him to replace Trump. There are almost zero things Gavin Newsome can do that any other candidate can do better. He’s a slimy, adulterous predator who is more concerned with being remembered than doing something memorable.
Harris actually sounds pretty good when she’s talking politics. Her tough on crime past can give her a boost with moderates and centrists as well. She just has the weirdest mannerisms when trying to relate to people.
Manchin has obvious appeal to centrists and moderates. His biggest issue is his opposition to climate change action. But other than that he’d be considered liberal by '90s standards.
Newsom needs to go through the primary process to see if he can appeal to swing state voters. Because I’m not convinced he can win those margin votes that he needs.
Manchin is running as an independent Senator in 2024. Giving him the nom would be the biggest “fuck you” to their voters.
Harris is the only logical choice. She’s not the best candidate but she can form coherent sentences and isnt surprising voters any more than Biden dropping.
I don’t think you realize how much of a stink “California Governor” has in middle America.
It’s bullshit. We should all be so lucky to live in a place like California, but fox News Propaganda has been working for decades convincing disengaged voters that Cali is a hellscape.
I think Newsom would make a fantastic President, but I am not convinced he has the best chance to win.
Yeah, of course he’s going to endorse her. Still doesn’t mean that delegates don’t decide after an open convention. If she can show the delegates she has what it takes then she earns it.
Not for nothing but four months should be plenty to do an election in. 24 hour news media has convinced you that it’s got to be a 2-year endeavor. In all honesty 2 months should be plenty. Four is fine. Our entire country would be much better off if election seasons were shorter.
Smaller country, less money involved… but here’s hoping.
Edit: I’m not sure why I’m being downvoted. Comparing the speed of the British election cycle to that of the US is mismatched. Yes, US elections are ridiculous and bloated, but that’s still the reality of them. Regardless, we’ll have to do things faster based on circumstances.
Well, the US is literally the second-most populous electoral democracy and the third-most populous country in the world, so I say we’ll need some time.
The largest democracy takes around two months of campaigning and about six weeks for voting.
Population scales proportionately for both the number of voters and for number of people working on a campaign and number of people working at polling stations on election day.
And let’s be honest, it’s only a small number of states that Presidential campaigns actually focus on because of that whole Electoral College thing.
It’s just the US is accustomed to a long election cycle, that’s all. It’s not a necessity. It may not actually be a good thing as it allows time for bad actors to construct false narratives. Seems to just favour personality over policy.
France put together a winning left coalition in 2 weeks.
How does the US being a bigger, wealthier, country mean we are weaker? I’m so tired of these arguments about what we can’t do. If Biden dropped out 2 weeks before November it would be a disaster. As it is, he is listening to the legitimate concerns of the people.
How does AOC know what the elites want? Does she spend a lot of time having conversations with the elites about which direction they want politics to go?
She says she was in those conversations with high profile Democrats who have expressed more concerns about their donors rather than about their constituents.
A lot of people just felt like it was time to trade in their Not Trump for a newer model Not Trump. Sure there were other Not Trumps we could’ve gone with a year ago, but those Not Trumps are no longer on the market. So we’re going with the best available Not Trump right now.
This Not Trump isn’t in mint condition (but none of them are), but it has much better mileage and it has more acceleration and a better top speed.
As is the case with all Not Trumps this one is a better choice than Trump. Obviously.
I don’t see it that way at all. This seems like a great way to increase their votes. It’s not like they are going to lose voters who were going to vote Biden to begin with.
It’s never about those that were going to vote for Biden anyways. It’s always been about the undecided voters. Don’t get me wrong, I hope you’re right.
Yeah the reality is that Biden was 95% going to lose to Trump. Picking a new person is usially a huge risk, but in this case there wasn’t much to lose.
As things stand right now, Trumps chances of winning just went down a bit. Worst case, they pick someone terrible with similar (non-)chances to Biden. Best case, they pick someone who wins.
They’ve 100% thought through this. Harris takes over the Biden / Harris campaign war chest, and if Biden drops out now, the party can go into the align around Harris before the convention. And now we have 3+ months to get people hyped about not voting for an old white dude.
Have they, though? Republicans are going to contest whomever they replace him with. This is fucking dumb. We should have dropped Biden as the candidate from the get-go. Too late, this is stupid.
Election law expert Richard Hasen wrote that there is “no credence” to the notion that the Democratic Party could not legally replace Biden on the ticket, as he is not the nominee yet – the nominating process generally takes place during the Democratic National Convention.
You’ve posted this 5 times in this thread in the last 20 minutes. Take a moment to read your own link…
Election law expert Richard Hasen wrote that there is “no credence” to the notion that the Democratic Party could not legally replace Biden on the ticket, as he is not the nominee yet – the nominating process generally takes place during the Democratic National Convention.
Republicans are going to play every trick in the book, legal, moral, ethical or not. They will shout it at the rallies, take every opportunity to stir up shit on television (with help from Koch and Sinclair owned media) and you will hear every reason why the democratic nominee cannot be President. If Democrats find someone with a squeaky clean record and the Republicans can’t find anything truthful, they’ll fabricate it with ease. “Kamala Harris ate a moldy bagel in 2018 therefore she can’t be president.”
The one advantage Democrats have at this very second, is that Republicans and Trump can’t use the media machine to pre-emptively smear any one person, since nobody knows who the nominee will be yet. Use this opportunity well and combat the “ahh confusion, somehow only Trump makes sense” narrative that will be sure to be floated.
They’ll do all that no matter what. They already did that to Kamala Harris, in the last election. I’m sure they tried really hard to dig up shit on her but had to resort to making up shit.
Basically all they fabricated was the same weak-ass birther bullshit they did to Obama (odd how it’s only non-white people they use that on, isn’t it?) which is now being spread again on Facebook as we speak.
Intentionally mispronouncing her name, which they re-hashed in the RNC convention. Her name is literally consonent-vowel-consonent-vowel-consonent-vowel, not really hard to say so they just sound like morons when they do that.
I guess they don’t like how she laughs?
They lost that election. Their base likes the racist dog-whistles, but those are votes they have no matter what. Doing the same bullshit they did before loses them independents.
Remember how a lot of Republicans voted for Nikki Haley even after she dropped out of the primary? It wasn’t a love for Nikki Haley, it was a dislike for Trump that motivated Republicans to vote for Nikki Haley in the primaries. After she dropped out. So there’s even Republicans that are open to voting for a woman with a South Asian background that the MAGAs like to intentionally mispronouncing her name.
I think that's possible, but I think it was all but guaranteed that anyone who didn't want the repubs to win would have been crying in November if Biden hadn't dropped out.
Yes they can. This is the right choice. Democrats will be more energized than ever now. Hopeful they keep it open to the delegates to vote at the convention after a few people step forward.
It would be an awful lot easier than trying to salvage Biden’s image as it stands. If they do it right this should be super easy, but if they drag their heels on the changes necessary then it might be a lot harder.
This is BIG opportunity to rebrand and show what really matters to the party.
Are they going to force Biden to run against his will or what is the plan here? If Biden dies, are Democrats not allowed to run at all because they aren’t allowed to replace him.
The thing is, it’s not the Democratic Party replacing Biden anymore. Biden has willfully stepped down, and given his support to Harris. To put it another way, Biden is no longer “being replaced”.
But, that may not matter in the long run. The question now is when/if Republicans take this to court, and whether or not the judge decides to hear the case or not and how long that will take.
As far as I know, judges have historically decided not to pursue a case if it would impede the election process (e.g., gerrymandered district ruled illegal, but still used because not enough time to redraw maps). I would like to hope that the Democratic Party gets the same curtsy in this case.
However, I feel that right now given the current political climate, and the current way judges have been deciding in favor of the Republican agenda, this may not be the case and the new candidate will be tied up in legal tape to be able to campaign properly. The Republicans will cease upon this opportunity and use it against the Democratic Party to make them look weak and unable to do anything they say they will do. And to be honest, they won’t be wrong.
Democrats are their own worst enemy, and their hubris will be to all of our detriment.
Election law expert Richard Hasen wrote that there is “no credence” to the notion that the Democratic Party could not legally replace Biden on the ticket, as he is not the nominee yet – the nominating process generally takes place during the Democratic National Convention.
I think the fact that the party was willing to do this says a lot. They’ve already avoided the worst possible option, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
It’s not going to be perfect. It’s not going to even inspire people for the next 4 years. What it will do is get us to January where we, hopefully can rightfully calibrate like we should have in 2020. No matter the winner, THIS DOES NOT END IN NOVEMEBER. Remember that.
Yeah it was going to be impossible to properly move forward from this. There would be too much media coverage and division and lingering questions.
Now though, we have a real opportunity to unify, and make several arguments to voters – Democrats listened and picked a younger candidate. We can also flip the script on candidate age now
If, and that’s a big if, they choose to field a moderately likeable replacement, there’s a chance they can actually re-energize the campaign and voters and get a big boost with a fresh face. That’s a big if though.
Other countries have pulled out elections in two weeks. The us may not have that experience though. The campaign however had been directed at his opponent’s well known incompetence and malice. That may be the advantage of divisive politics.
That doesn’t mean they won’t tie this up in the courts I’ve a bogus legal theory that the Supreme Court will turn into a reality… Mark my words, unless Biden packs the court, this one is on Clarence Thomas’s desk stat
Biden isn’t even the nominee yet that’s one of the reasons it was important this happened before the DNC. Before the nomination this is no official presidential candidate, ol’ Mikey Poo-Bear is yaking out of his ass. Mike even said “some legal impediments in at least a few of these jurisdictions”, he’s just posturing for attention. No more threatening than a bantam rooster when you walk in his coup.
There is no candidate until the convention. Biden wasn’t actually the nominee yet, so there’s nothing for them to contest. Johnson put out that threat to scare you.
Election law expert Richard Hasen wrote that there is “no credence” to the notion that the Democratic Party could not legally replace Biden on the ticket, as he is not the nominee yet – the nominating process generally takes place during the Democratic National Convention.
Plenty of other countries’ electoral campaigns advance far faster than Americans expect theirs to move, and US media is talking about politics all the damn time. If the Dems don’t do a massive screw up somehow, I think they’ll find out that switching the candidate will be far easier than they were expecting.
They have the media bomb of “no incumbent” leading the headlines. This is one of the only media maneuvers that would change the conversation from “That Trump overcame assassination and adversity!” At this point a major shift was needed.
The year and a half back log of memes against Biden that right wing contractors have saved up are now worthless. The right will have 3 months to make a cohesive media smear campaign (which they can do against the right candidate) but it will require lots of downtime as the high paid think tanks make astroturf.
Other countries have whole campaign seasons that are shorter. We’ve just gotten used to multi-year campaigns and never-ending reelection efforts. It wasn’t always like this, and I don’t think it’s good for us long-term.
Lol… From a foreigner this is hilarious. Some of you still want to support the guy that tried disrupt the governmental process… He called the frigging election investigator FFS. You can listen to him tell her how 'her job is the most important in The country rn… and talk at length about how fraud will be found.
People that want trump want a king. Plain and simple.
Seems that way. Empowering local governments to determine legality will inevitably allow NIMBY to criminalize homelessness across the nation, with each city pointing fingers as the next.
Every single scientific study regarding the use of fluoride in drinking water to help protect oral health. Link me a scientific study that proves flouride in drinking water is harmful.
Right. Scientific consensus has never been wrong before.
And… you read or are aware of every single scientific study? Wow! I didn’t know you were such an expert on the matter!
I’m not going to argue sources with you, but try to understand that scientific consensus once said that it’s safe to put lead in gasoline, paint, and pipes.
It’s more useful to follow scientific consensus and update your reasoning in the presence of new evidence than it is to label something a contaminate while providing no data to support that position.
That’s a dangerous path to go down, considering scientific consensus once thought lobotomies were appropriate treatment for unruly housewives, lead was acceptable to put in… pretty much everything, tobacco isn’t as bad as you think, burning fossil fuels doesn’t cause global warming… etc etc. (don’t get me started on nutrition)
You know what’s really useful? Understanding the science yourself. That’s difficult though, which is why most people treat it like a religion.
It’s not feasible to expect every person to know everything about the world. Experts exist for a reason and our trust in them is what pulled us out of the dark ages. Seems to me you use contrarianism as a means of exercising a misguided sense of superiority. The data shows fluoride is safe and effective. Until that changes there is no reason to condemn its use beyond baseless fear mongering.
You know one of the key differences between science and religion? Theories are changed/developed in the face of empirical, experimentally reproducible evidence. If we learn we were wrong about something, we change our practices to match our new knowledge of reality. That’s why smoking is discouraged and even outlawed in some places. That’s why we limit lead exposure now. The people who don’t have their heads buried in their own asses are very much aware fossil fuels are contributing to climate change.
There was never a consensus that lobotomies were an appropriate treatment for anything. I don’t know whose crusty asshole you pulled that shit out of. (Source: my psych degree, I actually studied this shit.)
You seem to be under this blatantly wrong assumption that “scientific consensus” means anyone in a white coat is an infallible member of the priestly caste.
I don’t perform my own surgeries or diagnose my own illnesses. Doesn’t mean doctors are wizards.
I and others who follow science don’t trust by blind faith, we trust based on the training and expertise of those doing the research. I am not qualified to make decisions about chemicals or engineering or stuff like that, so I trust those who are. And one or two assholes willing to falsify data for their own agendas will not survive peer review of the rest of the scientific community.
Unless you’re convinced the entire scientific community is in cahoots to pull off some grand conspiracy. In which case you’re a hopeless fucking nutjob and we’re all just wasting our breath until you get on your meds.
I don’t even understand their argument. Scientists have been wrong in the past, therefore fluoride is definitely dangerous in the amount added to drinking water?
Consider this: you are making the same “Science is a bitch… sometimes” argument that Mack made on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. You are making the exact same argument that was intended to show how unbelievably stupid he is.
You know what’s really useful? Not conflating “a thing that happened” with “a thing based on scientific consensus”
American Institute for Economic Research Menu How Government Prolonged the Lobotomy Vincent GelosoVincent Geloso Raymond-J-MarchRaymond J. March – August 1, 2019Reading Time: 3 minutes AIER >> Daily Economy >> History Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
Ramming an icepick through someone’s eyelid to remove a part of their brain sounds like a horrifying method of torture. However, this procedure, named the lobotomy, was a common method to treat mental illness in the United States for nearly 40 years. From 1936 until 1972, nearly 60,000 people were lobotomized. Most lobotomies were performed without the patient’s or their legal caretaker’s consent.
Unsurprisingly, the procedure was a spectacular failure. After surgery, patients often found themselves paranoid, emotionally volatile, incontinent, and with severely impaired intelligence. Surgical complications often left patients unable to function independently, requiring constant supervision and caretaking. When a patient was released from the asylum after being lobotomized, they typically found themselves returning within a few months. Upon their return, they often underwent a second (or, in one case, fourth) lobotomy.
The lobotomy has been described as “one of the most spectacular failures in the history of medicine.” But unlike many historic medical practices which seem barbaric and detrimental only in hindsight, the lobotomy was scorned and dismissed by medical professionals when it became most popular. By 1941, the American Medical Association denounced the lobotomy as ineffective. Shortly after, a world-wide consensus developed along the same lines. However, the procedure continued to grow in popularity, eventually reaching a “lobotomy boom” in the mid-1940s and early-1950s.
Again, there are places where fluoride occurs naturally in drinking water at higher concentrations than it is added artificially and there don’t seem to be significant health problems.
Hmmmmm no ! I’m not against fluoride in water, I don’t care since I don’t live in north america but spreading disinformation does not help.
There is regions, especially in India, where fluoride occurs by naturally in water in high concentration which is causing multiple serious health issues.
“There are higher concentrations of fluoride in water than we usually put in it that is still healthy to drink” != “Any concentration of fluoride in water is safe”
Any substance becomes toxic if you ingest too much of it. If you exceed by a factor of 20 the amount of plenty of things people usually consume, it isn’t difficult to find things that are dangerous or even lethal. Say, coffee, beer, anti-inflammatories, chocolate, Coke.
there are places where fluoride occurs naturally in drinking water at higher concentrations than it is added artificially and there don’t seem to be significant health problems.
I’m simply replying that there is places where fluoride occurs naturally in drinking water at higher concentration that it is added artificially and there is significant health problems in these places.
Does it means that fluoride in low concentration like in the US water system is dangerous ? No, it just means that very high concentration can be dangerous.
all scientists and health authorities are wrong so instead we should believe a wacky guy on the internet with no sources, credentials, or evidence? Ok…
Lol three weeks later… I know you’re being facetious, but I’m literally an engineer. I’d rather not dox myself so I won’t be more specific, but yes I do know about water treatment.
Lol the funny thing is that comebacks like that are completely worthless when the thing I originally said is actually true.
It reminds me a bit of the “you still live in your mom’s basement,” insult. Like it just falls flat when you say it to someone who’s lived alone for a decade… It just doesn’t work.
But I don’t need to prove shit to some idiot on the internet.
Let’s put any amount of contaminates in our drinking water just so people can “filter them out.”
Someone mentioned arsenic earlier in this thread, and I think I can find some study that says arsenic is good for you. Let’s add it to our water and anyone who thinks it’s harmful can just filter it out.
Also, I’m adding my fecal matter to the water supply to improve people’s microbiomes. They can just filter it out if they don’t like it.
It’s not a study, but there was a time when people believed arsenic wasn’t poisonous. There were most likely scientists back in the day advocating for its usage. You can find their work if you’re really interested.
A more recent and easier to research example would be all the “studies” saying lead is safe. Do I have to specifically point to those, or can you understand my point without it?
This is where your confusion comes from. I never said it’s wrong about fluoride.
My point is that unless you understand the science yourself, you have faith in other people who do. Scientific consensus has been wrong in the past, and it will be wrong again in the future.
Everyone saying with such certainty that fluoride is good or bad without understanding the science themselves just highlights how most people treat science like a religion.
The science is the antithesis of faith, because it’s a system of evidence and confirmation.
If you want to water “faith” down to mean the acceptance of evidence which you have not personally tested then it becomes meaningless. That’s flat earth stuff. “I personally have not seen the curvature of the Earth therefore it is flat”.
Please go away, get out of public life and stop “helping.”
Being a dick to people is not going to get them to vote your way. Same with the ‘deplorables’ comment. I agreed with her on it, but it was a stupid thing to say in an election.
Lewis Black said her problem was that she never went away. I’d say that’s pretty spot on. Shitheads wants attention, wants to be important. Maybe if she’d given the public a break and then came back for a second act it would have been different for her. But we’re still in act one and it never ends.
I think the deplorables comment would have been fine if they did try to cowardly walk it back immediately after in the typical miquetoast, ‘cater to everyone’ Democratic fashion.
Maybe they wouldn’t have thought they had to if they could have counted on the left for any of the energy coming up with reasons why them not voting is everyone else’s fault.
The white left being shocked and outraged that they in fact do not get to call themselves the base when they have to be dragged kicking and screaming by their hair just to get into a poll booth, never mind to not be a fucking moron and vote green or some shit, never ceases to amaze me.
The Tea Party are the Republican base because they don’t have to be convinced to show up for the general you entitled fucking morons.
Oh right, when you’re running in a popularity contest and lose, it’s the fault of the people voting not your own. The fact that she couldn’t even be more appealing than a known conman, failed businessman, and reality TV host with zero political experience really says a lot.
When those people voting let a fascist in, then yes, it is in fact their fault.
If you need more convincing than “that guy is a fascist” to be doing everything in your power yes including voting you dumbass to stop him from coming to power, you’re a fucking fascist, doesn’t matter how many pride flags you cram in your bio, doesn’t matter how many times you say your Hail Marries Genocide Joes, when it came down to it you chose letting fascism win over sucking it up for someone who’s greatest sin was not delivering St. Bernard his rightful throne over something as petty as he got 3 million less fucking votes than her because you shitlord cunts don’t even turn out for your own guy.
Bernie deserved better than you. It’s because of voters like you that the DNC has been drifting right, because why bother trying left when all they’re met with is unreliable and underperformant apathy for turnout, when playing the center gets voters who show up to the ballot without even fucking knowing all the offices that are gonna be up on it because at least they remember the whole civic duty part of their public school education!
Explain something to me. How can you simultaneously believe we don’t vote but care that we don’t vote? Biden won the 2020 general election so if we didn’t vote for him then who cares if we won’t vote for him in 2024?
He’s been defrauding contractors, backstabbing, and throwing people under the bus for decades. Even a grifter would have to be high as fuck on pure greed to have any business interaction with Donald.
It’s hilarious that these scammers also received an inevitable betrayal. I hope they lose all their money and the stock crashes before Donald can get anything significant out. What a delight to see any of these lying con men lose it all.
The sad thing is a lot of companies are doing the same thing…
I’m job hunting rn and most of it is hybrid or in office. I am not saying all of them are I seen a few that are remote but they feel sorta rare at least for the jobs I’m looking at (graphics programming, games and GPU stuff).
Most of them seem to mandate a fixed number of days in office. Some even say specifically certain days. I dunno… currently software job market feels pretty fucked up rn, but I been getting some good interviews so hopefully it all works out.
For WFH something I might be able to do is recently I was diagnosed autistic and my diagnosis documentation lists WFH as a workplace accommodation… so I could pull that card but I for sure am not gana bring that up till I have actually accepted an offer and have started working for a bit of time. And even then I am not sure how it will play if I tell them that, how it will effect things or how they treat me. It’s all kinda fucky.
I went from fully remote to hybrid (2 days in office) and it’s not bad. Got a $30k raise for the trouble, and the job security is much better because the pool of local candidates is much smaller than a remote employee who can hire from anywhere.
That’s exactly what dell wants, it’s a way to do layoffs without the bad PR and without having to pay the benefits (or whatever they are called). They know full well a good chunk of people working at home don’t want to go back to the office and will hunt for another job instead.
Sure but doesn’t mean you can’t be applying and interviewing on their dime. This bullshit isn’t anything new and only leads to the company retaining the blow average employees. If you can leave and get a raise in the process you should.
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