SpaceCowboy

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Sure it seems draconian, but how else are we going to get the kids to stop vaping and start smoking cigarettes like we did when we were in high school?

Won't someone please think of Phillip Morris' profit margins?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Voting Green has the exact same effect as not voting. Yeah, it shouldn't be that way, but it's the way it is. There's wanting the ideal system where third party votes matter and there's pretending it already is an ideal system

You don't get to an ideal system by voting for people that won't have any power to change things. You make a difference by writing to and calling the people who do have power and ensure the people you call are at least sympathetic to what you want.

It is indeed not that complicated.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

A ranked choice type system would mean a third party wouldn't be just something that screws up elections. In fact it would probably really benefit Democrats as people who might not go to vote otherwise might go vote green as their top pick and then vote Democrat as their second pick. If the Green candidate won, that's someone they could make some compromises with to get legislation passed. If the green candidate loses, then many of their votes would go to the Dem candidate making it more likely they would win.

Twice in this century a GOP candidate has won the EC without winning the popular vote. So it's obvious why the Democrats would want to get rid of that.

But as it stands voting third party (or not voting) is just letting everyone else decide how things should be. The way it works now is you vote for the candidate most likely to care about your concerns (and who could feasibly win) and write to them and tell them what you want. Yeah it's a pain in the ass to write to a representative, but it's more likely to have an effect than anything you write on the internet. Be polite, tell them the things you want that can be reasonably be implemented. Also you're probably going to have to vote in many elections to get what you want. But if it's something you really care about you're willing to vote in as many elections and write to your rep as many times as needed to get it done.

It takes time, but it's more effective than doing nothing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

If you actually want a potential President Kamala Harris to have some good legislation to sign, you might want to consider voting for congressional candidates that will write the kind of legislation you want. And if you want to end the Electorial College bullshit, you might consider voting for state reps. And while you're there, you may as well vote for Harris if for no other reason than you might someday say to your grandkids that you voted for the first woman President. That's a better story to tell than explaining about how you were too angsty about "the system" to bother going out to vote.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

The politcal system means that voting for a third party means you're not actually opposing fascism. It has the exact same effect as not voting at all. While it's not supporting fascism, it's also not opposing fascism. So it's just being fascism neutral.

It would be nice if you had a system where a third party vote wasn't the same as not voting but that kind of system will never happen if you continue to waste your vote.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 weeks ago

Ah, so since you're currently discussing this with me indicating an interest in a subject and you're not able lower your interest in the subject (couldn't care less). Your literal statements, indicates you want to continue discussing this further, because you don't want to care less about this subject that you care enough to have a conversation about.

Unless of course there's an implies "because I don't care at all" which isn't in the literal statement? Additional meaning to a statement beyond the literal words makes it an idiom.

But personally, I could care less about this conversation. Meaning that I would prefer to end the conversation, which would have the effect of lowering my level of caring which is my preference.

Good night!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah but the "I couldn't care less" is missing the sentence "because I don't care at all". It's kinda how idioms work, they require you to know the meaning of the phrase before someone hears it.

Someone doesn't just say these phrases on their own. There's always a context in which they get used. If someone ends a conversation with "whatever, I could care less" it makes more sense to someone not familiar with these idioms. Having a conversation about anything indicates some level of caring about the subject. "I could care less" inidicates you don't want to care about it anymore, ie. you don't care enough to discuss it further. "I couldn't care less" might indicate to someone not familiar with the idiom that you want to continue caring about the subject at the same level, ie. you with to continue discussing it further.

So "I couldn't care less" is an idiom on the level of "it's raining cats and dogs" something that only makes sense if you're familiar with it. It really doesn't make sense without the familiarity with the idiom to understand it really means "I couldn't care less because I don't care about it at all". You drop the "because I don't care about it at all" (which is how is it's common usages) it doesn't actually make any sense.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

Most fascist movements die out before they can hold onto power long enough to transform society.

We tend to focus on the fascist movements that have obtained power on held onto it long enough to transform a country into a fascist state. Mussolini, Franco, Hitler etc.

But the danger is there so it's important to be vigilant.

That being said... yeah, on lemmy.ml, anyone that fails the leftist purity test is a liberal and all liberals are fascists. Everyone is a fascist that isn't an authoritarian with a red and yellow flag.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

I literally posted the exact opposite thing, here it is:

The phrase “I could care less” makes more sense than “I couldn’t care less.” They’re both idioms and therefore are both considered correct linguistically speaking.

But “I could care less” indicates you would prefer to not have to care about a subject so is expressing that you’d prefer to stop talking about it.

“I couldn’t care less” doesn’t indicate the current level of caring so you might say “there isn’t anything in the world that will make me stop caring about my children; I couldn’t care less about my children.” Without the idiom those aren’t contradictory. It’s only because of the idiom there’s an assumption the reason the person can’t care less is because they don’t care at all. But nothing about the phrase indicates this.

The level of concern for something with the phrase “I could care less” is indicated by context and the phrase indicates whatever someone may have assumed about one’s concern from the context is actually more than the person actual concern for it.

But people will often say “I couldn’t care less” is better than “I could care less”. They’re wrong and I could care less about their wrong opinions on idioms.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

The phrase "I could care less" makes more sense than "I couldn't care less." They're both idioms and therefore are both considered correct linguistically speaking.

But "I could care less" indicates you would prefer to not have to care about a subject so is expressing that you'd prefer to stop talking about it.

"I couldn't care less" doesn't indicate the current level of caring so you might say "there isn't anything in the world that will make me stop caring about my children; I couldn't care less about my children." Without the idiom those aren't contradictory. It's only because of the idiom there's an assumption the reason the person can't care less is because they don't care at all. But nothing about the phrase indicates this.

The level of concern for something with the phrase "I could care less" is indicated by context and the phrase indicates whatever someone may have assumed about one's concern from the context is actually more than the person actual concern for it.

But people will often say "I couldn't care less" is better than "I could care less". They're wrong and I could care less about their wrong opinions on idioms.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Yeah I feel like Radiohead cancelling a tour date in Tel Aviv isn't going to result in Netanyahu making compromises at the bargaining table. It's just guys like Roger Waters (a tankie Putin simp) thinking they're more important than they really are. It's sort of like that time Dennis Rodman went to north Korea or Sean Penn went to Iraq to try to negotiate deals with various authoritarians. Just celebrities with big egos thinking they matter in an area where they're way out of their element. Play music for your fans in Israel or don't play music there, either way it doesn't change anything.

Honestly I think the whole "the world needs to turn against all of Israel" idea is doing more harm than good. Expressing hatred towards an entire country doesn't facilitate negotiation.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (4 children)

It's a hit piece on musicians for playing in a country the writer hates. Also it's not even clear that they've played in Israel in the past two years... quotes from Nick Cave were from 2022 and the quote from Radiohead is from 2017.

It's really ugly when people are researching anyone that has ever been to Israel so they can target them for a hit piece. Like what's going on here?

Thom Yorke's quote seems reasonable:

Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government. We don’t endorse [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America.

I mean yeah, was it morally wrong to visit the US when Trump was President? Was it wrong to go to the US while the Iraq war was happening and people were being tortured in GitMo? Is it wrong to go to the US now?

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