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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • From your point-of-view, the Democrats winning may be good, and the Republicans winning bad. You might see them on a left-right scale of 0-10, where 0 is good, the Ds are at 3, the Rs at 9, and Hitler at 10.

    Some other people see a bigger window than that: look at https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020 and compare how these people see the distance between Trump +9+9 and Biden +7+6, compared to the distance between both and Hawkins -5-3. These people agree that the Rs are worse than the Ds, but they don’t want to help the Ds win because they don’t want more genocide, a climate cascade causing a mass extinction event, a psychotic economic system, a food system torturing 2-6 trillion animals to death a year and enslaving 2-4 trillion animals in torturous conditions a year, unsustainable pollution, biosphere degradation…

    They might instead want to help in the long fight towards an ethical civilization instead. It may be a long defeat, but for those who won’t cross the ethical lines listed above, doing the right thing (even if they lose) is better than being culpable in actively supporting those who are making the system more evil. The difference between +9+9 and +7+6 is real, but for some the ethical lines they won’t cross is below +7+6.

    If Stalin is the lesser-evil compared to the greater-evil Hitler, then there’s still the option to vote for unpopular Gandhi and maybe start the process where people realize they don’t have to be culpable in actively supporting Stalin.


  • If people want to follow Douglas’ example of supporting the lesser evil, they can - as about a third do. But I’m mostly not writing for them, because they don’t care enough that their actions are actively helping and giving legitimacy to genocide, a climate cascade causing a mass extinction event, a psychotic economic system, a food system torturing 2-6 trillion animals to death a year and enslaving 2-4 trillion animals in torturous conditions a year, unsustainable pollution, biosphere degradation… They don’t care enough that by voting for the lesser evil, they’re actively culpable of the system getting more evil after every election.

    Instead, for the plurality that don’t vote at all, I’m pointing out there are other options: like voting for ethical people instead, and starting the long fight towards an ethical civilization. It may be a long defeat, but for those who won’t cross the ethical lines listed above, doing the right thing (even if you lose) is better than actively supporting those who are making the system more evil. The difference between +9+9 and +7+6 is real, but for some the ethical lines they won’t cross is between +7+6 and -5-3.


  • From your point-of-view, the Democrats winning is good, and the Republicans winning is bad. You might see them on a left-right scale of 0-10, where 0 is good, the Ds are at 3, the Rs at 9, and Hitler at 10.

    Some other people see a bigger window than that: look at https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020 and compare how these people see the distance between Trump +9+9 and Biden +7+6, compared to the distance between both and Hawkins -5-3. These people agree that the Rs are worse than the Ds, but they don’t want to help the Ds win because the Ds are mass-extinction causing capitalists. To convince these people to vote for the Ds instead of Greens/socialists/not-voting at all, you have to convince them that the Ds actions of:

    • making anthropogenic climate change worse and so causing a mass extinction,
    • helping genocides, and
    • propping up an economic system that rewards narcissistic psychopaths and punishes ethical people;

    are good, and worth voting for.


  • The Democrats are not Left wing. They’re left of the Republicans, and less authoritarian, but they’re a right-wing party who crippled banking regulation in favor of oligarchy, bailed out the worst banks, lied about drilling for oil[1] and causing a mass extinction event, and kept giving Israel weapons even after they went from defending themselves to committing genocide.

    The goal for ethical people is not to get the Democrats to win, but instead to elect ethical people to government, e.g Hawkins and Nader.

    It’s possible, even in FPTP voting systems, for people to reject the 2 parties that usually wins - see the UK where the Tories or Labour have been the only 2 winning parties for more than 90 years (including 2 short coalition governments); but where polling shows the 5th party (the horrible Reform) and 8th party (Greens) are now leading.

    “It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” - Eugene V. Debs, Appeal to Reason, 1900-10-13

    “Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.” - Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class 1904-09-01

    [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/08/16/biden-oil-drilling-production/ As he campaigned for president in 2020, Joe Biden made a bold promise at a New Hampshire town hall, adding repetition for emphasis: “No more drilling on federal lands. Period. Period. Period. Period.” […] The Biden administration has now outpaced the Trump administration in approving permits for drilling on public lands, and the United States is producing more oil than any country ever has.


  • Maybe because 98.1% keep voting for either evil or the lesser evil; but almost none of them vote for the good like Nader?

    “Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses, and American universities - and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, […] you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public.” – George Carlin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBrbXOmnW70

    “It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” - Eugene V. Debs, Appeal to Reason, 1900-10-13

    “Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.” - Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class 1904-09-01














  • These hemorrhagic-fever like outbreaks (like Ebola and Marburg) usually don’t spread too far because of how dramatic the symptoms are and of how quickly they usually kill patients: here “death occurs within just 48 hours of the onset of symptoms”.

    “However, here, it is concerning that we have hundreds of cases and over 50 deaths, with hemorrhagic-fever like symptoms widely reported among those cases.” - Michael Head. Current estimate of a “fatality rate of 12.3 percent” is of course a major problem locally, tho that % could be completely wrong.

    If there are few or no asymptomatic carriers, and the incubation is period is short, then it’s unlikely to be like COVID-19.

    Bird flu is still big concern - and potentially the solution to omnicidal anthropogenic climate change.