I was driving just now, and having a thought experiment with myself.

I'll preface this that I have virtually no philosophy background, so if this is endlessly retreaded material, forgive me in advance.

With all of the talk about AI enabled security cameras, drone surveillance, digital fingerprinting and other technologies of the last few years, this topic has been top of mind for me. These technologies are being sold primarily with the goal of stopping crime, and improving public safety. There are obviously tons of issues with all of these technologies regarding bias, privacy, and so on, but I wanted to distill their pitch down to first principles, that is: is it even desirable to live in a world with perfect law enforcement?

Come with me on a magical thought experiment, and put aside real world law enforcement concerns like racism, invasive surveillance, weaponization, and all of the other problems with police for a moment.

Imagine we lived in a world where if someone committed a crime, they were instantly caught, a speedy trial was given to them, and they were quickly punished. This world does not surveil people who are not committing crimes. It doesn't get the wrong perp ever. It doesn't use excessive force to apprehend them. It doesn't selectively enforce laws against people it doesn't like.

It's as perfect of a law enforcement apperatus as we can possibly imagine. It's the fantasy that all of these security vendors and tech bros are trying to sell to us. Imagine that world is not only possible, but real.

Even with all of those caveats, would that desirable?

There's something to me that still feels dystopian about not being able to get away with crime under any circumstances.

Is it possible that we all have this quiet compulsion and drive inside us that we think that some amount of crime is desirable in society? Do we secretly want the option of doing crime and getting away with it if the need arises?

I can't quite pin down why I want crime to still exist at some low, simmering level, but I also can't ignore the fact that I do, and that when I imagine an entirely crime free society, it feels oppressive and stifling in my head, even though in this thought experiment, it's as perfect as can be. I think I'd probably feel differently if I had ever been the victim of some horrible crime, maybe? But I have been robbed, hit and run, and so on, and I still feel this way, so maybe not.

Has anyone else had a good think about this? Anyone else feel similar? Any possible explanations?

Don't know what to say, just think it's important to mention that today is a very important day for many people around the world (but probably mostly in Europe).

Unionising seems to be one of the most radical and also results-giving political actions you can do (but ofc watch out for the lap-dog-unions!)

Anyway, I'm off to my city centre today, to walk together with friends scream at the clouds and goof around.

I hope you all are having fun today and that you are able to fight for yourself and others every other day (when you're not resting or enjoying life ofc)

Enough rambling!

¡No pasaran!

There's a trope in politics to blame the Boomers for everything bad in society and to just wait until they die out. What's amazed me is just how widespread this belief actually is, based on conversations I've had and things I've seen online. People have been waiting for old people to die out since the Boomers were kids. There are also countless Boomers in America that are going to retire in poverty. I don't have much to say aside from, this is stupid and we should do better. In short order, society will probably transfer its grievances from Boomers to Gen X then eventually to Millennials.

A few questions to follow up:

• What led to changing your mind?
• How has this shift shaped your view of contemporary American politics?
• What was the impact to your social circle or community?
• What lessons do you think being a leftist taught you, or in what ways has it shaped you that you are appreciative of?

Foreign money and tech billionaires have bought control of the US government, they're looting the system and weakening it, and then they're going to crash it so they can install a new system that they can better control.

Prove me wrong?

Democrats have a huge advantage in coming elections given how much of an unmitigated shitshow Trump 2.0 has been, but the party itself still doesn't know what time it is and has very little of substance to say on anything (except the younger DSA wing). The field of Democratic candidates is also pretty abysmal. AOC is seen as radical and unlikable outside the left (unlike Bernie who was seen as radical but likable) and doesn't have the same excitement around her that she used to even among progressives. Bernie and Warren are too old. Kamala Harris would be a disaster for obvious reasons. Gavin Newsom is overtly corrupt and insincere.

It seems to me very plausible that Democrats could still fumble the bag in 2028, especially if Kamala takes the nomination or if some other black swan event happens (Trump dies in office, JD takes over and runs a relatively competent administration; or Trump and JD become horribly disgraced even among MAGA, leading to Tucker Carlson running—in which case I think he'd win handedly against a generic establishment Democrat).

There's also the problem of the main Democratic contenders simply being not very good. A Democrat in office would be miles better than a Republican, but I'm not at all convinced that a generic Democrat would be prepared to face the enormous challenges we as a country face (soaring debt, money in politics, AI, eugenics/transhumanism, Israel/Russia/coping with multipolarity, a highly fractious cultural and political environment, a public that finds classical fascism/white nationalism increasingly enticing).

The only person I can think of that is both electable and suited for the current moment is Jon Stewart. He's a political moderate who's comfortable calling out the establishment. He's well read. He's broadly liked and respected, even among people who disagree with him. He has a highly dialectical style to politics (ie. bringing people together to hash things out), which I think is sorely needed right now.

I am always curious about these kinds of situations.

for example, I live in Canada and (iirc) in 2021, there was a discovery of unmarked graves (I think) near a church that used to be a residential school for the indigenous children at the time.

given its closeness in time to the George Floyd protests, it sparked a discussion up here regarding our own failures of how to do proper truth and reconciliation with the remaining indigenous community.

my university graduation was also around that time, and the university wanted to jump on the bandwagon of appearing to be woke. their attempt at this was to have a former student of a residential school come and speak at the event about her experiences at the school. forseeably real sad stuff. you can't help but feel sadness hearing it.

Then, we had to sing the national anthem of Canada.

I have never stopped finding it funny that whichever genius was tasked with planning the schedule for that day, decided the most appropriate thing to do after hearing about the lengths that the church and government of Canada tried to go to to "stomp the indian out of the child" is to proceed to sing a song celebrating that government. You can kinda make an argument that we were singing a song to celebrate the ideal of Canada, which is a country that is about always trying to do better but from my perspective, what it felt like was they had a template of what a graduation ceremony was like and just decided to shoe-horn in that lady at some point in a pre-existing template.

One other funny story I've heard (I think from an indigenous comic who was a guest on an NPR podcast) was he relayed a story about how during covid, when their work went remote and had meetings on zoom and the DEI was gaining more and more popularity at the time in corporate environments, their bosses best idea was to do land acknowledgements on zoom..while everyone was at home. He had a whole bit about it that was quite humorous and I can't really remember but it was hilarious.

I try looking things up, but it’s apparently common news-site practice these days to try to tie things to other news (Gaza, civil liberties, etc), which I don’t want to know about as I’m on a news diet. (If you know of a site that does maybe a weekly newsletter of only the top two things to know about the week that’s passed, please let me know.)

So re the Epstein files: Are they released? Are they going to be released? What’s in them? Is this thing about Putin having compromising photos of Trump true?

I don't often watch news programs that talk about polls. but when I do, I always hate that they say "40% of Canadian|Americans say ___" or "60% of Canadians|Americans prefer ____"

Polling is such a mis-used technique of getting public opinion. The media/news want to pretend that its this very precise way of getting to know the electorate and it's just not. It's one tool that can help you if you already have other means of getting in touch with the people.

And I know the news/talk shows knows this, but I think their wording intentionally does not reflect it cause they rather bring on pundits to discuss the poll results and use that to take up airtime. Really wish they would change their wording to "40% of Canadians|American who responded to the poll say ____" every time they bring up a poll result, and then each time they do that, I feel like they're also ethically responsible to provide people with an easy to remember link to a website that elaborates on the methodology used for the polling that is broken down in a way that is easy for lay-people to understand for people who care/have time for that.

Although personally, in my ideal world, poll results would not be publicly available and would be known just by the campaigns of the politicians they involve but :shrug:

Cause maybe this is just my skewed perspective but I am the only one I know in my social circle that answers calls from unknown numbers that half the time turn out to be pollsters and I actually take the time to answer their questions. I don't know of anyone else in my social circle that does this and I am in my thirties. So I get the feeling these pollsters just are not capturing a major part of the population and they don't want to admit that.

I'm posting this in ~society rather than ~tech, as I feel like it's more a question of societal change and policy decisions rather than tech change. Please feel free to move if I'm wrong.

Seeing the predictable Discord data breach for age verification, it feels like the walls are closing in. My country has announced a similar policy to the UK just recently and I feel a sense of loss for a crucial part of my life that may go away.

I don't think I'm being too nostalgic by saying that I felt much more comfortable speaking freely on the internet when anonymity was the default. I didn't engage in any illegal activity - or even in my view immoral activity. I just made friends from around the world and learned a lot.

I am not making the argument that the internet of the 90's and 00's were 'safer' - I'm sure there is plenty of bad things that happened without me being aware. But this theoretical bad stuff is still being used to make us mandatorily give our government issued identity documents to corporate entities, and it's not paranoia to think they want to find a way to profit from this, and not invest heavily to defend it.

I get the structural forces that are driving this change, but it still makes me sad. I feel like I'm running a defensive cyber operation with no training or expertise. I do my best to stay private with VPNs, tracker blocking, DNS filters, but I feel like I'm losing. We have a whole department for this at work and they are very busy - I am just a lay person doing their best.

No matter what I do, either the governments of the world or surveillance capitalists will build up a picture of who I am far beyond what I am comfortable with. My meagre efforts are like trying to stop the tide by kicking it.

Do others who grew up with a more open, more anonymous internet feel similarly? Do you try and protect your privacy, are you resigned, or are you somewhere in the middle?

Since the election, and especially in the last couple of weeks, I’ve had an incredibly difficult time focusing on important tasks.

I get a bit nihilistic at the worst times, wondering what the point of my day job is with what feels like the collapse of society happening around us. It’s also been a really stressful month or so at work, which doesn’t help with trying to focus on the edge of burnout.

The last few days have been incredibly unproductive, but also not restful. I’m just sort of stuck in a loop.

Anyone out there feeling the same, or does anyone have suggestions for getting out of this loop?

I'm curious to hear stories. Aside from generally higher prices, I've been mostly ok. But yesterday I was going to order a t-shirt to support a game developer, and was surprised to see the total doubled at checkout. I thought it might be shipping at first since it was an international order, but upon closer inspection I saw the tariff charge adding a whopping $30 to my $30 t-shirt order

That's pretty much it, the title ... any chance of seeing the two Koreas rejoined in our lifetime? If so, how might that come to pass? If not, why not?

Also, related questions...

How much of the on-going dispute is actually between "regular" Koreans, and how much of it is explicitly caused by N Korean (and/or S Korean) leadership?

How out-of-touch with the rest of the world are "regular" N Koreans?

Just a passing thought ... open-ended discussion ... not strictly insisting on it, but let's try to keep the discussion serious, and civil.

Let me preface with this: I know this is a hot topic, I’m not looking to have a fight about guns; I’m interested in discussing the practical aspect of the question in the current context. I hope we can have a discussion without dragging politics or name calling into it.

I’m not from the US so I don’t have a dog in that race. I’m very curious however about the perspective of people living there: ever since I can remember, one of the most common argument for the right to bear arms is that it keeps the government in check: if it ever oversteps its powers or becomes fascist/dictatorial then the people will have the means to defend themselves against it and overthrow it.

From abroad, it looks like the trump administration is pushing the limits further almost weekly, behaving in ways that are not democratic, enriching themselves personally through their government position/power, and dismantling the people’s rights.

There are so many guns in the US, kept by people to presumably prevent the above.

So what gives? Why aren’t people using these guns to take back control of the country when the man in charge looks (from my perspective abroad) like he is abusing his power like a despot would and breaking the social contract (if not the law)? And if not, what does it mean for the right to bear arms if they’re not being used to safeguard the people’s freedom given all the collateral damage they cause (regular school shootings, murders, etc)?

so, Trump's first term, from what I remember, the news media didn't try to kiss the ring or pay him off to stop him being mean. they took an antagonistic (maybe too antagonistic) role to the trump presidency. Which fair enough, that's their job, to hold the government to account.

But this time around, I never fully understood why the left leaning news media is kissing the ring?

• Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski flew down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring
• Trump and CBS '60 Minutes' near settlement in $20 billion lawsuit

There is also Jeff Bezos revamp of the 'Washington Post' although that one surprises me a bit less given the tech oligarchy and Bezos being a modern day Lex Luthor. Surprised that soulless sack of s**t left the Washington Post alone as long as he has tbh.

There may be more instances of the left-wing media kissing the ring but these are just the ones I am aware of.

An easy answer to the second instance is: cause the executives at these news agencies didn't want to deal with a lawsuit by Trump and the money it would cost them, but if that is true, then how come this didnt happen the first time around? Did Trump just not sue the news agencies until this time? Any ideas why?

And that doesn't answer the first instance of those MSNBC hosts flying down to Mar-a-Lago to appease the baby in chief?

I know he is full of shit when he says he believes in freedom of speech and he just whines and complains and accuses the left/trans people of abusing victimhood cause apparently he believes the label belongs to the richest man on the planet instead.

But I am genuinely curious if the guy who kept saying he wanted his critics on Twitter as well to call him out, ever sat down for an interview with a critic who didnt feed his ego like Faux News or Bill Maher. Cause say what you want about Bill O'Reilly (and there's not much to say) I gotta give it up to the guy for going on left-leaning shows and actually engaging with the other side of the aisle.

the closest I can think of is that one he did with Don Lemon where his feelings were so hurt by the pushback, he cancelled the show after it :joy:

But I wonder if he ever did a hardball interview after and I just missed it?

Even with all the political upheaval, my day to day has not changed. A sign of some level of privilege, but also something of growing discomfort. I feel like i should actively doing something to fight or preparing for the worst.

I often hear that we need to organize but i find that vague and not helpful. Going to rallys and protests shows public anger and frustration but dont see how that directly affects the current administration when they just dont care. Its still a start, but how are people turning that frustration into a action?

How have your lives been changing and what are you doing to confront the change?

What are some ways groups have organized to take direct action?

There is still resistance of a sort within the government, but dictatorships don't require 100% consolidation of all power into the Executive. And if that struggle is being ignored by the Executive, then what difference does it make?

Just had a thought that the 3 countries considered the biggest powers have leaders who are all 70+. So I looked into it and found that the average age of the leaders of the 10 most populous countries (and EU) is 72.

Has the age of major countries' leaders ever been higher?

Has it always been like this?

I understand it irt. authoritarian countries. Democracies trend way lower.

I keep seeing this phrase, mostly with relation to USA-Canadian politics right now.

I was curious enough to look this up and it seems this phrase came from a famous hockey player, Gordie Howe.

Now, I want to say that my initial thought before researching this was, "oh, elbows up must be passive resistance, it's like someone folding their arms waiting for you to calm down, it's like putting your elbows up on a table refusing to eat/being rude on purpose to prove a point"

What I found, and the crux of the question, is it seems like a license to practice violence, when you deem it necessary. It seems very, "ends justify the means" -- because it is inherently a very violent rhetoric. I feel the current use of the term is, "don't take shit from anyone if they are bullying you". But this completely disregards its origins.

My further search into the hockey part of it sounds like the player didn't just use his "elbows" in retaliation, it sounds like he was really actively violent (on the ice)...so...I guess I just don't get it, I don't get why a society would glorify such a violent backed terminology, to combat...extremely violent behavior (threats of annexation).

Genuinely interested to hear anyone's opinions on this phrase.

Bonus, I saw one explanation of the player that I thought was funny, his "rational and expert application of violence"

I recently had a (mostly) civilized discussion with an older gentleman who mentioned reading a book about how newer generations have not learned how to suffer, and that is the root cause of many evils in the world today. He then expressed a sort of excitement at the thought of self-induced suffering through our supreme leader's terrible economic and geopolitical decisions. It would "make us stronger on the other side."

To which my question was, and is still: "You're a top 2% earner in the most powerful country in the world. You have everything you could ever want or dream of. Why do YOU want to suffer?"

My second question/point was: "What you're describing as people being too comfortable, I'd counter that it's just the advancement of technology and industry -- most of us don't HAVE to suffer by breaking our backs working the fields from sun up to sun down because we have equipment to do that for us. Instead, we can work our desk jobs and play games on our phones."

And my final question/point was: "Why would anyone ever wish suffering upon anyone else? That doesn't seem very biblical."

I'm really struggling to understand the line of thinking that I am hearing from the very top levels of the government all the way down to the working class. The thinking that "we deserve to suffer." In a sense, I feel that it's a sort of disguised retribution or malice, i.e. "I don't want to suffer, but there are a bunch of people I disagree with that do need to suffer."

Please help me understand so I can be better prepared to debate the next person who tries to make this point to me. I'm looking at you, Dad.

There were supposedly 1200 simultaneous protests in the USA on Saturday. The one I went to seemed like it was mostly attended by people who had never protested before. That's great: more people are engaging in the civic process and learning about how to make a difference. I'm writing this as a short guide for people who want to make a difference beyond that.

Understand types of advocates

You can roughly classify advocates into the following stages:

1. Unaware: people who simply have no idea what's going on and/or don't care. In general, these people are completely unreachable unless an issue affects their livelihood in an immediate and obvious way.
2. Stay-at-home: people who broadly have opinions but have no reason or structure to voice concerns. In general, these people show up only to events if solicited by family/friends.
3. Sporadic activists: people who are receptive to calls to action, but do not seek them out proactively. They may be on a few mailing lists, but probably ignore some CTAs. If a cause gets their attention, they'll be very engaged! (but just for a day or two)
4. Core demonstrators: people who reliably attend relevant direct action events and proactively spread the word to acquaintances, also going out of their way to look for additional opportunities (surveys, government engagement, etc).
5. Initiators: people who take the initiative with event organizing and calls to action. A subset of core demonstrators in leadership roles who steer advocacy campaigns.

Most Americans fall into category 1 or 2. Most people protesting on Saturday were probably between 2 and 3. People on Tildes skew higher. Each successive category is easily 1/10 the size of the previous one.

Event organizers implicitly target certain audiences for their events. In practice, events tend to be primarily composed either of people around 3-4 (smaller events) or 2-3 with some 4s (bigger events).

This is a simplification, but helps to appreciate the different personas in play.

Understand the purpose of different actions

You can broadly categorize direct action protests on a grid with two axes:

• Specificity (ask is more general/multi-faceted/long-term, vs more specific)
• Directionality (event is focused on protestors themselves or internal/allied speakers, vs. focused on external and probably non-allied stakeholders)

Specificity can measure the difference between "we're mad about the government" (yell about everything) and "we're mad about line 67 in HB 1234" (yell about something in particular). Specificity mostly corresponds with actionability. The more specific the thing you're protesting, easier it will be to identify constructive ways to follow up. Successful advocacy uses both of these models at the appropriate times during an extended campaign.

Directionality can measure the difference between "we're mad and we're gonna get riled up!" (cathartic release/venting; perhaps social) and "we're mad and [external stakeholder] is gonna know!" (targeted, though not necessarily aggressive). While both are public, the first is implicitly focused on base engagement and the second is more focused on pressuring an external stakeholder. Successful advocacy requires the appropriate balance of "community-building" (advocates feeling good about themselves) and action (advocates literally forcing a response).

In general, specificity and directionality are correlated: as protests become narrower in scope, they tend to become more directed at specific individuals (usually elected officials or other public figures), with a few exceptions. In theory, all 4 quadrants of this plane can be very successful direct action events!

• Unspecific and directionally inward: rallies with broad thematic goals publicized to a lot of people, possibly involving marches and chants and inviting famous speakers. In my opinion, the 50501-type protests today fall into this category. I would call these unspecific because while they were broadly "anti-Trump," they were also "anti-Elon," and variously "progressive/pro-rights," which is ultimately a fairly loose collection of themes without an obvious follow-up. I would call these directionally inward because they were fairly non-disruptive marches/rallies and therefore mostly cathartic vent sessions of like-minded people. People want to feel like they are doing something, and this is a useful way for them to get connected with each other and learn about next steps.

• Specific and directionally inward: similar to the previous category, but with a more clearly articulated scope. I think this comes up most often with legislative issues that are currently novel/fringe but perceived to require significant public support. For example, getting up on a soapbox in a public space and preaching about the need to add or abolish a particular Constitutional amendment. I'd call this specific because, well, it's about exactly 1 amendment --- you could read out the text of your proposed change if you wanted. I'd call this directionally inward because, while the point of this is ultimately to get some legislator to sign a bill into law, your direct action is really distant from that goal; the immediate purpose is more to proclaim your personal opinions and to create an audience saying "Yeah, I agree! What a great idea!" Later iterations of this can involve recruits, and can shift toward being more directionally outward.

• Specific and directionally outward: actions with narrow, articulated goals; with clear external stakeholders (target being like 1 person or 1 defined group) and ideally time-bound and repeatable on a timeline if needed. For example, a tiny biking nonprofit in my city had a campaign last year in the wake of a biker fatality. The campaign protested a quasi-legal/illegal arrangement that some wealthy/politically powerful churches had made with local government to permit temporary bike lane obstructions during worship. The direct action involved bikers physically stopping worshipers from parking cars in bike lanes, therefore forcing the attention of the congregation and pressuring church administrators to voluntarily relinquish the permits in the bike lanes (the bikers offered an alternative parking proposal), while also garnering media attention. The ultimate goal of the campaign was to force the city to upgrade signage, enforcement, & physical barriers along bike lanes along that corridor, but the goal of the direct action itself was far more granular. I would call this specific because it had an extremely defined ask (to the point of delving into absurd minutiae), focused on churches along a specific corridor (1 at a time), and offered a clear & easy solution for all parties. I would call it directionally outward because it was not about activists letting off steam [about something], it was about making an external institution look selfish for effectively endangering people riding bikes.

• Unspecific and directionally outward: in practice, this sort of event is not actionable but also not necessarily an effective forum for community-building. For example, a digital protest/rally asking a Senator to "support science." I'd consider this unspecific because "science" is actually many things, and "supporting" science could come in many forms, not all of which might be what you care about. I'd consider it directionally outward because it nominally focuses on an individual external stakeholder. The problem with this kind of event is that presenting an external stakeholder with an unspecific set of demands is not compelling and will result in you being ignored. Additionally, digital protesting has zero of the community-building benefit of real-life interaction (no energy, no vibes) and all of the technical difficulties. A lot of campaigns failed during COVID when organizers attempted to move online and couldn't keep up the momentum. I could see this type of event working for specific internet-savvy demographics or specific edge cases of politicians, but rarely.

This is a spectrum, so the hundreds of different varieties of "direct action" you can think of all fall on a range. There are also some outliers!

For example, protestors may travel to the state capital to lobby legislators about a specific bill as a group. I would call this specific because it's about exactly 1 bill, and the action involves physically talking to the people who have the legal authority to enact that bill. I would call it directionally outward because it's clearly focused on achieving a legislative objective by engaging external stakeholders. However, I would also call it directionally inward because this sort of "travel somewhere with a smallish group of people" event is extremely good for community-building in a volunteer network. And indeed, a good directionally outward project should have an aspect of inwardness insofar as any direct action should be moderately to very fun. So these categories aren't completely exclusive.

Understanding the pipeline

So, really, a lot of campaigns start with unspecific and directionally inward protests: huge rallies with people waving around signs and not doing a whole lot. These are important because they expose people to protesting in ideally digestible and non-scary formats, they can get a ton of media attention (because they're usually about very well-known topics), and they can make people feel included and part of a supportive community --- which is essential.

But any unfocused rally needs to fairly quickly splinter off into specific campaigns. This means a lot of behind-the-scenes planning work needs to be done. One of the most important ways you can help turn energy into real-world change is to pick an issue that's meaningful to you, get involved with an organization whose mission statement covers that issue, and volunteer to do paperwork, planning, or logistics for them! (Sometimes, no such group will exist, so you may wish to create a new one. This is challenging, but very doable, and maybe I will talk about it in a later post.)

For example, according to Wikipedia the 50501 movement calls for: the impeachment of Donald Trump, an investigation into Elon Musk, investigations into all other Trump appointees, reinstatement of DEI at the federal level, protection of LGBTQ rights, protection of (racial?) minority rights, protection of the Constitution, reinstatement of military aid to Ukraine, and the lifting of tariffs on other countries. That's like 20 billion different ideas. Some of them are kind of related to each other. Most of them aren't. Ideological fragmentation in a movement this large is absolutely inevitable and could forestall a lot of change from an organizational insider perspective. More importantly, it's just too complicated to keep track of. No one is an expert in more than 1 or 2 of those subjects. Even just 1 of those issues is extremely broad. For instance, protecting the US Constitution: there are entire nonprofits dedicated just to protecting the 1st amendment! You have to get granular.

(There's no problem with teaming up with allied organizations to co-host a rally about a few topics, and no problem with attending these. But they're only impactful if they're followed by more specific actions.)

Some of the most impactful campaigns are ones which start with general, big-turnout events... and then have a clear pathway toward multiple small actions with defined success criteria. If you go to one unspecific protest for one organization, that's only as useful as the follow-up. Did you join their email list? Have you looked at their website? Did you talk to anyone who volunteers there? You have to do some legwork. Great organizations will have simple and easy onboarding processes, but not every group is so fortunate! As long as you can stay in touch, that's the important part.

Your role as an advocate

You also have to think about how, as an advocate, you want to fit into the puzzle. Is your definition of (personal) success to be a participant in broad-movement rallies, or do you want to take a more involved role? Do you want to lead chants, set up sound equipment, or file for road closure permits from local police departments? Or do you want to lobby a specific politician to adopt a specific piece of legislation? Or run a website or develop a strategic plan on behalf of some organization to do these things?

If you plan to volunteer with an existing organization, some things to keep in mind are:

• You have significantly more influence over local politics than state or federal politics. If you ask me, the #1 place you should be volunteering is in your local community, solving problems on the neighborhood level.
• If you do enough direct action, you will potentially end up in a situation where you risk arrest. If you don't want to do that, don't. But if you do, be aware of what it entails. A night in jail is not fun!
• Volunteering with a specific group is a temporary thing, as long as you want. But for some, it's a lifestyle, not just something to do when fashionable. Advocacy never truly ends. There will always be more battles to fight.
• Most direct action campaigns fail. Most lobbying campaigns fail. Most plans fail and need major revisions. Most things fail, and most people fail a lot. Sometimes, you will work very hard on a project/event, and do a great job, and a stakeholder will derail it anyway.
• All organizations are composed of people doing their best. When people are working on projects they're passionate about, emotions can run high. Take a deep breath! You're all on the same team.
• There's an enormous cultural difference between grassroots, all-volunteer nonprofit organizations and large-scale NGOs. Small nonprofits can feel exciting to work with because they're so flexible and open to new ideas. The larger the organization, the more bureaucratic volunteering is likely to be, which may be demoralizing. However, they'll probably have more funding, and they'll probably be managed in a less chaotic way.
• In general, you will only have strategic volunteering opportunities in grassroots organizations. But if you prefer to be assigned things to do or say, pretty much any org will have something for you to help out with.
• Joining the Board of Directors of a nonprofit is a great way to make an amazing long-term impact. However, being on a board comes with a fiduciary duty and various other legal considerations.
• Volunteer burnout is real. It's easy to become tired and jaded. Many people who volunteer for nonprofits in administrative roles avoid direct action for this reason (and vice versa).
• You can't individually solve every problem with an organization, you can't manage every other volunteer, and you can't work on every project. It's just not possible, and even if it were, it would be bad practice.
• Many large corporations offer matching donations for employee charitable contributions. If you want to make a difference, but can't see yourself volunteering on a regular basis, making a qualified donation and having your company match it would be impactful for that group.

It's getting late so I need to call it, but I hope that was helpful to someone.

Despite the awful prospect of four years with this man and his goons, I look at how totally chaotic the previous two months have been on all fronts and wonder if he's able to keep this level of nonsense for much longer.

My question is, what are your odds that he leaves office early and what are some of the ways it could happen?

I'm not great with odds, but I think there's a strong chance that Republicans throw him out after their constituencies begin to feel the pain and everybody's out for blood.

I'm going to put 20 dollars into the pile and say he's out in a year and a half if this keeps up at the pace it's been going.

Any wagers out there?

The current political climate in the US sucks, and I want to do something about it. I'm a software engineer and I've been feeling lately that I need to apply my skills towards something more important and impactful than building a product for a private company. Honestly, I like my current job for many reasons, and it's been mostly quite fulfilling up to this point, but every executive order by Trump feels like a step backwards and makes me less comfortable with not being involved in the opposition.

I'm looking for advice on what I can do to meaningfully contribute to progressive causes and resist the threat that this administration poses to our democracy and society. What kinds of organizations are doing the most in this area, and would be in need of a software engineer? How can building software help with this problem (if at all)?

For context, I live in Massachusetts, so while I feel proud of how my community and local government is pushing back against Trump, I'm also well-aware of how much worse things are, and will get, for people elsewhere.

Not just a U.S. question... I think we're in the midst of seeing much of the world's political order being rearranged. So that's got me wondering, are we going to see some new nations emerge from this? I recognize that's a very sanitized framing, and such things don't just "happen" without a lot of turmoil first, but I'm trying to make some optimistic projections about what could come after that.

So as a thought exercise, imagine you're participating in a constitutional convention for a new democratic government forming where you live. What are some things you would want to see included? What should be omitted?

There have been frequent and repeated comments by Trump about "annexing" or "absorbing" or taking over other sovereign countries.

NY Times How 51st State talk became seen as deadly serious

White House Asked US Military for Panama Options

CNBC - Trump on US Annexation of Greenland

I think anyone paying attention to this should be extremely alarmed, especially when you connect this to the purges that he is doing to the US military and other organizations that would limit the power of the president, and of course recent supreme court rulings about presidential power.

It appears like he's trying to get people used to a new colonialism. Maybe if he attacks Panama and there isn't much internal resistance, then he'll attack Greenland, and so on. Sure we can guess whether he is doing this to help Putin, or to normalize Putin's invasion. In any case just the discussion of these things harms the other countries, the reputation of the US, and world stability.

Frankly I think this stuff, and the attack on federal workers and social programs and social security, is an attempt to not only do these things, but to generate mass protests which will be used as an excuse for martial law and the removal of other rights, including future elections.

Here's another article, This is by David Frum about how we allow people to minimize Trump's actions at our peril: The MAGA-Strategy Spin Machine

I don't think it's possible to overreact to this. A functioning US Congress would remove him from office right away.

Heretofore, I have held the idea that, 1)Russia is a despotic aggressor, 2)Ukraine is largely innocent holder of resources and land, and 3)Ukraine is largely winning due to a combination of pluck and western supplies.

But I heard a recent podcast, however, that caused me to question my line of thinking. The podcast was Chapo Trap House* and they had guest podcasts hosts War Nerd or something, who seem to have some expertise in the slavic world. And they presented a very different narrative. Namely, 1)Ukrainians really want the war to end, even if the country loses some land, 2)There’s tons of corruption in the military, as bad as leaders demanding payment from soldiers to avoid deployment to the front lines, 3)There are fascist units in the military, and they shake down the civilians, 4) Zelensky was of a mind to deal with Russia until Biden asked him not to, 5)Russias economy is very resilient and has adapted to sanctions, and 6)Russia has been very adept at neutralizing new western military tech, and 7) there is a conspiracy of silence about Ukrainian casualties. Side note, there may be problematic funding of all the open source intelligence arms, especially bellingcat, by US Governemtnt intelligence interests.

I managed to confirm at least partially one of the objections:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/05/politics/russia-jamming-himars-rockets-ukraine/index.html

But some of the claims seem less strong:

https://kyivindependent.com/a-very-bloody-war-what-is-the-death-toll-of-russias-war-in-ukraine/

Mixed on some of the others:

https://theintercept.com/2024/06/22/ukraine-azov-battalion-us-training-ban/

The podcast was a useful reminder, at least, to retain a humility about my beliefs, and that news media is especially suspect in our present moment.

It’s not like I have any power to influence the outcome, but I do still buy into the myth that a responsible citizen retains some degree of information about events around them. My query to tildes is, what’s your narrative about the war, and what sources of information are you drawing upon?

*I’m vaguely aware that there’s somce controversy around these guys. I find the podcast entertaining, however, and they seem to share some of my values about how a sane society would function, and, like this report, they sometimes really challenge my understanding of what I think is going on.

I recently was at a brunch with a friend and their friend. Their friend works at a startup who buys, very cheaply, pictures of mammograms from hospitals, something something AI anonymization, and resells the data to ‘researchers’. I asked several things, for example, what responsibility does her company have for breaches or failures to protect identity? Her response: we have reporting requirements.

In my mind, that something like this exists at all is a complete social failure and consequence of hypercapitalism. The goal of using hospital data for research is obviously a good one. But in my mind, that data should not exist in a non-anonymous way outside the control of the hospital, and, in its anonymous form, should be available to all researchers for free. It seems obvious to me the best way to innovate real solutions is to get as many smart people as possible researching the data, and not just those who can afford it. Less obvious, but still problematic: if we limit the availability of the data to those who can afford it, we are limiting the availability of the data to those whose primary incentive of research is profit, as opposed to public interests like health.

I’m very tired of pretending for the sake of equanimity that this work is somehow OK. But neither is it productive to be argumentative at brunch. I guess one approach is simply to say, gee that’s swell and move on to a different topic, or just not ask people about their work at all. But I’m a prophet, I feel compelled to tell the truth, and sometimes to an unhealthy degree make people feel uncomfortable.

I don’t know what the solution is, it’s one of the reasons I went to divinity school: to gain access to a potentially practical platform for advocating meaningful change. But the problem is so well integrated and so insidious. Am I doomed to always be in isolated despair?

Do you think that the future will look back on our last late stage capitalist system and see the brutalization of marginalized populations around the globe? As our society looks back on chattel slavery, feudalism, etc?

I would like to imagine a socialism or a different system. Rooted in humanism.

TL;DR: I'm trying to work through what the future looks like and my brain has been awash in negativity since last November, so I figure putting something on paper may serve as a form of therapy. The long and short of what I've typed below is I'm trying to piece together USA's current geopolitical situation and rationalize what the likely or possible outcomes are.

I'm posting this through doomscrolling-tinted glasses, so bear with me. But I'll also mention that I've always tried to be empathetic to both sides, understand differing arguments and motives, and generally believe that people act or vote the way they do because it's what they think is best for the country, their communities, and their families.

I'm afraid I have given too much faith to humanity.

Overnight, we've just switched our allegiance from Europe/NATO/Ukraine to Russia -- our arch-nemesis for the last century. This comes on the heels of threatening to make Palestine disappear and "punishing" our brothers and sisters to the north and south (and across the Atlantic for that matter) for no apparent reason. The mutual trust and respect we've worked on for so long with our neighboring countries and Europe are vanishing... just like that. Unless there's something huge that I'm missing, we're not playing smart geopolitics here. We're just giving up hegemony for the sake of what... making it easier for rich men to hoard more money and get away with corruption?

I'm not a single-issue voter, but geopolitical implications have always received the lion's share of my decision-making. We've been able to maintain a relatively* prosperous and safe world order. More importantly, we've been able to keep the M.A.D. lightning in a bottle. Selfishly as an American, I think it's safe to say that our geopolitical situation has afforded us, the citizens, our current luxuries and opportunities. Sure, we have some other MASSIVE issues, but why would you want to take this one away?

• I know, we've done a lot of bad shit in the past. I'm not going to argue or defend that here.

So as the threads of democracy unravel in America, what does our path forward look like?

I believe we are at a crossroads right now. As all of these executive orders are being created – some of which are valid but we don't like them because they're coming from the other side, and others of which are clearly unconstitutional – the judiciary is getting to work making rulings on them, one by one. It is a slow process, but at the end of the day we should have a bunch of directives -- these EO's get to stay, and these other ones are unconstitutional so they must go.

The left branch of the crossroads is the one where the executive branch chooses to play by the rules. As much as Democrats would hate to admit, I see this as democracy playing out (in the worst possible way, but hey, I'm looking for silver linings). "These EO's can stay, and these EO's have to go." Then, in two years' time, the mid-terms will provide another opportunity for voters to swing the pendulum back toward the middle a bit -- or not. And then we can start the long, slow rebuilding process of restoring relations with our allies.

The right branch of the crossroads (where the executive branch becomes more and more powerful) is the one that I think we simply call "fascism," and there's plenty of historical research and precedent as to where things go from there. I don't see a clean exit from this. I see the following possibilities, from least to most horrible.

1. Americans just give in and accept the new government. We turn into a single-party state, corruption grows rampant, basic welfare benefits are taken away, etc. But, because there was no fight or give-a-fuck, we just accept it. And hey, maybe life is still fine for many people. But maybe we watch the indicators slowly tick in the wrong direction -- life expectancy, upward mobility, homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, innovation, general happiness. Given our current state of apathy and lethargy, I believe this is the most likely scenario.

2. Military intervention from within. If things get screwy enough, there comes a point when the military has to decide whether it's time to step in or not. In general, military interventions are a BAD thing. Furthermore, I believe there is major support for the President within the armed forces. Could there be a clean exit here, one where the military removes the current executive and benevolently allows for a new election? Sure, maybe, but if you think MAGAs believe all blame belongs to "the others" right now, this will be a whole 'nother level. More likely, this would lead to an outcome like most other military interventions historically.

3. Some flavor of a fractured republic, civil war, etc. The exact opposite of a clean exit. It would also most likely lead to...

4. Military intervention from outside, a.k.a. war. This is my greatest fear -- that we have now become the "bad guys," and the rest of the world realizes they have to band together to stop the tyranny and restore order. This option almost certainly ends in M.A.D.

I can't believe I'm typing all of this with any semblance of sincerity. I always subscribed to the thinking that "things always work out in the end," and it has done good for me so far. At this point, I could use some reassurance. Please tell me that I'm completely wrong and am simply being dramatic.

I watch CBC pretty regularly and all I have seen for the past month is coverage about Trump's comments about annexing us and I can't tell if I am missing something obvious or am just naive but I can't take the threat seriously and I am starting to hate that CBC is talking about it so much and that we have Canadian politicians actively addressing it rather than just dismissing it (the fact that Doug Ford went on that idiot Jesse Waters show to push back on it made me facepalm).

Cause from my point of view, let's say Trump in his immense stupidity is serious about the threat. He wants to bring back American expansionism and apparently misunderstood his history classes from back in the day and thinks "manifest destiny" is a good thing.

and given that he has installed loyalists as his heads of departments, let's even say they all either agree or are too chicken-shit to oppose it and get cancelled by Trump.

Canada would never agree to being annexed so that means Trump would have to launch a war against us to annex us. You are telling me that if push comes to shove, that the men and women in the armed forces would actually be willing to invade a sovereign nation that they might even have ties to (given Canada and American culture+society are so connected)? and you are telling me that the generals and people in power in the American military industrial complex would be willing to follow an order to invade Canada?

I mean sure, America has been known to invade countries in the Middle East for their natural resources and pretend its for national security but imo there's a big difference in being able to sell the idea to the American people and the viewers of Faux News that invading a brown country far off in the distance and saying its cause of Islamic extremism vs invading a country whose stereotype is literally that we are too apologetic and nice.

Am I missing something obvious?

And just to clarify, I am not saying that Trump isn't serious about it. he probably is and it probably has to do with our natural resources as Trudeau was caught on a hot mic saying as much in a meeting and our politicians need to address it. but for our politicians to act like there is a legit chance of an invasion seems odd to me. and the CBC talking about it so much and giving so much airtime to it is really getting on my nerves.

What I will say is the one thing that bugs me about all this honestly is just Musk and Trump calling Trudeau a "governor". not that I like Trudeau. The day he decided to break his campaign promise of election reform, he was dead to me, but I just don't like it when people dish it out when they can't take it and Musk and Trump are the most thin-skinned c**nts on the planet. If Trudeau responded to either of them on Twitter with something as condescending, they would both cry like little babies and somehow find a way to blame the woke mind virus and trans people for Trudeau being "nasty" to them.

Yes I know the "deep state" is just a phrase that means different things to different people. But Trump is completely out of control and undermining the very fabric of American society and world politics. Siding with Russia, undermining long time relationships with close allies, threatening invading Canada and other countries, calling himself a King. His next step seems to be dismantling the military industrial complex (drastically cutting military spending, reducing American power worldwide).

Isn't there supposed to be some people who are sort of secretly in charge and prevent a single traitorous idiot from destroying the world order, whatever that is? "The Invisible Government"?. Don't most of us sort of believe that JFK was removed by internal actors for much less?

What is really going on here? Is a large amount of the US government completely captured by Russia? Or is it exactly what it seems to be - nobody expected a handful of rich corrupt idiots to just take over and the handful of people who could stop it are just letting it happen. I mean, I can see how it was a serious of unfortunate events, mostly caused by the corruption in the Republican party which allowed a seditionist to get away with trying to overthrow the government and Biden's DOJ just sleeping for about 3 years. But along the way you'd think there would be better checks against all of this.

In an age of increasing misinformation and division, I've found that it's increasingly easy to find yourself in an echo chamber of opinions (of people and/or bots). And when I go searching outside that echo chamber, I usually don't find well reasoned discussion, but a different echo chamber with the opposite opinion.

This is especially true on sites like Reddit and Twitter, but also applies to pretty much every website (including Tildes) to some extent. Even newspapers aren't helpful as they are all largely owned by a handful of billionaires with an agenda. And real life isn't much better. My friends and family all share similar values and ideals, which is great for getting along, but it doesn't help me figure out how many people actually support something in particular.

The closest thing I've found to objective polling are elections. Unfortunately, they largely group everything into one of two buckets and don't have room for nuance on individual topics. Also, a lot of people don't even vote, which doesn't necessarily muddy the data, but it does leave out the opinions of a lot of people.

Is it even possible to determine this without an individual referendum on each topic? Am I worrying too much about something unknowable?

This question was inspired by a question from a US immigrant citizen who came from a country that had been under Soviet political hegemony. They said that in their experience authoritarianism and corruption were kept camoflauged for fear of political backlash, but our new US government is shameless.

I'll put my tentative answer in the comments. I'm very interested to hear your thoughts if you care to share.

I would like to hear your opinions. 1MM eur is not a lot; how do you spend it most efficiently? Do you use it as a lever to raise more money? Do you tackle grassroots efforts?

This is a “how do we fight back” question.

My requirement is that the suggestions are practical and relevant for today’s world, not an idealised version of it. But nothing is off limits, be creative.

If you have suggestions for different amounts I’ll also hear them.

Succinctly as possible, what is the purpose of government? And with genuine effort to avoid condescension or disparagement, what do you think someone politically opposite to you would say if they were to thoughtfully articulate an answer to the same question?

I'm increasingly bothered in the last few years in the crisis of ethics in the United States government. It isn't very important to the leaders, and it isn't very important to the voters. I don't think it is a "conservative vs liberal" issue. It isn't about religion. It is about basic morality and doing what is best for a functioning society.

I think about ethics more about once a year when my job has everyone take a small course on ethics. There is a lot of basic and obvious stuff in the course, but a big part of it is that even the appearance of conflicts of interest should be avoided. And I'm sure if this is important for the general workforce, it should be even more important for public figures.

I'm well aware that the government has done unethical things in the past, and some of them were horrific. But I don't remember a time when unethical behavior has been flaunted so openly. The president is fundamentally unethical. He constantly lies and takes open bribes and enriches himself at the expense of the proper functioning of the government. The supreme court is fundamentally unethical and barely tries to conceal taking bribes. The president's political party openly ignores their duty to hold the president accountable for crimes, and participates in them, including sedition. The top leaders of businesses and the press have been obviously captured by money and corruption.

For years we were concerned about "dark money" and who was funding the propaganda and disinformation. Well now we have the richest person in the world openly buying an election and taking over fundamental functions of the government.

This crisis of political ethics is a direct result of a crisis of ethics in all parts of society. I think it flows back and forth like a disease. The voters do not hold the leaders accountable because the voters themselves are not ethical. I don't think supporters of Trump are completely the victims of propaganda. I think they made an unethical choice for selfish reasons. Part of ethics is taking responsibility for making sure you have the correct information when you make a choice. I'm not sure that most are capable of learning that the price of eggs is worth the collapse of being able to trust each other and make progress as a society.

By the way, I think a lot of us are hoping that this open feeding frenzy of greed and dishonesty is part of a pendulum that swings back and forth. But I'm reminded that in 1977 Jimmy Carter was elected to help restore ethics to the presidency. He only served one term as president and was replaced by a highly unethical person who was supported by highly unethical people who created a right-wing propaganda network of talk radio and Fox News.

Maybe that's the point of a blitzkreig, but I'm thinking back to 2016 where we saw huge numbers of people taking to the street - the Women's March, anti-Trump marches - to show displeasure for Trump even being elected. In 2020 we saw some of the largest protests ever for BLM, potentially because folks had time to tune in and turn up because of the pandemic. But right now we're seeing an absolute assault on our institutions and it's up against absolute silence. I'm not trying to throw stones, I'm not out demonstrating either. Mostly because there isn't one to join. Does anyone have a theory or understand why we aren't seeing any public mobilization?

With the way a certain billionaire has taken control of the US Treasury and begun to halt payments, I'm concerned that my T bills will not get paid out when they mature in April.

I'm not really sure there's anything to be done about it, but it's stressing me out. See if I ever invest in them again.

I recently heard something that I didn’t like. It was about the growth of fascism in the US, and it said something that I was uncomfortable hearing; ignoring it is the same as acceptance.

I am not subscribed to ~society. I was automatically added when it was created but I quickly noped out. I had already lowered my news consumption to a minimum before Trump won the election, but after I have actively avoided even those few programs that I thought were good. I didn’t have the will to hear about the terrible things on the horizon.

So now I am thinking about what I should do, and right now the thing that seems like the most concrete action is to buy a gun.

Honestly, though, I hate guns. I’ve done a shooting range a few times when I was a kid and I guess they were kind of fun but the idea of using it against people sickens me. On the other hand, we are living in an age where police forces are paramilitarized, the president can and will use CBP as a military force within the US border, and our civil rights are being pried apart.

But what would I actually do with a gun? What difference will it actually make? Bring part of deadly violence is the last thing that I want.

For the last 10-years or so, I've been much more interested in US history, it started because I wanted to be a more informed citizen, but continued because of how much recorded history differed from how I was taught. Then I started seeing how the lofty offerings of America, as an idea, had really never existed.

Like, when the rest of the world was watching the Soviet Union from the outside as it proudly proclaimed how amazing they were and everyone was kind of glancing at each other and whispering "They know we can see how it's going, right?" I wonder if the same is happening now, as countries watch US politics unfold. How close are we from a failure here or there to cascading failure?

I'm at a point of accumulated facts, doing my best to remove my personal bias, that I can't help but think we were arrogant to think we could keep a continent this large in one piece. The weight of national systems that can support a population this spread out is immense. The upkeep of infrastructure at this scale is a logistics nightmare. Passing any national laws has become the chore that just never gets done, we'll always get to it tomorrow. The people, Americans, can be amazing, but that's a truth of humanity, not nationality.

I'm sad to think I could be witnessing the end of something really impressive and inspiring, even if a lot of it was some makeup and nice lighting. Thoughts?

Shortly after the election I saw a cartoon on Facebook titled "Let's Get A Baseline". It listed various prices for common goods and other assorted statistics. I looked up a few, and those were incorrect.

A sort of "presidential report card" did seem like a neat idea to me. Something to be reviewed every January 20th. Perhaps in a chart that would make facts speak for themselves in social media.

Are there any magazines or news sources that already do this? Something like The Economist?

These are metrics I would like to see in such a chart, perhaps a bar graph.

Please suggest others that you think ordinary voters would care about

1. National debt
2. Inflation
3. Unemployment
4. The GDP
5. The literacy rate
6. National match scores ( compared globally )
7. The poverty rate
8. Administration members indicted
9. Average price of gas
10. Average yearly salary
11. Average retirement savings

First of all: this system brought undeniable historical advances in the West (formal equality, freedom of speech, universal suffrage). There's no way to deny this when compared to monarchies and the civil-military authoritarian regimes in Latin America. However, even so, current democracy inherently carries the objective of preserving the economic order. The political structure is designed so that economic elites (whether bourgeois or corporate) maintain control through campaign financing, legislative influence, and media dominance.

With this in mind, I decided to bring up for debate why democracy is considered the ultimate and best system we currently have, leaving no room for criticism of the system itself (representative democracy). This system derives from a stratified one (Greek) that has been refined over centuries to take power away from monarchs and transfer it to the bourgeoisie. Today, we live in a bourgeois-liberal democratic state that restricts any minority group’s access to the center of power. Everyone notices this, but since proposing or thinking of something distinct from representative democracy is dangerous, most people aim to patch a system that was designed to be this way: exclusionary and elitist. In the end, this term (democracy) has been elevated to an absolute moral ideal, leaving no room to question its central premise (the maintenance of centralized power in financial capitalism, which now finances the most radical right-wing movements).

By the way, it’s worth considering how the right gained power in the world (money). And how it maintains its hegemony over cultural thought worldwide (money). Who funds this? Who benefits from this? Why couldn’t a decentralized yet ~autocratic~ proposal (I understand the difference between autocracy and the lack of checks and balances, but I fail to see why the current system is inherently better) be superior to a centralized government defending the interests of a dominant class? (Hint: the right maintains its hegemony because it controls financial resources and the means of cultural production; it’s not just about governments but a machine operating at multiple levels where the dominant ideology reflects the ideology of the ruling class.)

Continuing, there are no decentralized and autocratic proposals (in the sense of concentrating power efficiently for certain decisions while decentralizing access to power overall) because these challenge the traditional logic of checks and balances, which ironically has been more effective at blocking structural changes than preventing abuses of power. For instance, the concept of distributive autocracy (a model in which power is temporarily centralized to carry out rapid structural reforms, followed by mechanisms of redistribution and decentralization of power) is rarely discussed because the tripartite and bicameral system locks this debate in place to maintain control through financial power (amendments) of the country.

We remain hostages to a system that has become humanity’s manifest destiny, where no questioning can be raised without the individual being labeled as morally inferior. It’s not that representative democracy is inherently superior, but that it was historically designed to be acceptable within the context of bourgeois power. The question, therefore, is not simply "autocracy vs. democracy," but how we can create inclusive, participatory, and redistributive systems where power structures are transparent, accessible, and fair for everyone.

basically, there seem to be 2 competing narratives of "people of color/poor people of all color tend to have it worse so let's create social programs specifically targeting them to left them up"

and I am see pros and cons to both sides and am wondering what people well-researched and versed on either have to say to each other.

1. I really prefer to see a long-form discussion but I am not opposed to a debate as long as its a debate with no audience. I've really grown to hate watching debate participants try to argue for claps or score cheap points with the audience.
2. Very minimal shouting or yelling over each other and each side lets the other finish.
3. I prefer if its not "dark web" folks like Sam Harris or Coleman Hughes who are involved in discussion but am not totally opposed.

An example of a debate I kinda liked (would have liked it more if Fridman hadn't invited a streamer and treated it like he had the same level of expertise as historians or analyst): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X_KdkoGxSs

Rather than rehash all the conversations about the identity or motive of the person who killed the United Healthcare CEO, I'd love to have a discussion about the policy window it seems to have opened. This is the first time we've seen widespread, bi-partisan support for an issue - seemingly medicare for all - but I can't find anyone actually talking about policy. None of the big legacy media organizations like BBC or CNN, or your typical cast of medicare for all characters like Bernie Sanders. I'm not sure if silence on the topic to insulate folks from being labelled "cold or heartless", but it seems like systematic issues with the insurance industry is at the core of what has everyone so riled up. Am I missing some large scale discussion happening that is actually focusing on regulatory change or is it just not happening?

Maybe to the heart of the question for those better informed than myself: What can we do from a grassroots perspective to push for regulatory reform while this is still fresh in the public eye? There seems to be momentum, can it be funneled into something meaningful?

I realize the threads I've seen on the topic have been locked, so if you participate in the discussion please keep this policy related. We all have strong feeling about what happened, but as much as we can let's stay on topic.

I was watching this clip of The Daily Show where Desi Lydic highlights the change in how Dr. Oz has been portrayed over the years, and it got me thinking about the perception of public figures over time.

I remember watching CBS Sunday Morning segment in 1998 where Elon Musk was painted in a fairly good light as a sort of rebel taking on Microsoft. This was around the time that Microsoft was seen in a pretty bad light for the Internet Explorer anti-trust case.

Musk as he appears in the media I consume today is almost unrecognizable from the 1998 segment.

I also recall a time when Rudy Giuliani was seen in a good light (disclosure: I'm mostly going off of my memory of how he was perceived by the nation as Mayor of New York. I never lived in or near New York, so I can't really speak to how he was perceived locally).

I'm sure I could come up with other examples if I thought about it some more.

All of this has me pondering the nature of my own perception. I don't know any of these people personally, so I rely on what I see online and in the news to guide my image of who these people are. But when I see this stark contrast it makes me wonder what is real.

Did these figures change over time, perhaps corrupted by power and/or fame?

Have they always been this way, and I'm just seeing the media paint them differently over time?

Are they just in a Harvey Dent / Batman "live long enough to become the villain" situation?

Maybe all of the above?

I also think about this in context of aging. My views on the world have definitely changed over time. I think I've mostly grown in a positive way as a person. But I've also seen my own parents change their views and become disturbingly conservative. It worries me that I may also have a regression as I age. They are still mostly the same loving parents I grew up with. The only real obvious cause of their shift in views is the media they consume.

So I'm curious to hear other points of view on this phenomenon.

I think I won't post the link here to one of the posts about this because I think it's an unproven conspiracy theory and it isn't true.
But there is a particular story going around online that one or more security experts is claiming that the latest presidential election was stolen. The "proof" is of this type:

• I'm a security expert
• There is some stuff in the election results that is statistically impossible, especially in swing states
• There is a specific type of ballot where the voter has only voted for one candidate or issue
• Here are the numbers compared to the normal numbers
• Voting machines were compromised, and here's how

For each of those bullet points (and a few others I didn't mention), I have to go and research that data in order to determine if it is accurate.

• I could google the expert and check their reputation
• I could research how common it is to have certain types of ballot completions
• I may be able to get detailed information about specific counties and their historic voting patterns
• I could do a lot of research on voting machine integrity

The research on each of those bullets could be compromised by other misinformation, astroturfing, bad AI summaries, etc.

Or I could just send the link to everyone I know and hope that someone else does this. Or just send it because I don't like the election result and I wish this story was true.

It's easy to see why CNN reported that 70% of Republicans thought the 2020 election was stolen, especially since conspiracy theories were repeated to them on all their main news sources and confirmed their biases.

Most of my family members (notably everyone in the older generation) are variously xenophobic (very), transphobic (plenty) and racist (enough). They're openly right wing populist party voters. In family gatherings, or even in online messaging, I normally ignore them or try to divert the conversation away from their stupid political takes - even the ones who know I am pansexual are likely to say some nasty shit, showing (I believe) that they don't have a drop of respect for me or my gay brother. There is nothing I can ever convince them of, political or not, because (I believe) they will always treat my arguments with disdain, regardless of any reason or evidence. I don't think much better of their politics myself, since I find most of their constant complaining about entire classes of people they've never even interacted with incredibly tiresome, not to mention wholly inconsistent with their supposed christian values (I know, this situation sounds very american, even though I am not.)

I personally believe there is some value in some, but not all, arguments that are for restricting or reorganizing immigration at this time, mainly due to problems stemming from years of lazy policymaking, and in some right wing fiscal policy (we have some extremely expensive and inefficient government programmes right now - NOT health or education - and misguided protectionism of certain huge and mismanaged private companies), so we can usually meet on that common ground.

Today at a gathering an aunt decided out of the blue to loudly proclaim how happy she was that Donald Trump was elected in the US. Other relatives quickly agreed, after which they started a conversation about how a Trump presidency will be good for the economy. At this point I will just politely say I didn't understand what they were talking about (my thoughts weren't as kind at the time); we are not americans, and I have the notion that Trump is an isolationist who admires dictators and despises the EU and doesn't value us as allies; I am led to believe he wants to do things with regard to defense, tariffs, etc. that are unambiguously bad for us and will directly translate into a harder life and more danger for Europeans over the next few years.

A younger relative then said he was happy that we finally had "an insane dictator" on "our side". According to him, none of the crazy authoritarians in the world respected a man like Biden, but they were wary of Trump, since Trump is unpredictable. I remember hearing this argument eight years ago, but I'm not so sure of this. Historically, as I said, Trump seems to me to fawn over strongmen and demagogues leading other nations, while he hasn't exactly conveyed that he is "on our side". As far as I know, he's been suspiciously an enabler of Vladimir Putin, for instance.

So at this point I explained to my family that we weren't there to discuss politics and the politics conversation was to end immediately or I was going to start insulting people.

I'd like you all to tell me if I'm in the wrong here. Am I out of touch? Can you explain my family's perspective to me in a way that makes them sound less insane? This isn't some kind of bait. Just because I don't like Donald Trump (and neither do the majority of people in this community, AFAIK), I pride myself in being a fairly rational person. I can be convinced of things, as long as there's rationally constructed argument underpinning them. Maybe there's some value to their position?

Like I did last time Trump was in office, I've been reading up on authoritarianism and fascism.

Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
They Thought They were Free by Milton Mayer

And if you want a hot take from someone who argues that Trump himself is not a fascist but rather something worse, here is a great video from Morbid Zoo. Note: the main argument in this video begins at about 11:30. The lead up is responding to criticisms of her first video on the topic and laying some groundwork for her argument. You'll be fine to start at 11:30.

I wonder still if there is enough fight left in this country to resist him. I wonder if Trumpism will fizzle out upon his death or when he leaves office in four years. I wonder if America's institutions are strong enough, its people just smart enough, to not go that route. I suppose I'm feeling anxiety because I would like to, here and now before I become accustomed to another "new normal," set my boundaries on when there is no going back. I don't want to look back and say that I missed the obvious moment and I should have known. I want to be ready and keep my wife and son safe.

My question is this:

Where is your uncrossable line? What would Trump and crew have to do before you decided to leave by any means with no concern for your debts, possessions, etc.? Or, if the frog is boiled more gradually, when would you start seriously making preparations?