I didn't know where to categorize this. It's not current, kinda politics, kinda tech, kinda a lot of things, but mostly I guess, I was just freaked out and wanted to share/discuss.

I read about this guy 40-50 years ago in The Readers Digest, have never heard anything about him since then, until the other day, a forum chat reminded me and I went rabbit-holing...

John Aristotle Phillips did an independent research project for his Physics degree at Princeton, on how to build a simple nuclear explosive device, including explicit instructions on how and why and etc. His larger goal was to help stop nuclear material proliferation by showing that there were no "secrets" left, no tech hurdles for anyone with a brain, except that of actually acquiring weapons-grade material.

His advisor was no less than Freeman Dyson, who gave him an 'A' and then immediately pulled the paper out of circulation. A couple months later, the Pakistani govt called Phillips, asking to buy a copy of his paper.

So, that's the background. It was his claim to fame back in the '70s.

From there, he went into politics, and etc etc, long story short, he's a top data broker. For decades now, he has been the CEO of one of the biggest US data trawling corporations, holding detailed personal info on at least 175M Americans (as of 2007 - doubtless, it's more today), which they use to help get politicians elected.

"Aristotle has served every occupant of the White House since Ronald Reagan, and consults for several top political action committees."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips#Aristotle,_Inc.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who's devoted his life to gathering info about other people, there doesn't seem to be all that much out there about him or his company.

So, my gut tells me he has become "a bad guy", just my automatic reaction to anyone who deals in this field ... But, IDK, bigger picture is just, I don't know how to process this info. Maybe there's nothing to process, it is what it is.

IDK. Just looking for other people's perspectives, I guess.

I was reminded this morning of the video in which a physical education teacher is performing a workout dance routine in Myanmar, not realizing that she captured the start of the 2021 coup d'état in the background.

She's wearing a covid mask, dancing to an incredibly upbeat and catchy song while the military vehicles roll in to crush their democracy. I can't recall where I saw this, but I will never forget the comment someone left online about the video which read, "This is decadently post-modern."

To make it even more interesting, the song itself is a parody of authority. It's essentially a song mocking weak men with big egos, and the song title translates roughly to, "Have Mercy, Mr. Tough Guy/Big Shot"

Link to video

What other insane things do we have in 2025 as a result of ubiquitous high-definition cameras?

I don't know how appropriate this topic will be or how uncomfortable some users will be addressing it. But I noticed a switch online in the usage of previously determined slurs.

When I was a child in the '00s, it was pretty common for people to say the "r-word" as well as refer to things as "gay" whenever they meant stupid or bad. I remember ad campaigns to stop the latter from occurring (one commercial featuring Hillary Duff and another featuring Wanda Sykes). But both of those things went away as we got deeper into the 2010s.

The Obama and, especially, the Trump years were marked by increased progressive language. I do think the turn was in 2016 when using these terms became widely unacceptable. Even two years earlier the hit song Fancy by Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX contained the lyric: "That my flow r***** each beat dear, departed."

I think a lot of the hyper-political correctness of 2016 and onwards was a response to the Trump presidency. I think people on the progressive left felt the need to be hyper-vigilant about that. Once the Biden administration happened these rigid beliefs began to relax.

I'll use a few examples of this shift involving a network TV show, to take this conversation into a more concrete real world. Saturday Night Live.

Shane Gillis, a very non politically correct comedian was hired as part of the cast of SNL in 2019. Lorne Michaels hired him to appeal to a more conservative crowd or to at least not be so catering to its liberal demographic. Gillis, who is largely not a conservative, was caught in a scandal following his casting news. Clips from his podcast surfaced of him making fun of Asians and mocking their accents. Gillis was shortly fired.

Fast forward to this year: Shane Gillis hosts SNL. Not only that, in his opening monologue he says the r-word.

Another SNL adjacent example. Matt Healy, lead singer of the 1975, appeared on The Adam Friedland Show podcast. The podcast, originally called Cumtown, is known for its non-PC humor. Healy participated in jokes making fun of Ice Spice and laughed at the host's more racy humor. Scandal surrounded Healy, who was dating Swift at the time, and he was essentially "canceled." Except, he was immediately the musical guest on SNL not long after the scandal (they were the musical spot for Jenna Ortega's episode). If this was 2019, The 1975 likely would not have been invited to be the musical guests, and/or the host of the episode (in this case Ortega) would have been pressured by her PR team to make some sort of post disavowing their inclusion. This didn't happen. In fact this year Jenna Ortega criticized political correctness herself

The last SNL example I wanted to give was in Ariana Grande's recent episode a joke was included where Grande calls someone a pathetic little gay guy, followed by her saying "I meant gay as in stupid and bad" which was very well received on all corners of the internet.

So what happened here? My perception might be warped since in late 2022 I began using the subreddits r/redscarepod and r/theadamfriedlandshow where this type of humor and the usage of these terms was already normal. So it was a little odd to me when these began gaining steam in the outside world.

If it really was just a response to Biden's presidency I feel like we would now be returning to the hyper-political correctness of the 2010s during Trump's administration. But that doesn't seem to be happening.

Maybe political correctness fell out of style, and that will be the case for another five to ten years when it becomes fashionable again.

I've spent the past months with an unhealthy obsession with "the news", due to both an election in my own country and the one in the US. Maybe it was an attempt at being in control of a situation I have absolutely zero control over, despite it shaping aspects of the world I really care about. But that control is an illusion.

I've rediscovered an older article by Rolf Dobelli called "Avoid News – Towards a Healthy News Diet". It argues against the value of high-frequency (daily) news consumption in 15 points. It does not vilify journalism as a whole, however, arguing for replacing a daily feed of online news with individual, high-quality, in-depth articles consumed weekly or so.

I know that I probably can't resist having some idea of what is going on in the world (and I have some niche interests that I genuinely find productive to keep up with). So I'll try something simple: No "news" (quotes because I include random social media feeds in this) during weekdays. No news websites, no tildes, no reddit. There's ways to filter for the top posts of the "last 7 days". I never use this feature since I look almost daily, anyways. Well, I'll try and make that my default way of consuming social media. On weekends I can decided to use some of my precious free time to read up on the "big" events of the week. I hope this will make me realize that most weeks go by without producing any information that I can use to improve my own life (both privately and at work) or that of people I care about.

There is stuff I'm looking forward to: This sounds depressing but I have this huge list of non-critical things I wanted to accomplish that I kinda stopped even considering because every damn minute of free time I had was spent doom-scrolling. I hope the "touch grass" people are right and spending more time focused on my own environment will also help me get a better sense of what is important.

I also feel slightly guilty about the thought that this will make me less compassionate towards people who live outside my own bubble and whose stories I would not hear just talking to friends and family. This is an attempt to put my head in the sand and pretend that large parts of the world do not exist. But the truth is: There is only so much I can do, effectively. I can maybe join a group dedicated to fixing a specific wrong or raise awareness. Maybe two. But I could never address that whole laundry list of problems from my news feed that left me paralyzed with fear. I will have a more positive impact on the world if I focus on less.

Let's see where this goes.

Hello all. I feel like our US election upset (or victory depending on viewpoint) has really run wild on Tildes. I appreciate all the solidarity and encouragement from the non-US folks. I know for better or worse it affects many of you as well.

While knowing these are special circumstances, I was thinking maybe folks feel a little left out or overshadowed by our drama.

Back before I had to go on a podcast diet, I really enjoyed the weekly updates from American Prestige because they would discuss important or interesting political/social developments and explain their implications.

So what's something happening where you are? How do you feel about it? What do you wish more people knew about it? It can be big or small. It does not have to be something political, just something important to you.

Fundraising has always been a part of campaigning but ever since I made a small donation several years ago, Ive been getting constant appeals to donate more (in Canada). I always wonder though, what exactly that money gets spent on? Are they just buying ads on tv and online? Or where does it all get directed?

If I understand folks with that PoV correctly:

if you are a democrat or typically vote democrat, you generally think that republicans are a danger to democracy, bad for the lives of minorities, and the disadvantaged/LGBT+, etc.
If you are a republican or typically vote republican, you generally think that democrats are a danger to democracy, divide the country with identity politics, etc.
(obviously I am making sweeping generalizations of both camps off the top of my head but hopefully the point comes across)

But, I don't get what your endgame is. Like, you make it seem like if the other party wins, the country is screwed. but you can't possibly think that the country will forever vote for your party for President, right? So you think America is destined to go downhill depending on how many years the opposing party is in power?

America flips between red and blue. So the other party is bound to win at least once a decade imo. and yet I hear how democracy is more at stake now than it's ever been if "the other party wins". So I don't get the long-term viability of "lesser of 2 evils" approach.

Since I doubt America will become less angry and divisive anytime soon thanks to yallls 24 hour news networks and the social media companies that make more money the more Americans are mad at each other.

Then again, I am by no means an expert so where am I wrong or have I misunderstood something?

I can't get my head around President Biden polling poorly and Trump polling well.

I don't think I need to provide details for people on this site, but Trump was so horrible as a president and President Biden has done such a good job. Even if Biden was a passive placeholder four years of him would have been better than 4 more years of Trump.

I don't understand where the low polls are coming from. Particularly for groups that would not do particularly well under a Trump regime like African Americans and youth.

I see some people complaining about President Biden's age, but his administration has been doing a good job and Trump is only about 4 years younger ( and in much worse shape ).

I don't get where the hate is coming from.

I remember the "red wave" that never happened and articles explaining why polls aren't as accurate as they used to be. However, that answer feels too easy to me, a cop out.

Maybe people are angry about greedflation. However, Trump's presidency when it wasn't about vindictiveness was all about neglect. I can't believe people think Trump would be better for the economy -- that he would even try beyond the stock market so he polls well.

*Disclaimer:

My apologies if this is the wrong place for this conversation. I thought here or "talk" would be the best choices, though people in "talk" might not want political conversations.

Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria.

Whenever western media outlets speak of these groups they seem to prefix the term Iranian-Backed.

I'm starting to raise my eyebrows a bit at how universally the term is being used. It feels almost mandated. My understanding is these are indeed supported financially and materially by Iran, but they also very much operate independently. So the extent of the relationship is unknown or at least debated.

Does this strike anyone else as odd or suspicious? Is this use fair and justified?

My mind can't help but wander to the laying of a propaganda foundation for direct conflict with Iran.

I have been pretty consistently pro-Palestine and critical of injustices perpetrated by Israel, but the anti-Zionist stance has always seemed to me to be counterproductive.

On the issue of just the legitimacy of the state of Israel, here's my basic stance: All land controlled by all governments was taken at some point through conquest (this is not a whataboutist stance, it's a tautology), but in the post-colonial era we all decided that might isn't right and that a mixture of international law, norms, and democratic principles should dictate the legitimacy of territorial claims. So, the Ottoman empire fell. The British seized control of the land of Palestine and retained a moderately weak mandate over the land (moderately weak in the sense that they were the essentially undisputed administrators of the land and had a military presence, but the territory would likely try to break away if the British tried to exercise significant control over it). With this moderately weak mandate, they pushed for the creation of the state of Israel that, by extension, I would consider a moderately-weakly legitimate state under the pre-WWII paradigm. Israel fights a defensive war against the Arab states and succeeds, converting the state of Israel as defined by the original 1948 partition plan from a weakly legitimate state into a properly legitimate state. At this point, the post-WWII frameworks kick in, and all the developments in the conflict past this point should be a function of that lens (ie. Palestine wrongfully denied sovereignty, illegality of settlements, etc.).

Zionism, in the most basic sense, is the belief in the creation of a Jewish state of Israel. There are more extreme and moderate versions of it, but that's all that it is at its core. Anti-Zionism is opposition to the creation of a Jewish state of Israel (I would not consider opposition to settlements or, strictly speaking, even to the accession of new territory into Israel proper past the 1948 borders after the two wars to be anti-Zionist itself). The anti-Zionist stance before the establishment of Israel was reasonable, but past that point is primarily a claim of one nation over the land of another nation. It's perfectly understandable at the end of the day for the Arabs and, particularly the Palestinians, to be upset about the whole situation and even to feel that a great injustice was done unto them. But that should all be relegated to the world of international affairs between established states. Ultimately, in my eyes anti-Zionism is not anti-semitic, but it's definitely anti-peace.

I don't see a way that Palestine could ever function as two discontinuous parts, and the complete unworkability of the concept makes it infeasible for anything other than a one-state solution to gain momentum in Palestine. In an alternate universe, Egypt might have annexed Gaza years ago, a clearer sense of direction would have emerged in the West Bank, and something of a functioning state would exist for the Palestinians. But of course, Egypt was and is quite opposed to any such solution. So, my basic proposal would be to turn Gaza and the West Bank into two separate, independent states with the latter carrying the namesake of Palestine. If Gaza turns out to be a problematic, belligerent state, then treat it like any other nation in that camp: sanction them, hold Gaza the state itself accountable (as opposed to a vague assortment of belligerents), use diplomacy to achieve piecemeal progress. Surely, any front against Israel would be significantly weaker as the priorities of the two nations inevitably diverge.

This to me seems like the only workable long-term solution, aside from Israel causing a bloodbath in hopes of establishing total militaristic dominance over Gaza and eventually annexing it.

Yes, Trump has a real chance of winning in 2024 and that would be dangerous for the world in many ways.

On the other hand Trump seems like the easiest candidate for the presumptive nominee President Biden to beat.

1. A lot of Americans are rightly scared shitless of Trump and will turn out to vote against him.
2. Trump is likely to try to dodge debates which benefits Biden, who has a stuttering problem and a gaffe problem.
3. Trump is elderly, like Biden so that somewhat neutralizes the age issue for Biden.

If Trump was removed from the election DeSantis might become the front runner or nominee

1. He is young, and the age issue would be on Biden again
2. He might have the debates Trump would have eschewed and do well in them
3. DeSantis would likely pick up Trump's base in that situation

The worst scenario with Trump being removed from the election would if someone other than DeSantis became the nominee

1. Again, the age issue would be a thing for Biden again
2. The unknown nominee could be a better debater than Biden
3. The unknown candidate would have neither Trump's nor DeSantis's baggage, causing more voters to stay home or swing voters picking him/her over Biden

Edit:

To clarify, I mean what would happen if Trump was kept entirely out of 2024 - no 3rd party runs, no vote splitting.

1. What do you think of popular figures like Noam Chomsky, Jason Hickel, Richard Wolff, David Graeber, and Bernie Sanders?

2. Why does grotesque inequality persist? Will the lot of the downtrodden and the oppressed ever improve?

3. What do you think of Anarchism?

Just looking to learn from the community members here. Thanks.

I often engage in thoughtful discussions with my friends regarding our current socio-economic situation, and I find it challenging to discover a more fitting description than the term coined for it.

Wherever I direct my attention, I observe life increasingly being shaped by the well-oiled machinery of capitalism, a system devoid of inherent morals and existing solely to maximize profits for its shareholders.

To me, the notion of "late stage" capitalism implies a bleak future fueled by the insatiable demand for constant and unsustainable growth. This, in turn, hampers our ability to effectively plan for the future, as investors prioritize immediate gains. Consequently, our planet suffers the repercussions through climate change and the exacerbation of wealth inequality.

Moreover, the ruling of FEC vs Citizens United, wherein corporations were granted the ability to lobby as individuals, seems to have unleashed a relentless flywheel that perpetuates and nourishes the insatiable beast of capitalism and greed.

I am genuinely intrigued by the perspectives of others on this topic. If we collectively recognize that we are heading in an unfavorable direction, what steps can we take to regain a more positive trajectory? How can we incentivize prioritizing moral values and environmental impact over monetary gains?

this is kind of an offshoot of this thread which is still going, because i'm noticing an interesting pattern in that thread of reform to the system going beyond just the voting age, and i think it's worth examining that in much broader, larger details than just being centered around how people respond to the idea of voting age because democracy is very multi-dimensional. here are a few questions to jump off of; feel free to utilize them or not utilize them as you wish.

(let's also assume that there are no constraints whatsoever, for maximum possibility here. essentially, you get to invent a system that is utilized by people on the spot regardless of how things are currently for them.):

• Is this democratic system liberal, like most are (or perhaps illiberal in the service of some greater aim like climate change)?
• What variety of democracy is utilized by the system? (there are a lot of these ranging from classic representative democracy to direct democracy to soviet-style council democracy to sortition to more esoteric things like cellular, grassroots, and liquid democracy. see wikipedia for more)
• What voting method (FPTP, IRV, preferential voting, etc. again see wikipedia), is used by the system, if any? Or are things done mostly or largely without voting where possible, as is true in participatory, deliberative and consensus democracies and similar systems?
• Are formal political parties allowed in this system?
• Is voting in this system compulsory?
• Are certain people in this system (criminals, older people, younger people, certain groups or professions of people perhaps even) disenfranchised?
• Does the government have a hand in educating people on voting in this system, or is it the civic duty of people instead, or is there some in between, or even neither? What does that education look like?

and, if you'd like to get particularly esoteric or wonky, you might also choose to answer or consider some of these:

• Are voters allowed to do things like recall their representatives, or is the will of the people binding for a term?
• Does democracy in this system extend to even things like cabinet positions, which in most systems are determined by the head of state?
• Does democracy in this system include things like amendments to constitutions?

It's difficult to talk about the UK at the moment because, and it's hard to give this enough emphasis, IT'S AN ENORMOUS CLUSTER-FUCK AND EVERYTHING IS AWFUL.

To give you some idea, Truss is currently less popular than Putin and is the least popular PM the UK has ever had (in the years that we measured).

There's a bill going through tonight about fracking. But it's been turned into a confidence motion on Liz Truss, and it has full hard /// three line whip, slips withdrawn. (basically, members of the Conservative Party have been instructed to vote in accordance with their party's wishes, and not doing so is serious, and can lead to the MP effectively being expelled from their party.) And the three line whip is against their 2019 manifesto pledge.

Normally, we'd expect to see MPs rebelling against this. Certainly, at the moment, a bunch of them are in the mood to do so.

There's an additional complication here though - a bunch of MPs have sent in letters of no confidence, and that could trigger Yet Another Leadership Race (they've already met the threshold, but they've raised the bar to be half the party needs to send the letters because lol who cares about rules). But, if an MP is expelled their letter no longer counts. So a bunch of MPs are openly saying they're only voting for this fracking bill because they think Truss is hopeless and needs to go.

https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1582672374369226753

https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1582762437954375680

Also, Suella Braverman (who managed to be a crueller home secretary than any who've been before her which is remarkable considering the list of utterly hateful cunts who've had the job) was sacked / resigned today.

So, if there's not much talk here from people in the UK it's because nothing makes any sense and everything's changing every day.

It's a very broad question, but seeing the latest extremely worrying news from where I am made me wonder: how's everyone else getting on? Now that we're moving past the lockdowns and furloughs, do things look hopeful where you are?

Things in the UK are pretty bad right now - huge inflation, energy prices hitting points that will seriously harm people's financial stability just to stay warm in winter, unending political scandal, increasing pollution, and little real sign of a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm fortunate enough to be able to handle it at least for now, but I'm genuinely worried for those around me and for the country as a whole.

The pandemic hit us all hard, but it's difficult to gauge how hard. Obviously Brexit is an extra anchor around the UK's neck, but then the US has the legacy of Trump and mainland Europe has a war on the doorstep, so we're far from the only ones with problems. Are we in a uniquely bad position, or is this how everyone's feeling right now?

This might just be because of the change I’ve made in my online behavior, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while.

I’ve talked many many times about my long stint on Twitter. Specifically the brief stint where I was highly active on leftist twitter from early to mid 2020 (where I managed to get around two thousand followers which seems crazy to me now considering I’m just a random guy). Back then tensions were high. People were getting laid off, high profile civil rights protests were happening, and there was nothing much to do but to be online. Personally my internship I had lined up during the summer (since I was just about to graduate college) ended up getting cancelled which led me to a period of depression. It’s also the reason I started spending so much time on Twitter and what led me to drink heavily and gain a bunch of weight. I imagine a lot of people who became extremely online during this period were in similar boats.

Anyways, I made a couple of online friends during this time period. It initially started as “Bernie” or “Rose” twitter. We were all pretty normal social democrats supporting Sanders for the presidency (which before Super Tuesday seemed like a big possibility). And then when it became clear that Biden would be the democratic nominee, a lot of people ended up going to the dark side. They started using hammer and sickle emojis on their display name. Started talking about how they were going to read Marx and Lenin (but they never did). They started making memes about how awesome Castro and Mao were. Bios went from “BernieOrBust” to “Marixst-Leninist-Maoist.”

A lot of talk started happening of “grow your own garden the end of the world is near” and also “arm yourselves comrades the class war is among us.” Somehow everyone became very fond of the second amendment. There were twitter accounts LARPing about joining the Socialist Rifle Association, e-girls were taking provocative pictures of themselves posing with automatic rifles in front of a Soviet flag. It became a whole thing. Some of this online behavior was covered in articles like The Cut's Before We Make Out, Wanna Dismantle Capitalism?

I ended up disconnecting from all this around September/October of 2020. I actually ended up voting for Biden in November which I wasn’t planning on when I was addicted to Twitter. I go a little bit into this detox here.

Fast forward to this year. A wave of mass shootings happen. Something that used to be a normal thing pre-pandemic but which stopped/slowed down thanks to lockdowns and schools remaining closed. With all of this in the news again, I start thinking back to the friends I used to have. And their gun loving, revolutionary wanting, “libs get the bullet too” type of tweets that they were writing back in 2020. I don’t remember most of them let alone their names. But I do remember a few.

I look them up. And there are dozens of tweets about the need for gun control. They’re talking about how nobody actually needs guns, and all of the typical liberal arguments in favor of gun control. A stark contrast to what they were saying before. They still have “socialist” in their display names and bios, though from the retweets I saw of them they were no longer following the “Mao is cool” type of people. For lack of a better term, they calmed down. They don’t long for a revolution to happen. They don’t want blood on the streets.

I think what had happened is that they all forgot what mass shootings were. How destructive they were. And now that society is mostly back to normal, including mass shootings, they remembered what that was like.

Now this is too niche of a corner on twitter to talk about in terms of larger online behavior. But back in 2020, I did predict that when Biden became president a lot of these online socialists would retreat into the liberals that they used to be. And it seems like that has happened, at least to some extent.

I mean, I’m glad for them. They seem more balanced, and it’s good that they eventually found themselves like I did (even if I did it a little quicker than they did). But it is still an interesting progression that a lot of my former online friends took.

Hi tildos. I am curious on your thoughts on the stability of the US in the short-medium term. What I'm worried about is the combo of a majority of Republicans having beliefs divorced from reality due to a sophisticated propaganda network, increasing "othering"/hatred of non-repubs, fascism becoming more popular among young people and the brazen mask-off takeover of the govt.

From my understanding these sorts of things (civil war, country breaking up) tend to happen very slowly, then all at once. I am very worried we are approaching the "all at once" stage. Is this reasonable? Is a civil war likely? Balkanization of the US? Something else?

What could be done to prepare? I have European-immigrant parents, so would getting citizenship in their country be prudent? Learning other languages? (I know english, mediocre grasp of birth-language, poor/middling spanish). Buying a rifle?

I am starting to regret choosing to attend a university in Texas haha with these prospects.

It's because they believe(d) he can(could) tear the whole thing down, so they can rebuild a theocratic empire on its ashes.

I was listening to Ian Masters' Background Briefing from sometime in the past few days, and he had some lady on who said it. She was speaking about the idiotic ruling from FLA on the mask mandate, then pointed out that this judge was one on the approved list from the Council for National Policy. Apparently Trump agreed only to appoint judges from this list, among other concessions, in order to gain evangelical support. And then she said, they want to tear down all American institutions, so they can install a theocracy instead. It finally all made sense.

This is terrifying to me. I was brutalized by evangelical fundamentalist religion growing up, and am still severely impeded by the trauma in my adult life. I would much rather live in a world where every lunatic open carries a fully automatic submachine gun than live in a theocracy.

I was recently informed about the Council for National Policy. They're a force for evil. A highly effective force, that his been working mostly in secret since at least the 80's to turn America into a Spanish inquisitors pipe dream.

This still doesn't quite explain why middle class Baptist Jane would vote for Trump, I guess maybe racial fear? Paternalistic conditioning?

I try to be solutions focussed generally speaking, but I don't see one right now, sadly. I aim to start looking and thinking..

What I meant is a world without any barriers whatsoever for the circulation of people. Each country would have border checks for things like explosives, heavy drugs, and weapons, but apart from that everyone would be allowed in, always. I'm not sure about economy measures, trade barriers, and circulation of goods, though.

But please, feel free to interpret "world without borders" however you wish! ;)

Firstly, it seems pretty clear polling Hispanic/Latino people as one unified populace isn't working well, given how Cuban Americans have a large presence in the Republican party instead of the Democratic one and that ignoring the race of the people polled is likely very unhelpful and means statements made about Hispanic people probably don't apply to all or maybe most of them.

Secondly, while polling is largely associated with politics, I think it isn't the only place that it could be useful. For example, a large question in many relationship-related subreddits and is if something you do or would like to do is normal, and I think polling on what people want/would want from people they would partner with would be good. (Although this might be more a semi-pragmatic thing, given that a lot of this talking seems to think "normal" and "ok" are the same, which is not really true.)

So I’m curious if there are any other Californians here looking at the ballot for the recall of Governor Newsom and scratching their heads like me. A group of Trump supporters got up enough votes to hold a recall of the governor, and we have to vote in the next few weeks. The ballots arrived this week and there are 2 votes we have to make: 1) Should we recall the governor? And 2) Which of these 46 (not joking!) people should replace him. Unfortunately, of the 46 possible replacements, I’ve heard of 2 of them: Caitlyn Jenner and Angelyne. Neither appear to have any relevant experience. (I’ll give Ms. Jenner the benefit of the doubt that she’d at least give a voice to an underserved portion of the population, though.)

This opinion piece from the LA Times makes the point that if the recall succeeds, there are no viable Democratic candidates despite the state leaning Democrat by a 2 to 1 margin. (Furthermore, I can’t find any place that even has statements from each of the candidates like our elections usually do. Found it!)

I don’t know how likely the recall is to succeed, so it may be a non-issue, but I’m a little concerned that there could be some dumb situation where not enough people take it seriously and only people who are pissed that they have to wear masks vote and we end up with some far right talk show host as our governor for the next year and a half or more. Anyone else have a strategy here?

I don't understand why people think an individual vote changes anything. I don't mean this as an insult, I just don't understand by what mechanism my vote matters. To be clear, I am not saying you shouldn't vote, simply that one persons vote is a neutral act.

I assume that if I vote in an election my vote will literally be counted; the votes for one candidate will go from 100,000 to 100,001. In tiny elections, it is possible, not likely, for a single vote to change a result. However, arguing for a system from its top 0.1% best case scenario is a bit disingenuous. In 99.9% of elections, it does not come down to one vote.

I have also been told I should just choose the candidate that is closest to my beliefs or even put in a blank ballet. In the US, a 3rd-party candidate will not win any non-local election; in other countries, I understand that it is different, but I can't speak from personal experience. And its not like I would ever choose any of the main party candidates; some are much worse than others, but none represent my beliefs. My understanding of this idea is that what is being valued is the performance of representation, not my actual representation in the system. 'The medium is the message', or who you vote for does not matter, what matters is that you vote.

I've heard people say something to the effect of 'if you don't vote, you have no right to complain about the political system'. This idea ignores the fact that not voting is an explicitly political act. I am engaging with the system by refusing to play what I perceive to be a rigged game.

But its not like the political system changes whether I vote or not; its not like anyone can know if I voted or not, unless I tell them or wear one of those 'I voted' stickers. I've heard people argue that if everyone thought this way, then the OTHER SIDE would win. But other people's decision to vote or not isn't my responsibility.

Is there something I am missing?

EDIT:

I changed my formatting to be more clear and edited the text, as a few responses seem to have missed some of my points.

This past year and a half I've been in a strange sort of depression over the dysfunction of human society, especially in how nations around the world have collectively dealt (or failed to deal) with the coronavirus.

I'm trying to get myself out of this funk. I'm normally a doer, not a sit-on-my-butt-er. I'm trying to think about the nature of human problems, see the problem space along different dimensions, and find high-leverage points for solutions. Trying to outline the problem "stack" so to speak.

This is a lot of paper napkin thinking from me. There are going to be a lot of naive thoughts here. But I'd like to have an open conversation, so we can stumble on some new interesting insights, rediscover what others already have, and not get too bogged down in "well, ackchyually..." nitty-gritty details.

The pandemic is a relatively 'easy' problem — at least if you compare it to the threat of an incoming extinction-level asteroid, a wandering black hole, or a dying sun, which would require technical solutions impossibly beyond our current capabilities. In those scenarios, we can only pray and party. But for the pandemic, we had the political tools: Taiwan showed us how a combined approach of strict border controls with hotel quarantining (no kindly asking people to maybe please quarantine — travelers will quarantine), wearing masks everywhere, extensive contact tracing, and cross-governmental data-sharing, can successful contain the virus. Now we have technological tools: a myriad of vaccines.

Yet...

• It's been nearly a year and a half. A concerted global effort could have ended the crisis within a month or two early on, right? Granted, this would entail giving up our human rights for a short while — but that seems way better than dragging it for so long. Instead we watched as we tried to carry on as normal as possible and the virus spread like wildfire.
• A third of U.S. adults are unvaccinated despite being eligible and there being plenty of vaccines to go around (in the US at least).
• Significant numbers of people believe wacky stuff: COVID isn't real, masks don't do anything, and so on.

From what I observe: nearly all human problems are policy problems. The human race has sufficient material and technological resources to solve most problems. Underlying those policy problems are coordination problems — coordinating people on the facts, solutions, and implementations.

1. Human problems
2. ... are policy problems
3. ... are coordination problems

So the human race has a bunch of solutions, institutions, and tools to help with the coordination problem:

• the UN and other intergovernmental bodies like the WHO to coordinate at the international level
• National institutions to coordinate
• Newspapers to spread information and generate consensus

But as we well know, these coordination solutions have problems. Now I'm thinking what are the coordination sub-problems.

• Incentive problems / The Game: Broadly in game theory speak, some players are incentivized to not cooperate, even if at the detriment of everyone. This seems to me to be the crux of the coordination problem.
• Culture problems: This is a whole nest of problems.
  • Cultural norms around equity. I think that this is a big one. It's been shown that different societies have different norms and ideas about what's fair and equal. The norms often develop around economic realities. Forager societies favor egalitarian distribution over meritocratic distribution as high cooperation is required between members: unequal distribution threatens relationships and cooperation. Perhaps our merit-based norms may need to shift from a pre-industrial era where people more or less produced what they consumed — to a new era of automation and robotics, where a relative few produce most everything.
  • Cultural norms around consumption and transmission of information. This stems from our education culture. Media consumption in our societies — western and non-western alike — is passive. Socratic seminars are rare in schools: pupils receive lessons passively from their teachers. Most people aren't educated or trained on how to have open discussions or on how to avoid rhetorical fallacies.
• Education problems: there is only so much information can do if people don't know how to process information.
  • Mentioned above cultural norms around how we consume and transmit information.
  • Statistical thinking. The abuse and misuse of stats in popular discourse.

Among others.

There are very serious articles about young adolescents being radicalized into fascist movements and personal testimonials of such in YouTube, along with many videos, most commonly by leftists about how this works and very rarely a guess at what to do about it.

There are also often memes about young people entering politics, like this video or this video assuming that and then satirizing how young, presumably privileged people when it comes to social matters (because otherwise bad personal experiences will inform your beliefs and this will be more than a poorly done intellectual exercise to you) flip flop between every political belief like it's nothing, alongside memes satirizing how young conservatives are introduced to their politics by edited clips of what are supposedly SJWs out of context and how farcically (distressingly) ridiculous it is to be introduced to your beliefs by these videos, especially when these sometimes real but extreme regardless examples of the left's presumed irrationality are much less harmful than the conservative extremes.

A lot of this talk and memes concerns or satirizes radicalization of people after they've been politicized and occasionally in the case of the serious articles, what to do with it. But I feel this focuses more on the consequences, which is fine, but not everything worth looking at.

So back to the title question, how do you think someone/people should be politicized?

A political example might be the fact that according to gallup, people have supported a popular vote for the US presidency for more than 75 years (this article is 20 years old, but the numbers still stand), albeit the partisan difference in opinion seems to be more recent and it's not clear if people knew what to replace it, or if they knew about all the other faults in the US political system.

Other more cultural examples might be things like romans drawing dicks on Hadrian's wall, eating fast food and their timeless graffiti, surrealism being 100 years old as opposed to 'Zoomer humor', etc.

So, what are your examples?

For those not aware, packing the court in this context refers to expanding the size of the U.S. Supreme Court so that whoever's in power can nominate judges they prefer to the newly-created seats, thereby creating a favorable majority for them where there might not have been one previously. It was attempted once in 1937, but failed, and has not been attempted since.

As for term limits, Supreme Court justices have none; the position is for life. The reasoning for this is primarily so that they can't be influenced as easily for political gain, as they've already achieved the final step in their careers.

Personally, the concept of court-packing has worried me no matter who does it, because from what I can tell (though granted I've not researched this), the Supreme Court has thus far done a decent job of avoiding partisanship; I'm concerned packing the courts would damage this precedent. I do believe that term limits could work, though I suspect they'd require a clause prohibiting justices from holding any jobs after their term expires, lest they become politically influenced by down-the-line job offers.

That said, what's your take?

^{(By the way, CGP Grey has a great video on some parts of the Supreme Court if you're interested in learning more about it)}

Asked mainly because

Conservatives say that's one of the things they believe in

It often seems to be wrong or misused ("if everyone just used masks and stayed home the pandemic would have ended long ago") ("not using masks during a pandemic has consequences for other people and thus doesn't belong in personal freedom")

A definition for stuff that fits the question could be this:

• The credit or blame for consistently failing or succeding at it is largely on you

• While you can ask for advice to get better, you have to do it yourself

So the main examples that come to my mind are largely (well) personal:

• Being motivated and committed to work towards what you want

• Being hygienic

• Being good at socializing and figuring out what's your relationship with other people gonna be

• (although obviously, given socializing depends on other people, this is very dependent on them doing the same and accepting/recognizing you or your choices and so is more accurate on progressive or apolitical social environments)

Which is good but doesn't explain it being used as a political belief.

I have tried to answer this myself and come up empty handed. When a U.S. president leaves office, they take intimate awareness of many national secrets with them (weapons systems, intelligence gathering techniques, etc.). What prevents a former president from selling this information to the highest bidder?

I read the Wikipedia article about "gaslighting" and know it comes from a 1944 film of the same name in which an abusive husband gradually dims the gaslights at home – while denying doing so – to drive his wife mad.

Yet whenever I see the term used (which happens a lot, lately) I can't make the connection. It seems people use it for the simple act of lying or denying something, which to me is mostly just... lying, not "gaslighting". Any kind of stupid, misguided act is getting the sinister "gaslighting" stamp as if it some 5d chess move when it simply looks like incompetence. The core principle of it seems to revolve around having a plan to psychologically manipulate someone but I mostly don't see the plan nor the actual goal. If anything untruthful you say about an important topic is "gaslighting", then the term doesn't seem to have a lot of value on its own. Wikipedia actually mentions "unconscious" gaslighting which seems to contradict its purpose of actually wanting to manipulate someone.

So, given its popularity, I'm curious if there might be a (succinct) definition of the term that helps me understand it properly? Do you think it's just a trendy term to throw at politicians doing shit you don't like? Am I missing an important detail?

With the ever-growing stream of acquisitions and mergers, it got me thinking: Why do we permit companies to do this?

What would the harm be in banning this practice? If a company is becomes insolvent, release all of it's IP to the public domain, dissolve all patents/trademarks, and sell off physical assets to pay debtors (first of which should be former employees IMO, but that's a separate discussion).

Edit: I think my original intention of the post to kick off some interesting discussion has worked. Thank you to all current and future posters!

In my country (Brazil), it's probably the "Centrão". It's basically like, a dozen or so centrist/center-right/random parties who vote together as if they were a bloc for reasons which can only be explained with corruption, which seems to be the case. (The Wikipedia article ^(PT-BR) straight up says that it's a group that tries to approach the executive for political favors so yeah.)

I'm not sure how we deal with the US, given how much the US has to cite as strange, but a lot of the stuff on this site is already dedicated to the US.

Share your thoughts and feelings on how the convention went, and what you think it means for the remainder of the race. Did it change how you plan on voting or participating in the election? Who were the stand out speakers that you would like to share with others? Will you be watching the Republican National Convention? What were the biggest stories to come out as a result of the convention?

Politics Disclaimer: As we discuss the sensitive topic of politics, please remember to comment with an open heart and remember the other person behind the screen. Be generous with your interpretations of others and realize you might have to agree to disagree. When in doubt, read the Tildes Code of Conduct.

One of the most notable aspects of political discourse today is how many of the problems we have seem to have relatively simple solutions for how consequential they are:

To reduce wealth inequality, we can use progressive taxation, antitrust, support of unionization so that poor people/workers have a large stake in their wages.

To give poorer people equal opportunity, we can use welfare initiatives like free (as in paid by taxes/free at the point of use) college, better pay for teachers and more equitable resource (as in textbooks, tables, chalk distribution for schools so poor people get more equitable education to rich people.

To reduce crime, violence and repeat sentencing we can reduce poverty (see the top question), encourage mental health initiatives and do not have cops take thatand have jail be rehabilitative rather than punitive.

To make make software less centralized and invasive, we can require Internet companies give you full, immediate disclosure of all the forms your data will be used and let people opt out of all of them, delete all their data, and also enforce antitrust when it comes to social media platforms (I.E Facebook should not own Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and their new TikTok analogue and the first thing you should see when logging into any of them is a list of ways these companies will collect your data and let you opt out of all of them and be as anonymous as you please)

To make sure democracy is indeed representative of the people and works well, we can introduce a parliamentary system or multi-winner congressional seats and institute STV or RCV or just approval voting if you really can't have more than 1 representative for an area (the US senate is cucked)

To make more progress in stopping COVID, we can have mass testing by the government, people must take social distancing seriously and wear masks, medics need to be taken seriously and properly supplied with PPE and all that.

Given these solutions, what are large problems we have/will have that we genuinely don't have an answer to instead of just not wanting to do something about it?

A few examples that come to my mind are:

How do we get corrupion out of a government? Since the vast majority of stuff I have mentioned in this post would be done by governments and governments under extensive corruption cannot be trusted to regulate anything.

How do we regulate news outlets to be fair and objective? We can get news outlets to be publically/popularly funded instead of ad(large-corporate)-funded and enforce antitrust, but that doesn't stop bias, outright lying and sensationalism.

How do we get peple to change their minds? Evidence of everything I've mentioned in this post is more than around, but that hasn't convinced Republicans/conservatives. For some people groups, acceptance has literally been a decades-long political campaign to be recognized as normal or ok.

EDIT: 3 4 more.

How do we get people to befriend eachother and be social and tell apart those who genuinely don't want to do this and those who do but don't know how to or don't like to/aren't good at doing it in the ways usually available?

If we choose to let the population decline (see the climate change question), are we fully prepared for the consequences of having a society that will be growing older and older, perhaps indefinitely?

If we choose to not let the population decline and seek to keep birthrates at replacement level, how do we convince people to do so? If we don't/can't and start using things like artificial wombs to have children, who will take care of them? Do we make orphanages socially acceptable/valued and well-funded? Do we turn kindergartens and schools into a 24/7 institution and add in non-study things like housing and video games, and make teachers basically parents, but with many children to take care of?

If electoralism fails, what can we do to still have a voice in the world? Can we do anything?

(Yes, I know "socialism" and "capitalism" are vague terms, hence why you should probably very much clarify what type of "socialist" system you want, since "socialism" can be anything from market socialism, Marxism-Leninism, Syndicalism, democratic socialism, Trotskyism, anarcho-socialism, anarcho-communism, Luxemburgism, etc. Also, I'm a far cry from informed in this, so please correct me when needed.)

So anyway, if you call yourself a socialist or at least want to abolish capitalism, why?

So for the best reasons I have seen are:

• Capitalism is inherently hierarchical and incompatible with democracy, which is egalitarian.

Obviously not all types of socialism (I.E, most types of socialism that have been tried for more than a few years because they weren't overthrown or voted out) are egalitarian however and many of these systems are completely centralized.

• Big companies will naturally use the state to their own advantage, as capitalism is driven by self interest instead of any vague marker of "competition".

The main argument against this is that you definitely regulate capitalism to be more competitive with stuff like antitrust without abolishing the whole thing.

Hello again!

There have been quite a few posts on Tildes as of late that have rubbed my opinionated brain the wrong way. The purpose here is to have a conversation about apathy in general, less focused on political or social issues and more on why we've seen an increase in apathy. This isn't a public shaming or an attack on anybody in particular. Apathy is at an all time high universally, and we've had several conversations here on Tildes where it has come into play in front of important issues.

...Everything's fucked. We are totally and utterly done for. 2020 is the worst year ever, I want a time machine. We are all going to die. Why does any of this even matter?...

I think we've all seen some variant of that sentiment this year, especially on the internet. It has been rough: COVID-19, the rise of fascism, climate change and ongoing political and social strife around the world. It is quite the cluster! It has been almost impossible for most of us to not look away at some point or another: turn off the news, disconnect the internet, run off into the woods (that's me!), self-isolate (thanks 'rona!) This is all entirely understandable. It's perfectly acceptable to do this for mental health reasons.

Let's be real though, 2020 has been rough, but let's get even more cynical, shall we? In the last two decades we've seen endless war and suffering in the middle east and elsewhere, we've noticed an ongoing rise in extremism all over the world, we saw the towers fall, we've witnessed school shooting after school shooting after school shooting after school shooting, we have (Yes, we. You may have voted for someone else, but we all have a hand in this democracy.) put a fascist in office (yeah, that was going on 4 years ago), we've seen so much horrible shit happen.

2020 isn't the outlier, I'd posit it's a combination of being the culmination of decades of growing strife and the sudden realization that total societal collapse (in a way) and the dangers that much of the 3rd and developing worlds have been facing for centuries can happen right here, right now, in our comftorable first world nations.

So looking at these factors, it is easy to see why apathy has grown, right? I mean, in the face of all of this adversity it'd be hard to not get discouraged. We see the powers at be spins their wheels and balk at solutions; train after train screaming down the tracks, the brake lever sitting right there, we scream and scream, "PULL THE FUCKING LEVER"... they don't. For whatever reason, be it money or self interest or whatever... they don't. So yeah, fuck this system! These people are supposed to do our bidding and they don't. These leaders can't even lead, so why the fuck do we even bother? How many times does this happen? How many people do we need to elect to fix our system? How many votes, protests, rallies, legislative sessions, meetings, politician offices, social media posts? How much effort have we put in, how much does it take? I'm so fucking tired. I give up. Why the fuck do we even bother?

We've all been in this place, and I think some of us don't want to think about it. We don't want to question why we feel this way, why political and social systems are broken, FUBAR. I'd suggest that some people feel a related guilt, they know they could be doing more but... insert excuse here. I'd venture to guess some people just honestly don't care, true apathy. Fueled by a lack of empathy that in my opinion comes from the numbness associated with witnessing atrocity after tragedy after trauma via the internet. This doesn't account for all of the apathetic populations in the world, but I think topically it covers a good portion.

So what do we do? I could rant all day about why we need to be on the streets. I could lecture about how a functioning society is a privilege and that it takes good willed effort to maintain. I could soapbox for the rest of my life about how a functioning democracy is not just a privilege but a requirement and that, it too, takes effort. That's not what I want to do though! Me or somebody else talking to people about apathy most often turns into talking at the apathetic masses. Talking at isn't a conversation and it almost never bears fruit.

So Tildes, I defer to you. What do you think we need to do to reform our society and political system to a functioning point? How do we stoke people to make the effort? As it is currently, that won't happen in America it seems. So what's the solution? We know why there is apathy, how do we beat it?

Asked mainly because:

1. I'm 14, so I've only been seriously politically engaged/active for a few months at best (for context, here I am not knowing that voter suppression is even a thing literally 6 months ago, go a few more months back and I'm not sure if I even know Biden is a candidate)

2. In r/politicalcompass (a sub I probably frequent too much) people often posted their 'political journeys' showing how their political beliefs have changed but:

   • There's not enough context for you to know what has changed and why they have changed

   • These changes often happen in a span of 5 years, which seems pretty unlikely (the part about your political beliefs changing is mostly aimed at 40+people who have seen enough change in the world (although from what I've heard from you, barely) to change your political opinions

   • It's literally a sub trying to boil down political opinions into a square/cube, so what else could I possibly expect.

I think the biggest effect of this will be that a lot of white suburban Klobuchar-ites will be more apprehensive of keeping the police as it is and a lot of progressives (like me, I always thought it was a class matter disguised as a race one) will take identity politics and racism more seriously and see themselves as privileged white people because it's become pretty hard not to. There will also be a lot of people in poor countries who will relate to the experience of being brutalized by the police and see the US as increasingly like them. I'm Brazilian and I honestly can't really see how is the US any better than my country anymore and in my state I scarcely see the police with more than batons and only in Rio de Janeiro (where drug gangs hide in the mountains and the state government is run by the party led by a former military officer) is the police really comparable.

Organizers might see that strength in numbers does little against FOX News and other media outlets so serious organization (proper mottos for example) might be taken more seriously.

Black people might be energized enough by this to turnout at an equal rate to white people despite the institutional barriers, which hasn't happened since Obama.

There's a lot of unrest in the US lately, with protests going on in several cities.

How do you feel about the state of things in the US, regarding racism, police brutality, etc...? What's your viewpoint on the protests? How do you see the situation evolving? Some fear deadly confrontation between military police and civilians.

Have you had the misfortune of having a negative encounter with police officers? Care to tell your story? Have you participated yourself in one of these protests? What was your experience like? If you haven't, do you keep yourself informed? Where do you primarily find news? What's the general mood in your neighborhood, in your community, in your city?

We've seen protests pop up a lot more in recent years in various parts of the world - eg. Hong Kong, Lebanon, France, etc... Do you feel that this is symptomatic of a larger, global unease? Or can the US protests be considered wholly specific?

I am an introvert, I hang around online most of the time. But, I've cut off most of the social media in past couple of years, now my online presence is reduced to whatsapp, tildes, youtube and sometimes reddit. I take in news from well respected sources, although most of them are left leaning.

Even after significantly limiting myself from news and social medias I cant help but feel world is getting worse everyday. Climate change, Increasing support for far right politics, increased consumption of fake news/propaganda etc..

I am going through some personal job related issue myself, I don't know what I am working towards. Why the hell should I waste my energy and time if I can't even see a better future? I don't think I am depressed, I am sad and frustrated that I dont have anything to look forward to.

Surely there are people in here who dealt/ dealing with this. How do you cope with this? what do you tell yourself when you see another fuck up from the world?

P.S: English is not my first language.

I'll start here in Brazil (these aren't all the parties BTW):

PT (Workers' party)

The generic center-left party. Likes adding or maintaining public services, likely stained for a generation with Dilma Rousseff being impeached and lula jailed (although he left recently) And badly crashing the economy thanks to Car Wash (although Moro seems to have proven himself to be rather less than impartial and it's not like they were the only ones involved.) They might not if/when Bolsonaro proves himself much worse than anything PT did but right-wing media will do their work here. They're also supported by a lot of people in the rural Brazilian Northeast which is probably pretty religious and conservative, but I don't think we see that in their legislation.

PSDB (Brazilian Social Democratic Party)

Not actually for social democracy, really more of a generic center-right party. Usually privatization/"efficiency" oriented party. Not very socially conservative but not socially liberal. Was going to die thanks to being establised for too long and having a bad record (they had the other impeached president in Brazil) but then Doria rode the Bolsonaro wave, although COVID has shown this a purely electoral move.

PSL (Social Liberal Party)

The current party of our president, although him being incompetent has led to people considering breaking up his party, but he'll just move to another one with a generic feel-good name (alliance for Brazil). Not actually socially liberal (this is a recurring theme), more a generic right-wing populist/Whatever Bolsonaro does party.

Partido Novo (New Party)

Generic capitalist party. It's Founders are owners of large Brazilian banks so I don't really imagine them caring about the actual ideology of classical liberalism and competition/meritocracy too much (even if they throw that term around a lot) and are more focused in big business corporatocracy.

REDE (Web of sustainability)

Generic green/environmentalist party. Was expected too be a frontrunner in the last presidential election but instead only got a sad 1% of the vote in the first round.

PATRIOTA (PATRIOT)

Hyper-Christian militarist party. Unironically wants to write a new constitution with a 'religious character'.

The guy who ran for president under them actually went to a mound in Israel to pray. Absolute meme candidate last election but you never know if next time they run someone serious.

PDT (Democratic "Workerist" Party)

Seems to be the Democratic Socialist/Social democratic analogue to the progressive movement in Brazil but I can't say for sure since people aren't hellbent on policy in any Brazilian circles and most of the most blatant problems in the US aren't as obvious in Brazil.

These are 7/33 political parties.

Fun facts about Braziliian parties: there are Democratic and Republican parties in Brazil and both are right-wing, capitalist parties. How's that for indulging in confirmation bias?

The Green party in Brazil also exists alongside REDE, meaning there are 2 environmentalist parties in Brazil.

There is a Brazilian women's party, but:

• It doesn't describe itself s feminist but 'feminine'

• When it was created it's congress members were 20/2 male

• They all shortly abanoned the party 2 moths later

Impying it's more likely than not some sort of corruption-related scheme.

There are 6 far-left/genuinely socialist parties currently listed;

The Brazilian Communist party

The Unified Socalist Workers' party

Popular unity (?)

The party of the Operary cause

The Communist party of Brazil (???)

Socialism and liberty party

That's a strange lot of infighting for some reason.

Is socialism achievable in our lifetimes? I'm M/29/India. I haven't read Marx or Kropotkin.

1 Honestly, at some point you have to ask yourself: if our economic system doesn't secure public health and well-being, and doesn't protect and regenerate ecology, then what's actually the point?

2 This economic crisis is revealing that the main reason we all have to work for wages isn't just to buy the things we need, but to pay rents and debts - in other words, to give money to the holders of capital.

If capitalism is preventing a large majority of human population from leading happy and dignified lives, then why can't we change the economic system?

I think it's clear that all tildes political discussion leads to intractable arguments. Considering tildes was created to foster high quality discussion, I was wondering if it's even possible to have nuanced political discussions online. In person discussions work for me because I have base levels of respect for all the people I talk to, but that's quite difficult to get online. Are we doomed to snark and condescension filled megathreads, or is there a better way to structure the conversations? Are there additional political ground rules that need to be set up?

From the NY times

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont was reassessing the future of his presidential bid on Wednesday after a crushing round of primary losses left him with no realistic path to the Democratic nomination and the 2020 race itself looked increasingly dormant because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Mr. Sanders’s campaign has stopped actively advertising on Facebook and its campaign manager sent an email to supporters without asking for donations — the kind of steps that other candidates have taken before ending their campaigns. Mr. Sanders’s aides said he is not suspending his campaign at this point, even as some Democrats have become increasingly vocal that he should consider leaving the race.

Even among Democrats who view Mr. Biden’s eventual triumph as inevitable, there is a belief that contested primaries are good for the party, making some of them reluctant to call for Mr. Sanders to withdraw. In Wisconsin, Democratic officials worry that if Mr. Sanders drops out before the state’s planned April 7 primary, it could dampen his supporters’ enthusiasm, depress turnout and hurt progressive candidates for state and local offices.

Mr. Sanders also views the coronavirus crisis as a moment when the progressive agenda he has championed for years is especially vital, and he is eager to leverage his influence for good at a time when issues like health care and economic inequity are so resonant, some allies say.

And top advisers see potential for him to continue to shape the narrative around how the country should be responding to the crisis and are holding out hope that they can harness existing virtual infrastructure to allow him to get his message out and keep his supporters engaged — a tacit admission that the campaign is no longer trying to win.

The above paragraphs show that yes, Sanders knows his electoral situation is done for, despite never clearly indicating if he is dropping out.

Some suggested Mr. Sanders should declare a moral victory — Democrats have moved broadly toward his progressive policy platform since he began his first presidential campaign — and throw his support to Mr. Biden.

“It’s time to throw in the towel knowing that he has won the battle of issues,” said Wilbur Colom, a D.N.C. member from Mississippi. “The Democratic Party has moved within inches of his revolution on all major issues. We all are feeling the Bern.”

From the Star

Charles Chamberlain, chairman of the progressive group Democracy for America, said Sanders can play a potentially “critical” role in unifying the party by continuing his campaign.

“Bernie has already made it clear that he will 100% support the Democratic nominee and that he’s going to campaign for Joe Biden if that’s who it is,” Chamberlain said. “The reality is, that’s not 100% true for all Bernie Sanders supporters. So there is a real value to Bernie staying in the race as long as possible to bring those people into the party deeper.“

That underscores the sensitivity of how Sanders proceeds. Justin Bamberg, a South Carolina state representative and Sanders supporter, said it’s wrong to assume that, if the senator quickly drops out, his backers would unite behind Biden.

“It’s a mistake for the party, regardless of whether the nominee is Biden or Bernie, to think that beating Donald Trump in and of itself will be enough motivation for the average person living their day-to-day life to come out and be excited about voting in November,” Bamberg said.

I agree. Biden needs to emphasize that he can be trusted to keep his promises of endorsing and then carrying out Warren's plan despite their controversies and that the bernie or bust folks won't gain nothing from a Biden presidency.

Admittedly I deleted and re-uploaded this because I was worried I had posted the original thread too soon.

A'ight, here we are. Spreadsheet time.

When will the debate be broadcasted?

The debate will be recorded March 15th, 8-10 PM ET. (1-3 AM UTC)

Where will it happen?

In the CNN studio in Washington DC. Note that they moved it from Phoenix due to the Coronavirus.

Who will moderate it?

Dana Bash and Jake Tapper from CNN and Ilia Calderón from Telemundo.

Where can I watch this?

It will most likely be livestreamed in CNN's YouTube channel. it was livestreamed on CNN's website.

So, what's new and how will this change anything?

This is the first and possibly the last one-on-one debate in the primary between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden and (also due to Coronavirus concerns) It has no live audience. It will also occur before some of the largest states in the primary vote.

So what do you think should happen? What questions should be asked? What should the candidates do and what should we talk about?

(You could replace FPTP with STV to keep the districts that elect representatives in the house intact.)

I'll start.

The Democratic party breaks up into the neoliberal and progressive parties.

The neoliberal party is where centrist candidates like Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg go.

The progressive party is where progressive candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren go.

The Republican party might lose a large part of their electorate to the libertarians, since many Republicans are more concerned about letting business prevail and don't really want cultural conservatism.

Andrew yang maybe also leaves the Democrats and founds his own party, the party for online reform.

The greens also become significantly more popular but they may have too much in common with the progressives.

The Senate could be changed to include as many seats as the house for proper representation.

I'm Brazilian, and personally (in the most radical, electability-indifferent and honestly meme-y campaign) would go for Bernie with the campaign finance and tax reform but with a platform for civical reform like putting STV as the nomination method for our chamber of deputies and supporting automating or funding new technologies to replace menial labor, like funding lab grown meat to replace all farming companies and labor now or robotics to automate large parts of the industrial and service sectors and use that money saved from not paying wages to people doing bad jobs to fund free universities and better schools/wages/welfare/infrastructure to the people once doing that work, along with adding civics and economics as subjects in school and always including notes as to where do you use the content you're learning, along with requiring subsidiaries to go independent or drop their branding. Clearly this isn't very realistic so feel free to expouse absurd policy.

The nice thing about electability being uncertain is that you can choose the candidate you think is best.

Unfortunately I have lost faith in my ability to decide that. Studying candidates' policies seems useless since, after all, Congress makes the laws. We are likely to see either stalemate or centrist legislation regardless.

Maybe I should decide based on foreign policy instead? Most people don't do that but I don't see why not. Any recommendations for interesting articles to read?