Funny events in anti-woke world

Silvanus

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A lot of times now when people complain about institutional/systemic racism, it usually ends up being that there's very little current to no racism now.
Complete bollocks. The report is unequivocal that the problem is very, very present.

I said if everyone just voted for the best candidate, you wouldn't get any dems/repubs getting voted in. The fact that people are fearful means they aren't using basic common sense.
"Basic common sense", ok. So if half the Dems vote third party and the rest don't, I'd end up with a worse government (for me) than if I'd voted Dem. But worrying about that is lacking 'basic common sense'?

(This is rhetorical, as I'm not American).

We've had both parties winning the presidential election (and house/senate) and the country doesn't fall apart. I'm not worried about either Trump or Biden winning for example, both already won once and nothing horrible happened.
Except for all that horrible stuff that happened. Just because something doesn't impact you personally doesn't mean it's not terrible for other people.
 
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Silvanus

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this doesn't make sense. would you like to rephrase?
Not quite seeing the problem. Say I decide to vote third party instead of Dem. In that election, I'm among ~50% of 'traditionally Dem' voters that take that punt. The result would be a Republican victory-- voting for our own best candidates would land those voters with an even worse government than if they'd voted Dem.

under both Presidents.
Yes, under both presidents, to varying degrees in various areas-- degrees which make quite a significant difference to a lot of people.
 
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Elijin

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The cats and dogs example usually works well. In that type of democracy, let's say the population is 60% cats, 40% dogs.
The cats can vote for the cat party, or the feline party. Their policies are very similar, but division exists. The dogs only have the dog party.
The polls are held and the verdict is 30% cat, 30% feline and 40% dog. Dog takes the victory, but we can see it leaves the majority population misrepresented.

So long as it's single vote, first past the gate, voting is forced into a 2 party system, or risking much worse misrepresentation for the voters. It's a bad system, which rests on it's own base to keep out third parties.
 

Gergar12

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Yeah, no other country would ever develop a ballistic missile program. Purely the province of deranged supervillain states.
No, it's their constant belligerent actions toward South Korea and Japan. Constantly firing missiles over those countries was an act not even the US, and the USSR did to each other. Then acting hurt emotionally when Japan DARES to suggest they shoot one down like a child. Kim Jon Un is a child in a man's body playing checkers while everyone else besides Russia is playing Chess. Wah, I can't shell South Koreans without them getting angry at me, Wah I am a laughing stock of the world who spends more on my military than feeding people.
 

Seanchaidh

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Not quite seeing the problem.
i literally underlined the problem. "I vote for..." is not the same thing as "half of democrats vote for...".

Yes, under both presidents, to varying degrees in various areas-- degrees which make quite a significant difference to a lot of people.
so bin them both and stop letting the divide and conquer strategy defeat you. as it comes to voting, solidarity means neither expecting people to vote to harm themselves nor voting to harm others.
 
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Silvanus

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i literally underlined the problem. "I vote for..." is not the same thing as "half of democrats vote for...".
Obviously, but "i" was always supposed to be understood as representative, not literal. I can't vote in American elections. "I" in that paragraph is a stand-in for "a progressive voter".

so bin them both and stop letting the divide and conquer strategy defeat you. as it comes to voting, solidarity means neither expecting people to vote to harm themselves nor voting to harm others.
Which would require organisation to result in anything except electoral self-harm, which was my point.

The cats and dogs example usually works well. In that type of democracy, let's say the population is 60% cats, 40% dogs.
The cats can vote for the cat party, or the feline party. Their policies are very similar, but division exists. The dogs only have the dog party.
The polls are held and the verdict is 30% cat, 30% feline and 40% dog. Dog takes the victory, but we can see it leaves the majority population misrepresented.

So long as it's single vote, first past the gate, voting is forced into a 2 party system, or risking much worse misrepresentation for the voters. It's a bad system, which rests on it's own base to keep out third parties.
I've tried the cats and dogs approach very recently on this very thread. Deaf ears, I'm afraid.
 

Hades

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so bin them both and stop letting the divide and conquer strategy defeat you. as it comes to voting, solidarity means neither expecting people to vote to harm themselves nor voting to harm others.
A third party is divide and rule though. It means the anti Republican vote splits and that the Republicans win by default. And by the time one of the anti Republican parties has eaten up the other the Republicans will have already dismantled democracy enough so that they can't be voted out.
 

Ag3ma

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A third party is divide and rule though. It means the anti Republican vote splits and that the Republicans win by default. And by the time one of the anti Republican parties has eaten up the other the Republicans will have already dismantled democracy enough so that they can't be voted out.
The threat of a third party, employed effectively, can move the mainstream party. The Tea Party, for instance, arguably moved Republican policy because the Republican Party could not afford to lose those votes (as it is, they got walloped by Obama anyway).

However, there is a risk involved. The Tea Party was potentially successful because the Republicans were already going that way: the old guard just needed to be forced to see how things were going. This isn't necessarily true of the Democrats. The $64,000 question is whether a (presumably) progressive party would force the Democrats left, and if so whether the Democrats would still win: because the possibility is that a progressive Democratic Party might lose a load of moderates instead.

Never mind that a progressive agenda is effectively dead in the water anyway currently - very little of one is ever going to get past Congress without an astonishing sea change in the US political scene.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Well that's a hot take, courtesy of our favourite white guy.
Not really a hot take, just factual. Like the gender pay gap bullshit too.

Complete bollocks. The report is unequivocal that the problem is very, very present.



"Basic common sense", ok. So if half the Dems vote third party and the rest don't, I'd end up with a worse government (for me) than if I'd voted Dem. But worrying about that is lacking 'basic common sense'?

(This is rhetorical, as I'm not American).



Except for all that horrible stuff that happened. Just because something doesn't impact you personally doesn't mean it's not terrible for other people.
I didn't read it because it wasn't pertinent to the discussion. I said that usually means there's very little to no current day racism.

Would it be a worse government for you objectively? I know you believe so but that doesn't make it true.

What horrible stuff happened under Trump for lefties and what horrible stuff happened to righties under Biden?

I've tried the cats and dogs approach very recently on this very thread. Deaf ears, I'm afraid.
I get it, but the fear of the other side winning is not real.
 

Ag3ma

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What horrible stuff happened under Trump for lefties
It's not just what he did do (and that's not the shortest list in the world) but what he tried to do.

And in that area, attempting to deny the left its electoral victory with bogus claims of fraud and schemes to undermine democratic process is about as horrible, disrespectful and threatening to the left as it gets.
 

Asita

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Obviously, but "i" was always supposed to be understood as representative, not literal. I can't vote in American elections. "I" in that paragraph is a stand-in for "a progressive voter".
Pretty sure that comment was less about the overall thrust and more that the scope changed mid-statement. You went from the impact of "half the Dems" doing something, to the impact if "I" did so, rather than "they" or "we" which would have been more grammatically appropriate. You shifted the scope from large plural to a singular within the same thought. While the general meaning is still not especially difficult to infer, the shift is in the same ballpark as "I'll give you three reasons: Reason One, Reason Two, and Reason C" and causes a similar degree of confusion.
 
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Silvanus

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I didn't read it because it wasn't pertinent to the discussion. I said that usually means there's very little to no current day racism.
...but the only reason you think it wasn't pertinent is a misconception.

Would it be a worse government for you objectively? I know you believe so but that doesn't make it true.
Worse and better aren't objective terms. It would be a government i want less.

What horrible stuff happened under Trump for lefties and what horrible stuff happened to righties under Biden?
We can start with stacking the Supreme Court with regressive ideologues.

I get it, but the fear of the other side winning is not real.
Tell that to the tens of millions of people motivated by it.
 

Silvanus

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Pretty sure that comment was less about the overall thrust and more that the scope changed mid-statement. You went from the impact of "half the Dems" doing something, to the impact if "I" did so, rather than "they" or "we" which would have been more grammatically appropriate. You shifted the scope from large plural to a singular within the same thought. While the general meaning is still not especially difficult to infer, the shift is in the same ballpark as "I'll give you three reasons: Reason One, Reason Two, and Reason C" and causes a similar degree of confusion.
OK. Seems about as quibbly as we can get. The meaning is clear.
 

Asita

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View attachment 10479

Fuck the UK's 1984 Government.
Did a bit of digging and found the original thread. Here's what the OP claims: Wife accidentally left her laptop on at a friend's house during a party. Friend apparently booted up Skyrim and discovered that she'd installed quite a few NSFW mods, which - the OP specifically notes - includes mods including "non-human enemies, such as wolves, attempting to non-consensually mate with the player"

General sentiment is that, as told, the circumstances only make sense if the friend reported to the police that the contents of the laptop ran afoul of the UK's "extreme pornography" law, which forbids - among other things - material that depicts in an explicit and realistic way "A person performing an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal (whether dead or alive) (bestiality), or an act which involves the non-consensual penetration of a person's vagina, anus or mouth by another with the other person's penis or part of the other person’s body or anything else", with the qualifier that "a reasonable person looking at the image would think that the persons or animals were real."

OP also commented later in the thread that the wife rejected that friend's advances during the party, which may or may not have influenced what he reported to the police.

So I'm calling this a "not as implied" here, as the apparent story is that the laptop was reported (rightly or wrongly) to the police as containing illegal sexual content, so - of course - it was confiscated to verify that report. General scuttlebutt in the thread seems to be that (based on the available information) the wife should - of course - comply with the police's request for an interview and should - of course - bring legal counsel to be safe, but they're probably not actually in legal jeopardy, and the person who filed the report might actually have broken the computer misuse act.
 
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Seanchaidh

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Obviously, but "i" was always supposed to be understood as representative, not literal. I can't vote in American elections. "I" in that paragraph is a stand-in for "a progressive voter".
That also isn't half of all usual Democratic voters.

Which would require organisation to result in anything except electoral self-harm, which was my point.
every vote for a third party is one more demonstration that not everyone is on board with the two party status quo. the two party status quo is an unstable equilibrium, as neither party commands a majority of voters, and especially not happily. thus, third party votes make progress at changing the political situation. duopoly votes manifestly do not; swinging the pendulum back and forth between piss and shit is not meaningful change.

I've tried the cats and dogs approach very recently on this very thread. Deaf ears, I'm afraid.
because it's stupid and misses the point. like yes, you have identified the mechanism by which Democrats use emotional blackmail to stay in power while murdering on behalf of the wealthy and your conclusion is to capitulate. Fuck all the way off with that.
 
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Gergar12

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Did a bit of digging and found the original thread. Here's what the OP claims: Wife accidentally left her laptop on at a friend's house during a party. Friend apparently booted up Skyrim and discovered that she'd installed quite a few NSFW mods, which - the OP specifically notes - includes mods including "non-human enemies, such as wolves, attempting to non-consensually mate with the player"

General sentiment is that, as told, the circumstances only make sense if the friend reported to the police that the contents of the laptop ran afoul of the UK's "extreme pornography" law, which forbids - among other things - material that depicts in an explicit and realistic way "A person performing an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal (whether dead or alive) (bestiality), or an act which involves the non-consensual penetration of a person's vagina, anus or mouth by another with the other person's penis or part of the other person’s body or anything else", with the qualifier that "a reasonable person looking at the image would think that the persons or animals were real."

OP also commented later in the thread that the wife rejected that friend's advances during the party, which may or may not have influenced what he reported to the police.

So I'm calling this a "not as implied" here, as the apparent story is that the laptop was reported (rightly or wrongly) to the police as containing illegal sexual content, so - of course - it was confiscated to verify that report. General scuttlebutt in the thread seems to be that (based on the available information) the wife should - of course - comply with the police's request for an interview and should - of course - bring legal counsel to be safe, but they're probably not actually in legal jeopardy, and the person who filed the report might actually have broken the computer misuse act.
Confiscated meaning it will be seized for months on end. It's the IT version of SWATing but it doesn't put your life at risk. My question is why the UK police would have such a reactive measure to this when they could just lookup the person's internet footprint.
 

Chimpzy

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Confiscated meaning it will be seized for months on end. It's the IT version of SWATing but it doesn't put your life at risk. My question is why the UK police would have such a reactive measure to this when they could just lookup the person's internet footprint.
Because the internet is not the only way of getting illegal materials onto a computer.
 
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