SkepticalButOpenMinded @ SkepticalButOpenMinded @lemmy.ca

Posts

7

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653

Joined

2 yr. ago

You're changing the subject. My claim was about 2020, not 2024. This year, yes, Biden's candidacy is inevitable. It is almost unheard of to challenge an incumbent president, and Democrats want to avoid an intra-party fight. When Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter in 1980, it was a disaster that damaged the party for a long time.

I agree with you that Biden is a weak candidate and there are better candidates. But you made the extreme claim that elections don't matter, that we have no choice, that shadowy elites choose all the candidates, and other silly conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theories don't become justified just because you're apathetic and angry. I'm not sure how you think you're being rebellious. When you don't vote, that's not rebellion. No one cares. You don't matter, politically.

I also think most people haven’t tried and would be pleasantly surprised if they did. Even in the US, almost half of all trips are bikable or walkable distances. It doesn’t have to replace your main commute, just some of your trips.

We’ve all met those people who get in their car to drive two blocks instead of walking, even in good weather. Cars are so dominant that there’s a lack of imagination around using anything except cars.

That’s definitely a big part, but it’s both. Like white flight out of cities and insisting on a detached suburban home, the other part of the story is that cars represent “social worth” for many in North America.

It’s why car people become so angrily defensive, and fight even modest changes. Cars aren’t just functional. They represent a cherished value system. Their worth as a person is tied up with their car.

That said, just like diamond rings and smoking, even this weird cultural norm was bought by industry advertising. We’re social apes, who do things to feel important and valued, even when it otherwise makes no sense.

If you think Biden's candidacy was inevitable, you were asleep during the primaries. Here's the simple obvious explanation: Biden never lost his nationwide polling lead, not once, during the whole race. Are the polls part of the conspiracy too?

The craziest thing about your conspiracy theory is that it's flatly contradicted by Trump, who was clearly NOT the establishment choice in 2016. Establishment politicians and media pushed Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, John Kasich, anyone but Trump. They all criticized or downplayed Trump non-stop (for good reason)... and yet he won.

Well, how’s the fight coming?

I'm living through one of the biggest shifts left in politics in a generation. The left/center-left coalition has been surprisingly dominant. Mid-terms, special elections, etc. We keep winning. It's not perfect, but it's the right direction. But we need to keep winning elections for a long time for durable change.

At what point do you consider the fight won?

Never. Politics is a continual process, not a destination. If we get complacent, progress dies.

Do you envision some point in the future where Republicans no longer hold office and the country is some utopia of pure Democratic leadership?

No. That's not even the point. Republicans used to be the progressive party (that's why they use the color red). Parties don't matter as much as ideas. The point isn't for "my team" to win. If Republicans continue losing for a decade, then they will be forced to shift left, just as Dems shifted right after Reagan with Clinton.

What are you even talking about with your first paragraph? The result of elections aren’t predictable. In fact, they’re less predictable than ever. And what’s with “choice” in quotes: are you an election truther? That’s more of a right wing conspiracy.

That’s a pathetic cowardly take on the Overton window. What even is your point? “Let’s give up because nothing matters”? Fuck that. I’m fighting.

It’s also empirically untrue: I don’t know how you haven’t noticed that the US is going through the biggest labor movement in a generation. In the last 3 years, Dems have passed one of the most progressive agendas in a generation.

It really doesn’t go both ways. The winning presidential candidate needs to get the most votes, and most US voters are not progressive. They’re moderate, or indifferent.

I don’t know how you could say that about HRC and Sanders. That’s not even a hypothetical: they literally had a head to head match where, to my huge disappointment, HRC won. Protesting HRC helped elect Trump, and obviously that hasn’t been good for progressive interests or democracy.

Yes, progressives who stay at home for the general election do not understand US democracy. The US has a 2 party FPTP system, not proportional representation. Unlike multi-party parliamentary systems, we usually have to vote for a compromise, not our top choice. If you don't vote, you don't "send a message", you simply forfeit your political power. If Republicans win, and keep winning, then that's a signal for Democrats to shift right, to try to win back the median voter.

I hate the argumentative strategy of criticizing candidates for being political "losers". Rightwingers do that all the time. By that logic, progressives also had "loser candidates", since many fail in the primaries. I personally don't think Sanders, for example, was a "loser", even if he lost in the primary.

I’m not sure what you mean.

Also, many progressives stayed home or voted for the Green Party. Not that it is more the fault of progressives than SCOTUS, but blame aside, it’s a cautionary tale.

There is a theory that Democrats now have the majority of high propensity voters, such as high education voters. A decade ago it was the reverse, and Republicans would win most special elections and midterms.

If anyone wants an actual answer: iPhone has an option to “Save to Files” that lets you select a folder to save to just like on a desktop OS. I’ve personally never lost a file when I do this.

Yeah exactly. Most people don’t live “in the tech world”. Maybe people like you and I have moved on faster than the general public. I doubt most people are reading about controversial Chrome tracking changes and YouTube disabling ad blockers. But maybe they are? I remain genuinely uncertain.

I’m with you, but I’m also on Lemmy. I wonder what the data says about what non-tech people feel about those two companies. Google especially had a lot of good will not that long ago.

It doesn’t show how well a country is doing, because GDP is not a direct measure of aggregate utility. For example: GDP can go up, but if it causes the Gini coefficient to rise, a country could be doing much worse than before.

But that’s not what you wrote. You claimed that it doesn’t show new information because you can see the favicon and title. It does show new information.

When I shop online, I have many tabs from the same site open. The tab title is the store name + the item name, so the item name never fits. A bunch of identical ebay icons is way worse than this.

It’s not objectively better or worse. Some people will prefer it and some people won’t.

Does Canada need to maintain relevance in Europe? Asia? Africa has the fastest growing and youngest population in the world — the region will no doubt play a key role in global commerce in the next century. Why is it justified to ignore Africa but not other parts of the world?

“We need tons of parking lots until we get walkable cities” gets things totally backwards. Walkable cities are impossible because of the stupid amount of parking lots we have.

The dilemma you pose of “parking vs walkable cities” isn’t even real: we massively overbuild parking lots so we can stand to get rid of most of them. I’ve been to SK many times. Strip mall parking lots are half empty even during the busiest times of day. It’s insane. You could build housing on tons of that land without ever causing parking lots to fill up.

Here in Vancouver, there are almost no strip mall parking lots and the absolute number of cars is higher than anywhere in SK, and yet, there’s STILL too much parking. There’s almost always parking within a block or two of any store outside of the downtown core. The distance you walk probably isn’t that different from across those huge parking lots.

Honestly, we can go on a massive parking diet and, because we overbuild parking so much, there won’t even be any downside for drivers.

I bet it’s a little of both. I think every successive generation in the US has become more socially isolated. Car culture, suburban sprawl, internet culture, lack of “third places”, etc. I’m reminded of the sociology book Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam. It starts with the observation that more Americans go bowling than ever, but memberships to bowling leagues has fallen. Americans are still bowling, but they’re bowling alone.