Cynical and bitter mutualist & consequentialist. I hate accelerationists and their apologists as much as I hate fascists.
I used to want good things, but everyone else seems to be fine with bad things. So now I'm pro-vacuum decay event.
I don't have access to this account on non-work days
If you’re living in LA California and you turn to your neighbors, which went 64/31 for Harris,
TBH Cali should be a its own country. That said, assuming the same ~63% participation, that's more like 40% who could have voted did vote for Harris. If we're strictly talking about the character of the voters in a district, of course they'd be among the least shit. And in their case, its at least slightly more excusable given they're in a locked in blue state anyways. Still bad though, there are still down ticket and local elections that would matter.
Maybe Harris didn’t deserve to win, if these are the kinds of people who claimed to support her policies.
Depending on your perspective on democracy, the "type of people" who vote doesn't matter. You "deserve" to win when you get the most votes, she did not. And at least in first past the post, the victorious side's voters and non-voters at least deserve the differential between the top two candidates. Do you not at least agree with that?
That said, your particular example is not particularly relatable. Unfortunately, I live in a wretched red state and have most of my life and extremely unfortunately I've spent time around the backwater ruroids that I've been desperate to escape. I've only just recently escaped to a small city. In fact, at bare minimum if I can't afford at all to leave the country by 2032, I hope to move to a nearby blue state urban area. We'll see.
That said, while I might be sad about my struggle to escape, I absolutely cannot begrudge anyone with the means to do so doing it regardless of where they live in the US.
The ones leaving tend to be the professional class with the excess income and transferable job skills, typically with family abroad who can take them in once they depart.
Which are also usually people who voted for Harris.
Contractualism
I think there was once a time I could have been in favor of this as at least an opt-in as it would benefit everyone to work collectively. Before Trump won a second time.
But now I'm seeing that the average US person is either aggressively anti-intellectual or petulantly virtue ethicist. And I don't want anything to do with most of them. If they're drowning, they'd drag me down with them if I tried to pull them out of the water.
Right now, realistically if I moved out I'd be pretty poor, so I'm just banking on the democrats winning in 2028 as they are very likely going to, then before shit starts collapsing anyway hopefully that will provide a few years to save up and move. I'm not waiting for another republican presidency to potentially happen after this. I know I might be fucked anyway but that's the best plan I can execute.
Fascism doesn’t end at America’s borders, as anyone in Cuba or Venezuela or Iran or Gaza can tell you.
Every option is a risk. Some are better odds with better payouts.
I said I'm suspicious of people worried about it, not that I'm a supporter of scientism.
A lot of people who seem to worry about scientism turn out to have some quackery that they insist is worth looking into because "Its not been disproven". Or have some kind of spiritual belief that they want to mentally run cover for via "science might be wrong".
63% of US population voted. Less than half of that group voted for Harris. That means at least 68.5% (but really more) either did not vote for Harris to mitigate the risk of Trump or actively choose to vote for him.
Fuck them all. 31.5% of the population is worth a shit. And even then some of them are anti-socialist libs.... so I don't even like all of them either.
The one's leaving are generally mostly the group of people who have been trying to fix it.
I don't think they owe anyone shit.
I'm more suspicious of people fretting over "scientism" than I am concerned about people dogmatically accepting scientific theories.
There is such a thing as motivated reasoning and I look down on those that indulge in it.
I need to find someone like you in my area, I'm trying to lose myself and sex is generally a good way to do so but I need to get my hetero on. Plenty of gay/bi dudes ready to get down but not enough good horny straight/bi lady's.
I mean, eventually there are going to be people with camera's stealthily integrated directly into their eyeballs recording non-stop.
Like that black mirror episode letting people relive any moment from their past.
Couldn't people who specifically want to stealthily record people just turn off the bluetooth?
I've done a terrible job maybe of explaining what happened to me mentally and my current motivations. I don't care about whether I could have changed people's vote or whether I could motivate them to vote at all. That isn't where we meaningfully disagree I think.
Before November 2024, I thought most people were OK. I wanted good things to happen because I thought most people deserve good things. I understood that there was a portion of people who were terrible pieces of shit, but that they were a minority. That people permitted Trump to win the first time both because they understandably (if a little stupidly) thought "give him a chance" or "things will hold together" or even "yeah no chance he wins anyway I'm staying home."
After Trump won again though, this illusion was completely shattered. I realized that I was surrounded by far more awful and petulantly stupid people than I could have imagined. And my desire for good things for most people has almost completely evaporated. I feel a pure existential and near suicidal dread. I feel devastatingly alone and there is no escape. I'm surrounded by troglodytes.
And I can't delude myself out of it. I wish I could. This account represents me lashing out and screaming into the void.
Well, ok you are a different person that I was asking. I was asking because I assumed they were accelerationist or something.
I used to do the same. I guess technically that's part of why I have the job I have. I applied because it seemed socially meaningful.
The people around me all think I'm a sweetheart and I'm just fucking dead inside.
You know, I met 2 people at a bar I frequent who literally told me they were lefty accelerationists. That they try and purposefully push people to revolutionary potential, even if it means making things worse first. They were happy Trump won. To be honest I was really shocked to meet any in person. I thought they were all online mentally ill ML's. They're long time regulars at the bar, and friends to each other. I had seen them a number of times over the past year but this recent interaction was the first time I talked to them for any real length of time.
Ones a mechanic and a unlikable music snob. The other is squatting and seemed like the sort of person who was barely literate by choice, and was mostly just repeating what his friend believed.
I felt like, after they told me that, I had to steady myself. I was quite drunk and it took some will to not start getting openly aggravated. I just calmly told them bits of my own perspective and experience. It made them at least uncomfortable I think because they became very quiet.
I've not had a chance to talk to them again yet, just momentary "hey man"s and waves. I will eventually though. I have so many questions. I don't know that I'll like the answers.
Maybe I'll end up dead in a gutter because I got caught up in a stupid bar fight and got stabbed or some shit. lol
Give up on politics in any productive sense yes because its wasted my time and energy. It still is, I'm mostly just indulging in a habit at this point.
I'd be happier just going back and hanging out with normies and never discussing politics again. I'd be happier. I'd probably be wealthier and healthier had I been doing that for the past decade and a half of my life.
People like to joke that "liberals just want to go to brunch" and you know, I'm not a liberal (I don't agree with private ownership of the means of production) so I never really did that. I obsessed over shitty liberal rule and criticized them. But next time the libs take control (and the dems will eventually, the electorate loves to panic vote), I'm going to actually do that. I'm going to do the thing you accelerationists accused me of doing. Make sure I save up during the 4 or so years of mild stability, and go to some other country that isn't fucking stupid.
Maybe I wont live lavishly, moving is expensive, but I'm not sticking around to help people who gleefully dragged me into bullshit. And I know I'm not the only person thinking this.
Just a total waste.
Like what, spit it out. What other thing? Hmmm? HMMMM?
I'm guessing you can't. If its what I think you are suggesting, why should I serve accelerationists? Why should I help them? I fucking hate them. They're literally working to engineer this result. They wanted this result. FUCK THEM. I hope the leopards eat their faces.
Yeah man its all just an illusion right. All the leaders are coordinating in perfect harmony to manipulate me.
Biden, in his demented state, purposefully selected Harris to serve the interests of capital... and not his own ego because she was his VP. He wasn't insulted at all when they finally started to insist that he move aside and pick the least charismatic fucking option imaginable as a fuck you to the rest of his own party.
You know... sometimes people in power are just fucking stupid flawed narcissists. Just like the average dipshit voter is.
So wait, are you saying a violent rebellion is going to happen? You actually believe that we're on track for that?
And you think the mass death from that is going to be a good thing.
OK, even if I agreed with you fully, this doesn't really refute the fact that USAID being obliterated is still causing unnecessary harm that could have been avoided had Harris won.
Its all relative I guess.
If this caucus was sooo important, why didn’t the campaign change their positions?
Because the DNC would rather lose than not lick Israel's boots. I already FUCKING KNOW THIS. JFNIOAFN UIA. AHGHAIGMIOSAEN.
How dense can you be? Are you trying to give me a stroke? Please do because I want to become simple. The alcohol isn't working fast enough.
Also the "Schrödingers anti-genocide caucus" arguement can go either way. Its a 2 way street. If you don't think abstaining will influence the results of the election, why would you bother trying to use that to influence the DNC? If you think it does influence the results of an election, it means you acknowledge that you are increasing the risk of a fascist victory.
critique about placing some blame on voters
Do you believe in free will? Agency? Autonomy?
And we have the receipts. Telling voters they’ll just need to vote for the lessor evil won’t work. You won’t win an election that way. The idea that you can blame or shame voters into doing what you want doesn’t work. That is now established fact. We’ve run the experiment, multiple times now, and we’ve got the results. Creating the permission structure such that campaigns know they don’t need to respond to voters: this is what allows campaigns to maintain un-electable positions.
I'm blaming and shaming now because it doesn't matter. I know I can't blame and shame you into voting the way I want. I never tried to do that in 2024. I knew that before the election. I'm doing it now because even if the system itself is bad, the people within it have purposefully allowed it to get worse. Their motivations for why vary, but the result of their actions is the same. On an emotional level, I simply hate them.
I can be disgusted by multiple groups at the same time.
But ok, lets engage in your point: You know how voters could have, in our admittedly terrible election system, influence the democratic party's candidates? Voting in the fucking primaries. I wish the DNC had bothered to run one this time in 2024, but you know, they offered what they offered because Biden was an egotistical old fuckhead. Still better than fascism.
But you know dems did run primaries in 2016 and 2020, as much as I preferred Sanders over both HRC and Biden... Sanders lost the primary. Because not enough people who supported Sanders voted in the primary. And the first time this happened in 2016, people who supported Sanders (even ones that did not fucking vote for him in the primary) decided not to vote in the general because he lost the primary and we got Trump Round 1. FUCK THOSE PEOPLE.
The only reason Biden barely skated by was because of how bad things had gotten under Trump by 2020. If people weren't fucking morons, it would have been a blow out in both scenarios in favor of democrats, regardless of the candidate.
We already agree: the Democratic party fucked up electorally but multiple things can be true at the same time. You seem to think voters are blameless.
That's probably because you just like a different super power, no? Do you think balkanizing the US would be good for the average person in America? I earnestly ask neutrally. Like I said after that election I'm pretty ambivalent about the well being of most Americans now, but I'm interested if you think squeezing the average person with such an action is justified? Or do you actually think it'd be beneficial?
"MAGA Libertarianism" Lumping all of your enemies together over simplifies things for a propaganda metanarrative. That said, I want to point out that the MAGA and Libertarians are generally people I'm getting away from primarily by moving out of the rural hellscape.
Further, I don't care about the country (and I mean beyond the government) because it doesn't care about me and it never will, its made that clear.