North Carolina already was a blood soaked stain on US legitimacy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_massacre

They cannot do both! Time is finite.

So I guess they better not sleep or have other hobbies then, either, right? I don’t think expecting maximum optimization is realistic.

It doesn’t matter because if we take direct action and prefigure mutual aid networks for improving our lives the state fucking collapses from its own contradictions.

Many people will suffer and die if the state collapses abruptly. Especially if it continues on the trajectory the right wing is aiming it right now. We should avoid the equivalent of an unsafe shutdown. We can do more than one thing at a time, especially when one of those things is “spend 15 minutes once a year voting against the store brand nazi”. If you just forfeit on this front, people will be rounded up and disappeared because that’s what won the election, and there are enough people that comply, and enough people that are eager for that. Voting won’t magically fix everything, but it can act as harm reduction.

And yes even the little old ladies volunteering on food kitchens would be thousand times more valuable than doing election tables.

They can do both!

I’m not ignoring the real world at all. I’m saying that if we put the electioneering efforts into direct action, it won’t matter if someone else has the state.

In what way will it not matter if someone else controls the state?

It sounds like you’re ignoring the real world when you say we should abandon elections and let our opponents take full control of the government. That will lead to incalculable tragedy.

I really don’t think the little old ladies volunteering to run the tables are an untapped vanguard of the revolution, nor do I think that them spending an afternoon there is mutually exclusive with other activities.

You can’t just ignore the world because you don’t like it and expect it to conform to your desires. Laws and government exist. If you forfeit this front, the people who do put effort in will use these apparatuses to do real things in the real world. People on food stamps can’t eat your idealism. (And programs like that are not mutually exclusive with mutual aid)

Most people follow election results and those people’s actions have real, discernable, effects. If you yield on this front, even if you think elections are flawed, you’re letting your opponents have this power uncontested. That’s a terrible strategy.

I’m not sure I follow. I was talking about what individuals should do: direct action and also voting. Voting is often just a few minutes for the end user.

I’m not talking about what the state should spend resources on.

True, true. Saint Luigi inspired people. But that alone didn’t fix the world, and it’s a very chaotic move.

I meant the amount of effort it takes for the end user.

If we’re going to talk about higher order levels of effort, then everything gets very expensive very quickly.

No single thing alone will fix the world. Voting alone won’t fix it. Throwing a molotov alone won’t fix it.

Voting (in many places, for many people) takes almost no effort. Go do it. But don’t call it a day and think you’ve done everything you can do. Refusing to vote just yields one of the many fronts in this conflict without a fight.

I ran a game in near future New York and used Google maps and street view for guidance. Worked well. None of the other players lived here, so I think the visuals helped them.

I had one really good game of Vampire. Lasted a couple years. We still talk about it sometimes, and its best scenes. Like how one PC saved an NPC by jumping out a 10th story window with her. Or the time they had a huge in character fight because the job they’d tried to do went sideways.

But I’ve also had a couple really bad games. There was one where they just didn’t read and retain anything from the books. One of the players on like session 4 was like “wait. How do I get more blood? Do I like… Bite people?”. My friend what do you think was happening in the other scenes when people were hunting for blood? They also didn’t retain anything about the different factions, so they didn’t really understand anyone’s motivation. It was bad. Still feel bad about it.

Arguing for what’s best for humanity long term…

all their wealth has been distributed to feed those who are in need. Who are you going to kill and eat next?

No one. This isn’t the fascism that always needs an enemy to hate on

The intention is different. Self defense against conservatives vs their offense against all. See also the paradox of tolerance

Doctors cut people up just like serial killers. They’re basically the same.

is that not also a form of weakness masquerading as strength?

what?

How are you any better if you hate them for that?

I’m better than them because I’m not trying to overthrow the government to install a dictatorship that protects my in-group (eg: straight white people) and binds my out-group. I’m not trying to destroy the environment, murder the queers, ban books, ban vaccines, either.

Please. Elaborate.

Hating on weak people feels good to them, maybe?

Conservatives have no real value system beyond “what is good for me right now?”. They like or dislike things for transient, emotional, reasons. They might be in favor of charity when it’s doing something they personally benefit from, but that’s about as far as their reasoning goes.

Conservatives would say this is communism and bad, which is why we should kill and eat conservatives.

People that work at microsoft could stop this. With means gentler than “Crack open the CEO’s skull with a hammer”, too.