• @Mango
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    -358 months ago

    Oh look. It’s time for another round of “the ethically bankrupt decisions of the powerful people in the world are your fault because voting is real.”

    It must be all the lead poisoning making people so shallow minded as to believe the toys they’re sold and occupied with are anything but a means to keep them in line and shift blame. Your cheap TV tells you what they want you to think and exists for that. Voting is a black box that exists to convince you that there’s a chance you can improve outcomes rather than just serve the rich. Political faces are literally only faces.

    Change my mind. Prove to me that voting is actually implemented and a functional interaction with the world. Hint: Some words on my screen will be about as meaningful as a Harry Potter book at best. I see voting to be about as real of an attempt at achieving something as praying. It’s a way to convince yourself your supposedly good intentions will have any sway over reality.

    I need something better than faith.

      • mozzOP
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        158 months ago

        He’s not the only one

        It’s almost as if they have a little script of a handful of arguments that they like to switch among, and aren’t actually organically reading the content and having organic thoughts that they feel like sharing in response, so it sometimes doesn’t register with them if one of the things on their list has some specific connection with the meme they’re responding to. Result, they don’t react differently or even acknowledge the connection, they just say the thing on their list.

        Almost as if

        • catsarebadpeople
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          88 months ago

          I wonder who would benefit most if these completely real and genuine people could get folks to stop voting by convincing everyone that is meaningless?

        • @Mango
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          -148 months ago

          Oh look! I’ve joined the ranks of “they”.

          Flail around under water all you like. I prefer drowning the more peaceful way.

          • @[email protected]
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            38 months ago

            Must be nice inserting yourself in all the moments of the conversation you aren’t part of and adding nothing to the thought taking place.

      • @Mango
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        -98 months ago

        Oh you mean the thing that’s completely made up by rich people to make me think I could have changed something so I’m less inclined to hunt down the people actually responsible? Yeah I’m convinced. /s

    • mozzOP
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      148 months ago

      Your cheap TV tells you

      Bro your talking points are like 15 years out of date

      Prove to me that voting is actually implemented and a functional interaction with the world

      Abortion

      • @[email protected]
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        28 months ago

        Abortion

        unabashedly correct, and watch how those who dissent your opinion will do everything but engage with this example.

      • @Mango
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        -188 months ago

        As if GAG topics aren’t literally designed to keep you all busy arguing with each other.

        Congrats on thinking you’re clever and that a word on my screen is proof of anything.

        • mozzOP
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          158 months ago

          Stronger NLRB -> stronger unions -> wage increases at the lower end of the pay scale

          As long as you keep replying to me, I’m going to keep lightning-rounding concrete tangible changes that have happened as a result of recent elections.

          I could write “no fascist dictatorship” but that one’s a little easier to dismiss as hyperbole I think, even though it’s not

          • @Mango
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            -108 months ago

            I understand that you have a lot of faith in what you’re told and believe it based on the authority of people who make convincing presentations.

            • mozzOP
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              118 months ago

              Who do you imagine is showing me presentations, that make me think these things? I’m just curious.

              Family separations at the border; for anyone in one of those families, the result of Trump being in office during that time versus Clinton or Biden is pretty fuckin significant

              • @Mango
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                -128 months ago

                Removed by mod

                • @[email protected]
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                  8 months ago

                  Your digital toys speak and you believe.

                  As do yours, dipshit. I’m sorry that you saw a bunch of depressing news and it turned you into a nihilistic edgelord, but you need to stop trying to drag other people down with you by trying to convince us that since we can’t conclusively 100% definitively prove that voting makes a difference, we shouldn’t bother getting off our couches on election day.

                  There is zero proof of the existence of God, yet people still pray. Even if they aren’t sure they really believe, hey, they might as well. There is a mountain of evidence that voting works and it costs $0 to do it.

                  $15/hr minimum wage. People living in a studio apartment can now ring up people’s hamburgers without choosing between food and rent as a direct result of a ballot measure in several states across America. But who’s counting?

                  • @Mango
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                    -88 months ago

                    With a population of people like you, just a few different time wasting distractions will give me complete control over you. Waste your time all you like. I don’t have a horse in the race anymore.

                • mozzOP
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                  78 months ago

                  I’m gonna get a little self congratulatory about it. During Covid, I was watching the news coming out of China, and somewhat ahead of the curve on explaining to people that it was going to be a huge deal, even down to the specifics of we’re going to need to stay home for a while but it won’t be an apocalypse, we want to stock up on masks, things like that. One of my friends actually told me I seemed like I had the inside track on it. If I was just watching CNN for what was going to happen I would have been absolutely an idiot about it… I actually remember when the news and CDC was telling people masks didn’t work, and me telling someone “This might sound a little weird, but I actually don’t think that’s true.” And then explaining why.

                  I’ve known people who’ve worked for presidential candidates and spent some amount of time with them. The world is not as isolated and theoretical as you’re making it sound. I get what you’re saying, but there’s a whole world of experience beyond just what happens on the screen. If you’re purely in the consumer mode then yes. If you’re active in the actual events then you start to learn what is worth listening to and see what seems well-founded in terms of how things actually play out.

                  That’s why abortion is a good touchstone. It’s a lot of Republicans’ first harsh wake up call to the idea that the news and how things are packaged has been lying to them all this time. I’ve been wrong about things plenty of time, but IDK why you would assume my only experience with the world is just what I’m observing on the screen.

                  • @Mango
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                    -58 months ago

                    You must have a lot of time and money to do something more than coming home from work at eating what’s shoveled your way.

          • @Mango
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            -128 months ago

            I’m way easier to be around than people screeching about stuff entirely out of their control who are trying to get others to screech just the same. They do say misery likes company though, and I prefer to be alone.

            • JackbyDev
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              38 months ago

              Idk, it sounds like you pursue ideological purism at the expense of things like women’s rights.

        • GratefullyGodless
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          98 months ago

          You’re an odd one. Twice now you’ve said that words on a screen are pointless, yet you’re trying to convince others with words on their screens, thus showing that you believe words on a screen can be used to sway others, otherwise why would you bother debating at all if you believed words useless. But bad arguments seems to be all you have, so I guess that’s just another example of it.

          • @Mango
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            -98 months ago

            That’s entirely true, but the difference between my words and their words are that I want people to turn their attention to the people actually doing the bad things instead of the distraction they’re giving everyone as a pacifier. At the very least I want people to stop blaming themselves for not doing enough with things that are far outside their control. I can’t fix the world’s problems and don’t think any of you can either. I’d rather you all be at peace with that than flail around under the water.

            At the very least, I’m just a dude with a phone and not one of those bots going around trying to sway the population into wasting their time.

            At most, maybe someone can come along and actually prove that voting isn’t a black box. I don’t have a lot of hope for that one. They’d have to practically take me on a physical tour of the political system, show me the source code of voting systems and prove to me that particular source code is what’s actually being used.

            • mozzOP
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              78 months ago

              You can actually do this.

              It’s way more complex than a tour – it’s a whole process; among other things, they have average Joe Schmoes from both major parties overseeing everything (i.e. not like the DNC’s agents, more like Betty who’s been doing it since the 1970s), and they do things like hand recounts of randomly selected portions of the ballots that got fed into the machines, to give warning signs if someone has tried to rig the machines. It’s definitely not perfect; in the early 2000s there were very, very strong indications that the Republicans were rigging election machines on a pretty big scale. But I think asserting that just because you personally don’t understand how it works it means it must be untrustworthy is also not really airtight either.

              My strongest argument for saying that it’s not rigged is that, if it was rigged, I think it’s highly unlikely that the establishment powers would have picked Trump. But yes, by signing up as an election worker, you can literally see for yourself a lot of the safeguards that are in place (at least in your area) and decide for yourself whether you think they’re overall trustworthy.

              • ASeriesOfPoorChoices
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                68 months ago

                apparently, he doesn’t believe that Trump actually exists, so it’s more than a little likely he’s either completely insane and detached from reality, or, more likely, is just acting in bad faith / is disingenuous / an intelligent troll.

                • mozzOP
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                  48 months ago

                  Yeah who knows dude

                  Most of the time I try to respond to people as if they were real and sincere unless they give me a specific reason to think they’re not, even if internally I have some doubts.

    • @[email protected]
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      38 months ago

      Some words on my screen will be about as meaningful as a Harry Potter book at best.

      Lol, why would I try to convince you when you already stated you can’t be convinced