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   Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Aug-2024 07:59:27 JST Rich Felker

   • Passenger
   • Fabio G.

   @passenger @magitweeter The trolley problem is utter mind rot and has nothing to do with this.

   You are the one *making up* that voting is "a bad thing" with no actual causal basis to justify that, then using that as a premise for circular reasoning.

   • Embed this notice
     Fabio G. (magitweeter@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 01-Aug-2024 07:59:24 JST Fabio G.

     in reply to

     • Passenger

     @dalias

     Voting for a party who will harm your loved ones is voting to harm your loved ones. That's true even if the other option on the ballot will harm your loved ones as well. I think anything beyond that is moral nitpicking.

     @passenger

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Aug-2024 07:59:24 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Passenger
     • Fabio G.

     @magitweeter @passenger NO IT IS NOT. That conclusion is purely a word game with the word "for" in "voting for", which is poor wording and has no correspondence between any cause and effect relationship by which you could be "causing harm". It's as nonsensical as saying you harmed someone by praying for something bad to happen them.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Aug-2024 07:59:25 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Passenger
     • Fabio G.

     @magitweeter @passenger Collectively you may have the power to stop it, but not in the time frame you have, and not by any possible vote you could make in the current election cycle, and absolutely not by voting alone. Other forms of collective action are needed to stop harms that are not up for ballot. But you can be part of stopping the harms that are up for ballot (the ones where there is a clear forseeable outcome difference between the candidates).

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     Fabio G. (magitweeter@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 01-Aug-2024 07:59:25 JST Fabio G.

     in reply to

     • Passenger

     @dalias

     Part of the problem is that blue team leaders systematically block more progressive candidates and policies (Jamaal Bowman is a prominent recent example). As a progressive voter, blue leaders are harming you by denying you the progressive candidate.

     In a sense, this is something the blue team can afford to do only because they count on you voting blue anyway because the red team winning is even worse.

     That's blackmail (or extortion, perhaps more accurately). And it's bad.

     @passenger

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Aug-2024 07:59:25 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Passenger
     • Fabio G.

     @magitweeter @passenger All of that is true but doesn't establish the extraordinary, inflammatory, and counter-productive claim: that you are *harming your loved ones* by voting.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 01-Aug-2024 07:59:26 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Passenger
     • Fabio G.

     @magitweeter @passenger Yes.

     Since "bad" is not a very well-defined term, the more precise version of what I'm saying is that there is no plausible way that, as a result of voting blue instead of red or third-party or not-at-all, you *cause a harm* in any meaningful sense of cause (i.e. not butterfly-effect type things).

     Any harm that does happen was going to happen independent of your action, and individually you did not have the power to stop it.

   • Embed this notice
     Fabio G. (magitweeter@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 01-Aug-2024 07:59:27 JST Fabio G.

     in reply to

     • Passenger

     @dalias

     Let me see if i understand correctly.

     You don't disagree that voting for the red team is worse than voting for the blue team.

     You disagree that voting for the blue team is bad at all.

     Am i getting that right?

     @passenger