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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • It can work if the politicians are willing to change to listen to their voter base. Both war parties aren’t single-issue parties. If parties want to win the democratic mandate to enact other policies, they need to play ball with their electorate. That’s the entire point of a democracy - that the electorate gets to be heard. It seems ridiculous that one side is enacting policies that are almost across-the-board unattractive to their demographic, and they’re getting away with it because it can’t be helped, we can’t vote for the other guy, after all. (Obviously the other side is worse, but presumably their side loves their evil policies.)

    Your argument basically amounts to “because our political parties will never listen to the people”, which to me is pretty damning, and ensures that the DNC can continue to never listen to their voters. Do I want Trump to win? Absolutely not, even as someone not in the US. But the DNC can’t be allowed to keep looking at these numbers, shrug, and say people will vote for them anyway.

    Edit: My main point is that if Biden loses this because people aren’t willing to vote for him, maybe some of the blame should go to the DNC and not just the “stupid voters”?




  • Between Biden originally saying that he wasn’t sure if he would run for a second term (in 2019, to be fair), and comments from 2023 that he’s only running because he doesn’t think anyone else can beat Trump, I don’t think it’s far-fetched to think that he would not run just because he’s “the incumbent president”.

    I do also buy the argument that people who would vote for Biden wouldn’t suddenly vote for Trump if another Democratic candidate won the primary. In fact, I feel like from discourse on this platform it seems like the opposite is true: some people would vote for Trump simply because the DNC continues to push Biden.


  • Not sure if I’m not getting something or you’re not getting something, but it doesn’t seem like a non-sequitur. The idea is that if the DNC chooses its candidates, it can force Biden to step down by pressuring him, forcing him to take the route of “heroically stepping down” (publicly) return2ozma predicts will happen.

    Now I don’t think it’s likely because Biden seems as establishment as it gets, but saying that the DNC chooses who wins the primary is not a non-sequitur in that scenario.



  • Sentrovasi@kbin.socialtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml*Permanently Deleted*
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    11 months ago

    I think the older generation got used to the stereotype that if people were posting with emojis, they would naturally be making more immature posts (being younger). There are a lot more people from the older generation on the Fediverse.

    For an example of this generational gap: you mention that “On Reddit people use emojis a lot” - that genuinely is not the experience on Reddit I had: when I still used Reddit frequently, emojis were treated with the same level of disdain (which both explains and is explained by the condescension around the Emoji Movie).

    So you’re signalling that you’re from a certain generation and looking to appeal to people who are similarly from that generation of people who like to use emojis to express themselves. That’s going to attract some people and also going to rub others the wrong way. And that’s fine! Keep using your emojis. You just might want to remember that a lot of the people who hated new Reddit and a lot of the people who left Reddit for Lemmy the first time are/were going to be old-timers (by internet standards), so you might find fewer like-minded people here.

    As a last note, your saying you “miss emojis” makes me feel extra old (and I don’t think I’m old at all!): it suggests that the time of emojis has not only eclipsed the internet culture I’m familiar with but has died out also. That’s two eras. It’s fortunate that at this current point in time, it seems like digital cultural eras can pass in weeks.







  • There’s a reason people evolved altruistic reactions and tendencies, and that’s because on some level, altruism and trust in a community is good. How could anyone trust anyone else in a society where backstabbing is essentially the norm? Building giant projects like power plants could not exist without humongous inefficiencies if everyone were to constantly be trying to insure themselves from everyone else’s manipulation and making sure that they have a slice of the power pie and are not beholden to anyone else. If a society of Good people are all able to trust each other beyond any doubt (because Good people are inherently trustable), they can actually do insanely long-term plans knowing that those following them will continue to meet their obligations. Resources will be split more evenly ensuring maximisation and therefore a larger force.

    Your example is also incredibly simplistic because nobody wins in a nuclear scenario, and that’s why Good would be opposed to it. It doesn’t mean they’re against other means of stopping the issue that don’t contravene international laws (which, by the way, would be 100% made by Good people because Evil people would have no reason to be a party to any of these treaties).

    If nuclear war happens, everyone loses.

    With conventional war, it’s a wash, but I’d give it to Good, with one side having harsher tactics (but also a chance of internal conflicts and opportunistic coups) while the other side has more resources but may only fight defensive wars.

    With no war, Good wins - seems like a win for Good to me overall. The only problem is in real life it’s much harder to separate the Good from the Evil, and most people (myself included, probably) are somewhere in between.


  • That’s not what second-hand smoking is. Smoking around others will cause them to suffer the negative effects of the smoke as well. This is especially bad around children.

    Also, the argument that “it hurts no one but themselves” is a really weird one. Does you not wish the best for your loved one? If you saw your daughter or husband or wife hurting themselves, would it be “controlling” for you to try to get them to stop doing it?


  • When presenting the information to your girlfriend, please be completely honest and make sure to also show the Important Note that the researchers put at the front.

    Important note: smoking may offer a limited degree of protection in some individuals against the development of a small number of diseases, outlined below. However, this information is of little relevance to public health, given that the amount of disease that tobacco may be said to prevent is insignificant in comparison with the far greater incidence of disease caused by smoking. Tobacco products kill one in two of their long-term users.

    Half of long-term smokers die to smoking. Even if you think you can quit, the point of this study is to show that even having looked for benefits, they could only find a negligible amount of benefits compared to the harms of smoking.