You’re getting distracted. I’m not saying smoking is a good thing (not that I think what you’re calling a “good thing” actually is good anyway). I’m demonstrating your logical misstep.
The same logic your argument is based on (If you vote Democrat, a Republican might win anyway, so you might as well throw your vote away on a third party) justifies my ridiculous argument (If you don’t smoke, you might get cancer anyway, so you might as well smoke).
I reject your suggestion that throwing your vote away is a “good thing”. It’s a stupid thing that temporarily makes you feel good, like smoking.
If you vote Democrat [bad thing, genocide is bad no?], a Republican might win [bad thing] anyway, so you might as well throw your vote away on a third party [bad thing]
You see how you have once again either misinterpreted or misrepresented the argument? 2nd time now, how many before we can assume deliberate misrepresentation?
Smoking was a good analogy, why run from it? Voting democrat [chain smoking] is the devil a lot of people know, and it sure as hell beats voting republican [heroin]. No argument from me: chain smoking > heroin.
But… you could quit smoking and not do heroin either.
But… you could quit smoking and not do heroin either.
Which is probably where you’re getting confused.
Republicans are cancer.
Voting Democrat is like not smoking.
Voting third party is like smoking.
The probability of getting cancer anyway does not mean that increasing your probability of getting cancer by smoking is smart, it is much better to not smoke. Maybe you still get cancer anyway, but at least you’ve improved your odds.
The probability of getting a Republican anyway does not mean that increasing your probability of getting a Republican by voting third party is smart, it is much better to vote Democrat. Maybe you still get a Republican anyway, but at least you’ve improved your odds.
Voting third party is not good or virtuous. It is counterproductive and contributes to the greater harm.
You’re right, here is where the disconnect is. Seems strange to blame it on me being confused, can you not accept I’m a rational person in any way? Because I don’t 100% agree I have to be “confused”?
Anyways, we can drill down to just here. Is genocide bad? To those that think “genocide=bad” voting democrat cannot be a good thing, which is why you struggled so much fitting it into my argument right? You can think it’s a necessary thing, but it can’t be a good thing.
So, empathy time:
Can you accept that it’s a rational thing to assert: “genocide=bad”?
You can disagree that it is “bad enough”, damage limitation is also a rational argument right? At least I accept damage limitation to be a valid POV. I don’t think we can move on until you accept “genocide=bad” is a rational POV, not born of confusion.
Once we have “genocide=bad” it’s easy to get to “republicans=heroin”, “democrats=chain smoking” and you now have a few years to quit.
Because I don’t 100% agree I have to be “confused”?
No, you’re confused because your logic is bad. Logic isn’t something you can disagree with. You can disagree on the axioms you apply logic to, but you can’t disagree with the logic itself.
Can you accept that it’s a rational thing to assert: “genocide=bad”?
Yes, obviously. However, voting for someone who opposes genocide, but stands no chance of winning is not good; it does nothing to curtail the genocide.
No matter who you vote for, the result will be Democrat or Republican for the foreseeable future. If you actually care about the genocide, it’s better to choose which of those two is less bad. Additionally there are other issues, so even if the two are identical on genocide, there’s still a rational choice.
Voting third party does not help obstruct genocide in any way. I compared it to smoking because it feels good, it scratches an itch, but long term it’s bad.
No, you’re confused because your logic is bad. Logic isn’t something you can disagree with. You can disagree on the axioms you apply logic to, but you can’t disagree with the logic itself.
Ok
Axiom 1. doing a good thing (not supporting a genocide party) might get a bad result (republican power)
Axiom 2. Not doing the good thing (supporting a genocide party, genocide=bad we agree, bad!=good) will get a bad result anyway (republican power)
Therefore, you might as well do the good thing. You might get a good result, not doing so will get the bad result.
You haven’t proven the logic bad. You haven’t proven an axiom incorrect. You have misrepresented the position a couple times as I’ve demonstrated to you. This is a third time, I’m going with “misrepresented”. How many times until deliberate misrepresentation. How many until malicious misrepresentation?
I am not confused, your trying to portray me as such is a bad faith attempt to dismiss me. If I’m confused then you don’t have to think about what I’m saying. It would be like dismissing you as “genocide supporter” right? It doesn’t promote good conversation.
Voting democrat isn’t a good thing, we agree. You think it’s the necessary thing, I acknowledged that in my previous comment, thanks for ignoring it. Explaining why you think it’s the necessary thing doesn’t make me think you believe it’s the necessary thing even more. Explaining why you think it’s the necessary thing doesn’t prove it’s the good thing. (Genocide=bad, bad!=good) Therefore explaining why you think it’s the necessary thing doesn’t show my position to be illogical and was a waste of time. We both agree, you think it’s the necessary thing and I think that’s a valid POV. There’s no argument to be found here.
Voting third party does not help obstruct genocide in any way. I compared it to smoking because it feels good, it scratches an itch, but long term it’s bad.
Right, “feels good, scratches an itch but long term it’s bad” that’s supporting democrats. Damage limitation is short term feel good, but long term loss, gestures at the current state of things. Instead of damage limitation you have a few years to quit smoking, as it were, and build something better.
Or, you can do what you’ve always done (vote Democrat) and hope you don’t get more of what you’ve always got (relentless march to fascism)
Axiom 2. Not doing the good thing (supporting a genocide party, genocide=bad we agree) will get a bad result anyway (republican power)
Yes, that’s a bad axiom. It is demonstrably untrue. It may get the worse of the two possible outcomes (Republican power) or it may get the less bad of two possible outcomes (Democrat power). It is false to say that voting will get the worse result.
Doesn’t matter what logic you apply to those axioms, garbage in garbage out.
Therefore, you might as well do the good thing. You might get a good result, not doing so will get the bad result.
How does voting for a candidate with no chance of winning yield a good result?
Good intentions with bad outcomes does not make a good thing. Wasting your vote is a bad thing. You keep calling it good, it is not.
Damage limitation is short term feel good, but long term loss, gestures at the current state of things. Instead of damage limitation you have a few years to quit smoking, as it were, and build something better.
Long term it is still the better of two possible outcomes. “Quitting” is going to require social action. Individual electoral action will not make anything better. The smoker in this analogy is the nation as a whole, doing the good thing would be changing the outlooks of half the country. Voting third party does not accomplish that. It makes you feel good for opposing genocide, while enabling that genocide to get worse. Bad thing.
It may get the worse of the two possible outcomes (Republican power) or it may get the less bad of two possible outcomes
Distinction without difference, I was thoughtless to use the word will. Swapping it to may doesn’t change my argument over much. Options are maybe good, definitely bad, definitely hellsacpe. Doom yourself to flip from bad to hellsacpe eternally? Or try for good?
Regardless, I’ll be more careful when stating the position as less certain in future, you’re right, there is a non zero chance they win an election but, of course, there’s always the election after.
How does voting for a candidate with no chance of winning yield a good result?
For someone who just made a point of non-zero vs zero chance, I thought you would be more careful with your verbage. I made a direct acknowledgement of the mistake, and a sincere commitment to do better, I expect the same from you.
You’ve got a few years to try and increase that chance, or you can try keep people smoking, which have you chosen to do? Which do you intend to do going forward? Genocide is a cancer, one of many that are the symptoms of supporting dem. Everyone believed the UK Tories were the only alternative to UK Labour, “it’s a FPTP and therefore two party system”, then Reform started to take off. 2 party system has always been a lie. To be clear, Reform are fascist as fuck.
Good intentions with bad outcomes does not make a good thing.
Are you talking about supporting Democrats here? Supporting Democrat achieved nothing and so “Wasting [their] vote is a bad thing. [They] keep calling it good, it is not.” Everyone that didn’t vote Republican made an ineffective vote, did you vote for Trump because it would be effective? No, you didnt vote for Trump (I imagine) because it would be a bad thing to do, regardless of the outcome.
I disagree with you, the people fighting for civil rights when it was unpopular to do so were doing good. Perhaps that’s our fundamental disagreement: just because it’s unpopular (and therefore ineffective in politics) doesn’t make it not good. A lot of unpopular things are good, and the people doing them are doing good.
Voting [democrats] does not accomplish that. It makes you feel good for opposing [Fascism], while enabling that genocide to get worse. Bad thing.
Ftfy, kinda, I think opposing fascism is a valid priority to have. You acknowledged genocide is bad but can’t seem to accept it’s opposition is also a valid priority.
The smoker in this analogy is the nation as a whole, doing the good thing would be changing the outlooks of half the country.
What do you think I’m trying to do if not change your outlook?
Huge content edit to the first paragraph. Normally I just edit without fuss but it’s worth mentioning when a paragraph now says the opposite of what it did. Further, I won’t see a reply telling me which version you’ve seen before I have to leave. Hopefully you only see/respond to the edited one, being results minded.
Anyways to the edit: the original had me saying you suggested Dems were a “good”, you didn’t, they’re a bad and that’s always been acknowledged. I changed the tone to be much less confrontational too. Good conversation and all that, I’m getting tired and my natural dickishness is coming (lol) though.
Swapping it to may doesn’t change my argument over much
It fundamentally does. The difference between certainty and possibility is logically massive, especially when it is the core of your argument.
Functionally, Dems stood little chance at winning.
Factually, it was much closer than you’re misrepresenting, which is why protest voting was such a terrible decision.
For someone who just made a point non-zero vs zero chance, I thought you would be more careful with your verbage.
I was careful, third parties stood no chance of winning. Democrats got nearly half the vote, third parties got fractions of a percent. Your insistence on equivocating the two is either wildly misinformed, or totally disingenuous.
You’ve got a few years to try and increase that chance, or you can try keep people smoking, which have you chosen to do?
You keep trying to frame it this way, this is wrong. The analogy doesn’t work with your substitutions. Third parties are smoking, Democrats are not smoking. Switching it around doesn’t work, the conditions are fundamentally different.
I’ve chosen to use my vote in the general election to obstruct fascism, since that is the best use. I’ve chosen to use more effective methods to secure better options.
Supporting Democrat achieved nothing
Supporting Democrats gave us a sporting chance of avoiding our present situation. If you’re talking about achieving nothing, you’re talking about voting third party in general elections. Democrats win presidential races, they’ve won many times in fact, and every time slows down the Republican race to fascism. Third parties do not win presidential races, so voting for them achieves nothing. Unless you want to count splitting the vote against fascism, it certainly achieves that.
I disagree with you, the people fighting for civil rights when it was unpopular to do so were doing good.
I never said they weren’t. But they didn’t do that by voting for unviable candidates. They did that with direct action. I never said anything against direct action.
You acknowledged genocide is bad but can’t seem to accept it’ls opposition is also a valid priority.
Just being against something isn’t a priority. Actions that actually oppose genocide are a priority. Voting third party was not such an action.
You’re getting distracted. I’m not saying smoking is a good thing (not that I think what you’re calling a “good thing” actually is good anyway). I’m demonstrating your logical misstep.
The same logic your argument is based on (If you vote Democrat, a Republican might win anyway, so you might as well throw your vote away on a third party) justifies my ridiculous argument (If you don’t smoke, you might get cancer anyway, so you might as well smoke).
I reject your suggestion that throwing your vote away is a “good thing”. It’s a stupid thing that temporarily makes you feel good, like smoking.
You see how you have once again either misinterpreted or misrepresented the argument? 2nd time now, how many before we can assume deliberate misrepresentation?
Smoking was a good analogy, why run from it? Voting democrat [chain smoking] is the devil a lot of people know, and it sure as hell beats voting republican [heroin]. No argument from me: chain smoking > heroin.
But… you could quit smoking and not do heroin either.
Which is probably where you’re getting confused.
Republicans are cancer.
Voting Democrat is like not smoking.
Voting third party is like smoking.
The probability of getting cancer anyway does not mean that increasing your probability of getting cancer by smoking is smart, it is much better to not smoke. Maybe you still get cancer anyway, but at least you’ve improved your odds.
The probability of getting a Republican anyway does not mean that increasing your probability of getting a Republican by voting third party is smart, it is much better to vote Democrat. Maybe you still get a Republican anyway, but at least you’ve improved your odds.
Voting third party is not good or virtuous. It is counterproductive and contributes to the greater harm.
[…]
You’re right, here is where the disconnect is. Seems strange to blame it on me being confused, can you not accept I’m a rational person in any way? Because I don’t 100% agree I have to be “confused”?
Anyways, we can drill down to just here. Is genocide bad? To those that think “genocide=bad” voting democrat cannot be a good thing, which is why you struggled so much fitting it into my argument right? You can think it’s a necessary thing, but it can’t be a good thing.
So, empathy time:
Can you accept that it’s a rational thing to assert: “genocide=bad”?
You can disagree that it is “bad enough”, damage limitation is also a rational argument right? At least I accept damage limitation to be a valid POV. I don’t think we can move on until you accept “genocide=bad” is a rational POV, not born of confusion.
Once we have “genocide=bad” it’s easy to get to “republicans=heroin”, “democrats=chain smoking” and you now have a few years to quit.
No, you’re confused because your logic is bad. Logic isn’t something you can disagree with. You can disagree on the axioms you apply logic to, but you can’t disagree with the logic itself.
Yes, obviously. However, voting for someone who opposes genocide, but stands no chance of winning is not good; it does nothing to curtail the genocide.
No matter who you vote for, the result will be Democrat or Republican for the foreseeable future. If you actually care about the genocide, it’s better to choose which of those two is less bad. Additionally there are other issues, so even if the two are identical on genocide, there’s still a rational choice.
Voting third party does not help obstruct genocide in any way. I compared it to smoking because it feels good, it scratches an itch, but long term it’s bad.
Ok
Axiom 1. doing a good thing (not supporting a genocide party) might get a bad result (republican power)
Axiom 2. Not doing the good thing (supporting a genocide party, genocide=bad we agree, bad!=good) will get a bad result anyway (republican power)
Therefore, you might as well do the good thing. You might get a good result, not doing so will get the bad result.
You haven’t proven the logic bad. You haven’t proven an axiom incorrect. You have misrepresented the position a couple times as I’ve demonstrated to you. This is a third time, I’m going with “misrepresented”. How many times until deliberate misrepresentation. How many until malicious misrepresentation?
I am not confused, your trying to portray me as such is a bad faith attempt to dismiss me. If I’m confused then you don’t have to think about what I’m saying. It would be like dismissing you as “genocide supporter” right? It doesn’t promote good conversation.
Voting democrat isn’t a good thing, we agree. You think it’s the necessary thing, I acknowledged that in my previous comment, thanks for ignoring it. Explaining why you think it’s the necessary thing doesn’t make me think you believe it’s the necessary thing even more. Explaining why you think it’s the necessary thing doesn’t prove it’s the good thing. (Genocide=bad, bad!=good) Therefore explaining why you think it’s the necessary thing doesn’t show my position to be illogical and was a waste of time. We both agree, you think it’s the necessary thing and I think that’s a valid POV. There’s no argument to be found here.
Right, “feels good, scratches an itch but long term it’s bad” that’s supporting democrats. Damage limitation is short term feel good, but long term loss, gestures at the current state of things. Instead of damage limitation you have a few years to quit smoking, as it were, and build something better.
Or, you can do what you’ve always done (vote Democrat) and hope you don’t get more of what you’ve always got (relentless march to fascism)
Yes, that’s a bad axiom. It is demonstrably untrue. It may get the worse of the two possible outcomes (Republican power) or it may get the less bad of two possible outcomes (Democrat power). It is false to say that voting will get the worse result.
Doesn’t matter what logic you apply to those axioms, garbage in garbage out.
How does voting for a candidate with no chance of winning yield a good result?
Good intentions with bad outcomes does not make a good thing. Wasting your vote is a bad thing. You keep calling it good, it is not.
Long term it is still the better of two possible outcomes. “Quitting” is going to require social action. Individual electoral action will not make anything better. The smoker in this analogy is the nation as a whole, doing the good thing would be changing the outlooks of half the country. Voting third party does not accomplish that. It makes you feel good for opposing genocide, while enabling that genocide to get worse. Bad thing.
Distinction without difference, I was thoughtless to use the word will. Swapping it to may doesn’t change my argument over much. Options are maybe good, definitely bad, definitely hellsacpe. Doom yourself to flip from bad to hellsacpe eternally? Or try for good?
Regardless, I’ll be more careful when stating the position as less certain in future, you’re right, there is a non zero chance they win an election but, of course, there’s always the election after.
For someone who just made a point of non-zero vs zero chance, I thought you would be more careful with your verbage. I made a direct acknowledgement of the mistake, and a sincere commitment to do better, I expect the same from you.
You’ve got a few years to try and increase that chance, or you can try keep people smoking, which have you chosen to do? Which do you intend to do going forward? Genocide is a cancer, one of many that are the symptoms of supporting dem. Everyone believed the UK Tories were the only alternative to UK Labour, “it’s a FPTP and therefore two party system”, then Reform started to take off. 2 party system has always been a lie. To be clear, Reform are fascist as fuck.
Are you talking about supporting Democrats here? Supporting Democrat achieved nothing and so “Wasting [their] vote is a bad thing. [They] keep calling it good, it is not.” Everyone that didn’t vote Republican made an ineffective vote, did you vote for Trump because it would be effective? No, you didnt vote for Trump (I imagine) because it would be a bad thing to do, regardless of the outcome.
I disagree with you, the people fighting for civil rights when it was unpopular to do so were doing good. Perhaps that’s our fundamental disagreement: just because it’s unpopular (and therefore ineffective in politics) doesn’t make it not good. A lot of unpopular things are good, and the people doing them are doing good.
Ftfy, kinda, I think opposing fascism is a valid priority to have. You acknowledged genocide is bad but can’t seem to accept it’s opposition is also a valid priority.
What do you think I’m trying to do if not change your outlook?
Huge content edit to the first paragraph. Normally I just edit without fuss but it’s worth mentioning when a paragraph now says the opposite of what it did. Further, I won’t see a reply telling me which version you’ve seen before I have to leave. Hopefully you only see/respond to the edited one, being results minded.
Anyways to the edit: the original had me saying you suggested Dems were a “good”, you didn’t, they’re a bad and that’s always been acknowledged. I changed the tone to be much less confrontational too. Good conversation and all that, I’m getting tired and my natural dickishness is coming (lol) though.
It fundamentally does. The difference between certainty and possibility is logically massive, especially when it is the core of your argument.
Factually, it was much closer than you’re misrepresenting, which is why protest voting was such a terrible decision.
I was careful, third parties stood no chance of winning. Democrats got nearly half the vote, third parties got fractions of a percent. Your insistence on equivocating the two is either wildly misinformed, or totally disingenuous.
You keep trying to frame it this way, this is wrong. The analogy doesn’t work with your substitutions. Third parties are smoking, Democrats are not smoking. Switching it around doesn’t work, the conditions are fundamentally different.
I’ve chosen to use my vote in the general election to obstruct fascism, since that is the best use. I’ve chosen to use more effective methods to secure better options.
Supporting Democrats gave us a sporting chance of avoiding our present situation. If you’re talking about achieving nothing, you’re talking about voting third party in general elections. Democrats win presidential races, they’ve won many times in fact, and every time slows down the Republican race to fascism. Third parties do not win presidential races, so voting for them achieves nothing. Unless you want to count splitting the vote against fascism, it certainly achieves that.
I never said they weren’t. But they didn’t do that by voting for unviable candidates. They did that with direct action. I never said anything against direct action.
Just being against something isn’t a priority. Actions that actually oppose genocide are a priority. Voting third party was not such an action.