neatchee

Ok, that person is dumb as rocks, but hear me out…

In a post scarcity society, where livelihood is not tied to labor, the training and output of AI may be socialist.

Copyright, trademark, etc exist solely to protect the profitability of labor and capital. In a world where that is not required, the free sharing and reuse of ideas is socialist.

It can’t exist today. And there are lots of other problems with how we’re doing AI. But on some level, the fundamental concept of limitless sharing and reproduction of ideas is definitely socialist at its core.

I’m told I’m too nice for my own good. Where does that put me? 🙃

No thanks. This is all a massive waste of time and energy when we both agree that denying people their right to vote is fucked.

So instead of bickering over numbers, let’s just end with “fuck anyone who wants to deny people their right to vote, felon or otherwise” mmmkay?

You quoted 5-10%, which is wildly inaccurate. It’s not even close. Then proceeded to call me racist when I did some simple math using the latest numbers available to me.

Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you

The really entertaining thing is that this is all over an aside in my OC because you didn’t like the word I chose to comparatively represent the size of the felony population in a post about how awful it is to take people’s right to vote away.

Talk about picking the wrong target. Fuckin yikes.

Bruh 1.1% is a lot closer to 1.7% than the literally 5% value originally commented above. Sue me for taking the latest available felon numbers and dividing by current US population

2024

I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure it’s 2026 now and our population is growing, not shrinking

And that 4m number is down from their 2022 report (4.4m), so you can’t tell me the felon population has grown with the US population

I got my numbers from the exact same source. Your own link contradicts you. 4 million is not 2% of the US pop. 4 million is 1.1% of the population.

I never said they were split 50/50. I said they were distributed.

Meaning it’s not “four million votes for Democrats”

And fuck you for assuming my ethics. I think the fact that felons can’t vote is absolutely immoral. Nobody should be deprived of their vote.

But I don’t lie about statistics.

You are wildly wrong.

1.1% of the population cannot vote due to felony conviction.

And those people are distributed across the political spectrum just like any other demographic.

If you’re going to quote bullshit stats, at least post a link to some fringe blog to back it up sort of

I’m going to address only the last part: what is the value of having stupid people vote.

The value in allowing stupid people to vote is that your opposition can’t change the definition of “stupid” to include only you and your friends.

The law is a blunt instrument. If we enshrine in law the power for Congress to deprive people of their vote, we have agreed that depriving people “for the right reasons” is justification for doing so, and now the question simply becomes “can you convince people this is a good reason to deprive people of their ability to vote”.

We already have this with Felons. They are a miniscule percent of the population though, so it cannot be abused to win an election. It’s bad enough the precedent kind of already exists. Expanding it would be self destructive

EDIT: Because it’s been brought up, felons who cannot vote make up 1.1% of the US population.

I looked up the average age of mothers at the time of their first child birth in 1863 because I really badly wanted to make a joke about a “score” being 20 for that reason.

Sadly the average age was 22-26 so my day is ruined.

It is phenomenal how much that shit makes the person in the meme look like Weird Al.

And I’m trying to tell you that most of us understand it already, and are still frustrated with the people trying to convince everyone not to vote as some kind of valid form of protest.

Your approach antagonizes your allies. Accelerationists who want people not to vote are not your allies and they’re not mine. They are overwhelmingly people in positions of privilege who can afford to watch everything burn down because they aren’t the ones who will be hurt by it. That’s not “people like you and me”. That’s selfish people with an axe to grind

And my entire point is that you came into a thread about people who say “don’t vote”, tried to tell everyone “voting isn’t enough”, and justifiably got told “hey, stfu, nobody is saying voting alone is enough, but you still have to fucking vote”.

Like, I understand everything you’re saying and I don’t even disagree but you picked the wrong time and place to get annoyed with people who were venting their frustrations over a specific type of person that says “don’t vote, it’s ethically unjustifiable”.

I’m just as frustrated as you and that is where your emotions are misplaced.

The point of this post was “people who don’t vote because they object to all candidates are silly and short-sighted”. It sounds like you agree with that. Nobody said “only vote” just the same as you didn’t say “only do local”. That was kind of my point, in a roundabout way.

We need to vote local. We need to work with our communities to find and elevate good candidates. That involves exactly the kinds of grass-roots activities your describe but that doesn’t justify not voting.

To quote Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing, “Decisions are made by people who show up.” If you don’t show up to the table where the decisions are happening, no matter what else you do, you’re giving your choice to someone else, because he decisions still get made, except now it is by people you had literally, voluntarily no say in choosing.

I will never support the idea of “we shouldn’t vote for the better candidate because they’re not good enough”. We’re not going to overthrow the government next month. So we should exert whatever influence we can wherever and whenever we can.

Except a third party is still voting? I only clown on third party voters when they:

a) split the vote of a single party instead of pulling from both parties and new voters (because it only helps the remaining party cement their dominance in the next election through gerrymandering etc)

b) have clown policies that appeal only to emotion, with no path to implementation (I’m looking at you, Jill Stein and Ross Perot)

Show me a legitimate third party candidate with good policy proposals and a plan to gain votes without guaranteeing the worst candidate wins and I’ll vote for 'em, campaign for 'em, and more.

Third party isn’t burning the bus down or letting it drive off the cliff. Third party (when done well) is a third bus driver choice. I’m all for that.

I would argue you’re the one buying your head in the sand, as you offer “community recycling” sized solutions to an “industrial pollution” sized problem. You play into the hands of the very authorities you claim to oppose.

Good luck with that!

No thanks. You’ve just admitted your position that you expect, and welcome, bloodshed as a necessary part of progress.

I have no interest in engaging with an anarchist who won’t even consider peaceful progress as an option to pursue.

Nor am I interested in further subsidizing the wealthy by digging even deeper into my paper thin emotional and financial reserves to support the welfare of my community any more than I already am through taxes, charity, and personal outreach to people in need. I am already completely tapped out. And any further subsidy is a tacit admission that the wealthy will never pay their share.

So yeah, hard pass on whatever arguments you want to make.

Have a great day/night!

EDIT: No disrespect, btw. You are welcome to your opinion. I just consider the discussion a waste of time because our fundamental goals are too dramatically different.

Bullshit. Quote me then. Quote me where I say anything close to “I like these candidates. They are my preferred choice out of all proposed options past and present”.

You can’t. Because it’s factually inaccurate. You can’t find that shit for most of us. Because that’s not how we feel. We’re all holding our noses, just like you.

If you can prove otherwise, I encourage you to do so.

That was a whole lot of words without actually providing a single recommended course of action. I continue to hear a lot of general have waving and dissatisfaction from people who say we need a new system, but fail to describe that system in any meaningful detail, or how we will transition to that system without significant bloodshed.

This country has changed a lot over the past 250 years and most of it happened through protest and voting at various levels of government.

You know what the crazy thing is? We have a means to overthrow Congress. We just don’t have the state and local leaders to do it. A second Continental Congress is what we need if we want a massive system overhaul. And for that you need state and local governments in sufficient numbers to act without the approval of the Federal Congress.

Voting fucking matters. The likes of MLK are a once in a century deal. Everything else happens through protest and voting at a variety of levels.

The problem is that people hear “go vote” and all they think about is federal level general elections.