They lose elections because people are too stupid…

That’s the whole problem. Democrats see the very understandable cynicism many people have around their vote actually mattering in our current political reality, and they conclude it’s because they’re stupid or misinformed.

I mean, I’d really love to find a way to save everyone on the tracks and on the train (especially since I’m probably on the train in this metaphor, i.e. benefiting from empire). But if the train is going to keep running innocent people over if drastic action isn’t taken, I’m in favor of doing whatever is necessary to stop it.

Many people who don’t vote believe (with some pretty good justification, imo) that it’s all bread and circuses, that ultimately the U.S. government is going to do what it wants regardless of who gets elected. I’m personally with you that it does make a difference, but I don’t think anyone’s done a good job of making a case to the skeptics that things would have been substantially different if Kamala Harris had won (and pointing out how shockingly awful things under Trump are isn’t enough, especially considering how many moderate Democrats have been happy to go along with that awfulness when push comes to shove). How do you convince people they still have a modicum of power in a system that is so clearly designed to make most of us powerless?

People (particularly western society) have a pretty awful history when it comes to jumping on excuses to dehumanize, and I feel like regardless of whether this target is sentient or not, we should probably not play into that impulse any further–for the sake of ourselves and also all of the humans we continue to dehumanize.

The trans people asking you to not materially support someone who is harming us at scale are not your mom telling you you’re not allowed to play your video games, dude. You’re perfectly allowed to be an asshole

I’ve been voting in every major election since 2016, and I don’t regret doing it but I do feel myself becoming more and more disillusioned each time about whether the sort of democratic machinery we’ve built is even capable of producing the sort of radical change the American empire desperately needs. I really can’t blame people who’ve concluded that voting isn’t going to work.

Hey, instead of arguing on Lemmy about who is being more useless, can we just try to stop the damn child killing machine together

Grouplove, aka the people behind the “take me to your bestfriend’s house” song from that one 2010ish iPod commercial, surprisingly put on some fucking amazing shows- especially if you can see them at a more intimate venue

You’re so brave for "both sides"ing a genocide. If only more people had the moral backbone you do 😔

Ahh I see–that makes sense. I wish they’d do more to make the game more accessible for people not interested in the story

I really wish FF14 would steal from games like this

I’m sure you’ve heard this plenty already, but if you can push through the base game (A Realm Reborn) story, it gets way way better once you hit the first expansion. I was skeptical, but the story and character development in the expansions legit blew me away

I can’t decide if this is better or worse than FFXIV’s “Talk to NPC #1. Talk to NPC #2. Watch long cutscene. Point at NPC #3. Report back to NPC #1. Quest complete!”

Per the literal first sentence of the Wikipedia page that appears as the first result when you search “liberalism”, liberalism is based on several different pillars, only one or maybe two of which could arguably be reduced down to “what if the king shouldn’t be in charge?”. The only way it would make sense to describe liberalism as just “the right to self-determination” is if the only thing you have to compare it against is like, feudalism or fascism.

It’s way more complex than that, and I say that as someone who hates tankies but also hates liberalism.

You can just say you don’t understand what I’m saying. It’s okay.

Yeah, sorry, my thoughts on the original question/scenario evolved as we were talking so this ended up being messy and unclear.

I want to retract my response about excluding the non-masker, not because I don’t think it’s possible to do that in a way that respects autonomy and doesn’t leverage power structures, but because the specific way that would be done would be fluid and dependent on factors we can’t really take into account in the abstract. My answer to your proposed scenario is, I don’t have enough information to make a judgment of the situation.

Another way of putting what I’m getting at: when someone/some group is given power over others, the normal social dynamics of how people cooperate and be in conflict with each other are disrupted, because the power-holders can just wield the authority to enforce their will regardless. In your scenario, a non-masker choosing to go against the community’s will is a conflict, and the action to be taken should be based around resolving that conflict under the conditions it’s taking place in. If we just say “they’ll be excluded from community spaces under threat of violence” or “they’ll be locked up and forced to reintegrate into the community”, we’re wielding authority to bypass the actual conflict with all of its messiness and nuance. Nothing actually get resolved other than the person not physically being there anymore. Resentment grows, and we end up with more violence and wielding of authority down the line.

I’m confused by your last sentence. Can you say more?

So are we assuming the non-masker is trying to be somewhere they’ve been told they’re not welcome like, as a statement of rebellion? Do they not understand that they’re not welcome or what they need to change to be welcome? Are they trying to be provocative, or are they trying to gain access to the community for some specific purpose?

“Enforcing this exclusion” is really broad. It has the underlying assumption that the situation is already violent, that there is a thing to enforce against someone who is “disobeying” the thing. Which I’d argue comes from the fact that we’ve really only lived in police states in modern history. Again, humans are social creatures–we want community and we want to feel included. And we don’t consciously do things to each other for no reason. I urge you to think deeply about where the need for “enforcement” comes from, and what we mean by it.

If you mandate and enforce it, you’ll form/expose the hierarchy, right?

Well, depends on who “you” is and how you “enforce” it. Do you, the person given the systemic authority to do so, throw people in jail/gulags/whatever if they refuse to mask? Then yeah, that’s hierarchical. Do you, a community member, organize with other community members to exclude the non-masker from social events and community spaces until they decide to mask? OR do you, a doctor designated via the community as an expert and thus given narrow, organic, retractable social authority to do so, say “you need to wear a mask”? Then no.