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TheBigMike Big Miku @lemm.ee

Democracy is non-negotiable

Posts 0
Comments 31
8 Minutes
  • It goes to 9 minutes from 8, since every single communication gadget will yell out that the sun has disappeared as reports come in from the other side of the earth.

  • How did you get into coding/programming?
  • I saw the video about Python from Life Of Boris and thought it looked fun, so I just decided to learn programming.

  • CNN's debate was no fair fight
  • The part about voting is pretty simple logic.

    In a voting system where the one who gets majority of the votes wins, the other votes don't really have an impact. Of course they are part of the race to win, but outside of that, what do the other votes do? Nothing. In other systems those votes would cause a second round to happen, but in the US system they don't. Those votes are just... gone.

    Sure, you could argue that it's about "sending a message", but... why? Why do this now while the Project 2025 looms over the US if the Republicans win? The Democratic Party won't change before the elections and no amount of threatening to vote for 3rd party will change that.

    The part about "if you don't vote for Biden, you vote for Trump" is not literal. It's more... abstract if that makes sense. Since if you vote for parties that have no realistic chance of winning, it means that a party that has a chance of winning doesn't get that vote and the party you least want in power is one vote closer to win the election. This logic goes for both Democrats and Republicans. If a Republican votes for third party that has no chance of winning, their vote metaphorically goes to the Democratic party, since the Republican party will be one vote further away from the Democratic party. Hell, this same logic, to some extent, also applies to other systems, but not as much as the US system.

    So unless you are predicting Jill Stein to be making history and winning as a third party, a thing that hasn't happened, that vote won't affect the elections and the party you least want in power is just one vote closer to be winning.

    In a two round system, your vote would matter more, since your vote would be affecting everyone's chance of getting an absolute majority of 50% all votes. And since everyone, but your chosen party, is one vote further from the 50% mark, a second round has a higher chance of happening.

  • Happy Juneteenth everyone!
  • Good meme! (I have no clue what any of it means other than the dates)

  • What Exactly are We All Working for here, Anyway?
  • Wouldn't this be the case for any system that we could live under? There are always things that are needed to be produced (like food), so the system would have to prioritize those before allowing for more less-important things (like art and such). The amount of stuff that is needed to run modern society is pretty huge, so the positions that are left open for art and such would be pretty small, since those aren't required for the existence of the system you live under. Of course they are needed for societal stuff, but that doesn't matter if everyone dies of hunger due to a lack of farmers.

    The only way I see this changing is to automate the tasks that require the most amounts of humans to do that job, thus opening more places further up the "importance pyramid". And by importance pyramid, I mean the hierarchy needed job, where the lowest is the most important for the continued existence of the system and the top is less important.

    Here's examples of my argument for the two main political systems that seem to be around here (socialism and capitalism).

    Under capitalism supply and demand would steer us to make the important stuff before the less important stuff, since if there's no people to buy the products that are made, there's no point in making them. So the markets steer towards the more important stuff. Of course we could go around and around on the semantics of this way of thinking, but that's the simplified version of this.

    Under socialism the same laws of supply and demand would apply, but this time it isn't the "invisible hand of the market" who makes the decision, but the state, the councils, or whatever ruling structure is in your flavour of leftism. There's just no getting around the demands that current society makes in order to run properly.

    So it all boils down to supply and demand. There's is always going to be less demand for art when compared to food or medicine.

  • Do you interact more in Lemmy?
  • I was definitely more active on Reddit, since it had the niche subs I wanted to discuss on. Lemmy has more "generic" content, since it doesn't have the user base to grow those niche communities.

  • Pope suggests blessings for same-sex unions possible in response to 5 conservative cardinals
  • No clue about the constitution, since I am not american, but it would be logical to think that the religous can rule as long as they don't break other human rights.

  • Pope suggests blessings for same-sex unions possible in response to 5 conservative cardinals
  • I mean it kinda does with the whole "freedom of expression" thing it has.

    I could be wrong on this, but that's how I interperted it.

  • Pope suggests blessings for same-sex unions possible in response to 5 conservative cardinals
  • Because of those pesky human rights that mandate "freedom of religion" or whatever.

  • pay the bills... repeat...
  • Could you elaborate, since I have absolutely no clue what connections significant enough you are making to say this.

  • Capitalism is only 400 years old
  • Before agriculture people were like that, but as people settled down it created a class system. Then people got more powerful and such and states began to be created.

    During this time (Around 4000bce and 400ce) feudalism wasn't really a thing, but after the Western Roman Empire fell around 400ce the power vacuum it created lead to the creation of feudalism. This was because of several factors, but I can't remember them all right now.

    But money did exist even before the creation feudalism, since the Romans and the Egyptians did have money. Even in Mesopotamia currency was used. And even if money didn't exist trade was still being done with valueable things like resources and other commodities, which lead to those things becoming a de-facto currency.

    So basically pre-agriculture was like tribes that shared their stuff and such, but after agriculture not so much. Of course this isn't a one-answer-fits-all thing, since there are always exceptions.

    Sorry for the long ramble. I just got really into writing this thing. Also I could be wrong on some things, since I am writing from memory.

  • Capitalism is only 400 years old
  • Mainly mercantilism which just means that everyone wants to only export and importing stuff is literally the worst thing in the world. Mercantilism also had a lot more state restrictions on it compared to capitalism.

    Feudalism mainly died out in the 1400's when more of the power was centralised to the king instead of their vassals.

  • A Cuban teenager was offered a job doing 'construction work' in Russia. Instead he was sent to fight on the front lines in Ukraine.
  • Oh damn, an article containing a topic about Russia and Cuba. I hope this post will contain a civil conversation about the topic without it derailing into a giant fighting pit about the United States.

  • Zelensky dismisses compromise with Putin, pointing to Prigozhin’s death
  • The first agreement collapsed due to the seperatist taking over an airport in Donetsk and saying they won't follow it anymore.

    The second Minsk agreement basically said "Stop fighting and Ukraine gets full control of the seperatist areas after elections and a special territory status for the areas". After offering them the special status the seperatists just said no.

  • Yesyes, dictatorship bad, west bad, we got it :')
  • It was never meant to be an equivalence. I made it to draw a rough picture of how a person can have some good ideas, but be a person no one wants to associate with due their other ideas.

  • Yesyes, dictatorship bad, west bad, we got it :')
  • They have brought up some good points, but the good points they make are over shadowed by the whole genocide denial and "dunking on libs".

    The following example is not meant to represent hexbear users, but to show an example of how I could see it.

    Think of a fascist who brings up some good examples of modern problems in about 1/10 of their messages, while the rest are talking about how Mussolini was actually good, since he brought up the living standard in Italy and expanded the public sector. And when someone brings up the bad things Mussolini did, the fascist just says "It's clearly western propaganda".

    You wouldn't want to read their messages, since they are full of this fascist apologetic garbage, and the good points they bring up are ignored because of their other opinions.

    It doesn't matter how good willed your opinions are if no one wants to associate with you.

  • Exclusive: US to send depleted-uranium munitions to Ukraine
  • From what I've read depleted uranium is not proven to cause cancer, nor is it not proven (With the exception that you inhale it or eat it).

    In Iraq it's still up to debate if it causes cancer or birth defects, since burning buildings and other burning stuff also causes a lot of nasty things to humans.

    From what I've read they were also used in Bosnia, and they haven't had similiar effects to Iraq.

    So let the Ukrainians have their depleted uranium.

  • Colonialists be like
  • The factory must grow!

  • Is there a way to block hexbear
  • Not that I know of, but it should be added in for those who don't want to interact with people from Hexbear. If people have the freedom to block an instance for themselves it would expand the decentralization that Lemmy is built on, since people don't have to move to those instances to block out Hexbear.

    I've read that blocking the Hexbear domain is a solution to this, but that isn't a proper solution, since those who aren't tech-literate would have a pretty hard time doing that, so a first-party solution would be the best.