You said:

No, I want to stop the US from bombing, torturing, raping, stealing, and causing massive destruction. Something that you don’t seem to care about, as long as it doesn’t effect you. Your the one trying to do a bunch of “akshully, Biden blew up less kids, so he’s actually pretty cool!” rhetroric.

So you implied that I support Biden doing those things, which I never said that I did. If that doesn’t include Israel, then what the fuck are you talking about?

You need to define what you mean by “support” in this context. I voted for Biden and am happy to say that his administration is better than Trump’s. That’s the extend of my “support” that I’ve expressed for him.

It’s pretty clear at this point that you’re either a complete fucking idiot or a troll, and either way, I don’t really care to continue engaging with you about this. Grow up, man.

I mean, Trump can relate. Don’t forget he had a Chinese spy at Mar-a-Lago a few years back when he was hiding top secret and classified documents in the shitter.

Yeah, so this is the “no true scotsman”/purity test I was referencing. You’re assuming I’m a “liberal” because I believe there’s substantial distance between Democrats and Republicans on issues that have real impacts. I think that’s a wild leap in thinking. FWIW, I don’t care what you call me, but assuming that I, for instance, support the genocide of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government is a fucking wild leap in logic.

Who is the liberal that you’re railing against, exactly? Are you saying that anyone who votes for a Democrat is a liberal?

We’ve lost the narrative, I think, so let’s see if we can refocus here at bit.

The conversation is about whether voting matters, whether the blue wave matters. You acknowledge that there’s a difference between candidates, but that you don’t believe that difference is “substantial.” Logically, two things can be true: Biden could have caused “massive destruction” and still be substantially better than Trump. So just saying “Biden caused massive destruction” is not sufficient to prove your point. All of the “destruction” points you brought up happened under Trump, as well, right? But the things we got under Trump that we didn’t have under Biden include:

• USAID cuts that will cause hundreds of thousands of deaths globally.
• Secret police with arrest quotas terrorizing ordinary people.
• A war in Iran that is causing the deaths of thousands of innocent people.

No one expected Biden to be some kind of radical leftist candidate who would enact sweeping leftist changes. But we expected less “fascism, genocide, torture, murder, etc,” and that’s exactly what we got.

You might argue that voting for Biden perpetuates this system and that you want to “send a message” to the party. Well, that’s a convenient POV to hold when you’re not the one who is suffering the consequences when the system is controlled by the worse party. You’re not going to die from the USAID cuts. You’re not getting arrested by the secret police. You’re not at risk of being bombed. “Some of you will die, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take” kind of attitude, right?

I think the reality is that you are exercising the “no true Scotsman” fallacy here. You want to believe that you’re the smartest person in the room and that you have some kind of secret knowledge about how “both parties are the same” that “liberals” haven’t discovered yet, and you revel in “blowing people’s minds” with your “radical” views. There’s a word for what you’re doing: edgelord. And you fully embody that spirit, bud.

I don’t know if Democrats will restart those programs. I think the realpolitik of what these midterms actually mean is that Trump is no longer a “kingmaker” in his party, and without that leverage he won’t have control over every Republican in congress. And because of that, he’s going to have to behave or risk getting removed or possibly worse.

I don’t know what the exact path forward is, but it’s not like nuclear weapons will disappear if the U.S. dissolves. There’s still inherent problems of the human condition that we have to continue to struggle with as a species, IMO. Even if we wipe out all of the existing imperialist states, more could – and IMO, would – arise unless we figure out how to solve some of those underlying problems.

In the meantime, I think it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that things have gotten better over time. This last vote was refutation of imperialism. They said themselves, it was a reflection of dissatisfaction with the imperialist war in Iran. If we don’t believe in democracy, then what do we believe in, exactly? Do we just cross our fingers and hope we get benevolent dictators? Granted it took far too long, but the imperialist country did eventually give up slavery. Racism has objectively decreased over time. A smaller portion of the world dies from starvation and preventable disease. The world is getting better over time. The past 10 years have been a shitshow, but the median person is certainly better off today than they were 100 years ago.

I mean, we can dive into the specifics on each one of the points you made, because several of them are obviously misleading, but I don’t think that’s a good use of our time because…

If you don’t think Trump and Biden are equally shitty, then what is the argument? The debate is about whether or not voting matters. You’ve just said one candidate is shittier than the other, so I guess you prefer eating shit to taking an hour out of your worthless life to cast a vote?

Here’s a little sneak peak for ya: https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/

What “massive devastation” did Biden cause? Be specific, please.

You’re falling for the all-or-nothing logical fallacy. You can bucket both Biden and Trump as being shitty, but that doesn’t mean they’re equally shitty.

Some of you may die, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

“Weathering the storm on foot” in your analogy means millions of people dying. You understand that, right?

Lol, they ignored every point I made, but I should have to address every bullshit point they make. That’s how the game works? They asked for an example of a war ending under a Democrat, I provided one, and then… crickets. Y’all are fucking clowns.

Deflection and a claptrap. I expected nothing less.

getting cutoff mid conversation after being asked who did you vote for

c/thathappened

False premise. “Reversing” what a prior administration did isn’t always possible, and sometimes isn’t necessary to move forward.

WRT foreign wars, the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan under Biden. His administration also handled the Ukraine situation about as well as anyone could have under the circumstances.

But look at the devastation that a second Trump administration has caused. Biden didn’t arm a secret police and tell them to arrest every brown-skinned person they saw. He didn’t kidnap the leader of a sovereign state. He didn’t start a needless war in the Middle East. And he didn’t completely trash our relations with our closest allies in Europe and North America.

Maybe I’m just feeding the trolls here, but this should be fairly obvious to any neutral observer: there’s a substantial difference between having an authoritarian cult leader as president and having a center-right dunce as president. Neither option is great, but don’t fall victim to the all-or-nothing logical fallacy.

The internet used to be fun. Now everything is a chore and nobody does anything unless they feel like they can make a profit off of it.

I mean, that’s capitalism. It was inevitable. A similar fate will befall Lemmy at some point, so enjoy it while you can.

And 2048 was a direct ripoff of Threes! That’s not a new problem, but the quantity is likely to become absurd.

It can happen with modern cards, but it’s much less likely. The problem with driving a car with reliability issues is that it can be dangerous for other drivers. And if you need a vehicle on a limited budget, for the price of a junker 70s vette you can buy a 20-year old civic that will likely be much more reliable.

I mean, a bike is somewhat different problem than a car though. If your bike breaks down while you’re riding it, you’re typically not putting other people in danger and/or inconveniencing them. If your car breaks down while you’re driving it, you might very well put other people at risk and/or inconvenience them.

Yeah, but I bet you don’t sail to work.

I mean, did it ever really leave?