this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
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"Justifying genocide is when you oppose genocide, and the more you oppose it, the more you justify it" - Very Serious Lemmings
Alternatively, "The prospect of an eventual violent revolution justifies genocide" - Very Serious Lemmings
Or more realistically, "I think that the prospect of virtue signaling without affecting government policy justifies genocide, because that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside" - Very Serious Lemmings
I'm not accusing you of supporting genocide for voting against a fascist, I'm also voting against a fascist. I'm accusing you of supporting genocide for voting for a candidate that supports genocide. There's nothing "secret" about it, it's your openly expressed position.
So are you not voting Biden, or do you deny the genocide being done to the Palestinians?
Without saying what they are, cool. I guess I'm rejecting your false dilemmas, lies, and accusations too, then.
Will Trump getting into power make things better for people in Palestine?
No. That's why I'm not voting for him or helping him get into power.
And do you understand that under the current American electoral system, any action other than voting for Biden will directly assist Trump in getting into power?
No, because that's not true. The only thing that assists Trump getting into power is voting for Trump. Voting third party provides the exact same assistance to Trump as it does to Biden: 0.
But I'll tell you what - if not voting for someone counts as assisting them, then you can rest assured that Biden will have my assistance.
It is a simple, statistical fact that votes for Biden reduce Trump's chances of winning. So you can either choose to impede Trump's chances of winning, or choose not to.
Explain to me, if you can, how refusing to take an action that reduces a fascist's chance of assuming power is, functionally, any different from assisting them.
God I wish I had your patience.
That's not a reasonable standard for what constitutes "assistance." If I see a bank robbery happening and do nothing to stop it, does that mean I assisted the robbery? Am I assisting every single thing happening in the world right now?
If you mean "not impeding" then say "not impeding." Calling that assistence is false and disingenuous.
Those are not remotely analogous situations. What is the risk to you from voting for Biden? What does it cost you? How does it endanger you?
Voting is free. But you would rather further endanger vulnerable people than do something that makes you personally feel icky.
Because that's what this comes down to. Given all the choices available in this situation, there is literally no downside to voting for Biden. All it truly costs is swallowing your pride.
But you can't even do that.
Again, I'm not endangering anyone. If you can't talk about this without making false claims an accusations, then we're done here.
If you don't think that a Trump victory will endanger vulnerable people then you've got your head stuck so deep in the sand that it's a wonder you can hear anything at all.
"Opposing genocide is when you vote for someone doing a genocide and the harder you post about supporting them the more you oppose it" - Very Serious Lemmings 🤡
It's very funny to me that you received friendly fire because people on your side saw a simple "genocide is bad" meme and just assumed it was about them. You'd think that would lead to introspection but what do I know lol.
Ah, the good old "Thoughts and prayers to LGBT folk who are going to be genocided in the US under a Trump regime", how classy. You're literally just endorsing fascism with extra steps, but I'm sure we'll have great fun in the camps together when you say "AT LEAST I DIDN'T VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRATS"
The democrats aren't going to coerce me into voting for genocide no matter how many far-right politicians they fund and support to threaten me. After all:
If you comment more, people will forget your bad takes and agree with you. Surely.
Oh, cool, so you're not voting for the option that intensifies genocide, right?
... right...?
Oh, who am I kidding? You'll do whatever you can to ensure a Trump victory and the total genocide of Palestinians.
Yes, obviously. I'm not voting for either of the options that intensify genocide.
This coming from someone who literally eats babies. See, I can make shit up too.
The classic "I'm going to uproot the tracks!" answer to the trolley problem, while sitting by and doing nothing of the sort. A fascist's best friend. :)
I've seen two interesting spins on the trolley problem recently.
"Just blow up the trolley." This is actually a very apt description of accelerationism. Blowing up the trolley doesn't stop the forward momentum -- it just turns the trolley barrelling towards the trapped people into a fiery wreckage barreling towards the trapped people. Plus if there's people on the trolley... Yeah.
"Untie the trapped people while other people push back and stop the trolley". This is once again rather emblematic, this time of blind idealism. The idea that if we get enough people, then we can stop the trolley, sounds good on paper and makes you feel nice. But it ignores the reality that people cannot hold back a trolley like that. It just isn't possible for the necessary number of people to simultaneously push back against it.
Not to mention, the whole point of the trolley problem is that the trolley is a metaphor for an unstoppable event that is impossible to avoid. It's nice to think we could dismantle it, but we can't.
The trolley problem is a philosophy 101 thought experiment. It's not an absolute guideline for philosophy.
As a side note, even if it was, there are many people who disagree with pulling the lever, like the whole branch of Deontology, for example. It's bizarre that everyone on here assumes that everyone else on here has to be operating under the exact same moral framework, and if you disagree you're either an idiot or a Russian bot. The idea that anyone could ever draw a red line against a particular action just, you know, organically is treated as totally alien.
In real life, things are never as simple as in a philosophical thought experiment. There's incomplete information, there's multiple actors, there's long term factors affecting cause and effect. Let's look at some ways in which an individual's choice on who to vote for in an election differ from the trolley problem:
You don't have full control of the trolley. Instead, there are millions of other people who collectively decide which track the trolley will go down.
There are more than two tracks. Some of them might be unlikely to be chosen, but they still exist.
There are people who have engineered the situation to be the way it is, who have the ability to change it, and who can benefit depending on what choice you make.
The trolley problem will be repeated, over and over again, indefinitely. Depending on which track it goes down, it could influence the number of people on the tracks in the future.
There's uncertainty involved in everything. You don't know the exact number of people on each track, you don't know what all the other actors are going to do, you don't know how the people engineering the situation will behave, etc.
If you make the necessary changes to the hypothetical to make it actually reflect reality, it is so convoluted that it's no longer recognizable as a trolley problem and the choice becomes a lot less clear. There are plenty of Consequentialists who would agree with pulling the lever in the context of the hypothetical, because of all the constraints imposed in the hypothetical, but who would, in real life, say that you should consider every possible alternative and carefully consider the consequences before condemning one person to death to save five.
Don't derive your moral philosophy, or political philosophy, from random memes and thought experiments. Read.
The trolley problem is a thought experiment, intentionally contrived to remove any alternatives to the two options. It isn't applicable to real life.
You're literally a Trump supporter so I don't want to hear you accusing me of being "a fascist's best friend."
Yes, as we all know, in real life, all outcomes are possible, which is why the only possible moral route is to Thoughts And Prayers your way to a total and untarnished victory.
Have fun voting for Trump.
Oh, look. Another hopeful leader for the resistance when the red hats take over. Like we ain't got a million of those lying around somewhere. Have fun getting caught and thrown in a camp.
I think it's more that OP has made numerous comments in this thread arguing that we should vote for Biden.
OP's vibe seems to be "Yes, I really really really do oppose genocide... but the responsible thing is to vote for Biden, and people who won't support him are the true genocide enablers."
Right, he's a Biden stan and other Biden stans are attacking him for posting "genocide is bad" with one even calling it a "fascist dogwhistle."
"Are we the baddies?" moment.
Oh, right. Now I follow.
Yeah, the Biden supporters are all doing ridiculous mental gymnastics. I'm not sure I've seen mental gymnastics like this outside of a cult.