Comment by voxl

Comment by voxl 17 days ago

9 replies

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I said it was an evil action, I didn't call them evil. This is the standard essentialism fallacy of morality. Doing an evil thing does not make your inherently evil. Holding slaves in 1800s is evil, but I don't think the people are inherently evil.

I have a pretty good understanding of why people didn't vote, the block I care about a lot more. The people that did vote for Trump specifically either are ride or die conservative, fell victim to misinformation, or are otherwise uneducated.

Trying to say that Biden and the DNC is "too blame" for someone picking a president that is happy sending citizens to an El Salvador prison is something. I expect a bit more from the electorate myself, and think they should take some accountability for their own mistakes.

dgfitz 17 days ago

I believe we are, at best, talking past each other. I don’t have the desire or energy to restate my points, given your response.

I hope you have an excellent rest of your day, take care.

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  • kerkeslager 16 days ago

    This sort of morally superior "trying to get the last word" thing is childish.

    You didn't acknowledge the distinction between calling a person evil, and calling a person's actions evil. There isn't a way to "restate your point" that voxl said something he didn't say which would make it any less of a straw man argument.

    You're not talking past him--he responded directly to what you said--you're just incorrect.

    And you don't even have to admit you were incorrect: you can just have a little red-faced moment alone by yourself in front of your computer and then move on with your life without posting a response. And that would be better than posting this posturing thing where you pretend that some restatement of the singular incorrect point you made would be more correct if only it weren't so exhausting being correct.

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    • dgfitz 16 days ago

      Wow, I really struck a nerve huh?

      I have no idea what point you think you just made.

      I hope you also have an excellent rest of your day, take care.

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not_a_bot_4sho 16 days ago

I'm a Trump hater. I'd vote for a jar of mayonnaise before voting for him. I think he'll be one of the most impactful presidents in US history for terrible reasons.

> The people that did vote for Trump specifically either are ride or die conservative, fell victim to misinformation, or are otherwise uneducated.

But this take is very dismissive of Trump voters, trying to find an easy way to avoid the conclusion that the majority of them are sane and rational people who liked what he was saying. Perhaps because it's an uncomfortable truth.

While I admittedly despise Trump, I'm under no illusions that I'm somehow meaningfully better or superior than those who support him.

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  • GeneralMayhem 16 days ago

    If you're sane and rational and decided that you liked Trump's promises (with "rational" implying that you were actually listening to what he'd do, and not blindly accepting his nonsense about "I'll make everything perfect immediately!"), that leaves only the possibility that you're evil. Or a Russian operative, I suppose.

    His promises on things he can actually do are exclusively for things that are wantonly destructive and incomprehensibly stupid (tariffs, mass layoffs), hateful and incomprehensibly evil (mass deportations without due process), or straight up treason (pardoning J6 insurrectionists, breaking alliances). If you voted for this person, you have to either be so stupid that you believe his obvious lies, or so evil that the things that aren't lies are things you like.

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    • thinkingemote 16 days ago

      Many people who voted for tribe X voted for tribe Y a few years back. Have these people irredeemably changed in your eyes? Are they stupid for doing so? Is it possible for stupid, easily believing people to choose tribe X again? Does it make their stupidity disappear?

      Does choosing a correct tribe increase intelligence and reduce gullibility?

      One increasing view we hear today is of the "uneducated ignorant malleable masses". Should we think of our fellow tribe members this way?

      The question being asked by people in tribes are "what to do with stupid/evil people" and history shows examples of tribes attempts to answer that.

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      • GeneralMayhem 16 days ago

        I don't think you're disagreeing with me. The comment I responded to says that calling Trump voters ignoramuses was -

        > trying to find an easy way to avoid the conclusion that the majority of them are sane and rational people who liked what he was saying.

        My point is that to vote Republican in 2024 you must either be insane, irrational, or outright evil. It doesn't make you that way, it reveals that you already were.

        > Many people who voted for tribe X voted for tribe Y a few years back. Have these people irredeemably changed in your eyes?

        I think that Biden->Trump voters, or Obama->Trump voters, are incredibly stupid or short-sighted. There is no good reason to have done that. If you were a consistent Republican voter you might instead be a selfish racist piece of shit, but if you've switched from the Democrats in recent years the only option I have is to assume you're a gullible idiot.

        And to be clear, yes, I think this is specific to the time we're in. I don't think I'd say this in 2000, for instance - it was pretty obvious that W was not going to be a good president, but he was not an incomprehensible choice, and you could imagine people who thought Gore's brand was tainted by association with Clinton's various forms of griminess. But Trump and his merry band of lunatics are not simply "the other tribe". They are an obvious and unprecedented threat no matter what your values are, unless your only value is breaking shit for the lulz.

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        • thinkingemote 15 days ago

          > I don't think you're disagreeing with me.

          Yep, and I'm not really agreeing either :-)

          There is an alternative to thinking in binaries.

          One way perhaps is to think about the permanence of judgements.

          Think about how many people would need to switch sides for the next election. Would their status as lunatics and gullible and idiots be instantly revoked and become mentally healthy, rational and intelligent after they are on the correct side?

          Many politicians would say they would remain idiots even when they vote for them and that a cynic might say that politics is just about two tribes warring against each other on a battlefield where they seek to manipulate a group of idiots to their side.

          I would suggest that thinking about one's allies as idiots isn't a good thing. (Maybe their status does change instantly - in that case the idiots have the potential to be intelligent which weakens the original judgement) However it's also a difficult thing to do as it would compromise one's own group identity. It makes the binary groups more fuzzy. It introduces an overlap in the venn diagram of us vs them. Thinking of an "other" as potentially one of "us" reduces the internal coherence of the "us" group - it opens the borders.

          People in groups like to keep the group strong and the borders secure. To open the borders is a difficult and painful thing. It's understandable that the binary tribal politics remains strong as it benefits both tribes.

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