I’m in your camp, but I am also very cynical. I think your reasoning assumes they care if you do/don’t vote. They know that they have an army of rubes (both Republicans and Democrats) who will “vote blue no matter who” or whatever the conservative equivalent is. In the last 8 years I have seen many very intelligent people compromise on their supposed values because to do otherwise would be an existential crisis. I don’t know how you break through that.
Prophet
- 1 Post
- 55 Comments
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
politics @lemmy.world•Nate Silver Sounds the Alarm on Biden Campaign: It's time for the White House to put up or shut upEnglish
22·2 years agoRight. And they dismiss these really valid concerns as right wing propaganda or both-sides-isms. Polls right now show Trump polling marginally better than Biden. Shouldn’t this be sounding the alarms for more of us? Biden should be stomping Trump in polls but instead they’re neck and neck. And this is the guy that they’re determined to push.
I don’t even agree that Biden is “the best we got” but somehow everyone is convinced of that. I have a sad theory that DNC strategists see Biden as the most viable candidate because he’s a white male from a rust belt town. This profile lines up with many conservative voters that they think they need to win elections. This explains why they wouldn’t run someone “woke” like Whitmer or Newsome or maybe Michelle Obama. In other words, there aren’t any good ole boys left in the democratic party, or at least any popular enough to actually win (e.g., Joe Manchin).
From the perspective of an ordinary citizen though, Biden didn’t win because of conservative voters. He won because of a large coalition of different kinds of people - moderates, women, minority races, and leftists. Biden has upset that coalition by not pushing harder for codified reproductive rights, his stance on Gaza, and a weak relationship with labor. I worry that while moderates will turn out, that has never been enough to win.
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
politics @lemmy.world•Nate Silver Sounds the Alarm on Biden Campaign: It's time for the White House to put up or shut upEnglish
25·2 years agoI’m sorry you’re being downvoted for this comment. What you’re saying is absolutely true, the moderates just don’t want to hear it.
It’s the candidate’s job to assuage voter’s fears and convince people to vote for them. If Biden is too frail to do interviews, how is he going to do an election campaign? How is he even able to do this job? We have other people, why does it have to be Biden?
I liked how Jon Stewart put it - when the barbarians (Trump) are at the walls, you want Conan up there leading the charge, not a feeble old man who’s afraid to appear in front of the public.
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
News@lemmy.world•Gen Z is recording themselves getting fired in growing TikTok trendEnglish
101·2 years agoBro he’s saying that you’re supposed to realize how fucked up it is (and ideally be revolted) that corporations - who don’t give a shit about you or anyone else - team up to prevent bright young adults from having a career and affording to live as payback for exposing their inhumanity/making them look foolish.
Instead you’re over here like “yeah I lick corporate boot and will gladly accept being stepped on if I get to keep my career.” This girl is a hero for standing up to the likes of cloudflare and we should all aspire to have her courage.
I feel like the undertone of this question is “clearly you don’t know what the Dems have done, otherwise you’d feel differently.” Maybe I’m way off base with that, but there isn’t any legislation that Dems have passed during Biden’s term that even comes close to undoing or reversing the damage of the Trump presidency. Feel free to argue your case, but I would put special emphasis on these points:
- The repeal of Roe v Wade
- The appointment of 3 conservative justices (which additionally led to the repeal of affirmative action)
- An insurrection that has not resulted in any major convictions against Trump, his family, or his lieutenants
- The death of a million+ Americans from a deadly pandemic that was politicized because of one man’s massive ego/possible Russian ties
- Massive inflation caused by huge bailouts and tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, followed by shrink and greedflation. American corporations haven’t shared any amount of the burden they caused. The Dems did pass a 15% minimum corporate* tax rate, but this is band aid on a much larger problem, because this tax rate will just be repealed in time. These companies need real punitive action/jail/anti-trust laws being used against them.
I’m sure I missed a couple, but it is asinine to think that anything Joe Biden has accomplished has “fixed,” or even started to fix, any of these things.
I agree that GB did an insane amount of damage to our country and Trump is the same way. But for all the damage that has been done, it doesn’t feel like democrats have been able to achieve a comparable amount of good. I understand the mechanics on “why” they are unable to (a big tent coalition up against a unified party of fanatics) but it’s for that reason that I might agree that Al Gore, despite his best intentions, may have been railroaded in his efforts to establish the US as a climate leader.
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
politics @lemmy.world•It’s time the word “oligarch” lost its Russian veneerEnglish
2·2 years agoNot a swifty but if she wasn’t a billionaire, I don’t think she would have less “political power.” She is just that popular. I think the distinction between swift and your run-of-the-mill oligarch is that they specifically use their money and power to expand their political power (e.g., buying political party members, burying any dissenters). Could she do that? Probably, and that in and of itself is problematic. I think that this is maybe what you were saying though.
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
Gaming@lemmy.zip•Palworld hits 19 million players in less than two weeks - beating the latest PokémonEnglish
51·2 years agoSo why is palworld seemingly so much more successful? Niche games like these mean nothing if they don’t appeal to a broad enough audience to be successful. I would have initially said the same thing about palworld but now it’s the #1 game on steam of all time and in hindsight it is so easy to see why.
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
politics @lemmy.world•Whitmer says it would be ‘good’ if Biden talked about abortion moreEnglish
31·2 years agoI would dispute your claim about there being a “circular firing squad.” The firing definitely comes from a very specific direction. Politicians like Joe Biden run on progressive ideas (cancelling student loans, legalizing marijuana, healthcare reform, etc) and then all but drop those promises once they get into office. This is the real “backstabbing” in my opinion. These democratic politicians take massive donations from corporations, Israel, billionaires, etc. Who is going to get the most representation from these politicians? The voters or the donors? Four years later, liberals wonder why progressives aren’t willing to jump in and vote for their guy again.
It’s like a cycle. We get a blue wave thanks to young, minority, and progressive voter turnout, then those same voters become completely disillusioned after four years. Why? Personally I think it’s because liberal (especially white middle class) voters subscribe to “vote blue no matter who,” and it’s been going on since well before Trump. They see the success of right wing candidates with total voter unity and think they can do the same thing with their superior numbers. However, these liberal voters get too invested with can we do this when they should be thinking about should we do this.
I personally think this mentality has given Democratic politicians a license to ignore their voters, because they essentially have a monopoly on votes from anyone who is not a crazy fascist. This in turn leads to the same repeated stalled progress and disillusionment. As long as Dems don’t piss off their base too much, they can maintain this position forever while also providing a ton of value to their donors.
All of this has led me to believe that ranked choice voting may be the best thing we could do to turn our country around, because it would give third party candidates an actual shot and force Democrats (and maybe Republicans) to actually compete for votes because voters would feel more freedom to vote their conscience without pissing their vote away. If there are any initiatives in your state to put ranked choice on the ballot, please get involved.
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
Israel and Palestine Politics Discussion@lemmy.world•Israel losing war in Gaza, commanders admitEnglish
5·2 years agoFailure on the battlefield has led Israeli commanders “to conclude that the freedom of more than 100 Israeli hostages still in Gaza can be secured only through diplomatic rather than military means,” according to the Times.
I really hope this is signaling the end of this incredibly bloody conflict.
Also, the article headline is kind of a hot take. I skimmed to find where Israel admitted to “losing” but that doesn’t seem to have happened. My guess is that this “revelation” was planned from the beginning.
We literally destroy food in this country instead of giving it to people who have nothing. The “scarcity” is entirely manufactured.
Perhaps the commenter is referring to Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) who has been a staunch supporter of Israel’s “defense” in Gaza.
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
World News@lemmy.world•One in 100 people in Gaza has been killed since October 7English
83·2 years agoI see this argument a lot, and I am absolutely a hardliner on genocide. That said, I am also aware that a second Trump presidency will be the end of our nation as we know it. It used to be so simple when voting for candidates - it was “evil” vs “more of the same”, but now it’s “evil” vs “genocide as a foreign policy.”
What is the exit strategy for us as a nation? How many times can we stave off a Republican presidency? Even voting blue we are slipping right - how many times can we vote for the Democrats until we’ve made so many concessions that the blue guy is just exactly equivalent to the current red guy?
I’m really trying to argue in good faith. If someone has a decent answer to this, I’d love to hear their side. Otherwise it seems to me like we are headed for some kind of civil war in this country.
How does one even fix this? Is it just dragged out?
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
News@lemmy.world•Biden Condemns Trump as Dire Threat to Democracy in a Blistering SpeechEnglish
11·2 years agoThis comment is so shitty and condescending and completely devoid of intelligence. It reads the same as “Please do not invoke my white privilege as an excuse to let Trump take away my white privilege.” Liberals love to act like they care about issues but comments like these come off so self-centered. I don’t live in some fantasy world where a second Trump presidency is better than a second Biden presidency, but liberals are so adamant that it has to be Biden. Why aren’t liberals outraged that the DNC is forcing an unpopular candidate down our throats again? The most common response I see is “it’s complicated” but it’s not fucking complicated in the slightest, liberals just want to be comfortable and they’ll gladly roll over and take it from anyone who promises them to at least use lube. Yes I’m talking about you.
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
News@lemmy.world•Biden Condemns Trump as Dire Threat to Democracy in a Blistering SpeechEnglish
22·2 years agoI’ve been having the same thoughts. I think liberals, especially white liberals, are scared of a Trump presidency because, for once, the fallout might come down on them. They don’t have to be scared of a Biden presidency, because their lives can continue on as they have been. So then they attack you for saying that the US is already a fascist state, even though it already is for anyone who isn’t white and straight.
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
politics @lemmy.world•Joe Biden campaign volunteers are quitting in "droves"English
8·2 years agoTo add to this, genocide (as defined by the UN) does not just include directly killing a particular group:
Definition Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of the group; 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; 5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
So in addition to killing 20k+ Gaza civilians, Israel’s response has displaced countless others with their intense and indiscriminate bombing (see points #2, #3, possibly #4). NYT and other sources claim that up to 1.8 million Gazans have been displaced, which NYT claims is 80% of their population. This is in addition to the conditions Gaza was already being subjected to, such as being denied water and electricity (#3) by Israel.
The evidence overwhelmingly shows that this is genocide. “Figurative” is such a sleazy doublespeak way of excusing the behavior here.
Edit: sorry my link should work now
Prophet@lemmy.worldto
politics @lemmy.world•‘Stakes are really high’: misinformation researcher changes tack for 2024 US electionEnglish
6·2 years agoIt’s true. Even in the comments on this post there’s someone adamantly claiming (without evidence) that masks don’t work, despite being presented with a full literature review of studies showing that they do work.
It shouldn’t even take a full scientific study to convince someone that covering their nose and mouth helps to prevent the spread of airborne illness. Their egos are so fragile that any critical introspective examination of their viewpoints would destroy their entire identity. What even are they without their vitriol and hatred for the truth?
I agree, in the context of the tweet, that purchase history is enough to build a working product that roughly meets user requirements (at least in terms of predicting consumed items). This assumes you can find enough purchase history for a given user. Even then, I have doubts about how robust such a strategy is. The sparsity in your dataset for certain items means you will either a.) be forced to remove those items from your prediction service or b.) frustrate your users with heavy prediction bias. Some items also simply won’t work in this system - maybe the user only eats hotdogs in the summer. Maybe they only buy eggs with brownie mix. There will be many dependencies you are required to model to get a system like this working, and I don’t believe there is any single model powerful enough to do this by itself. Directly quantifying the user’s pantry via vision seems easy in comparison.




I’ve seen this posted elsewhere. Apparently it also doesn’t show results for “Joe Biden rigged election”