Oddbean new post about login | logout Voting doesn't solve every problem but just standing idly by and not even trying to steer the political environment (if only in a less bad direction) is a great way to get fucked harder. Politics do matter greatly, even if the options are all shit by your own standards.
Matter like if I shave my furry balls or not 🤣
No, as in you suffer the consequences of the increasingly evil people you allow to slide into power uncontested. Resistance within the system is more important than having a politician in office you feel fully represents you; that will probably never happen for anyone. Hopelessness and non-participation is the surest way to end up living in the worst political environment imaginable, which definitely is not what you live in now.
You can also strategically vote. I'm in the US, so for me that means voting in such a way that gridlock is encouraged. It's often much better to have a government that does little than one that does much, even if you happen to agree with it for the moment. There is almost always a candidate that is strategically better in my experience, even if I hate them. Using the US as an example, that could be Kamala, Trump, or someone else on the ballot depending upon what your desired strategy is. I agree that Trump is definitely not going to right the ship though. He may sink it slower, but some may want it to sink quicker. Thinking and participating is better than doing nothing at all. Resistance of any sort is always better than none.
Imagine sitting in a room full of people … there are rules that govern the room and some people sit back allow others to vote on the rules that govern said room and refuse to participate. Now imagine those people considering themselves to have even the slightest bit of intelligence. Hold on we’re not done those same people that refuse to participate bitch and cry and type long think pieces and complain about those rules. I think it would be fair to call those people fuckin idiots
Who made the first rules of that room?
Homer Simpson could have made the first rules of that room. It doesn’t matter. The individual who watches others participate and refuses to participate themself is it fair to call them an idiot?
And what happened if 99% of that room refuse to vote, because of Homer Simpson’s 1st rule… all realize it wasn’t made to help them in any way?
Then i would suggest it would be fair to call them not only idiots but Super Idiots Why? Because they are giving the 1% who do vote even more power to decide on rules that literally govern their body. Meanwhile they are sitting back thinking they are “sticking it” to those who make the rules. and get this .. they don’t even have the balls to leave the room.. they would rather stay in the room and bitch and complain. So i would call the 99% cowards and super idiots Because if i was in a room where I didn’t like the rules AND I refused to put forth any effort whatsoever to change those rules … guess what … I would leave the room.
Last question: where? All the rooms are the same, or worse!
I don't think participation is always going to lead to me getting my way. It can't. I vote every election and still voice my disgust for the political environment. My point is that I'm at least throwing a wrench in whenever and wherever I can instead of just letting the lowest common denominator rule without resistance of any kind. I've accepted that I'm most likely just going to be a very small wrench, a spec of sand really, in the gears of the machine. But enough grains of sand can really start locking shit up, even if the machine doesn't fully stop. More people not voting will only make it easier for an ever smaller group of people to have total control. I'd rather keep government fighting than have that.
Maby it is about time to stop this single person government of the US ad replace it with a colleagal government as Switzerland does it. This allows for more diversity in politics. It allows for more than two parties.
There is nothing explicitly preventing more than two parties from existing in the US (they do). The problem is that people tend to become tribal because of collectivist philosophy (most don't even know they're afflicted with the disease, which makes it even more lethal). Having more parties isn't really going to fix anything if people are still tribalists. In fact, parties wouldn't matter all that much in a rational society. Many of the US Founders were actually against the concept of parties because they feared what the collectivism and tribalism would lead to (they were right). Having more of the cancer doesn't seem like a good solution to me. You'll still be ruled by gang warfare. There will just be more smaller gangs. So maybe tyrannical rule by 31% instead of 51%. That isn't much of an improvement.
Not at all. When there is one president, how can a new party get as big to be a real competitive parto to go for presidency? But when there are like 10 people to act together as presidents, there is much more opportunity for more minorities to be represented in the government. And they have to at least argue and convice eachother to execute a new order. It is slower. But more based.
Tribalism also tends to centralize anyway, just as it did to give us the two major parties we have now. The incentive will always be for the smaller gangs to consolidate to gain more power. Four will just become two again once people realize that winning on the big issues is more important than losing for the minor differences between a given set of smaller gangs. Purity tests return, as they always do with tribalists, and we are right back to trying to have more gangs to fix the problem. Parties and collectivism are the actual problems in my opinion.
But this is a well proven concept, that with one president to vote for it leads to two parties. This has nothing to do how people act or think.
Besides that, I don't think issues of culture and philosophy can be fixed with politics. Politics is downstream of culture. A sick culture leads to sick politics. We have to fix culture. Politics can't be fixed before that. Any measure like this will just be erroded for this reason. The cancer will always grow again because it was never fully killed. Ayn Rand wrote a lot of good material on this issue.
You can think this. But there is just reality whefe anyone can discover that the world does not behave like this. The problems that has the US are nothing we have in Switzerland. So there you need to find the difference.
One of her best points in my opinion is that you also can't escape politics by simply not participating. You'll still suffer the consequences and they will likely be worse if those with principles and virtue yield to those who have no virtues or principles.