WoodScientist @ WoodScientist @sh.itjust.works

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6 mo. ago

We've been focusing on the next election for decades at this point. At some point you need to recognize the insanity of doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.

Voting for a corporate Dem IS voting in favor of fascism.

Corporate Dems know that the only path they ever have to power is if the alternative is Republican autocracy. They're too unpopular on their own to have any way of winning an election based on their personality or positions. They can only win by fear. Thus, they cannot actually dismantle fascism. They can't pass reforms stripping the presidency of emergency powers to prevent it from being abused. They can't launch a law enforcement crackdown to finally put MAGA in the ground. They need MAGA. They want MAGA. They need a giant monster standing behind them to terrify the populace into voting for them. That is the only way they can possibly win an election. In fact, they have every incentive to make that monster as big and as terrifying as possible.

Voting for a centrist Dem guarantees eventual holocaust. The Fascists will just keep becoming more extreme and violent, even when the corporate Dems are in power. The occupants of the White House will alternate between Fascists and corporate Dems, moving further to the right each cycle. Eventually they'll start killing people by the millions. Centrist Dems are unable to prevent this. They need fascists in order to get in to power.

Biden was the first to float that idea actually.

The problem with voting for a party simply because "we aren't fascism" is that it produces the most perverse incentives imaginable. If the only way Democrats can win the White House is by simply not being fascist, what motivation do they have to reform the system so that fascists won't be able to come back into power?

If there is a free election in 2028, and if Democrats somehow manage to win, they need to act decisively. They need to pass a storm of legislation that drastically curtails the powers of the presidency. If they don't, then we could be right back with another wannabe dictator Republican in power in 2032. We need to end the emergency powers, curtail the powers of ICE, end the mass surveillance, essentially dismantle the entire post-911 security architecture that put us at such a danger of dictatorship. It's an evil machine that never should have been built.

This is the fatal error of wanting to support a centrist Dem in 2028. The only way such a candidate is going to get elected is if they can run against the specter of fascism and dictatorship. They have zero motivation to dismantle the tools a future dictator would use; they need there to be a threat of a future dictator in order to win reelection. If that centrist Dem wins in 2028, and makes it so dictatorship is impossible, what are they going to run on in 2032? They need there to be a credible threat of dictatorship in order to win election. A centrist Dem can never dismantle fascism, as the looming potential of fascism is their only hope of getting elected. Centrist Dems want to dangle the threat of fascist dictatorship, like a Sword of Damocles, over your head forever. Corporate Dems will never dismantle what is their only hope of getting and retaining power.

Why is it always progressives who have to compromise? Why can't centrists for once have to hold their nose and vote for a progressive?

I was going to find some extremely old racial epithet that starts with an N, so obscure it wouldn't offend anyone anymore. But I decided I don't want to Google "obscure ethnic slurs" today, so I decided to skip this comment.

♫ I wouldn't touch you with a - thirty-nine-and-a-half foot poooole! ♫

I think we shouldn't even have legal names anymore. Nor legal sex/gender. Why does the government even need to keep track of my name at all? Maybe we just have a number tied to our biometric data. Maybe our profile is just defined facial scans, iris scans, thumb scans, and, for ultimate proof, our DNA profile. The state has a profile number on you that ties you to your biometrics. That sounds scary, but the government already has a profile on you if you have any kind of state-issued ID. And states are already collecting biometric data on their citizens.

We could simply tie all state business to an ID number and biometric data profile. When doing a transaction with some other party, the same biometrics could be used to prove your ID. Buying beer at the store? You hand the cashier a card that has your photo and ID number on it. They can type that number in their computer, query a state database, and return your age. Opening a bank account? Prove your ID with ID card and at least two forms of biometric scan. Signing up for a mortgage? Prove your identity with a DNA test.

We don't even need legal names. Or legal genders. Let's just do everything with biometric data, photo IDs, and other methods devoid of all the cultural baggage. Let people call themselves whatever they want. Let others choose how to honor that choice.

You want to change your gender? Have at it, the state doesn't care about your sex or gender at all. It doesn't even keep track of it. Give your kid a stupid name? At any time, they can start telling their friends to call them by a different one And that new name will instantly have all the legal power as the one their parents gave them - none whatsoever. The state will no longer tell us what our names are. Our words and character will do that instead.

Don't worry. If I'm elected pope, you'll get to see the return of the Cadaver Synod, bigger and better than ever! In fact, I'll set up a whole special court just to try former popes I have a theological beef with! They'll have several cases going on simultaneously. I'll put dozens of former popes on trial!

As new Pope, I promise to repeat the Cadaver Synod. I promise to dig up the corpse of Pope Benedict XVI and put him on trial for his homophobia and transphobia! And I may not stop at him...I may have to set up a whole special court just for putting former popes on trial.

Honestly, at this point, I'm on board with just banning social media algorithms entirely. No more personalized feeds. You can have a website that publishes whatever you want, but you can't tailor individual feeds to individual people. People can replace their "feed" with what the original internet was meant to be - visiting a series of websites. Want to read nothing but right wing blogs? Fine. You can spend all day navigating to different URLs for them. But no more spoon feeding individually personalized content to people.

It turns out that method of content delivery is just a very dangerous and damaging technology that really fucks with the workings of the human mind. If you tell AI to build an ideal feed model for a person, it builds a nightmare that traps human beings in skinner boxes.

We can ban these algorithms. We don't have to continue to tolerate their existence. And in the grand scheme of history, it would be no different than a thousand other things that we discovered, at first thought was a panacea, but eventually decided the benefits weren't worth the costs. Asbestos is a fantastic fireproof insulator, but we willingly let those benefits go in lieu of its severe respiratory effects. DDT is an incredible pest killer and insecticide, but it also was rendering entire species of birds extinct. Targeted, individually tailored social media algorithms create entertainment feeds that can entertain us to such degrees that the kings of old would lament their jesters in comparison. But what these algorithms are doing to us, what they are doing to our society? On political polarization? The effects they are having not just on children, but of people of all ages? We as a society need to recognize that the benefits just aren't worth the costs. We are tearing our civilization apart for the sake of cheap entertainment.

We need to ban targeted social media feeds. We have faced technologies like this before. We have made the choice before to give up the benefits of these things for the sake of the greater good. We've done it before, and we can do it again. It is time we ban targeted social media feeds.

Sounds like the Lizardman Constant at work again!:
https://gwern.net/doc/sociology/survey/lizardman/index

My partner added "as someone who can't even say the word 'seminary" without giggling..."

It wouldn't be the first time!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod

I promise to spend the entire papacy dressed in dresses that look like they belong in the White Tower scenes in the Wheel of Time series.

Or, on the theory that we're living in the stupidest timeline, they'll go with "Pope Biden I."

Eh. Rules are arbitrary and can be changed.

Looks like it's time for another pope race. I would like to throw my hat in the ring. As a lapsed Catholic trans woman who's never so much as visited a seminary, I know I'm an unorthodox choice. But maybe it's time to mix things up. My central campaign planks? We're going to bring back indulgences and try to make the Papal States a thing again. Also, expect skits and improv sessions to have a big place in Catholic mass in the future!

Do you want to triple the state's death by poisoning rate?

The scratches on my thinkpad aren't flaws. They're battle scars!