I think you were talking about people who believe in not having kids, and the other commenter was talking about people who want to blow themselves up to prevent others from having kids.
Yeah, there are subcultures within "Internet culture"...but these days, I don't think "Internet culture" is cohesive (and omnipresent) enough yet to call it a "culture".
Thank you. That's a shame. I was hoping it was one of the newer members of the band, but nope, he joined in the 80s.
Him and fans try to play it off as a joke, but it definitely means something when you keep making the same kinds of jokes and not changing after the first time people tell you it's terrible
Dude admits to lying/explicitly making shit up and his followers will be like "No, he just means that he'll explain things in meaningful ways even if it's exaggerated a bit so that people will pay attention"
But for a lot of people, it does take a lot of effort, and I find not voting in those circumstances more understandable.
There is a long way to go in some places to make voting more accessible, approachable, and available, yes.
I think that other political actions tend to take more effort and more work, or they tend to be less widely impactful.
Complaining online and sharing memes, for example, is easy, but does next to nothing.
Calling your local official or writing an email/letter to them can change local politics, but just like voting can be harder or easier depending on where you live, getting your message to go somewhere other than their garbage bin can take a lot of time and effort... probably more than voting. And even there, that's only one politician you've influenced.
Larger political actions that are stronger than voting definitely exist, but I think the majority of them come with greater risk, more effort, or a larger time investment (like protests, running for local office, etc).
Voting sends a message to politicians nationwide, if not just statewide. And like I mentioned elsewhere, there's little incentive for politicians to take the opinions of non-voters seriously.
Because voting is one of the least effortful political action that can be taken, and it can send one of the biggest messages.
Democratically-elected politicians get their jobs by people's votes. Their campaigns are based around getting votes. And they can look at numbers of how people are voting to adjust their platforms to capture those votes.
There's little benefit for them to try to capture the votes of people who don't vote because people who don't vote aren't likely to vote.
77,302,580 people voted for Trump.
89,278,948 people were eligible to vote but didn't.
That's enough to win an election. I know they wouldn't all vote the same way, but that's a HUGE population -- enough to potentially make a third political party relevant, for instance.
I know that you vote, and I know both major parties in the US suck. I think we're generally in agreement here, so I know I'm probably preaching to a member of the choir. I'm just less sympathetic about it because I know that if everyone in the US who was eligible to vote but didn't all voted with their intentions, upcoming elections would look very different. And I think it's a combination of learned helplessness/defeatism and laziness/apathy that's causing this.
As such, I will always advocate for the power of voting. And I will always admonish people who don't vote and complain about the result.
The proper way to communicate an opinion that "both choices are terrible" is to make your way to the polling station and either vote for something other than those two bad choices, or to decline or spoil your ballot.
Not voting says "I can't be bothered to make the effort; anything is fine".
People think it means "Give me something other than these two", but it takes more effort to communicate that message.
Political activism requires effort, and it requires effort the right way. Not voting is political inaction.
I think you were talking about people who believe in not having kids, and the other commenter was talking about people who want to blow themselves up to prevent others from having kids.