Cross-Posted, via Microblogs Community.
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I am told I am an autonomous human being, in charge of my own destiny, a free man, but every single time Hasan Piker has said something and I have heard about it, it has been against my will
Cross-Posted, via Microblogs Community.
I am told I am an autonomous human being, in charge of my own destiny, a free man, but every single time Hasan Piker has said something and I have heard about it, it has been against my will
Hasan describes himself as a megaphone for these ideas. That he’s there to amplify and spread the message and help push the Dems more left. And he does a damn good job at that considering more and more people are listening and talking about said message.
I don’t know much about him, but didn’t he also help get trump elected by using his platform to discourage people on the left from voting?
He literally voted for Harris on his stream, but ok “I don’t know much about him”
Yeah, like I said “I don’t know much about him.”
I don’t fucking watch streamers, and I’m not about to start. All I know about him is from what I’ve read, and I acknowledge that not everything I’ve read is guaranteed to be true. Hence why I phrased it as a question.
You could have chosen to clarify without acting like it was a gotcha.
That particular talking point is often regurgitated by people who absolutely know who tf Piker is and what his messaging is centered around.
He voted for Harris. That doesn’t mean no one is allowed to be critical about her or the Democrats at large.
I’ve read a couple lemmy threads about him. Some people say he’s the leftist version of Nick Fuentes. Some people say that’s a good thing because we need a counterbalance. Some people say it’s a bad thing because leftism doesn’t need to degrade itself by being guided by influencers/streamers. That’s about all I know.
I never said no one can be critical about Harris or the Democrats. I can be critical of Harris and the Democrats, and I voted for her. Because I don’t let perfectionism get in the way of my voting choices.
Critique:
I think she courted the center-right too much on her campaign, but I think that was a strategic (albeit erroneous) choice rather than a change in policy/platform. She must have thought there was actually a large number of reasonable moderate conservatives who could be swayed, and she probably thought she safely held the liberal and leftist votes, which became a blind spot to her and she failed to address their concerns.
So I wasn’t totally happy with the campaign she ran, but I still voted for her.
I prefer to take a pragmatist approach to elections. I can’t choose who the nominee is. I can’t choose who wins. All I can do is cast one vote, and in a two-party FPTP system, unfortunately, often that means voting for the least bad option.
I’ve been critiquing the system since I’ve been an adult, even as my personal political persuasion has evolved over time. I don’t expect a fundamentally broken system to give us a perfect candidate. But I believe in incremental progress whenever possible, and harm reduction whenever necessary.
Contrast: streamers and threadiverse
But I only contribute to the public discourse by talking in online forums. I have no desire to become a streamer or a social media influencer. I have no desire to get millions of followers or million-dollar sponsorships. I have no desire to be in a position where a say “jump” and millions of people jump. I prefer anonymity and relative obscurity.
I might not be able to shift the discourse much, but if I can put a few ideas out there, examine things from a slightly different perspective, elaborate some nuance, or combat disinformation, maybe I can change a few people’s minds, or at least get them to see from a new angle, expand their perspective a bit, or just arm them with new info or details or arguments or points of view. It’s not much, but when those people go on to participate in the discourse, they can change other people’s minds too and it can have a snowball effect.
It’s faceless, it’s decentralized, and it’s democratizing. I’m no leader; nobody blindly accepts everything I say. But I’m participating in discussions that have the potential to reach millions. And alongside those millions of people, I’m helping to shape the discourse and the development of ideas. A drop in the bucket, yes, but that bucket would be empty without any drops in it.
And in the age of bot farms, LLMs, disinformation, trolls, political influence campaigns, agent-provocateurs, hybrid warfare, and bad-faith actors, any honest lemmings out there doing an honest day’s work to steer an honest discussion in an honest direction is a net positive in my book. I’m not being dishonest with myself about my position in the world; I acknowledge my limitations. I’m simply choosing to be a part of the solution to some of the problems that I see.
You’d find a lot of similarities between you and Piker tbh.
Maybe start with watching his speech at Yale from this past week. It was really inspirational.
Maybe I will. If most of what I’ve heard about him has been wrong, might as well hear what he has to say for myself before judging him.
I’m really not interested in following any streamers, but I might at least listen to the speech you mentioned because I do like hearing ideas
Yeah I get it, I don’t tune in to his streams much at all. I just don’t enjoy watching streamers the way younger people than myself seem to enjoy.
But his ideas are solid and he’s been right more often than he’s been wrong.