https://sfba.social/@drahardja/117344931893000589
the other day a tanky said a sentence constructed like that to me too, while literally arguing for me to join his authoritarian group
Look man, you’re only saving 50% of the children from starvation, so obviously your idea is bad and we should continue letting 100% of the children die until someone comes up with the perfect solution.
Yeah I’ve had this kind of discussions with right wing folk. We were discussing socialist policies, which I was in favor of and they were against. They were pointing out there were people abusing current socialist policies and getting a free handout, so all of those policies should be cut to prevent the freeloaders from freeloading. I argued that any kind of policy, no matter what the policy is, is going to be abused by a small fraction of the population. It’s not possible to create something without loopholes and people exploiting them. We should try to prevent it in the design, but in the end we should accept that’s going to happen and instead focus on if the policy is also actually helping the people it was designed for.
Nothing is perfect, problems won’t be fully solved and / or new problems will be created. That isn’t failure, it’s life.
I have been told this my whole life, how our silly little actions didn’t mean anything because they were too small or fringe or whatever.
The difference is I can look back across the decades and see a lot of people who I have helped, and who have helped me in turn, things have been directly made better as a result (well, at least some of the time). Meanwhile, their “more realistic” approach centred on voting has seen periods of glacial progress and rapid retreat, leaving them further back than ever before in my lifetime.
I have been told this my whole life, how our silly little actions didn’t mean anything because they were too small or fringe or whatever.
Same. Ive never believed it.
Be a helper.
Remember, that is exactly what an exploiter will say to you. They’ll always try to place the blame on the individual for the damage they’re doing collectively. Same with the BP Oil campaign when they invented the “carbon footprint of the individual” while being one of the worst polluters in the world.
If you look at real, concrete, systemic changes in the world, the times where it has happened because of “optimism” is close to zero.
Remember that the exploiters will always demand that people use the proper channels, because they own those channels, and can make sure nothing ever gets through.
There are only two ways to deal with exploiters. You can try and use your voice a few times, and if that doesn’t work, you start using your hands.
I see way too much of this on the internet, here on Lemmy included. Thanks for posting this. I have this thought a lot but haven’t see this good of a way to put it before.
Its state sponsored propaganda using companies as proxies to bypass those pesky human rights laws and is vastly on the Republican side but you do have aipac dems and similar issues in other first world countries.
The rise of right wing extremist politicians and the world also going to shit is no coincidence.
They’ll also tell you things such as “don’t trust the government” while also being the party in control. It should be obvious to anyone who isn’t a cultist.
It should be obvious to anyone who isn’t a cultist.
I love the ‘no true scot’ part here.
I do things that make no difference globally because I don’t want to take part in the bad things.
I did not vote for the government that is ruling my country. My single vote did not make any difference, but it makes me feel better that I did not vote for this government.
I travel by train instead of a plane and I ride a bike instead of driving a car because I don’t want to be part of the club of high CO2 emission citizen.
Doing that does not matter globally, but I feel better about myself that way. I don’t tell other people what to do or to follow my example, but I think some people around me do notice and maybe it does get them thinking?
But I have no illusions, most people are busy enough and do what is most convenient every time. I am the only adult in my circle that does not own a car. But I feel powerless beyond my personal life to change anything.
I know it is not good enough, but I don’t know how to change other people.
I did try and sometimes I still do try, but to no effect besides annoying people. 🤷
I also kind of hate the rhetoric that a single vote doesn’t count. One of the local primaries this year came down to a difference of four votes.
Perfect is the enemy of good (or good enough).
Or slightly less terrible
I was once explaining the upsides of UBI and someone replied “no, this would fix too many issues with capitalism, this would delay the revolution!” Like… Dude.
I always think of this post whenever I hear someone dead-set on nothing less than massive, systemic change.
True that. Do I agree modern society has gone crazy in many fundamental ways? Hell yeah. Will I reject an opportunity to do something small that will affect only a handful of lives for just a few days based solely on that? Nope
I’ve reached a point where I think if both the left and right tell you are wrong, you might just as well have arrived at the correct idea (usually, not always).
We all are the only and best witness to our individual experiences. I don’t think that’s taught enough. I’m not saying that all truth is relative all the time, but I think it’s very reasonable to be in a nation with a de facto two-party duopoly on the entire political system and come to a conclusion as an individual that there are many things and experiences, including your own, that aren’t accurately represented or advocated for by either party’s narratives. IMO, that’s common sense. Just like America has one of the highest per capita incarceration rates in the world, it’s also unique in that it (and all of the five eyes nations except for NZ and kind of Australia) is a western democracy that only has two parties with the vast control of natl. govt. instead of a coalition of many more. Competition almost always yields better results for customers in a market and in politics.
We’re in a system in which voters feel locked into a system of only two choices and then will turn around and berate other voters for not being 1000% committed to ‘the revolution’ after toppling the n*zis. Instead of providing a inclusive environment for old republicans turning away from and standing against obvious fascism, some of the left does a whole old timey Christian preacher “scare the hell out of you,” narcissism-of-small-differences routine with zero prompting to try and push for a huge cultural and political upheaval before removing the awfulness that’s currently in power. It’s the Aesop’s Fables lion giving up the rabbit (small win) to chase the antelope (ambitious win) and losing both. It’s Anakin telling Obi Wan to join him with the Sith or die, his head so far up his own butt with his own issues that he thinks that’s an actual choice for Obi Wan but it’s not. It’s shortsighted and self-centered and it’s stupid. And for the sake of just getting through elections in the next 4 years I wish it would stop.
Anyway. “Nothing is ever as good or bad as people say it is. It’s always better or worse and you have to figure out how.” Some of that is adjusting your own expectations and reactions, some of it is adjusting for the biases of others.
Haha I kind of see both your points, it kind of does the liberal thing of extending the umbrella of protection from exploitation while pushing exploitation farther to the sidelines. The worst case outcome is that you now have more defenders of the status quo, because they’ve got it good. Meanwhile the entire economy is still based on war and exploitation, especially of poor workers in other countries.
But then maybe if us workers here had some more breathing room (perhaps not the best choice of words…) we might also have more capacity for solidarity with those exploited workers. Who knows, but it would remedy a lot of immediate problems here anyway.
And all the trials have been very positive, so I’m inclined to give it a shot yeah.
‘Let them get a taste of how terrible those guys are, and then they’ll vote us in and our system will rise!’ is what the Weimar Republic said about the Nazis.
Never, ever assume making things worse will end up causing a few tiny problems and then everything gets better. Humans are, by and large, shockingly tolerant of rather terrible things. If you let things get worse, they will get very, very worse, and a lot of innocent people will die.
And fascism ended up killing fewer people than the British Empire, USA, or French Empire and it wasn’t tried again for 80 years.
As you say, people are shockingly tolerant of terrible things. Especially when there is a socially constructed boundary between them and the victims (race, nationality, etc.). If you count nonwhite noncitizens as full people, fascism was less deadly than liberal capitalism.
Do we care half as much about the death of a dozen people at a wedding in Pakistan as we care about Alex Pritti? Do we care half as much about the colonization of north America as about the Lebensraum doctrine? Do we care half as much as about the British colonization of India as about the holocaust and WW2?
Fascism is capitalist abusers coming home. it is horrible, as capitalism always was.
I would prefer capitalism to fall without a fascist period - not the least out of self-preservation as a white citizen of a first world country - but at this point every decade that capitalism survives is another billion dead from climate change.
If we stave off fascism by embracing liberal capitalism, all our children and grandchildren will die violently. It can not be enough.
There’s a good chance that anyone making this argument doesn’t see it as a problem in the first place.
Yes, but this message gives them the chance to expand their view. The chance.
A monkey is gonna monk. No matter what you tellem.
I generally agree but not across the board. Bandaid solutions, half-assing things, etc often leads to worse problems down the road than you had to begin with.
Yeah but at some point you have to try knowing you’ll fail so you can make a better attempt next time. A lot of people are just sitting at like zero level of organization and refuse to even start trying ever.
It’s a demoralization propaganda tactic to effectively blunt any issue. People have internalized the idea that they can do nothing on an individual level. Like habits that form out of persistent actions, people have been demoralized into giving up completely. It’s some sort of ego trap. Where the presumption is that an individual is supposed Superman saving the world, but of course they aren’t. Nobody is. So why bother at all. That’s not the point. It’s about the the population as a whole determining the norm. Everyone is convinced it’s pointless and hopeless. That sets the tone. The issue is dead in the water. Any issue can be killed this way. It’s extremely effective. People fall for it every time.
That’s where climate change is right now. That’s where wealth inequality is right now. People have listened to social media. They’ve internalized the quote repetitions. The demoralization mantras they saw on social media.
Your adversaries can handle words on social media. It’s meaningless to them. It has no effect on their daily lifestyle or their bank accounts. Throwing words into the cloud. Somebody else’s computer. Those servers are owned by your very adversaries. You’re throwing your comments into a meaningless suggestion box. In all likelihood the quote repetitions were seeded by them.
Everyone is convinced that “the rich” consist of a few billionaires named Musk, Bezos, or Zuckerberg. This blinds people from seeing local issues. Like crony politicians or localized inequality issues. Ones where they actually have more of a voice. One where they can actually effect change.
There’s no more blatant manifestation than when reddit (happens on lemmy too) bleeds their hearts over those posts about some rich asshole. Those carbon copy posts about how hard it is to be making techbro level money while “struggling” to live in the most wealthy cities in the world. Who gives a shit. Why does everyone have sympathy for those rich people at all. Everyone crazy? These people are part of the problem. They are the rich too. They are the source of issues that affect you locally. The guillotines are for them as much as Musk, Bezos or Zuckerberg. They’re out of touch rich people who have dragged you all into their reality where they’re victims too. How convenient for them to have a few billionaire scapegoats that are untouchable. Whereas the average working class person can actually effect change on a local level.
People have given up on climate change because they’re convinced the one or two people must stop flying private jets then the problem will be solved. It’s quote repetitions. Fed to them from social media. “If those jerks can fly private jets, then why can’t I consume as much as I want myself. I’ll use all the plastic bags and straws that I want.” It’s not about the bags or the straws. It’s about the collective demoralization. The propaganda is so effective.
Because people are fucking stupid, i deal with this shit at work everyday nothing to do with global politics or whatever. Sometimes our vendors fuck things up for us, so therefore there’s no point in us getting more organized at work – literally how my supervisors think.
Hiding behind vague hypotheticals because you voted for a union busting genocider with a staff full of Epstein patrons
for all the good tankies might do in a moment at the end they just create new issues, which if they are successful will be quite bad again. so not worth it since it’s completely unnecessary
There’s like two kinds of proposals, and whichever kind you make you get criticized. You make a big proposal, people say “Well yeah but how does that work on the ground?” You make an on-the-ground proposal, and people say “Well how does that scale to the whole thing?” Alright fine, then let’s just die!
“This is not a perfect solution, and therefore it is not a solution” is called the nirvana fallacy, and is poor reasoning. Somehow people are really susceptible to it.
The argument “this solution only partially solves the problem, and further entrenches us into a system that makes the problem this solution aims to solve much, much worse in the long run, and as such the benefits do not outweight the costs” is a different argument, but it is often mistaken for the former argument because people are incapable of long term thinking.
Interesting, now I know that type of argument has a name. I think many rationalizations are a veneer for laziness. Taking the stance that doing something is useless means you don’t have to feel guilty about not doing it. Likewise, when there’s a widespread delusion that simple, ineffective actions make us heroes, people will do those actions and nothing else, because giving themselves a gold star is all they really want. It’s important not to confuse spending hours in social media circlejerks with “spreading awareness”.
