Just nuke the planet cuz humans suck regardless
I feel at this point the majority of content on this sub is not funny or a meme anymore. While I don’t agree with Trump at this point Lemmy is becoming “astroturfed” like reddit
This is, objectively, a political meme. Humor is not requisite.
This happens every election cycle the closer election day comes. Is it really any surprise political advocacy is higher during political season?
And what makes this “astroturfed”?
American elections bring out the worst in everyone everywhere.
This is more direct, but I always saw the original thought experiment as a way to explore that very concept - is inaction a “choice”? IMO, the only rational answer is Yes.
Even without the third rail, “no choice” is very clearly a choice. People just selfishly want to believe they don’t share responsibility if they just let things happen “naturally”, as of their inaction means they aren’t involved. But they are. We all are. Pretending otherwise is foolish.
Yeah, that’s why there’s all the variations of pushing an extremely large person in front of the train to stop it, and things like that. The lever, obviously it’s a choice that you should make. The person, it’s still a choice, but at what point is it not an issue you should try to handle.
Voting is a lever. There’s other actions that are more akin to pushing someone onto the tracks.
Those of us who don’t vote know this. We’re counting on it.
The machine is going to keep on killing people overseas and persecuting minorities. But the system is based on consent. If Harris wins she will claim that the voters have endorsed her and all her policies, even if we held our nose and voted for in spite of those policies. Same with Trump, who tried to take away his supporters’ healthcare and was surprised that there was a backlash since his campaign was claiming the people had spoken and he had a mandate.
A big enough group of third party and non voters shows the flaw of these parties. If they want me to support them, then work with me, pander to me dammit. Expecting my vote when you promise absolutely nothing for my community is a common Democratic trait; look at how little some Democratic politicians did for the black community and their retort was “where else are you gonna go?” They’re doing it again for black Americans and Muslim Americans. Harris won’t even be seen with those voters but she found time to hug Liz Cheney and invite her into the big tent. Harris says Black Lives Matter, she says Trans lives matter, she says Israeli lives matter, she won’t say that Arab lives matter equal to Israeli ones. Why shouldn’t I vote for Stein, who DOES say this? Harris made a choice to back every one of Biden’s failed policies and made a calculated decision that she can win the election without me. Hillary thought the same, and hoped that by throwing Muslim-Americans under the bus she could maybe get a few republicans to change to her side. It failed, and it will fail again.
Edit: ah yes, downvote me all you want but I’ve been speaking to voters in swing states and you’re only lying to yourself if you can’t address this issue for them. Harris can’t even bring herself to say the most basic talking points in support of Palestinian rights. Just say you plan to make a committee to look into how to build a future Palestinian state or that looking back it was wrong for Biden to deny the Palestinian death count, and that would address a lot of concerns, but it’s like she’s intentionally making it harder for Arabs and Muslims to vote for her.
No politician is going to bend their policies for the population that doesn’t vote.
For so long, boomers had the majority of sawy with politicians because they had the highest percentage of voter participation.
But we DO vote. American Muslims actually have been a reliable Democratic voting bloc since 2004 and since we are a more educated and more wealthy community than the average American we also have been reliable democratic donors. Why the party under Biden has gone out of its way to avoid us is just horrifying.
Alternatively: “I’m voting for Diet Fascism and if you don’t vote for Diet Fascism too, you’re voting for Full-Fat Fascism” but said with the sternest voice the weakest losers can muster.
More “I’m voting for diet fascism and if you don’t vote you’re complicit in anything that comes, which will either be diet fascism or full-fast fascism. Not voting doesn’t prevent either of these, and one is obviously preferably. No action is still a choice you’re making.”
Add disabled people to this list, homeless people, just so many of us who would suffer under a facist.
Pretty sure the homeless one should be on both ends of the track
In a sense very true.
However Trump’s proposals would make being homeless even worse, while Harris’s would make it somewhat better (although way less than is needed).
So I still stand by my categorisation.
homeless people need a flag
Pretty sure they need houses
But for comical effect I found this https://www.walmart.com/ip/Homelessness-Awareness-Month-USA-Flag-T-Shirt/5628172427
Walmart selling that is just rich
In the early days of the IWW, many of the Wobblies were hobos. So maybe you could say that the IWW cat is a homeless icon.
My favorite one is missing! Political Dissidents AND party members deemed a nuisance!
Third party represent.
So that’s the middle path, a useless/selfish moral high ground that will ultimately see more people dead/suffering.
Edit: I don’t give a shit how many down votes I get. I’m correct! Vote blue! And show Palestinian, Arab, and all marginalized demographics you/we are not going to abandon them for self preservation. Show more empathy via doing everything within your capacity to help those around you. There are marginalized people around you. Do more. Be better. We all will be put in the tracks as the individual and we all hope others won’t boil down your life to a binary train track meme.
I’m going to be 100% with yall that comment and post this shit.
Before I go on, let me say I voted dem and know they would be better for the world over Trump.
But is that’s the standard and argument you expect people to vote for, you are in for a rude awakening… To anyone reading this or agreeing with these outright insulting comments and posts about how you know better need to take a long look in the mirror. Because…
If the only support you are giving to the Palestinian and Arab people is voting Dem and having arguments about lesser evils, then you are not helping the situation.
Yes vote dem. But get off your ass and protest, donate, and support those communities currently harmed be democrats disastrous Gaza and Middle East policy. That’s how you sway hearts and minds. These fucking backhanded, self serving, ignorant posts and comments won’t stop anything but prove to those communities that the democrats base does not give a shit about anything that doesn’t directly effect themselves.
Yall are missing the forest from the trees. Not voting for the light genicidal party nor the full genicidal party isn’t some gotcha win for Trump. It’s a failure on our part to demand our party doesn’t continue using our votes to do harm.
call your senators daily and demand they publicly denounce Israel and the IDF. Donate money to organizations that are saving lives destroyed by our bombs. March with your fellow Palestinian and Arab brothers and sisters. Divest and boycott any business with ties to Isreal and the IDF.
We should be on the tracks trying to destroy them not worrying about who we are sending the train towards. We’re better than this. This is just conservative tactics used on a population that we need to vote blue! We are better than this! show some empathy and get involved. I have Palestinian friends and they would spit in your face if you said this kind of shit to their face because it’s removing the humanity of the 40k people killed by Isreal via bombs provided by Biden/Harris. If you/we don’t care why should they?
THANK YOU!
Our community is suffering, and the only solution people are offering are to yell at us and shame us for not finding this situation unlivable. “Your community will keep dying in either administration but could you vote for the pro-trans politician while you’re suffering?”
Mehdi Hasan was the only person who was able to reach out and connect to those voters with his recent video, and he did so with sympathy and understanding. He convinced me to vote and did so without bullying or calling me names.
I’m voting Democrat to preserve some semblance of democracy in this country, but I have to say I’m quite disappointed in my congress critters. My senator in particular. I’ve emailed her frequently, including links to articles detailing the crimes against humanity committed by the IDF, and all I get is a form letter response about how “Israel’s right to defend itself is so important” and “October 7th was terrible” and maybe a line about how horrible it is that Palestinians are suffering written in a way that either only blames Hamas or uses the most passive voice I have ever seen in writing.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin?
Almost all of them. It’s nauseating.
Nah. Amy Klobuchar. I’m a Minnesotan.
Damn, that makes two of 'em, then.
Exactly. And that does not mean our job is done. Please keep writing and advocating. If more people do this we can save lives. Not only if those that we can see. It’s about fighting for the best of humanity opposed to the race to the bottom. Vote blue, get involved, fuck the IDF, divest and boycott.
When I have more time during my winter break, I’m going to mail a handwritten letter with some articles printed out, and follow up with a phone call. I’ll read the damn article to her if I have to.
call your senators daily and demand they publicly denounce Israel and the IDF
Honestly, do YOU do that? Daily?
What has been your success rate in getting your senator on the line?
You must be on a first name basis by now.Uhhhhhh what? Are you being purposely dumb? Of course when I say call your senators, I’m not saying get them on the actual fucking line! Call his office/voice mail and make the comment… And don’t just comment one thing comment about all the communities currently being tied up on the tracks. And if you don’t want to do that have you donated to charities helping in marginalized communities local or abroad? How about volunteering? How about protesting? Whatever is in your capacity you should be doing it!
Of course when I say A I mean B
Getting real tired of this Trump-supporter-like line of reasoning
If you’ve always thought people ment literally call your senators personal lines when they say, “call your senators” you probably are a moron. It’s that better? No one ever has ment it in the literal sense.
Maybe they haven’t and are just pointing it out. Few do, and that’s the problem. It’s not democracy, it’s representative democracy, but it only works like a democracy would if people hold their reps accountable.
So no, the ones suggesting to hold their reps to the fire, now and after the election, probably haven’t themselves. But they aren’t wrong, and it shouldn’t be thrown back in their face but instead embraced as a good idea to start now.
Otherwise nothing changes, because other factors already contact our reps daily and influence them, that’s why they vote the way they do.
A problem is that even if you do, you’re just talking to some part-time intern they hired to not have to listen to you.
For a single voter call, that’s true. That’s why it needs to be in mass numbers, and constant. Make them concerned that if they don’t show some change, people will start showing up physically. With pitchforks.
And if they don’t still, then go get some pitchforks.
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Agreed but the chance those tracks will be destroyed before the election is slim.
I applaud your call to activism but in reality much less people will ever commit to fighting for their ideals that way.
Many more people will however are willing to give a token to a “right cause”
Voting D is that token. It doesn’t fix shit, especially considering the genocide but it will be a slower decline of human rights then the alternative.
More time to do activism.
There are many others, also on lemmy that are not calling for activism but for a token of not voting. I think the meme is a representation of that particular logic.
Everything you said is correct. I just don’t want to see all the surprised Pikachu when their inaction and self-righteousness results in a Trump victory. They’ll cry, “why didn’t the Palestinian and Arab Americans show up for the democrats?!”
The train hasn’t hit yet there are still millions of lives we can save by doing more than just voting. If we’re not willing to do everything to save them, why should they do anything to save us? I don’t care how close the train is. I’ll be trying to destroy the tracks until it hits me and the persons tied to the tracks. That’s my point.
These memes boil an unbelievably complex issue to a binary outcome. Marginalized communities are going to be there regardless of the outcome of the elections. Don’t wait until the train is about to hit you or something you care about before you decide to start dismantling the tracks. Then see how you feel when someone presumes your inevitable cleansing. I honestly feel like I’m living in Bizarro world or something. Like is what I’m saying beyond our capacity? We are doomed if we won’t all step on the tracks to stop the trains.
Voting D is that token. It doesn’t fix shit, especially considering the genocide but it will be a slower decline of human rights then the alternative.
by any logic it accelerates the decline. it gives a clear signal that they can get away with anything as long as they can project a worse alternative.
What do you mean by “project”? Trump is objectively worse.
that doesn’t matter to them. it would have been bernie running against harris and they will be still still saying vote harris else sanders will destroy the economy. remember 2016 ?
There is not enough time for a revolution before the election.
Reality is people will have to make a choice D/R or neither. No matter how they chose there will be either a D or R in political power.
If you have a proposition that will actually guarantee a different outcome i am willing to listen…
My personal take is to wait till the second this power game is over and hard dictatorship is avoide. start then. At the very least you will have many more people willing to join. Currently your just hurting the credibility of your own cause.
We have the same admin and reps until January, so even before the election people can start doing what they should have been doing all along and participate in more than just a vote. I’ll say it again, this genocide didn’t start a few weeks ago (when the “don’t vote for genocide” meme started), it didn’t start last October, it didn’t begin on any other major event that got the media attention for a while, it’s been decades, almost a century, of illegality and oppression and killing.
Also a reminder, if you’re of one party or another and a different party gets into the seat, they are still your representative. You do not have to wait to get a matching letter to call them and praise or removed about what they are doing.
what credibility anything will have when harris says that america has voted for her with the policy to continue arming israel to any extent ? a policy she has repeated multiple times during her campaign without leaving any ambiguity.
what’s stopping her from saying this is the will of the american people and start locking up any protest in name of antisemitism ?
and its not just israel, her policy on fracking and inflation is no better. life for working class has become hell in last four years, corporate greed is out of control and her campaign has been just “trump this trump that, vote me else you will have trump.”
If you have a proposition that will actually guarantee a different outcome i am willing to listen…
only outcome that will bring any iota of change is one in which popular vote clearly suggests we don’t want trump or harris.
I just want a candidate that supports both universal healthcare and the 2nd amendment.
Quick, somebody get this guy on the ballot!
Considering everyone is talking about fascists coming to power and life getting more threatening, it would make some sense for the groups in the photo to look into being armed.
Libs love to imagine genocide roller coasters.
But I dunno why they expect this to inspire loyalty.
I’m not loyal to the Democrats or to America and I still vote
What else are they going to do? Change their policies to suit their voter base?
It should be giving the choice to a Nazi.
I’ll be honest, I’m not planning to vote. Though if I did, it would most certainly not be for the orange man.
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I don’t care to sign up for potential jury duty some random day.
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I do not care to vote for anyone with religious motivations.
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I don’t care to vote for anyone with their head stuck in other countries’ business.
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I’d much rather vote for someone that actually has our country first and foremost.
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Honestly I feel ashamed to even be born in a country that hocks weapons like candy.
I could go on, but when I feel the election is like choosing between the lesser of two evils, then I choose not to vote for either evil.
Too bad there isn’t a clear better candidate in the lead.
Not voting means you’re fine if either of the two major candidates win. Inaction is also a choice with consequences that can have decades of impact.
Last time I went to vote, it was for the 2016 election. I spent 3 hours in line, only for them to close the voting library with around 200 people ahead of me still waiting to vote. Our state does not allow early voting.
This is not legal; you have a right to vote. Call those numbers if you have an issue and don’t leave the line.
We don’t all have to be activists, but one day of the year we can spend a little extra time ensuring we remain a democracy.
That’s very strange that they closed the polls with people waiting. My understanding was you had a right to vote if you were in line.
Because it’s a made up story bro.
Fuck you, I’m telling the truth. They locked the doors to the library at 8pm and told everyone still waiting outside in the rain to go home.
8pm is 8pm, no exceptions.
Sad that I (and a few friends) got there and stood in line from around 5pm on, only to still be like 200 people back in line when they closed.
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What about your local stuff? You can vote and just not pick a President choice. Although #1 still applies, I guess.
How do you even manage to vote in a state that doesn’t allow early voting? Last time I tried to vote, I spent around 3 hours in line, only for them to close with about 200 people ahead of me still waiting to vote.
Wow, won’t even allow voting for those in line? You don’t even have to tell me which party controls that state. Bet there’s no mail-in or absentee ballot availability either, or very strict rules to limit it.
I’ve been watching early voting numbers in my county, they even have a “current wait” tracker online, and it’s been regular 30 mins to even a few hours wait each day. Now imagine the same number of people all in one day. It’s madness to force that on people.
My only solution to you is try to use midterm voting for the local stuff. Or bend the rules and claim you’ll be out of state and need an absentee ballot. I think they legally can’t prevent that, even thought they’d love to.
Mississippi. Doesn’t even register on the early voting states list…
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/early-in-person-voting
Easy solution; move out of Mississippi. I did it and never looked back
My condolences. I don’t take red states as a “us or them” but more of a failing of the country to prevent any place to fall to that level.
I’m not exactly impressed with this state either ☹️
Not having Jury Duty is like, the least important thing when it comes to voting. Usually they pay you for your time, and hell, sometimes you show up and they either strike you from the pool or don’t have cases left for the day, and send you home soon after you arrive. I had jury duty earlier this year, got taken out of the jury pool, and I still got paid for my time.
Any of you don’t want to be on jury duty just saying you don’t wish to do it can be enough to be removed fron the jury pool (alternatively seeming way too interested could also be a tactic)
He said he was voting in 2016, so he is in jury duty list already and this argument is pointless.
They pay you. Not very much though. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck it’s a financial hit.
They must have updated the system in my area. On Thursday, I got an email telling me I didn’t have to show up for jury duty that was supposed to start Monday.
Where I’m at you have to call a number every evening to see if you need to show up in the morning.
Yeah, that’s what I was expecting, too. I’ve had to do that before.
Ah the bridge option. Nice job “not choosing”
Last time I went to vote, it was for the 2016 election. And you better bet your ass I wasn’t gonna vote for the orange man then either.
I spent 3 hours in line, only for them to close the voting library with around 200 people ahead of me still waiting to vote. Biggest waste of my time ever.
And no, our state does not allow early voting.
It’s reprehensible that they closed the polling place.
But three hours is a small, tiny price to pay to participate in democracy and potentially help tons of minorites and at risk folks avoid another trump term.
With around 200 people ahead of me? It would have taken way more than 3 hours to even have a chance to get in the door.
I acknowledged the issue with them closing the polls. But if you had gotten in, the time would not have been a waste. You dont know you won’t get in this time.
I’m a live-in caretaker for an elderly man that has an out of state doctor’s appointment on the 5th, I won’t even be in the state that day.
My hands are tied any which way you look at it.
You couldn’t apply for an absentee ballot? Even in Mississippi you have an ironclad reason that you cannot be present on election day.
That’s completely different than the situation discussed above.ajd totally understandable.
Mississippi. Doesn’t even register on their list.
Oof, that’s too bad.
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In one image, show us you don’t understand the philosophical problem.
The philosophical problem is more a game theory one. You are participating in a limited outcome, constrained system. Depending on where you live, non participation results in a trump win.
The philosophical problem assumes only one action available to you with clear results. Neither of these is true here.
More to the point. The philosophical problem is about the agony of inaction. You don’t need to bastardize the meme to add a third “inaction” route. That’s just inane.
Again that dodges the conclusion that one of the two WILL win. Understanding your district and the “cost” or teinal result of inaction still funnels all choices and interests to one of two results.
One of these winning, doesn’t mean the results are foreseen. Which is unlike the meme where the results are foreseen.
All outcomes are foreseen. The one that will occur is not. Abstaining and 3rd party voting has known impacts that lead to one or the other possible outcome.
“Foreseen” is there will be one track chosen, not what is lying on that track.
That’s untrue. We know each candidates general stance from past time in executive office. It’s easy to look up trump’s past actions and current words on the middle east, and to the meme, we know his stance on minority communities, abortion, citizen rights, etc. as well.
No love for Harris, but her platform is far saner and even ethical than trump’s.
I wasn’t trying to make the US election into a philosophical problem, because Trump winning will have serious global consequences, regardless of how immoral voting for Democrats might be.
voting or not voting for trump is going to have important global consequences given that it doesn’t matter who the figurehead is when half your country is fascist. If not Trump, then someone else. and no amount of voting democrats is going to change this.
The ‘philosophical problem’ with tankies trading people’s lives to teach a politician a lesson?
Wow what a great sense of morality you have.
The philosophical problem of the trolley problem itself, but don’t let me stop you from moralizing in advance.
The meme hasn’t been about the philosophical problem in a long time.
Suck it up, Palestine, you’d be fucked anyway
This different then the argument, “suck it up Americans your fucked either way.”?
“After Trump, Our Turn”. It worked with Hitler, surely it will work again, eh comrade?
Ehm… no? At very least jail mr Trump
You have to be a troll?
Kinda the only way to support my family, sir
from Wikipedia
Reversing the points under a moving train will almost always derail the train.
How does one do that in this metaphor? Vote for one by mail and the other in person? That just lands you in jail and is functionally equivalent to sending the train down the “moral high ground” track.
popular vote goes to Harris but Trump gets inaugurated because the supreme court ruled otherwise?