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There are no ethical choices under first-past-the-post voting. We must instead make a decision that reduces the most harm.
A referendum will be held alongside the general election in Oregon, USA to switch to ranked-choice voting.
To any fellow Oregonians reading this, vote yes and tell all your friends to vote yes as well!
Register to vote:
There are important ballot measures in a ton of states this year as well. If you're in a blue area, there might even be a decent candidate or 2. Always check to see what's happening in your community, if only to prevent harmful stuff from slipping through unopposed.
Your landlord and bosses vote, so you should as well. Don't make things easy for them. Make them require voter suppression to stand a chance. Power will never be given, so it must be seized.
I'm jealous. Here in Canada, our current PM's entire election campaign was based on the promise of scrapping FPTP. Then he reversed course pretty much day 1 after getting elected.
It's frustrating for sure, I was even more annoyed when we had a referendum in BC and people opted to keep things the same.
Oof, yeah, thats pretty bad. As an Albertan, I definitely feel the pain of ignorant voters.
For anyone wondering why the first-past-the-post voting system (used by most countries) is bad, what the alternatives are, and why those alternatives are better, Nicky Case has an excellent write-up that covers all of that: https://ncase.me/ballot/
That was a very informative and interesting read. Thank you for sharing!
The way to tell MAGA propagandists from real lefitst activists is that propaganda will ignore primaries and local elections. General elections in America are for forming coalitions, not rejecting them.
Anyone making memes telling you not to form a coalition against MAGA is working to further the goals of MAGA.
To be clear, I’m using this meme to address ethical concerns I see people have with voting. Namely that we should ignore those concerns. I think we should vote for Biden in 2024.
I saw your comment further down and I wanted to address any potential confusion where it can be seen. I think we fundamentally agree that people should vote.
But the sonic meme says voting is unethical
No, just that there are no ethical choices under first-past-the-post voting. For example, abstaining from voting is a choice even if it's not voting. Voting for the candidates, not just the president, that will result in the least amount of harm to people is what is optimal. People use ethical concerns as a reason to not vote, but no matter what a person chooses, even the least bad choice is still unethical. Therefore these ethical concerns should not weigh into our decision making process.
This is comparable to no ethical consumption under capitalism. Steve Shives made a good example in his video on Don't Look Up, so I'm going to steal it here. We shouldn't dismiss Hollywood out of hand for making movies like Don't Look Up even though everyone who works in the film industry benefits from capitalism in unethical ways. Even though it is true that they benefit in unethical ways, this line of reasoning would silence everyone. We all benefit in unethical ways from capitalism. It's the nature of living in a capitalist system that we cannot escape as long as we live under capitalism. Even the least bad consumption is still unethical. So these ethical concerns shouldn't weigh into our criticism of a movie like Don't Look Up.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. There are no ethical choices under FPTP voting. So, these ethical concerns should not weigh into our criticism of capitalism or our decisions about who to vote for. We should vote even if the choice of who we vote for isn't ethical. The goal should be to reduce the most harm to people.
Thank you for the explanation. I essentially agree with your position, but also fear most of the people upvoting this meme aren't appreciating a distinction between choosing "no ethical action" and "inaction". Things inside the US are slowly, but unquestionably moving in a better direction today than they have been the past century. It's upsetting when people who claim to care for their fellow citizens advocate for surrendering the already extremely limited power they posses to turn the steering wheel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_reduction
I finally figured out what some people were concerned about. Apparently there is already a phrase called harm reduction or harm minimization that I wasn't aware of. This phrase specifically refers to reducing harm around drug and sex related activities. This is a naming collision on my part for the title of the meme.
However I stand by my usage of the words for the title. I was using the words harm and reduction together because that is what makes sense to me for the topic based on the definitions of those individual words. I wasn't referring to harm reduction the phrase and I think that was clear to most people. Also, it's just for the title of an internet meme. No one is co-opting the phrase harm reduction or using that phrase incorrectly. I hope that clears up that confusion.
Made sense to me, even knowing the original meaning of the phrase. Good splainer though
Is this /s?
Arguing against voting for Biden is a pro-genocide tactic because it increases the probability of more genocide. Anti-voting activism is an inviable strategy.
I genuinely will never understand the libs that vote for the "least fascist" option as if that's ever going to improve your life.
Maybe vote w/ your conscience instead of pushing further to the right than y'all already are?
Gotta change the voting system if you want to make it safe to vote for your favorite. Anything that satisfies no favorite betrayal would work. My favorite is Approval Voting but any of them would work.
No, I am serious. If people have an ethical concern about voting in the US, this is my response. It's comparable to no ethical consumption under capitalism. Vaush explained the idea in one of his streams.
Vaush explained the idea in one of his streams.
Yeah, I quit watching him. Dude is pretty problematic. "Genocide is bad and wrong, but still vote for Biden, because party loyalty is more important." At least he has the balls to criticize Biden, which is more than I can say for some people.
Vaush isn't perfect, but no one is arguing party loyalty is what is important here. There are no ethical choices in FPTP voting so we have to make a decision that reduces the most harm.
This is the fun part about arguing with Russian agents and people who drank the kool-aid, they shove words into your mouth. Either they're deliberately trying to make you look bad, or they're so stuck in their own world view they can't hear anything other than what they already believe.
This isn't harm reduction. Stop co-opting real leftist terms for this crap. The USA has always been fascist and will always be so until it is destroyed. You people won't learn till you get all of us killed for the little bit of privilege afforded to you thru this colonist imperial hellhole
It is harm reduction to vote for the less fascist of the two fascist candidates with a chance of winning.
What's this mean? I'm OOTL.
The Russian military is known to employ "disinformation officers" to spread discord or undermine trust in Western democracies online. A very common talking point they use is how the US (or whatever other country's citizens they are targeting) is a fascist state and your vote doesn't count, so you should not vote. Other common tactics include deliberately bringing up obscure conspiracy theories to lend them more credibility, spreading fake news, and posting lots of comments that sound right at a first glance but are complete BS once you think about them/research them. They are known to target both left and right-leaning people.
Generally, the most vulnerable are those who are not aware of their presence (and thus absorb the ideas like a sponge) or already hold the extreme political views they spread. These people are likely to propagate the content in question, increasing the damage. Remember, their goal is not to convince you to agree with them—it's to get you to distrust your government and your country's institutions.
Disinformation officers aren't an idea unique to Russia. China has also been accused of hiring people to do the same thing ("wumaos"), and the Israeli army openly brags about their disinformation officers, although they don't call them that, obviously.
The picture depicts one such (alleged) Russian disinformation officer. I am using it to accuse the parent commenter of being a disinformation officer or someone who repeats the ideas spread by a disinformation officer.
Russian disinformation Agent
This isn’t harm reduction.
It is harm reduction. Fewer people will be harmed if we elect the candidate that will do the least harm.
Stop co-opting real leftist terms for this crap.
I am a social democrat which is a leftist political position. This is a real leftist term. Gatekeeping won't get rid of this idea. Internalize it.
edit: To be clear, I'm referring to: There are no ethical choices under FPTP voting. I hope that clears up any confusion.
The USA has always been fascist and will always be so until it is destroyed.
There has been a fascist movement in the United States since the 30's. Hitler and the Nazis copied off of the US's Jim Crow era laws. But the US as a nation state has never been fascist. If Republicans win this November then the US will become a christo-fascist authoritarian dictatorship for the first time and probably for a long time.
You people won’t learn till you get all of us killed for the little bit of privilege afforded to you thru this colonist imperial hellhole
The people who are going to get us all killed are the privileged accelerationists who think they stand to benefit from sacrificing us all to fascism. They think they going to accelerate social change, but there won't be anyone left to benefit from it.
Obvious troll or clinically idiotic patsy
