this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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i can't even guess as to why they went quiet. not one guess at all. we will never know.

edit: well they're not quiet now once they get called out

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 month ago (10 children)

It's so weird. Gaza is extremely important and deserving of the attention. It's genocide, and it's horrific. But is no one else important? Because we can't save Gaza immediately, it's really better to set outselevs on fire so we can burn together? Like, real talk, Harris will be fine. Biden will be fine. It's our friends and neighbors who are going to be deported, harassed, laid off, homeless and scared for a minimum of four years.

I wouldn't say they're gone though. I've been down voted, told "my kind/type" are all talk, or that I'm okay with murder, I voted for genocide, the usual. But I couldn't sit and do nothing.

But I guess this is what they wanted. The dems have been taught a lesson, we're moving headfirst into a dictatorship, and Gaza is no safer, but their conscious is clear, somehow.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they are Isreali or Russian psy ops accounts (or at least useful idiots that have bought the psy ops).

When the war started, Lemmy was overrun by the "criticism of Isreal is antisemetic" accounts. That was rejected pretty hard. Those guys disappeared, and the "never genocide" people took their place.

It almost seems like a change in tactics to achieve the same goal.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago

the “criticism of Israel is antisemitism” accounts are gone because they were banned. Zionism and the insistence that a genocidal state is indivisible from an entire ethnic group is racism, and against most instance’s TOS.

“never genocide” content does not break TOS and so has lasted since october 7th through today. to the uninformed eye this dynamic might look like a change in tactic but really it’s just two different groups, one which got banned after a few days or weeks and one which did not.

just correcting your “change in tactics”/“it’s astroturfing” narrative. i don’t think it holds up in comparison to a much more likely explanation, and i might even use the word ludicrous to describe your argument unless you can provide further evidence.

[–] Saledovil 21 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Considering the fediverse's low market share compared to non-federated alternatives, I'd be suprised if any malicious actors waste time and money running a psyops here. Like, you reach more people on Reddit for the same ammount of effort.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

thank you for saying this skskkssk. Occam’s razor: is it more likely that foreign psy-ops have incredibly poor cost-benefit analysis skills (while excelling in everything else), or that a couple dozen people have deeply held beliefs that led them to be vocal in the midst of tragedy?

call me crazy but the latter narrative makes a lot fewer assumptions.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

You'd reach more people on bigger platforms, but it is easier to steer the conversation with smaller groups. So I don't think its totally clear-cut where the best psyops targets would be.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Psyops are everywhere

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

if they are running a psyop its probably a secondary effect of psyopping twitter or some shit, leaking over to here in a more genuine fashion.

Literal astroturfing, if you will, what the definition of astroturfing actually is lmao.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Oh, don't worry, the conspiracy theory is capable of making sense of any incongruities like that, just like OP can explain away the fact that we didn't actually disappear as predicted. You see, this is where the Russian bots practice their techniques and try out different lines before deploying them on a larger scale.

It's not based on evidence or reason so the believers will never be convinced based on evidence or reason, same as any other conspiracy theory.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It was 100% astroturfing, 20% people falling for bullshit. Sounds like politics

[–] Klear 6 points 1 month ago

15% concentrated power of shill.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Out of curiosity, what wouldn't you be willing to compromise on? If I had a party wanting to kill your mom and dad and another who just wants to kill your dad, would you make that compromise?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Good comment, because this was the choice some were asked to make, to degrees ranging from similar to almost literally.

As an educated citizen I openly acknowledge voter abstention or voting Republican is irresponsible in carrying out my responsibility to protect my neighbor.

However I also recognize the incredibly painful and emotionally choking situation some were put in, with no messaging of empathy from either side. I will never blame those people more than I blame the party which failed them. Distribute it 51%/49% even, I don’t care. I’m just sick of the finger pointing and shit slinging against a tiny minority who bore no impact on the election outcome in the first place.

This dialogue, which OP is capitulating to, is perfect fascist propaganda. Find an insignificantly tiny out group, which conveniently happens to be majority Arab-American, and blame them for the violence while corporate interests and ever more racist border politics go unspoken.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

Exactly. It sounds rhetorical, silly and a stupid straw man of sorts. But that's because people don't understand there were people who had to actually make such decisions.

I agree, I voted Kamala Harris and I do wish we could all bite that bullet but I understand that failure to do so is on the campaign who made a gamble that they could never lose voters in a lesser evil campaign. They were wrong. Instead of criticizing that campaign many here want to fight the same people they claim to want to protect. They are turning on immigrants, Muslims, and queer folk and throwing blame at the people they themselves believe they need to win.

I would say "funny strategy" but there is no strategy here. It's online liberals who don't understand what happened and are upset and angry. They just came out of a campaign in which they spent so much of their time justifying the lesser of two evils that they can't even acknowledge that it didn't work and it's the campaigns fault.

My hope is maybe they can stop arguing with us before the concentration camps come up.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

Well fucking said, and pretty disgusting how upvoted the post is.

[–] Mnemnosyne 21 points 1 month ago (24 children)

Ummm....yes! Of course I would make that compromise! If I have a choice between they both die or one dies, of course I'm taking the choice where one lives!

What wouldn't I be willing to compromise on? Nothing. If I have a choice between bad and worse, I'm taking bad, what kind of lunatic would intentionally choose worse?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

If I have a choice between bad and worse, I’m taking bad, what kind of lunatic would intentionally choose worse?

The vast majority of people would choose worse, at least in some situations.

Philosopher Bernard Williams proposed this thought experiment: suppose someone has rounded up a group of 20 innocent people, and says that he will kill all of them, unless you agree to kill one, in which case he'll let the rest go. Act Utilitarianism would suggest that it is not only morally permissible, but morally obligatory to comply, which Williams saw as absurd. As an addendum, suppose the person then orders you to round up another 20 people so he can repeat the experiment with someone else, and if you don't, he'll have his men kill 40 instead. Congratulations, your "lesser-evilist" ideology now has you working for a psychopath and recruiting more people to work for him too.

Even the trolley problem, which liberals love to trot out to justify their positions, is not nearly as clear cut as they try to pretend it is. A follow up to the trolley problem is, is it ethical to kill an innocent person in order to harvest their organs in order to give five people lifesaving transplants? The overwhelming majority of people say no.

Act Utilitarianism is something that seems intuitive at first glance, but is very difficult to actually defend under scrutiny, and there are many, many alternative moral frameworks that reject its assumptions and conclusions. Liberals don't seem to realize that this framework they treat as absolute and objective - that you would have to be a "lunatic" to reject - is actually a specific ideology, and one that's not particularly popular or robust.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The trolley problem is clearly not clear cut at all, that's what makes it interesting. This, of course, is lost on the Dunning-Kruger crowd.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Contrived explanations couched in self indulgent and imperious insults, just like the Biden/Harris campaign. And you lot wonder why so many voters didnt bother to get off the couch.

You've learned less than nothing and are even worse now than before. I see a lot of calls to move the party rightward, cloaked in a very vague rejection of "wokeness". And you expect to win any election like this? Out-republicanning the republicans has been tried so many times by the liberals and its never worked. And yet you lot keep running the same play every time.

I guess I should be happy you make the case for a progressive party easier, but damn, its disappointing that we even need to do it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I think you're replying to the wrong comment.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Where this analogy falls apart is in the implicit assumption that this is just a one-off situation. (I mean, most people only have two parents.)

What happens when it's an iterative phenomenon? (Politics is an ongoing thing.) Then, the situation in the analogy turns into the classic "negotiating with terrorists" scenario. The received wisdom is that one should never negotiate with terrorists, because once they learn that terrorism works they'll do it again.

Maybe make it cousins. Do you choose the option whereby two cousins die, or just one. What if choosing just one now increases the danger of more dying later?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Yep, thats one of the classic criticism of utilitarian philosophy: it doesnt take into consideration if the actions being evaluated are evil or not. From a certain point of view I'm sure killing anyone can be made to be a good trade compared to some other greater evil, but you're supposed to just line up behind defeating evil and be done with it. Utilitarianism is taught almost solely to be mocked in philosophy class, same as solopsism.

Ironically it was only the college educated who are likely tro be exposed to these ideas, and they are primarily on the utilitarian side of the argument this time.

Makes no sense. I think they just werent paying attention in philo 101. They missed out on ethics 301 as well.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Perhaps a better, real-world example is that this moral calculus says that the Democrats should abandon trans people and trans issues. The logic is inescapable: Trans issues turn away a lot of voters, and it's a really strong talking point for the other party. If they win, the Democrats could protect the LGB community, and women's rights.

Surely it's better to protect the LGB community and women's rights, but not trans people, than to protect none of them, right?

(NB: This is rhetorical. I don't believe it.)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not rhetorical. It's literally currently being proposed as a strategy by the "Harris went too woke" crowd.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh Lord... 😔

Who will they tip over the side next?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

(NB: This is rhetorical. I don’t believe it.)

Glad you said this because there’s literally someone else in this very comment section arguing exactly this. Sick to my stomach.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Exactly. When every national poll shows things like trans rights are more nationally popular, because they want to chase the republican vote so bad than to concede anything to their leftist base.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

well the correct answer is actually a little bit subversive, instead of supporting trans people directly, you just subtly reinforce ideas of support for queer people broadly. And then actually do that.

the right will most likely still make shit up, but at least now it's not clear as day.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

The centrists would throw in killing the family dog along with the dad and call it a good bipartisan deal.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I appreciate the level headed take.

Because we can’t save Gaza immediately

What do you mean by this? That the president can't or that voters can't because their choice is voting genocide or worse genocide?

The dems have been taught a lesson

Based on the response of the media, and elected democrats, no they haven't lol. They're blaming the left.

but their conscious is clear, somehow

I think this is reductive and does not acknowledge why many people did not vote democrat.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

What do you mean by this? That the president can't or that voters can't because their choice is voting genocide or worse genocide?

In my opinion, the genocide was not anywhere on the ballet. There was no feasible choice. I don't think we had a choice to save Gaza immediately on 11/5. I'd rather fight for people in our regular shit then have to fight for people in whatever hell Trump is planning.

Based on the response of the media, and elected democrats, no they haven't lol. They're blaming the left.

Maybe we're not seeing the same articles? Don't get me wrong, I do see people blaming leftist/liberals/Russian bots, etc. But the I've seen posts and articles about how the dems fail the working class and looking over why they were abandoned. Sanders has been very vocal about the dems failure, and he's not the only one. Not saying there's no blame on the campaign, I've just seen both 🤷🏿‍♀️

I think this is reductive and does not acknowledge why many people did not vote democrat.

I don't think so. I didn't see this election as "dems VS rep." I saw this as a vote to stop facisim. There was no vote I could make that day that was going to stop the genocide in it's tracks. I didn't believe that not voting was going to make anything easier. I see tons of, "Well, what will your compromise on? How many people can be killed before you say enough is enough?" I don't feel like I compromised, because that makes it seem like I had a say, at least by 11/5. I wasn't like, "okay, I'll allow genocide if they keep abortion rights." It was, "One person is asking for a ceasefire, but not making a clear statement against the genocide and continues to say she'll continue what Biden is doing," and "One person has told me he will give Israel the okay to turn Gaza into a crater, as well as make any future progress or change exponentially more difficult, and will harm anyone he doesn't like." Why would I pick the latter? The kid who can't afford lunch didn't put me in this position, nor did the teenager bleeding in the parking lot. It feels like they were so focused on teaching the Dems a lesson that they forgot the consequences won't affect the politicians, it'll affect us. All of us, whether we like it or not.

I feel more helpless about Gaza then I did before the election. The recent meetings in my area have been down right depressing because we know it's just going to be so much harder. And it's upsetting that it feels like it didn't have to.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I guess we could start saying to those people “I guess you hate LGBT” and “you’re complicit with refugees being deported” and “good job putting the last nail in the coffin of reproductive rights”. I mean, somehow they couldn’t say shit about those issues, just “OMG JOR BIDEN GENOCIDE” and ignored that letting Trump take office would be worse for Palestine as well as terrible about the aforementioned issues. Odd.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

We didn't ignore those issues child. They were directly related to gaza. A willingness to throw palestinians under the genocide steam roller is the same as the willingness to throw LGBT+, etc.

Hell harris couldn't even speak plainly about transgender medical care. The only reason she didn't do it is because she thought that would lose her the election where the Palestinians wouldn't.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

“Child”, ha. Nice move to condescension immediately.

Anyway, you’re STILL ignoring that Trump is going to be at best just as bad about Palestine and likely worse. So, good job, you’re really helping Palestine by getting someone even worse elected. I’ve been trying to explain this for like 10 months now and it sure has been a waste of time.

As far as LGBT issues, likewise Trump is 100% guaranteed to be much worse. So, your speculation about Harris doesn’t hold up there either. Guaranteed worse vs maybe not whole hearted support? Let’s go for guaranteed worse, yeah!

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