I just use Safari and private relay for that. But yeah I can understand that particular point. I mean I’m not against ad blockers, it’s just that I don’t use them for the reasons I stated.
Plebcouncilman
joined 2 months ago
I don’t think that’s his point. I mean like the person you are replying to says, Trump is absolutely correct on this. Planning on a quarter by quarter basis is awfully miopic and has resulted in a marked enshitification of everything because people sacrifice the long term for the short term.
I don’t think there’s evidence that his policies will have good long term effects, but he’s right that we need to start adopting a long term view when gauging economic performance.
In the context of presidential elections? I guess I do. The US is supposed to be a country of countries, so governors should be decided by popular vote as they are the ones who will have the most direct effect on the lives of people. The president was originally intended mostly to oversee big picture stuff that affected all of the states, and as such all the states needed to have equal say in the president. Which is why the states elect the presidents via the electoral college.
Of course the problem is, once more, that the executive branch and the federal government have expanded their power so much that their policies have more effect than original intended over the daily lives of people and understandably people would like to be able to influence that. So for me there’s really only two solutions: we walk back things to their original intent or we might as well start an entirely new system because ours is not designed to work with all this added power.
The reason I agree with the usually right wing idea of restoring the original power structures is that I have seen enough evidence to believe that strong state sovereignty is the best way to go. It’s a very good foil to authoritarianism because power is concentrated at the lower levels. Right now if Trump and Co. manage to completely take over, they will still have a hard time doing everything they want because States have tools to defend themselves against the federal government. But it’s also a “freer” system as it also allows people to move from state to state and choose the one that most aligns with their views instead of a singular vision being imposed from the top down.
I defend them because for all their moral failings they did design a system that is more resilient than any other to autocracy. We could have extended participation to all without destroying that system, and Trump would have never happened. Or if he had he would not have had the power to do the things he’s doing now. But every president takes a little bit more, and you don’t say anything if they belong to your party but cry bloody murder when the other one does it. And then when you’re back in power do you ask your lawmakers to stop the power grab? No, why would you, you like what’s being done. And that’s how we get here.
But I digress, you wrote all of that and never refuted the fact that the electoral college does in fact work. Land might not vote but states need equal say regardless of the population they have. If New York and California decide all elections, how soon until the other states start to secede because their votes count for nothing?
States have strong individual cultural and administrative identities and unless you erase that, there’s no way you can abolish the electoral college without also destroying such a thing as the United Staes of America.
Just do the following mental excercise: Texas and Florida are the two fastest growing states at the moment. Let’s say they remain red and manage to get a bigger population than all the blue cities combined (because of all the space they have) and now because of them every election a Republican president wins. Would you be ok with that? If not then you have to be in favor of the electoral college.
Great point. Hadn’t thought about that. Maybe that’s why ads don’t bother me? But then again if a website has an rss feeeed that means they consent to serving their content ads free, so I don’t think it contradicts my stance.
But I never said I was against ad blockers anyways, I just said I didn’t use them because I feel it’s a little unfair. I have no intention of passing judgement on those who do use it, it’s up them, and like someone else at the individual level it makes little difference.