Information Warfare Alert: A lot of folks identifying as militant leftists are up on Mastodon today saying this new war somehow proves that they were right in not voting for Kamala Harris since 'they are all the same.'
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Saying "oh no... Anyway" doesn't constite "trying to prevent Trump from being in office." American liberals seem to think voting absolves them of the crimes of their politicians. It doesn't.
Look to the French if you'd like an example. Why have you burned nothing while your country levels entire cities? Complicity.
i'm a leftist not a liberal
i protest and vote
more people need to do so and i advocate for that
but i'll put "burn down cities" as the next reasonable option
fucking clown
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@JimmyB Your bio says you are a Brit. It's clear you do not understand how US presidential nominating contests actually work, or you would already know that while Sanders won state primaries in '16 and '20, he did not "win the popular vote" because he never advanced to the point where people not already registered as or aligned with Dems would be voting for him. Stanning a politico from overseas is weird. Don't do that.
@mastodonmigration @liferstate @notyourfanboy polling consistently showed Bernie was the most popular Dem. Serious corporate activism prevented - as always - that progressing.
Playing the ‘you’re forin and don’t understand our complicated politics’ line reminds me so much of all the MAGAs who also don’t like that we are obliged to understand what happens in the US
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@paul @mastodonmigration
Well if you need more "vitamin f" from me, you can just go back through my posts and replies any time.

@MaryAustinBooks At this stage of the week, I think I need the Sailor multi-vitamin. @mastodonmigration
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a perfect example - you live in NYC. You'll never face violence from ICE and you just elected a prominent socialist. You're insulated from the harms your own country does to its own citizens, let alone other countries, so, predictably, you aren't fighting very hard to stop what your country is doing. I don't necessarily blame you for this, a comfortable life is understandable, but don't claim you're doing something when you're not really.
i live in new york state, not new york city
"you just elected a prominent socialist"
yes, that is true about nyc. which is called effective change. do you think mamdani would be cooperating with israel if he were president? so our next step is to elect a mamdani to the presidency. you agree?
does that meet your exalting standards, oh hilarious pathetic edgelord?

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@geniodiabolico @hosford42 @mastodonmigration @budududuroiu I can see this argument: I don’t buy into it personally but I understand it.
My issue is with the corporate dems who see Russian bots and militant leftists when presented with evidence that their candidate is (profoundly) unpalatable. I mean it’s not outrageous to say: I cannot vote for genocide.
And yet those who do so are unthinkingly accused
I do think there are a lot of bots here that just kicked into high gear. It's not unreasonable to think that, either, given that we have seen documented influence campaigns by foreign states, which have had major effects on our political system and voting outcomes here. Our democracy has been under active attack for a decade or two now. I don't think assuming is good for anyone, but it does make sense to be on our guard. That's one of the effects that such campaigns probably actively strive for: General distrust of our fellow human beings, which aids in sowing division. So I instead take everything with a grain of salt, reserving judgment until signals are clear.
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Information Warfare Alert: A lot of folks identifying as militant leftists are up on Mastodon today saying this new war somehow proves that they were right in not voting for Kamala Harris since 'they are all the same.'
This is absurd.
This tactic was used very effectively to sow division and suppress Democratic votes in 2024.
These people are either misguided, and doing grave disservice to those they profess to support, or they are deliberate disinformation operators.
@mastodonmigration
lol, what is going on in this thread? -
@benroyce @Extra_Special_Carbon
I have no care whatsoever for American internal politics. Solve your own problems.
But if your country invades other ones, don't in turn whine when you find yourself in a public space full of non Americans and act, even nonconsensually on your part, as a lightning rod representative of our anger at your country's imperialist ambitions.
To us, you voted for this, and even if you personally didn't, you still benefit from it, or why else didn't you stop it?
@komali_2 @Extra_Special_Carbon
"I have no care whatsoever for American internal politics"
said the troll, sweating bullets entering dozens of comments on american internal politics
why are you so dumb?
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You've been spewing venom all over this thread, laughing at people for trying to show how the world feels about this American aversion to seeing their government for the unified whole that it is when it comes to foreign policy.
You went to the polls in 2016 and 2024 and elected Trump twice. Why should we believe Americans don't want what's happening in Iran? You didn't just let it happen, you VOTED for it.
so i voted for clinton, then biden, then harris
i would have prefered bernie sanders, but i'm not an idiot like some who don't vote and help us get trump
is this sufficient for you? do you wish more to vote like me? then you support me. or is your message "everything sucks nothing changes waah waah"

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I do think there are a lot of bots here that just kicked into high gear. It's not unreasonable to think that, either, given that we have seen documented influence campaigns by foreign states, which have had major effects on our political system and voting outcomes here. Our democracy has been under active attack for a decade or two now. I don't think assuming is good for anyone, but it does make sense to be on our guard. That's one of the effects that such campaigns probably actively strive for: General distrust of our fellow human beings, which aids in sowing division. So I instead take everything with a grain of salt, reserving judgment until signals are clear.
@hosford42 @mastodonmigration @geniodiabolico @budududuroiu there may be bots here and the fact I’ve not seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
But as I am occasionally accused of being one such I know the accusation is also used lazily by those who also use a version of the ‘you’re foreign so what do you know?/what right do you have to comment’ gang of corporate Dems who see some genocide as ok…
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@mastodonmigration @budududuroiu @hosford42 @geniodiabolico that ‘so long as’ is doing too much heavy lifting for me in a world where the popular social democrat candidates are blocked by corporate ‘centrists’
We have a propaganda problem to solve. Voting won't help with that, but not voting won't help with that, either. We have to talk to our fellow citizens and make them aware of the wool being pulled over their eyes.
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@benroyce @geniodiabolico @mastodonmigration
I don't treat you with the contempt you show me, via facetious retorts.
Anyways, you're also treating foreign policy criticism as primarily a vector for political loyalty signaling rather than engaging with the substance.
Obama droned civilians and expanded the surveillance state. Biden armed the Saudi coalition in Yemen and gave near-unconditional support to Israeli operations that killed tens of thousands of civilians. Trump is doing his version of the same pattern.
Democrats bomb you while explaining why they had to, Republicans bomb you while explaining why you deserved it. Same old
@budududuroiu @geniodiabolico @mastodonmigration
"I don't treat you with the contempt you show me"
because i don't respect you. you're not a serious person
to get change you choose better and iterate. do you think whining things aren't perfect then moaning like a 14 year old edgelord everything sucks because we don't get perfect means anything? no, it means you're a joke. you're not helping, you're just a clueless liar and an idiot
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@hosford42 @JimmyB @mastodonmigration @geniodiabolico gradient descent is a perfect analogy because on its own, most optimisers will get stuck in local optima and will need perturbations and "backsliding" to escape.
The dem local optima is based on social justice signalling without political substance.
Movements like Uncommitted were those perturbations that would allow gradient descent to find global optimum, but those were shut down
Local optima are only an issue in a static loss landscape. When the landscape is noisy and shifting (as we continue to learn from past mistakes) that knocks us out of the local optima.
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It doesn't really seem possible to have a conversation with you. Why do you bother posting?
there wasn't a conversation ever to be had. i'm laughing you. you're a lying moron
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We have a propaganda problem to solve. Voting won't help with that, but not voting won't help with that, either. We have to talk to our fellow citizens and make them aware of the wool being pulled over their eyes.
@budududuroiu @mastodonmigration @hosford42 @geniodiabolico yeah - it’s a bit weird: when I say ‘no one can be coerced into voting for genocide’ those folks who are rightly uncomfortable that this is exactly their strategy only hear me saying ‘don’t vote’. I’m never saying that. I always vote myself. Were I USian I might have voted Kamala. Point is disgust with her didn’t cause Trump to win.
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@benroyce @budududuroiu @mastodonmigration
I mean, if you don't know why you think on this issue the two people are different, how do you trust in your own beliefs?
From the outside looking in, it often seems like Americans just don't like the imperialism their country wreaks across the globe when the person with the wrong color on their party flag does it. Otherwise it's fine.
@komali_2 @budududuroiu @mastodonmigration
thank you for your projection of the weird demons in your head onto people who don't remotely think anything like you think they do
do ever try to be serious in your life?
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@hosford42 @mastodonmigration @geniodiabolico @budududuroiu there may be bots here and the fact I’ve not seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
But as I am occasionally accused of being one such I know the accusation is also used lazily by those who also use a version of the ‘you’re foreign so what do you know?/what right do you have to comment’ gang of corporate Dems who see some genocide as ok…
I don't think any of the folks you've interacted with on this thread think that genocide is okay. I think it's just down to what alternatives we even have to choose between, and making sure to push for the best among those, rather than abdicating responsibility altogether. (I realize that's probably not how you see it, but it's how it looks to those of us who believe voting is worthwhile even though it's far from ideal.)
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@budududuroiu @mastodonmigration @hosford42 @geniodiabolico yeah - it’s a bit weird: when I say ‘no one can be coerced into voting for genocide’ those folks who are rightly uncomfortable that this is exactly their strategy only hear me saying ‘don’t vote’. I’m never saying that. I always vote myself. Were I USian I might have voted Kamala. Point is disgust with her didn’t cause Trump to win.
Then maybe we are all just victims of a communication disconnect. It does often sound like that, when people point out how awful some of Kamala's views and policies were.
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Local optima are only an issue in a static loss landscape. When the landscape is noisy and shifting (as we continue to learn from past mistakes) that knocks us out of the local optima.
@hosford42 @JimmyB @mastodonmigration @geniodiabolico I mean, in the context of the US election, there did seem to be a global optimum to win, which was to signal that you're taking the affordability crisis seriously.
I say this because Kamala's ratings always jumped when she talked affordability seriously and always slumped when she walked those positions back.
In absence of this and Gaza, Dems got stuck in a local optima, appearing disconnected from the general population, and it's obvious in the low turnout.
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I don't think any of the folks you've interacted with on this thread think that genocide is okay. I think it's just down to what alternatives we even have to choose between, and making sure to push for the best among those, rather than abdicating responsibility altogether. (I realize that's probably not how you see it, but it's how it looks to those of us who believe voting is worthwhile even though it's far from ideal.)
@geniodiabolico @mastodonmigration @hosford42 @budududuroiu oh - I think that in any meaningful way many folks in ‘liberal’ America are fine with genocide if it means they otherwise have to do something about it. Their screaming at folks like me pretty much proves that: so much easier than considering who their candidate is. And who wants to abdicate responsibility other than those who vote for genocide???
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@hosford42 @JimmyB @mastodonmigration @geniodiabolico I mean, in the context of the US election, there did seem to be a global optimum to win, which was to signal that you're taking the affordability crisis seriously.
I say this because Kamala's ratings always jumped when she talked affordability seriously and always slumped when she walked those positions back.
In absence of this and Gaza, Dems got stuck in a local optima, appearing disconnected from the general population, and it's obvious in the low turnout.
I guess we are applying the analogy differently. I was talking about the ongoing future, not just one moment.