Has it ever crossed anyone’s mind, that those of that didn’t vote, was usually because we didn’t approve of either candidate?
I never approved of orange baby, plain and simple.
Kamala was cool though, looking to help people and not deceive them, and I just might have voted for her.
But even though I have no problem with a female president, she would have too many world stage problems with countries and groups that don’t respect women at all.
So, seeing both as a risk, why would I have voted for either? Like, why did Pete Buttiguieg drop out?
That’s the real question, what forces in play made my dude Pete drop out? I sure as hell would have voted for him!
Has it ever crossed anyone’s mind, that those of that didn’t vote, was usually because we didn’t approve of either candidate?
Christ, do they not teach the trolley problem anymore?
“Has it ever crossed anyone’s mind that I didn’t want the 5 guys on the main track or the 1 guy on the side track to die?”
Duh. That’s the point. You act and feel guilty about a small bad thing, or do nothing and feel guilty and a big bad thing. We got the big bad ending, feel guilty.
It pisses me off this, for political point scoring, abusive misapplication of this specific philosophical question to a situation which does not at all match the criteria for it.
This is not a trolley problem because:
Portraying this as a trolley problem is misleading and manipulative.
The closest philosophical or game theory example to an election is a cyclical “Ultimatum Game” between voters and politicians only it’s in the best interest of politicians that people don’t see it that way (as they would start punishing politicians for not dividing the pie in a way that favors people enough) so instead their propaganda has pushed for decades this falacy that it’s an “trolley problem” (and it’s companion, the idea that people must “chose the lesser evil”).
Christ, do they not teach the trolley problem anymore?
It’s honestly quite funny and downright sad that you would quote the trolley problem. There’s a reason it’s brought up in ethics courses. The whole point of the trolley problem is that there is no correct solution to it. Different ethical systems arrive at different conclusions. But here you are, going, “fuck how it’s actually used, I’ve decided the trolley problem proves that utilitarian ethics is the correct answer!”
In a utilitarian ethics framework, you would choose to run over the 1 guy or choose to vote for Kamala. In a respect for persons ethical framework, you would take no action and would refuse to vote for either Kamala or Trump.
You’ve completely failed to learn the core lesson of the trolley problem.
What are you talking about? In any ethical framework, the trolley problem presents you with the conflicting guilts of action and infection. The ethical frameworks don’t do anything but justify whichever guilt you choose.
medium.com/…/the-trolly-problem-utilitarianism-vs…
If one were to take a utilitarian standpoint, the means are justified by the end, which from a utilitarianist perspective, is the maximization of benefit. Hence, for a utilitarianist, whatever option guarantees the outcome of the maximum benefit is what is moral. Therefore, in the trolly case, a follower of classical utilitarianism would say that it is morally permissible to sacrifice 1 to save 5.
The deontological perspective in contrast, advocates for the means justifying the end. This, for a deontologist, the morality of the action should be based on whether the action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules, rather than being based on the consequence. In this light, a follower of deontologism would argue that it is morally impermissible to sacrifice one to save five because making the choice of having to kill someone is inherently wrong.
Again, this is the entire point of the trolley problem. No one actually give a shit about the hypothetical trolley. The whole point is to explore how different ethical systems can lead to different outcomes. There is no “right answer” to the trolley problem.
That theory works great in hindsight, but before the election the orange turd was promising to stop wars, not start them.
Sure we all know he’s a liar now, but before the election, going on their campaigns, how could anyone be sure which track would actually have more bodies in the future in that Trolley Problem.
You can’t predict the future, so that’s like presenting the Trolley Problem as if the switch is 10 miles before the tracks split.
Wow… All I can say right now is that I’m continually amazed at the lengths uninformed voters go to justify being willfully ignorant about basic facts of the candidates…
That theory works great in hindsight, but before the election the orange turd was promising to stop wars, not start them
Why would you ever believe that, knowing the people that surround him, his history of aggression instead of diplomacy, or the support of Russia and Israel, two murderous regimes actively killing people in wars they’re waging?
Sure we all know he’s a liar now,
If you didn’t know he was a consummate liar before the election, you chose to be ignorant of his history. Or did you think the man who lied or missed the people Over 30,000 times in his first term had a sudden change in behavior?
but before the election, going on their campaigns, how could anyone be sure which track would actually have more bodies in the future in that Trolley Problem
By knowing any of his history? Like, we knew who he was associating with. The people who wrote project 2025 were clear on what they wanted to do. We knew from the previous administration that he would target racial minorities and anyone lgbtq+. He showed last administration that he was basically in bed with Israel, so we knew he would be worse for Gaza.
Anyone actually informing themselves about him would know his horrible past and that he would have been more deadly.
You can’t predict the future,
A quote comes to mind: “the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior,” and literally everyone paying attention predicted he would start a war of some kind. After all, we knew that in Iran specifically, they were aiming for regime change at the very least. This is an article for less than a year ago, months before the election
On Iran, Project 2025 advocates a markedly more confrontational stance, denigrating diplomacy and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in favor of barely veiled advocacy for regime change. The document outlines a new security architecture in the Middle East that builds on the Abraham Accords but undermines those efforts by deliberately making no mention of the Palestinian people and promising to defund the Palestinian Authority—a sabotage of any hopes for a Palestinian state. As the past year has tragically demonstrated, continued neglect of the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only benefit Iranian proxy recruitment efforts and risk continued violence, including attacks on American troops and installations.
…
Iran: With the Iranian nuclear program revived by the scuttling of the JCPOA, Project 2025 would now boost Tehran’s recruitment efforts in the region by deliberately sabotaging any hopes for Palestinian statehood.
And for added relevance to this very article
At a time when the doomsday clock is already set closer to midnight than ever before due to “widespread and growing reliance on nuclear weapons,” Project 2025’s solution is to ramp up the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The United States and the Russian Federation have not been in a more precarious nuclear posture since the end of the Cold War. The lapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 and the uncertain future of the New START Treaty, which is set to expire in 2026, further exacerbate tensions and raise concerns about a renewed arms race. In the Middle East, Iran is potentially days away from nuclear weapons capabilities after aggressively stockpiling uranium following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the JCPOA. In East Asia, China has rapidly expanded its nuclear arsenal and advanced its missile technology, aiming to reach parity with the United States by the mid-2030s. North Korea has continued to enhance its own nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, conducting frequent tests and increasing the range and precision of its systems.
So we definitely knew what was coming. Anyone saying otherwise is grossly uninformed or lying.
so that’s like presenting the Trolley Problem as if the switch is 10 miles before the tracks split.
Maybe if you had a CCTV monitor showing you the split and the people who were tied to the tracks on the other side.
This is just a desperate excuse to justify your choice based on willful ignorance. You don’t get to shirk the responsibility of your choice or the consequences thereof.
I know you won’t like it, but better to learn the hard lesson now, than repeat it again in the future, right?
Uh, dude’s been a known liar for decades. He made himself known well before 2016, even more so for the next 4 years. We all said this was going to happen, no one else is surprised. You were warned.
Fuck homie I dunno, I didn’t have television through his first term.
Bruh. Everyone with an ounce of awareness knew he was a liar. Since the fucking 80s this was well known. Known then, known now.
This future was so predictable that it was outilned in back to the mf future.
Believing the campaign of Biff is not an out.
This isn’t some unknowable conundrum. And it’s not the trolley problem when you know damn well that whose manning the switch will drift both tracks.
What about his first term would convince you Trump wasn’t a liar?
Fuck homie I dunno, I didn’t have television through his first term.
“I didn’t like either, so I did nothing” is such a bullshit excuse…
Like it or not, we have a two party system. This was the worst possible time for anyone to decide to do nothing. Non-voters are just as complicit in what’s going on now because they chose to do fuck all when it actually mattered… I hope the righteous objection through inaction was worth it, because people are dying as a result now.
The problem with this line of thinking is that it encourages short-term rather than long-term thinking.
From a purely utilitarian perspective, the absolute good to the absolute greatest number of people - we would have been better off if Trump won in 2020. He would have had another lame duck term in a continuation of an administration where he had a lot of restraining voices in his cabinet. He wouldn’t have had the four years to regroup and come back with an entirely different organizational structure.
A Biden win in 2020 guaranteed a Trump win in 2024. It was eminently predictable and it was widely predicted. Biden wasn’t going to do anything to address the actual causes for Trump winning. Biden was only ever going to be a temporary speed bump to fascism. He simply lacked the character to properly confront a fascist movement. He’s not morally capable of it.
Even if you stick to a purely utilitarian framework, even if you believe that harm minimization is all that mattes, sometimes voting for the lesser of two evils is the option that’s going to get more people killed.
Read my other comment, I tried in 2016, definitely wasn’t going to vote for orange. I never got to see the inside of the voting place.
After waiting around 2 hours, they shut down and cops ordered everyone remaining in line to leave at 8pm. There were probably around 200 people outside still waiting to vote…
You tried once, so you said fuck it this time…
You know mail-in, absentee, and provisional ballots are a thing, right?
Also, if you’re in line to vote and the polling place is set to close, you still have the right to cast your ballot, no matter how long it takes. They can turn new people away, but they can’t just close up and send people home if they’ve been waiting. If you were told to leave, those cops violated the law. And if they absolutely had to close, they’re required to give out provisional ballots. Know your rights dude.
Okay, good to know. Maybe I can sue the library and the cops and get to cast my 2016 vote, wouldn’t that be fucking nice if there was a time machine?
Like I said, we were in a line of probably around 200 people, and we were probably in place about 150 back towards the end of the line.
Everyone else ahead of us followed the orders first and left for their vehicles, we were towards the back of the line and were amongst the last to find out they closed as the cops ordered everyone to leave.
What the fuck you expect me to do, run around the block to get to the library door and beat on it? Get tackled and shot by cops?
You think I’m fucking stupid? If the 150 people ahead of me are complying with the cops, you think I’m gonna be the idiot to catch a bullet?
So when the Padres got knocked out of the World Series last year by the Dodgers I was pissed. I didn’t want to put my support behind a team I didn’t love heart and soul. I felt comfortable doing that because it was a fucking sport trophy that happens every year and not who decided who held the office of the fucking President of the United States. You’re getting downvoted because you’re treating those two scenarios as exactly the same.
Boo. Boo this man.
What a wonderful response, objecting against someone that would have actually voted if Pete would have stayed in the running.
Like, why is it always a heads/tails coin decision?
And what the fuck is up with the Electoral College?
I may not have voted, but I know for a fact I would never vote for the diaper.
By not voting at all, you cemented Trump’s victory.
You don’t get to say “well I wanted it to be different” now.
Do better next time.
No, I didn’t cement any victory, I literally said I didn’t vote. The voters cemented his victory, not me.
What skin would it have taken for you to just pull the lever for kamala?
Maybe youre saving it for “the one”
You gotta get in the building first. Back in 2016, me and a friend went to vote. I would have voted Vermin Supreme (legit candidate no less), and my buddy planned on writing in Batman.
We stood in line for around 2 hours. For about the last half hour of waiting it was raining. Around half of everyone knew the weather forecast and had an umbrella, including us.
They closed the voting place (library) down at 8pm sharp, and the cops told everyone in line to go home. We were probably 150~200 people back in line.
We all waited that long, even in the fucking rain, only to be ordered to leave?!
If it matters (which it probably does), our state doesn’t have early voting, you get one day to do it and that’s it.
Wait 2 goddamn hours, partly in the rain, only to get shut down with around 200 people or so waiting to vote?!
Sooo… I’ve never had a chance to see the inside of a voting facility. Not for lack of trying though.
I, like most Americans, know we only get one vote! Gotta save it for that perfect candidate!
/S obv
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Life is full of decisions that seemingly only have bad options, but one option was clearly drastically worse than the other.
Not voting because you don’t like either candidate despite knowing that one is a crypto fascist with the intention to burn things down is childish and, IMO, means you don’t get to say you’re not responsible for trump.
Your choice in the election is a contributing factor, you don’t get a pass because you sat out. By not voting, you tacitly endorsed trump. It sucks to hear that put in your face, but that’s the same message I had to learn after 2016. I know you won’t like the message here, but I hope you take the lesson to heart and vote for the less awful candidates (assuming we get to have elections again) instead of taking your ball, going home, and letting a Nazi take power.