this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
698 points (96.8% liked)
Asklemmy
43771 readers
1561 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There are definitely ways to fix it but you keep posting about how you don't agree with it, and you think you should just settle for the lesser of two evils... if you're so against it, why even vote?
why tell others to vote? Fear mongering that the guy you're afraid of is gonna win if you don't vote cause uh oh then only evil people are left voting??
the more we don't participate in this bullshit, the quicker we can get rid of it. Unfortunately, people like you just settle for what you have. Instead of pushing for something better. By just settling for this shit, you hold everyone else back from real change.
Then tell me how we fix it. Tell me what I can do.
In order to change the system, we have to change the ideology that it's necessary to be better than other people. Ture equality would only come from that.
I... don't get you. I feel really dumb, but you're going to have to explain it to me a bit more.
I get that no one is better than anyone on a basic human rights level. That makes intuitive sense to me. And I'm all for a cultural paradigm shift. I'm also 100% in favor of a massive overhaul of the entire government, up to and including a complete re-write of the Constitution and the bill of rights (I feel like we, as a nation, can do better than a founding document that defines some humans as being worth only 3/5ths of others, for instance).
But how?
Nah, based off your other comments and what you know about the constitution and bill of rights, I don't think you come off dumb.
To be fair, this is pretty high concept stuff because while its something that could be done in theory, putting it into practice takes a lot of work.
The only way I have seen ideologies change over time is by basically social engineering them out. In order to do that, you need a lot of people on your side who are also willing to push that agenda. So we would need a lot of people doing things like making memes, having discussions like this, essentially popularizing the idea that we don't need to feel better than others in the sense of, what class do they belong to.
This does already exist but not in a strong way like the other side is, the one that holds all the power. People in charge or in places of authority, billionaire types, etc. they all have the upper hand.
This brings me back to why I don't vote and why I don't participate in certain things that people try to scare me into doing basically.
By not participating, I'm removing myself from this sided argument - after all, there are no options for me to vote for, I don't see any politicians ever wanting to actually change things, they only want to change things within how the system works already. I'm refusing to take part in something I never agreed to and have no real say in.
people have even told me, there isn't a real option to opt out of voting - and that by not voting, I'm actually still voting but now all the votes unaccounted for get factored into the other side winning. That's fear mongering.
If I'm not voting, then I'm just straight up not voting. It shouldn't be able to work the way people are describing it because then its like not voting isn't a possibility that exists in reality. Yet I'm here in reality, not voting.
This is all unfortunately a mind over matter issue where people who have the upper hand, refuse to let anyone else think that otherwise cause then they wouldn't have the upper hand to control people's lives.
But to actually pull that off, you would need to just be better at convincing people. I only have the energy to try sometimes. Most people want to pushback on this ideology because the current one fits them better. And they don't give a shit about other people because again, they probably see themselves as better than who ever else there is out there.
Okay, I think I understand now.
What you're talking about sounds wonderful. It sounds hopeful, like things could actually change. It's not all that crazy to think it could work. It's not really all that different from what the Founders were setting out to do, but with an extra two and a half centuries of cultural advancement and the knowledge that all people really are created equal - not just white dudes who own property lol.
So yeah. I get what you're saying. And I can totally respect it. And anyone saying you not voting helps the opposition is kinda missing the point of opting out. Kinda like I was missing the point until someone (you) finally took the time to explain it properly, and I took the time to listen.
So thank you.
No problem! I see this discussion a lot online and have had it in person with people I cared about at the time, only to learn that they thought my ideas were too radical and now they won't talk to me.
So its pretty refreshing to have someone understand it too!