Non-american here, but I feel pretty much the same way. I also do niche research in computer science. People working in the supermarket, people driving trains and busses, medicine workers, construction workers, they all do work that is vastly more important to society than mine. A single educator in my child's kindergarten most likely does work that is orders of magnitude more important to society than mine is. Maybe this attitude comes from the fact that both of my parents never set a foot into higher education, but it is something I feel very strongly, and which is quite humbling.
I remember my father predicting in the early 2000s that the academic elite was increasingly crippling the country by adding more and more non-pragmatic rules in seek of some idealistic utopia, and that they would lose the support of the masses pretty soon. As a young teenager, I did not believe him, and in my arrogance of youth, I also dismissed it as the ramblings of an uneducated worker. But sure enough, most of the things he feared back then turned out to come true.
Today, for sure. I think it's far more nuanced in the long term. Most of these jobs would be non-existent without the researchers of yesterday.
Of course, if you disregard today completely for building the tomorrow, a lot of people who don't get access to wealth today will be pissed. Which is very roughly what's happening in the USA. "What we have now is perfect, and can sustain forever, stop with the progressive BS", chant the conservatives.
It's a hard balance. Dems messed it up, Reps will mess it up further, I bet.
I'm just observing from an another continent.
The research of yesterday was on another level than most of what is done today. Not to say that it's worthless, pursuit of knowledge is always worth it.
In what ways? The impact? That can't be proven until "tomorrow" comes, no?
My perspective is European & Australian, so I wonder if that skews it.
"far right" and "far left" are terms for contextualizing a political stance, based on the world view and actions. It's doesn't matter where the majority of people stands, they can be all far right or far left or in the center, it wouldn't change the definitions.
The US left (federally, not talking Alabama dems here) is generally more left on immigration, abortion and LGBTQ+ and affirmative action type policies than Europe, broadly speaking. Drug policy is a wash IMO. There's a lot more variation in Europe because the EU doesn't arbitrate social issues the way the US federal government does.
This is what's crippling them. We initially built the social security net to counter this issue. Then we increased employee rights to maximum levels. I think one of either would be beneficial, but not both.
As an Alabama Dem, this is something that is just so disappointing to see when we're assumed to be not "generally more left"
There are so many here supporting and doing good, hard work with things like the Yellowhammer Fund, ¡HICA!, and Magic City Acceptance Center and Academy but we have to fight for any acknowledgement. We had more people vote for Kamala than several states but they amount to nothing in the public eye. It's so deflating and discouraging
It is not the best
If you think a party is ticking many boxes, you may label it as "far-right".
> nationalism, authoritarianism
Sure, you could say he supports this.
> anti-socialism
Not a fair right position. This I'd what anybody who is right of the center left position thinks.
> economic libertarianism
Trump doesn't support this. He wants all sorts of tariffs and the like.
> racial and gender hierarchies
I haven't seen any proof he supports such a thing.
> anti-establishment sentiments.
This is not a far right position. This is a populist position.
Protectionism also is a value associated with "far-right". It may sound like it conflicts with libertarianism but in my understanding that's applied nationally, while closing borders.
I won't argue on positions of a specific candidate or party.
> This is not a far right position. This is a populist position.
Populism also is often associated with far-right.
While it may be associated with the "far right", it is held by others as well. Many unions, in the past, supported protectionism for example.
Regardless, the argument was not about Trump holding protectionist views, but libertarian views which he clearly doesn't hold to.
> It may sound like it conflicts with libertarianism but in my understanding that's applied nationally, while closing borders.
Closing the borders has nothing to do with libertarian economics or protectionism.
If you go back 15 years ago plenty of people on the left supported restricting immigration. Bernie Sanders famously called open borders a Koch Brothers plan to get cheap labor and harm workers in the US.
> Populism also is often associated with far-right.
While most populist politicians, at the moment, are on the right, it is not a right wing position. Bernie Sanders is often referred to as a populist as well.
Regardless, it is not a far right position to be anti-establishment or whatever somebody defines populist as.
As we every definition there is a grey area and when a party is labelled as far right it means that it ticks many boxes that put it in this category. Of course, people can disagree, argue on positions, that's politics.
> Closing the borders has nothing to do with libertarian economics or protectionism.
On that specific point, I was more talking about economical protectionism than physically closing border.
> populist [...] is not a right wing position.
True, it's usually associated with far-right or far-left rather than regular party.
Sorry if that feels like a strawman, but I find the idea of using popularity to determining what counts as "far" stupid and dangerous.
If you think you’re exceptional, vote Gorgoiler ‘28!
Isn't that simply factual human nature? If someone is tall, attractive, physically fit, hardworking, and intelligent, isn't it meritocratic for that person to accrue overall greater benefits/utility to their societal contributions compared to someone who is ugly, unfit, lazy, and stupid?
I wouldn't categorize that position as "far right" at all. I think the position you are trying to express is that the ugly/unfit/lazy/stupid should not be punished or abused by the government/laws/society just for existing. I would be surprised if you walked into an average MAGA rally and found a plurality of people who disagree with that.
If they’re asking for a definition, it’s likely because they already know it and just want you to fall into a “gotcha” they can then divert discussion toward in their favor. It’s cheap theatrics.
At a quick glance, I found 10 definitions of far right that differ slightly. An assumption of malice here fails. Remarkably so.
It's not pedantic to ask that your statements be taken clearly and in the right context.
It's worth noting as well that in the context of inclusion, pointing out pedantry at all is going to exclude a group in the "common" understanding of exclusion.
Most importantly, this person is trying to understand your perspective and instead of trying to sway their opinion, you criticize them. One thing that the "far right" has accomplished recently is an understanding that everyone is a person and worth respect and voice. Which is evidenced by the countless videos displaying such behaviour and the ubiquitous response of blessing attributed to people with such inquisition in comment sections everywhere.
In stark contrast is the term uneducated and it's supposed link to intelligence. Don't they teach logical fallacies in college anymore?
First of all I dislike Trump and for sure have liberal views in lot of aspects. And say even if I have malice intent and I am a hardcore Trump supporter, comments like yours wouldn't have changed my mind. Assuming you want to change people's side, it is not the reply that would change it.
Some definitions are not opinions.
The definition of "far right" is an opinion. Failing to define it in discourse will inevitably result in a lack of positive outcome.
Digging into the page for radical conservatism, "Elements of ultraconservatism typically rely on cultural crisis; they frequently support anti-globalism – adopting stances of anti-immigration, nationalism, and sovereignty – use populism and political polarization, with in-group and out-group practices.[3][4][5][6] The primary economic ideology for most ultraconservatives is neoliberalism.[6] The use of conspiracy theories is also common amongst ultraconservatives.".
Trump is well-known for his populist, anti-globalist, anti-immigration, and pro-nationalist rhetoric. He has also promulgated conspiarcy theories such as the Obama birther conspiracy and claims of stolen elections.
As for authoritarian, Trump forms a textbook example of a personality cult. He frequently attacks existing institutions and an independent media, undermining trust in a free democratic process. He frequently issues positive messages about authoritarian dictators in other countries such as Bolsonaro, Orban and Putin.
>>Trump is well-known for his populist, anti-globalist, anti-immigration, and pro-nationalist rhetoric. He has also promulgated conspiarcy theories such as the Obama birther conspiracy and claims of stolen elections.
You can be patriotic and anti-immigration without being far right. I think the claims of a stolen election are yet to be properly investigated. I'd welcome a truly impartial look into all the covid postal vote shenanigans last time.
>>As for authoritarian, Trump forms a textbook example of a personality cult. He frequently attacks existing institutions and an independent media, undermining trust in a free democratic process. He frequently issues positive messages about authoritarian dictators in other countries such as Bolsonaro, Orban and Putin.
You can criticise institutions now? And I'm sure he'd be in favour of an indepenndent media if America had one.
Putin is a obviously a dictator. Bolsonaro and Orban not so much (especially Bolsonaro as he was, er, voted out which would seem to automatically disqualify him from being a dictator).
"there's an insidious dark force at work, it's brought us down from our glorious past, these groups of people are involved, violence against this threat is understandable, only a few men are strong and capable enough to lead us out of this...".
For insidious dark forces, he alludes to the "deep state", talks about an "enemy from within", and uses phrases like "poisoning the blood of the nation".
For glorious past, there's the MAGA motto, and his narrative that political correctness and lefty lunatics have destroyed American exceptionalism.
For violence, he's repeatedly threatened violence against protestors to his rallies, defended or refused to condemn violence by his own supporters, and suggested that political opponents deserve to have violence inflicted on them.
For only a few men, his prodigious hyperbole about how he's the best at everything, and he literally describes himself as "I am your retribution" who will usher in a "new golden age". And again, he's generally praising of strongman authoritarians around the world
What about calling your political opponents "garbage" and "deplorables" and "fascists"?
>>For glorious past, there's the MAGA motto, and his narrative that political correctness and lefty lunatics have destroyed American exceptionalism.
Probably objectively correct.
>> For violence, he's repeatedly threatened violence against protestors to his rallies, defended or refused to condemn violence by his own supporters, and suggested that political opponents deserve to have violence inflicted on them.
Thank god the Democrats only have peaceful groups like Antifa and BLM. And it's not like Democrat supporters haven't tried to kill him twice. The Democrats are objectively the more violent party.
I condemn name-calling, but it is not the same as conjuring images of insidious dark forces.
> Thank god the Democrats only have peaceful groups like Antifa and BLM.
I condemn the violence of these groups. As do leading Democrats.
Not sure what you're trying to argue at this point. I've demonstrated a clear fascist narrative from Trump and all you've done is draw poorly conceived similarities.
It's telling that the only candidate to face assassination attempts was Republican.
Were they conservative? No, they wanted to upend society and create one that is nothing like anything ever seen before. They were also anti-religion. In many ways, they were anti-tradition, and I wouldn't consider their obsession with bringing back dead traditions to be traditional.
Were they hateful, racist, etc.? Yes, up to you if that's considered 'right'.
Were they, like how American political parties are, friends of big business? Not really, they wanted to sponsor monopolies and whatnot but also wanted the businesses to have no influence over the state, rather the other way around, the state can force the big business to do what they want. As far as if it actually worked that way when they were in power, I'm not sure.
Sure I can: "mass deportation now"
They are not centrist by any stretch of the imagination.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Gender is a social construct, mostly determined by genes & genitalia. It's not quite enough to believe you're a woman, other people have to believe it too. Another issue at play is that there are far more "intersex" people (who have some characteristics of the opposite sex, sometimes to the point doctors don't quite know whether to list them as male or female), and from what I've heard trans people often (possibly generally) are "intersex" in a way that wasn't visible at birth. The idea of a female's brain in a male's body isn't that far fetched.
> They believe in censorship.
I believe this one is more popular in the far right (when in power) than in the far left (when in power)
> They believe in supporting and growing the military industrial complex.
Militarism sounds like it's more popular on the right. Though it can be more complicated: military backed imperialism can indeed support stuff like welfare at home.
---
Now the elephant in the room: last time I checked, democrats were firmly capitalists: they believe the means of production should be owned privately. Even if you exclude actual communism from acceptable discourse, they're fairly poor at public services and keeping inequality in check.
How could it possibly be a female brain if it's part of a male body?
You're a bit light on justifying the burden of proof, though.
So they would kinda feel feel far-rightish to us only because the democrats are more conservative than ours
Do you have any data (except for interpersonal psychology) on whether letting fascism slide or calling it out ultimately makes the situation worse? At what point do you call fascism fascism? When it's too late?
You call it fascism when it is fascism. Once it is openly fascist then it is probably too late to stop, but you don't call it fascism until it is fascism.
I do commonly see “fascist” used to describe things in similar ways where the person seems to be expressing a general disdain for something. They do successfully convey some meaning but it’s very non-specific. Just food for thought for readers who want their opinions heard more than they want to hem and haw over the specific meanings of words.
I fail to see how the Republican party is fascist. I think it's a term the Left uses to demonize their opposition. Ironically, that is kind of fascist-like.
> The term fascist has been used as a pejorative,[74] regarding varying movements across the far right of the political spectrum. George Orwell noted in 1944 that the term had been used to denigrate diverse positions "in internal politics". Orwell said that while fascism is "a political and economic system" that was inconvenient to define, "as used, the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'",[75] and in 1946 wrote that '"Fascism' has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable."[76] Richard Griffiths of the University of Wales wrote in 2000 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times".[77]: 1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
I assume you have good reasons to believe Republicans are fascist. I'm simply asking you and any others who believe this to share your reasons. Is that not reasonable?
Like right now, by editing your comment you're desperately trying to pose there is no accepted definition of fascism. Dismissing definitions only fits the bill.
> you’d simply dismiss them
I'm a random internet stranger. How could you possibility know me so well? Again, it's just a blanket stereotyping and demonization of people who have different beliefs that you do. A mass ad hominem attack. That attitude is a root of many problems in the political arena. I expect that kind of rhetoric on Reddit, but am disappointed to encounter it here.
> Even if I listed all reasons
I'm a busy person and I assume you are too. Why don't you list one and we'll go from there?
In this discussion, we've already defined it? where? That's news to me that I can dismiss something that I wasn't aware of.
> Do you think you sound like a person that is welcoming criticism
I am very welcoming of criticism of my party and the one I voted for. Trump can be a bombastic jerk. I voted for him because his policies align more with my values than Harris'. He was the lesser (much lesser) of two evils. I didn't vote for him in the primaries and I wish he wouldn't have won them.
Anyway, you continue to make assumptions about me rather than discuss/debate the issue of why you think Trump is a fascist. It's not much of a discussion and so I'll opt out now. All the best to you.
We don't have to define it. That's the point. It's already been done for us.
It's the same with asking me to list reasons or sources that explain the republican parties fascist tendencies, while that's been done thousands of times through the course of their campaign. If you were truly curious as to why people might feel that way, you could have done so at any point during the last few months.
You did't accept the definition you bothered to look up and you didn't accept the valid concerns people had during the campaign.
The real reason you're walking away from this conversation is because you don't care if I am right.
You're not afraid of fascism, because you think you're in the right group.
If you replace nationalism with partisanship, in very many ways the modern left is far more closely aligned with the vile components of fascism than the republican party, or even Trump supporters. The left have done everything they can do vilify anyone who disagrees with their core beliefs, which they hold are a matter of morale superiority and to which, in their minds, no person of moral substance could ever find disagreeable.
By very definition, conservatives are conservative. When they disagree with someone, they continue to treat them respectfully and move on with their lives, comfortable in the reality that there exists people around them with very different beliefs than their own. The left, on the other hand, do no such thing and yet look in the mirror and convince themselves that they're the better people in all this.
Trump less won this election than the democrats did lose it by arrogantly putting up a candidate with strong ties to the current unpopular administration and whose other policies and attributes did not appeal to the swing voter.
And I'm factually correct when I say that Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous. He has motivated even a reasonable person like you to defend him vehemently. He made you part of his group, and by the looks of it you’re already starting to hate those who are not in it.
I have observed from the sidelines how both sides behave towards one another and while there are some extremists on the right whose behaviour is utterly shameful, I have noticed that a significant number of moderate people on the left have grown utterly intolerant of conservatives over the last decade and they'll vocalise their disgust and even go as far as lodging complaints with employers or writing negative reviews about businesses, outing and harassing people whose views they disagree with. While the extreme right tend towards violence, what those on the left do is equally disgusting, yet they do it with a false sense of righteousness.
I wouldn't call anyone stupid, but I will say this. I live in the south surrounded by evangelicals, and they talk about Trump like he's a religious figure. I've tried to have rational conversations with family members and it's like arguing about the existence of God. In their eyes Trump can literally do no wrong. Maybe that's not you, but some of your defenses here feel like that.
Can you give me some examples of this?
As someone else said who responded to you, they could list all the fascist statements Trump has made and you'll find reasons to dismiss them. Just like trying to convince a religious person that god does not exist.
Separating children from parents at the border, reverting hard fought women's right to their own body, that is the stirring of fascist behaviour.
That wasn't his main intention. It was to stop the flow of illegal immigration into the country. And after popular criticism, he reversed that policy and never enacted it again. That doesn't sound authoritarian/fascist to me. It sounds more like bending to the will of the people you govern.
> reverting hard fought women's right to their own body
And a large swath of the country believes abortion is murder. I guess for that, they are fascists in your eyes?
The term really has lost it's meaning and is just used by the Left to demonize the other side.
> The term fascist has been used as a pejorative,[74] regarding varying movements across the far right of the political spectrum. George Orwell noted in 1944 that the term had been used to denigrate diverse positions "in internal politics". Orwell said that while fascism is "a political and economic system" that was inconvenient to define, "as used, the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'",[75] and in 1946 wrote that '"Fascism' has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable."[76] Richard Griffiths of the University of Wales wrote in 2000 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times".[77]: 1
Wouldn't a fascist government seek to highly control firearms take guns away from its citizens?
The counter-argument is that a culture of violent police suppression is just modern America, and it’s not fair to tar one particular party with that particular brush.
This has happened at Harris rallies as well.
It's a fact that Trump shared and promoted these. It's a fact that they are conspiracy theories.
Secondly, conspiracy theories generally fly in the face of strong evidence to the contrary. But if you look at the Mueller report, it lists numerous links and collusions between the Trump campaign and Russian government. There were actual criminal offenses. There just wasn't quite enough to prove wilful criminality.
Thirdly, unless I'm mistaken, the Dems did not continue to promote claims of a conspiracy between Trump and Russia after the report was accepted.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/trump-fascis...
1. Rhetoric of an "enemy within". Trump has already made it clear that he intends to use the US military to "clean out" our country.
2. Supreme consolidation of power. Trump plans to re-enact Schedule F. Tens of thousands of federal workers will be fired, and their replacements will be required to vocalize their devotion to Trump. The bureau meritocracy system, which has been in place since the 1800s, will be removed completely. In its place, a system of political loyalty.
3. Supreme avoidance of the law. Trump is completely immune to any criminal prosecution while president, and he has made it clear he plans to use this newfound power "very aggressively".
4. Desecration of education. Within the first 100 days, the department of education will be dissolved. States will pivot to ahistorical pro-conservative education, if they provide any public education at all.
If they were fascist wouldn't they be doing the opposite? I thought a fascist government would not allow or want the average citizens to own firearms.
This is just 1 example that pops into my mind. I can think of other examples too where the republican policies seem to be the direct opposite of what I read that a fascist government would want.
(I'm not saying that the republican party is fascist, just that there's nothing in their gun policy that would be inconsistent with a wannabe fascist party.)
Am I crazy to think that?
The voters made their choice clear, and those of us most impacted by GOP authoritarian policies now get to spend the next four years (at least) trying to make sure we survive attacks against us while also maybe still salvaging this grand democratic experiment.
So no, you can take that “find common ground” and shove it. We adhered to decorum for decades, even as the GOP marched ever further right and ignored, plowed through, or destroyed any and every uncrossable line or improper decorum in their path. You don’t get to try and apologize on behalf of an electorate that willfully has chosen violence, nor should we (those affected by said violence) have to tolerate their excuses.
It can go worst as in a civil war. To a full split of the country in x countries. Now I don’t think it will happen but saying it can’t go worst is both factually false and not anchored in reality
I’ve already adopted a stance of not talking politics with people who believe the 2020 election was stolen, and frankly my life has been much better for it. You can’t reason people out of a position they didn’t reason themselves in to. In my experience anyone who believes that millions of “illegals” and deceased voted are incapable of having a real discussion or listening. They will not accept reality.
When RFK Jr. is unleashed on our health system I wonder if people will finally wake up to the fact that conspiracy theorists are not just in the halls of power now, but that their numbers have grown substantially.
It’s up to you. If you don’t want to do anything that has an impact too.
IMO this argument carries very little water but rather “feels” right.
They claim "harm reduction" but that's not how just not voting works, 95% is still a super majority and anything you "win" is just tokenism at the end of the day.
They don't believe in climate change, want zero controls on guns, are generally anti-immigrant - even the legal immigrants are lied about e.g. Haitians in Springfield, don't believe women should have certain rights concerning their own healthcare, want to keep cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations, etc.
They are impenetrable. Yes they'd claim I'm unwilling to compromise but we're talking about different starting points - I have to get them to accept certain actual real-world events and facts as true before starting a meaningful conversation.
I don’t believe (1). The other two would mean our kids’ life expectancies just halved.
- Gutting the health care industry? That's not necessarily a bad thing. Wasteful health care administration (passing the buck) was something like 30% of health care costs pre-ACA, and health care is now 17.3% of GDP. Shedding 1/3 of health care costs would bring our health care expenses to the same ratio of GDP as the UK. Of course it would also cause an unemployment crisis...
One example of gutting the industry (announced today): ban fluoridated water.
Banning fluoridated water is a weird idea. I will have to look into the costs and benefits.
> Nineteen of those studies were considered to be high quality; of these, 18 reported an inverse association between estimated fluoride exposure and IQ in children. The 18 studies, which include 3 prospective cohort studies and 15 cross-sectional studies, were conducted in 5 different countries. Forty-six of the 53 low-quality studies in children also found evidence of an inverse association between estimated fluoride exposure and IQ in children.
> https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/publications/monographs/mgraph08
They're estimating a 3 to 5 point IQ drop due to fluorinated water in childhood. On that basis I would have to support switching to free mouthwash.
* Elon Musk (known for electric vehicles) and RFK (known for suing to clean up rivers) are both on there.
* Zero control on guns, honestly yes, or at least fewer controls. It is in the constitution. Silencers protect hearing and are required in some countries.
* They see the effect of illegal immigration on low wage American workers. In my opinion it is a very pro worker stance.
* Many of the religious republicans are against abortion, agree. The supreme court change leaves it up to states or congress. I personally believe that congress should legislate these things but they are useless.
* Yes, they do want to cut taxes. 30% of our income is pretty wild. The government has grown into quite the behemoth and can be trimmed down. Before you ask no, I do not care about the roads in suburbs, cut taxes and let them fall apart. I want bicycles and mass transit.
I'd be willing to bet that the amount of conservatives that fit your description are not enough to win an election. That description is only a subset of conservatives in my experience of being a conservative myself and living around many of them.
Who's in charge now are not republicans. Now it's just far right believing in genius and ability of their cartoonish leader.
Nobody is calling anyone stupid just because of the lack of education.
However the lack of education makes people gullible and easy to manipulate. From bleach as a Covid remedy to marginal tax as a grave danger to working people - you don't have to go far for examples. And when someone does believe this sort of blatant bullshit, then, yeah, they don't come across as particularly bright individuals.
I can find you dozens of examples right now, in the press, from today. That the entire election is the fault of uneducated people.
Not "uneducated", but expressly "stupid".
> However the lack of education makes people gullible and easy to manipulate. From bleach as a Covid remedy...
You may not realize you said it, but you said it.
- Trump floated bleach as a covid remedy
- Bleach as a covid remedy is obviously stupid (we should both be agreeing on this one)
- Trump supporters support such statements from trump
- But pointing that out is "calling them stupid" and thus we shouldn't do it?
I'm genuinely curious about this because it makes up so many discussions with trump supporters in a nut shell. I don't want to condescend to them, but I also shouldn't be pointing out things that genuinely are stupid about trump, because doing so would offend them too? What should I do, just pretend all the dumb things Trump does (and that his supporters support him for) don't exist? Just so I can find common ground? (I mean, strictly speaking this is exactly what I do in polite company with trump supporters. I just pretend all the really dumb shit doesn't exist and just talk to them about policy and stuff, and in the end I end up finding that we agree on 90% of stuff and we go on our way. And they continue to support trump for reasons I don't understand.)
> Trump supporters support such statements from trump
Did you ever meet a Trump supporter who used bleach? Did you ever meet a Trump supporter who thinks bleach for covid is a good idea?
If you're being honest with yourself, can you even imagine a middle-aged man drinking bleach to get rid of covid?
almost everyone I know voted for Trump, I know a lot of people, none of them ever drank bleach (as I'm writing this, I remembered I know someone who drank bleach as a little kid and had to go to the hospital, my point stands though)
Lots of them did.
https://www.poison.med.wayne.edu/updates-content/kstytapp2qf...
But my larger point is that his supporters support such statements. Not that they’re stupid enough to inject bleach (although that did happen.) It’s more that, when bringing up that he even said shit like that, trump supporters get offended that you’re condescending to them. Like, how dare you bring up that thing he actually said.
And when I say they support statements like that, it’s because they bend over backwards to find ways to convince themselves that he’s somehow not a lunatic for saying it, trying to find ways of charitably interpreting his drivel. That’s what “support such statements” means.
> they bend over backwards to find ways to convince themselves that he’s somehow not a lunatic for saying it
look, you've probably never listened to more than 5 unfiltered minutes of him speaking [0]. His supporters know he's not a lunatic, we've heard him talk for almost 10 years. Imagine a friend of yours saying something like what he said, actually imagine a normal friend of yours saying it. You wouldn't all of the sudden think he's a lunatic. Your 1st assumption would be "maybe they discussed something to do with one of the chemicals in one type of disinfectant possibly having another use" if that's a little crazy, maybe he's tired or joking or something.
Point is, in Bayesian terms, it really depends on your priors.
[0] I thought of an interesting exercise: If you commit to listening to his interview on Rogan, I'll listen to an episode of your choice that you think will enlighten me
I have all the god damned time. He was president for 4 years! I had to! (At least as someone who tried to follow the news then, it was unavoidable.) Most recent time I listened to him for an extended period was during the debates, where I watched the whole thing uninterrupted. We can get into the whole eating dogs thing but I'm sure you're tired of it by now.
> Imagine a friend of yours saying something like what he said
I would think they're pretty dumb, but I'd brush it off and still be friends with them.
But here's the thing: my friends aren't president of the united states. I believe we should hold him to a higher standard, especially in the beginning of a pandemic when misinformation was rampant and it was very important we didn't hear nonsense like this from our president. The whole "people say shit like that all the time" trope is the exact problem I have with trump and his supporters. I don't want our president to have the intelligence level of a typical "friend" who thinks putting bleach in your body might be a good way to fight an infection.
> If you commit to listening to his interview on Rogan
Hard fucking pass.
This premise isn't even true. Trump did NOT float this idea.
This is something Democrats believe though. Which says a lot more about Democrats than it does about Trump supporters.
As someone replied to you: No Trump supporters actually believe in bleach as a remedy, but tons of Democrats do. What does that tell you about their respective intelligence or education?
Here is the exact quote:
> Right. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me
So we go back to my point. Am I supposed to just pretend he doesn’t say shit like this, so that I avoid offending trump supporters?
And when he says "disinfectant" he means that literally as some kind of disinfecting medication. The next sentence mentioning "medical doctors" should have clued you into that.
So, now that you know that, what's wrong with what he said? (Oh, I'm well aware that the media rapidly decided disinfectant meant bleach, and then went on a rampage about that, but that's not what he said, and also not what he meant.)
Which is kind of the point isn't it? You are accusing Trump supporters of lack of knowledge but the shoe is actually on the other foot. The entire outrage was literally an invention of his opponents.
Which is also why Republicans laugh at liberals who complain about this stuff, because unlike the liberals, they heard what he actually said, and not some fictional version.
I’m not accusing trump supporters of being stupid this, I’m accusing them of supporting what he says even though he’s obviously off his rocker.
He’s talking about putting disinfectants inside your body. He’s not using some code word for medicine. He’s talking about how fast disinfectants kill Covid outside the body, and that we should try putting them inside the body.
At this point I’m done with this entire thread, dealing with his apologists is going to give me an aneurysm. I weep for our country.
Is English not your first language? Those words aren't that hard to understand.
> He’s talking about how fast disinfectants kill Covid outside the body, and that we should try putting them inside the body.
So you're fine twisting his words to mean something else, and then accusing others of doing it?
Do you really not realize you have just then, taken his words, re-interperted them, then got mad about a fictional interpretation?
How do you not realize that everything you said about other applies FAR FAR more to you?
> dealing with his apologists is going to give me an aneurysm
Understanding spoken English makes me an apologist?
> I weep for our country.
We all do, but for very different reasons. Liberals lost the election because they can't seem to stop demonizing the other side, and people are sick of it. Perhaps take a lesson from that.
Let's dig up more of the quote, hopefully I won't pass out with rage having to type this shit:
> THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you're totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that too. It sounds interesting.
> ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BRYAN: We'll get to the right folks who could.
> THE PRESIDENT: Right. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me.
He was JUST TALKING about how ultraviolet light would be great to get inside your body. If you'd like, we can talk about how FUCKING STUPID THAT IS on the face of it. Let's inject UV light into your veins somehow, sounds great.
Then he talks about "a disinfectant".
Now, your interpretation of "a disinfectant" is that he's using some strange coded word for plain old medication. After he was just talking about ultraviolet light.
So your contention is that RIGHT AFTER talking about ultravilot light being put inside your body to cure covid, he's now using "a disinfectant" to mean "a vaccine we haven't yet discovered" or some codeword for "medicine"??? How would that even make sense in this context?
He's talking about bleach. Nobody uses "disinfectant" to mean fucking anything else than "a thing you put on surfaces to kill microbes", like bleach, peroxide, etc etc etc.
YOU are the one that is twisting words to find a charitable interpretation of "disinfectant" to mean anything other than EXACTLY WHAT HE MEANT, which is some fucking bonkers tirade about how "if we can kill covid cells outside the body with things like ultraviolet light and disinfectants, then we should try doing that inside the body!" He didn't suddenly switch topics to talk about medicine.
Now let's ask snopes here. They have a big article debunking the idea that the president told people to inject bleach, so here's their opinion: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-inject-bleach-covid-...
> At no point in the media briefing did the then-president recommend that people inject bleach or other disinfectants into their bodies. He merely asked experts whether disinfectants could be injected to tackle COVID-19; a stance he later rowed back on when pressed by a journalist.
Right! He didn't say you should inject bleach, he merely opined that maybe we can inject disinfectants into people to tackle covid.
And you'll also notice that I DIDN'T SAY that he TOLD people to inject bleach. Only that he FLOATED the idea, which is EXACTLY what he did, if you take the common, everybody-in-the-english-speaking-world interpretation of "disinfectant" to mean "products that kill microbes that you absolutely should not ingest", with bleach being a perfect example.
Let's look what wikipedia says about a disinfectant, shall we?
> A disinfectant is a chemical substance or compound used to inactivate or destroy microorganisms on inert surfaces.[1] Disinfection does not necessarily kill all microorganisms, especially resistant bacterial spores; it is less effective than sterilization, which is an extreme physical or chemical process that kills all types of life.[1] Disinfectants are generally distinguished from other antimicrobial agents such as antibiotics, which destroy microorganisms within the body, and antiseptics, which destroy microorganisms on living tissue.
- Disinfectant is something you use on surfaces
- Antibiotics are things you ingest
- Antiseptics are something you use on living tissue
So you'd agree that trump meant "We should try using things we normally use on surfaces, and see what happens if we inject it"? It's just the word "bleach" you're hung up on?
Ok, then fine. Trump didn't float bleach as a covid remedy. He floated "disinfectants you'd normally use on surfaces, but injected into your body" as a covid remedy. I get it now!
> Liberals lost the election because they can't seem to stop demonizing the other side, and people are sick of it. Perhaps take a lesson from that
"You see if you were just nice to the terrorists they wouldn't have blown up the building. Perhaps take a lesson from that. We should be nicer to terrorists so they don't kill us."
Yeah no, fuck you.
If not that, then what were you trying to say?
These are morons you read about in your news bubble. The average American is not like them.
He didn't.
Seems to me you need to look in a mirror.
In the interest of full disclosure I am totally guessing that neither did anything to materially improve the lives and fortunes of working-class Americans and neither Donald Trump will, nor would Kamala Harris. Working people in the US, as in the rest of the world seem to me to be shafted for good, by all sorts of economic forces that they have no control over. I'm speaking in this as a current academic but one-time unskilled, immigrant worker.
It used to be that you could feed yourself and your family with "the sweat of your brow". Not any more. Who is working to change that?
Uneducated working class folks compete with illegal immigrants for jobs and cheap housing. During his presidency illegal immigration was lower and wages rose for the working class and housing costs were relatively stable. He’s also positioned himself as the “law and order” candidate, and crime tends to impact the working class much more than the middle/upper classes.
Mostly folks who voted for him voted on the premise that their experience of the economy was better when he was president rather than on the basis of individual policies.
Is that true? Legal immigration was lower especially during the lockdown (for obvious reasons). But the number of deportations of illegal immigrants barely changed, e.g. https://www.cato.org/blog/president-trump-reduced-legal-immi...
> wages rose for the working class
That happened. And it happened even faster under Biden.
> He’s also positioned himself as the “law and order” candidate
And yet the murder rate rose to the highest level since 1997.
> their experience of the economy was better when he was president
I feel like it might be more accurate to say "perception" than "experience".
Trump’s first term and Obama’s second term were fairly steady, then you see a massive bump under Biden.
Under later Trump and Biden’s current policy, you are released into Mexico.
Objectively, they are stupid, even the ones who went to college.
I don't see any policy there, just platitudes.
Trump's plan for grocery prices is to put massive tariffs on grocery imports and to deport millions of workers. There is no one with a functioning logic cortex who doesn't see the problem with this plan. But at least they can rest comfortably knowing that the Musks, Sacks and Bezos' of the world will get a killer tax break for their next yacht.
American elections are the guy in the big suburban house complaining that filling up his F350 costs a little more than it did during COVID shutdowns and thinking that somehow the guy floating insane plans is going to fix it. It's bizarre.
Except the one metric that really counts: People can't afford their basic needs.
> So they voted for "their own economic interests" by voting in a guy with plans that every economist says
You mean leftside selected economists with their own agenda.
> will be absolutely disastrous and will not only massively spike unemployment, it will lead to far greater prices for American consumers.
He had the lowest unemployment numbers in decades.
Wage growth has far exceeded inflation in the United States. Americans as a whole have never, in history, been wealthier or consumed as much. This is one of those fun "you don't know what you've got until it's gone" things where people bought into a political narrative to such a degree that in their world-leading affluence they truly think they are hard done by and wronged. I sadly feel that a lot of Americans are going to learn that there is a long, long way to fall.
>You mean leftside selected economists with their own agenda.
If you really look at everything like this, that's incredibly sad and self-deluding. Trump's economic plans are scattered spitballing that sound like something the most ignorant person just randomly contrives. There is literally nothing Trump has proposed that would in any way improve the US economy or reduce prices of anything. But they absolutely would do the opposite. No one, ever, has convincingly described how Trump is going to improve the economy. It's just random score-settling and self-enriching nonsense.
>He had the lowest unemployment numbers in decades.
In Trump's first term he was constrained from doing much of anything, and actually accomplished shockingly little policy, just coasting on Obama's policies. In this term he will have zero checks. He can actually do the crazy nonsense he has proposed, and destroy the country.
There are two possible paths ahead for the United States-
-economic calamity with zero upside where people learn that tariffs aren't some magic thing that other countries pay. Where inflation truly starts going wild again, while federal services collapse and the oligarchs reap. Musk, Bezos and crew will never have it better. Many Americans will have it much worse.
-...or..., and what Trump voters repeatedly reveal they are assuming in voting for him, he just lied about everything he says he's going to do to get a vote and actually won't do anything much at all beyond some corruption and self-serving.
Either is pretty terrible. But here we are.
How does the hatred for the Democrats get so big?
Trump is just Trump. A rhetorically violent, deeply unpleasant convicted rapist, but not the vanguard of an explicitly misognist movement. At least not one thats culturally hegemonic. So while American progressives may label Trump voters sexist or racist, the overwhelming majority of them don't see themselves that way. Meanwhile, a highly vocal minority of progressives do actively demean men, while people, straight people etc, and have for a decade. They've enacted DEI practices, and scholarship and funding practices that exclude men from fair participation in the workforce, education and the arts. As efforts to correct historic imbalances in that participation. At the same time, they've ignored how male participation in higher education has dropped off, the epidemics of alienation and underemployment affecting men.
Edit: Just to clarify I'm addressing the question - not advocating Trump, or suggesting that life for men or white people or straight people is in fact materially worse. Just pointing out people strongly dislike being disliked, actively biased against and demeaned and this does in fact affect their voting preferences.
You may think you mean, or maybe you did not, the accurate description: adjudicated rapist. And that difference right there, between adjudicated and convicted, and all of the other ambient hoaxes, is in big part what the referendum yesterday was about.
Ask yourself how long it was between late 2017 and when you found out the "fine people" hoax was actually a hoax. Or if just now, whether you knew that even Snopes confirmed the hoax that Kamala wantonly repeated (as if it were true) in the debate is indeed a hoax.
Most normal people don't see the difference between adjudicated rapist and convicted rapist as an innocent mistake but as something that those who push such hoaxes -- rather than innocently parrot them out of ignorance -- should be put behind bars for in response to the damage they do this great union of states.
"I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping.
She wanted to get some furniture. I said, “I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.” I took her out furniture —
I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look...
I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything...
Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything."
- https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-tran...
Except for the hard material fact that he did not rape her.
I don't think your problem with Trump is that he is accused of raping women. I think your problem with Trump isn't even with Trump's own success with women, but that there are men out there who see more poon in a fiscal quarter than you do in a decade.
He is everything people claim and nothing at all. He says so much bullshit constantly that you have to just ignoring or discounting shit he says. So he reflects what you believe.
America started when it rebelled against being ruled. I'd say that's not entirely off the table. First it has to become clear that we're getting ruled, not represented.
Have you taken your medicine today? Seriously, please consider gettng help.
I'm not uncomfortable lumping a lot of that together as 'medicine'. For instance, we know vaccination in general raises his ire, but he also seems to object to pasteurization. If he remains in a position to be able to ban that practice, it could be a significant driver of health-related issues. And I do think he's in a position to be able to ban or at least substantially punish the practice of pasteurization, vaccination, flouridation… it's unclear how much influence the man will have, but it could be a great deal.
you know that everyone is still getting Covid over and over and over again every year, right?
This one I know is a straight up lie, because I remember where it came from: Trump asked an expert if it was possible to use disinfectant inside the body, was immediately shut down with a simple "no", and dropped it. Audio of the conversation was leaked and immediately twisted into "drink bleach", ignoring everything else about the conversation.
Also UV light treatment actually exists, just not for this purpose. It's a completely normal thing to ask once you learn UV kills viruses.
> but at the same time Trump says much worse things about women than Harris about men
One would think so, but Trump's talk about women is just how society in general talks about women. As sad as it is, women are used to that rhetoric.
> How does the hatred for the Democrats get so big?
Multiple high profile members of the Democratic Party actively demonize rural Americans and especially men.
1. Stop calling average people ignorant.
2. Average people are misogynistic.
Of course, for people who are directly targeted by the ignorance and misogyny, it's their right to directly call it out, but they might not call it out at all, because they would be targeted further.
But it’s not like that is why someone votes for Trump, right? It’s maybe more of a way to disincentivize conversions back.
I… really wish there had been a primary though. Biden deserves to be hated for the rest of his life for this (along with all of his other decision making)
I can vaguely understand fixing a primary for H. Clinton, but for Biden? One of the things Biden ran on in 2020 was a vague indication that he would leave after one term.
This is why we call Trump's voters "stupid", the US is still under Trump's tax plan until 1/2025. So if someone has an issue with taxes, it's not Biden's fault even though he is in office.
I know this and I'm not even American
Making it a left or right issue makes no sense given the content of my post was to point out the mismatch in arguments.
EDIT: This post is the same thing fwiw.
What about the rest of the world who've also been experiencing the same?
It's a very shortsighted take, and we've seen the same in the UK where Liz Truss 6 weeks as PM has taken the blame for global inflation in the court of popular opinion
I was under the impression that the Dems were doing more for the working class, and that Trump was alienating women.
Costed policies that are feasible and attainable in one-term? Boring
Promises of fantastic wealth and glory? Much more appealing
Same thing the Brexit campaign failed on.
Any chance you know where to find some more?
It's a handout to anyone buying those services and a loss to anyone selling them (trade workers).
Companies can't "just hire" illegal immigrants in most states - the majority of the ones Trump won.
Trump is the incarnation of a thin-skinned bully, he allows himself the worst but will cry as loud as possible on the first sign of a backslash.
If people who voted for him are not stupid, they certainly act like it.
> If people who voted for him are not stupid, they certainly act like it.
This attitude of "you must be stupid if you don't see things my way" I expect on Reddit, but am disappointed to see it here.
This attitude of putting words in people's mouths I expect on Reddit, but I am disappointed to see it here.
They said, "People who support Trump". They never said, "People who disagree with me". Those are your own words. And there's a great deal of difference between those two clauses.
I understand you want to shield yourself from criticism, by pretending you're merely in the "people who disagree with" camp and not in the "people who support Trump" camp. But trying to do that while putting words in someone's mouth lowers the quality of discourse here. And then to try claiming moral superiority by citing "This is HN, not reddit" is just ... transparently pointless.
Also, you ruin your own argument by proving your parent correct.
They are closely related and I don't see as much difference as you do but I also believe saying someone is stupid for supporting Trump is wrong. You can disagree with a person, try to point out why they think they are wrong, ignore them but calling someone stupid has no benefit except maybe it makes the insulter feel good about their own superiority.
> lowers the quality of discourse here.
but calling me and over half the country stupid adds to the quality of discourse? not according to HN guidelines [0]
> I understand you want to shield yourself from criticism, by pretending you're merely in the "people who disagree with" camp
You understand wrongly. If you look at my recent comment history, it's pretty easy to see I'm Republican and voted for Trump.
> Also, you ruin your own argument by proving your parent correct.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Seems like just another personal insult.
[0] "Be kind." "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
They are nowhere close but of course you can't see that so okay.
> I also believe saying someone is stupid for supporting Trump is wrong.
Of course, Trump supporters are known for being poor employers of reason and introspection.
> try to point out why you think they are wrong
This list is so long that it's pointless to point this out in every conversation with a Trumper, but your parent did actually try.
> just ignore them
This is dangerous, to all humanity. At best, it's tolerance of the intolerant.
> but calling someone stupid has no benefit except maybe it makes the insulter feel good about their own superiority.
I strongly doubt your parent felt good about it. There's nothing good about calling a Trumper "stupid", because it does nothing to help the situation. Trumpers don't listen to reason; I'm sure your parent knows this. It's far more likely your parent spoke out of sheer frustration, which I fully understand, having had my own faith in humanity tested by this whole ordeal, and it hasn't even begun its "revenge run".
> but calling me and over half the country stupid adds to the quality of discourse?
1. Spoken by itself, probably not. But your parent didn't just call Trumpers stupid. They first explained their reasoning. Within a greater context where that's precisely the point being discussed: "How Trumpers are stupid."
2. More like "quarter of the country". Half your country didn't even vote.
> By saying this is HN, I'm appealing to the higher standard espoused in these guidelines.
If that's all you were doing, that'd be fine. But to do that while putting words in people's mouths? That's disingenuous, at best, and transparently so.
> Do you think those guidelines are pointless?
And there we go again with the putting words in people's mouths.
> it's pretty easy to see I'm Republican and voted for Trump.
I don't see how this, in any way whatsoever, proves I "understood incorrectly".
> How did I prove the parent correct?
I've already explained in this thread above. Twice. I don't see the point in trying a third time, especially when ... <see above>.
> Seems like just another personal insult on your part.
It wasn't. It was an appeal to do better, since, as you said, "This is HN". Maybe I understand why you feel that way, though. I am, after all, somebody that disagrees with you on sth, so of course I must be out to "get you". Rest assured, I am not out to "get you".
----
> [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Be kind." "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Since you quoted this, let me leave you with one thing to ponder on: Just how spectacularly poorly your candidate (i.e., Trump) does on these guidelines.
>> I also believe saying someone is stupid for supporting Trump is wrong.
> Of course, Trump supporters are known for being poor employers of reason and introspection.
To clarify, I don't think that anyone should should call anyone else stupid for any reason. It's just ad hominem.
I'll address your characterization of Trumpers as being poor employers of reason and introspection below.
> that's precisely the point being discussed: "How Trumpers are stupid."
Again, I have a problem with the ad hominem. Why not "wrong" or "misguided"? Why take it to the personal insult level? You mention about the reasoning for using "stupid" is sheer frustration. You also mention maintaining the quality of discourse here. "stupid" does not do that. Maybe it helps you vent your frustration, but kicking a dog does that for some people and we can agree that being frustrated doesn't justify that.
It just serves to demonize and dehumanize people on the other side.
>> Do you think those guidelines are pointless?
> And there we go again with the putting words in people's mouths.
I didn't put words in anyone's mouth. I asked a question. And the reason I asked it is you don't seem to have a problem with calling a certain class of people stupid which clearly violates the guidelines. So it's reasonable to question if you value those guidelines.
>> it's pretty easy to see I'm Republican and voted for Trump.
I don't see how this, in any way whatsoever, proves I "understood incorrectly".
This is your understanding: "I understand you want to shield yourself from criticism, by pretending you're merely in the "people who disagree with" camp"
That is incorrect. I do not want to shield myself from criticism by pretending I'm merely in the "people who disagree with" camp. As seen in my past comments, I do not pretend I'm not a Republican/Trump supporter.
>> How did I prove the parent correct?
>I've already explained in this thread above. Twice. I don't see the point in trying a third time, especially when ... <see above>.
I ask for clarification of something you said and this is your response? I proved the parent correct about what? Where have you explained this twice? You don't have to explain it again. Just copy and paste it. Doesn't have to be both times. Just one is fine.
When someone doesn't understand something, it's not always their fault. Communication is a two way street. Sometimes it is the communicator that is unclear in their messaging.
Now to address your comment about Trumpers having poor reasoning and instropective abilities I'll choose a few hot button topics in this election cycle and go through my reasoning on them.
- Immigration and border security
On day one of the Biden/Harris administration, they reversed most of the Trump era border policies. This resulted in an unprecented level of illegal border crossings. Some of these that crossed went on to rape and kill American girls/women , take over whole apartment complexes and some are terrorist bent on US destruction [0]. Furthore, these illegals have cost US taxpayers untold millions to suppor them.
After three and half years, right before the next election cycle Biden finally reinstated Trump era border restrictions and the flow of illegals stemmed. And Harris who years before said building a wall was stupid, in a recent interview suddenly says she is open to bulding the wall.
My questions are why did Biden/Harris reverts Trump border policies in the first place only to reinstate them three and a half years later when Harris was up for election?
To me, it's just unreasonable to open a countries borders like that and basically ignore immigration laws. Why let millions of immigrates into the country illegally like that? It's akin to saying "I don't need walls or doors for my house. It's ok that anyone can come in as they please. That's totally ok for me and my family"
There are legal paths to enter the US and become a resident. Those need to be followed an enforced.
So, am I stupid and lack reasoning skills for believing the above?
- June 6th Capital insurrection.
It was an insurrection against the governemnt. All the protesters who stormed the capitol should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
The question is did Trump lead this insurrection? I don't think he directly lead it. That would require that he told them something to the effect "let's go to the capitol and take over". Did he cause it? I think there are valid arguments on both sides of that debate.
In any case, this was a really bad move by Trump and a huge blight on his record.
Was it enough to keep me from voting for him? Obviously not. To me, Trump is the lesser of two evils. I didn't vote for Trump in the primaries. I really wish he wouldn't have won so I could have a better choice.
But Harris's policies I'm deeply opposed to. In terms of character, I think she is fake and insincere flip flopper with no real convictions and thus can't give straightforward answers to questions and spews word salads instead. Do I like Trump's character? Mostly not. He is deeply flawed. There are some good qualities I see in him (that I know you'll disagree with me on.). He deeply wants to see the US succeed and thus has sincere passion and deep conviction. For example, he's the only candidate that will stand up to and call out China's trade bullshit, their unfair trade practices that have screwed over America for decades. The tariffs he threatens are for the purpose of forcing China to the negotiating table. The past decades of American presidents' hemming and hawing to China have done nothing to change their behavior.
So I choose based mostly on policy rather than character.
Since you mentioned introspection, I'll leave you this to reflect on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42062965
[0] https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-forum-online/counter-ter...
Being stupid is not a prerequisite to being apathetic.
At the end of the day, "it's the economy, stupid".
COVID stimulus and an economic slowdown from 2020 caused four years of inflation in the entire world, and people see the price of milk going up and punish the incumbent (not even the person who was in charge in 2020.
At which point, it doesn't matter how you campaign, or if the opposing candidate is actual Satan, nobody's going to vote for the incumbent.
It also doesn't help that the press normalized actual insanity that would not have been tolerated from anyone else, and collectively pretended that it's normal and reasonable behavior.
Project 2025 also helped, since Democrats answered it with shock and horror instead of countering with their own improved version. Say what you will about the depravity contained within those pages, but Trump voters hold it up as "at least it's a plan" without having read it, much like their other beloved book, The Bible. Knowing that, it was quite easy for the Trump campaign to whip up support.
As much as I want to end with some pithy comment like "manipulation is a hell of drug," I can't. Half the country just got permission to put their ugly truths on display and they certainly did not disappoint. I have trouble laughing about that anymore.
Isn't it the Democrats who sling words like nazi, fascist, racist, deplorable, trash?
The rest of it is self evident, but I’m not going to be the one to say it out loud.
Tonight's election flat out showed that democracy doesn't work with an uneducated population.
I really do think this is the beginning of the end for the US. At least I have front row tickets to the show.
That has nothing to do with anything. Every single person voting on the economy for Trump, blaming Biden for inflation is an example of a lack of education. Just for one example.
There's a reason college educated people vote so differently to non college educated people on average.
The difference is one is backed by hard data.
Worse: many different and mutually incompatible fantasy futures, which they denied ahead of the referendum, and which after the referendum became a source of infighting that made all possible Brexits impossible to get past Westminster until Johnson came along and lied to everyone to get enough support to actually close a deal.
(The only time I can think of when digging a deeper hole got anywhere, even if the where was a… I guess in this metaphor: a disused basement where the stairs were missing?)
Judging by this thread, it's still not possible to have a discussion on this...
But why? Why is it the job of the people who are on the side of established truth who have to understand the views of the fantasists? I saw more "disparagement" from the pro-Brexit crowd than the Remainers. Why isn't it their responsibility to understand the realist position?
We told them Brexit would be a disaster. We were told we were scaremongering. It went ahead anyway, and it turned out to be awful. It was a stupid decision, and it was terrible judgment.
Why can't we tell people that some proposals are stupid? And why can't we tell people after the fact that they made a stupid decision? How is it our fault that they make bad decisions?
Immigration is also a big factor in the Conservatives' defeat in the general election. People felt cheated as immigration hit a record high and voted Reform UK, which handed Labour a huge majority despite actually getting fewer votes than at the previous election.
So it's quite extraordinary to see the comments here with zero reflection on why all of this happened. This is the real, dangerous divide between the well-offs in and around London and the rest of the country.
I have read that the two main issues on voters' minds in this American Presidential election were immigration and the economy, so result is not very surprising.
"High" migration likewise had nothing much to do with EU membership, as the government demonstrated precisely by following Brexit with, as you say, record high immigration.
One of the other famous big concerns Leave campaigners had was the cost, which famously became the £350 million a week on the side of a bus. This number was even called out as a falsehood at the time, but it was believed by enough to make a difference.
Remainers were unable to convince the majority that the benefits of EU membership was worth the cost, financial or otherwise, regardless.
It is also patently false that immigration had nothing to do with EU membership. The surge of immigration from Eastern Europe was caused by EU membership (although initially the UK government could have imposed limits) and it also highlighted loss of sovereignty as there was nothing the government could do about it because of EU law.
Now, of course the government still controlled, and controls, immigration from outside the EU and they demonstrated that they were in fact in favour of high immigration despite what they said. This is a major cause of people voting for Reform UK instead of the Conservatives as already mentioned several times. That's why I have been saying that the result of this year's general election is a continuation of the issues at play since the Brexit referendum and even before that.
I am quite shocked by the obtuse reactions in this thread. This is still the very narrow-minded view that "we are correct they are wrong" that led to the Brexit referendum's result. Effectively, "we" are smart and correct and "they" are stupid and racist, without any attempts to try to understand the other side's point of view (which does not mean agreeing with it).
As an ironic side note, this is what "diversity" and "neurodiversity" in the workplace is all about: Bringing diverse points of view and listening to them instead of locking ourselves in our certitudes.
If you claim that a power granted by the member states themselves, who agree to it specifically as a mechanism to enable decision making, is a "loss" of sovereignty, then democracy — all forms of it, direct or representative — also meets this description.
> and it also highlighted loss of sovereignty as there was nothing the government could do about it because of EU law.
Except for all the ways they could.
In addition to "not actively campaign to be allowed to join the treaty in the first place" (which the UK did, FOM was part of the 1957 Treaty of Rome before the UK joined), "not actively campaign for the EU to get bigger" (which the UK did), "change the rules of the EU" (which the UK did), "not join the Schengen area" (the UK did not join Schengen), and "leave EU" (which the UK did), member states also have the power to specify the rules for anything longer than a typical tourist trip in most of the west would otherwise allow anyway.
See https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A... for the pre-UK state of this rule.
See Chapter III, Article 7, section 1 for what (I think) is the current state: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02...
This would have been a lot easier if the UK hadn't been horrified by the idea of national ID cards that the rest of the continent seems fine with.
What really stopped the UK government from doing anything much about migration — and the reason why they were really "high migration" — is the economic need for all the migrants to do all the work that the UK industries rely on but can't get locals to do for whatever reason.
This is specifically why the UK government did not impose limits to legal immigration routes and instead made empty slogans about stopping boats that didn't even constitute a rounding error compared to everything else.
> This is still the very narrow-minded view that "we are correct they are wrong" that led to the Brexit referendum's result.
I do not group all Leavers into one single category.
Unfortunately, my experience has been that the only thing Leavers have in common is the narrow-minded view that all other Leavers had the same reason for voting Leave as they themselves had. None I've encountered have been willing to engage with the observation that what they want isn't compatible with what other Leavers wanted, and when confronted with unambiguous evidence of this call each other names and denounce that alternative as "not true Brexit".
Some may call this "stupid", but not me. I think it is an unfortunate aspect of the human mind when it comes to politics, a place in which all teams are fallible and none are exempt.
Even at the time of the campaign, I was of the opinion that any who listened to the speeches by Daniel Hannan and was thereby convinced to vote Leave, was neither a fool nor a racist — he has a silver tongue, his words were not those of racism or malice.
On the other hand, those who saw Nigel Farage stand in front of his "Breaking Point" posters and thought "yes, this speaks to me"… well, one way in which I'd agree with UKIP MP Douglas Carswell is that he called the poster "morally indefensible": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Point_(UKIP_poster)
> Effectively, "we" are smart and correct and "they" are stupid and racist, without any attempts to try to understand the other side's point of view (which does not mean agreeing with it).
From my POV, that describes every Leaver I've ever tried to discuss this with, both before and after the referendum. There was one who said "Brexit will be fine because the EU will give us a good deal", and when I said "no", rather than try to engage or find out why I thought that, replied by shouting "that proves we should leave"; on another occasion, someone else present expressed — as a concern — the belief that Brexit would make Cambridge shrink, his reply was to shout "good"; and after the referendum, he didn't understand why I stopped talking to him and moved out of the country even though I'd already been openly talking of this before the referendum — he was a Cambridge graduate who several times boasted of being in the international maths olympiad, logic goes out of the window when politics gets into the human brain.
Those Leavers who continue to discuss Brexit seem unable to understand why, despite winning the referendum, they didn't get what they thought they were voting for — when those of us who voted Remain knew that what we voted against was in the same general space as the vague incoherent mess that actually happened.
I am willing to believe that those who thought they were getting low immigration would be upset when all the other considerations got in their way; just as those who were promised no change to trading conditions were upset to discover that the EU does in fact have an external border after all and despite claims to the contrary.
It is not "patently" false. That is an absolutist view of the type you are complaining about. UK law still had priority: demonstrated by the fact that the UK was able to withdraw from the agreement.
> This is still the very narrow-minded view that "we are correct they are wrong"
You seem outraged by this; why? Why shouldn't we think that we were correct and you were wrong? Presumably you thought you were right and we were wrong.
Anyway, the empirical evidence since suggests that we were correct and you were wrong. Most of the predictions made by Remainers turned out to be correct. Can you accept that?
> Effectively, "we" are smart and correct and "they" are stupid and racist
No one in this thread has claimed this. The official campaign never said this. You are attacking a strawman.
Above you said "It disparages those who voted for Brexit instead of trying to understand them". Why are you disparaging those who voted remain instead of trying to understand them?
It's not sufficient (or necessary) to be correct to win in a democracy, winning requires being convincing, which may be easier with the truth but is also much harder when insulting half the electorate.
Even when it's very tempting afterwards to say "we told you so".
As for how to be convincing… dunno. I'm much more comfortable with computers where I can google the errors.
I'm not sure this is correct. In both the Brexit campaign and the Trump election, the winning side spread insults freely, whilst meanwhile spinning a narrative that the other side were talking down to their supporters.
In both cases, the more aggressive and less truthful campaigns won, and the more "proper" campaigns that tried to reach out actually failed.
Being bolder seems to work better in the current political climate, not pussyfooting around being safe and trying not to insult anyone. I wonder if refusing to apologise and doubling down on the "garbage" comment would have worked better.
- we can have all the trade benefits without freedom of movement (specifically denied by EU at the time, didn't materialise)
- we will have 'more trade' afterwards (fails to understand how trade works)
- we won't have to follow EU rules (in reality, we can't really diverge that much from how the EU works without incurring penalties)
- we won't have to pay anything to them / we hold all the cards / ... (we did pay for our liabilities and we definitely didn't hold the cards)
- we can become much more left wing if we leave the neoliberal EU (fails to account for the fact our country isn't particularly left wing overall)
- politicians will have to take responsibility/can't blame the EU (brexiteers keep blaming the EU even now, BJ et.al. have faced minimal or no consequences for their actions)
- we can fish again (ignores relative importance of fishing vs the actually productive economy, disregards that EU is a big market for said fish)
What do you suggest we engage with?
I'm not ignoring that Starmer got elected by keeping his mouth shut and his hands behind his back, but the Tories' smash-mouth politics did not win the day anyway. What I can see from where I am is that Brexit was a very special case and it's all gone back to normal now.
What happens is that Conservatives voters voted for someone else, mostly Reform UK. And the reasons have been the same as what's been festering since Brexit with the added factor that the Conservatives increased immigration to record level...
YMMV but I call a lead of 290 seats and 2,879,791 votes a landslide.
It was the Lib Dems that seem to have taken most of the Tories' voters: 72 seats (up 64) and 3,519,143 votes. The latter at least checks out. Reform was up 1 seat from 2019 for 5 seats total. Not quite a big splash then.
Labour also won big in Scotland against the SNP for the first time in years (but that was rather the fault of the SNP).
Data from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_el...
Labour got 9,708,716 votes in 2024 vs 10,269,051 in 2019. Starmer and Labour did not convince voters adn lost votes to the Greens.
What happened is that people did not vote for the Conservatives and instead voted Lib Dems and, especially, Reform UK, which got a massive 14% (3rd place and more than the Lib Dems). The Reform UK vote is because the Conservatives did not deliver on Brexit and even more importantly did the opposite of what they said on immigration, which reached record level.
The number of seats to Labour is a result of the above (Conservatives dropped so Labour candidate was elected) not because people voted Labour more than before. The surge is Reform UK.
So the same issues that have been at play in the Brexit referendum are still the key issues.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4nglegege1o
Reform's seats came from the Tories, unsurprisingly, and like you say Reform won more of the popular vote than the Lib Dems (4,117,221 vs. 3,519,143; not a wide margin) but Reform also campaigned in many fewer constituencies where they didn't have to compete directly with the three largest parties (not to mention Lord Buckethead and the Monster Raving Loony party, their nemeses). So maybe they have lots of supporters in certain areas, but only in those certain areas.
Reform is not a serious political force in the UK. They only renamed themselves from The Brexit Party, but they remain a single-issue party that appeals to a tiny minority of voters. The majority of the electorate are much more concerned with real issues like the economy, the NHS, education, law and order, and the environment. Brexit wasn't even a particularly big issue in the last elections. Even the Lib Dems, who had campaigned for a second referendum in 2019, laid it to rest this time and focused on more recent issues like sewage spills in rivers etc.
Might I also hog the mic a little while longer to say that I, personally, am mostly socially conservative, and am absolutely appalled both at the Tories and Reform, who are nothing but right-wing populists and demagogues that do not care a jot about all the things that socially conservative voters care for: jobs, order, stability, lawfulness, the economy, family, etc. And let's not forget that it was Margaret Thatcher's Tories that got the UK into the EU, and did so because it was beneficial to the economy, trade, and the stability of international politics. Exciting the EU was exactly antithetical to conservative ideals: it was a radical act of self-mutilation.
Labour are now the conservative party, the party of business and fiscal responsibility (and sitting on your hands while you kick the can down the road) and that's why they took all the Tories' votes: because the socially conservative constituency got fed up with the Tories' antics and, the Brexit fever having passed, wanted to go back to order and stability.
In the 2024 UK general election, they got 14.3% of the vote. I don't think that's a "tiny minority". And if that's a "tiny minority", then the 12.2% of the vote Lib Dems got is an even tinier minority.
The problem that Reform has, is that 14.3% is spread too thin geographically. Reform got 5 MPs from 14.3%, Lib Dems got 72 MPs from 12.2% – because Lib Dem support is more concentrated in particular constituencies, mostly in southern England.
This is a side-effect of first-past-the-post. If the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum had succeeded, then Reform would have likely ended up with more seats in 2024; although even with alternate vote, the seats-per-vote advantage that Lib Dems have over Reform due to their greater geographic concentration would have still existed, albeit somewhat attenuated. A more fully proportional system, such as those used by the devolved legislatures of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, would have attenuated that advantage even further–although those systems are still region-based, so even they may not completely eliminate it.
I don't disagree. I argued that the Labour win was a landslide, not that the Lib Dems' result was one. Me and the OP were disagreeing about where the Tories' voters went: Reform, or Labour. I argued they mostly went to Labour and my reasoning is that Labour are now the party that best represents socially conservative voters.
I agree that FPTP is skewing results and Reform might have fared better in a more representative system. Then again, the Lib Dems may also have got more votes. There was a lot of discussion in the elections about "voting strategically" to oust the Tories and avoid splitting the "liberal" vote. Maybe with a more representative system that wouldn't be an issue anymore.
FPTP is an embarrassment certainly. I don't vote in the UK, I'm a bloody foreigner, but if the system was more balanced I might even consider becoming a citizen. It's stupid that I've lived in this country for so long and I don't get to say where it goes politically. Although that would require me to swear an oath of allegiance to the king and I'm a republican. It's a tough call.
There is no official definition, but generally (in a UK context) a "landslide" is a party winning a big House of Commons majority – like the Tories in 1983 and 1987, or Labour in 1997. And by that standard, 2024 was a landslide – Labour won almost as many seats as 1997, and beat both of Thatcher's records.
What I think what complicates things: both Thatcher's and Blair's landslides were big majorities backed by a big percentage of the vote (> 40%). And since the two things go together, even though quasi-officially it is about the first not the second, it is understandable how some people take the second to be part of the definition as well. For 1983, 1987, 1997, it doesn't make a difference. But then suddenly in 2024 it does – Starmer won a big number of seats, but only 33.7% of the vote – only slightly more than Corbyn's 32.1% in 2019, and actually in absolute terms over 500,000 fewer votes. This is because turnout dropped significantly in 2024 compared to 2019.
> Me and the OP were disagreeing about where the Tories' voters went: Reform, or Labour.
Given the drop in turnout, I think quite a few Tory voters just decided to stay home.
> I argued they mostly went to Labour and my reasoning is that Labour are now the party that best represents socially conservative voters.
That's not numerically possible – the Tory vote dropped by 19.9 percentage points, while Labour only gained by 1.6 points and Lib Dems by 0.6 points. A small minority of Tory voters switched to Labour, but any more than that and Labour would have got a bigger vote share than they actually did. The Tory voters must have gone somewhere else – and given Reform got 14% of the vote, it is obvious very many of them went to Reform.
Which is also why Republicans calling Democrats childish names such as "Dummy-crat" or saying "socialist" (or "commie") for all things to the left of their Overton Window doesn't convince any to their left to change their minds rightward.
I used to live in Cambridge; I knew only one person who was a long-time UKIP voter in EU elections, who was "delighted" by the result of the referendum.
Even though I'd already been openly discussing moving to Germany ahead of the referendum, and went on an InterRail trip immediately before it to find a place to move to in the event of Leave winning, he did not comprehend that my reaction to the result included cutting him out of my life entirely.
He wanted the Cambridge to shrink, I left. That's his face leopard.
(As for intelligence: he also sometimes boasted of being in the international maths olympiad, this was Cambridge after all).
Another argument would be that Vote Leave broke campaign spending rules. In countries with legally binding referenda, that would justify rerunning the referendum. But in the UK it was "only advisory".
Can you point to any examples of this? I don't think the official Remain campaign did anything of the sort. Insulting the people you are trying to convert is a poor strategy, which is why I don't believe they did it.
When you say "were called bigots, uneducated, stupid, racist, etc", what I think happened was that the Leave campaign alleged that that was what the Remainers thinking/saying and it gained traction.
As a species we took on some climate debt to improve our standard of living, and we’ve been talking bigger loans every year. Those loans are coming due in the form of larger and more frequent weather-based disasters as well as health problems for millions. If we start paying off the loan more aggressively now, we can help prevent harsher payment plans for the next 50 years.
You don’t pay off a house all at once, but you’ll thank your future self for paying it off earlier rather than later.
> I don't see why current generations' lives should be tougher just to help out future generations.
Most people want a good life not only for them but also for their children, and their children's children. I don't have children, but I still want a good life for future generations. Is that not simple basic human decency?
Note that the longer we wait, the more difficult we make it ourselves to change things, and the more tough even our own lives are going to be, even ignoring future generations.
> There needs to be a healthy balance.
Yes. The status quo is not a healthy balance (or arguably any kind of balance).
Missouri and Florida were won by Trump and both passed constitutional amendments to guarantee abortion access.
> think vaccines cause autism
I don't think this is a partisan issue. I've spoken to plenty of liberals who believe similar things. Basically the "crunchy mom" stereotype.
Oh god, you're one of them, aren't you?
It's not like there's literally decades of evidence showing climate change to be objective truth...
Sigh.
Great job.
I'm not denying climate change as a whole or in absolute, I just want to point out that there's enough evidence to think that the world as we know it won't actually end in 2012 as some studies indicate.
What you probably mean is how humans influence this cycle; whether accelerating or delaying it, in effect disrupting it. For that, there's no evidence; however, there are many politician lobbyists (and yes, also scientists taking advantage of juicy grants to deliver what was ordered) going to capitalize on the fear that it might be.
Le sigh.
Do you get it?
To be less punchy: Most of the data on the graph is on a scale of 500 years and the data is filled in with dashed lines. Starting the late 1800's we suddenly have real data(what is the update frequency?, how does that compare to previous data?)
Here is the note on the graphic: "Limits of this data: Short warming or cooling spikes may be 'smoothed out' by these reconstructions but only if they are small enough or brief enough"
What is small enough? What is brief enough?
We know, with absolute certainty for an undeniable fact, that Exxon's own climate scientists skillfully and accurately predicted climate change as a result of increasing fossil fuel use [1].
And we know that Exxon's response to that was to systematically sow doubt for decades, using tobacco-lobby style FUD tactics.
And yet you want us to err on the side of apocalypse. "What if we create a better world, and it was all for nothing".
You've been conned. I know how difficult it is to show someone they've been made a fool of, and I won't try. In fact, I agree with you that in many cases science ought to be questioned - lobotomies, mockery of germ theory, racism presented as science based, Daszak's infamous Lancet paper, etc.
On climate change though, there's very little to respect on the side of deniers. I would argue that, at this point, denying anthropogenic climate change amounts to treason against life.
0 - https://phys.org/news/2021-10-humans-climate.html
1 - https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-a...
Red herring, whataboutism, false dilemma, straw man, tu quoque, hasty generalization, moral equivalence, and appeal to extremism.
And with a dehumanization cherry on top.
My secondary concern is your refusal to acknowledge/engage with the data which was presented to you, both in text and in interactive graphs.
And that's more than enough concern for me to refuse further engagement.
... Also, yes, the West is responsible for the vast majority of CO2 release. It's not remotely close [0].
* The United States has emitted more CO2 than any other country to date: at around 400 billion tonnes since 1751, it is responsible for 25% of historical emissions [at 4% of world population].
* This is twice more than China – the world’s second-largest national contributor [18% of world population].
* The 28 countries of the European Union (EU-28) – which are grouped here as they typically negotiate and set targets on a collaborative basis – is also a large historical contributor at 22%.
* Many of the large annual emitters today – such as India and Brazil – are not large contributors in a historical context.
* Africa’s regional contribution – relative to its population size – has been very small. This is the result of very low per capita emissions – both historically and currently.
People should understand there can be healthy middle grounds, which Parent obviously struggles with.
I don't deny anthropogenic climate change, on the contrary, I'm believe it's real and there's evidence for it.
I am, however, sceptical of how it's being presented and used.
> I am, however, sceptical of how it's being presented and used.
Then say that. Poe's law is rampant on this topic. If you want to be understood, then you need to write clearly and plainly.
> People should understand there can be healthy middle grounds
We're so, so far from a healthy middle ground on the discussion around climate change; and comments like yours above push in the wrong direction.
Questioning "what we are told" on climate change without differentiating between what 99.9% of scientists are saying, and what political/industry goons are saying, is guaranteed to receive clapback from any right minded individual.
So, don't act surprised when there's pushback. It's not "small-minded", it's people responding sensibly to the words you wrote.
My tone is, after all, pushback, precisely because we didn't start from a middle ground to begin with (parent's comment). I am pushing in a direction. You might disagree with it, and that's fine.
> differentiating between what 99.9% of scientists are saying, and what political/industry goons are saying
Even if what scientists say can be inaccurate, as has happened throughout history, the point is rather that I question what politicians or the industry says, based on Science, because while the science might be correct, the message is easily corrupted.
How is that avoidable?
200,000 BC, were we still humans? 2 mya? 20?
Or for individuals, why care about a fertilised egg rather than (as per Monty Python) "every sperm is scared"?
No matter what we pick, it's arbitrary.
At what level of development is a human foetus anatomically distinguishable from a cow foetus?
There's no fact-based reason to draw the line in any particular place. We, humanity, don't know what "personhood" really is beyond the laws we write while guessing and the just-so stories we tell each other to justify those laws.
That's why I'm vegetarian, and why I'd become vegan quickly as soon as someone can get milk from GM bacteria. (And sell it in supermarkets).
It's also one of two reasons why I try to be nice to LLMs: just in case. (The other reason takes it as read they have no experience of existence: by being trained on humans, they'll do better and worse exactly when real humans would do better and worse, and that means worse on holiday season and when getting insulted).
It's self-awareness, at least in general and as considered by a court when granting it to a chimp.
It's also why I would likely never go vegan, although I do advocate for a drastic overhaul of animal welfare standards.
* or 5, if this list also has "personhood" in it
No, not really. It has pretty standard definitions in philosophy and science, or it wouldn't have been able to be tested for over several decades. I suggest spending some time reading the wiki, it gives a pretty detailed overview.
The only point you have is about consciousness, and we don't need to understand the entire thing to understand parts of it or observe it, just like gravity.
• The ability to recognise one's own body as distinct from that of others, as demonstrated by plants.
• The ability to pass the mirror test, which some AI pass, but whose relevance is widely debated in animal psychology both on the grounds of sensory chauvinism and because it may cause both false positives and false negatives owing to us not being able to converse with the animals we're testing.
• Introspection, except that now we've got LLMs responding much the same way Turing hoped they would when outlining his eponymous test and suggesting that a "viva voce" interrogation would have us know if the machine was innovative or "learnt it parrot fashion"*.
As humans are also demonstrably great at confabulating reasons for their acts (see: split brain surgery, specifically experimental research on patients' cognitive functioning after surgery), it is unclear whether humans score any differently than LLMs in this test irregardless of if LLMs do or don't count as people in any other sense.
• Qualia: nobody knows.
• Mindfulness, meditation and spirituality: arguably only those who explicitly practice the appropriate mental techniques, e.g. Buddhist monks and similar.
• Public/social awareness of self-standing in community: everyone who is "cringe" fails.
* fun fact: AI critics have been stochastically parroting the stochastic parrot criticism since at least 1949
Like I said, it's actually very well defined because it's been being studied for decades at this point. Just because it can sometimes be an overloaded term in colloquial usage doesn't negate that.
I again suggest you give the wiki page a read. It's quite in-depth and detailed with plenty of good references.
That makes it not well defined.
I did in fact read the Wikipedia page, and also have an A-level in philosophy, which means I've written more about this in three homework esseys than the total length of the English Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness
It's absolutely well defined it's just a complex topic. Most of the examples you gave in your last reply are never defined as self-awareness in an academic paper, e.g. qualia is always separate and the mirror test has always just been an indicator not the thing itself.
Besides, if you believe animals are not self-aware, why d you care about "welfare"?
Most medical professionals and ethicists consider 24 weeks to be the reasonable cutoff for abortion because this is when the fetus starts to develops sentience.
The reason this is relevant is because that is the first stage of development capable of having an identity relationship with the future person that fetus/infant will become.
Animals don't have to be self-ware to suffer. Not introspectively self-aware at least.
Also, why is bacteria life on mars but a clump of cells is not life on earth? ;p
There's no winning this. That's why it's actually smart to let the states decide this - that way Trump has no say in it.
That is conflating life (the ability is eat, shit, reproduce, and the potential to late become sentient) with actual sentient life, which is not correct.
Also, no one is planning to ban antibiotics because bacteria is considered life so we can't do anything to save the host by killing it.
“Can the fetus survive without the host body?”
That’s a medical question that will slowly move toward not aborting ever. And it solves the medical issues as well. “This fetus is killing the host” always allows for removal, because we can either keep them alive, or it can’t survive.
Then the folks who want more babies to reach term can focus on improving medical technology instead of getting involved with the mess that is people’s love lives.
It's a question of ignorance and nothing else.
A zygote is not a life, period.
Do you also think neurons, muscle cells, etc are also not alive?
The abortion debate is not about whether or not the thing that gets removed during abortion is life--I doubt you can find any competent biologist who would say it is not--but rather whether that particular cell or group of cells should be treated different than other cells or groups of cells in your body.
E.g., why should abortion be any different from removing tonsils or from circumcision, both of which also involve the removal and death of living cells from the body?
There is a difference between something being 'alive' (although I think the examples you give are dubious), and being a 'life'.
That does not mean that it is necessary a tool for genocide; conversely almost anything can be a tool for genocide depending on how it is used.
My comment was about people misusing the terms life and alive. The correct way to argue that abortion should be legal is not to redefine life and/or alive so that some living cells or collections of living cells do not qualify rather than trying to redefine common terms used by biologists.
The correct way is to argue that we only only protect some cells or collections of cells and not others and then to argue that fetal cells belong in the not protected group. The question then comes down to deciding what it is that makes some groups of living cells protected but not others. Probably the best argument would be something along the lines that before that collection of cells has grown and developed to the point that it has a brain that can think and feel it is not really different from a tumor or other collection of cells that we don't protect.
Most conservatives are willing to compromise on early abortion. Many places around the world agree that abortions in the first trimester should be possible under some circumstances.
We are not willing to agree to abortion free for all where you can just kill a fully formed baby at nine months like you can in Walz's Minnesota.
See? Ignorant, and I say that not as an insult but as an absolute statement of fact.
No woman 9 months pregnant can just go get an abortion at 9 months. The only reason that is allowed is for cases where it is medically necessary, that's it. Even in those cases, the doctor would do everything possible to save both lives wherever possible.
This is the inverse of laws like in Texas where women are dying due to not being able to abort a baby that isn't even viable at 5 months or so. Take some time to read up on these things, PLEASE.
We really have people voting because they think women can just voluntarily terminate a pregnancy a few days before they are due to give birth? What in the hell has happened to the average ability to think critically in this country?
Not voluntarily, only due to medical necessity. As I said.
> It seems to me you like to substitute what you want to be true for reality. That's the opposite of critical thinking.
The irony here.
Not trying to continue a political flamewar as per dang, but correcting blatant misinformation like the above should be everyone's social responsibility.
You probably meant "human life".
> You probably meant "human life".
No, I said and meant and exactly what I meant to say.
Interesting. What makes a bacteria "a life" and zygote not "a life"?
Because the bacteria on Mars would plausibly exist on it's own. On a different planet.
A newborn by literal definition can exist on its own. It has been born.
A newborn can breath, metabolize foods, and does not depend on being connected to another life giving organism.
The more appropriate work you're looking for is "care". You need to care for a newborn for it to survive.
You can provide care specifically for a newborn. You cannot specifically provide care for a fetus, you are providing care for the mother.
I know all of this is falling on deaf ears though.
Does any reasonable person believe that zygote at that stage is truly equivalent to a human life?
Next up no one should be masturbating because each sperm is potentially the next Mozart or Einstein.
Compromises must be made!
Having said that, it's hard as an outsider to look at the things Trump is campaigning on and not see that as not just calling "non-educated" people stupid, but he is literally relying upon it. Either his voters are extremely ill-educated, or they simply don't believe a word he says and actually make his lying a feature of his candidacy. Either aren't great.
When just about every economist says that the US economy -- quite literally the best economy on the planet -- is going to implode under the policies Trump has stated (even just the tariff proposal, not even getting into the crackpot "abolish the IRS and write on a piece of paper that crypto wipes out the debt", or Elon magically cutting 2/3rds of the federal budget, etc.), for people to then vote for Trump to "fix" the economy is not educated. Being isolationist in one of the greatest eras of peace in human history will not bring peace to Earth, it's literally guaranteed to bring war that will end up on your doorstep, etc. Nuclear non-proliferation dies with this election, and there are a lot of powers that existed under the US umbrella that are going to fire up a nuclear program, covertly or not.
I fear that many Americans just have no idea how much they have to lose. There is a sense of comfort and complacency to assume that this is the baseline. But it isn't. It can get much, much worse, very quickly.
I doubt it. Think about how connected the world is, you can't even apply for jobs without the internet.
Both jobs are equally important. The main difference is that you can get started doing construction without many pre-qualifications, while a construction worker may take a year or more to get the basics of computer engineering down.
I do not trust political sciences or humanities at all. There is little to no valid method to most things they publish. And I'm not alone in that opinion in my circle.
Also, the DNC should really stop forcing unwanted candidates down people's throats. It doesn't work, even when you spam social platforms with your narrative.