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You can talk about voting out politicians who endorse the TPP, or for that matter who want to wreck encryption and crater the economy, because these things have

You can talk about voting out politicians who endorse the TPP, or for that matter who want to wreck encryption and crater the economy, because these things have broad bipartisan support and so the only way to reverse that is to vote out everyone. Talk of tearing the whole system down or whatever is totally acceptable, even if (or maybe precisely because) it's probably also unrealistic. However once a subject comes up where one group is basically wrong, it becomes a lot more difficult to talk about in a forum like this because some folks actually do have to justify their voting habits in the context of e.g. climate change, instead of all of us just kind of posting at each other "those politicians eh?" all day and getting very little actually done. When it comes to a lot of tech issues, pretty much everyone in Washington is fucking awful and we can find consensus on that (with a few notable exceptions that show up in every thread to concern troll everyone else - not going to name names). However there is only one party in the US right now that is broadly sticking its fingers in its ears and screaming that climate change isn't happening.

lostcolony 11y ago
So are you saying that if it's a partisan position we're not allowed to post "voting can change things"; we can only post that if it's a bipartisan position? Because if not, you're in no way addressing the point I was raising.
- deciplex 11y ago
  I'm saying that people get a lot more sensitive about "talking politics" when the positions of the two major parties are in pretty stark contrast and it's blindingly obvious they can't pull the usual "both sides are the same / equally bad / etc". At least, you can't really claim to support the GOP because you want to do something about climate change, only that you don't think it's important or don't think it's happening. Contrast this with a lot of tech issues, where you can throw up your hands and claim the whole system is fucked, and that both sides have their faults in roughly equal proportion. You're not forced to think about the consequences of supporting one party or the other as much.

lostcolony 11y ago

So are you saying that if it's a partisan position we're not allowed to post "voting can change things"; we can only post that if it's a bipartisan position? Because if not, you're in no way addressing the point I was raising.

deciplex 11y ago
I'm saying that people get a lot more sensitive about "talking politics" when the positions of the two major parties are in pretty stark contrast and it's blindingly obvious they can't pull the usual "both sides are the same / equally bad / etc". At least, you can't really claim to support the GOP because you want to do something about climate change, only that you don't think it's important or don't think it's happening. Contrast this with a lot of tech issues, where you can throw up your hands and claim the whole system is fucked, and that both sides have their faults in roughly equal proportion. You're not forced to think about the consequences of supporting one party or the other as much.