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Well, not today. But if this year you vote for candidates who are more favorable to labor than the other candidates, and then you continue making that (part of

Well, not today. But if this year you vote for candidates who are more favorable to labor than the other candidates, and then you continue making that (part of) your strategy over the course of several elections, you can start to shift things. Especially if you can get other people on board with the movement. It's not like the current situation came about by chance or some cosmic inevitability: the right wing in America has been consistently showing up and voting in larger numbers for decades to get where we are.

wahnfrieden 3y ago
You would have happily voted for Hindenburg? Labor wins that we have today have come from coordinated labor movements across partisan lines, not from voting and waiting on service from politicians
- danaris 3y ago
  I'm afraid I don't know offhand who Hindenburg is, nor even what country he was running in, but: In the US, due to the winner-take-all, first-past-the-post voting system, if Hindenburg was running against a candidate in the general election who was even one step worse than he was, then yes, I would have voted for him. Even if his platform included kicking puppies and stealing candy from babies. (Because, remember, in this hypothetical, his opponent's platform includes, say, setting fire to puppies and kicking babies.) Any other choice, under the system we have here, is mathematically certain to increase the chance of the candidate I like least winning. Voting is not saying "I like this person and agree with everything they say." It is saying "I think that, of the two choices on offer, this person is the most likely to move the county/state/country toward the situation I prefer." It's not about whether the vote makes me happy. It's about whether it makes the world a marginally better place than the realistic alternatives.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Hindenburg was voted as the ideologically safe choice in the opposite direction of hitler but he then in turn granted takeover powers to Hitler anyway some interesting period of history to learn more about/analyze
    - danaris 3y ago
      Ah, gotcha. If I ever learned that level of detail about Hitler's rise to power, I'm afraid I've since forgotten it. Well, in the case where the choices are Hindenburg (who, at that point in time, may or may not choose to give power to Hitler), or Hitler...Hindenburg is objectively the correct choice. It's also a great demonstration that the time to be trying to get yourself better options is before it gets to that point.
      - wahnfrieden 3y ago
        A point of a demonstration of an extreme like that is a reflection on how fragile and disenfranchising a tactic voting can be. It's argued voting tames people from increasingly illegal alternative action which has historically been found necessary toward labor conditions improvements that we enjoy today (such as through wildcat strikes) or tames them into highly hierarchical and process bound forms of group coordination. Where the sum is a shapeshifting ruling class that largely works toward its own interests regardless of flavor or how often they bow to the power of popular or private interest movements.
        danaris 3y ago
        I find those arguments unpersuasive. Voting and other forms of activism are not mutually exclusive, and removing voting from the equation does not particularly make those other forms more attractive, particularly given the likely reasons for people not to engage in other forms of activism today.

wahnfrieden 3y ago

You would have happily voted for Hindenburg? Labor wins that we have today have come from coordinated labor movements across partisan lines, not from voting and waiting on service from politicians

danaris 3y ago
I'm afraid I don't know offhand who Hindenburg is, nor even what country he was running in, but: In the US, due to the winner-take-all, first-past-the-post voting system, if Hindenburg was running against a candidate in the general election who was even one step worse than he was, then yes, I would have voted for him. Even if his platform included kicking puppies and stealing candy from babies. (Because, remember, in this hypothetical, his opponent's platform includes, say, setting fire to puppies and kicking babies.) Any other choice, under the system we have here, is mathematically certain to increase the chance of the candidate I like least winning. Voting is not saying "I like this person and agree with everything they say." It is saying "I think that, of the two choices on offer, this person is the most likely to move the county/state/country toward the situation I prefer." It's not about whether the vote makes me happy. It's about whether it makes the world a marginally better place than the realistic alternatives.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Hindenburg was voted as the ideologically safe choice in the opposite direction of hitler but he then in turn granted takeover powers to Hitler anyway some interesting period of history to learn more about/analyze
  - danaris 3y ago
    Ah, gotcha. If I ever learned that level of detail about Hitler's rise to power, I'm afraid I've since forgotten it. Well, in the case where the choices are Hindenburg (who, at that point in time, may or may not choose to give power to Hitler), or Hitler...Hindenburg is objectively the correct choice. It's also a great demonstration that the time to be trying to get yourself better options is before it gets to that point.
    - wahnfrieden 3y ago
      A point of a demonstration of an extreme like that is a reflection on how fragile and disenfranchising a tactic voting can be. It's argued voting tames people from increasingly illegal alternative action which has historically been found necessary toward labor conditions improvements that we enjoy today (such as through wildcat strikes) or tames them into highly hierarchical and process bound forms of group coordination. Where the sum is a shapeshifting ruling class that largely works toward its own interests regardless of flavor or how often they bow to the power of popular or private interest movements.
      - danaris 3y ago
        I find those arguments unpersuasive. Voting and other forms of activism are not mutually exclusive, and removing voting from the equation does not particularly make those other forms more attractive, particularly given the likely reasons for people not to engage in other forms of activism today.