2 ms·

Half the people in the country either a) want to watch everything burn, because the system has served them poorly for too long, or b) are stupid enough to belie

by kelnos 2y ago

Half the people in the country either a) want to watch everything burn, because the system has served them poorly for too long, or b) are stupid enough to believe that Trump actually wants to help them. Or both. Many (most?) Americans don't seem to have ever learned how to think critically or question what authority figures tell them to believe. On top of that, COVID was rough for lots and lots of people. Even though it started under Trump, he somehow managed to avoid blame for the government's missteps early on. Biden did what he could, but even an absolute perfect response would have caused a lot of strife for a lot of people, and his administration's response was definitely not perfect. In a way I think it's impressive how well Harris did; even had Biden decided not to run at all for a second term, it would have been an uphill battle for the incumbent party to stay in power after COVID.

computerthings 2y ago
Mind you that not even a quarter of Americans voted for Trump.
- grandempire 2y ago
  This is normal in every election so you can use the same logic to dismiss any president. Do you only respect 100% sampling rates in other statistical situations? At a certain point this line of thinking is just saying you don’t think elections work, or that there should be some non-democratic supervisor to undo bad ones. There is also an older idea that getting people out to vote is part of the game. An election is when citizens back leaders from their community. It’s not taking a survey of every 18+ human life form with a pulse.
  - computerthings 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - grandempire 2y ago
      > How un-democratic, huh? Why are you using a quote about censorship and free speech to talk about the outcome of an election? Those aren’t related things. Nobody thinks majority vote makes truth, but majority of electoral voters does determine the president of the US. > Even if Trump had 99% of the votes It sounds like your previous comment expressing concern about the number of voters was in bad faith. > Trump voters have no clue how tariffs work I noticed this actually isn’t an argument against tariffs. I don’t think it’s going to look pretty if we starting quizzing low class democratic voters on economic questions either. This has no bearing on whether the policy is a good idea or not.
      - computerthings 2y ago
        [flagged]
- kelnos 2y ago
  Sure, and not even a quarter of Americans voted for Harris. But if you really want to be pedantic: there are around 75M non-citizens living in the US, so that means there are only 265M Americans in the US. A quick search suggests that the number of American citizens living outside the US is under 5M. 77M out of 270M is 28%, so Trump did get more than a quarter of Americans to vote for him. (For the record, I said "of the country", and didn't restrict my comment to only US citizens as you did.) At any rate, I don't find these sorts of takes all that useful when it comes to electoral math. 77M people voted for Trump. Around 100M people in the US are ineligible to vote (under 18 years old, non-citizens, felons denied voting rights, etc.). That leaves around 90M people left who could have voted, but didn't: to me, that's either "I'm fine with what the people who vote decide" (so a tacit vote for Trump) or "I don't care at all, screw this". So that's 167M votes either explicitly for Trump, or implicitly for watching things burn. That's about half the country. But sure, if you must be pedantic, amend my comment to "nearly half the people who voted in the election". It doesn't change the meaning or outcome or implications of the rest of what I said. So let's stop playing dumb number games. Half of the country either actively wanted this, or was fine with it.
  - computerthings 2y ago
    > Sure, and not even a quarter of Americans voted for Harris. So if Harris and her goons did this shit, the correct response would be the same. > if you really want to be pedantic Why would I want to be? Saying "the people are fine with this so it's fine" would be BS even if 99% of Americans voted for it. That's the "dumb numbers game", I didn't start with that and I attribute zero value to it.
atq2119 2y ago
> Half the people in the country either a) want to watch everything burn, because the system has served them poorly for too long I believe this as well, but it still baffles me. Don't people have a sense that things can always get worse?
- Aromasin 2y ago
  No, they don't. Most people don't seem to get beyond 1st order thinking. At best, it's cause and effect - 3rd/4th/5th order effects are just not computable. If X then Y is the best they can manage.
- tialaramex 2y ago
  Nope. "Nothing could be worse than this" is really common even though it's a complete failure of imagination.
  - steve_adams_86 2y ago
    Absolutely. In part it’s a privilege to believe this. Many of us have had such remarkably and almost impossibly easy lives.
- steve_adams_86 2y ago
  Canada has this problem too. We’ve been coddled for a long time and many Canadians think they’ve got the government’s boot on their neck. The reality is the inverse. The worst things our leadership has done in the last ten years are, all things considered, very bearable. I’ve been thinking for some time that both our countries need some kind of wake up call. I’m very sad that we seem to be getting one simultaneously, yet it might not be a reversible event. At least not on any short order. But yeah, the lack of truly bad experiences seems to have made us all very soft. I know some of us experience poverty or immigrated from horrible governments so we know firsthand how much worse things can be, but on average I get the sense that people typically have no idea.

by kelnos 2y ago

computerthings 2y ago

Mind you that not even a quarter of Americans voted for Trump.

grandempire 2y ago
This is normal in every election so you can use the same logic to dismiss any president. Do you only respect 100% sampling rates in other statistical situations? At a certain point this line of thinking is just saying you don’t think elections work, or that there should be some non-democratic supervisor to undo bad ones. There is also an older idea that getting people out to vote is part of the game. An election is when citizens back leaders from their community. It’s not taking a survey of every 18+ human life form with a pulse.
- computerthings 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - grandempire 2y ago
    > How un-democratic, huh? Why are you using a quote about censorship and free speech to talk about the outcome of an election? Those aren’t related things. Nobody thinks majority vote makes truth, but majority of electoral voters does determine the president of the US. > Even if Trump had 99% of the votes It sounds like your previous comment expressing concern about the number of voters was in bad faith. > Trump voters have no clue how tariffs work I noticed this actually isn’t an argument against tariffs. I don’t think it’s going to look pretty if we starting quizzing low class democratic voters on economic questions either. This has no bearing on whether the policy is a good idea or not.
    - computerthings 2y ago
      [flagged]
kelnos 2y ago
Sure, and not even a quarter of Americans voted for Harris. But if you really want to be pedantic: there are around 75M non-citizens living in the US, so that means there are only 265M Americans in the US. A quick search suggests that the number of American citizens living outside the US is under 5M. 77M out of 270M is 28%, so Trump did get more than a quarter of Americans to vote for him. (For the record, I said "of the country", and didn't restrict my comment to only US citizens as you did.) At any rate, I don't find these sorts of takes all that useful when it comes to electoral math. 77M people voted for Trump. Around 100M people in the US are ineligible to vote (under 18 years old, non-citizens, felons denied voting rights, etc.). That leaves around 90M people left who could have voted, but didn't: to me, that's either "I'm fine with what the people who vote decide" (so a tacit vote for Trump) or "I don't care at all, screw this". So that's 167M votes either explicitly for Trump, or implicitly for watching things burn. That's about half the country. But sure, if you must be pedantic, amend my comment to "nearly half the people who voted in the election". It doesn't change the meaning or outcome or implications of the rest of what I said. So let's stop playing dumb number games. Half of the country either actively wanted this, or was fine with it.
- computerthings 2y ago
  > Sure, and not even a quarter of Americans voted for Harris. So if Harris and her goons did this shit, the correct response would be the same. > if you really want to be pedantic Why would I want to be? Saying "the people are fine with this so it's fine" would be BS even if 99% of Americans voted for it. That's the "dumb numbers game", I didn't start with that and I attribute zero value to it.

atq2119 2y ago

> Half the people in the country either a) want to watch everything burn, because the system has served them poorly for too long I believe this as well, but it still baffles me. Don't people have a sense that things can always get worse?

Aromasin 2y ago
No, they don't. Most people don't seem to get beyond 1st order thinking. At best, it's cause and effect - 3rd/4th/5th order effects are just not computable. If X then Y is the best they can manage.
tialaramex 2y ago
Nope. "Nothing could be worse than this" is really common even though it's a complete failure of imagination.
- steve_adams_86 2y ago
  Absolutely. In part it’s a privilege to believe this. Many of us have had such remarkably and almost impossibly easy lives.
steve_adams_86 2y ago
Canada has this problem too. We’ve been coddled for a long time and many Canadians think they’ve got the government’s boot on their neck. The reality is the inverse. The worst things our leadership has done in the last ten years are, all things considered, very bearable. I’ve been thinking for some time that both our countries need some kind of wake up call. I’m very sad that we seem to be getting one simultaneously, yet it might not be a reversible event. At least not on any short order. But yeah, the lack of truly bad experiences seems to have made us all very soft. I know some of us experience poverty or immigrated from horrible governments so we know firsthand how much worse things can be, but on average I get the sense that people typically have no idea.