The only people I blame for trump are the people who voted for hm. As a member of a group being targeted by fascists, there are non voters I would trust over many Harris voters. I’ve seen many gleeful “enjoy the camps” from resistance libs and I wouldn’t trust anyone making those statements with my life. Since I’ve transitioned, I’ve gradually seen the true face of society and assholes exist everywhere. I’m certainly not happy with people who didn’t vote, but I can’t bring myself to blame them.
21 Likes
I’m not trying to defend Biden’s administration here, or to deny the real pain felt by people affected by his actions, but I also don’t think it’s a valid reason to surrender to fascism. To speak to that point, Zirin says:
I know people who lost their entire families in Israel’s war and couldn’t pull the lever for someone who in practice was promising more.
That argument doesn’t hold up, frankly, because both parties were promising more, and Trump was promising far worse. Ignoring that is just doing the usual “only Democrats can be held accountable” bullshit and giving the Republicans a free pass, which I am sick to death of. No matter how much they disliked Biden/Harris, they damn well knew Trump would be worse, and not just for Palestine, but for countless vulnerable groups and the world at large. They also knew that election margins have been razor thin for decades and that any protest votes/nonvotes would punish only Harris while leaving Trump’s generally anti-Palestinian base completely untouched. They knew what was at stake here and, unfortunately, they put their own feelings over the lives of countless others. However they try to justify it, fighting fascism just was not the highest priority for them, and when we’re talking about building a coalition to resist fascism, that’s kind of a big problem.
You may, however, have a point in that I may not have a choice in joining up with them. I will never trust them and I will never forgive them, but I may be forced to side with people I believe are shortsighted or selfish enough to turn Nazi and betray their allies. It may be a risk I have to accept if the alternative is lacking the power and numbers to resist at all. It would be pretty hypocritical to repeat their mistake and put my own feelings over whatever path is most effective at fighting fascism.
23 Likes
If in an election I had the choices of a candidate that was going to kill my mom, another that was going to kill my mom and take her stuff, or third party/no vote, I don’t think that I would be voting for the one that was just going to kill my mom.
10 Likes
What if it was between a candidate that would kill your mom, and one that would kill everyone on the planet? Stealing stuff hardly seems like an apt comparison in this case. But it does help me understand their viewpoint a little more.
ETA: A lot more, actually. I personally don’t support either side in the conflict for reasons I won’t go into here, and I’m numb to literally every President being a warmonger to some degree, so maybe I haven’t been thinking of it on a personal enough level for the people whose families literally are on the line. I can see how it’s a wrenching decision to choose between two “mom dies” options, to personally put your mark on one of them, even if logically, doing nothing means the same thing as choosing “everyone dies” and sacrificing countless lives just to avoid your own guilt.
I would hope that, given months to ponder it, most people would still face their own pain and have the courage to choose the lesser of two evils, but you’re absolutely right that it’s fucked up that people are forced into that situation to begin with, and maybe it’s just not reasonable to expect most people to have that strength. That said, I don’t think it’s any more reasonable to expect other people not to be upset at them for throwing everyone else under the bus.
16 Likes
I’m thankful that I didn’t have to make that choice. It’s pretty fucked up that anyone did.
11 Likes
Having lost family members because of Trump during the pandemic, I cannot forgive or forget. As a member of the 92%, I am beyond sick and tired of being thrown under the bus by allies who are fair weather friends to those of us who show up, protest, and vote Blue consistently. We know the alternative is far worse for us.
Sadly, there will always be horrors as long as there are conflicts among nations. However, it never ceases to amaze me that people will focus on one place among many experiencing bombing, terror, and humanitarian crises, and then prioritize that concern over domestic problems where they live. It gives me the feeling we’re not facing the same challenges to survive here. And now, after we’ve been stabbed in the back, they want us all to join hands again and present a united front - when it is convenient for them to shift focus back to where ours never left or wavered. Oh, and that’s conditional on us never bringing up what they did to us ever again because we’re all in this together now? 
I agree with those who believe that kind of support cannot be fully trusted, especially for people like me - who look like Harris - when it comes from folks who don’t. If they voted for TFG and have regrets, all I can think is that they were cool with the anti-DEI stuff, but not OK with being personally affected by what’s going on now. Why would I trust someone like that? As for those who decided not to vote at all…
^^THIS. SO MUCH THIS^^
29 Likes
It just gets worse every day.
22 Likes
23 Likes
This might belong in the musk topic but he is in charge of the administration so…
19 Likes
This would be the classic “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed” moment. The people to blame for Il Douche’s win are the ones who voted for him. Period. To say otherwise is to buy into the idea that only Dems have agency. “The asshats voted for him because we made them.” But those who cling to “both sides are just the same,” even now, i just cannot understand. They are not. One side is fucking Nazis and the other is not. This is sufficient for me. As the Constitution and rule of law and every fucking civil rigjts gain from the last 60 years is thrown into the fire, i reject the “both sides” shit out of hand.
27 Likes
The plan is part of President Donald Trump’s AI-first agenda to modernize the federal government with advanced technology.
Why do publications keep doing this?
It’s not a modernisation with advanced technology! It’s a replacement of professionals who have guidelines and a conscience (and legal culpability and a pension plan) with hallucinating black box technology!
I genuinely feel like I live in a mirror world. Surely a tech magazine like Wired knows this?* Surely they see the takeover for what it is? Why are they not saying it??
* They were the ones that doxxed Musk’s Goon(ie) squad after all
30 Likes
The word/explanation that comes to mind for me so often now when reading most profit-seeking “news” and “opinion pieces” and “analysis” is cowardice.
23 Likes
People use the term AI like it’s magic, but it’s just systems designed by people. The technology has evolved, but it’s not going to replace a CIA operative or a State department employee.
18 Likes
[boring retread ahead. skip this] The current ‘A.I.’ (and not some of the previous logic based ones some ancients will recall) is complex but remains little more than a very large table of statistical coefficients trained up on mostly purloined internet data. (There’s an excellent set of 3Blue1Brown covering it to make it surprisingly understandable) So, just to be tedious, it’s: not self aware, not intelligent in any previous definition of that term, stochastic (random-ish) in that if you ask it the same question twice you get different answers, and (for me this is the important bit): it generates no novel results other than those which connect up prior information by chance. This generation of A.I. is only dangerous because it can well be, and probably will be, used by dangerous humans whose main goal is to stop paying salaries.
21 Likes
Tbf, thinking back to the Iraq war’s “justification”, the CIA would probably love a system that tells them exactly what they want to hear, whether it’s true or not
17 Likes
Not that anyone here needs it, but what you said prompts me to post this, again (it may already be upthread).
I’m pleasantly(?) surprised that it’s still available on the NARA YouTube channel. But as a work of the U.S. Gov’t, the film is in the public domain; e.g. it’s on archive.org. Anyone could use it, host it etc. One of the possible limitations is bandwidth & I’m wondering how one might get around that when the PTB get around to NARA/YouTube.
& it’s not perfect, & it’s a product of it’s time & place, but at the same time its central message still holds just about 80 years later.
17 Likes
Doing Putin a solid.
12 Likes
This. But allies are NOT always friends kwim? This is the truth Americans really lost and they lost it a long time ago.
So have I most days. People focus on caring about each other by appealing to reason and emotion but not duty when it’s duty they need. We need people who willingly protect the lives of people they HATE because of personal morals or ideals or compulsion of the law… and the law just said “nah… if they are the ones we dislike then fuck 'em” out loud.
17 Likes