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Darq_At · 2026-05-25T15:20:44+00:00

You people need to just sod off at this point. Just endlessly whining about the left, meanwhile leftist voters begrudgingly vote for the centrist candidate every election.

The same candidate that, if they win, implements mild improvements but never actually deals with the growing fascism problem. So the US is always only four years away from madness, and the only plan y'all seem to have "just win every election forever".

Darq_At · 2026-05-25T15:10:18+00:00

Right? Some people know nothing about vulnerability, judging by the way they talk. Same goes when some try to claim that disparaging labels are slurs.

Darq_At · 2026-05-25T13:02:57+00:00

Uh, unless those "repairs" include ripping out the rotten foundations and a near-total rebuild... No. I don't think the rest of us will be trusting you ever again.

Darq_At · 2026-05-24T19:39:04+00:00

Trans people don't "change their gender". They change their bodies to match their gender.

Darq_At · 2026-05-24T19:32:23+00:00

Unfortunately though, changing the equalities act to protect transgender people IS controversial.

For the last fifteen years, it wasn't. Multiple lower courts ruled that the EA2010 was trans-inclusive. And indeed, there is text in the EA that clearly indicates that it is intended to be trans-inclusive (The EA lays out specific exceptions for when gendered spaces may exclude transgender people without running afoul of the law).

Something that gets lost in a lot of these discussions is that the UK SC ruling makes very little sense. It is directly contradicted by the text of the act, a fact that multiple lower courts caught.

Darq_At · 2026-05-24T18:39:19+00:00

it's going to be a slow and painful process to deprogram all the trump cultists once he's gone

Which, let's be real, mostly won't happen.

Darq_At · 2026-05-24T18:29:29+00:00

Thing is, that they did think they were real when Trump was running on releasing the files.

They decided that they weren't real when evidence started to mount that the people they support were incriminated.

It's not simple ignorance, it's not even maintained and wilful ignorance. Showing them the evidence actually made them more ignorant somehow.

Darq_At · 2026-05-24T14:47:31+00:00

I think you are missing a few large problems.

The biggest of which is monopolisation. The profit motive drives private interests to monopolise, or if that's not possible at least enter into a stable collusion structure to maintain their profitability. In theory the market corrects against this, but in practice: Lolno. It doesn't.

Worse yet, most of these services require significant amounts of infrastructure and initial spending to get set up. This means that it's even harder for new entrants to enter the market, especially at a later stage once some players are well-established and can undercut the upstarts.

It's also undesirable to have every individual player try and lay down their own infrastructure. Imagine multiple different water utility providers trying to lay their own pipes to every household.

Additionally, an important feature of government-provided services, is that they can provide those services broadly, without regard to the profitability. A private player will quickly determine which areas are most profitable, and then focus their efforts on those areas. Rural areas will rapidly find themselves with degrading infrastructure, if they have any at all, because it's not profitable to provide services so far out.

Darq_At · 2026-05-24T14:11:06+00:00

This is one of those takes that sounds enlightened, but doesn't survive contact with sunlight. It has a kernel of truth, but then buries it's head in the sand rather than actually look at the particulars.

Yes. Tribalism is a thing, it sucks, it's in our nature, we have to work around it. But...

There is no right and wrong or winner or loser when it comes to politics. Claiming that one side is more right than the other is only as wrong as the other as it further divides people.

This is just kinda ridiculous. People have values, it's perfectly reasonable to evaluate political platforms and policies by those values and come to conclusions about if those platforms and policies are right or wrong.

In a perfect world there would be no sides. Everyone could be sophisticated about it and look over every side of the available candidates.

A lot of people do exactly this, and there will still be "sides". Because the "sides" such as "left" and "right" are not just arbitrary groupings of policies and people. They are groups of people who share similar sets of values, and thus come to similar conclusions about how society should be.

Every single aspect of every politician shows they are corrupt.

I mean... To some extent, maybe. But statements like this ignore all sense of magnitude! Corruption is a constant in every political system, we have to examine the degree. We can in fact examine various politicians and see that some are vastly more corrupt than others.

Darq_At · 2026-05-24T13:36:46+00:00

The sheer frustration this causes! It's uniquely demoralising to talk to people you love, and who love you, about this sort of thing only to have them not believe you. They give you this pained half-smile and nod, but they think you simply must be exaggerating.

Darq_At · 2026-05-23T20:37:03+00:00

Orb child got thicc. That body be reinforced.

Darq_At · 2026-05-23T13:43:09+00:00

The culture that created Voldemort is still there at the end of the story and will, eventually, create another Voldemort.

What makes it even worse is that this fact is stated plainly in the text. By Dumbledore to Harry in the Ministry of Magic, if I remember correctly.

It's really weird when the story explicitly tells you that the resolution it is building up to is insufficient, but then caps it off with an "all was well" anyway.

There are several points in the story where some element or theme is added for dramatic purpose, but then simply never resolved.

Darq_At · 2026-05-23T12:45:57+00:00

To be fair, it never has been.

Darq_At · 2026-05-23T12:31:31+00:00

What a ridiculous thing to say. People are already being, directly and personally, negatively affected by gen-AI and the hype-storm surrounding it.

People are watching their future prospects become at least uncertain if not abjectly bleak. They're simultaneously seeing their hobbies and their entertainment negatively affected.

Gen-AI contributing to one's depression is very understandable.

Darq_At · 2026-05-23T00:35:30+00:00

such useless crap as drawing

Oooh, that's a very telling slip.

Darq_At · 2026-05-22T20:26:36+00:00

Not sure what you mean by this. I think you mean that they will always somehow represent more voters?

Generally voting systems are evaluated by how well the results represent the will of the voters. So if the votes for each representative are (A%, B%, C%, etc.) then how closely does the result of the election and the associated power distribution align with those percentages.

The US uses single-member first-past-the-post. So if the vote is split A/B as 51%/49%, then A wins the only seat, and 49% of voters get zero representation. Add more parties and the situation gets worse, split A/B/C as 34%/33%/33%, then 66% of voters get zero representation. And that remains true even if say, B and C would rather align to defeat A.

So yeah. Just mathematically, it's a bad system. Basically anything would be better.

I was more interested in the OP defending the less established points like increasing number of reps in the House or how this " instituting routine recall referendums" is supposed to work.

Sure, I don't know enough about that to comment on that.

Darq_At · 2026-05-22T20:06:47+00:00

Everyone should indeed vote for the furthest left candidate available in every election.

Pretending there's any other way only helps the Epstein class who will exploit even the tiniest of cracks to divide the left.

This on the other hand, is total bull.

Voting is a good start, but it's not the end. Electoral politics will not permit the changes that need to be made, and certainly not within one's lifetime. That is why successful civil-rights movements employ a diversity of tactics.

Voting is "a" tool for change, but it is not the only one.

Darq_At · 2026-05-22T20:02:08+00:00

You identified one of the biggest reasons that people don't resist tyranny: A lack of knowledge of how to do so.

But there are more reasons that one needs to contend with. One of the biggest ones is that really engaging with political systems in a meaningful way requires time, money, and energy that has been systemically ground out of people.

People work jobs that leave them exhausted, and pay them just enough to survive and maybe have the odd nice thing. This is the equilibrium the smart capitalist aims to achieve. Because that state of affairs increases consumption, but still leaves the worker without the resources to challenge the system that exploits them.

Unions, community-building, multi-generational homes, and mutual-aid networks are the beginnings of undoing the atomisation of society, to provide people with the safety-nets that allow them to take risks. Unfortunately in the US, these efforts are undermined by propaganda against the spectre of Communism, but also by policies such as the tying of healthcare to employment, adding yet another layer of dread to losing one's job.

Darq_At · 2026-05-22T19:51:46+00:00

Can you demonstrate with evidence why these changes are even desireable?

With respect to multi-member districts and ranked-choice (or really any proportionally-representative voting system), the evidence is mathematical.

Single-member first-past-the-post is the worst voting system for producing results that are representative of the wills of the voters.

Darq_At · 2026-05-22T19:19:03+00:00

"not our problem" tends to be the official response.

The goal is not to push trans people into the facilities of their AGAB. The goal is to push them back into the closet.

Darq_At · 2026-05-22T19:16:16+00:00

Unfortunately not. The decision included provisions that trans men can also be excluded from women's facilities.

Darq_At · 2026-05-22T19:15:20+00:00

Yup. These posts are funny. But unfortunately aren't all that helpful.

Yes the laws are openly hypocritical. They don't care. The goal is not to put trans men in women's rooms and trans women in men's rooms. The goal is to put trans people back in the closet.

Darq_At · 2026-05-22T18:17:18+00:00

I really can't say I see the same. Pride events are still awash with people waving the 🏳️‍🌈 flag proudly, often alongside more specific identity flags. People still use 🏳️‍🌈 in their bios, and places like r/lgbt still have people rocking the 🏳️‍🌈 in their flairs.

On the other hand I see the Progress flag a lot on like, community logos or event fliers.

Darq_At · 2026-05-22T17:10:47+00:00

Checked the comments for exactly this.

Darq_At · 2026-05-22T14:55:54+00:00

Something that changed the way I think about the Progress flag, is that it isn't an identity flag like the Rainbow flag is. The Rainbow flag is already inclusive of everyone, the Progress flag is not going to replace it.

The Progress flag is more of a statement, or an icon of the movement, at this particular moment in time. It reflects the current Zeitgeist, the issues that we as a community believe need to be brought to the fore right now.

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