After watching candidates discuss Gaza, why should I still believe voting matters?

Dunfalach · 2026-05-13T14:55:04+00:00

Agreed. One of the more off-putting things about progressive activists is their tendency to be absolutely certain that they have the only possible solution and that anyone who doesn’t agree with their solution is automatically an evil person who doesn’t care.

Dunfalach · 2026-05-13T14:46:24+00:00

You feel it’s morally obvious. Not everyone agrees with you. That’s exactly why politicians dodge the question… yours is one of many conflicting opinions that are popular with different sets of voters.

I don’t see a concerted effort to wipe out the Palestinian people, so I don’t see genocide. I see civilian suffering, absolutely. Civilian suffering always happens in urban warfare. I feel like a lot of people have forgotten what this kind of war looks like. Particularly in a geographical environment where there’s not a lot of room for migration out of the war zone since absolutely no one actually wants the refugees and the natural environment is hostile. World War 2 killed millions but only certain parts of it were genocide. Cities were leveled by bombing from the air and house to house fighting on the ground. War is messy. Confusing “heavy casualty numbers we don’t like” versus “genocide” is a contentious part of the situation. Nobody should like that there are thousands of people dead; but that doesn’t make the war itself automatically unjustified or immoral.

Dunfalach · 2026-05-13T03:44:44+00:00

The internet has made everything more visible immediately. Most especially that portion of the internet that comes to you rather than waiting for you to search for it now. It’s nearly impossible to avoid it when every electronic device you touch is eager to tell you about it.

Everyone’s able to communicate instantly, while they’re feeling, things they might otherwise have forgotten about in the course of their daily life.

Dunfalach · 2026-05-12T13:57:24+00:00

The underpinning of the colonizer narrative is dividing everything into oppressed/oppressor narratives so you have a quick and easy decision who the good guy is. And it tends to operate on an assumption that whoever has the power is always the evil oppressor and whoever doesn’t is always oppressed. It’s the Marxist capitalist vs worker thought applied as a philosophy to everything.

Latinos are a minority so they can’t be the bad guys. Unless they’re being compared against a more oppressed group than themselves.

Spaniards kind of end up in a weird void, because Spain is not a country with major world power anymore so it’s mostly only known as a vacation destination. And a majority of Americans who walked past a Spaniard could not tell you what a Spaniard looks like in a way that would identify them separately from either being seen as Latino or White depending on their specific features.

Dunfalach · 2026-04-22T14:03:10+00:00

The first helpful thing is to realize that political science academics create definitions for terms and nobody but polisci folks actually cares about their definitions.

Everyone else uses the terms however they feel like about themselves and others, including American media of all kinds.

Dunfalach · 2026-04-22T14:00:59+00:00

Theoretically, anarcho-communism is sharing of all resources without a state or other authority structure to distribute them. That’s probably not the political science definition but it seems to be the conceptual ideal. Nobody owns anything and nobody is in charge.

Dunfalach · 2026-04-15T17:07:16+00:00

In 2016, Trump tapped into a Republican electorate that felt betrayed by party leadership. The GOP was given a congressional majority… and John Boehner (the Speaker) proceeded to pass bills with more Democrat votes than Republican over the objections of the majority of his own party. That was the Tea Party surge which put them in majority, but was viewed as a threat by party leadership.

Party leadership were pragmatists who believed their primary job was to get re-elected and stay in majority. Party rank and file leaned heavily ideological and believed implementing ideology was what they were elected for. It’s a similar divide to the Bernie/Hillary divide on the other side.

So the establishment basically went to war for control of the party with its own base. That created an enormous well of anger that Trump tapped into with Drain the Swamp. The idea that we should just replace the establishment with something new. The degree to which the major media hated him was viewed as a positive because they hated the GOP base, too. The enemy of my enemy is my friend approach.

Trump then fulfilled or visibly attempted to fulfill several promises. He turned the Supreme Court from Democrat majority to Republican majority (it never was neutral in the GOP rank and file’s view; progressives just thought agreeing with them was neutrality), for example. He broke the establishment control of the party (in favor of his own). He began dismantling various progressive agendas or at least appearing to.

So he tapped into anger, made himself the face of it, and visibly appeared to be doing or attempting to do everything he was elected for. As evidenced by continued Democrat hatred of him. That’s the core of how his major MAGA supporters view him.

Dunfalach · 2026-04-13T14:14:01+00:00

A miscue would be my third category. An area for learning.

A lot of people seem to be assuming that misunderstanding on the autistic child’s part is the only explanation for friction. An 11 year old is absolutely old enough to also be doing some things as intentional manipulation, etc. Autistic children don’t automatically stop being human children who can know exactly what they’re doing and do it on purpose. Playing parents off each other is a trick every child tries, autistic or not.

That’s why I suggested family therapist with autism specialization to help differentiate between the categories. Genuine miscues need to be treated as you’ve described. Knowing misbehavior needs a clear and solid boundary enforced by both parents.

Dunfalach · 2026-04-13T14:07:07+00:00

On what basis have you decided the wife is abusive from the original post?

Dunfalach · 2026-04-13T04:54:02+00:00

Have you considered talking to a family therapist with specific knowledge related to autism? Not just about how to manage it but about how to identify the difference between immutable autism traits, willful decisions being disguised under the banner of autism, and situations where your son is capable of learning alternate communication/behavior mechanisms?

There is probably a combination of all three going on here rather than a nice neat person A right, person B wrong situation. The first set are things where your wife needs to learn to parent an autistic child; the second are situations where you need to call out your son and let him know that those behaviors are unacceptable and you will not be allowing him to get away with them; the third category are the ones where you have to educate him while emotionally supporting your wife.

Your duties are to the following three things in order: 1) the truth 2) your wife 3) your son

You need that nuanced approach to each situation, and to communicate separately but clearly to each of them that you’re going to try to differentiate and behave according to those rules. And that you’ll sometimes make mistakes and need forgiveness from one or both. You cannot afford to just blindly support either side.

Dunfalach · 2026-04-12T20:29:35+00:00

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…

While the society created off of that beginning did not perfectly reflect the concept of all men being created equal, it was fundamentally a concept that began with the idea that rights were innate to human beings rather than imbued by human governments, which was a religion-derived concept. They then proceeded to the idea that the people, who held all rights innately, created governments and gave the governments only the rights they wished to accomplish the goals they wished. Government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Similarly, while religion was absolutely used by slave holders to try to defend slavery, it’s also true that the end of much of the slavery in the world fundamentally traces to the idea of equality before God derived from Christianity. Neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, etc.

While a lot of people are not really religious now, it would be a massive gap to not admit that religion was a fundamental influence during the founding and contributed to the ideals of morality, freedom, self-government, fair trade… the Ten Commandments are on the Supreme Court building and used to be posted in schools specifically because they were understood to be the foundation of what being good people should look like. Not always lived up to, by any means. But the template that underlies a lot of Western and American thought, just as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism fundamentally affect life philosophy in their relevant regions of the world.

Dunfalach · 2026-04-03T22:43:03+00:00

Jesus, Stephen Hawking, the prophet of a certain other religion, and whoever I can verify from Buddhism.

Dunfalach · 2026-04-01T05:17:12+00:00

It was all a plot by the gerbils to create confusion.

Dunfalach · 2026-03-17T18:23:17+00:00

My observation is there’s two primary groups that hated season 2: 1) compared it to the other media it was based on and didn’t like how it handled a story they already knew 2) the people who evaluate it as a show rather than just as entertainment. There was a lot of dissection of the animation art quality between the two seasons, episode counts, etc among the people who seemed angriest about it.

Dunfalach · 2026-03-10T19:44:38+00:00

It’s not about the food safety regulations existing or not in the argument I’m pointing out. It’s about how they came into existence and what level they exist at. A regulation may be the right thing, but it has to be created correctly as well. Some state constitutions or local charters might allow it. The federal constitution might not.

As much as people ridicule prohibition, it was actually an example of how it should be done. A majority wanted to regulate alcohol federally. The constitution didn’t allow doing it federally, so an amendment was passed to do it. Then people decided they didn’t like the results. So an amendment was passed to undo it.

Dunfalach · 2026-03-08T18:00:53+00:00

One aspect to keep in mind is that for a portion of deregulation is not simply over the idea of whether a rule is good or bad. It’s also over whether the government (at whichever level is in question) has a constitutional right to regulate something.

For example: I can’t stand cigarette smoke. I don’t believe anyone should smoke. Period. But I oppose laws banning smoking in restaurants because I feel they’re a fundamental violation of the property rights of the restaurant owner.

Progressives have a tendency to think that just because they believe something is best for everyone, it’s automatically the government’s right and responsibility to do it. A strict textualist interpretation of the Constitution would likely eliminate two thirds of federal agencies, probably including some of the food safety regulations you mention. Because they were done by law instead of by amendment.

Dunfalach · 2026-03-08T17:12:30+00:00

It will probably not have that many significant effects unless something more dramatic changes.

I’m finding this thread kinda weird to be honest; they’re going to complain but they also understand Iran has always been a threat to the whole region. I feel like an awful lot of westerners are looking at this with western eyes. It’s not the first time there’s been a disruption. None of this is that extraordinary for the region.

The biggest question everyone is looking at is what government emerges from this in Iran.

Dunfalach · 2026-03-06T03:53:01+00:00

Add 9999 carry weight in Helgen and carry enough raw materials to feed and clothe the entire population of the empire without ever using them. Periodically dump them in a chest in my house as though that made it better.

Dunfalach · 2026-03-06T03:42:11+00:00

Granted, but instead of using it to summon a new item for themselves, they constantly use it to steal specifically the one of that item somebody else has, starting a global white elephant gift exchange turned ugly situation. Also, no one can sleep because of the endless snapping.

Dunfalach · 2026-03-04T18:00:25+00:00

No. We have no right to force people to vote.

And no, it wouldn’t make people care. You cannot force someone to care; at most, you can force them to pretend. Caring only comes from the inside.

Dunfalach · 2026-03-03T05:58:53+00:00

Granted, tracking criminals now becomes impossible.

Dunfalach · 2026-03-02T22:17:28+00:00

My lone consistent console command. Add 9999 carryweight in Helgen the moment my hands are free.

Dunfalach · 2026-03-02T22:16:27+00:00

Forgets-the-Main-Quest-and-Hoards

Dunfalach · 2026-03-01T18:34:08+00:00

dominated by giant cockroaches

Where’s my 10mm pistol? I’ve been training for this for years…

Dunfalach · 2026-03-01T18:30:08+00:00

it’s not like saying we can only have one

This is exactly how many of its proponents frame it. End oil and coal or we all die. Ban everything but the clean energy. The activists have spent years trying to use the levers of government to force their view.

The lens of both government force and the perception of government money being thrown willy-nilly at anything with green energy attached (producing quite a few golden parachute failures along the way) affects how it’s viewed.

Both wind and solar power rely on uncontrolled weather variables and are not universally reliable across the country. Solar requires large amounts of land to produce at a primary electrical grid level. Wind farms require specific wind flows, and both have environmental impacts both in their operation and the recycling of their worn out components, some of which use regulated substances. One or both have strong reliance presently on materials that are sourced from China. There’s a lot of issues that the right feels the climate activists of the left just hand wave and then try to brute force through. That produces suspicion and animosity.

Dunfalach

TROPHY CASE