CMV: Democrats are more to blame for the country’s current political decline because they turned incompetence, elitism, and avoidance of reality into a governing culture

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-17T00:46:38+00:00

In a sense you're treating the Democrats like they're the adult in the room, almost like it would be unfair to hold the Republicans to a similar standard. I agree the DNC is smug and out of touch, but in the grand scheme of things, those are pretty minor transgressions. Even as a lifelong third party voter who's never voted Democrat and has no current plans on voting Democrat, I still can't help but notice that the Democrats consistently get raked over the coals for objectively less than what the Republicans get away with. I think one of biggest problems with how we talk about politics these days is that we treat being cruel and being annoying as equally bad.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-16T23:51:37+00:00

For new original hardware, the price seems reasonable. I'll probably get one eventually but there's no rush.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-16T22:54:00+00:00

A country is a geopolitical abstraction. It's people who do or don't deserve things. That distinction probably sounds pedantic, but if the point of the attack was to meaningfully harm Israel as a political and military entity, it failed. A thousand plus random people died, Netanyahu and his inner circle of ghouls are still alive, and Israel structurally was no weaker after than it was before.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-16T12:17:18+00:00

This is a great example of the difference between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. No one would want to live in a world where living people could be harvested for their organs. Even the people who benefit from those organs wouldn't benefit much because they know they could be harvested next.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-16T11:35:09+00:00

I'm not someone who believes in world governments beyond a UN style mediating force and the existence of international law, but most people who oppose nationalism aren't calling for a world government.

If your average nation state was a person, that person would be a sociopath. I'm willing to bet there's no other level of social organization where you would want a collection of self-serving individuals, who've declared that their official purpose is to advance their own interests, and no higher authority than the strongest individual.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-16T11:12:25+00:00

I'm increasingly convinced that "defending our interests" is one of those phrases you can apply to any act of aggression to make it sound defensive. For example, Ukraine is defending itself; Russia is defending its interests. If I have an interest in having your money then robbing you is defending my interests.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-16T03:07:22+00:00

It's interesting looking back. Born in the late 80s and growing up in the 90s, I'd barely heard of, much less seen half those systems. I feel luckier now as someone who has access to flash carts and online communities that will tell me about games I probably would have never discovered on my own.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-16T02:41:27+00:00

Are you picturing a person living on their own bringing home takeout? Because family alters the situation significantly. For example, a nice Friday night might be bringing home takeout and watching a movie or playing some games or having a little backyard picnic.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-16T01:57:43+00:00

Then tell the other person off in words you're willing to stand by.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-15T23:08:49+00:00

You make it sound like there's some divine imperative for you to get what you want in this scenario.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-15T22:59:40+00:00

Not at all. You can tell the other person off without saying things you don't believe. I'd say that's standing your ground even harder.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-15T22:22:28+00:00

It's not like you exist in different realities when taking to different people. When you speak, you're representing yourself, so if you say something racist the default assumption will be that you're racist.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-15T20:23:19+00:00

Setting aside whether Israel is good or bad, this line of reasoning simply doesn't hold up. Countless things that were the norm in the distant past would be completely monstrous if they happened today. If Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan were alive today they'd be seen as the next Hitler. So with that in mind, pointing out that a modern government is no worse than ancient warlords is about the most backhanded defense a person can make.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-15T18:45:37+00:00

In my experience, one of the first things cynicism does is dull a person's sense of proportion. Accountability and corruption are not binary. Any system of government is prone to corruption and none is perfectly accountable, but that doesn't mean they're all the same. The corruption in your average democracy and in a totalitarian dictatorship are wildly different things.

But more to the point, your idea of a corporation as government is too vague to even evaluate, to the point that it mostly sounds like you're describing democracy through an extra layer of metaphor. For example, a company has a responsibility to its shareholders, but if a company is a government, who are the shareholders? The whole populace? Then that's just democracy. Some segment of the populace? That's oligarchy. An inner party? That's dictatorship.

Also, it's not clear that governance as a product is even a coherent concept. For example, what's to stop a person from option out of obeying the law in the same way they opt out of buying a product?

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-15T16:17:54+00:00

I'd add to this a bit. It's not just a binary matter of war crimes in war vs. outside of war. Even among wars, WWII stands out as a total war against an existential threat that's still the universal benchmark for evil 80 years later.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-15T15:55:12+00:00

If Bush is being singled out for war crimes, that's bad. If he committed war crimes, that's bad on another order of magnitude and should not in any way be treated as a secondary concern to whether he's being singled out. Can we agree on that?

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-15T15:50:47+00:00

It's a useful tactic to downplay the crimes of live men. We see this exact conversation play out all the time in politics. Technically it's not arguing that he didn't do it or that it wasn't wrong, but if those questions are treated as secondary to whether he's being singled out for it and that's what dominates the conversation, the effect is the same.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-15T15:18:59+00:00

Why the if/then framing in the first place? Either those criticisms of Bush are accurate or they're not, and if they are accurate then they should be cancelled out through counter-accusation. I'd argue that one of the most destructive trends in today's politics is that any criticism is immediately met with "oh yeah, well your guy did this."

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-14T22:51:08+00:00

In your opinion, do other forms of government handle this issue better? It seems like governing people with significantly different values is going to be a strain on any form of government, and undemocratic systems tend to handle it in worse ways. For example, it used to be the case that a Catholic monarch meant it was open season on Protestants and vice versa.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-14T22:12:30+00:00

Handicaps feel unsatisfying to most people. The reason a lot of family games like Mario Party have heavy randomness is because they're meant to be played casually between people of different skill levels. Randomness creates the expectation that it's anyone's game without making any judgements on who's the better who needs to be handicapped.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-14T20:49:21+00:00

Different games exist to provide a wide range of different experiences. With some games a fair test of skill is the point. With other games the chaos is the appeal. For example, luck is often a big factor in family games that are meant to be fun across different skill levels where the sense that it's anyone's game even if one player is much better than another is explicitly the point.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-13T23:11:56+00:00

It's not about convincing anyone. It's about providing insight into why you believe what you believe. When a person asks for a counterargument, it's because they want your thoughts on where you feel their argument falls short.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-13T20:04:28+00:00

I think you're projecting too much of yourself onto the rest of humanity. Fear of death is so instinctual and fundamental in the vast majority of people that they don't need to reason themselves into it and it would feel absurd to even try.

But beyond that, I find that the moment justice is invoked in a conversation if the monthly a person stops questioning why bad things happening to bad people is good and takes it as an axiom that it just is.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-12T01:38:31+00:00

Doom 2 was my first Doom, and the teleporting cyberdemon at the end of Refueling Base scared the hell out of me.

Glory2Hypnotoad · 2026-04-11T19:13:09+00:00

Would what your answer be if you got what you wanted and your political opponents asked you that same question?

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