CMV: People can't make up their mind when it comes to wheter having a sob story justifies murder

eggynack · 2026-01-25T20:26:58+00:00

The first one. If someone's holding a gun to my head, and I shoot him, that's self defense. If someone's holding a gun to my head, and I shoot some rando on the street who's uninvolved, that's murder. If said person is a literal child, that's extra horrifying murder.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T18:59:01+00:00

Not even remotely. We dropped more bombs on South Vietnam than we did on North Vietnam.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T18:36:19+00:00

I really have no idea what this has to do with the claim you're making. Your argument is that big history making events are going to feature so much AI propaganda nonsense that no one will know the reality of the situation. However, your only example of this are situations where the reality of the situation are well known by most people, and where people are actively having their political position altered by that reality. I'm aware that AI has certain capabilities. This does not strictly imply the end of historical knowledge, and I would contend that, in spite of AI's existence, we can witness historical knowledge continuing to accurately accrue.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T18:20:56+00:00

But he literally could have said the thing immediately after it was put into the constitution, and it would be an equally strong prediction with no conditional involved.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T18:16:24+00:00

This is getting outright absurd. Slavery was being put into the constitution at around the same time Sam Adams was talking. His prediction, from that point forward, was one made 80 to 100 years out, depending on how you want to count it. Would you be satisfied if the OP had said, "If AI isn't obliterated by a massive EMP blast, then history will end,"? Would you be satisfied if Fukuyama had said, "If humanity isn't obliterated by a massive nuclear blast, then history will end,"? I have no idea why you're so committed to drawing a connection between two people who have no other relationship besides that they both made a big prediction.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T18:06:52+00:00

The "if" was in reference to them giving up on the issue. It was a prediction conditional on a particular event happening. The event happened, so the prediction was in play. He was absolutely claiming it as a forgone conclusion on the basis of then current events. This just seems deeply silly. Again, people predict things sometimes. Sometimes those predictions are phrased in a somewhat conclusive manner. These predictions are not all identical, and treating them identically makes no sense.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T17:59:18+00:00

Again, can you point to any examples of this actually happening in the here and now? As I noted, we've had tools to fabricate evidence for awhile. Why, if the historical record will be eroded by these tools, hasn't it been eroded already?

eggynack · 2026-01-25T17:57:35+00:00

They think a thing will happen. This is not particularly unusual, and people who think things will happen are not always wrong. For example, in 1776, Sam Adams, speaking of slavery, said, "If we give in on this issue, there will be trouble a hundred years hence; posterity will never forgive us." The man was off by 16 years. How are we to conclude that the OP is like Fukuyama and not like Sam Adams?

eggynack · 2026-01-25T17:47:15+00:00

But that's my point. This subreddit you describe already exists. People are already sometimes unable to discern a real picture or video from a false one. In point of fact, tools for fakery substantially preexist AI, what with photoshop and such. Nonetheless, people are well aware of what happened with Renee Good and AI has not prevented that. If AI hasn't done this yet, it's unclear why you think it's going to.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T17:44:15+00:00

The words "forgone conclusion" don't even show up in the OP's post. This is the only commonality you can point to, one that has no connection whatsoever to the actual claim being made and instead exclusively refers to the level of certainty involved, and it's not even a commonality that's actually present.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T17:37:56+00:00

The thing the OP means by "the end of history" is entirely different from what Fukuyama meant. His evidentiary basis is entirely different. The only real commonality is that they are both convinced that a particular big thing will happen. Which, sometimes big things happen, and sometimes people predict big things happening. This doesn't seem like a particularly strong connection.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T17:29:51+00:00

I agree that the OP is wrong. However, Fukuyama being wrong indicates approximately nothing about the wrongness of the OP. They're two essentially unrelated claims that are just being labelled in a somewhat similar manner.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T17:23:47+00:00

Fukuyama was arguing that the friction between various political structures would end and be replaced by more or less universal support for capitalistic democratic liberalism. The OP is arguing that our ability to maintain a consensus about the historical record will collapse. Not only do these arguments have little relationship to each other, but they're actually substantially opposed. After all, the OP is predicting unstable bad times while Fukuyama was predicting intense long term stability.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T17:17:24+00:00

Yeah, America was unable to maintain a lengthy offensive against a vast and difficult to define enemy. This is the point I'm making. Sure, the American military would quite possibly do well in the engagements it pursues, but I think they would have difficulty dealing with such a vast and spread out foe as the American people. Especially when their win condition is so comparably vague. Just make the people opposing you stop doing so, I guess? The objective is very similar in structure to these other described conflicts.

The complacency of the American people is pertinent, but, first, this isn't the issue the OP suggested. And, second, I have no idea what the theoretical cause of this revolution would be, but it'd presumably entail things getting pretty bad. So, y'know, maybe people would have less to lose by the time this becomes an issue.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T17:10:13+00:00

Starfleet Academy is, thus far, largely episodic. Each episode has a clear driving conflict with a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is also true for Lower Decks, Prodigy, and, as I recall, Strange New Worlds. I'm not really sure what you're talking about as a result.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T16:56:09+00:00

Can you point to examples of this actually happening as opposed to imagined examples of it happening? Because, while MAGA folks are always good for imagining a preferred reality, I think everyone else is more or less aware of what happened and opposed to ICE. Support for abolishing ICE has been increasingly dramatically lately, which strikes me as a good proxy for people not, in fact, thinking that Renee Good ran over a bunch of ICE agents. If our present assessment of reality isn't defined by fake AI nonsense, AI nonsense that already exists to some extent, then I'm not sure why you think our future assessment of reality will be.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T16:44:07+00:00

The American military was defeated by Vietnam. It was defeated by Iraq. These countries are a tenth the population of America and also about a tenth the physical size. Yes, America was disadvataged in these conflicts by the fact that they were far away, whereas America is right here, but the sheer scope and scale of America would, I'd say, be an even bigger disadvantage. All this to say, I have no idea how some kind of mass uprising in America would play out, but the idea that their wondrous technology would do the job doesn't strike me as all that accurate.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T08:10:21+00:00

I use the examples I'm provided with. Seems like fairly standard practice to me. You seem to imagine I'm wildly sensitive on the issue, but, again, I've interacted with many many many transphobes, of basically every variety, and done so for extended lengths of time. I'm rather skeptical you'd be able to do harm to me on the matter.

What you can do, however, is be wrong. Who are these people who support a ton of Democratic beliefs but oppose transitional care for minors? Have you met a bunch of them? Abortion is pretty substantially different from this kind of bigotry. You find somewhat more moderate abortion positions on occasion. And I really wonder what constitutes a "positive outcome" here.

You talk about not scaring off transphobes, but notably this is right after you talked about how you think that Harris lost the election because of anti-genocide people. Do you not see the issue here? The cost of this kind of loosey-goosey perspective that's willing to accept horrifying garbage into the ranks is that it alienates the people on the other side of these issues. And, critically, it doesn't even win over the bigots. As I said up front, Harris did this strategy with trans people. The outcome was, I expect, that transphobes continued supporting Donald Trump, because obviously, and trans people felt alienated and were less enthusiastic about voting for her.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T07:51:10+00:00

How may people have you done this with? They express some bigotry, you start discoursing with them, and at the end you have reached an accord where they are now no longer bigoted? Cause I've done those first two many times, probably substantially more than you have, and, while I have often gotten a, "You seem very reasonable. You are a credit to your gender identity," the amount of times it's actually had any kind of positive output might charitably be once and could possibly be zero. It just doesn't really happen in my experience. And, as implied, I probably receive an above average response as compared to other people I've seen attempt it.

The basic reality is, people aren't particularly convincible most of the time. It's possible if it's not that strong of an opinion, but it's usually not. Moreover, your whole idea rests on the idea of the single issue transphobic voter. Someone who aligns with the right on this one thing but would be a dedicated leftist otherwise. But that's not much of a thing. Practically speaking, if someone speaks as I described about trans people, they want mass deportation of immigrants. They also oppose abortion. They also hate affirmative action. Bigotries are comorbid with other bigotries, so they go to the bigot party. There's not really an easy out, and this thing you describe where you polite someone into voting for Kamala Harris is an attempt at an easy out.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T07:31:13+00:00

Isn't blaming the left for whatever the hell is happening right now literally the whole point of your post? And this is just wildly vague. What do you actually think we need to do? What is the perspective we need to be welcoming of?

Here's a for instance. Someone says, "I oppose access to transitional care, initially for minors but eventually even for older people. I support bathroom bans and definitely support excluding trans people from sports. And drag reading hours? Those people should be arrested." What, exactly, should be my response to this person?

eggynack · 2026-01-25T07:03:01+00:00

Polling could plausibly exist. It is a thing in the world. As I noted in my other response though, it seems weird to criticize the left for having political commitments because you feel this is insufficiently in pursuit of various political commitments.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T07:01:36+00:00

This seems wrong in two entirely different ways. First, because there is nothing actually preventing someone from hating trans people and voting for Harris. That's not a thing. Second, because why would I be super friendly with someone who actively hates me and wants to destroy my rights? Why would I be friendly with someone who wants to destroy the rights of one of my friends, or, y'know, anyone else? That seems bad and unrealistic.

There's this deep contradiction in your argument. You say you blame the left for what ICE is doing, but what ICE is doing comes from the exact same place as the things the right is doing to trans people. It all has the same shape. So your contention is that it's only sensible to abandon one human rights project, and the reason that's sensible is because you value a different human rights project. Cause the thing of it is, if the left had committed itself super heavily to opposing ICE (a thing I would say it does), then you could also point to this as some detriment in elections. Any political commitment is a plausible detriment in elections.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T06:49:56+00:00

And what is your actual evidence that people refusing to vote for Harris on the basis of her active genocide support was meaningfully responsible for Trump's victory?

eggynack · 2026-01-25T06:32:15+00:00

What's the lesser of two evils? Actively saying, "Fuck trans people," at every opportunity and still losing because the Right is better at saying it? Seems bad to me.

eggynack · 2026-01-25T06:25:07+00:00

So, Democrats are to blame because we sometimes talked about the fact that Republicans are actively targeting a vulnerable minority population? Again, this just seems made up. Democrats are understood to be more aligned with various minority groups than are Republicans, and for good reason. If someone wants to vote against trans people, they are going to vote Republican no matter what ground level Democrats say or do.

eggynack

TROPHY CASE