Doesn't matter, the Democrats are killing the Republican party by absorbing its "moderates" and becoming the new right-wing.

They don't need lefties anymore.

Cops aren't workers, they're the enforcers of Capital.

The only surprising thing here is that this person thought they could exercise copfriend privileges against an actual cop without getting some kind of blowback. XD

Didn't they fall into Crypto BS?

I'm not a Democrat either, but I am so familiar with their machinations that I correctly predicted the last 9 years of national politics based on how Dems did Bernie dirty in the 2016 primary, all the way down to knowing Biden would have to drop out to give Harris a chance this year.

I'm autistic, which doesn't make me immune to propaganda but does makes it very easy to recognize when someone is trying to manipulate public opinion. The truth has almost nothing to do with politics, ours is an entirely vibes-based government.

The noise is especially important, because political machines are colonial superorganisms. Their leadership likes to pretend otherwise, but they don't speak with one voice, they are more like beehives where each individual has to coordinate their activities with the rest of the swarm. It's important to know the range of acceptable opinions within the in-group and those that are tolerated outside it, and the noise is where human political organisms do their bee-dancing.

Yeah. It seems to me that a society that reinvents itself for each new generation would be more dynamic and responsive to the needs of the people it serves than the ten plus generations of stagnation we've had in the USA.

It's not new technology, for one. We've been using injection wells like landfills since the 1930's because it's cheaper than treating and disposing of wastewater safely.

I don't understand why they're bothering with this. Isn't the Moba shooter genre already played-out? It felt like it was losing steam over 10 years ago when they dropped a sequel to Monday Night Combat that nobody asked for.

Yeah, obviously I'd much rather that R&D budgets got spent on things that might actually make a difference rather than new ways of kicking the can down the road for future generations to deal with.

You're weirdly defensive about this idea. What's up with that? Daddy got some investments in the fossil fuel industry?

The root cause is immaterial, because those people don't like Trump. They like an idea of who Trump is, an idea that is informed almost exclusively by PR teams and marketing campaigns.

The appropriate way to "deal with" people who are trapped in a media filter bubble is to ignore them. They are of no consequence until they try to leave their bubble and interact with those outside it, at which point they are forced to either come to terms with their deception or else double-down and retreat even deeper into it.

Human nature has nothing to do with it, and whoever gave you that theory was selling something.

"Progressives" are a form of liberal that seek to preserve the status quo by allowing minor alterations to relieve the pressure of the system's internal contradictions. "Conservatives", in contrast, are liberals who want to preserve the status quo by enforcing its hierarchies against whoever they perceive as being an outside influence.

Classical Liberals, the whole lot of them.

Because that would explain why you can't smell the fascism in genocide..

Because this "one trial" was the literal best-case scenario, and it still sprung a leak that would cost more to fix than they could gain by banking carbon sequestration credits.

This isn't just one leak, this is a leak that got so bad the EPA got involved.

Do you have Covid?

Palestine.

PBS SpaceTime has a video on that this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAtbzhpI4Js

Discussing such activities is illegal in the USA.

Don't misunderstand, part of me is glad that it's going to be Harris and Walz, but I have to be realistic with my expectations. A slightly slower crawl towards fascism and mass climatic genocide seems the best I should expect, but I would love to be pleasantly surprised.

It's a fait accompli.

Time to start planning for another business-friendly Democrat administration. It probably won't have majorities in both houses, but it wouldn't matter much even if they did manage to pull that off. Bipartisanship is the name of the Democrat game, and the next question is whether the Republican remnant will play ball or fall into infighting after whatever bloody nonsense their nutjobs get up to this time.

This has been a fait accompli since 2015. The only thing I guessed wrong about this election 9 years ago was Pelosi actually being able to convince Biden to drop out.

Now that he has, Harris is a shoe-in.

No worries for the late reply, and I haven't watched the debate or even followed any of the coverage. To be honest, I've mostly checked out of the election since it's become a fait accompli.

I'll do my research on the local candidates when my ballot comes in the mail but I'll be leaving the choice for president blank. Harris will win the election anyway.

Congrats! I escaped Houston a couple of years back and I know how hard that can be!

Generative "AI" is not "AI", it's a overlarge statistical model of written language. It cannot make NPC dialogue more lively because it has no concept of "liveliness" or "boredom". A 10-minute conversation is impossible, anything more than a few words and the models very rapidly lose consistency. You can see this for yourself by playing one of the many "AI Dungeon" attempts at using large language models to run a text adventure.

Generative AI is a statistical model, not something that can understand what makes a good plot..

Do it.

The issue is much, much larger than what Israel is doing to Gaza.

Agreed.

If you fail to vote for Harris, you allow Trump to win.

Since my vote is now the deciding factor, I have some demands that the Democrats will finally have to listen to if they don't want Trump to win.

1. Stop financing genocide.

Did I say "some demands"? I meant "just do the bare minimum", Jesus..

To be clear here, if Harris does not win, Trump will. Those are your two choices. You can choose to vote for Harris or you court disaster. There is no viable 3rd choice.

Precisely. Democrats know they're the only game in town so they have no incentive to offer better policy. All demands for them to show some basic humanity can be deflected with cries of "But Trump!!1!".

"We've gotta vote blue to save Democracy! No dissent will be tolerated!"

You're unbelievable.

I'm autistic.

Do whatever stupid political moves you think work, just do it silently so you don't drag others down with you.

The liberal mask slips, revealing the fascism that was there all along.

I'm not wasting any more time with your callousness.

Says the person who literally just told me to sit down and shut up.

Anyone reading, ignore this armchair anarchist. This election is important, both sides are not the same. Use your vote, use your voice, ignore the shills.

"Just politics"?

This is a matter of life and death, and you're on the side that's teaming up with Republicans to make sure the bombs keep flowing:

So you’re saying that if we have a phd in this we would be expected to know better?

Nah, I'm saying that Americans aren't taught about politics, they're lucky if they can make it through high school with a basic understanding of how the state is arranged.

A real education system would make American politics much less predictable, because it would empower Americans to shape their own future rather than merely being subject to corporate whims.

This isn't just Internet arguments. Innocent people are dying. Stop this.

That's what I keep begging for, but instead I keep getting shouted at by Democrat sycophants who want me to vote now and fix the party never.

Of poll respondents. There's a large overlap between people who don't care, and people who don't answer polls.

"Of voters. There's a large overlap between people who don't care and people who don't vote."

If you're going to argue that polling isn't an effective means of determining public sentiment then you probably shouldn't pretend to care about voting.

And oh yeah, Harris has been calling for a ceasefire

Wake me up when there's some action behind those words.

And disregarding AIPAC is stupid. Picking up the single issue voters by overtly pissing off AIPAC during the election will unleash a multimillion dollar ad campaign. Look at what happened to the squad

Indeed, look at what this foreign influence campaign did to our precious American democracy. But hey, we're not ready to talk about it because the parties want to have their cake and eat it too.

There's no good reason to do that now. A smart candidate would stay relatively quiet until the election, and then go full bore on the offensive.

You said "smart" but you appear to have meant "complicit".

Especially since, y'know, the vice president doesn't even have authority here so it's stupid to blame it on her.

Since when did they abolish the bully pulpit? A lack of authority only means she couldn't change national policy unilaterally, it doesn't mean she can't actively work against arms deals and for an embargo.

Especially when the other candidate is actively sabotaging ceasefire negotiations.

Thus, the obvious move is to make the ceasefire negotiations a fait accompli by refusing to reload the aggressor's weapons. Even Trump can't sabotage a ceasefire if there's no fire left to be ceased.

I disagree on #1, it only seemed like a reasonable stance because you were not exposed to information that would contradict it and were never trained to analyze political bias so you wouldn't realize that the avoidance of the topic was significant.

I double-minored in Futures Studies and Political Science during postgrad, and predicted that the Democrat incumbent would have to drop out of the race to give their party a chance all the way back in 2016 when the DNC conspired against Bernie's campaign. For those of us who know how to read between a propagandist's lines, this has been an inevitability for a long time.

now that there's no disagreement, bringing up the time where there was, just to feel better about yourself is silly and pointless.

Hard disagree.

This is a teachable moment that should be treated as an opportunity for growth.

Everyone who was wrong about the need for Biden to drop out of the race needs to do some introspection so that they don't repeat the flawed political analyses that led them to support the wrong primary candidate.

You act like you knew this was gunna be the case all along.

Since 2016, actually.

In fact, the only thing that surprised me was that Biden actually dropped out. Never would have thought Pelosi would have been able to convince him.

Go fuck yourself.

Right back at ya, bub~

I'm ordained by the Church of the Latter-Day Dude, and highly reccomend it.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's the majority. I think the majority either support Israel without really thinking about it, or don't care.

Unfortunately, I don't think you know what you're talking about. Polls show an overwhelming majority of Democrats disapprove of Israel's military adventurism in Gaza:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/642695/majority-disapprove-israeli-action-gaza.aspx

It’s not just the Gallup polling about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but also surveys that ask about what’s going on in Gaza today showing this sea change. In a May Data for Progress survey, 83 percent of Democrats supported a “permanent cease-fire and de-escalation of violence” in Gaza. A March Gallup poll found that a clear majority of all respondents, as well as 75 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of independents, now oppose Israeli military action in Gaza, although those numbers were a little bit lower in the most recent survey. Gallup polling also found that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s net favorability among all respondents in July was down 10 points, with just 12 percent of Democrats saying they support him. And in a March Pew study, 44 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents opposed U.S. military aid for Israel, with just 25 percent in favor.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/08/kamala-harris-dnc-israel-palestine-polls-voters-ceasefire-arms.html

Since you are all knowing, explain to me exactly how deep earth mining is less costly and better for the environment than deep earth drilling.

Easy, just compare the amount of pollution required to make a battery and a solar panel with the amount of pollution required to extract and burn fossil fuels for the equivalent power output over the duration of the renewable's working lifetime.

Oh, and don't forget. Fossil fuels are useless without an engine to burn them, so you need to account for those infrastructure costs as well.

Genocide isn't in my best interests.

If there is no option on the ballot to stop sponsoring genocide then I'm not getting what I want regardless of how I vote.

If the Democrats feel that Trump is a threatening-enough stick that they don't need to offer a carrot, then that's their problem.

A party with a comfortable margin can embrace less centrist policies when their voters ask for them (write to your representatives everyone). A party with an uncertain margin has to calculate their platform to target the largest demographics.

They must have a very comfortable margin if they can ignore the majority of Americans and instead embrace less centrist policies like helping Israel bomb schools and hospitals.

Using your vote + using your voice = representation.

You should be happy, you can safely ignore my vote and my voice because the Democrats will be winning this election regardless.

How, precisely, does a promise that you won't vote for them unless they alienate a larger demographic entice them into anything?

The segment of Americans that oppose genocide are the majority, the smaller group that the Democrats are trying not to alienate is AIPAC. The only things that could entice them to change are an even larger quantity of campaign financing, or electoral consequences.