alyaza

alyaza, 2 months ago

yeah, maybe they’re visible on other Fediverse projects? but i’ve only ever seen them on posts when they’re crossposted through those other projects, not when they’re posted here through Lemmy.

alyaza, 2 months ago

given the exceptional civility of pretty much everyone else here versus the civility of your two comments, i’m going to have to ask you to take it down a notch. it’s fine if you don’t find these arguments convincing at all but the idea that they’re being made by an “uninformed bad faith actor” is not credible. t3rmit3 has been pretty straightforward and honest in their convictions here.

alyaza, 2 months ago

If we know, as we do, that Biden will continue to support Israel’s genocide, and still vote for him, how can we un-hypocritically fault anyone else who supports a genocidal leader so long as they can claim some other worse person waiting in the wings?

i think this is already addressed in my comment: even if you don’t vote for Biden, you are complicit by virtue of paying taxes. the Palestinian children we’re murdering probably don’t care very much if you do or don’t vote, given that your vote is largely meaningless in what we do–your taxes are another matter, and directly finance our shipments of aid and weapons to Israel. accordingly i consider taxes to be a far more active contribution than any vote can be in this space, and i think if everybody was truly principled on this matter they would also abstain from paying them. since they don’t, i think they’ve already made such a moral compromise that it would be very silly to impugn voting for Biden.

alyaza, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

If I attempt to destroy the government , I will be killed. If I don’t pay taxes, I will go to prison. If I don’t vote for Biden, I won’t.

i guess i’m sort of obliged to ask: why are these undesirable outcomes if your moral system is just? i find this a weird objection to make unless you fall into one of the following three camps:

• you don’t believe your moral system is just enough to actually live by for some reason (in which case i’m unsure why you’d confidently assert moral positions);
• you don’t actually and fully believe what you’re saying (self explanatory), or;
• you would sooner prioritize your personal comfort over the inconvenient outcomes that actually living your moral system invites (which i would consider immoral, especially in this case)

alyaza, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

If the probability of success of those actions was not 0%, there may be an argument that the impact outweighs the unlikelihood of success. But you and I both know otherwise.

i mean i just don’t find this argument particularly convincing. i think biting this bullet would improperly impugn the vast majority of protests and forms of protest—because most of them are unsuccessful and will never be successful. likewise, i think “chance of influencing an outcome for the better” is just one variable you should consider in a moral act, because trying to weigh whether you should do something or not on that basis just invites a whole host of other problems.