They warned you: Someone allegedly used a politician’s cloned voice to interfere with an election | It will most assuredly not be the last time this happens::undefined

  • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    69
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    I keep saying: none of this will end until we get a clean, cryptographically secure, government-backed way to ID who is sending us something, and it becomes an expectation to use it all the time for anything important. Which is why I have conspiracy theories about the conspiracy theories about government ID.

    • RobotToaster@mander.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      36
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      10 months ago

      a clean, cryptographically secure, government=backed way to ID who is sending us something, and it becomes an expectation to use it all the time

      sounds dystopian.

      • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        38
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        sounds dystopian.

        So does the total death of objective fact.

        An end to internet anonymity isn’t great, but given the alternative I’ll take it.

          • piratehat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            Truth is never subjective. Truth is Truth. People have different opinions on where the truth lies but there’s is an objective reality to anything.

              • OrganicMustard@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                9
                ·
                edit-2
                10 months ago

                Here the more pragmatic use of truth is being used, which most of the people would agree in its objectiveness. Either the real person did the call or not.

                Even in the philosophical concept of truth different schools of thoughts have different views on its objectiveness. Here is a better resource I think.

              • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                8
                arrow-down
                6
                ·
                10 months ago

                And I see you didn’t understand your philosophy 101 course.

                All the ideas we have about this stuff comes from a pre-science era and nothing we discovered backs up what they argued.

                That is why Plato can make up another dimension and a psychic connection, that is why Hume could pretend to not know what cause and effect was, that is why Desecrates could think that if he has an idea it has to be true…

                Something to consider for a moment. If you are really determined to maintain the stance that truth is subject that would mean this stance is subjective. Hence there must be exceptions, but your stance allows none. Any statement of the effect that statements are never fully true is going to produce contradictions.

                • Patch@feddit.uk
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  Desecrates could think that if he has an idea it has to be true

                  That’s not what Descartes said, by the way.

                  “I think therefore I am” was all about “I know I must exist, because I’m here to think about it”. It wasn’t about “if I think something it must be true”.

                  In Discourse he sets about trying to establish what things you can know for sure, vs which things are subjective (and could just be a trick of the mind or an illusion). He establishes the first principle that the one thing he knows is definitely true is that he is an entity that is capable of thought (because otherwise, who else is doing all this thinking?) and therefore at the very least he must exist, even if nothing else does.

                  If you’re of the position that truth isn’t subjective, “Cartesian doubt” should be right up your alley. Trust nothing until you can prove it! Not a bad position for a philosopher to take.

          • daltotron@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            Based, destroy the infantile mind of the materialist objectivist determinist this space is reserved for more future jargon tech-bro.

            Truth is subjective precisely because I can say that the sky is red, and I will be correct. If you ever needed any help understanding that then you should’ve been paying attention to the difference in reporting between ukraine and gaza right now. It’s not just “spin” either, I can plague you with misconceptions, turn you into a conspiracy theorist, warp what you think is really important in life. I can bullshit you, I can call a horse a chair, and I will be correct. Do you understand why there’s no truth now?

            Also fucking weird that the counterargument to “government issued crypto ID” is “well, we don’t want the total death of objective fact, do we?”. those two things definitely seem connected, those seem related. Definitely seems as though we couldn’t just use another adversarial bot to run checks on whether or not any given thing is manufactured, entering into in a perpetual propaganda arms race that corporations and those with money and power are always going to win, in an unregulated and dystopian modern internet. All of which is what’s already fucking happening. Seems like the solution to that would just be to double down on the police state tracking, which I would expect to be something that has concrete repercussions on the powerful, and never the common man, of course.

            Why do we live in hell?

      • fidodo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        10 months ago

        I already have to send photos of my id or passport for all kinds of services, so it wouldn’t really be that different from doing that, just less inconvenient. Like, delivery services ask for a photo of your id.

        • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          I have never had them ask for one. I could see them doing that if I went to pick up a package they were holding but I haven’t had to do that.

          • fidodo@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            Maybe it’s because I get alcohol delivered at some point. I think it’s the same thing though, when something needs online verification the workaround right now is to just send a photo of id.

      • evatronic@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        10 months ago

        The “government backed” part is ostensibly about a government setting up the framework and like, requiring it be used for official documents.

        It wouldn’t be too hard to stick a private signing key on say, your driver’s license / ID / passport, for instance.

        It’s a complex issue, though, that sits on how much you trust whoever runs the system at some point.

        • Electricblush@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          Didn’t know where in the tread to reply.

          This is being worked on from multiple angles.

          In the us apple, Google, Microsoft ++ are working on a common framework for this. (Shocking who are working on this in the us)

          The EU has a citizens digital wallet program for the same purpose. These programs are also collaborating so that certificates and proof of personhood/citizenship etc can be exchanged between various actors.

          The EU model leans heavily into privacy and user control of data, where you as an individual decides with whom to share your credentials, proof of personhood, etc.

          This would lead to many possibilities, like for instance being able to confirm digitally prescriptions for medicine across borders, so you can easily get your medication even if you are traveling in another country, without having to spend time and energy getting signed paperwork send back and forth.

          The most simple form of this would be that the system simply verifies that yes, you are indeed a human individual. But can be expanded to confirm citizenship, allow you to share your medical data with institutions, confirm diplomas and professional certification etc.

      • doylio@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        10 months ago

        PGP isn’t tied to a specific person though.

        I’m starting to come around to the idea of gov’t backed crypto ID, but I am very worried about the potential abuse of that system

          • doylio@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            Yes, but it’s not Sybil resistant. Anyone can make as many PGP Keys as they want.

            What is really needed is the ability to sign messages proving:

            • that I am a specific person (“I am John Smith”)
            • that I am a unique person without revealing my ID (“I only have one account here”)
            • attributes about me without revealing my ID (“I am 18+”, “I am a French Citizen”, etc)

            This is all possible with ZK cryptography today if you have a trusted data source for the key storage. Governments might be able to set something like this up, but that comes with a lot of privacy concerns. There are other projects like WorldCoin, Idena, and Proof of Humanity that attempt to do this in a decentralized way, but they’ve all had issues with adoption

    • SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      How about we find whoever did this and throw them in jail for fraud? You know, deterring crime like the law is supposed to do?

    • Randelung@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yeah, we have all the tech already. PKI exists. Just issue a white house certificate and use that to sign official stuff - documents, press releases, videos. They CAN control their narrative if they wanted to. It just takes someone near the top who understands technology.

      Wouldn’t have stopped the fake phone call, though…

    • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      There’s already a system for it. But to roll that out to everyone would be an administrative nightmare. And tbf, the system of digital certificates is not exactly “clean.” There are always issues.

      I agree that it would be great to have that, but it just doesn’t seem feasible. Perhaps a different system needs to be created.

    • Virulent@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      10 months ago

      The people who fall for shit like this don’t know what any of that means or would understand it if you tried to explain it to them

    • daltotron@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      cryptographically secure

      Isn’t this the only part of this that’s really important? If you can see me in real life, if I can give you a cryptographically secure way to check whatever I’m sending you in the future, badda bing, mission success. It’s only a problem if my code becomes compromised on my end, leaked or something. It requires faith that your friends won’t get compromised, but that’s pretty much going to be true of any system you might devise there. That’s not the job of cryptography, or some document the government has, that’s just the job of your own personal security practices to make sure you’re not giving around codes and passwords willy nilly. I don’t understand why this really needs to be tied to the government or to specific people at all.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      Sure, that works… If you either change the entire american telecommunication system, and cut it off from the rest of the world… or change the entire worlds telecommunication system.

      But you’re not going to get any of those, Which means your cryptographic phone system will have to be backwards compatible, which means skeevy fucks can continue to do this shit.

    • supercriticalcheese@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Well then you will have conspiracy theorists to tell you that government backed IDs are fake cause reptilians are controlling them…

      Newspapers l, specially tabloids feeds on sensational crap like this

    • kibiz0r@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      You don’t even need to ID who is sending it, just that the content itself can provide some grounding in an authentic source.

      Like if a picture can say that it derives from an original photo captured by a camera signed with Canon’s credentials, and was changed in Photoshop in these specific ways and signed by Adobe…

      There is a group working on exactly this. It’s called C2PA.

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    10 months ago

    If people are using these types of tactics to try and make people in one political party not vote, I’d say it’s more than fair for the same tactics to be used on the other party.

    Is it ethical? Absolutely not.

    Do I care? No because if I were to ever get messages/calls telling me not to vote, I’d laugh and vote anyways since I live in an area with mail in ballots.

    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Be careful, cycle of abuse is a thing. If we normalize this then it wont be long till it gets worse.

      A better first step would be to educate people with skepticism so they understand that the president calling personally to ask people not to vote cant be right.

      Another idea that could help is incorporating nft blockchain in official verifiable footage,quotes,stances, linked whenever referenced so the unaltered context can easily be sourced and non verifiable footage treated with skepticism.

      • Womble@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        People are still trying to pitch nfts to do basic database functions in 2024? I thought we’d moved on from this.

        All an NFT can do is trade a url between people, all it does is say “yup this is the url alright, and this person owns this ticket pointing at this url” it adds nothing to authenticating footage.

        • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          I can track a cryptocurrency moving from one wallet to the next on the blockchain. I can see exactly what wallets interacted with that wallet.

          Why can i not do this with digital media. Why do i have to rely on faith towards a publisher to be certain footage is unaltered and legal.

          If the original publisher, a war journalist for Example. (And mind i agree they can still frame and be incorrect but they are closest to a real source) uploads their footage to a blockchain network and states that any valid unaltered use must happen trough this network then differentiating between good and bad faith posts becomes much easier.

          I don’t care what system we end up using or how we Call it. I feel like nfts wherd abused to death leaving a bad taste but there was something there we just didn’t try. Currently we seem to do fuck all finding a solution for misinformation, Ai images are already getting mixed up with reality.

          Proper tracking of footage used in the “global information network” should have been standard ages ago. It is necessary for a healthier internet. If you just read nft blabla then you miss my point.

          • Womble@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            jpgs are too large to include on the blockchain so instead links to hosting urls are used, how well do you think uploading video is going to go?

            All an NFT does is prove this wallet created this token pointing to this URL and then it was exchanged with these other wallets at given times, none of that helps with truth verification. Unless you trust the veracity of whoever is doing the uploading of the footage, but if you trust them there is no need for a blockchain in the first place.

            • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              I agree that media files themselves are to large to be uploaded to a blockchain. A jpg will remain a jpg and people who want to make a copy can.

              My idea centers around having a more official recognized record to find the most original forms of footage. The technology to use does not matter to me. I have no interest in using blockchain over other adequate technologies if you happen to be an expert in them.

              I am simply observing that current we are allowing misinformation to spread and corrupt official information while it looks like there are tools that could help that we arent using.

              I wouldnt blindly trust any human, including official news but i will put more trust in the footage from a veryfable career journalist reporting directly live from ukraine then the video clips we see shared on c/ukraine just like i will put more trust in the known social media profile of a politician rather then take my co workers word quoting their message.

              With my idea the link to the record should be embedded in the footage itself. I originally pictures a smart camera with hard to fake metadata. But i repeat i am no expert and i litteraly dont care what technology we use to acomplish a similar improvement over status quo.

              Its really annoying people Cant look past terms as nfts and blockchain. Yes i use them because thats where i did get the idea but i am no way saying this is the only or best solution.

    • TheFriar@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yeah…I mean, if you cloned Trump’s voice? And actually made it interact with the people? You could suppress the fascist vote by about 75%

    • anti@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      I have to tell you that I’ve been compelled to listen to the Tiny Toon Adventures theme song on Spotify, because your username has been stuck in my head all evening.

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Welcome to the age of AAA. Authorization, authentication and auditing. Where every action, whether over the phone, internet, or video chat needs to be verified externally with some kind of AAA system before that action can be verified and performed.

    In this case, calling them back on a known phone number to verify their intent, or pushing a code to them over text or a third party authorization system (like duo or something) is required before action is taken.

    IT and security folks have been preparing for this shit since before AI deepfakes were a thing. The general public, thus far, has not appreciated the extra security we have been requiring and at many levels, they’ve actively and even publically spoken out against it, or outright refused to participate.

    You are vulnerable.

    • FireTower@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      38
      ·
      10 months ago

      someone cloned Joe Biden’s voice to help suppress voting in the New Hampshire primary.

      Basically it was AI Biden telling supporters to not go to the polls. No one knows who did it.

      • prole@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        10 months ago

        Yeah that’s fucked up and all… But I’m so curious as to who is stupid enough to believe that Joe Biden would ever call voters to tell them NOT to vote. Why wouldn’t you be immediately skeptical?

        • charles@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          10 months ago

          Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

        • highenergyphysics@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          10 months ago

          I mean billions of people believe in magic sky man, another few billion believe in magic sky man’s father, and the last couple billion believe in magic sky man’s brother

          …and are all convinced their magic sky man is real and the others aren’t, so…

        • Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          10 months ago

          Oh it gets even worse than that… When I read about this on Monday they were saying that the call advised people to “save” their votes and use them when they really mattered in November. Now who the hell is stupid enough to believe that you can’t vote in the general election if you also voted in the primary?

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        10 months ago

        No one knows who did it.

        Why would you not be able to trace calls. That kind of shit became impossible here in the what 90s when all the telephone exchanges were digitalised.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      35
      ·
      10 months ago

      Too Long; Didn’t Read: The battle cry of the uneducated voter everywhere.

      It’s wild how desperately so-called Democratic voters want to show that they’re just as stupid and bull-headed as Trump supporters, and just like Trump supporters, they’ll just ignore anything that doesn’t fit their narrative.

      Choosing to be ignorant isn’t the flex you think it is.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        10 months ago

        Do you have both the time and emotional bandwidth to read every single thing that affects your life? Everything that anyone else, especially random Internet strangers, considers important for you as well?

        We should all be more educated on political matters. Real life forces us to pick and choose how we do it, unless we don’t have a life and choose to only concern ourselves with politics to the detriment of our family, relationships, friendships, and mental health. Because there’s a shit pile of info that comes out each and every day. I don’t think asking for a summary is something we should be shitting on people about.

        Being a smug jackass isn’t the flex you think is. It actually pushes people away from whatever you’re stating you think they should do. Unless that’s your plan anyway? In that case, no judgement here. Carry on.

          • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            10 months ago

            Maybe you’re right. I have no idea whether this person is an idiot. I don’t know whether they meant to respond to you because they did respond to the top level.

            Maybe because of your other interaction you don’t see what it looks like from the outside. It looks like someone is saying “I don’t have the attention span or emotional bandwidth to fully read and understand this at this time. Does anyone have a summary of events?” And you’re saying “Dwight, you ignorant slut!”

      • prole@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        10 months ago

        Who is choosing to be ignorant here? I don’t think these people wanted to fall for it.

      • daltotron@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        I will say this is an omega cringe take though, tl;dr is a pretty valid way to request someone else chew your food for you when you don’t wanna do jawzrsize, and your political extrapolations from that are completely irrelevant. The person who’s left an unpoliticized single four letter acronym might be of any political persuasion, you’re hallucinating shit.

        Also the

        Choosing to be ignorant isn’t the flex you think it is.

        doesn’t make any sense. The acronym is a request for more information. It’s someone asking to no longer be ignorant. Why did you decide to go goono mode with this comment?

        • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          Because they meant to reply to me but instead made a top-level comment. Check out downthread. He was one of the first comments.

          He was trying to act cool like ignoring what I said covered up that he didn’t have a rebuttal.

  • JoeKrogan@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    10 months ago

    I guess we can be thankful that there exists safe guards for launching missiles with regards to codes and all.

  • RememberTheApollo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    10 months ago

    Companies: Yeah, yeah, whatever… think how much we money can make using AI. Full steam ahead, consequences be damned.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    44
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    “Interfere” with a primary election…

    The DNC is very open about how primaries aren’t real elections and they don’t have to follow results.

    And they already took all of NH delegates away because the Republicans who control the state house, Senate, and governorship wouldn’t change the state law that says NH is the first primary…

    So yes, the deep fake is concerning for democracy.

    But not as much as the DNC taking the delegates away from an entire state because Republicans wouldn’t listen to the DNC.

    Especially since party favorite moderates have came in last in the last two NH primaries and the most progressive candidates came in first.

    Imagine if Trump and the RNC did this in a state that routinely votes for a more progressive candidate in their primary…

    We’d all (rightfully) be talking about the end of American democracy.

    But when the DNC does it, it’s frightening how many moderates defend it because it’s good for moderates.

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      Not to minimize the 2016 or 2020 elections, which a lot of sources say there was not a level playing field in the DNC, but this year there is an incumbent president. This is how incumbent presidents are always treated. It’s normal and fair and strategically sound.

      The same thing happened when Donald Trump was incumbent and nobody made a fuss.

      Edit for clarity:

      normal - The incumbent candidate has preferential treatment within the party in every election cycle. There are various ways that this manifests, and is usually different depending on the exact circumstances. If one chose, they could drill down into specific details to make it seem exceptional e.g. “It’s never been done in with this specific mechanism or in this particular state.”

      fair - If you want access to preferential treatment, become President. The President is the figurehead not only of the country, but arguably even more so of their party. It would be unfair for the party leadership to undermine them while in office.

      strategically sound - Incumbent candidates win elections. There is something like a 65% advantage to incumbency. Moreover, a party has limited political, social, and financial capital. If they spend that capital in the primary race, then they start the general election at a disadvantage. There is evidence (and common wisdom) that a primary race actually generates more capital, but I’ve never heard any credible suggestion that it could be a net gain in any area. Running a primary means a less unified party, less financial resources, less voter confidence in the victor.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        16
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        This is how incumbent presidents are always treated. It’s normal and fair and strategically sound.

        Really?

        I never heard of any party stripping a state of their primary delegates because of something completely out of control of the state party… Especially when it’s a state that routinely votes against the party favorite.

        Can you let me know some other times this happened?

        • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          10 months ago

          In every election, the incumbent is given preferential treatment and generally treated as the de facto candidate. In which election are you thinking of that this was not the case?

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            8
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            Sure…

            But when has the national party taken a state’s delegates away?

            Ideally for something outside of the states party control, because that’s what just happened. And for a state that routinely votes against the national party’s chosen candidate.

            But I’ll take any recent examples of a state losing their primary delegates because the national party yanked them away.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              10 months ago

              Welp, I guess I was right and this is totally unprecedented in modern American politics…

              Still don’t understand why so many people are ok with this tho

        • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          10 months ago

          Also pretty sure I distinctly remember several people running against Trump in that primary… So “nobody made a fuss” is a lie.

          • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            10 months ago

            You’re actually proving the point. The people who ran against him demanded funding and equal access to Party resources, but they were denied. The incumbent party will always tilt the field toward the incumbent president.

            • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              Except you literally said “nobody made a fuss.” Several people did.

              Because not everyone agrees it’s “normal and fair and strategically sound.”

              Just because “this is the way things are done” is an awful argument. Slavery was legal once, too, and people argued “this is the way things are done” for that, too.

              It’s a weak argument to say “well this is normal.” So was segregation until it wasn’t? Lots of morally dubious things have been argued with the “well this is normal and how we’ve always done it” bullshit.

              If you can come up with a better argument to support it than “this is how we do it and it just is and you need to accept it” then I will listen.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yeah dude, it’s not the actual fascists that are going to cause the end of our democracy. Let’s keep blaming Democrats for shit that the GOP is doing.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        When your options are:

        1. Full blown fascism

        2. Occasionally fascism and not fighting the other sides fascism

        A lot more than the 1/3 that don’t normally vote are likely going to not vote in the current election

        That is a reality.

        And the reality is if there’s depressed turnout, Republicans win.

        Pointing it out that it’s likely to happen won’t make it happen.

        Getting mad at someone for pointing it out is the same as burning a medicine woman as a witch because she said someone was going to die of their illness and then they died.

        Or blaming a meteorologist for the snow storm they predicted.

        It doesn’t make any rational sense. And you should be happy someone is trying to warn you, instead of getting mad and telling them if they don’t mention the issues, they’ll go away.

        Get mad at the reason for it. In this case, Bidens actions.

        If you have a better plan for getting Biden to stop doing all this stupid shit that hurts his chances and help trump besides complaining about it…

        Well, I’m all ears.

        Because as bad as Biden is, trump is far more dangerous

    • Szymon@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      26
      ·
      10 months ago

      Come talk to me when either party has an ethical leg to stand on. Nobody has a high horse to stand on, and until you admit that your side is just as shit, nothing will change and you’ll continue propegating single issue policies that degrade democracy for everyone.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        10 months ago

        We have two options in our political system…

        Not being able to criticize the better party because the other is even worse just results in a race to the bottom.

        Something that’s been happening for decades and instead of slowing down is just happening more and more.

        When the main reason to vote D is “they’re not Republicans” the Dem party continually acting more like Republicans every year ain’t going to help Dems get elected.

        Nobody has a high horse to stand on, and until you admit that your side is just as shit, nothing will change

        I’m literally complaining about “my side”…

        And you’re telling me I can’t because Republicans are worse…

        • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          10
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          I don’t even know why I try with folks like that. These idiots are as thoughtless as Trump voters, but get their knickers in a twist when you point out they’re arguing for the electorate to “be quiet and not ask questions” as if that’s not what Trump asks of his voters.

          They immediately jump to accusing you of being a plant, as if that’s not as conspiratorial bullshit as Trump voters take part in. They just know, right?? /s Give me a break, fucking whiney babies who can’t handle a different opinion.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            9
            ·
            10 months ago

            I’ve blocked a shit ton of them…

            The problem is once you do that, you start getting replies from accounts that have sat inactive for months and lots of your comments get multiple down votes immediately.

            Because some apps make it very easy to switch between multiple accounts. And they really really really think people talking about this stuff is worse than the problem.

            They want us to bury our heads in the sand and never criticize anyone with a D by their name.

            Which is probably the worst thing we could do in a two party system.

            • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              9
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              I’m a masochist. I don’t block them.

              Because their arguments are really easy to dismantle, even if they’re too fucking stupid to understand that.

              The problem is once you do that, you start getting replies from accounts that have sat inactive for months and lots of your comments get multiple down votes immediately.

              They really don’t see how they act just as badly as Trump voters, do they? Is it “the ends justify the means” or are they just stupid or are they paid to act this stupid? It’s not like Correct the Record ever went away and it’s still totally legal to hire masses of people to post paid political speech online in the US, because nobody is making laws to make these people have to admit they’re being paid, kind of like advertisements have to. No, they flood the zone with this bullshit just as badly as the right-wing does and then cry big fat loser baby tears when it doesn’t work out.

              • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                10 months ago

                Blocking doesn’t really work on Lemmy like it does on other platforms. You can mute people but it doesn’t limit them from interacting with you.

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        How about you stop assuming what people’s political affiliations are simply because they have the audacity to question the people they plan on voting for?

        Imagine if Trump and the RNC did this in a state that routinely votes for a more progressive candidate in their primary…

        I would think this line alone shows that this person doesn’t think highly of conservatives, yet here you are making the crass assumption that this must mean they’re Republican and “continue propegating single issue policies that degrade democracy for everyone.”

        Can you get your fucking head out of your ass for a minute and instead of making an assumption try talking to someone to find out?

        Because I agree with everything they said, but I also plan on voting Democrat down-ticket, because Republicans are nuts, and the only people who run Independent around here are trying to hide that they’re actually Republican.

        You people really sound like fucking jackasses when you accuse likely democrat voters of being fucking Republican/Russian plants because they have the audacity to want more and better from Democrats.

        How about you come with an actual rebuttal instead of acting like “It doesn’t matter because you’re clearly Republican!!!”

        Like, give me a fucking break, you don’t know that, you’re just pulling that out of your ass based on how you feel. Grow the fuck up, this kind of attitude is no better than the Trumpers. Do you want us to be compliant, non-questioning voters like them? Isn’t the primary season when we’re supposed to make our desires for our political representatives known?

        Because it sure as shit seems like all you people want us to do is be exactly like Trump voters and sit down, shut up, and not ask questions of Dear Leader.

        I don’t know how to break this to you, but we want an informed, involved, and educated electorate, and all you fucking idiots demanding that we instead be cowed, quiet, fucking idiots who never question anything just like Trump voters are missing the fucking point, I’d wager.

        Do you want an informed, involved, educated electorate? Or do you want them to “Shut Up” because they had the audacity to critique “Your Team” because you can’t be fucked to think for yourself?

        Grow up. Fucking children. Exactly like Trump voters.