2024 US Election

  On 11/5/2024 at 10:14 PM, taphead said:

What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?

Getting some reacts on this post that might suggest people think I am being silly here, so just to be clear, this is a reference to how I am trans and how this coin flip election could have a tremendous impact on my life and I hate it

I wish it was just about how I am really invested in democratic norms or whatever. But like, the course of the rest of my life is going to come down to this coinflip.

  On 11/5/2024 at 8:41 PM, ignatius said:

it's quite mind boggling how well he broke people's brains in combination with the internet and right wing media sources. 

Read an interesting article about the use of twitter to boost certain points of view. Some incredible stats.

https://www.cip.uw.edu/2023/10/20/new-elites-twitter-x-most-influential-accounts-hamas-israel/

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Since the first news of the attack on Israel by Hamas, we have seen anecdotal reports from users of X (formerly Twitter) that the platform has become less useful for surfacing verified news and more generally disorienting. Through a novel data collection process we identify highly influential accounts in the Hamas/Israel discourse on X that comprise the most dominant English-language news sources on Twitter for the event. In this Center for an Informed Public rapid research report, we compare these accounts to traditional news sources and find on average they have far fewer subscribers while achieving far greater views, are of more recent popularity, and show a greater posting frequency. Most of the accounts also use video and images frequently, framed in emotional ways. Strikingly, many of these accounts have received prior promotion from X owner Elon Musk, either through direct recommendation or through Musk’s account replying to their content, which may explain some of their dominance of “news twitter.”

With seven accounts racking up a cumulative 1.6 billion tweet views over three days of posts, our analysis points to a new crisis twitter that is faster, more disorienting, and potentially more shaped by Musk himself.

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This video is interesting for two reasons - first of course for the absolute flip flop in viewpoints when he learns they're discussing something Trump said vs when they thought it was something Biden said, but second (and more importantly) the host makes the point that Rogan is actually mainstream media.

When you combine that thought with the numbers from the above article regarding Musk's chosen few, it's easy to make the case for them being the new mainstream media. It's just a sad state of affairs - and it really highlights what people are looking for. Yes traditional news sources became quite shit and quite suspect in many aspects, but they still did a lot of news reporting. Which is of course, not really entertaining. Rogan and Musk's elite play on fear and emotions at a scale we haven't seen before.

Edit: this playing to emotions and fear is obviously not really anything new, as I noted earlier in the thread, but it really crystalizes the scope of it now and it's interesting to see some analytics on twitter usage as a propaganda vehicle.

  On 11/6/2024 at 12:07 AM, taphead said:

Getting some reacts on this post that might suggest people think I am being silly here, so just to be clear, this is a reference to how I am trans and how this coin flip election could have a tremendous impact on my life and I hate it

I wish it was just about how I am really invested in democratic norms or whatever. But like, the course of the rest of my life is going to come down to this coinflip.

i tried to make a harm reduction argument on reddit in the r/latestagecapitalism sub and got banned because i brought up trans people in america.  was accused of 'tokenizing trans people' was called a monster for supporting genocide and then harassed by the mods who turned off my replies to their messages and i had to report them.  i apparently put USA domestic policy ahead of the lives of palestinians even though i pointed out how big a stooge jill stein is and that there's no good "not gonna bomb poor people"  choice for foreign policy issues and the only choice to make is harm reduction domestically because people here are, ya know, also trying to exist.  the choice seems clear to me and always has for many issues

Yeah honestly if I thought that an electoral defeat could change the dems on that shit, I'd be fine with being the sacrificial lamb here. But this is a country where a significant number of people will say "yes we should bomb agrabah" if you poll them on it, this is the party that sees Al Gore lose and then goes "we should nominate the guy who drives a motorcycle onto the Jay Leno set", a presidential electoral defeat is not going to lead to this change. The lesson they will take is "we hear you, america! Trans people are bad". Like when Bill Maher talks about how if the dems lose it'll be because they are beholden to the woke mind virus, when dnc officials comment on the "kamala is for they/them" ad and say "wow that's a really good ad", it seems pretty obvious what the impact of a loss will be here.

Amendment 3 - recreational cannabis failed in FL

Amendment 4 - legalized abortion at 57% yes, 43% no.

Requires 60% to pass 

tomorrow will be either a bunch of democrats or a bunch of republicans rushing out to buy guns and ammo. 

  On 11/6/2024 at 2:52 AM, Rubin Farr said:

Amendment 3 - recreational cannabis failed in FL

Amendment 4 - legalized abortion at 57% yes, 43% no.

Requires 60% to pass 

So much freedom.

I've been wondering about this recently and just asked myself what you lot think - What is the defining factor of a good upbringing, a good education? How do you teach a healthy worldview? What makes people fall into hateful rhetoric, propaganda or mindless garbage like Joe Rogan if not the absence of what I'm asking? Is even that not enough for youth and adults not to be swayed into political extremes?
I live in Switzerland which is supposedly one of the most stable and well educated places in the world and even here so many people in one way or another (at least in my slightly anarchic alternative circles) believe in this big world-ending anti government conspiracy theory that I keep seeing reflected in right wing fearmongering. All without ever considering what an incredible headache managing a population even is or looking at how it is managed to begin with. I understand casting a shadow of doubt on the powers that be but it cannot be tunnel vision black and white division over and over again to actually change into something better like what the fuck? I know people here who consider themselves leftist hippies and they marched with nazis against covid mandates a few years ago. Comparing masks to jews like come on. That goes way overboard. I hope in the near future they somehow teach kids how to approach information on the internet.. Or how to log out Maybe, with the USA as an extreme example, only having two parties to vote for that each don't hold up to people's beliefs of what constitutes governing has led to all this in some degree? Here in we have a much more direct democracy but the feeling of all this is still there. It must be exhausting elsewhere. 

ᴬʳᵉ ʷᵉ ʲᵘˢᵗ ᵉᶜʰᵒ ᶜʰᵃᵐᵇᵉʳˢ ᵃᵐᵒⁿᵍˢᵗ ᵉᶜʰᵒ ᶜʰᵃᵐᵇᵉʳˢˀ

Good luck to US and A!

  On 11/6/2024 at 3:28 AM, chronical said:

What is the defining factor of a good upbringing, a good education? How do you teach a healthy worldview? What makes people fall into hateful rhetoric, propaganda or mindless garbage like Joe Rogan if not the absence of what I'm asking? Is even that not enough for youth and adults not to be swayed into political extremes?

with the rest of your post in mind, i think it's not just a good education, but a strong and continuing education and lean towards sympathy/empathy for others being instilled and reinvigorated consistently over time. people go into stasis in varying ways, and their brains and hearts stop processing as they once did. 

there's more to it than that but i think that's the basics...

came here to post:

  Quote

With about two-thirds of Georgia's expected vote reporting, Trump leads by 6 points, 53% to 47%. Among the counties where at least 90% of the expected vote has reported (53 of the state's 159 counties), Trump is doing about 3 points better in margin than he did in 2020 against Biden. In a state Biden carried by just 0.24 points, a statewide trend like that across all counties would surely mean victory for Trump.

Harris' hopes lie in gaining votes in some of the big Atlanta-area counties that were pivotal to Biden's win, as none of those has reported more than about three-fourths of the expected vote yet (and Gwinnett County has reported only 16% of its expected vote). The good news for her is that she's running ahead of Biden in some of those places; the bad news is that some of those counties still have more GOP-leaning Election Day votes to process.

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https://abcnews.go.com/538/live-updates/election-results-2024/?id=115468646&entryId=115544243

Georgia's going to be v v v close again, it seems...

  On 11/6/2024 at 3:41 AM, auxien said:

with the rest of your post in mind, i think it's not just a good education, but a strong and continuing education and lean towards sympathy/empathy for others being instilled and reinvigorated consistently over time. people go into stasis in varying ways, and their brains and hearts stop processing as they once did. 

there's more to it than that but i think that's the basics...

That's reasonable yeah. There's a word here called "Wohlstandsverwahrlosung".  It describes the stagnation, the neglect of people from wealthy backgrounds. I guess the same applies for empathy here. We're lucky to even have time to consider things like this I think.

  On 11/6/2024 at 3:41 AM, auxien said:

https://abcnews.go.com/538/live-updates/election-results-2024/?id=115468646&entryId=115544243

Georgia's going to be v v v close again, it seems...

That swing in Pennsylvania not great. Harris needs Wisconsin and NC as well - along with Georgia very tight tight races.

concerning

  On 11/6/2024 at 4:02 AM, chronical said:

That's reasonable yeah. There's a word here called "Wohlstandsverwahrlosung".  It describes the stagnation, the neglect of people from wealthy backgrounds. I guess the same applies for empathy here. We're lucky to even have time to consider things like this I think.

i can see that for sure...i think i see as much stagnation in the middle class and the poor in neglecting others, as much if not moreso than the wealthy. it's tied to the American super capitalistic drive ('American dream' as it's been interpreted over the last few decades) we seem to have locked in on as paramount. the neglect from the wealthy is still very rampant here too, of course...

  On 11/6/2024 at 4:24 AM, chenGOD said:

That swing in Pennsylvania not great. Harris needs Wisconsin and NC as well - along with Georgia very tight tight races.

yeah, it's not going to be decided until tomorrow or later in the week, no doubt...

This is fucking grim. 

Oooee shit gonna go trump

sorry but this shit is so fucking wacked that we even have to fucking wait more than 10 minutes to show that trump is actual human trash rejected by 300+ million people and he should be put in the hydrolic press inside a cylinder and pressed into a fucking sloppy bloody puck of human bits and thrown on a fire to warm the bare asses of a bunch of witches and pagans dancing naked in a forest to celebrate the full on 100% sex education of young people and free birth control to every person in america while jeff bezos and enron musk are both tied over barrels naked being whipped by the undocumented immigrants who have their pockets stuffed with piles of "get your start in america" money while 500,000 young people (the bonfire flames lighting their smiles) burdened with student debt open letters that their debt is forgiven and Grimes reads each letter aloud as pagan drummers pound away to giant drums and everyone gets berserker mushrooms and heads off to the suburbs to burn down walmarts. 

"watch yo profamity"

"way to go paul!"

  On 11/6/2024 at 5:15 AM, Crazing said:

Oooee shit gonna go trump

my dad called me a couple hours ago, very depressed sounding, saying the same. i told him to turn off the TV and that half the country was still voting etc.. but here we are. 

4 more years of listening to trump, that pig eyed sack of shit, will certainly be bad for everyone. 

Don’t forget that he can legally murder his perceived enemies this time! Thanks SCOTUS!

  On 11/4/2024 at 8:43 PM, Satans Little Helper said:

eah, similar comments by Nate Silver. Given the expected polling error, there should be a bigger variation between different/independent polls. Something might be off.

  Quote

Yesterday, I complained about how so many pollsters are “herding” by publishing results that are almost an exact tie in a way that is incredibly statistically improbable given the unavoidable sampling error from surveying a small number of voters. I also noted a handful of prominent exceptions — rouge pollsters like the New York Times/Siena College that practically exist in an entirely different universe and imply a much bigger political realignment.

Another such maverick is Ann Selzer of Selzer & Co. (Selzer and NYT/Siena are our two highest-rated pollsters.) As my former colleague Clare Malone wrote in 2016, Selzer — like NYT/Siena — has a long history of bucking the conventional wisdom and being right. In a world where most pollsters have a lot of egg on their faces, she has near-oracular status.

...

Her new poll? It shows the state trending even bluer, with Harris leading in Iowa 47-44.

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https://www.natesilver.net/p/a-shocking-iowa-poll-means-somebody

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https://abcnews.go.com/538/live-updates/election-results-2024/?id=115468646&entryId=115546688

a good reminder that one poll rarely nails the facts/story, no matter the track record of the pollster. Iowa's going to Trump, pretty easily it seems.

  On 11/6/2024 at 5:28 AM, baph said:

Don’t forget that he can legally murder his perceived enemies this time! Thanks SCOTUS!

bunch a liberals gonna go buy guns tomorrow.  concealed carry permits gonna sky rocket for liberals. car w/harris walz sticker apparently vandalized by trump supporters.. if this is how it's gonna go this is just the start. 

  Quote

It is increasingly looking like Harris' best -- and perhaps only -- path to 270 electoral votes is by winning the three "Blue Wall" states: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. These states are so named because they voted for Democrats in every presidential election from 1992 to 2012, helping give Democrats a bulwark in the Electoral College. But Trump flipped them in 2016, and ever since, they have been near-essential for Democrats in order to win.

https://abcnews.go.com/538/live-updates/election-results-2024/?id=115468646&entryId=115547589

it's beginning to look a lot like 2016

hoping to wake up to good news in the morning...

Fuck 

  On 11/6/2024 at 5:43 AM, o00o said:

Fuck 

  On 11/6/2024 at 4:51 AM, auxien said:

i can see that for sure...i think i see as much stagnation in the middle class and the poor in neglecting others, as much if not moreso than the wealthy. it's tied to the American super capitalistic drive ('American dream' as it's been interpreted over the last few decades) we seem to have locked in on as paramount. the neglect from the wealthy is still very rampant here too, of course...

yeah, it's not going to be decided until tomorrow or later in the week, no doubt...

Trump planning on declaring early 

Great going America. Trump will skate through life without facing any consequences for all the various shit he's done. The racists and misogynist will be further emboldened and I don't see how things will be better in the US the next four years.

Lets see how they implement the Project 2025 program and install Trump sycophants up and done the state apparatus and cause irreparable harm. Not to mention the appointment of MAGA friendly judges all over including the already friendly SCOTUS. That's something that will have the Trump stink for decades.

  On 11/6/2024 at 5:24 AM, ignatius said:

sorry but this shit is so fucking wacked that we even have to fucking wait more than 10 minutes to show that trump is actual human trash rejected by 300+ million people and he should be put in the hydrolic press inside a cylinder and pressed into a fucking sloppy bloody puck of human bits and thrown on a fire to warm the bare asses of a bunch of witches and pagans dancing naked in a forest to celebrate the full on 100% sex education of young people and free birth control to every person in america while jeff bezos and enron musk are both tied over barrels naked being whipped by the undocumented immigrants who have their pockets stuffed with piles of "get your start in america" money while 500,000 young people (the bonfire flames lighting their smiles) burdened with student debt open letters that their debt is forgiven and Grimes reads each letter aloud as pagan drummers pound away to giant drums and everyone gets berserker mushrooms and heads off to the suburbs to burn down walmarts. 

"watch yo profamity"

"way to go paul!"

my dad called me a couple hours ago, very depressed sounding, saying the same. i told him to turn off the TV and that half the country was still voting etc.. but here we are. 

4 more years of listening to trump, that pig eyed sack of shit, will certainly be bad for everyone. 

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No doubt he will. Been watching the vox pops from various youtube channels and trump people are actually on another rationality planet. That said I think if he wins...it's will be a case of him winning AND her losing. Her campaign was shit. His support is manic. Liberal politics must change it's tune. It never will. I may be wrong about the result but her good vibes just won't cut it with not metro working people.