I’m with you on what the meme is trying to say, but the bottom track needs to be shown looping around to the Republican track and running over everyone.
Because that’s where the third track leads.
Yep, not voting is unironically pretty much the same as voting for the party you least want in charge.
Because you’re making it that much more likely.
Don’t throw away a right that your ancestors fought for, as it may result in future generations no longer having that right.
Hitler’s government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.
[…]
The former Berlin businessman I referred to earlier told me that he blamed his own group, people with the time and the money and the opportunity to know better, for what happened to Germany. “We ignored Hitler,” he said. “We considered him an unimportant fellow, not quite a gentleman, not of our own class. We considered it just a little bit vulgar to bother with him, to bother with politics at all.”
They thought of the government as “They.” The only possible route to a clear conscience in politics is to accept political responsibility, either as an active member of the party in power or as an equally active member of the loyal opposition.
—Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government
Similarly, MLK saw “the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice” as the biggest impediment to civil rights.
The bottom line is that being secure enough in your position in society to think you don’t have to engage in politics, or that you can afford to vote your principles instead of tactically, is itself a form of privilege. Those sorts of privileged people think themselves neutral or uninvolved or maybe (in the case of professed leftists refusing to vote Dem as a protest) on their own third side, but the reality is that they are the right-wing authoritarians’ greatest ally every single time.
Lol imagine thinking “moderate white” doesn’t perfectly describe the majority of people walking into the 2020 primaries and voting for Joe Biden.
You’re not wrong about the primary, but you are wrong to conflate the primary with the general election when it’s the latter that we’re talking about here.
Lol so I’m “radical” in the primaries when I don’t vote for Biden but I’m “moderate” in the general when I don’t vote for Biden?
That’s not how labels work sir.
The POTUS, from the party most opposed to civil rights act, is who signed it into law, very much so a white moderate more devoted to order. So, I’m gonna take a stance and say MLK was wrong about that one if that was his take before he died.
That’s not how it went, though. It’s, in fact, the opposite of how it went. Hitler had relatively little popular support, but full support of the industrial elite. It’s blaming the people for the crimes of the elite. “They abdicated their franchise” no, fuckface, half of them voted communist. “We ignored Hitler” no, fuckface, you put him in power because you thought he’d be malleable.
I’m not surprised Heinlein bought it, though. And I’m not surprised people here are buying it.
It’s funny that both democrats and third party voters will look at your comment and think you’re on their side.
Well, mathematically it’s only half as bad.
-1 lesser evil +1 greater evil
Vs.
-1 lesser evil +0 greater evil
Your math is wrong. You wouldn’t be cancelling out the greater evil with the vote for the lesser evil, so its actually twice as bad (or 4x what you were thinking).
0 lesser evil +1 greater evil
Exactly.
There is unfortunately no option to wind up with a non-evil result, your only options are greater evil result or lesser evil result.
By voting 3rd party you didn’t reduce the chance of greater evil result, AND you didn’t increase the chance of lesser evil result.
Well, I didn’t intend on voting for Trump but, fine, you’ve convinced me.
Hey, as long as you vote. Everyone should vote.
Yes, you of course weren’t already going to do that. 🙄
Like so?
Also, let’s have 'im on the track too.
“Oh, no, I’m not in any of those groups on the track, so I can safely not vote and have a clear conscience as it crushes everyone!”
Then they came for me…
“All men were created equal”
IS SLAVE STATE
always jave been coming for us.
What a sad misunderstanding of a quote literally describing state enforced genocide. I mean, this is how it starts. Both sides would kill Palestinians. Can’t do anything about it I guess. Oh well, best not put my foot down and take a principled stand here.
Who’s next?
You think that Republicans wouldn’t support genocide against anyone they consider to be their enemy?
I think that accepting that some groups, like Palestinians, will just be oppressed no matter what is what leads to things like the Holocaust. Saying you can’t afford to take a stand on your principles today and draw a line in the sand, but maybe you will tomorrow leads to the situation Martin Niemoller found himself in. It may be too late already, and making a stand won’t make a difference, but it’s never too early.
And what happens when a significant chunk of the electorate does that? I bet all those poor Palestinians will really feel good about Israel being given the green light to bomb them harder because a bunch of people protested and got a dementia riddled fascist elected.
These posts are just virtue signalling, because there’s never any forethought of what happens after the election to the people being discussed. You can speak from a place of privilege and moralize about the choice you’re making, but you’re pushing the same tactics that the republicans and alt-right push: don’t vote democrat.
I don’t like that I have to vote for Biden, but I actually want to minimize the harm being done to people, not just talk about it on the internet. Crazy concept.
These don’t-vote-for-Biden weirdos don’t understand that it’s wrong to use the idea of a minority to push your political interests in a way that hurts that minority.
If a significant portion of the electorate did that, Biden would be on the phone this minute applying all possible pressure to stop what is happening. Instead they are playing chicken with your vote. Children died today and every day for the past 8 months because a political party is betting that you’ll vote for them anyways.
Again, the original issue I raised is that it’s cruel to quote a man lamenting the fact that he and others like him didn’t do enough soon enough to stop the Holocaust. That same behavior is happening right now. But it’s fine. We just have to accept it. A few losses for the greater good. I’d bet you don’t have any Palestinian friends, but if you do, please let them know I’m the one who’s privileged and see what they say.
As someone who for the first time did not vote in 2016. I started voting in the Bush era. I fully agree, no action leads to fascism apparently. Don’t do what I did because I was pissed that Bernie was cheated out of the nomination. Vote or Trump will be back in office.
Doesn’t matter where the track leads if the trolley can’t get to it. It could lead to rainbows and sunshine, but that isn’t where the trolley is headed because there is no possibility that someone other than Trump or Biden is elected president. A few cry babies voting third party won’t get some third person elected. A vote for the third track is a vote for a track that will not be ridden.
It could be a little model trolley track going in a loop with no trolley on it.
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Oh, maybe. I assumed it was two different people, but yeah, that makes sense.
It makes sense because you can see that the track exists and is better, but there’s no way to actually get the train onto it
the bottom track needs to be shown looping around to the Republican track
Okay, but the guy at the controls needs to be the swing vote on the SCOTUS.
I’m guessing the joke is that third party voters ignore the trolley about to go down one of two paths, instead deciding to stand next to a short piece of track connected to nothing with no trolley on it, so they can pretend the imminent disaster happening on the other track isn’t real
And there’s also a contingent of people on the trolley who are trying to get it to slow down, working their asses off to improve long term actual outcomes in the real world, whether related or not to the little lever, and the guy standing next to the empty disconnected track is claiming to be one of them and saying you must be against them and how dare you, you person-running-over-enabling monster, if you say anything against his strategy.
This is why I, as an autistic person, think internally using a sort of infinite mechanical analog diagram sheet thing.
Physical analogies are beautiful for how quickly they can convey a concept. Those disconnected tracks are a great representation of the third party voting situation we face, the “throwaway vote” problem.
Funny thing is, that’s what’s called a controlled derailment. It’s the engineering answer to the situatuon, if the situation were real and not a contrived philosophical dilemma.
This guy gets it
The Biden approach
**
The problem is that we have two choices, and we will never not have two choices unless we do something about it. I can both say that Joe Biden sucks and we should do better and also vote for him because the other option is worse. This discourse that makes it seem like any criticism of Biden is pro trump is how we will end up in a slightly less terrible place. Cool. Really looking forward to that.
Also like what the fuck…I guess we have to kill Palestinians no matter what.
There is a third fucking option and it’s not doing a genocide.
There is a third fucking option and it’s not doing a genocide.
That’s only an option if you have a viable strategy for accomplishing it.
Which, of course, they don’t. It’s a vanity vote. They want to pretend they have actually done something without actually having to do anything of consequence.
It’s an expression of privilege.
If we’re interpreting their “third option” as a voting strategy and not convincing Biden to step in and stop the genocide, we can at least implement Approval Voting so that they can vote for all the “no genocide” candidates without having to worry that doing so could somehow backfire. Then, if they want or need to, they can cast a strategic vote to differentiate between different magnitudes of genocide.
we can at least implement Approval Voting
No, you can’t. You do not have the power to implement Approval Voting, and nobody who does have the power wants to do it. So it’s not gonna happen, at least not in the short term. Right now, anybody who wins has to win in an environment of First Past the Post. Nobody capable of doing that currently supports Approval Voting, so right now it is effectively not on the ballot.
This is what I mean about “hav[ing] a viable strategy.” Magically wishing Approval Voting into existence ain’t it.
Well the strategy is to work your way up from the local level because:
-
It’s easier for people to make change at the local level, Fargo and St. Louis have already done it.
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Politicians tend to work their way up the ladder, and will be more open to using the system at higher levels if they already proved they can win under that system.
You have to remember that any real social change takes years, even decades of organized to realize. We didn’t go from Jim Crowe to the civil rights act in a fortnight, it took big organizations applying decades of pressure in multiple different ways.
If you want to be a part of the solution, join an organization dedicated to improving things. It doesn’t have to be the one I linked, but Election Science is the one working on approval voting. Local elections are such that one highly motivated person can build and run the organization to flip their local election laws, it could be you, but it won’t happen overnight.
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Yes, we need to change the way we vote before voting for POTUS can really move away from a binary choice.
Great. That is a state issue, so pay attention to your state government, vote for state representatives that support better voting methods, and contact your state representatives to push for reform.
That doesn’t change this trolley problem.
As someone else pointed out, those in power are unlikely to change the voting system to reduce their own power. However, you really start at the local level with referendums, and work your way up. First, it’s easier to force change at the local level and second, politicians working their way up will be less hostile to changing to approval if they’ve already shown they can win under that system.
Step one: Stop rewarding genocide with votes. 🤷
I agree, now how do we go about making everyone else see it too?
Apparently we can’t in 2024. They didn’t hear us in 2016. They won’t hear us now in 2024. Maybe two Democrat juggernauts losing the presidential election to Trump of all people will convince them.
They’ll just blame the leftists they cant stop attacking then use it as an excuse to move further right yet again.
The problem is that we have two choices
The problem is that we don’t. If you’re not in a “swing” state, all the votes in the world for Joe Biden are meaningless. Win California by another million votes. Win it by another 10M. Have every single eligible voter in California turn up and vote for Joe Biden. He still loses the EC when the SCOTUS tells Arizona to stop counting ballots the minute Trump is in the lead.
Also like what the fuck…I guess we have to kill Palestinians no matter what.
We have to keep sending money to Israel because its the means by which we control the Suez Canal.
Except… the Houthis have control over the back end of the canal so long as they’re able to scare off shipping in the Gulf of Adan. So now we’re endorsing a genocide just for shits and giggles.
It’s almost like two organizations have totally monopolized US politics. It’s a billion dollar industry, and they’d both rather alternate losing to each other and keep their seat at the table than let anyone else play the game.
Its an enormously lucrative game, so who can blame them?
you blame us for going along with it and blame those who shame anyone who points out that we don’t have to go along with it.
Because of a shitty situation set up by countless past people and events completely out of your control you have to make a choice here. And in my mind, it’s not even a difficult choice. Yes, either option will support Israel, that’s a given, but there is no third option so it might as well not even be a factor in choosing a candidate.
If you want more parties and to remove first past the post then you need to elect the party who supports those stances. That is one of your two options. Real fucking simple.
No. I do not vote for strike blocking genocide supporting candidates. Real fucking simple.
You will elect a much worse one by not supporting a much better one.
That’s their goal.
Well, in context of philosophy being taught in class you would then change the prompt to a harder question. You would also debate whether the person who makes the decision is in fact responsible and how that dynamic changes when the prompt changes.
So maybe you have to choose between 2 men only half as happy or handsome or one fully formed magical man with magic hands.
Magical hands always
What if the train magically transforms regular men into new men? What if they were opposed to the transformation before it happened?
Conversely, what about if it magically creates men causing potential overpopulation? What if the men it created morally oppose the tram, but more than half the local population feel like it is necessary to run no matter what?
You can pretty much run this thought experiment forever, so far we’ve been going for 57 years.
Yes
I enjoy the self insert character of Zach in panel 4.
WEINNERSMITHHHHHHH
It’s interesting how much the vote DOES resemble a trolley problem. Generally, the only real point in favor of not pulling the lever is “You’re killing someone, it’s immoral to get involved. Life shouldn’t be in your hands.”
Which is still setting aside all the conscious choice by other human beings that IS happening come election season. Probably the biggest way it diverges is that a trolley is moving under its own “natural” momentum. In reality, it’s as though some Nazis are pulling the trolley along the track to the 5 people.
If that third track were an option the trolley problem would never have existed. If there really is a third track in the real-life situation, then the trolley problem is not a good analogy of that problem.
Sadly, in this election there is no third track and we are forced into choosing the lesser of two evils.
If you want a third track, push for ranked choice voting!
the joke is that you are actively removing yourself from the situation by making a decision to do nothing. In essence, that track has no trolley on it, and no people on it, meaning nobody dies… As long as you don’t look over your shoulder.
meaning nobody dies… As long as you don’t look over your shoulder.
Standing at the lever, close your eyes real hard and wish there was a third choice as you hope someone else makes that choice for you
plug your ears, close your eyes, and yell “I CANT HEAR YOU” repeatedly over and over again.
The real joke is how the “no choice” position is such extreme nonsense that even something as dumbed down as a meme can’t make any part of it seem logical.
it’s not explicitly nonsense, one of the decisions that you can make in the trolley problem is doing nothing, this is the equivalent of doing nothing in a comedic fashion.
In the same way ‘would you rather’ is meant to force a decision between two unacceptable choices, the trolly problem is meant to highlight the morality of refusing to choose (and ensuring the worse decision).
The third rail is just redundant.
This is the problem with the trolley problem.
If it were replaced with, say, being told to shoot one group or another by a sadistic guard, the possibility of refusing to choose would be more obvious in terms of what it means morally.
The trolley is an inanimate object. It isn’t making choices.
Political parties are more like the sadistic guard. They are making choices.
In the same way ‘would you rather’ is meant to force a decision between two unacceptable choices, the trolly problem is meant to highlight the morality of refusing to choose (and ensuring the worse decision).
in a really reductive sense, yes. The trolley problem is at it’s heart, a question of whether being involved in an atrocity is better than being uninvolved in an atrocity.
Very well, I shall push for it by
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voting the same way regardless if the candidate supports it, and
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suddenly participating in direct action, because we weren’t already doing that.
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There literally is a third option that will be printed on most of not all ballots. Rank choice voting is huge but people should be willing to vote earnestly. Nobody wants to be the one to make the change and wants the world to change first but that’s not how it works.
In a FPTP voting system, you cannot vote earnestly. To do so all but guarantees the election of the opposition.
Explanation: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo
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that video explains well how strategic voting ends up with two parties.
And we have an electoral college, so actually you can still vote earnestly in most states without major concern.
No. In the current system you should not vote earnestly. In a fair system you should. Not in the one we have. The only moral choice is to select the lesser evil. Otherwise you might as well vote for the greater one.
Only if your vote might change the results. Which isn’t true for millions of Americans.
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give that man a rocket launcher
I’m assuming the third track being entirely disconnected and therefore not a real option is intentional.
Either way, accurate
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Guys, I don’t know what’s going on in the world and their wars. I just want a president who isn’t abhorently evil. Do we have to revolutionize to find that 3rd option orrr?
this one is actually really funny, i like this one.
Good shit.
I appreciate OPs honesty that Palestinians are dead either way.
Less palestinians will die under Biden. People who says “how could it be any worse?” have a severe lack of imagination and/or historical knowledge.
Less palestinians will die under Biden.
This claim is absolutely meaningless without evidence and some indication about how the situation resolves.
There’s a very good chance the moment Biden knows he’s won the election he’ll call you Bibi and go “thanks for your patience. Go nuts.”
I mean the right has already made it clear that they’re 100% pro genocide, straight up recommending that every Palestinian is killed. The worst Biden could possibly do is be as bad as Trump.
Ok? I’m still not voting for a strike blocking genocide supporting candidate.
And that places you in the bottom left corner of the cartoon.
Ohhhh noooooooooooo
You have no one to vote for. Every single candidate supports genocide. Biden, West, Stein, Sanders. Palestinian genocide or Ukrainian genocide. Pick your 'cider
Will do. But it won’t be Trump or Biden which is all that matters to you.
Ukrainian genocide
Yes, the “Ukrainian genocide”… You know that genocide used to be a word with a meaning, right? That we shouldn’t go around calling any conflict a genocide?
No matter what your opinion on the conflict, comparing it to the situation in Palestine is the same as denying it, there is no comparison. Russia is definitely not deliberately bombing civilian targets, we have only had the collateral damage that is expected from any war. And this collateral damage is infinitely smaller than any of the wars the United States has engaged in in the last 50 years. Do you call the wars in Iraq, Indochina, Libya and Korea genocides?
Trump stoked tensions needlessly by moving US embassy to Jerusalem
I guess people shouldn’t have voted for a terrible candidate in the 2016 DNC primaries.
I think people shouldn’t have voted for a terrible president in 2016 but what do I know
Sounds like the DNC primaries didn’t produce a candidate that was sufficiently popular with all the major factions of the Democrat voter base. I wonder what the solution to that could be. Guess we’ll never know since people like you refuse to have that conversation.
There’s a very good chance…
This is how you know you have brain worms. Biden has to keep the Jewish liberal vote so he’s supporting Israel. He also needs congress to fund ukraine which they won’t do without also funding Israel.
If anything, Biden turns his back on bibi as soon as the election is over and throws him to the wolves. Netanyahu is doing everything he can to get trump elected.
Biden has to keep the Jewish liberal vote so he’s supporting Israel.
When you say this while telling me I have brain worms it’s easy for me to come to the conclusion you think the desires of Jewish liberals are more important than mine.
And while that’s certainly your prerogative I have zero motivation to cater to it.
Okay, I’ll bite.
Why can’t Biden stop supporting Israel?
He needs liberal jews and lapsed Republicans that support israel in November.
The big funding packages that he signed were part and parcel with deals to fund ukraine.
Holy shit this has me crying
He needs liberal jews and lapsed Republicans that support israel in November.
Yet here you are attacking us. We can only conclude you believe their opinions are more important than ours.
I’m not attacking you. I’m saying as bad as Biden is for Palestinians, Trump is will be 1000x worse. I can’t believe that’s so hard for people to understand.
I won’t be voting for Biden or Trump. I anxiously await your non-judgemental response.
Future aged like milk comment? 🤔
wouldnt be a joke otherwise.
This is why the US should help move all Palestinians out of Israel. Relocate them to a place in the US. Give them a reservation land like the native Americans. They’re never going to beat Israel and the best solution would be to move and start over.
Why not move Israelis?
They already have a home.
So do (did) Palestine
