That’s some Grade A denial right there.

Everything in the Handmaid’s tale was inspired by real life somewhere. Saudi Arabia for women’s restricted travel.

I would put nothing past y’all quaida.

I learned about Lemmy from reddit.

Soooo…

This is a no true scottsman on critical thinking.

I’m going to copy my reply to Barney above.

We have all sorts of evidence for conflicting conclusions. Most of us do not have the time or resources get a lock on which evidence is truly trustworthy.

If you talk to a flat earther, or a dedicated follower of the oppossing political team, you will see they understand faulty sources, chains of logic, and deductive reasoning, they just only apply them in support of their position.

You can teach a person about bias in research or media and they will use that knowledge to discredit positions they don’t agree with.

You can say “that’s not critical thinking” and on one hand I agree, but teaching more thourough critical thinking skills won’t have the result we want: for people to make evidence based decisions about their life and society.

In my experience, Getting people to change their minds requires engaging their emotions. Decisions are made on the basis or shame, fear, anger, and more rarely, love, hope, and empathy.

The evidence needs to be there to support the emotion, but nobody ever changes their behavior on the strength of the evidence alone.

We have all sorts of evidence for conflicting conclusions. Most of us do not have the time or resources get a lock on which evidence is truly trustworthy.

If you talk to a flat earther, or a dedicated follower of the oppossing political team, you will see they understand faulty sources, chains of logic, and deductive reasoning, they just only apply them in support of their position.

You can teach a person about bias in research or media and they will use that knowledge to discredit positions they don’t agree with.

You can say “that’s not critical thinking” and on one hand I agree, but teaching more thourough critical thinking skills won’t have the result we want: for people to make evidence based decisions about their life and society.

In my experience, Getting people to change their minds requires engaging their emotions. Decisions are made on the basis or shame, fear, anger, and more rarely, love, hope, and empathy.

The evidence needs to be there to support the emotion, but nobody ever changes their behavior on the strength of the evidence alone.

All of that can be done, badly. Which is how people do it. See the discourse around any popular drama, people have the skills, they just use them in service of their own pre conceived notions.

It’s bleak, but if you want to persuade a large number of people to think differently, you don’t challenge their worldview, you create new biases that they will then defend in their own.

See: trump’s constant repetition of blatant lies.

The average person has lots of critical thinking.

It’s just not a life hack to truth. You can critical think yourself into any conclusion. The average person uses critical thinking to reinforce their biased instead of challenge them.

I said Ukraine would win if they continued receiving the level of aid they have been getting indefinitely.

That goes back to my earlier assertion that the trump administration is shot through with Russian propaganda and direct plants.

Depends on if Trump gives Zelenski a deal he can’t refuse.

If nobody changes US or European support I think Ukraine will win eventually.

But that’s a big if. As Russia gets closer to collapse they will make noises about peace and cease fires and try to hold what they have, and pushing them off where they are entrenched will be more difficult. Ukraine can do it, given time, and money, and In the short term, military equipment.

Voting is at it’s base a means of information transfer, but it’s also a way to transfer power.

Legislators presidents are not all powerful, but there can be real consequences to who gets to make the rules.

We do not disagree about what is most important. But voting is a gateway to civic involvement. I don’t think people who don’t vote are more likely to organize labor, volunteer, or engage in activism. I think it’s the opposite. Voters are more likely to be engaged and engaged active people are more likely to be voters.

That’s the thing. There was no sacrifice. There was no pro Palestine candidate. There was a quiet genocide supporter and a loud genocide supporter. You can’t punish the quiet candidate by abstaining or voting for the loud genocide supporter.

The message they take from that is voters don’t give a shit about Palestine or genocide except that some voters want it to happen faster with more death and suffering.

You are correct that we cannot vote our way to peace, prosperity, justice, or any other desireable goal. Voting is not the end, it’s the first step on a long road to building those things. Do unionize your workplace. Volunteer for your local aid agency. Build dual power. It’s just so easy (nearly always) that there is no excuse to not vote.

Honestly, I think the same of you. If you are American, You can’t see the forest for the trees and you voted or allowed the election of someone that was even worse for the palestinians, Americans, and the world.

I’m sure the people being tortured in Cecot in Elsalvador take comfort that at least the Democrats got punished at the polls for their support of Israel.

The Ukrainian families that lost their loved ones when the US cut off intelligence sharing for 48 hours and let the Russians get the jump on exposed troops.

The thousands of US government workers that lost their jobs to DOGE can rest easy knowing that at least Harris didn’t get elected after supporting genocide.

Nobodies life was saved, the isrealies continue their ethnic cleansing, with the full throated support of the US president, but you get to sleep soundly knowing All the death, torture, and suffering is worth it.

Shame.

Lose an election to who

Voters.

Democratic leadership can schedule events or platform people or even change the rules but voters get to vote at the end of the day. There are more voters than leadership. And if voters didn’t vote for centrists in primaries there wouldn’t be any centrists in office.

Agreed, sometimes, basically all the time, you have to choose between the bad and worse options.

You just said the concessions were to head off the growth of revolutionary fire. What is that but responding to the will of voters?

Electoral politics sucks that way. If all you care about is a single issue, there might be no good option.

I don’t think the applies to Gaza and Palestinians but plenty of people do.

But presidential elections are not about a single issue, unless you are short sighted or it’s your life on the line. The rest of us have to make a judgement about a whole lot of lives and some of us are too self rightious to think clearly.

Moving the democratic and Republican parties left has happened more recently than a third party winning national prominence.

Both Democrats and Republicans moved left during the progressive era, 1890’s to 1916. The Democrats stayed there for decades while the Republicans moved right over the course of the new deal. A third party hasn’t gained prominence since the Republican party came on the scene in the 1850’s.

I never said voting is the most important thing to do. Voting is the bare ass minimum. It’s (usually) easy and zero risk.

Actual progress nearly always requires direct action. Women’s suffrage involved firebombs. Abolition took a whole ass war in the US and the new deal happened after strikes and outright war all over the continent.

Voting is not sufficient it’s just the easiest possible way to give leadership information.