So clarify what I can do. I vote, so that’s out of the way.

Donate? With what money?

Help/run campaigns? With what time and/or money?

Be informed? I generally am and a fat lot of good it did.

Inform others? Not an influencer, so no reach. The few crazies I am adjacent to I either can’t discuss things with because it’d be unprofessional and I don’t want to lose my job or they drank deep of the Kool aid. And the non crazies are usually on my side even when I do have info they don’t already know.

Take people to the polls? Everyone for whom I could offer such a service early voted.

So what power am I overlooking? I participate to the best of my ability and within my limited resources so what am I missing?

Edit: How shocking, no response, just a downvote.

Both obviously. I did my part and sanity lost in the US. I continue to have no meaningful power.

Our lives are also on the list to lose. The health and well-being of those that depend on us as well. Losing our chains is great if that’s really all you have to lose.

The detachment is more of a defeatism issue. When you have zero power to affect change, what the hell else can you do but work through the day and try to not have a breakdown?

Mind you, I vote when that comes around, I just don’t have the mental fortitude anymore to not be detached. Don’t have the time or space to do more than that, which is rather by design I expect.

Conservatives are really anti conservation for some strange reason.

Greta Thunberg, swedish environmental activist and a favorite hate watch of conservatives.

Hyperbole it may be, but now I’m wondering what kind of parking ticket would get grated certiorari.

Yup. It’s the robot who wants to be a human. The mirror could have been a bit more clearly drawn. Thicker border maybe (I’m not an artist so…). I otherwise like the strip.

If they weren’t corrupt, they could’ve voted against them when it mattered. They didn’t. They only speak up when they aren’t in the game anymore. They are as complicit as the rest.

Yup. It’s akin to “not making a choice is itself a choice”. It doesn’t feel like it is, but can be equally impactful.

Gay dude here. No, not limited by gender. I have to put great effort into not providing solutions when they aren’t wanted. This most often manifests as me realizing I was doing it and verbally acknowledging I lost the plot and encouraging my spouse to continue.

That rather depends on the height I would think.

There’s a big difference between a bunch of people doing military LARP in the woods together and ‘well regulated’.

Your better argument is that such militia should have some kind of regulatory body that they can point at to be defined as ‘well regulated’. We’ve already learned through every corporation every that a company regulating itself is a bad idea. So, you want to start up the American Militia Bureau?

This all pretends that the ideals that the second amendment was based on are still valid. A bunch of LARPingin the woods, even with regulation, can’t really achieve what the 2nd set out to do.

Yes, but how thick are you? If you are 7.1 inches thick, your back will move forward into the thing you’re trying to avoid.

She sounds like she came out of the womb actively smoking. And I love her for it.

Hogswatch er… Christmas… is a little lie that helps us to believe the big ones. Things like Love, Justice, Hope, etc.

I’m cutting myself off here regardless of response for my own health, though I’ll respond in good faith. Albeit with a bad attitude at this point.

The appeal to nature was implied. Don’t bring it up if you don’t want it to be part of things. Your argument would be better suited by saying “labor and terminology are socially constructed”. Bears no implicit baggage. Also, see how I inserted something constructive? Arguments are not always to be won, but are often better for enhancing understanding, even if you feel like you’re holding your interlocutor’s hand.

You ask me a lot of questions without answering any yourself, which feels very bad faith. Especially when you’re asking big societal level questions from a random person on the internet who has zero power to do any meaningful change beyond being nice to the people around me. I’m more than happy to bash rich white people (which most of your leading questions lead to) and you don’t have to be a contrarian dick about it. Honey and vinegar my dude.

I’m not answering your bad faith spree of condescension. In the future, make your point and don’t ask others to make it for you and avoid assuming that everyone else is dumb (which is how you come off). Just because a person doesn’t list out all their reasoning, doesn’t mean they haven’t thought about it. You come of as militant and aggressive to people that are on your side, which is always bad.

First: natural != good. Mosquitos are natural, it does not make them desired. Save by bats. Try not to start with a fallacy. Things should be considered on their own merits, not because they are natural. Justify why natural is useful to your argument before you bring it up.

Humans are a social species, so social organization and terminology is a natural product of what we do as a collective. It’s necessary. Redefining common terms every time you change jobs is inefficient (no comment on linguistics and the proliferation of language as a whole). While inefficiency doesn’t bug most like it does me, it is still generally undesirable (for reasons, but do we want to source every thought? I have a life, more or less). I did note that it does hurt people. Right here:

It also has the unfortunate effect of implying that skilled inherently deserving of greater respect than unskilled, which is wrong.

I even proposed a alternate term pair, though with little hope that the same connotations wouldn’t just attach themselves to those words. Humans are tricky fucks.

Ultimately, quibbling over words is really useless, because the words are a symptom of humanity’s bad habits. We draw lines in the sand and decide who is more deserving of what based on those lines and our tribal instincts kick in and now those lines are the most important illusion in the world. If the lines weren’t drawn with words, it would be something else.

Instead, let’s treat people appropriately because they are people. Be sympathetic to both the fast food person and the amazon packer because those jobs are way more physical/emotional work than I do for my pay. And pick our battles better, because this pointless back and forth effort is very crabs in a bucket (which I am equally, if not more, guilty of) when we’re on the same side.

My only real criticism for you (other than your argument to nature fallacy) is that you tore at my argument and never actually proposed anything yourself. It’s real simple (not easy) to tear it all down, but it’s not helpful. If you don’t like something, don’t just complain about it. Fix it. I fully appreciate the irony of that statement as made on the internet…

I do agree with the general statement that norms and practices are worth examination after their establishment for continued validity. But this specific case isn’t a great example of a space where such consideration needs a deep dive. But here we are.

For dividing kinds of labor, the difference between skilled and unskilled is reasonably satisfied by my definition. Such designations are logistical. A career advisor in high school probably doesn’t have the time to delve into the nuance of work that requires further education (be it trade school, college, whatever) vs that which can be obtained with a high school diploma (if that) with every student (maybe not the best example, but lets keep moving). Skilled vs unskilled draws a useful, descriptive line for the sake of understanding. It also has the unfortunate effect of implying that skilled inherently deserving of greater respect than unskilled, which is wrong. I would hazard that it’s a wider societal issue that we feel the need to rank ourselves, but that’s a tangent I don’t want to go off onto. There’s an argument for a change in vocabulary to mitigate this (specialized vs general maybe?), but I would think that some terminology would arise naturally regardless as such categories of labor will continue to exist and need description.

True. Though in this case it’s pretty appropriate. Neither requires specialized education or training beyond normal job training.

Both jobs are difficult and worthy of respect, Neither are what you would traditionally consider skilled labor.