https://sfba.social/@drahardja/117344931893000589
the other day a tanky said a sentence constructed like that to me too, while literally arguing for me to join his authoritarian group
Remember, that is exactly what an exploiter will say to you. They’ll always try to place the blame on the individual for the damage they’re doing collectively. Same with the BP Oil campaign when they invented the “carbon footprint of the individual” while being one of the worst polluters in the world.
If you look at real, concrete, system changes in the world, the times where it has happened because of “optimism” is close to zero.
Remember that the exploiters will always demand that people use the right channels, because they own those channels, and can make sure nothing ever gets through.
There are only two ways to deal with exploiters. You can try and use your voice a few times, and if that doesn’t work, you use your hands.
“This is not a perfect solution, and therefore it is not a solution” is called the nirvana fallacy, and is poor reasoning. Somehow people are really susceptible to it.
The argument “this solution only partially solves the problem, and further entrenches us into a system that makes the problem this solution aims to solve much, much worse in the long run, and as such the benefits do not outweight the costs” is a different argument, but it is often mistaken for the former argument because people are incapable of long term thinking.
Even though I agree on parts of it, don’t forget that Trump has upended the whole system and decades of progression in six months. So next time democrats tell you that “change takes time and needs patience” you should also show them the middle finger. Especially so if they say this in relation to changing back things Trump has done.
I have been told this my whole life, how our silly little actions didn’t mean anything because they were too small or fringe or whatever.
The difference is I can look back across the decades and see a lot of people who I have helped, and who have helped me in turn, things have been directly made better as a result (well, at least some of the time). Meanwhile, their “more realistic” approach centred on voting has seen periods of glacial progress and rapid retreat, leaving them further back than ever before in my lifetime.
I have been told this my whole life, how our silly little actions didn’t mean anything because they were too small or fringe or whatever.
Same. Ive never believed it.
Be a helper.
I feel like this is type of thinking is a cope for people who don’t want to actually do anything but maintain what they think is the moral high ground.
They realize that if they admit that you doing something is positive, then they’ll be forced to confront why they aren’t doing it.
History has taught us that reform doesn’t work. It makes the current mode of production, something clearly unfair, slightly more palatable. This is not a solution. Revolution is the only method of improving society as a whole in meaningful ways.
I encourage anyone curious about these topics that are unsatisfied with the concept of reform to study Marxism.
History has shown that reform doesn’t work as a method for establishing socialism. I agree that establishing socialism would solve most of the world’s problems and we should spend the bulk of our political energy trying to make revolution, but that doesn’t mean that trying to fix one little issue within capitalism or taking an hour to vote for an imperfect candidate doesn’t have a meaningful impact.
Marxists should be simultaneously working to achieve revolution and improve life for their communities in the immediate term. The fun thing is that often the first directly leads to the second.
Reforms are quite easy to roll back.
Yeah, sure, which is why you don’t put most of your energy into reforms. But if it’s as simple as voting for a progressive vs. not voting, that’s a low effort thing you can do with a reasonable expectation of slightly improving the world.
Look man, you’re only saving 50% of the children from starvation, so obviously your idea is bad and we should continue letting 100% of the children die until someone comes up with the perfect solution.
This is a very serious take around Lemmy tho
I suggest we start calling this The Musk Argument.
As in, I won’t spend an inconsequential fraction of my money to solve world hunger – after I literally challenged you for a proposal to do so – because I don’t think you will be 100% successful.
Instead, I think I will take public actions to kill untold numbers of poor people around the world while I continue my quest to be the first smart boy with one million million dollars.
Perfection being the enemy of good (enough).
This is only valid as long as your partial/incomplete solution doesn’t encourage people who would otherwise keep working on solving the whole problem to decide that since there’s a solution they can just knock off for brunch and leave you to it.
Partial solutions to a polluted creek that’s choked with litter? Yes please, then we can see what comes next
Placebo solutions that make people who’ve made no difference feel like they’ve done their part to fight fascism and can go back to brunch? Gtfo with that shit.
Hint: if the “problem” is a societal one, nothing you see or hear suggested by anyone who has advertisers is going to actually solve anything, and is likely to work against anyone trying an actual solution.
And here we are. The exact sentiment described by OP.
You are the one describing the solution as “placebo”. I think the effort I implement is a positive step. I believe strongly that you are one of two types of people: Anti-solution and an agitator trying to divide and dishearten; or… maybe… you’re invested in the positive outcome and you will continue the greater work while I try to ensure you still can.
If you were only doing it because it was 100% bad, then you’re just as much of an idiot as those ‘why wouldn’t you rape without sky-daddy watching you’ christians. You can still work to solve it when it’s only 90% as bad as it was, since it will still be 100% bad.
Hint: Telling people to either be fully dedicated to solving the big issues or give up and ‘go to brunch’ is reductive and not encouraging the way you want it to be.
“I use a paper straw, so I dont have to reduce my plastic usage”
I think this is an example of what this commentor was pointing out.
No.
The “solution” they’re clearly trying to defend without naming it to make it obvious is “voting for liberal politicians”. That absolutely 100% is a placebo, and every time the liberal shitbag wins, all their Blue No Matter Who voters (or whatever the equivalent is in other countries) go back to brunch and pretend all the problems have been solved
Hint: “go back to brunch” is a derisive way to mock liberals, and wasn’t intended to be encouraging at all to anyone.
all their Blue No Matter Who voters (or whatever the equivalent is in other countries) go back to brunch and pretend all the problems have been solved
From the other poster: Using a paper straw does reduce plastic usage. So will using reusable grocery bags. A person can quite easily do both. Deriding the paper straw as a useless step just seems unhelpful to me. When the plastic bags and straws are reduced, we can attack other angles too. As an anecdote, I rarely even get offered a choice of straw nowadays - it’s either not present or paper. that’s a minor win, but a win nonetheless. Some people worked hard to make that happen and this talk of placebo is derisive of that work.
This is you presuming to know the motivations of all other people and deciding for them when they stop working on new things. Just because I want people to be involved in their political processes doesn’t mean I stop at the voting booth, or can’t also be doing service in my community. I don’t love the catchphrase ‘Blue no matter Who’ - but I recognize that not voting blue is always going to be detrimental to the cause until enough people are involved in local level organizations to change the candidates from the ground up. Until we get there, I recommend we vote blue.
Discouraging civic engagement only benefits the wealthy. Wanna fight fascism and oligarchs? Encourage people to participate instead of telling them it doesn’t matter or there can only be revolution instead of incremental progress.
Hint: “go back to brunch” is a derisive way to mock liberals, and wasn’t intended to be encouraging at all to anyone.
That’s my whole point. Don’t discourage.
More encouragement of participation is better. Tell me that’s wrong.
Sometimes layering bandaid improvements is ultimately worse than solving the problem correctly.
Sometimes. Not often.
What is often the case is that solving the problem correctly is not an option.
If that is the case, then that should be your argument
Things have gotten worse over my lifetime in small, almost imperceptible ways, which have all accumulated into the humungous shit sandwich we find ourselves consuming daily. The only way things will get better is in the same small, incremental way. Should we fight for more, faster, better? Absolutely! Should we let that get in the way of small wins? Hell no. It’s not sexy, it feels like trudging through mud every day and requires a level of faith to believe that the small contributions each of us make will matter in the long term. But it is the only way given the realities of the world we live in. Everything else is apathy or accelerationism.
It’s a demoralization propaganda tactic to effectively blunt any issue. People have internalized the idea that they can do nothing on an individual level. Like habits that form out of persistent actions, people have been demoralized into giving up completely. It’s some sort of ego trap. Where the presumption is that an individual is supposed Superman saving the world, but of course they aren’t. Nobody is. So why bother at all. That’s not the point. It’s about the the population as a whole determining the norm. Everyone is convinced it’s pointless and hopeless. That sets the tone. The issue is dead in the water. Any issue can be killed this way. It’s extremely effective. People fall for it every time.
That’s where climate change is right now. That’s where wealth inequality is right now. People have listened to social media. They’ve internalized the quote repetitions. The demoralization mantras they saw on social media.
Your adversaries can handle words on social media. It’s meaningless to them. It has no effect on their daily lifestyle or their bank accounts. Throwing words into the cloud. Somebody else’s computer. Those servers are owned by your very adversaries. You’re throwing your comments into a meaningless suggestion box. In all likelihood the quote repetitions were seeded by them.
Everyone is convinced that “the rich” consist of a few billionaires named Musk, Bezos, or Zuckerberg. This blinds people from seeing local issues. Like crony politicians or localized inequality issues. Ones where they actually have more of a voice. One where they can actually effect change.
There’s no more blatant manifestation than when reddit (happens on lemmy too) bleeds their hearts over those posts about some rich asshole. Those carbon copy posts about how hard it is to be making techbro level money while “struggling” to live in the most wealthy cities in the world. Who gives a shit. Why does everyone have sympathy for those rich people at all. Everyone crazy? These people are part of the problem. They are the rich too. They are the source of issues that affect you locally. The guillotines are for them as much as Musk, Bezos or Zuckerberg. They’re out of touch rich people who have dragged you all into their reality where they’re victims too. How convenient for them to have a few billionaire scapegoats that are untouchable. Whereas the average working class person can actually effect change on a local level.
People have given up on climate change because they’re convinced the one or two people must stop flying private jets then the problem will be solved. It’s quote repetitions. Fed to them from social media. “If those jerks can fly private jets, then why can’t I consume as much as I want myself. I’ll use all the plastic bags and straws that I want.” It’s not about the bags or the straws. It’s about the collective demoralization. The propaganda is so effective.
Perfect is the enemy of good (or good enough).
Or slightly less terrible
I was once explaining the upsides of UBI and someone replied “no, this would fix too many issues with capitalism, this would delay the revolution!” Like… Dude.
I always think of this post whenever I hear someone dead-set on nothing less than massive, systemic change.
True that. Do I agree modern society has gone crazy in many fundamental ways? Hell yeah. Will I reject an opportunity to do something small that will affect only a handful of lives for just a few days based solely on that? Nope
I’ve reached a point where I think if both the left and right tell you are wrong, you might just as well have arrived at the correct idea (usually, not always).
Haha I kind of see both your points, it kind of does the liberal thing of extending the umbrella of protection from exploitation while pushing exploitation farther to the sidelines. The worst case outcome is that you now have more defenders of the status quo, because they’ve got it good. Meanwhile the entire economy is still based on war and exploitation, especially of poor workers in other countries.
But then maybe if us workers here had some more breathing room (perhaps not the best choice of words…) we might also have more capacity for solidarity with those exploited workers. Who knows, but it would remedy a lot of immediate problems here anyway.
And all the trials have been very positive, so I’m inclined to give it a shot yeah.
‘Let them get a taste of how terrible those guys are, and then they’ll vote us in and our system will rise!’ is what the Weimar Republic said about the Nazis.
Never, ever assume making things worse will end up causing a few tiny problems and then everything gets better. Humans are, by and large, shockingly tolerant of rather terrible things. If you let things get worse, they will get very, very worse, and a lot of innocent people will die.
Right but you see the analogy of like union negotiations, like when management makes a sweet deal for a certain class of worker like full-timers, or people over a certain “grade”, then leaves everyone else out to dry.
I’ve seen it happen first hand. Things get better for us inside the new circle of privilege, but it’s only because most of us voted for self interest.
I don’t want to be like letting the 💯 be the enemy of the 👌🏻, but I also think we should talk about how we plan on keeping from being the 1% to someone else.
Does that make sense? I’m not against UBI, but it can’t be the end of the discussion.
There’s like two kinds of proposals, and whichever kind you make you get criticized. You make a big proposal, people say “Well yeah but how does that work on the ground?” You make an on-the-ground proposal, and people say “Well how does that scale to the whole thing?” Alright fine, then let’s just die!
