alilbee

@alilbee@lemmy.world

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alilbee ,

Demands? What a collaborative and productive attitude that will surely build bridges and cooperation! You don't even have the leverage to make demands. This loaded gun is pointed at both of you, and one side taking that as an opportunity to make demands is just scummy, to be honest. The Biden administration has not been some kind of progressive revolution, but it would be foolish to suggest that he has not compromised with the left.

alilbee ,

Push him, fine. Convince him. Advise him. Let's be clear though: progressives are in no position to make demands. We don't have the power or the leverage. It's foolish to make demands and set expectations for ourselves that are just entirely unrealistic. Biden's first term was positively impacted by progressives doing meaningful work and building bridges. Right now, we are a coalition. That means compromises and allyship should be our North star.

alilbee ,

Exactly! I'm not anti-progressive, and consider myself one. It's just not pragmatic or honest with ourselves to act as if we have any leverage to make demands. As a coalition, democrats can be strong, but all factions involved will need to give and take. Progressives, look at what you have earned from this admin. Compare it to the Clinton era, or the Obama era. Work with your allies and let's use our collective power to achieve more on the things we agree on collectively, and negotiate on the things we don't.

alilbee ,

Darn, guess the conservatives will get in and... propose turning Gaza into a parking lot for the new Jerusalem mega church. You want your ends achieved with Gaza? You want actual progress made and not just moral soap boxes to stand on? Then consider which avenue available to you actually gets closer to that end: negotiating with democrats to harshen Biden's stance on Israel (which I heartily endorse and is already happening) or to try to somehow work around/with the GOP? Or do you have some secret third avenue for magically handing progressives more political power than they've ever had to do something about it? That's reality. Feel free to sit it out for your ethics, but that's a choice too, with impacts for Gaza, the entire middle east, and the rest of the world.

alilbee ,

I'm not shaming you trying to get your vote. Your vote is yours to strategically use as you see fit. I'm just trying to make you see your best and most pragmatic option. If you're not interested, all good with me. Fact of the matter is, you can withhold your vote, vote for Biden, vote for Trump, or vote for another option. Only one of those options has the chance to make improvements for Gaza, assuming they're still standing by then, as you say. A lot of people make "sitting out" to not be a choice, but it is one, and if Trump wins, Gaza and the idea of a Palestinian state are toast for the rest of our lives. I'll be voting for Biden, and pressuring/negotiating for Gaza in the meantime. Nobody is asking you to sit down and shut up along the way.

alilbee ,

Disappointed in the comments here so far. There's a cardinal rule of improv that also works well for many other things in life, politics included: "yes, and".

This is a great change that will save folks money and make the country just a little bit fairer. Celebrate that, and then use the momentum to push for more. This builds alliances and a shared vision, instead of devolving into petty squabbles around direction.

alilbee ,

HIPAA doesn't protect you from the government legally obtaining records. It's a shield for patients against having their medical data leaked to the public in various ways. This situation is beyond terrifying, but HIPAA doesn't apply here.

alilbee ,

As in, he holds the record for the longest serving senate leader. They're not making a statement on the quality of his tenure. You should read the articles.

alilbee ,

You have? Like, it's been a clear influence in the policies of his administration. I'm my opinion, it would be pretty short sighted to turn that influence into disdain.

alilbee ,

I'm not voting Democrat because of the big D. I'm voting Democrat because I'm going to be tangibly hurt by a Trump administration, along with millions of other people. Must be great to think an implosion will be a fun ride or not such a bad thing for you.

alilbee ,

And wouldn't you know it, there's a lot more to an administration than their stance on Israel. Stop trying to boil everything down to truisms and catchphrases. If you really don't think that the left has had a sizeable impact on Biden's admin, we don't really have a lot to talk about here.

alilbee ,

I just don't understand the pragmatism here. You sit the election out, Trump wins, Gaza is leveled for a mega church the next week and American democracy is in danger. You sit the election out, Biden wins, he now gives 0 fucks about your leverage in his second term because he doesn't need it. You vote, Trump wins, Gaza still gets leveled for the mega church. You vote, Biden wins, progressives now have leverage to force Biden into a harsher stance on Israel in his second term, exactly like you've been doing already in his first.

Subtlety and nuance have never been a strength of populist movements, but the left should really examine their impact on Biden's Israel stance. No, he hasn't completely blown up our relationship with Israel, but this is the harshest stance America has taken against Israel possibly since its inception. I'm one of the huge percentage who want further action done to bring Israel to heel, but my only realistic avenue to achieve that is by continuing to exact the leverage I have while keeping that leverage intact.

Frankly, if you want anything more, the left needs to grow and get more powerful. Objectively right now, they are weaker than the major political parties, which is what has forced them into this relationship. If you want a president who is going to give you your deepest wishes with no concessions, you're going to need to get a hell of a lot stronger. Frankly, because of that lack of pragmatism and political capital, I don't see it happening in my lifetime.

alilbee ,

You admit above that progressives have used leverage to have a large influence on the Biden admin. It's the same principle. Biden makes promises to get elected, which you then hold him to during his term. You did it with student aid (even if the Supreme Court squashed the largest one), you did it with the FTC, you did it with the climate and infrastructure bills. You had to compromise, because of course other people have power and leverage to use, but you got solid returns. You could flip your argument on term limits on its head and say he would be even more unconstrained to pursue the agenda his voters want.

Can you answer me on what the alternative does? Trump is not going to be an anti Zionist. He's going to hurt more Palestinians, harder. He's going to devastate international relations and create similar crises across the globe, which will hurt even more people. At what point do you take responsibility for those genocides you didn't help to prevent? At what point do people's lives override strict principles?

I'm sorry, you're right that I shouldn't be slinging that sort of thing. On that same token, myself and a lot of others have been called "genocidal" and various other things for the belief that it's not as simple as Biden just yeeting every ounce of support out of Israel because of the broader context of the middle east.

To be clear, I love the left. They are America's heart and lead with empathy, which is so sorely needed in politics. I just think that the left, as a combined group, lacks pragmatism in favor of principle. That tendency has led to the left not having any true power for a century, and that's only if you consider FDR a leftist, which a hell of a lot of leftists would not. I need wins. I need rights. The democrats deliver that for me. Not always, but I have multiple rights as a gay woman that I would not have without them. So like, nothing would make me happier than the left infecting and overtaking the democratic party. Please do it! But until then, I think it's foolish to use the left's leverage this way. It's cruel to those you leave behind when you sit at home. It's cruel to those who will be affected by the genocides that will be started and strengthened by a Trump admin. It's cruel for the sake of political gamesmanship, which is exactly what the democratic party is accused of constantly.

alilbee , (edited )

Don't sell your rage short. It is one of the constraints on a president's behavior.

And in favor of what? Putin or Xi's moral clarity? I'm unhappy with the situation in Gaza, but as flawed as the West might be, I'm of the opinion that it creates much fewer human rights atrocities. I want it improved and refined, not dismantled. In the absence of stability, do you really think leftism is what is going to rise out of the ashes? Like, really consider what you're advocating for here. How do you fight a genocide in Gaza by dismantling our own democracy at home and kicking off hundreds more in the struggle to fill the void of American hegemony? Again, I find myself questioning the pragmatism of these options.

I genuinely see a path to a better tomorrow through maintaining our democracy long enough for the boomers to age out a bit more and then filling that vacuum with a more leftist party to contend with the more centrist democrats. Even better would be a growing and pragmatic left that uses bargaining, cooperation, and political capital to achieve their ends. Getting back to a sane form of "bipartisanship" once we have rubbed the modern conservative populist movement into the ground. Rivals that can at least agree on the fundamentals of humanity.

At the end of the day, I want to flip the general leftist position. I'm a social democrat. I'm super open to a ton of leftist positions. Why would I want to vote for the left right now? They're angry, disorganized, almost powerless, refuse to compromise, and the rising populism movement's inability to perceive and work with the nuances of government are extremely concerning. I hear more about what's wrong from them than I ever do an actual solution.

I need solutions and I need us to remain on the rails so those improvements can be made. Asking for the country to collapse is just cruel to so many people. Possibly literal magnitudes above a genocide in Gaza.

alilbee ,

Makes sense. Reddit really is a data gold mine. I shudder to think about the profile you could have built of me from my up/down votes alone, much less my comments and posts. FOMO and participation always generating data really just has me wondering if we'll see a world where "privacy" becomes extinct or culturally different.

alilbee ,

Yeah, I'm doing it again on lemmy. I'm definitely not immune in any way to the FOMO and lack of data discipline. We all are, in some ways, even just by being here on his platform.

alilbee , (edited )

Ehhh, I'm not super persuaded by that argument tbh. I don't think arbitrary data has any intrinsic value on its own the way copyright-able art does. I work in tech and I'm just not sure I want that can of worms opened.

Edit: I guess I should say, it's not something I've dedicated a lot of thought too. I'm open to arguments to the contrary.

alilbee ,

I think that's fair-ish. I still think that most companies are going to argue that access to their platform is predicated on access to your data, given that it would not exist without the platform. The argument that they have some stake is at least valid on the face, particularly as it is a voluntary agreement the user enters when they engage with a product.

alilbee ,

You have major misconceptions about how the government works and instead of being self-aware and saying "hmm, maybe the situation is more complex than I understand", you point your anger outward at those actually doing things day-to-day to combat this? It's just sad.

alilbee ,

They didn't "do nothing". They passed a lot of major legislation, including the ACA. The supermajority lasted for 72 days. How much competent legislation do you expect to be passed in 72 days?

alilbee ,

Right, so you wanted them to use a valuable chunk of time codifying a right that was not being actively threatened at that time, instead of focusing on the more immediate needs of their constituents? They would have been lambasted for playing politics instead of doing their jobs. Hell, if Ginsberg would have stepped down, we'd still have enshrined repro rights. If the Justice/McConnell situation played out different, we'd still have enshrined repro rights. Hindsight is 20/20, but nobody was focusing on abortion the way they are now, and there were multiple points of failure to get us to the point of it being threatened.

Frankly, it's clear to me that you have very little idea of how the civic process works. I know this won't get through, but I'll stress it anyway: making these big forceful statements while not understanding the process and context of what you're complaining about makes you contribute to the mental degeneration that is eroding our politics. You should feel ashamed, honestly. You're not approaching conversations with any amount of self-critique or awareness, and it really shows.

alilbee ,

I'm not so much arguing that you should feel ashamed for thinking women's rights aren't under attack, as much as your lack of knowledge on the political process. I think that misinterpretation is another example of your inability to actually understand and converse on these topics. That aside, I'm also not arguing that women's rights aren't under attack. Of course they are, and likely will be for all time. That's much different than saying that reproductive rights were not under immediate threat in the supermajority timeframe and there were higher priorities given that lower level of risk. That's a nuanced statement. Congress had 72 days of a democratic supermajority, a very small period of time for legislative action, and there were multiple ideological factions within the party that prevented the progressive dream plan. That's also a nuanced, factual statement.

You can want, want, want all you like. Put up or shut up. Dems gave my partner healthcare, gave us the right to marry, gave me the ability to vote by mail. Democrats on the court gave me reproductive rights for decades before Republicans stripped it away. Real, tangible wins for me, my family, my neighbors. The left, for all its ideals that I very much do share, has given me nothing but the vestiges of what they accomplished a century ago and a metric ton of words and ideas. Here you sit, complaining about Dems not doing enough when you haven't gotten a single gd thing done. And can't even be intellectually honest at that. Democrats might fail a lot, but they win a lot too. List your wins.

alilbee ,

...I genuinely can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Either way, that's pretty funny.

alilbee ,

You're right. I'm not immune to getting frustrated, and I did get carried away there. My central points still stand, but I'll try to keep my head on straight. Thanks for the reminder.

alilbee ,

You will bleed integrity with every one of those shortcuts you take. You say "let's skip it and just do the right thing". What can you not justify with that? You can excuse genocides, coups, war crimes. I don't just have a problem with Trump's motivations, but also his means. That approach, always correlated with populism, is foolish and always, always tends to oppression.

alilbee ,

This is really the first thing that gave me that classic SRD feel. We probably shouldn't encourage self-posting drama you are involved in, but this one looks like a doozy, so thanks for posting OP!

alilbee ,

This is spot on. Politics is all trolley problems. Biden is the one pulling the lever and there are certainly fair criticisms to be pointed at the set of actions taken within a realpolitik approach to this, but this relationship can be stretched or stressed, not broken. If it breaks, the humanitarian crisis to follow is magnitudes worse than the current conflict.

alilbee ,

Oh yeah, they should do what the Republicans are doing and use a scorched earth, no compromise strategy! I mean, geez, look at all these huge legislative wins accomplished by this congress using this strategy. Maybe we can even have a cool purity-test driven speaker role, that's been working well for them! Anything else we should imitate that I'm forgetting? A demagogic, unrestrained president would definitely tie things up nicely.

Okay I'll stop being a sarcastic jerk now, but you get the point. This strategy from Republicans works wonders when it comes to obstructing and shutting things down, but you're never going to build anything with it. It's destructive at its core.

alilbee ,

If you act as if you have leverage you don't and refuse to engage with those who have power, your only choice is obstruction. This is what the Republicans are learning right this moment. Now, lucky for them, obstruction happens to coincide pretty well with their political objectives. For anything "constructive" though, they fail time and time again because none of them know how to compromise.

Politics is compromising with factions to achieve your goals. I loathe some of the things we have to compromise on, but these people exist and they will have representation in our government for as long as they do.

alilbee ,

You talk about "acceptable" and "deserving" but you have to realize that power is the only thing that matters in the end. They get power, they enact their whims. They don't, they can't. Right now, they have it, so you have to negotiate. That's it, that's just how it works.

People who complain about the Overton window are wasting their time. You don't get to control that. Focus on winning what is possible with the window you have to work in. Expand that window if and when you can. Refusing to participate until the window looks like what you want it to is just ineffective.

And I just don't agree with your characterization of the dems. I have my problems with their direction or actions at times, but they've fought and won for my rights and for the rights of various others in my lifetime. I do consider the more leftist parts of the party to be allies, but I'm not willing to give complete credit for those victories to only that wing of the party. I think it's really disingenuous to look at the victories won for LGBT rights, climate change, and healthcare in the last 20 years (incomplete as they may be), and just write off the work done by democrats to achieve those.

alilbee ,

Listen, spend your time shaking your fist at the democrats and ignoring the realities of politics all you like, but it's not pragmatic. Again, I have my complaints, but overall I'm pleased with the way that democrats have operated recently. AOC is even a Democrat! It's a big party with a lot of viewpoints, but has a throughline of empathy, minority rights, and democracy. There have been wins that have personally affected me in massive ways, almost entirely won by democrats.

alilbee ,

I'm not much of a centrist really. I guess maybe on the global scale, but I'm a pretty average socdem. I'm not creating excuses for them at all. I'm mostly happy with what Democrats have accomplished and warded off for me and the country in my lifetime, so there's nothing for me to excuse. There's always room to grow and improve, for sure, but expecting perfection and my entire wishlist is ignoring those pesky real world obstacles again.

alilbee ,

Sometimes, yep. A small handful of decades ago, "the people" would have wanted gay marriage banned forever. Before that, interracial marriage. Before that, women's suffrage. I want a system that enacts good, just law in a stable manner and while I always think democracy should be a part of any system I would be a part of, pure democracy has no effective way of ensuring minority rights.

That's answering your question in the abstract. For this situation specifically, of course I want democratic, progressive legislation passed. In fact, I want to maximize the amount of democratic progress over the longest period of time, to the point where I'm willing to take losses on smaller items for the bigger picture.

alilbee ,

For all your noble ideals, you and much of the left has accomplished so little to achieve them. I share almost all of your convictions, but I value the people who can turn those dreams into a realistic plan and actually achieve it. That's why democrats have won my right to marry others of my gender. Democrats have won my partner healthcare. You want more, but what have you ever actually won for me? I value your ideas, but you should stop hating your allies that spend blood, sweat, and tears getting what is feasible into reality. You can't just ignore that you have obstacles and foes in your way who are going to chip away at what we all can do.

At the end of the day, we could be so much more productive together, focused on being better. Support and encourage to push things in your direction. Say "yes, and let's do more!" instead of "no, you should be doing this". We have complex problems to solve and nothing but imperfect people to fix them.

alilbee ,

I have experience in a FAANG and many non-FAANGs, and this is spot on. The important takeaway imo is that FAANGs are not meant to be career-length jobs for most folks. Get in, use the environment and resources to build your skills and the free resume points, then bounce to something much less pressuring later. Some crazy people thrive on that kind of pressure though, and you'll have a great time if that's your jam.

alilbee ,

I'll probably get eaten alive by this comment section, but I'll try anyway. I think there is more nuance here.

Trump has no respect for the rule of law, checks and balances, or the intended role of the executive branch. Trump at president will do anything possible to achieve his goals, no matter what he tramples along the way.

Biden isn't that type of president. He does respect checks and balances and the idea of a powerful, but constrained presidency. He's not going to go slam through a blatantly unconstitutional EO every time he doesn't get his "wall".

Much like before Trump, if you want change, you have to vote for more than the presidency, unless you're willing to trample everything about the three branches of government. And maybe you're also looking for an unleashed sort of populist presidency, but that's not going to fly with the majority of democratic voters who still want to return to some degree of governmental normalcy.

alilbee ,

While everyone should be able to afford basic necessities like a vehicle and wages need to be increased across the board, the title is weird. You can work at a factory making a thing you can't afford and not have much of a problem with that. "I build cruise liners for a living. I can't afford to buy one." would be a strange statement.

alilbee ,

Please reread my first sentence.

alilbee ,

A car is a necessity, nobody is denying that and I state as much. To be clear, I think people should be able to afford cars. I just don't think it's weird to work at a factory where you make luxury items more expensive than the average person can afford.

alilbee ,

Yep, and I think that would have been a better title.

alilbee ,

It's alright, I'm willing to just take the L on this one. I just thought the title was inferring something that it seems some people don't.

alilbee ,

As I said in another reply, fair enough. I just read it in a way that inferred something it seems other people didn't.

EDIT: Fake screenshot about some facts from the Palworld development, very loosely based on a really interesting blog post from the dev that's linked in the post body. ( programming.dev )

UPDATE: So, apparently it's mostly fake, taken from this article [translation] (where they even mention some kind of VCS)....

alilbee ,

I'm a DevOps person by trade, and I have been playing a lot of Palworld. This is my worst nightmare and I have no idea how any team bigger than one person could have done anything without basic source control. Guess it just goes to show that nobody cares about the details as long as you ship.

alilbee ,

Yeah, I have a colleague or two who have worked in that space. You could not pay me enough to work with their tools, conditions, and practices. Guess I'm in the wrong sub for that opinion, but I'm just a wanderer stopping by.

alilbee ,

God, I need a drink or two after reading that. Just chaos.

alilbee ,

The vote to vacate a speaker can happen pretty easily, so as long as the Freedom Caucus and company still want him out, he's not safe. He could drag it out maybe but that's about it.

alilbee ,

Your idealistic idea of what "democracy" means has never existed in the United States, but if you want anything close to it, you're going to have to win it within the confines of the current system. The right seems to understand that, and they're close to succeeding. Throwing your hands up and not voting for the only realistic chance of not devolving into an autocracy is a choice too, regardless of the principle you're standing on to do it.

alilbee ,

I'm very uncomfortable with the phrase "brain mash".

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