I think you just underestimated the number of other possibilities.

Like this?

Why “waste your time”? Why, if I lack the ability to learn do you still harass me?

So real leftists didn’t fall for your counterproductive drivel, obviously. I think I’m satisfied now, no one’s reading this far down your fallacious, nonsensical rants. I’m gone for good now.

Remember kids, when you’re losing an argument, that’s not time for introspection.

Yes, this has been you the entire time: ignoring the argument, doubling down on refuted claims, trying to reverse it when that doesn’t work, and refusing to examine your own flawed logic.

It’s not a waste of time because I’m losing, because I’m not. It’s a waste of time because your points are so bad and incoherent that you’re either acting in bad faith, or you’re not capable of engaging with logic.

You’re not an ally, you’re an agent provocateur, the left doesn’t need you.

That is… an improbably ironic response. Like I said, a waste of time.

I don’t even know how to parse that rambling, bad faith nonsense. Where you actually engaged with my points, you completely misunderstood them.

This is a waste of my time. Go back and reread until you actually understand, or keep spinning yourself in circles if you want, but I’m not engaging further with someone who’s either arguing in bad faith or literally incapable of understanding basic reasoning.

When you can understand basic reasoning, join the grownups. Bye.

It doesn’t:

You can do the good thing and the bad thing may happen. Or not do the good thing and the bad thing may happen anyway. May as well do the good thing. - see, hasn’t changed in tone or content in any meaningful way

Yes, it has, fundamentally. Your whole argument rests on the decision to do the thing being inconsequential to the outcome. If changing the thing you do has some effect on the outcome, then the whole thing falls apart. If doing some other thing raises the chances of a better outcome, then the whole “may as well” argument fundamentally doesn’t work anymore.

If you can’t see that then this is a waste of time.

opposing genocide is also valid (you can’t seem to accept this, I don’t know why)

I oppose genocide. I also oppose actions which make genocide worse, obviously, because I oppose genocide. It does not matter to me that the person helping to make the genocide worse was trying to make it better, if their actions help to make it worse then I oppose those actions. I feel like I’m repeating myself .

Again, the people protesting for civil rights before it was an effective movement were doing a good thing.

And, again, I didn’t say they weren’t. They used effective methods, I applaud them. You are suggesting ineffective, and in fact counterproductive, methods. Do not equate your mealy-mouthed performative protest vote to the real action and sacrifice that actually accomplished something in the fight for civil rights.

Tory Vs Labour then Reform

Different country, different system, still irrelevant no matter how many times you repeat it.

They were very much criticised for it, all the same critisms you’re making now.

No? I never criticized them at all. Where are you getting this?

You support direct action done with the intention to oppose genocide?

I support direct action that opposes genocide. Intent is unimportant to me. Actions with intent, but without the ability to actually oppose, are materially performative. I oppose the substitution of performative grandstanding for actual strategy, especially when it’s actively counterproductive to achievable progress.

I feel we’ve gone full circle a couple times now.

I feel you have. That tends to happen when you ignore the other half of a conversation in favor of repetition.

I obviously dont feel like you’ve granted me the same courtesy of empathy, and I’m sure you think I’m as confused as ever.

I’m not sure you’ve extended the courtesy of empathy that you think you have.

I think people reading after will understand the claim that supporting dem is a cycle of bad-worse-bad-worse, until there is no worse to go… or you change for something “good” instead of “least bad”.

For all our sakes, I sincerely hope they do not. I hope they are intelligent enough to understand the American electoral system, and choose an effective means to establish something good.

we blame leadership (the people with the power) in every field. Except politics for some reason, then it’s the little guy’s fault.

Politics is the one field where the little guys are the ones who elect leadership. No one said it was their fault, but it is their responsibility. There’s plenty of propaganda to influence their decision, but it is still their decision.

What I thing is not fine is that this comment was me just re-stating what I’ve already said.

I agree. The fact that you haven’t changed your approach to consider any of my responses, and instead have attempted to change my responses to support your approach, displeases me. It always displeases me to encounter deeply counterproductive leftists.

I’m a leftist, I want leftism to prevail, and every counterproductive leftist is two steps back in accomplishing that goal. It gives me no pleasure to have these disagreements. To be honest it fills me with a sort of malaise, a sad realization that the people on my side are so often so incompetent that they get in their own way. I had a naïve hope that I might see real leftist progress in my life. But seeing my comrades I’m less hopeful by the day.

perhaps voting for a party that, by your own admission, is bad (genocidily so) might not be in your best interest

When the alternative major party is not more genocidal, and also much worse in many other ways, or it loses its status as a major party, I can easily be convinced. Before that, voting for the slightly less bad option is still the only rational choice. Let me know if you wanna help it lose that status.

let me know if you think of a new reason why voting for a party that, by your own admission, is bad (genocidily so) might be in someone else’s best interest.

Oh sure! Women, immigrants, LGBT, anyone who isn’t a white male millionaire really. They’d all be better off under the other party. No one I care about is better off right now than they would’ve been under the alternative.

because you won’t vote for them you don’t think they’ll win

No? Because they don’t poll well. Because pretending Duverger’s Law doesn’t exist doesn’t make it so.

Stop trying to make voting do things it doesn’t do. Vote strategically, and redirect this energy to direct action. Join your local DSA, talk to your co-workers about unionizing, engage with your community, participate in local politics. There are many options available to you. The option you are promoting is not only ineffective, it is counterproductive. I feel like I’m trusting myself.

I kinda liked the bleak. It felt like an ending. Drove home a fairly central theme

Never read Colfer’s continuation, I read some of the Artemis Fowl books when I was younger and I didn’t really expect him to match Adams’ particular style.

I did listen to the radio adaptation though, and if it’s true to the source then it was… okay? I’m not sure it added much.

Swapping it to may doesn’t change my argument over much

It fundamentally does. The difference between certainty and possibility is logically massive, especially when it is the core of your argument.

Functionally, Dems stood little chance at winning.

Factually, it was much closer than you’re misrepresenting, which is why protest voting was such a terrible decision.

For someone who just made a point non-zero vs zero chance, I thought you would be more careful with your verbage.

I was careful, third parties stood no chance of winning. Democrats got nearly half the vote, third parties got fractions of a percent. Your insistence on equivocating the two is either wildly misinformed, or totally disingenuous.

You’ve got a few years to try and increase that chance, or you can try keep people smoking, which have you chosen to do?

You keep trying to frame it this way, this is wrong. The analogy doesn’t work with your substitutions. Third parties are smoking, Democrats are not smoking. Switching it around doesn’t work, the conditions are fundamentally different.

I’ve chosen to use my vote in the general election to obstruct fascism, since that is the best use. I’ve chosen to use more effective methods to secure better options.

Supporting Democrat achieved nothing

Supporting Democrats gave us a sporting chance of avoiding our present situation. If you’re talking about achieving nothing, you’re talking about voting third party in general elections. Democrats win presidential races, they’ve won many times in fact, and every time slows down the Republican race to fascism. Third parties do not win presidential races, so voting for them achieves nothing. Unless you want to count splitting the vote against fascism, it certainly achieves that.

I disagree with you, the people fighting for civil rights when it was unpopular to do so were doing good.

I never said they weren’t. But they didn’t do that by voting for unviable candidates. They did that with direct action. I never said anything against direct action.

You acknowledged genocide is bad but can’t seem to accept it’ls opposition is also a valid priority.

Just being against something isn’t a priority. Actions that actually oppose genocide are a priority. Voting third party was not such an action.

Axiom 2. Not doing the good thing (supporting a genocide party, genocide=bad we agree) will get a bad result anyway (republican power)

Yes, that’s a bad axiom. It is demonstrably untrue. It may get the worse of the two possible outcomes (Republican power) or it may get the less bad of two possible outcomes (Democrat power). It is false to say that voting will get the worse result.

Doesn’t matter what logic you apply to those axioms, garbage in garbage out.

Therefore, you might as well do the good thing. You might get a good result, not doing so will get the bad result.

How does voting for a candidate with no chance of winning yield a good result?

Good intentions with bad outcomes does not make a good thing. Wasting your vote is a bad thing. You keep calling it good, it is not.

Damage limitation is short term feel good, but long term loss, gestures at the current state of things. Instead of damage limitation you have a few years to quit smoking, as it were, and build something better.

Long term it is still the better of two possible outcomes. “Quitting” is going to require social action. Individual electoral action will not make anything better. The smoker in this analogy is the nation as a whole, doing the good thing would be changing the outlooks of half the country. Voting third party does not accomplish that. It makes you feel good for opposing genocide, while enabling that genocide to get worse. Bad thing.

Because I don’t 100% agree I have to be “confused”?

No, you’re confused because your logic is bad. Logic isn’t something you can disagree with. You can disagree on the axioms you apply logic to, but you can’t disagree with the logic itself.

Can you accept that it’s a rational thing to assert: “genocide=bad”?

Yes, obviously. However, voting for someone who opposes genocide, but stands no chance of winning is not good; it does nothing to curtail the genocide.

No matter who you vote for, the result will be Democrat or Republican for the foreseeable future. If you actually care about the genocide, it’s better to choose which of those two is less bad. Additionally there are other issues, so even if the two are identical on genocide, there’s still a rational choice.

Voting third party does not help obstruct genocide in any way. I compared it to smoking because it feels good, it scratches an itch, but long term it’s bad.

But… you could quit smoking and not do heroin either.

Which is probably where you’re getting confused.

Republicans are cancer.

Voting Democrat is like not smoking.

Voting third party is like smoking.

The probability of getting cancer anyway does not mean that increasing your probability of getting cancer by smoking is smart, it is much better to not smoke. Maybe you still get cancer anyway, but at least you’ve improved your odds.

The probability of getting a Republican anyway does not mean that increasing your probability of getting a Republican by voting third party is smart, it is much better to vote Democrat. Maybe you still get a Republican anyway, but at least you’ve improved your odds.

Voting third party is not good or virtuous. It is counterproductive and contributes to the greater harm.

You’re getting distracted. I’m not saying smoking is a good thing (not that I think what you’re calling a “good thing” actually is good anyway). I’m demonstrating your logical misstep.

The same logic your argument is based on (If you vote Democrat, a Republican might win anyway, so you might as well throw your vote away on a third party) justifies my ridiculous argument (If you don’t smoke, you might get cancer anyway, so you might as well smoke).

I reject your suggestion that throwing your vote away is a “good thing”. It’s a stupid thing that temporarily makes you feel good, like smoking.

What? That’s nonsense. They have control because people didn’t do the smart thing. If enough people do the smart thing, the bad thing wouldn’t have happened.

Your logic is equivalent to:

Chain-smoke and you might get cancer. Don’t chain-smoke and you might get cancer anyway, so might as well chain-smoke. It’s nonsense.

And? Name one Republican administration with less foreign military involvement and domestic overreach than their Democratic contemporaries. I’ll wait.

You are incorrect. It is basic math in that the principles that govern its behavior are fairly low-order and easy to understand. You are not utilizing more “sophisticated” math, you’re just ignoring simple facts. A truth being simple does not make it less true.

No, it’s the system. It’s basic math. Acknowledging the features of the system does not make one responsible for the existence of those features, and ignoring them doesn’t make one virtuous.

someone else who can than take their place.

That’s the kicker. If you don’t have a clean, single-cycle transition then you’re handing control to your worst enemies.

If we’re going to fracture a party, let’s fracture the right. Destroy the worse one first, then siphon from the less worse one once the fracture takes.

It doesn’t though, the military is still directed outward too, generally moreso. Yes, they’re objectively worse all around.

Yes, exactly. One major party generally keeps their brutal oppression overseas, the other increases overseas oppression and also turns the trillion dollar military against the citizenry. One of those two options is objectively worse, and we have the electoral influence to obstruct the worse option.