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On April 14 2026 01:00 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 00:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 00:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Because if everyone thought like that we'd never get anything done, and I don't think I'm privileged enough to throw away my vote when everyone else is expected to vote intelligently. Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? The election's two years away and not everyone has thrown their hat in the ring yet, so anything I say is most likely going to age really poorly. We're talking about a primary, not the general election. I was told here previously that primary was the part where you could/should vote for who best aligned with you and the general election was when the "responsible/pragmatic" thing to do was fall in line. Perhaps the "most likely to win", but who most aligns with you is something you can/should probably already have an idea about and be skeptical of how much any candidate rhetorically changes their current positions to better align with other positions later. What you currently base their alignment off and the sort of metrics and ideas of how you will determine both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics are also things you don't really have to worry about "aging poorly" None of the five candidates you listed are bad though? I wouldn't feel like I'm holding my nose to vote for them as lesser evils, they'd all be fine presidents. If someone like Tulsi Gabbard or John Fetterman were a frontrunner, then my take would be "anyone who beats them".
They don't have to be "bad"? You've already downgraded them from "great" to "fine" lol.
We're talking about a primary (that starts well before the voting) where you're supposed to preemptively support the candidate that most aligns with your views (perhaps shifting them and others closer to specific ones you hold). Spending the time between now and when the serious polling/voting starts to help that candidate and your politically aligned allies/peers convince other voters that your/their perspective is the best to bring the party and country forward.
Instead, you and DPB are describing a much more passive concept of democracy/ToC than I realized you guys supported/preferred to engage in.
Whether there's a Democrat alive that could make any of you vote for any possible Republican candidate would be an interesting thought exercise I suppose.
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Northern Ireland26604 Posts
On April 14 2026 00:57 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 00:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Because if everyone thought like that we'd never get anything done, and I don't think I'm privileged enough to throw away my vote when everyone else is expected to vote intelligently. Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? The election's two years away and not everyone has thrown their hat in the ring yet, so anything I say is most likely going to age really poorly. We're talking about a primary, not the general election. I was told here previously that primary was the part where you could/should vote for who best aligned with you and the general election was when the "responsible/pragmatic" thing to do was fall in line. Perhaps the "most likely to win", but who most aligns with you is something you can/should probably already have an idea about and be skeptical of how much any candidate rhetorically changes their current positions to better align with other positions later. What you currently base their alignment off and the sort of metrics and ideas of how you will determine both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics are also things you don't really have to worry about "aging poorly" Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 00:47 WombaT wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? Those are questions to any/everyone btw. You ask a lot more questions than you ever deign to answer lad I'll come back to this later if you'd like (or if you and Ender would prefer to take it to my Blog I suppose that'd be fine). You guys are just on the verge of having something resembling a real discussion about the future of the opposition to Trump/Republicans and I'd like to see that develop.
I disagree that we are ‘just on the verge’ of having a discussion on that. We were having a discussion and you just dipped out of answering any reciprocal questions that were sent your way.
WombaT wrote:
Is electoralism innately doomed or is it somehow salvageable? Is there an incarnation of the Dems you may find palatable, what would that look like? What areas are most pressing to target for some movement, and how? What compromises would be acceptable for more broad coalitions etc?
I’m just spitballing a few off my head, I think the thread at large would be quite interested to have those discussions
Rather than attempting to answer any of those, or indeed much of what Ender asked, you don’t, then come back into the thread to interrogate Light Spectra, but we can go to your blog or something?
Have you ever considered there may be a problem in how you communicate your ideas? A problem that’s exacerbated by virtue of your ideas being niche or revolutionary in the first place?
You’ll somehow (correctly) observe that wider socioeconomic or cultural norms suppress such ideas in the first place, but put zero effort into actually selling them to an audience that’s at least somewhat sympathetic. And if you can’t sell them here, good blooming luck with genpop
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On April 13 2026 23:21 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2026 18:22 EnDeR_ wrote:On April 13 2026 15:59 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I assume that Double and Ender are accurately implying Dem voters choosing to run a certain candidate in the general election (based on the outcome of the primary), in the same way that you've just elaborated on, Ren. The combination, yes. The DNC choosing to pull their weight behind Kamala and the voters just going for it. I honestly hope they are not that dumb. Currently they are, but I suppose there's time for that to change. Harris:____26.4% Newsome:_19.4% Buttigieg:__10.5% AOC:______7.9% Shapiro:____6.5% https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/democratic-primary/2028/nationalYour most hopeful sign is that she is still somehow 4th in her home state. What the DNC decides to do with NH will probably be critical for Buttigieg. Newsome is the obvious "underdog" who is probably also currently the one most aggressively campaigning for Republican votes with rhetoric and actions they like to see. Harris, Newsome, Buttigieg, AOC are the candidates people currently might have a chance to choose from (I think the primary typically gets decided before most of us vote in it), and that's being generous to AOC. If people have a preference they genuinely want to see win, they need to start working on it now. Especially if it isn't Harris or Newsome (are one of these two everyone's preference?). Otherwise their "choice" will be made for them long before they even get to vote.
I think I'd prefer AOC and even Buttigieg over Harris and Newsom (not sure where I'd put Shapiro). I'd also be theoretically fine with any of these five as president. I think Harris might have one of the hardest times winning the general though. Maybe AOC too (sadly).
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1281 Posts
On April 14 2026 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2026 23:18 Jankisa wrote:Yeah, and I guess you can say that early USA didn't get homogenized yet, and plenty of other reasons for this trend, I just think it's very depressing that, on average, people speaking more languages then their own went from 25 % to over 50 % while in the US the presidents went in the other direction: Plus, Trump decided to double down on this "being proud of only speaking English" idiocracy bullshit by putting out an EO stating as such, as if it wasn't already so. I take issue with this picture. Trump is not fluent in english...
Neither was Dubya, and sometimes not Biden. Honestly, not always being fluent in any language is a worrying trend for US presidents this century.
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On April 14 2026 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote:
They don't have to be "bad"? You've already downgraded them from "great" to "fine" lol.
Ah, bad faith nonsense, there's the GH that's as reliable as the sunrise.
We're talking about a primary (that starts well before the voting) where you're supposed to preemptively support the candidate that most aligns with your views (perhaps shifting them and others closer to specific ones you hold).
My state doesn't currently have ranked choice voting in our primary (although I have written to my state congresspeople in support of it). In order for my vote to be most effective, I have to pretend as if all but the top two were already eliminated. Since I currently have no idea who the top two will be in May 2028, let alone haven't currently even decided my two favorites yet, this is impossible to answer.
If the election were literally tomorrow and I had to pick between the five this instant, I would pick AOC. But that could change depending on all the things that happen until then, especially with the unveiling of their platforms. If one of the other four promised "I'll have Pete Hegseth at The Hague before sundown of my first day in office," that could entice me to switch to them.
Whether there's a Democrat alive that could make any of you vote for any possible Republican candidate would be an interesting thought exercise I suppose.
If the Democrat was Tulsi Gabbard and the Republican was Charlie Baker, I'd vote Baker begrudgingly, although we both know that scenario is absurdly unlikely.
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On April 14 2026 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 01:00 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 00:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Because if everyone thought like that we'd never get anything done, and I don't think I'm privileged enough to throw away my vote when everyone else is expected to vote intelligently. Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? The election's two years away and not everyone has thrown their hat in the ring yet, so anything I say is most likely going to age really poorly. We're talking about a primary, not the general election. I was told here previously that primary was the part where you could/should vote for who best aligned with you and the general election was when the "responsible/pragmatic" thing to do was fall in line. Perhaps the "most likely to win", but who most aligns with you is something you can/should probably already have an idea about and be skeptical of how much any candidate rhetorically changes their current positions to better align with other positions later. What you currently base their alignment off and the sort of metrics and ideas of how you will determine both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics are also things you don't really have to worry about "aging poorly" None of the five candidates you listed are bad though? I wouldn't feel like I'm holding my nose to vote for them as lesser evils, they'd all be fine presidents. If someone like Tulsi Gabbard or John Fetterman were a frontrunner, then my take would be "anyone who beats them". They don't have to be "bad"? You've already downgraded them from "great" to "fine" lol. We're talking about a primary (that starts well before the voting) where you're supposed to preemptively support the candidate that most aligns with your views (perhaps shifting them and others closer to specific ones you hold). Spending the time between now and when the serious polling/voting starts to help that candidate and your politically aligned allies/peers convince other voters that your/their perspective is the best to bring the party and country forward.Instead, you and DPB are describing a much more passive concept of democracy/ToC than I realized you guys supported/preferred to engage in. Whether there's a Democrat alive that could make any of you vote for any possible Republican candidate would be an interesting thought exercise I suppose.
Who is your ideal 2028 candidate, and are you currently spreading the word about them? Maybe you could persuade some of us to learn more about them? (I haven't seen you mention them in this thread yet, but I may have just missed it.)
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On April 14 2026 01:33 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 00:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 00:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Because if everyone thought like that we'd never get anything done, and I don't think I'm privileged enough to throw away my vote when everyone else is expected to vote intelligently. Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? The election's two years away and not everyone has thrown their hat in the ring yet, so anything I say is most likely going to age really poorly. We're talking about a primary, not the general election. I was told here previously that primary was the part where you could/should vote for who best aligned with you and the general election was when the "responsible/pragmatic" thing to do was fall in line. Perhaps the "most likely to win", but who most aligns with you is something you can/should probably already have an idea about and be skeptical of how much any candidate rhetorically changes their current positions to better align with other positions later. What you currently base their alignment off and the sort of metrics and ideas of how you will determine both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics are also things you don't really have to worry about "aging poorly" On April 14 2026 00:47 WombaT wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? Those are questions to any/everyone btw. You ask a lot more questions than you ever deign to answer lad I'll come back to this later if you'd like (or if you and Ender would prefer to take it to my Blog I suppose that'd be fine). You guys are just on the verge of having something resembling a real discussion about the future of the opposition to Trump/Republicans and I'd like to see that develop. I disagree that we are ‘just on the verge’ of having a discussion on that. We were having a discussion and you just dipped out of answering any reciprocal questions that were sent your way. Show nested quote +WombaT wrote:
Is electoralism innately doomed or is it somehow salvageable? Is there an incarnation of the Dems you may find palatable, what would that look like? What areas are most pressing to target for some movement, and how? What compromises would be acceptable for more broad coalitions etc?
I’m just spitballing a few off my head, I think the thread at large would be quite interested to have those discussions Rather than attempting to answer any of those, or indeed much of what Ender asked, you don’t, then come back into the thread to interrogate Light Spectra, but we can go to your blog or something? Have you ever considered there may be a problem in how you communicate your ideas? A problem that’s exacerbated by virtue of your ideas being niche or revolutionary in the first place? You’ll somehow (correctly) observe that wider socioeconomic or cultural norms suppress such ideas in the first place, but put zero effort into actually selling them to an audience that’s at least somewhat sympathetic. And if you can’t sell them here, good blooming luck with genpop
I asked Ender to take it one step at a time and you to steelman my position on non-reformist reforms and our different ToC and you both immediately/functionally refused and decided to focus your entire framing on voting (or not) for Dems instead. I still intend to come back to that in more detail here, but I was saying if you wanted to carry that on right this second we could do it there as to not interrupt a discussion about the future of the opposition to Trump/Republicans that is now already seeming to fizzle out before anything of note is discussed.
As for what I'm/we're supposed to be doing here, that seems to change wildly depending on who is saying it to whom and to what end.
If we didn't all have a problem communicating we'd already have something a lot closer to Light's Star Trek Utopia goal. But what exactly am I supposed to be convincing a bunch of people that regularly insist they agree with me of in your mind?
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Northern Ireland26604 Posts
On April 14 2026 01:25 Jankisa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 00:39 WombaT wrote:On April 13 2026 23:18 Jankisa wrote:Yeah, and I guess you can say that early USA didn't get homogenized yet, and plenty of other reasons for this trend, I just think it's very depressing that, on average, people speaking more languages then their own went from 25 % to over 50 % while in the US the presidents went in the other direction: Plus, Trump decided to double down on this "being proud of only speaking English" idiocracy bullshit by putting out an EO stating as such, as if it wasn't already so. It is very difficult though to be fair. Getting good practice in when your mother tongue is the lingua franca already is bloomin’ hard. I think sometimes it’s attributed purely to insularity when that’s not necessarily the case. Making a virtue of it is idiocy, so no surprises Trump has done that. I’d be interested to see how much of that 25% increase in people speaking other languages other than their own are simply people who grew up in households where their family primarily spoke another language. It’s on my personal bucket list to be at least semi-fluent in another language, but not something I think is really feasible unless I move somewhere else. Well, if you look at it from a different perspective, unless they are from a very rural and insulated town, an average American will encounter immigrants who might speak other languages quite often. There are over 68 million Latin Americans, I would imagine that gives you plenty of opportunity, as an average American, to try and practice Spanish. That, plus the fact that learning an language is easier today then ever before (tons of Apps, AI actually being pretty decent for helping to get going), the internet being a thing, it just gives us opportunities we never had before, I think a large chunk of that global % going up in the last few decades is due to that. I never learned English in school, I absorbed it through media (Cartoon network mostly) as a kid, after a while, as a kid who was curious about computers, I basically had to learn a bunch of it, and then that helped me be better at things like Wc3 and WOW where I found first communities that would help me with it. When I was 14, I created a forum page for a Wc3 custom map clan as a way of bribing them to give me a position on the team, and there was a very, very lengthy page there that was focused on analyzing all the official posts and OP threads I started to help me with my grammar. On the other side, while all this was happening I was struggling, daily to get by with German in school, I barely passed but even today, when I go to Germany I can understand what people are saying if they are trying to speak slowly to me, and I can get back to them if needed, with some gesticulations and English help, of course. When I went to Netherlands to live, I started Duolingo and even tho Amsterdam is extremely international, and so was my Company, I made an effort to learn it, at least to the point where I could greet people or order something, it wasn't much and the German helped, but the few Dutch folks at work appreciated the effort. So, yeah, I do think the easiest paths to learn are by growing up bilingual or moving somewhere, but there is a lot of tools and ways to get better without doing that, and I think most people would agree that knowing more languages can only be beneficial to you, plus it's fun.
If you don’t speak English and wanna reside on forums or whatever, you gotta learn English, if you already do there’s little pressure.
Apps aren’t really a substitute for practice, practice you simply don’t get unless you either really seek it out, or you live in an area with a lot of people who speak another tongue.
I think if you live in say, LA but can’t speak basic conversational Spanish, that is pretty lazy stuff.
For much of the Anglosphere outside of those kind of conditions it is genuinely very difficult for anyone who isn’t willing to emigrate, or who’s a big language hobbyist
I’ve dabbled in Italian and Irish lately, my partner is a relative rarity in basically being a fluent Irish speaker. But she spent time in the Gaeltacht regularly as a kid, where that was the primary language. I’ve a decent grasp of French, but if I wanted to be vaguely conversational I’d either have to give up a lot of time in my week to pursue it, or move somewhere else and just not speak English until I was able to do it.
Having the curiosity to at least try I think is important too, and definitely an area where people are lacking in my locale. Not sure how the US is in this regard.
My Italian fixation comes from a childhood love of Italian football and I can’t say all that much, but I found people pretty receptive to my clumsy efforts. The best ‘compliment’ I got from somehow who switched to English was that I sounded like a native, but a native with brain damage so at least I nailed the pronunciation!
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On April 14 2026 01:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 01:00 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 00:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Because if everyone thought like that we'd never get anything done, and I don't think I'm privileged enough to throw away my vote when everyone else is expected to vote intelligently. Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? The election's two years away and not everyone has thrown their hat in the ring yet, so anything I say is most likely going to age really poorly. We're talking about a primary, not the general election. I was told here previously that primary was the part where you could/should vote for who best aligned with you and the general election was when the "responsible/pragmatic" thing to do was fall in line. Perhaps the "most likely to win", but who most aligns with you is something you can/should probably already have an idea about and be skeptical of how much any candidate rhetorically changes their current positions to better align with other positions later. What you currently base their alignment off and the sort of metrics and ideas of how you will determine both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics are also things you don't really have to worry about "aging poorly" None of the five candidates you listed are bad though? I wouldn't feel like I'm holding my nose to vote for them as lesser evils, they'd all be fine presidents. If someone like Tulsi Gabbard or John Fetterman were a frontrunner, then my take would be "anyone who beats them". They don't have to be "bad"? You've already downgraded them from "great" to "fine" lol. We're talking about a primary (that starts well before the voting) where you're supposed to preemptively support the candidate that most aligns with your views (perhaps shifting them and others closer to specific ones you hold). Spending the time between now and when the serious polling/voting starts to help that candidate and your politically aligned allies/peers convince other voters that your/their perspective is the best to bring the party and country forward.Instead, you and DPB are describing a much more passive concept of democracy/ToC than I realized you guys supported/preferred to engage in. Whether there's a Democrat alive that could make any of you vote for any possible Republican candidate would be an interesting thought exercise I suppose. Who is your ideal 2028 candidate, and are you currently spreading the word about them? Maybe you could persuade some of us to learn more about them? (I haven't seen you mention them in this thread yet, but I may have just missed it.) I don't think of politics electorally. Voting is basically the last little incidental part of a political process where all the real work is done before the voting (as Light sorta indicated). Of the candidates that are even on the radar of having a chance of making it through the US political process, AOC is the closest to being able to earn my vote. But my vote, like yours in the US primary system, will probably be cosmetic at best.
EDIT: Happy cakeday btw
On April 14 2026 01:36 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote:
They don't have to be "bad"? You've already downgraded them from "great" to "fine" lol. + Show Spoiler +Ah, bad faith nonsense, there's the GH that's as reliable as the sunrise. We're talking about a primary (that starts well before the voting) where you're supposed to preemptively support the candidate that most aligns with your views (perhaps shifting them and others closer to specific ones you hold). My state doesn't currently have ranked choice voting in our primary (although I have written to my state congresspeople in support of it). In order for my vote to be most effective, I have to pretend as if all but the top two were already eliminated. Since I currently have no idea who the top two will be in May 2028, let alone haven't currently even decided my two favorites yet, this is impossible to answer. If the election were literally tomorrow and I had to pick between the five this instant, I would pick AOC. But that could change depending on all the things that happen until then, especially with the unveiling of their platforms. If one of the other four promised "I'll have Pete Hegseth at The Hague before sundown of my first day in office," that could entice me to switch to them. Whether there's a Democrat alive that could make any of you vote for any possible Republican candidate would be an interesting thought exercise I suppose. If the Democrat was Tulsi Gabbard and the Republican was Charlie Baker, I'd vote Baker begrudgingly, although we both know that scenario is absurdly unlikely.
That'd be a Republican vs Republican?
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United States43902 Posts
On April 14 2026 01:36 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote:
They don't have to be "bad"? You've already downgraded them from "great" to "fine" lol. Ah, bad faith nonsense, there's the GH that's as reliable as the sunrise. Show nested quote +We're talking about a primary (that starts well before the voting) where you're supposed to preemptively support the candidate that most aligns with your views (perhaps shifting them and others closer to specific ones you hold). My state doesn't currently have ranked choice voting in our primary (although I have written to my state congresspeople in support of it). In order for my vote to be most effective, I have to pretend as if all but the top two were already eliminated. Since I currently have no idea who the top two will be in May 2028, let alone haven't currently even decided my two favorites yet, this is impossible to answer. If the election were literally tomorrow and I had to pick between the five this instant, I would pick AOC. But that could change depending on all the things that happen until then, especially with the unveiling of their platforms. If one of the other four promised "I'll have Pete Hegseth at The Hague before sundown of my first day in office," that could entice me to switch to them.
A moderate position. I think let Iran try him.
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Northern Ireland26604 Posts
On April 14 2026 01:58 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 01:33 WombaT wrote:On April 14 2026 00:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 00:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Because if everyone thought like that we'd never get anything done, and I don't think I'm privileged enough to throw away my vote when everyone else is expected to vote intelligently. Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? The election's two years away and not everyone has thrown their hat in the ring yet, so anything I say is most likely going to age really poorly. We're talking about a primary, not the general election. I was told here previously that primary was the part where you could/should vote for who best aligned with you and the general election was when the "responsible/pragmatic" thing to do was fall in line. Perhaps the "most likely to win", but who most aligns with you is something you can/should probably already have an idea about and be skeptical of how much any candidate rhetorically changes their current positions to better align with other positions later. What you currently base their alignment off and the sort of metrics and ideas of how you will determine both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics are also things you don't really have to worry about "aging poorly" On April 14 2026 00:47 WombaT wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? Those are questions to any/everyone btw. You ask a lot more questions than you ever deign to answer lad I'll come back to this later if you'd like (or if you and Ender would prefer to take it to my Blog I suppose that'd be fine). You guys are just on the verge of having something resembling a real discussion about the future of the opposition to Trump/Republicans and I'd like to see that develop. I disagree that we are ‘just on the verge’ of having a discussion on that. We were having a discussion and you just dipped out of answering any reciprocal questions that were sent your way. WombaT wrote:
Is electoralism innately doomed or is it somehow salvageable? Is there an incarnation of the Dems you may find palatable, what would that look like? What areas are most pressing to target for some movement, and how? What compromises would be acceptable for more broad coalitions etc?
I’m just spitballing a few off my head, I think the thread at large would be quite interested to have those discussions Rather than attempting to answer any of those, or indeed much of what Ender asked, you don’t, then come back into the thread to interrogate Light Spectra, but we can go to your blog or something? Have you ever considered there may be a problem in how you communicate your ideas? A problem that’s exacerbated by virtue of your ideas being niche or revolutionary in the first place? You’ll somehow (correctly) observe that wider socioeconomic or cultural norms suppress such ideas in the first place, but put zero effort into actually selling them to an audience that’s at least somewhat sympathetic. And if you can’t sell them here, good blooming luck with genpop I asked Ender to take it one step at a time and you to steelman my position on non-reformist reforms and our different ToC and you both immediately/functionally refused and decided to focus your entire framing on voting (or not) for Dems instead. I still intend to come back to that in more detail here, but I was saying if you wanted to carry that on right this second we could do it there as to not interrupt a discussion about the future of the opposition to Trump/Republicans that is now already seeming to fizzle out before anything of note is discussed. As for what I'm/we're supposed to be doing here, that seems to change wildly depending on who is saying it to whom and to what end. If we didn't all have a problem communicating we'd already have something a lot closer to Light's Star Trek Utopia goal. But what exactly am I supposed to be convincing a bunch of people that regularly insist they agree with me of in your mind?
Answer pretty basic questions maybe?
You seem to have the time to interrogate others but not do that, for some reason.
Even on the bolded, you’re demanding things of other people, within your own framework that aren’t reciprocated whatsoever. So you want Ender to break their worldview down piecemeal, or me to steel man your positions, but you can’t return any courtesy by giving basic answers to anything.
Ironically I think you’re fighting the good fight as it were, from my personal political position but you do it so, so very badly that I find myself being critical
And you just cannot parse any criticism whatsoever, you’re a staggeringly ineffective interlocutor of your ideas, indeed actively counter-productive and you cannot process this or alter your approach whatsoever.
Even when you get constructive feedback, you just completely ignore it and wonder why people are hostile to your pronouncements.
You’re a worse than average communicator with a worldview that requires a great communicator to punch through entrenched ideas around capitalism etc, but who acts perpetually confused as to why this is the case even when people explicitly tell them
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On April 14 2026 02:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 01:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 14 2026 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 01:00 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 00:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Because if everyone thought like that we'd never get anything done, and I don't think I'm privileged enough to throw away my vote when everyone else is expected to vote intelligently. Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? The election's two years away and not everyone has thrown their hat in the ring yet, so anything I say is most likely going to age really poorly. We're talking about a primary, not the general election. I was told here previously that primary was the part where you could/should vote for who best aligned with you and the general election was when the "responsible/pragmatic" thing to do was fall in line. Perhaps the "most likely to win", but who most aligns with you is something you can/should probably already have an idea about and be skeptical of how much any candidate rhetorically changes their current positions to better align with other positions later. What you currently base their alignment off and the sort of metrics and ideas of how you will determine both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics are also things you don't really have to worry about "aging poorly" None of the five candidates you listed are bad though? I wouldn't feel like I'm holding my nose to vote for them as lesser evils, they'd all be fine presidents. If someone like Tulsi Gabbard or John Fetterman were a frontrunner, then my take would be "anyone who beats them". They don't have to be "bad"? You've already downgraded them from "great" to "fine" lol. We're talking about a primary (that starts well before the voting) where you're supposed to preemptively support the candidate that most aligns with your views (perhaps shifting them and others closer to specific ones you hold). Spending the time between now and when the serious polling/voting starts to help that candidate and your politically aligned allies/peers convince other voters that your/their perspective is the best to bring the party and country forward.Instead, you and DPB are describing a much more passive concept of democracy/ToC than I realized you guys supported/preferred to engage in. Whether there's a Democrat alive that could make any of you vote for any possible Republican candidate would be an interesting thought exercise I suppose. Who is your ideal 2028 candidate, and are you currently spreading the word about them? Maybe you could persuade some of us to learn more about them? (I haven't seen you mention them in this thread yet, but I may have just missed it.) I don't think of politics electorally. Voting is basically the last little incidental part of a political process where all the real work is done before the voting (as Light sorta indicated). Of the candidates that are even on the radar of having a chance of making it through the US political process, AOC is the closest to being able to earn my vote. But my vote, like yours in the US primary system, will probably be cosmetic at best. EDIT: Happy cakeday btw
Agreed, and thanks!
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On April 14 2026 02:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
If the Democrat was Tulsi Gabbard and the Republican was Charlie Baker, I'd vote Baker begrudgingly, although we both know that scenario is absurdly unlikely. That'd be a Republican vs Republican?
You're right, I had forgotten she officially switched parties. OK, so if it was Eric Swalwell or Rod Blagojevich versus Baker, I'd vote Baker.
On April 14 2026 02:27 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 01:36 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote:
They don't have to be "bad"? You've already downgraded them from "great" to "fine" lol. Ah, bad faith nonsense, there's the GH that's as reliable as the sunrise. We're talking about a primary (that starts well before the voting) where you're supposed to preemptively support the candidate that most aligns with your views (perhaps shifting them and others closer to specific ones you hold). My state doesn't currently have ranked choice voting in our primary (although I have written to my state congresspeople in support of it). In order for my vote to be most effective, I have to pretend as if all but the top two were already eliminated. Since I currently have no idea who the top two will be in May 2028, let alone haven't currently even decided my two favorites yet, this is impossible to answer. If the election were literally tomorrow and I had to pick between the five this instant, I would pick AOC. But that could change depending on all the things that happen until then, especially with the unveiling of their platforms. If one of the other four promised "I'll have Pete Hegseth at The Hague before sundown of my first day in office," that could entice me to switch to them. A moderate position. I think let Iran try him.
An enticing thought, but the West proving we can bring justice to our own war criminals would be better.
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On April 14 2026 02:45 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 01:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 01:33 WombaT wrote:On April 14 2026 00:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 00:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Because if everyone thought like that we'd never get anything done, and I don't think I'm privileged enough to throw away my vote when everyone else is expected to vote intelligently. Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? The election's two years away and not everyone has thrown their hat in the ring yet, so anything I say is most likely going to age really poorly. We're talking about a primary, not the general election. I was told here previously that primary was the part where you could/should vote for who best aligned with you and the general election was when the "responsible/pragmatic" thing to do was fall in line. Perhaps the "most likely to win", but who most aligns with you is something you can/should probably already have an idea about and be skeptical of how much any candidate rhetorically changes their current positions to better align with other positions later. What you currently base their alignment off and the sort of metrics and ideas of how you will determine both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics are also things you don't really have to worry about "aging poorly" On April 14 2026 00:47 WombaT wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? Those are questions to any/everyone btw. You ask a lot more questions than you ever deign to answer lad I'll come back to this later if you'd like (or if you and Ender would prefer to take it to my Blog I suppose that'd be fine). You guys are just on the verge of having something resembling a real discussion about the future of the opposition to Trump/Republicans and I'd like to see that develop. I disagree that we are ‘just on the verge’ of having a discussion on that. We were having a discussion and you just dipped out of answering any reciprocal questions that were sent your way. WombaT wrote:
Is electoralism innately doomed or is it somehow salvageable? Is there an incarnation of the Dems you may find palatable, what would that look like? What areas are most pressing to target for some movement, and how? What compromises would be acceptable for more broad coalitions etc?
I’m just spitballing a few off my head, I think the thread at large would be quite interested to have those discussions Rather than attempting to answer any of those, or indeed much of what Ender asked, you don’t, then come back into the thread to interrogate Light Spectra, but we can go to your blog or something? Have you ever considered there may be a problem in how you communicate your ideas? A problem that’s exacerbated by virtue of your ideas being niche or revolutionary in the first place? You’ll somehow (correctly) observe that wider socioeconomic or cultural norms suppress such ideas in the first place, but put zero effort into actually selling them to an audience that’s at least somewhat sympathetic. And if you can’t sell them here, good blooming luck with genpop I asked Ender to take it one step at a time and you to steelman my position on non-reformist reforms and our different ToC and you both immediately/functionally refused and decided to focus your entire framing on voting (or not) for Dems instead. I still intend to come back to that in more detail here, but I was saying if you wanted to carry that on right this second we could do it there as to not interrupt a discussion about the future of the opposition to Trump/Republicans that is now already seeming to fizzle out before anything of note is discussed. As for what I'm/we're supposed to be doing here, that seems to change wildly depending on who is saying it to whom and to what end. If we didn't all have a problem communicating we'd already have something a lot closer to Light's Star Trek Utopia goal. But what exactly am I supposed to be convincing a bunch of people that regularly insist they agree with me of in your mind? Answer pretty basic questions maybe? You seem to have the time to interrogate others but not do that, for some reason. + Show Spoiler +Even on the bolded, you’re demanding things of other people, within your own framework that aren’t reciprocated whatsoever. So you want Ender to break their worldview down piecemeal, or me to steel man your positions, but you can’t return any courtesy by giving basic answers to anything.
Ironically I think you’re fighting the good fight as it were, from my personal political position but you do it so, so very badly that I find myself being critical
And you just cannot parse any criticism whatsoever, you’re a staggeringly ineffective interlocutor of your ideas, indeed actively counter-productive and you cannot process this or alter your approach whatsoever.
Even when you get constructive feedback, you just completely ignore it and wonder why people are hostile to your pronouncements.
You’re a worse than average communicator with a worldview that requires a great communicator to punch through entrenched ideas around capitalism etc, but who acts perpetually confused as to why this is the case even when people explicitly tell them
The questions are sorta like the political "when did you stop beating your wife" rhetorical trap. They impose your ToC on me and demand answers to your elections based worldview/ToC rather than asking them of my ToC like I am of others for theirs. Meanwhile, leverage-based theories of change are the ones overwhelmingly credited historically for pretty much all major US political progress. However, yours/Democrats as described thus far is based on relatively recent propaganda (Democrats have been the "good" party for less time than they were the white supremacist one btw) similar to "Diamonds are forever".
In order to demonstrate that definitively, it's going to take a methodical approach where we'll need to establish individual points along the path of building a bigger picture. Most of you lose interest and chase the next squirrel long before we can do that here most of the time.
Again, specifically: In your view, who is the primary audience I should be addressing, and what core message should I be convincing them of?
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Trump's response when asked about the LLM-generated picture of himself as Jesus Christ:
+ Show Spoiler +
Glad we cleared that up.
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Northern Ireland26604 Posts
On April 14 2026 03:04 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 02:45 WombaT wrote:On April 14 2026 01:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 01:33 WombaT wrote:On April 14 2026 00:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 14 2026 00:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Because if everyone thought like that we'd never get anything done, and I don't think I'm privileged enough to throw away my vote when everyone else is expected to vote intelligently. Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? The election's two years away and not everyone has thrown their hat in the ring yet, so anything I say is most likely going to age really poorly. We're talking about a primary, not the general election. I was told here previously that primary was the part where you could/should vote for who best aligned with you and the general election was when the "responsible/pragmatic" thing to do was fall in line. Perhaps the "most likely to win", but who most aligns with you is something you can/should probably already have an idea about and be skeptical of how much any candidate rhetorically changes their current positions to better align with other positions later. What you currently base their alignment off and the sort of metrics and ideas of how you will determine both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics are also things you don't really have to worry about "aging poorly" On April 14 2026 00:47 WombaT wrote:On April 14 2026 00:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2026 23:59 LightSpectra wrote:
All of them would be great presidents and I'd be proud to cast a vote for any one of them. My primary vote will exclusively be for whomever I think is most likely to win the general election in November 2028. I'm curious, why? Your individual vote likely won't be determinative (even if you're in a state that might matter). Why not just vote for the candidate that most aligns with your politics in a (likely meaningless) primary? Who do you currently think that is (both who is most likely to win and who best aligns with your politics) and based on what? How will you go about determining that? Those are questions to any/everyone btw. You ask a lot more questions than you ever deign to answer lad I'll come back to this later if you'd like (or if you and Ender would prefer to take it to my Blog I suppose that'd be fine). You guys are just on the verge of having something resembling a real discussion about the future of the opposition to Trump/Republicans and I'd like to see that develop. I disagree that we are ‘just on the verge’ of having a discussion on that. We were having a discussion and you just dipped out of answering any reciprocal questions that were sent your way. WombaT wrote:
Is electoralism innately doomed or is it somehow salvageable? Is there an incarnation of the Dems you may find palatable, what would that look like? What areas are most pressing to target for some movement, and how? What compromises would be acceptable for more broad coalitions etc?
I’m just spitballing a few off my head, I think the thread at large would be quite interested to have those discussions Rather than attempting to answer any of those, or indeed much of what Ender asked, you don’t, then come back into the thread to interrogate Light Spectra, but we can go to your blog or something? Have you ever considered there may be a problem in how you communicate your ideas? A problem that’s exacerbated by virtue of your ideas being niche or revolutionary in the first place? You’ll somehow (correctly) observe that wider socioeconomic or cultural norms suppress such ideas in the first place, but put zero effort into actually selling them to an audience that’s at least somewhat sympathetic. And if you can’t sell them here, good blooming luck with genpop I asked Ender to take it one step at a time and you to steelman my position on non-reformist reforms and our different ToC and you both immediately/functionally refused and decided to focus your entire framing on voting (or not) for Dems instead. I still intend to come back to that in more detail here, but I was saying if you wanted to carry that on right this second we could do it there as to not interrupt a discussion about the future of the opposition to Trump/Republicans that is now already seeming to fizzle out before anything of note is discussed. As for what I'm/we're supposed to be doing here, that seems to change wildly depending on who is saying it to whom and to what end. If we didn't all have a problem communicating we'd already have something a lot closer to Light's Star Trek Utopia goal. But what exactly am I supposed to be convincing a bunch of people that regularly insist they agree with me of in your mind? Answer pretty basic questions maybe? You seem to have the time to interrogate others but not do that, for some reason. + Show Spoiler +Even on the bolded, you’re demanding things of other people, within your own framework that aren’t reciprocated whatsoever. So you want Ender to break their worldview down piecemeal, or me to steel man your positions, but you can’t return any courtesy by giving basic answers to anything.
Ironically I think you’re fighting the good fight as it were, from my personal political position but you do it so, so very badly that I find myself being critical
And you just cannot parse any criticism whatsoever, you’re a staggeringly ineffective interlocutor of your ideas, indeed actively counter-productive and you cannot process this or alter your approach whatsoever.
Even when you get constructive feedback, you just completely ignore it and wonder why people are hostile to your pronouncements.
You’re a worse than average communicator with a worldview that requires a great communicator to punch through entrenched ideas around capitalism etc, but who acts perpetually confused as to why this is the case even when people explicitly tell them The questions are sorta like the political "when did you stop beating your wife" rhetorical trap. They impose your ToC on me and demand answers to your elections based worldview/ToC rather than asking them of my ToC like I am of others for theirs. Meanwhile, leverage-based theories of change are the ones overwhelmingly credited historically for pretty much all major US political progress. However, yours/Democrats as described thus far is based on relatively recent propaganda (Democrats have been the "good" party for less time than they were the white supremacist one btw) similar to "Diamonds are forever". In order to demonstrate that definitively, it's going to take a methodical approach where we'll need to establish individual points along the path of building a bigger picture. Most of you lose interest and chase the next squirrel long before we can do that here most of the time. Again, specifically: In your view, who is the primary audience I should be addressing, and what core message should I be convincing them of?
Ah ok you’re going with strawmanning and obfuscating bollocks again, it’s a convincing approach…
Cool, you do you. I couldn’t be arsed dealing with this anymore, consider this my last earnest effort. I’ll be ignoring your output in future
Which I assume is my problem, or I’ve been infected with propoganda or something and nothing to do with your innate inability to communicate reasonably
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On April 14 2026 02:00 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2026 01:25 Jankisa wrote:On April 14 2026 00:39 WombaT wrote:On April 13 2026 23:18 Jankisa wrote:Yeah, and I guess you can say that early USA didn't get homogenized yet, and plenty of other reasons for this trend, I just think it's very depressing that, on average, people speaking more languages then their own went from 25 % to over 50 % while in the US the presidents went in the other direction: Plus, Trump decided to double down on this "being proud of only speaking English" idiocracy bullshit by putting out an EO stating as such, as if it wasn't already so. It is very difficult though to be fair. Getting good practice in when your mother tongue is the lingua franca already is bloomin’ hard. I think sometimes it’s attributed purely to insularity when that’s not necessarily the case. Making a virtue of it is idiocy, so no surprises Trump has done that. I’d be interested to see how much of that 25% increase in people speaking other languages other than their own are simply people who grew up in households where their family primarily spoke another language. It’s on my personal bucket list to be at least semi-fluent in another language, but not something I think is really feasible unless I move somewhere else. Well, if you look at it from a different perspective, unless they are from a very rural and insulated town, an average American will encounter immigrants who might speak other languages quite often. There are over 68 million Latin Americans, I would imagine that gives you plenty of opportunity, as an average American, to try and practice Spanish. That, plus the fact that learning an language is easier today then ever before (tons of Apps, AI actually being pretty decent for helping to get going), the internet being a thing, it just gives us opportunities we never had before, I think a large chunk of that global % going up in the last few decades is due to that. I never learned English in school, I absorbed it through media (Cartoon network mostly) as a kid, after a while, as a kid who was curious about computers, I basically had to learn a bunch of it, and then that helped me be better at things like Wc3 and WOW where I found first communities that would help me with it. When I was 14, I created a forum page for a Wc3 custom map clan as a way of bribing them to give me a position on the team, and there was a very, very lengthy page there that was focused on analyzing all the official posts and OP threads I started to help me with my grammar. On the other side, while all this was happening I was struggling, daily to get by with German in school, I barely passed but even today, when I go to Germany I can understand what people are saying if they are trying to speak slowly to me, and I can get back to them if needed, with some gesticulations and English help, of course. When I went to Netherlands to live, I started Duolingo and even tho Amsterdam is extremely international, and so was my Company, I made an effort to learn it, at least to the point where I could greet people or order something, it wasn't much and the German helped, but the few Dutch folks at work appreciated the effort. So, yeah, I do think the easiest paths to learn are by growing up bilingual or moving somewhere, but there is a lot of tools and ways to get better without doing that, and I think most people would agree that knowing more languages can only be beneficial to you, plus it's fun. If you don’t speak English and wanna reside on forums or whatever, you gotta learn English, if you already do there’s little pressure. Apps aren’t really a substitute for practice, practice you simply don’t get unless you either really seek it out, or you live in an area with a lot of people who speak another tongue. I think if you live in say, LA but can’t speak basic conversational Spanish, that is pretty lazy stuff. For much of the Anglosphere outside of those kind of conditions it is genuinely very difficult for anyone who isn’t willing to emigrate, or who’s a big language hobbyist I’ve dabbled in Italian and Irish lately, my partner is a relative rarity in basically being a fluent Irish speaker. But she spent time in the Gaeltacht regularly as a kid, where that was the primary language. I’ve a decent grasp of French, but if I wanted to be vaguely conversational I’d either have to give up a lot of time in my week to pursue it, or move somewhere else and just not speak English until I was able to do it. Having the curiosity to at least try I think is important too, and definitely an area where people are lacking in my locale. Not sure how the US is in this regard. My Italian fixation comes from a childhood love of Italian football and I can’t say all that much, but I found people pretty receptive to my clumsy efforts. The best ‘compliment’ I got from somehow who switched to English was that I sounded like a native, but a native with brain damage so at least I nailed the pronunciation!
This seems like a very anglocentric view. It's true that there is a lot of English content on the internet, but if you don't speak English, you just don't visit the anglophone parts of it. It isn't as if there's no content in other languages... so people who don't speak English won't be here on tl.net, but there are other forums.
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On April 14 2026 03:05 LightSpectra wrote:Trump's response when asked about the LLM-generated picture of himself as Jesus Christ: + Show Spoiler +Glad we cleared that up.
Well come on man, who are you going to believe? The president of the USA or your own lying eyes?!
E: but... even if we were to accept that he isn't gaslighting and he really believes that's how doctors get depicted, HOW DOES A PICTURE OF A DOCTOR work as an answer to the f****king pope. Like... In what world... *brain melts*
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Just fondly remembering when the imbeciles in this thread tried to tell us with a straight face that AOC was an idiot because she paused a few seconds while answering a question. They voted for Mr. Do Red Cross.
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Canada11490 Posts
Ah yes. Doctors: famous for wearing white robes and healing people through the laying on of hands surrounded by a heavenly glow while the onlookers look to the 'doctor' in adoration with hands clasped in prayer.
The only real difference between this being a headswapped Jesus depiction from the Picture Bible produced in the 70s is this version has a red robe... probably because blue is Democrat coded. The whole thing looks like blasphemy to me.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Languages_Spoke_by_US_Presidents.png/960px-Languages_Spoke_by_US_Presidents.png)
![[image loading]](https://i.redd.it/xe6xhfk0rzug1.jpeg)
