Perhaps they are thinking of the “anarchists” that just watch YouTube videos to get angry at “the tankies” based on a misunderstanding of history in the 1920s

Curious what that misunderstanding is. Do you feel the betrayal of the Anarchist Kronstadt sailors, Nestor Makhno’s black army, CNT of Spain, or the lengthy list of offenses against the IWW were just an oopsie?

OP, just so you know, Invidious was effectively killed by Google, rendering the video unplayable unless you click through to youtube. The best replacement I’ve found is Freetube combined with libredirect., which I recommend to others in the post body text when I share a video.

• Creating or helping encourage worker owned cooperatives
• Helping organize people into unions
• Participating in or forming a local mutual aid group to tackle a problem that your community faces (feeding the needy, making small candle heaters to help vulnerable people survive in colder regions, help your community become more climate resilient, etc)
• Creating community gardens to help feed, nutrify, and bring together your local community, especially helpful in downtrodden communities where nutritive food is not accessible by walking or bicycle.
• Educating your local community that anarchism and or its principles are an incredibly promising solution to many of societies problems
• Participate in meaningful demonstrations (occupy wall street, physically blocking climate destroying activities)

Those are just a few examples I can think of.

From what I’ve observed, only a minority of people actively engage with the political system heavily. I think most of society (at least in the US) does only engage with it at the elections, and otherwise are more concerned with their job, family, or favored sports activity.

I agree, it’s a terrible shame that people will become so deeply involved with a broken system instead of putting that effort into prefigurative politics, direct action, or mutual aid.

Though at least for some people, the outcome of an election may indeed be a life or death scenario, such as those who may be deported back to countries that may be seeking asylum from political prosecution, or back into living conditions that are difficult to survive in, or women who cannot access a life saving abortion, or the stripping of medicaid for those who have medical conditions that would make it impossible to afford survival.

It also would likely effect the ability for people to unionize or strike, or to engage in rent strikes without legal prosecution.

I will say, at least in this particular election, I don’t begrudge people getting politically involved quite so much, since it’s not out of the question that one party may genuinely install a full on fascist dictator for life, and that’d suck way harder than the normal fascist-lite we’ve usually had. I hope that more people will do so with their eyes open as to what they’re engaging with this time, and do not become deceived that it is a solution in itself.

But yeah, ultimately agree. Voting should’ve just been a box you tick quickly in between more important direct action, and it sucks that it ends up being more of what you describe instead.

Voting takes up a relatively small amount of time. In my case, just filling in a mail in ballot, so I didn’t even need to drive somewhere. If that’s the extent of the required participation every few years, I would do so even if the tangible benefits were marginal, since the costs are so trivial.

Some anarchists historically have refused to participate in voting to deny legitimizing the state. This is an ideologically pure and legitimate stance, but it’s difficult for me to see what that achieves practically other than the ideological purity.

If I try to look as objectively and dispassionately as possible at the practical outcomes of democrat and republican governments in the US, the democrat governments, while still corporate captured and moving further to the right, does pass some legislation that has, at times, reduced suffering for some of the most in need. It is still completely insufficient, but for many, I’m sure it has made life more bearable, and in many cases saved lives.

Climate legislation has a similar result, with Republicans blocking all bills that could help, where as democrats were able to get some passed that, while insufficient due to still having to appease capitalist interests, are definitely way better than nothing. Seeing as we have so little time to impact climate change, I will generally prioritize practical outcomes more than ideological purity, because ultimately if global warming gets bad enough, there will be very little humanity left to be ideologically anything at all.

There are many other parts of society that would also very quickly suffer under this republican candidate and underlings in particular, such as trans people, immigrants, and women.

That leaves the genocide, which both parties will continue to participate in, and which makes voting for either party ideologically disgusting. Again, I personally try to detach my own feelings on this and to consider the practical outcome, which is that regardless of my choice to vote or not, that suffering and inhumanity will most likely continue, and my lack of a vote does nothing to reduce it. With that in mind, I only consider the things my vote potentially could change, which so far are still worth the 5 minutes I personally have to commit.

Ultimately I know that my vote only delays a fascist state, but it also makes it more survivable for some along the way, and that’s not to be dismissed, even if the same group making it more survivable for some is simultaneously enabling genocide.

There’s a lot of variables, and it’s deeply unjust that I’m forced into a position to have to weigh these variables between greedy power hungry cretins who enable so much suffering, but that’s what I’m left with. You could think of it as picking which enemy you want to face.

But as for your question of where the line in the sand is for me to consider it not worth voting; I would consider it pointless if either party would result in near enough the same amount of suffering overall, and the only difference is the flavor (a random example, choosing between a Soviet Union style authoritarian state vs a mafia state like modern Russia)

Or,

The election is so thoroughly corrupt that my votes, if counted at all, will consistently be rendered useless by an absurd number of fake votes to where the whole thing is a charade (modern Russia).

But that’s just my two cents :)

When I remember to, I try to add a message in the post body recommending Freetube combined with Libredirect, since that still works.

Sorry to hear things are rough for you. I hope whatever is causing it improves!

Mine is an odd choice, or maybe not, but its the first thing that came to mind: Night in The Woods

It’s about a girl that comes home from college to her old dying town. I know that doesn’t sound terribly uplifting, and there’s some downer stories mixed in there, but overall I found it a very heartfelt and uplifting game, because the main character’s friends are the most wonderful bunch of people, and you hang out with them and go on little adventures throughout. It’s got a cool creepy mystery story going on, but the game is mostly about deep friendship, family, and overcoming struggles with their help, and I found that very uplifting and worthwhile.

“Is it recipes?”

“A recipe to fix the world, my dear.”

“Oh.”

…

“Well I should quite like to taste it.” looks at you expectantly

How do you define the destinction? I assume you’re only counting ‘in’ as officially recognized by the republican party, the political entity?

While I agree civil war is unlikely, there are paramilitary groups in the republican party, which Frontline investigated.

I could see a more minor version of The Troubles taking place.

I would suspect they wouldn’t say the same about Soviet Futurism Art.

That old Soviet art was designed to inspire, to get people excited for what their world and society could be, to become a scientist or an engineer so you could be a part of making that reality! It was, critically, a goal, something to strive toward. Unfortunately, their ideology and government would keep them from ever realizing what their artists dreamt up.

Solarpunk is, in some ways, acting in a similar vein: giving us a goal to orient toward. But our tools, anarchism, eco-socialism, appropriate technology; they can actually enable and empower us, to make good on their promise.

That’s just my two cents, anyway :)

I don’t know if Varyk’s claim of your style of engagement is true, I haven’t looked at your comment history, so I’ll respond to what you’ve faced regardless of if you’ve attracted more disagreement than strictly needed.

Being an anarchist, and being super direct and upfront about your views, is going you get you some ire no matter where you go.

The reason is, generally speaking, you’re looking through history and systems of power with a lens that makes the problems with those other systems quite glaring.

The people who have adopted those other systems and ideologies will have already accepted the cognitive dissonance that comes with them, and they’re not going to take kindly to your nuanced opinion that makes them have to reevaluate their cognitive dissonance again. It’s much easier to dismiss or attack you instead.

Now there are ways of softening your critiques and opinions to make them less liable to attract anger, such as adopting the Mr.Rogers style, but sometimes that can be too soft, depending on the context. You’ll have to decide when that’s appropriate for yourself.

Also, bear in mind that while sometimes your viewpoints and arguments will gather hatred no matter what you do, and it can seem hopeless to express your views, as though it does no good; there are many more neutral lurkers than there are people who engage with you directly, and you’ll be having an outsized impact on that group just by having that counter arguement or viewpoint available for them to compare, which may unknowingly be changing minds for the better.

Before I edited the comment, it said vegan meat alternatives, without stipulating impossible beef, so I thought maybe the vegan part triggered people? Though I still got downvotes even after. Ah well 🤷‍♂️

That might’ve happened in the sequel? I don’t think you ever see the main character’s parents in the first game, but I do recall visiting them when you come back from WWII in the second game.

I wasn’t a big fan of the sequel, since I found the main characters to be unsympathetic assholes.

I think Mafia received that criticism because of its surface level similarity to GTA, which is known for packing a ton of random side content in its open world.

In Mafia there is genuinely nothing to do out in the world when driving around outside of the main story missions, except for occasionally a mechanic at a garage will offer you some small mission to steal a newer and faster car. Because of that, people complained that the open-world part was pointless and a waste.

In the case of rdr2, it has a linear story, but a plethora of side content the player can engage with outside of the main missions. In Mafia, there was a single person that would sometimes offer you little missions to steal faster and better cars, but otherwise had no side activities whatsoever in between driving to and from the story missions. The lack of side content was the main complaint.

The Original Mafia game is generally criticized for being a linear game in an open-world, but I think its linear nature is one of its strengths, because it gives the narrative a tight, driving focus that open world games tend to lack.

meat alternatives, like impossible beef and chicken patties.

For minor things it works alright. For slightly advanced things, like making making curved text, it’s not intuitive compared to Photoshop. Though personally, even for minor things I found Krita more pleasant.

A UI designer made this little short about Gimp, which I think captures the sorta things that can be frustrating.

I’m extremely pleased to hear they will be taking UI seriously.