[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 17 points 9 months ago

I don't think that's what happened? Based on this article and another one I read, it seems that now the Taco Tuesday trademark is relinquished meaning anyone can use it. I'm guessing taco bell would rather everyone be able to use it including them rather than it being locked down by someone who's not them.

[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 29 points 1 year ago

The first step to changing someone's mind is acknowledging that you probably won't be able to. The other commenters are right, the red pill is stupid, it's annoying to argue with them, and you'll probably fail the delicate act of ideological conversion. Still want to give it a shot? Great!

Depending on how deep down the rabbit hole they are, the answer is it could either be impossible or it's a long term dedicated effort. First you should learn a bit about cult deprogramming techniques, as while the red pill isn't really a cult it is an echo chamber ie. a mostly comprehensive view of the world that has built in answers that insulate from external dissent. The red pill tends to provide community, some degree of lifestyle improvement, and a feeling of secret insights into society / the world, and it's very rare an individual will give those things up for the sake of something as abstract as logical consistency.

You need to slowly provide alternatives to whatever positives the red pill provides, which while annoying is possible because the red pill sucks. The online sense of community is tenuous at best, so be their friend and connect them to other friends that'll entirely replace that aspect. Additionally, the lifestyle improvement aspect is rather generic and can come from anywhere. Ask them what specific red pill people they follow and provide a gym / motivation YouTuber that better provides whatever motivation the red pill gives.

The final element is the feeling of insight into the world that the red pill gives. This one is ironically the least important to changing someone's mind and the most difficult, as in order to successfully provide alternatives you likely need to understand the red pill ideology better than they do. Nothing a red pill person says should stump you, you should have heard it beforehand and researched it and thought of better counter arguments. If they mention hypergamy, you should have annecdotal, theoretical, and statistical answers ready to go. You should know their ideology well so you can make annoying jokes about how ridiculous it is when applied to real life.

If you do these things, over enough time and done diplomatically enough so they don't leave you for a friend that doesn't annoy them, you can probably depeogram a red pill person.

[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

Another answer to your question is that it's fundamentally misguided due to your assumption that good and evil are absolute concepts and that there can't exist separate and consistent moral worldviews. Consider the historical crusaders joining a brotherhood of Christ to save their holy land from the infidels and secure safe pilgrimages for millions of their fellow Christians, and then consider a Muslim warrior defending his homeland and family in the name of Allah from crazed zealots of an imperfect prophet. Who is good there? If you asked them, they'd both say they're the good one and the other is the evil one. They'd both say the reason they KNOW they're the good one is ultimately due to insight into the moral fabric of the universe granted to them by God (the same god, funnily enough). Ultimately, it's impossible to say absolutely which one is right without appealing to something like divine revelation.

Another assumption I think you should reconsider is your implied stance that good people are necessarily absolutists in their principles. You say the good people wouldn't use nuclear bombs, but why? Nuclear bombs have ushered humanity into the greatest and longest period of peace in human history. You say the good people would never use torture, but why? I agree with other commenters that for practical purposes torture is nearly always useless and inhumane, but suppose a hypothetical hemophobic (and Evil!) nuclear terrorist that you'd just need to barely cut (light torture!) and then he'd tell you the secrets to his dastardly plan to bomb an orphanage. Are you sure that a good person would be obligated to stand by as the orphans explode instead of giving that guy a pinprick? Suppose the "good person" sticks to their principles and lets the orphans dies, what should they do to the terrorist? This guy's really evil, he spits on puppies and doesn't even feel bad about it. You also know with 100% certainty that he'll never reform, Doctor Strange told you so. If so, wouldn't it be more moral to just kill him? Why waste resources on his useless imprisonment when it could be spent on thousands of mosquito nets saving thousands of nonevil lives from malaria? Also, why is he evil? Suppose it's even 1% likely that evilness spreads through genes, if the good guy knew that and let him have kids wouldn't it be partially the good guy's fault if his nuclear terrorist baby bombs another orphanage? Perhaps you have satisfying answers to all these questions, but if you don't you just justified the torture, killing, and eugenics-ing of "evil" people.

Ultimately, the impression I want to leave is that ethics are hard and complicated and most certainly more nuanced than a good and evil divide. There exist counter arguments to some of the things I said in this comment, but I'm guessing exploration of those counter arguments would leave you with a more nuanced view of good and evil regardless.

[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

This is the worst plan possible because of the phenomenon of vote splitting. If your #1 issue you want solved is FPTP voting, vote for the party that's shown the biggest tendency to reform that, the Democrats.

If you feel your vote is still worthless, stop complaining online and get involved locally and on a state level to enact the voting reform of your choice.

[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago

God that video annoyed me so much. You aren't supposed to practice for an IQ test. If you practice, whatever result you get is basically invalid as the test presumes you are approaching the problems for the first time. It wouldn't annoy me if it wasn't Veritasium, but he presents himself as a science educator and should know better.

[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago

Gesturing vaguely at everything is not an argument for anything. Supposing the person you're talking to agrees that everything is bad, then it's simply an argument for radicalism, not necessarily anticapitalism or whatever your particular strain of belief is. Someone could, while gesturing vaguely, just as easily argue that it's because of moral decline, that society isn't capitalist enough, for race realism, for the need for a strongman to take over, or really anything that'd promise (but almost certainly not deliver) to vaguely fix everything.

[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

Oh shit the seatbelts are a great example, I'd maybe add that typing on a keyboard is another thing that feels habitual. Everywhere else the 3 month rule applies pretty well in terms of maybe picking them up and randomly immediately dropping.

Can a neurotypical chime in and say whether seatbelts and typing are habits to them like brushing teeth?

[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

If you genuinely accept critiques of Iran, China, and Russia as well as disliking the West's capitalism then you're just a communist, not a tankie. However if you just kinda accept critiques in a "No one's perfect" kinda way but still cheer when Russians shoot Ukrainians, you'd be a tankie who fell for Russian propaganda. I'd recommend looking into the firehose of falsehood, it informs a lot about certain righties' and lefties' perspectives.

[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

I suppose you can point that out, but it's worth saying that the deflation that'd be required to decrease prices would be way more catastrophic than the semi high inflation we experienced. With deflation people are encouraged to keep their money in the bank instead of investing or spending, which means businesses lose profits and banks become more hesitant to lend, which means businesses fail and lay off workers, which means less consumer spending and investing and so on. Deflation leads to the economy collapsing while modest inflation leads to economic growth.

[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 47 points 1 year ago

It's a multilayered joke:

  1. That is exactly how hot air balloons work, so despite the format of a meme it's entirely boring and thus an antimeme, where part of the joke is that the poster betrayed the assumed relationship of them providing a joke.
  2. It's a reference to the "oil floats on water, wait for it to rain, cover yourself in oil, fly" meme. That meme is funny because of how stupid it is, so this meme partially inherits its stupidity through the reference. References are also funny.
  3. The combination of an apparent antimeme and the inherited stupidity is kinda interesting, because we all know the oil flying method is stupid but the hot air method works. This highlights that the hot air method sounds equally stupid to someone whose never seen it in action. It's funny that such a dumb meme could provide this insight.
[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Two things:

  1. The Dems don't take your vote for granted, they just can't accomplish anything substantial with such historically slim majorities in the legislature. Link has a chart that shows the majorities in the legislature over time, notice than the margins have been massive in the past, such as during the New Deal era, but they've been razor thin recently. You can't pass housing reform, health care reform, college reform, abortion reform, etc. with razor thin margins thanks to our dramatic polarization.

  2. The Dems are not a monolith. Due to our FPTP voting system, we have two coalitions pretending to be parties, with the Dems being a mixture of everything from barely represented democratic socialists to fiscally conservative moderates. Vote in your primary to choose who in that spectrum you want, and in the general realize you can only choose between the party that gives tax cuts to the wealthy and inspires discord in our nation and the party that actually tries. Voting for a third party is just useless, look at link if you're not convinced.

[-] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Absolutely not true, another option besides just murdering them is to place term limits on the court. Link is a bill introduced by Ro Khanna that'd have the most senior judge replaced every 2 years. If there were enough dems in the House and Senate reforms would absolutely be possible.

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ExecutiveStapler

joined 1 year ago