stabby_cicada

Here's the thing. If you read what I rant about, you'll know I suggest plenty of positive shit. Depending on my mood, okay, I'm not perfect 😆

Frankly, I believe that surviving and thriving in the future of the West is going to mean building community networks, building mutual aid groups, building resilient non-governmental structures to meet people's needs in the absence, neglect, or open hostility, of government structures.

I believe everyone's time and energy is best spent on that work.

I believe every dollar and every minute spent on trying to reform government through the electoral process is wasted time and money at best and actively contributing to the collapse of civil society at worst.

And I think every driven, passionate activist, every person who sees the problems with society and tries to fix them by putting the right candidates in office, could do so much more good for the people around them by unionizing workplaces, or fundraising for community organizations, or a hundred other things - hell, if I walked out and picked up one piece of litter off the street, I'd have more of an impact on my community than every vote you've ever cast in your life put together has had on yours.

And honestly, I know a lot of those people, and it hurts to see all these amazing people pissing their time and energy away trying to help one billionaire win a popularity contest against another.

Trying to reform democracy from within is like walking into a crooked casino and imagining you can win if you pick the right machine to play and spend enough money playing it. All the machines are rigged. The only winner is the house.

And that's completely independent of my moral objections to a system based on, essentially, the tyranny of the majority.

So yeah, I'm going to come here, to a community called "notvoting", and talk about not voting and what people could do instead. Because it hurts to see so many good people's efforts go to waste.

And frankly, a wave of Luigis would be actively harmful to the cause of fixing US health care. We had a wave of "propaganda of the deed" anarchist assassins and bombers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Their "direct action" against members of European royalty discredited their cause in the public eye, and tainted not only them but peaceful anarchist movements beside them.

And then an anarchist shot the wrong person and started World War I, showing that propaganda of the deed may not be able to make the world better, but it sure as hell can make it worse.

I'm suddenly reminded of how the Hegseth administration has implemented a policy of double-tapping unarmed civilian boats and purging the US military of anyone who objects.

So the thing about accelerationism, when it comes to voting, is: in order to deliberately vote to make things worse, you have to believe your vote matters.

I don't believe my vote matters.

I'm not an accelerationist. I don't think it's a good idea to deliberately drive the United States into the ground, hoping to trigger collapse and revolution, in the belief that something better might rise from the ashes. The history of revolutions is ugly and bloody and very rarely beneficial to the majority of human beings involved.

But frankly? I think a collapse and a revolution is coming. I think if we avoid it, it'll be because the American government employs tools of repression, surveillance, and social control more extensive than any in previous history. I think both of those options are horrible. I think our billionaire masters are going to decide whether to impose a universal authoritarian surveillance state, or allow the United States to collapse and incorporate the survivors into a neo-feudal, post-democratic society, based on which nightmarish future society eill give their descendants the greatest chance of maintaining their wealth and power and control. And I don't think my vote, or my political activity, is going to make one damn bit of difference to what our billionaire masters decide.

I'm not understanding your math. What would we need enough battery storage to cover annual use? The sun isn't going to stop shining for an entire year, is it?

I'm in the United States. I'm not going to bullshit about politics in other countries when I don't know the facts on the ground on more than a surface level.

Should I quit posting until someone comes along who can knowledgeably post about other countries?

Or confine myself to discussions about electoralism in theory instead of ranting about the examples that I know and hate in practice?

Not being sarcastic. These are not rhetorical questions. I can rant about political bullshit anywhere - you're the host here and it's polite to follow your rules. What do you want me to do to make this community more like what you want it to be?

I get the benefits of that, and, that sort of megastructure power generation requires massive investment in power plants and a grid to carry the power.

One of the great things about solar is you don't need megastructures or thousands of miles of cables, because you can generate power directly where it's needed - need more power, add more panels. One of the great things about batteries is they work the same way.

That's a boon for industry in rural areas with poor infrastructure, like, say, rural India. You don't need to rely on a power plant hundreds of miles away to power your factory. You don't need to trust the government to keep the power grid intact and stable. You don't need to worry the government will divert the power you need in order to power the President's brother's data center or whatever. You plop down your solar panels and battery bank and get to work.

(That's a disappointment from the article. India's building an enormous solar megastructure way out in a rural area without the power transmission infrastructure to get the power where it's needed. Smells like graft.)

And in 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Adani executives of paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain lucrative supply contracts for its solar energy and hiding this from potential investors. The case was dropped this month after Adani made offers to invest in the U.S., though U.S. officials denied any link.

Lol. I'm sure they did.

That's one reason why I think the boom in cheaper, better, safer battery tech is one of the greatest innovations of the 21st century.

Yeah, the sun doesn't always shine. Yeah, you need 24/7 power for a lot of things (eg lifesaving medical equipment in hospitals). Solar isn't practical for a lot of uses unless you can effectively store the power. But battery storage centers are getting better every day.

(On a related note, e-bikes and scooters are everywhere where I live. Personal solar powered transportation at a fraction of the cost and impact of cars. As soon as batteries got small and light and cheap enough to make them practical the market exploded. It's amazing.)

The purpose of a system is what it does.

The Republicans move America to the right.

The Democrats block movement to the left.

The people of America aren't all the same. But both parties serve the same billionaire masters. The billionaires want a government that serves the rich and keeps the working class in their place, and both parties are doing their best to give it to them.

How many more decades of hearing "we just need more and better Democrats, you just need to donate more and vote harder" will it take before you realize it's a fucking lie?

If you bother voting at all, you may as well vote Republican. It ends up the same either way.

Never mind the GOP. Hillary fucking Clinton spent millions of dollars promoting Trump in the run up to the 2016 election, because she wanted to make the Republicans look more radical and dangerous, and Trump was the most radical, dangerous candidate in the race.

Thanks, Hillary. Good call.