Perhaps. In theory, you’re definitely right. I just feel that this is something where building the momentum during a single election cycle isn’t feasible. The most likely result of voting for a third party without laying this groundwork would be splitting the vote and giving a landslide victory to the greater of the two evils.

Formally organising online would make it possible to demonstrate how much support each candidate actually has without giving an official vote to a candidate that the general public isn’t confident enough to vote for. Watching participation grow and third parties receive substantial semi-official support could build excitement and lead to a third party being trusted to have the sway to win.

I’d love to be proven wrong though. If we can organize enough support for a third party within a single election cycle that it’s reasonable to risk voting for that candidate, I’m open to it. I already have too much on my plate, but if no one has built this service by the time I have energy for it, I’ll definitely be thinking about it

I suppose it’ll continue until enough people believe that it’s possible for a third party to win.

I think ranked choice voting would make it much simpler to foment that change. People need to be able to trust that breaking from the party line has a real chance of success, but that can’t happen without demonstrating support.

If we can’t have real ranked choice voting, a third party could build a website to let people coordinate votes according to ranked choice, and hopefully carry the result as a unified bloc to the polls. Have an agreement that if a certain threshold of participation is met, vote for the ranked choice result. Otherwise, lesser of 2 evils.

Nice, drive up housing supply while correcting an excessive office supply. Sounds good to me.

We honestly should just replace every single fixed dollar amount in every law with an algebraic formula. It’s ridiculous that we design laws to become dated and require replacement.

Minimum wage should be tied to worker productivity, and wealth tax should be tied to the median personal income, including that of non-working adults. Welfare programs should be tied to regional cost of living. Limits on rent should be tied to changes in regional median income.

We’re already tracking most or all of that data anyway, might as well put it to maximum use.

I’d also like to hear what your idea is. I don’t know of a platform to solicit someone building your device at a price you’ll be wanting to pay, but there are forums to help you learn how to do it yourself if you’re motivated enough.

If it’s cool enough to pique interest, you could try posting the concept in an electronics community and seeing if anyone’s interested in the challenge, or an ideas community and just floating it for people to choose to run with.

It’s also possible the device already exists and someone can suggest an easy option for you

Well, I’ll admit it might be poorly suited, but I know it supports comments, posts, and user signups. Users would sign up with a sbscriber role, you’d verify them somehow, and then you’d update their role. It would be a little janky but should work with little adjustment

Easiest? I’d say WordPress on a Digital Ocean droplet if you’re going super small. Allow people to sign up and vet them, and you have a functional standalone platform pretty much as soon as you can get users. I don’t know that it would take off or have a sustainable userbase though

Yeah, that would be crucial too. Antibioitics and the risks of antibiotic resistance need to be included. But to create and purify effective antibiotics, you also need to start with the scientific method, then branch into chemistry, biology, etc. Glassware and procedures to minimize contamination would be important to effectively extract helpful ingredients from potentially harmful molds/other sources.

Depending on the starting scenario, it might be possible to skip much of that at first if we had leftover supplies from a prior civilization. If this site is to be believed, it sounds like making penicillin at home is quite a process, but doable if you’re able to get the right supplies. I don’t see any efficient pathway from here to there if we had to start from zero though.

I read it as “what do you have enough knowledge of that you could aid in the birth/advancement of a new civilization?” Doesn’t matter if you have it fully figured out, just what knowledge can you provide that would be highly valued if all knowledge were otherwise lost.

• Crafting bows to hunt. Wood selection, shaping, tillering, natural bowstring materials.
• Some edible wild plants
• Some basic farming knowledge
• Some construction/shelter repair techniques
• Algebra and concepts of calculus, and why they’re useful
• How to preserve foods
• Basic concepts of electricity’s importance and how to make it, but someone would need to explain how to go from raw material to a functional wire, find some rare earth magnets, and figure out how to make LEDs or something else worth using the electricity for.
• The scientific method
• Concepts of how to engineer/design a solution to a problem
• Troubleshooting techniques
• Some basic concepts of boat stability and construction
• Some concepts of modern psychology
• Concepts of critical thinking and rejection of groupthink
• Basic physics. Loose explanations of kinematic equations, gravity, friction, pendulums, air resistance, aerodynamics, basic concepts of rocketry and flight/parachutes/gliders
• Evaporative cooling? I could describe the concepts of modern air conditioning, but that doesn’t seem useful yet.
• I could probably work out how a windmill works, how to make a wagon, how to purify water, how to make water-tight storage.
• Germ Theory
• The Paradox of Tolerance
• How pasteurization works
• Fermentation, concepts of distillation
• Basic oral hygiene? Habits of at least rinsing sugar out of your mouth afterwards, if brushes aren’t available.
• Use of alcohol and heat as antiseptics. Suggestion to use honey in a pinch
• Basic concepts of how magnifying lenses work and why they’re important

I think you’d need to start by getting them to admit that the heat is a problem without mentioning climate change. Don’t use any of the buzz words they’ve been taught how to respond to. Just try to get them to have a conversation where they have to come up with their own answers.

In fact, maybe don’t even start off with anything related to the topics they’ve been told what to think about. Ask about something they care about more directly that isn’t on their party’s agenda. You’d need to keep at it long enough for them to start understanding you’re not their enemy, which could be anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks/months, depending on how deeply entrenched they are. Then, start trying to work towards the lesser issues their authority doesn’t bring up often but has expressed an opinion on. Basically, you need to de-indoctrinate them.

If you can get them to talk about an issue without recognizing immediately that they’re in danger of contradicting their chosen authorities, then slowly transition towards getting them to talk about more and more “dangerous” topics, you might help them to bridge that disconnect and start thinking critically about the key issues.

That all said, You’ll have an easier time working with people who haven’t been deeply entrenched in an authoritarian ideology. The less developed their beliefs, the easier it’ll be to guide them towards thinking about their beliefs critically. That’s one reason it’s so important to teach critical thinking in primary/secondary schools.

logic will never convince them because they aren’t arguing from a position of logic. It’s about conforming to the beliefs required to be part of their tribe and/or protecting themselves from coming to terms with the harsh realities of climate change. It’s reactionary against a challenge to their beliefs.

You would need to first convince them to consider that their respected authorities could be wrong. But within this reactionary mindset, being wrong is disgraceful. So unless they lose respect for their leaders or manage to shift away from believing fallibility is disgraceful, I don’t know if they can be convinced.

Thought it might be helpful to compare the USSR to Wikipedia’s definitions of fascism and communism. These definitions can be wrong or could be different than what they were at the height of the USSR, but perhaps it’ll help with finding common definitions. I’ll admit that my knowledge of USSR culture/governance is limited, so feel free to critique/refute any of my interpretations.

Fascism:

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement,characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

It hits 4/7 pretty firmly and the remaining 3 are plausible.

Communism:

is a left-wing to far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology… whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need. A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state.

Hits 2/8 at best, but I would be surprised to learn there wasn’t money in the USSR.

Sounds good to me, as long as there’s a way for instances/users to disable those filters. Since they’re more in-depth/granular, I suspect engagement with them would be lower, so there’s a higher risk of a smaller minority using it to dictate the conversation. But I’d definitely be interested in seeing that in action. It could be really helpful for giving people tools to shape their feed.

I generally agree with you. I don’t know that it matters so much whether articles are posted, it matters more that people continue to speak against the ideology and don’t allow fascists to take the stage. Seeing others’ support a cause lends it credence. Seeing that a cause exists lends some, but not as much as active support would. Seeing people voice disapproval helps to take away that credibility.

That said, the principle generally makes sense that spreading an ideology’s message helps that ideology spread. The impact of posting an article on Lemmy is likely to be small, but non-zero. It’s a matter of providing access to a fresh audience. Fox’s viewers are thoroughly saturated with hateful rhetoric already, so there aren’t many left to radicalize who can be reached by that message. Exposing a fresh audience to the content expands its reach and potentially radicalizes new people. Plus, exposure to new hateful messages can deepen the entrenchment of those who are already caught in the web.

It isn’t exactly a matter of wanting or not wanting to see it. You know the addage “any news is good news?” By posting content that keeps a person and their commentary in the forefront of people’s minds, that person gains an audience. That audience will contain people who can be swayed by the snake oil, but who would otherwise be reasonable. Or in short, posting their content facilitates radicalization.

That said, while content from harmful influential people needs to be approached with caution, I don’t see this as promoting Trump’s action/behaviors. To me it reads more like a “not the onion” headline. I’d be disappointed if anyone felt that the death penalty was warranted for late tax filing, but I suppose it’s possible.

Does Lemmy have a way to filter keywords? It would be helpful for people to be able to blacklist keywords so a user could choose to avoid seeing, for example, news about Trump or content with sensitive topics.

Yeah, I agree with kobra. It’s a mix. The Alt Right Playbook video series gives some interesting thoughts on the matter. Conservatives and further right tend to be hyper hierarchical and tend to demand respect for the chain of authority, even to their own detriment (as long as it hurts someone else more). Rejecting an authority figure is a bigger deal on the right than the left due to the whole “control how people think” angle.

So it hasn’t gone far enough to alienate the ones that are still on board. Some refuse to hear the negative and just bury their head in the sand. Some are convinced by emotionally charged rhetoric that “the other side is even worse.” And some already agreed with them secretly. For most, it’s probably a mix of these various techniques for contorting to fit the shape demanded of them by their authority figures–some being more bigoted than others after all. For the pro-hierarchical people, their place in the hierarchy is a piece of their self-identity and it’s really hard to fight that instinct.