this post was submitted on 10 May 2026
522 points (98.7% liked)
Technology
84502 readers
3856 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that the vast sweep of the common people have any power over the decisions that govern their lives at all, beyond the doomsday power of revolution. Which is hardly ever used because of the mess.
The common people always have more power than they think
I have told the leaders of my county they were unwise to give our water supply to Amazon. The balance of wealth and power is staggeringly on the side of Amazon. They could buy and sell our entire county 100 times over but somehow our board of supervisors thinks we are going to get a fair deal? Idiots.
I've been rewatching Community and the more I watch it, the more I feel like Britta's "dumb" comments are real.
"If voting had any effect, it'd be illegal!"
The joke of that is voting is illegal, for quite a few people.
Voters are segregated, consent is manufactured, seats are gerrymandered, populists are vilified... But when all else fails, the elections don't matter and industry does as it pleases.
Democracy exists as an illusion of majority governance, so individuals in opposition feel alienated and at odds with unknown neighbors. The policy outcomes are put at the feet of popular majority, whether or not people actually want them.
Well the thing is that they're really trying to make it illegal for more and more people to vote.
That line is actually a quote from "Red" Emma Goldman.
Voting has the effect of allowing the population to feel they are steering the ship when actually they are swabbing the decks.