TheFriar

I mean, I’m sure we could get a non-profit started that offers the exact same service. Just get drivers to take on the responsibility of covering any accidents, etc. It could run on donations like Wikipedia. The drivers get 100% of the profits…I’m sure there’s be unforeseen snags, but I really wish we could start “disrupting” industries by literally taking these tech fucks’ share of the market and redistribute that shit to drivers.

Rides would probably be cheaper, no surge pricing, and a good ol’ stick in the eye of the tech industry.

Pearl Jam tried to take them on a while back. The problem with monopolies is they’re incredibly powerful. They got that way by lobbying (read: bribing), and the more they succeed, they more they’re likely to succeed. Their power grows exponentially, basically. So by the time they get to be a monopoly, they’re basically super monopolies because they have the government in their pocket.

You can’t be mean to a company. Companies don’t have feelings. Fuck a company if it sucks. Fuck most companies, honestly. No company would go out of its way for me. It will lie to me, take my money…in fact, that’s its only function.: to take my money, by lying if necessary. If it doesn’t take my money, it fails as a company. That’s its prime directive.

So…fuck any company.

Again, I just feel like you’re being naive. And fuckin Chaffetz? That piece of shit? You think he gave half a fuck about what his voters had to say? He famously shut them out and hid from them, didn’t he? I don’t feel like searching that putz’s name. And he even said himself that it was “groups” that made him change his mind. That wasn’t citizen’s groups. That was interest groups.

But yes, I agree, let’s move on to something positive. Praxis is the concept among anarchists/socialists of smaller scale, direct action. You get a group of likeminded people together and go provide direct aid. FoodNotBombs is probably the most famous example. Instead of putting a bunch of effort into trying to change the minds of politicians and rallying likeminded people to put pressure on them to cast their vote to build a program that would, after being rewritten and amended and lobbied, amount to far less than anyone wanted and is thought of as a “step in the right direction.” It’s incrementalism. And all of that effort and time gets wasted.

Our entire concept of success in politics centers around incrementalism, and it’s led us down the exact path we’ve been on and has moved slower than the negative progress of the world changing for the worse under capitalism. Problems will always continue to mount faster than incrementalism will ever be able to put a dent into. But praxis is living your values directly. Believe in helping people? Help people. Don’t put all of your time and effort and resources into trying to get selfish motherfuckers that have only their own interests and the interests of those with money at heart to help people. In practice, any effort in trying to get politicians to help people only ends up helping the politicians.

Take all that time and effort and those resources and give them directly to the people who need it. That is praxis. And even though it’s on a smaller scale, the idea is that if everyone did this, the scale suddenly turns from local solutions to global ones. It’s a founding principle of anarchism.

I can give you some good books to read on the subject if you’re interested.

What.

I wasn’t trying to ignore something in the article. I was calling into question your naïveté for taking what some representative’s 20-something year old aide is saying to the press as proof that your point somehow had been proven.

It does when enough of us do it

[Citation Needed], right?

Got a better alternative? Yeah. Praxis. Direct action in your community to directly benefit those in need around you.

Vote, sure. Especially when trying to keep fascists from the door. But don’t expect inside the box, paint by numbers, establishment solutions to really have a true effect on a broken system. It’s broken for a reason.

Dude. I just think you’re being naive as fuck. An aide. Talking to the press. Of course they’re going to say, “oh yes, we take constituents’ opinions to heart.” Any time an election comes up, the politicians will always tell you how much they care. If an aide were saying to the press, “I take calls all day. But it’s a bunch of angry people, and it’s my job to basically absorb them and listen for any threats. I rarely get half a second to tell representative X about what I hear. And when I do, it’s not like it matters,” well…that just wouldn’t happen. Because it’s the fuckin press and an aide.

But you said you’ve seen the study as well! The data has shown that their votes are not influenced by constituents contacting them. And then you said while that’s true, it’s just because not enough constituents contact them. I showed you how that spiked during the trump years. But their votes didn’t change.

How often do they say in campaign speeches, “well, you know right before coming out here I was reminded of Shana O’Malley, a single mother of four…” They couldn’t give two microscopic fucks about that when it’s time to vote. But when it’s time to make themselves look good? Sure. That’s where it’s useful.

Now, maybe on some smaller issues that aren’t as politically important—and surely this depends on the election cycle, whether they have someone challenging them hugely in the polls, they will take constituent contact into consideration…for their own ends.

But look at Biden right now. He can’t stop arming Israel to the teeth. People aren’t happy—especially those who would be voting for him. And he is still doing it. This is an incredibly touchy issue. And people are beyond upset over it. But people’s opinions don’t matter. Lockheed’s opinions? Sure.

Now, again, to clarify a little, when you get down to local politics, yes, I believe there can be some impact from contacting them. Also, when a freshman politician is trying to govern according to their values, they will take constituents opinions into consideration. There are instances in which I do believe it can have an impact.

But on the whole, you yourself have seen the study that shows that it doesn’t have a measurable effect on the way they govern. And you’re still arguing that it does, that it’s just not enough of us doing it. It’s nice you’re so idealistic about our political landscape. Maybe you’re young, I dunno. But it just feels like you’re being foolishly optimistic, with the data in your face refuting your point, and you’re still saying, “yeah, but…”

Umm…have you ever tried contacting your representatives? You seem to think it’s so easy to get them on the phone. Why. How can you possibly think that? Those numbers don’t ring in their pockets. Their aides are the only people receiving and sorting through those calls and emails and letters.

There are a great many ways to petition the government, including with actual petitions, but, short of showing up in person, the one reputed to be the most effective is picking up the phone and calling your congressional representatives. In the weeks following the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump, so many people started doing so that, in short order, voice mail filled up and landlines began blurting out busy signals. Pretty soon, even e-mails were bouncing back, with the information that the target in-box was full and the suggestion that senders “contact the recipient directly.” That being impractical, motivated constituents turned to other means. The thwarted and outraged took to Facebook or Twitter or the streets. The thwarted and determined dug up direct contact information for specific congressional staffers. The thwarted and clever remembered that it was still possible, several technological generations later, to send faxes; one Republican senator received, from a single Web-based faxing service, seven thousand two hundred and seventy-six of them in twenty-four hours. The thwarted and creative phoned up a local pizza joint, ordered a pie, and had it delivered, with a side of political opinion, to the Senate.

Americans vote, if we vote at all, roughly once every two years. But even in a slow season, when no one is resorting to faxes or protests or pizza-grams, we participate in the political life of our nation vastly more often by reaching out to our members of Congress. When we do so, however, we almost never get to speak to them directly. Instead, we wind up dealing with one of the thousands of people, many of them too young to rent a car, who collectively constitute the customer-service workforce of democracy.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/what-calling-congress-achieves

That doesn’t offer cold data, but it’s a pretty well known fact that this was an explosion of sudden political participation. And I don’t remember things going particularly well. Do you.

But during the trump years, those figures spiked big time. Especially with services like resistbot. The amount of form letters and shitty Republican legislators using my contact as some sort of consent on my part to join their fucking mailing lists?

Not to mention, these legislators are insulated from their constituents pretty effectively. If you do manage to get someone on the phone (I never did. Ever.), it’ll be an aide that might summarize the general tone of the calls and e-mails in a couple seconds worth of walk n’ talk. I mean…the system is rigged for people with money.

I get the feeling of wanting to change that. But I don’t think the system that has been further and further adulterated to those ends will ever just hand us the tools to upend that system. It was built this way.

I mean, how many times and how many ways do they have to display their wholehearted willingness to watch us all starve and slaughter countless of us in service of capitalism? They’ve made it abundantly clear.

There was a study recently that showed legislators’ votes are affected by like .3% by input from constituents. I’ll try to find it again, but I can’t say I’m surprised.

What’s the one specific way

Do we really need that? Dating apps have a sort of logic behind their existence: expand your dating pool to meet people you never would have otherwise.

Social media doesn’t really have a purpose like that. It sort of started with corrupt motives, and they’ve only become much more harmful.