The debate gets interesting sometimes

Yep, not voting is unironically pretty much the same as voting for the party you least want in charge.

Because you're making it that much more likely.

Don't throw away a right that your ancestors fought for, as it may result in future generations no longer having that right.

Like so?
Also, let's have 'im on the track too.

As someone who for the first time did not vote in 2016. I started voting in the Bush era. I fully agree, no action leads to fascism apparently. Don’t do what I did because I was pissed that Bernie was cheated out of the nomination. Vote or Trump will be back in office.

Doesn't matter where the track leads if the trolley can't get to it. It could lead to rainbows and sunshine, but that isn't where the trolley is headed because there is no possibility that someone other than Trump or Biden is elected president. A few cry babies voting third party won't get some third person elected. A vote for the third track is a vote for a track that will not be ridden.

It makes sense because you can see that the track exists and is better, but there’s no way to actually get the train onto it

the bottom track needs to be shown looping around to the Republican track

Okay, but the guy at the controls needs to be the swing vote on the SCOTUS.

And there's also a contingent of people on the trolley who are trying to get it to slow down, working their asses off to improve long term actual outcomes in the real world, whether related or not to the little lever, and the guy standing next to the empty disconnected track is claiming to be one of them and saying you must be against them and how dare you, you person-running-over-enabling monster, if you say anything against his strategy.

I like the disconnected track because I didn't even notice it for like 20 seconds of looking at the image.

I support voting Democrat in this situation but after the election, people should support fair vote us to get ranked voting.

And I thought this was perfect for demonstrating why people avoiding the donkey track for a single issue, no matter how bad, really need to look at the rest of the video picture, the state of the other choices

Funny thing is, that's what's called a controlled derailment. It's the engineering answer to the situatuon, if the situation were real and not a contrived philosophical dilemma.

This guy gets it

The Biden approach

You'll have to be more specific about what blowing up the train maps to in real life before I can tell you whether or not doing so would also kill a shit ton of people.

But to keep it in metaphor, there are also innocent people riding the train and blowing it up would kill them, too.

The plan fails, the top track gets removed due to terrorist activities, and even more things are on the remaining track.

(If you ask me: Jan 6 should have had even more consequences for republicans, but they like to bend the rules to their own benefits)

You first.

It's close enough to the tracks that it would hurt the hostages, and the wreckage would probably have enough momentum to hit them anyway.

This is a good analogy actually. Blowing up the train would feel good, but that isn't going to stop the momentum, and it's unfortunately virtually impossible to outright stop it's momentum at this point. All that blowing up the train would accomplish is sending fiery wreckage towards the middle track.

This is why accelerationism is stupid.

That would just stop time itself

Well, in context of philosophy being taught in class you would then change the prompt to a harder question. You would also debate whether the person who makes the decision is in fact responsible and how that dynamic changes when the prompt changes.

So maybe you have to choose between 2 men only half as happy or handsome or one fully formed magical man with magic hands.

I enjoy the self insert character of Zach in panel 4.

There is a third fucking option and it's not doing a genocide.

That's only an option if you have a viable strategy for accomplishing it.

The problem is that we have two choices

The problem is that we don't. If you're not in a "swing" state, all the votes in the world for Joe Biden are meaningless. Win California by another million votes. Win it by another 10M. Have every single eligible voter in California turn up and vote for Joe Biden. He still loses the EC when the SCOTUS tells Arizona to stop counting ballots the minute Trump is in the lead.

Also like what the fuck…I guess we have to kill Palestinians no matter what.

We have to keep sending money to Israel because its the means by which we control the Suez Canal.

Except... the Houthis have control over the back end of the canal so long as they're able to scare off shipping in the Gulf of Adan. So now we're endorsing a genocide just for shits and giggles.

Because of a shitty situation set up by countless past people and events completely out of your control you have to make a choice here. And in my mind, it's not even a difficult choice. Yes, either option will support Israel, that's a given, but there is no third option so it might as well not even be a factor in choosing a candidate.

If you want more parties and to remove first past the post then you need to elect the party who supports those stances. That is one of your two options. Real fucking simple.

the joke is that you are actively removing yourself from the situation by making a decision to do nothing. In essence, that track has no trolley on it, and no people on it, meaning nobody dies.... As long as you don't look over your shoulder.

Very well, I shall push for it by

• voting the same way regardless if the candidate supports it, and
• suddenly participating in direct action, because we weren't already doing that.

There literally is a third option that will be printed on most of not all ballots. Rank choice voting is huge but people should be willing to vote earnestly. Nobody wants to be the one to make the change and wants the world to change first but that's not how it works.

Do we have to revolutionize to find that 3rd option

Pretty much. It's against the interest of both parties to have more options because both are near-guaranteed to lose power if there were more options.

I assume your "abhorently evil" comment is based off support of the genocide in Palestine (which is a completely reasonable thing to describe as abhorently evil, I'm just being clear about my premise).

In which case, sorry, bad news, you can't have that. Your options this time round are genocide supporter or genocide supporter. Somewhere down the line, years from now, the US electoral system may have been sufficiently reformed to make third parties viable. But this year that's not going to happen.

So that decision is completely out of your hands. But here's what you do get to decide; you can have an outright fascist, leading a party of outright fascists who have openly publicised their plans to turn your country into a fascist theocracy. Or you can have the guys who strengthened workers rights and went after major companies for union busting, hit Microsoft for $20 billion in back taxes, had the FBI raid a major landlord for illegal price hikes, brought antitrust lawsuits against Amazon and several other large tech firms, and secured billions in aid for Ukraine in their fight for their freedom. And that is literally just a tiny sampling of the good things that Biden's government has done.

I don't even see how that's a choice. One of these two options is clearly and manifestly better than the other, no matter how disgusting it feels. A vote for Biden is not an endorsement of his position on Gaza. It is a tactical choice, nothing more. And if nothing else, its a tactical choice that will prevent the fascists from filling even more seats on the supreme court.

It sucks, but those are the only options. Sometimes life just be like that.

I'm certain ballots with good options are unavailable absent a revolution, but if we tried under present conditions we'd likely only get worse governance and maybe destabilize the global balance of power catastrophically.

We can have it for the low price of demanding it. Tell the Democrats you won't vote for Biden if he doesn't stop supporting the Israeli genocide.

I appreciate OPs honesty that Palestinians are dead either way.

... The point of the trolley problem is you can't stop it. .....

If you were sitting at the controls that would be an option, but allas we are all just part of those doing a tug of (less or more) war for the switch

These posts are basically calling on leftists to support a genocide. I'll vote for Biden, but I'd also punch him square in his rich white Zionist jaw if I was given the opportunity. That's how American democracy works. The U.S. doesn't deserve a pass for supporting genocide, even if it's an election year.

Ok but that won't happen before our next election...

Yup. You also get the middle track when you show up to the 2020 primaries and think to yourself "I'm gonna vote for a geriatric procorporate establishment white man. This is the best decision for me and everyone else will have to accept it because the alternative is Trump."

Why? It would be the best option. If it was an option...

Meaning what? In the long run, we all get off the ride.

As one party loses power it changes strategy to regain it, as one party gains power it is able to differentiate more amongst different ideologies within the party. If this goes far enough it can cause one party to fade to obscurity and a new party to emerge. There is no perfect candidate who represents everyone perfectly, you pick the candidate that is closer to the place you'd like to be. Also, third party votes work much better bottom-up vs top-down. Statistically no amount of crazy upset will cause a third party to actually win the top position despite no groundwork being done. Support third party candidates in small races where small grassroots efforts not funded by major political action groups are actually likely to make a difference. Then when you get a good candidate, organize and vote to see them advance to higher positions. It is batshit lunacy to expect third party candidate votes to matter in a presidential election when we don't even have a single third party state governor, zero third party national representatives and only 4 independent senators, none of whom even represent a third party, and none of whom are presidential candidates this election (let alone viable ones). Campaign for and support third party mayors, city councillors, comptrollers, sheriffs, union representatives. You have a very real shot with them and if enough people do that and enough of them move up to higher positions, then that party can start to swing some weight around at a higher and higher level.

Edi: Oh, and if you don't see an option in your local elections, run or encourage others to do so!

I’d generally agree, but the problem is that this particular instance is much higher stakes than most elections.

Generally speaking, the worst case scenario would be someone like John McCain taking the reins instead of Obama. I didn’t agree with McCain about a lot of things but he was a generally honorable guy who wanted to do the best for American democracy.

Now we have a group who is polling to win and outright saying “America needs a dictatorship”. If they get their way, it could be the last election we ever have.

How do you get electoral reform when no one you vote for gets elected, and everyone who does get elected has no reason to pay any attention to your opinion?

In my state, ballot initiatives to change to ranked choice or approval voting, ideally with expanded multiple winner districts.

What coup?

Yeah but only when it's politically convenient.

And with your support we can make sure we never have to admit it again

Yes, the US government's policy is and always has been to support genocidal Israel. That's why Palestine is on both tracks. There is absolutely nothing voters can do to change this any time soon. You should be focusing on who you can save, rather than who you can't.

voting is not an enabling maneuver

The only question is whether, along the way, we act in a more moral immoral or less moral immoral way.

Ftfy

Do you even politic?

Or we're just demanding the Democrats at the very least, the minimum really, don't support a genocide. The bar is so low it's in hell. If Biden can't clear that it's because he doesn't want to.