Read my other comment in the thread. Why would I post a non-sincere comment on this anyway? My belief is that all of us, no matter our gender, religion, age or social standing, are prey for the political and "elite" class. And not only we aren't holding them accountable, we are fighting their fights for them in several fields of our lives in form of "political discourse".

My country has a very serious housing crisis, both the left and the right are contributing to it because both parties have multiple people who are "serial landlords" with several properties, so they only make laws that benefit the landlord. This is a known fact and there are huge protests ongoing about it to the point emergency elections have been called.

Yet, saying this simple stance just as I did now, that both of them are guilty, will have people call you an "ultra" or call you a conspiracy theorist, that you are a fence sitter, that you don't know what you are talking about, and so and so on. Like you have some ulterior motive or are a paid shill from the other side or making the logic leap to thinking you support the far-right for not choosing one of the two existing "teams". Everything has gone crazy.

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nsingh2 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Read my other comment in the thread. Why would I post a non-sincere comment on this anyway?

HN is social media, saner than most, but I still don't assume sincerity.

> Yet, saying this simple stance just as I did now, that both of them are guilty, will have people call you an "ultra" or call you a conspiracy theorist, that you are a fence sitter, that you don't know what you are talking about, and so and so on.

If you mean people online, then that's expected. It's what I meant by social media being unproductive. Hostility attracts engagement and makes it more visible.

National politics is heavily influenced by economic interests, including global capital. And as wealth concentrates so does political power. That doesn't mean ordinary citizens have no political agency though, don't underestimate the difference you can make in your local community.

	▲	falsaberN1 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Mostly online yes, but even offline people have been in a very strange edge lately. Like, if you don't take a stance to one of the two main political parties in my country, that means you support the third option which is a far-right party. If any of the members of that party bumped me on the street I wouldn't recognize them. Anyway, once that implication is on the table people start assuming (and saying behind your back) very ugly things about you very fast, which is why I started disengaging. My heart is with the people, not the corporations or the elites. I just feel none of the choices right now is for the people. I don't understand why that would make me "hate LGBT people or migrants". It just doesn't make sense to me. The team mentality of the whole thing has gone too far in my opinion. And I don't understand why people get so heated up for groups that don't care about them at the end of the day. I don't even think I'll be alive to see another election after the emergency one next month though. So it's too late for me to make any meaningful change. So I'm just trying to use my remaining time to leave a bit of a legacy as an artist and programmer. Even if I enjoy AI. One thing doesn't cancel the other. I do mostly analog art and even have been pretty excited to try new tools now that my hand works again (surgeries obliterated my hands for a while and they are permanently blue-ish and cold now, but I regained some mobility this month). AI is for me "that thing I wanted since I was a kid when scifi had AIs doing stuff". In fact, that whole thing is also another can of worms. People can't seem to understand I can be an artist AND enjoy AI. The moment I mention AI people start assuming I flood the world with slop and want to destroy artists, then they ask for proof that I'm an artist, I show them my work (impossible for an AI to replicate because it's mostly analog), they go "but if you can draw like this why do you use AI!?? You should hate it because it's against you" and they can't conceive that for me it's just fun to tinker with it and test what it can do for fun. Like I should immediately take an anti-AI stance BECAUSE I am an artist. The AI is not replacing me because for me art is a form of expression and doing it is its own reward. It's just fun. Both things are fun to me. I don't see why they are exclusive. It's like there's no room for human nuance and contradictions anymore. You have to be in a neat little box or else you are a bad person so it's right to fight you and hurt you. It's "justified", you know. Even if they are completely wrong, they already passed judgement.

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collingreen 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think most folks are actually in the middle and generally agree. Anyone who thinks one of the us political parties is completely innocent is lying, either to you or themselves.

That being said, I think it's worth noticing if one party does more bad things than the other and I also think speaking up with your values is worth it and maybe even a duty we owe the people who built this country before us.

Either way, your first responsibility is your own mental health so you have full support from this internet stranger.

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