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Comment by braaaahp | Hacker News Reader

Won’t be attending local conferences anymore.

My colleagues outside the US say that a big part of why they are bailing on the US is the public response.

They see France protest over their own internal retirement politics. They don’t see the US public protest over global destabilization through our politics.

It isn’t just Trump. The American people are completely failing to read the room.

So I am done supporting my fellow Americans as much as possible too. Enjoy your conference randos, but fuck me food and shelter and healthcare seem a bit more essential.

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One thing you need to keep in mind is that in the US things are stacked against people who would want to protest or engage in any kind of activism.

Take a day off work to go to a rally or peaceful protest? “At will” employment means you can be fired the next day, no reason given. You got fired? Virtually all workers in the US get their health insurance through their employer, so now you and your family just lost access to medical care. It’s a really rough job market in many sectors, so it could take a few months to get a job. But since you got fired without cause, you can at least try to claim some unemployment benefits. In California, that maxes out at something like $450 a week.

Meanwhile in France if they want to fire you they have to give like 3 months notice (or pay you out for that time). Healthcare is socialized so no worries there. And if you still can’t find a job in a few months IIRC there’s fairly reasonable social benefits available.

What you need to keep in mind is once enough frogs are boiling things get worse fast.

No logical breakdown from an armchair is going stop parents with hungry kids.

This is the failing to read the room part I mentioned. Our biology is composed of biology not philosophy. It is self selecting. It’s biological imperative is select self.

Ok good you got some sort of Excel sheet breakdown. That’s just words.

This is what I’m talking about; American public is so dissociated due to economics that straight up ignores externalities. 8 billion people are the externality and it’s going to be hard for 300 million to ignore them and live in their narcissistic bubble much longer. Third world countries have rebuilt and don’t see the specialness in Murica or the point in sewing their shirts if they’re going to be so low affect.

Americans have to change not because of some philosophical position but because of physical reality not really caring about the excuses of 300 million; only half of which is cogent, and half of that actually intelligent. It’s not looking good, Bob.

So much for „land of the free, home of the brave“

That’s why other countries have social security. It provides freedom and courage.

> One thing you need to keep in mind is that in the US things are stacked against people who would want to protest or engage in any kind of activism.

This is the kind of exceptionalism that got you into this mess. You don't think things are stacked against the populations in countries like Turkey and Serbia?

Yes of course France is very different in terms of the freedom of the population, but why is that? Because they demanded it!

You don’t have to convince me that this is a bad thing for America. Yes it’s exactly how turkey and russia and other failed/failing democracies got to where they are.

This is not things being stacked against you.

Activism IS expensive, its what people default to when other options have failed.

I went to a protest. I was anxious about being photographed and added to some biometric database to be used for who knows what purposes. My wife and I had a serious discussion about whether to go, the possible risks, the possibility of violence, but I ultimately convinced her to go as our civic responsibility. I left our phones at home as a precaution so as to avoid being geolocated to the site.

What I found upon arriving was an unserious mob of hippies laughing and taking selfies to post on social media. I'd made signs supporting the rule of law. The signs of the other participants were an unfocused smattering of various political goals from "tax the rich" to banning Teslas. They included what I thought was an excessive about of profanity and crude insults. I think these are unserious people and what they're doing is performative and utterly pointless.

I do not see any viable action for individual citizens to take. Everyone out there clamoring for people to do something is just pushing their own political agenda. We had an election, one side won, that's how things go, ok. What's happened since however is a clear violation of the US Constitution in more ways than one can count, but it seems there is basically no one aware of or concerned about this. I feel like I'm at a football game where one side just took out a gun and shot the referee and while he lies on the floor bleeding to death both sides are still arguing over whether there was a foul or not.

There are various activist movements, groups, interests, communities.

You have to find your people. It can take a while. Change takes time, big social movements were decades into the making in the fringe before they reached the mainstream consciousness.

> I do not see any viable action for individual citizens to take.

Get involved with your preferred local political party. Push for policy preferences that won't drive turnout for the opposing party and won't give that party a chance to nominate a clown and then still win.

Seems like politics produced the mess that the U.S. is now in, so I doubt that politics will be the solution. What's required is for the general population to realise that they do still have the actual power and remind their "leaders" of that fact.

Honestly it sounds like you just want to give yourself an excuse to stop engaging. This reads like "I ate a salad once and I didn't like it, so I'm done with vegetables entirely, it's hopeless". Then the rest is you complaining that other people are unserious?

Going to protests is usually not much fun. There are all kinds of people there that you might not feel much in common with. People will make signs that focus on things you don't care about. This is normal! Protests can also easily burn a person out, so people try to have fun if they can because it's important to sustain pressure. The fact that someone dresses up, has a joke on their sign, meets a friend and smiles, or takes a selfie is not an indictment of the person or their protest.

Resist the urge to wallow in contempt for those people, particularly when you haven't done anything that has been effective.

are you ready to die for the principles of your country? if not, then there is no point. things are bad, but they have been way worse in the past (remember, we had legislators getting caned on the floor of congress, citizens locked up en masse without trial, everyone's bank accounts confiscated and held for weeks, biological experiments run on minorities, and underage citizens assassinated by drones). in the face of the injustices that the administration is going to commit, you should have ready for yourself the answer to two questions:

1. given a sober, nonpartisan review of past history, how far is too far for this administration?

2. what are you willing to do to stop it, how much are you willing to sacrifice.

i suspect that nothing the administration has done to date really clears the first bar. be prepared for the day it will, save your energy till then.

The person you're replying to has a vastly over inflated view of the risk of holding a sign, and when it felt too cringe they quit to slag off the other protestors. I would not expect much.

post is more for other readers, not the gp.

I Admire your courage for sharing.

The only thing you can do is convince people, I think. Most folks are trying to stay in their bubble.

I don't know what it will take to make the fascist regime fear for their safety, and their supporters fear for their existence in society for having elected an autocrat intent on eliminating the existence of vulnerable groups. And I don't see a path to restoring social freedoms in red states with Christian nationalist radical majorities passing laws declaring Jesus as king and banning websites with LGBTQ content from minors.

To me it sounds like you overestimated the danger.

Yes. Clearly. I spend most of my time outside the US, I thought I was coming back to Germany 1933, but it seems it’s more Rome 476.

> What I found upon arriving was an unserious mob of hippies laughing and taking selfies to post on social media. I'd made signs supporting the rule of law. The signs of the other participants were an unfocused smattering of various political goals from "tax the rich" to banning Teslas. They included what I thought was an excessive about of profanity and crude insults. I think these are unserious people and what they're doing is performative and utterly pointless.

You don't think this is completely by design? Social media is probably the most powerful cultural force that every existed, by an order of magnitude. Just flood instagram with quirky posts about protesting with your favourite Marvel superhero franchise quips, and The Algorithm will take care of injecting it into the brains of five hundred million people before lunchtime.

You're mad at the wrong people.

Americans are doing stuff. I call my reps and their vms are full. I go to their offices and there are lots of other people there. There's been protests at state capitals, Bernie & AOC have been giving speeches and zoom meetings about organizing and canvasing. Lawyers are suing and judges are trying to use the system despite the supreme court gone mad. It's tough to get a big group photo, but people are doing stuff. I'm as angry and jaded as anybody, but I dislike this defeated "nobody is doing enough so fuck it" thing I keep seeing. It's laying the groundwork a self fulfilling prophecy.

> Americans are doing stuff.

Certainly some people must be doing something but it's notable that your response is the exception in a sea of people sharing the reasons why they've decided to do nothing.

I'm thankful for others trying to do things, and I'm sorry for anyone already so defeated they're not only resigned to doing nothing they're bragging about it online.

It’s hard to protest. There’s no single movement, it’s just a bunch of different people. Stuff needs to get a lot worse.

I don’t mean protest.

I mean consume less media. Stuff.

Take burden off workers in the sweatshops and learn to sew a shirt. How many new shirts does a person need a year? 2-3? That’s like what, a cold December?

Be a human not a battery in a Matrix pod propping up ad companies and Hollywood.

We live in a Newspeak bubble; it’s freedom to stare at screen.

Local culture in the US is hyper-normalized around money making metrics.

Boomers did all the drugs and lived. They convinced GenX and Millennials to Netflix chill, order grubhub and watch AI content

It’s so bizarre

Edit: this is what gets attention not blocking roads https://finance.yahoo.com/news/target-badly-misses-on-earnin...

> Take burden off workers in the sweatshops and learn to sew a shirt.

Presumably they're working there because it's the least-bad option? If so, removing it so they have to go with the next-least-bad option might not be much of a help.

Yeah the usual uncreative answer “copy paste the Newspeak”

This answer is a euphemism for “don’t rock my boat.” Because if they ain’t sewing your shirts, you are. Your freedom from such is due to blowing Vietnam (and elsewhere) to a crater, fostering existing conditions. Not exactly informed consent.

The rest of the world doesn’t buy this analysis. They lived being oppressed by US military. They see Americans as the Taliban, not a great white hope Americans have been propagandized to see themselves as.

Ah yes, smashing capitalism by restoring the bourgeois ethic of thrift /s.

Ah yes, a sanctimonious tech bro reducing everything to a Twitter size sound bite.

We know; you’re scared of change because you have seen your lived experience and know you cannot grow a potato.

But you’re just a meat suit and your personal story and literacy aren’t anyone else’s concern. And that’s under the political norm. You prefer no guarantee of healthcare. The risk someone else will obsolete your research. Oo so titillating.

Fine, have it your way. Let us continue under American norms where I can give zero fucks your meat suit exists.

Fortunately for me I have generational wealth thanks to the building and auto booms in the US, and EE degrees, hands on building useful machines and technology. SWEs exist so long as open compute platforms exist and there’s no guarantee governments around the world will forever allow that.

Should you find yourself shut out of employment opportunities, thoughts n prayers.

> Fortunately for me I have generational wealth thanks to the building and auto booms in the US, and EE degrees, hands on building useful machines and technology.

Ahhhh, the primitivist apocalypticism of the bourgeois socialist.

It's important to understand that this has always been the case at any point in history where widespread protests affected change. And that people have won demands in situations with much worse oppression.

The reality is that it's not that hard. It requires learning new things and getting out of your comfort zone, lowering your expectations a bit and not expecting to do one thing and be done. This is how protest movements have always been.

Find something that aligns with one of your values and show up. Learn about more actions, join a chat group or calendar, and find what you can go to. Do not expect there to be one massive action that everyone shows up to first time. Do not burn yourself out.

Humans are social. Just showing up on the street reminds people that things aren't OK and there is something to protest about. Over time this builds people's consciousness and more people practice taking collective action.

All of this. I'm pretty strongly introverted, but I've been pushing myself outside of my usual patterns to show up to protests over the last few months. Most weekends I have at least one to go to. It does help to be around other people who are as concerned as I am.

>They don’t see the US public protest over global destabilization through our politics.

Then they're not looking.

Yes your brief firm comment surely establishes truth.

They see weekend warriors focused on their paychecks.

They don’t see coast to coast collective pushback for long term stability. Sure, America is big and pockets of tribal thought.

And so it’s unreliable. A hodge podge of asocial cults flip flopping around the rules every 2-4 years because of its distributed, async social nature, does not make a reliable ally.

Still not reading the room.

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