Now I love boiling down the pitfalls of modern western society into large statements like “capitalism bad” and “communism good” as much as anyone, but having dealt with a bunch of people dismiss good change as “that’s communism” has made me rethink how I talk about topics online and in person.

Now the accelerationist are gonna be mad about this for sure, but maybe you should start small, and discuss topics at a more local level. Then again the internet is world wide and everyone wants to talk about grand scale things.

Basically, I’ve stopped telling people outside of my direct circle that leftism cool, and instead talk about socialised medicine programs, pushing for support of worker owned productions and business, getting involved with coop housing. Lot easier when you don’t have to bump up against the red scare.

Idk maybe it’s cause I don’t live in as much of a two party system as the US, but essentially still a two party system.

I think there’s value in strategic voting. I don’t know what the equivalent would be in the US but strategic voting for the lesser of two evils at a national level and then voting more true to your convictions at a municipal and provincial level is still valid.

Again my opinions probably don’t work in the US electoral system, but voter apathy is a big part of how rights get eroded where I’m from. A party or political figure stays in power because of apathy and then they just keep getting away with shit. At least if you cast a vote it can be seen as you participating in the democracy.

I will say there is something to the act of not voting as being a part of democracy, but truly I think along with abstaining any functioning democracy needs a “none” option.

In life it’s been mostly pure luck, but one of the few things I really recommend is to keep in the loop about rebates, programs and services offered by my federal and provincial government. Stuff like rebates on first time home buying, electric bikes, and energy efficient equipment is nice cause I bet I saved at least 3000$ total.

In recent time tho the biggest one has been getting a bicycle. I got an e-bike but even a regular bike helped me stop paying through the nose for gas when I was just burning it mostly sitting in traffic.

I wish you the best of luck with your strategic voting, hopefully the lesser of two evils has some amount of representation for you.

I don’t really understand the US’ electoral system, but you guys seem really boned by the whole two party system. Like no wonder everyone is so grumpy and unsatisfied all the time when you guys seem to just have two big parties that span such wide gamuts of views and policies.

Are the pads on the bottom like some sort of rubber or hard plastic?

Try to indulge me, as I try to humanize the people you are talking about in a way that might resonate with you.

Imagine you work 40hrs a week, getting paid minimum wage or next to minimum wage, the housing market continues to worsen around you as rent continues to increase but wages don’t. If you have a place already and are just barely scraping by living paycheck to paycheck, which a lot of people are these days. One small bad financial day from an emergency or unexpected cost and you’re screwed. You miss your rent payment and you get evicted. Now, if you don’t have a safety net of people, which we can’t guarantee everyone does have living family or friends that will take you in for a month while you get back on your feet, you become homeless. You get fired from work because you’ve taken too many unpaid days off to try and get your life sorted so you don’t have to sleep on the streets. Now you can’t get another job because most places won’t hire you without an address, and collecting unemployment becomes difficult because if you have no address and no direct deposit you can’t get it mailed to you to claim.

As for the drugs that you say they have chosen to ruin their lives with, a pack of cigarettes, a small bag of weed, some opiates, or alcohol costs a whole lot less than rent for a month or even a motel room for the night.

The financial and housing situation for a lot of people out there in the world is really fragile, and if you add on other issues that I didn’t list such as mental health issues, lack of education or job experience with any education you have, or existing addiction, it can really add up and make it so your going from sleeping in a small bachelor’s apartment one night to sleeping on a park bench the next.

I don’t fully ascribe to the concept of communism myself (it’s a good label for most folks but I’m too picky about nitty gritty stuff so say I like it when I would want to adjust a few things about it), but I definitely think social housing is how you fix homelessness. Cities and states / provinces waste more money dealing with homelessness the way they do now then just building them socialized housing.

I guess it’s a matter of semantics and if you’re an existing rich person, right? Cause from the perspective of the rich closing up those loop holes would be perceived as purely benefitting the poor.

For neutral rules to truly be neutral, you almost need to ensure there are services and programs to bring that opportunity to everyone, else it’s just appears more fair without actually increasing accessibility. Which to your point would be something like UBI.

Is there a reason why you chose to be reactionary on the internet today?

This isn’t Reddit, you can be nicer than this, and maybe discuss the point about libertarianism that you like instead of just jumping to a bad faith argument against another economic system that neither OP, nor the post has brought up.

Remember there’s a person on the other side of the screen. Unless it’s a bit of course, but you know better than to take the bait of bots.