Lady @Lady@cat.family

sometimes it feels like i am trying to singlehandedly redevelop all the technologies for an interconnected web, and it seems like it should be do·able because it has been done before, but also all the people who did it before had way lower standards

i used to care about developing technology for fandom but these days i don¦t ever read fanfic and don¦t like any of the fan spaces so it seems a bit pointless

if you wanted to avoid bad takes about united states politics, it seems today is the day to stay off fedi, not yesterday

@aschmitz and if the candidates do not care about having a functioning democracy, i do not think the burden should fall upon voters to try to clean up their mess

@aschmitz my argument is that elected officials in a functioning democracy have a mandate to the democratic process. that mandate is expressed in voter turnout numbers: high voter turnout means the democratic process is working; low voter turnout means the democratic process is not working. i think not voting increases the mandate to fix the democratic process, and choosing to increase this mandate is as valid as a choice as choosing to increase the mandate of, say, the democratic party platform by voting for it instead of the republicans

i realize that this might be controversial in the United States, but if a politician does not recognize their mandate to fix the democratic process when voter turnout is low, and instead cares only about winning the voters who do turn out, that is not a candidate who cares about having a functioning democracy

@aschmitz i disagree. i think that if ballots were mailed to every address alongside comprehensive voters guides, voter turnout would increase by more than a couple percent. i think that when voters feel like they are making an actual choice instead of rubberstamping a decision from primaries they had no say in, turnout increases by more than a couple percent. i think that if people got a paid day off of work on election day, voter turnout might increase by more than a couple percent. when polling lines are short and polling places numerous and the experience of voting is fast and enjoyable and makes people feel connected to their community, voter turnout probably increases by more than a couple percent. i think there are many things that governments can do to increase voter turnout quite considerably

@aschmitz when you start considering a registered voter who does not cast a ballot differently from a registered voter who casts an empty ballot, ensuring the first group continues not voting starts to feel like part of your electoral strategy

@aschmitz if politicians do not view increasing voter turnout as part of their mandate, that just makes me desire less to vote for them 😞

@aschmitz if all of the meaningful decisions in your district were made weeks ago during closed primaries that half of voters do not get to participate in, do you really think that the ratio of democrats versus republicans in the general election is a more meaningful signal than the ratio of voters versus nonvoters?

if a woman wishes to be recognized she must first make her work into a moral crusade

meanwhile a guy can just be rich and retired and tinkering

how to tag git commits with “i wrote this instead of sleeping”

@aschmitz @Satsuma we have a really good peanut brittle recipe we will be making for the holidays

@Satsuma not as good as the peanut candy we used to get

i miss having peanut candy………