You Can't Vote For Change, You Have to Be Change
Day 5,979, 18:02
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Elaine of the Snowy Forest
Alternatively Titled : Elaine's Guide to Elaine's Guide to Elaine's Guides
Musical Accompaniment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AP3-k91zfQ
Electoralism (vol. 17968 addendum B )
Voting is the smallest, least useful act of political participation anyone is ever going to be capable of. A recent article was published in the favor of some political candidate that asked citizens to "vote for change". I find this notion laughable. A really cool chick named Emma Goldman once said “If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal”. Voting is, at best, the pursuit of a marginal decrease in the systemic harm perpetrated by the wielders of an illicit monopoly on violence. By all means, vote, but if you want change, then *you* have to be the change.
We All Make These Choices Every Day
The first thing to understand about this game is that it’s by many objective metrics, not a good game. That doesn’t mean it’s a *bad* game, and that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be here playing it. But it’s important to avoid holding onto self-justifying, vain representations of this shared experience in order to truly create value within its sad exploitative frameworks. There are more ways live than simply accepting the narratives integrated into the social norms we find ourselves born into. This pursuit of territory and national identity, these dreams of being politically powerful, of having an impact and mattering within the context of that nation and national identity. There’s so much more to aspire towards than those petty hierarchies!
This Email Could Have Been a Riot
You and I could be anywhere, spending our time on anything, and yet we find ourselves both here right now. What brings us to be so - A psychological dependence on the social systems we’ve built here reinforced by dopamine from incrementing values the game encourages us to develop positive associations for? Most likely those things, yes. And yet our lives are only so long, so why are we milling about reifying garbage systems, roleplaying as capitalists and nationalists?
In Closing
You don’t have to play the game to play the game, even playing the game - so play a game worth playing even if it’s not the game that the game wants you to be playing.
Musical Accompaniment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AP3-k91zfQ
Electoralism (vol. 17968 addendum B )
Voting is the smallest, least useful act of political participation anyone is ever going to be capable of. A recent article was published in the favor of some political candidate that asked citizens to "vote for change". I find this notion laughable. A really cool chick named Emma Goldman once said “If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal”. Voting is, at best, the pursuit of a marginal decrease in the systemic harm perpetrated by the wielders of an illicit monopoly on violence. By all means, vote, but if you want change, then *you* have to be the change.
We All Make These Choices Every Day
The first thing to understand about this game is that it’s by many objective metrics, not a good game. That doesn’t mean it’s a *bad* game, and that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be here playing it. But it’s important to avoid holding onto self-justifying, vain representations of this shared experience in order to truly create value within its sad exploitative frameworks. There are more ways live than simply accepting the narratives integrated into the social norms we find ourselves born into. This pursuit of territory and national identity, these dreams of being politically powerful, of having an impact and mattering within the context of that nation and national identity. There’s so much more to aspire towards than those petty hierarchies!
This Email Could Have Been a Riot
You and I could be anywhere, spending our time on anything, and yet we find ourselves both here right now. What brings us to be so - A psychological dependence on the social systems we’ve built here reinforced by dopamine from incrementing values the game encourages us to develop positive associations for? Most likely those things, yes. And yet our lives are only so long, so why are we milling about reifying garbage systems, roleplaying as capitalists and nationalists?
In Closing
You don’t have to play the game to play the game, even playing the game - so play a game worth playing even if it’s not the game that the game wants you to be playing.
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Comments
I did not want to comment, but i commented, even though i could just not comment, but anyways i comment and now there is my comment and you are reading my comment and you want to comment against my comment but don’t comment because if you comment… No comment.
I am commenting that I do not want to comment against your comment but with your comment because I have commentary regarding your comment which is to say that I appreciate your comment and would like to honor your comment with my comment.
Thoughtful and challenging as usual. Thanks!
Here's a few WayBackMachine items to ponder, just for fun ("Silas Soule" was the name of a previous incarnation of "Pfenix Quinn")....
from Day 1,170: "Seeing Red" https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/seeing-red-1663610
from Day 1,200: "The Will to Disappearance" https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-will-to-disappearance-1701153
“If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal”
how true.
Excellent article
Thank you, Elaine.
just my observation.. political activity is up, media activity is up. there's some new faces, and there's some returning fucks.. this is not to Plato's credit, but to those who put in the activity it takes to get some fun out of this miserable game.
Nice reading.
Emerick is Kosovo.
enjoyed this
though I actually think invoking concepts of "monopoly of violence" or "voting would be illegal" falls for the same fallacy you are discussing, of forcing real world concepts into a game where they don't make sense. capitalism has very little to do with a game with such a broken economy module.
The game was definitely invented to make [redacted group of people] mad about IRL nationalism so they spend money tho
Yes, this actually runs up to the challenge of trying to talk about both real life and elife at the same time, which I tried to do without being too overt about it.
In this case, my criticism in mentioning capitalism isn't that the game has a capitalist system, so much that it is encouraging people to roleplay as capitalists structurally
[removed]
be...
the air.