I got a hell of a lot smarter when I allowed myself to not have opinions on things. Like if a friend asks me if I have heard of [thing], I am nowadays much better at saying “No, I havent, tell me more” or “I’m not sure. It sounds familiar though. Remind me?”. A big part of this is being in spaces where it feels safe enough to be vulnerable in saying “I don’t know”.

Yeah, this is a big thing. A sentiment that comes to mind is “we judge other people by their actions, but ourselves by our thoughts”. Sometimes I reread past comments of mine and cringe at how ambiguous the tone is.

Yeah, I think this is fairly common. I’m pretty good at not being overly adversarial online, but that takes me a bunch of active effort. Sometimes that means taking a big breath and moving on.

I think it’s admirable that you care about contributing through commenting; I saw a similar stat when I moved to Lemmy and I have also been more active in commenting. However, if you’re not enjoying how you’re typically engaging, perhaps a different framing could be useful: rather than (or in addition to) thinking about commenting as you contributing to the community/platform, think about it as something that you’re doing to enrich yourself. For example, sometimes when I do get into spicier discussions, it’s because I am responding to someone I disagree with, but whose points have caused me to think differently. Or maybe I am enjoying the practice in articulating my views on a complex matter. Or maybe it’s cathartic. Thinking about what I hope to gain from a discussion helps me to avoid unproductive discussions where it’s just mutual attacks.

If you can’t find a middle way, it’s also okay to not comment on things. My opinion is that we do owe a duty to the communities we inhabit, and in the online world, that might imply that it’s good to be contributing via commenting. However, informational self-care is incredibly important nowadays, and it’s so easy to become burnt out. It’s okay to not engage in behaviours that cause you harm (or aren’t encouraging you to grow in the way that you would prefer).

That game looks pretty similar to a game I know as “Racing Demons”, played with regular playing cards

I feel like I’m haunted by linear algebra because it keeps cropping up in all sorts of places

A friend of mine had a partner accidentally draw blood when he (consensually) bit them. It got infected and they needed quite serious hospital care. I suppose that counts.

You’re right, and thanks for checking me on that. On reflection, I said it was trite because I think I felt uncomfortable with the level of vulnerability I was feeling when writing that comment, so I tacked that onto the end. The vulnerability came from a place of “who am I to give advice when the advice I’m giving myself hardly feels sufficient, because my inner monologue is basically a screaming possum most of the time”. Lots of people are feeling similar, which is why I made my original comment in the first place.

I think a lot of us are struggling under the pressure about not knowing how to cope with this dreadful situation, and for me, that meant feeling like I needed to come up with the perfect words that would be useful for everyone who is struggling. It is sufficient for me to go “for me, this is a useful way to think (and other people may do also)”. It’s silly for me to dismiss myself as trite just because I feel like I am only valid if I have a Solution. As you highlight, this is a collaborative process, so muddling along together is how this goes.

Yeah, that kind of mocking is a direct attack at me, and I honestly like it because I feel like my weird achievement hunting is definitely mockable (especially because I already know how ridiculous I am and thus will not change in this respect)

“You can be the juiciest, ripest peach in the world, but some people just funny like peaches.”

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”

That’s interesting, I hadn’t thought about things in those terms before. I am wondering whether part of why the right seem to be so good at recuperation is that the right (in particular, fascists) benefit from capitalist support. Money and media have a lot of power; I weep for the people who were indoctrinated to hatred to the extent that they voted against their own interests. The scales are tipped in the right’s favour in that regard. What do you think?

(I haven’t read Society of the Spectacle yet, in case that addresses some of what I’m saying)

Tangentially related, but I’m reminded of this quote from Disco Elysium:

“Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who critique capital end up reinforcing it instead.”

Thanks for sharing that article. I actually haven’t heard of Mike Davis before, but following this article, I am now reading one of his essays.

Not so much advice as a selfish request: please try to stay with us. I mean that both figuratively (i.e. mentally checking out and becoming hollow) and literally (i.e. existing in this world). It’s a selfish request because though I’m not even American, I am one of the countless people who are scared shitless today. I don’t know how we will make it through this, but I know I can’t do this on my own.

If you’re here, scared with me, then I am not alone, and neither are you. It’s a bit trite, but it helps me somewhat.

The modern world runs on plausible deniability, especially the tech world

I have to believe in a future where people look back on this from a world with less hatred in it than it currently has. I want to give the perpetrators of hate as little plausible deniability as possible.

I have to believe that even though looking back on history didn’t seem to help us avoid this situation, that there will be people in the future who are wiser and empowered to make better choices for them and their communities.

It’s a fantasy, and I honestly don’t care if it’s unrealistic. It’s what I need to believe to keep going. I need to believe there can be something better after this, regardless of whether I’ll get to experience it.

I know I’m just one person, but your experiences are important and imo, necessary for women’s liberation (and human liberation more generally). I’m not going to say “you should share your experiences” because I get how exhausting it is to be challenged on basic shit all the time and that means commenting can be akin to self harm if overdone. I guess I’m just trying to expand that 1% of non-assholes into a larger percentage.

I say this as a cis woman whose feminism has gotten a hell of a lot more intersectional in recent years, in part due to trans friends. Knowing trans women in particular has helped me to feel more at home and happy in my own gender (femininity and its relationship with womanhood is complicated). Having lived as a guy for a chunk of your life no doubt means that your lived experience (especially with respect to gender) is messy and complex, but that’s great, because the world is messy and complex. At least, it would be great, if more people were open to listening to you when you share. I’m sorry that you have to do the cost:benefit analysis before commenting — that part is something I can relate to.

It does help, thank you.

Is outrage all that new? It strikes me as evergreen

I liked this comment. You wrote with the nuance and balance that I strive for. Thanks for sharing

I agree that it’s not quite the same, and I’m finding it real interesting to ponder how that happens.

This comic and this comment section have been pretty thought provoking. (Heads up, this is overly abstract speculation from here): For example, here’s a mathsy diagram This is a commutative diagram, and I’m not at the level of being able to explain it properly, but part of it is the idea of equivalence, the fact that there’s two routes from A to D that are equivalent.

I’m thinking about this sort of analogous to what we’re seeing in the comic and these comments. Like, the base experiences we’re talking about (being spoken over when you’re trying to share your experiences, for example) are fundamentally shared experiences, but the manner of experiencing them is different, because it’s coloured by our own positionality (of which gender is a big part of). I think sometimes though, it’s like discussions don’t work because we get separated — some of us at B, and some at C. Like, it does matter that our experiences are different, but also, there’s a sense in which it doesn’t, because we need to head to the same place anyway.

I don’t know what converging on D would be in this analogy. Solidarity perhaps? Which would, I suppose, involve recognising that the route you’re on is different to the route other people are on, and that it’s possible to be heading to the same place. I’m not sure, this is quite abstract, but you said the word “meta” and that seemed to catalyse this thought, so here’s this comment. You’re welcome/my apologies

I’m sorry, but this comic doesn’t help.

I don’t think it necessarily has to? Like, I agree with pretty much everything in your comment, aside from this part and what it implies. I read this comment as an expression of frustration from the artist, and it’s certainly one that I can relate to. I also realise that there’s a heckton of men who’ll relate too, because of how men who want to carve out space to talk about men’s issues can be cut off, even if they’re not the same men as the assholes who only want to talk about men’s issues when they’re speaking over a woman. However, I think that saying “both sides” to this misses the point of the comic

It can be useful to ground statements in our own personal perspectives because of how it limits the scope of what we’re saying. A smaller, messier example is that I am autistic and have done both disability activism and autism activism in the past. I am autistic and because of that, I am also disabled, and so many of my experiences as an autistic person can also apply more generally to disabled people. However, generalising a statement can be difficult, especially if on a difficult topic, such as institutional ableism. I was able to speak confidently on how that affected me personally, and to a more limited degree, how it affects other autistic people, because of who I am in community with. However, I don’t directly know any deaf people, for example, and thus I am cautious when talking about my experiences as a disabled person, lest I over-generalise. I get a similar sense from the comic’s use of “as a woman”. Grounding stuff in that way is often an attempt to limit the scope of the discussion to something more manageable when grappling with something hard to articulate.

I also do think it’s useful to recognise the difference in experience. As a silly example, I might say “as a woman, I need to breathe air in order to survive”. I could also say “as a human, I need to breathe air in order to survive”. I could also say “as an animal, I need to breathe air in order to survive”, but actually, I’d need to go and double check the facts on that last one. That’s sort of my point — sometimes statements are overly specific and should be simplified, like in the “as a [woman/human]” statements. However, limiting the scope (like in the “as a human” statement compared to the “as an animal” one) actually gives space for the possibility that some weird animals don’t need to breathe.

Apologies if I have explained this poorly. I don’t mean to come off as lecturing or argumentative; I am replying to your comment because I appreciate your points and I am open to discussion.