If I play boardgames with Sue, that's enough. We meet, enjoy a beer and play some Catan and go our separate ways. That's a fine relationship.

If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'm happy just playing some Catan once in a while.

Historically you didn't need to know everything about everyone. Your friends will always have opinions or lifestyles you will find disagreeable - that is the nature of human existence.

Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company.

My $0.02 is that it's easier to fall back to rules of polite conversation than fix our compulsive need for agreement.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362

They all basically revolve around one truth I think.

The internet doesn't radicalize people. People radicalize people. The internet is just full of people who are already radicalized in their daily life, and they are using the internet to radicalize others. Whether it be for the left, right, or even some weird alt thing.

Penny Arcade even has their own comic strip theory called "G.I.F.T of the Internet".

Theirs is more simplistic though in that it stipulates that the anonymity of the net is the problem insofar that it gives people a fake sense of security to be who they really are on the inside. For better or worse. Usually worse.

I think all of our ideas on the matter basically resonate on the same singular issue. That people were already nuts to begin with. The internet is just making easier to identify which are fucking screwballs and ... the rest.

But then that poses a new problem. Mob mentality even of righteous people is still just as toxic as the mob mentality of fucking idiots.

Nothing gets people going like someone saying something divisive or controversial after all.

So pretty soon most of the feed is divisive bullshit.

We however, do. This is why the human element side of things is my target. Even if the algorithms change, not much will if we don't.

No one is going to approve a ‘say anything as long as it bumps ratings immediately’ algorithm, but almost everyone is going to try to do at least what the top competitor seems to be doing.

Which is algorithmic/ML based engagement optimization, with some kind of ‘but not the most controversial if it’s literally nazis’ type filter for things with too much political blowback (aka calls for insurrection), or legal issues (child porn).

If you look, it’s literally almost everywhere now. And earlier they didn’t even have the ‘not literally nazi’s’ filter.

It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t all agree to not do that, or even try to enforce that people don’t do that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

I get it definitely happens with folks texting friends links or sharing it via email, but the friction with those is higher and it gives time for folks to think more than the feed interface.

It’s highly efficient psychological pressure/engagement and maximizing the focus towards the engaging content that is the real problem IMO. It makes something that someone could think about (potentially) and choose to stop into something they become hyper engaged with constantly and can’t turn off.

Shiri's Scissor: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/

Algorithms require input to give you output, right? So even if you are correct that badly created algoritms are to blame, we still have the people who fall for the algorithms outputs because they are feeding it the inputs.

To put it simply, it all goes back to the calculator/computer quote in regard to their users. They are only as smart as the person using them.

So, from that point of view; there are a lot of really dumb users on the internet.

If 99 out of 100 users input not-BS, and 1 user inputs BS, but the algorithm picks the 1 users BS input and feeds it to the other 99 first so they get angry and yell at each other over the 1 BS input together - that is a historically unique situation.

If it does it at scale for cheap, that is also a historically unique situation.

If it does it without a human being directly involved in the choosing and pushing process (and feeling bad potentially!), that is also a historically unique situation.

If someone sees all 100 users posts together, it’s easy to see the BS is BS. If the BS post goes to the top of the feed and is the first thing they see, and the normal posts either don’t show up, or only a few of them show up? That is a completely different experience for the consumer of the media.

They might feel worse about it later because they know they shouldn’t have reacted that way, but in my experience that doesn’t help as much as you’d want.

Doesn’t take much to get a mob going unfortunately.

Anonymity means more honesty, which is far more interesting than an adjusted and boring corporate world full of advertiser messages and the latter is all you would ever get. That said, the loudest voices on Twitter or Facebook are mostly not anonymous, anonymous boards are mostly far better places to discuss anything. Some abuse it, but without it we would see a much worse net.

I tend to agree but it's an oversimplification of the problem. There is a fantastic book about the psychology of radicalization by Robert B Caldini "Influence"[1] that has apart from the more common scenarios like exploiting reciprocity etc the idea about saying things out loud. There are 3 stages, you get people to read it, then you get them to say it then you get them to sign it. Once they say it it will be hard for them not to sign it since it means walking back on their argument and society likes consistency and hates flip-flopping. After you get them to sign, it's now recorded in history like something that can compromise you in future. Even you delete it you have said it before. This is relevant on especially for things that go viral or have a large audience. How does that relate to social media?

Especially on platforms that enforce a real name policy you get shallow thoughts because people are careful (LinkedIn is a good example). But even on things like twitter / reddit people will have followers and a karma that they attach themselves (their ego) to.

We do not communicate by saying things but we immediately jump to the stage of writing it down. Now these are usually not well thought out opinions since they haven't been argued in a group and tested against our peers. We blurt out not opinions but brain-farts that we test against an audience but at this stage they are already written down.

If the message shared is popular you get the likes flooding in where every person is likely not to read this message more than once before liking / sharing. But the effect on the author is different because they end up reading what they wrote several times as a way of congratulating themselves and reliving the moment of gratification. So it's actually a form of self-radicalization on half baked thoughts (than radicalization by others). An important step is missing where the author of a message can verbalize the idea with real people f2f before jumping to "the writing it down" stage. That makes it harder not to double down once critic is expressed by an audience. Add to this tribal culture of in/out groups those who will oppose the message can be drowned out with a click of a button (I'm not arguing for letting trolls take over and abolishing mute/block button, but these don't exit IRL. Anyway I'm only trying to deconstruct the process)

There are very few people on social media humble enough not to drink their own kool-aid. The majority of users are absolutely eaten by the system and spat out again without realizing what happened. the concept of writing it down is so powerful that we have even built a legal / trust system around it where we require people to scribble their name under something they have read to make it binding.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence:_Science_and_Practic...

These people seem to think that humans aren't at fault for the actions of their creations. They seem to think that algorithms are capable of having agency for their actions... This couldn't be further from the case.

As for the content of your reply however, thanks for being a little more nuanced in it all. Yes, a self contained echo chamber is definitely not going to help things. That said, what you are saying is effectively saying as well "If you proofread your own comments, you are risking radicalizing yourself off your own ideas." But further than that, you are also stating "Those ideas are just half baked".

Well in some people's cases that may be true, but as per the usual problem with most of these arguements; it leaps right past the true actionable agent in the problem and heads straight for blaming X thing that people have little control over. Psychology is one of those things that people have less control over than other people would like to believe. I know this because I have had to literally retrain psychologists over stuff like this during the times they figured they were fixing me. HAH, jokes on them.

(It was always something like "Those people don't control your actions" and I would always reply with "When did the chain of actions and consequences begin in your mind over this subject matter?". To this they would usually start it with 'me', when I would correct them and say "it starts with the person before I, because my actions are based off the consequences of their actions. Therefore while they may not 'Make me' do anything, they certainly do present possible options for me to take, and I tend to take the ones that they like the least; usually due to them being the correct action."

Now, from that little bit of a side story, do you see how your opinion of psychology being the answer might be a bit of problem in its own right? Your assumption basically ignores the fact that there is a chain of consequences for every action taken by every single person connected to said subject matter.

So while the person proofreading their comment might be 'radicalizing themselves' using their own propoganda; you are making the mistake of thinking that just because they have X opinion other than yours, it must be bad. This is a common mistake made by... drum roll please... radicalized people. Especially so in regards to folk who are on the internet far more than they should be? I end that with a question mark because it's mostly an observation so far that I cannot concretely say is for certain the problem and cause to the problem.

And so now we are back to the crux of your point. The half baked idea that gets reiterated over and over again due to be re-read. How half baked is my reply to you? How half baked is your reply to me? Was my original comment even half baked to begin with, or is that just your view of the situation through your own subjective and thus potentially biased viewpoint? Get the point?

The problem is many things DyslexicAtheist. But all of them stem from one single source. Humans. This is why I blame them and not the algorithms or the psychology itself. Why?

Because both are creations of humans. Psychology is just an attempt to understand something we didn't create, so we created a method of understanding it. Faulty as it may be, it has its uses. Algorithms are the same thing in a way. We created the fabric of which they exist, but we still don't understand fully how they operate. Or to put it a better way, we don't fully understand yet how to create them to make them operate exactly how we want. And then furthermore from there, we also do know how to create them well enough to make them do exactly what we want from time to time as well; which has its own problems.

Youtube's algorithm is a good example of the creators only having a partial understanding of how their creation works. (If they are to be believed every time they say "we aren't sure how this works")

Twitters is on the other hand a good example of them making an algorithm to do exactly what they want it to do, and it does it really well. To horrific results.

Both together are my point insofar that algorithms and psychology are only part of the general overall answer. They are not the end all or be all. Humanity is that, in regards to this problem. We are the one factor that if removed, all the problems cease to exist. But we can't exactly go removing ourselves... Well, we can... but that has new problems attached to it.

Meanwhile, the people with the half baked ideas as you put it, are just stating their opinions. You may call them half baked, but who are you to judge others opinions when yours probably aren't that great either to begin with? right?

And that right there is the real source of all the problems. People's ego's.

Once you get over your ego, all of this becomes much easier to understand and accept. But getting a human to do that is fucking hard.

I for one, have no doubt that the removal of the internet from most people's lives would reduce most of these problems to a standstill for the time being due to how exactly right you are about the effect of fast and long reaching communication has.

That doesn't mean that I want to remove the internet completely from everyone's lives though. I just accept that many to most people aren't capable of handling it yet. Not yet.

All these theories that people have on the other hand are them trying to grasp and come to terms with the very fact I just stated. I mean look at them right now. Some of them think algorithms are fully to blame, but this kind of behavior from humans has been around for centuries and beyond now. The only difference through out time is just the speed and distance of which communication occurs.

So, the internet itself is not to blame for anything. The people are, entirely and thoroughly. The internet is for the most part right now, an inanimate object with zero agency or sentient logical thought processes. For now.

And here's the catch... even if it ever gains those things somehow; it will still be the fault of humans if it turns out to be a giant piece of shit; since it is learning from us.

So, Zubiri... still think I don't have a full enough grasp on this yet? Quite contrary, I probably have a larger grasp on the full details of this problem than most people who try to figure it out. But thanks for your input.

I for one am happy about all the toaster fuckers who have a place to talk about it, maybe get help if they think they need it. The alternative would be that we all get mashed into an amorphous blob of the same middle of the road opinions that keep everyone happy.

Yuck.

https://old.reddit.com/r/4chan/comments/5ofih3/beforeafter_t...

What a time to be alive

It's extremely easy to dismiss all of these as equally irrelevant. In fact many do (not saying you are) - "I don't care if you are black, white or purple. I treat everyone equally". "I don't care if you're straight, gay, or curvy - what you do in the bedroom is no business of mine". These attitudes SEEM like they are non-judgemental and egalitarian, but they tend to miss all the implicit ways in which the dominant society does NOT treat people equally in these circumstances. And being asked to be treated equally gets perceived as asking for special treatment until it becomes ridiculous: "Gay people want special treatment by asking gay marriage - they're not being discriminated - they can already marry someone of the opposite sex".

It's easy not to care about race or sexuality when society treats yours as irrelevant.

So, what would you have us do?

I treat each individual as an individual and interact with them based on their individual actions, not based on any immutable characteristics.

I fully support inclusion, diversity, honesty and good citizenship and speak out when I see bigotry, hatred and abuse.

It seems like you're implying that doing so is somehow disingenuous or posturing and that I need to do more. Do I understand you correctly?

Should I, as a middle-aged, heterosexual, "white" male, carry around lots of cash so I can give every woman, POC, differently-abled and LGBTQ+ person I encounter US$20? As "reparations" for the white male privilege that I never asked for, don't want and actively argue against?

This may seem like some sort of anti-progressive rant, but it's not.

So, other than trying hard to be a decent human being and interacting with and about others based on their actions rather than some immutable characteristics, calling out hatred and bigotry when I see it and supporting political candidates who do the same, what exactly do you propose that I do?

All anybody wants is for you to support the movement for their rights in whatever ways you feel willing to. Often times the "I don't see colour" people are just sticking their heads in the sand about ongoing racial issues, and won't do anything to help combat racism (even voting, the literal smallest political action you can take) because they believe that it's good enough that they personally don't mistreat people for their race. Sometimes these types of people will actively oppose progressive movements in the style of "I'm against racism but affirmative action/BLM protests/Black girls code is political correctness gone mad" stances.

What people are generally asking for is for you to argue their case if it comes up with friends, vote for politicians that want to rectify institutional problems, and even join in protests or rallies or voice your support publicly if you're willing to do so.

I have no control over what other people do, think or say. What other stance can I take?

I know. I was being hyperbolic with the US$20 bit.

Upon reflection, I interpreted GP's comment as moralistic and condescending, which colored my response in a bad way.

My error was I did not attempt to see their comment in the best possible light and that's not fair to them.

Others who've read my comment appear to agree.

>Often times the "I don't see colour" people are just sticking their heads in the sand about ongoing racial issues,

Sadly, those who pile that sand on these folks' heads are never held to account.

I suspect that many of those with their "heads in the sand" would be less inclined to ignore the intolerance if the sand shovelers (dump truck operators?) were shown for the venal, cynical scum they are.

More's the pity.

Of course - individualism in a political sense means the rejection of collective action. It usually boils down to the belief that people's political actions should be limited to financial transactions - solving climate change by individuals recycling, solving food insecurity by individuals donating, that sort of thing. I knew you were being hyperbolic, but a lack of familiarity with institutional or systemic change made me think you might be missing that option. That's not a criticism; it's really common in the US.

> Sadly, those who pile that sand on these folks' heads are never held to account.

Yeah, I was considering saying in my original comment that targeting those types of people has been a conservative strategy for years now, but figured it was political enough already. It seems its easy to switch people over from "nominally anti racism but also anti change" to "nominally anti racist but practically anti anti racist, ie pro racist" by getting them to support counter protest movements escalating in extreme from "all lives matter" and "its OK to be white" up to believing in the white genocide conspiracy theory.

> I suspect that many of those with their "heads in the sand" would be less inclined to ignore the intolerance if the sand shovelers (dump truck operators?) were shown for the venal, cynical scum they are.

Unfortunately people aren't very easy to reason out of positions they've dug themselves into. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, as they say.

I suggest you re-read the comment to which you replied. Perhaps you'd like to revise your barely concealed and completely unfounded attack on the straw man you created around my comment.

From your reaction I'm guessing the sand shovelers you think are scum are the "woke" people but I hope I'm wrong.

That's as may be, but you focused on a single sentence ("I have no control over what other people do, think or say. What other stance can I take?") in my comment and ignored everything else I wrote.

You then deigned to forgive me (and 300+ million other people) my ignorance.

   ...a lack of familiarity with institutional or 
   systemic change made me think you might be 
   missing that option. That's not a criticism; it's 
   really common in the US.

I'll wait with bated breath for your next brilliant missive.

> you focused on a single sentence [...] in my comment and ignored everything else I wrote.

I did address you saying the $20 thing was hyperbole, but I guess I'm not sure what you wanted me to add to the rest? You said you misinterpreted GP's comment - okay? What am I to add to that? It's not much of a prompt for discussion.

And you interpreted that incorrectly.

the "stance" I take (in this case, support for the equal rights and equal opporunities of all) is the stance of one who doesn't have governmental or corporate power to directly impact change other than my behavior and my advocacy.

You interpreted what I said to mean that I'm powerless to effect any change. Which is unfortunate since not only is that not true, I neither said nor implied anything of the sort.

All that said, I suspect we're, in large part, in violent agreement on this topic.

Go back and read the comment[0] to which you originally replied. You'll see that it makes clear what I think.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30608880

My apologies for not listing every possible activity. I'll make sure to write a Phd thesis here in future.

As for the rest of your paranoid (and condescending) blather, I can do without it. From now on, I will.

Black girl programmers should not be black girl programmers, they should be programmers. And they most certainly won't face discrimination because of that. I do think that treating people differently will breed animosity and it does not solve any problem.

> Black girl programmers should not be black girl programmers, they should be programmers. And they most certainly won't face discrimination because of that.

This is a perfect demonstration of the "head in the sand" position that leads to conservatism that I was talking about. The whole point of "black girls code" is that black girls have less opportunity to get into programming, which is a form of systemic racism given that programming is a lucrative career. It's not an identity thing, it's an access thing - it's an outreach program.

It's also absurd to claim that black women never face discrimination in the workplace.

You seem to be starting from a belief that equal opportunity and discrimination based on race are solved problems and then putting yourself in opposition to programs that try to alleviate these problems (which actually do still exist).

I don't see how my position leads to conservatism. If I prefer not making race a relevant attribute in an outreach program, I guess I am. But the label doesn't mean much to me.

There perhaps aren't many black women in programming yet, but opposing a new racialized world is not sticking my head in the sand. I am pretty actively opposed to it.

The idea that progressives are creating a newly racialised world where before everything was meritocratic and equal opportunity /is/ the modern conservative line, and it's a lie. The whole reason for outreach programs is to counteract lack of opportunities that are race based - what exactly do you think racism is?

Actively opposing programs designed to counteract racism, is supporting racism, you do realise that?

Your accusation is weak. I disagree and I think a lot of programs are racist and should be opposed on that merit. I am not talking about outreach programs here. There are much more relevant factors why specifically black women might be underrepresented. If I generalize that to women, the reason is sexism. I don't believe in these simple explanations and much more importantly I believe these facts do not allow for anyone to be discriminated, which has to be said specifically also extends to white people.

New?

Are you claiming that the genocide of the indiginous peoples of the Americas, the centuries-long enslavement (and then another century of legal discrimination) of Africans, discrimination against indiginous peoples of Australia and New Zealand, domination of South Asia by Britain, etc., etc., etc. wasn't "racialized"?

I suppose you could try to argue that all that was a long time ago and is irrelevant to today's society. But that doesn't really work. Laws forbidding marriage between "white" and "black" folks were in full force in my lifetime.

Or Are you claimng that The Spanish, Dutch, British and Portuguese conquerors and slave traders in the 16th and 17th centuries were pushing for the equal inclusion of Africans who "emigrated" to the Americas and the indiginous peoples of the America into their societies?

Are you claiming that the genocide of indiginous American peoples and the maintenance of slave economies that excusively used POC weren't "racialized"?

Are you claiming that the differences in family wealth, quality of education/infrastructure/housing, treatment by law "enforcement" agencies and a dozen other testable, measurable ares aren't the result of centuries of a "racialized" world?

What is new is that those who have been murdered, enslaved and discriminated against are being given a platform to speak out about the legacies of those centuries of mistreatment and the ways that discrimination is embedded into our societies.

And I haven't even touched on the appalling treatment of half the population (women) as well as those who want to live and love (LGBTQ) as they need to.

So, when you say you are opposed to a "new racialized world," to what exactly are you opposed?

Is it equal rights and opportunities for all, regardless of gender, melanin content or national origin?

If that's what you're opposing, I can certainly understand why you're upset. Please do elucidate.

I don't see anything in the OP's post to suggest that. I think their point is that being merely indifferent to (e.g.) gay people isn't actually a neutral stance in the context of a homophobic society. But you state in your post that you're not merely indifferent, so I don't think anything OP says applies to you.

These position are as non-judgemental as it gets. Gay marriage is a separate issue but many support it because of such positions.

Dominant society in liberal democracies impose almost no values on anything related to that and it is even part of the curriculum to educate people on different sexuality. But I think that problem is solved since a few generations. In many countries at least. Saying such positions would be judgemental is actually moving backwards again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25668896

> All these twitter/facebook/youtube bans are trying to put a genie back in a bottle, Parler is gaining steam

Did not age nearly as well.

At some point you have to branch off and learn from others.

My pet dream: Everybody Gets One, maybe two, things to be "radical" about. You reckon the earth is flat? Sure. You don't get that AND vaccines are micro-chipped AND an antisemitic 9/11 theory. Spend that token wisely.

That resonates hard with some stuff I'm seein' now.

The internet provides you with a dozen lifetimes worth of information so you improve yourself. Far beyond what your yokel neighbors could teach you. The need for a extended family is still here and you can compensate with the internet for being born in a shithole country or flyover state.

I have a slightly different view of this. People's opinions on things are always in flux, even if they sway heavily toward one side. What we see on social media is a person's opinions without the context of a human interaction. On social media, we see Sue's emotional response to politics without her having to negotiate that emotional response in relationship to another person sitting in front of her. She may "believe" what she says in the moment she types it, but put her in a room with a friend who disagrees and you can watch how her views shift, push back, concede, change, challenge, etc. On social media, there's very little of this taking place, because there's zero human intimacy at work. It belief in a vacuum not in relationship.

Someone below this mentioned this was how Google+ was intended to work.

I'd love the same for a podcast. I don't want to create 5 separate podcast channels, I want to have a main one and then have sub-channels that people can subscribe to.

It doesn't have to be this structure, it can be another way to allow us to have more power over the feed that we're seeing, giving us filter/search/sort/algorithm options.

So, in short, I love your suggestion and wish the next generation of social network implements it in some shape, whether that be from the incumbents or new ones.

Twitter needs to incentivize using hashtags.

John Carmack can add hashtags to his tweets.

Someone can create an account that hashtags and quote retweet John Carmack’s tweets.

I can see why limiting what you're presented with never took off from a marketing point of view. I think this is rad though.

They are great in my experience, but if people started posting politics news I could see how they could turn bad.

*(Unless you want to be unreasonably judgemental about hobbies. But even then, it would probably cut 80-90% of the waste and increase the enjoyment.)

Or shift the subset of your views that you're exposing to a set that would result in a mutually enjoyable conversation.

In person you can also be passively present and still interacting without saying much. But on twitter you're not even in the room unless you speak and generate reactions, the most reliable way to get a reaction is to be irritating rather than cooperate to generate a mutually good time.

The common theory is roughly the opposite of this: people disproportionately share their better moments on social media. Its users project the impression of having a much better life than they actually have. This bias is one of the reasons social media is so awful for 'FOMO'.

edit Of course, that's not a direct contradiction of your point. The positive/negative dimension is different from the which-aspect-of-your-life dimension.

share their more extreme moments. Not automatically "better", there is an awful lot of tweeting where people are essentially exposing their mental illness and successfully soliciting support. While no one is going to FOMO on misfortune itself, people certainly do FOMO on the attention announcing your misfortune (and as a result identifying with it) brings.

Using the example above, there's nothing stopping that person from bringing their whole self to board game night. They're choosing to avoid certain topics with a certain group of people, so I would expect some of that behavior to cary over to social media.

If I think about something like the "close friends" feature on instagram, I have some friends who just share way too much with everyone, but I've got others who use that feature pretty heavily.

Not true, unless they're hosting.

I expect most people that held a job prior to social media (or-- really, holds a job in most industries except tech outside of a few cities) will happily tell you that people readily pass on such opportunities.

This was also during the trade war, so these same guys were shit talking Trump and calling him a fucking retard too.

Good timez(?)

The original American Experiment allowed this sort of thing. Big Important Nationwide things happened at the federal level; everything else was done by the States. It's a pretty good idea.

All social media suffers from the "talking to nobody/talking to everybody" aspect. A post on a social media site is really just you talking to yourself out loud. But it's a public place, and therefore everybody can hear you. So they talk out loud to themselves, but at you.

If this sounds like a gaggle of homeless people shouting at each other about everything and nothing, that's because it is exactly that, only with a $25B market cap and a P/E ratio that looks more like the onset of hypertension.

> If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'm happy just playing some Catan once in a while.

> Historically you didn't need to know everything about everyone. Your friends will always have opinions or lifestyles you will find disagreeable - that is the nature of human existence.

This hits the nail on the head perfectly, IMHO. Unfortunately, even the activities you describe have become politicized. For example, Settlers of Catan rebranding to just Catan.

Those three issues are polling in the 50-60% range on Pew research, and tend to fluctuate heavily based on recent events and question wording.

> exactly the issues that the vast majority of Americans actually do agree on.

cite?

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx

Does this cut both ways, where LGBTQ+ people also don't have to listen to how straight everyone is? I doubt it. So yeah, how about no? How about there is agreement or nothing? Because there's no way straight people are going to agree to disagree about whether they should be allowed to discuss their sexuality.

I'm curious what you think you mean because there is no good answer.

I also wouldn't have had to comment at all if people weren't casually asking people to instate don't ask don't tell in social settings.

You could have just as easily not commented and I could have been dealing with the original commenter. You decided to comment, defending his absurdity. You don't get to now tell me I am "looking to be offended," especially when you take the side of the less reasonable position.

We aren't saying good or bad, we aren't assigning value, we are simply saying controversial. Like, obviously you feel you have to fight everyone if there is so much as a chance someone is attacking you - that sort of supports the argument, no?

And no, my original argument was not that LGBTQ aligned folks should go back into the closet or any such nonsense as that. It was mostly that if you have hot takes on deep in-community debates (I give several examples above), maybe don't share them on twitter and disown everyone around you who disagrees.

Again, read arguments in the strongest possible sense. Read the entire context.

1) You have yet to provide any concrete examples of what it is you mean. You keep going "but I swear this isn't what I mean." Thus, I can only conclude that you mean the whole.

Am I to think you're saying that LGBTQ+ people shouldn't be allowed to discuss marriage rights, even though straight people have been afforded that right and freely talk about their marriages in front of people who are affected by laws outlawing their unions?

Am I to believe that you're saying that we shouldn't talk about whether trans people should be allowed to change their names without gender/sex reassignment surgery, even though straight people regularly change their names, get plastic surgery, and what-have-you?

There are no good answers. The very fact that you've not acknowledged that there is no good answer is the problem here. You could just accept that you're wrong, that this is offensive no matter how it is interpreted. But no, you feel an incessant need to defend yourself because you, as a straight man, couldn't possibly have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues and, thus, couldn't possibly be offending people.

2) You have yet to acknowledge the fact that you could just casually throw that in there without a second thought is the problem. The fact that you didn't need to think "does LGBTQ+ really belong here?" Your very doing that contributes to anti-LGBTQ+ and "don't say gay" mentalities.

Are we to think you're honestly too stupid to see that discussing marriage rights is something totally different than talking about their actual marriages? We can, if you want. If not, we'd have to conclude it's a conscious tactic; twisting facts and your opponent's words into something they didn't say or doesn't happen.

We could then think this is a constant tactic of yours... But I'd prefer to ascribe it to temporary rhetorical overheating in discussing a burning cause. Hope you've put out the flames and cooled down now.

What world do you live in where being _any_ of the LGBTQ spectrum is some overall totally safe and hunky dory existence!?

And if that wasn't bad enough, your fellow LGBTQ friends likely have all kinds of "ready to rip your throat out" hot takes - or did we already forget the shunning and rejection of Buck Angel?

Yes, it is unsafe to be LGBTQ+. That is exactly why you can't put it in a box and go "you're not allowed to talk about these things in social situations because my game of Catan is more important."

Really ruminate on that last point. Your game of Catan is more important to you than whether the people in that game are comfortable being around you.

It's amazing how strangers on the internet can just star gaze and determine my gender, sexuality, race and so on. It's less amazing how often wrong they are. I'd really take a moment and think whether predicting someones identity is aligned with your ethical beliefs on those topics.

If you want to fight straw men, please have the courtesy of doing it in private.

And no, I think you should think a bit harder about what it is you said and how you said it. It's easy to claim that isn't what you meant, but you've yet to provide any concrete examples of what you mean, which I called you out for and you proceeded to be flippant. This is also a sign that you know your argument is lost.

You can continue to claim straw men, but you've yet to provide evidence that I've actually created a straw man.

EDIT: Moreover, if you want to say we should just not discuss LGBTQ+ issues in public and try and justify using a slur and then call LGBTQ+ people the problem when they get angry, maybe you should have the courtesy of doing that in private.

Because straight white men just are "on the wrong side of history, everyone knows that", or what?!?

Again, it's easy to say that I'm creating a straw man, but the facts are thus.

The OP said:

- My games of Catan work because we don't talk about things.

- Social media is bad because I have to confront the fact that I will disagree with people on things.

- These things that I will disagree with my Catan buddies on should either be "agree to disagree" matters or matters that don't get discussed.

- LGBTQ+ issues were one of the examples of such topics. Neither option is acceptable for LGBTQ+ people.

No examples of what sort of "LGBTQ+ political topics" either of you might mean have been given and yet I, the one providing examples and countering them, am the one creating the straw man?

All I can say is that, once again, you need to listen to the people affected when they say that what is said is harmful and stop acting like the LGBTQ+ people are the problem for telling you that it is, in fact, harmful.

EDIT: You're also defending a man who actively tried to justify using a slur. Doesn't reflect well on you, does it?

Yes, countering "examples" one has oneself provided is AFAIK pretty much the definition of "straw man".

Wait, what slur? I'm lost.

Discussing your existence?!? Who the F said your existence can't be mentioned?!?

You're really not doing your cause any good with these ever more ridiculously hysterical arguments.

Two out of three of those aren't just random positions. If you believe someone else is literally advocating for murdering children, I can see why you would judge them. Similarly, if you see people oppressing people like you for some reason, you should judge them.

I will admit, I have no idea what the disagreement in modern society is with relation the LGBTQ people. Like, I can articulate both sides of the abortion debate. Hell, I can even understand the sides about firearms. But what is the dispute about LGBTQ?

Blue side wants trans women to be treated identically to women, based on their personal conception of identity, not necessarily tied to any external or societal factor. So if they say they're a trans woman, you call them "she" regardless of how masculine they make look or dress. Being trans is a valid and inherent part of a person. We need to educate children that gender is a social construct.

Red side disagrees with the notion that personal identity overrides societal norms. It's an imposition, or a farce, to call a man in a dress a woman. Why should we change thousands of years of grammar because some people are nutcases? Being trans is a mental illness that instead of being treated is being celebrated and normalized, in turn harming society. It's a shame you're ill, but keep that out of our schools and get help.

You can see how these viewpoints are not going to get along

On twitter, it's really easy for my to ignore all the insane and stupid things that complete strangers blather about on there all the time. There's a ton of noise, but just enough signal for me to check in regularly.

But then suddenly I see a ridiculous post from someone I truly care about. Someone who I've known for years and know their spouse and kids and families. I can read their post in their voice as if it were said to me, personally. And now I'm angered and incensed and putting up maps and charts and pins in my head preparing a response that this person whom I care about deserves.

But they weren't talking to me. They were shouting something crazy into a cacophony of crazy strangers. If we were at dinner we would have a long, deep, and nuanced conversation on the subject and we'd listen to each other's points and respond accordingly. But in 240 chars they're wrong and now I will reserve two hours of mental capacity to argue with myself about why.

Nope. Just block them, knowing I'll see them next time they're in town, and we'll have a real conversations about real things in a forum more befitting two people trying to understand each other.

Twitter isn't dumber.

(Assume this was written with kindness)

1. Reaction/Social Interplay:

If you play Catan (or tennis or amateur theatre group etc) with a person for long enough you will come to know these bits about them. However, as most small country town people know, you ignore or otherwise put up with "their stupidity" while trying not to shove what they see as "your stupidity" in their face. This is respect for others.

Such respect helps preserve the alliance to get the outcome you want - a game of Catan. Hence, even Sue-the-Otherwise-Intolerable isn't all bad, they like to play Catan like you do right?

As you eloquently advise, the internet doesn't "hide your stupidity from others" so that is grating. It also doesn't promote people ignoring your stupidity. It promotes "engagement"...

2. Shared experience

Experience is how humans build trust/relationships. Y'know, a first date cliche is a movie then coffee or dinner. The shared movie experience forms a basis to trust each other ("Well they didn't yabber on the phone the whole time so they're not all bad...") and then talking about the experience after may yield new insights on that experience. And those insights are attributed to that person alone ("I didn't think of it that way, very good point Sue." or "Nope. That's just stupid Sue.") even though the experience itself is already in the past!

Even though virtual experiences can be such a basis - IE Game of Thrones as "viral" thing - I submit that in person experiences are more powerful by far.

You tolerate Sue-the-Otherwise-Intolerable in person to get your fix of Catan. But you wouldn't do that for a virtual Sue, you'd just move onto Bob, Mary, Joe or Jane or whoever else the game's matchmaker throws up.

I think this hits on a critical aspect of cyberspace's impact but phrased in a new way for me.

My view has been that it allows individuals to split their personalties and actions into discrete entities based on a blend of the account/platform/information environment and relative cause the account/platform exists in support of.

But another way to look at it is what you've said - the whole person comes out through the various personalities they have online.

There is a niche but famous sci-fi book called True Names* about a similar idea: people have their true name in real life, and a digital nym that's just as valid per the impact of the nym's existence as the name. Operating the balance, and making a choice which to embrace (name vs. nym) is the big question.

The novella was written prior to cloud computing and twitter/reddit/VR, and reading it now with all that tech in place is really something.

My wife is quite active on social while I'm not part of any social media (HN doesn't count, right?). We both have quite a different options about some political issues than our friends. It's been strange observing how her views about our friends are more negative and polarised than mine. Like, I don't really know or care what they think about politics, or what they think about my views. They are my friends and it's okay we disagree on stuff. When I meet them we seldom discuss about the dividing things, but when we do, we do so in respectful manner.

I think when meeting in person we tend to find similarities with each other. In social media it's the opposite.

I think that when we read, or we're on the computer, we are in a kind of trance. Our unconscious self is exposed.

It expresses itself, we all harbor a lot of dark feelings. And we are reactive. It's not a rational self. It's a self that gropes for the good stuff and kicks against the bad stuff and that's about it. Like an animal.

It is also exposed and vulnerable. So when the flame hits we feel it deeply.

I imagine us all to be like that demon in The Exorcist. A raging ego trapped in a world of words. Playing mind games. And when we are told that it's holy water, it burns just fine.

I totally agree that social media has made this a bigger issue than it used to be before social media. It also doesn't help that these social media sites are likely trying to feed you some intentionally controversial content as fear/anger can keep you engaged. Facebook showing a coworkers controversial political opinion on a matter right at the top of your feed feels intentional.

I've also found social media, as well as the mass media constantly bombards you with the idea that you must pick a "side". If someone is anti-immigration, pro-abortion, pro firearms, and pro lgbtq you'd think it would make some of these online peoples heads explode. It's like they think it's not possible to have opinions and beliefs that align with both political "sides". The division that social media and mass media companies push is what I find is one of the most toxic things in the world currently. Trying to profit off creating hatred. It's pretty disgusting.

There’s a third option, which is that discussion can lead to actual moral progress where society decides that certain views are just beyond the pale. A few decades ago people might have ‘agreed to disagree’ on whether interracial marriage was ok. Now society has formed a consensus on this issue and anyone who’s opposed to interracial marriage is part of an isolated fringe.

Saying that we should agree to disagree on controversial issues sounds superficially reasonable - especially when you’re exhausted from reading some awful twitter thread. It won’t necessarily sound so great in retrospect. It’s also a luxury that people directly affected by the relevant issues don’t always have.

The real problem isn't people debating controversial issues, which is fine and healthy and necessary for progress. The problem is the way that platforms like Twitter incentivize hot takes, rapid response, bullying, and other behavior that's not conducive to rational discussion.

Also, anyone who thinks that intemperate public discourse on controversial topics is a new phenomenon should check out some of the things that Thomas Moore and Martin Luther said to each other: https://meansandmatters.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/my-favorite...

We are naturally inclined to be negative. Or, said differently, it takes a LOT less effort to be negative than positive. On social media it's just way too easy for people to pile on.

Thing is, personal social media accounts don't expose you to the whole of someone else, they expose you to that part of someone without the buffer of small talk, low-level real life social interactions, non-verbal cues, work/school/routine-based camaraderie, and, as you put it, enjoying a beer and playing some Catan.

The problem is that without that part of social interaction, you end up with raw opinion or dogma which doesn't have any "soft" dimension or transition layer, and that causes people to be reactionary rather than accepting.

I imagine that many people have a similar experience. You're yelling into a megaphone but it feels more like you're writing an entry in your diary.

I use Facebook for my entertainment, reacting on car memes, sarcastic memes and genuinely car things and sports. Oh and I watch TV on Facebook. meeting people real life in this city has been.... ehhh special. (But I think the things I do on Facebook isn't special, there isn't that much politics.)

I don't forget the times that I laughed so hard some posts, because it so funny.

But at the end of the day... it's people and nothing is going to fix that.

It's the algorithm's decision to serve up the choicest bits with the highest polarization scores bc that seems to have the highest correlation with overall engagement.

And feeding the compulsive need for argument seems to be the more profitable strategy over providing a framework for truly polite conversation.

We're not really equipped to be so connected to people we don't agree with about everything.

Well... that would only be true in an urban environment. And historically, urban environments accounted for an insignificant share of the population.

The normal historical experience was that you knew everything about everyone else and they knew everything about you.

You can't 'agree to disagree' on those topics though, specially when laws ban abortion, for example. If you think we should do that, then making laws regarding those things (abortion, "don't say gay") would need to be completely forbidden and you would need to let people do what they want.

Yes! A thousand times yes! You are speaking out of my heart with that comment. That's what most current social networks get wrong. Just because I know someone, or met someone IRL and am now connected on the platform, I do not want to always know what they are up to. It's a pull not a push!

Except... is it their ego? Or is it some surrogate persona?

It has always struck me as more of a performance. And that's the problem with social media. Rather than encouraging an individual to be themselves and arrive at their own values independently, it on the contrary encourages inauthenticity -- perhaps not intentionally by the developers of the websites in the beginning, but it emerges through behaviour of the users.

Rather than accepting of all people, people with deviant-discourse views are vilified very publicly, and either remove themselves from the platform or instead surround themselves with supporters from the deviant side. Social media does bring people together, but it doesn't bring everyone together, it just promotes the formation of ideological tribes.

This effect of uniting and dividing people into tribes isn't constrained to social media. Marketing, advertising, indeed many aspects of how capitalist society has evolved has a similar effect of forming tribes. Adverts and marketing tell people that they should do a thing, and then those who agree gravitate to that product, and those who disagree gravitate toward an opposing product or a steadfast disapproval of any product in the space, and they come to define themselves by that approval or disapproval.

Ask a person to define who they are. They will tell their name, their age, their occupation, where they were born and/or live, and then they'll most likely move on to what they like and dislike, what they believe and don't believe. They define themselves according to details they think are important to others and in relation to other things, usually things made by corporations or governments/bodies of power.

- A name doesn't define a person, it's simply how you refer to them in conversation or get their attention without ambiguity in the presence of other humans.

- Age also doesn't define a person. People look older and younger than they actually are all the time, and in my experience it has little bearing on the person's wisdom or intrigue.

- Occupation matters not. All you need is the understanding that your occupation is what you do to pay for food, water, shelter and your hobbies/downtime. It can also be what you actually want to achieve with your life, but this isn't essential as long as you have awareness.

- What a person likes and dislikes is not a defining feature, it's at best an expression of a person's taste. It is a description of a relation between a person and other things. Tastes are easily feigned to please others, easily changed and highly likely to change over time, and while they can be used to stereotype people, I'm pretty sure stereotyping people is considered a bad thing to do.

- Belief and disbelief aren't defining and also don't make a great deal of sense, since to believe is to hold that something is true without data -- holding that something is true OR false without data is nonsensical, and thus pointless to communicate to others, because they'll either have the same nonsensical belief or an opposing one, and probably won't be very amenable to having their belief(s) changed since there is no data to argue from.

Ultimately, people don't know who they are, they know what their profile page(s) should say, and these "defining" characteristics are most likely things for which they are a willing standard bearer, things that they want to shine out like a lighthouse to attract or ward off the types of people they will get along with and not get along with. There are people that do have a notion of who they are, but I suspect they are likely too scared to reveal it, precisely because people are polarised, capricious, and unforgiving.

Perhaps that's what it is, social media actually encourages people to both fall in line with a stereotype and to stereotype others. Certainly, I think social media also distorts the personality of the user as well. I avoid social media like the plague, primarily because the content social media sites generate is of little interest to me. I have absolutely no understanding of why anyone would want to do social media stuff -- so I cannot speak from any personal experience.

I've created a profile on some of them for the sake of communicating with someone who refused to communicate by other means, but never have I felt inclined to use the platforms because... it's just not for me, I don't understand it. I prefer to toil in the shadows and live my life, without sharing it.

Anyway, something I have observed throughout my life is that the personality is performative, i.e. most people will act differently if they have an audience. It either causes them to withdraw and hide features of who they are, or it will encourage them to reveal as much of themselves as possible and even to fabricate features of their persona that aren't authentic.

This kind of behaviour is easy enough to observe in work contexts, and my intuition tells me that social media must surely have a similar effect on people. With thousands of people watching out for what banal thought you share next.

The result is that not only are you exposed to the whole of the other, but you're exposed to the super-other that forms (depending on the subject type) through audience demand and expectations, or through the subject's desire to provoke a certain reaction in their audience, or indeed to attract a certain audience to serve their agenda.

Much of the social media landscape is essentially just memetic. Probably quite fascinating to study if you're interested in how utterly twisted and inauthentic people can become by living an observed and performed life, rather than simply living according to their own principles, resolute and only subject to observation when necessary to achieve, say, professional or academic goals.

* * *

I'd like to bring up something Douglas Adams wrote about in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. He imagined an alien race called the Belcerabons, who enjoyed peace and success, no doubt in part thanks to their being a wholly quiet civilization. A Galactic Tribunal of other races, envious of their success and perceived smugness, infected them with a disease that gave them the curse of forced telepathy -- every thought would be broadcast from each Belcerabon to the rest of their kind. The only way that they could silence the artillery of communicating their every thought to each other was to constantly talk to each other instead, probably preferable just to retain some control over communicating private or awkward thoughts and instead talking about the weather etc.

While Adams was undoubtedly poking fun at the sorry state of the human race when it comes to those nauseating conversations about the local weather conditions and what was eaten for lunch on a previous day, I do find it amusing that constantly bombarding one another with banalities ought to be considered a curse, and yet we have somehow managed to develop our civilization around technological platforms for that very purpose.

For example, you can't "agree to disagree" on LGBTQ rights if you belong to one of those categories. See also pregnant people and abortion rights.

Why can’t you? Is it impossible to imagine civil friendly people who simply do not share one’s views on these issues?

It's not as polarised these days, but it was within my lifetime that consensual homosexual sex between adults was illegal in many parts of the world. It still is in some countries. You cannot "agree to disagree" when someone believes you are broken or sinful or whatever and wants to put you in jail.

That's just one example.

I'm straight, white dude. It's very easy for me to ignore issues like this, because most of the time, they're in my favour. That's just the world.

In the real world, two very different people might meet and start to build a history and a good deal of rapport and trust with each other before ever getting anywhere close to a divisive issue. When they do eventually get there, without a mob watching, without the fear of every word going in the permanent record, the conversation would likely be far less of a dumpster fire, and minds might actually be changed.

As it is, a lot of the discourse you see online is indescribably bad, and I think a lot of it is down to throwing two strangers into a conversation that they would never naturally arrive at upon first meeting.

the conversations are about important things that effect your life, the conversations themselves aren't important and don't actually effect your life.

I believe it’s very important to be able to calmly and genially argue points which are important to you. There may not be any value in merely being able to argue calmly and politely for points in which you have no interest.

I absolutely hate that my ability to participate in modern society without harassment for things that are inherent to my existence is limited and I hope that one day we can move past this kind of foolishness as a species.

That means one side thinks the other side is a child abuser, and the other side thinks that bigots are going to throw them in prison for being a supportive parent.

This is not something you can be "polite" about.

2. It was a clarification of existing rules

3. It does not make "supporting your child's gender transition" a jailable offense.

The order says subjecting a child to invasive medical procedure can be abuse, and that doctors and teachers have a legal requirement to report abuse.

Here is the order for your reading pleasure:

https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-directs-dfps...

Where "subject" appears to be the most general form possible, as far as I can tell from context.

Even puberty blockers are on this list! You're not supporting a gender transition if you can't touch hormones at all.

Wow, finally a law against infant male circumcision!

In Texas, of all places; whodathunkit.

Edit: also wtf does that have to do with sex? Do you mean the larger subject of child consent in general? Because contract law would be a less extreme example of children not having power of informed consent.

With LGBTQ it is therefore not just a difference of opinion on taxation, or a few percentage points difference in a tariff. For trans people it's about whether the other person even acknowledges that you can be trans.

If one, however, goes out of their way to harass transexual people when stating this preference, then yeah, it's a bit transphobic. Intention matters.

I'd say it is a probably a minority position but it is a genuinely held one

Whoever brought it up has some deep unresolved issues, however. Or was fishing for an argument.

EDIT: It's like fetishes. Preferences are fine and should be respected, but they're also better kept off private. Telling people of a specific ethnicity you're "into them" is also kinda creepy.

This was in the context one of those kink quizzes regarding what things someone was into, so genders, fetishes, bodily features, sex acts, etc. It isn't like someone just announced to a bar "I'd never date a transperson" out of nowhere.

I wonder what their position is towards someone who prefers trans people.

They'd consider it fetishism, unless said person was also trans and only preferred other trans people because of wanting that shared life experience.

Their point was that thinking of trans women as different to women as a group was inherently bigoted.

I think that depends on your social circle.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57853385 has some examples of people for whom this was clearly not a strawman as of 5 months ago.

I would equate a trans woman calling themselves a trap to being the same as a black person calling themselves the N word. It's a way of taking back a slur.

My preference here is to refer to people however they want to be referred to. When I adopted that view, I thought it was very safe but it has actually landed me in hot water many times. I still stand by it though.

Reclaiming != identifying as.

The person you're defending even went on to say that his mentality has gotten him into hot water. The fact that you didn't read into that as "I have no idea what I'm talking about and these people clearly didn't want to be called this" is disconcerting.

And yes, if you are not a person of color and you use a slur traditionally used to describe a person of color to describe or talk about a person of color, you are racist. Full stop. The very fact that you're concocting some outlandish situation where you'd magically be allowed to use slurs is extremely telling, though. If you had any idea what you were talking about, you wouldn't ask that.

Maybe you should stop opining on things and listen to the parties these things affect. The usage of slurs isn't yours to have an opinion on if the slurs aren't words for you.

Slurs are partially the actual word and partially the intent behind them. Once you get to know someone very well, it's typically the case that there is an understanding of no mutual malice between you and them. It is this context that "reclaiming" comes into the picture, because you have a shared perception of what the intent is. You might've heard of the "n-word pass"–it's kind of a meme, but before it was the concept was legitimate and the sentiment was that you're on good enough terms with someone that they know you're not trying to be malicious to them when you use it. It's a sign of trust, and to put it in vernacular, you can't "transfer" a n-word pass because it's a product of your individual relationship.

Putting it a in slightly different context, I (jokingly, of course…) call my mom old and senile when she forgets something in a dumb way ("Where did I put my phone, I've searched the entire house…oh, it was right in front of me where I put it down seconds ago"). She knows I am not directing hatred towards her. With that said, just because I can call her old and senile doesn't mean you can do it, or that I can go do it to any middle-aged woman. But because both of us know each other, it's totally fine to say this among ourselves because it's shared language to us.

Now, with that in mind, I don't think the commenter actually was trying to justify being able to go around calling any person they saw a slur. How would they get in trouble for this? Well, I look different enough from my mom that our relationship isn't immediately evident all the time. If called her old and senile within earshot of someone else, it could definitely look like I was being a jerk if they weren't aware we knew each other beforehand. If I did it around other women of the same age, it could really cause issues. I would certainly not consider either of these a wise thing to do, but in my eyes these are really more a lack of tact or maybe misunderstanding of the context you're in rather than just a racist person wanting to be racist.

(You might be wondering why I would choose to use these words at all…I think the answer to that is really what reclamation is about. Nobody wants to be old and senile, but it's a thing that happens. My mom appreciates it that it's something we can joke about, and I think it helps her deal with it in a way. My understanding is that mutual use of slurs on friendly terms has a similar effect. There's a more extreme form of reclamation of "I think anyone can call me these words, even if I don't really know them, because I'm just really confident/proud of this" but I understand that's not for everyone, and it's definitely something that you can't just assume about people.)

Anyways, to circle back to the original topic, I don't even think my interpretation is a good faith interpretation, it just seems like the more likely interpretation, which is that the commenter has situations where the slurs is normalized and even encouraged by the people who they apply to. You seem to have interpreted this as "the commenter thinks that this means its OK to use them generally because they are racist" but this just doesn't seem to be the case to me. (And if it is…I definitely don't support that.) That's basically all I wanted to bring up.

(One final thing that has more to do with the sentiment of your comment rather than its content, which I think is solid: it seems like you wrote it from the perspective that I'm, at best, woefully misinformed and isolated from marginalized communities, and at worst some sort of closet bigot which you can discern from my comments. I'm a real human being with real empathy and real experience and real faults! I understand that this is a topic you're passionate about, perhaps maybe one you're tired of discussing, but you don't have to attack me to express your opinions on it. Even if it sounds like I'm disagreeing with you, I'm here to interact with new perspectives and learn from them. I only ask that you don't immediately dismiss me as close-minded, as doing so from the start only makes that more likely, rather than less.)

Ie, these debates are not between "pro-lgbtq" and "anti-lgbtq".

Instead most of these debates are more nuanced and complicated. I picked the "trap" debate because it's hotly contested, with both sides swearing up and down they are pro-lgbtq and both sides would even claim to be more pro-lgbtq than their opponents.

Which is to say, you can probably ignore the debate and not care, still be pro-lgbtq, and go back to playing your board game, even with friends who have a different ideological position on that particular debate.

A lot of social media fights are about this scale.

I think mutual respect also plays a part here. My respect, demeanor towards, and willingness to play Settlers with someone who believes LGBTQIA+ people are sinners depends a lot on whether or not that person engages in honest, consensual debate and respects the human on the other side. That is how we form good relationships and strengthen our collective understanding. I wish to underscore the importance of consensual debate, especially when there's a power gradient.

I will say though, "Do gay people get basic rights" is _very much_ still a subject of debate. Sadly.

On the contrary: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/texa...

Eeh, it's still "do gay people get basic rights" for many even in the United States. I've seen folks have last wills overturned by family through insidious legal maneuvers. I've seen doctors refuse to contact patients with biopsy results because their patients were trans. And I've seen folks even withhold paychecks from LGBT folks because of their religious nonsense. So, basic rights are still a matter of contention until it becomes not merely a legal formality that LGBT folks are equal under the law but that the entire population does not even think that they have a chance to violate those formalities and that they feel bad about thinking of doing such a thing. Until that happens, LGBT discussions will always go back to "do gay people have basic rights?".

For gay, it means keeping secret over pretty large and important parts of life. As was explained to me by gay who was super civil, but did grumbled and complained about a lot of stuff that was said when it was safe to talk more openly.

You can choose to hold that opinion if you want, but most LGBTQ+ people and their loved ones will choose not to interact with you as a result.

Of course, let's put the transphobes and trans people on the same room. That should play out well, like KKK and black people and Nazis and the Jews, right?

There are even Ls and Gs who think Bs are "faking it".

The trick is that it's not a boolean question. Someone can be gay and anti-trans and this is trivially true.

I've seen a shirt that says "Bi now, gay later"

I think I know why gay men tend to take this view way more often than the rest of the acronym, though: straight men don't hit on gay men, but straight men constantly hit on lesbians. If I had a nickel every time I heard "I can turn you straight," I'd be closing in on a couple dollars by now.

Oftentimes a position, belief, or disagreement is a projection of other underlying fears and discomforts. Or maybe it's simply rigidly structured views that need additional time to process new shapes.

If an intergalactic enemy suddenly showed up on our doorsteps and started attacking us, we'd all band together.

https://www.salon.com/2007/10/08/lgbt/

If you have a stronger source I'm open to being convinced, but otherwise I don't find one anecdotal account very convincing. I can't easily get to the cited books to get any more clarity they might have.

And again, I'm talking about fairly fundamental things here. If someone is pregnant, that's pretty conversation worthy. I also can't imagine someone not discussing seeing a new partner.

Ironically, the things you can "agree to disagree" on tend to be the ones that might not come up.

But not all pregnancies are wanted. I have had friends talk to me about their decision wrt an unwanted pregnancy.

In the past we used the word "women", but that has been commandeered... Hence my comment about "person" and IWD.

"People". Anyone and everyone has the biology to bare children; you just need to help them undress.

(Not that it's recommended, unless you're their parent or otherwise legitimately required to do that.)

My point was about how some people cannot simply “agree to disagree” when important issues are at stake. I provided some simple examples. It’s quite annoying that some people insist on litigating the examples instead of discussing the actual point.

You do not get to take part in any community without having a political stance - being part of a community is communicating that you agree with the morals and values of the community and wilfully accept them - thats the basis and general agreement of a community, it's what differentiates a group of people from a community.

Now, Im not sure that turning a blind eye to the consequences that this has is inherently wrong, that surely depends on what impact the concrete political/moral/ethical stance has, but I disagree with the notion that, really, anything is apolitical. In context, everything is political, and we have to live with the notion that anything we do has impact on other people, as long as the consequences of the the thing we are doing is visible to other people.

Your second argument is "everything affects everything else". Using that argument we can prove that we're all mass murderers for keeping our thermostats at 70 degrees. One reason this way of thinking is so useless is that it fails to single out actual murderers (i.e. the person who pulls the trigger).

It's what drives engagement & wins votes.

One side views abortion as a moral sin. The other thinks that access to healthcare is a value and have a moral obligation to fight for the rights of women.

There are a bunch of issues like that.

For me right now my LGBTQ community is being used by Republicans as an election issue. An example where one side thinks (or pretends to in order to win votes) that it's some political issue, while I and many others feel like it's a direct attack on our lives akin to racism & racist jim crow era laws.

How about all the people who view abortion as a sin but think it should be legal anyway? You know, like Joe Biden and every other liberal Catholic.

You're just spitting out talking points.

But even that example still mixes morals, values, & politics. Joe Biden values legal autonomy & access.

And it is a fundamental campaign issue. He would not win the Dem primary if he was against abortion. You can't un mix the two it's blurred.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EXVrzOACv4

Edit: It's also a lot easier to stay "apolitical" when you don't have any skin in the game (or rather, don't think you do). When your rights don't feel threatened, it's really easy to go with the status quo.

And then I realised I hated the trajectory I was on, and I deleted every single post and the account.

I now have an account and, like the article says, I don't post.

Twitter is a bonfire of nastiness.

You either give in to it or you have to commit to spending an awful lot of time ignoring the cesspit of general awfulness, and pretending bad faith is good faith for the purposes of dialogue with sealions who learned their chops through Gamergate.

If you tire of all that (or if you are a woman and tire of the astonishing, violent sexualised nastiness that you disproportionately attract) and make use of the conversation controls so you can continue to peacefully discuss things only with people you want to, everyone else accuses you of being "aFrAiD oF dEbAtE" or censorship, everywhere else. (Including here.)

Stuff that.

Folks try to have nuanced discussion on Twitter but it's not possible when it's so reactionary and atomized. I no longer tweet either. I go on Twitter to find interesting people to follow in other forums, not to talk to anyone. I am a silent tweeter, heh.

I’m a little burned out fighting over user preferences across social media that seem to always toggle themselves back to whatever default the platform wants that day.

I am not sure what the solution is. It’s a societal pandora’s box and it’s open.

Still gonna get the retweets, but you won’t get the most “engaging” stuff brought to your attention which tends to be the worst.

Which is itself a political stance. It’s not a universal truth but a very narrow political ideology. Never mind that “political” is not a well-defined thing to begin with.

If we can’t agree to neutral territory then one of the sides is going to have to win. Because you can’t bully your way to victory.

We need more meetings of the mind and fewer meetings of unfalsifiable rhetoric. Fewer crusaders and more peacemakers.

It does show retweets, though.

> everything can be viewed through the lens of politics

You wouldn't say "everything is geographical" because that would be absurd (just as absurd as "everything is political") but you could view most topics through the lens of geography if that was the hammer turning all your concerns into nails.

Sorting by "Latest" rather than "Home" makes it so you don't see their likes and replies. I would recommend it to anyone.

I don't use twitter anymore but when I did I used these features to make it less toxic.

Ultimately most of the outrage/cancel culture/ and other political tribalism tweets originate from a relatively small fraction of users. I’ve blocked thousands of users over the last few years and it’s working out great. It almost feels like the old days of using Twitter. :)

Also, there are so many narcissists there...

Conveniently, these are people who want everything to be about their political values and beliefs, and anyone who disagrees is a fascist/nazi.

You can also turn off retweets for those people. Twitter does seem to have some idiotic take on what I want to see.

Twitter isn't code. Why would you expect someone to limit what they publish to code topics just because you want to limit what you read to just code things? Their Twitter account is their domain. There's no reason why someone shouldn't tweet about code and other stuff if they want to.

I honestly have no idea why people think they should have any say over what someone tweets, and even suggest that people are wrong to tweet the way they do. That level of entitlement is baffling.

Please don't follow me on Twitter. You'll hate my account.

You can still tweet whatever you want, but Twitter would be more usable for many people if you could cherry pick the signal and get rid of the noise.

Followed, of course, just for that.

Hey, an old retweet of yours already got me blocked by some fuckwit who, like Mike Pence, can't trust himself to be alone with women other than his wife, so that's a win all around! :-D

https://gist.github.com/robinsloan/a045d26c513681f13680f319f...

I've heard this argument before a lot, and it just seems like a massive assumption. You can't read peoples minds.

There are several plausible reasons to ignore and not discuss politics:

- You don't want to argue

- You don't think it will change anything

- You don't want to lose friends and acquaintances

- You don't want to find out someone you respect is "one of them"

- If the aggregate political beliefs of your industry does not match your own, you don't want to "out" yourself

- You want to change the status quo, but not in the way other people want it changed

- Your political beliefs are not strongly held

- You don't feel knowledgeable enough (I wish this was more common and people would share their opinions less when they know close to nothing).

I personally don't want to discuss politics much even if people agree with me - it either turns into a weird intellectual circle jerk, or gripe session about how evil the "other" is. Neither of which I really enjoy.

In short there are a lot more reasons to try and avoid politics than there are to seek them out. Being happy with the status quo is one needle in a haystack of other reasons.

I think it's more common than you think to stay out of it. The unfortunate thing about the asymmetrical communication afforded by social media is that you don't see the hundreds of people that didn't engage with what someone said.

At least that's what I tell myself when i see a bunch of comments that are out there. All the people that aren't crazy probably just didn't want to engage.

Because it's true?

> I've heard this argument before a lot, and it just seems like a massive assumption. You can't read peoples minds.

One doesn't need to. Some logical reasoning is sufficient. Also, they often spell it out -- just like you did here:

> There are several plausible reasons to ignore and not discuss politics:

And they (almost) all boil down to "not wanting to rock the boat", i.e. tacitly or explicitly supporting the status quo.

> - You don't want to argue

= You value not arguing over changing something even if it were better to change it.

> - You don't think it will change anything

= You value not bothering over even trying to change what should be changed.

> - You don't want to lose friends and acquaintances

= You value your friends and acquaintances over necessary change even when they are against it

> - You don't want to find out someone you respect is "one of them"

= You covet your acquaintances so much you don't even want to know if they're actually for all that is evil in the world? Wow, that's really small-minded.

> - If the aggregate political beliefs of your industry does not match your own, you don't want to "out" yourself

Finally one that is at least understandable. But, still boils down to turning a blind eye to everyone supporting the (potentially evil) status quo in favour of making a living.

> - You want to change the status quo, but not in the way other people want it changed

= That is a political reason, only the tactical one of probably not getting your particular politics through.

> - Your political beliefs are not strongly held

= Again, valuing the political status quo over the discomfort of advocating your weakly held convictions.

> - You don't feel knowledgeable enough (I wish this was more common and people would share their opinions less when they know close to nothing).

Another at least semi-valid one. One alternative would of course be to educate oneself about one's weakly held convictions, so one could either abandon them if they turn out to have been wrong, or represent them with some conviction if they were right. I mean, what's the use of having any opinions at all if one is apathetic about them?

> I personally don't want to discuss politics much even if people agree with me - it either turns into a weird intellectual circle jerk, or gripe session about how evil the "other" is. Neither of which I really enjoy.

OK, true. Not very applicable to Twitter as a whole, though, AFAICS: it's big enough that there's always some non-apathetic discussion going on about pretty much anything.

> In short there are a lot more reasons to try and avoid politics than there are to seek them out. Being happy with the status quo is one needle in a haystack of other reasons.

Nope, as shown above almost all those reasons boil down to being more OK with the status quo than with trying to change it, which is a political stance in favour of the status quo. It's a tree-sized "needle" in a small-to-medium haystack.

Not saying you personally are an absolute arsehole for this stance; I'm much the same myself (as are, I assume, most of us). Just thought you should at least know that this is actually what you're doing, in stead of deceiving yourself (and, with the comment above, abetting others in deceiving themselves).

Do you want to hear from them a lot? Do you wish there were more of them in your twitter feed?

Maybe yours do matter. Maybe you're a player with NGOs, elected government, media, academia, big business, or civil service. Mine don't though, I'm just another peasant who wants to keep his family safe and healthy. I wish things could be better but I see no viable path for that to happen that involves arguing politics on the internet.

The one concrete thing that could improve things for me and mine is making more money. LARPing as somebody important on twitter by arguing politics would just be a distraction from that.

lol wut? Not parent poster, but I post here precisely because I know my views don't matter. This is idle chitchat with people in a similar line of work. There were a few times I've actually had something to say, and you can bet your ass I didn't post it on Hacker News.

But even taking you at your word, I think you're wrong. You clearly believe the view you're promoting here, and it's obviously important to you to contradict me, important enough to spend both your time and mine on it. There are a million ways you could spend your idle time, and it's not an accident that you picked this one over the other 999,999 options.

@dang, please un-deadify those if you can. (Yeah, I know: Don't argue about downvotes, yadda yadda. But also: Don't abuse flagging, right? So sometimes, in order to point out the latter, you have to do the former.)

___

[1]: i.e. not this one, but the grandparent and great-great-grandparent (or thereabouts).

[2]: Just to take the most inflammatory examples that came immediately to mind.

[3]: And, at least AFAICS, factually true.

Everyone says politics is about values, but it's more than that. Politics is values plus an implementation. Sometimes I see the worst takes or disdain from people who's values I fundamentally agree with, but we disagree on the implementation.

This isn't at all what the GP said, and that fact is one of the biggest reasons we don't like engaging in these types of conversations: a hostile stranger is liable to stop in and hammer you with a comment that reeks of contempt and disdain, and egregiously distorts what you said.

"I don't want to experience all the worst experiences that anyone on the planet is having" is an extremely different statement from "my life should be better than anyone who is less fortunate than me". If you fail to distinguish these two, you're definitely just as guilty of the latter as anyone else.

So, sorry, we're not here for it. And if you want to persuade us into being here for it, distortion-loaded shaming definitely isn't the way to accomplish that.

I'd go further and say the poster you're responding to is non charitable and down right hateful, violating at least two community guidelines:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Again with the mind-reading. Maybe people don't want to talk politics because so many people debate in bad faith and not only put words in peoples mouths, but thoughts into their heads.

Like covering all your food in a bottle of Sriracha, political Twitter can be fun at first, but eventually you're going to get sick with diarrhea and need a break. In my case, a permanent one.

I am happy to do real things for marginalized people, like vote, hire fairly, support progressive policies, etc. but exposing myself to that place does no one any good.

For what it's worth, though, my Twitter experience is pretty different. I follow a wide variety of people. Some of my feed is politics. A lot isn't. If you just have it show you a strict time-ranked feed and discourage it from suggesting stuff to you, you can tailor the experience quite a bit.

It seems like you're reading the original comment as saying "I feel justified in never thinking about marginalized people and systematically preventing myself from seeing anything that might prompt that thinking"... and I think that's a really big leap to make. There are ways to be informed without exposing yourself to the firehose of everyone's random opinions and feelings, which can be a complete lose-lose proposition, damaging your own mental health and relationships without helping anyone.

I am really into politics and participate in political debate on Slack or Discord servers and private Signal or Telegram groups with an identity that can be traced back to me with zero effort almost daily or weekly. Some are bigger than others. I would never ever do it on Twitter unless I was trying to start a side-gig as a journalist or a cult-leader or whatever. Not caring about what people on Twitter say about politics is far from not caring about politics at all.

Letting everyone know this is probably really good for your public image. You sound so selfless.

It's pretty sad to realize that there are people who go through life only doing things based on how what they do will benefit their image or perception by others.

Some people have the the ability to do it subconsciously, perhaps without even realising it.

As an LGBT latino software developer thanks for this. I was not even thinking about "diversity issue" when I wrote the the grandparent post but I'm not surprised it's the first thing that came up from a "Twitter Star".

Everyone believes this. There are too many people in the world to hear about all the problems. The problem with twitter is not that you hear about peoples problems, it's that you hear about too many to grok. The most political people I know are still periodically taking breaks from twitter because it's too much.

No, they don't, because they invite this exact reply whenever they try to do so.

Seriously though. When he says "ignore politics" it doesn't mean you get to live without them happening. It means you get to decide not to care. Getting the reply doesn't mean you don't get to ignore it.

Everyone gets to decide not to care. I'm in a marginalized group and temporarily suspending caring is the primary coping mechanism for the stress political fights in, around, and about the group can cause.

It's not like I'm in a warzone where every moment is a struggle at the precipice of failure. While our progress will take continued dedication that I do feel obligated to lend my time to, I can let my guard down the vast majority of the time.