#discourse meta

[wirsindkrieg]

Discourse protip: If you see a post and it makes you angry, don't immediately reply to it.

Whatever it is, set it aside for at least a full day. If you absolutely have to interact in some way, save the post in your drafts without adding a single word to it.

The key here is to never put words down when you're angry, because that clouds your judgment and can cause you to misinterpret what's being said in whatever way pisses you off most. And one of the fundamental things about healthy discourse is to disagree with what's being said, not what you think is being said.

If you need to get things out of your head and off your chest, take it to a private venue. Bitch about it with a friend, or share it in a private group chat where that kind of thing is allowed. This has the dual purpose of keeping you from publicly reacting immediately, as well as getting outside opinions; there's always the possibility you're reading into things too much, and it can be helpful to have someone you know say, "Hey, I think you're being a dick here."

Setting things aside for a full day also gives you time to get your thoughts in order so that you can present your view as clearly as possible. If you've got friends with level heads who are willing to help, bounce ideas off of them until you know exactly what you want to say.

Then, importantly, you only write your response when you aren't pissed off. Take as much time as you need to get centered before you put words down, and if you feel that anger rising while you write, stop and take a break. That's what drafts are for.

Tumblr isn't a live group chat. You're not going to miss out on the opportunity to say your piece because you waited too long. You can respond to things days or even weeks later.

The key is to make sure that you're actually responding, and not reacting.

[ratbastarddotfuck]

I believe if people could redirect from "nobody in [movement] says/believes [harmful/bigoted thing], you're making up a strawman," - which falls heavily into the no-true-scotsman fallacy, invalidates the potential real experience whoever you're talking to, and creates convenient cover for people who DO hold & spread harmful beliefs within your movement -

to something more like

"I don't believe [harmful/bigoted thing], and I don't take seriously anyone in [movement] who does. I'm sorry you've seen people saying this, I'd be interested to hear more about your experience & maybe talk with you about mine?"

we could really re-engage some good faith and de-escalate some interpersonal conflicts that happen on-dashboard. "Nobody ever says this" is my least favourite thing to see in an argument, especially from someone I think is more or less in the right lol. Mostly because it is almost never true, is immediately invalidating and hostile to whoever you're talking to, and can be easily proven wrong by the fact that there are SO many people in this world.

In every social group and every movement, there are people who will use it as a cover to do some abhorrent shit! You MUST be able to recognise this if you want your movement to be taken seriously or to survive. You must be able to criticise problems within the movement. You must be able to acknowledge this to the people who have been hurt using the name of your movement. Being hostile to them will only continue to give you a bad name. YES even if you think it's a strawman. I promise you, they'll find a fleshman.

Be open to not acting morally superior to everyone you talk to or be prepared to lose the class war. This is part of cultivating a de-reactionary mindset. We need this if we want to live.

[therapatical]

"but isn't it kinda hypocritical to say that about someone while literally assuming their own emotions, despite the other person also being a stranger to you?"

you could see it that way if you took an absolutist stance on it, but I hate absolutism (for the most part). for me, I'm deducing this based on multiple other assumptions I've guessed, that I have then seen direct evidence of being correct. I can extremely easily predict the other person's behavior (down to nearly word-for-word what I think the next response will be), yet the other person fails to predict mine the vast majority of the time. every time they have tried to guess my emotional state and my thought process, they have been incorrect. meanwhile, they claim that I am incorrect in my own assessments, yet every action of theirs continues to support that I am right about their mental state & thought process.

of course, that's not all-encompassing, and I don't claim to know every single little thing people like that are thinking, feeling, or doing. there are many moments where I have an inkling about what might be the case, but I don't tend to declare that until there's enough evidence that I feel fairly confident in it. and, oftentimes, I can sense a general vibe, even if I can't nail down the exact train of thought or route that is being taken. ofc, I could still be wrong. that's never an impossibility. but that seems very unlikely when it accurately predicts the next action. unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility.

the key differences here are that

a) I have a high bar for evidence in general (which is also why I hate commenting on situations unless I know all of the facts and multiple perspectives),

b) I have been proven right several times whereas the other person continues to be wrong about me,

c) all of the evidence presented as reasons for why the other person thinks they are correct in their own faulty assessments are all conjectures based on common social scripts and human reactions that do not accurately describe me and how I am known to react,

d) I have had countless people tell me that I have seen/validated/understood them (emotionally) in ways that no one else ever has, so I at least have some external evidence that it's not all in my head lol,

e) the errors made in "misinterpretations" show a disconnect with themselves and a lack of self-awareness, crucially pertaining to lack of self awareness of their own poor discernment of others

f) I never claim to be 100% certain of... almost anything I say? there's always a possibility that I'm wrong, and I'm more than willing to change my opinions on things given new information. being better at discerning people's biases doesn't mean that I'm correct 100% of the time, just that I'm generally more accurate than most other people tend to be (in my decades of experience on this earth lol)

the ironic thing about the vast majority of deductive reasoning is that the principles you use to end up at a conclusion can very rarely be used as a litmus test, yet (some) people seem to think that everything not passing that "test" (i.e. can be applied perfectly and in non-contradicting ways 100% of the time) means that it's useless and wrong, even if the tool that you're using is still accurate 90% of the time. you use multiple tools and angles of deduction to arrive at most decisions you make in your life. the cumulative effort gives you an intersection point that is as high as you can possibly get (with the information you currently have)--much higher than any of those single tools on their own. and, hey, sometimes that's still not very high. but sometimes it is!! sometimes it's damn near 100%! but if you had dismissed half of the tools you used to get along the way, solely because they weren't applicable 100% of the time, you'd have gotten a way shittier probability of being correct in the end. this also describes some of my frustrations with a.....lot of online discourse in general, because people will use fringe cases as a way to say that something is inaccurate (and therefore should be discarded completely and never touched or talked about ever), when that is itself a really bad idea.

(again, I am using the current situation as a bit of an example, but this has happened to me over and over again for most of my life, so I am using they/them pronouns in order to denote that this is more broad and general of a discussion/phenomenon that doesn't exist solely within this one incidence)

[metapianycist]

imagine the world we could make if we didn't directly or indirectly tell other people "you're wrong about your gender"

[tototavros]

beta level thought:

there's a lot of posts out there that will be very helpful to some people, very harmful to others, and i dislike that because one post may be harmful to another, often the agitation is that it should not have been made by the original poster

there's a counterargument that it's just informing the op of the harm that was done so that the op will not do more harm in the future which is...idk, it only makes sense as a function of OP's general spreadiness, than anthing else

not sure how to phrase this better, i keep trying to caveat this with ways but i think it's a illustration of the point so i'll keep it uncaveated:

sometimes, there may be no way to make the post in a way that isn't harmful in the way specified, that keeps the goodness of the original post, and so other means of avoiding harm (in many ways, not by the poster!) should be advised instead

[whogivesa-ship]

Honestly the whole Tumblr culture of “don’t do X or I’ll (violent threat)” needs to stop. Yes, even when it’s obviously a joke. Imagine how scary that stuff sounds to people who speak limited English or have trouble with social cues or deal with irrational paranoia on a regular basis. Yes, I know people don’t mean it as anything other than a comical exaggeration, but they should think about how they sound anyway.

[lines-and-edges]

The trauma I got from being societally infantilized through my teens was bad enough, but I managed to escape being suicidal, not counting brief labile event responses.

Those years were a much better environment for a person like me than these. And during the era where teens weren't so badly policed about exhibiting any interest in anything sexual, I could function for several years as if I wasn't particularly traumatized by it.

This blog is made, in large part, in response to the recent popularity of attitudes that would have literally killed me when I was fifteen, eighteen, nineteen.

It's the things I calmly explain to my screaming adolescent self to show them that their experiences are real and their life is worth living.

I carry with me every day the memory of what it was to be young and developmentally unusual, failing at my assigned gender, mentally ahead of myself but perceived as younger in person due to my autistic affect. I'm legitimately terrified for everyone who is going through some version of that right now.

Please, stay safe. There's life on the other side of this.

There are people to whom you won't ever be able to prove your legitimacy as a human being, because they're stuck in a conception of the world that doesn't include your existence. Pay them no mind. They have their own best interests at heart, but not yours.

Nobody knows everything, nobody who is alive is finished growing; adults who think they are will belittle you over the fact that you're not "done" but in reality they're just bitter and stagnating. Making good choices in any given area of life is a skill everyone has to learn; time helps but isn't everything. It also takes investigation and critical thought.

The people who refuse to see you as a person because you're still growing and learning are people you'll ultimately come out ahead of in life, if you make up your mind to keep growing and learning when you're twice and twice again your age, and they don't bother to start again.

[senalishia]

All the fucking time on this website:

OP: *thoughtful, nuanced discussion of sides A and B of an argument.

An absolute fucking genius, 10 seconds later: BUT BUT BUT HAVE YOU CONSIDERED: SIDE A!!!

really just can't stand to see one of those enemy soldiers left alive can they