7 ms·

In the last couple years especially I feel like I am walking on eggshells when talking to people. Especially when talking to people I don't know as well. It fee

by Fogest 6y ago

In the last couple years especially I feel like I am walking on eggshells when talking to people. Especially when talking to people I don't know as well. It feels so easy to offend someone these days and I'm getting sick of it. I've been having to unfollow a ton of podcasts recently because no matter how far from being related to politics some podcasts are, they just love to make sure a chunk of the episode is devoted to calling white people privileged and talking about different groups burdens. I was listening to a podcast episode talking about Skyways in a city and somehow half the podcast ended up being about how the skyways affected certain racial groups. It's a podcast that is supposed to be focused on the cool architectural features and infrastructure of cities. Somehow it ends up being a political podcast about racial inequality. Sometimes I just want to be able to relax, but I feel like wherever I go whether it be TV, Movies, Podcasts, or even the news, I feel like I am being attacked wherever I go and that I have to be afraid of offending someone with what I say. Even just making this comment I'm afraid it's going to be downvoted because of mentioning races in a somewhat negative sounding way.

_carbyau_ 6y ago
I don't mind thinking about nebulous things and fully considering their consequences, including societal ones. But that feeling of walking on eggshells is more related to a surveillance state coming from social media. More explanatory than I could be: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-07/social-cooling-are-you-self-conscious-about-what-you-click-on/8878948 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-07/social-cooling-are-yo...
- Fogest 6y ago
  Because of how policed the online world feels with what you say it often feels like it applies in public. However I have yet to work/interact with anyone who seems as far gone as the permanently offended Twitter users seem to be. I swear not a day goes by anymore where I don't here about Twitter going after another person trying to cancel them. We see people losing their jobs simply for sharing a more conservative view on Twitter. I've seen cases of actors losing jobs for sharing an edgy conservative meme, but than someone sharing almost the identical meme but liberal sided being completely fine. Nowadays it seems like even things like jobs can simply be determined by how outraged a group of random people feel. Actors lose jobs because people who probably don't even watch the show get upset by a single tweet they made. The world is starting to not make sense to me and just seems so illogical lately. No matter how factual and objective something is that you say, if it doesn't align with the current politically correct fad people will try to cancel you. People who make perfectly valid and factual claims get shut down by people who just simply call them a "racist" and say "you just don't get it". Instead of trying to help them understand and trying to use facts to logically debate someone they react with emotion and outrage. And then they get dogpilled into submission. I see why it's hard to find people opposing the current PC culture. As soon as anyone does they get called some "ism" and get cancelled.
  - boatsie 6y ago
    You also can’t defend anyone from getting canceled, as that makes you the “ism” as well. You must be anti-whatever“ism” or they will come after you as well.
    - Fogest 6y ago
      Yes exactly. Either you're "with" the mob or you're getting mobbed. The word police and thought police are in full force on sites like Twitter and reddit now.
      - psyc 6y ago
        It’s really ridiculous on TikTok.
        Fogest 6y ago
        I pretty much avoid platforms like TikTok and Twitter because of these kinds of things. I've even seen sections of TikToks with people pretty clearly faking mental disorders for attention. It's honestly kinda sad. I guess I am kinda glad I just missed the explosion of social media in school. I'm sure social media just creates so many more issues in young adults. And the weird things you do when you're young will forever be stored somewhere online.
    - psyc 6y ago
      When I was a little kid I went to a fundamentalist baptist church that worked exactly like this. If a deacon learned that someone wore a skirt above the knee, or listened to a pop song, that person was excommunicated. If anyone then contacted the apostate outside of church, they were excommunicated too. And so on. It’s a purity cult.
johnisgood 6y ago
These people (the genuine ones) lack context-awareness, so they could always find something racist, sexist, ableist, whateverist in anything you say. I just named something "blacklist" a couple of days ago. It has nothing to do with races, nor slavery. The only thing they have is a person in-between who connects the two because s/he is a troll, or because lacks context-awareness or whatever. I do not enable them.
- johncena33 6y ago
  > These people (the genuine ones) lack context-awareness No, they are very much aware of the context. Most of these people are just bullies, who have found a new way to mask their toxic behavior in the name of a good cause.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - johnisgood 6y ago
    I added "genuine ones" for a reason. There are lots of trolls, that is for sure. I cannot tell if there are more trolls than genuine ones though. I have seen bots, too. I remember there was a bot that sent pull requests to over 1000 projects if I remember correctly. All the pull requests involved changing words only, such as "blacklist" to "blocklist" or whatever. You know what is funny? Many of them were merged.
- Fogest 6y ago
  Yeah I personally try and avoid the word police. If I am using a grammatically and contextually correct word I am not going to let someone tell me I can't use the word. What's hilarious to me is that I think the people who find there to be a problem with these words are the racist ones themselves. They are taking a word out of context and being offended by it out of context. They are the ones looking at a word and thinking negative racist thoughts. When I use the word "master" or "blacklist" it has nothing to do with any old historical context or usage of the word. I am quite clearly using the word in a technical context as per the dictionary definition of the word. Anyone who thinks that is offensive is the true problem in my opinion.
richiebful1 6y ago
I understand that reckoning with racism is uncomfortable, but I don't understand how that 99 percent invisible episode is a personal attack on you. If anything, it's a reminder that well intensioned design (saving downtown) can have consequences (increased policing of Black men). I have seen and listened to a lot of race-conscious content over the last few years. As a white man, I can't say I've taken any of it as a personal attack. I'd be happy to talk more about this out of thread.
- Fogest 6y ago
  It's not that it is a personal attack, it's more that I expect more talk about the actual architecture and infrastructure behind the topic versus making it a political topic. I didn't notice them providing any statistics in regards to the racial issues. All I noticed was anecdotal evidence and an incredibly biased account of a single police encounter that happened back in 2014. They are using one guys story and a single incident involving police in order to talk about the negatives it had on other races. These are bold claims with little backing given. This is why I don't like when podcasts like this try and tackle these issues. Because they end up being incredibly biased and one-sided. They didn't provide the whole story on the police incident, nor did they provide any other points of views or statistic on the racial issues they mentioned. I like hearing well-researched and articulated pieces about racial inequality. What I don't like is hearing a biased opinion/anecdote filled podcast episode about it. It seems every Podcast I listen to now always has some weird need to make it political. This never used to be the case even just a couple years ago. Now we even see sporting programs taking sides in politics and it just seems so unnecessary. I often spend too much time deep into the weeds on these kinds of topics much like I am now. Sometimes I just want to consume some media without politics being involved. However it rarely seems like I am able to anymore. Even TV shows I watch now are starting to feel ruined and lack the good script writing they used to in favour of shoehorning whatever current PC thing is trending.
  - KozmoNau7 6y ago
    Everything is politics, and the fact that so many of us have managed to stay unaware and insulated from that for so long, is one of the clearest indicators of privilege there is.
deanCommie 6y ago
Let me ask you the question this way: Do you think it would be appropriate to teach an architectural course on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania_(city) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania_(city) without acknowledging the Nazi political context in which it materialized in? What about talking about Dubai's massive architectural and construction boom without recognizing the modern day quasi-slavery conditions that the workers operate in? Politics is everywhere whether we like it or not. If you feel that you can ignore it and not worry about it in 99.9% of your life (except when podcasts intrude on it), then congratulations - that is the definition of having privilege. (aside: explaining to you what you have privilege in is not an attack on you. You don't need to feel bad for having privilege - you didn't choose it. But you should understand in what ways your life is different from others). But others don't have that. A Sri Lankan migrant worker living in squalor pouring concrete in Dubai while his passport is withheld from him doesn't have the privilege to appreciate Dubai's skyscraper architecture without concern for the wellbeing of its builders. This is true in most of the world, but the US particularly has an especially racially-charged environment, primarily because due to denial for centuries by people exactly like you to have the conversations about how race plays into society and culture and architecture. We're going through a reckoning where people, corporations, and the media, are starting to recognize the impact of their philosophies. And you can't put that genie back in the bottle.
- Fogest 6y ago
  Unfortunately you did raise some fair points but I'm on HackerNews looking for constructive conversations without sly jabs and insults. > This is true in most of the world, but the US particularly has an especially racially-charged environment, primarily because due to denial for centuries by people exactly like you to have the conversations about how race plays into society and culture and architecture. I never denied a racial issue and now you're comparing me to people from centuries ago that committed atrocities on other races. Flame wars are expressly disallowed on HackerNews and I will be ending this conversation now. I warned you of this rule and asked for a mature conversation. It's unfortunate it couldn't be possible.
  - deanCommie 6y ago
TLightful 6y ago
Christ, I'm going to vent, so I'm sorry but, I'm so sick of this bullsh!t argument. Eggshells? If you're with someone you know or you don't know and you make a perceived or actual faux pas in their eyes. Say ..... "sorry" .... "I didn't know that. Tell me more". How hard is that? I try to be pretty inclusive, but I'm nowhere near perfect and you know what, when I might have got it wrong this is what I do. And I'm not special for doing so. It's called interacting like a normal human being with another human being. And you know what, it opens the space for understanding and debate and the chance to reject if you really believe it is wrong. And as for you unfollowing podcasts because of mentions of priviedge and so forth ... well ... I wonder why that would be recently. Do you unfollow all topics which make you uncomfortable? Do you complain about cancel culture and then cancel podcasts you don't like? I'm going to be harsh here because your post is very representative of many I see so maybe it needs to be said. You feeling like you're being attacked everywhere you go is your problem, not those you think who are doing the attacking.

by Fogest 6y ago

_carbyau_ 6y ago

I don't mind thinking about nebulous things and fully considering their consequences, including societal ones. But that feeling of walking on eggshells is more related to a surveillance state coming from social media. More explanatory than I could be: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-07/social-cooling-are-you-self-conscious-about-what-you-click-on/8878948 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-07/social-cooling-are-yo...

Fogest 6y ago
Because of how policed the online world feels with what you say it often feels like it applies in public. However I have yet to work/interact with anyone who seems as far gone as the permanently offended Twitter users seem to be. I swear not a day goes by anymore where I don't here about Twitter going after another person trying to cancel them. We see people losing their jobs simply for sharing a more conservative view on Twitter. I've seen cases of actors losing jobs for sharing an edgy conservative meme, but than someone sharing almost the identical meme but liberal sided being completely fine. Nowadays it seems like even things like jobs can simply be determined by how outraged a group of random people feel. Actors lose jobs because people who probably don't even watch the show get upset by a single tweet they made. The world is starting to not make sense to me and just seems so illogical lately. No matter how factual and objective something is that you say, if it doesn't align with the current politically correct fad people will try to cancel you. People who make perfectly valid and factual claims get shut down by people who just simply call them a "racist" and say "you just don't get it". Instead of trying to help them understand and trying to use facts to logically debate someone they react with emotion and outrage. And then they get dogpilled into submission. I see why it's hard to find people opposing the current PC culture. As soon as anyone does they get called some "ism" and get cancelled.
- boatsie 6y ago
  You also can’t defend anyone from getting canceled, as that makes you the “ism” as well. You must be anti-whatever“ism” or they will come after you as well.
  - Fogest 6y ago
    Yes exactly. Either you're "with" the mob or you're getting mobbed. The word police and thought police are in full force on sites like Twitter and reddit now.
    - psyc 6y ago
      It’s really ridiculous on TikTok.
      - Fogest 6y ago
        I pretty much avoid platforms like TikTok and Twitter because of these kinds of things. I've even seen sections of TikToks with people pretty clearly faking mental disorders for attention. It's honestly kinda sad. I guess I am kinda glad I just missed the explosion of social media in school. I'm sure social media just creates so many more issues in young adults. And the weird things you do when you're young will forever be stored somewhere online.
  - psyc 6y ago
    When I was a little kid I went to a fundamentalist baptist church that worked exactly like this. If a deacon learned that someone wore a skirt above the knee, or listened to a pop song, that person was excommunicated. If anyone then contacted the apostate outside of church, they were excommunicated too. And so on. It’s a purity cult.

johnisgood 6y ago

These people (the genuine ones) lack context-awareness, so they could always find something racist, sexist, ableist, whateverist in anything you say. I just named something "blacklist" a couple of days ago. It has nothing to do with races, nor slavery. The only thing they have is a person in-between who connects the two because s/he is a troll, or because lacks context-awareness or whatever. I do not enable them.

johncena33 6y ago
> These people (the genuine ones) lack context-awareness No, they are very much aware of the context. Most of these people are just bullies, who have found a new way to mask their toxic behavior in the name of a good cause.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- johnisgood 6y ago
  I added "genuine ones" for a reason. There are lots of trolls, that is for sure. I cannot tell if there are more trolls than genuine ones though. I have seen bots, too. I remember there was a bot that sent pull requests to over 1000 projects if I remember correctly. All the pull requests involved changing words only, such as "blacklist" to "blocklist" or whatever. You know what is funny? Many of them were merged.
Fogest 6y ago
Yeah I personally try and avoid the word police. If I am using a grammatically and contextually correct word I am not going to let someone tell me I can't use the word. What's hilarious to me is that I think the people who find there to be a problem with these words are the racist ones themselves. They are taking a word out of context and being offended by it out of context. They are the ones looking at a word and thinking negative racist thoughts. When I use the word "master" or "blacklist" it has nothing to do with any old historical context or usage of the word. I am quite clearly using the word in a technical context as per the dictionary definition of the word. Anyone who thinks that is offensive is the true problem in my opinion.

richiebful1 6y ago

I understand that reckoning with racism is uncomfortable, but I don't understand how that 99 percent invisible episode is a personal attack on you. If anything, it's a reminder that well intensioned design (saving downtown) can have consequences (increased policing of Black men). I have seen and listened to a lot of race-conscious content over the last few years. As a white man, I can't say I've taken any of it as a personal attack. I'd be happy to talk more about this out of thread.

Fogest 6y ago
It's not that it is a personal attack, it's more that I expect more talk about the actual architecture and infrastructure behind the topic versus making it a political topic. I didn't notice them providing any statistics in regards to the racial issues. All I noticed was anecdotal evidence and an incredibly biased account of a single police encounter that happened back in 2014. They are using one guys story and a single incident involving police in order to talk about the negatives it had on other races. These are bold claims with little backing given. This is why I don't like when podcasts like this try and tackle these issues. Because they end up being incredibly biased and one-sided. They didn't provide the whole story on the police incident, nor did they provide any other points of views or statistic on the racial issues they mentioned. I like hearing well-researched and articulated pieces about racial inequality. What I don't like is hearing a biased opinion/anecdote filled podcast episode about it. It seems every Podcast I listen to now always has some weird need to make it political. This never used to be the case even just a couple years ago. Now we even see sporting programs taking sides in politics and it just seems so unnecessary. I often spend too much time deep into the weeds on these kinds of topics much like I am now. Sometimes I just want to consume some media without politics being involved. However it rarely seems like I am able to anymore. Even TV shows I watch now are starting to feel ruined and lack the good script writing they used to in favour of shoehorning whatever current PC thing is trending.
- KozmoNau7 6y ago
  Everything is politics, and the fact that so many of us have managed to stay unaware and insulated from that for so long, is one of the clearest indicators of privilege there is.

deanCommie 6y ago

Let me ask you the question this way: Do you think it would be appropriate to teach an architectural course on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania_(city) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania_(city) without acknowledging the Nazi political context in which it materialized in? What about talking about Dubai's massive architectural and construction boom without recognizing the modern day quasi-slavery conditions that the workers operate in? Politics is everywhere whether we like it or not. If you feel that you can ignore it and not worry about it in 99.9% of your life (except when podcasts intrude on it), then congratulations - that is the definition of having privilege. (aside: explaining to you what you have privilege in is not an attack on you. You don't need to feel bad for having privilege - you didn't choose it. But you should understand in what ways your life is different from others). But others don't have that. A Sri Lankan migrant worker living in squalor pouring concrete in Dubai while his passport is withheld from him doesn't have the privilege to appreciate Dubai's skyscraper architecture without concern for the wellbeing of its builders. This is true in most of the world, but the US particularly has an especially racially-charged environment, primarily because due to denial for centuries by people exactly like you to have the conversations about how race plays into society and culture and architecture. We're going through a reckoning where people, corporations, and the media, are starting to recognize the impact of their philosophies. And you can't put that genie back in the bottle.

Fogest 6y ago
Unfortunately you did raise some fair points but I'm on HackerNews looking for constructive conversations without sly jabs and insults. > This is true in most of the world, but the US particularly has an especially racially-charged environment, primarily because due to denial for centuries by people exactly like you to have the conversations about how race plays into society and culture and architecture. I never denied a racial issue and now you're comparing me to people from centuries ago that committed atrocities on other races. Flame wars are expressly disallowed on HackerNews and I will be ending this conversation now. I warned you of this rule and asked for a mature conversation. It's unfortunate it couldn't be possible.
- deanCommie 6y ago

TLightful 6y ago

Christ, I'm going to vent, so I'm sorry but, I'm so sick of this bullsh!t argument. Eggshells? If you're with someone you know or you don't know and you make a perceived or actual faux pas in their eyes. Say ..... "sorry" .... "I didn't know that. Tell me more". How hard is that? I try to be pretty inclusive, but I'm nowhere near perfect and you know what, when I might have got it wrong this is what I do. And I'm not special for doing so. It's called interacting like a normal human being with another human being. And you know what, it opens the space for understanding and debate and the chance to reject if you really believe it is wrong. And as for you unfollowing podcasts because of mentions of priviedge and so forth ... well ... I wonder why that would be recently. Do you unfollow all topics which make you uncomfortable? Do you complain about cancel culture and then cancel podcasts you don't like? I'm going to be harsh here because your post is very representative of many I see so maybe it needs to be said. You feeling like you're being attacked everywhere you go is your problem, not those you think who are doing the attacking.