8 ms·

I'm curious if you could share some of your stories. Since last year, I've stopped using social media like FB. When the summer came around, my friends were pos

I'm curious if you could share some of your stories. Since last year, I've stopped using social media like FB. When the summer came around, my friends were posting political stuff online and noticed I wasn't interacting with it. My phone would then blow up with messages along the theme of: "are you showing your real self by not supporting x?".

Moodles 5y ago
Dude, get new friends. They sound horrible. So many stories. My skip level manager had me in a 1-on-1 once and said something along the lines: “you probably got the green card because Trump likes your demographic”. (I have an EB-1 extraordinary ability green card, and I assume they were talking about me being straight and white). What the fuck am I supposed to say there? Was absolutely speechless. Moments like that are basically shit tests: “are you one of us?” Pretty sure I failed that test. Oh well. One time quite recently I shared a Joe Rogan podcast on slack (Moxie from Signal was on there). I then went to sleep. Man, when I woke up the thread was popping with “I refuse to click on this link”, “Joe Rogan is a transphobe”. Someone posting stories about Joe Rogan being friends with Alex Jones and how problematic that is. Nothing to do with the actual podcast episode with Moxie. If anything, it was hilariously ironic because they were talking about how Signal provides privacy for people and how, if you don’t have privacy, people will scrutinise everything you’ve ever said and find ways to #cancel you. Just bizarre. I couldn’t even be bothered to respond. Honestly most stories at work are just the accumulation of tiny comments here and there. Just the odd joke about conservatives or the implicit assumption you agree with them. One time some girl at work told me “I can tell you’re not as liberal as us”. I asked her why, because I definitely wasn’t but I also definitely didn’t bother arguing at work. She said she could just tell by my vibe. I mean it’s true. Fair play to her I guess.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- w0de0 5y ago
  You must know that Joe Rogan is a polarizing figure and posting him in any but a right-wing community is going to be a troll for reactions. That doesn’t strike me as “bizarre,” it strikes me as the obvious outcome for your choice. You posted on good faith, but if so, you should reflect upon your reaction if a podcast from a thinker you despised was posted. In short I’m not sure you’re really engaging with a theory of mind, you’re falling into the trap we all often fall into of treating interlocutors as automatons.
  - Moodles 5y ago
    >! You must know that Joe Rogan is a polarizing figure and posting him in any but a right-wing community is going to be a troll for reactions My PhD work was on Signal. I work in security. I literally just wanted to talk about Signal, man. It was actually pretty disappointing to me people talked about how problematic Joe Rogan is instead. > you should reflect upon your reaction if a podcast from a thinker you despised was posted. I just said I have a gazillion stories about how it’s better to keep silent in San Francisco than voice your opinion. Trust me, I wouldn’t react the same way. I definitely don’t want to #csncel e.g. John Oliver just because he said some shit I disagreed with once. I hate that culture. In fact, I’d probably share him if he happened to be saying something I thought was interesting at the time. I think I have before when he was talking about Apple privacy or blockchains actually. So no, I wouldn’t react the same way.
    - w0de0 5y ago
      The platonic ideal of a space safe for all ideologies doesn't exist, so let me rephrase: imagine someone posted a podcast of an ideologue, in a place where you feel safe expressing your opinion, as the detractors of your Joe Rogan piece felt safe where you posted him. Certainly with a PhD you can't actually have been surprised by the reaction to your post. What's the point of your performative surprise? Do you think people shouldn't have disagreed with Joe Rogan, or been angry with him? Is it that you don't feel safe expressing your opinion in certain places, because so many people disagree with it, and that's wrong, you should be afforded the same ideological safety as the woke crowd when among them? I don't understand, I guess. It all still seems very lacking in theory of mind. You can't change the world for the better by trolling.
- throwkeep 5y ago
  This also sounds like Scientology or at the very least a high pressure religion. "Joe is an evil person who will introduce you to evil things! We do not speak of him here." "Are you a true believer or not?" "We can tell you're not a devoted Scientologist." "Fall in line, or we'll bully and ostracize you."
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Lammy 5y ago
    The term is "Suppressive Person" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressive_Person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressive_Person
- ne0flex 5y ago
  Your skip level manager experience reminds me of an interaction with a diversity officer at my previous employer. The company had hired a diversity officer and she began an initiative that requierd all company employees take an optional cultural course that was essentially something about power dynamics between culture/race. Since it wasn't really relevant to my role, I decided not to take the course as it was optional... until I found out it wasn't. I started receiving emails and phone calls from the diversity officer that I should take the course. I thought it was a bit weird and just ignored her. She then contacted my boss and told her to tell me to take the course. Starting to get pissed off, I asked my boss if the course was option, she said yes, then I said I'm not taking it. I'm mixed race with mainly French and Indian ancestry and while I can pass for full white (albeit a white person that spends time in the sun), my skin is tanned just enough that I can pass for other ethnic groups as well. However, my name is undoubtedly French. I then received an email from the diversity officer saying that I was an example of a problematic white person and that I was probably ignoring her because she was female and Indian. Then I was contacted by HR for discriminatory conduct and told to report to their office. When I showed up at the office, I could visibly see they were confused as they were clearly expecting someone that didn't look like me. Luckily for me, some of my family is Hindu and I happened to be wearing a religious bracelet I received as a present and I was basically able to fend off their accusations of racism and whatnot. Left the company shortly afterwards.
  - beckingz 5y ago
    Is this the type of harassment based on (perceived race) that you could sue over?
  - derangedHorse 5y ago
    If that were me, my next few words back to the diversity officer would probably get me fired depending on how rational the people in charge of my employment were. If they were just as irrational as her, I would definitely be getting the boot though.
throwkeep 5y ago
> "are you showing your real self by not supporting x?" Are they in a cult? That sounds like some Scientology shit.
- zepto 5y ago
  Yes. Woke is a cult and nothing more.
- packetlost 5y ago
  Ideology follows many of the same basic structures as a religious belief system, in many cases ideology is a subset of a religious belief system, but in this case it's not. Combine that with the extreme polarization and demonization of the other side*, one of the oldest propaganda techniques ever[0], you end up with cult-like mentality. Even some circles (on both sides) will have love-bombing [1], a technique used to recruit new members. I grew up in a cult (Jehovah's Witnesses) and went against my dad when I was 16 to get out of it. Once you've been though that stuff and come out on the other side, you can't help but not see it in the modern political climate and it's disgusting. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonizing_the_enemy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonizing_the_enemy [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing
mbrodersen 5y ago
Are you sure those people are really your friends and not just people you hang out with? IMHO real friends wouldn’t use passive aggressive tactics like that.

Moodles 5y ago

Dude, get new friends. They sound horrible. So many stories. My skip level manager had me in a 1-on-1 once and said something along the lines: “you probably got the green card because Trump likes your demographic”. (I have an EB-1 extraordinary ability green card, and I assume they were talking about me being straight and white). What the fuck am I supposed to say there? Was absolutely speechless. Moments like that are basically shit tests: “are you one of us?” Pretty sure I failed that test. Oh well. One time quite recently I shared a Joe Rogan podcast on slack (Moxie from Signal was on there). I then went to sleep. Man, when I woke up the thread was popping with “I refuse to click on this link”, “Joe Rogan is a transphobe”. Someone posting stories about Joe Rogan being friends with Alex Jones and how problematic that is. Nothing to do with the actual podcast episode with Moxie. If anything, it was hilariously ironic because they were talking about how Signal provides privacy for people and how, if you don’t have privacy, people will scrutinise everything you’ve ever said and find ways to #cancel you. Just bizarre. I couldn’t even be bothered to respond. Honestly most stories at work are just the accumulation of tiny comments here and there. Just the odd joke about conservatives or the implicit assumption you agree with them. One time some girl at work told me “I can tell you’re not as liberal as us”. I asked her why, because I definitely wasn’t but I also definitely didn’t bother arguing at work. She said she could just tell by my vibe. I mean it’s true. Fair play to her I guess.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
w0de0 5y ago
You must know that Joe Rogan is a polarizing figure and posting him in any but a right-wing community is going to be a troll for reactions. That doesn’t strike me as “bizarre,” it strikes me as the obvious outcome for your choice. You posted on good faith, but if so, you should reflect upon your reaction if a podcast from a thinker you despised was posted. In short I’m not sure you’re really engaging with a theory of mind, you’re falling into the trap we all often fall into of treating interlocutors as automatons.
- Moodles 5y ago
  >! You must know that Joe Rogan is a polarizing figure and posting him in any but a right-wing community is going to be a troll for reactions My PhD work was on Signal. I work in security. I literally just wanted to talk about Signal, man. It was actually pretty disappointing to me people talked about how problematic Joe Rogan is instead. > you should reflect upon your reaction if a podcast from a thinker you despised was posted. I just said I have a gazillion stories about how it’s better to keep silent in San Francisco than voice your opinion. Trust me, I wouldn’t react the same way. I definitely don’t want to #csncel e.g. John Oliver just because he said some shit I disagreed with once. I hate that culture. In fact, I’d probably share him if he happened to be saying something I thought was interesting at the time. I think I have before when he was talking about Apple privacy or blockchains actually. So no, I wouldn’t react the same way.
  - w0de0 5y ago
    The platonic ideal of a space safe for all ideologies doesn't exist, so let me rephrase: imagine someone posted a podcast of an ideologue, in a place where you feel safe expressing your opinion, as the detractors of your Joe Rogan piece felt safe where you posted him. Certainly with a PhD you can't actually have been surprised by the reaction to your post. What's the point of your performative surprise? Do you think people shouldn't have disagreed with Joe Rogan, or been angry with him? Is it that you don't feel safe expressing your opinion in certain places, because so many people disagree with it, and that's wrong, you should be afforded the same ideological safety as the woke crowd when among them? I don't understand, I guess. It all still seems very lacking in theory of mind. You can't change the world for the better by trolling.
throwkeep 5y ago
This also sounds like Scientology or at the very least a high pressure religion. "Joe is an evil person who will introduce you to evil things! We do not speak of him here." "Are you a true believer or not?" "We can tell you're not a devoted Scientologist." "Fall in line, or we'll bully and ostracize you."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Lammy 5y ago
  The term is "Suppressive Person" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressive_Person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressive_Person
ne0flex 5y ago
Your skip level manager experience reminds me of an interaction with a diversity officer at my previous employer. The company had hired a diversity officer and she began an initiative that requierd all company employees take an optional cultural course that was essentially something about power dynamics between culture/race. Since it wasn't really relevant to my role, I decided not to take the course as it was optional... until I found out it wasn't. I started receiving emails and phone calls from the diversity officer that I should take the course. I thought it was a bit weird and just ignored her. She then contacted my boss and told her to tell me to take the course. Starting to get pissed off, I asked my boss if the course was option, she said yes, then I said I'm not taking it. I'm mixed race with mainly French and Indian ancestry and while I can pass for full white (albeit a white person that spends time in the sun), my skin is tanned just enough that I can pass for other ethnic groups as well. However, my name is undoubtedly French. I then received an email from the diversity officer saying that I was an example of a problematic white person and that I was probably ignoring her because she was female and Indian. Then I was contacted by HR for discriminatory conduct and told to report to their office. When I showed up at the office, I could visibly see they were confused as they were clearly expecting someone that didn't look like me. Luckily for me, some of my family is Hindu and I happened to be wearing a religious bracelet I received as a present and I was basically able to fend off their accusations of racism and whatnot. Left the company shortly afterwards.
- beckingz 5y ago
  Is this the type of harassment based on (perceived race) that you could sue over?
- derangedHorse 5y ago
  If that were me, my next few words back to the diversity officer would probably get me fired depending on how rational the people in charge of my employment were. If they were just as irrational as her, I would definitely be getting the boot though.

throwkeep 5y ago

> "are you showing your real self by not supporting x?" Are they in a cult? That sounds like some Scientology shit.

zepto 5y ago
Yes. Woke is a cult and nothing more.
packetlost 5y ago
Ideology follows many of the same basic structures as a religious belief system, in many cases ideology is a subset of a religious belief system, but in this case it's not. Combine that with the extreme polarization and demonization of the other side*, one of the oldest propaganda techniques ever[0], you end up with cult-like mentality. Even some circles (on both sides) will have love-bombing [1], a technique used to recruit new members. I grew up in a cult (Jehovah's Witnesses) and went against my dad when I was 16 to get out of it. Once you've been though that stuff and come out on the other side, you can't help but not see it in the modern political climate and it's disgusting. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonizing_the_enemy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonizing_the_enemy [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing

mbrodersen 5y ago

Are you sure those people are really your friends and not just people you hang out with? IMHO real friends wouldn’t use passive aggressive tactics like that.