4 ms·

The latter part of your reply is important. My experience mirrors yours: the goalposts are constantly shifting. In such an environment you’re always going to fi

by hrbf 4y ago

The latter part of your reply is important. My experience mirrors yours: the goalposts are constantly shifting. In such an environment you’re always going to find someone feeling offended by any remark. This inevitably leads to corporate gobbledygook and the loss of all meaning. Is saying nothing at all really a solution or just a way to avoid confrontation?

sk0g 4y ago
Remaining silent is certainly not a solution to the actual problem, for me it's just a heuristic to live a more convenient, less stressful life. Being an immigrant, I was asked what the nice way to ask someone what their ethnicity was, options being things like "where are your parents from" or "what's your ethnicity". All I could say was that if I wanted to be offended, there's no way to ask me that question. If I'm assuming good faith, I'll look past cruder wording like "but where are you REALLY from?" There's so much context, emotions, and personality transmitted in face-to-face interactions, there's really no blanket rules. We lose ALL of that in online discussions, especially when dealing with character limits well-suited to rob conversations of context. The other thing is the ability to look back through history with perfect recall. People change opinions, or are emotional, dealing with something, etc. In real life you slip up once and maybe get a puzzled look or get told to shut up. Online, well you may never escape it. I think we're trending too much towards an absolute sense of right and wrong, and stifling the possibilities to learn and evolve as a human. The pendulum will swing back over time. For another anecdote, a friend of my partner's recently changed genders. A month or two later I remembered that, and asked my partner to check in on them and make sure they're ok. They weren't, and were having suicidal ideations, but greatly appreciated having someone check in on them which I considered a win. My partner wouldn't let up and just had to know why I asked her to do so, but when I told her it's a studied correlation, she was pissed at me for "stereotyping"... Just feels like I never escaped being a child who was constantly on the verge of getting in trouble with their abusive parent. Sorry, that just turned into a rant at the end.
- hrbf 4y ago
  > Sorry, that just turned into a rant at the end. On the contrary, thank you. It’s the very context you wrote about that’s often missing in online conversations. Your anecdote beautifully illustrates the absurdity trap too much well-meaning tolerance eventually trips. I’m reminded of a Red Dwarf episode (Timewave, S12E03). A crew of a space ship decided to outlaw all criticism on board, going so far as too construct a machine extracting “the inner critic” from everybody. The Red Dwarf crew encounters them and wants to leave immediately after, because, quote: “nothing works here, especially the people.” It’s quite straight-forward that the posts’ author struggles with mental health issues. By their own public admission (and accounting for preferred pronouns) it is transgender, hates its body and is rather inconsistent and confrontational. All fine by me. I don’t care how you find happiness or whatever else. But it should be entirely possible to remark upon those facts without experiencing retribution. Yet somehow any remark regarding their mental health state gets self-censored by the first mention of insensitivity, no doubt fearing said retribution. I worry about that.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    A remark regarding the mental state of a random Internet blogger who literally self-identifies as a robot (or so it says, at any rate)? That strikes me as singularly pointless. I think retracting such remarks was the right call, in the spirit of keeping the discussion focused and avoiding distracting asides.
- lioeters 4y ago
  > a child who was constantly on the verge of getting in trouble with their abusive parent That sentence says a lot about the current cultural climate (at least in the U.S. I'm guessing). Part of the abuse is that it's illogical or unpredictable, so you never know what triggers the parent/partner's anger, and when the pain/punishment will be delivered. It makes it risky to express any opinion - so the only sure way to not offend anyone is to stay silent. That stifles communication and discussion, except for narcissists who are illogically self-confident, often extreme on either side of the debate.
  - sk0g 4y ago
    Nope I'm in Australia, but the cultural differences are eroding over time, so not too far off anyway. As Rammstein wrote, "We're all living in Amerika; Coca Cola, sometimes war." > Part of the abuse is that it's illogical or unpredictable Yeah, doing some introspection (seriously, bath tubs are magical) I realised I've lost a lot of social confidence and skills. The previous issue was one contributing factor, as well as roughly 2 years of very minimal social interaction at all. Wonder what the long term ramifications on society will be.
    - lioeters 4y ago
      I relate to your comment - silence as a coping mechanism. I sometimes break out of it by being vocal and expressing my opinions, but I noticed it often invites attacks and "primate dominance" behavior from others. In my view, the social isolation definitely has made things worse culturally - I'm noticing a lot more bullying and people being jerks to each other. Tough times for sensitive souls.
- skyechurch 4y ago
  There's a fundamental conflict between expressing real human interest in and concern for other people, and negotiating an ever-shifting maze of cultural taboos enforced by official and unofficial sanction. Maybe HR can put out a 40 page handbook for resolving this and verify compliance. Or maybe we should be generous to each other, regardless of the consequences. Great rant, would read again.

by hrbf 4y ago

sk0g 4y ago

Remaining silent is certainly not a solution to the actual problem, for me it's just a heuristic to live a more convenient, less stressful life. Being an immigrant, I was asked what the nice way to ask someone what their ethnicity was, options being things like "where are your parents from" or "what's your ethnicity". All I could say was that if I wanted to be offended, there's no way to ask me that question. If I'm assuming good faith, I'll look past cruder wording like "but where are you REALLY from?" There's so much context, emotions, and personality transmitted in face-to-face interactions, there's really no blanket rules. We lose ALL of that in online discussions, especially when dealing with character limits well-suited to rob conversations of context. The other thing is the ability to look back through history with perfect recall. People change opinions, or are emotional, dealing with something, etc. In real life you slip up once and maybe get a puzzled look or get told to shut up. Online, well you may never escape it. I think we're trending too much towards an absolute sense of right and wrong, and stifling the possibilities to learn and evolve as a human. The pendulum will swing back over time. For another anecdote, a friend of my partner's recently changed genders. A month or two later I remembered that, and asked my partner to check in on them and make sure they're ok. They weren't, and were having suicidal ideations, but greatly appreciated having someone check in on them which I considered a win. My partner wouldn't let up and just had to know why I asked her to do so, but when I told her it's a studied correlation, she was pissed at me for "stereotyping"... Just feels like I never escaped being a child who was constantly on the verge of getting in trouble with their abusive parent. Sorry, that just turned into a rant at the end.

hrbf 4y ago
> Sorry, that just turned into a rant at the end. On the contrary, thank you. It’s the very context you wrote about that’s often missing in online conversations. Your anecdote beautifully illustrates the absurdity trap too much well-meaning tolerance eventually trips. I’m reminded of a Red Dwarf episode (Timewave, S12E03). A crew of a space ship decided to outlaw all criticism on board, going so far as too construct a machine extracting “the inner critic” from everybody. The Red Dwarf crew encounters them and wants to leave immediately after, because, quote: “nothing works here, especially the people.” It’s quite straight-forward that the posts’ author struggles with mental health issues. By their own public admission (and accounting for preferred pronouns) it is transgender, hates its body and is rather inconsistent and confrontational. All fine by me. I don’t care how you find happiness or whatever else. But it should be entirely possible to remark upon those facts without experiencing retribution. Yet somehow any remark regarding their mental health state gets self-censored by the first mention of insensitivity, no doubt fearing said retribution. I worry about that.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  A remark regarding the mental state of a random Internet blogger who literally self-identifies as a robot (or so it says, at any rate)? That strikes me as singularly pointless. I think retracting such remarks was the right call, in the spirit of keeping the discussion focused and avoiding distracting asides.
lioeters 4y ago
> a child who was constantly on the verge of getting in trouble with their abusive parent That sentence says a lot about the current cultural climate (at least in the U.S. I'm guessing). Part of the abuse is that it's illogical or unpredictable, so you never know what triggers the parent/partner's anger, and when the pain/punishment will be delivered. It makes it risky to express any opinion - so the only sure way to not offend anyone is to stay silent. That stifles communication and discussion, except for narcissists who are illogically self-confident, often extreme on either side of the debate.
- sk0g 4y ago
  Nope I'm in Australia, but the cultural differences are eroding over time, so not too far off anyway. As Rammstein wrote, "We're all living in Amerika; Coca Cola, sometimes war." > Part of the abuse is that it's illogical or unpredictable Yeah, doing some introspection (seriously, bath tubs are magical) I realised I've lost a lot of social confidence and skills. The previous issue was one contributing factor, as well as roughly 2 years of very minimal social interaction at all. Wonder what the long term ramifications on society will be.
  - lioeters 4y ago
    I relate to your comment - silence as a coping mechanism. I sometimes break out of it by being vocal and expressing my opinions, but I noticed it often invites attacks and "primate dominance" behavior from others. In my view, the social isolation definitely has made things worse culturally - I'm noticing a lot more bullying and people being jerks to each other. Tough times for sensitive souls.
skyechurch 4y ago
There's a fundamental conflict between expressing real human interest in and concern for other people, and negotiating an ever-shifting maze of cultural taboos enforced by official and unofficial sanction. Maybe HR can put out a 40 page handbook for resolving this and verify compliance. Or maybe we should be generous to each other, regardless of the consequences. Great rant, would read again.