Comment on Anon ends racism
stembolts@programming.dev 6 months agoIf the only response you have to my content is to police the tone, then I am very comfortable with this. I grew up around lots of highly religious people.
People who would “win” arguments by asking you to lower your voice, stop using certain words, stop focusing on X or Y, ignore and evade direct questions, change the topic (almost always to Jesus or faith somehow, lol).
As a kid I was confused by it and thought, “Damn, I am really awful at convincing people,” and that remains true. But what I later realized when I met academics is that while my tone may be harsh, the content of what I said was valid and I learned how to remain steadfast to the task and discard the mental tricks people use to evade confronting their own conceptions of the world. It is threatening to ask someone to question themselves and humans don’t like to change their belief systems because of that threatening feeling. All of those defense mechanisms are rooted in fear. But if one can find a flaw with the speaker (me), then their content can be discarded. Of course this is irrational, the worst person in the world can make the best point, and the most eloquent speaker can spew nonsense.
It feels safe to be conservative. So those people were clinging to safety which is something I never did, I’m an infinitely curious explorer and throughout my life I’ve learned that there is nothing wrong with my presentation and that the people who have issue with it do so as a defense mechanism. They ALWAYS avoid directly responding to the content and tbh I find it funny so I structure my posts in as direct a way as possible which highlights their evasiveness.
Go through and read every response to me in this thread, all tone policing. Then read my messages. They contain direct questions, patience, direct assertions with room for response, curiosity for the other, and probing to their way of thinking. Am I condescending? Yes. Does condescension invalidate a point? No.
But as I said I grew up in a similar environment to this thread so I knew what to expect, it’s just nostalgic to revisit “home”, though I won’t stay here. Echo chambers are boring and I like to be challenged.
You could say that I like being mentally challenged.
A lil joke at the end 😉
Politeness does not matter, and if you are able to get past your belief that it does then you may encounter many interesting ideas.
Sentrovasi@kbin.social 6 months ago
I think you fail to understand that a lot of the people replying to you are solely replying because of your tone. You're not winning any argument against anyone because all they're telling you is that you're obnoxious. You can't spin that into a win over racist people because you need to recognise that people can agree with you and still treat you with hostility.
You're not standing up for anything by being volatile. The only reason why I'm even engaging with you on this is because of your original assumption that people who are making fun of the way you post must clearly be racists. If you can now agree that this is not substantively what they are talking about, and you are okay with that, then both of us can do without your moral grandstanding over how justified you are in doing this.
I just wanted to make sure you understood why people are treating you poorly, and will continue to treat you poorly into the future. These are not going to just be people who disagree with you. These will include people who agree, but think you're a real piece of shit.
Nobody's going to want to answer your "direct questions" or engage with your "assertions" (I'm leaving out "patience" because implicit in the idea of patience is manner, in which tone plays a big part and I still don't think you see it).
Does that mean you "win"? I think maybe everyone will be better off if you go away thinking you do, but no, it really doesn't.
This toxic way of thinking of needing to win conversations is also present in the first part of your anecdote where you claim that people used to "win" by asking you to calm down or stop using certain words. They're not trying to beat you, they're trying to engage in discourse that both sides can appreciate. If you literally cannot win an argument without resorting to namecalling or condescension, you really need to rethink the value proposition of your arguments.
And if you really think that you've won when people no longer want to engage with you, then, like I said before, maybe everyone is better off that way.
stembolts@programming.dev 6 months ago
You’re right about everything you said. Except me not understanding. I was intentionally antagonizing them because they initially annoyed me, then it became a game for me.
Is that wrong? Maybe. But sometimes I enjoy it. I had a great time practicing my writing to achieve a goal, and yesterday the goal was as stated. Today I’m bored of it.
But I appreciate the effort that you and people like you take, you seem like a genuinely good person.