Apparently if a movie series has female protagonists some of the time, it’s an outright cultural assault on men. At least that’s what one Men’s Rights Redditor is arguing. About Star Wars. Take it away, Vinniikii:
Most men lost Disney decades ago, the ethnic men and other non cis white heterosexual men lost Disney even earlier. We didn’t get to enjoy misandrist animations, we had to find stories that celebrated men on our own.
For most of many men’s life, Star Wars was the gold standard for that entertainment.
I did not know that Star Wars was the only force, heh heh, holding up masculinity in the west.
While Lucas lost his way in the 2000s with the movies, men online used video game technology to create huge communities. Star Wars meant imaginative freedom and complicated accomplishment.
MALE SAFE SPACE!
Now, Disney has begun the misandrification of Star Wars.
“Misandrification,” huh?.
The foregrounding of evil old man Palpatine and abandonment of huge open galaxy for feminist, single mother ruins. The constant ideology and purposeful teaching moments.
Er, I’m admittedly a couple of Star Wars movies behind but what the fuck are you talking about, dude?
Even many of the feminists this is supposed to cater to, reject it on sight as false, a rehash of rehash, so resolutely insistent on hating men that it refuses to allow them to succeed or prosper in any way.
How are these movies male hating?
Do you have the conditioned response to pervasive Disney influenster misandry? I know whenever I see their pseudo original memes I cringe, the same reaction I used to have to fratty homophobic presentation, this material is going to hate and demean men without warning. The “safe target” is evil no matter who the scape goat.
I’m completely lost at this point. Maybe give some examples of this terrible misandry of which you speak?
So much of gamer hate is simple misandry. They are so reactionary and attack focus they forget to achieve or accomplish. So sad to see Disney become the locus of current hate, using false narrative of “accessibility/inclusion” to profile and exclude. Changing Star Wars bc they couldn’t compete.
Well, that answers precisely none of my questions.
In the comments, though, Vinniikii gives a couple of examples of the misandrificationizing of which he speaks. After accusing one critic of “gaslighting,” he declares that
Padme is high key the star of 2 and Obi/Qui are gay so you don’t really have a point. Jar Jar is a misandrified Chewbacca. Also the whole single mother plot line in 1. … Ewoks are neutered Chewbacca. Every movie had less virility.
Ewoks are “neutered?” They’re murderous forest monsters who may be eating the stormtroopers they kill. Don’t mess with Ewoks.
Elsewhere in the comments Vinniikii suggests that
we’ve finally started to come out of the total man-hating era where a man couldn’t even wear the traditional symbol of masculine pride, a fedora.
This made me wonder for a moment if Vinniikii was a troll, but a scroll through his comment history suggests that, nope, he’s serious. Ridiculous, but serious.
But what do I know? I’m a misandrificationalist.
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@Gaebolga,
I only heard that was done, not read any actual messages by white nationalists about it. However, this link gives an overview of what exactly they were seeing in that film that they thought supported their ideas:
https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/group-fans-black-panther-white-nationalists-article-1.3876831
Mostly stuff like anti-immigration and national isolationist themes, it seems.
@Redsilkphoenix
Thanks for the link, and sorry about misattributing your words.
@ Alan
I am not closely familiar with the ideas about life or precursors in the solar system. But the idea of looking for remains of life from earth in frozen debris is interesting.
With respect to life in the solar system I did half-jokingly refer to us as “highly organized thiolins” at a creationist on pharyngula.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tholin
Between that and,
“Non-enzymatic glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway-like reactions in a plausible Archean ocean”
https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1002/msb.20145228
You get things that look like ribose and things that look like peptides/nitrogenous bases.
[redacted]
Hate to break it to the sexists, but Star Wars was infected by the influence of women from the start. Specifically George Lucas’s then wife Marcia, a film editor who had edited amongst other films American Graffiti and Taxi Driver. She was the one who came up with the idea that Obi Wan should die in the duel with Vader. She was originally not going to be involved with Star Wars due to being pregnant, but she miscarried. Lucas brought her in after the first rough cut by British editor John Jympson proved bad. She started with the Death Star battle sequence, and heavily changed it. At one point she told George “If the audience doesn’t cheer when Han Solo comes in at the last second in the Millennium Falcon to help Luke when he’s being chased by Darth Vader, the picture doesn’t work.”[
@ tim
Oh gawd, and how. Have you seen the original cut? It’s dreadful.
Marcia’s edit really saved the film. It’s amazing what cutting the dross and shifting a few scenes around can do. They’re like totally different films.
@Surplus: I’ve heard from many marginalized people exactly what you identify as a privileged position, that they learn to accept good things as something as a bonus and bad as the default and learn to survive around that. One example you gave of something that frustrated you was this site being down for maintenance. Was that critical for your essential needs? No! But instead of framing the site being up as a good thing that helps and it being down as a temporary reprieve, you frame the site being up as given and it going down as something that is personally about you.
It’s totally possible that you have some totally unique experience in the universe that no one else can help guide you through. It’s also possible that you’re stubborn and wrong. If you were talking about anyone else in the universe, which would you think is more likely?
@Gaebolga: See Shaun’s video “Is Black Panther Alt-Right?”. It was actually a small alt-right talking point at the time that Black Panther is alt-right. Of course, they ignored
And on, and on.
The alt-right will take whatever they want as an excuse for their ideology. Because they’re liars.
@ brony
I’d be very interested to see he result of Miller-Urey using a variety of base settings. Particularly, if someone could replicate thing like comets, or sub surface oceans. I’d also like to see someone running them on very large scale and for much longer time periods. See what pops up.
@Fred B-C:
No, I frame the site being up as “the way things are supposed to be” and it being down as “something incorrect that must be corrected”. As for my needs, well, the hydro is the one more clearly implicating essential needs (how would you like to be, essentially, tossed into solitary confinement and not even told how long the sentence would be, let alone what the charges were or getting a trial or anything? Nevermind the risk to my food supply and, had it been colder weather, my life were it to drag on long enough).
But as I think I mentioned before, the site outage happened in the middle of when I was catching up. Catching up correctly requires keeping track of some things in my head until the task is completed; else I could end up missing a new comment somewhere. So, essentially I was being asked to hold all of that temporary information in my head for over half an hour instead of the usual few minutes, and meanwhile I was unable to do much of anything else (lest doing so cause me to forget something from that information).
I consider asking that of me to be rather unreasonable. Wouldn’t you? If we grant (even though no evidence has been furnished that this is the case) that the downtime was necessary rather than optional, couldn’t it have been announced in advance to the membership here so we could schedule catching up in such a way as would avoid being put in that situation? Perhaps also scheduled for a time of day when the least users tend to be actively online? And, of course, if it was optional, couldn’t it have been omitted entirely?
I do not like to be interrupted in the middle of a task, in part because it can make it much more difficult for me to later complete that task correctly, and of course if I complete it incorrectly I will be the one blamed and I will be the one punished regardless of if the only reason it wasn’t done correctly was because of the interruption that was someone else’s fault. Depending on the nature of the task, the punishment might be that I miss reading one of the new comments here, or it might mean hours of earlier work I’d done needing to be done over again, or it could mean jail or destitution (say, some tax-related or other bureaucratic shit that it’s outright illegal to get wrong).
Keep in mind, too, that I have spent my entire life, from early schooling onward, striving to do everything as correctly as possible, often being inexplicably obstructed or interrupted while doing so by other people who either did it maliciously or simply didn’t give a shit, often for someone who was as likely as not to try to move the goal posts after the fact in order to be able to claim I had gotten it wrong and needed to do it over again, and despite all of that shit often nonetheless succeeding in doing $(whatever) sufficiently correctly that they (whoever “they” were in any given context) had to admit I’d done a good job … and despite all of that the conditions of my life are merely tolerable most of the time, and I’m periodically, and capriciously and unpredictably, subjected to periods of intolerable conditions, while being bereft of many of the things other people take for granted. I can only imagine how much worse my situation would be had I turned in poorer work! The point is, this stunted, barely-tolerable excuse for a life is what I am rewarded with for doing my absolute best, with maximal effort, and is way shoddier than what most people resembling me in my geographical region apparently get when they half-ass things and clearly don’t give a shit about the quality of whatever the heck they are doing. Meanwhile I push and I push to get whatever it is I’m doing done, and to do it as flawlessly as possible, and the feedback I get from the world around me is still the same litany of “insufficient effort”, “you missed dotting this one ‘i’ way the hell back on page three so do it all over again”, and so on and so forth. Here, too, it seems no magnitude of effort on my part will suffice for me to be understood rather than people somehow thinking I’m insulting them or whatever instead of saying what I was actually saying.
Either it’s a straight-up double standard or there’s … I don’t know, a malfunctioning translation layer or something between me and the rest of the world that is distorting things in one or both directions, so huge efforts by me look like tiny ones to you, or efforts at a different thing entirely, and/or something meant as praise is somehow reaching me in the form of a negative feedback like being interrupted and obstructed from doing something or being insulted or threatened. And in neither case do I see much hope. If it’s a double standard I don’t have the clout to have it changed and it doesn’t seem that those sustaining it will be susceptible to an appeal to fairness or other moral principles to convince them to stop without the need for clout; and if it’s a malfunctioning translation layer, I obviously can’t communicate through it well enough to get someone to fix it from the other side, and meanwhile lack the information and tools I’d need to fix it from this side.
Disclaimer: nothing in the above is to be construed as stating or implying anything negative about Fred B-C, any of the other regular non-troll commenters of WHTM, or David, nor as stating or implying any new obligations on any of their parts.
Surplus, I’m tired so I kinda zonked out trying to read the wall of text/outrage but one thing leaped out at me.
Bro, this is a blog. Nobody’s gonna get mad at you for missing a comment. If the blog is misbehaving when you go to check up, it’s okay to not try to hold everything in your head desperately while you hit reload for 40 min.
Heck, I regularly wander out amongst the weeds nary to be heard from for days, weeks, months, a year and change that one time.
And nobody’s ever screamed at me for it when I come back. If there was outstanding business or a hurt feeling, I’d imagine maybe there’d be a new response reminding me of whatever if it was actually important after I re-emerged from my swamp, but….
You can, I dunno, do other things? Laundry, doodle on a napkin, count cracks in a ceiling, watch a pennywhistle tutorial on YouTube, idk something else?
It’s a comments section, not a job (for anyone but David).
I know this probably isn’t useful to you. So… sorry if it comes across as mean. Not at all my intent. I’m not mad, just befuddled.
On topic: I personally liked the newest Starwars movies the most. Rey, Finn, and Rose make me super happy. And seeing a “hot-headed flyboy” being portrayed as rash and immature was wonderful.
Off topic: Shit happens. It’s not malicious. It’s not targeted. It just is. How you respond to it is up to you. I acknowledge that people with more privilege and in a better financial situation have an easier time taking things in stride because they can throw money at problems or just have more options available for work arounds. But everyone has some control over how they handle things breaking down.
The site here is not necessary for survival. I rarely comment and I skip reading plenty of comments. But everyone is super welcoming and kind and no one cares if you’ve read everything. Sure I get upset when I miss a fun conversation or when the site is down for a bit, but there’s plenty to do (work, read, knit, watch a movie, draw, darn some socks, etc).
I also acknowledge that it’s often hard to handle when things don’t go according to plan. I knit as a hobby. I recently ordered a bunch of skeins of yarn to make some gifts for a friend having a baby and one for something small for myself. Yarn is often sold in a twisted hank and to use it you have to ball it using a winder or by hand. I usually get it balled at the store I buy at, but this time I bought online and had to give it a shot myself. I managed to tangle 2 of the 5 hanks I had into some terrible knots while setting up and ended up sitting on the floor upset at myself, the world, the yarn company, and the universe for 2 hours trying to finish a 10 minute task. I could blame the company for twisting the yarn poorly on 2 of the 5 hanks. I could blame the maker’s of my winder for making it wobbly. I could blame people in general for selling yarn in unusable hanks instead of balls. I spent most of those 2 hours blaming myself for not being careful and being very unkind to myself. When I am in a spiral like that I snap at others so my partner doesn’t feel like they can support me and I can’t get out of the spiral until the task is complete. It is not healthy. It’s something I’m actively working on with a therapist.
I mention because I wanted to bring up a situation in which I did not do a good job handling an inconvenience. Because no one is perfect and I don’t want it to sound like I’m lecturing. But I also want to emphasize that the way I handled my emotions in this situation was not healthy and is something I need to work on.
Surplus, I think you also need to work on how you handle things not working out. You seem to lash out more at others. But just like with me, your response to these situations is not healthy in the long run. It’s also not healthy for your relationships with others on this blog. When people try to help you or explain the reasons behind what you’re experiencing you tend to dismiss their comments and “yell” at them.
Tone can be conveyed by text. It may not be the tone you mean, but the tone you use in these situations sounds like you are snapping at us. And it’s mentally and emotionally exhausting for all of us here. Especially because when things go back to normal you do not apologize or acknowledge that you were sharp with people who were just trying to help.
Slightly happier topic: I made my first sweater recently!!! I just washed it and it’s drying and hopefully it will not be funny shaped. But I made an article of clothing! Not just an accessory, but an actual garment!!!
I need a bit of time away from the yarn after I got frustrated with it today, but once I am feeling up for it I’m going to be making so many more sweaters!
@ the room
Yes, this is a blog, not a giant nuclear lazer bomb needing to be defused in the next two comments or the Earth is knocked off axis into the Sun.
That I think is one of the core problems here Surplus. This is a blog addressing some pretty damn serious stuff in this world, and the comments section not infrequently seques into equally dire subjects. People on here commenting have endured and are enduring some of the worst trauma known to man, abuse, violence, health issues, deaths of loved ones, etc, etc, but it seems like none of the above can compare to your problems with a god damn website glitch, and if anyone tries to suggest you are overreacting, they get pages worth of text about how the world is out to get you specifically.
Yes, you clearly have problems, ranging from website glitches, to power outtages, etc, etc, but one of them is that you seem determined to bend the world to your will by ranting on someone else’s blog’s comment section.
Gah, I have more, but I am too tired to focus on this now.
@bumblebug: I think you had a right to be angry. The friend-having-a-baby is counting on you to have something ready on time, and someone else somewhere was, probably through negligence and not even malice, threatening to cause you to fail that friend. Just as I seem to constantly be getting threatened with being made to fail at one thing or another that I ought to be able to consistently succeed at. They don’t even particularly want to make you, or me, into useless failures fit only for scorn and intermittent threats of being booted out of places; they just don’t care if that happens to some people as a consequence of whatever corner-cutting they’re doing to save 35 cents on a ten-dollar widget or whatever. Just so long as they aren’t risking it happening to one of the movers and shakers, they’re just fine with that.
At least you’re apparently wealthy enough to be able to afford yarn. And therapists. And likely more options for working around these things, giving you more chances to succeed even when some unthinking jerk 600 miles away carelessly strews an unexpected obstacle into your path.
Congratulations on completing your first actual garment though, despite the odds stacked against you!
@Surplus, the thing is there wasn’t even a mistake. This method of winding balls is notoriously finicky. Last time I was at a yarn store in person the professional messed up a ball of yarn and had to start a new one for me (I assume they did the detangling in the back room). And taking a few extra days would not have harmed me or my friend. We could both wait a bit until I was less upset and had more emotional fortitude to deal with the issue. Neither the yarn nor the baby are going anywhere.
This idea of emotional fortitude is something I’m working on for myself. The premise is that you have some threshold of shit that you can deal with before you end up in an emotional crisis. That crisis takes different forms for different people. For me it is usually negative thinking, panic, feeling super warm, higher heart rate, and that burning sensation in your eyes right before you cry. You can’t change the amount of shit you deal with, but you can work on raising your threshold so that you can handle more shit while not in a crisis state. Clearly I still have some work to do.
I also understand that I am extremely privileged to have someone I can rely on and trust to help me work through these issues. As well as being privileged to have the option of buying materials for my hobby. Had I taken that into consideration when I was getting so frustrated, maybe I would have been able to deal with the situation better. Because the yarn I was working with is really nice stuff. It’s soft and a very pretty color. I’m lucky to be able to work with it. I could have taken less time detangling if I had snipped at the spot with the knot and had shorter bit to work with. Sure that would have made it less convenient than having it intact, but it’s still really nice stuff that I’m lucky to have. That exact thought that you brought up is where I should have gone for a much healthier approach to my situation.
Maybe imagining how you would react to others dealing with what you are going through will help you come up with a new way to frame the situation? So, the site was down. Did you already read some comments/posts? This gives you more time to come up with a comment that you’re happy with.
We’re all lucky in general that David puts this site together and we’re pretty privileged to have all these posts compiled for us in a location that we can all chat together. Sure it’s inconvenient when the site is down, but it’s up quite often and we all enjoy it on a pretty regular basis. And it’s free!
Power went out? That’s not great for the most likely to spoil things in your fridge. Can you take the opportunity to go all “Chopped champion” on a random set of ingredients and come up with the most creative meal ever?
Also, we’re all pretty lucky that we have reasonably regular access to electricity and water. There are so many people who don’t and have to use drying, smoking, and fermentation to be able to store food. Isn’t it amazing that we can have fresh veggies and fruits almost all year round?
I don’t know resources in Canada very well, but I found this paragraph on a website from 2020:
This might be useful for you. There are definitely resources to help you improve your own emotional fortitude as well.
And thanks. I’m very excited about the sweater. Though there were not a ton of obstacles besides the cramps in my hands because I was so excited that I didn’t take enough breaks. There’s a wonderful community of knitters online who are always able and willing to help answer any questions newbies have. It’s a great hobby that is easy to teach yourself. And there are loads of people who even get yarn by buying cheap thrift store sweaters and unwinding them, so it can be as expensive or as cheap (ok, not free) of a hobby as you need/want it to be.
@Surplus: You aren’t currently being bombed out of your home by Putin’s boys, you don’t live in a place where schoolkids have live shooter drills like their grandparents had duck and cover, and you have a goddamn socialized medical system.
I’ve paid out at least $2000 already this year — 4 months — for insurance, two appointments (one of which was about 15 minutes), simple blood tests, and the second or third-best generic drugs for my debilitating health conditions, one of which they’re taking away at the end of the year or at best, next spring, which will probably leave me permanently housebound. And that’s just me, my husband’s down at least $1000 and hasn’t seen any pros IRL or blood tests. And we have “good” insurance.
There are free helplines everywhere in the civilized world. They’re busier than you are, so they aren’t going to snap to pander to your bad attitude immediately just because you have main character syndrome.
The fact that the internet ever works at all is a damn miracle (particularly with capitalist bastards in charge of it, and during a worldwide plague), and the fact that David takes so much of his own time and money (and exposure to toxic MRAs) is something to be grateful here.
Get your shit together, realize you are NOT the main character, stop abusing people here who try to help. The fact that you can’t see that what you’re doing IS abusive neatly parallels how incels can’t understand why they don’t get dates.
In short:
Change your paranoid whiny attitude or at least STFU about it here. No one’s got a gun to your head demanding you yell at David and us about shit we have no control over. We’re here to make fun of MRAs, learn science facts, and look at capybaras.
(Thank you for watching my TED Talk.)
@someone way back:
You’re right, I was only considering the maleness and fighting skills of Mando and Boba. I overlooked the lovely Pedro being Chilean and Temura being proudly Maori. Because it honestly slipped my mind how much the MRAs are racist, what with their overwhelming sexism. I’m sure they’re super-annoyed by Ming-Na Wen kicking more ass than anyone and think the show should be entirely about Hunky White Man Sheriff (no, he’s already done that).
A look at Wiki tells me that Pedro has a trans activist sister, and he lives in America because his mother was a relative of Allende. So I suppose the MRAs must really hate him for all that SJWness. And Mando does cry about his little adopted toddler, who isn’t even human; I guess Real Men are supposed to ignore and abuse their biological children.
@the science slingers: Fascinating! Like Carl Sagan said, we’re all starstuff. (Beeelyuns and beeelyuns of us) (sorry not sorry)
@tim: Yeah, notice how the movie quality fell off when he and Marcia split up? She sure deserved that Oscar. And never were truer words spoken than Harrison Ford’s “You can type this shit, George, but you can’t say it.” The current Mrs. Lucas is aiding and abetting the union-busting Starbucks is currently doing.
(I learn all my union organizing news from @Jorts the Cat on Twitter, and he also posts adorable photos of his orange and white fuzziness. Don’t miss “his” quotes in the recent LA Times article about the bill for protection of farm workers.)
@bumblebug:
Not without any power for the oven, I can’t … and before you suggest any wood- or propane-powered cooking methods, “non-ground-floor apartment”, “no balcony”, and “no desire to experience what it’s like to have carbon monoxide poisoning” …
@GSS ex-noob:
That’s been more theoretical than actual for me since sometime in 2019. I’ve got access to free emergency care (I think); whatever is available OTC at the pharmacy, if I pay for it myself; free COVID vaccinations, whenever another set of those rolls around; and that’s it.
What? How is that even legal? I mean, that’s the equivalent of putting you under house arrest without any of those due processy things like a trial, defense attorneys, the right to face your accusers and to have your own people examine the supposed evidence against you, and things like that. Why are they plotting to do this to you?
@bumblebug
I got nothing useful for the situation at hand, but I appreciate the empathy and kindness you show around here.
In the same way I appreciate Alan’s enthusiasm for learning and sharing new things. And just the general eclectic collection of knowledge and personalities around these parts.
You are a good sort. Congratulations on the sweater!
I forgot electric stoves were a thing. If you have a gas stove, it’s a bit easier.
Warm enough to go to a park and use a grill? Maybe introduce yourself to the neighbors and have a picnic.
If none of those are options, chuck everything you can in the freezer and hope it takes longer to warm up.
If it lasts more than a day, knock on the neighbor’s door and see what you can work out together. They’re going through the same thing.
My main hobby right now is an excessive number of dog walks. I am glad I can keep my dog and myself fed, and I am physically able to walk.
I am also glad they fixed the compactor again! Finally! Day 21 and they did it!
I am less stoked about somehow spraining my left gluteus medius, because it would be nice to not have my one essential brain clearing and dog de-energizing outlet be accompanied by ow.
Butt, such is life.
(Moment of honesty, the pun was originally a typo but it was too good because I am an easily amused fool who adores puns.)
@contrapangloss
You’re so kind. I would be in a much worse place if I didn’t have people who had patience for me and supported me through all of my issues. I hope I can help others in the same way.
@Surplus
https://www.ementalhealth.ca/Toronto/Anger/index.php?m=heading&ID=28&searchString=&searchWhere=Toronto%2C+ON&recordType=1&filterAgeString=19%7E99#84
@Surplus: Yeah, and I’ve had to pay out of pocket for basic dental care and have been on waiting lists to even have a doc. I can’t even imagine the shit I’d be in if I actually had a health emergency. It could be way, way worse.
And if you ventilate properly, you can use a propane stove. And, yeah, the picnic idea isn’t bad at all. Not to mention the neighbors idea. When we had power shutoffs in NorCal plenty of folks had group barbeques.
There was a great scene in Judging Amy where the drug addicted former doctor doing social work told off a client by noting that there were people who would have endless excuses, because the excuses served a totemic role. Even in hard times that can be true. You really do come off that way.
Yeah, and… you’re not entitled to David’s time. The site isn’t some human right. So…
Like I mentioned above, we had multiple mass power outages a few years back out here because PG&E fucked up in terms of keeping the infrastructure safe. That has been an ongoing risk every summer. PG&E is not engaged in a conspiracy against me any more than your hydro is against you. Systems can suck, or they can not, but it’s very easy to look at the existence of a failure and assume malice or even incompetence when it could just be complex systems breaking down.
As for solitary confinement… what is preventing you from going out? Even at the peak of COVID there were definitely options. You have Internet access. It’s not remotely comparable. If there’s a mobility concern that sucks too, but, again… there are people navigating that kind of state as their default in developing countries…
And I’ve lost save files for video games and long documents thanks to dickery. It’s a mild annoyance… if you have endogenous resources that let you manage minor stresses. And if you don’t, that’s the problem, not a website..
No. I can remember stuff and multitask. Maybe it’s unreasonable for you, maybe not, but even if it is, this isn’t remotely life-essential, even if this is a place that gives you an escape valve and some social interaction.
And… notes exist. Just write some stuff down. Even if you had unwittingly refreshed the page, and your cache didn’t exist, just write where you were down. The outage was super short.
Most people don’t. It’s a mild annoyance. Even you say “do not like”, not “hate”.
Is your job quizzing you on WHTM articles? What task is there to do correctly but potentially writing a comment, reading, etc.? If this were something important, your anxiety here would make a little more sense. It would be a little more properly tuned. But it’s just not. You’re almost certainly not being judged by anyone for comprehension of WHTM comments.
By whom? Everyone? Most folks here would understand that that can happen.
It seems that you have a reaction that treats everything you do as if it has grave importance. That level of self-severity is not something that anyone is doing or imposing. It’s your own mind. And it’s something you can work on.
In other words… not a punishment. And people are giving you a lot of repeated negative feedback about a particular approach and you keep responding, so… apparently not even one you care a lot about!
At worst, you might mistake what someone says and then make a post that misrepresents them, but if you’re writing comments carefully, you’ll go back, check and realize your error. And if there’s still an error, you may be able to Edit. And if you miss that window, well, you can just post a comment noting you made an error. And in most cases, if you misread someone… at worst it’ll be a bit of drama, but frankly, the commentariat here seems pretty chill.
How often does this happen? Really? How many hours a week do you spend having to redo work because of interruptions?
You’re the one conflating all of this together. Why do you want to do that to yourself? You don’t deserve that kind of stress. But it’s not being done by anyone.
There is!
It’s called “I’m not psychic nor is anyone else”.
It seems like you spent a lot of time and thought writing this comment. Maybe you just mentally disgorged it and it was quick and thoughtless, but I have to make an estimation based off of what I know about people in general and you in specific.
It’s not personal. And it’s not just you. People routinely fail to see the biggest, but quietest, things done for them, while underestimating the prominent little things.
That’s a reason to communicate better. And work on that process. And in this case, it is transparent to me that everyone here really wants to understand you.
As XKCD pointed out, communication is by definition not a one-person activity. It’s incumbent upon others to give you a reasonable degree of intellectual charity and active listening. It’s incumbent upon you to communicate as clearly and patiently as you can. And there will be inevitable errors due to some admixture of failures on that part, and that’s life. And you can choose to focus on that inevitable outcome, or spend your mental effort, your budget of mental energy, on things you can actually do something about.
No.. It’s not.
That’s what you, remember, perceiving.
I put commas there to indicate that all three of those were important.
You just discussed this massive filter that you think is between you and the world. Yeah, literally everyone has that. Everyone has had some variant of your experience. In my case, I give a lot of energy out to people and work on a lot of being charitable and kind, and then it can feel like that time was poorly budgeted.
But what I find out later is that, sure, sometimes people were being dicks (and even insofar as that was the case, it wasn’t personal, them being dicks really actually had nothing to do with me), but, other times…
And, of course, in the real world, I almost certainly came off cranky, and off-putting, and loud, and weird, and bullying, more often than I think I did, because, well, other people are not me.
This is your impression of your life. But you are clearly smart enough to know the science of memory and self. You know that this is how you see the world now, based on your present experiences, and so the memories you call up will be altered by that. How many times do other people remember it the same way? Not always, right? So how can you be sure that it’s always you striving to be perfect and others just randomly getting in your way?
You can’t. It’s just not. 99% of humanity is not obsessed with you. They are working on their own lives. They are doing their own thing. You are just one of many people they have to interact with. Even when they are dear, close friends. They have an entire life.
You’ve been told by many people here that you have the perspective of a person living as if the world was a movie with them as a protagonist in it. Perhaps you are miscommunicating, but a paragraph like this really, really comes off that way.
And if you work on changing that, that will help your stress levels.
I get that that’s how it seems to you. You’re obviously intelligent enough and have enough of a focus on a sense of perfection that it’s probably even true.. most of the time.
But that’s not how it seems to everyone else.
So, for example: A bureaucracy doesn’t care about your level of effort. They care about maximal compliance with their norms. Because they have a ton of shit they need to do, and they really need standardized systems. If someone is a jerk to you about that? That’s on them and they suck. But if you get a form back and they ask for something to be changed, even if they poorly communicated it? That’s not personal. Everyone gets that. And, no, it’s not the people in the bureaucracy being malicious or incompetent. Try writing a standardized form for anything that will capture all edge cases and communicate adequately to everyone. It can’t be done.
Just a little role reversal will help on these things. Can you be sure that your work on the other end would be so perfect that the non-you would not detect a problem? No.
At this point, you’ve had this same spectrum of feedback from a lot of people. Either you can think everyone is just not understanding you, judging you inappropriately… or you can think that maybe this many different people with different perspectives arriving at a similar conclusion may be telling you something. I suggest the latter. I suggest going to check, inwards. Even if we’re wrong on many details, you’ll find that the exploration is worth it.
Surplus, you just kept right on doing what I told you not to do. I’m going to put you on moderation, at least for now. I’ll happily let through comments of yours that aren’t walls of text on the problems you’re having, especially when others have the same problems. I’ve had power blackouts before, some of them lasting days. And as I said before the site was down for everyone; it wasn’t a scheduled event but rather some sort of glitch with the wordpress software and one of its plugins.
It can sometimes take many hours between my checks of the moderation queue, so be prepared for that.
@GSS ex-noob
I’m so very sorry to hear this, and I wish you all the best. Stay strong.