What's something you used to do/see/say but don't anymore because you don't feel it's right?
Me personally? I’ve become much less tolerant of sexist humor. Back in the day, cracking a joke at women’s expense was pretty common when I was a teen. As I’ve matured and become aware to the horrific extent of toxicity and bigotry pervading all tiers of our individualistic society, I’ve come to see how exclusionarly and objectifying that sort of ‘humor’ really is, and I regret it deeply.
My latest one is remembering that you can’t really fight fire with fire, unless you’re being extraordinarily strategic about it. Attacking bigotry for instance, simply makes it stronger, as it feeds off strife and fear themselves. Remembering why Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high. Not out of any great preference, but out of a lack of viable alternatives in her situation.
You can’t actually “fight” it. You can exclude it. You can corral it. You can trick it into running itself off a cliff. But you can’t actually destroy it by combating it directly, because it feeds off the combat, just like Trump does. You have to outmaneuver it.
Like the black musician who befriended all those kkk members and got them to retire their hoods and leave the kkk. It wasn’t by been mean and condescending he was very nice to them.
There's a WBC member that was being groomed for politics and he was turned by two Jewish guys while he was in university. They killed him with kindness. He wrote a book about it and there's a great NPR interview with him and he talks about it.
I routinely attack bigots on social media. I enjoy writing and their shitty views are basically writing prompts for me.
At no point have I ever expected to change the bigots mind. They’re not going to read a social media comment and wake up a new person – they’d lose their bigot friends and bigot family.
But I have changed the minds of spectators, and thats important. Which is why assholes should never be left unchallenged when they’re being assholes, especially on the safety of the internet.
I don’t think there’s that many spectators wandering around in true states of neutrality wondering whether their various conspiracies are true. Most people lean already, they’ve been already influenced. Thus, if not approached very strategically, you’re actually recruiting for both sides.
Remember, they’ve attacked rationality and logic themselves. The people who still put faith in rationality and logic, and thus can be convinced with it, were not particularly vulnerable in the first place.
“Conventional wisdom” is a thing. There are people who have adopted propaganda and misinformation as opinions simply because it never crossed their mind to challenge it.
Something rather cringe and obnoxious in hindsight was the over use of the word “ocd” It was quite common in media and in my circles for somebody to say “I’m so ocd” when referring to some perfectly normal thing they do like tidying bookcases and organising things.
It’s pretty cringy now and I’d never say it now. I feel bad for saying it… but hey personal growth I guess. I was in school/college at the time too so it was a long time ago. There were a lot of things that were common at school that I used to say that are definitely not pc nowadays and I accept that. I don’t pretend to be a perfect and morally righteous invidual. I have flaws as much as the next person
Apple products. When it started to take away the ability to tune the noise cancellation feature on airpod pro, I decided that’s it. You can nerf it to say its for the best interest for everyone. But I’m the consumer who paid full price who asked for the feature that was to isolate the noise, not a fucking compromised NC because you say so. You can at least have the decency to let me tune it myself, but no, Apple decides whats best. So fuck it.
The elitist attitudes surrounding Apple products is so unbelievable. “OMG, I have an iPhone!” Yeah, you have an iPhone, so what? You’re the best? You can FaceTime your friends, despite you and your friends probably having, like, 7 other apps to do so? And no UI customizability or jailbreaking?
I’m just unable to understand the Apple/iOS hype. It makes my eyes roll. I’m content with my Samsung and Android, thanks.
Ah, a glass half empty man. I can relate sometimes I find when I’m like that, I find that the best thing I can do is peel away from reality and isolate a bit…typically by stringing up a hammock somewhere and reading something new.
Are you seeing someone about it? One of my good friends started feeling that way for awhile, he never really spoke about it…I never would have realized it. I guess that there were a lot of feelings that he felt that others just wouldn’t be able to relate to, so he never opened up about it. He wound up getting diagnosed as clinically depressed and he’s MUCH better. Opened up a lot more. I think just being able to talk really helped.
That doesn’t seem like a fun way to go through life. I’m sorry you’re feeling that way.
“You got gypped”
Always just thought it was the same as being “ripped off” or getting a bad deal. Only in recent years realised that it was in reference to be swindled by a gypsy. I still wondered if the term gypsy was more to do with the lifestyle of the person, like a nomad, and not actually racist but no, gypsies origins are as Romani people. Have since stopped using the term.
Urban Dictionary has a bet each way as to if it is/was racist gypped/gyp’t but best not to use it I think
I used to bother people about sexist humor. Turns out most of the time they just have bad humor or are following whatever was funny back when they watched TV. I don’t do that anymore. It’s not worth my time and it can easily turn a well meaning person into an upset and confused person. I just come up with a good and funny comeback and throw it into their face.
The country where I live had a score of 83.9/100 on the gender equality index, and I’m F29.
Yeah, the long way. I spent years trying to be an “ethical meat eater” and “acknowledging the sacrifice of the animals I am eating” before I was forced to acknowledge the truth screaming in my face. Eating animals depends on pushing that stuff from your mind and the more you think about it, the harder it gets. Eventually I simply could not stand the ever growing cognitive dissonance anymore. It makes you fucking crazy.
I also don’t imitate the kids from “Diff’rent Strokes” anymore, but that’s a separate thing.
As I’ve gotten older (65M), I find that I have grown less hurried and hasty to judge.
Hurrying and rushing really doesn’t help me to do anything faster or better, so why bother?
You do need to be able to quickly judge and assess people and situations in many settings and for a variety of reasons. That being said, I find that judging people prematurely can fail to appreciate their extenuating or particular circumstances. Everyone’s got their own lives, problems and situations. For that matter, everyone can just have a crappy day. Doesn’t mean you have to take crap from people, just helps to give the benefit of the doubt where and when feasible.
Have casual conversations with other guys about girls appearance, it is a good way to start a conversation and get quick sympathy from other men. But is definitely not right.
I feel like there’s still an acceptable way to do this as long as you keep it respectful and follow the mantra of “say more with less”. For example, let’s say we were at a cookout and I came by and said “Hey dude, have you seen Josh Allen’s girlfriend? She’s absolutely stunning”. You pull your phone out Google her we both nod and then move on to something else. If it lingers more than that or wades into the more murky waters of specifics then I agree it’s totally over the line.
I guess so, still… I prefer to actively keep myself away from that. I guess it also depend on your age, in your teenage years was more acceptable, but with the age it becomes more and more creepy.
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