Not a bar, but plays one on TV

Gwideon

12:55 AM

So someone is accusing me of trying to speak for an entire community

trogdor

Ignore them

They are not worth your time

And just want to argue about something

Gwideon

I never said that I was trying to speak for the entirety of my community. I’ve always framed it as this is how I see things. It’s obvious that they’re twisting my words but it hurts to see it come from who claims to be apart of the same community.

trogdor

If they claim that, then they should know better than to jump on you about this

My guess is they are trolling

But even if they aren't, they obviously grossly misread what you've been talking about

Rubiksmoose

A very wise person once told me that said that when discussing things like this, they filtered people into one of three groups: "definitely opening to learning from me", "guaranteed will not agree with what I'm saying if not outright hostile", or "ambivalent and difficult". Depending on which group the person was in, they allocated a different amount of energy to dealing with that person.

I'd recommend not allocating any significant energy into any group besides the first, and only then if you have the energy to spare.

This person definitely sounds like they are in the 2nd or 3rd group.

trogdor

Yeah

BESW

1:09 AM

Yeah, if somebody's treating you as a proxy in their "culture war" rather than a human, it's time to leave and focus on seeking out people who are interested in mutual support of folks' humanity.

I think this is kinda r🐘, but it's not an easy watch. CW online harassment, Nazis, mental trauma.

Lindsay Ellis, Video Essayist - XOXO Festival (2019)

►

Gwideon

I'm trying to be respectful in my responses and I'm disengaging before things blow up

BESW

[looks up the post] ...Yeah, that's just "if I don't see it then it doesn't exist" with a side order of victim-blaming. Transparent bunk.

Gwideon

is it worth a flag

BESW

In this atmosphere, I'm not really able to say.

Rubiksmoose

1:24 AM

@Gwideon you can point me to the comment if you want

However the worst thing that can happen is that a flag is rejected. Not a big deal unless you get piles of them rejected.

AGirlHasNoName

I would disengage. I also recommend anyone flag the way their conscience tells them. I would not advocate for or against.

Rubiksmoose

^

BESW

@Rubiksmoose I'll drop you a link off-site.

AGirlHasNoName

Just because someone is a member of the community that you are apart of doesn't mean they get to tell you you can't speak up.

There are people out there that don't speak for me. That doesn't mean they are not allowed to speak for themselves.

Gwideon

it makes me sad that it seems there can never be a unified front among people.

and that people feel they need to dismiss and minimize someone elses perspective

BESW

1:32 AM

Yeah, the zero-sum game where people think nobody can succeed except with someone else failing, is pretty tragic and needs to get pushed back with model action wherever possible.

Gwideon

yeah and I'm trying to do that but I keep getting comments like that

and it makes it hard. It's hard for me to ignore them.

AGirlHasNoName

I stopped engaging because of the comments

And some people are trolling by claiming to be part of the community. Don't let it get you down

BESW

Making cogent arguments is valuable, but teaching by example means finding/making spaces and opportunities where we can model alternatives rather than just talking about them. Sometimes that means prying open room for it in an existing system, like the Stack Exchange, and sometimes it means making entirely new spaces. Depends on the context and resources each of us has access to.

AGirlHasNoName

It's hard to ignore the comments. To leave them unchallenged means they have the last word. It looks like they won the argument. It hurts to leave the damage unchallenged. I get it.

Gwideon

yeah. um I do ask have my responses to his answer and comments been pretty good

like um I haven't been disrespectful or anything

AGirlHasNoName

1:38 AM

No. I would stop defending yourself now though. You said what you needed to. They are just continuing to argue because it exhausts you.

Gwideon

okay

also it's very dismissive to say the pain that someone has felt doesn't matter because they belong to a minority. That's exactly the argument people have used to attack minority groups in the past. god this is so frustrating.

AGirlHasNoName

@Gwideon You matter

trogdor

@Gwideon yes, you matter

Also they are a troll

Gwideon

I'm so tired of people making these big ignorant statements

trogdor

A vampire who is trying deliberately to suck out your energy

Gwideon

1:45 AM

yeah I know

It's hard for me to stop. I feel like I have to fight

trogdor

They don't deserve your energy

You do

BESW

You're not alone. None of us has to do all the work.

Gwideon

I feel like I have to show these people that I'm not just gonna lay down and take this, that no matter what they say or do they're never gonna make me shut up.

trogdor

But you don't have to

They aren't going to stop until they can't get a reaction out of you anymore

BESW

One of the things Lindsay Ellis says in the lecture I linked above is, it's useful to flood the "discourse" with positivity. Instead of talking to or about the bad-faith arguments, find ways to create conversations about how excellent people are.

Which reminded me of something 'Abdu'l-Bahá said in a 1912 lecture in Paris:

> When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love.

Gwideon

1:50 AM

I hate ignoring it though but um yeah. It feels like I'm letting them win.

AGirlHasNoName

@Gwideon It's hard. No one here thinks it isn't

BESW

There are times and places and people for actively opposing toxic talking points. Public one-on-one arguments by the most vulnerable of us is usually not that. You can oppose that toxicity just as vehemently and probably more effectively by focusing your energy on living well and supporting positive actors.

AGirlHasNoName

And if you do have the strength to stand up, choose where and when you do it. Don't let them decide that for you.

BESW

Flag, downvote, and move on to find activities that can serve humanity by actively demonstrating better ways of being.

Gwideon

I guess so. Um I guess I keep saying to myself that if I can just make a more rational argument that they'll see my point but they'll never see my point. they never wanted to see my point so what's the point in trying.

BESW

1:56 AM

in RPG General Chat, Feb 22 '16 at 11:16, by BESW

> Not everything that a man knoweth can be disclosed, nor can everything that he can disclose be regarded as timely, nor can every timely utterance be considered as suited to the capacity of those who hear it. (Bahá’u’lláh)

V2Blast

In case you would like to be distracted by something more adorable: here is a monkey hugging a cat.

2

Gwideon

awww that's really freaking cute

AGirlHasNoName

@V2Blast brought a much needed smile to my face.

BESW

Ellis also says, "You cannot reason someone out of something they did not reason themselves into."

V2Blast

:D

AGirlHasNoName

1:59 AM

And if you need to, stay away from MSE for a while. Make sure self-care comes first. It's like the airplane oxygen mask. If you don't take care of yourself first you can't help anyone else.

Gwideon

true

BESW

Absolutely yes. I'm keeping pretty far away from anything Stack-related outside three chat rooms because I know I don't have the spoons to do anything except melt.

You're welcome to chill in my Discord channel where Stack drama is pretty much off-topic and it's always cool to ask for a topic change of any sort.

Gwideon

yeah I can feel myself running out of spoons

anyways

BESW

And the RPG General Chat has been declared a De-MSE-erized Zone for the foreseeable future, so you can just leave the Not A Bar and hang in General, too.

Gwideon

yeah

BESW

2:08 AM

You get to control your inputs.

You can even put adblock on your Stack message notification element.

Gwideon

I don't know if I want to completely disconnect

AGirlHasNoName

@BESW That's amazing!!!! I didn't know that!

BESW

I haven't done it myself, but somebody mentioned doing it last week and it sounded magical.

@Gwideon I get that, yeah. Unfortunately the Stack Exchange system hasn't offered any granular safety tools. H*ck, even putting someone on "ignore everywhere" in chat still leaves their starred posts visible.

Gwideon

yeah

V2Blast

@AGirlHasNoName You can use adblock/uBlock to block basically any page element

@BESW why am I not surprised

AGirlHasNoName

2:19 AM

I never explored adblock and its features

I just threw it on and moved on

BESW

I've ranted at length in the past about how the Stack Exchange doesn't implement any features that treat its users as humans with individual needs and concerns, unless/until there's so much clamor that it'd create more friction not to. Their safety tools are a classic example.

Gwideon

3:30 AM

Hey

Um I took a break and played some splatoon with a friend so yeah I’m feeling a bit less wound up I guess

BESW

Relaxing with friends is good! I'm gonna have tea with a friend this afternoon.

Gwideon

That sounds nice

I’m still a bit frustrated but um it’s been tempered a bit by laughter. Um it also looks like I got the last word in with that user so um my mind can now rest it’s need to fight stuff

Um yeah I’ll be quiet now

trogdor

@BESW you didn't inform me of it :p

Rubiksmoose

3:53 AM

@trogdor He said "friend". [sick burn]

V2Blast

Nice, Splatoon sounds fun. I've played maybe once I think?

@Rubiksmoose oof

dang, was gonna point out your misquote before you fixed it

:P

Rubiksmoose

bullet dodged :)

trogdor

@Rubiksmoose ooooh I thought he said "fiend" my bad

XD

Rubiksmoose

hahaha

Gwideon

1:23 PM

heya

Gwideon

1:42 PM

welp I'm mad

NautArch

1:55 PM

@Gwideon what's up?

Gwideon

I've disengaged from the comments but um the guy from last night just wrote a new comment and well it's.... very dismissive

NautArch

@Gwideon That doesn't sound like you've disengaged.

Gwideon

I wrote a comment letting them know I'm not continuing the conversation

NautArch

Unfortunately, that's still engaging.

Gwideon

yeah

NautArch

1:59 PM

Dealing with trolls is a lot like dealing with children. Any interaction is engagement. If you need to disengage, then you can't interact at all.

goodguy5

The only way to win is not to play

NautArch

Took me a long time to figure that out as a parent.

And i'm sure that strategy will start to fail soon :P

Gwideon

yeah I guess

goodguy5

@NautArch please let me know what age that falls apart

NautArch

@goodguy5 Ha! So far at 7 it's still working.

every kid is different, though

goodguy5

2:00 PM

phew, at least 7 more years

NautArch

I wouldn't recommend that strategy yet...

but when it's time to sleep train, then it starts.

I'd also heavily recommend removing pacifiers on their 1st birthday.

old enough they don't really need them, but too young to vocalize their dislike of it :P

goodguy5

We've brushed the surface of sleep training. and 1 year is our planned pacifier max anyway

We think we like:
put them down awake, but tired. (good night love you etc) Walk away. allow to cry for 5 minutes. check. repeat

Gwideon

2:17 PM

sorry

i should go

NautArch

@Gwideon why?

@goodguy5 yeah, the check system works, but when it's time to go full sleep training, then we went with just let them figure it out. Super hard to not go in. I did it when my wife was away.

goodguy5

We're trying to consolidate all of his wake-up feeds later and later. I think it's mostly working.

Though, my mom is watching him overnight Sunday for a wedding..... so I'm sure he'll be spoiled rotten by monday.

Gwideon

I'm just causing trouble

NautArch

@Gwideon Not here you're not!

hmm, that looks like awful grammar. But you're not causing trouble here :)

Gwideon

2:36 PM

i guess I'm kinda just not sure if i'm bothering anyone or if I'm not but um if you're fine with me then I guess I should stay.

NautArch

@Gwideon I'll definitely say if i'm being bothered - and I'm not!

Gwideon

okay

Xirema

2:57 PM

@Gwideon One thing I did with my friends to deal with Imposter Syndrome issues that might help: if there ever comes a time where you're actually a problem (and so far, just to be perfectly clear, you've never been), we will tell you to your face. There's not going to be any kind of "well, we weren't saying anything because we weren't trying to be confrontational". We will talk to you if there's a problem.

@Gwideon You've been very welcome in this chat, and if that changes, we will let you know. So if we haven't said anything, it's because you've continued to be welcome.

2

↑ As someone who has dealt with issues like that before, having someone say basically that to me helped a lot. Not sure if it'll help for you.

Carcer

yeah you're fine

Gwideon

Okay. um thank you

goodguy5

3:31 PM

@Gwideon what's something good about yourself you can say today?

Gwideon

i'm not sure

goodguy5

by my clock, today has over 12 hours left. that leaves you plenty of time to come up with something ^_^

Gwideon

okay

Gwideon

6:05 PM

I try to be compassionate and empathetic

@goodguy5 um there’s my one good thing

goodguy5

bam. good job you

Just do that every day.

Gwideon

Okay

Um is this answer okay meta.stackexchange.com/a/336634/622332

Xirema

6:27 PM

My only concern is that the people who need to hear it most probably have too much wiggle-room to avoid actually internalizing the advice. Like, "both sides" aren't equally culpable in the fights you've been in on this stack: pretty clearly, it's been mostly people being unreasonable/not listening towards you, whereas you've been trying to respect their arguments and be kind.

But a lot of the people responding to you are not operating under the mindset that they're being rude/unreasonable/whatever, but instead under the mindset of "well, this is just how people argue on the internet, what …

Gwideon

6:42 PM

@Xirema that's true. most people see themselves as the hero of their story which means they don't often truly allow self reflection

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon I like it. Have a plus.

Gwideon

okay

Transcript for

Not a bar, but plays one on TV