The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Good question, to be honest I exclusively interact with them in private spheres. I would hope my friends treat others with respect, and I'd be willing to forgive some transgressions.
I don't quite get this one-- is the post quoting an extreme tweet and then providing commentary? I read this as "I'm going to go annoy some people who don't really deserve it," which sounds annoying. Maybe in some contexts that sentiment would be justified (though not necessarily the action), like if they were implying "some people annoyed me, so I'm going to go annoy them back." Not saying that's what's happening there, just a little confused at what that post is saying.
That's an interesting tweet-- in a vacuum (without the culture-war context) that would be the perfect algorithm for updating prior beliefs, if the last step included some wiggle room for the alternative conclusion. That said, most would read that tweet within the culture-war context, in which it's arguably kind of offensive, because it assumes the poster is always right.
I appreciate the advice, I will consider this.
Edit: punctuation
Yes, that's exactly it. I have personally left (and feel driven out of) many hobbyist spaces thanks to coordinated groups of queer people of some type or other showing up and being aggressively sexual. I don't want to hear about how their hormones make them feel euphoric, I don't want to hear about "lol sex act joke", I want to go back to talking about X.
Ahhh, they are actually talking about ham radio-- I thought that was a euphemism. That's hilarious, imagine spamming ham radio with queer propoganda! There is additional irony because in the US AM radio (admittedly different from ham radio) is considered to be almost exclusively "Red Tribe" or US right-wing. I've heard US left-wing people complain about it.
The behavior you're describing (talking/being sexual) isn't limited to trans (or even queer) people, I've been in all-male workplaces where talking about sex and sex acts was commonplace (there were porno magazines in the break room). That isn't to say that the behavior is appropriate, though.
It seems like what you're describing is the same thing my trans friends are describing with regard to Harry Potter content? Am I wrong there? Like you don't want to see/hear offensive content in those hobbyist spaces and want to filter it? Thankfully the internet can maybe one day provide this functionality in a way that ham radio cannot.
Did the developers of the Harry Potter game deliberately set out to find a niche of the trans community, to spam it with JK Rowling content, in order to make trans people as uncomfortable as possible?
If your reaction to that tweet is "that's hilarious", shouldn't making trans people uncomfortable also be hilarious?
The tweet about spamming ham radio with queer chatter is not a productive analogy. It's funny but clearly inflammatory and uncivil.
I think the better analogy is queer people talking about queer things in the context of a hobbyist space that isn't coded queer. The queer people didn't seek to make anyone uncomfortable, but KingOfTheBailey was offended, threatened, and ended up being excluded as a result. That is a different scenario than what I described but a better analogue.
Yeah, 100%, but the asymmetry in the provided examples is the entire issue. If we lived in the world where your analogy was more representative of right-wing complaints, we could find a compromise "I won't talk about X, if you won't talk about Y", or "how about we cut all the talk around sex, whether it's straight or queer, and just focus on our love for the hobby we've gathered around", but if one side gets to demand offensive content be taken down, while actively plotting to offend others, there's not going to be a way forward.
I think we're getting a little bit off-track here, I am sympathetic to the idea that demanding to take down objectionable content only leads to taking down other less-objectionable content in the long-run. For the sake of argument let's say my trans friends aren't planning on harassing anyone (I believe this to be true, but could be wrong).
Imagine you had a friend who was upset about getting served Harry Potter content and one of their favorite streamers had streamed the new game despite it being clear that some of the trans folks in her community were against it. What would you say to them? Would you avoid the subject?
Keep in mind that my issue isn't with potential future censorship of less objectionable content, it's with selective empathy. Your question sets the situation up so that it's expected for me to show some kind of empathy for the friend who's upset, because isn't that what friends do? The issue is that I haven't seen they slightest semblance of reciprocation from progressive groups when I get upset at something. Alex Kurtzman shits all over Star Trek? Get over yourself you racist nerd! And so on.
The issue with the question of what I'd do, is that it implicitly conflates what would happen in my perfect world, with what I'd do in the world I actually have to live in.
In my perfect world: I call my friend and idiot for fretting over the HP game, and streamers streaming it. My friend calls me a retard for being upset at the new Star Trek. None of that has any negative impact on our friendship, and we even actually enjoy these heated exchanges.
In my second-best world: I do some active listening routine for my friend, trying to get to what upsets them, and conclude with "yeah that sucks". They do the same for me, re: Star Trek.
In the demonic hellscape we are forced to live in: I keep my mouth shut. Change the subject. Start avoiding my friend if they keep pushing.
Sure, it may require some empathy for my friends, probably more for me though. Maybe it's quibbling but I am sympathetic to both the viewpoint that harry potter content is objectionable and the viewpoint that harry potter content is fine. Sympathetic to streamers that stream the game, but understanding of why that's potentially an issue.
Well that doesn't seem very charitable of the progressive groups-- I have had mixed experiences with the new star trek stuff. I'd be curious if you have a link or a quick summary of the criticism of Kurtzman's take on Star Trek.
This is great advice, and exactly why I'm glad I posted. I went with option number 3, but I really want to be able to have some level of option number 1-- maybe not calling them an idiot, but being able to discuss it like we are now.
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