Quote (justhackitup @ Jul 21 2022 07:40pm)
I’ve tried Reddit and Twitter a bit to indulge in actual conversations, many people that disagree with me either change the subject or make an endless “what if” scenario. Had some good real talks too but that’s far less common. Aside from hyper religious right folk, the right seems a lot more open to discussions. An example with leftist folk was climate change and CO2 emissions where I said “ok let’s legally limit childbirth to slow humanity’s population thereby decreasing CO2 consumption if we’re talking about saving the WHOLE planet and the future of the species” which ended in “so you want people to die what if you get picked?”
One big issue with feeling listened to is when someone is factually wrong and still wants to be listened to and by listened to I mean agreed with. It hits from the left a lot more since they are the ones making ever increasing demands to dismantle reality and normality. Google neopronouns, it never ends. I spoke to a recent trans suicide and how there are men and women and people who choose their gender need guidance, not affirmations, which got me banned for 3 days and permabanned from a major forum of “discussing the world”. I even stated it’s sad they died before getting the help they needed and that everyone should have the opportunity for a fulfilling happy life. That was turned into “they killed themselves because of you” which is completely untrue. The rising suicide rate in trans isn’t because people don’t like them it’s because they don’t accept themselves and we are all our own strongest critic. Pleeeeenty if people hate me, don’t really care, plenty love me too, and more importantly I know who and what I am, I don’t need validation from strangers.
Not every viewpoint is valid and some people are wrong but it’s quite difficult to overcome cognitive dissonance when big corporations and psychotic teachers and nameless faceless mobs and bots online validate their crazy. Sometimes people just need to be told “no” lol. But as a white man who believes in structure and sanity, I’m often silenced, ignored, or attacked, so my desire to be heard is double edged. The difference is I’ll be ok I’m not going to buy some rope about it.
That would be rough to feel that way--that you're often silenced, ignored, or attacked. I think that's a very human pain.