#ESPECIALLY when that person just politely listened to you infodump about the most confusing and boring shit ever for like THIRTY MINUTES AAA

[lingonberry24]

It is unfair having to reparent parents and explain to them the basics of respectful communication. Like. The flow of knowledge was supposed to go the other way. Why.

[serinemolecule]

Not to harp on the obvious, but the discussion feels hollow without it: the only reason some people - not all, maybe not most, but definitely some - push for "equality" and "inclusiveness" and etc. in tech is because it's seen as a desirable and powerful position. No one's been belly-aching about it back when it was fashionable to tell nerds to stop being fat and ugly and what a bunch of losers they are. It's only up for discussion now that there's something to be gained from it. It's hypocrisy.

(context: a lot of women-in-tech discourse)

I mean, I was belly-aching about it.

I like to say I was a feminist until I met other feminists. I definitely saw plenty of things nerds could be doing better for equality. But then the first time I met other feminists, they were harassing nerds and writing long essays about how nerds were even worse than average men (which still seems to me like an absolutely insane position).

That was... a really big crisis of faith there. I spent years reading feminist literature, trying to understand their point. And the crazy thing was, a lot of the principles and concepts do appeal to me. But then the way they’d apply it, talking about how privileged nerds were, or just using it as an excuse to be assholes to people, that’s always seemed wrong to me.

My approach at the time was just to try to understand it better in private, and never talk about it in public. This lasted until I read the SSC essays on social justice which I entirely agreed on, then I joined Tumblr to hit on Scott, and since then I started getting more comfortable with writing out my thoughts, but also the really bad SJ of the early 2010s just mostly faded away from the spaces I’m in. I still hear insane stories from other places (like the New York Times! wtf!) but it no longer feels like a crisis afflicting my own community, so I never wrote anything out.

Part of it’s that my community is the rats, now. SJWs may still exist here, but they don’t have a social power to turn us against each other. Whatever effect Topher’s tweet had on the rest of the world, it means he’s no longer welcome among rats anymore. We dismiss them with equanimity using the ancient proverb, “Haters gonna hate”.

Anyway, I suppose now’s as good a time as any for me to talk about what I think about feminist theory.

I get the impression that Scott is embarrassed by his old posts on gender politics, but I still endorse every word. Even the words people like to criticize the most, I endorse as an angry expression of “Why don’t you care about how many people your ideology is hurting?” That said:

Privilege theory – I remember encountering privilege theory and thinking “yes, this totally fits the model that normies are privileged and nerds are marginalized”, until I got to the part where they started talking about how privileged nerds were. I think the theory is still pretty good, and of course the practice about writing privilege checklists and using it to silence people is incredibly fucked up.

Patriarchy theory – Fortunately, no one talks about patriarchy theory anymore. It came from the radfems and it always seemed horrible to me. It's uncontroversially true that ruling class is mostly male, but patriarchy theory seems to just equivocate between that and insane conspiracy theories.

For example, “culture is built for the benefit of men at the expense of women” requires you to just dismiss everything that hurts men and helps women, to excuse that fashion policing is nearly solely perpetuated by other women, and even if it’s true, the fact that it is perpetuated by everyone means pointing the finger at a specific group will not help fix the problem. Did Kamala Harris exercise “girl power” when she kept black prisoners in jail past their release date? 

Cultural appropriation – The usual steelman I hear for this is “it sucks when white people take your culture for themselves, and yet still call it cringe when you practice your own culture” – but the only objectionable part is the latter! Stop objecting to the former part! There’s nothing wrong with culture mixing and it is in fact one of the most beautiful things in the world!

Part of it’s that I’m a first-gen immigrant, and cultural appropriation attitudes often come from insecurities second-gen immigrants have. Cultural appropriation just means I’m now an expert on your new culture and you’re not allowed to stop me from infodumping on it.

The other steelman is “misusing religious artifacts is bad” and I think to the extent that it’s bad, it’s bad whether you’re doing it to your own culture or to other cultures.

In general I think Halloween was, among other things, a great celebration of diversity that did not need to be cancelled, and I don’t think any costume was offensive to the majority of any culture.

Intersectionality – This word confused me for so long. People kept explaining it as “black women often have problems specific to their group that neither women’s groups nor black groups themselves are equipped to fight” which just seemed obviously true and didn’t seem like we needed a word for it.

Over the years, I’ve seen it be used as a reminder of “don’t forget how your activism affects other marginalized groups”, so it’s probably a useful concept to keep around.

Microaggressions – I think being oblivious to microaggressions is an autism thing, but I still think it’s insane to make them a political issue. Sure, you can vent about them, but acting like they’re on par with actual aggressions just seems like a losing cause.

On second thought, I don’t think I have a problem with making them a political issue in general. I think the whole tactic of SJWs being a hateful harassment mob makes the microaggressions thing just come off as especially petty.

I also think there’s a lot of competing access needs here. I actually really like infodumping about what kind of Asian I am to anyone willing to listen, and I think acting like the question is the root of all evil is really unfair, especially since literally everyone who’s ever asked has been happy to learn about the finer points about Chinese ethnic groups.

Isms as prejudice + power – People have mostly stopped discoursing about this, which is good. Language policing always seemed bad to me.

Objectification – SSC says everything I feel on the topic: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/17/my-objections-to-objectification/

The last time this came up in Discord, people said that objectification is more than the straw-man being criticized in this article, that it’s about people being entitled to your body or whatever. But I think the article does address that: “This is obviously a legitimate complaint. It’s just not a complaint about objectification.”

I got exposed to objectification as a criticism of hot girls in video games. And I just can’t see hot girls in video games as a bad thing.

Rape culture – [cw rape] This is an incredibly sensitive subject so I’m going to give you some time to stop reading here.

Our culture has a serious problem with rape. I think it’s important to understand that it’s usually committed by friends and family, that it’s depressingly common and has nearly definitely happened to people you know, that it’s usually committed by people who don’t think of what they’re doing as rape, and that all the discourse on it is really fucked up.

I also think that calling this “rape culture” entirely misses the point. I’m sympathetic that SSC doesn’t understand it: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/19/i-do-not-understand-rape-culture/

Our problem isn’t that we glorify rape. Our problem is that we consider it a special kind of evil so bad that of course no normal person would ever do it, and this makes it easy to rationalize that whatever this normal person did couldn’t have been rape, which causes huge harms.

I don’t have answers, but I think it’s incredibly clear that calling it “rape culture” doesn’t help.

In general, I don’t think feminist activism on the topic of rape goes in the right direction. The smug “consent is like tea” video has the exact same problem. People don’t need to hear more “normal people would never rape” messaging.

[regrettablewritings]

Can I please request B, F, and O for Benoit Blanc? I’m simping for this gentleman sleuth so hard.

I’m surprised you didn’t put DNUT just for the sake of reference 😂  Stuff is below the cut!

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?): While he isn’t against the idea to the point of fighting it, Benoit doesn’t strike me as someone actively looking to start a family, either. At least, not in the most traditional sense of what a family could be. He knows he’s not ancient, but he’s certainly not the very picture of youth, either. There’s plenty of things he’s not afraid to do in fear of appearing odd, but he can’t help but wonder if, perhaps, becoming a father at his age would appear peculiar.

Technically speaking, there’s nothing wrong with it, of course: He’s sure enough men his age have become fathers, and he knows plenty celebrities had at much older stages of life. But no matter what The New Yorker may think, Benoit knows he’s not exactly a celebrity; becoming a father at his age might appear less glamorous. And as flattering as the theory might be, he’s not so sure he’d be comfortable with the world knowing his virility in practice.

But, of course, things don’t always go the way we plan for them to. Just because he’s not actively looking to grow the family doesn’t mean it won’t somehow happen. It’ll catch him by surprise, no doubt, especially given how he’s so used to being able to predict things by calculation and logic, but it’s nothing he’s necessarily going to fight, either. If the great Benoit Blanc is to become a father to an actual baby instead of just a fur baby, then he’s going to accept that position with pride and zeal. (And much confusion, but that’s nothing a lot of research and a handful of classes and Youtube tutorials couldn’t fix.)

Benoit knows the impact a loving parent can have on a child, and he wants to assure any progeny of his is granted that chance. He won’t be a perfect father, he knows that, but he most certainly would want to make an effort to be one that they wouldn’t hate. He’s encountered way too many patricide cases to go lax on it all.

More to the point, however, he’s honestly just content with his family as it currently appears to be. He may come from more traditional and decidedly old-fashion means, but this doesn’t exclude the sleuth from possessing an open-mindedness toward the ever-changing image of what a family could be decreed and recognized to be. And sometimes, a family is just a peacockish gentleman with a thick drawl, his more grounded and snarky partner, and their handsome pet cat who is either plotting their deaths or actually enjoys it when they sing show tunes to him.

There are times when he looks back on his life so far and feels ribbons of regret, however. How might things have turned out if he’d settled down before? Would things have been better? Worse? More or less the same?

Well, whatever the case, he doesn’t intend to dwell on it too often or for too long; you’re here now, and if that’s all there was meant to be, then he’d take it without a moment’s hesitation.

F = Feelings (When did they know they were in love?):

He’s not sure, if truth be told. There wasn’t really a precise moment or even necessarily one singular action that offered him any confirmation. The sting of Cupid’s arrow never actually radiated through him, so much as the realization flitted into his mind as a random memory might. It was simply a matter of fact to him one day: He absolutely adored you.

Part of him wanted to go into detective mode, to use that brain of his and search for a specific date that might have triggered the sensation, or to pester Elliot and Marta by using them as soundboards for his monologues and conclusion. Benoit Blanc is a self-aware man, he’s too old to be caught off guard by his own feelings like a schoolboy. But thankfully for all, he stops himself from doing so when he considers the stance that perhaps the feelings had already been present for months now, that there wasn’t any suddenness to the realization. A sense of jamais vu, but of the emotion. Jamais réalisé. Still, the ever-inquisitive spirit in him thirsted for an answer. He tried to satiate it.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that unlike most, you appeared to enjoy his monologuing. Most people would normally just sit there, the only feedback offered being blank expressions or ones that displayed how thrown off they were about his strange analogies. You, on the other hand, were always listening even when your eyes weren’t directly on him or if you appeared to be busy with something else. Sometimes, if you deemed it necessary, you would even throw in your own input. When he joked about how invested you were, you reasoned that you tended to do the same when you infodumped.

Going off that, he liked when you infodumped: Your entire person would gain a sprightliness to it, particularly in your eyes. The detective truly believed in the value of all sorts of knowledge, and he genuinely did appreciate whatever you had to offer, even when it only appeared to be trivia. The only downside to this was that you almost always would catch yourself and, casting your sights elsewhere, all that vibrancy from before would snuff out like a light. It would darn near break his heart to hear you apologize for “babbling on about such silly things.” He would always insist that it was quite alright, that you needn’t apologize, but you always assumed deep down that he was simply being courteous as all others in his position would be. The truth always was that he was being genuine, you deserved that much.

Maybe he thought you deserved that much because you were relatively patient with him. He didn’t think of himself as a nuisance but Benoit knew that to many, he was more of an acquired taste. He always tried to be polite and considerate but sometimes, his more abrasive traits would come to the foreground, especially when he was on the case. But you never seemed to get especially testy with him as Elliot would. If anything, you were quick to put him in his place with a gently-worded but sternly-spoken reminder that he needed to mind himself.

“The truth can only soothe you so much when you got a foot up your ass,” as you put it once. It got a smile out of him. Of course, he always knew you had some kind of wit about you; one that, while a bit more blunt than his, never failed to make him laugh yet force him to acknowledge the truth. He might’ve been known for his rich vocabulary, but he couldn’t help but admire your own, more direct means of getting the point across. He knew damn well that you understood everything he said, and sometimes he questioned if maybe your responses to him were so straightforward as a means of taunting him over his perceived verboseness.

Even if this were true, he found himself amused every time you opened your mouth. In fact, you were quickly becoming his favorite person to speak to. And he even dared to consider the possibility that, based on how you lit up every time he came to the office, perhaps the same could be said on your part . . .

Well, whatever the case, Benoit never got as far as he’d wanted to whenever he pondered the cause of his feelings for you. Much to his dismay, every effort was thwarted by himself: Every time he came to a theory, he would quickly become sidetracked by other thoughts of you. Eventually he became distracted to the point where every consideration he made could be counted on to be accompanied by some appraisal of your character. In short, he was simultaneously coming up fruitless and fruitful.

But then maybe those were the answers he was looking for. Of course, they weren’t in the usual format he was familiar with but he supposed it was for the best: Feelings weren’t the same breed of mystery as, say, a murder investigation. He didn’t count it as a failure on his part, however (given that Benoit Blanc wasn’t one to quit). No, he decided that perhaps it might’ve been better to keep his work and his play separate. He’d spent enough of his life revolved around solving mysteries, after all; this one, he concluded, was best enjoyed just being experienced as it was.

O = Orange (What colour reminds them of their other half?):

It’s hard for you to choose, really: Benoit is a rather colorful man, after all, with his bright blue eyes and lack of fear regarding certain male accessories. But you do tend to veer towards shades of green. Specifically, peacock green because not only does he own a suit of similar shading, but also because frankly, due to his dandy-like nature, you couldn’t help but compare him to a peacock in your head. Sure, he lacked the arrogance associated with the bird, but what else could you compare a man with an assortment of floral ties and pretty-patterned pocket squares to?

Similarly, Benoit associates you with the color cranberry because of something in your wardrobe: Specifically, the red cardigan you were wearing the day you both met. Admittedly, he’s a twinge embarrassed that he couldn’t associate you with something more overtly romantic: He remembers that you like pink Starbursts but still give him half of yours; he remembers how you argue that black Converses are “the only valid converses” next to glittery ones; and he has no choice but to remember that godawful brown scarf you refuse to discard because “it’s still a good scarf and you’d already had it for this long.”

But you don’t mind. In fact, you’re elated and nearly swept off your feet at the fact: He remembers all the little things from the moment you two became acquainted, even though at the time he was under no awareness or intention that you would become so important to him. You know that, technically, it’s a part of his job to just commit things to detail, but you’ve seen this man forget website passwords and his own keys. Yet, if anyone were to demand that he recall three things from that fateful day, he would immediately recite about how you had a frog Beanie Baby resting on your computer monitor; that you were stabbing your Chinese takeout lunch with one hand and typing up a report with the other; and that you were wearing a cranberry-colored cardigan.

Sometimes, the first two bits were swapped with different things he remembered (all being true), but the one consistent memory that he would always bring up with be the cranberry cardigan. And frankly, you're satisfied with that bit alone.

Thanks for your patience!