#do not respond or @ me with disingenuous arguments on this either

[coldresolve]

yeah, nah, fuck it. im sharing this post and then i'm just gonna link to it whenever it becomes relevant.

every disagreement i have with yall always comes back to me phrasing things in a way that sounds mean. always, always. like duh, i dont try to sugarcoat how i see things, i have realized that, in fact i do it on purpose. why? well.

i come from a culture where it's often interpreted as deceitful and/or shallow to sandwich your point in with superficial courtesy. if you spend too much time packing your point in with whatever you think will make it easier to swallow, people will start to feel like you're infantalizing them, or straight up wasting their time. being direct and honest from the get-go is seen as a sign of respect - yes, even if what you're saying could easily be interpreted as rude. say what you think, say exactly how you feel, and we'll take it from there. that kinda thing.

when i say an opinion or criticise something on here, i am treating you, the reader, like someone who is smart enough to understand the gist of my argument without being bogged down by its delivery, mature enough to recognize the difference between criticism of your work (or general trends) and criticism of you as a person, and emotionally well-adjusted enough to not pin your self-worth on the negative opinions some random guy on the internet might have of something you do/create/like.

i am showing you respect by talking to you as if you are an adult who can deal with what i might have to say. if you're not, and you can't, i expect you to have the wherewithall to not engage with me. i could at the very least respect that. alternatively, you're also welcome to disagree with my points, obviously. i'm always up for a good discussion.

but you responding to criticism like mine with defensiveness, affront, or worse, the idea that you're now justified to go after the criticiser as a person, only comes across to me like immaturity, self-consciousness, self-importance, and in some cases - deliberate or not - obtusiveness. see how that cultural divide can go both ways?

we're probably not gonna find common ground here. i'm tired of being interpreted as aggressive all the time, but i have no intention of conforming to the american ideal of social courtesy, because it makes me feel shallow, disingenuous and fake. meanwhile, you're probably not gonna be able to hear me speak without shaking the knee-jerk feeling that i'm purposefully ignoring the sensitivity of others (because objectively, i am).

so do we chuck the whole thing up to different culturally determined approaches to communicating our ideas? can we keep a shred of respect and mutual understanding and leave it at that?

or are you gonna insist that i'm immoral/rude/aggressive/callous/antagonistic/attacking people/etc, for voicing my own opinions, in my own way, on my own blog - in which case i, in turn, will feel perfectly content to just consider you an inherently silly person?

as far as i can tell, it's one or the other.

(also please please recognize the difference between using culture as an excuse, and pointing out a very real cultural divide that influences both how i communicate and how you interpret how i communicate. my point is that we're gonna keep talking past each other unless we adress the fact that we approach communication with very different goals in mind, mine being effectiveness and honesty and yours being courtesy and social sensitivity. i am also not saying that either one of these is "the right way" to communicate. don't read shit into my takes that isn't there to begin with. thx)

[panticwritten]

re: iwilleatyourenglish’s response. that cyberphuck person you reblogged from clarified thats not what they ment. They proudly ID as an asshole and have a history of harassing ppl. their also a pedo and when called out for having an account dedicated to writing csa porn they described in graphic detail how they wanted to turn their critics into kids and SA them. its all on their blog rn. ur on the wrong side

I reblogged a post and left tags with my own experience and agreeing with BOTH people on the post (meanness is necessary, but some people take it too far. Like you, right now, for example). I’m not on any side, you’re yelling at people who do not care. There are not sides here, and if there were I’m not going to side with the person who either is okay with their followers stalking and wishing harm on others on her behalf or is just doing it herself behind the anon mask.

Bc I’m assuming that you ARE iwilleatyourenglish considering the self congratulatory anon conversations on your own blog. So, I’m going forward with that assumption. So long as you’re on anon, that’s gonna be who I’m taking to, since even if you aren’t you’re speaking on her behalf.

Cyberphuck (whose ao3 is actually pretty tame??) was very obviously not responding genuinely and was VERY OBVIOUSLY making fun of you to get a rise out of you. They shouldn’t have bothered since you immediately jumped to telling me to eat glass just because I disagreed with your take and didn’t need the extra prodding to get there. Seemed like you had that in the barrel ready for any response other than ‘I’m so sorry, you’re right, you reaching out with this overly condescending message really changed my mind that being a bitch isn’t good 😌’.

Also, you said it yourself that they proudly identify as an asshole. Did you expect them… not to respond like an asshole?

I want to reiterate that you have to not be paying attention or willfully not see it to think they were being genuine. Which makes you either not as much of a critical thinker as you think you are or you’re just being disingenuous. I’d put money on the latter, since it’s so much more convenient for your smear tactics to take their responses at face value.

Also, I thought tumblr collectively got past this argument a long time ago: people can write things without wanting those things to happen in real life. Writing about csa doesn’t make someone a pedo, and pretending it does dilutes the word and makes it easier for real pedophiles to make space online so literally shut the fuck up. It’s called fiction and the characters are not real. I write about and from the point of view of murderers and genocidal maniacs from time to time and, shockingly, do not want either of those things to happen in real life. Harassing writers because of their subject matter that has nothing to do with an argument that YOU manufactured makes YOU the asshole.

Please go outside and touch some grass, iwilleatyourenglish. You’re throwing a massive fit over a one line tag disagreeing with you, and you’re accusing people of shit that isn’t as big of a sin as you seem to think it is.

Any further anon asks on this topic will be deleted. People who genuinely wish harm on others and go after people just for reblogging a post are not welcome on this blog, especially if they’re too cowardly to say it off anon.

[spaced0lphin]

My Fanfiction Crimes: WayfaringJedi

I run a SW focused sideblog, called wayfaringjedi, where I post art and fics and stuff.

Earlier this month, I found a list of “headcanons” about a Star Wars character, posted publicly, here on Tumblr. Looking to blow off some steam, I wrote a six thousand word narrative incorporating some of them. I credited/tagged the person who posted the list in the first place – I was hoping to make a fandom friend, and start a conversation. In my experience, that tends to be what happens when two enthusiastic creatives interact after one inspires the other.

For the past eight days, I have stayed silent as the grave on this issue, as one is supposed to when someone on the Internet decides to engage in behaviour like what this author has done.

I have been accused of plagiarism, ablism, and abuse. This author has publicly and on numerous occasions solicited their followers to bother me and attempt to disrupt my work. They are now engaging in malicious reporting, attempting to get my blogs flagged as Spam, and my accounts shadowbanned, or worse.

So, I am writing this. I find addressing all of this publicly to be an exercise in disappointment and exasperation; I had hoped for this incident to blow over and be nothing more than an embarrassing footnote in an otherwise enjoyable fandom experience. Yet, here I am, reduced to talking about this as if the complaints had any merit. However, at this juncture, I don��t want their voice as the only one dictating the narrative.

It all started when the author reblogged my original post sharing my work with them, essentially stating they felt I’d stolen from them. They explained they didn’t want to write in their story anymore, and threatened to stop writing in general, because of me. (I’m paraphrasing, the post was deleted.) My initial response was shock and dismay – no one had ever reacted in this way to me before, and the last thing I want to do is hurt anybody. As I’m quite a shy person and often seek to minimise myself, I apologised and deleted the work from Tumblr. The author blocked me without further comment.

I wasn’t able to get on Ao3, as I was out at the time, and busy. When I sat down at the computer several hours later, this author and their followers had run rampant with comments all over my work. Accusing me of being disingenuous, an “idea thief,” a plagiarist, and of being deliberately malicious and insulting by daring to have my work up.

My one and only statement was this thorough comment I left on my own work. (This version of my comment has the author’s username redacted, to protect them from any abuse.)

I enabled comment moderation to stop the arguments. I deleted most of the comments, particularly more inflammatory ones, and ones including mention of the author’s first name. I have acted to protect this person and I will continue to; their username will not be mentioned here, and all trace of them has been removed from my work as it remains on Ao3. It will certainly be possible to find out who this person is, but I will not assist in this, and ask that nobody name them, either.

Shortly after posting this comment, the author unblocked me on Tumblr and we had a brief, unproductive discussion. In it, I restated my points and confirmed that I would not be removing my work. The author expressed to me what I felt were unreasonable demands (to remove, or significantly alter the work by removing entire themes, etc) and whilst for the most part civil, their comments towards me descended into ad hominem (‘You’re not a nice person,’ etc.) once it became clear that I would not obey. Much noise was made about being neurodivergent – I am too, it’s a non-starter with me.

I explained in these messages that neither of us own the fictional character in question, nor do we own certain general themes and/or ideas, to which the author responded by calling me ‘cruel.’

They insisted I take personal responsibility and account for some 27 anonymous hate messages they claimed to have received. I asked for proof of them. 

Initially, the author refused to provide me with any, on account of my own refusal to delete my work for them first – a line of reasoning I couldn’t understand, personally, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

They then disappeared for about an hour or so, and came back with screenshots of some anonymous messages.

Firstly, no one should be bombarded with messages like that, and given that I only had 10 followers at the time of this incident, their existence is shocking to the point of inspiring awe.

For several reasons, mainly contextually based – I believe this author wrote and sent these anonymous messages to themself, to screenshot and use as “evidence” against me.

I certainly did not send them, and I’m sure if Tumblr’s admin side looks into the IP addresses these anonymous messages originate from, they will be the same as the author’s. I would, at this point, be willing to bet money on it.

I received some messages as well, and in response, I turned off anonymous messaging. Then, I received messages from what I believe is one of the author’s sockpuppets, complaining that I had turned off anonymous messages. I received multiple messages per day. Initially, I didn’t block this account – I was intent on giving this person no satisfaction whatsoever, not even a block.

These messages run the gamut from goofy Internet rage, to vaguely threatening:

I find it extremely difficult to believe that a random friend of this author would continue to be angry enough about this to message me multiple times a day for an entire week – I think it’s much more likely that this is the author themself. Given this, there are certain unusual turns of phrase that this account and at least one other uses in common. “Have the day you deserve.” That’s all over the place in the initial Ao3 bombardment. (I'm unconcerned with censoring the username for the following two comments as they belong to a sock.)

The saddest thing I have found about this entire debacle is that the messages I believe this author wrote to abuse themself with are so much more scathing than anything they wrote to me – their supposed enemy in all this. In fact, the things they’ve said betray an immense insecurity about themselves and their work that breaks my heart. They don’t deserve to feel this way about themselves or their work, and I think they are using this incident as a catalyst for validation of some kind. During the discussion with me, they put themselves down a lot, and it is my honest belief that this person feels so aggrieved because, somehow, they think they can’t do ‘better’ than what I wrote. To be clear, that is a nonsense fear. They are an incredibly strong writer with their own style and sense of direction very distinct from my own. Even with some similar themes, our stories would never be the same. 

One thing this author – or one of their sockpuppets – asked that I would like to answer is the question of whether or not I would ‘fight for it,’ were the situation reversed. The answer, friend or sockpuppet, is no. Other writers can, do, and have used my personal ideas, plots, and interpretations of characters freely in their own works, without asking. I have loved reading them. Illustrators have traced my drawings and my 3D models. Power to them. If someone else would like to write a story or make a mod with the same subject matter as any of mine, I would love to see and support it.

The author expressed to me insecurity about feeling that if they finished their story now, they would be accused of copying me. I assured them then, just as I do now, no reasonable person would think that, and if they did, I would be the first in line to tell this hypothetical gobshite where to stick it.

Further, they expressed interest in reporting my story to Ao3 administrators. I suggested if they really felt this way, they ought to. I requested they not delete the original post of theirs that I cited in my credit to them, so that the administrators could be fair to us both in reviewing all information in context, and comparing our works. The author explained they had already deleted it. I retain a full backup of the post, as well as my comments section in full before I made any deletions. I forwarded these to Ao3 myself in my initial report.

“Headcanons” have been put up by fan creators for other fan creators to build off of since time immemorial. It’s good to tag and credit where you found ideas – sharing is caring, and caring is fun. The crux of this author’s complaint seems to be that I didn’t ask them first. This is simply not how publicly posted ideas for fanfiction have worked in my twenty-odd years of writing it. Whilst I respect this person’s upset, I will not capitulate. My story is mine, I have interpreted these ideas in my own way, and I have stolen nothing.

The idea that a fanfiction author is attempting to take another to task with claims about intellectual property is a line of argument I find baffling, to say the least. 

As an interesting point of fact, I have been made aware of what this author has said in the body of one of their messages reporting me to Tumblr. In it, they claim to have been in contact with Ao3 site administrators, who have “already agreed to ban” me, on the basis of “evidence” they have sent in. Also, they claim to have law enforcement involved in this situation, as ‘what I am doing to them’ constitutes a “crime.” 

I can assure everyone that I have heard from no police, and my account is in good standing with Ao3. This author is attempting to strengthen their argument against me to Tumblr with fully disprovable lies, which at this point, seems to be a pattern.

Whether or not you personally agree with this author’s sentiment that I have violated some social norm, the fact remains that this escalatory, dishonest behaviour is unacceptable, and I will not negotiate with it. One only has to look briefly at my history of engaging with fandom on this site – whatever blog it happens to be from – to see that I am not the kind of person who behaves in the way this author is alleging. I have never in my life sent anonymous hate messages to anyone.

The author has explained to me that they have deleted their entire body of works related to this story that they were writing. They appear to want me to emotionally account in some way for this action, and I will not. This author’s actions and responses to this situation – every last one – are their own, and they alone are responsible for them.

Let me be clear in saying that when this is dealt with by administrators, it is likelier than not that this other author will fully lose their account due to their documented goofiness over this. I personally do not want that outcome for them. I want the same thing that I have wanted throughout this entire stupid mess; to write stories for fun, in peace, and share them with others.

I am very sure that the author will read this, or parts of it at least, as they have a fixation on me at the moment. I am sure they will have something to say about it.

I am not interested in hearing it, and I will not entertain one word of it. Everything I have said is true, I have documented it, I have saved it, and I have given it to whom it concerns.

At best, I have done absolutely nothing wrong. At worst, I have a genuinely different experience with fandom ethos. Either way, this entire business is utter nonsense.

[jraker4]

Again, you're being disingenuous. You literally think Israelis should just die. So this pretense you're putting up that there is some threshold after which Israel could respond and be justified, well, it's bullshit. But in any event: yeah. If guerilla fighters and terrorists infiltrate a previously peaceful protest and start attacking soldiers, those soldiers will eventually open fire. You're welcome to name me a nation on Earth that wouldn't, either currently or in the past. I'll wait. And your argument that 'oh gosh, Hamas is just bad at terrorism'...well! Funny you should say that! I actually agree. When it comes to 'resisting Israel', Hamas is really, really bad...at least, if their goals were actually the safety and dignity and self-determination of Palestinians. Then again, if you look at their sources of funding and weapons, and consider what political interests those groups have, things might come into sharper focus. But you just want Israelis to die. You've said so. As for not looking through all of your sources, I'll just take a moment to remind you: you're not fooling anyone. You routinely refuse to reply to all of the points raised, using a variety of excuses, several of which are contradictory. You can either do that, or you can insist on a comprehensive response to every point you make. You can't do both. Or at least, you can't do both and not continue to look ridiculous. The bad-faith behavior of the antisemite isn't unknown to me, bigot:) Of course you don't see a problem with the election-big asterisk, there-of Hamas. They share a common goal with you: the death of Jews. But, again, over here in the real world, when an enemy has openly sworn your destruction and killed many of your people is poised to take over a government right on your border, you inhibit it if you can. Israel can. Make sure to continue whining about it. I know it's upsetting when fewer Jews die, bigot.

As for your map, yeah, it's almost like starting wars and losing them repeatedly has consequences. Complete mystery, that.

[treesofgreen]

So I expanded more about it in the actual essay (someone save me from the leviathan it's becoming) but. He didn't call Lucius a slut. He didn't use any other word reduced specifically to his fucking around. And like I said, if it was just about that, he would have just said slut. And I don't think he used seductress vs seducer because the feminine is more demeaning either. It's because they're two different things. A seducer is in power. Casanova, Don Juan. They take, and they leave, and (1)

I am so sorry it took me so long to respond to this, especially when I don't think there is much I can add - you've put a lot of my thoughts about that scene into words and laid it out very well.

Seductress is such a specific word, and a very unusual one to use if the writers (or Izzy) were going for pure homophobia or sex shaming. Like you say, he could have called him a slut, a whore, the f slur. He didn't even reach for ponce or namby-pamby, which lends more credence to the argument that those are meant to be class based insults.

At first glance it's easy to say oh, seductress is feminine, he's calling Lucius a girl because he's gay, it's homophobia. But you're so right about the connotations of "seductress" and what Izzy might have thought was going on.

It's when he realizes that's not what's happening, and that Lucius is fine and in control and actually the seductor that is now toying with him by flirting, by disingenuously offering to sketch him, that Izzy gets actually mad (and his response to being mad is to leave and have Lucius do much needed chores the next day, absolute irredeemable villain material for sure lol).

There's a lot of talk about Izzy telling on himself with the Oooh daddy daddy line and HE IS, but there's so much more than that going on there. Some of us have talked about the cycle of abuse that seems evident here (and again, this is not an excuse for Izzy's harmful behavior, it's a reason. Understanding is not the same as condoning). A lot of us read him as a sexual assault survivor, and someone who likely needed the protection of a "daddy" to keep him safer from other men than he would have been otherwise (I don't think it was Ed, I think Ed just kept him safe. I think someone like Hornigold was "daddy").

I think Izzy is upset about Ed, he's trying to get someone on the Revenge to do some damn work, he lets them finish, he's disturbed by what he thinks he sees and is projecting himself onto Lucius, and his worldview is shattered by the revelation that Lucius holds power and is unafraid, that people aren't going to hurt him if they find out - that everyone already knows. And he's fine with it and so are they! No one is getting hurt when the world is usually nothing but hurt.

More than anything Izzy feels like a man that's been owned all his life in one way or another, willingly and unwillingly, and didn't realize other people in his position might not be, even if just on magic fantasy funland ship. That he might not have to be. And that has to be terrifying.

[vividaway]

a juror from the AH v JD case speaks out

the juror asked to have his name not used for this report.

when the actress cried during her testimony the jury saw only "crocodile tears."

"It didn’t come across as believable," he said. "It seemed like she was able to flip the switch on her emotions. She would answer one question and she would be crying and two seconds later she would turn ice cold. It didn’t seem natural."

Depp, he said, "just seemed a little more real in terms of how he responded to questions."

"They had their husband-wife arguments. They were both yelling at each other. I don’t think that makes either of them right or wrong. That’s what you do when you get into an argument, I guess. But to rise to the level of what she was claiming, there wasn’t enough or any evidence that really supported what she was saying," he said.

Heard, the juror said, was considered the aggressor in the relationship by the majority of the jury. "If you have a battered wife or spouse situation, why would you buy the other person, the ‘aggressor,’ a knife? If you really wanted to help Johnny Depp get off drugs, why are you taking drugs around him?" he asked.

The juror said that photographs Heard took of her ex-husband also fell flat. Although the defense used them to show Depp’s decrepit state after a drug or alcohol binge, the juror said they failed to make an impact.

"If you mix alcohol and marijuana, that’s where you usually end up -- passed out," he said. "We discussed at length that a lot of the drugs she said he used, most of them were downers. And you usually don’t get violent on downers. You become a zombie, as those pictures show."

"Those were two different pictures. We couldn’t really tell which picture was real and which one was not," the juror told "GMA."

Also suspect were the photos that Heard’s team presented that purported to show bruising on the actress’ face.

The juror also said the defense failed Heard by telling them that the actress "never goes outside without make-up on," he said. "Yet she goes to file the restraining order without make-up on. And it just so happens her publicist is with her. Those things add up and starts to become hard to believe," he said.

The juror said the four-hour debate over the difference between a pledged donation and an actual donation ended up "a fiasco" for Heard.

The fact is, she didn’t give much of it away at all," the juror said. "It was disingenuous."

He blamed Heard’s legal team for giving her poor advice, such as looking directly at the jury when responding to questions. "All of us were very uncomfortable" at that, he said.

He also said her team "had sharp elbows versus being sharp."

"They would cut people off in cross because they wanted one specific answer without context. They were forcing people to just answer a very narrow question ... which was obvious," he said.

"She needs better advice," he said of Heard.

Publishing the 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post that defamed Depp was a poor choice, he said. "If she didn’t do any of this stuff with the op-eds, Johnny Depp could have helped her out in her career. They didn’t leave things on a nasty turn," when they divorced, he said. "It turned nasty after the op-ed."

'We only looked at the evidence'

The juror denied the jury was swayed by outside forces. He and "at least" three others did not have Twitter accounts.

"Some people said we were bribed. That’s not true. Social media did not impact us. We followed the evidence. We didn’t take into account anything outside [the courtroom]. We only looked at the evidence," he said. "They were very serious accusations and a lot of money involved. So we weren’t taking it lightly."

"None of us were really fans of either one of them," he said.

Asked whether he would go see a future movie starring Depp or Heard, the juror said it would depend on the movie.

"What they do in their personal lives doesn’t affect me whatsoever. Going to movies is entertainment. I go for the quality of the movie or the storyline," he said. "Not for the acting."

[balanceoflightanddark]

sighs

Where to begin oh where to begin?

I guess I will concede one point. He was right about Kylo Ren and Kuvira having their redemption arcs completely rushed and half-cooked. If you're going to do a redemption arc, either do it right, or not at all. Otherwise it'll be completely unearned.

But that's where the concessions end.

To start, he completely misrepresents Azula in the Spirit Temple. He insinuates that Azula attacked the spirit, when really it was the other way around after the spirit kept pushing her buttons. Second, he claimed that Azula rejected her redemption, even though the redemption the spirit offered was nothing but a lie AND wasn't even much of a redemption outside of groveling for forgiveness at Zuko's feet (which sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?). Finally, he completely ignores that she chose to let go of her grudge against the Fire Warriors, which is a pretty big indicator that she's starting to change. Thus pushing herself in the right direction.

The biggest sticking point for me though is him saying that characters themselves shouldn't be realistic and should serve the narrative and themes first and foremost. Okay, that has to be the most boring high school lecture I've ever heard. Might as well bring out The Dead Poets Society Understanding Poetry chart.

Newsflash: there's a reason why characters are so damn important. And there's a reason why they resonate with so many people. They can teach important lessons, whether they be hero or villain. Yes they carry the themes, but if they don't feel human, then you might as well be reading the sparknotes version of the story cause it gets boring really fast. Characters are, by their design, supposed to connect with the audience. You're supposed to look at somebody like Azula and think, "yeah. She feels real." If they have to bend over backwards for the plot to happen, then there's a disconnection.

Characters matter. How we respond to characters matter. And while there is definitely something to be said about projecting too much into a character (trust me, I've been there), there's also the opposite extreme of disconnecting so much, you can say that "you can see her as a villain first, teenager second". Yes, that was an actual argument he made.

While he does say Azula could be redeemed, it feels like something to deflect criticism. A concession. After the whole video pinning the blame of her downfall almost exclusively on her (Ozai gets mentioned a grand total of TWO times, Ursa and the Fire Nation gets mentioned NONE), it feels disingenuous. And for an essay about how not everyone should be redeemed, he certainly didn't mentioned Long Feng or Ozai in the mix. You know, people who had more autonomy than Azula ever could.

And don't even get me started on him worshipping Zuko's ass again. You know you couldn't get away with "characters are just fiction, they're not real" when you start poking holes in Zuko and Iroh's redemption arcs.

It's clear to me that he didn't even bother connecting to Azula outside of the general themes of the story. To try and put himself in her shoes. And yet he stands there, thinking himself some kind of guru or writing expert. He speaks with such authority but ultimately feels like a detached professor.

Hello Future Me lacks media literacy when he talks about Azula. It's like a switch in his brain turns.

[civildisorderstream]

We Lost Dee Snider

This past week or so, Paul Stanley of KISS (the most sellout band to exist, by their own admission even, but that's a different topic) put out a statement that was transphobic. It wasn't overtly so, but it was a statement designed to appear "reasonable" because it didn't use violent rhetoric and made an appeal at allowing for trans people to exist with caveats. That latter point is like Centrist porn; pleasing 'both sides' of an issue regardless of what the issue is, regardless of the merits of either side involved. There's a reason why that meme of "some murder?" exists but I digress.

After he put that statement out Dee Snider, who used to be something of an icon for being more hip on progressive politics than his peers, basically betrayed everything that made him beloved. He agreed with Stanley's statement, saying it was "reasonable," but also recontextualizing his own past in how he dressed and why he did so. Naturally, this upset people, and rightfully so. I took a different approach, uselessly attempting to respond to him on Twitter with a calm argument.

That argument being, Paul Stanley's statement is reliant on taking conservative talking points in good faith. Which they are never made in, it's always bad faith, it's also manipulation and propaganda. The crux of Stanley's statement was the children are being "forcibly trans'd," which isn't objectively true (and I will say here, telling children that trans people exist is not the same thing as forcing them into conversion; it that logic were true, informing children that thieves exist means you have made a child into a thief - see how that shit doesn't make sense alt-right assholes?). I urged Dee Snider to listen to trans people and read their accounts of how they learned about themselves, their journeys, their hardships, and because of social media being what it is, he probably didn't even see it. And hell if he did, there's always the high chance he didn't care.

What he did care enough about was to put out a statement, decrying the labeling he was starting to get for being transphobic. It would've been one thing if he made an honest mistake when talking about the issue in passing and wanted to make a statement to address it and make amends, but that's not what this was. Snider's statement was all about his ego. It was about him saying, "I'm not transphobic because I say so. Look at how I'm invited to this LGBTQ event!" That last point is disingenuous because the news of his betrayal hasn't quite gotten around yet, and having someone booked for an event doesn't get overturned in an instant. It takes time. Which hey, we will see how the LGBTQ community and its leaders respond to him and whether or not they invite him to future events (which is what matters).

But I still want to say what I want to say to Dee Snider: My dude, I am not trans myself, I consider myself an ally. Whether or not I am an ally is up to trans people to decide. I can aspire to it, but it's not for me to say. And it's not for YOU to say either. For any given social movement rooted in helping marginalized peoples, those peoples call the shots on what to do, when to do it, how to do it. When women pushed for the right to vote, it was up to them when and how to fight that fight. It wasn't up to men to tell them anything. When the Civil Rights Movement went down, black Americans were the ones to direct how it should be done and how everyone else could help them and each other (seeing as intersectionality is a huge part of movements). It's no different with fighting for trans rights. You and I Dee Snider, we don't tell trans people what to do. They point at the problem, they say what we can do to help about it, and then we act.

And I get that it'll be confusing sometimes, because trans people are not a hivemind. They're split on how to engage or disengage with particular problems or people who cause those problems. In that case, use your best judgment, but as long as you're following the direction of the people, you can rest a little easier that your claim to being an ally is safe. At the end of the day, it's about them, not you.

[itsclydebitches]

Is there a direction that CRWBY could go to make u say "fuck it, I'm done"? I'm still watching for fanfiction purposes and bc I'm in to deep to quit without feeling like i wasted my time, but if Cinder is redeemed, like full-on redeemed without her death (that's the only justifiable redemption for her imo), I'll likely tap out if it's not the end of the series.

Honestly, at this point probably not. If I've stuck around for plotlines I thoroughly disagreed with (Ozpin), the destruction of characters I enjoyed (Ironwood), while simultaneously redeeming others I have no interest in (Hazel), and including aspects that I found to be straight up offensive (Penny)... RWBY has already hit all the "Fuck it, I'm done" possibilities for me, generally speaking. It's more likely that rather than doing something specific that turns me off, RWBY may just wear me down over time. I'm still interested in watching it despite the problems now, but after two, three, even four more years of potential problems? Who can say.

I'd like to briefly comment on that "I'm in too deep to quit without feeling like I wasted my time" aspect though, simply because I'm seeing it pop up more and more. Fans, specifically fans who have expressed varying amounts of criticism, say something to that effect of not wanting to drop RWBY when they've already put in years of emotional investment, to which others, usually fans still greatly enjoying RWBY, respond, "That's just the sunk cost fallacy. At this point you're being illogical for not dropping it."

For any who may not be aware, the sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to avoid cutting one's losses once you've already invested something in an endeavor: time, money, emotion, etc. The argument is to avoid such biased thinking because you can't get that investment back and all you're doing is prolonging a lack of enjoyment. An easy example would be a movie you payed for. You realize twenty minutes in that you hate this film, but you can't get your ticket money back. Many people would employ the sunk cost fallacy by claiming they need to stick around because otherwise that money is "wasted." The counter argument is that the money is wasted either way, so better to leave the theater and spend that hour and forty minutes doing something you like. That's becoming the latest argument trend in the RWBY fandom: it doesn't matter how many years you spent investing in this show, they're lost, you clearly hate it now, so just drop it already. To do otherwise is philosophically foolish.

However, I've personally always found the sunk cost fallacy to be a weird thing to apply to media. Not because countering it is entirely without merit — we all should practice dropping things if we want to: books, movies, podcasts, whatever — but rather because there's so much to be gained from media outside of enjoying 100% of the time. For me, finishing things is a kind of enjoyment. I'm rather bad at it (lol), but that doesn't erase the fact that I have an intellectual itch to complete any series I fell in love with, particularly when I loved it for 3+ years. Managing that provides a different kind of enjoyment from the enjoyment of being totally happy with the show's writing, but it's an enjoyment nonetheless. If I'm critical of something, I like being able to say honestly that I completed it so that can't be used as a catch-all dismissal for why any arguments I make are unfounded. I enjoy seeing what missteps a show goes through so that I can try to avoid them in my own writing and, hopefully, I enjoy watching the show come back from them. I like keeping up with a community that I'm a part of, one where I chat with both friends and strangers specifically about RWBY. If I were to drop it, I'd also be dropping the connection I have with a lot of people. I likewise enjoy keeping up with the show for the creativity potential — "for fanfiction purposes," as you say, anon. I may not like how the show handled the Hound, but I like the Hound as a concept and now, having watched Volume 8, I can play with that idea in my own way. And none of this even touches on the enjoyment of details throughout an episode (or season) that I think is otherwise failing: a particularly cool idea, a nicely delivered exchange, animation that I find to be beautiful, spending time with characters whose original concepts I still enjoy, etc.

The critical side of the fandom has discussed extensively the non-critical side's tendency to view RWBY as perfect. It's not that many fans disagree on what problems RWBY has, but rather it's refusing to admit that there are any problems. This new desire to bring up the sunk cost fallacy feels like it's built on that, the idea that if you're not enjoying all of RWBY all the time then you need to cut it out of your life completely. There is no middle ground. You either adore it without reservation or you drop it and, as is so often said, leave the "real" fans alone. Stop ruining the community and all that because the expectation is that the community is allowed to be composed of praise and praise only. It's a familiar argument wrapped up in a very disingenuous sense of concern. When one fan insists that another should drop RWBY because they're just hurting themselves, they're acting like they really care about the others' well being when, in reality, they just want them gone. It's a trend that I'm coming to dislike because it tries to paint the fan as the logical, level-headed one who is only trying to get the critic to drop RWBY out of a sense of logical inevitability and, sometimes, even concern for this stranger's mental health... because there's definitely no other motivation there.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying, "Me too, anon." As of right now, I still feel like I'm in too deep to just drop RWBY. I'd rather see it through, for a number of different reasons, and all the "it's illogical/unhealthy to keep watching" arguments aren't going to dissuade me from that.

[kataraqui-archive]

Johnny Silverhand Meta

Why telling Johnny Silverhand he fucked up his friendship with V was cathartic as hell, more meta that no one asked for but I’m gonna go off anyway:

Obviously, spoilers ahead.

At the Pistis Sophia V and Johnny have arguably one of the deepest heart to hearts so far. Johnny reveals some of his history in the military, how a friend died to save him, how being used as a corporate tool radicalized him, and then gives V his friend’s dog tags as a symbol of his promise to sacrifice himself so V can live. It’s pretty emotional and made me feel like V and Johnny’s relationship had really grown over the course of the game.

Then Johnny asks for a favour, his last wish so to speak. To speak to Rogue and get revenge on Adam Smasher. He asks for control of V’s body so he can speak to Rogue and reiterates, multiple times, that this is ALL he’s going to do while in the driver’s seat. 

Instead, immediately and without hesitation, Johnny goes joyriding. He gets completely wasted, gets a tattoo, drinks some more, makes out with a stripper, gets into a brawl with the bouncers, then fingers the stripper in the car, crashes said car, and THEN goes to talk to Rogue after getting what information he could from the stripper. All of this he does with V’s body. He hands V back control, leaving V sick as a dog, beat up, tattooed, and with little memory of how they got in that state. 

Here’s where I get into my feelings as a player. I felt DEEPLY violated by this sequence of events and my inability to do anything about it. V’s getting piloted through sexual situations with a woman they don’t know. They’re getting tattooed. Yeah, in the world of Cyberpunk, that doesn’t have to be permanent, but it’s still all an enormous violation of V’s autonomy and what he consented to. It’s THEIR body. Beyond that, I thought V and Johnny were getting along, trusting each other, and the first moment V gave Johnny their unequivocal trust, Johnny lied. I felt betrayed. I was honestly so pissed I cried, in particular because Johnny brushed aside V’s (valid) arguments that this wasn’t what they’d agreed to and they could have done all that other stuff themselves without Johnny driving. The reality is: Johnny never intended to just speak to Rogue, he deliberately misled V so he could have one last hurrah with zero appreciation for how those actions would affect V. V who is already sick and dying because of the relic. No matter how you slice it, this is deeply fucked up behaviour.

It’s even more deeply fucked when you consider Johnny’s take on dolls. He’s openly disgusted by the way dolls are used as toys, the behavioural chip robbing them of autonomy/identity, and then their memories wiped so they don’t have to live with whatever depraved crap clients want to do with them. Then he goes and treats V exactly the way those behavioural chips treat dolls, and at first is completely unrepentant about it.

All throughout the story, Johnny reiterates how much he hates Arasaka for rewriting people’s identities. Even acknowledges that this is why he can’t stand the fact that, through the relic, he’s being made to do the same thing to V. What he does in Chippin’ In is hypocritical as fuck, but not the first time Johnny’s done something contrary to his general ethos. Though it’s not acknowledged in his memories because, as Alt points out, they were tinged with Johnny’s bias, the entire bombing of Arasaka tower was funded and backed by Militech; he hates corpos more than anything, but Johnny still accepted their backing when it served his interests.

When you follow that quest line to the point where you visit Johnny’s grave, we get to see a totally different side to Johnny. He seems humbled and distressed that, despite all he did in his lifetime, his body lies in an unmarked grave, an oil field where no one remembers it’s even there. I felt really bad for him in that moment, but I was still pissed. My V acknowledged that he would write ‘The Man Who Saved My Life’ on Johnny’s grave because, despite their falling out, Johnny is still trying to save him. There’s still a bond forged by sharing the same body and what they’ve been through. But when Johnny tries to sidestep by saying that, while he fucked up his relationships with everyone else, he’s glad he didn’t fuck up what he has with V, I wasn’t standing for that. I wasn’t going to let him play for sympathy over the unmarked grave to sweep his betrayal of V’s trust under the rug. I chose the ‘Nope, you fucked that up too,’ option. 

Honestly? One of the most cathartic moments in any game for me. Johnny doesn’t deny he fucked up either. He asks for a second chance, which my V agreed to give him, because even with all that fuckery they’re still close friends. 

I didn’t know this dialogue was what unlocked the secret ending, it just made sense given what had happened and how I felt V would respond. My partner played it differently though, which is how I came to realize that the dialogue you get with Kerry and Johnny is an indicator of your relationship. When Kerry asks ‘do you get along?’ my partner got the response, ‘Not lately, no.’ Whereas I got, ‘The kid loves me.’ That seems almost contradictory, given I’m the one who chose to go off on Johnny for his betrayal, and my partner let it lie, but looking at Johnny’s other close relationships and his general ethos in life, it painted a bigger picture. (Note: I don’t know for SURE that the ‘you fucked up’ line is required to get this, but from various playthroughs between my partner and I, and what I’ve found online since, it seems that this dialogue is the key.)

The only people Johnny considered close friends are all people we’ve seen in his memories, and in every single one he is butting heads with them in some way. Johnny knows he’s damaged the people closest to him. Acknowledges it not just over his own grave, but in various endings as well. I think it’s telling that the memories V experiences, the ones that stick out most in Johnny’s subconscious, all involve some kind of argument between he and Alt, Rogue or Kerry. I think the fact that they stood up to him mattered to him more than anything because they weren’t giving up on him. They weren’t going ‘Johnny’s beyond help.’ Johnny even asks why Denny never tried to fix him. He’s also disparaging of being a ‘yes, man’ in most quest lines, rebellious to a fault. I think V standing up to him in kind garners Johnny’s love and respect more than if V just accepts what Johnny did. Maybe Johnny sees that as disingenuous or even cowardly, but I think on a deeper level he sees it as a sign that V has given up on him too. That V can’t be bothered because he doesn’t believe Johnny can change. There’s also just something really moving to me when two people can express their anger or hurt to one another and still be friends after. 

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Johnny’s relationships and why the ‘you fucked up’ line was so important for both V and Johnny. I really love the way these characters are written, and this relationship in particular just felt really genuine in all it’s complicated glory.

Fin.

[saokpe]

HDLW Sibling Week 2020 - Day 6: Cuddle Puddle

Day 6! This week has been crazy for Ducktales fan so I’m glad I’ve been able to express my fan energy in these fics! I wrote these fics to be humorous (or at the very least fun) to read through, adding some more emotionally resonant (or at the very least emotionally tugging) moment thrown inbetween. This one was written the other way around and I might just dare say it’s my favorite so far. Enjoy!

@hdlwsiblingweek2020

I Love You Guys

“Dewey, could you move over, you’re crushing my arm.” Louie struggles as he shifts besides his siblings.

“No can do!” Dewey quickly responds, “I just got comfortable.”

“Maybe you could give him a good example by removing your head from my stomach?” Huey sarcastically jests.

“Quiet pillow!” The complaining brother dismisses.

“Ugh-” The red assigned duck curls his legs closer as he attempts to find a moment free of discomfort. “This arrangement isn’t ideal.”

“Speak for yourself!” Webby confidently yells, rolling into the middle of the group, nudging her body into one of the few pockets of space the tight positioning left available. 

As the girl forces her slim body through, the rest of the group find themselves adjusted, the rustling continuing for a good little while before, against all odds, everyone is able to get comfortable.

“It doesn’t beat the couch, but ever since I stopped feeling my right arm, this has been pretty nice.” Louie, slowly scrolling through his phone, admits.

Webby soon adds, “Yeah, I feel so primal! Like a pack of cave ducks attempting to keep themselves warm during a particularly stormy night.” 

“I mean, not that I ever had any doubt, but we are INCREDIBLY comfortable!” An oddly placed boast emerges from Dewford.

“I beg to differ-” Huey attempts to squeeze out, his brother’s head crushing his abdomen making it a bit harder to speak.

His misery fueled retort forces a chuckle across his siblings, though it’s doubtful he found it any funny.

The laugh falls, quiet occupying the space. A minute of appreciated company as the group either begins to stray their attention or fall into thought.

“Y’know I love you guys, right?” Webby finally breaks, a light and heartfelt tone of voice asking.

“Yeah.”

“Mhmm.”

“You don’t let us forget.”

“Well you guys should say it back more often!” A more peeved tone polarizes.

“HEY!” Louie, fast to the trigger, answers in an even more aggressive imitation. “I tell you I love you almost everyday!”

“Yeah, right before asking to do you a favor!” Webby matches his fake anger.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t mean it when I say it.” 

“Really?” The girls combative mannerisms immediately mellow.

“Of course!” Louie assures, “Also, could you go and get me some of the leftover pep from the fridge, left door.”

“Yeah, sure!” Webbigail, seeming almost excited to comply, begins to raise.

“Sit back down Webby.” Huey, a slight guilt lacing his words, tells. His voice quickly dragging the already half standing Webbigail back to the ground. “You already know we love you.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to say it out loud once in a while.” She pouts. 

“Webby’s right!” Dewey continues the rant. “You two never tell me you love me either!” The laid down brother puffs, crossing his arm and averting his gaze in a childish yet infuriatingly effective tactic.

Louie tilts his head deeper into Huey’s body, meeting his eyes in a moment of begrudged understanding.

The two accused siblings sigh before, in a half-heartedly though by no means disingenuously, allowing themselves to admit, “I love you Webby and Dewey.”

“I love you too!” Webby, in a satisfied and innocent sounding chirp, repeats.

“Hmph-” Dewey attempts to stay mad, peering back to the group as to see if they continued to place their eyes over him, soon befalling and swiftly responding, “Iloveyoutoo.”

“Is everyone happy with their ‘I love yous’ ?” A somewhat uninterested Huey feels obliged to ask.

“Yerp”

“Definitely.”

“Kinda wanted that pep, but whatever.”

“Oh c’mon Louie, don’t be like that!” Webby scolds

“He’s just like that cause he knows he’s the most sensitive.” Dewey begins to tease, raising his pitch to the tone you’d address a small dog with.

“Nerp, not true!” Louie’s face begins to redden, his sight forcing itself to the side.

“Really?” Webby tries to peer closer.

“Mhmm! It probably comes with being the youngest.” The heckling Dewey continues.

“Webby is technically the youngest!” Louie, though correctly, worthlessly defends himself.

“You’re the youngest in spirit.” Huey adds his two cents.

“What is that even supposed to mean?!” The increasingly flustered and embarrassed Louie interrogates.

“Well,-” Huey begins to explain, “The older siblings need to protect their younger siblings-”

“And you need to be protected the most!” Dewey finishes.

“That just means I’m delicate, not sensitive!”

“Aww don’t worry Louie-” Webby stretches her arm over her brother’s head, ruffling his feathers while guaranteeing, “-we’ll protect you.”

“Can we stop talking about this now!” The now blood red-faced brother strongly suggests.

“Sure thing little bro.” His sister jabs, the other two brothers giggling lightly to themselves, all the while the hand she landed on Louie’s head continues to shake and pet, the movement becoming secondary as the room returns to silence.

The miniscule sound proves soothing, their comforting attendance allowing the moment to stall in blissful relaxation. Soon proving even the most bitter of members to crack a smile as their minds wander across the vast sea of gentle thoughts that their heads housed. 

“Hmm…” Louie lets out a short humm, the first piece of sound in the last half hour or so. “If you guys would all protect me, who’s going to protect you.” he meekly asks.

“Webby probably.” Dewey, not giving the question much thought, answers. “She can punch people through walls.”

“But what if Webby needs protecting?” He follows up.

“Granny would probably save me.” 

“But what if Mrs. Beakley wasn’t there?” 

The crowd halts the conversation at the last question.

“We go on adventures almost everyday,” Louie, still talking in a hardly characteristic reserved fashion, clarifies, “-I don’t want you guys to get hurt looking out for me just cause I’m the most sensitive.” The genuine worry of the usually dishonest brother startles the group.

“Aha!” Dewey begins, “So you admit you’re sensitive!” Just as the last word escapes the arrogant duckling, Huey’s hand slams harshly across his shoulder, the former’s icy eyes stabbing fear into his younger brother. “Sorry.” He lowers his head in guilt induced shame.

“We don’t want you to get hurt, Lou…” Huey attempts to delicately explain.

“Yeah! Adventures would be a lot less fun without you around!” Dewey, unable to materialize the idea of subtly, almost scolds.

“But I don’t want any of you getting hurt either! I mean, Scrooge, or Donald, or mom are usually there to help us, but they're not foolproof, what then?” Louie counters, his previous lower voice raising in a harsh and raw expression. “I can’t protect any of you!”

“That’s not true” The still mild-mannered sister trails behind his brother. “I trust you to protect me if I’m in trouble.”

“Definitely, you’re clever, I’m sure you’d think of something.” Huey elaborates, equally as calm as his sister.

“Yeah!” Dewey jumps to add his part, “Remember that time you stopped me from joining an evil death cult by convincing them I was a STRONGER god?”

“Yeah but I can’t fight or do puzzles, and a lot of things scare me-!” Louie’s erratic mannerisms, though still subdued by the cuddle puddle’s limitations, begins to swing wilder. 

“You’re good at doing Louie things.” Hubert interject. “And that’s exactly what we need sometimes.”

“Siblings protect each other!” Webby exclaims, “You protect them and trust they’ll protect you too, that’s the deal.”

“Exactly”

“Yup”

Louie hesitates, the core of his argument, though quickly dismissed, lingers over him. He guesses that he might not think he has much to offer, but when it comes to dealings, what the other parties think you’re worth is what really matters, he’d be a fool not to take this particular deal. 

“Alright.” He finally yields.

“Perfect, I would trust you with my life, it’d be a bit awkward if you didn’t agree.” Webby jokes. The other two quickly nodding in agreement. 

The comment stretches a smile on the insecure duck’s beak. “I love you guys.”

The four ducklings remained the rest of the day in their cuddle puddle, eventually falling asleep as the night dragged near. Despite finding comfort at the moment of rest, their liberal positioning brought it’s drawbacks as they woke up with an incredibly aching body.

[severelynerdysheep]

gaytheiestbandkid

My last response below, because while I respect that you blocked me (though I have no clue why) the fact that you did you after making your own response that I then cant respond to via reblog is a tad iffy. And I at least feel that I should be able to post my own response anywhoo even if I cant do so directly. If not only cause I spent a heck of a time writing this “^^

“ done yet? if you have the idea that there’s a “carnist bias” in my post then you’ve got me all wrong. i wholeheartedly support taking down the animal agriculture industry.”

Well it certainly looks like you don't support the abolishment of the animal ag industry since you pay for it when its possible and practicable to avoid doing so. You literally called the social justice movement dedicated to taking down this industry along with every other form of animal exploitation a “cult” and you make a post filled with lies and misrepresentation about animal agriculture and plant based diets. As well as promoting as supporting the needless consumption of animal flesh/secretions as a “personal choice tho”. If that isn't bias then water isn't wet.

“ by means that actually work rather than putting a band-aid on a gushing arterial wound, by means that people can get on board with rather than moral absolutism.”

Any solution which doesn't include the avoidance of all forms of animal exploitation as far as possible an practicable as the very least that people with moral agency have a moral obligation to do. Any solution which spreads lies an misinformation about the form of injustice attempting to be abolished, any solution which places sole blame on capitalism, which absolutely doesn't work with animal exploitation since is would exists in any system. Is not a solution in any sense of the word.

By your logic its fine to support/inflict violence against women because having the basic requirement that people shouldn't inflict  violence/exploitation absent others as individuals is just a “band aid” for a gushing would in any social justice movement. Instead of holding said people who claim to oppose said injustice while inflicting it accountable as adult in control of their own actions. And yes being opposed to people needlessly exploiting, abusing/torturing and murdering other sentient beings of another species for their own personal pleasure is intrinsically an issue of rights and wrongs. Just like its an issue of rights and wrongs when victims are humans because all victims are sentient. If saying needless violence, exploitation and murder is wrong is moral absolutism. Then I would hope that the vast majority of people would happily sign up to stand on that hill.  

“ and your response to the “buying local” point is clearly emotion-based and disingenuous. the point was clearly about environmental impact, yet you made it about the poow suffewing animaws”

Fist of all, you simply said “the only way to truly have a low-impact diet “ So you could have been talking about either the ethical or environmental impact. Secondly, you seemed to have missed the whole of the part before I talked about the ethics (which is the most important issue, and its simply disgusting that you would joke around about that. Yes they are suffering and people like yourself are responsible) And I will link to the section where I explained why your “buy local” for the environment argument is wrong.

So locality means very little when it comes the the environmental impact of a food, with transport costs being just one small fraction of the overall footprint of a food item as It has been demonstrated that an average of 83% of a food product’s carbon footprint is caused during production. And transportation accounts for only 11% of the product’s greenhouse gas emissions. This means that choosing a plant-based option will always have a far lower impact than even the flesh of locally raised, exploited, abused/tortured and murdered animals, even when it is imported from abroad. Simply put, the idea that “buying local” in in any way comparable to (let alone better than) doing your best to avoid supporting the injustice that is animal agriculture as a consumer when it comes to either envionemtat impact is simply not based on facts.

“i don’t remember saying people should go out of their way to buy meat locally? only that they should buy locally in general if they claim to be making near-zero impact”

I mean in a post dedicated to spreading falsehoods about animal agriculture, I think its pretty safe to assume that you were trying to claim that a diet than including animal flesh/secretions that is entirely locally brought has a lower impact on the environment than a plant based diet which isn't fully local. Which isn't true. I’m happy to be corrected though, if you weren't saying that, and you recognise that even a fully local diet that includes animal flesh/secretions has a much bigger impact than a non local plant based diet.

“ by holding those in power rather than the everyday civilian accountable for massive-scale ecological destruction (telling me the 71% statistic is about fossil fuels in no way undermines the broader point of bringing it up.”

Your specific claim was “100 companies are responsible for over 70% of human-linked carbon emissions; as an everyday civilian, your carbon footprint is very nearly zero compared to that of big corporations, which are the real problem to begin with” This is a complete misunderstanding of the study and absolutely undermines the broader argument that you were trying to make. Since it in no way supports that argument. The study shows that 100 companies produced 71% of the fossil fuels which are then used by other industries and by consumers via their individual actions. 100 companies aren’t causing 71% of emissions, they’re producing 71% of fossil fuels. Those are completely different things. Completely different. Heck, the animal flesh industry (the industry exploded in this study) is responsible for as many GHG emissions as 70 of these companies combined. An industry which is exists entirely due to supply and demand. Individuals carbon footprints are included to make up both those 71% of fossil fuels as well as the GHG emissions from the animal flesh industry, let alone other animal ag/animal exploitation industries.

“ your pound-for-pound examination of food costs is yet another poorly-thought-out point without any nuance. 1) the low pound-for-pound costs of plant based foods are typically attributed to bulk prices and 2) you can’t ignore calorie density. someone unemployed or living paycheck to paycheck can feed themselves for longer on a $5 bag of chicken nuggets than on a bulk purchase of plant-based foods, many of which will go bad within the same time frame anyways.“

Again, this isn't true. I wasn't talking about pound just as in weight, I was talking about pound as in money. So say an average daily intake of 2500 calories is generally the cheapest when it comes to pounds (as in £) worldwide compared to the same amount of calories on a diet that included animal flesh and secretions. Which is one reason why the poorest population subsist on primarily plant based diets. This is because the cheapest items are the staple items such as the rice, pasta, potatoes, beans and lentils, tinned veg/fruit, oats, etc. All of which are staple items which are included in the diet of those who consume animal flesh anyway. For example, people can feed themselves for longer on pasta and tomato sauce, or rice and beans, than a bag of breaded chicken flesh. And the bag of breaded chicken flesh will go of sooner than the former foods. with the former being full meals as opposed to breaded chicken flesh which you would eat with something else.

Sure, bulk buying is a great way to shop if you can, but even if you aren't talking about bulk buying, a plant based diet is still the cheapest worldwide. As I explained in my original response. Not surprising then that double the percent of vegans are in the lowest come bracket compared to middle and higher incomes.

And your original claim was that many people cannot go plant based (or vegan) because vegan products are more expensive than their non vegan counterparts. Never mind that fact that you don't have to eat plant based meats, cheeses, ice cream etc.. of a plant based diet.

But lets use these plant based alternatives to compare to their non vegan counterparts for a sec:

~  At Asda you can buy 8 plant based burgers from their own brand frozen range much cheaper than Asda’s own brand frozen animal flesh burgers. 1.75p for 8 plant based burgers vs 2.00p for only 4 animal flesh burgers. And this is the same for pretty much every UK Food store brand.

~ Let’s look at cheese and look at its costs at Tesco, another popular supermarket. A 200g block of own brand Tesco cheese is exactly the same price as 200g of vegan cheese being sold.

Of course if you include these plant based products it will be more expensive than sticking to the staples, your diet will probably be closer to that of someone who doesn't eat a plant based diet. But if you stick to the staples then yes, its absolutely cheaper. And I did link to lot of sources of more information which it looks like you didn't check out unfortunately.  

!i’m hesitant to bring up this point because it really does get misused by non-vegans a lot, but the industries for plant-based foods aren’t the pinnacle of morality. many plant food industries– including those that vegans partake in far more than non-vegans, subject workers in developing areas to literal slave labor in downright horrible conditions.”

Can you tell me which specific industries vegans take part in more than non vegans which are ethically worse than the non vegan equivalent? Keeping in mind both that no vegan claims to be 100% cruelty free as a consumer, and that the diet of a non vegan includes far more plant crops (and therefore more crop labour/worker exploitation) than a vegans does. Nobody is saying that being vegan is the most you can do, its literally the least you can and should do. Its the baseline, the starting line, the very basic requirements for anyone who claims to have consideration for others. And really, I don't see what this has to do with any of the falsehoods made in the OP? It’s is a pretty big deflection it seems from any of the claims made in the OP.

“ there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. getting hung up on the specifics of what kinds of consumption are/aren’t ethical implies that absolutely everything we eat or use or otherwise consume is a product of exploitation, misses the point, and designates the public as the public enemy rather than the ones running the system.”

Are you trying to use the statement “there's no ethical consumption under capitalism” to justify the individual actions of consumers place all of the blame on capitalism? Because that is completely bananas.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

This fab article by WorkingClass Vegan

A great post on this very site by @mickibuddy here

Quick edit: @mohs-hardness-scale I saw you reblogged my response with a  response of you own, though I can only see the first part of your reply that says “its not my job to provide you with sources. Google exists” since your friend blocked me and deleted almost all notes on their post. I wonder why. But please feel free to repeat your response via reblog of this post So I can have the common curtesy of being able to respond. Or if you don't want a public dialogue my ask box is always open. 

[firelord-frowny]

i answer questions on quora for funsies and there was a question (that got deleted before i could post my answer lmao) about “why do most atheists have such a childish view of what god is?” 

and then of course there were a bunch of snippy answers from people like “hur dur, bc god is dumb and fake and you are dumb also” 

and so i typed up a loooong as response while loopy on zzzquil and here it is, here’s my response:

I was hoping I’d get here and see some answers that didn’t drip with the cringy condescension that atheists unfortunately have a reputation for… I was disappointed.

I can promise you that “most atheists” don’t necessarily have a childish understanding of the concept of a God or religions in general. I think it just so happens that the more, uh… ~outspoken~ atheists tend to either have a simplistic understanding, or they simply don’t feel inclined to take the time to demonstrate that they do have a deeper understanding, because it’s just not important to them (which is fair!) Or they just like being rude and making flippant comments that they know are going to rustle the feathers of people who believe in a higher power.

I definitely used to be one of those atheists who loved to wax poetic - and usually with vaguely inflammatory and argumentative language - about how I “don’t care what people think a god is” and how I “don’t believe in things that aren’t really there” and “ahem, believing in sky fairies is what’s REALLY childish!”  

Then it dawned on me that I’ve only been exposed to an infinitesimally tiny fraction of  all the world’s religions, and all the different ways that people express their faith in their deities. I would hope that anyone who was actually committed to rationality would at least concede that it’s a bit irresponsible and disingenuous to claim absolute knowledge about - and pass judgment on - a wealth of subjects they have never even been exposed to.

Interestingly, I think the missing ingredient in these cases is compassion. The kinds of atheists you describe don’t see much value in even caring about the tremendous role that religion can play in many people’s lives. I think they tend to home in on the bad stuff, and unceremoniously dismiss everything else.

Though I’m most simply described as an atheist, the way that I personally understand the concept of “god” is that it can be an expression of people’s highest aspirations, or maybe a personification of a culture’s highest values. Maybe some people do truly believe that the thing they have faith in is an actual being that exists in some intangible realm, and who has will, and who is capable of manipulating and interacting with the “real world.” But through conversations with many of my believing friends, I’ve come to understand that to some people, “god” is more of an ideal than an actual being. Not literal, but a metaphor.

Anyway, to get back to your actual question - I’m of the opinion that most atheists understand and embrace the fact that they may never comprehend what “god” means to the people who believe in one. But they acknowledge that it’s nowhere near as simple as just “believing in things that aren’t really there,” and certainly do not automatically find it “humorous, sad, and irrelevant.” I think most atheists understand that the cultural, social, and personal concepts of “god” and the role “god” plays in the lives of believers is way too complicated to be boiled down in just a few snappy remarks. The atheists who have a more compassionate and open-minded understanding of what “god” might mean to theists aren’t going around being mean on the internet. They’re minding their own business.

I hope you feel enormously free to happily ignore the flippant, obnoxious quips from unkind atheists who are more concerned with feeling superior than with being at all intrigued by one of the many ways humankind has found to express its values and feel connections to one another.

Because I happen to know how these particular atheists think and behave, considering that I used to be one, I am sure that any who come across my answer here may feel inclined to try to get under my skin and perhaps condescend to me about logic and reason and blah blah blah, and I’d just like to say to those individuals: I welcome you to say whatever it is you need to say in order to feel secure and grounded in your point of view. I promise there’s nothing you can tell me that I haven’t told anyone else. I’m not upset with you, and I won’t be hurt or offended by anything you decide to say. Sure, I’d like it if you agreed with me, but that’s not how the world works, and I’m okay with that, and I’m sure that most of y’all are decent folks with whom I’d agree on a lot of other things!

I’m also sure that some folks are going to think everything I’ve said is ridiculous and that I’ve typed so much and said absolutely nothing. That’s fine. And you’re probably right! If you look up “largiloquent” in the dictionary, there’s a picture of me.

I’ll also address this: It’s not lost on me that the phrasing of the question is a little instigative. “Why do most atheists have such a childish view…” I can see plainly that that’s meant to attract exactly the kind of atheist who’s prone to launching into unpleasant confrontations. It’s meant to attack the kind of atheist that the question-asker has no doubt felt victimized by. Though I find it a little disappointing, I do understand. Like I said - I used to be a jerk about my own atheism, and I’m very well acquainted with the loud minority of atheists who seek to make theists feel dumb, and it makes sense to me that someone would feel like taking a small form of revenge in this manner. So, to the question-asker, I’ll say: When you set someone up to get angry, you sabotage your own chances of getting through to someone who disagrees with you. Maybe they probably weren’t going to hear you out before, but they definitely aren’t going to hear you out now.

And to the atheists who jump at the chance to get quippy at this kind of obvious bait: If you really want to disarm someone who’s trying to upset you… be nice. I’m not kidding. When somebody clearly wants you to resort to petty insults, and then you give them those insults, you lose. Immediately. You just look mean. :/ But if someone is baiting you into an argument, and you respond with kindness and understanding, then they look like the jerk. Not you. And next time, maybe they’ll choose kindness, too, when they approach you.

I was going to conclude this by proudly stating that I’ve evolved past the point of feeling the need to try to make others feel less-than just because they have a point of view I think is, uh, ridiculous, but as I reread my words, I can see that that's not exactly true, as I’ve definitely included a few acerbic jabs here and there. I’m sorry about that. I don’t mean to sound like I’m looking down on anyone or what they do or don’t believe about belief. I suppose I just take it a bit personally when self-described atheists behave in ways I think are unnecessarily and intentionally rude, and then claim in some way that that’s Just How Atheists Are. It isn’t. I hope some of you will mull over the idea that meanness rarely ever contributes anything useful to the world. Lots of people will be willing to consider your point of view if you can present it in a manner that allows them to feel comfortable talking to you. Even if neither of you winds up changing your minds, you can still come away from the conversation with the gift of a wider perspective.

So what I’ll actually conclude with is this: I don’t care what people do or don’t believe. I care how they behave. And you can always learn way more about a person from their behavior than from what gods they say they do or don't have faith in, or how well they understand the concept of those gods.

[bigskydreaming]

I really encourage people who have legitimate gripes with something I say or express on here to like.....either just DM, @ me directly or if you’re going to pop into my inbox to debate something with me, like, do so off anon, even if you ask that I don’t publish your ask and just respond to you in private. I always abide by that if people ask me to do that, and I’m 10000x more likely to treat your complaint or disagreement with dignity even if I completely disagree with it, than like....if you go on anon with it. 

Because dunno if you’ve noticed, lol, but there’s kinda a tendency with people who pick fights with me on anon or who @ me in general with some form of “LOL I can’t believe you’re so dumb as to believe this thing [that you don’t actually believe or else is not at all actually what I’m framing it as being],” to like.....only really do so in an attempt to trip me up, expose me as a hypocrite or pull some kind of ‘Gotcha!’ So, realistically, it just is not possible for me to give most anons who disagree with me the benefit of the doubt or for me to assume they’re at least coming from a place of actual honest disagreement rather than just....playing games, which I fucking despise and I refuse to respond to with respect. 

I sound ridiculous in nine out of ten of my over the top responses to people giving me shit, because of...deliberate intent on my part. *Shrugs* Because I personally consider it to be extremely ridiculous, how often I have people trying to poke holes in things I say, by.....poking at stuff I never even say, lol. 

I don’t actually always believe I’m right about everything, but I fully understand how my tone can convey that I do think that in a lot of these back-and-forths, because.....the one thing I do pretty much always think I’m right about is what it is I’m actually saying or believe. And thus, I really do not care for people trying to tell me I said otherwise, when I have a looooot of proof to point to how even when I’m being like, King Ridiculous in how I say or phrase something....nobody ever seems to have trouble comprehending my points on pretty much any topic across the board......until it happens to be a point I make on a matter they take issue with.

So just a general PSA, do with it what you will, but like. I’m just saying: 

I know I’m contentious, and I don’t actually want people to just automatically 100% take everything I say as fact or just never disagree with me, since that’s like....the polar opposite of pretty much my entire belief system or view of life and how to go through it lol. 

Buuuuut it honestly is exhausting constantly being hit up by people in bad faith, and who prove over and over again that they are perfectly comfortable saying or doing anything with no loyalty to even their own arguments, as long as it nets them a ‘win’ in arguing with me for the sake of arguing or whatever the fuck their motivation might be, I honestly do not care, lol. And I’m just......long past assuming that someone who is approaching me on anon to argue or contest something I’ve said or a position I’ve taken, is doing so in good faith instead of just as part of a twelve step plan wherein they disingenuously go about trying to lay some kind of convoluted ‘trap’ to lure me into. As though any of this is worth that fucking effort in the first place. LOL.

So by all means, disagree with me, contest me, put the screws to something I say and force me to defend my point further.....but like.....just be fucking honest about it. Or be willing to put your URL/name to it when doing so, even if you ask that I keep it out of public view, so that at least I know you’re not one of my half a dozen hate-following Regulars who habitually pop up on anon pretending to be someone brand new until three messages later when they’re like “Surprise! You thought I was just some rando, but here I am with the same receipts I’ve been claiming to have for the past half a decade!” (Oh no, much shock, mortification, oh unknowable plot twist, who could have ever seen that coming). LOL, y’know what I mean? Like, if you’re off anon or if you at least @ me with something approaching at least SOME modicum of respect, I’m soooooo much more likely to not just dismiss anything and everything you say from the word go, just because the sheer novelty of that approach is gonna be more engaging to me than, like, Me Vs Some Rando Whose Opening Gambit Is “Well Actually.....*proceeds to argue against points several galactic light years north of anything I’ve ever actually said ever*”: Round Fifty Two Bajillion. 

Like yeah, I’m rude as fuck in a lot of the arguments I get into on here, because I’m not a big fan of turning the other cheek and also I’m not gonna gloss over the ugly in something someone says just because they couch it in ‘civilized, well-mannered discourse.’ So I’m not at all offering some carte blanche guarantee or a secret password for how to go about saying something vile to my face without me responding by verbally ripping your head off, lol, I just mean like.....you ever have some free time to kill, go back through my archives to my earliest posts on this site. You can literally WATCH the slow expiration of my Give-A-Fucks in real time. I usually position myself to be the Reactive part of an argument on this site deliberately.....I don’t go starting things unless I’m weighing in on something that crosses my dash and already is looking ugly as hell, and for the most part, 90% of the fights I get into on this site are people approaching me to begin it, and y’know.....I don’t owe it to anyone to treat them or their position with more respect than they approach me with. LOL. And also, I don’t owe it to my own reading comprehension or that of anyone else who is similarly not an idiot to treat the ‘faux-respect/politeness’ people are addicted to on here as anything other than rudeness couched in the additional insult of assuming I and others are too stupid to see the subtextual disdain. Like. Nope. Miss me.

Bottom line is just, I’m not looking to be yet one more person giving people who are legitimately questioning things they’ve been told or led to believe, like, reason to be too intimidated or afraid to actually question these things rather than just keep to their personal status quo in an effort to avoid confrontation. But I’m always going to be trying to balance that with being equally not a fan of enabling people who play-act at being too fragile or delicate to face up to their own behavior or the ugliness of their own opinions or stances if its delivered to them in ways that inspire them to cry-type about how like, its not their fault society told them it was okay to shit on entire groups of people as long as they could safely get away with it.

There’s a line there and I’m no tight-rope walker so no, I don’t have all the answers and am not actually trying to pretend I do, and believe it or not, I put a lot of thought and introspection into constantly self-evaluating not just my own stances and beliefs, but the why’s of them, and the how’s of how I go about interacting with others because of them, or talking about them, or anything of the like.

But because I do put a lot of effort into that myself, I am aware of like....there not really being an excuse for others not being similarly willing to do the same with their own behavior, beliefs or approaches to others, so.....meet me halfway, is all this really comes down to. To anyone who genuinely does find themselves at odds with things I say or troubled by viewpoints I espouse or even just flat out confused as to how to reconcile something I brought up with contradictory beliefs they’ve long held or been instilled with and are just trying to figure out which actually sounds more right to them now.

I do not want to be the bogeyman who is just so intimidating that even when he says something that makes you go ‘huh, maybe this thing I thought was wrong, but I’m not sure,’ you’re afraid to follow-up and explore that further in a back-and-forth with me. But I’m similarly disinclined to be used as the strawman/patsy/etc of people who are just interested in trying to manuever me into some conversational position they feel they can use to discredit me in front of their own followers and thus cement their own bullshit position that way. 

I just happen to get a lot of the latter, and that kinda plays directly into why I so often end up defaulting to the former. That’s not actually an excuse and so its more than fair for anyone to think that’s no reason to change their mind about me, a thing I’ve said or a way I’ve said it. But if fair is actually a thing you’re interested in, then please consider factoring all of the above in when deciding how or why or in what ways you approach an argument or disagreement with me, if you find yourself inclined to do so in the future. 

I would appreciate it, and even more importantly, I promise you it will be far more productive in encouraging me to actually argue or debate a point with you. As opposed to just making light of anything you say to me, much like I feel most approaches to me make light of the things I say, and thus.....my tendency to default to variations of LOL, you got some dumb on your face there buddy.

ANYWAYS.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter,

The Extremely Tired and Over It Management

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

STFU about ‘Not all men’

Master Post

I think the first time I became away of this godforsaken Culture War was in 2014. I’ve lost the post and can’t find it now but it was essentially saying comic book fans harass female cosplayers.

I basically said it’s not fair to put all the bad eggs in one basket and this argument went back and forth.

At the time the whole ‘Not all Men’/’How dare you say not all men’ thing was relatively new.

Years later someone asserted that as much as people are fond of the ‘Not all men’ phrase there is another common phrase: a few bad apples ruin the bunch

Let me spell this out clearly.

The backlash against ‘Not All Men’ as a counterpoint is not a justifiable position.

A few bad apples ruin the whole bunch is not a justifiable position.

But why?

Well, let’s take the latter statement first.

A few bad apples ruin the whole bunch sounds an awful lot like ‘if there are 3 poisoned skittles would you take a handful’

Imagine seriously if we made this argument regarding other groups?

Pregnant women knowingly trick men into looking after kids that aren’t their own.

Muslims are terrorists.

It’s ridiculous isn’t it.

Because of course NOT ALL pregnant women are like that.

Of course NOT ALL Muslim people are like that.

And yet here we come to the second point.

It’s bad if you say ‘not all men’.

Herein we get to the problems of language and just common goddam sense.

For starters, everything hinges upon what original statement ‘not all men’ was in response to in the first place.

Let’s use deliberately hyperbolic examples to make the points as clear as possible.

‘Men have deliberately looked at naked women on the internet’

And

‘Men are rapists’

This is then followed by the statements:

‘Not all men have deliberately looked at naked women on the internet’

And

‘Not all men are rapists’

At which point the responders take umbrage.

But hold on a minute. Both statements are factually accurate. It’s true that not 100% of men do either of the things listed above.

Ah, but here we get into the quagmire of ‘intent’.

The original posters would argue the ‘intent’ of the ‘Not all men’ responders’ was to derail the conversation (presuming of course it was ever supposed to be a conversation, often it’s just inflammatory statements to be an asshole). More importantly, their intent was to eschew responsibility and guilt for the original statement; which is normally an explicit or implicit accusation.

The ‘Not all men’ responders though would argue that the intent of the OPs was a blanket attack on men.

To which the OPs counter argue that it was not their intent. It was simply common sense and implicitly understood that obviously  they were not talking about 100% of all males.

There is a lot to unpack here.

For starters, either side might be behaving disingenuously.

More importantly there is no accounting for the ‘Not all men’ responders who simply want to set the record straight, the people who might have OCDs or some other mental situation wherein they take issue with inaccuracies. Or indeed where they personally do not believe or understand that most people speak with implicit intent behind their words. I.e. when they see ‘Men have’ or ‘Men are’ they genuinely believe the OPs are saying ALL men.

However, the most significant problem with this stems from what the actual implicit intent of the OPs were. Because it may well have not been intended as ALL men...but it is extremely unlikely that it didn’t mean MOST men.

If they didn’t mean all or MOST men then they would have thrown in a qualifying phrase to that end.

‘Most men have…’

‘Many men are…’

‘There are men who…’

That’s just how the English language works and it’s an extremely rudimentary concept to grasp the vast majority of adults who live in English speaking countries know it.

Of course, there are some who don’t for various reasons (perhaps mental issues). But the difference is that there are faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar fewer people like that than those who might not grasp ‘Men are/have…’ isn’t intended to mean 100% of all males.

This then brings us to the fundamental problem of treating ‘not all men’ as a ‘problematic’ response on mere principle.

As we’ve established at the bare minimum statements like the OPs above are almost certainly about MOST men.

What is most men anyway?

Simply put, it means the majority.

Well what is the majority?

Simple, over 50%

Well, implicitly stating that over 50% have at some point deliberately looked at naked women online isn’t that problematic of a statement. There is a debate to be had about the morality of pornography I suppose but that’s not really the point I’m getting at.

But even implicitly, claiming that over 50% of men are rapists is an immense accusation to level. It’s such an serious statement you had better  have very, very, vary hard verifiable proof of that. It is something that needs to be functionally beyond any and all doubt.

And yet the OPs who make such statements don’t have that proof. They can’t even be bothered to throw in a qualifying phrase to make it crystal clear they are not damning just every male on principle. It’d be simple and hardly time consuming to do that and yet they do not. This I think hints at the bad faith that these people are coming from in the first place.

Of course, this doesn’t just apply to stuff like rape or porn. It could be any number of statements, I jut used those as examples.

Blanket statements, especially when they are accusations, are at best annoying which can lead to frustration and resentment. At worst they are outright dangerous and simply unethical.

Don’t do it.

DON’T accuse the majority of men who read comic books as harassing female cosplayers just because you have at best anecdotal experience.

DON’T do that when you can’t even verify for certain the harassers were definitely comic book fans in the first place as ALL KINDS of people attend cons, even super hero cons.

DON’T ever take umbrage with the ‘not all men’ counter argument on principle ever again.

Use nuance. Treat every situation on it’s own individual merits. Understand the power of words and how useful a goddam qualifying phrase can be!

Master Post

[odinsblog]

Saw your reblog about how the majority of the country supports abortion, universal background checks, etc. Of course, we both know that the immediate response from a conservative would be something about "protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority" and "popular isn't always right." Given that those sentiments themselves aren't wrong (though I'd say wrongfully applied in this situation), how would you respond to such a criticism?

[re: this reblog]

@snommelp

My honest-to-God initial response is, Don’t argue with regressives, because simply “debating” their so-called has “arguments” lends them credibility they shouldn’t have access to.

BUT ....... we’re all human. It’s easy for Internet trolls to spam legitimate bloggers with hyperbolic, “innocent” questions, and provoke a response, and thereby inadvertently promote their right-of-center views.

Unless a concern troll clicks just the right button and manages to get under my skin, my general rule of thumb is to ignore or block them. The only time it’s okay to engage them in one of their ridiculous “arguments” is when you’re trying to send a message to onlookers who might be reading your blog.

But beware: many comment trolls are simply posting the most outrageous replies possible so that they goad you into responding, and thereby giving their “harmless opinions” a broader platform that they never could have reached without a reply from a more popular blogger. When I block or don’t respond to trolls (that’s what they most often are), I do so because I don’t want to raise their profile.

So, my answer to your question is, 1) I typically don’t try to respond to them, but if I dO try to meet their irrational viewpoints, I always understand that I cannot convince someone who has a vested interest in not understanding my viewpoint.

For example, there is a pro-gun rights advocate on social media (cerebralzero) who tags his “innocuous” 2A amendment arguments as “debate”. It’s super obvious that they don’t want debate, but instead the tag “debate” is meant to be used as a bat signal for all the gun nuts to pile on to a post and get gun control advocates to delete their posts, and in so doing, silence rational arguments for gun control.

I’ve seen far too many gun control advocates get their posts ganged up on, and then deleted because of how gun nuts gang up on it with NRA talking points.

Just state your arguments and leave them out there for others to see. Others who are rational. Not the anti-abortionists, not the gun rights advocates, and not the anti-immigration racists.

The more time and energy you waste on them and their regressive “opinions,” the less time you’re addressing rational people who actually CAN be convinced to a progressive mindset.

If it helps, something I’m learning to take to heart is a piece of advice I was given a long time ago, but didn’t recognize the power in it until recently: “never debate a fool or a fascist”. Because the mere act of publicly “debating” them lends credibility to their dehumanizing viewpoints. In other words, if a wino on the street told me that I needed to drink a gallon of urine each day, I wouldn’t “debate” them about why they were wrong. I would just keep moving along.

Similarly, not everything disingenuously offered up as an “opinion” by racist Evangelicals or misogynists needs to be debated. We can just say, “no, that’s wrong,” and keep moving. Without offering any further arguments.

That’s also an option.

PLEASE don’t allow yourself to expend value time and energy on a sealion who is never ever ever going to agree with you, no matter how rational your arguments are.

The job of a sealion is to keep you away from doing what you need to be doing.

How do you respond to, “what’s popular isn’t always right”? ........... sometimes there isn’t a good, or clear answer you can give so that everyone finally sees the light and starts doing the right thing. Sometimes, either people intrinsically understand what is right, or they don’t. MAYBE they will grow and understand, or maybe they won’t. Maybe you will be able to convince them to care about other people with a few paragraphs on the Internet ..... but lived experience tells me that a few logical paragraphs on social media are not going to convince irrational fanatics to change their mindsets. It might, but probably not.

So iMho, just be mindful. Are you trying to convince a conservative right-wing radical, OR, are you talking to others who haven’t already drank the far-right kool aide? First have that question answered before you respond. It matters.

So that’s how I respond to those criticisms: either I block them, or I make independent posts stating MY OWN arguments.

Don’t engage the gleeful, non-repentant, conservative sinners. They’ve already committed to evil. Instead, find new or inactive parishoners to join your battle.

Stated differently, we don’t need to convince conservatives to be more humane and do what’s right. Trumpsters, gun nuts, and racists have already demonstrated how unrealistic that strategy is.

Instead, iMho, we need to convince apathetic voters and left leaning non-voters to get involved and re-engage the system. Write off right leaning, conservative “centrists”. You aren’t going to convince most of them that they’re wrong about literally everything.