#i hate how easily misinformation gets spread on this site | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

daz4i · 3 years ago

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i posted a quick thing abt it earlier but now i’m posting a whole rant. tw antisemitism as well as mentions of terrorism under the cut. i would actually appreciate it if my goyishe mutuals try to read it despite the length

it’s actually making me really angry how easily antisemitic lies are spread on this site, especially under the guise of leftism. you’re using people’s good will to further a destructive agenda, and every time a jewish person speaks up against it we’re brushed off as aggressive, racist (bc correcting goyim about their misinformation is apparently the same as hating palestinians?? for some reason??), or literally attacked for *checks notes* saying we actually don’t want to be murdered or hate crimed in some other way

it’s especially common with american or british goyim to apply the logic of their own countries to the israeli-palestinian conflict and refuse to listen to anyone pointing out how it’s way more nuanced than just “big country steals land from natives just to get stronger” even if that’s what you see on the surface, and part of it is because of said antisemitic lies

there is historical - not that far history either, we’re talking 70, maybe 80 years ago, there’s people still alive who went through this - context to it all, most of it being THE LITERAL HOLOCAUST, YOU KNOW, A GENOCIDE JEWISH PEOPLE WENT THROUGH, 6 MILLION OF US DIED, WE STILL HAVEN’T REACHED THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE WE HAD BEFORE IT SINCE THEN BECAUSE IT WAS THIS DESTRUCTIVE TO OUR PEOPLE, that’s the reason why israel even exists in the first place. that’s not even considering hate crimes and other cases of terrorism targeting jews still happening around the world.

people saying zionism isn’t tied to judaism are either lying or are severely misinformed. zionism’s whole point is wishing for jews to be able to live and practice their religion in the country promised to them by god, aka zion, aka israel. that’s literally it. don’t let goyim make you think otherwise, don’t let them make you think it has nothing with religion, this is antisemitic propaganda and you are falling for it. (this whole rant started bc i saw a post of someone talking about how dumb and for some reason racist it is to say antizionism is antisemitism and i wanted to bite someone fr bc i KNOW they’re not jewish they’re just an antizionist and didn’t like being called antisemitic for it so they demonized the jewish people who called them out on it. please don’t put shit like that on my dash thank you)

i will admit that the modern definition of zionism slightly changed - not to most jews tbh, more to a very loud (and dangerous) minority within us, and that’s how we got to the current situation of oppressor-oppressed. i am more than willing to admit the israeli government is committing awful acts driven partially by racism and thirst for more power, especially with how right leaning it’s been for years now. we shouldn’t ignore this either.

however, hating israeli people for committing the awful crime of... being born... in a place........ IS antisemitic. i won’t blame palestinians who hate us, but i will definitely call out anyone else for that. do you hate every american person for simply being born in america because of what the actions of their government? no? okay, then what’s different about the israeli people? 🤔 hmmm really makes you think

if your argument is “but you all serve in the military and therefore taking part in the oppression” i’ll have to remind you that:

military service is mandatory at 18 years old for 2-3 years

refusing to serve with no actual reason for it (like a disability of some sort for example) means you go to prison as well as get a huge stain on your future in general, so obviously almost all 18 y/os would prefer to serve and just get it over with rather than risk it

most of the soldiers in the idf are teenagers who may have gotten some basic training, a good majority of them probably doing office/computing jobs or stuff more similar to volunteer works but in uniform rather than going on the field and engaging in any form of violence

which like. i can’t tell you what your opinion should be obviously but i think these are some things you should consider when you form one, not about the conflict itself but about the idf or israeli individuals

also automatically assuming every israeli person supports the government no matter what is just dumb. we’re not a hive mind. our last prime minister and trump’s ex-bestie netanyahu stayed in power for this long by taking advantage of political loopholes basically (and tbh that’s how our current racist prime minister got the role too) rather than fair democratic elections (also even if he just got elected that doesn’t mean every single israeli person agrees with him, that’s just how democracy works. his supporters aren’t even a majority because we’ve got so many parties in every election cycle - another reason why you shouldn’t apply american or british standards to this country). viewing us as this one being that just wants to kill and steal land is antisemitic

on that note, the whole “thieves” thing ppl have abt israel is also antisemitic. for some more historical context, jews have been called thieves for centuries and we’re constantly blamed for most problems as well as for “taking over” everything because a lot of jews worked in banks and took care of money in many countries in europe, so when people had problems they dumped it on us. that’s part of where the whole lizard people conspiracy theory started from, too (on that note, don’t joke about it, yes not even about mark zuckerberg no matter how much you hate him, i hate him too but that’s no reason to make antisemitic jokes about a jewish man)

even today, jewish people face violence and terrorism. just two weeks ago in chicago a jewish man was assaulted and synagogues and jewish schools were vandalised and sprayed with swastikas, for example. you can’t pretend antisemitism is irrelevant to this - the reason israel even exists, the reason the un decided it should exist, is to avoid cases like this. i’m only 23 years old but i remember when i was in like, middle school, there was a surge of french jews moving here after a wave of antisemitic hate crimes. this is still an issue and yes, this affects the conflict, because these people - as well as anyone being born here - need to live somewhere, obviously. you can’t talk about how we need to be kicked out of this country when this is what happens when we live anywhere else. you can’t say “never again�� but then ignore what needs to be done for jews to actually be safe (i DON’T mean wars and killing palestinians or kicking them out of their homes, on god no one take me out of context and assume i’m implying something like that. i mean finding a place for jews to live and be safe). you can’t say “punch nazis” but constantly fall for their propaganda, they WILL use your good will to trick you into hating us.

basically, i’m just asking you to pay attention, and to think before you keep spreading misinformation or sometimes even purposely malicious propaganda.

is the person saying what does and doesn’t count as antisemitism actually jewish? no? probably propaganda, or best case scenario, a misguided person who thinks too highly of themselves. either way don’t engage with what they say and i’d say even block them, even if you think they make some good points.

is this post talking about the israeli government, or about israeli people? if it’s the latter, it’s antisemitic. at the best case scenario, it’s a person not thinking their words through, but this is still spreading dangerous ideas. don’t spread them even further.

is a post condemning an israeli individual (most obvious example: gal gadot) for serving in the army? if you’ve read this post you already know it’s a little more nuanced. as i said, make your own opinion on the matter, but let it be an informed one rather than hating someone for something they didn’t have much of a choice in.

also while i’m at it (didn’t know where else to put this rant sorry it’s a little off-topic), thinking all jews/israelis are white is racist - there’s more historical context like the holocaust and years before it that i’m not even sure i can explain (find any post complaining abt mother gothel’s design in tangled it’ll surely do a better job than me), but there’s a more obvious thing: a lot of jews are just. not european. honestly when it comes to ancestory, i’d argue no jew actually is (bc we’re originally from israel, aka the middle east) but obviously after so many years of assimilation it’s not exactly how it works and like everything regarding humans, it’s not black or white. still, most people in israel especially are a mix of multiple ethnic origins from across the world and it’s just unfair to brush it off to, again, apply western logic to a country that’s fundamentally different to justify your hate as being “woke”.

just. everything about this is very nuanced and complicated, because that’s how humans are. blind hate will get you nowhere. educate yourself if you can (i’d say start with the basics, read about the holocaust first, why and how it started and what led up to it). apply critical thinking before spreading infromation you’re not educated about and consider who posted and why they did it. talk to more jewish people, israeli or not. and stop putting antisemitic bullshit on my dash please i am begging you this shit is shortening my lifespan-

#this took. nearly two hours of pure anger to type #just bc of how long it took me to write it all i won't delete it this time.#if anyone takes me out of context or attacks me for this i'm simply blocking them. thank you #(civilized discussions i can respect but can't promise i'll want to take part in them. sorry)#also sorry if this isn't 100% coherent and def not written like some essay. i'm just angry.#i'd like it if my mutuals read this but i'd prefer you wouldn't rb this 🙏 i don't trust tumblr people with this topic at all lol #i'd say you're free to ask me further questions but ngl. i'm very tired. this topic is a trigger for my anger issues. i just wanna avoid it #i'd offer good sources in english but unfortunately i don't know any :(#i'd say go to j/u/m/b/l/r tags (don't want this post to appear in search results. remove the /s) they've got some good stuff usually #anyway. yeah. i'm way more calm now i think. thank you if you actually read this i'm kissing you on the mouth

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toshootforthestars · 3 years ago

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From the report by Beth Mole, posted 19 July 2021:

Fully vaccinated people are largely protected from delta; the current vaccines are still highly effective against developing COVID-19 from delta and other variants of concern. Though a small proportion of people can develop so-called “breakthrough infections,” those infections will mostly be asymptomatic or mild. But, unvaccinated people are completely vulnerable. Moreover, those who have received only one dose of a two-dose vaccine or have only recovered from COVID-19 are not much better off than those who are completely unvaccinated.

But according to new polling data from CBS News, a new wave of vaccinations seems unlikely. Among unvaccinated and partly vaccinated people, only 48% said they are concerned about delta. Among fully vaccinated people, 72% reported being concerned about the variant.

Despite the fact that the current COVID-19 vaccines have proven highly effective and safe, 53% of those who are unvaccinated or partly vaccinated said in the poll that they are concerned about side effects. 50% of the group cited a lack of trust in the government as a reason not to get vaccinated. And 45% said they don’t trust the science. All of these percentages are higher than they have been in earlier polls, indicating that these anti-vaccine sentiments are hardening among the unvaccinated.

Some unvaccinated people who may be more persuadable have said they are waiting for the vaccines to receive full approval from the Food and Drug Administration (currently, they are authorized by the FDA under an emergency use authorization). On Friday, Pfizer and BioNTech said that the FDA had granted them a Priority Review designation for their mRNA vaccine, but they didn’t expect a decision on full approval until January 2022. Currently, vaccine providers are administering only around 520,000 COVID-19 vaccine per day, down from a record of 4.6 million in a day in April.

With over 161 million people vaccinated, only 48.6% of the US population is fully vaccinated.

See also: How much COVID misinformation is on Facebook? Its execs don’t want to know

For years, misinformation has flourished on Facebook. Falsehoods, misrepresentations, and outright lies posted on the site have shaped the discourse on everything from national politics to public health. But despite their role in facilitating communications for billions of people, Facebook executives refused to commit resources to understand the extent to which COVID-19-related misinformation pervaded its platform, according to a report in The New York Times.

Early in the pandemic, a group of data scientists at Facebook met with executives to propose a project that would determine how many users saw misleading or false information about COVID. It wasn’t a small task—they estimated that the process could take up to a year or more to complete—but it would give the company a solid understanding of the extent to which misinformation spread on its platform.

The executives listened to the data scientists’ pitch and then reportedly ghosted them.

The data team’s proposal wasn’t approved, and they were never given an explanation for why it was silently dropped.

The revelations come as Facebook has drawn fire from the White House for its role in the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines that prevent it. “They’re killing people,” President Joe Biden said about the role of social networks in the spread of misinformation. “Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. They’re killing people.”

Biden later walked back his comments slightly, but they revealed the administration’s frustration with social media platforms—and with Facebook in particular—over their response to the pandemic.

For weeks, the White House pressed Facebook for details on how the company is combating COVID vaccine misinformation. The social network offered some details but gave unsatisfying answers to other requests.

Facebook’s unwillingness or inability to understand the scope of COVID misinformation on its platform was apparent in comments it gave to The New York Times, in which it blamed its nescience on the lack of a “standard definition” for pandemic-related misinformation. “The suggestion we haven’t put resources toward combating COVID misinformation and supporting the vaccine rollout is just not supported by the facts,” said Dani Lever, a Facebook spokeswoman.

“With no standard definition for vaccine misinformation, and with both false and even true content (often shared by mainstream media outlets) potentially discouraging vaccine acceptance, we focus on the outcomes—measuring whether people who use Facebook are accepting of COVID-19 vaccines.”

For researchers who study misinformation, that explanation isn’t sufficient. “They need to open up the black box that is their content ranking and content amplification architecture,“ Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, told The New York Times. “Take that black box and open it up for audit by independent researchers and government. We don’t know how many Americans have been infected with misinformation.”

Me:

This situation is extremely bad!

First off, the individuals that aren’t getting vaccinated just do not care to. They’ve bought hook line and sinker into all the disinfo and misinfo on facebook, instagram, youtube, tiktok, reddit, and/or whatever 8chan replacement one choosed. What they see and read reinforces their pre-conceived (and factually incorrect) views that “experts” “really don’t know shit about anything” and thusly are “blowing things way the fuck outta proportion,” etc. Their views are both informed by, and reinforced by:

what they read and see online

what they hear on FM/AM radio

what they watch on broadcast TV

what their friends and communities consume from media

what the prevailing societal and political attitudes in one’s community are

“rugged individualism” and the post-1980 erosion of the social contract

So, if your fb friends are covid truthers, if the on-air personalities you hear on the radio at work are covid truthers, if your neighbors and friends at werk are covid truthers, if the elected leaders are covid truthers, if the snippets of Fox News you get to see randomly are pushing covid truther disinfo, and if those in your inner circle at that 4th of July party you went to are covid truthers, then you yourself, at a minimum from peer pressure, will dismiss the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, scores of hospital operators, plus countless professionals in medicine and epidemiology in your decision not to get vaccinated, nor to mask up indoors in public even when “recommended”.

“I have rights. I know what’s really going on. I’ve got things figured out.” Or, at a minimum, “I don’t give a fuck either way.” “Fuck you.”

Facebook absolutely is responsible for the covid truther disinfo and misinfo being shared on their platform. I believe they are the largest vector of disinformation and misinformation to the public. So many people are chugging the “vaccines are a scam, masks don’t work and I have rights” kool-aid thanks to disinfo introduced and shared widely on facebook

Some other major vectors of disinfo: iHeartMedia - Premiere Networks - iHeartRadio, Entercom/Audacy, Westwood One, One America News, Fox News, Newsmax, Sinclair Broadcast Group, YouTube + Google, TikTok, and Reddit.

“I saw a video on YouTube where the military did a study…” or “I heard a guy on the radio saying mask mandates are part of a plot…” It's all bullshit!

At this point it cannot be anything but an active choice the leadership at these companies consciously make to pipe out total bullshit in a time of crisis. Content from all of the above easily makes its way to facebook, too, unrestricted!

The U.S continues to spiral into this post fact, post truth, anti-intellectual, anti-science neo-fascist hellscape where no lives matter and where mass death is AOK because “none of us get out of this world alive” or some asshat folksy quip that masks as wisdom. Empathy, reasoning, established facts and observable reality have all become political statements… People hear what they want to hear.

IMO this is truly a disastrous situation with no easy way out.

Many, many people will not wear masks again. Many, many people see the survival rate for coronavirus and they surmise wrongly that the risk for them of getting covid is worth it, that the risk for others isn’t remotely their concern, and that the entire situation is overblown. The social contract is in bad shape. Public confidence in the state is almost gone. Covid truthers are everywhere.

Getting a vaccine requires time off from work to travel to a mass vax site that’s still open, time off to recoup post-shot (if necessary), and overcoming fear that the anti-vax disinfo on social media was true after all. Plus overcoming peer pressure from unvaccinated friends and family.

Covid case numbers are likely undercounts. Test kits are still problematic. Persons with no health insurance have no PCP to call when they get sick. Underinsured persons may have to wait weeks for their approved PCP to get around to a telehealth call. Many people are getting sick and not getting tested and they’re not reporting anything to anyone. State officials, wanting to look good, may skew whatever data is reported to them.

COVID-19 is an airborne virus. Most people catch covid from contagious asymptomatic people. Coronavirus has always been a risk for children! Getting vaccinated is part of an overall good strategy to keep COVID-19 at bay. Masks work!!! If indoors, stay in a ventilated room if you’re with other people, and keep doors and windows open for air circulation. Coronavirus is producing extremely serious long-term cognitive and cardiovascular complications for many people who survive it. “Long covid” is real.

We don’t have to live with this! The political and business leadership in much of the United States today have collectively decided there’s nothing that can or should be done in regards to covid-19, no masking requirements, no easy supplies of N95 masks, and no mitigation efforts of any kind. They wrongly conclude that COVID-19, a new virus with so many unknowns, “isn’t that bad” and so the level of permanent damage or death resulting from covid is acceptable.

None of this is acceptable, the amount of permanent damage and death occurring from COVID-19 is far, far too high, and there’s no rational excuse whatsoever to allow this virus to spread across this country unchecked. There’s no reason to allow this virus to spread further. There’s no valid reason for me and anyone else to justify allowing covid to spread out of control.

#news #coronavirus #third wave #covid vaccine #facebook sucks #please get vaccinated #misinformation #disinformation #america 2021 #rant #ars technica #vaccine hesitancy #anti vaxxer #things are going swimmingly #long post

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wolvesandvisions · 4 years ago

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I’ve said this on Twitter a lot but you have a lot of people calling twitter “new tumblr” and I only have to disagree because yeah I moved to twitter back in 2014 but it wasn’t because I was hating Tumblr. My experience on tumblr was fairly unbothered and there was so much about my experience that I controlled just fine. It was so nice it was boring to me, and the appeal to Twitter was how much easier it was to talk to people and get instant feedback from notifications or my rants — twitter is just Tumblr without any restraints or control whatsoever.

Tagging consitently is pretty much impossible, dare I say — discouraged — because you have to meet a word count and everyone really only reads the first tweet in a post. God forbid your post is a graphic or an image that needs to be tagged because if OP didn’t do it you have to take extra hurdles to do it yourself.

Archiving information is also impossible, back searching words is unreliable and doesn’t always work, you have to hope whatever old tweet or old post you’re looking for chooses to show up.

Again, no customization or real control. People have to make accounts on entirely different websites to just get a more private and “mail-in” anonymous type communication process. (CuriousCat is so nice but so annoying)

Having privacy is also discouraged because there’s such a prevalent culture of people making private accounts to vent or have their own space and people leaking them anyways when the people pose no immediate threat. And if your account is public sorry — everyone can see people replying to your private account and it’s free reign for them to make guesses about what y’all are talking about.

And then the way Twitter is just disgustingly not artist or fandom friendly. My friend mentioned this before, but Twitter has such close proximity to nazis, politicians, republicans, just violently minded people in general that if you wanted to just step away from all that you literally can’t without getting off the whole website.

Not that discussion of politics is necessarily bad but Tumblr actually gives some leeway for people to have long winded rebloggable conversations that allow for more context and more of an ability to protect yourself — while twitter rewards back and forth nothing battles with bad faithed people who could give a shit about you being reasonable and knows you don’t have enough word space to give yourself a platform when they’re attacking you.

4chan users literally couldn’t touch this site for years without just intentionally spamming our tags with nonsense bcs trying to spread misinformation campaigns and start go-nowhere fights with us was hard. It happened anyways — but it was hard. People on twitter just do the work for them.

Then don’t get me started on being a creative on twitter, every artist and writer has their own audience somewhere but man the twitter alogrithm is so bad for artists because of the lack of reliable tagging — you have to KNOW somebody, and then writers are so much more disrespected on twitter than they ever were on tumblr bcs writing isn’t easily accessed there. People could put their fic on tumblr and AO3 and still be okay.

Twitter isn’t new Tumblr, if everyone just stayed here drama would still exist the same way it always does, I’m of the opinion conversation would have updated naturally along the way but the nature of Twitter has made it so it’s okay and damn near constant to go in circles, be uncomfortable, and be okay with stressing yourself out everyday for the promise of getting constant attention in some capacity right away.

It’s just upsetting.

#wolf txt.#rambling #we ehh

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widgenstain · 4 years ago

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Give me 120-130 please !

Ahahaha, the ones with the rant potential! *mwah mwah mwah*

120: Fruits or vegetables?

Hmmm, gonna go with fruits!

121: Something you want to do right now:

Sleep for three weeks, get my own shit sorted out without external factors constantly intercepting, swim in this (I know it’s probably a fountain but lets pretend it’s a pool) lounge in the little tempietto and have Andrew Scott bring me iced tea in swim shorts (the swim shorts are optional).

122: Is the ocean or sky prettier?

GAAAHHH, cannot decide. Both are so beautiful and devastating at the same time!

123: Sweet or sour foods?

Definitely sour, I LOOOOVE pickled food!

124: Bright or dim lights?

Dim lights, I thrive in twilight xD

125: Do you believe in a certain magical creature?

Not really. I mean, I’d love for some of them to exist, but I highly doubt that they do.

126: Something you hate about Tumblr:

Oof, here we go: The thing that has bothered me from the beginning is how easily misinformation spreads on this website. One dumb claim reblogged by a big blog and it’s not containable anymore, no way to reach people believing the misinformation, no matter how many corrections you add. Never mind that the corrections often are dubitable as well, and that this blue hellsite is a sea of gullible people who will.not.click on links and check if what they’re reading has any foundation in reality. And/or unfortunately very often people lack the scientific literacy to understand the sources of their arguments or do not really know how to properly source to begin with. In a related vein, this site’s format does not allow discussion (which big, modern sm does, tbf?) and it’s exacerbated by what I call “tumblr discourse” (don’t think it originated here and it’s certainly happening everywhere now, but I’ve seen this form of rhetoric on here first). It basically is not allowing nuance in discussions and opinions. If you don’t agree with me you’re wrong on everything, you’re a nazi and a monster, you must die. If you agree with me you’re a perfect angel without fault and a heart pure as snow. This is dumb yet harmless in fandom fights, but if it spreads to more serious issues it’s frustrating at best and fucking terrifying at worst. There’s a culture on this site that encourages seeing things in black and white, with no in-between. But that’s not how the world works; it’s big and complicated, everything is, and most issues cannot be summed up with easily chant-able slogans or quaint hashtags. And those issues cannot be solved by reblogging half-truths or shouting at people who only agree with you on 15 instead of 20 points. This should be obvious to people who approach things with even the littlest bit of critical thought, but even that is too much to ask sometimes and yeah, I deeply deeply hate it.

127: Something you love about Tumblr:

That big rant out of the way, there are many reasons why I’m still on this website: it truly is one of the last sm where you don’t feel the pressure of creating content and being constantly judged. If you want to sit here and like pretty pics of hot actors, you can do that, same thing with pics of the other, more random stuff. If you want to make dumb jokes all day, you can do that, if you want to squee over superheroes you can do that, and if you want to indulge yourself in your tentacle sailor porn au daydreams, you’ll probably have to block a few asshats but you totally can do that too. No need to prove yourself with your looks or your wit or talents, you can be your own kind of weird little shrimp and have fun being it. And you most likely will find like-minded people. I did and some of them have become my best friends, who I regularly see and/or talk to, who live three streets away from me but are also spread across the globe and have given me a better, broader understanding of the world.

128: What do you think about the least?

Uhmmm, pretty much everything? I mean, I think about things way too much, but there’s SO MUCH I don’t even touch, so I don’t really get the question.

129: What would you want written on your tombstone?

Heh, I want to be cremated and my ashes should be spread at some nice and pretty shore, so having a tombstone doesn’t really make too much sense? Besides I’ll be dead, so what do I care? Then again... if they named a few streets after me that would be lovely. Streets, squares, cities with a big old statue of me in the middle... you know, the simple things xD

130: Who would you like to punch in the face right now?

Dear LORD that’s a long line!! The fascist orange is probably ahead, oh it would feel so good to put my whole weight behind a punch and just smash that gross anus mouth right into his spine! But there are many many more politicians, public figures, bosses and dudes who come by to look at my flatshare who just deserve to be hit really really hard in the face!

#asks #gerec

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inkxlenses · 7 years ago

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Regarding post/172299066623/istj-hedonist-samlick23-istj-hedonist-when I don't get why people would compare mbti with astrology and shit. It's as flawed as any other personality theories but it's still a system that works. Astrology doesn't even deserve to be called a personality theory 😩 And just like u said it's never about 'personality' anyway?? That test clusters people yet only considers people's behaviors as if nobody doesn;t have shit like that

Okay. These are among the most exciting asks that I have received so far. I would like for this blog to be as drama-free™ as much as possible because it’s just my virtual escape™. I have also always expressed that I don’t consider this blog as solely an aesthetic™ and inspiration blog. In fact, I was very humbled to be encouraged by my friends and followers to continue including topics that interest me in this blog. But even though this is my blog, I know that I have the responsibility to check what I post here to ensure that nothing would negatively affect someone else’s mental and emotional health (especially as I have observed that most of my followers are minors). So I would just keep my response under the line—and because it’s just really, really, long. HAHA. Also, just for future reference, if you oh-so-hate MBTI [or whatever piece of knowledge I feature here/ if you’re only interested with the aesthetic™ content], you could blacklist my *mbti*, *text* and *photo* tags.

Coincidentally, I would be having a mini-hiatus, and this would be my only response regarding this topic because I’m not really fond of tumblr drama™. I would be temporarily disabling anonymous asks during my break, so if you have anything you would like to discuss with me, kindly contact me via private messaging (but please be patient with my response. I promise I would get back to you as soon as I become online). My only request is that you should first read what I have to say before reacting to anything, because I might have already discussed what you are trying to ask. No worries, I wouldn’t judge nor hate you for your opinions. I actually welcome and enjoy healthy debates (as it is part of my real-life job lmao). And I’m not a fragile snowflake™ so you could really talk to me about anything, I wouldn’t mind :P

Firstly and most importantly, I want to apologize to anyone who had been offended or had felt attacked on my rant. I was not describing a particular person in the *inner dialogue*, and it’s not my intention to offend anyone. So if anyone had felt this way, again, my apologies.

So what is this post about?

I had recently reblogged an MBTI post where I was referring to the function theory—not the common MBTI stereotypes and misconceptions circulating over the internet. And just like what I had mentioned over and over again [and on my tags on that particular MBTI post], online MBTI tests are not accurate and should not be taken seriously. It’s disappointing how 16personalities have been profiting from this by selling misinformation to people. This was OP’s topic, in which I had just agreed with their views and had personally shared my opinions as well. Yet it seems to be that there had been some misunderstanding regarding said topic. Literally OP’s argument—and the same criticisms we continuously read regarding MBTI *points to some of the anons above*—are exactly what we are critiquing as well, because these are common misconceptions and stereotypes which are not related to the theory anyway. So I don’t really understand the intense reaction regarding our opinions on the letter dichotomy and online MBTI tests, because we actually disapprove of the same things as well. Weird -_-

I never mentioned nor even vaguely expressed that MBTI should be the zenith™, the absolute “ Law™ ”, nor do I believe that it should monopolize all the ideas in personality theories. That’s just.. funny. We wouldn’t mind if the function theory is not your thing; you can leave it just like that. Simple. Just like how everyone else has their own beliefs and interests that others simply don’t agree with as well. Nobody would forcefully entice you to MBTI, especially if you had not expressed your interest and curiosity for it. It’s just a matter of respecting others’ POVs and interests.

I could easily brush this off because I truly believe that people are entitled to their opinions, and I respect that. More importantly, I had studied typology for several years now that I’m already quite confident of my knowledge about it. Thus, I won’t easily be shaken by criticisms about the theory—which I’m very much aware of anyway. Sadly, it’s seems to be an automatic impulse in tumblr to hate, rather than communicate. My friends had told me of someone publicly posting something defamatory with regards to the MBTI post that I reblogged. I don’t know what that particular blog had been aiming for, but clearly their hateful intent had failed miserably. I didn’t expect the support of my friends, more so, the consideration of people from the MBTI community. I really want to thank everyone who had supported and understood me even if I wasn’t online during that time. My friends are so protective of me, and the responses of people from the MBTI community had been so funny and adorable I’m SO flattered. Watch as my face turns vermillion xD

With that said, I felt like I should at least explain my part and answer the anons who aren’t in favour of MBTI. I just want to stress that I don’t plan to forcefully persuade you to believe MBTI. My only intent is so that you could look into my perspective as I share my knowledge and understanding after many years of studying the theory, in contrast to the misconceptions and stereotypes about it, which I believe is what these anons were referring to. I emphasize that if MBTI is not your *thing*, then you could simply ignore it. This topic is very important to me because it had helped with my well-being, introspection, relationship with others, career, and general outlook in life. So I just want to clarify some points with regards to the asks above^ because I believe some misunderstandings had occurred. So thank you very much @hueristix, @clumsynix, @ckatharcis, @tzeentchs-secretary and anons for your messages. I am really so thrilled to discuss my views with you.

The cognitive function theory—more commonly known and referred to as MBTI [especially here]—explores the human cognition, NOT outward behaviours and personal preferences. Contrary to what the first anon had said, I believe that we cannot compare the theory with astrology because the former never categorizes how humans act the way they act, more so, it never simply propose their “ personality traits ”. The theory recognizes that every person has their own free will, inherent capabilities, traits, emotions, and preferences (etc. I could go on and on, I swear), and would be constantly affected by personal struggles, life circumstances and other external factors through out their life.. and well, basically just like what Jeanne (ckatharcis) had referred to, it acknowledges that humans cannot be “ clustered ” simply through their behaviours, personal preferences, traits, etc. because again, the theory is NOT about that. Thought process is the essential and primordial reason why outward behaviours, personal preferences, emotions, etc. are easily observable in a person, and NOT the other way around. Thus, it’s also the reason why your type cannot change contrary to common misconceptions, and essentially the reason why tests are not reliable. [Link 1, Link 2—I highly recommend this post.]

I think the first anon is not familiar with the function theory, but, instead, with the letter dichotomies (i.e. I vs. E, etc.) which is the general principle on the said 16personalities site [and other online MBTI tests]. This was exactly what OP had criticized and what I had discussed on my *inner dialogue*. Again, I do not blame the first anon or anybody else who are familiar with this concept because misconceptions and stereotypes are easier to be accessed, contrary to the theory itself which would definitely require time and in-depth research to get acquainted with. I understand that not everyone would be interested to invest time and effort on something that they would just like to casually learn. And it’s okay.

However, I would like to clarify that I [and I truly believe that OP as well] have no intention to humiliate, condemn, mock or ostracize people who had only been familiar with MBTI stereotypes (the letter dichotomy) and/or had only taken online MBTI tests, because we understand that [again], sadly, those misconceptions are disappointingly perpetuating in the internet and even on some books. OP had clearly stated that their only issue was how people who aren’t really familiar with the function theory should refrain from initiating any MBTI-related discussion. Even if I personally agree with OP, their premise was repeatedly contradicted by others who were justifying the validity of 16personalities. However, I believe that asking questions and expressing genuine interest to learn more is different from spreading misinformation to others. As long as you do your own research first, the MBTI community here is actually very welcoming of people who would like to learn more of the theory. The MBTI community here also encourages critical thinking, exchanges of different ideas, and endless rational debates—which is exciting, right?

I think OP had been very honest with their opinion (though may had been perceived as *offensive* and rude by some) and I truly concur with their points. I’ve said in my *inner dialogue* how I believe that spreading wrong information is destructive. It is damaging to other people who have only been starting to learn the theory, to take advice and information, or be mentored by people who had been misinformed as well. Why? Because above all else, the theory is used for self-evaluation and understanding of one’s strengths and weaknesses (with regards to their cognitive process), to provide clear direction on how to advance towards their personal growth and development. For that reason, if one is mistyped, and they generally believe that their thought process works this *particular* way and that they have *certain* strengths and/or weaknesses, then they are not only failing to seize the opportunity to recognize their *actual* strengths and weaknesses through fully understanding how their cognition works, but they could also potentially damage their mental health and well-being because that is not how their thought process operates. It worsens when spreading misinformation like that is increasing exponentially.

We would never dismiss nor humiliate anyone who have only been starting to familiarize themselves with the theory, because we had been beginners as well. Mate, my blog is not an MBTI blog, but I have two mutuals who had been so humble to admit that they had fell for that abomination-of-a-test, and had asked me about the basics and other resources to study the theory. I never ridiculed them; contrary, I was so proud of their humility to admit that they had been misinformed, and of their willingness to learn. There is no shame in that. I really admire people who admit their mistakes or ignorance because I know that people who think this way are really the ones who have the desire to learn and improve, and have insatiable thirst to absorb more knowledge.

I’ve been studying the function theory for about 3 or 4 years now, but I still consider myself to be a newbie at this. Even if I’m already quite confident of my knowledge about it, I know that I still have a lot more to learn [and that’s exciting]. But OP and other legit MBTI blogs here have been studying this theory for many years now, and they are considered as reliable resource persons for other MBTI enthusiasts as well [at least in tumblr]. Which is why I think [just my opinion], they could easily retaliate on insults or misinformation thrown at them by people who don’t even make an effort to read just the basics and/or have poor acumen to just believe everything they read on the internet, yet have all the liberty in the world to whine and be [passive-aggressively] defensive to rationalize their misconceptions of the theory. These legit MBTI blogs know what they’re talking about, and I think you could be the judge as to how they could react to insults thrown at them by people who don’t even understand the topic itself. I’ll just quote hueristix here, “ laziness should not be an excuse to ignorance ”. As I’ve said before: be receptive to different ideas, yet skeptical enough to question everything before accepting any piece of information as real™. And yes, that includes everything I say. After all, I’m just responding to opinions as well and we’re all just stating our subjective views here. We wouldn’t mind if the function theory is not your thing; you can leave it just like that. Simple. Nobody would forcefully entice you to MBTI, especially if you had not expressed your interest and curiosity for it. It’s just a matter of respecting others’ POVs and interests.

Yes, I am passionate about this theory and I know it is fine. But never had I mentioned nor even vaguely expressed that MBTI should be the zenith™, the absolute “ Law™ ”, nor do I believe that it should monopolize all the ideas in personality theories. I don’t know if what the first anon actually meant was: since I’m so passionate of this theory, then MBTI must be My Favourite™ personality theory, thus, I propose that it should be held true above all else.. but uhm I just want to clarify that MBTI is not My Favourite™ (I even prefer Enneagram over it, sorry haha). I am aware that it’s not the most recognized personality theory in the field of Psychology. And I had said it before, and I’ll say it again: just like any other typological theories, I know that MBTI has its merits and flaws. Though there is qualitative neuroscientific research intended to point evidence to the existence of cognitive functions in the human mind, MBTI is still not 100% considered to be scientific by some [because according to them there is no physical manifestation of cognitive functions. Uhm. I’d just leave it like that.. For now]. No personality theory is infallible. And again, as I had said in verbatim on my *inner dialogue*: “ The human mind is so complex. And to propose that a person’s *personality* could easily be identified through a 10-minute test is just absurdly.. laughable to me [not to mention that that test is focused more on NATURAL HUMAN behaviours and not cognition—which is what the theory is about anyway xxxx xxxx xxxx] like wtf so amazeballs that they could identify my *personality* with such an overly-random question that any other person could have strong preference over the other. ”. So I don’t really understand what the first anon’s critic was, because what they had pointed out was exactly what OP, I, and basically all the people who had studied this theory are continually expressing. Based on my tags alone, we’re actually on the same team™ here.

How? (1) I had said earlier that the theory does not limit human free will. It understands that people have innate imprints in them that manifest on how they act, talk, feel, etc. In the same way, it also understands how people and their preferences are constantly developing and changing [and yes as the first anon said, “ evolving ”], because humans will continue to encounter and be exposed to several personal afflictions, relationship struggles, disappointments, successes, gratifications, religious beliefs, cultural conformity, and other life-altering situations and external factors throughout their lifetime that will heavily affect their behavioural makeup and adaptability to their external environment. Everyone—whatever their type may be—can behave any way they like depending on the situations and circumstances that they are dealing with, because there are many factors that affect and influence how people behave, not only a person’s type. BUT their cognitive functions have been there all along, constantly operating, even if their *functional stack* could fluctuate on their healthy and/or unhealthy states depending on how they had adjusted and adapted to these circumstances [uhm more advanced topic of the theory—see the beauty of this theory? It’s never obsolete. Contrary to misconceptions, the theory recognizes the erratic human nature. It pains me how people could outright dismiss and insult the theory without studying it first, because they fail to realize its usefulness in a person’s life, more than what that shite site says *ho hum*]. (2) I agree with most of the principles of the function theory because it doesn’t “ categorize everyone into 16 cutout personality types ”, nor does it have a manual that says “ ‘here are a few common personality traits, be free’ aspect ”. MBTI stereotypes and ideas from the 16personalities assert that; the function theory does not. (3) [uhm this is getting so repetitive now] The theory is not about what our external behaviours are, nor does it dictate what our *personalities* are. Rather, on the simplest terms, it analyzes how we think. It analyzes how we make decisions, through our cognitive process, when we encounter a particular situation.

Hopefully, my explanation would be enough to clear up some misunderstandings from the aforesaid post. However, I believe that this explanation alone would not suffice for anyone who are still confused with the theory and/or for those who are interested to learn more. Hence, the next section is really just for reference and further clarification, just in case there are still some questions that others are still confused about. That said, I know that I would not be able to articulate these ideas the way this particular blog do [and I don’t want to sound like a bot if I would just be reciting their ideas exactly as they had expressed it], so I’d just be quoting one of the most reliable MBTI blogs here and a personal favourite of mine (mbti-notes), to give insight on some issues that had been critiqued on that post. These are really interesting and thought-provoking ideas so I hope you could take time to read them. Also, I highly-recommend their blog!

[With regards to common MBTI stereotypes and misconceptions]:

Anonymous: Stereotypes give people wrong assumptions about what types are. They don’t define what your personality or your actions are going to be like. They don’t even define what thoughts you have. It’s simply the pattern and the functions you use to come to conclusions. I’m an ENTP (22) and my best friend is an ENFP (23). Yet people would probably switch our two types because I tend to be very gentle and kind around others while she appears more tough and openly says what she thinks.

I appreciate your point. Part of the reason for the stereotyping problem is that the information online and even in books is dominated by two main schools of thought that focus very heavily on behavior at the expense of cognition (Myers-Briggs and Keirsey Temperaments), so a lot of people do not realize that there are other (better) interpretations available. My first exposure to typology was through Keirsey and, although I thought it was interesting at the time, I wasn’t able to see the full potential of the system because everything was masked behind simplistic labels (stereotypes) that didn’t seem to connect with real life to the degree that I thought was necessary to be a truly viable theory of personality. I think a lot of people get interested in MBTI because of its practical applicability in situations like personal relationships or group/work environments and MBTI is good for learning some general rules of thumb that can help you improve the ways in which you deal with different kinds of people. However, general rules of thumb very easily morph into stereotyping and pigeonholing when people do not understand the finer details of the theory and then apply the ideas and principles too carelessly. The human mind is prone to lazy overgeneralizing or drawing invalid conclusions as it is and the lack of depth in the information available unfortunately encourages that laziness. (Source)

[With regards to MBTI’s *accuracy*]:

Anonymous: Do you think that other personality identification types such as Alignment and Global 5/SLOAN are more, less, or just as accurate as MBTI can be?

“Accuracy” is not really the right question. Every theory of personality that is developed by academics is put together very deliberately to serve a particular purpose, and it must be used as intended in order to preserve validity. Unfortunately, when the ideas trickle down into mainstream consciousness, the original purpose of the theory often gets lost in translation, with the general public using it more like a horoscope or fortune cookie and then complaining about the inaccuracies. Every kind of theory has its advantages and disadvantages. For instance, the Five Factor model is a trait theory, which has the advantage of being easily quantifiable and very reliable for statistical analysis. However, there is no actual theoretical underpinning for it because the traits are derived from factor or data analysis, which offers no explanation as to why traits exist, how they arise, why there are only five, and so on. Trait theories are limited in what they are able to explain about human behavior but they remain very useful for doing replicable research studies. There is of course some overlap of concepts between trait theories and type category theories like MBTI.

Cognitive function theory is a qualitative and holistic model of personality that sprawls into other related areas of psychology. Qualitative research excels at theoretical analysis and depth of detailed explanations and is less conducive to statistical analysis/prediction. Jung developed psychological types as a part of the psychoanalytic tradition, however, that tradition fell out of favor in the US to make way for more popular quantitative research methods, though it continued to expand in certain European circles. Myers & Briggs and David Keirsey brought it back to life in a more digestible form but it was never meant to be distilled to such an extreme degree; MBTI essentially turned into a corporate money making tool and Keirsey rejected the notion of cognitive functions in favor of behavioral descriptors. Many of the criticisms that are leveled at MBTI are legitimate but not actually applicable to cognitive function theory because of not seeing the full extent of it and how it is embedded firmly within the long history of psychoanalytic theory, a school of thought which has done more than any other to reveal the qualities of the unconscious mind. Now that there is emerging neuroscientific research that confirms some of these old ideas about the unconscious, there is some resurgence in their popularity within research circles. (Source)

[With regards to MBTI’s basics, development and “scientific” basis]:

Anonymous: The J/P dichotomy is particularly interesting because, say, you have already three letters I N F, the last letter decides not only your dominant and auxiliary functions, it flips the stack; INFP (Fi-Ne-Si-Te) vs. INFJ (Ni-Fe-Ti-Se), and then we read that according to descriptions those types are very different. But then we also have a lot of people who can’t really decide if they’re INFJ or INFP. It’s all very strange to me.

It’s strange to you because (judging by the earlier question) you haven’t understood what the J/P distinction really means and you haven’t properly distinguished cognition and behavior. Two different cognitive functions can manifest similar looking behaviors on the surface (as I have explained numerous times in the guides, please read them carefully). E.g. Any introvert can be reflective but the reasons WHY a particular individual is reflective, the motive and explanation behind it, differs according to the cognitive functions involved (Fi vs Ni). If you don’t know the details of their inner cognitive processes, you cannot see the differences because, just looking from the outside, all you see is that they are both reflective in demeanor. xxxx xxxx xxxx MBTI type descriptions are purposely simplistic because newbies don’t know the theory and therefore must identify themselves through simple behavioral descriptors. MB designed their system in part to sidestep the complicated process of learning function theory so that more people could access it, a noble intention, therefore simple type descriptions do not include all the info you need to type accurately because they do not address variations within type and cognitive function specifics. In other words, problems with typing stem from lack of knowledge of the theory, usually because of not going any deeper than the simplified descriptions/tests. The test was meant to be administered and interpreted by an expert, which means that people run into all kinds of problems when they try to self-type with limited to no knowledge of type theory.

[continuation of the ask] Is there any real scientific proof that Jungian cognitive functions exist? Dario Nardi’s attempts are certainly interesting, but it’s a common knowledge that EEG method is far from being reliable. Also, on one of his AMA discussions on reddit he presented instances when he was testing midlife INFJ adults who he couldn’t differentiate from of ISTPs, which he attributed to the use the second most common pattern (Ti-Se for INFJs). So, which model is true, or is this a combination of dichotomies and functional stack model? Can you shed some light on those issues and inconsistencies? Additionally, I’d really like your opinion on Reynierse’s articles (“Preference Multidimensionality and the Fallacy of Type Dynamics”, etc.). Thank you. The question of “science” has already been beaten to death over and over again so I’ve grown impatient with this can of worms. I don’t have much to say about Nardi, he’s pursuing his ideas and more power to him, but his work is not particularly interesting to me because it is getting away from other aspects of type theory that I am more interested in. xxxx xxxx xxxxx Some people latch onto him because they desperately want some kind of “scientific proof” of the functions. Some people dabble in typology and keep demanding “scientific proof” but don’t understand the differences between quantitative and qualitative research. There are different kinds of theories, with different kinds of objectives, with different standards of measurement, with different methods of application - the scientific method is only one valid research framework and it should not be the measure of all things. Traditionally, science often includes the concept of falsifiability but you can’t falsify that which is not within the realm of empirical fact, e.g., you can’t falsify human valuations or subjective meaning/experience, so are these things not “real”? Do you understand the difference between facts and values? Do you believe that only scientific measurements can imbue ideas with value? Do you believe that materialistic explanations of human psychology are the be-all and end-all? Not everything about human experience can be reduced to neurons and electrons. If you think it can, then feel free to dismiss type theory as crap because it’s not going to fit well with your assumptive worldview. Also, abstract and concrete knowledge are different and should be treated differently. No idea is “real” because “real” implies concrete, and ideas are abstract. One can easily claim that any idea is not “real” depending on how you want to set your standards of measurement. xxxx xxxx xxxx Similarly, people claim that “types” or “functions” are not real even when they themselves: behave as type theory describes, suffer the problems that type theory describes, feel attracted to the relationships that type theory describes, follow the developmental path that type theory describes.  

Before you ask for “scientific proof”, you should first define exactly what standards of proof would satisfy you and make you believe that cognitive functions are “real”. It is quite often the case that people who like to harp about scientific “proof” don’t even understand what they’re asking for or to what end, they demand proof but no matter what proof is offered, they keep moving the goalposts because they are actually more interested in criticizing than understanding (see climate change deniers as the perfect example). Just so you know, many mbti bloggers are tired of dealing with such people, we’ve already gone through all these arguments a million times. I’m not saying you’re one of these people but beware that you’re stepping into a complex discussion and don’t seem sufficiently prepared. Instead of making people explain or educate you, state your exact criteria of scientific proof and I’ll happily tell you if type theory passes. Type theory is a big theory and some people find it hard to understand even the basic type concepts which barely scratch the surface because the theory goes far beyond simple typing. It is an incomplete and fragmented theory, with many people working on it for different reasons in different directions. Many people have found elements of type theory very useful and accurate in their lived experiences, even using it to permanently solve long running psychological issues, even using it to deftly cure relationship problems. There is piecemeal neuroscience evidence which does not directly relate to type theory but nonetheless corroborates it. I wouldn’t know if any of this is enough “proof” because you haven’t specified exactly what proof you’re demanding. If the book falling on your head doesn’t prove gravity is “real”, then I suppose all the people whose thought processes match the principles of type dynamics don’t count as real proof either. The results say a lot. I run a popular typology blog and have dealt with thousands of people, so I at least don’t suffer from sample-size-1. Type dynamics describes very specific problems and offers workable solutions, and I’ve witnessed many different kinds of people from different backgrounds, cultures, walks of life apply these ideas with great success. Is this “empirical evidence”? I’ve had the most hardened scientifically-minded strangers think I’m a magical wizard when I can knit together their life story and reveal their innermost insecurities based only on four letters, yet all I’m doing is applying and extrapolating from the theoretical ideas as I understand them, nothing more.  

All I will say about arguments against type dynamics is that they usually can’t see the forest because they’re stuck in the trees: they get wrapped up in granular details and superficial inconsistencies; they don’t see the historical big picture of how every model evolves from and contains the same set of ideas; they don’t see how some disagreements between models are merely semantic and actually address the same underlying concept; they don’t fully grasp the principles of type dynamics and then produce strawman criticisms (some of the points in those articles actually support, add to, or help clarify type dynamics rather than debunk it); they perceive the explanatory flexibility of type dynamics as a flaw, not a strength; they probably prefer trait theories because they are easily quantifiable (and then completely miss the point of type dynamics); they don’t see how the ideas could potentially fit with mathematical dynamics and energy flow. Any theory worth its salt should remain open to criticism, development, and further clarification but, in order to critique a theory successfully, you must first understand it, and I don’t think the author of those articles has understood type dynamics well enough. (Source)

Again, I apologize to anyone who had been offended of what I said in my tags. And thank you very much for taking the time to read this post! :)

P.S. I have no intention to answer that anon who made a sexist comment about M & B. I have already discussed what my points are regarding MBTI Tests™, so I wouldn’t really judge them or anyone else for having fun with taking multiple personality tests. But since I think this anon have zero knowledge of the theory anyway, I have to clarify that it wasn’t created by M & B [who, by the way, even if they had not been psychologists by profession, had made extensive research of the theory—probably more than you would ever do, anon. Then again, I don’t really adhere to M & B’s approach], but was devised by one of the best minds psychology has ever known. FYI that person was a man—if anon would feel more validated™ to know that their own sex is the perfect authority for objective™ measurement of intelligence or competence *cough* it actually isn’t *cough*. Also, I really am so tired already to rebut something that is completely illogical, it’s even barely understandable. *ho hum* I’m very open to discuss opinions that differ from mine, but if you are trying to establish your argument through a sexist comment, then don’t expect that I would answer you with respect.

#asks #anonymous #answered #tagging this as:#negativity #just to be safe #ckatharcis #clumsynix #hueristix #tzeentchs-secretary #please ignore any typos and grammatical errors #i'm too tired to proofread this haha

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feralgoing · 5 years ago

Text

where my mind has gone during this COVID-19 pandemic

I’m learning a lot about myself as we start ramping up in intensity here in my area with precautions. I already tended to keep to myself long before the social distancing (such a vague and confusing term) and shutdowns were in place, and I am lucky that spending all day every day with my toddler is no change to my life (if you are at home with your toddler and need ideas, I am by no means any sort of expert but I’m happy to share the weird things we get up to day to day).

I realized early on that the end of the world probably won’t be some crazy catastrophe like in the Hollywood movies, but rather a culmination from misinformation where no one knows what’s going on and everything interprets things differently. So many people put out opinions all over the internet and media, which we state as universal truths, and everyone can read it and then decides who they believe. I’m not talking anything drastically polarizing issues either. For example, with social distancing (I really hate that term) should we literally stay inside all the time, or can people continue to go for walks around their neighborhoods, workout together outside, go on hikes and bike rides, etc so long as they eyeball keeping 6 feet between them? Because from what I’ve seen, people are out most of the time, and social distancing just means don’t get in anyone’s bubble. But is that enough to stop the rapid spread? (Also note, I don’t think COVID-19 will be the end of the world, but I think it is the biggest thing that has happened in my lifetime as nothing before has managed to shut down the entire world to such an extent).

Food allocations also presents a looming challenge in my mind, and not because I feel that I don’t have enough. I am blessed and don’t have to worry about scarcity, but in thinking about how a quarantine could go on for months, I realize that scarcities in food are more complex than we thought. It’s not just about how much food the average American wastes, or how many people are currently starving, though those were and are huge issues already before COVID-19. But should infectious diseases rampage our populations indefinitely, our way of getting food (grocery stores, shipped from online) would break down and most of us would be left without supplies quickly. Our general systems rely on others to provide food for us, and we don’t really have a backup plan (besides, it seems, aggressive hoarding) when suddenly those others can’t keep the supplies open. We have created large bodies of people that cannot maintain themselves, and I’m not just talking about in urban areas. We don’t know how to farm sustainably, we don’t know how to read the land and know where to find food, or what is edible versus toxic or what we can help grow, what we can preserve and store and how, etc. We are really removed from being able to handle food (well most of us… I know there are lots of small and large scale farmers and permaculturists and foragers who make their way just find without relying too much on external systems). We also don’t think sustainably… how are you going to keep growing your foods when you can’t go buy extra soil at the store? When there are no more instant fertilizing blends or pest killers, and when we don’t know how to plant things that will grow together and survive multiple years? Do we even know how to cook if you don’t have electricity, no stove to boil things, no oven to bake in, no microwave easily available, no manmade refrigeration? Do we have ways to store water for when our infrastructures fail?

And then that leads us to water. This one is even scarier of a thought because we rely completely on water treatment sites and facilities to provide us water (at least where I live). And without water you die much faster than without food. In Maryland, there are not many (if any) natural lakes; they are all manmade and human-maintained which means they aren’t able to keep themselves in an equilibrium that keeps water pollution in check. So can we drink that water? Probably not unless you are desperate (or maybe if you already keep camping filters handy?). So what to do? Most places don’t have well-water established for their homes, and even if they do, you have to worry about what else is getting in and not filtering through. We all know about the chemicals people are finding in water supplies and in fish- from Prozac to birth control, but we forget about other aspects like how close are you to a military base that had a history of dumping chemicals? Do you live near a cemetery that practices embalming (those body goos and embalming formulas have to go somewhere)? Near a highway and its runoff? We haven’t had to think about where we get our water or how contaminated it is if we don’t have a system that attempts to filter it very much in our modern lives and it’s times like this that make that lack of thought all the more concerning.

And let’s talk about reproductive health. Sure we can tell everyone who doesn’t already have a semi-permanent style of birth control (inserts, condoms or birth control pills before they run out, etc) to abstain, but seriously… the human species hasn’t survived because people abstained. If we should have an end of the world, chances are people will continue to have sex and then where does that leave us? Do we even know how to be pregnant and take care of ourselves when we can’t have any medical visits, no vitamins we can buy, no internet to research what’s normal, no community of mothers and wise women to draw from because we’ve all lost that independence and knowledge decades ago. It makes me realize again how important it is to be communal, and why people like birth and postpartum doulas are so important.

And speaking of doulas. What do we do if someone dies? Do we know how to handle a body if there is no infrastructure to take it in for us? When there is no crematory open, no embalmer waiting? Can we still physically dig a hole and know how deep (3 feet, not 6!) to put a body so that it does decompose but also so animals don’t get it? Do we even know how to take care of someone who is dying when we don’t have access to medical care? These may seem like dark thoughts, but most of my rumination was spawned from reading about different practices we followed within the last century. That is not that long ago yet we seem to have lost how to handle and survive anything at a more local level in that time period.

The structure of humans has been that as we grow and make civilizations, we have specializations develop and people take over certain roles. But our communities have also expanded exponentially and now it seems that most communities outsource most of their needs and cannot rely on themselves to survive. Like I live in a census-designated place (apparently really common in Maryland), where we don’t have a common place/town square/mayor’s office, etc. If, in an apocalyptic future, we needed to go to a place to barter and trade we’d have to go to the next town over. There are no real sources of any business in our CDP, and everyone who doesn’t have the ability to work remote or at home (or at the one elementary school in our community) must commute somewhere else. So should infrastructures in our neighboring towns shut down, along with the mail and delivery systems of Amazon, google, etc… what do we have left?

I know this sounds dark, but in actuality I think these reflections help show where we have shifted our priorities as a civilization, and the limitations they present. It makes me wonder what the result of this pandemic will be… will people will retreat more into their own communities and try to bolster their innate skills and learn how to cooperate once more? I fear it will just make people try to switch to remote work more, and try to buy more supplies to stockpile in case of the next pandemic. :/

As someone who is studying death, these kinds of thoughts also make me think about our choices and if they matter on a large scale human spectrum (because obviously it matters for individuals, communities, societies, etc). We know we are all going to die…. do we as a whole make attempts to shift how- like work to address how progress comes with limitations and how we need to balance long term results together all as a team, or do we just let things continue in the direction they are going and hope the outcome won’t be any of the directions I worry about? And if the former, how do we do that?

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mental-ch-illness · 7 years ago

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🔥(topic: tumblr)

kasdhfksdafh love-hate relationship with this website. the thing that allows me to get my daily validation also kills me with every second i spend on here adjhsadjfh

things tumblr is bad

1. recognizing it’s own polarizing behaviors (extreme black and white thinking on this site)

2. glorification of certain things that really shouldnt be

3. nobody knows how to just... let people you disagree with... exist... just block them... report the nasty ones... they aren’t worth your time smh

4. nobody here can fucking read either

5. if you do one bad thing you’re bad forever

6. misinformation is spread so easily

7. anti recovery rhetoric

8. cult like mentality

uhhh there are so many more but this is just the tip of the ice berg

#Anonymous

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eeveelutionsforequality · 7 years ago

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Is it bad that I don’t think for a second that this “be nice to the Nazis power of friendship” crap is gonna cut it on a large scale? I consider myself a rational person and the “punch a Nazi” motto has many things I think are ineffective but the hugging a Nazi is the other extreme in my eyes. Bigots changing their opinions is a lovely thing buts it’s too idealistic it borders on Saturday morning cartoon. It’s the exception, not the rule. The bigot is a stupid creature, point out their stupidity

I don't think that's bad at all, that's a valid opinion and concern to have.

I think people become radicals for a number of reasons, and there are a number of methods to prevent that or to deradicalize people - some work better for deradicalizing one specific person than others, others work better for other people or for preventing radicalization, most of the time a combination of tactics is required (especially when it's on a large scale). You wouldn't try to disassemble a cult just with hugs - but there are some people who you can reach out to with kindness, who are in over their head and are subconsciously desperate for you to give them a way out. If those people happen to know the right information, they can help you take legal action, reach other members, interrupt their conversion and radicalization tactics, and ultimately disassemble the cult.

It's easy to say "the bigot is a stupid creature", it's hard to admit that "the bigot" is just a human being. Some kid who couldn't concentrate in school because his brother was beating him every night, who dropped out early because he got mixed up in shit and went out and robbed a shop out of a misplaced need to prove himself, who rotted in jail for far too long because they kept adding years for violent behaviour every time a bigger guy beat on him and he dared defend himself... but some guy with an all too similar backstory sees this and seemingly takes pity on the kid - he tells the kid that he never needed to prove himself, he was already worthy in their eyes by virtue of being the colour he is; he blames the arrest and the unfair system on these demographics with some convincing statistics he found on a biased site, telling him that the non-white people in the gang probably set him up to get caught as a scapegoat, and it makes sense to the kid who was never given a critical thinking class and has never known what friendship is or how to tell you're being manipulated.

The kid is stupid, and lost, and easily manipulated - that's why they choose him. They place themselves as the people in his life protecting him when he didn't have any, they promote misinformation as fact and target people who won't think to or won't be able to fact check, they present all of the bad things as being the fault of their enemy - they manipulate and indoctrinate. That was probably exactly what was done to them too, to radicalize them until they wouldn't even question it because their perspective of how the world itself functions has been fundamentally altered.

It's easy to call them "stupid" and "degenerate", to mock the "nerdy loners" for being easy targets (something I've seen a lot on here) - but the thing is, if someone else had reached that "nerdy loner" first, or helped that "stupid" kid get his life together, they would never have become such easy targets in the first place. People aren't born evil, they aren't born thinking that black people are inferior or Jews are taking over the world, people turn to that out of desperation because the people who want to radicalize you put far more effort into reaching out to the vulnerable than anybody else does.

People can change their opinions and minds and hearts and path in life, even bigots, but I think you're right in saying that it's idealistic, because we live in a world where it's a lot easier to instill and spread hate and fear like an infectious disease than it is to do the same with compassion and forgiveness.

#Mod Vaporeon

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leanderp · 7 years ago

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fucking THANK YOU for your addition to that post reaching about AoT, seriously

Oh, you’re welcome, anon! I have no idea when you sent this, I didn’t get a notification, but I’m glad someone appreciated my pissy addition since I spent days stewing over it aha. :’D I think a few other people have pointed out the glaring flaws in the post as well but I’ve also seen a lot of replies that are like “omg i didn’t know this!” or “I knew there was a reason it made me uncomfortable!!” It set me off pretty bad lol. I really hate how easily misinformation is spread on this site and how it’s used to shame people for liking things in the endless circlejerk that is purity culture.

The idea of the series as it is now being Nazi propaganda is just so weird. That interpretation made little sense even way back in the beginning of the series before some of the secrets were revealed, but now with the Marley arc it’s just. lol.

#anon

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rigelmejo · 4 years ago

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theres a million reasons 2 hate the great firewall, most importantly probably just because its restrictive to everyone inside it’s ability to access info widely, and its an example being set that other countries no doubt consider the more they see it. and im a big fan of libraries, of local communities having lots of options on how to share info, on people getting broad experiences by getting to connect to many different people and their perspectives, which are all kinda... much harder and impossible and certainly hurt rather than supported in such an enviornment. people are people, so they adapt and still do all these very human things. but it sure does suck when the systems in place actively get in the way of it.

but like on a much smaller more personal thing i just arghh about it - i really hate how it really just top to bottom puts a barrier between mainland chinese people and everyone else. i remember it took ages to make a weibo, and my weibo just barely-got-made and the moment i forget my password it will cease to exist again - just cause weibo like most chinese sites is set up to desperately want to refuse to work if you don’t have a chinese phone number etc. i couldn’t get whatsapp to chat with my chinese friends because of the same issue - it didn’t like my ordinary us number, so it just refused to let me verify. i can only talk to them if they use sites that likely they need vpns for, and that sucks that they should have to use vpns to connect to some ppl they know or people they’d like to meet agh.

and there’s just a handful of apps/sites we can all use easily to interact, and every so often china just goes ‘nope’ and then blocks their side off so neither side can interact anymore without a vpn on china side and a huge amount of hoops/possibly a vpn/possibly no way at all from an outside location. ao3 used to be a site we could all access and interact on, now its not. i remember when deviantart used to be a site we could all access, then the great firewall decided to block that art site and i lost contact and updates on a ton of people. i love that i CAN get on weibo and at least see updates from some people and message some people, but weibo was so utterly hard to login to that i know i’ll eventually lose access to my account forever just... whenever. i’ve got one language learning app where its chinese made, so thankfully it doesn’t block communication and it doesn’t make hoops for outside people to access - but i’ve heard mixed things about hoops it makes chinese mainlanders go through which sucks. and i know it’ll just secretly block/silence you on there at random if you bring up topics it does not want discussed, and theres not really any way to know except by messaging IN SOME OTHER APP your friends and finding out they haven’t gotten your replies/posts since X day you got blocked by the app unknowingly. although theres no ‘don’t talk about X’ rules on the app, there’s definitely an atmosphere of ‘better to just keep convos light and shallow or else be aware u may disappear and lose contact with all these people you know.’ which is just an annoying atmophere to have... especially since regular user-to-user or app-to-people-abusing the app blocking with notifications of the user being blocked and Why, could be more transparent, and work just as well. Like for a while anything covid related got censored/blocked users at random - despite no rules about it and like 90% of users talking about it since we’re IN a pandemic. And a lot of posts about the random blocking... also got removed/users were blocked. So people just randomly dropped off the app, and surprise surprise people still kept talking about covid. It would have been more effective to just say ‘please avoid topics such as ‘covid’ or specifically ‘covid misinformation like potential medical advice’ (like if there’d been issues with people dangerously recommending to drink poison to ‘cure’) or your post will be removed and you will receive a warning/keyword reason, the second offense you will be blocked from the app.’ Like youtube is NOT great about blocking based on dangerous/inflammatory things either, but with covid it did just demonitize covid-related videos for a similar reason, then publicly stated it would potentially be deleting videos spreading dangerous false-cure information. In the best case scenario, of course china companies also are trying to keep their population safe from dangerous-fake-cures being propagated, so of course they’re trying to handle the same issue every country is dealing with regarding that right now. I just think... it could possibly be easier in some cases for them to do it more transparently, clearly. So that users talking about sensitive topics in not-banned manners understand they’re fine, and so that users know if they bring up such topics they should make clear that its their opinion and they’re NOT trying to spread cure-info if they bring it up (which would help cut down on false-cure opinions getting spread like ‘facts’.) Instead its just random people posting all kinds of things, and some dangerous posts getting blocked while others just... remain cause they aren’t noticed. And then other users not breaking the rules get flagged by algorithms and blocked randomly. Again to be fair... i think chinese companies are doing about the same level of good/bad on this as american ones right now. Youtube and twitter and facebook are all succeeding/sucking to various degrees about this too, mostly in the same ways too. It just... gets annoying to me because its just... another big chunk of the chinese firewall being frustrating. Because it doesn’t just happen with covid.

You mention religion or government or the us election or liking girls or whatever, and sometimes you/your friends account is just blocked and suddenly you lose contact with everyone and don’t even know right away. I actually like weibo better, because i feel their ‘banning’ actions are more similar to twitters - break rules and ur just blocked, users can block you/you can block users, etc. But there’s also generally clear rules, unless ur someone say the government views as larger and disliked. But for the average person weibo’s just a lot like twitter. The main issue is just it SUPER discourages/makes impossible anyone outside of mainland to use it, and of course most mainlander chinese using it will be finding it equally difficult to ever get access to sites outside of weibo - lots of people use instagram and twitter but they’re using vpns and do it on a rare/infrequent basis.

So weibo is their main thing to use... like if we were all JUST stuck on twitter as our only social media. Yes we’ve got a LOT of sucky social media outside of china, but we also can easily get to many different ones and go on ones in many countries if we wanted. In contrast, its hard for most anyone not chinese to even register for weibo, you can’t browse if you aren’t a user (so you cant even see what’s going on in the chinese internet sphere), and if you’re from the mainland then you’re equally limited to other sites within that area of access and going to find it very difficult to browse the other sites worldwide. Even though... you know... people are people everywhere. Just because people are limited in access, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t like to talk to people from different cultures and share their own perspectives and open their world up more if they could.

#rant #aghhh #i just. i value access to information and #many various perpectives n cultures #as hugely valuable and a wonderful freedom #i know i deeply appreciated meeting everyone in my city #from different places #i appreciate the perspectives i get on places so different #on their views #and on just being able to know #i can keep in contact with friends #and the firewall makes me sad #its just this. huge barrier that #doesnt necessarily need to be there

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