The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
When trying to get to know new people, how do you folks deal with the inevitable naive (or even strong-willed) liberal/social progressive politics that come out? The kind of people who think wokeism/dei is a fine thing, claim to see nothing wrong with mass immigration and have the r-word at the ready for anyone pointing out the problems with it, and think modern feminism is all good and men's issues/misandry should never even be mentioned? Typically they also think too highly of the media, governments, corporations and mass surveillance etc.
How do you position yourself emotionally and socially when getting that feeling of alienation and frustration? How do you start to edify them a little to question the leading narratives?
The one place where it helps to be a 'colored' immigrant.
The typical person peddling DEI/Woke bullshit is White or a 2nd generation ABC/ABCD . I can pull my 'lived experience from 3rd world country' card and shut them down. Doesn't even have to true. I just say it happened, and they have to believe it. LOL. Fight fire with fire, I guess.
Other immigrants are either annoyed with the DEI types or intellectually humble enough to engage honestly, rather than coming in guns blazing. So we get along.
More options
Context Copy link
Why get worked up over people's beliefs when there's no substance behind them? To borrow a quote from The Expanse: "He doesn't care about treason. That's just him parroting you because you talked to him last. If he spoke to a janitor he'd be passionately declaiming about a fucking mop!" Trying to edify most people is about as silly as turning a weathervane because you don't like which way it's pointing.
Now, you can react to this with existential horror at the thought that you're surrounded by mindless NPCs/p-zombies/what-have-you, or you can accept that the world is the way it is, enjoy the time that you spend arguing with us autists about ideas and politics as though they mean something, and then put down the phone and spend the rest of your time grilling with the normies. Having these ideas be so central to your identity that you walk around constantly stressed about hiding your power level and trying to slip red pills to everyone you meet is making the same mistake as woke or trans activists who've taken their ideological or sexual fetishes out of the online caves where they belong and into the light of day for passers-by to gawk at, and made an embarrassment out of themselves in the process.
Good point about the weathervane, hah. I don't want to edify anyone or drop red pills or hide my power level. But I'm unusually concerned with truth, and with the realness of relationships. And I want others to seek out truths too. If I have to bite my tongue every time they start commenting on politics, I'm partially living a lie as far as those relationships are concerned. Maybe the fact that this bothers me is just my particular brand of autism/insanity.
What makes me bristle isn't so much the timepleasing NPCs, but the hardliners who are out trying to pick a fight with anyone who won't submit to the currently dominant ideology. The ones who might loudly proclaim a very partisan or ideological take on the world to their friend in public or in a group of acquaintances, as if it's the truth and they want to argue with anyone who disagrees. That puts me in a position of either fighting it (outnumbered) or becoming a bit of a coward who just takes it. But maybe that's a false dilemma. Maybe the better position to take is the one of being amused at their embarassing exhibitionism of radical opinions in public. And to g
I'm not the person you just responded to, but
I personally don't interact with people who care about politics in a way which makes them hostile and prone to policing other peoples beliefs, behaviour and language. I avoid them like I avoid people who complain or brag all the time. Personally, I'd respond something like "I don't like talking about politics", "I'm not interested in that topic", or "I'm invested in other things". There's various things they could respond to that, but I think I have an answer for most things that civilized people could say. As for the rest - they're sufficiently unpleasant people that I can allow myself not to be polite to them.
Just refuse to play their game... yeah that makes sense.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
These days I just laugh dismissively when they start it and talk about something else. Ideally you try to act like they embarrassed themselves and you're helping them cover for it.
Super-ideally your other friends do the same thing, because that type is easily cowed into conformity. The first time I had this happen at a get-together it was the most wonderful feeling in the world, made me appreciate why leftists get addicted to it.
Basically, I got over the nerd instinct to debate and the conservative instinct to be nice, and it made things so much better.
It works great, just short circuits their entire script; they don't actually believe anything, they're just parroting slogans for social approval, so withholding that approval shuts them down.
The occasional one who tries to push the issue gets a "yeah, no" and a little mental note next to their name.
More options
Context Copy link
I've had to face this problem a lot during my adult life, and I've basically concluded that I can't form relationships of real depth with people like that; nor do I especially want to. I know there's always the possibility that I am the one who is deluded, but I sincerely maintain intellectual curiosity and humility as a core value, and select for it in friendships. I guess I have the "abundance mentality" around these kind of entry-level relationships: I can always make more of them, because people like being around me for whatever reasons - I am not forced to offer my actual friendship to people that I don't want to.
This problem is distinct from the ability to get along with such people, which I think is a critical skill of adulthood. Being able to steer conversations to safe topics is something everyone should be able to do. But regarding the feelings of alienation and frustration, you just have to accept that not all people will be your people. You can choose to continue to get to know them as much as you want to, but don't imagine you'll make converts or something - you have to keep looking if you want to find your people. I have had this experience many times in my life, and indeed I'm still looking for a place where I can feel safe and happy among like-thinking people.
(Perhaps this relates to the voice vs. exit dichotomy as well, and maybe it's my personality: rather than spend energy on "voice," I usually choose "exit." Maybe I've missed out on some things as a result. A related question: if you could just flip a switch to honestly, sincerely believe in your mind the mainstream view about everything, would you? Imagine how much less friction your life would have.)
I think part of the solution is to define myself more in terms of what I value and believe, and less in terms of what I object to in others. Tend to my own garden well, without going scowling at the weeds in anyone else's gardens. That should make it easier to get along.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I don't. Political opinions are simply social signals. What signal do you want to send? "I am your enemy."?
More options
Context Copy link
Friends and acquaintances are not there to be 'edified' by you. They are there to enjoy whatever interaction you're having or activity you are doing. If interesting info is exchanged in the process, then great! That can be part of it as well. But if you want to teach people, get a job as a teacher.
If you really can't be friends with people that don't share your world view, then that is certainly your prerogative, but perhaps focus on the things you do enjoy about being around them, all of this stuff is not anything that you or your new found liberal social circle are ever going to have any impact on.
Keep that shit online or in a personal journal, discussing politics can be fun with the right trusted people, but there is a time and a place. The football pitch or the bar with new friends isn't the place to go on an anti DEI rant or to tell people to throw their sim cards in the river because they are being tracked. No one likes a know-it-all with opposing views; even when they share your views it is off putting to be 'edified'.
I don't go around spouting hot takes in some attempt to change people's minds. What I bristle at are the people who try to do that with others, as if to enforce conformity to the new religion of ideology in society.
Do you really encounter people like that? I don't. You go grab dinner and someone starts telling you about how men should use women's bathrooms? No. You're just inventing stuff in your mind to argue against. People don't actually act like this.
While it's great that you imagine yourself a mind-reader who knows all about what does or doesn't happen in the various places of this world, you're basically accusing me of lying and I don't appreciate that.
I wouldn't put it like that. I would say you feel put upon by the world and have established a life narrative where you see truly while the 'sheeple' shamble about in ignorance. You're projecting this onto you regular interactions even when they have nothing to do with DEI or MSNBC.
Ironic we just had this discussion about you, in particular, and how close you are to getting a permaban.
I don't really want to ban you over a fairly low-level spat where you and @TowardsPanna are just kind of sniping at each other, but it's completely unnecessary. You are basically telling him "I don't believe you" (which you're allowed to do) but then expanding on that by presuming to tell him that his entire experience is manufactured and fake. Denying his "lived experience," as it were.
And you know, maybe you're right. You could be. Maybe he's never had these interactions and he's just mining CW points.
Otoh, you're clearly spoiling for a fight with anyone who posts things you disagree with and you feel like needs to be told.
There's a fine line between "I don't believe you, that seems implausible to me" and "You're making this up because you're a paranoid."
You seem to get online mostly to shitpost and fight, and the sad thing is you are clearly capable of putting effort into your posts and your arguments, but mostly you just want to dunk on people. You do not approach conversations with any level of consideration, or any acknowledgment that you could be wrong about something - you just know you're right and you're here to spew truth.
That's very annoying, but being annoying and abrasive isn't against the rules in itself. Flat-out telling people they are making things up and doubling down is.
Take another three day ban. I'm feeling generous, but next time I or another mod probably won't be because the fact that every time you return we end up here is wearing on all of us.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link